by Mary Monroe
“Shaddup! Shaddup your mouth! I don’t want to hear nothing else out of that hole in your face, woman,” he advised, shaking a finger in my burning face. I would have stopped talking and slunk on out the door at this point, but he was the one who kept the conversation going. “In other words, my loving wasn’t enough for you? You had to have two backups?!”
“It wasn’t like that!” I shouted, raising my hands in protest and for protection, the same way I had done when Valerie lit into me.
“Then why were you with that other nigger?”
“Which one? Oh, you mean Paul? I stumbled upon him during a weak moment. On the ship during a holiday cruise. He said everything I wanted to hear. He did everything I wanted a man to do for me. He was . . . he was just there at a time when I couldn’t help myself. I was not looking for love . . .”
“Other than him and that young punk, were there any others?” Floyd asked, rotating his arms like a windmill, his lips trembling. To this day, I don’t know why that man hadn’t killed me by now. He was so angry and hurt, I thought he might snap at any minute. I was glad, and lucky, that he could still control his actions.
“What? Of course not! It was just you three,” I admitted.
“Three?” Floyd spat the word out like poison. “You must be one nasty-ass whore for it to take three motherfuckers to satisfy you!”
“You got some fucking nerve calling me a whore when I was the only person you had to fall back on for years! You could be a whore yourself, for all I know! I know about all the shit that goes on in prisons! How do I know you didn’t become some bald-headed motherfucker’s bitch?”
“I want you out of my sight!” he informed me, pointing toward the door. I ignored the dumbfounded look on his face, but I could not ignore what he said next. “If you don’t get out of here now, I am going to kill you. And this time, I’ll be glad to go to prison for killing a bitch!” I knew that Floyd didn’t mean that. I knew in my heart that he could not kill me, or anybody else. However, I didn’t want to find out if I was wrong.
“I’m going. And don’t try to find me,” I said, gripping the handles on my luggage. I still had on my party dress but a pair of Nikes were on my feet, in case I had to do some more running.
“You don’t have to worry about that!” Floyd slammed the door so fast and hard behind me, the doorbell rang. Once I made it outside, I flung my suitcases into the back seat of my Honda, the only thing that really belonged to me. Then I fell into the driver’s seat. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to compose myself.
I still loved Floyd, and if nothing else, I still wanted him in my life as a friend. But I knew that it would be a while before he cooled off enough for me to talk to him again. I had not given up on him during his prison crisis, and now it was his turn to not give up on me. I felt that I had a better chance of coming to some kind of a truce with him than I did with Valerie. I had a feeling that there was nothing I could do, or say, that would make that sister want to be friends with me again.
Without giving it much thought, I leaped out of my car and ran back toward Floyd’s building. I no longer had a key to get into the building lobby, so I had to ring the buzzer to his condo. He did not respond. And after all we’d been through together it didn’t seem fair. But it was what it was, and I couldn’t change anything now. I let out a defeated breath and returned to my car.
I looked up toward the front of the condo that I had loved so much. Floyd was peeping out at me from the living room window. Our eyes locked and for a brief moment, he smiled. Then he did a strange thing. He raised his hand and saluted me! But that was all he did. A moment later, he closed the curtains and removed himself from my view. That was when I knew for sure that I would never see or hear from him again. I started my car, and then I shot off down the street like a stray bullet.
CHAPTER 59
As soon as I got to the condo on Manchester, I called Paul up at our place in Alameda. I prayed that Valerie had not already called him up and told him everything like she had threatened to do. This was one thing that I wanted him to hear from me. He didn’t answer. I left him a message just telling him to call me back because something extremely important had come up that we needed to address. I had not heard from him by midnight, so I called him up again. He answered on the fifth ring.
“Paul, I need to talk to you,” I started.
“What? Baby, it’s late. Is there something wrong? Can’t this wait until morning?” He sounded groggy, but he didn’t sound drunk. I was glad that he had not been drinking. This was one time that I needed this man to be stone-cold sober.
“No, we have to talk about this now. You won’t be able to reach me in the morning.”
“Well, whatever it is, it is going to have to wait until morning. After what we’ve already been through lately, I am not in the mood for any more drama. Enjoy Mexico.”
“I’m not on the ship, Paul. I’m at the Manchester address. I haven’t been on that ship for a long time. I quit my job so long ago I don’t remember when I did it. Now if you don’t want to hear what I have to say, that’s fine. If you don’t want to talk to me right now, just remember one thing: I did love you, I still do, and I tried to be a good wife. But there were so many things going on in my life . . .”
“Dolores, where are you? Why are you talking like this? Have you been drinking again?”
“I just told you. I’m at the Manchester address. And no, I am not drunk.”
“Can I call you back in a few minutes? I was on my way to the bathroom. I had lunch at Hop Sing’s today . . .”
“Yes.” I hung up and called the last person on the planet that I ever thought I’d turn to for help. Moanin’ Lisa was glad to hear from me.
“Oh, LoReese, I thought you had forgot all about me. I wanted to call you and come see you, but Paul didn’t make me feel welcome.” I had prepared myself for the usual moaning and groaning that usually accompanied almost every sentence that slid out of this woman’s mouth. “Valerie sent me an invitation to your birthday party, but I was too depressed to come tonight. Did you get that punch bowl I sent? I wrapped it myself.”
“Uh, thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Did the party end early?”
“It did for me. Listen, I can’t explain it all right now, but I need a place to stay. I don’t know for how long. I have enough in my savings account to pay rent for at least a few months if I have to stay that long.” I paused and took a few deep breaths. I could hear Moanin’ Lisa gearing up on her end. Her loud breathing told me that she was in a fever of anticipation.
“Have mercy Jesus! What’s wrong? What’s going on, Lo? Did somebody—”
“Hush for a minute and let me talk,” I ordered. I hated to cut Moanin’ Lisa off midsentence. But if I hadn’t, I would have been up all night listening to her pain. It was my turn to moan now. “Can I stay at your place for a while?”
“You want to come live with me?” she gasped. Her enthusiasm concerned me immediately. I was trying to run away from some major emotional issues, not run to some more. I knew that this woman was the kind of person who could reduce me to a nub if I let my guard down.
“I promise you that it will be just for a short time. A few weeks, I hope.”
“Oh. I thought you said a few months.” Moanin’ Lisa sounded disappointed now.
“It could take me a few months to get things straightened out,” I admitted, a headache already blazing a deadly trail throughout my head.
“Dolores, you could live with me for the rest of your life if you want to. You are the closest I ever came to having a real true best friend. I had a boyfriend for a minute a few weeks ago, but he took off after he maxed out my credit card, and I haven’t heard from him since. That’s what I get for hooking up with a custodian who works for Greyhound. What about Valerie? What about your husband?”
“Valerie and I are no longer friends and I am no longer with my husband,” I reported in a stiff voice.
“Say what? You and Vale
rie were practically joined at the hip. What happened to—”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I see you,” I replied, the stiffness gone from my voice.
“My goodness. When are you coming? You can move in any time you want to. I live on Figueroa now. This is a kind of rough neighborhood, and the complex is not the Trump Towers, but I like it. I’m so glad you called. I’ve been dying to get somebody up in here to keep me from getting bored. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have anything better to do this evening so I applied some roach paste in every room just before you called. That’s how bored I was.”
“I’ll call you when I know for sure. What’s your address?” I wrote down Moanin’ Lisa’s address, and then I sat down on the sofa and waited for Paul to call me back. During the twenty minutes that I sat there with the telephone in my lap, praying that he would call, I ignored the wine bottle across the room. This was one time I wanted to be stone-cold sober when I talked to Paul.
“Dolores, what is going on now?” he asked as soon as I picked up the phone, halfway through the first ring.
“Paul, I don’t want anything from you. No alimony, no nothing. I’m leaving with only what I came with—my clothes and my Honda.” I couldn’t believe how the words rolled off my tongue with so much ease.
“What did you just say?”
“I think you heard me,” I said in a stony voice.
“I heard you all right. But I don’t believe my ears.”
“Well, you’d better believe them.”
“Dolores, are you telling me that you are divorcing me? I love you, woman, and I will fight to the bitter end to keep you! Didn’t I tell you that that bitch didn’t mean a goddamn thing to me! Look, baby—what do I have to do to prove that?”
“Paul, before I met you I was involved with another man. He was in prison for something he didn’t do: rape and murder.” I heard Paul gasp, but other than that he remained silent as I continued. “He was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, so I never thought he’d get out. I, uh, married him.” I could hear Paul mumbling profanities under his breath, but I was glad that he let me finish speaking before he spoke again. “Then, through DNA testing they found out that this man had been telling the truth all along. He never raped or killed anybody. They released him. He got a ton of money from an out-of-court settlement against the state, and he bought a fancy condo in Beverly Hills. I . . . moved in with him. Whenever I wasn’t with you, I was with him.”
“I’m sitting here, wide awake, and you are talking gobbledygook! Gibberish! I don’t believe any of this shit! Woman, what in the hell are you telling me? How in the hell were you living with this other nigger and living with me, too?”
“Oh, Paul. I didn’t want it to end this way. But the way things have been going lately, I knew it was just a matter of time before it came to this.”
“Slow down. There is a piece of this puzzle missing. What was that thing about in the Marriott? Is that the man you married?”
“No. That was somebody else,” I said in a meek voice.
“Let me get this straight. You married another man while you were married to me. Then you fucked some other asshole in the Marriott, too? What else do you have to tell me? Why are you telling me all this shit now?”
“Because something happened tonight and you are going to hear it from Valerie, anyway. I wanted you to hear it first from me,” I told him.
“Oh? Did you fuck somebody else tonight?”
“No, I didn’t. I was at a party tonight. I was celebrating, well, I was going to celebrate my birthday with some of my friends. As it turned out, the same man I’d spent time with in the Marriott turned out to be the man that Valerie is going to marry. One thing led to another, and it all came out. Floyd, my uh, other husband was there.”
“Where is this other husband now?”
“His name is Floyd.”
“Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse, or Goofy—I don’t give a shit what that motherfucker’s name is! I want to know where he is now! Is he there with you? Put his ass on the phone!”
“He’s not with me now. We had it out, so I won’t be seeing him again, either. He . . . he threatened to kill me.”
“Not if I see your black ass first! Dolores, how could you play me like this? I ought to jump on a plane and come down there tonight and maul your head! You . . . you . . . you bitch!”
“Are you threatening me, Paul?”
“Hell yeah, I’m threatening you! I want to talk to that . . . that . . . my husband-in-law!”
“The man’s name is Floyd,” I told him again. “And I just told you, I won’t be seeing him again.”
“Well, you won’t be seeing me again, either, you no-good whore! That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about—or I will kill you myself! When I get back to L.A. you better be as far away from my property as you can get! And let me tell you one more thing, bitch! I wasn’t stupid! I wasn’t one of those pea-brained niggers you grew up around. I had your number a long time ago. My whole family did. I figured you were fucking around on me on those damn cruises and shit. But guess what? I was having my fun, too! The fine-ass honey I was with last week makes you look like Biggie Smalls!”
“Paul, I don’t need to hear all that now. It’s over. None of that matters anymore, anyway.”
“You’re damn right it’s over, but not before I finish saying what I have to say! I’ve listened to you, now you listen to me!”
“I’m listening,” I said calmly. I saw no reason to scream and holler and cuss. Paul was doing enough of that for both of us.
“Everybody told me that I could do better than you. Nobody in my family wanted me to marry you. Do you know that the women I can pick and choose from include a diplomat’s daughter? She’s the one I was with last week! I hope you will take your foster-care-raised black ass back to Watts or South Central where you will be around your own kind. You were way out of your league with me, lady!”
“If you thought that, why did you marry me?”
“Because I was a damn fool! Any man who gets involved with you is a damn fool!”
“Paul, have a nice life.”
“And another thing—”
I hung up before Paul could complete his last insult. I was through with him, and he was through with me. That was all that mattered.
Paul, Floyd, and Valerie had been the most important people in my life for years. And they had all been deleted in one night. But unlike them, I was not bitter. I had nobody to blame but myself. And as painful as it was for me to admit, I got what I deserved. No matter what happened to me now, it could only be an improvement.
I folded the scrap of paper with Moanin’ Lisa’s address and stuffed it into my wallet. And then I left the apartment on Manchester for the last time.
CHAPTER 60
Paul wasted no time filing for a divorce. I had sent him my new address as soon as I got settled into Moanin’ Lisa’s place. Two weeks later, a process server knocked on the door and presented me with the papers. He hired a sour-faced, high-powered pit bull of a lawyer, which was a waste of his money because I wasn’t going to contest the divorce or ask for a damn dime. Except for my freedom, that man had nothing else I wanted now.
However, I did appreciate the fact that Paul had not even mentioned my marriage to Floyd during our day in court. In his final voice mail message to me, the day before we went to court, he had issued a chilling threat. “If you broadcast this news about how you duped me to any of my relatives, friends, or co-workers, I will make sure you suffer for the rest of your life. There is no place on this planet you can hide, because I will pay somebody to find you,” he’d warned. I didn’t see how I could suffer any more than I already was.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that Paul keeping his own lips zipped about my committing bigamy was more for his benefit than mine. With his proud and cocky self, I couldn’t imagine him putting up with rude comments and sly grins from his friends, co-workers, and especially that snooty
family of his. It was not hard for me to imagine what his mother would say if she ever found out that her baby boy had married a woman who had married a convicted rapist and murderer: “Sweet P., what did you expect from that rootless foster care heifer?”
But Paul had to have the last word with me. “I pity the next fool you marry,” he yelled as I strutted out of the courtroom with my head held high. I was not proud of what I’d done, but I had accepted the consequences with dignity.
I’d also sent my new address information to Floyd, but I never heard from him again, nor did I ever see him at any of the clubs and other places that we used to go to. And since our marriage had never been legal in the first place, there were no marriage issues for us to resolve, or dissolve.
I never heard from or saw Marvin/Russell Meecham again, not that I wanted to, or expected to. I never heard from Valerie again, either. But I heard from at least a dozen other people about all the nasty things she said about me that night after I’d run out of Paw Paw’s. I was especially not happy with the way my relationship had ended with her. I felt that there were a few loose ends left between us. I just didn’t know how to tie them up by myself.
Knowing Valerie the way I did, I knew that she had written me off completely. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to see her at least one more time. I didn’t expect her to “kiss and make up” with me, but I wanted to formally apologize for all the pain I’d caused her. I’d done that for Floyd and Paul, so it was the least I could do for her. But the problem was, I had no idea how I was going to make that happen. However, I was determined to come up with a way.
A few weeks after that disastrous night in Paw Paw’s, while Moanin’ Lisa was preparing dinner, I decided to go out and drive past Valerie’s house. For some reason, I thought that if I saw her house one more time while everything was still fairly fresh, I’d feel some sense of closure.
