All That Drama

by McKinney, Tina Brooks

  “Girl, fuck him,” I said, trying to break her trance. She ignored me completely. After staring at her upturned face for a few seconds, I left the table in search of more fun. Curtis did not come around to speak to her until the club was closing and had the nerve to pretend that it was the first time he had noticed that Sammie was even there.

  Shit, as big as Sammie had become, you could not miss her in a club—I don’t give a fuck how much you had to drink. The last song was playing when he slipped up next to her.

  “Hey, baby, when did you get here?” Curtis said with this stupid smirk.

  “She’s been here all fucking night, watching your dumb ass,” I said before I could stop myself. Sammie shot me a look that said, Shut the fuck up and let me do this! Well, I could take a hint and she was right, so I sat back to watch my girl tear a piece out of the fucker’s ass for real. As much as I liked to be proven right about situations, I hated, in this incident, that I had seen the writing on the wall.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said, batting her eyes and twirling her hair. Dumbstruck, you could have rolled me off the fucking chair I was so outdone. Curtis started whispering in her ear and kissing her neck and she was lapping it up. I guess she had forgotten the last four hours she’d spent watching his ass hump on all the other women in the club. It must have also slipped her mind that when she looked him dead in the eye that he turned away as if he didn’t even see her.

  When Sammie stood up and kissed that maggot I excused myself and went to the car. I would have left her ass, but she was driving. I stood outside for fifteen minutes before they finally came out of the club. Sammie knew that I hated being in the club when the lights came on, and she also knew that I hated waiting outside by myself, but none of that mattered to her that night.

  They came out of the club all hugged up like they had just spent the night together dancing their cares away. I stood by the passenger door waiting for Sammie to unlock it. When she got to the car, she looked at me for a moment as if she didn’t remember I was even riding with her. In fact, she looked annoyed that I was still there. I threw an eat-shit-and-die look at Curtis and began to open the door.

  “Uh. Marie, Curtis is going with us,” Sammie said with a giggle. I shot Sammie that bitch-is-you-crazy look, but she promptly dismissed me. She reached over the seat, unlatched the back door and gestured with her eyes that I should get in the back seat. As Curtis squeezed past me to get to the front seat, he made sure he rubbed up against my ass. My head rocked back as if I had been slapped. I stepped quickly away from his groin towards the back of the car but I could not make myself grab the handle. I looked around to see if there was anyone I knew that would give me a ride ’cause just the thought of riding in a car with him or her made me sick.

  I stepped away from the car. I would walk before I allowed her to treat me like a goddamned stranger. The deejay and I went way back and I knew that he was still inside. I decided to ask him for a ride ’cause I could not and would not ride home with those two. I knew there was a chance that I might have to fight the deejay off me by the time we got to my house since he had been trying to tap my ass for weeks, but I had my mace and was not afraid to use it.

  “Sammie, my bad; I didn’t know you would be having company. Three’s a crowd so I’ll holler at you later,” I said while backing away from the car with my hands up in the air. A part of me was hoping that she was not going to let me go out like that, but she acted like nothing was wrong.

  “All right then, I’ll get with you tomorrow.” Sammie got in the car and they pulled off leaving me in the dark parking lot alone. She did not even look in the rear-view mirror to see if I had waved or not. After her taillights disappeared, I had a true hissy fit complete with talking to myself and cussing a lot. I even kicked the tire of a nearby car, which damn near crippled me.

  I looked towards the entrance of the club and noticed for the first time that most of the people who had been in the parking lot when I had come out were gone. I was alone with the exception of a few cars that had probably been left by their owners when they went home with someone else. I felt sure that the deejay was still inside but after I thought about it, I decided that I did not want to have to explain why I was still there with no ride home. It was painful enough without having to explain it to someone else so I walked to the curb and hailed the first cab I saw.

  After I was seated in the cab, I decided that was the last time I would ride anywhere with Sammie. Having to pay my hard-earned dollars for a cab when I had a perfectly reliable car at home helped to stiffen my resolve. During the ride home, I thought long and hard about my friendship with Sammie and as bad as the night had been, I still was not ready to give up on her. I just needed to learn to put conditions on our friendship.

  The next day, I waited for an apology from Sammie for her behavior the previous night but I got nothing. I don’t know whether they spent half the night and the whole day fucking or what, but eventually I decided to go out and let my hair down. I was going to the club solo. Friday and Saturday night had been ruined by Sammie’s trifling antics, but I was determined to make Sunday night my night to party and enjoy myself without her. I didn’t mind going solo. I had done it before and from the looks of things, it was going to become a regular routine.

  Before I got ready to go out, I called my mom to check on Keira and Kevin. Mom insisted on keeping them for the weekends and although I missed them I needed my down time, too. Since Dad had died, I had worried about her being in that big house alone. The kids kept her occupied and I was grateful for the time it gave me. She enjoyed it and didn’t complain much—that is unless I took it to the ninth power and went overboard. Then she would go on strike until I cooled my ass down. After she and the kids assured me that they were having a good time, I started to get dressed.

  While I was adding the final touches to my makeup, the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw Sammie’s name listed. For a brief moment, I contemplated not answering the phone but I was still expecting an apology so I answered just as the answering machine picked up. I told her to hold while I turned it off and made her wait a few additional minutes for good measure.

  “Hey, girl, what’s up?” Sammie said nonchalantly.

  “You just caught me heading out the door.” My voice was cool but hearing her voice reminded me of last night’s ill feelings and I felt my anger rising again.

  “And you didn’t call me? Where are you going?” she asked, sounding hurt and defensive.

  “The last time I talked to you, you were busy,” I snapped. “It’s Sunday; I’m going to Faces. I assumed you and what’s his name were still knocking boots.”

  “Oh, Curtis, it’s like that, huh,” she fired back.

  “Yeah, unfortunately it is. I didn’t write the script; you did.” If she knew what I was referring to she did not own up to it.

  “Girl, he wasn’t here that long. He just wanted to talk to me, that’s all.”

  “Oh, in other words, he did a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am on your ass,” I said, trying not to laugh out loud. That’s what she got for treating my ass like a second-class citizen. He hit it and quit it and told her to take him back to the parking lot so he could get his car. I would never put up with a man who thought he could use me and then ignore me until the next time his dick got hard, but she obviously did not have a problem with this since she seemed happy to oblige.

  “Can I go?” she asked in her little-girl voice that she sometimes used when she was trying to get her way.

  “It’s a free county,” I replied, refusing to be swayed by her childish tone.

  “When are you leaving?” she asked. She was all business now that she knew I wasn’t up for her bullshit tonight.

  “Now. I’ll save you a seat if you don’t take too long,” I said and hung up the phone. I said more than I wanted to but she got my drift. Whether or not it would do any good, I said my piece and only time would tell.

  She showed up at the club and as luck would have
it, a seat was still available. She did not offer me an apology for the way she acted the night before and I did not bring it up. I had never officially said that I would never ride with her again but I think she understood it without my having to say it. Though the circumstances had been unfortunate, I had learned a valuable lesson.

  Sadly, I acknowledged that another line had been drawn in the sand in our friendship.

  We continued for months going to the club like it was church in separate cars and meeting up inside. We still arrived at the same time ’cause we would get dressed at each other’s houses. Much to my chagrin, Sammie continued to see Curtis. It was Friday night and we were preparing to go to Chit-Chat’s.

  “How’s Dickweed?” I asked her just to see if she knew who I was talking about.

  “Dickweed? Oh, Curtis,” she said, laughing. “I knew you had given him a name but I wasn’t sure what it was.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was fitting since his dick be growing out of a lot of different things.”

  “Well, you don’t know that for sure. You are just guessing,” she said in a huff.

  “Come on, Sammie, wake up. He ignores you at the club. You have never been over his house. Do you even have a phone number for him?” I demanded.

  “I got his pager number!” she declared, beginning to get mad.

  “Pager, what does that tell you. That means either he is married or living with someone.”

  “Have you ever paged him in the middle of the night?”

  “No.”

  “When you page him, does he call you right back?”

  “Sometimes,” she mumbled.

  “Did you ask him why he never spends the night?”

  “Yeah, he said that he can’t sleep anywhere but his own bed.”

  “What about the time he called you at 4:00 in the morning and you went to pick him up and all he wanted was a blow job? I still can’t believe you blew him in the parking lot!” Sammie did not say a word.

  “Ok, I got just one more question for you and I will leave this alone. How come if sleeping in his own bed is such a priority to him, he doesn’t ask you to come visit him?” Sammie was silent.

  “I rest my case,” I said, leaving her in the bedroom while I went in the bathroom to get dressed.

  Sammie didn’t speak as we each applied our makeup and final touches to our outfits. We arrived at the club at 11:15 to get a seat close to the dance floor. The new bouncer liked me so I did not have to pay tonight. He charged Sammie and that pissed her off even more. Normally I would have paid half of her admittance but I was still angry with her for being so stupid about Dickweed.

  I wasted no time getting on the dance floor when we got in the club. I refused to ride the bar stool as Sammie had been doing for the past couple of months. No one asked Sammie to dance anymore so her only chance to dance was to join in the Electric Slide.

  This shit continued even though Sammie knew that I didn’t approve for a long time. For the most part, I tried to stay out of Sammie’s sex life. We could talk about her kids and mine. Our jobs and even our mothers but that man was a forbidden subject. Once again, conditions were put on our friendship.

  Chapter 23

  Sammie met a new man named Malcolm Warrens whom she nicknamed “N&P.” It stood for new and promising. Since he had been making regular appearances at her door for the past three months, she felt she had a good thing going. She told me he was a truck driver and I was glad if it was going to get her away from Dickweed.

  “Oh Lord. Does he know that you have this thing for truck drivers?” I asked her one night over cocktails at my house.

  “No, I got him thinking it’s his dick that has me imprisoned.” She had this goofy ass smile on her face and I could not help laughing with her. They saw each other at least once or twice a week depending upon his load.

  “Girl, he said he is looking for a good woman, one he can pamper and take care of, and I told him that I was the woman he’s been searching for. Lord knows I need somebody to take care of me,” she said. We both fell over laughing, reaching out to give each other high-fives.

  “What about Kendall and Tyson? Have they met him?” I inquired.

  “No, it seems like every time that he is in town they are here with you.” She was right about that. They had taken to coming to my house when they got home from school and staying until practically bedtime. Most nights I didn’t mind it because I wanted to keep an eye on them. Tyson continued to be a discipline problem at school, and Kendall was so withdrawn that the only person who could get through to her was Keira. I tried to push my thoughts about her kids’ state of mind to the back of my head.

  “You sure do need someone to take care of you,” I said, pushing her lightly as we clinked glasses. It was good to see her smile again. Her eyes once again took on a special glow and I began to wonder whether Malcolm was okay after all. I was still skeptical but I was willing to wait and see.

  “And guess what?” Sammie said with a hint of amusement.

  “What?” I responded, catching my breath between my cheeks and knowing instinctively that I would not like what was coming next.

  “He is getting me a car! It should be here this week.” She was so happy she could barely sit still. Once again, bells started going off in my head but her obvious delight was catching. And girlfriend really needed a car.

  “Get the hell out of here. You mean you are willing to part with the ‘Flint-mobile’?” I could not stop laughing when I thought of her driving a car with real floorboards. Sammie had been driving that beat-up Buick since I’d met her and I just couldn’t picture her in anything other than that.

  “In a New York minute,” she said.

  “Remember that time I dropped my lighter and it fell right out the car onto Interstate 285 through the hole in the floor!” I said, laughing loudly.

  “Yeah, that shit was so funny and you had the nerve to get mad at me.”

  “It’s your car! But I tell you what; I feel safe when I ride in it. As long as it starts, you can be sure that anything you hit will crumble and we will be okay. That car is built like an armored tank,” I said, raising my hand for a high-five.

  “You ain’t lying about that. These cars today, if you just bump something, you are talking one-thousand dollars in damages. But I’m ready to get me one of those 2002 models! I want to style and profile like you do,” she said, smiling.

  I got caught up in her fantasy and started feeling good about her life once more. She had been through so much in such a short period of time. I’m not saying that I believed all the hype that this guy was feeding her but she was looking good again. She was back to watching what she ate, taking hours to get dressed and was her old chatty self. I felt full. Sammie was back in charge of her life and I was feeling good about that. I was happy that she was happy.

  “So, you mean to tell me you’re only getting dicked down once a week and that’s okay with you?” I was laughing as I said this but she did not join in. She started to get nervous and placed her drink on the coffee table.

  “Uh…I’ve got a little something, something on the side,” she mumbled.

  “I knew it!” I exclaimed. “Who is he and what’s his story?”

  “Tried and True, you already know him.”

  “Girl, please, I can’t keep up with the names, only the circumstances.”

  “Curtis.”

  “Dickweed? Oh hell no, please tell me that you are not still dealing with Dickweed!” I jumped to my feet and began pacing the room. I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks. “Here we fucking go again!”

  “Marie, I know that you don’t like him but the brother is hung like a race horse and knows exactly what to do with it. Don’t hate on his dick,” she replied. She refused to look me in the eye. All those cozy feelings that I had been experiencing since Sammie and I had started spending more time together again were evaporating into thin air.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what kind of dick he got; the man is scum an
d he treats you like shit. Is he paying you for your services, is that it?” I demanded as I paced back and forth.

  I knew that I had crossed the line with that remark but I was way past caring. I was wearing a hole in the floor. I really wanted to understand Sammie but I was having a hard time. I left myself open to the fact that maybe she didn’t know any better. Maybe she was just doing what she had been taught to do. Regardless, it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

  Although I knew full well that it was possible, I did not want to believe it. I knew that Sammie could and would at any given moment get enslaved by a dick, but I had hoped that her self-worth would prevail over this one.

  “I’m dick-whipped; not much of an excuse, but it’s the only one I have,” she replied. “When I want to get dicked-down-proper, he is the one. Sorry if that offends you but it’s the honest-to-God truth. But this time it’s different; he is my dick on the side now and I call him only when I got to have it, not the other way around.”

  “And what about Malcolm? This man is about to buy you a car. What he is going to say when he finds out you still humping Dickweed?”

  “He ain’t going to find out!” she shouted, gathering her things to leave.

  I just glared at her. I wanted her to see how truly dissatisfied I was with her, but she still refused to look me in the eye.

  I was livid and just shook my head. Dickweed would be the straw to break the camel’s back in our friendship if Sammie was not careful. I wouldn’t have minded him so much if he showed my friend a small measure of respect, but he treated her just like she acted at times, like a whore. At that moment, I lost all respect for Sammie.

  Chapter 24

  Sammie was working at Waffle House as a waitress. It may not have been the most glamorous job in the world but she had potential to make good money if she were in the right location. It also served another purpose; she met more men than she could shake a stick at.

  “Girl, you need to bring your tired ass up to Waffle House and check out some of the men that be coming through there!” Sammie declared.