Tears on a Sunday Afternoon

by Michael Presley

  Kathleen made her exit about half an hour after our “second coming.” I watched as Donna started to get her stuff together.

  “I have to meet my husband at Carnegie Hall. Our daughter’s performing,” she stated casually.

  I picked up the two spent condoms and stuffed them into a small plastic bag.

  “So how long have you been fucking Kathleen’s husband, Peter?” I asked.

  “Not just a pretty face after all,” Donna said as she slipped on a blue skirt.

  “If you thought that, you wouldn’t have invited me up to the room,” I said, flushing the condoms down the toilet bowl. I don’t know why I put them into the plastic wrap before I flushed them, but I did.

  “White men and black pussy, they just don’t know how to act. I’m not leaving my husband for any soft-ass white man. The gifts are good, but that’s it. I love my husband. He’s a good man and an exemplary father. I give this man a taste and he’s getting stupid. He told me a few months ago that he was thinking about leaving Kathleen. I told him that it wasn’t a good idea because it would mess everything up. But no, he goes and tells Kathleen he wants a divorce anyway.” Donna completed her outfit with a white blouse. She took the clothes that she was wearing earlier and dumped them in the garbage can.

  I looked at her and the garbage. She smiled.

  I smiled. Sometimes garbage is garbage.

  She answered my inquisitive look. “That’s why men always get caught. They don’t do the math. My husband or a hundred dollars’ worth of clothes.”

  “What if…”

  “I’ve been with my husband for over ten years. Do you honestly believe that he’s paying attention to what I put on in the morning? But let me come home smelling like I just got fucked.”

  I looked at the rest of the liquor in the bottle. “Do what you have to do.”

  “You might as well stay the night,” Donna said as she picked up her bag. “The suite is paid for.”

  I went back to the bed and took the sheets off. I picked up the phone and dialed room service.

  “You’re not done, are you?” Donna asked as she opened the suite door.

  “Not by a long shot. I’m going downstairs to get some dinner,” I said as my stomach started to growl.

  “Just keep our discussion to yourself.”

  “Go meet your husband,” I said, irritated because she seemed like she was calling me a bitch.

  “Maybe I’ll have him eat me out in the bathroom at Carnegie Hall. You know you men are always wanting to push the envelope,” she said as she closed the door.

  Chapter 4

  I picked up the Heineken bottle and dumped it in the small round white garbage can Brian had in the kitchen.

  “Donald, don’t you ever get any feelings for women?”

  I froze with my hand extended to the door.

  “I think I need another beer for this.” I turned back toward the kitchen table. He had asked me a question that I had all the right answers to. Brian put another Heineken in front of me.

  Brian poured himself some apple juice and sat down opposite me. “I know you’ve been with lawyers, doctors and multimillionaires. One had to have tugged on your heart strings.”

  “Brian, do you know the difference between a fat woman and a skinny woman in bed?”

  Brian smiled. “I would sleep with one and not the other.”

  “No, Brian, there isn’t a fucking difference. Once you get past the size and looks, your dick feels the same way in either one of them. Have you ever noticed that some of the girls you expect to have a great time in bed with are lousy fucks?” I drank some of the Heiny…

  “But sometimes that’s a personality thing,” he said defensively.

  “Yeah, you’re right, but you wait to find out.” I looked through the small kitchen window into nothingness. “With me, Brian, I already know what the pussy’s gonna feel like before I get in there. There ain’t a damn thing a woman can do that will make that feeling change.”

  “Someone fucked you over really well.”

  It was my turn to smile. The whole world was filled with therapeutic couches and the end result was still the same. The world was fucked up.

  “No, Brian, I don’t think my heart has ever been broken. I’ve never cried over a woman or spent sleepless nights thinking about a woman. My son, yes, I have.”

  “Man, in this life, love is all we got. Without it, we are animals,” Brian said.

  “Let me tell you what my grandmother told me before I turned fifteen. She thought I hadn’t started getting my dick warm yet, but I had. I listened anyway.”

  “So you’ve lived your entire life based on what your grandmother told you?” he asked.

  “Her advice has stood the test of time and experience.”

  “I definitely want to hear this.”

  “She told me that in this world there are whores, pimps and johns.”

  “Your grandmother told you that when you were fifteen?”

  “Yeah, she did.”

  “What did she mean?”

  “Brian, think of all your relationships and you’ll see that in all of them you have been either a whore, a pimp or a john.”

  Brian looked around the room for answers. “Go ahead. Keep talking.”

  “You see what separates the pimp from the john is feelings and, at any point, the pimp could be the john. In the game, a man who’s in control is always the pimp. The john, therefore, is trying to be the pimp but first he has to go through the whore. All men want to be the pimp, but the whore is the most important part of this equation because she can break down either the pimp or the john. She’s already broken the john because he has to come to her. You feel me?”

  Brian looked at me. “You are motherfucking crazy.”

  Brian wasn’t listening as much as he was fighting and that was sad. He wanted to be in another game other than the one he was living in. He was holding on to hope. The short rope of love; in other words, a blind man’s precipice.

  “The pimp has no feelings for his whore. The day he develops feelings for her is the day he loses everything, including her, and then he becomes a john. And that’s what she wants.”

  “And the john?”

  “The john wants the whore but the whore can’t be his until he becomes the pimp. The john, in essence, is subservient to the whore. He has to take what she gives. The pimp, on the other hand, takes from the whore. The whore means absolutely nothing to him.”

  “May God have mercy on you if you ever have a female child.”

  I looked down at the table. “I can’t change the world if I have a female child. All I can do is convey knowledge to her and my job is done.”

  “So you’re a pimp?” he asked as I once more got up from the table.

  My eyes became cloudy as if the sun had made way for Katrina. “In life, sometimes you are all three, and right now, I’m at that point in my life. I’m a pimp because I listened to my grandmother. I’m a whore because I get fucked every time I go home and I’m a john because I’m trying to go through a whore to become a pimp.” I reached for the door.

  “You all right?” Brian asked.

  “No, but one day I will be.”

  I took a seat at the back of the restaurant, away from the incoming traffic. I was seated in the shadows of life and time, light casting recognition on one part of me, the other part needing closer observation. The waitress, a shapely young black woman in her early twenties, wearing tight-fitting black pants and a tee with the restaurant logo on it, presented her attributes to me.

  “Hello, Sir, my name is Leila. Can I get you something?” she asked, whipping her writing pad from her back pocket.

  “What are you offering?” I took her eyes in mine.

  She presented the menu to me. “This.”

  I didn’t look at it. “What else?”

  “Something that’s off the menu?” she asked, smiling.

  “It depends on whether there’s a cost associated with it.” I reac
hed out to pick up the menu.

  “Everything in life has a cost. It depends on when you’re planning to pay.”

  I liked her. “Leila, let me have a Heineken.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah, for now. Maybe I’ll add to that later on.” I noticed a white man who had just walked into the bar.

  “Do you want to make a preemptive strike?” she asked seductively.

  “Maybe later on but, for now, add on a Budweiser and some privacy.”

  She gave me the ‘who do you think you are’ look and walked away, showing me what black men’s dreams are made of.

  I got up and shook Bill’s hand. Bill was a skinny white retired NYC detective that I had hired. He had recently called me and informed me that he had located my father. The swab he had taken was a 99.9 percent match with the DNA of this old white man. He gave me a brown envelope containing pictures of my father and all of the pertinent information about him.

  “Your old man is a work of art,” Bill said, taking a seat opposite me.

  “How so?”

  “Let’s just say age has done nothing to calm him down.” Bill leaned away from the table as the waitress put the drinks down.

  She gave me an eye lashing, or an invitation, and quickly removed herself from our presence. I reached into my jacket pocket, took out a small brown envelope and handed it to Bill. It was the balance of the twenty thousand dollars I had promised him to complete the job.

  I opened the envelope and pulled out the pictures of my father. My father was a tall, old man whose face seemed to have been battered by life. His eyes were red and droopy as if alcohol had been his best companion for many years. I pushed the pictures back into the envelope for fear that the anger building up inside of me would become visible.

  “Did you bring the other thing?” I asked, hoping that there was no detectable cracking in my voice.

  “Donald, we’ve become almost friends through our transaction. While I can’t empathize with you, I do understand the hurt. Now, remember, you have a child and that means you have a responsibility to that child. It’s not my place to tell you what to do. My job is done here but I don’t want to see you get hurt. Whatever you do, do it carefully. I’ve put some additional information in the package for a one-on-one meeting with your father. Whatever you do, make sure you cover your tracks. There’s a lot of hate in your father and you’ll certainly encounter that when you meet him. Be careful.”

  I felt a slight touch on my knee and Bill motioned for me to reach under the table. I reached down and I felt the cold steel of the 9 millimeter handgun in my hand. In my other hand, he placed a box of shells. Excitement ran through my veins, as I became empowered by the life-ending piece of machinery in my possession.

  “This is powerful.” I slipped it into my waistband and quickly buttoned my jacket.

  “I’ve preloaded it for you so you have to be very careful. Here are instructions and everything else you need to know to shoot and maintain this gun. The safety is on so there’s no danger of an accidental firing. Remember, guns don’t kill people; people shoot guns that kill people.” Bill stopped to take a swig of his beer.

  I flipped through the manual. “This reads like an owner’s manual for a new DVD player or something.”

  “I don’t think they make DVDs that kill people as yet. But all the information you have in your hand is available on the internet.”

  “Here you go.” I gave Bill another envelope containing $2,000 for the gun.

  He put it in his pocket.

  “Are you going to count it?” I asked.

  “When doing certain transactions, you never count. I don’t think you’ll short me a buck or two.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Well, it was a pleasure doing business with you and feel free to contact me if you need some more assistance.” Bill stretched his hand out.

  I shook Bill’s hand and watched as he went from shade to light. In his wake he had not only left me with answers to my troubled life but also with questions of what to do with the answers. I had already paid for the drinks so I left a ten-dollar bill on the table for the tip. As I was walking out the door, I looked over at the waitress who was conversing with the bartender. Her looks and the revealing clothes she wore got her attention; for how long depended on the giver of the attention. Maybe, for some, the attention was only for the night. For others, it might be the possible replacement for a lifeless love at home. And there was always that one person who would want to take her into his world. To me, she would only be good if she got me through the night. Yeah, all I wanted was to get through the night and wake up to see another day. I smiled at her and she waved at me. Yeah, she understood; time had decided.

  It was nine-thirty when I walked into my house, eager to hide the gun.

  “You’re home early.”

  “You motherfucker,” I said as I leapt over to Annette, pulling the gun out of my waistband and hitting her on the forehead. She fell to the floor, butt-naked, shattering the wine glass she had in her hand. The long black strap-on dildo lay pointing up in the air as a small flow of blood trickled from her head.

  “You bitch,” I said as I saw Lauren run and kneel down by Annette’s side. “I told you I don’t want this shit around my child. You’ve already confused the boy enough.”

  “Emerald’s asleep,” Lauren whimpered, trying to revive Annette.

  “Daddy!” my son cried out.

  “Emerald, get dressed. Your daddy is coming up.”

  Slowly, Annette started to come around.

  “You could’ve killed her,” Lauren said.

  “Next time, I might.” I headed up the stairs. “I’m taking Emerald.”

  Lauren lifted Annette up. “No, you can’t.”

  “Try to stop me.”

  Lauren glared at me and returned to taking care of Annette.

  I could have committed at least two murders and had not a single regret.

  My son was still groggy when we came back down the stairs. Lauren had covered Annette with a black robe.

  I walked toward the front door. “We’ll be back for our things.”

  “Daddy, but Mommy…” Emerald ran to Lauren. They hugged and she kissed him.

  “Go with your daddy. I’ll see you later.”

  Lauren watched me with hate-filled eyes. I returned the same look.

  “Go to the car, Emerald. I’ll be right there.”

  “Daddy, where are we going?” Emerald asked, moving to the door.

  “Go to the car,” I repeated.

  When the door was shut, I turned to Lauren; my face strained with anger.

  “You should’ve killed me,” Annette said, holding a green towel around her head.

  “Next time, I promise that I will.” I was glad to make that promise. “I’ll be back for our clothes.

  “You’ll be back all right. You’ll be back with my son and living right in that room down the hall,” Lauren said, picking up the phone.

  The gun in my waist nudged at my skin. Two bullets were all it would take. I would walk up to both of them and calmly put a bullet in each of their foreheads, turn around and walk out the house. I would get into the car and drive until my tank was empty.

  I shook my head and walked out of the house. In my life, timing was everything, and tonight was not that time. There would come a time when things would change, but I had to make sure I followed the blueprint.

  “Is he asleep?” I asked Julie as she walked back into the living room.

  “Yes.” She looked at me in dismay. “I don’t know how much that little boy can take.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.” I threw my hands up in the air. “How can that bitch walk around the house at 9:30 P.M., naked except for a strap-on dildo? What happens if my son comes to the refrigerator for a drink or something? This shit will only happen over my dead body. As long as I’m alive, I won’t let this happen to my son.”

  “But, Donald, you have zero control over what hap
pens when you’re not there. And, most of the time, you’re not home. You’re always out there in bed with some woman.”

  “I’m not at home because that would mean looking at those bitches for a lot longer than I care to. Don’t you think I want to be home with my son?” I was starting to get angry with Julie.

  “Don’t give me that look.” Julie pointed at me as she took a seat. “I didn’t put you in this situation.”

  “I know you didn’t.” I motioned for her to sit by me.

  She remained motionless in the chair across the room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but Brian and I are really working out. I don’t think that I could be the kind of friend I used to be with you.”

  “Fuck, how long have we been friends?” I asked, rising from the couch, blood circulating in my body at an orgasmic level.

  “Don’t act like that, Donald. It’s not necessary.”

  “If it’s not necessary, then tell me what is necessary. You’re starting to get dick from this brother now and, all of a sudden, I’m nobody to you.”

  “Donald, I know you’ve had a rough evening so I’ll keep Emerald here. I think you should go,” she said, walking to the door.

  “Go where?”

  “Donald, with the amount of female friends you have, I seriously doubt that you’ll be homeless tonight.” She left the door open and came back to sit on the chair.

  I rose and took the keys that I had laid on the foyer table when I had walked in. The door shook for a few seconds after I slammed it. I got into the Benz and headed onto the Belt Parkway. My life was a mess and wrapping around a tree at a speed of over 120 mph would have only emitted a small sound of displeasure from me. But they say if it’s not your time you ain’t going nowhere. I pulled into the Hilton because God wasn’t ready to take my sorry ass.