Sweet St. Louis

by Omar Tyree

  Ant broke out laughing. “Gettin’ funny,” as Tone called it, was absolutely out of the question! Nobody loved the sweet silk of a woman more than Ant did. No doubt!

  “You don’t have to worry about that from me, man,” he commented. “So go on back to sleep. I gotta get up early for work tomorrow.”

  When they hung up, Ant undressed, laid down, and thought all the way back to their childhood in Jennings. Then he laughed to himself, reminiscing long past midnight on the love he had for his boy, and all of the crazy times they shared together while running the streets that emptied into Florissant Avenue.

  Celena Myers was crazy, period, sometimes. Like when she demanded to know every detail of Sharron’s personal life as though she were her mother reincarnated, and some. Who gave her that kind of power? Who ordained her? Better yet, how dare she have that much audacity? Handle your own business and get out of that of others!

  “Look, Celena, I don’t have to tell you everything about everybody I know, or how long I’ve known them, or where I met them. I mean, if I do tell you that kind of stuff, then fine. But don’t make it out as some special privilege that I owe you, because I don’t” Sharron huffed. It was after midnight. “You damn sure don’t tell me everything that you do, nor do I ask you about it.”

  “Look, I’m just trying to protect you, Sharron. I mean, you just go from lows to highs and back down to lows again. And that shit ain’t healthy.”

  “Well, what do you know about being healthy with guys, Celena? I mean, really? When have you had a steady man in your life besides your father?!”

  “I don’t want one!” Celena hollered back.

  “Well, I do! So don’t get in my damn way!” Sharron snapped. She was so pissed that she slammed her bedroom door as Celena continued to run at the mouth.

  “Now see, when you find yourself brokenhearted again, don’t come runnin’ back to me, because I won’t have no more advice for your ass!

  “Didn’t even know the guy’s damn name,” she added.

  “SO WHAT?!” Sharron yelled through her closed door.

  That caused Celena to stop herself and laugh. They were acting as silly as two kitty cats wrestling over a big ball of yarn. They knew it, too. But Celena had started it, like she always did, with her extreme assertiveness. Sharron wasn’t some big, crybaby pushover. Sometimes she had to remind Celena of that, very decisively. However, her girl Celena was protecting a loved one. And after Sharron’s mother had died of cancer, with her father taking on a new woman, and her aunts and cousins bugging her to return home to Memphis, Celena had somehow, through her strong support, amassed more power over Sharron than what was presently needed.

  Sharron thought about that herself, while sulking in her room. A room filled with large, stuffed animals, most won at Missouri’s Six Flags amusement park. Sharron had been fairly lucky at Six Flags. She only wished that luck could spill over to her relations with men.

  I appreciate what you’ve done for me over the years, but I can take care of myself just as much as you can, she reasoned. She was gathering the right words to let Celena know that the protective shell she had developed for her over the years had to go.

  Where would you be with your debt situation if it wasn’t for me making you take some of those addictions that you buy back to them damn stores where you got them from? You’re the one that needs help! she thought.

  Then she smiled. “No, I can’t say that,” she told herself out loud. “That would be mean, and then we’d go back to arguing again.”

  “Are you in there talking to yourself, again?!” Celena yelled, close by the door. “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You goin’ crazy.”

  “Aw, girl, don’t act like you don’t talk to yourself!”

  “Not like you do!”

  “What’s the difference?!”

  Celena smiled, “I make sense when I do it.”

  Sharron had had enough. She jumped back up out of her bed and headed for the door. She swung it open like a madwoman and challenged, “You want some of me?! Is that it?! You want some of this?!” she asked with her hands up in a boxing stance.

  Her girl laughed and backed away. Sharron brought the static right up to her face.

  “Come on, then. Show me what you’re made of, St. Louis. You got all of the mouth. Let me see the action.”

  “You better get up out of my face,” Celena warned jokingly.

  “Or what? Hunh? What?”

  Celena lost her cool and rushed at her. Sharron, filled with playful energy, immediately countered the move and grabbed her shorter friend in a headlock.

  “Now what, St. Louis?”

  “OOUUWW, GIRL! MY DAMN EARRING!” Celena yelled at the top of her lungs.

  Sharron let her go only to find herself being grabbed in a headlock.

  “Now what, Tennessee?! Hunh?! What’s up now?!” Celena asked, mocking her friend.

  “You wanna play a game of horseshoes now? Hunh?” she continued.

  Sharron just laughed, helplessly, until her girl let her go.

  “Dummy,” Celena sneered.

  Sharron gathered herself and said, “You can’t beat me, Celena. Remember, I let you go.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Because if we were in a real fight, I wouldn’t have cared about your damn earrings.”

  “If we were in a real fight, you wouldn’t have grabbed me like that,” Celena argued.

  “Celena, you cannot beat me. I’ve fought girls bigger than you way back in high school.”

  “So. That was in Tennessee. I mean, what were y’all fightin’ over? Corn dogs?”

  Sharron stopped herself and sighed. “Oh my God. You have to come to Memphis with me this summer, that’s all there is to it.”

  “I guess I have to practice my horseshoe toss?” Celena joked, winding her arm back.

  Sharron was impelled to challenge her again, but Celena, more poised than last time, sidestepped her with her hands held high in a boxing stance of her own.

  “Come on wit’ it then,” she challenged.

  Sharron held her hands even higher, and jabbed out her left arm with an open palm, connecting with her target, right smack across Celena’s small face.

  “Shit!” She ducked the next one and slipped under a right-handed hook with an open-hand smack to the back of Sharron’s head. Both of them, not wanting to be hit up close, grabbed each other and began jockeying for openings to attack as if in a real fight.

  “POW, POW, POW!” Celena gestured with a superior inside opening to the taller Sharron.

  Sharron backed up and gestured with a right-handed fist that may have ended it all.

  “BANG!”

  Celena sucked her teeth as they disengaged. “Girl, I wouldn’t have let you hit me with that.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I would have tied your arms up and just beat your face in.”

  “What, with them little hits? I would have knocked you out with my one punch.”

  “I didn’t have to let you go to get that one punch, Sharron. I would have just dug my nails into your face while I had you.”

  “You wouldn’t have gotten that close, I landed the first hit in case you forgot.”

  “Because you’re taller than me.”

  “That’s why you can’t beat me.”

  “Sharron, I’ve fought plenty of tall girls before, and I whipped every one of their asses, including my sisters’. Just because you got the first hit, doesn’t mean that you’ll get the last.”

  Sharron finally smiled it off. “You a tomboy anyway,” she said, jumping in for the last word.

  “So what?”

  By that time, it was close to one o’clock in the morning. They both had to be up early for work. Nevertheless, Sharron couldn’t get any sleep. She had a man on her mind. She was too pumped with energy to even close her eyes. So she sat up in the dark, under the covers, thinking every little thought that managed to pop into her head.

  I wonder ho
w crazy it would be if I called him up and told him to drive over here and give me some, she mused with a grin. Celena would really think I was crazy after that. But damn, I have all of this energy and I don’t know what to do with it now. I’m freakin’ restless!

  She shifted her body from side to side under the covers, and had another outlandish thought. I wonder how crazy it would be if I like, showed up at his apartment or something in a taxi. I wonder if he would even be up. Or how about if he’s out somewhere sexin’another woman anyway? Since he likes sex so much. I wonder if he’s any good, howling at the moon. Because I had other guys who bragged on their Johnsons and couldn’t even get the job done.

  Guys talk so much shit sometimes. Seriously! I wonder how I would be if I was a guy. Shit, Celena’s already a guy! I don’t even have to imagine how she would be. She would probably be the kind of guy to tell a woman to give her a piece, then turn around and not call her anymore. It’s not like she, or he, would be interested for the long run. She’s not interested in the long run as a woman now.

  I wonder if Anthony is like that. I mean, he says that he wants that deep love stuff, but that could just be part of his game. Then again, at least he can explain himself Most guys can’t explain. A lot of them are too damn scared or immature to even try. And I’m talking about old guys, too. Age don’t mean a thing. So at least Anthony is courageous enough to speak his mind. I admire that in him. Because most guys are straight-out cowards. Don’t bullshit with me, tell me what the hell you want. And be man enough to accept whether I give it to you or not. But that’s their number one problem; they want to have their cake and eat it too. Always half-steppin’. I just want to see if he’s gonna half step with me, or if he’s gonna give me his full piece.

  •

  When Anthony called Sharron that first weekend, she planned on sticking it to him just like she had started off, in a zone and holding nothing back. She wanted to give him her full piece. That way they would have no excuses to claim later on.

  “What do you like to do on a night like tonight?” he asked her from his front steps. He had another sandwich and drink in hand. Outside phone calls and snacks were Anthony’s ritual of winding down after an honest day’s work at Paul’s. It was Saturday night, just after eight o’clock, with the sun making its way west, as the mellow darkness settled in.

  “What are you doing right now?” Sharron asked him back.

  “I’m about to eat a turkey and cheese sandwich and chill on my front steps.”

  “And then what?”

  “The night is still young, and I don’t have to work tomor’. Who knows where the wind may take me?”

  “Well, why don’t the wind bring you over here to pick me up?”

  She was making it too easy for him. He wanted to push her away to create respectable distance between them.

  Anthony chuckled. “Sounds like you bored. And you know what they say boredom does.”

  However, Sharron was on a mission not to play hard to get but, rather, hard to forget.

  “Do you want to pick me up, or do you have something else to do?” she asked, pressing him.

  “Damn, don’t get spicy on me,” he complained, munching on his sandwich.

  With that, Sharron figured to go a little softer on him and use what she knew about men. Their egos could always get the best of them.

  “I don’t mean to sound demanding and all, I just want to see you. It’s not that I’m all that bored, because I could go out with anybody. I would just rather be with you.”

  If he could see her smile, he would have realized how big of a trap she was setting for him. Nevertheless, Anthony was no pushover.

  “What if I wasn’t able to see you tonight? Like, if I already had plans?” he asked.

  “But you don’t. You already told me that.”

  Damn! he thought. She’s ridin’ me. And I don’t like how this shit feels.

  He was already being elusive, running away with his tail between his hind legs. Sharron was fully prepared to call him on it.

  “Look, I’m just trying to give you a full piece of me. Now, you asked me if I wanted to make a trade, but now it seems like you don’t want to come up with your end of the deal,” she told him.

  Shit! I told this girl too much! Now I gotta see her, he thought to himself. He couldn’t let her down that fast. They had just met and he was still curious about her. He just didn’t realize how curious she was about him.

  “What time will you be ready?” he asked her. He felt like he was on a leash and being yanked in by his new owner. Players would much rather be in charge of the situation and have the woman on the leash. But Sharron had flipped the script on him, using his information against him. That’s why most men kept their fat mouths shut. Women had some expert memories of conversation. They could draw on just about anything. Right on down to how often a guy trimmed his mustache. That kind of recall was dangerous. Especially for men who showed no consistency in what they said versus what they actually did.

  “I’m ready now,” Sharron answered. “How long will it take you to get to here?”

  “University City? Ahh, give me about an hour. I gotta freshen up first.” They’d already had most of their small talk on where they lived, what they did, and so on, before they left the skating rink on Thursday night.

  “Okay,” Sharron said. She agreed to his time, gave him her exact address and apartment number and directions. When she hung up, there was her girl Celena again, breathing down her neck.

  “Sharron, you sound as desperate as a teenager in love. And you just met this guy,” she piped. “He could be a damned rapist or anything.”

  Sharron smiled at that. “You don’t know how many times I thought the same thing about the guys you go out with,” she commented.

  “Yeah, but I know the difference. You don’t. Because you usually don’t date guys like this.”

  “Guys like what?” Sharron wanted to know.

  “Well, don’t get me wrong here, but this guy Anthony seems a little faster than the usual guys that you date. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Sharron smiled. “So what are you really saying, that I can’t handle myself with him? I was doing quite well Thursday night, before you stuck your nose in it.”

  “Yeah, right. You didn’t even know his damn name.”

  “Here we go with that again.”

  “I’m just reminding you of that.”

  “Oh, yeah, because I forgot the first eight times that you told me. You know, since I’m turning seventy next month, I don’t recall things as well as I used to,” Sharron joked.

  Celena smirked at her. “You can get smart if you want to, but just be careful. That’s all I’m telling you, to be careful.”

  “Okay, Grandma. Holding hands only, and no eye contact, because that can get you in deep trouble,” Sharron said.

  They paused, taking a moment to stare at each other before rumbling in laughter.

  “All right, girl. Do what you want. I just don’t want to be the one telling you ‘I told you so.’”

  “Good. Then don’t.”

  By the time Anthony made it over to pick Sharron up, Celena, not to be outdone, had set up a date of her own. Her man arrived at the same time as Anthony, driving a black Toyota Supra. They approached the stairway to their dates’ second-floor apartment simultaneously.

  “What’s up, dawg?” Celena’s energetic date addressed Anthony. The light brown, tall, and slim young man was bubbling with enthusiasm. He spoke to Anthony out of pure friendliness. He was not the usual kind of hard-knocks man that Celena dated either. But he still had the ego intact. What would a man be without that?

  Anthony nodded to him. “What’s up?”

  “You here for Sharron?” Mr. Bubbly asked him, going on information from Celena.

  “You here for Celena?” Anthony asked him back, assuming as much. Celena seemed like the big-mouth type anyway.

  “Yeah.”

  “Same answer,” Anthony told
him.

  Not to be rude, but Anthony didn’t feel up to chitchatting with the guy. He didn’t even want to be there. In fact, he stopped himself short on the first step.

  “Do me a favor and tell Sharron I’m out here.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ant.”

  “All right then, Ant. My name is Ronald.”

  They shook hands and separated. Ronald continued up to the apartment door. Anthony returned to his car and turned on his CD player.

  Sharron walked out a minute later, flowing down the steps with her small, brown leather pocketbook, wearing blue denim shorts, a red Cardinals T-shirt, and no socks with her brown sandals.

  As soon as she slid inside his Chevy, Anthony smiled and said, “You gotta go change your outfit.” Outside of the sandals and pocketbook, he was wearing the exact same thing, a red Cardinals T-shirt and blue denim shorts.

  Sharron looked him over and laughed. “Oh my God! This is embarrassing.”

  “Who you tellin’?” he responded, still grinning at the coincidence. “Now go back in the house and change.”

  “I’m only changing my shirt.”

  He nodded. “Aw’ight. That’s a deal.”

  Celena’s man was on his way back out as Sharron made her way in. You know how some women are; they’re never ready. And few men are patient enough to wait. So Ronald decided to sit and wait in his car and listen to music as well.

  On the way to his sports car, he walked over to speak to Anthony through his open window.

  “I like what you did with your ride, man,” he commented, looking over the ’79 Chevy’s chrome wheels, shiny paint job, and spotless interior.

  “Thanks,” Anthony told him with a nod.

  “This car has hydraulics?”

  “Naw.”

  Anthony was still moody and uncommunicative. He answered Ronald’s questions out of respect for Sharron. He didn’t want to give the wrong impression of himself. But he still wasn’t too happy about being there. It was Sharron’s idea, and he wanted to be the one calling the shots. Particularly when there was no sex involved.

  “No hydraulics? What about the sound system. Is it booming?” Ronald asked him next.

  Anthony said, “Everybody got a sound system, man. I don’t have none of that block-shaking shit, but it’s loud enough for me and my passengers to hear.”