by Mary Monroe
“Paul, one of the few things I really enjoy is that drive by myself. I have never even let Valerie, or anybody else, go with me. I’m around people at work and everywhere else every day of the week. I look forward to spending this little time totally alone.” I gave him a pleading look. “Let me have a little space, honey.” I held my breath until he shrugged.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t really want to go anyway. I just thought that it was about time I offered to do so. If you ever do want me to go with you”—he paused and rolled his eyes—“I guess I’ll have to go, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, grinning as I patted his hand. “Let’s go to bed, baby. If you let me play with your, uh, toys, I’ll let you play with mine.”
Paul and I made love for hours, and the next morning I had the dark circles under my eyes and sucker bites on my neck to prove it. “Baby, I know your friend probably doesn’t care one way or the other what you look like when you visit her, but don’t you think a little makeup and some brighter colors would be more appropriate than those dark glasses and that ratty turtleneck sweater?” Paul asked with a laugh as I ate breakfast standing up, glancing at my watch every few seconds. Damn! He looked so good to me in his tight jeans and wife-beater T-shirt. I knew that we would make love again as soon as I returned.
“Oh no. I never wear makeup or flashy clothes when I go up there,” I explained. I pranced over to his side of the table and nibbled on his ear. “Got to go, babe,” I said, glancing at my watch again.
“Hmmm. By the way, what is this friend’s name?” Paul asked, grabbing my wrist just as I was about to be on my way. “I think it’s about time I started referring to her by name. And, exactly what is her problem? Why is she in this group home, or whatever that place is?”
“Huh? Oh! Her name is Crystal. Crystal Freeman.”
“Freeman? Oh shit!” he hollered, releasing my wrist. He took a drink from his coffee cup and stared at me with an amused look on his face. “That explains everything. She’s related to your crybaby friend Moanin’ Lisa, huh?” Paul stopped talking and gave me a critical look that disturbed me, to say the least. “You do realize that mental illness runs in some families. That’s why my mama is so concerned about your not knowing your family history. Some people are already damaged before birth . . .”
“Moanin’ Lisa and Crystal are not related. Crystal wasn’t born with any kind of mental illness. She had a severe nervous breakdown a few years ago when her husband left her,” I said defensively.
“Well, there must have been something weak about her genes. People leave people every day, and they don’t end up in mental institutions. If that was the case, as many times as I’ve been dumped, I ought to be in a padded cell on Scab Island, wearing a straight jacket, and eating my own shit by now.”
I gave Paul a disgusted look and he immediately bowed his head, realizing how stupid he sounded. “Crystal is not that bad,” I assured him. “But I don’t think she’ll ever be the same again. Her doctors don’t think so, either.” I surprised myself at how detailed and extensive this lie had become.
“Shit. That poor woman. What about her family and friends?”
“Uh-uh. She has no family, no friends. Just me. That’s why I promised her I’d visit her for as long as she remained in that place. It’s the least I could do. She was always there when I needed her.”
“That’s one thing I admire about you, baby. You are about as loyal as they come. The friends you have are as lucky as I am to have you in their lives. I know I can be a goofball from time to time, and I say a lot of shit I don’t mean. But you know the real me by now, though, so I know you don’t let my stupidity bother you. Where did you meet Crystal?” Paul asked, giving me that look that made me feel so special.
“Huh? Oh! We used to live in the same foster home.” As soon as I mentioned foster home, I knew I’d made a mistake.
“I see. I should have known . . .” Paul poured himself some more coffee. I noticed how he kept his eyes on the coffeepot, not on me.
“Paul, if something had happened to your family, you could have ended up in a foster home. I really wish you’d stop looking down on it. Just think of where thousands of other kids, including me, would be if there were no foster homes.”
Paul lifted his hands above his head, waved them in the air, and gave me an extremely apologetic look. “I did it again! I really am sorry.” He sounded truly sincere. “Stop at the mall on your way home this evening and pick me up a muzzle. That’s about the only way I’ll learn how to keep my mouth shut.” He laughed. I laughed, but not for the same reason. The masks that he wore when he cleaned house looked enough like muzzles, and wearing one never stopped him from spewing his gibberish. We stopped laughing at the same time.
I glanced at my watch one more time and finished my coffee. “Baby, I’ll see you this evening.” I kissed my new husband and then I was out the door before he could get too nosy or make another stupid comment.
Paul offered to go with me to visit my sick friend a few more times, but I was always able to talk him out of it. After a while, he stopped offering.
Things went well for the next couple of years. We moved into a two-bedroom condo on Manchester. We paid off a few bills, bought new furniture, and enjoyed a few more cruises. I didn’t see my friends as much as I used to, but a few of Paul’s relatives visited from time to time. And to my everlasting horror, it was always the ones I liked the least. Every time his dragon of a mother came, she started cleaning the place ten minutes after she’d come through the door, no matter how clean it already was. And, like Paul, she wore a surgical mask and latex gloves when she cleaned house, too.
Relatives I’d never met often showed up unannounced. “How come you and Paul ain’t started no family yet?” asked his obnoxious cousin Bobby, a student at UCLA. Living so close to us, he was the one who caused me the most grief, because I never knew when he’d turn up on our doorstep. “Can’t you have no kids?”
“Uh, we want to wait a few years,” I told that busybody, glad Paul nodded his approval. But later when Paul and I were alone, he brought it up.
“I’m ready whenever you are,” he said, tugging on my see-through gown as we prepared for bed that night. “And I don’t care if the first one is a boy or a girl.”
“Well, I’d like to wait at least one more year. I want to make sure I’m ready,” I told him.
I couldn’t wait to have a child of my own, but I really wasn’t ready. I’d seen too many couples break up after two or three years of marriage. I felt that if Paul and I could make it through the first four or five years, we had a pretty good chance of going the distance. And I wasn’t going to let my curious secret relationship with Floyd interfere with my plans. Anyway, I had my ruse all worked out. Once I got pregnant, I’d hide it from Floyd by wearing baggy clothes, which was what I usually wore when I visited him now. When and if I could no longer hide the fact that I was pregnant, I’d stop visiting him until after I’d delivered. He knew I had problems with my periods occasionally. There were a lot of common female ailments, and even some surgeries, that I could claim I had, that would make it hard for me to travel for a few months.
CHAPTER 41
Paul and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary in Vegas. We’d spent a fortune on a suite at Caesars Palace, one of the most expensive hotels on the Strip. We didn’t set foot out of the room until we checked out. We kept a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door the whole four days. “You don’t have to bother us anymore. I’m busy trying to create the first of my three children,” Paul told the maid, the morning of the second day when she brought us some clean towels and a bucket of ice.
While Paul was in the shower, I checked my voice mail on an alternate cell phone that I kept turned off most of the time and hidden in a side pocket of my purse. Since Floyd and his lawyer were the only ones who had the number to this service, I knew that the three messages were all from one or both of them. All three were from Floyd. When I played each one, he s
aid basically the same thing: “Baby, I got some great news. I can’t wait to tell you! I love you, I love you, I love you!”
My eyes filled up with tears of joy. I had the best of both worlds. Not only was I feeding the cow, I was milking the cow. I rubbed my throbbing crotch as my lips curled into a naughty smile. Despite the fact that I was on a romantic rendezvous with my husband, I had more than enough affection left over that day to be excited about the messages from Floyd. Whatever he had to tell me, it had to be something good. There was too much passion in his voice for it not to be. I smiled again.
I knew that Floyd and a few other convicts had written letters to the prison officials asking them to improve a few things. Like provide better food and more of a variety. Floyd had requested permission to visit the prison library more often, which was one thing I was glad to hear. It seemed so sad that it had to take a life sentence in prison for a bright young brother like Floyd to get interested in reading. He had finally discovered literary geniuses like James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes, and he loved it. I looked forward to my next visit on the upcoming Saturday.
It was a typical Saturday for me. Paul was still in bed when I left the house. I wore a pair of black, flimsy ballerina shoes. They were so thin it felt like I was barefooted. I wore a loose, drab, floor-length gray jumper. I had wrapped and tied a black scarf around my head and neck. I looked like I was on my way to a pilgrimage in Mecca. Everything was going so well, and I was in such a good mood. It pleased me to see that Floyd was in a good mood, too. As soon as he saw me, he started grinning. He was practically beaming. I already had the telephone that I had come to despise in my hand when he sat down. “What’s all that smiling for?” I asked. “And what is this great news you got to tell me?”
“Oh, baby, wait until you hear this! God finally came through for me, so I know there is more hope for me after all! I got some damn good news! I didn’t want to tell you until I got it all worked out,” he started. He was bopping up and down in his seat, like it had suddenly got too hot for him to sit still.
“Tell me what?” I asked, in a fever of nervous anticipation. “Are you going to get a new trial?”
Floyd let out a deep breath, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. “No. But I’m still working on that, too. This is even better. I started working on this about a year ago. Baby . . .” Floyd paused, and there were tears in his eyes. “Baby, we can get married now. Brian’s helped me work out all the details, and we can do it whenever you’re ready. Brian’s even bought the ring. It’ll be his gift to us. I . . . what’s the matter, baby? Your face looks like it just turned to stone. You all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said quickly. Hell no, I was not fine! My head felt like somebody had lit into it with a sledgehammer.
Floyd looked relieved. “Good. I can’t have you getting sick on me now. I want my bride to be in tip-top shape when I give her my name.”
If a bottomless hole had opened up in the floor beneath me and swallowed me whole, I wouldn’t have cared. “What did you say?” I asked with a loud hiccup. My words felt like they had attached themselves to the lining inside my throat. I started to hyperventilate.
“Baby, don’t get too excited now. I feel the same way you do. Just . . . just get ahold of yourself. Let’s get you some water. You want a aspirin, too?” Floyd rose in his seat and was about to signal one of the guards when I held up my hand.
“I’m fine,” I whimpered. I swallowed hard and shifted in my seat. Now it felt like I was the one sitting on a hot seat. In a way, I was. “You want us to get married? Why?” I asked in a raspy voice.
Floyd’s smile faded fast. He looked confused, then disappointed. “Well, I thought . . . baby, you look like you just seen a ghost. I didn’t mean to spring this fantastic news on you this way. But I don’t have many choices these days. I couldn’t tell you in a voice mail. And to be honest with you, this is something I had to tell you to your face, because I wanted to see your reaction. I can see how happy this makes you,” Floyd said with a sniff. For a minute I thought he was going to cry.
“I . . . I . . . I.” I couldn’t even form a sentence. My lips felt like rubber, and I couldn’t even feel my tongue. I swallowed hard again and blinked even harder. “I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. I didn’t know what to say, or do. I was absolutely stunned and speechless.
“The warden thinks it’s good for the prisoners’ morale. Now it won’t include conjugal visits yet, but me and Brian are working on that, too.” Floyd winked and slid his tongue suggestively across his lips. “All I need to know from you now is when you want to do it. When do you want to become my wife, honey? It took us a long time, but we finally made it, huh? Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Watson. Now, baby, if you want to keep your maiden name at work, that’s fine with me. But to the rest of the world, you will be known as Mrs. Watson. Boy, that’s got a nice ring to it!” The more excited Floyd appeared to be, the worse I felt.
“Floyd, baby, I love you to death. And you know I do. But . . . but marriage is such a very big step,” I began, speaking in a low, tentative voice. “Uh, it’s one of the most important things in a woman’s life. And in a man’s,” I told him. With each word my voice cracked a little more. “I never thought that . . .” The hurt look on Floyd’s face made me stop talking for a few moments. “Floyd, let’s talk about this. I wish you had told me before now.”
“I thought you’d be pleased . . .”
“I am! I mean, I will always love you, Floyd. And I know how we talked about getting married before . . . before . . . you know. Marriage would mean a lot of changes in our relationship.”
“How is us being married going to change things?”
“I don’t know,” I responded, my voice so hollow it echoed.
“Us getting married wouldn’t stop you from doing, uh, whatever it is you doing out there now. But it would mean a lot to me. If nothing else, I’d feel better just knowing that we got to do one of the things we talked about doing before this shit happened. If the rest of my prayers get answered, and Brian can arrange for me to have conjugal visits, we can even have a child.” Floyd gave me a guarded look as he reared to the side in his seat. “And under the circumstances, I think we should only plan on having one.”
“Floyd, we both know what it’s like not to have a real family, a loving family. I promised myself that I would not have children if I ever thought I’d wind up raising them alone. Honey, we both know how unimportant black kids are considered. Just being black can be a handicap for every black child born in this country—and those are the ones with two educated and successful parents raising them! We don’t need to have children the way things are for us now. We can’t do that to a child. Not even one. We can’t do that to ourselves.” I had to take a very deep breath after the little speech I’d just made, but I could see that it had a profound effect on Floyd.
“Well, I feel you on that. You’re right. Us having kids is probably not such a good idea. But I thought marrying me was what you always wanted.”
“I did. I mean, I do. But I have to give this some thought! I am not prepared for this.”
“I see,” he said, blinking hard. “I guess the next time I spend a lot of time and effort on something, I should check with you first, huh?”
“Well, yes, if it involves me. This is one thing that I should have been in on from the get-go.” The visit had become so awkward that Floyd looked relieved when I stood up to leave.
I was so dizzy when I left, I almost walked into the wall in the exit hallway. But the way I felt was nothing compared to how depressed Floyd looked when I said good-bye. And it got even worse.
The next time I visited him, he was so depressed he could barely hold his head up. It looked like he was starving himself to death, too, because he seemed at least twenty pounds lighter. The muscles that he had developed had lost their firmness. Loose skin hung from his arms, and his skin looked dull and unhealthy. The circles around his eyes were so severe he loo
ked like a raccoon. His hair was even thinner. I could see several bald spots. I had no idea that depression could ravage a person’s body so much. He looked as though he were in the final stages of a terminal illness. I had to save him.
“Floyd, we can get married when I come up next month,” I told him. It seemed like such a small price for me to pay to keep him from destroying himself. As soon as he heard that, he perked up. “Did you hear me, baby. We can get married next month.”
“Do you mean that?” he croaked. His skeletal hand shook as he held the telephone.
“I mean that.” I smiled. He smiled.
In addition to the fact that marriage meant so much to him and would probably save him from self-destruction, there was only one other consolation that I could think of. And that was, other than his busy lawyer, nobody outside of the prison would ever know. . . .
CHAPTER 42
I met up with Floyd’s lawyer twenty minutes before Floyd and I stood with him as our witness in front of the prison chaplain in the prison chapel. Even in the dim light, Brian’s shiny black hair glistened like new money. Other than the bored-looking warden and a wheezing custodian stumbling around picking up things off the floor, nobody else was present. I immediately slid into a trancelike state. I didn’t know what it felt like to be a zombie, but I was convinced that I wasn’t too far from it.
I had cried so much the night before that I looked like a Cabbage Patch doll now. I had even left the house an extra hour early so Paul wouldn’t see my puffy face. I had to come up with an explanation soon to tell Paul when I got home. While I was standing there committing a crime against man and God, a brainstorm suddenly formed in my mind. I decided that as soon as I could get to a place where I could have a private conversation on my cell phone, I would call Paul. I planned to tell him that I was stuck in a major traffic jam, due to an accident, and that I would be delayed by several hours. Then I would spend the night in a motel with an ice pack on my face to help the swelling go down. I didn’t come out of my trance until Floyd slipped the ring that Brian had brought onto my trembling finger. It was the first time I’d been able to touch Floyd since this mess had started, and it was like touching a dead man. He was just that cold and stiff. I knew what dead men felt like because I’d kissed my late foster father’s cheek as he lay in his coffin.
