Sweet St. Louis

by Omar Tyree

  “So how was she, man? Did you tighten her up?” Tone asked his partner across Ant’s small kitchen table. He was referring to Shawntè’s first weekend.

  Ant smiled, chomping down a hot plate of homemade chili and rice. “I’ll put it to you this way: in the morning, she didn’t want to leave here.”

  Tone laughed. “You had to drag her out of your bed?”

  “Basically,” Ant mumbled through his mouthful. “I told her, ‘Look, I’m ’bout to take a shower. Make sure you ready for yours when I get out.’ And she was like, ‘Okay. I’ll be ready.’”

  “She sounded like she wanted to cry, hunh?”

  Ant nearly choked on his food with laughter. “You know how I get ‘em.”

  “Not Dana, though,” Tone alluded.

  Ant frowned and said, “Man, I’m not thinkin’ ’bout that girl no more. And why you gotta keep bringing her up?”

  “Because she’s fine.”

  “So what? It’s other fine girls out here.” Every guy had a Dana Nicole Simpson in his life, just like every woman who wanted a man enough would eventually end up with reference to a heart-breaker like Anthony Poole. Their yearnings set them up for it.

  “Whatever, man,” Tone piped. “So, what’s up with the other girl? What’s her name? Sharron?”

  “Hold on,” Ant told him as the phone began to ring. “Hello,” he answered.

  “It’s Sharron Francis from the skating rink, Kingshighway Boulevard, and the airport.”

  Ant smiled. “I know who you are. My boy just asked me about you, as a matter of fact,” he told her.

  “Tell him that I’m doing fine, and I thank him for asking.”

  Ant smiled some more, and ignored her request.

  “What are you up to?” he asked her instead.

  “You’re not gonna tell your friend what I said?” she pressed him.

  “Naw. Why, you want to tell him yourself?”

  Tone looked up in alarm. What she wanna tell me? he asked himself. The next thing he knew, Ant was handing him the phone.

  “She got something to tell you, man.”

  “Hello,” Tone answered.

  Sharron said, “I like your friend a lot, because he makes me happy. And as long as he makes me happy, I’m gonna keep calling him and hanging out with him. I just wanted you to know that.”

  She was still in a zone, doing whatever she felt. She knew Ant was a player, right? So why act naive and confused about it?

  “What if he stops making you happy?” Tone asked her. Many young women had wanted Ant’s long-lasting attention, but few of them had succeeded in getting it.

  “Do you think that’s possible? Does he stop making you happy?” Sharron countered. “You’ve been his friend for how many years now?”

  Tone was shocked. He looked up into Ant’s face and knew that he had a rough one on the phone. No doubt about it! Sharron was a thinker. She would be hard to shake, and hard to break.

  “What she say?” Ant asked him, reading the alarm on Tone’s face. Ant didn’t want his boy screwing up his chances with a new woman. He was eager to reclaim the phone before his partner said the wrong things to her.

  Tone, excited by her mind state, leaned away with the phone.

  “You know how boys are. Our bond is forever,” he told her.

  She said, “And your friend can’t have that same bond with a woman? Would you step in the way of that? I don’t want to take him away from you, I just want to share him.”

  Tone smiled bigger than a circus clown. He couldn’t believe his ears. Her logic was crystal clear.

  He said, “You make it sound like I’m his girlfriend or something.”

  “No, you’re his boy. And I understand that. Y’all go way back together.”

  By then, Ant was dying to get the phone back.

  “Hey, man, give me my damn phone.”

  Tone went as far as to stand up and step away from him.

  “Hold on, man. I’m talking to her.”

  “Look, man, she called here for me. Aw’ight?”

  Tone ignored him.

  Sharron said, “Is he that possessive about everything?”

  Tone laughed and said, “Yeah. You’ll find out.”

  “She’ll find out what?” Ant wanted to know.

  “You think he could be that possessive about me?” Sharron asked Tone.

  Tone thought about it and decided to lead her on. “Yeah. Why not?”

  “Because he wouldn’t care enough,” she responded.

  “How do you know?” It wasn’t as if she was wrong. Tone just wanted to hear her logic.

  “Because he’s not supposed to, right? That would get him in trouble, wouldn’t it? If he really started to like me? Being whipped by a woman is not a good thing,” she answered.

  Tone was tickled by her. She was right on point and not afraid to say what she knew.

  “So, why even go through it then?” he asked her. He had to. She knew too much. Maybe she could teach him a thing or two about the logic of women. Why did they fall for the game in the first place? Or at least for Ant’s game. Because not many women fell for Tone’s.

  “That’s the way it was meant to be, I guess,” she answered him. “If it wasn’t, then why would a woman even take off her clothes for a man?”

  Good answer, Tone thought.

  Ant was fed up!

  “Tone, give me my damn phone before I have to kick your ass out of here! This is kid shit!”

  “You the one acting like a damn kid!” Tone snapped back at him. He was irritated himself that Ant was bothering him. “You told me that she had something to tell me and handed me the phone. Now you wanna act like a damn kid about it!

  “Here then, man. Take your damn phone!” he said, jamming the black cordless back into his partner’s eager palms.

  Ant was embarrassed by Tone’s outrage. Tone was showing off. Just like he was. They were both showing off for a woman. Maybe they were already whipped. Both of them. And too egotistical to even see it.

  “Why are y’all arguing over a phone?” Sharron asked Ant. She was instigating, just for the hell of it.

  “Oh, don’t act like you and your girl don’t have petty arguments about things,” Ant said, trying to cover it all up.

  “Are you saying that you and your friend are just like us?”

  “Naw. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that humans have disputes and arguments.”

  “Oh, so now I’m not a human?” she asked him.

  “I didn’t say that either. You puttin’ words in my mouth.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that you need to stop asking me so many damn questions,” Ant finally snapped at her, frustrated by the entire phone incident.

  Sharron was shocked! They both were. Or all three of them were, because Tone had not left yet. He was packing himself a serving of Ant’s chili in a Tupperware bowl before making his way to the door. But then he looked back to see how Ant’s tantrum would be handled. Sharron had effectively pushed him past his cool zone. And Tone had come to like the girl. He felt for her. She was all right. The kind of girl that a guy could really chill with. Because she told the truth, and she could deal with the real answers.

  She said, “I guess I can’t ask you what you were doing before I called you now. Is it time to hang up? Do I need to call you at another time with no questions at all? Actually, that’s another question, so I shouldn’t be asking you that either.

  “I’m sorry. I guess I can’t help myself,” she added. “I guess I want too many pieces too fast.”

  Ant couldn’t help but smile. She was riding him to death with his own line. She was making him feel ridiculous about his outburst. He was just short of apologizing. He couldn’t apologize anyway with Tone in his face, because he would never be able to live that moment down. So he poised himself and responded to her.

  “I was eating chili.”

  Silence. More questions? Or not?

 
Ant was broken like a horse.

  “Look, you can ask me questions if you want. I didn’t mean to go off like that. You just ask a whole lot of ’em, that’s all.”

  “Are you sure you won’t shoot me?” she joked with him.

  “I can’t promise you that,” he told her with a grin. With his gun, he liked to shoot a lot. So much that he began to chuckle about it and gave himself away.

  “Guys just have to think with their other head” she told him, catching on.

  “What do women think with?” he asked her.

  “We think with our minds, and with our hearts.”

  “You mean your hearts and then your minds,” he responded, correcting her.

  “No, that’s only for some of us,” she countered.

  Tone had heard enough to make his own conclusions. Sharron could hold her own. He only worried if Ant could hold his. So he packed up his bowl of chili and headed for the door.

  “Where you going, man?” Ant asked him.

  “I’m going home.”

  “No, I’m talkin ’bout with my food.”

  Tone smiled. “Like I said, I’m going home. I’ll bring your bowl back tomor’.”

  “Man, you can’t just come up in here and eat my food. You got food in your own crib. You leave my shit here,” Ant said, reaching for the bowl.

  Tone avoided his reach.

  “You got all the food that you need right there on that phone.”

  Ant ignored it.

  “Tell him I said bye,” Sharron said. “Or do you want me to tell him?”

  “Naw, I’ll tell him. She said bye, man,” Ant responded, passing on the message.

  “AW’IGHT NOW! KEEP THAT WHIP OUT ON HIM!” Tone yelled toward the phone.

  Ant frowned at him and showed him out.

  “Aw’ight, I’ll see you later, man.”

  “Hey, Ant, she aw’ight, dawg,” Tone added before he left. “She gets my vote.” Then he grinned his way out of the door with chili to go.

  Sometimes people and situations inspire others to do more. Tone was inspired by Sharron and what she attempted to have with his partner Ant. Even if Ant was only a lover out to score, Sharron had her heart and soul already set for the mission. Tone admired that. Could Sharron actually make Ant fall in love with her, giving up his freedom to hunt new women? Could she?

  Everything in life is dependent upon an opportunity. That was all Sharron was asking for. An opportunity to try when plenty of others had failed. And Tone was inspired by her courage. He felt that it may be his time to try as well. His time to love something. To love someone for real, and not just for play. Because many people bullshit themselves in life and extend it to others. Especially guys. They go on to hurt women who are much more serious about love and life than they are.

  Tone had already hurt women who cared. The first being his mother. She cared so much about her only son that she ended up accepting anything from him, instead of pushing him to do more. He had become passive. Way too passive for comfort. Way too passive for real manhood, where one explored progressive things and didn’t just talk about them, dream about them, and think about them but acted upon them.

  So Tone ate his friend’s chili in the silence of his messy, disorganized room and thought about how he could make amends with the women who had attempted to love him. He’d start by seeking out his mother in her room.

  She seemed dazed by the television set illuminating the darkness, as if the entertainment world of Hollywood was the only light left to live for.

  “Hey, Mom.” He spoke to her from the door, and was ignored. He waited a few seconds for her response before calling her again. “Hey, Mom.”

  She laughed out loud and kept her eyes glued to the tube.

  “MOM!” he snapped impatiently.

  She turned and faced him, tired and annoyed. “What do you want from me now, Anthony? What? Can’t you see that I’m watching something?”

  He was stunned, standing there in her doorway.

  What do you want from me now, Anthony? What do you want from me now?

  Her words hung on his mind and turned him away with guilt. He had worn his mother’s love into the ground. He realized that now. But he did not know what to do about it.

  “I was ah … just seeing how you were doing?”

  “Well, I’m fine, Anthony. How are you?” she piped at him. Then she went right back to watching television, while her son hovered there for a few minutes in her doorway before fading back to his chaotic room, a representation of his chaotic life.

  “Damn. She don’t even have no words for me,” he mumbled to himself. “Talk to me like I’m a damn kid.” Then he looked around and realized that he was still living in her house, twenty-eight years old, with no household of his own.

  Guys get depressed too. All of them. They just don’t talk about it as much as women do. So we figure that they’re all right, when they’re actually not. Just posing cool, and not actually living what they project. Inside, many of them are three times as insecure as women express to be. But in expression comes peace, like the evaluation of being sick and the arrival of proper medicine to heal the wounds.

  Men don’t get healed. That same peace that women receive, many men never allow themselves to have. Always lying to themselves. And if you cannot tell yourself the truth, then when will you ever be able to stand on solid ground with the rest of the world?

  Too many men die young and miserable without ever attaining solidified goals in life. Not just dying physically, but mentally, spiritually, emotionally, every day. Nevertheless, men don’t want love. Don’t need love. Right? … Wrong? Simply put, humans cannot live without love!

  Tone wanted to live again, love again, and revive himself from the dead by reaching out to someone, anyone who would listen. But when you turn off so many ears with silence in the past, who will be willing to listen to your present and future? Yet, Sharron had inspired him, and it was his time to try an opportunity for love. So he jumped on the phone with hope. Hope and energy, calling up an old girlfriend whom he had led astray, and had pushed away.

  “What’s up, girl? It’s been a long time. It’s Tone.”

  Silence.

  “Mmmph. It has,” she answered him with a grumble.

  “So what’s been up?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You know, I’m just living it. Nothing special,” he answered.

  “WHAAAHH!”

  What was that?! he asked himself.

  “You got a baby now?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Silence.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Three months ago?”

  “With who?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  Silence.

  Shit! What do I say now?

  “Are you still with him?”

  “Am I still with you?”

  Funny. That’s what Tone was calling for, to get back in the picture. But what about now? Things had gotten complicated. She had a brand-new baby from another man.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “A boy.”

  “He look like his father?”

  Pause. “What is this, eighty questions? I mean, you haven’t spoken to me for what, two years? Now you call me up out of the blue and want to know everything about my child.”

  “Actually, I was just calling to see how you were doing.”

  “Well, I’m doing just fine. As fine as I’m ever doing.”

  “WHAAAHH!”

  “Okay, boy! God! Greedy little thing!”

  “What are you, breast-feeding him?”

  “Yeah. And he’s as greedy as big boys. Don’t want to let it go.”

  Until it gets pregnant on you, Tone thought with a chuckle. Then he stopped himself, and thought about his own father, who had been missing in action, twenty-eight years and counting.

  “That’s fucked up,” he expressed out loud.

  “What?” she asked him.

  �
��That you got a baby … and no father.”

  “You wanna be my baby’s father?” she snapped at him.

  “It’s not my child.”

  “Well, don’t concern yourself with it then. In fact, I have to go. You called me at the wrong time.” Then she added, “You should have called me two years ago,” and gave him plenty of time to respond to her.

  “I should have done a lot of things,” he admitted.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled. “OWW, BOY!” she complained to her son attached to her breast. And how much would she love her son? More importantly, how much would her son love her back?

  It’s a damn cycle, Tone told himself. How could he deny it? The evidence was right there in front of him. Right on the other end of the line.

  “Well, I have to go now,” she told him.

  He didn’t quite know what to say, or how to end it.

  “Ah, yeah, aw’ight. I’ll get with you later,” he told her.

  “Don’t make me no promises,” she said. “Because I don’t need ’em no more. And that’s the truth!”

  Tone hung up and was stunned for the second time, feeling even lower than he did with his mother. But he was driven to keep trying. He made a second call to a stray love with more hope.

  “What’s up, girl? It’s been a long time.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Tone.”

  “Anthony? What are you doing calling me?”

  “Just seeing what you up to.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Silence.

  “Hmmph. I don’t go out like that no more,” she told him.

  “Go out like what?”

  “Where you can just call me up and try and get what you want.”