The Punany Experience (8 page)

“’A lot of them are real smart,’ I told my daddy. Some were college students; some already had degrees from schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA. They were organizing the community to unite together to complain about the way the cops were beating on people and things. They were preaching all about a ten-point plan. They even started their own newspaper. But my parents, especially my father, didn’t want me to have anything to do with those troublemakers. That’s what he called them,
troublemakers
.
My father said they were the reason the drugs came in to pacify the Blacks and that they chased all the White folks out of East Oakland. When the White folks packed up, property value went down, so he always blamed the Black Panthers for his house not being worth more. Daddy whipped me when he found out I was going to bed with your father. He put me out the house and cut me off entirely when he found out I was pregnant by him. But I’ve never regretted a thing. I miss your father. No other man could ever replace him. I’m still married to him.”

“So, my father was a Black Panther. I never realized that.”

“Oh, I thought you knew.”

“How could I, if you never told me?”

“Didn’t I?”

“I thought he was a drug dealer,” Korea said. “That’s what they say.”

“I don’t talk about him much; it makes me sad, I guess. But, he sure was, for a little while. But, being in that group is the least of what the man was. The fact is that messing with the Panthers is probably what got him killed. I mean, maybe dealing drugs was how he got his start. I really don’t know. I never asked, though people do say that he was peddling. But when I met him, when I was married to him, he wasn’t doing any such thing.”

“Damn,” Korea said in awe.

“Hey, young lady?”

“I mean, dang, Momma, dang. I’m sorry. I can’t believe it; my father was a Black Panther!”

“Words like that come slipping out of your mouth and I can assume you use them often.”

“No, I don’t really. But you know how it is out here. You need to know how to cuss or you’ll get punked.”

“Well, there’s no arguing with that. Do you want to know what your father really was? He was a numbers man; very smart with his
money and charming to talk to. He could buy a loaf of bread from a baker, slice it, and sell it back to the same man at a profit. He was a brilliant businessman. There isn’t one thing in his pedigree that should shame you. He helped to establish that free breakfast program over at St. Augustine’s Church.

“He was smart; too smart sometimes. But he underestimated the corruption in people. Right after you were born, he started working on business arrangements with food suppliers for the lunch program. I think that may be how he got himself killed; trusting the wrong folks.”

“Maybe he wasn’t so smart after all,” Korea said.

“What do you mean?”

“There couldn’t have been much room for capitalism in a socialist program.”

“Listen to you! Did they teach you about them in school?”

“Only that they were radicals and communists and reformists… the usual brainwashing stuff. I read between the lines, Momma.”

“You make sure you’re smarter than he was. Use the system instead of working against it. You can’t win, working against it.”

“So somebody shot my father? Was it somebody from the Black Panthers?”

“No. One day I opened the front door and there he was, dead in the hallway with his throat cut. The police told me a cut throat probably meant he was killed by somebody he knew. But who can really say? I didn’t have the time to think about it. I had you to care for by then. And your father was a prideful man so welfare wasn’t an option for me. I buried the man with the savings we had and got me a second job. I disappeared from the scene altogether and focused on being a mother to you and keeping a low profile so I wouldn’t get noticed by the pimps and players. I’ve learned that some questions are better left unanswered.”

“Momma?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Why didn’t you marry another man, instead of working so hard?”

“Baby, men are work. Besides, I never loved another man.”

“Oh.”

A
FTER THEIR TALK
, K
OREA FELT LIKE A SOLDIER IN A WAR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
. It was her human right and female obligation to bring Keith to justice. When she heard a woman’s voice on Keith’s phone, she figured that he must be a pimp or something like a player. She wasn’t a girl from the projects with nothing to look forward to but babies and government aide and she didn’t like fucking enough to be anybody’s whore. If that was what he was thinking, he had another thing coming, she thought. Korea was a businesswoman in the making. She would use the system to attain the tools she needed to make magic happen in the hood. But first she was going to get her revenge on the last hood niggah she’d ever allow to enter her body.

Korea had been waiting all night for her mother to fall asleep. After their walk, Gladys had left the house on three separate occasions, to go to the store, before settling down in her room for the night. Korea could hear the life improvement tape playing through the walls.

“Envision what you want…a new car, a new house, Caribbean vacations. Imagine yourself, living debt-free or simply enjoying a well-deserved vacation on the beach in the Bahamas or on the French Riviera
…”

Korea wondered if the woman on the tape had ever lived the life she was describing. If she was recording tapes about it, she was probably an actress who could never afford the things she was describing.

Gladys was finally asleep and probably dreaming of a better life when Korea walked into the kitchen.
Whatever she was getting at the store, it sure wasn’t groceries
, Korea thought as she stood in the light of the open, empty refrigerator.

Korea put a small pot on the stove and poured a half-cup of water in it. From the pantry, she pulled a package of instant noodles. She opened the wrapper and pulled out the seasoning packet and ripped it open with her teeth.

“That bastard is mine,” she said as she dumped the seasoning and the dry block of noodles into the boiling water. When the noodles were soft, she put them into a bowl and sat in front of the TV, with little but revenge on her mind.

Korea picked up the phone.

“It’s about time you came to your senses,” Keith said. “Don’t you know it’s disrespectful not to call a man back?”

“I’m sorry, Keith. I didn’t mean to be rude or to disrespect you.” Keith was talking fast. “What’s up with you? Do you think I meant for that shit to happen? What, you hate me now?”

“I know you didn’t mean to give it to me. I don’t hate you. I love you, baby. How could I not? You’ve been so good to me. You know, Keith, I never got a chance to thank you for the new Air Jordans you got me. Even the players on the boys team are jealous.” Korea was as sweet as candy as she spun her sugary web. “You really need to come over to let me thank you.”

Keith grinned like a Cheshire cat. He was so happy to hear her voice, begging and pleading for his forgiveness. He never thought to read between the lines.

“Is your mother sleeping?”

“Yeah, she’s asleep. You know my back door squeaks. I don’t want to wake her up, so come to my window.”

“I’m on my way.”

“I can’t wait to wrap my lips around your big dick, Daddy,” Korea added, licking her lips in the phone, making sure he could hear her naughty slurp.

Daddy!
Keith liked the way that sounded coming from Korea. He was sure he had her where he wanted her now. He’d have her packing her bags before the end of the school year.

He took a quick shower and dressed anxiously. He laughed at himself for having been worried that Korea wouldn’t call him back.

“Bitches,” he said out loud as he jumped into his tricked-out Mustang convertible, and drove across the bridge, headed for her place. He drove down the 580 Freeway at lightning speed and pulled off on Edwards Avenue, and then shot down the hill past the Eastmont Mall. He was making good time until he got to East 14th Street, where police and firemen had roadblocks set up around a three-alarm blaze.

Keith took the back road by the BART Station. From the street, he could see the light in her window;
His
light. Keith had been at that same window three times since they had met at her ball game. She had sized him up during the game. He could see her from the stand, eyeballing him as she ran up and down the court, hitting basket after basket, showing off. But he didn’t really think about getting at the teenager until half-time, when she raised her jersey to cool her body. She had deeply defined abs, like those you only find on late-night infomercials. Her oblique muscles were as sculpted as his own, and what she lacked in feminine hips, she made up for with a rounded, muscular ass and long strong thighs. During the second half of the game he was fixated on her, carefully watching her every move—deltoids and biceps effortlessly dropping in shot after shot as sweat pushed through her smooth, chocolate skin. She could’ve played the game alone.

“Eighteen points in a forty-point game,” he said, as she walked
out of the locker room. Keith was leaning against the wall, handing her a Gatorade.

“No thanks,” Korea said. “I never touch the stuff.”

K
OREA WAS HESITANT ABOUT TAKING A RIDE FROM HIM
, but when she saw his ice blue drop-top Mustang, she had to ride. Keith told her that he was twenty-one and that he worked as a long-shoreman. Korea knew better. She figured him for a baller and he had to be at least twenty-five. But she didn’t mind at all. She hadn’t met a dude in her short life that didn’t make his money selling drugs, religion, or pussy.

“Where are you headed?” Keith asked when she was strapped into his passenger seat.

When she directed him to the notorious projects Felix Mitchell had made famous when he was killed, Keith figured he could keep her impressed simply by keeping her fitted.

She’s a real dime
, he thought as he drove, sneaking glances at her. He figured she was impressed with him and his car, but she didn’t let it show the way the majority of women did. Instead of cooing and giggling, she was asking him what he had under the hood. He had never met a girl who seemed as strong as a man. It turned him on.

He dropped her off and remained a gentleman that afternoon. But it only took a few weeks of conversation and a single date to get into her panties. She told him that she was a virgin, and as tight as her pussy had been, he believed her. But the way she worked her body told him she knew her pussy very well.

Like most of the girls he met in East Oakland where he had picked up young chicks before, Korea had never been to San Francisco. Keith planned a fast and immediate seduction with a topless trip over the Bay Bridge.

“Are we riding with the top down?” Korea asked when he picked her up for their first date.

“It’s the only way to fly,” Keith said in his most charming voice, as he shut the door behind her.

“Yeah, maybe, but I just did my hair, and I don’t want it flying,” Korea said.

“I got you; open the glove compartment,” Keith said, starting the engine.

Korea opened the glove compartment. Inside she found a comb, a brush, a mirror, Vaseline, and something that looked like a curling iron with no plug. She picked it up.

“Is this a curling iron?” She turned it in her hand, opening and closing the lip. “How does it plug in?”

“It doesn’t,” he beamed, pulling away from the curb. “It runs on butane.”

“Lighter fluid?” Korea asked.

“Yep. Pretty cool, huh?”

“It’s really something. In fact, you’re really something. You got all the tricks, huh? Pull over for a second.”

“You aren’t going to jump out of the car, are you?”

“That depends on your answer to my question.”

Reluctantly, Keith pulled over and turned the car off. “What’s up?”

“What’s all this stuff in here for? Are you a pimp or is this car a chick trap?” Korea looked serious, and directly into his eyes, searching for even a hint of a lie.

“No, I told you. I have a good, honest job.” Reading the disbelief on her face, Keith reached into his wallet and flipped it open. “Here is my ID, and here is my union card.” He handed her the wallet. Korea examined the cards. He flashed a smile that would have made Billy Dee Williams proud and smoothed his neatly
groomed mustache. “Open the billfold, and you’ll find my pay stub.”

Korea closed his wallet and handed it back to him. “Okay. I don’t need to be all in your bank account like that. I’m going to let you know right now; I bite.”

“Your point is taken, little lady.” Keith started the car up and headed toward the 880 Freeway. “It’s called a Clicker,” he said, nodding at the creative curler in her hand. “Keep pushing the button until it starts. It’ll spark like a lighter.”

Korea put the gadget inside the glove compartment and closed it. “I’m cool,” she said, pulling a scarf from her coat pocket. “I don’t put heat on my hair. I wrap it.” With that, she tied the scarf on her head and sat back.

The engine of the Mustang roared across the bridge at eighty miles per hour while Too Short paced the cross-water escapade with gut-wrenching bass that lay the cadence for his “Freaky Tails.” It was the kind of song that you couldn’t help but rap along to. Korea let her version of the rhyme spill from her Wet & Wild glossed lips.

“I met this girl, her name Korea. Korea was so vicious, she could eat cha.”

Keith laughed as Korea rapped over $hort’s voice. Keith nearly butted the car in front of him, trying to watch her sexy lips move. But Korea didn’t notice; her eyes were closed, and she was in the trance of the hottest rap bass line to hit the scene since the Sugar Hill Gang put poetry to a commercial beat.

The faster the car moved…the more wind in her face, the better Korea felt. Perhaps it was the clean air and the ride. Or perhaps, she thought, it was just
the knowing;
the kind of knowing one cannot be taught, the thing the old folks called wisdom. In the fifteen minutes it took to cross the bay, the truth became more
apparent than ever before. It was more like a revelation teaching her that leaving the squalor of her urban village would release her to an alternative future with endless possibilities. She became certain that evening that she would have money someday.