Skin Game

by Lawrence C. Ross

  Chapter 31

  Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

  —Ambrose Redmoon

  Like the Three Musketeers, Belinda, Mary, and Keisha walked out of Murphy Hall. It was like they had something to conquer about five hundred yards away, and to do it, each step needed to give them the courage to face their task. Not one of them knew what they were going to say, but they knew that between the three of them, they could figure it out.

  As they walked into the quad, they noticed that all of the reporters were lying around, wondering where this mysterious “Keisha” was. So when Keisha finally got to the middle of the quad, no one took notice. No one noticed until they started comparing the face on the Inside Keisha! poster to the young black woman in the quad. All of a sudden, everyone began rushing toward Keisha.

  Keisha didn’t flinch. She walked over to the library steps and walked to the fifth step, just so that she could look down on the photographers, cameras, and reporters. She was going to be in control, and not them.

  “Hello everyone, my name is Belinda—”

  Belinda was trying to speak, but suddenly Keisha tapped her on the shoulder. She didn’t want anyone speaking for her.

  “My name is Keisha Montez, and I am the woman on the Inside Keisha! poster,” she said. The cameras flashed and the reporters began moving toward her. “There really is no story. I’m a freshman here at UCLA and I did this as a way to make money for school. Now it has come back to haunt me. But I’m here to tell you today that it will not haunt me for life.”

  “You’re damn right it’s going to haunt you for life,” Steven yelled from the back. Steven, Marty, Ray, and Rosario were standing to the side. His voice resounded.

  “Who is that?” a reporter asked.

  “That is the slime who is trying to embarrass me with these posters,” Keisha said calmly. “Turn the cameras on him, please. Let your viewers see who is trying to make me hide.”

  Steven suddenly looked nervous. It took him a second to gain his composure. “I’m not trying to do anything of the sort. My name is Steven Cox and I’m the president of Pimp magazine and Pimp Video. We are the leading black-adult company in the country, and all I’m doing is getting the word out.”

  The reporters suddenly turned from Keisha and moved to Steven. Ray found himself on the outside of the crowd, staring at Keisha.

  “Inside Keisha! is our first release, and it has been blowing out of the stores. This poster”—Steven held up a poster—“is just our way of letting people know who we are and what we have to offer. We’re proud of Keisha and we wanted to let everyone know that she was a part of our Pimp family.”

  “Bullshit,” Keisha yelled, walking down the steps toward Steven. The cameras followed her. “Steven is just mad that I made the decision to not do this anymore, and now he wants to embarrass me. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Mr. Cox, did you do this to embarrass Keisha?” a reporter asked. “If not, why would you plaster the campus with these posters?”

  “I did it because we are trying to get another demographic for our videos. Today,” he said with a smirk, “we were able to accomplish that. And for that, I thank you.”

  When Belinda heard Steven talk about having put the flyers out, she took out her cell phone and started dialing. Keisha, on the other hand, was simply angry.

  “Keisha, do you think that now that you’ve been identified as a porn actress UCLA will accept you for who you are?” a reporter asked.

  “They have no choice,” she said. “But I’m not worried. I’d rather be known as a porn actress who got out than a pornographer that stays in.”

  From the corner of her eye, Belinda could see three campus police drive up and begin walking toward them. She got off the steps and ran toward them, pointing toward Steven and the group. They walked up to Steven, Ray, Marty, and Rosario.

  “Excuse me,” a police officer said. “Are you responsible for these posters?”

  “Yes,” Steven said hesitantly.

  “Then I’m going to need you to come with us,” the officer said, pointing and instructing his colleagues to take them.

  “I’m a lawyer, and if you’re not arresting me, then I don’t have to come with you,” Steven said, protesting. The camera suddenly forgot about Keisha and focused on Steven’s predicament. The officers weren’t listening to Steven and began taking him toward their car.

  And as suddenly as it all began, it ended. Keisha had expected to have two hours of questions, but it seemed like all of the networks were telling their reporters that the story had run its course and to come back in. They all reached into their pockets and gave Keisha their cards, and told her that they might want to interview her again. But Keisha didn’t believe them.

  A small crowd of students had gathered as Keisha and Steven had bantered back and forth, and as the camera crew began dispersing, they began making their way to her.

  “Hey, I support you,” one said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” one other student said. “Just put it behind you and no one will ever remember it.”

  Mary came up to Keisha and gave her a hug.

  “When a woman looks her fears in the face and confronts them, no one can stop her,” she said proudly. “You did something that you regretted, but you didn’t let him run over you. That makes me proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” Keisha said, looking at both Belinda and Mary. “But I’m not done. Steven is like a roach and he’s going to come back with something else.”

  “Not if I have something to say about it,” said a voice from behind. It was Donovan, and he’d watched everything. He walked over and kissed her.

  “This is my boyfriend, Donovan,” Keisha said, introducing him to Belinda and Mary.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said to them. He looked back at Keisha. “I can tell you that you won’t have any other trouble with Steven.”

  Keisha took Donovan to the side. “Donovan, I’ve got this. Don’t go doing anything that you may regret later. Not for this.”

  Donovan smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m much smarter than I used to be, and I’m not going to do anything that I think will get me in trouble. But Steven has got to learn a lesson, and if he doesn’t, then he’ll always be around here. That’s not going to happen.”

  Donovan kissed her and began walking away. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he said, trotting off the steps.

  “That,” she murmured to herself, “is what makes me worried.”

  “You want to come back to my office?” Belinda asked.

  “No, I’ve got a test to study for,” she said. “And I’m going to do well.”

  “Are we being arrested?” Steven yelled at the officer. “If we’re not being arrested, then I want you to let us go.”

  “Calm down,” the officer said. The policemen had taken Steven, Ray, Marty, and Rosario to the UCLA police station, and they had been trying to calm them down. “You’re not being arrested.”

  “Then let us go,” Steven said.

  “No, not yet. I first need to get some information from you,” the officer said, picking up a form. “You are the president of Pimp magazine and video?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we are going to fine you for trespassing on the UCLA campus,” the officer said. “You can’t place posters on the campus without permission.”

  Steven took out his checkbook. “It’s a fine that I’ll gladly pay. I got my money’s worth today.”

  The officer looked annoyed as he looked at a chart. “According to this chart, we charge you per poster we find.”

  “How much is it?” Steven asked, picking up a pen.

  “One hundred dollars per poster,” the officer said, smiling. “And from what my officers are telling me, you’re going to have quite a fine.”

  “Shit,” Steven muttered under his breath. He was mentally calculating his fine, and it was big. If the officer got every last one, thi
s fine was going to be close to fifty thousand.

  “No need to pay right now,” the officer said. “We’ll send you a bill.”

  Steven put his checkbook back into his pocket and took the citation from the officer.

  “Let’s go,” he told Ray, Marty, and Rosario. As they walked out of the police station, they began making their way to Steven’s car.

  “So did you get what you wanted out of this?” Ray asked.

  “You’re damn right I did,” Steven said, opening the car door. “And I’ve got even more shit ready.”

  Everyone got into the car except for Ray. “Count me out,” he said.

  Steven was already sitting in the driver’s seat. “Get in the car, Ray,” he said.

  Ray closed the door and started walking away. Steven got out of his seat and stood outside the car, watching Ray leave.

  “Get back in this goddamn car, Ray!” Steven yelled.

  Ray turned around and gave Steven the finger. “Fuck you, Steven,” he said, backing up. “Even I have some fucking limits.” He turned around and kept walking. Steven got back into the car.

  “Does anybody else want to get out and leave?” he said, looking at Marty and Rosario.

  “Nope,” Marty said. “That nigga was speaking for himself.”

  “Good, because we’ve got more shit to do,” he said, peeling out of the parking lot.

  As Ray walked off the campus, he thought about the dreams he’d once had about going to college. Yes, he’d had a cup of coffee at Cal State Northridge, but too much weed, too many women, and not enough studying had meant that he was out on his ass and in need of a job. So when Steven had gotten canned at his law firm and decided to open up Pimp magazine, it seemed like a good way to get paid, get laid, and stay high.

  But something had happened to him. Watching Steven try to destroy Keisha for no good reason suddenly struck a chord in him that he hadn’t even known he had. All of a sudden, he cared about Keisha as a person.

  As Ray sat down at the bus stop, waiting for a bus to take him to his apartment, a brother sat down next to him.

  “What?” Ray asked.

  “Weren’t you with the owner of Pimp just a few minutes ago?” he asked.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “This is what,” he said. The brother pulled out a knife. “My name is Donovan, and I’m a friend of Keisha, the girl you tried to smear back there. If I hear or see one of you muthafuckas even think about Keisha, I’m going to stick this muthafucka in your ass. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, I got ya,” Ray said. “But look, man—”

  “Ain’t no ‘look, man,’” Donovan said. “I don’t want to hear a goddamn explanation. Just leave her the fuck alone. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And tell your boss that I’m coming to get him,” Donovan said with his face right next to Ray’s. Ray could see that Donovan had a scar on the right side of his face, and to Ray, it looked like a knife wound. “You make sure to tell him that. You hear me?”

  And just as quickly as he’d come, Donovan left. Now Ray was conflicted. Who was this guy? And should he contact Steven to let him know about him?

  This is that muthafucka’s bed, he thought as he got on the bus. Let him get out of it. Plus, Rosario can handle this.

  Chapter 32

  Opportunities fly by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone.

  —Jerome K. Jerome

  Keisha got to Patra’s apartment and sat down. Surprisingly, the Spanish test had gone swimmingly, and the rest of the day was on the up compared to how it had started. Just like Belinda and Mary had said, this was going to be a one-day story and nothing more. So she was bracing herself for the evening news.

  When she turned on the television, the early evening news shows were just beginning.

  “Early this morning, there was a commotion at UCLA as the campus was plastered with these posters,” an announcer said, holding up an Inside Keisha! poster. The station blurred the image. “The posters are for an adult video called Inside Keisha! and the Keisha in this movie is UCLA freshman Keisha Montez. She stood on the steps of the UCLA library and addressed the cameras.”

  “My name is Keisha Montez, and I am the woman on the Inside Keisha! poster,” Keisha said on the television. As Keisha watched herself, she was proud at how calm she looked. “There really is no story. I’m a freshman here at UCLA and I did this as a way to make money for school. Now it has come back to haunt me. But I’m here to tell you today that it will not haunt me for life.”

  Patra walked into the apartment as Keisha continued to talk on the television. She put down her purse and started watching the television.

  “Girl, I heard about what happened on campus,” Patra said. “Fuck! Why was that fool trying to fuck you like that?”

  “For revenge,” Keisha replied. Patra sat at the end of the couch. Patra watched on the television as the police took Steven away. “He wanted to make an example of me.”

  “Steven Cox, owner of Pimp Video, was taken away by UCLA campus police and later cited for violating the UCLA ordinance on posting flyers and posters. From the UCLA campus, this is Kathy Head reporting for KFOX television.”

  Keisha turned off the television.

  “So this fool plastered the campus with posters?” Patra said. “That was fucked-up.”

  “You know, at first I was tripping,” Keisha said. “But then I started thinking about it. Paris Hilton is fucking on tape and no one even trips. So why should a little black girl from L.A. trip off these fools. So I stopped tripping on that nigga and went out there and confronted the cameras. Fuck him and fuck Pimp.”

  “Look at you,” Patra said, laughing. “Superbitch!”

  “I’m finally going to get my shit out of here tomorrow,” Keisha said, looking at the boxes piled up.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Patra said, laughing. “Your ass will finally leave when people stop fucking with you.”

  Keisha walked into the kitchen and began making herself a sandwich. “So what did you do today? Do you have to work tonight?”

  Patra walked into her room, but Keisha could still hear her talk. “I don’t have to work tonight. Sean is letting me have the day off.”

  She came back into the living room dressed in some shorts. She was getting comfortable for the night.

  “And today,” she said, lying on the couch, “I went to Planned Parenthood to get things fixed.”

  Keisha stopped making her sandwich and came back into the living room. Patra was staring at the ceiling.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” Patra said. “I just keep telling myself that I’ll never find myself in this position again. I just can’t do it anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” Keisha said.

  “Have you ever had an abortion?” she asked Keisha.

  “No.”

  “Make sure you don’t unless you really have to,” she said.

  There was a knock on the door, and Keisha got up to answer it. She looked through the peephole to see who it was, but she couldn’t make him out.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s Ray,” he said. “Let me in.”

  Keisha turned to Patra. “Were you expecting Ray?”

  “No,” Patra said.

  “What do you want, Ray?”

  “Let me in because I need to talk to you,” he said.

  Keisha frowned and reluctantly opened the door. Ray stood there looking more unsure than Keisha had ever seen him.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Keisha asked. “You tried to fuck me at my school and now you have the fucking nerve to come to my house?”

  “Keisha, I’m sorry about all that,” he said. “Let me come in. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Keisha stepped aside and let him come in.

  “Hey, Patra,” he said.

  “What up,” she said, not
looking at him.

  Keisha closed the door and then took a seat. Ray stood in the middle of the living room, actually shifting his feet in the same way Sean did.

  “I first want to apologize for the shit that went down today. It was fucked-up. I knew it was fucked-up. And I should have said something before agreeing to participate in that shit. But you know Steven—when he gets something in his head, his ass becomes fucking stubborn.”

  “You came over here to tell me that shit?” Keisha said angrily. “That ‘oops, I shouldn’t have tried to fuck up your life’?”

  “It’s some poor shit, but that’s all I got.”

  “Ray,” Patra said, looking at Ray for the first time since he walked in, “you’ve been full of shit ever since I met you. So before you start talking, why should Keisha believe a damn thing you’ve got to say?”

  “Maybe you will, or maybe you won’t. All I know is that I’m here and I didn’t have to come,” he told Patra. He turned to Keisha. “After all that shit went down, I told Steven that I wanted out. I couldn’t be a part of shit anymore.”

  Keisha walked over, picked up her sandwich, and took a bite. “I’m happy for you.”

  “But that ain’t it,” he said. “I’m out of it now. I’m done. That shit was getting old anyway. But the reason I’m here is that one of your friends paid me a visit when I was leaving UCLA. Do you know a Donovan?”

  Keisha perked up. “What about Donovan?”

  “He pulled a knife on me and said that I was not to fuck with you again,” Ray said.

  “That’s not true,” Keisha said. “Donovan wouldn’t do that now. He’s changed.”

  “I don’t know the muthafucka, so I have no idea if he’s changed or not,” Ray said. “All I know is that a couple hours ago, I was staring at a knife, and your friend Donovan was holding it. You need to call your boy, because he made a threat against Steven.”

  Keisha got up from her chair and picked up her cell phone. “What a fucking day,” she muttered. “What a muthafuckin’ day. This is not good. This is not good at all.”