I Ain't Me No More (15 page)

“As long as you don't show up in court,” Dub had said to me the day I got him out of jail, “this whole thing should just go away and everything will be good.”

I was not about to be forced to be a witness against Dub and have him make good on his threats, so I did as he instructed and didn't appear as the state's witness. The arrest still showed up on Dub's record, though. And that was why now, as Ms. Daniels and I rode in the courthouse elevator, she let me know that the fact that Dub had a previous record, thanks to me, might keep him in jail for quite a while.

I was not the one who put Dub in jail this time, and I sure wasn't going to be the one who helped him get out, either.
God,
I said in my head,
if you are giving me yet another chance to break free from that monster, I swear on everything, I won't let you down. I will not pass up this opportunity. Not this time.

It was at that moment that I just felt consumed by a shield of protection. It made me feel so safe that no monster, no devil in hell, could touch me. No devil on earth, either, for that matter, not even Dub.

I had been receiving hateful, threatening letters from Dub at Nana's house for three months now. That was how long it had been since Dub got locked up without bail for beating up TJ. The judge thought Dub was extremely violent and heinous for abusing a disabled person, and therefore decided to revoke his bond. As I looked back, I realized that perhaps that was God using His strength and power to dominate my weakness, which probably would have led me to get cash for tin cans so I could pay Dub's bail and get him out of jail.

So Dub got locked up, and the key was thrown away . . . for eight months, anyway. He had been sentenced to a year but would have to serve only eight months or something like that. I couldn't recall the exact details. All I knew was that it was plenty of time for me to break all ties with Dub. It was plenty of time for Dub to get over me, to get over the fact that I was a free woman and was moving on in life without him. Evidently, three months hadn't been enough time, as the letters came nonstop.

I had never known until he started sending me letters from jail how horrible his literary skills were. Only about four out of ten words were spelled correctly, and he'd often use the wrong form of a word. But in between it all, I understood clearly the point that he was trying to get across, which was, enjoy life while you can, live it to the fullest, because when I get out of here, you're dead.

The day the judge sentenced Dub to jail time for beating up TJ was the day I knew for sure no man could close the door God had now opened for me to walk through and escape from Dub. From day one I refused Dub's phone calls. My mind was made up. It was over. Dub was now under lock and key. There was absolutely no way he could get to me, not for eight months, anyway. Surely without having contact with me for that long, he'd just let things go between us once and for all. But once the letters started coming, the next even more threatening than the last, I started to doubt my newfound freedom.

Those letters were so tormenting that they gave me nightmares. I wasn't sleeping or eating, and I lost twenty-five pounds in only three months to prove it. Maybe I needed to face the fact that perhaps my freedom would only be temporary. That was when I decided that just in case these next few months were the last months I'd ever breathe, I was going to live them to the fullest. I was going to do all the things I'd never gotten to do before, things most twenty-two-year-olds took for granted, like listening to rap music, for example.

Dub had never allowed me to listen to rap music. Even though he was permitted to hang out with his friends and listen to rap music and smoke weed, I had to keep my ears closed to it. He said the rappers didn't rap about anything but sex, and he didn't want me to get any ideas or start fantasizing about a rap artist.

He didn't allow me to listen to the local R & B radio station for fear I'd hear rap music there. So for years I listened to the most popular contemporary pop music station, which played artists like Duran Duran, Madonna, Tears for Fears, and U2. Every now and then they would throw in a Whitney Houston or an En Vogue song.

I should have seen the signs then. That should have been my very first sign that Dub was off balance. But since I was a young teenager, it actually made me feel good that he even cared that much. So even though the writing was on the wall from the beginning, I simply chose to paint over it with my favorite color.

Now that Dub wasn't around to control what I listened to, I turned my dial to the radio stations that kept rap music and R&B music flowing. In addition to just listening to rap music, I decided that one of the things I wanted to experience before Dub got out of jail was going to a club and actually getting down on the dance floor to some rap music. So as I set out to do all these things I'd been barred from, things that I thought would make me feel like I was on top of the world and in heaven, I began my descent into hell.

 

 

“This is a nice little spot Uncle got going on here,” Lynn said as she looked around my uncle Pookie's, my father's brother's, new house.

My uncle had purchased a nice little bachelor pad and was celebrating by having a set-style housewarming. Lynn had talked me into riding there with her. I had never, ever been to a set, otherwise known as a house party, in my life, although I'd heard about them when I was in high school.

Some of the kids at school would have lunchtime sets while their parents were at work. This meant that during the lunch hour a group of kids would gather over at the hosting classmate's house to drink and smoke and listen to music. The liquor usually came from the hosts' parents' liquor stash, which, they figured, their parents would never miss, anyway.

Synthia had gone to a few and would tell me about them. I'd been invited because I was friends with her. I'd been way too much of a nerd to go. Besides, if Dub had found out, it would have been the end of my high school days for sure. I no longer had to live vicariously through Synthia; I was now at a set of my own.

My uncle was into old-school music, so those were the mellow tunes that blared through the speakers. The ambiance was nice and dim, and there was plenty to drink and smoke, although I wasn't a smoker or a drinker. While everybody else got their drink and smoke on, I just looked around in awe. I mean, this was big business to me to be out and about in a social setting with the opposite sex. Crazy coolest!

Lynn had always been a partygoer. Very popular in high school, she went to all the school activities and got invited to all the parties. She was on the school drill team and dated dudes from other schools. So it was safe to say she was popular in the streets. That explained why almost everybody who walked into my uncle's set knew who she was. I, on the other hand, didn't know a soul. But that was fine with me. Since Dub hadn't allowed me around people too much, I wouldn't have known how to act, anyway, and it showed.

No one was more perfect to school me than my older sister, who was now twenty-four.

“Girl, why don't you get something to drink and chill and relax?” Lynn finally said after getting sick and tired of me acting like a social struck nerd. “Here. Try some of this.” She handed me the red plastic cup she was drinking out of.

Without even thinking, I put the drink to my lips and swallowed a gulp. The smell alone should have been a warning. “Yuck! What is this?” I exclaimed as the burning sensation the liquid had left warmed my throat.

“Rum and coke, baby,” Lynn said, taking her cup back.

“How in the world do you drink that stuff?” I said as I pretended to spit out any trace of the junk I'd just drunk that might be left on my palate.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot you a rookie. You can't mess with the hard stuff.” She got up and walked over to a cooler. “Here. Try this.” She pulled out a mini bottle that had something that looked like cherry Kool-Aid in it.

“What's this?” I accepted the ice-cold bottle.

“It's a Bartles and Jaymes wine cooler. That's more up your alley. It tastes like juice.”

I examined the bottle.

“No, it's not no rum and coke, but eventually, once you get immune to those, you can graduate to big girl stuff,” Lynn said, then winked at me.

Lynn was right. It tasted just like Kool-Aid. Way better than that yucky rum concoction. After popping that thing open, I had it halfway drunk in less than five minutes.

“Slow down, chick. Those things can sneak up on you. They ain't called wine coolers for nothing. They got wine in them, you know. And wine is alcohol.”

I took heed of my big sister's advice, and within an hour I was finishing up my second wine cooler. I was feeling so good. I was relaxed and was socializing like I had been hanging out like this for years. The alcohol had me feeling like I was someone else, like for now, as long as I was buzzing, I was an entirely different person. The perk was that when the buzz was gone, I could go back to being the old me with no regrets.

“What time is it?” Lynn asked the guy sitting next to her, with whom she had been yapping it up for the past hour. He was one of my uncle's friends and was about ten years my uncle's junior. I could tell he had an eye for Lynn, and she was feeling him too.

“It's eleven o'clock,” he replied.

“Wow,” I said, interrupting. “We been here that long? We got here at about seven.” By now, most of the guests had come and gone, and there was just a handful of us left. My uncle had even passed out on the couch, which was a sign that the party was over, but it was obvious the night was still young for Lynn.

“Shoot, I just broke up with my man, and I got my babysitter for the night. I ain't had a babysitter to have a night out in a grip,” Lynn said, “I ain't ready to go home yet.”

“Well, what y'all trying to get into?” the dude asked her.

Lynn thought for a minute. “Let's hit Poppa Jack's. It's usually jumping up in there on Saturday nights.”

“Well, I can tell you ain't been to that spot in a while.” The guy chuckled. “It ain't even called Poppa Jack's no more. It's called Alexander's.”

“Poppa Jack's, Alexander's, whoever. Let's just go,” Lynn said, standing up from the love seat she had been sitting on.

Club? Club?
I wasn't allowed in clubs, but Lynn was driving, so how could I tell her that I couldn't go, that Dub . . .
Wait a minute.
Dub was on lockdown, and I was supposed to be living it up. Dub couldn't get to me. It was pure irony that Dub's imprisonment was the key to my freedom.

“You game?” I heard Lynn ask.

Although I had been pumping myself up that Dub was in jail and I could do what I wanted, a little part of me still feared going out. Not because of Dub, but because I had never been to a club in my life and I had no idea how to act. And I guess Lynn could see it written all over my face.

“Girl, come on.” She grabbed me by the arm and led me out the door, and her male friend followed. “You'll have fun. You know big sis will look out for you.”

And with that, we were all out the door and headed to the club. For the entire drive my stomach ached with anxiety pains. I knew nothing about club etiquette. Was I supposed to ask a guy to dance, or was he supposed to ask me? Did people even really dance at clubs or just stand around, trying to see and/or be seen? It was safe to say that I feared the unknown.

We arrived at Alexander's after 11:30 p.m., and there was a line a mile long. It wasn't a case of any one of us knowing the owner of the club or someone working the door, so we had to stand in line with the rest of the common, non-VIP folks.

The entire time I stood in line, Lynn and the dude chatted while my belly grumbled. If there had been a Porta-Potty outside, I would have gone inside of it to get rid of whatever the heap of crap was that was clogging my stomach. Instead, I just let the butterflies that were also inside my belly gnaw at it.

We stood in line for about twenty minutes before we made it through the door of the club. But once inside, we still had a line to stand in. Lynn complained, but I was too shell-shocked to even care.

The club was very dark, with ceiling lights of red, yellow, and blue. I could see the DJ booth situated up high at the back of the club. The DJ sat in a Plexiglas booth with nothing but red lights lighting the inside. He was spinning a fairly new artist named Snoop Dogg, accompanied by veteran Dr. Dre. The name of the song was “Gin and Juice.” I'd heard the song being played on the radio, but the words I was now listening to I had never heard before on the radio.

“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, tapping Lynn on her shoulder while she was in midsentence, talking with dude. “Did you hear that? They are cursing.”

Lynn looked at me like I was crazy. “Who is cursing?”

“The song. They are cursing up a storm in that song.”

After telling me, “Girl, that's the uncut, real version. Your nerdy butt ain't heard nothing but the radio version,” Lynn shooed me like a fly with her hand and then continued her conversation.

I almost wanted to cover my ears as the song played on. I had had no idea until that point that some songs had two different versions: the radio version and the uncut grown folk version. Someone should have warned me that rap music had all that cursing in it, I mean, big curse words—the F-bomb and all. That was just how out of touch Dub had kept me.

Lynn's gentleman friend, who had paid our way into the club, found us all a table. I almost lost them as we headed to the table because I was too engrossed in my surroundings. Everybody had a drink in their hand, and if they didn't, it was only because they were on the dance floor, dancing, and the DJ had made it clear that no drinks were allowed on the dance floor.

The couples on the dance floor were dancing as if they were longtime dance partners, some even longtime lovers, the way they were grinding and rubbing all up on each other. But once a song would end and the couples would part and go their separate ways—the guy with his boys and the chick with her girls—I realized quickly that most were complete strangers.