The Old Man in the Club

by Curtis Bunn

  “I’ll be fifty in four weeks…and I don’t have anything to hold on to.”

  “What?” Elliott said. “You have your children, who are great, great kids. I’m sure you’re referring to Danielle going to London and Daniel back to Michigan. But that’s the way it’s supposed to be: You do your job as a parent and the kids flourish and go on with their lives. You’ve got to look at the bigger picture.”

  “The picture I see is pint-sized,” Lucy said.

  “You have your health, right?” Elliott said. “That’s a big one. You know how many people wish they felt like you feel and look like you look? Those are blessings. I’m not picking on you when I say this, but people’s problems, I believe, stem from quickly identifying all that you want but not focusing on the great things that you have.

  “And what is it exactly you want? The kids will be gone. What do you want?”

  “I need someone in my life,” she said.

  “You mean you want a man in your life,” Elliott asserted. “I’m guessing you don’t need one.”

  “Want? Need? What’s the difference? I don’t have anyone,” Lucy said, “and I’m about to be fifty years old.”

  “So why don’t you get one?” Elliott asked.

  “If it were that easy or that simple, I wouldn’t feel as I do,” she answered. “It’s different for men, especially in Atlanta, than it is for women.”

  “I’m going to sit down for this one,” Elliott said. “How is it different?”

  “Are you kidding me? You don’t know?” she said. “Well, I’m gonna tell you. First of all, for a man your age, you can still attract a woman in her twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. That’s just about four decades of women. I know there aren’t a lot of twenty-somethings interested in a sixty-one-year-old man. But the more you raise that age, the more the number of women you could have increases.

  “And society is okay with a nice-looking man in his sixties with a twenty- or thirty-something-year-old woman. And men your age with women in their forties is the norm.

  “Meanwhile, if I go out and meet a twenty-five-year-old kid, there’s hardly any way he would be interested in me or interesting enough for me to be interested in him. Why would a young man want a fifty-year-old woman? And then the women who do date younger men are labeled as ‘cougars.’ So it’s not set up for society to accept an older woman with a younger man.

  “So there’s that and then there are also so many single women in Atlanta that it’s a competitive landscape,” Lucy added. “Let’s say the man is thirty-eight. That’s still twelve years younger than me. What’s the incentive to consider me when he has countless women his age and younger, all the way into the early twenties? It’s just a tight situation for women my age.”

  “I wish I had an answer,” Elliott said. “What I will say is that there may be a lot of women here, but not all of them are quality women. I can attest to that.”

  “How much dating have you been doing?” Lucy thought for a second about not going there, but she could not hold it in.

  “As much as I like,” he responded.

  “Well, you’re single so you can do what you want,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned. “But for women here, not only are the numbers against us, but the quality of the men here is weak, too. Lots of professional men, educated men—but they either already have a woman or wife, are arrogant because they know they are in such demand or they are just weird.”

  “I tell you what’s weird,” Elliott said.

  “What?”

  “Me talking to my ex-wife about dating,” Elliott said. “That’s very weird.”

  “I guess it is, huh?” she said. “Well, through everything, you’re the person who knows me the best. And, believe it or not, the person I trust the most.”

  “How ironic is that?” Elliott said. “Truth be told—since we’re being transparent—I can say for sure no one knows me better than you. Since we’ve been divorced, it’s been hard to fill the void. I can’t even lie. But…I guess it is what it is.”

  “I am able to call you about this because I know you will be honest with me,” Lucy said. “I need an honest perspective.”

  “We’ve been divorced about three years,” Elliott said. “You telling me you haven’t met anyone worth your time?”

  “Let me tell you,” she began, “it took me a while to get back out there. Then I met probably every kind of loser in this city. I met the liar who cannot tell the truth about anything, from where he lives to where he works to what he has done in his life. Pathetic. I met the married man who chases women as if he is single. I met the arrogant guy who believed the world spun on his axis. I met the good-looking guy who could not stay out of the mirror. I met an ugly guy who had money and thought that made him cute.

  “I met a very nice guy who had no personality. I met a successful guy who was socially retarded. I met a guy who was ideal, except he was an alcoholic. I met a guy who was awaiting sentencing on armed robbery. I met the honest guy who was upfront about what he wanted from me: sex on the first date. I met the life of the party whose life was in shambles: no car, ‘in between’ jobs, living with his cousin. I met the guy with five kids by four women…with another child by another woman on the way. I met the guy who actually seemed really nice, but he had no manners; would not open the door for me, would talk with food in his mouth, would play with his cell phone at the dinner table.

  “I’m not done. I met the guy who wanted to marry me after one conversation. Another guy said we should move in together, even though we didn’t even know each other’s last names. Still another guy asked me for a loan three days after meeting me…”

  “Damn,” Elliott said. “My first reaction is: You get around.”

  They both laughed.

  “No, some of these guys I met in the same night,” Lucy said. “You know how you go to an event and mingle. Well, I would meet three or four of these guys in one night and learn about them through conversation. It’s crazy. And I know I pointed out that it’s men in Atlanta like this. But I talked to my friend Cynthia in D.C., and she says the same thing about men there. And Candice says the same about men in Chicago and told me her sister, Tanya, says that about men in Houston. It’s all over the place.

  “But the one thing women in Atlanta complain about more than women anywhere else is the gay man who is undercover, Elliott. That’s the one that makes us all comfortable staying home and watching Scandal, The Newsroom or Breaking Bad. You have any idea how many women I have met who have encountered this?”

  “I’ve heard this from a few women, too,” Elliott said. “It’s crazy.”

  “And that’s one of the reasons it’s so lopsided here, women-to-men,” Lucy added. “So many men are gay or bisexual or whatever. They use women to hide who they really are. And believe me when I tell you this: Many women here are petrified because of that.”

  Elliott wanted to tell her about Henry, but he could not muster the nerve. Not at that moment. There was venom in how Lucy spoke of the “down low brothers,” and he did not want to set her afire with the news that someone she thought was straight actually was the kind of man of which she spoke. So, he kept it to himself, although he would eventually tell her the truth about Henry.

  “Are you telling me there has not been one ‘normal’ guy you met in three years?” Elliott said.

  “Well, it’s been only about two years because I couldn’t even think about being on the dating scene for a year after you moved out.”

  “After you insisted I move out, Lucy,” Elliott asserted.

  “Well, one of us had to move. I couldn’t be around you. I—”

  “Yeah, I know,” he interrupted.

  “So, in the two years or so, I met one guy who seemed like a man I could be interested in,” she said. “He was fun and smart and a gentleman. Honestly, he reminded me of you. Maybe that’s why I was interested in him.”

  “Hmmm,” Elliott said. “What happened?”

  “He lived
in New York,” she said. “That’s too far away. I never understood how people could do long distance relationships. I don’t know…I’m not built for it. I didn’t like it when you went on speaking events for the Innocence Project. I guess I’m needy in that sense. But at least your trips were for a day or two. To be with someone you grow to care about, but he lives in another city? That’s too much.”

  “You’ve got to have a trust in that person that is strong,” Elliott said. “I have two guys I know whose wives live in separate cities. Three, in fact. One guy lives in Chicago and his wife lives in D.C. Another guy lives in Atlanta and his wife works for Disney in Orlando. And this other brother lives here and his wife in Dallas.”

  “How do they make that work?” Lucy asked. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Well, they trust, first of all,” Elliott explained. “But one guy, the guy who lives in Chicago, he comes home almost every weekend. He’s spending a lot of money on flights. But they don’t have any kids and both are career people and so they have the money to do it.

  “The others, I don’t know how often they actually see each other. But here’s the thing: They all say it’s tough, but all say not being together every day keeps their marriage fresh. They miss each other, so when they get together there’s no time or interest in the bullshit other marriages might go through. They are just about each other.”

  “Yeah, but what about the time when they aren’t together?” Lucy asked.

  “An idle mind, huh?” Elliott said.

  “I don’t want to even get into having too much freedom to see other people,” she said. “I’m talking about plain missing them so much, doing something spontaneous during the week. Not being able to do that, having to plan everything, would eat me up.”

  “I’m sure they are conditioned to it to some degree,” Elliot said. “You can get used to anything. After so many years, I got used to being in prison. And I got used to being sick with cancer. I got used to being hurt by our marriage breaking up.”

  Lucy did not respond. “Are you here?” Elliott said.

  “Can I be totally honest with you?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Anyway,” she said, dismissing his response, “I said all that I said—and I know it was a lot—to say that I miss you,” Lucy revealed. She waited for Elliott to say something. When he didn’t, she continued.

  “I have to be honest with myself and say that, admit that. I’m alone because anyone I meet I compare to you, and they fall short. Or I fall short of feeling about them as I do you. I know you’ve moved on. But I wanted you to know that I love you. I still love you and always will.”

  Elliott disbelieved what he heard. He and Lucy had not seen each other in more than a year and hardly spoke to each other. Their breakup was unique in that there were not the ugly fights that came with it. In fact, Elliott wanted to stay in the house and at least attempt to get beyond the deal-breaking issue. Lucy insisted he move out.

  Moving on was another issue altogether. It was hard to do because he loved Lucy. He believed in the idea that an affair did not have to indicate a love interest, just something extra to do. Lucy believed in that notion as well, but she was unable to resolve it in her mind as an excuse to betray the marriage.

  So, at her direction, Elliott moved from their home in Southwest Atlanta, stayed at the W hotel for a week and decided to purchase a place there.

  “Lucy, I told you I loved you the day I moved out and I haven’t stopped loving you,” he said. “And I don’t want to not love you. You’re in my blood. But we’ve been through a lot, unfortunately. I would never had expected this for us, to be honest… But, anyway, I’m glad we’re talking. We should talk more.”

  “Well, how about lunch one day?” she said.

  “That can’t hurt, can it?”

  “I don’t bite,” Lucy said.

  “I remember,” Elliott answered.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SMH, OMG, LOL

  Elliott spent much of Sunday at home alone, watching television, preparing a speech for an Innocence Project event and pondering his conversation with Lucy. Her interest in seeing him stunned Elliott. He had long since dismissed any hope of reconciling.

  For three months he aggressively pursued Lucy, pleading with her to give their marriage another chance. She refused, even though every instinct in her told her to give in.

  Finally, he told her, “You win. You’re making a big mistake. And one day you will realize it.”

  That day, apparently, was Sunday morning. And it messed with his head. For all his dismissing of Lucy, she stayed in his heart. He was amazed that one phone call from her after three years shook his foundation.

  Losing her was one of the low points of his life. Prison time as an innocent man was at the top, followed by his bout with cancer. But his failed marriage to the one woman that struck his chord beat him up. Lucy expressing an interest in seeing him conjured up all those emotions. The last time he saw her, a year or so earlier, she barely made eye contact at a mutual friend’s wedding.

  He was so disappointed that he did not attend the wedding reception. He could not bear enduring her dismissive nature toward him. He recalled leaving with an empty feeling, as if it would have been better to not see her at all.

  They had a few brief phone conversations since that day, but they all centered around their children and money. Emotionless. And yet, one call from her a year later moved him.

  He was still in love with her.

  He had planned to attend a Remy Martin tasting event near the King Plow Arts Center, but instead stayed home. He had leftovers from Saturday’s dinner with Daniel and Danielle and was so overwhelmed by Lucy’s conversation that he forgot to give Tamara the obligatory day-after-sex call.

  So, she called him.

  “See, this is what I’m talking about,” she said when he answered the phone. “Niggas start taking you for granted when they know you really like them.”

  “Who? Nigga? That’s what you called me?” he said. “What if I said, ‘Bitches start making assumptions before they know what’s going on?’ How would you like that?”

  “Oh, so I’m a bitch now?” she said.

  “I’m a nigga now?” he asked. “Listen, there’s a big age gap and, apparently, a communication gap, too. But I want to be clear about something so this isn’t an issue again: Don’t call me names, especially that one. I treat you with the utmost respect. That’s how you talk to your homeboys, fine—but not to me. You show your age when you jump to conclusions. You don’t know what the hell is going on with me. First thing you do is ask a question before you start running off at the mouth. Make sense to you?”

  Tamara was angry, but mostly humiliated. He made her feel like a chastised kid, which she really hated because of the age difference. She wanted to bridge the gap by being mature. That was important to her in dealing with Elliott and other older men of her past.

  The way to make amends was to handle the situation maturely, she thought. And so she did. “I’m sorry, Elliott,” Tamara began. “I was out of line. I hope everything is okay with you. I was expecting a call from you because I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed being with you last night. And I wanted to invite you to an event next weekend. Oh, and I’m sorry I called you a…called you that name.”

  Elliott smiled. “Thank you for that, you little sexy bitch.”

  Tamara laughed and he laughed with her. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you before now. A couple things had my attention. But the day isn’t over and I don’t want you to turn into this over-the-top, crazy woman when you think I have wronged you.”

  “Okay, okay. I get it,” she said. “I just can’t take no…no man disrespecting me.”

  “I wouldn’t disrespect you,” he said. “Long before you were born I learned the value of making that call the day after sex. That’s the easiest thing to do, although many guys don’t have the sense to make the call. But I got you.”

  They chatted f
or a few minutes before Tamara had to go. He was glad to hear her say that, and even laughed when she ended the call by saying, “I’ll call you tomorrow…nigga.”

  Elliott contemplated calling Lucy, but thought better of it. If her attitude varied from earlier, he would be disappointed. He, in fact, was mad at himself for being hopeful of a chance to get her back. He had become an expert at giving up hope.

  When he was locked up in Lorton and watched, however briefly, a man get raped, any hope for being free disintegrated in that moment. He became an inmate that morning. All his posturing and all his talk of not succumbing to being a criminal dissipated. The only way for him to survive was to let go of hope and accept his plight.

  Although he had not committed a crime, he lived in prison among real-life criminals. The only way to make it was to adopt the same principles by which they lived, which was to be a savage when necessary. But to be that way required he give up all hope of ever being free.

  He tried not to think about it, but when he looked at where he was in relation to where he had been, Elliott was proud of himself. The inhumanity of prison breaks men, whether they are criminals or not. In nearly twelve years, he was transformed into something different, someone different. He almost killed one man with a prison-made knife out of a toothbrush. Sent the guy to the infirmary for three weeks with multiple stab wounds. Why? Because the guy claimed Elliott had stolen a pack of cigarettes and challenged him in a gym full of inmates.

  Elliott had to make the guy pay or he would have been considered weak and made a target by anyone looking for a patsy. So he did what he had to do. That was required. That was the culture.

  That time in prison rotted a huge part of his soul, and he spent many nights crying silently in his prison cell. When the Innocence Project took his case and provided DNA test results that proved he was not a criminal, Elliott showed the kind of fortitude many men could not muster.