When All Hell Breaks Loose (10 page)

“Hi Gregory!” It’s Kim, one of the hair technicians. She’s hot-curling the hair of an old woman who seems to be meditating as her hair gets cooked. Kim has on a pair of yellow stretch pants with a Charlotte Hornets jersey, house shoes, and a towel on her head. One thing I can say about AJ’s is that as long as you aren’t doing hair butt naked, anything goes. Every now and then the ladies are required to dress with some class, but Adrian usually lets them come as they wish as long as the customer leaves satisfied, rested, and ready to conquer the world with her new hairdo.

“Hey Kim, what’s up? How’s everybody doing?” I wave. Most of the women speak. I look to the back for Adrian. I can see her in the glass room rinsing someone’s hair.

“Greg, you excited about the wedding?” Kim asks. She grins at me, exposing her beautiful smile decorated with one gold-covered front tooth. Kim is originally from Chicago and was recruited a year ago. When I first met her, I didn’t know what to think, but she’s cool. She actually gets most of the ghetto-fabulous clientele, who are either the mistresses of Dallas’s wealthy men or the girlfriends of drug dealers and major hustlers.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“That ring you gave A.J. is the bomb. Looks like something I seen one of my friends wearing. She was messing around with one of the Chicago Bulls and he hooked her up.”

“Really? Adrian picked it out. I never really thought of it as a big deal.”

“Why not? Boy, you know you hooked Adrian up. I mean, the ring is dope! Is the wedding still going to be in the afternoon?”

“Yeah, are you going to be there?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ve already started shopping for my dress ’cause I gots to be jiggy with it! Adrian can’t stop talking about it, either. You’d think she was getting married tomorrow.”

“For real, she was just showing us a sample picture of the cake this morning.” Arnelle, the nail tech, joins the conversation. She’s sitting at her station munching on some kind of sandwich. “I like those cakes with the buttermilk-flavored icing. How many groomsmen do you have?”

“Five, including the best man.”

Arnelle’s eyes light up. “How many of them are single?”

“Oooh Arnelle, you need to quit girl!” Kim laughs.

I can’t take too much more, because Kim has this annoying deep Southern drawl when she talks. Sounds like Gomer Pyle. It’s slow and lazy and I’m trying to grin and bear it.

Kim stops working on her customer’s hair to make her point. “Greg, don’t tell her nuthin’ else, she needs to be tryin’ to get Romeo to marry her.”

“Girl, you know Rome ain’t talking about nothing.” Arnelle sucks her teeth as she refers to her live-in boyfriend. “He doesn’t even want to go to the fair next month. He’s scared he’s going to get out there, get into a fight, and violate his parole, so I told him to just forget it.”

I’m trying to figure out when will it be safe for me to walk away from this conversation without being rude. Not that I mind being
in
the conversation, but they’ve totally pushed me out.

Right as I decide to move, Kim starts talking again. “Greg, are you taking Adrian to the fair?”

“Yeah, we’re going the night of the Grambling versus Prairie View A&M game. Adrian likes the halftime band competition.”

“See Kim, that’s what I’m talking about right there.” Arnelle looks at me. “Greg, you’s a good black man. Rome will probably sneak his ass over to the PV-Grambling game without me. And if he do, his ass is mine. I ain’t taking that shit, ’cause I like the halftime show too.”

“Thanks.”
Hell, if being a good man is about taking your girl to the fair, then I’m a damn good man
, I think to myself.
Top of the line
.

“Well, you bettuh go see Adrian, she’s been looking for you.” Kim nods her head towards the back.

I head to the back where the sinks and the hair dryers are. Adrian is putting one of her clients under the dryer. The woman looks at me and smiles. I smile back. Adrian turns around to see who the woman is looking at.

“Hey, stranger,” she says as she grabs me and kisses my lips. “I saw you when you walked in.”

“Hey.”

“It’s good to see you today. I’ve missed you.” Adrian walks back around to her station. She places a few combs back in their respective places, picks up a towel, and dusts off her chair.

Several females in the waiting area look at her eagerly, hoping that their name will be called next.

“Loretta, come on,” Adrian says as she nods at one of the women.

A woman with blue jeans and a Janet Jackson T-shirt on comes over and sits down. Adrian makes small talk with her and tells her to sit tight until she returns.

We walk outside hand in hand. She unlocks her car door and gets the sack with the movies in it.

“What do you want to watch tonight?” I ask.

“Something with some drama. One of the customers was telling me about this movie called
The Usual Suspects
.”

“Yeah, Jamal told me to check that out too.”

“And I also want to see
love jones
. I just love Nia Long.”

“Me too.” I smile devilishly.

“Greg, don’t play. You know that Nia Long is a very well-respected
sister in the industry? She looks good, eats well, and I dig her cute figure, not to mention her hair. I met her stylist last year—she is really laid-back, and we exchanged a lot of ideas. But I would kill for Nia’s body.”

“Why you trying to kill for a body like that? Granted, she is fine, but I like your body, Adrian. These roasty thighs of yours and your booty, neither of which Nia Long can hold a candle to.” I grab Adrian by her hips and pull her into me.

Adrian punches my arm playfully. “No woman is ever totally satisfied with her body, Greg. I just think that I could lose a little bit here and there, that’s all.”

“Well, Nia Long ain’t got nothing on you and if you’re trying to get rid of your hips then let me help you.” I lean in and kiss Adrian. She kisses me back and smiles.

“I love you so much, boobunny.” Adrian touches my stomach line and moves her fingers down to my private area. She touches it through my pants ever so lightly, causing me to move closer to her.

“Girl, you’re going to lose your job,” I joke.

“Then make me,” she teases back. “I’ll see you tonight and we’ll work on these hips of mine, okay?”

“I like that idea, muffin.” I grab her and rub my hands over her back. She feels good and I wish I could put her in my car and take her away to some faraway place and just love her. Her almond-colored eyes are looking into mine and I feel closer to her than ever.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” she asks.

“Yeah. I know you love me.” I’m smiling like Okie-Doke the Slow Poke.

“And I would never leave you, right?”

“That’s why I love you, Adrian Jenkins,” I say, and kiss her on her neck. “That’s one of the reasons you are going to be my wife.”

“I can’t wait to start our family. You’re going to be such a good father.” She leans in and kisses me again, this time letting her tongue gracefully slide into my mouth. I don’t give a damn who’s watching us, because I’m into my woman. When we stop kissing, we hold each other and cherish the moment. Adrian remembers she has a customer
waiting and pecks me one last time before going back into the salon. I get the movies and head out.

Any other time, with any other woman, I would be playing my macho role, but Adrian makes a brother lose all his cool. I never think about how stupid I probably sound with her until I get somewhere alone and think about our conversations and how I am when we’re together, especially the pet names we use with each other. From muffin to boobunny to lovesnack, sometimes we get carried away, but that’s our thang and I love it to death. As I drive along the street, I think about this whole marriage idea. Even though my mother has been away for nineteen years, my parents are still married. I don’t think they ever divorced, unless they did it by mail, without me and Shreese knowing. I never got a full explanation on what really happened, and it’s hard to get Pops to talk about it. Maybe it’s time for a man-to-man.…

I decided to stop by my dad’s house before going to the movie store. It took three rings of the doorbell before Pops answered.

“I thought I heard the doorbell.” Pops opened the door and let me in.

“What are you up to?”

“Shit, I was reading the paper and I guess I drifted off to sleep.”

I followed Pops to the living room. There were newspaper pages strewn over the couch, and a blanket hung lazily to the floor.

“So what brings you over this way on a Saturday?”

“I was in the neighborhood running some errands for Adrian.”

Pops smiled. “She got you running errands, huh? Next thing you know, she’ll have you buying her female goods at the grocery store.” Pops laughs a tired laugh, but his sleepy eyes still twinkle.

“I already do that for her,” I huff.

“Good. That’s how you make it work.”

I wish Pops believed what he just said. Otherwise, I believe my mother would still be here. I used to think that if he begged or put his foot down, then Louise would still be here. Now he sits around giving out the very advice that he should have followed. But I have
a wedding and a future wife to worry about—I’m not gonna try correcting his situation. We’ve been without Louise for so long, she is hardly a subject anymore.

“Pops, I want you to play a song for me at my wedding.”

“Oh, son, I don’t think I can do that. I haven’t touched those keys since your mama left.”

I sit quiet. My father is right, and I feel awkward for asking him such a question. He hasn’t played the piano since she left, and when he mentions that I feel guilty for asking him to. My mother had always been an awkward subject in my family. I was just hoping Pops would see my wedding day as an event worth getting his fingers back in shape to tickle the ivories, but I guess not. Now, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. A slight heat is making itself known in the pit of my stomach. Pops looks over at me.

“Why you want me to play, Greg?”

“Adrian likes this song by Roy Hargrove called ‘Things We Did Last Summer,’ and I wanted you to play it for her on the piano.”

“Roy Hargrove. He’s about your age, ain’t he?”

“Yeah, Pops. We went to Holmes Middle School together. I took you to see him last year at the Meyerson Symphony Center.”

“Now that’s a bad-ass old-school trumpet-playin’ young cat right there! He’s a little loud and was hard on my one good ear, but he’s been trained well.” Pops’s eyes light up again as he recalls who Roy is. “Technique is tight like a mosquito’s booty!”

I smile as Pops starts laughing. I can see the life in him struggling to be revived, but Pops’s heart is broken, and has been for the past nineteen years. It’s hard for him to mask that.

“Well, why don’t you call Roy up and have him come? I’ll pay for it.”

“Pops, you know Roy and I weren’t even on the same page back in the day. He was a clown, you know that. Got me in trouble and you told me to quit hanging with him. He and I were never tight after that and I’ve been out of touch with him. Besides, you can do just as good a job on the piano.”

“Yeah, son, but … I just don’t know.” Pops rubs over his plump
belly and looks blankly at the television. “It’s been so long, I probably won’t know my right hand from my left.”

I laugh a little as my pops quotes these lyrics from “Misty,” an old jazz favorite. It reminds me of a game he used to play with me and Shreese when we were growing up. He would say a line from a song and we would guess the song title. Now he looks over at me and starts laughing, too. He’s off the wall sometimes, but I love my old man. He stuck in there with us after Louise left, and I’m grateful to him for staying. Thank goodness they shared responsibilities when they were together—otherwise Shreese and I probably would have looked like throwaway kids. But Pops did Shreese’s hair, ironed our clothes, cooked, and also helped us with our homework every night. He already knew how to do other things that most men from his generation didn’t do without a woman.

The worst thing Pops had to get through was talking to Shreese about getting her period. It was horrible, because he made me sit in the room with him as he stumbled though his reading of the entire chapter of the
Time-Life Health Encyclopedia
on the female anatomy and menstruation.

“Did you ask your mother to perform?”

“I’m not inviting her,” I said. “I haven’t even called her and told her about the engagement.”

“Gregory Louis Alston, I didn’t raise you to hate your mother.”

“Pops, I don’t hate her. I just don’t want her at my wedding.”

“Why, Gregory?” Pops’s voice is almost pleading. “Give me one good reason why she doesn’t deserve to be included.”

“I just don’t want her there. She hasn’t been at any of my other major events and I don’t want her at this one.”

“Now, you know she calls whenever something big happens in your life and I make sure she knows. You never invited her to any of your graduations and to those fraternity parent events you had in college, like you did with me, but she always remembers you on your birthday and Christmas.”

“And do you think that’s been enough for me and Shreese all these years?”

“Has it?” Pops has a sad look on his face. “You’ve never reached out to her, so what are you expecting in return?”

“Pops, you know as well as I do that children need both parents. People just don’t walk out on their children like Louise did.”

“Son, you’d be surprised. I’ve seen a lot happen in my life, and what your mother did was follow her dreams. She loves singing and she pursued it.”

“So singing is more important than the children you bring into the world? She couldn’t take us with her? She couldn’t put her dreams off until we were grown?”

Pops leaned up in his chair and exhaled a deep breath. “What is it that you’re missing, Gregory, that I haven’t been able to give you? What is it that your mother’s absence has not afforded you?”

“Nothing.” I held my head down in defeat. I mean, how can a person know what he’s missing if he’s never had it? I just know there is something missing from my life because my mother wasn’t there.
I know it is
. Pops is right. He gave me and Shreese everything: love, support, discipline, and much attention. He came to the school when we had programs, he attended every band concert, play, and awards ceremony we ever had, not to mention chaperoning some of our field trips and dances. He cooked dinner for us every night and made sure our ears were clean when we got out of the tub. He did everything.