Friends and Lovers (9 page)

I snapped, “It ain’t that kind of party.”

I was naked and angry as angry could be. I stuck my finger in Nancy the Nympho’s face, said something, but it was so fast and had so many curse words it sounded like gibberish.

I couldn’t get out of that sauna fast enough. Couldn’t shower fast enough. Couldn’t scrub where she had touched me hard enough. Couldn’t dress fast enough. Couldn’t leave fast enough.

Six p.m. Friday. Leonard was on my sofa, reading the entertainment part of today’s
Times
, laughing at the review he’d gotten from a show he had done at the Improv days ago.

He trudged around, sang along with a Keb Mo’ blues
song while he stopped in front of the pine bookcase, looked at the pictures of my twin sister and her husband and their twins, picked the photos up like he hadn’t seen them a thousand times already. He did the same act with an old picture of my parents, when they were young and still together.

I said, “You nervous, bro-man?”

“Thinking about this girl Debra, bro-man. That’s all.”

“Feel free to clean up something.”

“Ain’t nothing here dirty.”

“Cleaning lady came by yesterday.”

Leonard rambled around and looked at the new tri-matted cultural print I had picked up down in Leimert Park Village. For six years I’ve tried to buy one piece of original art a year. A little something-something to pass on to my children, if I ever hooked up with a decent sister and had any. My main man eyed and touched it like he was a critic in an African-American museum.

I stepped into the bathroom and trimmed my goatee. Massaged a dab of Nexxus Humectress in my short hair so it would stay soft. Rubbed some Aveda over that so it would shine, but not be greasy.

Leonard asked, “How’s the j-o-b?”

I told him about the pressure we were feeling from Bill Gates and Microsoft sucking up Dan L. Steel’s business. Shareholders were getting shaky and stocks had dropped a few bucks today. Told him the San Francisco office had contacted me five times in the last five days. They were trying to get me back up there on loan to their inept marketing department.

“By the way,” Leonard said. “I need about six computers.”

“What happened?”

“Somebody broke in.”

“How they do it this time?”

“Used an acetylene torch, cut the locks, stole all of the computers. Didn’t take one book.”

“Books are too heavy with knowledge.”

“What can you do for me?”

“I might be able to snag some ancient 386s from surplus.
IBM compatible at best. That’s not guaranteed. Dan L. Steel would rather donate to Beverly Hills than to a South Central program.”

“Tell your boss if the kids are busy in the center all day learning how to work a computer and get a job, then they won’t be breaking into his mansion, stealing recipes for quiche.”

“I’ll put that in a memo first thing Monday.”

Leonard asked, “How’s your mom?”

“She’s dating a brother from her church. Met him at singles’ bible study. He’s forty-three. Ten years younger than she is. Mom’s got it going on in Chicago. Getting her groove back.”

I didn’t mention anything about Daddy and his new bimbo wife. Leonard didn’t talk about his mom and step-dad. Some things went without saying.

He asked, “Whose picture is this? The beat-up snapshot of the two bowlegged brothers with the dimples and processed hair?”

“My granddaddy and his twin sister.”

“Her hair is short.”

“That’s back in the forties when they were in a jazz or blues band or something. Her hair is pulled back on her neck. She had on pants, so that was a real big deal. She was before her time.”

“Look almost like you and Mye. Dents in the face and crooked legs. Damn birth defects.”

I’ve never thought Leonard was super funny, just crazy and stupid. Playful, and he knew enough “yo’ momma” jokes to keep him in detention back in high school. We’ve known each other for what seems like all our lives. Everybody else sees him as the comic or actor or whatever he’s doing at the moment. To me he’s the brother who grew up as a snotty-nose roughneck and kept bugging my daddy to let him work for some pocket change, and asked me to help him with calculus in our senior year.

Leonard was talking about the girl he met. If she was as fine as he claimed, her buddy had to be Quasimodo
with a ‘fro. Fine sisters always traveled with butt-ugly ones so there wouldn’t be any competition.

I said, “What’s wrong with her friend?”

“Attitude.”

“Major?”

“Like a pit bull with cramps.”

“And you want me to run interference?”

“Like a big dawg. If they show up.”

“If?”

“You know how flaky sisters are. They get a brother’s phone number, then play the wait-three-days-before-you-call game.”

“Say no more. Ever since that stupid rule book came out.”

“Sisters don’t need rules. They got voodoo. They’ll sprinkle something in your food to make brothers follow them around. How you think ugly sisters get good-looking men—voodoo.”

I laughed. I said, “What’s this Debra talking about?”

“I’ve been ringing her phone off the hook, and she just called this morning. After we had positive conversation, talked half the night when we met. Now she’s in the ‘maybe’ zone.”

At first I put on my usual after-work dress—jeans and leather boots—but Leonard had on earth-tone slacks, collarless shirt, and a vest, smelling like the cologne counter at Macy’s. I felt obligated to suit up—basic tan slacks, olive three-button jacket, tan collarless shirt. I was in the bedroom wiping down my shoes when I heard him jump off my leather sofa.

He said, “Ty, you’re slower than any sister I’ve dated.”

“And I look better too.”

Sounded like he was gobbling up all of the jelly beans in the glass jar on the coffee table facing the entertainment center. My refrigerator door opened. Heard him put my glass juice holder on top of the glass table hard enough to crack one of them.

I yelled, “Take it easy with my stuff, fool.”

“Told you about shopping at the swap meet, fool.”

“What this girl do for a living?”

“The one you’re in charge of is an airline stewardess.”

“You mean flight attendant.”

“Yeah, right. I meant flight attendant,” Leonard said. “Quick, pencil, and paper! I just thought of a joke.”

The women were supposed to meet us at The Color of Comedy. Back in the
Shaft
and
Superfly
days, it was a strip club with a small dance stage. It had changed ownership and intentions and had been renovated. The small dance-hall soapbox was now a wooden stage with a booming sound system and plenty of room for comics to bounce around.

When I walked inside the double oak doors and crossed the black-gray tile, I saw they had added life-size murals of Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, and Robin Harris. Those caricatures were opposite a floor-to-ceiling mural of three pyramids in the swirling sands of Africa and the Sphinx, his wide pug nose intact.

We were early so I hung out by the green room. Already comics were bitching about the lineup. Nobody wanted to go up first because the audience would be cold; nobody wanted to go up last because the audience would be tired and irritable.

A brother named Kwamaine went over and patted Leonard on the back. Kwamaine had on a black T-shirt with 90220 on the front—Compton’s zip code. He unfolded a
Times
and said, “Congrats on making the paper. Making the paper means you might start making paper pretty soon.”

Somebody said, “And he wasn’t gonna tell nobody?”

Leonard read it out loud. “They said I’m a ‘new, successful, fast-rising, earthy, young African-American comedian on the Los Angeles scene. Catch his act at the Color of Comedy.’ Whoopty-whoop-whoop and stuff like that. Ain’t that a bitch? I’ve been on stage for five years and they just now notice me.”

Somebody said, “The flavor of the weekend.”

“Better than not being a flavor at all.”

Almost everybody congratulated him. A comic named Jackson stepped over to Leonard holding a copy of the
same newspaper crumpled in his fist. The brother was around thirty-five, some said he was fifty, and had some build, always wore a dark scarf on his head. Too much attitude. He dressed in Kani boots, big Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt, and oversized jeans that hung down to his hipbone.

He said, “Nigga, you thank you all that because a white-ass newspaper said you was. How you get this shit wrote on you?”

“If you can’t stand the white man, why you want to know?”

“You dissing me?”

Leonard said, “You all right, my brother? You walking in looking all mad, messing up the room’s positive vibe.”

I tensed. Thought I might have to yank off my coat. But Leonard wasn’t shaken. He didn’t acknowledge the anger.

Jackson said, “You ain’t got shit but that tired-ass routine that you close with. And you stole that from Robin. Take that shit away and you ain’t got no act.”

“I know your joke-stealing ass ain’t talking about me.”

“I don’t steal jokes. Say that shit again. Go ‘head.”

“You steal everybody’s damn jokes. You do old Leroy and Skillets, and Pigmeat Markum, and Moms Mabley stuff you think nobody knows. But hey, I know my comedy. That’s why nobody wants to go up when you’re in the room. We see you hiding in the back with your tape recorder running, then the next week you switch a couple of verbs and swear you wrote the joke yourself.”

He glowered around the room, then rested his eyes and words on Leonard. “Don’t step to me talking no bullshit.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“You thank you know everything.”

“I don’t think I know everything. I don’t even know half the shit I think I know.”

A few people laughed. Jackson had a vein or two pop
up in his neck. One of his nerves pumped up and down in his forehead.

Jackson said, “Oh, since you got your funky picture in the white man’s paper, you think you a comedy god now, huh?”

“Man, chill. Why everything gotta be about the white man?”

“Like I said, you ain’t funny.”

Leonard smiled. “See you on stage.”

“You up after me. Let’s see you follow my act,
brother
.”

“Give me something to follow. Something original.”

Jackson adjusted his baggy jeans and pimped out of the room. Other comics stayed quiet; tried to blink the tension out of their eyes.

Then Leonard said, “His momma so stupid, she glued food stamps on the phone bill and tried to mail it.”

Everybody busted up chuckling, then talked about the brother like he was a dog. I relaxed, let my fists turn into open hands, wiped my damp palms together until the moisture evaporated.

Somebody said, “You gonna let him punk you like that?”

Leonard smiled. “Who’s up right before him?”

“I am.” That was one of the female comics. Dark skin, in Halloween orange. Her legs were thin, her top heavy, her back length hair bleached to about three colors not found in nature.

Leonard smiled and said, “Switch spots with me.”

We heard music coming from outside. Bumping some serious Blackstreet, thumping out
No Diggity.
The mood was being set; the show had begun. Some comics held hands with Leonard in a circle of prayer. I stood by his right side. He led the prayer. Others kept to themselves. Some paced, talked their acts out loud.

Jackson came back after the last amen. Paced the room with evil eyes, face so rigid it looked like it had been cast in concrete. I looked at Leonard. Gave him a what-you-wanna-do? shrug. He nodded. Returned a subtle
gesture that said it was cool. He was always subtle. Silence said he could handle it alone.

A few minutes later I was seated at a round table with a blue candle, a reserved sign, and three empty seats. Up front, Kwamaine was anorexia-thin and did jokes about how bad he used to want crack, what he’d do to get crack, like work for the CIA “ ‘cause they has the good shit.”

My pulse quickened; Lisa and her husband came in. She was in a cinnamon pantsuit; he was in jeans, shirt open so the gold chain around his neck got the attention it deserved. Holding hands like they were afraid they’d lose each other again, squinting like they had been hit by an LAPD searchlight. My chest tightened, and I shifted about a hundred times. Moved side to side like I had the itchy booty disease.

They sat at the table to my left. Lisa saw me. Her mouth dropped into an O, like one of those plastic clown’s mouths at the circus that you aimed and shot water inside. Then she swallowed and forced her lips up into a smile. All business.

Her husband, a mulatto brother who had a receding hairline and was tall enough to play center for the Lakers, saw her watching me a little too long. He glanced. We made eye contact. I nodded. So did he. Lisa leaned her mouth to his ear. He glanced again. Grinned. Nodded. I was pretty sure she told him I was one of her clients. Made me wonder how many she had had.

I adjusted my seat a bit so I wouldn’t have to stare at Lisa. Sat voiceless in a tsunami of laughter. It was after nine-thirty; Leonard had been stood up. I’d hold for a minute, then give up my table and move to the back of the room. Maybe leave and catch up with Leonard later. Leaving on my own terms.

Somebody tapped my shoulder. Small fingers. Feminine. I winced. A sister stooped her face close to mine. I thought it was the waitress coming to harass me about the two drink minimum—because the sisters down here worked you until you ordered—but the help never looked that articulate.

She whispered, “Are you Leonard’s friend?”

Her breath was baking-soda fresh.

I said, “Yeah. Denise?”

“I’m Debra.”

“Sorry about that, Debra. We had given up on you.”

She made a forgive-me face. “I’m a little bit late. Me and my friend had to fight over the bathroom.”

Cream colored with wavy hair. Leonard’s type. Usually those were the overrated and overpriced women who were drawn to brothers with darker skin. The reverse was true too. Her voice was soft, but came across as strong; her demeanor was definite.

Lisa was laughing at the comedy, but her eyes frowned on me. Then they were on Debra. Lisa’s husband glanced again.