Even Sinners Have Souls

by Joy, E. n.

  "Now, gimme my extra point," Vince said as he got out the bed to shower before heading over to the practice field. He'd made love to her the entire night, without a wink of sleep, and Porsche was whipped to the max. Her lips were swollen and tender from kissing her husband's entire body all night long, but she picked her head up off the damp pillow and gave her husband a hot, deep kiss anyway.

  "I'm coming home early," Vince promised with a wink before he disappeared behind the door.

  But Vince didn't come home early, and by the time Porsche was ready to go to bed that night, he still wasn't in. She had called his cell phone a half dozen times and left messages, but he wasn't picking up. The next morning she woke up to an empty spot next to her in the bed, and by that evening, she had jumped from mad to scared, then back to mad again. She was still blowing up his phone, but now it was rolling straight to voice mail, which meant he had turned it off. Something wasn't right. Maybe it was that spirit of discernment thing again.

  Porsche wasn't religious by any means, but she believed in God. She had witnessed both her father and grandmother's close relationship with God and felt that maybe she had inherited a relationship with Him as well on GP. Perhaps God had given her the gift of discernment, but all she knew was that right now, the feeling she had was scaring her.

  She began to say a silent prayer that nothing bad had happened to her husband. While praying, all of a sudden she was reminded of when Vince had disappeared before and cut off all contact with her. But that was back when he was still in college and before they got married, she reasoned. No way would he pull some- thing like that again.

  But that one Saturday night kept tugging at Porsche's brain. That night Vince had turned off his phone and got ghost on her, and the dumb decisions he had made that night had almost cost him his college scholarship. Through it all, Porsche was the one who had stood by his side and held on to him while he sweated it out and wondered if all his dreams were about to go up in smoke.

  But it seemed like God was always good to Vince. He'd slipped outta that trick bag squeaky clean, and that's when he had vowed to sit back and get his life right.

  A few of Vince's college buddies had made it into the NFL too. He still hung out with some who Porsche thought coulda been a bad influence on him if he wasn't so strong in their marriage, but Vince knew better now. Those guys didn't really care about their wives and didn't have anybody else in their lives to answer to, not even God. Not that Vince was a saint or anything, but he too, like Porsche, at least believed in God while some of his teammates were straight up devil's advocates.

  Porsche had tried to be cool whenever Vince's friend's came over, but she wasn't feeling them and she wasn't even trying to fake the funk. After a minute, they figured out they weren't welcome in her home, so they would call Vince and try to get him out of the house to play cards or shoot pool, or do whatever else it was that rich, professional football players did when there were no groupies hanging around stroking their egos. Jerrard was the only one who still showed his face, and that was probably because Vince had made him their daughter's godfather the moment they found out she was pregnant.

  Porsche flipped through all the local news stations, and when there was no live report about her husband, she was relieved. If Vince had been in a car accident, or hurt during practice, then the press would have been hounding him on the way to the hospital and head coach Beeker would have been standing at her door ready to take her straight to wherever he was.

  Scheming, Porsche dialed the team's administrative line and listened to the phone ring five times. A recording came on saying they were closed for the day and to call the head coach if there was a team emergency. Acting on impulse, she blocked her phone number from caller ID, then called Coach Beeker's house. When he answered the phone sounding regular, she hung up and started trying to put the pieces together.

  She was hot. All this worrying she was doing and Vince wasn't somewhere sick or hurt, and he wasn't stuck in a crashed car, or sitting in the management office having a two-day meeting either. So where was he?

  Porsche sat holding the phone in one hand and the baby monitor in the other, wondering what to do. Sharita had gone out to drink with a few of her girls from around their old way.

  "Give the man some breathing room, Porsche," she'd said on her way out the door. "The only one who can sit up in this crib twenty-four-seven and not go crazy is you."

  Even though her mother was usually right when it came down to men, Porsche wasn't trying to hear all that noise tonight. Something wasn't right and she could feel it in her bones. Seville was downstairs with his friends blasting rap music in his homemade studio. The baby was upstairs crying her head off in the crib, and Mercedes was sitting on the floor in her pajamas rocking back and forth and staring at a television that wasn't even turned on.

  For a hot second, Porsche thought about getting a few cell phone numbers off the team roster and calling his boys to track Vince down, or putting Joy in her car seat and driving around to look for him. She even thought about calling nosey Nailah with her hating self, but she didn't wanna come off looking desperate or out of pocket. Once Nailah got a whiff of drama, she would twist the whole thing up. The last thing Porsche wanted was for a rumor to get out that Vince's wife was a hard- core ghetto Shaqueeta, driving around with rollers in her hair looking to snatch him out of the club. She knew Nailah would make it seem like that. But Porsche wasn't low like that, Vince wasn't grimy like that, and their relationship wasn't crazy like that either.

  So where was her man?

  ***

  Vince came home in the middle of the night.

  Porsche had been tossing and turning with her eyes wide open. When she heard him coming up the marble steps, she turned on her side and played sleep until Vince walked into the room.

  His footsteps echoed, and Porsche could feel him staring down at her. She was confused and sweating mad, but she kept her eyes closed until he turned away and walked toward the bathroom.

  He stayed in the shower a long time. When he got in the bed he sighed, then turned his back to her. That's when Porsche saw them; the scratch marks. Two of them. On the back of his left shoulder.

  Two nights of all worry and no sleep caught her straight in the gut, and Porsche couldn't stop the tears. She lay there crying in her soul and soaking her pillow, as her creeping-behind husband drifted off into a peaceful, relaxed sleep.

  Chapter Four

  If Porsche thought the last few days had been bad, they were nothing compared to a day later when she got a call from Nailah.

  "Girl, I sure hope you sitting down because I just heard something that's gonna rock you off your feet."

  Just by the sound of Nailah's voice, Porsche knew she was probably gonna end up regretting this conversation. Nailah was too jealous and conniving. They had hung out a little when they were younger, but Nailah was always sippin' haterade. Her man, Jerrard, wasn't a starter, so he didn't make the kind of money Vince made, and he didn't get the endorsements Vince got either. But Nailah was a starter, all right. She was a mess starter who liked to stir up dust and make sure other people got real dirty.

  "You know that white girl Alexis that Tony Fuller is banging? That groupie chick with the big boobs who already been passed around to half the team?"

  Porsche knew who she was talking about. The girl was young. A college chick. Tony had brought her to a pre-season party and all the wives had been up in the bathroom talking about her like a dog. They had called the girl a nasty skank, saying she had herpes and had already given it to three guys on the team. Porsche hadn't been down with all the gossip, but the girl had looked grimy. It was obvious that she was a profession- al groupie who was after the thickest wallet she could find. But if the brothahs on the team were too stupid to see pass all them fake boobs and stringy blond hair, then Porsche wasn't mad at the girl.

  "Yeah, I remember her. Why?" Porsche replied.

  "Why? Because she told somebody your man Vince did a Kob
e Bryant on her, that's why. She said my man, Mica's man, Jarrie's man, and Telisha's man did her too!"

  Porsche was stunned silent. She knew Nailah was a mouthpiece, but she had crossed the last line because the stuff she was talking today was all the way extra. What she was saying could ruin lives and destroy careers.

  "Look, Nailah," Porsche said sharply. She got up from the table and walked into the living room so Sharita couldn't hear her. "I don't know what's going on in y'all households, or how Blue, Farad, or the rest of them trifling football heads are rolling, but don't drag Vince into no mess. Vince has a family, and that's what he's about; family. He don't hang with them idiots, and he don't hang with dirty white girls, neither. So don't call my house with no bull, you got me?"

  Nailah hollered in her ear. "This ain't no bull, Porsche! This is real. That girl is claiming they raped her. She said they pulled a freakin' train on her! The only reason I know is because Jerrard stayed out for two nights straight. I told him I was gonna divorce him and his punk-behind broke down and told me."

  "Told you what?"

  "He told me they did her. Five of them, and he said Vince was in on it too. Jerrard said Alexis was pissy drunk and got up on the pool table and started strip- ping. Then one of the guys wanted a lap dance, and you know how fools are when they juiced up. Everybody wanted a lap dance."

  "She's lying, Nai. If it was true, she woulda called the cops. All of them would be in handcuffs right now instead of out there running around in jerseys."

  "Alexis is in the hospital, Porsche. I went up there today and she told me the whole story. That girl got more than train-banged. She got banged up. They did her bad. Real bad.

  "They? Not Vince."

  Porsche's mind was speeding. Why would Vince need to steal some booty from a white girl? She took real good care of her man in the sheets and she could thank Sharita and her endless instructions for that. Besides, Porsche had squeezed every drop of juice outta her man the night before he disappeared and early that next morning too. He didn't have no flavor left in him to be giving up to nobody. Not Vince.

  "Anyway, like I said, the lap dance got nasty," Nailah went on. "Real nasty. Alexis said Blue snatched off her thong. The girl got up on something and started strip- ping. All of them drunk-behind hounds got to barking, then somebody had to go and call for a play. 'On-side kick!' got yelled out real loud, and you know what hap- pened next. They jumped all over that freaky blond and rode her out till they were dry."

  Porsche's ears were ringing. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her mouth was dirt-dry.

  "W-w-why would they do something like that? W-w- who called out the play?"

  Nailah sucked her teeth. "Oh don't start acting all extra, like you Miss Sweet Polly-Porsche or something. You only blind when you wanna be, Porsche. This ain't the first time this kinda thing went down and it probably won't be the last time, neither. Who called the play? You know good and well who called the play! The same nut who called for it the last time a sleazy white girl got hit by a speeding train. Your man called it!"

  ***

  As hard as it was for Porsche to admit it, Nailah probably had been telling the truth. At least part of it. This wasn't the first time Vince had been accused of something crazy like this. Porsche wanted to go into denial, but it was impossible. What Nailah said had got- ten all in her head, and she couldn't even fight it as her mind jetted back to the day when that other chick had gotten caught in a bad play.

  Vince was a sophomore in college and he was already shining with star power, even back then. He was big, fine, black, and had future prospects, so it was only right that most of the chicks in his school were trying to clock him.

  Porsche had only been a junior in high school at the time, but she was up on life. She knew most females could smell a good thing ten miles away and that there wasn't no shame involved when it came to snatching somebody's man.

  And the chicks on her man's jock were straight scandalous too. They pulled all kinds of stunts to get Vince's attention. They slept outside of his dorm room and stood screaming under his window with their shirts pulled up. Them heffahs hung their stank, nasty thongs on his doorknob, and even sent him x-rated emails, with butt-naked videos attached, just to show him what they were working with.

  But not only was Vince up on their little head games and smart enough to dodge those gold-digging bullets, his coaches had gotten him a handler; a mentor who was paid to steer him away from those off-the-field distractions and keep him straight on, and off, the football field.

  And that's why when Nailah, Porsche's so-called friend from back in the day, had rolled up in her face spittin' yang with a rumor about Vince and Jerrard banging some white girl up at their school, Porsche wasn't even trying to hear it.

  "Yeah, Miss Porsche," Nailah had said, sounding all happy as she chewed a fat piece of watermelon gum. She was grinning like a mug.

  "I already know Jerrard can be grimy, but you, on the other hand; you be walking around acting like Vince is Mister Untouchable or somebody. He ain't no smarter than the rest of them thug-holes on the block. And if this mess gets out, both him and Jerrard can forget about the NFL, 'cause that's where they gonna end up too. Right back on the block."

  "Nailah, please. You don't even know if it's true," Porsche had told her.

  "It's true. That girl said Vince hollered, 'on-side kick.' before he tapped that tail, and then almost every cat on the football team jumped on top of her and got them some too."

  Porsche had taken the grimy charge straight to Vince, after talking with Nailah.

  "Yo, that white girl is lying. I never touched her," Vince had tried to convince Porsche.

  "Well, Nailah said all of y'all touched her. Even Jerrard. Nailah said you was the one who called the play on the girl."

  "You listening to Nailah?" Vince shook his head like he couldn't believe the noise she was making. "That Patrone chugging skank? What have I told you about your so-called friends, Porsche? How many times I gotta say it? Them jawns always gonna be coming at your throat, 'cause every last one of them wishes they could be you."

  "Nailah ain't the only one who said it, though. And what about the white girl? I don't even know her. What? She's lying on you because she wishes she was me too?"

  Vince just waved his hand. "That skinny ho ain't nothing but a groupie," he said. "And I ain't the first athlete she accused of raping her, neither. She said the same thing about three dudes on the basketball roster last year. She ended up eating that claim after mad players and coaching staff testified that the dudes were at a team practice during the entire time she claimed they was holding her down and knockin' her boots."

  Porsche still hadn't been sure at that moment, but she loved Vince and she trusted him too.

  "C'mon, Lady P," Vince had said and hugged her to his chest. "You knew it was gonna be like this, baby. If you getting shook on me now about something small like this, how you gonna handle stuff when I make it into the NFL? There's gonna be mad women all over me, Porsche. It's gonna get even worse. You see how they do professional athletes. Especially white girls. They already following me around, tryna get all up in my grill. Them gold diggers act like I'm supposed to be tryna get at them. But I'm not. The only woman I'm tryna get with is you. I swear, baby. I ain't never even gave that crazy girl a second look, forget about letting her get some of this package." Vince had pressed against Porsche, let- ting her feel what he had waiting for her. "This package is yours, Porsche. All yours. You ain't never gotta worry about me letting no other girl violate your space like that."

  Vince had undressed her slowly, whispering sexy words and telling her how much he loved her and how good he was about to make her feel. A few minutes later, Porsche was butt naked as he lifted her into his strong arms. He held her like she weighed less than twenty pounds. His muscles bulged, but he barely strained at all. He moved forward, carrying her for several steps, and Porsche shivered when her back was pressed against a cool wall. He loved her just li
ke that, up against a wall, and for the time being, Porsche had for- gotten all about the drama and got lost in the pleasure of her dreams.

  Days later, Porsche had still wondered if Vince would lose his scholarship over the alleged rape claim, but a week later the girl choked up and retracted her statement and the whole incident got deaded and buried.

  "Them coaches musta got to her," Nailah had told Porsche, nodding her head like she was absolutely sure. "They tore her off. Probably a nice little chunk, too. Vince is their meal ticket, so you know they wasn't gonna let him go out like that. The rest of them cats rode free based on Vince. Them coaches is shiesty and all they see is NFL money. Forget about the poor chick who got dug out on her back. She don't even matter."

  In Porsche's heart, the girl did matter. But she was pass listening to Nailah. That chick had been just too excited when she thought Vince's future was dead, and that him and Porsche would be tied down in the ghetto forever, next to her and Jerrard.

  More than three years had passed since then, and now Vince and Jerrard were back in the same kind of trouble again and Porsche found herself replaying that college incident over and over in her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't shake it, and she couldn't stop connecting the dots between what had happened back then and what was happening again right now.

  The next day Porsche's heart was pumping red Kool- Aid as she stood in the doorway of Alexis's hospital room. She hadn't bothered to take this new charge to Vince because she didn't know if she could trust what he might say. She was scared that he might lie to her. His team had finally won a game and they were putting in extra practices. He stayed gone most of the time, and when he was home, he dropped into bed exhausted. Porsche stayed quiet and acted like she hadn't heard a thing. Vince didn't act any different and he didn't mention the trouble to her either.