Apple Brown Betty

by Phillip Thomas Duck

  “You can always go back.”

  Jacinta laughed and shook her head. “Not me.”

  “So what got you dancing?”

  Jacinta shrugged. “A girl in one of my classes did it, was open and proud of it. She turned me out. And I found that I’m good at it. The money made it a no-brainer for me.”

  Desmond pinched his lips. “Oh.”

  “Disappointed are you,” Jacinta said. “You were hoping I had some tale of woe, that some abusive boyfriend pushed me, I had a terrible childhood, something like that. I didn’t.”

  “Why are you crying then, Jacinta?”

  “Because I’m still a victim of my circumstances, Desmond,” she said, emphasizing each word.

  “Which are?”

  “I love sex. I love the power my body and my movements have over men. On the other hand, I feel demeaned, cheated by my natural impulses. I wish I was the kind of woman that deserved a man like you. I wish I were normal. It would be so much easier if I were a man with these desires…”

  Desmond nodded. “Men do get off easy.”

  Jacinta turned to Desmond. “God, how I wish I deserved a man like you. I think I would stop dancing and make you a bunch of little babies, attend to your every need.”

  Desmond crinkled his nose. “Deserved? Don’t you think you’re shortchanging yourself? You’re making me out as some kind of saint. I come into Hot Tails to watch you when I should be tending to my business, or working to build on this relationship with my woman. I’m no different than any of the other men that come in to watch you. You’re a special woman, don’t shortchange that. And, by the way, I think you’ve got a lot more to offer than making somebody’s babies and attending to their every need.”

  Jacinta wiped away her tears and leaned in closer to Desmond. “I’m done analyzing myself for the day. Can you do something for me?”

  “Anything,” Desmond said.

  Jacinta touched his arm. “The thing about you, Desmond, that struck me right away was that I could see a certain appreciation in your eyes when you came to the club. Fear, too. You enjoy women, you enjoy sex. I gathered something about you, as if you thought it would be easier to enjoy us from afar. You’re fighting demons.”

  Desmond’s mouth dropped open. “How could you gather that?”

  Jacinta smiled. “I have the same fight, but like I said, it’s different when a woman has a large sexual appetite. I’m never going to own my own business and walk through society with my head held high.”

  “And why not, Jacinta?” Desmond wondered. “You’re beautiful, intelligent—”

  “A slut,” she said.

  “Stop it.”

  Jacinta reached for Desmond’s hands. “It doesn’t matter. I just want you to do one thing for me.”

  “Anything,” he said for the second time.

  “I know this is crazy but I want you to have sex me, Desmond, right here, just this once. I promise I won’t cause you any problems with your girlfriend. I just want to feel you inside of me. We’re two of a kind, you know.”

  Desmond frowned. “After all you just said, now you want to sex me, Jacinta? This is screwed up.”

  “Please, Desmond,” she cooed. “I need this. I know it’s screwed up. I’m screwed up, but I need you so much right now.” She pulled her sweater up above her breasts so they’d be on display. “Please! Don’t you want some of my stuff?”

  Desmond’s jaws tightened and he could feel himself hardening with erotic desire. The street was devoid of people, a ghost town. Jacinta reached down and grabbed a hold of that manly part of Desmond through his pants, a twinkle forming in her eye as she examined his girth. “Sure you want this. This is the evidence.”

  “I have a lady. I’m trying to build something special with her.”

  “I’m not looking to tear down that house,” Jacinta said. “Just looking to rent it for a brief moment.”

  “This isn’t right.”

  “Our little secret,” Jacinta assured him.

  Desmond hung his head and closed his eyes.

  Jacinta worked open his zipper.

  Slay paused at the sight of his mother’s apartment door cracked halfway open. He looked both ways up the hallway before inching forward. He never carried a weapon, knowing he’d never use one if he did carry it. He made a couple of baby steps and pushed in on the door. The darkness of the apartment met him. His mother’s radio was playing as usual. He stepped inside and looked around for something to grab. The closest thing at hand was a single broken-heeled shoe. He picked it up and walked toward his mother’s bedroom. He paused for a moment and then kicked in the door.

  “Waaaaa,” a voice yelled out in surprise.

  Slay dropped the hand he held the shoe with to his side. “Kenya, damn, you almost got yourself hurt, girl. I thought somebody broke in, the front door is open.”

  Kenya touched her chest, looked to the shoe in Slay’s hand. “Them Payless shoes is hard as hell but I don’t think it would have done much if I was in here boosting.”

  Slay smiled, dropped the shoe on the floor. “You got jokes.” He moved over to the bed where Kenya was wiping his mother down with a bath cloth. His mother was covered in sweat, rocking back and forth, her eyes concentrated on the ceiling. “How she doing?” Slay asked Kenya.

  “Look, see there,” Nancy said, grabbing Kenya strongly by the wrist. “Them buggers are huge, huge, huge, huge…”

  Kenya shook her head. “I don’t see anything, Ms. Nancy.”

  “What’s going on, Mama?” Slay said.

  Nancy looked toward the sound of his voice, recognizing him for the first time. “This stupid-ass girl of yours don’t care that my place is getting overrun by roaches. I keep telling her to kill ’em, kill ’em, kill ’em, kill ’em!” She jumped up suddenly and grabbed a magazine off the nightstand. “Bunk it, I’ll kill ’em myself.”

  Slay moved quickly to her side, took the magazine from her hand, sat her down. Nancy shot back up just as quickly. He sat her down again and she took a swing at him that he dodged.

  “She’s suffering,” Kenya told him.

  “I thought she was pulling herself up. She started taking better care of herself lately.” Slay put his arm on Kenya’s shoulder, looking down on his mother who’d commenced to rocking again, her eyes still trained on the ceiling as an angry scowl darted across her face.

  Kenya turned to him, leaned in, sniffed. “Where you been?”

  “Had to handle some business with a couple dudes from around the way,” Slay lied.

  “Them dudes must be some real faggots,” Kenya said, “’cause that’s some strong perfume I smell on you.”

  “I hope you ain’t getting jealous on me, Kenya.”

  Kenya turned away, shook her head.

  “Good,” Slay said. “Because I ain’t yours and you ain’t mine.”

  Kenya nodded.

  Slay clasped his hands together. “Finish washing her if you would and we can go ahead and get her somewhere.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to have to do this. Have them looking at my mother like she’s a junkie.”

  “She is, though, Slay.”

  He shook his head. “I know she is,” he said softly. “We’ll take her to the hospital and act like we don’t know what’s wrong with her…” His voice trailed off. He shook his head.

  Kenya moved closer to his mother and resumed wiping the sleep and mucus from around her eyes and mouth. Slay watched Kenya dabbing at his mother with a nurse’s care. His stomach churned because with each passing day it was becoming more and more painful to realize this was what his mother had become…and Kenya wasn’t his.

  “Those buggers are huge, huge, huge, huge,” Nancy called out.

  Jacinta curbed her car just outside Cush and let the engine idle. “Back to the lab,” she said.

  Desmond looked away from her, to his restaurant. He was paralyzed by what they’d done. The new depths he’d sunk to. In a few hours Cydney would be calling him and he’d be u
p on his stage, performing, pretending that everything was business as usual.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Jacinta said. “I forced your hand.”

  Desmond put his hand on the door handle and let it rest there.

  “I wish you and your girlfriend the best,” Jacinta said.

  Desmond opened his door and exited without a word. He shut the door and the sports car immediately pulled from the curb and moved up the street in a whir. He walked slowly to Cush and moved inside with strength he didn’t know he possessed. Karen looked up, her eyes like his mother’s that day when he told her he was calling off the wedding to Nora. Desmond looked away and moved past Karen. She didn’t attempt to stop him. He walked into his office and closed the door behind him. He felt his way to his desk, pulled out the chair and sat down at his desk in the dark. He could hear the voice of his father, sucking his teeth, shaking his head, the word failure on Frank Rucker’s breath like a mint. He could see Cydney’s eyes through the darkness, refusing to look away from him, refusing to let him off the hook. Nora was next to Cydney, whispering in her ear, telling her all about the exploits of Desmond Rucker.

  “What is wrong with me?” he wondered out loud as the tears began to fall from his eyes.

  “Yoohoo.”

  Cydney turned to the voice behind her as Professor Greenwood scribbled his almost indecipherable script on the blackboard. Victoria was all smiles. Faith had her head down, trying to suppress a giggle.

  “What?” Cydney asked through clenched teeth, one eye on her friends and the other eye on Professor Greenwood.

  Victoria handed Cydney a sheet of paper and then made a quick gesture for Cydney to turn around. Cydney took the paper and turned just as Greenwood began to address the class again.

  Greenwood was fond of wearing turtleneck sweaters and dress jackets. Tonight he had on a black shirt with a gray jacket. His hair was brownish-gray and cut close, his skin was tanned, pock-marked, and clung so close to his skull he looked ghoulish. He wore a pair of glasses that always hung on a chain around his neck, yet no one had ever actually seen them covering his eyes. His voice was three-packs-of-Viceroys-a-day scratchy and he used it to intimidate and humiliate his students at every opportunity.

  Greenwood took a hold of his glasses as if he was about to place them on his face, then stopped to speak, with them in his hand. “I’d like you geniuses to read over what I’ve written on the chalkboard and then jot it down in your notes. I have to make a quick run to the lavatory. When I get back I’ll hand out last week’s exams and then we’ll go over this new material. Can you geniuses handle that?” No one answered him. He shook his head and rushed from the room.

  Cydney looked down at the paper Victoria had handed her. She could hear her friends giggling again from behind her. The paper was a crude note with two boxes in the margins and a sentence next to each box. At the top was the instruction Check the one that applies. Cydney looked to the first box. It said: I got my freaky deaky on with you know who since I last spoke to you beautiful divas. The second box said: I plan on getting my freaky deaky on but haven’t yet. You beautiful divas will be the first to know, the moment I do. Cydney smiled and shook her head. She was about to ball the paper up when she noticed a line at the bottom of the page, written in smaller handwriting. It said: If you ball this up without checking a box you ought to be ashamed of yourself with your fast ass. Cydney’s mouth dropped open. She turned and faced Faith and Victoria. The both of them turned away and hummed at the same time.

  “Simple asses,” Cydney said to them. She turned back to the chalkboard and started writing down Greenwood’s notes as he returned to the room.

  “Sorry for that interruption,” Greenwood said, walking into the room and talking at the same time, “but the majority of you will be thankful for the delay when you receive your scores. I don’t know whether to blame your parents, your high schools or your capacity for learning. This is a university course, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll expect college-level work in the future.”

  Cydney’s stomach muscles tightened. She glanced back at Faith and Victoria again; the playful energy had left both of them as well. Faith’s and Victoria’s shoulders slumped in the same manner as Cydney’s did.

  Greenwood pulled a pile of papers from his briefcase and tapped them on his desk into one neat stack. He started moving through the maze of desks. When he reached Cydney’s desk it seemed as if he took a pause. He dropped her test, faceup, in front of her. She looked down at the exam.

  C-

  She’d hoped for a B at the least.

  Felicia scooted across the linoleum floor in Desmond’s kitchen. Her sock-covered feet allowed for a nice slide to the kitchen countertop. She grabbed the counter edge like a woman on ice skates, to stop herself and regain balance. She glanced at the caller ID as the phone continued to ring. A smile darted across her lips. She cupped a hand over her mouth and picked up.

  “Rucker’s Massage Parlor and Ecstasy Lounge…we massage shit,” she said into the receiver. “Felicia speaking.”

  “Felicia?”

  She let her voice rise and put a little crack in for good measure. “Oh my goodness, is that you, Daddy?”

  “What was that you said when you answered?”

  “No—nothing, just a little side business Desmond has going until things pick up at Cush,” she said, her tone serious.

  “I hope this is just part of your twisted sense of humor,” Mr. Rucker said.

  Felicia laughed. “You think I’m twisted, huh?”

  “Among other things,” Mr. Rucker admitted. “I didn’t know you were visiting Desmond.”

  Felicia walked with the cordless to the sink area and jumped up on the counter for a seat. She looked out the window at Desmond’s bare backyard. Desmond needed a pool and a nice flower garden arrangement when the weather warmed again, she thought. She closed the thin curtain and returned her thoughts to the call at hand. “Yeah, I ran down to spend a few days with Desmond. Things are good, though, Daddy. How are you and how’s Mommy?”

  “I’m fine. Your mother is off doing some of her charity work,” Mr. Rucker said. “I figured I’d call and leave Desmond a message to call us. We haven’t spoken in some time.”

  “That was nice of you,” Felicia said.

  “I left one on your machine in New York, too.”

  Felicia switched ears with the phone. Had she heard correctly? “You called me, too?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Rucker said. “I left you a message earlier.”

  “Man, that’s…” Felicia didn’t know how to respond. “That’s nice.”

  “You sound surprised,” Mr. Rucker said.

  “I am.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Let’s not get into this, Daddy.”

  “I think we should. My youngest child acts all surprised because I called to check on her, something isn’t right about that.”

  “I know I don’t exactly measure up to your standards,” Felicia conceded. “I know I disappoint you.”

  “You go out of your way to try and disappoint me, Felicia, but you don’t.”

  “I’m not Desmond, bending over backward trying to get one word of approval from you. You thrive off that little dance you make Desmond do.”

  “That’s how you see me?”

  “I told you we didn’t need to get into this. Your voice is changing, you’re getting upset.”

  “I want to know how my children see me, I’m a big boy, I can take it. Go on.”

  “I’ve watched how desperate Desmond has always been to get your approval,” Felicia said. “I’ve watched how broken he’s been when he gave his best and still didn’t get a nice word from you. I decided early on that I wouldn’t even try.”

  Mr. Rucker was quiet on the line.

  “I know you love us,” Felicia continued, “but it’s hard being your child.”

  “It was hard being my father’s child,” he replied. “The job of a parent is to push their child to be the best t
hey can be.”

  “I couldn’t have come up with a better word if I tried—pushed.”

  “It saddens me that you don’t know my true intentions are always to help you reach your great potential,” Mr. Rucker stated.

  “Let me ask you one question,” Felicia said.

  “Go ahead and ask it.”

  “I always wondered what you said to Desmond the day he called it off with Nora. I saw you talking to him by the stairs and I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

  Mr. Rucker cleared his voice, said nothing.

  “Daddy?” Felicia prodded.

  “I told him it takes a real man to hoist a real woman on his shoulders and not have them both fall down.”

  “And what did he say?”

  Mr. Rucker hesitated. “He asked me if I thought he was that real man.”

  “And you said?”

  “I told him the God’s honest truth, Felicia.”

  “Which was?”

  “Nora better have herself some strong bones, because he was sure to drop her.”

  Cydney walked in her door, dropped her backpack on the floor, slid out of her shoes and tossed her jacket on the arm of the couch. She moved to the kitchen and hung her keys on the key hook, opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. There wasn’t much juice in the container so she made an exception and turned it up to her lips, gulping down the drops inside, frowning the entire time as the taste of the juice was spoiled by the taste of carton. She took out her little billfold that held her license and one credit card and placed it on the counter next to her purse and the wallet she normally carried. Later, she would put everything back in her purse. Tomorrow was a workday and she’d have to carry her purse instead of a backpack.

  She went into the bedroom and changed into her silk pajama bottoms, removed her bra and put on a simple white T-shirt. She noticed her nipples pressing through the material and went and turned up the heat.

  She went into the bathroom and wiped away her touch of eye shadow and lipstick, brushed her teeth, gargled, sat on the toilet and squeezed out a drop. She rinsed her hands thoroughly and went back out to the living room and glanced at the clock on her digital cable box. Okay, she’d been home for thirteen minutes. That was time enough. She could call Desmond without feeling like some excited schoolgirl dealing with her first crush.