Genevieve

by Eric Jerome Dickey

Height five-eleven. Thirty-six C. Waist twenty-six.

  The phone rings. It’s Kenya.

  She says, “You played that off like a pro.”

  I swallow. “Sounds like things are rough between you and Deuce.”

  “I don’t want to talk about no damn Deuce.”

  “No problem.”

  “Didn’t mean to snap at you like that. It’s just… relationships start off like a Norah Jones song, smooth and melodic, full of flowers and romantic longing and sexual passion. Then end up like a DMX cut, a lot of motherfuckers and bitches being shouted in the air.”

  “Been there, done that. Hope I don’t end up there again.”

  “This is surprising. You’re not the kind of man I’d imagine LaKeisha with. You’re down to earth. She thinks she’s better than everybody. So arrogant, like she thinks she is the shit.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about Genevieve either.”

  “Part of the reason I came back here was because I was looking for you.”

  “Were you?”

  “Because of the way you looked at me in the hallway.”

  “How did I look at you?”

  “Like you didn’t know whether to wind your watch or howl at the moon.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Like I didn’t know whether to wind my watch or howl at the moon.”

  Another pause.

  Kenya says, “Then I call her room and… when you stepped off the elevator I almost fell on my ass like Michelle from Destiny’s Child did on 106th and Park.”

  Six images, my eyes stay with the toned frame in the bikini, the one that is ninety-five percent naked, the one that shows all of her curves, and I watch those curves as if they were the roads to heaven. I’m suffocating. I’m not breathing. I cough and come back to life.

  I swallow again, ask, “Genevieve down there yet?”

  “Did LaKeisha tell you her history, our history, about how violent her father was?”

  I think of what Genevieve has told me, about their mother being unfulfilled, having many lovers, about her father being humiliated, his ego not being able to take any more, and, how like Othello, he killed his Desdemona, killed what he loved in order to preserve his image as a man.

  Thunder. Lightning. Wind strong enough to uproot a tree.

  I say, “You don’t look old enough to be out of college.”

  “I’m twenty-two, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  I ask her, “When is your birthday?”

  “June thirteenth.”

  Gemini. Restless. Gregarious. Needs change of scenery as stimulation.

  She asks, “And you’re… ?”

  “Thirty-two. Born on the Fourth of July.”

  I accumulate things, would rather eat at home, for me lovemaking is seldom repetitious, varies with the moon’s waxing and waning, intensity varies with the ebb and flow of my emotions.

  My eyes remain on the U-Haul. I ask, “What did you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The U-Haul.”

  Her breathing thickens.

  She says, “Sister… she tell you her father killed… that her daddy murdered…”

  “She told me.”

  More thunder and lightning punctuate her grief.

  I ask, “Where were you when it happened?”

  “Was there. Standing next to LaKeisha Shauna Smith, crying and screaming.”

  In that instant she digresses, her accent modifies and takes her back to her youth, sounds extremely Southern, extremely pained, as if she too were ridiculed by her past.

  Kenya calls out, says, “Sister. Didn’t see you come back down.”

  Her voice is all smiles and love, her accent as suppressed as her Southern past.

  She hangs up.

  Kenya leaves me uneasy. Pacing is futile.

  As futile as winding my watch or howling at the moon.

  I sit on the rented bed, my mind going through a Rolodex of thoughts in search of memories that have not yet been cooled by the passage of time.

  Lights off, I lay back, arms folded across my chest, and close my eyes.

  I center myself, my heartbeat, my breathing.

  My mind takes me away from Kenya.

  Back to Genevieve before she was my wife.

  Oakland. Claremont Resort and Spa.

  The weekend after we were engaged.

  Six. Nine. I smile.

  69.

  Slang term derived from the shape of the numerals.

  Slang term for mutual, simultaneous oral sex by two individuals.

  I am the six to Genevieve’s nine.

  She is the six to my nine.

  The cacophony of consecutive orgasms fills the room as Dr. Phil comes on.

  On the nightstand are erotic oils. Books on Kama Sutra. Silk scarves.

  We catch our breaths and spoon. The sandman teases me as I float through cloud nine. Genevieve falls away, leaves me be. I hear her in the bathroom brushing her teeth. My eyes are closed when she comes back, turns up the volume. Dr. Phil’s guests are a married couple. Young. Barely married. Already staring at that evil bastard known as divorce.

  So it goes.

  It buzzes into my dream, that story of pending bankruptcy where Cinderella had to have it her way. I drift away and Dr. Phil is in the room with me. Asking me questions I cannot answer.

  “Her husband took loans against his 401(k) to get married?” Genevieve says that and I jerk awake. “Major no-no. He’ll never recover. His financial advisor needs his butt kicked.”

  I yawn and listen. “Sounds like… they started their marriage in this financial hole.”

  “Don’t mistake a hole for a financial abyss. The wedding was a money pit. She had the man cashing in his 401(k), giving massages and spa treatments to the bridesmaids. Good Lord.”

  I watch in silence. “Looks like they’ve been together less than a year.”

  “And they’re broke. Did you hear what she said a minute ago?”

  “Think I had drifted off.”

  “She’s moved into another bedroom.”

  I yawn again. “Change the channel anytime you feel like it.”

  “Listen to how she’s bitching about how she can’t get what she feels she deserves. I think she wanted the wedding, not the marriage. Her warped sense of entitlement is unreal.”

  We listen to that wife complain like a five-year-old child. She doesn’t want to work to help fix the mess they are in; working is not in her plans. Blames all of the failure on her husband.

  Love is in his eyes. Disdain colors hers.

  Eyes closed, I listen to the husband say he was doing fine before he met her. Now his income is divided by two and the bills have shot through the roof, he is no longer good enough for her. She counters and says she needs a man who can finance her hobbies and fantasies.

  Genevieve gets up and runs to the bathroom, calls out, “Turn the volume up.”

  “Can I change to the Sci-Fi channel?”

  “Don’t you dare change the channel.” She laughs. “Turn it up.”

  I lean up on one elbow and do what she asks, give her what she needs.

  I listen to the disillusioned housewife vent about her plan. Her dreams of doing what she wants to do to fulfill herself, and working would mean she has given up her dreams. With her every complaint a devastated and drained look paints the poor man’s face, his inner thoughts jumping out at the world. What about my fucking dreams? Think I planned to be living like this?

  Genevieve yells, “Why did he marry a selfish bitch like that?”

  That assessment surprises me. I yell back, “Love makes a man weak.”

  “Oh, please. Maybe he was just a weak man.”

  “Surprises me you said that.”

  She tsks. “He has no spine.”

  “He has a spine. She was a pathetic woman who needed to be rescued.”

  “Do you think I need to be rescued?”

  “This isn’t about you.”

/>   Genevieve laughs. “Has to be horrible being a man.”

  “Actually, it’s the best thing going.”

  “How confusing it is for a man to be with a woman who doesn’t need to be rescued.”

  “Believe it or not, Genevieve, we all need to be rescued.”

  “I don’t need rescuing.”

  “Has to be horrible to be a woman. Look at your fine ass. Smart. Strategic. Professional. You’ve had to learn to fight like a man and prove you’re better.”

  “Is that right? Now you think you’re Dr. Phil.”

  “Men are still men. Women are the ones in search of an identity that amalgamates masculine power with femininity. That, if anything, has to be confusing for woman.”

  “Is that right?” She laughs. “So I’m bewildered because I don’t need rescuing.”

  “Even if it’s from loneliness. Even if it’s from ourselves. Admitting your weakness, the part of us that seeks comfort and pleasure, that doesn’t make you weak. Makes you human.”

  She yells, “Let me tell you what I think of your chauvinistic theory.”

  “What?”

  The toilet flushes.

  We laugh.

  Genevieve comes back, gets under the covers.

  My hands find her breasts, her nipples.

  She asks, “Do you ever get enough?”

  I kiss the back of her neck. “You ever been in love?”

  “Once. When I was in the seventh grade.”

  “Seventh grade?” This time I laugh. “That doesn’t count.”

  “Then maybe you’ll be my first real love.” I move closer to her. Rub her back.

  She watches Dr. Phil, listens like his words are the equivalent of her Holy Grail.

  I give in to the sandman.

  She nudges me. “Honey?”

  I wake up.

  She hands me her purple friend. “Please?”

  I smile.

  Back then the purple man was my friend.

  We were a team.

  Magic and Kareem.

  Things change.

  Now me and the purple man are as sociable as Shaq and Kobe.

  Downstairs. Same evening. Jordan’s restaurant. View of the San Francisco skyline.

  Seafood, vegetables, and chicken dishes. Wine for Genevieve.

  Genevieve says, “Women should prepare for the type of man they want to meet.”

  “Well, you’re an exceptional woman.”

  “I can’t be in a relationship and have it based on financial gain.”

  “That’s nice to know. Not a lot of women, at least the ones I’ve met, have it like that.”

  She asks, “How is it for a man? Dating, I mean. Be honest.”

  “Exhilarating at first. Not easy in the long run. I love romance, but some women want romance constantly. The wrong woman can be like having an emotional vampire on your neck. It’s expensive, financially and emotionally. And can get to be tiring as hell.”

  “Tiring. How is it tiring?”

  “The energy. Like that woman who was on Dr. Phil. She’s another full-time job.”

  Laughter. “Why do you say that?”

  “Has to be a living hell to try and keep her lazy butt happy all the fucking time, busting his balls trying to get her what she needs, the way it gets tiring trying to keep a child entertained.”

  “Well, men shouldn’t start what they can’t finish.”

  “Same for women. Like that woman, if that was the man complaining, I wouldn’t be able to call him a man. So, with that in mind, I fail to see her as an emotionally mature woman.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You disagree?”

  A moment goes by. “I believe a woman should be honest with herself and look at her resume. Her job resume. Her financial resume. Her credit rating. Her goals, if she has any. Even the number of abortions she has had. Write down how she feels about herself. About life.”

  I ask, “So, once a woman has all of that information, all of those resumes… then what?”

  “Then she should ask herself if she met a man and he handed her that resume, would she want to be with him. Would he be her dream man? Or someone she would… walk on by.”

  I nod. “Good point. But people aren’t like that.”

  “If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, why should a woman want to be with you? Whoever you’re with, you inherit what they bring to the table, and vice versa.”

  “Hadn’t really looked at it that way.”

  She rubs her temples. “I think the alcohol is creeping in and making me babble.”

  “Well, what you said, all of that goes against the Cinderella Theory. Poor woman gets rescued by a prince, taken to castle, given jewels, and lives happily ever after.”

  “As long as she’s beautiful, thin, and pure white.”

  “So you’re not into the fairy-tale, happy-ending thing?”

  “Fairy tales are fiction. Fiction is the untruth. The untruth is a lie.”

  “Therefore?”

  “Therefore fairy tales are lies. Therefore there are no happy endings.”

  Her inner landscape shifts. The sensuous light in her eyes dims, her own history blowing out its candle. She falls into a dark moment. She disappears, leaves her hull behind. Her breathing shortens, lips move into a slow frown. I don’t know that she was gone inside a nightmare. I think that she is pissed off, has turned bitter by something that I had said.

  I ask, “You okay?”

  She jerks a little, like a soldier with post-traumatic shock. “What’s that?”

  “You vanished on me.”

  “All the fairy-tale talk made me think about Blanche DuBois.”

  “Who is she?”

  “This movie. A Streetcar Named Desire.”

  “Heard about it. Never saw it. What’s it about?”

  “Blanche DuBois. A Southern belle. A faded beauty that ended up broken down.”

  “You want to rent it?”

  “No. I’ve seen it enough to last me a lifetime.”

  The light clicks on.

  I wake up to Genevieve’s smiling face, the light a halo behind her head.

  She whispers, “Take your clothes off.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “It will be.”

  We undress.

  We get in the bed.

  She clicks the light off.

  Sleep finds us.

  ELEVEN

  BUBBA SMITH SAYS, “SMOKEY ALL OVER THE HIGHWAY. MUST BE QUOTA time.”

  “Smokey?”

  He catches me off guard. I look over at Genevieve. She is staring out the window, watching her old world go by on 1-20. My mind is elsewhere too. On my new world. On Kenya. Saw her at continental breakfast this morning. Her tongue. The silver ring in her pink tongue.

  “Highway Patrol,” Bubba Smith answers, changing lanes. “Like Smokey and the Bandit. I still call ‘em Smokey. Not many people do, but I still call ’em Smokey.”

  The Highway Patrol has drivers pulled over every ten feet.

  I say, “Guess the city needs revenue.”

  “I reckon. I sure could use some more revenue.”

  We do not pass by German and Italian cars, automobiles that cost more than small houses in some cities. The highway is not cluttered with Hummers or Escalades or SUVs and off-road vehicles that will never go off road. I do not see twenty-four-inch rims that spin.

  Traffic here is a breeze. Not like Los Angeles, where sixteen million people ride the grid of freeways every day. Get on the 405 the wrong time of day and a ten-mile ride takes an hour.

  Bubba Smith gets caught at a red light as soon as we get off 1-20 at U.S. highway 411 in the city of Moody. He rambles that Moody, Branchville, many small towns buffer Odenville from the rest of the world. It’s calm and the world looks polite when we take exit 144B. Gas stations and fast-food businesses. Winn-Dixie. Cracker Barrel. Krystal hamburgers. Krispy Kreme. Pizza Hut. A cluster of artery-clogging eateries. Like a last-chance exit f
or truckers.