If This World Were Mine

by E. Lynn Harris

  Leland put his index finger on his lip, hummed for a moment, then looked at us and said, “Can I pick two?” And then without waiting for us to respond, he said, “Of course I can, this is my house. Angela Bassett and Sheryl Lee Ralph.”

  “Why?” Riley asked.

  “ ’Cause they’re both beautiful Black women who look Black and carry themselves like Black princesses. And because Donald and I saw Sheryl Lee in Dreamgirls over twenty-five times and each time we waited at the stage door and got her autograph and she took pictures with us. And she was always very nice,” Leland said.

  “Would you sleep with either one of them?” Dwight asked.

  “Sure. I’d sleep with them both. I wouldn’t have sex with them, but it would be a hoot to have a sleepover with them. I’d have them do scenes from their work. Like having Miss Angela dance like she did in What’s Love Got to Do With It and then I’d have her destroy my closet with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth à la Waiting to Exhale. And Sheryl Lee and I would sing “When I First Saw You” and then I’d have her do a scene from Mistress. Did any of you guys see that movie? Miss Sheryl was fierce! If you haven’t seen it, then rent it.”

  “I don’t have any questions for you. You’ve answered them all,” I said. I think we were all tired from Leland’s nonstop oration.

  After Dwight and Riley left, Leland and I were in the kitchen putting away food and cleaning up. We talked about how Riley seemed a little happier than usual. I was happy that she didn’t mention the singing engagement, because she was not going to like my answer. I knew it would be a miracle if she never brought it up again. Leland joked about her new love on the computer and said he thought about going on the net to find one or running a personal. When he talked about his trouble in finding someone to date, I asked him if he ever thought he’d meet someone he would love as much as Donald.

  “I don’t know if that’s what I’m looking for. I just want somebody I can turn to and hold, you know, after I hang up the phone from talking with you or Uncle Doc. My memories of Donald are so special that most times it’s enough,” he said.

  “But how long are your memories going to be enough?” I asked.

  “Until I meet someone who’ll help me make new memories,” he said.

  Leland made some coffee and the two of us sat at the dining room table and talked about the upcoming week. I was walking back into the kitchen to get another cup, when Leland called my name: “Yolanda, will you do something with me? Something I think will help me start making those new memories.”

  “Sure baby-boy. What can I do?”

  “Donald’s fortieth birthday is the last week of October. I’d like the two of us to go to New York and celebrate. I want to visit some of the places he and I shared. We’ll get a suite—maybe at the Four Seasons, and you and I will celebrate his birthday and his life. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Do you want me to get my travel agent to make the plans?”

  “No, I want to make all the plans myself. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “You think this is what you need, baby?”

  “It’s a start. And I’ve got to start somewhere,” Leland said as he took a long sip of his coffee and gazed out the window. That’s when I noticed a long tear sliding down his face. I started to ask what was wrong, but I got the feeling he wanted to be alone, so I poured my second cup back into the coffeepot, walked over to Leland, and stood behind him and rubbed his shoulders for a few minutes. I kissed him on the top of his head and whispered, “You’ll be fine, baby-boy. You’ll be fine.”

  Chapter 13

  I got one of those calls I had learned to dread from a patient. Taylor Wilson, a former family court judge from New Jersey, had called my service five times within an hour. I was with a patient, and when I called him about ninety minutes after his first call, I could hear the panic in his voice. He said, “Doc, I have to see you right away before I lose it.” I tried to find out what the problem was, but he insisted that he needed to see me in person. I had the receptionist switch around a couple of patients, and about an hour later Taylor was knocking on my office door.

  He was bothered. Taylor was huffing and puffing like he had run to my office. This patient, who was always dressed neatly, looked totally disheveled in wrinkled clothing.

  “Calm down, Taylor. Tell me what happened?”

  “I saw him. That motherfucker that ruined my life,” he said, and then took a long drag of his cigarette. Normally I didn’t allow patients to smoke in my office, but Taylor would have probably killed me rather than give up his smoke. He was pacing back and forth in the little area in front of my sofa.

  “Why don’t you sit down and tell me what happened,” I asked gently.

  “I can’t believe this motherfucker is following me,” he said.

  I stood up from my chair and placed my pad on the floor. When I started toward Taylor, he suddenly plopped on the sofa. I took a deep sigh of relief.

  “Okay, tell me about this guy.”

  “You know. The man who got me in the mess. The man who ended my career and my marriage. The reason I’m here right now,” he said while twisting his gold wedding band.

  “Are you talking about the football player that blackmailed you?”

  “Who else would I be talking about?” he shouted.

  “Come on now, calm down. You saw him here in Chicago? I thought you said he lived in New Jersey.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “No, the motherfucker didn’t even look my way. But I know it was him. I’ll never forget that smug, arrogant sonofabitch as long as I live,” he said as he reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out another cigarette.

  “Where did you see him?” Part of my strategy to calm a patient down is to focus on the details, the reality of what happened versus all those wild emotions that come pounding in.

  “Walking down Michigan Avenue, near the Water Tower. I was coming out of Borders bookstore when I saw him. He was looking in the window of Victoria’s Secret with some lady. I wanted to run up to the lady and tell her to leave this crazy motherfucker alone. That he would ruin her life. But I punked out. I wanted to run up and just start kicking his ass. All the shit he did to me, it just all came back. All my dreams up in smoke,” he said softly.

  I started to say, speaking of smoke, you’re going to give it up while you’re in my office, but I didn’t. For about ten minutes he went on ranting about how evil this man was. Taylor’s horn-rimmed glasses were too low on his nose and he kept pushing them up. Suddenly he stopped talking and stood up motionless for a second, his face vacant.

  “Are you all right?” I asked after a couple of minutes of silence.

  “I’m okay,” he said as his voice trailed off like smoke from his cigarette.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve talked about him. Tell me what happened.”

  Taylor told me the story he had shared on our first meeting. How he, a promising Family Court judge in Jersey City, New Jersey, married with a child, had met a handsome pro football player at the gym. He told me how the player had befriended him, offered to be his workout partner and teach him some of the exercises that kept his body in top shape. They had become fast friends and Taylor was attracted to the player. Until this meeting he didn’t consider himself gay or bisexual, since he was completely faithful to his wife. He told me in a later session that he had carried on a two-month affair with a fraternity brother his senior year of college but hadn’t been with a man since he had met his wife during his first year of law school. But the handsome football player had seduced my patient, and the two became engaged in a torrid month-long affair. From the way Taylor described the sex, meeting the man had turned him out. He said all he could do was think of this man and the next time they could get together for sex. He neglected his wife and child and his work. He had even come to the conclusion that he would leave his wife for this man, when he discovered he was a
pawn in a plan of revenge. It seems the player was getting a divorce from his wife of two years and didn’t want her to get any of his holdings. He figured Taylor would probably get his case and had set out to meet him for a game of seduction. When he mentioned to Taylor that he had a case coming up in his court and he hoped he would look toward him favorably, Taylor told him there was no way he could hear the case. That he would have to remove himself from his friend’s divorce case. That was when the old worm turned. The man threatened to expose Taylor and their affair, telling him he had taped phone conversations and even a video of the two of them getting busy. After days of deliberation, Taylor gave in and heard the case, granting his former bed partner a divorce without the penalty of alimony on the grounds that there were no children from the union. The player’s betrayal had led to a nervous breakdown for Taylor, who left his wife and child to return to his boyhood home of Chicago for recovery. I was under the impression that we were headed in that direction. Now this.

  “Do you really think he’s following you?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think he knows where you live? I mean, how could he know what happened after you heard his case? Didn’t you tell me that you didn’t talk with him after that?”

  “Yes, but he knows I’m from Chicago. In the early days of our meeting I told this man my entire history,” Taylor said.

  “Has he tried to contact you?”

  “No.”

  “Then I think you don’t have anything to worry about. Didn’t you tell me he ended the affair even though you wanted to continue?”

  “Yes, I must be a sick motherfucker to want to stay with that asshole after he played me like a fucking flute. But he changed my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when I met him and when he made love to me, it just opened a gate I thought was closed. It was like I was addicted to crack or something. I had to have him. My seemingly happy life with my wife suddenly seemed dull and lifeless. I would have done anything for him,” he sighed. His face looked as though he were watching the two of them make love. He smiled and then suddenly his face darkened with a frown.

  “It’s normal to think back on that time in your life. But you can’t let it destroy you again. I don’t think he’s looking for you. But if you really feel like you’re in some kind of danger, you can take some measures to protect yourself. Do you think he’s dangerous?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Really? Did he ever harm you physically?”

  “Not really. Just the one time when I threatened not to go through with his plan. We were in the gym, and he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me against the locker, telling me he’d kick my ass and then send the tapes to my wife. I can still see those gray eyes. Those eyes I once thought were so beautiful suddenly looked like they belonged to a wild animal,” Taylor said.

  Gray eyes? I suddenly thought of Yolanda’s new football-player friend with beautiful gray eyes. A thin film of sweat broke out over my body. This couldn’t be.

  “What was this guy’s name?” I tried to ask calmly, though my voice wavered a bit. Taylor noticed the change in my tone and gave me a curious look and said, “Basil Henderson. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. I just don’t remember you ever telling me his name,” I said as I looked at my watch. I was no longer worried about my patient, but my best friend. This had to be the same man Yolanda was falling for or had already fallen in love with. The charming man I had told her to go for with a vengeance. Taylor interrupted my frightened thoughts.

  “You probably don’t remember his name because I always referred to him as motherfucker this and motherfucker that. I tried to forget his name, his face, that dick. I tried for the last couple of years to forget his smile and those eyes. And just when I’m getting close, this motherfucker shows up again. You know but I ain’t scared of him. When I think about it, he’s just a weak, simple-minded motherfucker.”

  “I think it’s best not to let him affect you,” I said. What simple-minded advice, I thought. This Basil obviously had some kind of sexual energy and power.

  “Yeah, I hope the mutherfucker does come for me. This time I won’t punk out. I’ll kick his ass and then expose him. I wish I had gone up to the lady and warned her what a sick freak she was looking at with that look of love and lust. Women are so damn stupid.”

  I wanted to say men are too, but instead I said, “Time is up, Taylor. If you need me, just call my office and someone will page me immediately. I think you’ll be all right. But I will increase the dosage on your medication. Just in case you have trouble sleeping again.”

  “Yeah, do that, Doc. More medication.”

  When Taylor left my office, my first reaction was to call Yolanda. To tell her the dream boy could be a nightmare. I picked up the phone and punched in the first three digits to her number, when I realized I couldn’t tell her what I had just discovered. If I did, I would be breaking my professional oath. But Yolanda had to know.

  I sat at my desk for a few minutes, trying to figure out a way to tell her about Basil without breaking my oath. I started to call Taylor and tell him I knew the woman Basil was with and would he allow me to share the information with my friend. I quickly decided against that, although it wasn’t unethical. I had to consider my patient’s mental state. If he thought I knew Basil, his paranoia would go through the roof. I thought of writing an anonymous note to Yolanda and dropping it in the mail. But I didn’t know what to say, and I would still be breaking a doctor-patient confidence.

  Maybe I was losing my ability to spot men who were hiding something with their sexuality. When I met Basil, he displayed a quiet and confident macho image. Now, I know there are thousands and thousands of gay and bisexual men who are tough and strong, but I just didn’t pick up any vibe from Basil. Besides, I knew Yolanda always questioned the men she dated about being gay or bisexual. I had taught her how to ask the question and to recognize when she was getting the correct answer or an out-and-out lie.

  What if she hadn’t asked Basil this question, and if she did, what did he say?

  Chapter 14

  Let me make one thing clear. I am not gay. I’m not even what people call bisexual. I’m a pussy-loving, pussy-eating, one-hundred-percent man. Believe that. But I have on occasion strayed to the other side, for a purpose.

  I’ve used men for being the dogs that we are. I try my damnedest to punish them for the shit they do to women and for trying to mess over me when I didn’t know any better. I wouldn’t be talking about this shit if I hadn’t run into Raymond Tyler in Chicago. It really f’d up my entire weekend. I think I could have finally got the draws from Yolanda Saturday night, but I kept thinking about Raymond and that period in my life. Every time the phone rang, I flinched. After Yolanda fell asleep, I pulled his card out of my wallet and just stared at it. I started to tear it up and flush it down the toilet, but I decided to keep it. I was happy Yolanda didn’t bring his name up. Sometimes women start tripping when they find out their man knows somebody gay. Yolanda seems cool with gay men, but I know she’s not going to give up the draws to a man who goes both ways. When she asked me if I was gay or bi, I acted like I was convinced she was just teasing. I said, “I don’t roll like that.” It hasn’t come up again.

  I met Raymond in New York in the late eighties. He’s a cool brother, and, I must admit, I enjoyed his company. I dug Raymond because he’s not like a lot of faggot mofos I know. I catch them in the gym, trying to check out a brother’s kibbles and bits. I’ve run into them in locker rooms in both college and the pros. We used to call them DWs in college, which stands for dick watcher. A lot of that shit goes on in the locker room. But can’t nobody call me a DW. I keep my eyes on my own shit.

  When I was in college, some of my team supporters would give a brother a few dollars to let them suck you off. We used to call them jock sniffers. I was game ’cause I didn’t have much money. The way the NCAA rules work, I couldn’t work while I was playing coll
ege ball. So what was I supposed to do? I had to have my clothes together ’cause women have always loved the way I dress. My dad tried to help out, but he wasn’t making that much as a truck driver. My aunt Lois would send me a couple dollars every once in a while, but she had her own children to support. But these rich white boys had the ducats, and they didn’t mind sharing them with a good-looking brother like myself.

  Most of them were big shots in the community and married, so it wasn’t like I had to worry about them talking, like some do. I’ve had to bust a few sissies for approaching me the wrong way in public. I don’t know how my shit got out, ’cause I don’t mess around with a whole lot of men. There were two Black punks in college, but that was because I needed one of them to type a term paper for me, and the other one had the best reefer in Miami. Thank God I don’t smoke that shit anymore. When I’ve been with a dude, it wasn’t any of that crazy shit you hear about. Just them servicing me. I mean, I didn’t kiss them or anything. For me, kissing is serious, more so than sticking your dick in some warm place. I did kiss Raymond a couple of times, but like I said, he was different. Don’t ask me why, he just was. You’d never catch me laying up in bed with some guy reading the sports page. I don’t dig men that way.

  Man, I guess when this starts—it starts. When I got back to New York, there were a trio of messages on my machine from this dude, Monty. I used to kick it with him about a year ago. He’s in this hot R & B group, and his first message said he was just back from a European tour. I didn’t even notice the mofo was gone.

  I always figured Monty was cool, ’cause he had just as much to lose as I did. I met him at one of those Hollywood parties. I could tell he was a player like me. I mean, the women were all over him. And when the brother started singing—well, you could hear the panties dropping. I was a little surprised when he made his play for me, and it was kinda strange how he busted me.

  The two of us started hanging out whenever he’d come to the East Coast to record. We’d shoot hoops, go to the malls over in Jersey, and run the ladies at some of the clubs. Once, we had a three-way with this stripper we met at Champs, one of the tittie bars. Another time we got these two strippers to make out while we jacked off, watching. One evening we were hanging out pretty late, and Monty spent the night at my place ’cause it was raining and shit. I had a custom-made bed big enough for four or five mofos, so he really wasn’t putting me out. That’s when he made his move. First our knees accidentally bumped: Then I felt his toes touch mine. Then old boy pretended like he was asleep, and his hands started going places they didn’t have no business being. I knew what was up. But I didn’t give in. I started to say something to Monty the next morning, but I let it slide.