The Ugly Side of Me

by Nikita Lynnette Nichols

  “Stacy, you are so right. I was selfish today, and I really need to call Malcolm.”

  “You’re gonna apologize?”

  “Not only that, but I just remembered he has a job interview in the morning. He and his boys got high yesterday, and Malcolm has to pee in a cup.”

  “Can he postpone the interview?”

  “Nah. He ain’t gotta do that. I know a way he can pass the urine test.”

  “What way is that?”

  “I’ll explain it to you tomorrow. I gotta call Malcolm right now.”

  Malcolm’s cell phone rang seven times before he answered. “What’s up?” he said very dryly. By the tone of his voice, I knew he was still pissed at me. If I wanted Malcolm’s forgiveness, I knew I would have to beg my butt off, and I knew I had to sound sincere.

  I took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “I’m sorry for acting like a fool and for being selfish today. And I’m really sorry for what I said about your mother. I was out of control, and I was way out of order. We had a great week together, but instead of being grateful, I behaved like a spoiled brat. I truly understand why you needed to be home to meet your mother. I had no right to try to keep you from being where you needed to be. I was wrong, Malcolm, and again, I am so sorry.” I hoped those words were good enough, ’cause I meant them wholeheartedly.

  There was a long pregnant pause before he spoke. I guessed he wasn’t expecting me to say what I said. I could hear him thinking. “Okay.”

  That wasn’t the response I had been bracing myself for. I was ready for him to let me have it. Had Malcolm said such nasty words to me about my mother, there wouldn’t have been any forgiveness. I had given him just cause to cut me off and bring the Navigator back to me. I didn’t know how to read his response. I needed clarity. “So, are we cool?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  I had to accept that from him. At least he hadn’t cussed me out or written me off, not yet, anyway. I knew I could still work on him. “You gotta take a piss test in the morning.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I smoked some weed yesterday. I should probably call your friend and cancel. You think she’ll let me come in a month?”

  “Wait a minute, Malcolm. You knew you had an interview scheduled for tomorrow. Why would you do something so stupid? Marijuana stays in your system for six months. And an interview with the CTA is hard to get.” I sighed. “Be here at my house at six in the morning, and I’ll tell you what you need to do to pass the urine test.”

  “Are you going with me?”

  “No. I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning, before work. Mr. Duncan will be back from vacation. Make sure to wear briefs tomorrow, no boxers.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll find out when you get here.”

  Chapter 30

  Early Tuesday morning I turned the water off, pulled the shower curtain back, and screamed at the top of my lungs when I saw Malcolm leaning against my bathroom sink.

  “What the heck are you screaming for?”

  “What the heck are you standing in here for? Why didn’t you tell me you were here?”

  He scanned my naked body. “You look good when you’re wet.”

  I pulled a large towel from the rack next to the shower, covered myself, and stepped out of the tub. Malcolm watched as I dried myself off.

  He looked so fine dressed in a charcoal-gray pin-striped suit, an ivory silk shirt, and an ivory silk necktie. It looked like one of the suits that Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor wore in Harlem Nights. I looked down at Malcolm’s feet and saw Bill Blass gray silk shoes.

  “You’re a bit overdressed, but I guess it’s okay.”

  “I didn’t know what to wear but figured I couldn’t go wrong with a suit.”

  I nodded my head. “There’s a condom on my nightstand. Get it and bring it to me.”

  “What for?”

  “Just do it, Malcolm.”

  He fetched the condom and brought it to me. I finished drying myself off and hung the damp towel back on the rack.

  “Take it out of the package,” I instructed him.

  I had a small measuring cup with a spout on it sitting on top of the sink. I picked it up and straddled my toilet and squatted halfway down.

  Malcolm frowned at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure your piss test turns out right.” I held the cup between my legs and peed in it. I was happy to finally be able to relieve my bladder. “Whew. I’ve been holding that since I got up this morning.”

  I instructed Malcolm to stretch open the rim of the condom over the sink, and then I poured my urine into it. I emptied the cup and threw it into the trash can next to the tub. I opened my medicine cabinet and took out a sewing kit. I found a small spool of white thread and cut off about twelve inches of it, then tied the strand into a knot at the top of the condom.

  “Pull your drawers down, Malcolm.”

  “Why can’t I just carry the condom in my pocket?”

  “Because the pee has to be body temperature, that’s why. You can’t give them a cup of cold pee, Malcolm. I know what I’m doing, okay?”

  He pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees. I knelt before Malcolm and placed the urine-filled condom between his testicles and inner thigh. “The hem of your drawers will keep it in place. How does it feel?”

  “It’s okay,” he answered as he pulled his clothes up.

  “Try not to walk too fast, so that the condom doesn’t shift. A doctor will give you a cup to pee in. When you pour the pee in the cup, be careful not to spill any. Flush the condom and string and make absolutely sure they don’t float back up. Stand there and watch them go down the toilet, and then flush it again.”

  Chapter 31

  I signed in at the receptionist’s desk at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. “I’m Rhapsody Blue, and I have an eight-thirty appointment with Dr. Scimeca,” I told the receptionist.

  “Yes, Miss Blue. I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.” After she took my ten-dollar co-payment from my hand, she pointed to a row of chairs behind me. “Please have a seat.”

  I sat and noticed that I was the only patient waiting to be seen. I saw magazines lying across the table in front of me and picked up the latest issue of New Parents magazine. I scanned through the first few pages before I came to an article about breast-feeding. A color photo showed a black woman nursing her baby. I wasn’t really sure why, but for some reason, I felt a connection to the photo. I saw how the baby attached his small lips to the mother’s nipple and suckled. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to breast-feed my own baby.

  A nurse snapped me out of my thought. “Miss Blue?”

  I looked up at her.

  She smiled. “Dr. Scimeca is ready to see you.”

  The nurse escorted me through a door that led to many examination rooms. Outside of the room where my exam was to take place was a scale. The nurse instructed me to remove my shoes and step on it. I saw that I weighed 179 pounds. I stood five feet two inches tall, which meant I was short and fat. I picked up my shoes and followed the nurse into the room. I sat on the examination table, and she noted my weight in my chart.

  Miss Blue, you’re overweight,” she said to me.

  “I know that!” I snapped. “I got mirrors in my house. I can see what I look like.”

  Her eyes bucked out of her head at my tone. “Excuse me?”

  “What has my weight got to do with my Pap test?” I asked her.

  “Miss Blue, it’s standard procedure that we record your weight and blood pressure.”

  “Well, recording them and telling me about them are two different things. I’m not here for a weight consultation. So, just take my blood pressure, write it down, and send Dr. Scimeca in here to examine me. And tell him to hurry up, because I’m running late for work.”

  The nurse realized I was ignorant, so she stopped talking to me, which worked just fine for me. In silence she took my blood pressure and my pul
se. After that she inserted a small white plastic thermometer under my tongue. She then flashed the light from a tiny silver flashlight that looked like an ink pen in both of my eyes to look for whatever. The thermometer in my mouth beeped, and she gently pulled it out of my mouth and recorded my temperature in a logbook she held in her hand.

  From a cabinet next to the table I was sitting on, she removed a hospital gown and laid it on the examination table, next to my leg. Without looking at me, she said, “The opening goes in the back.” She walked out and slammed the door behind her.

  “Screw you too, ho!” I said loudly to make sure she heard me.

  Ten minutes later Dr. Scimeca brought his old wrinkled behind into the room with my chart in his hand. He did my Pap test every year. Dr. Scimeca had delivered all three of my mother’s children. Walter, the oldest, was almost forty years old. Dr. Scimeca should be about ready to retire.

  “Hello, Rhapsody. It’s good to see you,” he greeted.

  “Hi, Dr. Scimeca. How are you?”

  “I’m doing well. Thank you.”

  “How’s the wife?” I asked.

  “Barbara’s fine. We welcomed our sixth grandson last Friday. Our youngest daughter, Jen, announced her engagement a month ago. Our oldest boy, Bill, is in his last year of law school. My middle boy—”

  I didn’t have time for what he was talkin’ about. “Uh, excuse me, Doctor Scimeca. I would really love to hear about Barbara and Jen and Bill and the descendants of the Scimeca clan, but time won’t permit it. I gotta get to work. Can we please get on with my exam?”

  “Oh, sure, sure,” he said as he walked over to a table and laid his chart on it. “Please forgive me. I do that all the time.”

  I knew the routine, so I lay back on the examination table and scooted my butt all the way to the end.

  Dr. Scimeca placed my feet in the stirrups, sat on a stool in front of me, then spread my legs wide apart. “My goodness, you have quite a discharge here. Are you always this way?” he asked me.

  “Only when I’m close to my period.”

  He inserted something long and cold inside of me. “When was your last period?”

  “About six weeks ago.”

  Dr. Scimeca stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. “Six weeks? You haven’t had a period in six weeks?”

  “It could be four weeks. I don’t keep up with it. It comes whenever it comes.”

  He went back to what he was doing. “Are you on any birth control?”

  “No.”

  “Are you active?”

  I hesitated. “Yes, but with only one man.”

  He continued my exam in silence. When it was over, Dr. Scimeca gave me a clear plastic cup from the same cabinet that housed the hospital gowns, and sent me to the bathroom to fill it. When I got back to my examination room, a different nurse received the urine-filled cup from me. Dr. Scimeca was completing his notes on his chart. He told me to get dressed and then said that he would return in ten minutes.

  I had gotten dressed and was sitting on top of the examination table when Dr. Scimeca came back into the room.

  “Doctor,” I began. “I saw on the news the other day that there’s a new pill on the market that women can take that’ll only let them have their periods four times a year. Can you prescribe it for me?”

  He looked at me. “That won’t be necessary, Rhapsody.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re pregnant.”

  My heart skipped a thousand beats. “Wha? Huh? Did . . . What?” I was so disoriented, I couldn’t get any words out, and I couldn’t see clearly. I shook my head vigorously from side to side. “Uh-uh. No way,” I said to Dr. Scimeca. “That broad must’ve switched my pee with another woman’s pee.”

  He frowned at me and chuckled at the same time. “What broad?”

  “The first nurse that came in here. She had an attitude, and I gave her one right back. I know she’s behind this. I want another test,” I demanded.

  “Rhapsody, to suggest that a staff member would do such a thing is ludicrous.”

  I was not leaving there without another test being taken. “I don’t care. The urine test is wrong. I want you to draw my blood and test it.”

  Dr. Scimeca didn’t argue with me. He stuck a needle in my arm and filled three vials with my blood. He told me to sit and wait, which I did, for another fifteen minutes. I knew I was extremely late getting to work and Mr. Duncan was probably wondering where I was, but I didn’t care. I had to make this imaginary baby go away.

  Dr. Scimeca came back and told me that my blood test was positive as well.

  “But I’ve been having sex with Malcolm for only two weeks,” I said to Dr. Scimeca. Before Malcolm, I had gone three months without having sex with an actual man. But I did have plenty of toys that I had entertained myself with.

  “Rhapsody, with today’s technology, a pregnancy can be detected within twenty-four hours after conception.”

  No matter how tightly I squeezed my butt muscles together, I couldn’t control it. I pooped on myself right then and there.

  I left Dr. Scimeca’s office with stains on my panties and a prescription for prenatal vitamins. I couldn’t believe it. Over the past two weeks, Malcolm and I had screwed like rabbits, but it had never dawned on me that I could or would get pregnant. I had got so caught up on how good Malcolm made me feel that I had totally dismissed the fact that he could also make me pregnant. At thirty-four, I didn’t wanna be a single mother, and Malcolm was just a kid himself. I knew he’d go through the roof when I told him.

  Chapter 32

  “So, you basically wanna get away from the whole fast-food thing, huh?” Audelia asked Malcolm.

  He nodded his head. “There’s no money in it. It’s time for me to change my career goals.”

  “What would you like to do here at the CTA?”

  Malcolm shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe drive a bus?”

  Audelia nodded her head. “The starting pay for bus drivers is about nineteen dollars an hour.”

  Malcolm became excited, but he didn’t want to show Audelia his emotions. Nineteen dollars an hour was way more than he had ever imagined he’d make. As a manager at Burger World, Malcolm was paid only $14.75 an hour.

  “In about four years,” Audelia continued, “you’d reach full pay of up to twenty-eight dollars an hour.”

  He tried with all his might to keep his composure, but Audelia was blowing Malcolm’s mind big-time. “That sounds cool,” he said calmly.

  “But you’re gonna need your CDL license. Do you have one already?”

  “No, but I’ll get it. That ain’t a problem.”

  Audelia smiled at him. “I like you Malcolm, and since I owe Rhapsody a favor, I’m going to forgo all the written tests. But you must take and pass a urine test. After that, you’ll be taken to Dan Pontrelli’s office. Dan is our job placement coordinator. He’ll give you your test results and get you on the payroll as a full-time bus driver after you secure a CDL license. Any questions?”

  That was music to Malcolm’s ears. The fact that he didn’t need to take any written tests was great. Rhapsody had made sure the drug test wouldn’t be a problem. All he needed to do was get a CDL license and he would be on his way to making big money. “Nope, no questions at all.”

  Audelia pressed her intercom button, and her secretary was there in moments. “Please escort Mr. Washington to the examination area,” Audelia instructed the secretary.

  Before he left her office, Audelia shook Malcolm’s hand. “Welcome to the Chicago Transit Authority family, Malcolm.”

  He took her hand in his own. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  After following Rhapsody’s instructions exactly the way she had said, Malcolm was asked to sit in the lobby and wait. He would have never guessed that getting a job with the Chicago Transit Authority would be so easy. It really paid to have a hookup.

  It took less than eight minutes for the results of Malcolm’
s urine test to come back from the laboratory. In his office Dan Pontrelli offered Malcolm a seat across from his desk.

  “Mr. Washington,” Dan said, “your test results showed no sign of drugs, which is great, but there’s one problem.”

  Malcolm frowned and looked concerned. Everything had been working out perfectly. What could have gone wrong? “What’s that?”

  “You’re pregnant.”

  Chapter 33

  No sooner had I got in the car than my cellular telephone rang. I saw it was Malcolm calling, and my heart raced. I nervously answered. “Hello, Malcolm.”

  “Hey.” He sounded like how I felt.

  “You don’t sound too good. How did the interview go?”

  “The interview with Audelia went great.”

  I was glad to hear Malcolm’s good news before I gave him my bad news. “Wonderful. So when do you start, and what are you gonna be doing?”

  “Are you still at the doctor’s office?” he asked me.

  I started my engine. “I’m leaving just now. I’m going home.”

  “You’re not going to work?”

  “No.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I just don’t feel like going.” I couldn’t go to work with poop in my panties.

  “How did your exam go this morning?”

  “It went okay.”

  “Did your doctor run other tests?”

  I took my foot off the brake pedal and sat still. Could he know? “Other tests like what?”

  “Did you tell your doctor that you were throwing up over the weekend?”

  My palms became sweaty. He had to know, but how could he? “Malcolm, why are you asking so many questions? I wanna talk about your interview.”

  “I’m on my way to your house. I’ll see you there.” He disconnected the call.

  I sat in the driver’s seat and tried to figure Malcolm out. Why had he asked so many questions about my appointment? Something was up, and it made my stomach rumble. I felt the contents of my stomach coming up. I opened the door and puked on the concrete in the parking lot.