A Taste of Honey (4 page)

He began to kick the door. “Honey, I love you. Please, open up. I love you,” he yelled out as I began to cry. He’d gone mad.

“I’m calling the police,” I yelled. “Get out of here.”

The next twenty minutes I barely remember. I heard sirens then a knock at the door. Paramedics, police, a stretcher, a sheet over Manny’s body. All followed by confession. He’d died because of me.

I
t seemed as if my mother hated me once she found out what had happened. She didn’t look me in the eye from that day forward. She was furious when the police advised us to move, since they hadn’t yet apprehended Tank, but my mother wasn’t having it. “I have a job right up the road. I don’t have the time or money to move because her hot ass can’t keep her legs closed,” she told the detective.

Instead she shipped me out to her sister’s home in Columbia, Maryland. Denise was four years older than my mother and even more religious. Still I had no choice.

Ironically, going from the hood to the
nice
neighborhood turned out to be hell for me. I went to a new school with a bunch of white kids that I had nothing in common with and I stood out like a sore thumb. I tried to forget the life I’d left behind in the city, the best friend who’d betrayed me, and the murderer who’d flipped my life inside out.

After being a loner for the first month of school, eventually I tried to fit in with the uppity kids, but my interests had changed so much in the last year that I couldn’t connect with most of the girls I met. I missed the money and the clothes. I often thought about Manny and the things he’d shared with me. Within two weeks I began sneaking out to hang out with guys I’d met at
Columbia Mall. None of them captured my interest. They simply didn’t have enough money. That was until I met this one kid with rich parents who had his own credit card. I gave the kid a sample and in no time flat he’d maxed the card out taking me to all of my favorite stores.

One evening after I came in two hours after my silly ten
P.M
. curfew, my aunt was sitting in the living room talking to a man she introduced as a detective.

“You’re late again,” she bitched.

“I know I had to stop off and…”

“I am so sick of your excuses.” She’d cut me off. “Come here and sit down.”

My aunt looked as if she’d been crying. The detective began to speak. According to him they’d apprehended Tank. This made me happy as I immediately thought of my return home. Then the detective went on to say that he’d been caught while fleeing the scene of another murder. As they’d suspected he might, Tank had come looking for me again. Of course I was nowhere around, but my mother was.

A
fter a while I got used to Tenille’s abuse. I actually came to not only expect it but almost enjoy it. She had begun to convince me that she was the only one in the house that loved me. It just so happened that the only attention that anyone paid me came in the middle of the night. Deep inside I knew it wasn’t right. It just didn’t feel natural. Oftentimes she hurt me by being so rough. Sitting on my face, nearly smothering me at times. “Boy you need to get stronger,” she’d say. “Give me fifty push-ups.”

I did them every day until fifty became too easy, then I did a hundred. I did get stronger and angrier every day at my life, which proved to be a dangerous combination. I attended Powell Middle School on 129th Street, in the heart of Harlem. With my home life a wreck, I began to act out in school, bullying other kids and being insubordinate.

This morning I hadn’t been feeling well and for no reason in particular, I decided to stick my foot out and trip a passerby as we headed to the cafeteria for an assembly. Some rapper-turned-
activist by the name of Chuck D was coming by our school to give a speech to what they called the at-risk youth. I was quickly becoming one of them.

When the student I’d tripped fell on his face and busted his bottom lip, the only thing I was going to be permitted to see was the principal’s office. I got there and it was overcrowded as usual. Being the last to enter, I wound up having to take a seat in the back with the nurse. After an hour of sitting, waiting to see the principal, I began rocking back and forth in my seat as I fought the all-too-familiar feeling.

“Son, what’s your deal? Do you need to use the bathroom? You’ve been rocking in that chair for thirty minutes,” the nurse said.

I ignored her and tried to stop rocking but started again a few minutes later. Again she started. “What is your problem?”

Finally I spat, “I do have to go, but I don’t want to.”

“Why not? Do you need privacy?” I assumed she meant to take a dump.

“No,” I responded. “I just don’t want to. Lately every time I try to go it hurts.”

“What do you mean it hurts?” She frowned and looked down the nose of her glasses at me.

“It hurts like hell…I mean it feels like I’m shooting razor blades out of my hole.”

Her face showed shock. She asked me my name first then she started with a bunch of questions.

Have you been having sex? Are you sure? Your symptoms say such and such. If you have had sex, then it’s your partner’s fault. They have done this to you; they gave you a disease. If you don’t tell the truth I can’t help you. You should know that in some cases
where venereal disease occurs that it’s possible to develop septicemia and die
.

None of it scared me until she said, “Khalil, that feeling you have it’s going to get worse and worse if you don’t tell the truth.”

I put my head down and continued to fight the urge to urinate until I could bear it no longer. I went into the bathroom and braved the pain as indeed it was getting worse every time. I stood on my toes and grimaced as I was almost dizzy from the pain.

I had begun to sweat from the ordeal. When I came out of the bathroom I sat back down and began to tell my story.

Then she left the office for about three minutes and came back in with the guidance counselor. Ten minutes later we were on our way to Harlem Hospital.

The antibiotics coupled with the IV they administered at the hospital had kicked in and after a few hours I was able to use the bathroom without pain. This would be the only bright spot of the day.

I would later learn that the police and child protective ser vices had shown up at my house, finding my father both drunk and high. Tenille was there and when they announced the charges and put the cuffs on her he attacked her and wound up getting locked up too. The only one who didn’t get arrested was Tina.

I was taken to a youth center on the East Side for the night, where they had a dormitory for children waiting to be placed into foster care. My case worker sat with me until midnight and assured me she’d be back first thing in the morning to take me to school.

The next morning I learned I wouldn’t be going back home. My father was being charged with neglect. It turned out that to protect herself, Tina had ratted my father out and given the
authorities drugs that he had in the apartment as well as a handgun that he kept in his closet.

I didn’t shed a tear even though I was torn apart inside. Everything was happening so fast. Even though my world had been rough, it was all I knew.

A
week later, after I’d been temporarily assigned to live in a group home, I was on the train headed to Brooklyn. Once I’d gotten word that my grandmother had told the case workers that she was too sick to take care of me, I’d made it my business to find out from my social worker where Frannie lived. I’d asked if I could send a card to her so she wouldn’t worry about me, to which she’d given me the okay. I had no intention of sending a letter or a card. I was going to show up in person. It had been almost ten months since I’d seen her and it felt like ten years.

I walked up Third Avenue toward the address that I had written on a piece of paper. I was scared I’d come to the wrong neighborhood, because all of the houses looked like rich people lived in them. Still, when I came to the address in my hand I knocked on the door. It was then I realized that it was an apartment building and not a house. I didn’t have an apartment number so I looked at the buzzer and found no names that looked familiar.

I waited for someone to walk out of the building and I walked in. I began knocking on each door. I was on the second floor, third door, when Frannie opened it. “Khalil,” she said, looking more surprised than happy. “How did you get here?”

“Hey Frannie,” I said. I was set to tell her how I’d skipped lunch so that I’d have money for the train ride and that I’d come because I wanted her to take care of me now that my father was doing twelve months in jail, but instead, I burst into tears. She
looked out into the hallway, almost as if she was trying to make sure no one was around, and reached for me and embraced me. Feeling her and smelling her again after all this time was too much.

I cried in her arms for what seemed like thirty minutes in between telling her bits of my story. She cried almost the entire time as she begged for my forgiveness. She couldn’t believe what had happened.

Then her husband came home.

Our reunion was short-lived and together they drove me back uptown to the group home. As she walked me back in she assured me that she would do everything she could to gain custody of me. The only thing about it was that I didn’t believe her when she said it.

That was the last time I ever heard from Frannie and the last time I ever believed that anyone would do something to help me. My childhood ended that day as I watched their Cherokee drive down Malcolm X Boulevard. From that day on I knew that life was about survival and it was every man, woman, and child for themselves.

July 2006

I
snatched the phone off of the counter as it began to vibrate. “Yes,” I answered.

“Priest apologizes for the delay but we are now en route.” “Okay,” I said, and hung up the phone.

I’d rushed to make sure that I was ready for him when he arrived; now I had time to spare. I decided to take a drink from one of the bottles of wine that he’d had sent up. I stepped out onto the balcony of the penthouse suite. I had an ocean-view suite at the Shore Club, one of South Beach’s poshest hotels, while I was in town working for two days. Priest had come down for the African American Film Festival and to hang out with a few of his fellow athlete friends at Alonzo Mourning’s annual fund-raising party weekend.

He always sprung for the best, I think to make up for what he lacked in personality; nevertheless the luxury was nice and I didn’t hate hanging out with him as I did with some of my other clients. The fun part had been all the shopping I’d done earlier; now it was time for business.

Moments like this always gave me pause. As I stared out into the Atlantic Ocean I thought about my life and how it had all changed so drastically. I thought about my mother and how she’d died at the hands of that maniac, who I’d hate forever but whose name I never dared speak.

I especially thought about Manny, and the unborn child he left behind because of me, almost every single day.

When the wind blew behind me, it didn’t matter whether it was a breeze coming off the Atlantic like tonight’s or a gust shooting up from behind on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Manny was with me and often I could almost hear his half-apology for the journey he’d sent me on.
Hey Honey, do you like who you’ve become? I’m sorry for my part in turning you out to a life of materialism and sex for hire. But at least you’re still here
.

True, I was still here but I sometimes felt like I should use the word
barely
. I walked around with a hole inside of my spirit that I tried to fill with cash, Birkin bags, and a host of Oprah’s favorite things. It was strange: even though I knew that what I was doing would ultimately prove futile, I couldn’t stop. The temporary rush of pleasure I felt when I traded a piece of me for fortune, in what I always felt was a lopsided exchange, was the only surefire method I’d ever come up with for dulling my pain.

Instead of turning myself around when my mother was killed, I got progressively worse. I didn’t make it through my senior year of high school before my aunt grew tired of me staying out all weekend and bringing home fur coats that cost more than her car. On New Year’s Day of my senior year she put me out. I didn’t graduate high school, but when I officially quit, my GPA had been a 3.85, which in itself was a tragedy, when I look back on it.

I left Aunt Denise’s house and immediately moved in with
Gerry Monroe, a rich white man who I’d met at a bar in downtown Baltimore. I refused to sleep with Gerry the first time he’d taken me to dinner. At that point I wasn’t pressed for money and I wasn’t sure if I could sleep with a white guy, but I knew he was loaded so I kept in touch with him until I did wind up needing him. Of course I never had to ask to move into his five-bedroom home. All I had to do was tell him of my situation with my aunt and he begged me to come and stay until I got on my feet.

The longer I refused him the more desperate he became to keep me around. I eventually left him, but not until he’d purchased me a brand-new BMW, in my name of course, and I’d secured enough money to pay my rent for six months. All of this and he never so much as smelled the promised land between my thighs. I almost felt sorry for him, but I didn’t.

I stopped being amazed a long time ago at how much money men, and sometimes women, were willing to part with just for the fantasy of having the unattainable. More often than not I became that fantasy. No matter how famous or rich a person was. All you had to do was tell them
no
, and it drove them to do the most insane things.

One investment banker even took me along on his honeymoon to Spain with him. My room was two doors down from his and his wife’s. I wound up meeting her when he’d booked us both hot-stone massages at the same time in the spa. She was nice I thought. For him though she was either
too
nice or not nice enough. I never bothered to figure it out. The three grand per day I was paid to lounge around was what it was all about for me.

As a young girl I’d always felt cute, but as the years went on my looks became my business. I ate right, worked out religiously,
and spent thousands of dollars of other people’s money to make sure that my body was flawless and that my face was always Cover Girl–worthy. My breasts naturally sat up like two grapefruits, my ass looked like I ran track for a living, I had legs for days, and my skin had been pampered by the finest creams and lotions money could buy.

I had capped teeth like most of the Hollywood celebrities and my hair never needed much work since it was jet-black and fine like silk. It meant nothing to me that I could have worked as a video ho-fessional if I chose, but the idea of sitting on a set waiting on the “man next to the man” to notice you so that you could possibly get screwed by a rapper or some R&B fag didn’t appeal to me at all. To top it off most of those girls made five hundred for an entire day, which was a joke to me.

I lived by the motto “Use what you got to get what you need.” A bunch of women all over the globe had it all wrong. They were using what they had to give others what they needed. Never that for me.

My cell phone rang. “Hello, this is Honey.”

“Honey, we’ve arrived.”

“I’m in 2024.”

“Thank you.”

Priest played point guard for New Jersey. Usually I hated ballplayers. Too cocky, too ignorant, and they all thought you should want to have a baby with them. I had a strong preference for quiet money, but I made an exception for Priest.

W
hen the knock came at the door I was dressed in a robe, a corset, and five-inch heels. I opened it and he was standing there, tall, in jeans, a white T-shirt, and a platinum chain hanging
down to his belly. “Hey, Honey,” he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

I noticed that he had a small entourage with him. One thick-bodied guy who looked like a bodyguard, and two women—one white, one black. They were both dressed and looked like a couple of typical groupies in that they, like most groupies, never realized that going half-dressed could be done with style and class. “Honey, I brought a few friends with me. This is my man, Big George. That’s Jan and she’s Reese,” he said as he’d fingered each of his cohorts. “They’re going to hit the club with us. I thought we’d have a couple of drinks and get loose before we roll.”

“Oh, okay.” I was pissed. I wasn’t into crowds and didn’t like my face seen by a bunch of random folks but I tried to stay professional. And I definitely didn’t like the look of the big guy. He began eyeing me like a smothered pork chop the second he stepped through the door. The more I looked at him the more uncomfortable I became. Truthfully, I couldn’t tell if it was the cliché beady-eyes thing he had going on or if it was the he-looks-like-a-serial-killer thing he had going on.

Priest leaned in and said, “As good as you’re looking, Ma, I’d rather stay here with you but they can’t get in the party without me. And they flew all the way in from L.A.”

“I’m fine. I’m with you,” I said. “But I’m going to need them to step out while I get dressed.”

“Honey, they okay. They with me, baby.” The look on my face gave him a response and he quickly said, “Can I at least take them out to the pool. C’mon, I did pay a couple Gs for the room.”

I excused them out onto the balcony to drink while I dressed in a raspberry-colored Cavalli dress and a pair of matching rhinestone Chanel sandals. When I stepped out of the room to
alert Priest that I was ready he smiled as he stared at me. I caught the shade from the two women. I was used to it, plus they looked like they were high already.

We headed down to Washington Avenue to a brand-new club called The Point. When we arrived the line was wrapped around the building and the police had blocked off the street. Big George was driving the Denali we were in and we were able to get through the barricade and have him drop us off at the front door while he parked right on the street. We were whisked through a VIP entrance and up a side stairway that was made of marble. We had a section reserved for us, a plush couch and a table in front of it with a flat-screen television mounted to it and two three-hundred-dollar bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne in the buckets of ice. Priest seemed fascinated that ESPN was on. The VIP had white carpet on the floor, which I thought was crazy, except for the walkways and the bar area, which were wood. The lighting, the artwork, and the furniture all rivaled that of the finest homes I’d ever seen.

“This club is hot, right, Honey?” he’d asked for the fifth time in ten minutes. He was drunk from the drinks at the room and seemed to be playing me really close. I didn’t mind him hugging me and giving the appearance of us being together, but he was practically smothering me.

Under his lanky arms all I could do was sit and observe. This section of the club took up an entire floor except for the railing where you could look down on the stage, dance floor, and bar on the general-admission folks. The music had the entire club vibrating as Dem Franchize Boyz’s
Lean Wit’ It, Rock Wit’ It
pounded through the speakers. I’d been in some of the world’s nicest clubs, but this one topped them all.

I hadn’t realized that there were live performances scheduled for the night, by Yung Joc and Lil’ Wayne. We’d arrived relatively early but in South Beach the clubs fill early and it was important to Priest that he make a decent entrance. He’d just signed a new contract, his name was ringing, and he needed to be seen.

What I didn’t realize was who he wanted to be seen by. As another group came up the steps into VIP a small commotion was created by the groupies, both male and female, who found a way to make it up there. Big George tapped Priest when he realized who it was.

His ex had just walked in among the entourage of the boxer Nate Montgomery. Nate was from D.C. and I’d followed his career and rooted for him, growing up in the area. Now he lived in Miami and had recently regained the championship after a several-year hiatus. While stealing a few glimpses of the champ, I overheard Priest and Big George talking about her. It was obvious that Priest felt some kind of way about her. So much so that his whole mood had changed.

I could tell that Priest hadn’t been planning to start any trouble but he desperately wanted her to see him with me. When I saw her I realized why. She was drop-dead gorgeous and just her coming in with Nate had made him jealous.

For the next half hour Priest dragged me across the floor to the rail and back, trying to get her attention. I was convinced he had when she and I made our first eye contact. She’d cut her eyes at me and I’d smirked at her, playing the role. I knew what Priest wanted so I planned to give it to him. I was paid well and there was a reason why. If he needed to feel like the man then he would, as long as he was paying for it. Even though I found his insecurity extremely annoying.

As we stood by the rail I said to Priest, “Do you want me to go over there and put a bug in her ear?”

“Say what?” he shot back.

“You know, go kick off some drama. Act as if I’m the insecure new girlfriend. If she thinks you have me, she’s gonna want you back. Or at the least wanna fuck you.” I played on his tremendous ego as my respect for him waned more each second.

He grinned then he stopped grinning and asked, “You for real?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “If you want me to be.”

“How much is that gonna cost me?” he asked. I was glad he knew what time it was. Everything extra cost extra.

“How much you got on you?”

“You’ll have to do more than that to get this,” he said tapping his pocket.

“How about if I take you in the corner over there afterward and let you make love to me right here in this club?”

His glassy eyes were now wide open as he broke into a slight grin. “Yeah, that’d be nice.” Then he blurted out, “Two more Gs.”

I shook my head. “We might ruin this dress. It cost fifteen hundred by itself. This is a public display and I’ll be the one to wind up looking like a whore. You…you’ll just look like the man. Let’s make it six,” I said, knowing he’d probably agree to five. I knew how much money he made per game and how much he could afford to blow, so I always pushed him.

“Deal,” he said, shocking me. “Go do your thing and I’ll meet you in the corner.”

I stuck my hand out and watched him peel a knot of hundreds. At thirty years old he was a complete fool. I’d seen him spend money like water and wondered how many years it’d be before he was destitute.

A
minute later I walked right up on his ex, Miranda, and told her flat-out that Priest wanted her to be jealous. She replied that he was a nut. “Get away from him while you can.”

I explained to her that I wasn’t attached to him and wasn’t thinking about getting into a relationship. I stopped short of letting her know that this was strictly business. Looking back I saw that Priest and Big George were all gazing in our direction. “Do me a favor. Can you point in my face and curse me out? I’m going to point back then I’m going to walk off. You do that and I’ll meet you in the ladies’ room and drop like five hundred dollars on you. How does that sound?”

She nodded. “Cool.”

“But I’m going to need about ten minutes, because he wants me to have sex with him in the corner first.”

“F’ing pig,” she said. “You’re going to do it.”

I tapped my purse and then she nodded in understanding.

I
rode him hard and fast. I felt nasty as Big George stood with his back to us wishing that he could stare or join in I’m sure. I blocked it all out, even where we were as I went into my zone.

As far as the sex went, it was all an act for me. My performances were all Oscar-worthy even though I’d yet to fully enjoy sex with any man. Manny, of course, had come the closest to pleasing me and that was more from what he did orally. I did however know how to fake it like a porn star and I got paid to play, so I played on.