by M. T. Pope
“Really? Here?” Acting surprised was second nature tome.
“Sure did, but he didn’t see me, and if he did see me, he didn’t recognize me or say anything to me.”
“Why would he? He probably tries to screw people over all of the time. I’m sure he has a long list of haters . . . maybe even too many to remember.” He laughed and so did I. We hopped in the car and pulled off toward home.
Part 3
Dropping the Bomb
Chapter 24
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
I walked around my house in my boxers and a V-neck T-shirt. I was doing a whole bunch of nothing. I was prolonging doing what I knew I had to do. I walked into my dining room and looked at the box that was sitting on my table. It was wrapped up and ready to go. All I had to do was have it delivered. I had arranged for someone to drop it off since I didn’t want to deliver it by mail. I didn’t want to be seen anywhere near his house.
Today was the day that I was going by the photo repair shop to pick up my picture of my father. I had called a few days ago to check and see if the old man was back and sure enough he was. He said that the picture would be ready by yesterday. He also told me that it was not perfect but I could make out the person’s face in the picture very well. I was excited and nervous as well. What would I do with the picture? I mean, it was just a picture. It wasn’t a social security number or something like that where I could do an Internet check on it or something. A picture is just a picture.
I got myself together after a few more minutes and exited my house to carry out my missions. The sun was shining bright so I was hoping that was a good sign for the events of today.
I drove to a secluded area in Druid Hill Park, where I met up with my secret buddy and gave him the package along with half his fee. I pulled off with a smirk on my face. It felt good to move on with the next part of my life and forget about him. I knew for a fact that I would not be hearing from Jarrod ever again. I made sure to have the guy text me a picture of the package sitting on the front of Jarrod’s home. I let him know that Jarrod usually worked the nightshift and got home in the morning. I told him to make sure he saw Jarrod leave before he left the package. It would be on and popping for sure. Planning payback is something I tell you. It’s hard work and takes precision and skills. I am grateful that I had all of those. I pulled off toward my next destination.
Twenty minutes later . . .
I pulled up to the photo restoration shop and breathed a sigh of relief. I was finally going to see what my father looked like, or at least a piece of him. I exited the car and strolled across the two-lane street toward the shop. My stomach was doing a couple of flips, so I stopped in front of the shop to get myself together mentally. I didn’t know what to expect. A few more brief seconds and I opened the door to the shop. The old-fashioned bell chimed as I entered the small establishment for the third time. The old man, with a slower pace than the first time I met him, came from back behind the curtains that led to the back of the business.
I hope he got my picture right, I thought selfishly.
“Well, hello there, young man.” He smiled. “Glad to see you back.”
“I can say the same for you.” I was partially concerned for his health, but most of my attention was focused on the small manila envelope that was on the counter in front of me and him. It had my name on it, so I knew that it was mine. Both my hands fumbled around in my pants pockets waiting to get my hand on the envelope. I wanted to snatch it off the counter and open it up in anticipation. But, no, I waited. I waited until he told me about his procedure, his son, his recovery, and how much he wanted to get back to his work while he was in recovery. I smiled the whole time as he took his time and told me about his whole ordeal. How he fell down in the back room with chest pains and crawled across the floor and barely made it to the phone. I pretended like I cared because I hoped he cared enough to do his best with my picture.
“Sorry to burn your ear with all this talk, young man.” He picked up the envelope with my name on it and handed it to me. “I just love my job. I love completing a job and having a satisfied customer. I always aim to please.”
“Well, I don’t mind at all, sir.” I put the picture inside of my jacket pocket that was just big enough for it to fit with a little hanging on the outside. “I am glad that I came to this shop and I am sure you did an excellent job on my picture.”
I reached inside my back pocket and handed him a forty dollar tip.
“No, you don’t have to do that.” He pushed my hand back toward me.
“No, I insist.” I motioned my hand over his and closer to him.
“Well, okay.” He smiled as he took the money and placed it in his pocket.
“Have a great day.” I turned and made my way toward the front door.
“You are not going to open it and check out my work in front of me?”
I turned to see a look on his face that spoke of curiosity. I guessed he wanted to see my reaction to his work. “No, I know that you did a good job. Have a good one.” I exited the shop and went to my truck. I hopped in and then started it. I wanted to open it right then and there but I decided to wait until I got home. I wanted to be in the privacy of my own home when I did. I didn’t want to get emotional or anything like that out in public. I wanted to bond with the picture in private.
When I got to my house I barely made it in my driveway fully before I was out of my truck and headed into my house.
I walked into my kitchen, took the envelope out of my pocket, and placed it on the table. I then took my jacket off and hung it on the back of one of the chairs that was stationed at the table. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Deer Park Water and then sat down at the table with the envelope in front of me.
Open it! . . . Open it! . . . Open it! . . . My mind kept on chanting as I sat there looking at it . . . staring at it... fondling it with my eyes. Maybe I didn’t want to open it because it would be over for me and there would be nothing left for me to look for. I would have proof of him in front of me . . . the proof that I needed all along.
I eased my hand over to it, felt it up like it was a clean-shaven man’s face, and then slowly eased it back toward me. It seemed like forever as I plucked open the silver clasps that held it closed, and removed the picture.
For the next few seconds my breath was caught in my throat. What I saw on the picture blew my mind. My heart started to race and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stuffed the picture back into the envelope, retrieved my coat from the back of the chair, and exited my house within seconds.
I pulled out to my mother’s house in all of seven minutes from a normal fifteen-minute ride. I was outraged. She was the only one who could answer the burning question on my mind right now.
I was up the front steps and in the house in seconds.
“Ma! . . . Ma! . . . Maaaa!” I was yelling almost like Tarzan up her steps.
After a few seconds of getting no response, I roamed the house in search of her. I finally found her in the backyard sitting Indian style in the middle of the yard with some weird music playing. She was swaying from side to side like she had lost her damn mind. It reminded me of the scene in What’s Love Got To Do with It: the part when Angela Bassett was doing all of this chanting and mess like she had lost her mind.
I sat there for a few seconds and watched this episode that I had never experienced before. My mother never told me that she had converted to anything. But that was a subject for another day.
I pushed the door open and took myself down the steps with authority that only God could counter.
“Why did you keep this from me?” I had taken the picture out of my pocket and damn near shoved it in her mouth.
“Boy, what’s wrong with you . . . coming at me like you have lost your damned mind?” It took her a minute to get herself together and get up. She struggled a bit, but I didn’t even help her. I was that mad. I was hurt and I was angry.
She walked past me and g
rabbed her little iPod /radio gadget and went into the house.
I followed right behind her. “So you’re not going to answer me?” I was on her like she stole something from me.
She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a Snapple drink and then sat down. She was so calm for someone in the position she was is in right now. I had her and she knew it.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you dating my father’s sister? Why did you let me find out this way? You could have just told me.”
“You don’t know shit about shit, okay?” She sipped on her tea and looked at me. I stared her down like we were at the O.K. Corral and there was a showdown at dusk.
“I know you are two some sick folks up in here. What did he do? Die? Go to Jail? What?” I banged on the table so hard the salt and pepper shakers that were on it fell over. I was tired of the secrets and the lies. “How are you going to give me a picture of Angie’s brother and not think I would put two and two together? They are almost like twins except my father has a mole by his lip.” I almost slipped up and called her a ho for dating a brother and a sister, but that would have been disrespectful.
“You got that picture, didn’t you?” She looked at me and spoke calmly. The corner of her mouth twitched a little, letting me know that the peace that she had earlier was leaving and quickly.
“And that is not enough. I want the truth . . . the whole truth.”
“‘You can’t handle the truth.’” She said it just as seriously as Jack Nicholson did in the movie A Few Good Men.
“You don’t know what I can handle.” I thought my head rolled on my shoulders like my name was Keisha or something ghetto.
“I think you better take your leave before I put you out.”
My mouth dropped. My mother had never—I mean, never—forced me out of her house. I got up from the table, knowing it was better to just go home and cool off.
“All right, I’m leaving, but this is not over. You’re going to tell me everything I want to know. Believe that.”
“Hmmmm, don’t hold your breath.” She smirked as I looked at her one final time and took my leave from her house.
Chapter 25
Bedridden
The next day I was on the job, trying my best to do my best on this house that needed a few cabinets installed. Things were back to normal, meaning no more plotting and scheming, just living and working. I was still pissed at my mom and I knew that she may have felt the same way. I just couldn’t believe that she was seeing my damn aunt. Ain’t that some shit.
Anyway, I was in the house of a man whose wife was severely disabled and bedridden. She had tubes in her and all types of stuff beeping. It made me a little nervous and I had to go into the room. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. He looked to be in his mid-forties and he was a cutie with a bald head. I really didn’t have a lot to do in the house but for some reason I was prolonging the job. I just didn’t want to go home and find that Carlos was busy with Carla.
On my last trip in the room the guy was sitting next to his wife, looking at a magazine.
“You got a girlfriend?” he asked me out of the blue.
“No.” I paused in what I was doing and looked at him.
“Boyfriend?” He cocked his head to the side in curiosity, then he picked up a cloth and wiped his wife’s drool that ran from the side of her mouth. Again, it made me feel somewhat weird being in the room with her in that condition. Sickness bothered me and like most men I shied away from it as much as possible.
“No.” I turned back around to finish putting a drawer in one of the cabinets I just installed.
“Oh, I sure am horny. It has been a long time since I got me a good nut off seeing as my wife is the way she is.”
I was so shocked I couldn’t even turn around, or comment for that matter. I just ignored it like he never said it.
“I could really use one right about now.”
The freak in me was all ears at this moment. It had been a minute for me as well. I had some frustration in me that I wanted to get out. The morals that I walked in the house with had instantly disappeared. I was horny and I didn’t care at the moment.
“You know what?” I turned around and looked at him in his eye. “Today is your lucky day, because I need a good nut too.”
His eyebrows rose as if to say, “Seriously?” I was all too serious. I loosened my tool belt and let it fall to the floor with a couple of clangs from the metal that hit the tiled floor. I walked over to where he was sitting in the chair next to his wife. He looked like he was still stunned that his needs were about to be met today. I got down on my knees in front of him and unzipped his loose-fitting jeans and reached in for his manhood. I pulled it out and worked it hard with my hand. His head was resting on the wall behind him and his mouth open involuntarily. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out a condom, opened it, and slipped it over his erect dick. A few moans escaped his mouth as I stuck the head of his penis in my month and licked the tip with my tongue.
“Damn!” he moaned, and reached for the back of my head. “Oh yeah!” He moaned again as I took all of him into my mouth. He didn’t have the biggest package, but I worked with what he had. I bobbed up and down on him and a few moans escaped his mouth again. I continued to do my thing with I heard another moan that I knew wasn’t his. I stopped and looked up at him.
“Oh, she does that from time to time. She’ll be fine. Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll tend to her when we finish.” I was a little shocked, but she was his wife and not mine, so I continued to do him.
“Stand up,” I commanded him. When he did, I pulled his pants all the way down. He took over control as he began to face fuck me like he was trying to put a hole in the back of my throat. A few minutes of that was enough for me. I pushed him away from me.
“Get on all fours on the bed,” I instructed. I walked over to my toolbox and pulled out another condom and strapped it on my dick.
“What are you doing?” He looked nervous . . . like he never took dick before. I didn’t care, because I wanted to take my frustrations out on his virgin ass.
“You said you wanted to get a nut, well, I want mine first and then you can get yours.”
“Okay.” He still looked hesitant, but did as I said. I liked being in charge. His wife was lying in a king-sized bed so there was enough room for me to beat it up and not really disturb her. I looked at the small monitors that sat next to her bed and wondered what happened, but I really wasn’t concerned with it. And from the look on the husband’s face as he watched me as I crawled onto the bed and positioned myself behind him, he didn’t care either. Right now he was probably more concerned with the pain that he was about to endure when I inserted myself into his behind.
I slowly pushed my way into him and he instantly tensed up, but I didn’t stop. I just pressed on, literally. A few minutes later and he started pushing back on me at full force. I was doing him at a rapid pace, working all of my stress out on him. He was moaning and I was grunting like a pig working out my nut. A few more pumps and I came right inside of him.
“Not bad for your first time taking some dick.” I got up from the bed and my eyes fell on his wife, whose eyes were open. He noticed me looking at her.
“Don’t worry, her eyes are open, but she can’t do anything,” he explained as he crawled out of bed. I had a twinge of guilt going on in my mind. “So now it’s my turn.” He rubbed his hands together like he was getting a good meal or a treat.
“Is this your first time doing this?” I usually didn’t ask these types of questions, but today was an exception.
“What? Sex?” He answered a question with a question.
“No. Gay sex. Letting a man fuck you.” I looked at him plainly.
“Yeah, it’s my first time.” He looked like it was an exciting thing to experience. I didn’t know how someone wanted to willingly try gay sex.
“Why now? Why try sex with a man after being married all this time?” I didn’t know where these questi
ons were coming from.
“I don’t know . . . I . . . I just wanted to do something new.” He looked silly to me just as he talked. He was truly clueless and oblivious to the dangers of sex with another man.
“Something new? So sex with a man is something new? New things are things like shoes, clothes, or a house. Not sex with a man. You don’t even know the half of what you just walked into. You have no clue what you just signed up for. Man, with all of these diseases floating out here and people getting killed from cheating and here you are standing there with a smile on your face like you just won the lottery. Man, you just need to walk away from all of this. Don’t start in on something you don’t have a clue about.” I had the nerve to have a conscience all of a sudden.
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and neither did I.
“So are you going to let me fuck you or not,” he finally spoke up.
“You still want to fuck me after all that I just said?” I wanted to punch him in the throat for asking me that question, even after all that I had said to him seconds ago.
“I’m a grown-ass man, I can handle myself, so you can lay off of the guilt trip.”
“You know what? Fuck you. I’m out of here.” I walked over to my pants, put them on, and then put on my shoes and my tool belt last. I walked down the hall to the bathroom to clean myself up a little.
He followed me, still naked.
“So you’re not going to let me fuck you?” It sounded like he was begging me more than questioning me, but I didn’t care. I was tired of doing married men. I didn’t know where it came from, but I was just tired of the same old same old. “You promised that I could fuck you after you fucked me.”
“Okay, and I changed my mind.” I looked at him seriously.
“Nah, man, you going to let me fuck you before you leave here.” He looked pissed off. I didn’t care. “You not going to fuck me and then walk off into the sunset. I want my nut!”
“Muthafucka, I am the nut and if you don’t want to end up like your wife in the other room then I suggest you leave me the fuck alone.” I had my hand on the hammer that was on my tool belt like I was a cop going for his gun.
