I gazed at the roses that were full of life, sunning over the kitchen windowsill that overlooked the beaches of Lake Michigan. They hung just above my kitchen sink which was jam-packed with freshly cut turnip greens that I had just purchased from the market.
“Mom,” I hesitated while cleaning the turnip greens to gather my thoughts. “I’m not letting her go out alone and date these silly boys.”
“Carla, she’s fifteen years ol’ now and interested in boys just like you were at that age. Or did you forget? Besides, I grew up with that boy’s granddaddy. He comes from good stock.” Mama’s voice was as confident over the phone as when she stared at you from across the kitchen table.
“But Mom, times have changed. Things aren’t like they were in the 60’s and 70’s. Heck, we didn’t really date back then. We just met at a house party, a football game or something. Then maybe afterward we’d get together, but it wasn’t an official date.” As my frustration mounted, I scrubbed the greens harder with each passing minute.
“That’s the problem right there. You didn’t have official courtin’ time,” she protested in her unhurried Georgian drawl.
“Ah-huh, right. So when I was fifteen years old you would’ve agreed for me to officially date?”
“No honey, not date, but courtin’ time. Some good ‘ol fashion courtin’ time woulda made a substantial difference.”
“How so? What, I don’t know men?”
“You know I ain’t sayin’ that. But just maybe you wouldn’t have married that no good so and so if there was official courtin’ time earlier in yo’ life.” I was taken aback by Mom’s comment, but held onto my careening emotions.
She continued. “You mighta married that doctor boy. He had a crush on you for so long. You just couldn’t stand his wheezin’ and snifflin’ all the time. I knew he’d grow out of it. He just had a little allergy.”
I could sense my mother thinking over the phone line. I just waited until she was finished making her point. It wouldn’t do me any good to disrupt her train of thought. “Uh…uh, what was his name? Umm… Danny Frye. Yeah, that’s it Dr. Dan Frye. I wonder what he’s doin’ now? I heard he was married with three little kids…lives up north in those big fancy homes in the suburbs.
Somewhere like Wilmette or something. A black man livin’ in Wilmette. Humph probably sends his kids to that Montes… Montesumou… Montesoursious—”
“Montessori, Mama!”
“Yeah that’s it, Montessori school or something. Yep, Dr. Dan Frye.”
By this time, I was scrubbing the green off of the turnips and tearing them into tiny pieces that would only be fit for soup, and I’ve never had turnip green soup. “He’s married with four kids of his own, Mother. You the one who always complained about him coughing over your food every time he dropped by.”
My mother sighed as a silent pause fell over the phone. “I ain’t mean nothin’ by it. That boy just hacked and coughed all the time. Then he’d wipe his nose with the back of his hand. Yuck.”
I smiled a victorious grin as I cocked my head over towards my daughter, just in time to see her first frown during my conversation with my mother. Her grandmother was putting up a terrific defense for her so she had been smiling like Sylvester the cat when he’d finally caught and swallowed Tweety bird. The entire time her grandmother was pleading a case for Zoe to date Tyrone Bradley, a nineteen-year-old college freshman who I thought was too old and experienced for my callow-acting daughter.
“Well Ma, I gotta go.”
She continued, “That Obama gonna win the Health Care Bill you know.”
“Yes he is.”
“Yes, Lawd. Tomorrow, dem folks in Washington better vote for that bill,” she prayed. “Would you have ever thought when we voted for him for the Senate that he’d ever win the Presidency? And would you have ever thought of a Black man as the President of the United States of America? Mm, mm, mm.”
She loved President Obama and I couldn’t blame her. But I heard it every time we spoke. “Mama?”
“Yes, dear.”
“You coming’ by this Sunday?”
“If you promise not to have those same shredded turnip greens floatin’ in yo’ sink.”
“Damn.” I murmured glancing down into the sink at the shredded turnip greens that I had torn into itty-bitty pieces. How did she know that?
I heard her giggling, then she said, “All right, honey, I’ll see you Sunday. I love you, bye.”
“I love you, too, Mama.” I hung up the phone and turned around to see that Zoe’s grin had just faded into yesterday.
I turned the volume of the radio back up so that DJ Super Duper Charlie Cooper and his sidekicks could make me laugh. The harmonic sounds of the Temptations’, “Just My Imagination” serenaded me with their early morning rhythms.
Then whipping back around to my lovely daughter, who was staring at me like I was-a-two-day old pizza, I said, “He’s just too old. I should have his butt arrested.”
“Mom stop trippin’,” Zoe said, while making all those teenage hip-hop hand gestures she thinks express her point even more. But to me she appeared to have epilepsy, or at the very least she looked like a confused crossing guard giving hand signals to oncoming traffic.
“Trippin? I’ll show you trippin’. I’ll tell Tyrone myself if I have to. Now that’s trippin’ “No, no, Mom. Please don’t throw me under the bus!
That’s embarrassing,” she pleaded. “I guess fifteen years old don’t mean nothing, huh?”
“You and Hazel get with your girlfriends and just hang out together. Go to the bowling alley as a group or something as a group. Stop trying to be so grown so fast.”
“The bowling alley?”
“Boys are everywhere. Enjoy life and all the things it has to offer…all the good things, that is.”
I saw Zoe shake her head and peer over at Hazel Price, her best friend since grade school. Hazel respectfully smiled and then giggled underneath her hand looking sideways at Zoe.
Understanding their sophomoric behavior, I suggested, “Or even go to the mall.”
“The mall? That’s dope.” Zoe had all of a sudden forgotten about any previous conversations and had visions of clothes. “Give up the cheese, then,” she held out her hand.
Paying no attention to her dangling hand, I quickly changed the subject, “or get involved in something at school. Radio and TV club or the Bid Whist Club or something.”
“The Bid Whist Club?” Zoe and Hazel said together, exploding in laughter.
“What, is that funny or something?” I chuckled.
“There’s no Bid Whist Club, Mom.”
“I…I think I’ve heard about a Bid Whist Club at school,” Hazel chimed in.
“Girl, please. Tennis keeps me plenty busy.” Zoe gave a frowning laugh at Hazel.
“Okay, Mom. No date with Tyrone, but I am fifteen and in two months, I’ll be sixteen and you know what that means.”
“No. What does that mean?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Driver’s license, eyeliner, waxed eyebrows, designer fingernails…” Zoe hopped out of her chair then began to hum some hip-hop melody whose title I can’t recall and seductively began shaking her butt, sashaying out of the kitchen. She smiled at me teasingly, while pretending to be the fast little girl I never raised her to become. “Yep, that’s right, my driver’s license! Come on, Hazel, let’s go peep out some videos. That new High Life video is the truth, girl.”
“And stop looking at so many videos,” I lashed out. “I wish your daddy would talk to you,” I said under my breath. With that last unintended comment, I vacated the kitchen, not meaning to bring up old wounds and dirty laundry. Zoe was going through her teenage years and rapidly trading her little girl candy for womanly ways. From my standpoint, I had been handling Zoe well, but help from her father would have been gladly accepted. And it would have been particularly very special to Zoe. Although Sidney and I did not get along, I understood that a father’s point of v
iew was extremely important in guiding a girl through the doors of womanhood.
So that day was the big day…the day that Sidney was taking Zoe for the weekend. She really adored him and cherished every moment that they spent together. I mean, he wasn’t a bad guy, just confused. At first when he asked for Zoe to stay with him for the weekend, I fought it, but as time went on, combined with Zoe’s consistent charm, I gave in.
Sidney Elias King snatched the carpet of love so quickly from under my feet that I fell and bumped my head on the floor of romance years ago. I was always in a daze of emotions when it came to Sidney. We had a whirlwind love affair, traveling first class around the country and to the Caribbean; we saw Buster Douglas knock out Mike Tyson in Tokyo, Japan in the upset of the century; we watched the 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII in Miami; but most of all, he introduced me to basketball via the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. Bulls tickets were a hot commodity. Tickets sold for astronomical prices on the market. Michael Jordan brought all sorts of people into the tent of the Chicago Bulls sell out after sell out. The Bulls were on the ride of a lifetime. At all cost, Sidney conned and finagled to obtain the priceless tickets for games. During the basketball season, the Bulls consumed us. We were in awe of their talents and were sucked into the fever of Michael Jordan and that thing he did so well. Hell, I hated baldheaded men until MJ decided to shave his withering hairline into a shiny chocolate dome. As far as basketball was concerned, my brother never played the game and my daddy loved baseball, but could take or leave basketball, so it was never big in my home. But Sidney loved hoops, so he schooled me on the game, and I fell in love with the Bulls. Then while enjoying professional basketball, we started following various sporting and entertainment events. New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles… anywhere a sporting event was happening that we really wanted to see, we’d spare no expense and dash for the weekend. Sidney had landed a sucker punch of love and I didn’t know what hit me.
Sidney was a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and took the summers off to write and travel. Therefore, when we met that hot spring day back in 1988, he was on a mission of fun and adventure. I grabbed his coattail and off we went.
We were married twelve months later in a small ceremony at Ebenezer AME Church in Evanston, Illinois. Eleven months, ten days later, Zoe was born, and when our relationship started to change I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. He just seemed to lose interest in the baby and me. I mean every relationship has its highs and lows, good times and troubling moments when you can’t figure out whether to put the cream in first or the coffee. But when I really got down to it, no matter if I dribbled cream in it, shipped it in from Jamaica or Africa, dropped a cube of sugar in it or took it black, the coffee for the most part just wasn’t good for me.
Then one day he just disappeared. For almost a year I didn’t hear from him. He cleared out our bank accounts and split town. He quit the University of Chicago with a one-day notice, stating to the university that he had serious personal and health problems, at least that’s what they finally told me after much prying and arm-twisting. He left us practically broke and deserted me, with James Brown’s cut, “The Payback” on my mind. “I don’t know karate but I know karazor.” That was the kind of payback I desired. After a while I didn’t want him back, but I wanted him to feel my pain deep down in his soul. I wanted him to have those lifelong scars left to linger and hurt. The kind of hurt that would make him shy away from people and hide out at home eating unhealthy food, drinking toxic fluids while bit-by-bit, losing all of his self-esteem.
We had a nice home on a maple tree-lined street in Evanston. But with that nice home came a huge mortgage payment, and after a year and half, I was six months in arrears and had to sell it. I called the police, hired a private investigator and scoured Google-type search engines like Radaris and Peoplefind trying to find him, and still nothing. It was like he had vanished into the land of the forgotten or had fallen off the face of the earth. I thought he was dead, maybe lost his memory like in the soaps or something. I heard all types of folklore about where he was and why he was there from my in-laws. His Aunt Miranda, who disliked me anyway, got in my face and stated that I treated him like a second-class citizen. She said that I smothered him with demands and a quick family so he had no room to grow, and that he suffocated from my overbearing personality and ran away. I thought his family and I were all cool-Miranda, Juanita, Betty, Uncle Chip and Claude. We spent Christmases, birthdays and July 4th holidays together and everything. But when it all went down, his family put the blame directly onto my shoulders. Like they say, blood is much thicker than water.
Hearing the Carla blame game for Sidney’s problems on a regular basis from his family filled my heart with despair. For me to bear the cross for his disappearance was unfair and it overwhelmed me. Over time I started second guessing myself. Was it me? Did I chase him away? Could I have done better? I started to sleep away the days and hide from everyone. I didn’t want to be bothered by anybody, including Natalie and even my immediate family. I got sick and caught pneumonia. Then they went so far as to accuse me of murdering him, cutting up his body and feeding it to the carp in Lake Michigan. The police even started questioning me, like I actually knew where he was.
That was it. I couldn’t take it lying down anymore. No more Ms. Nice Gal. I got angry, aggravated and bitchy. I’d had enough of that bullshit. If they were going to come at me like that, I had to take off my gloves, discard my earrings, grease up my face and go bare knuckles with them. So, it was on. I called them all over to my home and read them the riot act according to Carla. If they didn’t like it, they could come get some. Now mind you, Sidney’s relatives are the “biggums.” Those big-boned girthy sisters would have put a serious hurt on me, but I was sick and tired of their ramblings and innuendos. So gathering up all of my mettle, I womened up and told them, let’s do this. Once I lit into their high and mighty, sanctified-when-it-felt-right asses, they left me alone. They turned around and waddled away like beat down baby hippos. Haa! They never called me again.
All along, this selfish man was on some introspective excursion, trekking through South America, Europe and Asia. Old Sidney was dipping and dodging around the globe, living the life of a wandering gypsy, trying to find himself and living off the fat of somebody else’s land. After more than a year he called from Beijing, China. Damn! Beijing, China? He explained that it all began after 9-11. He said that the September eleventh terrorist attack had altered his way of thinking and had raised his spiritual consciousness. He couldn’t understand the senseless loss of life and the desperation and carelessness of people so compelled for their cause that they would crash passenger jets into a building full of innocent people.
Sidney’s desire was to live every day like it was his last day of life, and that was just too self-centered for me. He conjured up the idea that the planes smashing into the World Trade Center were a sign from God directed specifically at him, like when those spiritually gifted fools tell you that God told them to act like this or do that. Those that tell you God shouted at them while they were taking a shower right before work to quit their job and tag along with the band. I hate that because it’s that same frame of mind that told Osama’s crew to fly jet planes into the World Trade Center and kill thousands of innocent people. Hell, Sidney barely visited a church. He wasn’t a spiritual man; Sidney was a carnal man who lived on logic, math and history for decision-making. As I got to know him, he planned everything down to the tee and nothing he did was taken for granted.
About four seasons after his initial phone call, we eventually spoke again over the phone. He said that he loved me, but came to the conclusion that we should have spent more time in developing the relationship. He said he hadn’t finished his travels and urges to seek new friendships and educational journeys. I asked him about our daughter, and he said he’d send for her to visit. That he’d send money and save for her education. Well I thought, damn. Ain’t
that a bitch and a Merry Christmas to me too, I thought to myself. Hell, 9-11 affected me too, but I hadn’t traveled to Brazil, Madrid or Barcelona, waded in the Dead Sea or seen Oprah’s new home in Cali for that matter. Shit, what was I, chopped liver? I wasn’t finished making new friends and learning about the world we live in either, but I hadn’t jumped up and abandoned my family and responsibilities. I hadn’t disappeared into the vastness of a new world, hitchhiking around the globe and seeking the greener grasses of grander pastures. But what I learned through that whole experience, was that I saw life and handled things differently.
Sidney returned to the States about two years later and lived with the Hare Krishna’s in Manhattan, New York. I don’t know why he hung out with them, but that was what I was told. I began to feel sorry for Sidney; he must have really been searching or going through serious spiritual and psychological turmoil. Then he eventually came back to Chicago and landed employment at the Post Office carrying mail. From a professor at an internationally acclaimed university, to walking mile after mile bare foot in Asia, to trekking in other continents was in preparation for his new job, which was hiking the mail from door to door.
He slid back into my life when he visited the condominium Zoe and I had moved into. He immediately began squawking about the neighborhood, which was a perfectly great area of town. Then he questioned Zoe’s public school education, he then complained about her hair, my choice for transportation, and her friends. It wasn’t malicious or anything; as a matter of fact, it was sly and cunning, a smooth passive aggressive delivery. I found myself answering him in self-defense while not delving into his disappearance at all.
At first when he returned to Chicago, he would send money, but rarely visited Zoe. She loved it when her dad came around with gifts. He always bought her odd things from some out of the way variety store. He never purchased anything from a Macy’s, China Town or some commercial retail store. It was always something personal between those two, such as a book on love or personal growth, like The Road Less Traveled or pottery handmade by Native Americans. He’d take her to a five-star restaurant like it was a date and treat her to lunch and a movie. But as time moved on, the money decreased to a trickle and visits were virtually nonexistent. I lost track of him as he wandered from place to place and job to job searching for God only knows what. He’d pop up every so often when I least expected it, like a quick sneeze. Now, I understood he had problems finding work and holding on to a job, at least that’s what he told me, but how could a scholarly man with higher education of ten years not find work? I’ll never understand that.
Later that evening I ended up in my office, a sanctuary of space even more so than my bedroom. It was a neatly kept space containing an oak desk and a magnificent leather office chair that I picked up from an estate sale in Winnetka. Those white folks sure could throw away some good stuff. Pictures of my mom and dad sat neatly to the left of the computer screen. Some West African passport masks I brought back from Ghana, my favorite African country and family pictures were hung on Miami blue pastel walls. The color was kind of bright, but it made for special thoughts and creative moods when peering outside my window onto Lake Michigan. A two-foot hand carved wooden giraffe was stuck in the northwest corner, and miniature brass African musician pieces were placed on an end table next to a small couch, along with other African art I purchased from Sun City, South Africa and Cote d’ ivoire. I loved Africa. In my opinion, blacks here in the States don’t understand the significance and power of that continent. If we did, Africa wouldn’t be in the dire situation it’s in and African-Americans wouldn’t be in the piss poor position we’re faced with.
Everyone who has entered my office has made it known that I am wildly crazy and maybe I am, because I’ve designated one entire wall for a collage of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Like a star struck little boy or a grown man with an out of control inner child, I had stapled, nailed and taped championship banners, pendants and photos of me and every Chicago Bull player to that wall for more than a decade. My best girlfriend, Natalie and I had been season ticket holders for years, and never missed a Bulls home game. If there was ever conversation about the Bulls, I knew all there was to know.
As I sat at my desk, flipping the Motorola digital radio knob to the Power where DJ Chuck Cooper, he was already in full motion cramming the airwaves with verbose street colloquialisms. “…Nancy,” he chimed in with his happy-go-lucky voice. “How long would you stay with your man if he lost his job?” Nancy Dubose was his female sidekick who hailed from Killeen, Texas and carried with her a well-rounded education from the University of Chicago with a major in Psychology. She held her own by countering the bodacious comedy and frank, but hilarious introspections of DJ Chuck Cooper and Coco Lee, the male comedian of the bunch. Although Nancy was not from the streets, she would meld her female intuition with book knowledge from an honor student’s perspective.
“What?” Nancy sounded shocked. “Why you put me on blast, Chuck?”
DJ Chuck was quick to answer, “Why I put you on blast!?
Coco, what was Nancy talkin’ ‘bout yesterday?”
“She said an unemployed man would last about a week in her little black book. You know she be hatin’ on the brothas,” Coco chuckled.
“Oh! I’m the one hatin’, huh!? Coco, you’re the one always talking about sisters not doin’ this right and settin’ up the black man to take all of his money, while she’s not able to boil an egg or take care of the home.”
“I’m only talkin’ from my experience,” Coco said in a southern slang spun in a country beat that could only be picked up from the years toiling his comedic vibe and surviving on the sizzling hot roads of South Carolina.
“That’s why you on all that vanilla pudding,” Nancy said, cutting Coco to the bone.
“Aw’ight, Nancy don’t play that,” DJ Cooper snapped.
“Well, me and my man have an understanding of trust, and that trust leads to freedom and positive choices,” Nancy said. “And what’s that?” Coco Lee asked.
“If you don’t work, you got to cook and clean, baby. Cook and clean.”
DJ Cooper laughed and said, “You mean bring out the Pledge and dust mop?”
“Nancy has that man with an apron and house shoes on,” Coco sniped.
They just made me forget about the have to’s and do that’s of the world, if only for a short time. I have been listening to DJ Cooper’s evening show for over fifteen years. He started in Chicago, then moved on to Miami, Florida, Detroit and Memphis, but eventually landed in Atlanta with a syndicated radio show played in more than sixty markets around the country. I even heard him in Ghana, Africa back in the mid-nineties. He not only parties with the best of them, but his involvement in the Black Movement was immensely important in advancing African American culture. His contribution in furthering the stability of HBCUs and informing the everyday working man, students of all ages and Black organizations assisting them towards achieving their goals was the thing that kept me as a listener. He’s more than a DJ for a syndicated radio station; DJ Cooper was an optimistic spirit that propelled Black listeners towards their dream. In the new millennium, DJ Cooper developed a news website called www.Africabeats.com to which I was a frequent visitor. The website was an electronic link to black culture riding on the coat tails of newspapers before his, like the Chicago Defender, LA Sentinel or Washington Afro American with everything directed toward the African American experience. It also had a chat room coined “Drumbeats” which I visited and got my chat on with various people from around the country, if not the world.
I turned to eye the Stairmaster that I’d purchased from a garage sale in Kenilworth last summer, sitting ominously in the corner daring me to get on for a ride. I stared at it for just a moment, took a deep breath, and ambled slowly towards it. I mounted the metal, plastic man-made beast, turned it on and began climbing.
It was only two minutes later when I was rescued by the sound coming from the speak
ers of the computer’s mechanical “R2D2” voice that broke into my lackadaisical workout… “You have mail.”
“Yes.” I joyously yelled inside of myself. I rushed off of the strange and rarely used contraption and hopped over to the desk and sat down in my garage sale-bought burgundy leather chair and swirled around to face my used computer purchased from EBay. I dragged my mouse to “READ MAIL”.
“Now…I wonder who this is.” The mail opened and I read:
To: Queen B From: Koltrane
Subject: What’s up?
“Uh huh, well, well, well, it’s Koltrane. What are you up to today?”
I continued reading the instant mail.
“Wassup Q? How was your day? Hopefully better than my day because my day was whack. Remember when I told you about my friend, Desiree? Well, she wants us to be able to see other people. I know, you told me long ago about her, but she just does me so gooood. You know what I’m sayin’? But I’m not going for it this time. I’m gonna kick her to the curb in the rain with no umbrella. It’s gonna be lightning and thundering on her ass, too. And then she gonna tell me about chatting on line with my friends. I just think she’s jealous about you and me, that’s all. Later.
HAGD, Koltrane
I leaned back and smiled. Although we had never met in person, it was always good to hear from Koltrane. We instant messenged just about three or four times a week, sometimes we would just chat for hours at a time like we had known each other since childhood. For whatever reason, it felt safe and I knew that he’d keep everything hush-hush. He wouldn’t use it against me and stomp on my frailties when my weaknesses were exposed. He seemed sincere and shared what he thought about how to improve any life situation. I love my best friend, Natalie, she’s tons of fun and excitement, but at times our relationship was relatively lighthearted and shallow. Sometimes lightheartedness is also how you keep friends, too, but Koltrane had always thought that Natalie was part of my problem. Natalie can party hard and at times act out, so he surmised that my troubles, especially with the opposite sex, stemmed from our nights out on the town and the men I met while with her. I understood where he was coming from, but honestly, she was my oldest and truest friend.
Since meeting Natalie in grade school when she made me cry by calling me “kinky head Carla”, we were best buddies. Natalie nursed me when I caught scarlet fever in the sixth grade. After school she’d come to my home and run down the day’s homework and inchoate gossip from our classmates. From that point on we were joined at the hip. We were high school locker partners throughout our four years of running the halls during a maturation period that would define us in our old neighborhood forever. We must have consoled each other thousands of times from hurt feelings by others as well as our own guilty mistakes. She was there when I miscarried my first child, and I was there for her when she gave birth to Joshua, her first child. She was there when Zoe was born, and I was there when she found out that she was pregnant again by a man that physically abused her. She wanted an abortion, but after fighting with me right in the doctor’s office, she decided to have the child of God. She gave birth to Koreen, my goddaughter, the smartest and most beautiful little girl in the world. Through all of the births and deaths of family and friends, the break-ups and laughs and arguments, Natalie and I have stood the test of time.
I settled under my desk top computer with a shot of Grey Goose vodka and a sniff of Vermouth, mixed then poured over four olives and posted against a chilled oversized martini glass. Let’s see what’s up in the international chocolate room of gossip and conversation, I thought to myself.
I double clicked my mouse, keyed in my password and depressed the return key. Once on the web, I checked into one of the eight wonders of the world.
Who’s in the chat room tonight? I peered over at the screen salivating with anticipation as a conversation was always in progress.
Online Host: QueenB has entered the room.
Prettypink1: “It’s true, it’s true. Damn I just saw it on the news!!!
Ohh, Miss Pretty was in the house. She was fun, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her name in the room.
Honeysuckle: “He’s dead? You sure?”
Prettypink1: “Are you sure it was Michael Jackson, the singer?”
Honeysuckle: “No shit?”
Pigeon4: “He was taken to the hospital.”
I thought, what? Wait a minute…Michael Jackson is dead? This can’t be true. I have to read more.
Honeysuckle: “Rumors, rumors. Promos…you know that Hollywood shit.”
Williamtell: “Drugs I bet.”
Prettypink1: “Drugs? What kind of drugs?”
Magicman: “Ain’t no telling with MJ. All types of stories surround him. Probably a publicity stunt.”
Williamtell: “That strange ass Negro always doin’ something crazy. So I’m with you. You never know.” Williamtell, don’t you have a job? Does he ever leave his house?
I thought. Every time I entered the chat-room, he was in it. I pictured him as a single man, forty-five years old, on physical disability and fat. I mean real fat, lying in a king sized bed, sucking on sixty-ounce Slurpee’s with Jay’s Potato Chip bags, Diet Coke cans, Snickers and candy wrappers slung all over his home.
BigBen: “Damn, I grew up on The Jackson 5. I’ll miss him.”
I was surprised that BigBen hadn’t already sent me an instant message trying to hit on me. He’s so full of it.
Williamtell: “I grew up with MJ, too. One of a kind that’s for damn sure.”
Honeysuckle: “true that.”
UhuraP: “What’s your fav Michael Jackson song?”
Honeysuckle: “ABC.”
Mzjazzy1: “Human Nature.”
Williamtell: “Smooth Criminal.”
BigBen: “I’ll Be There. A J5 standard.”
Oh yeah, let me get mine in.
Queenb: “Remember The Time.” I typed.
Twisletoe: “Man In The Mirror.”
Honeysuckle: “Dirty Diana.”
Prettypink1: “The original Thriller.”
Poncho: “Slamming beat Dangerous.”
UhuruP: “It’s just unbelievable. June 25, 2009 will always stay with me as a day of remembrance. He’s been such a large part of my culture, of life’s rhythm and rhymes, parties and loves. I just can’t believe it.”
Honeysuckle: “Everything MJ put out was provocative and the beats were hitting.”
Prettypink1: “Saw him perform in New
York. I think it was ‘85 or ‘86. The ultimate show and energy. ”
Williamtell: “Chicago at Comiskey Park when he got back with his brothers. I’m looking at the Jackson’s t-shirt right now.”
Twisletoe: “Put it on, dog, and wear it with pride.”
Williamtell: “It’s for sizes too small.”
Prettypink1: “Another fav of mine. You Rock my World.”
Williamtell: “You rock mine, baby.”
Prettypink1: “Ni-gga, please!”
I wondered where Twisletoe had been hiding. Last time I heard from him, they were signifying on his mother. Then he got pissed off, cursed everybody out, left the Chat Room and I hadn’t heard from him since then. Some people took the chatting too seriously.
Bigben: “Hold up yawl. Did you see this on Twitter or some other gossip net?”
Twisletoe: “TMZ reported it.”
Bigben: “TMZ!? You gonna believe them? They’re a gossip celebrity station.”
Masonite4: “True that. They the blabbermouth magazine of the airwaves.”
Bigben: “You gotta have a better source.”
Twisletoe: “It’s all over the net and even some news stations are reporting it. But no details as to what or how.”
Online Host: “Afrodity has entered the room.”
I loved that name.
Online host: “Koltrane has entered the room.”
My good friend Koltrane’s in the house. Let me respond, I thought to myself.
Kol
trane: “Hey QueenB. You get my IM?”
Honeysuckle: “Ok, ok you two can hug later. We got some shit happening in here.”
Afrodity: “Did you know that Slamdunk2323 was murdered?”
Koltrane: “Oh!”
Afrodity: “Slamdunk2323 is my cousin. His real name is Aaron Palmer from Little Rock, Arkansas, a real country boy that loved chatting with you all. A big computer nut that loved to tinker with electronics. He was only 28 years old. Had 3 kids, 2 boys and 1 girl; it is sad for our family. He loved to travel the world. He was always going somewhere. Just within the last year or so, he started traveling to South America. He loved going there. We are all trusting in the Lord because he knows what is best. If anyone lives in the Little Rock area, the funeral will be on this upcoming Thursday at 2nd Baptist Missionary Church in Little Rock. All are welcome.”
Occasionally, we would learn more than we want from one another in the chat room and not just entertain each other day after day with celebrity gossip, political satire, dirty dribble and sexual innuendo. We carried on for hours on end, just chatting, prognosticating, analyzing and lying to one another about everything.
Afrodity let us view through a keyhole snippets of her real life. I would instant message her from time to time, and I still didn’t know her Christian name, but from her wit and writings and the character of Afrodity, I’ve learned a lot about her life’s twisting journey.
So very quickly, the martini had relaxed my nerves and calmed the jittery doubter in me. I was never much of a drinker, but every now and then I’d indulge in a taste or two. My eyes started to tire, so I reached over and pointed the mouse to the sleep command and the screen transformed from a living electronic marvel into a dead hunk of dull plastic molding. In a mellow slide, I reached over and handled the martini glass with my index finger and thumb like I was peering over the Le Port Alexander III Bridge in Paris, France, relishing my last sip of the most fabulous martini ever made. The olives, soaked in Grey Goose for about a half an hour and under the vodka’s sweet bitterness, had turned just so. I slid them slowly into my mouth and gave a wide grin as the fresh, yet tart vodka taste and olive combination burst my taste buds into excitement. As I sauntered to my bedroom, I couldn’t help but to think of the chat room discussions.
The doorbell chime snatched me out of my dream state and caught me by surprise. I dragged over to the intercom in a late evening slide, "Who is it?” I asked in a polite but firm way.
“It’s me, baby,” a scratchy voice rang through the intercom.
CHAPTER 4
Crash and Burn
Crash and Burn
Crash and Burn
Crash and Burn
Burn and Crash
Grace
CK
‘09