When All Hell Breaks Loose (9 page)

I turn to look at the band. Tim is going off and I think there’s more liquor talking than he is.

Jamal stays tuned in to Tim’s loose rhetoric on the woman species and they go into another long conversation.

“Tim, listen at you, man. This shit you’re talking is the very reason why we have so many relationship problems between our men and women. What are you tripping on, brother?” Jamal asks. “You don’t think the upscale women want to settle? Tim, every woman out there wants security and a man they can depend on at
all
times.”

“Jamal, you know as well as I do that black women in America don’t want to do nothing but be taken care of, like I said a few minutes ago. They are lazy and shiftless.”

“So successful sisters like Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett, Tina Turner, and Whoopi Goldberg need you to help them stand on their feet? They’re lazy and shiftless? Is that what you are saying? That
these
sisters are lazy?”

Tim pauses and then kicks me under the table. “You hear that, Greg?”

I turn my attention back to the conversation. “What’d he say?”

“He goes off and names some of the most powerful single sisters in the industry to make his point. That’s lame, J. That’s real lame what you just did. A low blow. You know I’m talking about these sisters who look like a good package and when you get to know them, they turn out to be walking basket cases with baggage for days. Case in point, Cheryl Coleman who Greg just talked about.”

“Hey man, don’t pull me into this,” I interject.

Jamal laughs. “Tim, you are trippin’. All I’m trying to do is understand why you so down on the sisters, when in actuality, they never asked to be put in the situations they are in.”

“I take care of women as long as they take care of me. Plain and simple, I am not looking to settle.”

“Tim, you even perpetuate their behavior.” Jamal looks over at me. “Greg, has Adrian ever asked you for anything?”

“Not materialistic-wise. She be beggin’ for my award-winning back rubs, though,” I joke.

Tim points at me. “And I would put a hundred dollars on the table and bet that yo’ ass be doing it too, like a punk slave.”

“You damn right.” I laugh. “Because I know what I get for a back rub. Adrian comes correct. Our relationship is give and take.”

“You give, she takes!” Tim laughs loud this time. A few folks from the nearby tables look over at us.

“Does Adrian ever keep tabs on you when you go out?” Jamal asks.

“No. Half the time, I just take it upon myself to tell her. If I say I’m going out, she says okay and that’s it.”

Tim quickly talks back. “That shit is going to change, you watch. As soon as you jump the old witch stick, she’s gon’ be on you like white on rice. She’ll want to know what time you’re coming in, who you’re going with, how long will you be gone, and then she’ll have the audacity to tell you to keep your pager on in case she needs to call, but we all know that’s just another way to block your fun. She’ll be telling you how to do things you’ve been doing for years. She’ll be picking out your clothes, telling you what you need to be eating, moving your stuff where you can’t find it in the name of redecorating. It’ll be a miracle if you can even fart out loud in your own home once she gets through with you.”

“Tim, I don’t foresee any of that happening. And if Adrian for whatever reasons starts keeping tabs, then that’s cool, because once we’re married, there will be no place I would go that I couldn’t tell her. Adrian’ll take care of me. I know she will.”

“Greg man, you have sold your soul to the estrogen brigade,” Tim teases. “See, that’s why I never stroke a woman on her legs, because once you stroke a woman on her legs, she thinks you are emotionally involved. Never stroke the legs.”

“Is that right, brother. Well, I for one love to be a woman’s protection,” Jamal says. “If stroking her legs is what will make her know I’m serious about her, then I will stroke them.”

“Tim, I would do it for any woman that’s my woman, like Jamal said. Take her out if she wants to, bubble baths, body massages. All she has to do is say the word and I am at her command. Women do more than enough for brothers, and we take them for granted.”

“That’s the spirit, my man.” Jamal gives me dap.

“Aw, you two niggas is crazy. These women are going to run your asses slap over.” He points at me. “Got you getting married, and J, look at you man.”

“Tim, what are you talking about?” Jamal asks.

“I ain’t seen you with some pussy since Nixon lied. What is up with that?”

I laugh at that comment. Tim has made a very valid point. The last time Jamal had a girlfriend, his dreds were knots.

“Tim, I’m working on me before I bring any well-deserving queen into my reality. I want to be able to give her whatever she needs, whether it be physical, spiritual, mental,
or financial
.”

“Amen.” I give J some dap. My boy is going off on some serious stuff.

“Aw, you two old Michael Jackson and Prince sensitive muhfuckas.” Tim gets up from the table. “I gotta piss.”

He struts off, leaving me and Jamal at the table. Tim is always tripping on black women this and black women that, but Tim can be a woman’s worst nightmare sometimes.

I remember one Christmas, Eric, Phil, Tim, and I went to a First Friday social at the City Place buildings. The party space was huge, two massive floors wide. There were five large rooms, each hosting different music preferences. There was a live jazz room and an old-school room that housed a DJ that was playing some straight funk masters like George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, the Ohio Players, Chaka Khan, and Con Funk Shun. That room was packed with people. The other three rooms were reggae, urban contemporary, and rap/hip-hop. The sisters were looking fine as hell. If there were any hootchie mamas in the house that night, they were definitely undercover.

Tim was in rare dog form. He was walking and winking at sisters. Before we even got in the party good, he grabbed the hand of this one sister and wouldn’t let her go until she promised to dance with him. After that little scene, we all headed to the bar and ordered some drinks. I felt like getting my groove on, so me and Eric went to the old-school room.

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Eric dates nonwhite women on an exclusive basis. Never has dated a white woman in all of his twenty-six years of living. That’s not why I like him, though.

Eric is cool. Not like the white-boy-trying-to-be-black cool, but he’s real laid-back and nothing seems to bother him. Eric was raised in Jamaica, Germany, Egypt, and Alaska. He was an army brat, but it didn’t make him a cocky know-it-all like most men. Eric really can see and respect the beauty and the differences in people outside of his race. I’ve never asked him does that make him ashamed to
be white, but I sure would like to know, because Eric never is seen with other white people. Anyway, Eric and I went to the old-school room and it was packed. The DJ was playing a heavy mix of “More Bounce to the Ounce” by Zapp featuring Roger Troutman. Folks were dancin’ and the mood of the room was hyped. This thin sister the color of a Hershey’s Kiss came over and grabbed Eric’s hand. He sat his drink down and followed her to the dance floor. Eric has rhythm and he was right at home with the music. I looked out the door across the hall into the Jamaican room and saw Tim. He had this sister hemmed up against the wall and he was standing so close to her, I could have sworn their noses were touching. I saw her shake her head no several times, before pushing past him. Right as she walked away from him, Tim reached down and pinched the woman’s behind. My stomach dropped and I knew one of two things was about to happen. One, the woman would look at him real nasty and walk away, or two, she would retaliate. She chose the latter. The next thing I saw was Tim’s drink fly out of his hand and crash to the floor causing glass to shatter everywhere. The sister knocked him across his head the way a mother would do a son who accidentally cussed in front of her.

Everything would have been cool, but the sister started getting loud, like angry women with no home training tend to do. She was ranting and raving like a lunatic as she threw blows at Tim. He was dodging her punches like Holyfield and I had to hand it to him, he was doing a good job all the while, laughing and saying to the woman, “Damn baby, why you got to be so mean to a brother?”

Her girls came and pulled her away, leaving Tim there. Several brothers walked up and gave him dap, too! It was like something straight out of a caveman movie. I just shook my head and resumed watching the old-school crowd. Eric was holding his own with the Hershey’s-Kiss-colored sister and he ended up riding home with her that night, leaving us three deep.

Tim and Phil talked about the ass-grabbing incident the rest of the night. They sounded like Cub Scouts who had seen their first naked woman. The way they talked about the sisters made me wanna holler like Marvin Gaye. For real! So me and the guys tend to take
Tim’s comments all in stride and not to heart, because he is a brother with some very masculine values.

I look over at Jamal, who is listening to the band. The bass player is doing better. I can sense a little pocket in his swing as he vibes with the drummer.

“J, what’s really going on with you, man? Tim does have a point. We haven’t seen you with a woman in a while. I know your ass ain’t waiting on Erykah Badu.” I laugh.

“Greg, I’m just being careful. I am getting my inner person together. I’ve actually been meeting sisters everywhere. As a matter of fact, I met this beautiful sister at Reciprocity the other night.”

“The little hip-hop poetry joint you hang out at?”

“Yeah, this sister was reading a poem that blew my mind. The name of the piece was ‘Deep Inside Revolutionary Threads.’ Her name was Freedom Heru.” He pauses. “Well, that’s what she calls herself. Her given name is April Jordan.”

“So what’s up with her, why you ain’t brought her out?”

“Not yet. Not ready. I want to make sure that she and I have an understanding about our paths as kindred spirits. We are going through emotional cleansing right now, but I dig this sister a lot.”

“She just got out of a situation?”

“It’s, more or less, we both are just trying to make sure we are not hooking up from lack of comfort. We want to make sure our attraction is not just physical and emotional. We want our motives to be unhindered by societal standards of male-female relationships. But I think she’s ready to submit to me.”

“Those are dangerous words to a woman on the brink of the millennium.”

“Not a God-fearing woman. A woman who knows truth, brother, is a woman who will submit to her king.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“Yeah, man. Think about it this way, it’s about intentions. I don’t care what a woman looks like. She can have nappy hair or hair permed down to her butt, but if her intentions are wicked and she can’t accept the truth then I can’t fool with her, and I would hope that a sister wouldn’t fool with me if I was that way.”

I sit back. “But we all know you would never date a sister with permed hair.”

“That’s not true. As long as she understands that she is in an unnatural condition as a black woman and that we could never have children under those terms, then we’re okay. I can’t take a woman like that seriously, though, because I’m not wearing a relaxer.”

“Is April au naturel?” I ask playfully.

“She’s tight as all get-out, Greg my man. She wears her hair braided. I’m diggin’ this sister and maybe some interaction and heavy vibes will bring sweet fruit as we get to know each other better. But for right now, I need to be careful ’cause it’s just the beginning.”

“I was worried about Adrian for a little while in the beginning, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, the first time we had decided to sleep together, she told me she never liked being on the bottom. She said being on her back made her feel helpless.”

“That shows that Adrian is a strong woman. She must be an Aries.”

“Yup.”

“Yeah, brother, you got yourself a stubborn no-nonsense woman.”

“I guess,” I say quietly. “The shit threw me for a loop at first, though.”

Tim comes back to the table with a piece of paper in his hand. There’s a name and phone number scribbled on it.

“The waitress gets off at ten, so I’m going to swing back through.”

“What about your date with Neecy?” I ask.

“I’ll cancel. She’ll understand. All women do.”

“One day somebody is going to cancel on you.” Jamal laughs.

He picks up the ticket and we all leave a nice tip on the table. As we walk out the door, the jazz band begins to play “Strange Fruit.” The music gives me a strange feeling as I think about how perfect Adrian seemed as I talked about her tonight. I hope I didn’t make her seem too perfect, but she is. She is perfect.

W
hen Tim drops me off, I get in my ride and head over to the salon. Adrian wants me to pick up some movies and return them in exchange for some that we can watch tonight.

AJ’s Getaway is located in Oakcliff, on Hampton Street. It’s in the same neighborhood that Pops lives in. It’s a large salon with seven stations and they are all taken on a full-time basis throughout the year.

Adrian has a good plan working for her. When she first graduated, she taught at Miss Helen’s Beauty College for a short time, and once she established herself with the owner and established a clientele, she contracted herself out as a hair and cosmetics consultant. This clientele consists of women who pay top dollar to sport the latest styles as well as styles that enhance their features. From the mayor’s wife to the girlfriend of the top drug dealer, Adrian has them on her roster. From there, she was able to open her own salon and establish a central location for up-and-coming hairstylists. She recruits a young, gifted hairdresser, pays half of her tuition, and also pays for the final
exam to be licensed. In return, the hopeful works at AJ’s for two years. Adrian only takes the top graduates and from the word on the street, girls are scrambling trying to get her to notice their work.

When I drive up, her champagne-colored Lexus is parked up front in the designated spot with her name painted on the curb. The parking lot is packed with cars and I can see a load of women on the inside. There are several women sitting reading books and others watch television as they wait their turn. All the station operators are busy washing, relaxing, curling, styling, or gossiping. I assume the massage room is full, too. When I open the door to go in, the smells of perm, shampoo, and conditioner fill the air and burn my nostrils like they always do. The television hanging in the waiting area is showing some type of male model search on MTV, and the women are watching it seriously and gawking over the men as they appear on the screen.