I was still a little big from having JD. Niggas don’t want to flirt with, let alone fuck, no pregnant woman, so I was M.C. Hammer broke. Still, babies need diapers, so I went down to Ralph’s looking for Pie. Ralph’s was a joint that only niggas in his clique could go to, but I didn’t care. He was going to give me some money—my baby was not about to run around having to smell his own shit.
I searched every inch of Ralph’s trying to find him. I can remember it like I was there yesterday. The bar stools were so worn that the yellow foam inside overwhelmed the black leather cover. The walls needed paint, and the floor was dusty. There was a strong smell of sweat, and must. Two old men with leather tams stood at the end of the long hallway in front of the dance floor telling me I couldn’t come in. They were so old and frail, I pushed right past them.
I was there for about a minute before I saw a door on the side of a mirror behind the dance floor. I started to head toward it, and the men with the tams yelled at me to stop. As I placed my hand on the doorknob, one of them yelled for Ralph. Ralph turned on the lights, and loud music started blaring, both inside the club and behind the mirror. If stopping me from going behind the mirror was that serious, I had to go.
I opened the door and stepped into a dark hallway with twelve closed doors. The smell was so foul I didn’t open my mouth. JD started crying.
Ralph caught up with me, and grabbed me from behind, looking at me like I was stealing something.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” he whispered.
“I’m looking for Pie,” I said, not bothering to lower my voice.
“He ain’t here,” said Ralph, and he tried to rush me out the door.
“I know he is,” I said. “I saw his car parked at the record company across the street.” I rustled his arm off my shoulder and began to walk down the hall before he grabbed me again.
“Pie, some woman here to see you,” he hollered before slowly letting me go. I heard a bustling about and some man said “Oh shit” behind the door in front of me. I started to walk in because I thought it was Pie, but Ralph grabbed me so hard I thought he was about to hit me. A door opened down the hall, and it seemed like a pinkish light was on.
“Wait here,” Ralph commanded. He walked toward the room with the pink light without taking his eyes off me for a second. He said something to them that I couldn’t hear, then finally motioned for me. “Pie’s in here.”
I almost threw up when I walked in. The smell outside was bad, but the smell inside was awful. At some point the pink light had been turned off, and there was now a plain yellow one in a lamp beside a pull-out couch with white sheets showing through the cushions. In most clubs people are dancing and drinking and having fun. Pie was laying in that nasty room on the couch with his shirt off, watching WWF. I was about to let him know just how much of a loser he was, but I saw a fine nigga sitting on the table, opposite of Pie, doing the same thing, and I didn’t want to call him out. It was Fashad.
Now, Pie was fine. All the girls wanted Pie, but Fashad blew my panties off my ass and right down around my ankles. He had good hair, but his skin was milk-chocolate brown. His body was even bigger back then, and he had a big dollar sign tattooed across his chest that made his chest look even bigger. I was young and dumb and thought it was love at first sight.
I came to talk to Pie but I didn’t say a word because I was too busy staring at Fashad. I was so “in love” I even forgot about the smell.
“Cameisha. Cameisha. Bitch, I know you hear me,” said Pie.
“Nigga, I ain’t none of your bitch,” I finally answered, covering JD’s ears ’cause he was too damn young to be hearing his momma cuss.
“Why you come in here? I mean, why you bring my baby down here? This ain’t no place for no kids.”
“Nigga, y’all ain’t doin’ nothin’ but watchin’ TV! And what the fuck you mean, your baby? How the fuck is this your baby? If it’s your baby, then why don’t you take your goddamn baby and buy some muthafuckin’ diapers?” I was so mad I forgot to cover JD’s ears, and felt bad.
“Man, I just bought him that Nike outfit.”
“Good, now buy some goddamn diapers so he can stop shittin’ it.” I remembered to plug his ears that time.
“Let me go call my momma, she’ll give you some.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna let you get to that.”
“Whatever. Just stay here, and don’t go into none of these other rooms.”
Soon as Pie left, Fashad started laughing.
“What are you laughing about?” I said innocently, trying to sound like a sweet little girl. Probably looking like a damn fool, seeing as how I had just cussed out his friend, and was holding a baby.
“Have you not noticed that there are no women here?”
“No,” I said, apologetically, like I cared. I hadn’t noticed that it was just a place for niggas to chill, but it wouldn’t have mattered. My baby needed some diapers. I would have walked into a ho house.
“There aren’t any women here besides me?” I asked, still trying to sound like a lost little girl.
“Nope, and you haven’t noticed?”
I shook my head no. “This my first time being here.”
“And why you think all them niggas was trying to keep you out?”
“I don’t know. I guess because y’all don’t like girls in here.”
“But you came in anyway,” said Fashad, sounding like the state prosecutor.
“Only because my baby needs Pampers,” I said. “I’m not coming back. I don’t have time to worry about what y’all be doing in y’all’s little clique, I just came for some diapers.”
He laughed, then stuck out his hand for me to shake. He told me his name was Fashad, but I thought he said Façade.
“Nice to meet you, Façade,” I said, and I gently reached out my hand for him to take like I was some rich old white lady from the South during slavery.
“It’s Fashad,” he said.
I apologized, and he told me, “Lots of people make that mistake.” He said he even called himself Façade until he was old enough to know that that wasn’t his name.
Pie came back in and said he didn’t have no money for Pampers. Said his momma wasn’t going to pay because everyone knew I was hot and JD didn’t have his daddy’s eyes. He said she said it couldn’t be no grandbaby of hers unless it had eyes as fine as her son’s. His words were matter-of-fact, his eyes were cold and heartless. I was struggling and he didn’t care. That’s when it hit me. Pie never wanted me, he only wanted people to know he could have me. I ran out of that place, hurt and ashamed. The next day Fashad called and asked me out. That was the beginning of the life I live now. We moved in together the next week, and I haven’t had to work or worry since. You for damn sure don’t need a broke-down Hyundai when you got a brand-new Mercedes.
Pie heard about Fashad asking me out and thought Fashad was just kidding around. Fashad never really took girls out, so Pie thought that we were both just playing a joke on him. When he found out me and Fashad were serious, he had a fit. He kept calling Fashad a “twin,” and when I asked him why, he said it was a nickname, because Fashad was two different people that looked just alike. I asked Fashad about the nickname and he said that’s what everybody at Ralph’s called each other, said everyone at Ralph’s was a twin, just like every brotha is a nigga. Pie did everything he could to come between me and Fashad, but I ain’t pay no attention to him. To Pie I was just a possession. He wanted me to belong to him and not Fashad.
Pie turned out to be gay. I don’t have no problem with fags. My best friend is a fag, and I don’t care what they do. But other people be gettin’ all worked up about that shit. Fashad stopped going to Ralph’s and wouldn’t tell me why, but later on I found out. It turned out a couple of the twins was in there fucking each other up the ass. Rumor has it they would sneak into those rooms and just go at it. As soon as Fashad found out what was going on, he ran out of there, ’cause Fashad is homophobic, or whatever the
y call it. He ran and told his pastor at Olive Baptist. The pastor, his wife, his two mistresses, and their husbands, the Assistant Pastors, called for a meeting on a Saturday night. The church was losing members to the churches with television programs, but that Saturday it was packed more than any church ever was on Sunday. They marched down to Ralph’s, singing hymns and picking up stones. When they got there they threw stones and Bibles at every naked black ass they saw. Once they’d ran out all the twins, they drenched the place with holy water; that night somebody went back and burned it to the ground. Ain’t nobody seen Pie since.
I moved into Fashad’s apartment just a week after I met him. It was clear he had money from the beginning. The neighborhood was good, not great, and we still had to lock our doors, but we didn’t have to worry about nobody busting through our windows. To be so thugged out, the money Fashad spent on himself was ridiculous. He had every kind of designer suit—Gucci, Versace, Brooks Brothers, everything—and had more beauty products than a rich old white lady. Hell, he introduced me to moisturizer.
One day I asked him why he spent so much time in front of the mirror and used so many products. He told me he always had to look his best, because he never knew who he’d run into. “You better not be out there trying to find no girl on the side,” I told him. He said he wasn’t. Swore to me on his grandmomma’s grave. You can’t swear on a dead person—she already dead. All you’re swearing on is a tombstone. I wish he’d sworn on his own life. At least that way I’d be free right about now.
When we first met, he told me he was an entrepreneur, part owner of a record company. I knew something wasn’t right with that bullshit, because there were no records, but I didn’t care. Money is money as far as I’m concerned, and Fashad had a lot of it. Maybe too much for his own damn good. He was obsessed with it. Said as long as he had money nobody could ask him questions without expecting his answer to be a Gator boot up they ass.
Fashad started hating our apartment. He said it was too cluttered and made him feel trapped. The apartment was big enough for me. It was only cluttered because Fashad never threw anything away. Slowly I started throwing things out and hoping he would never notice. One day he was missing a piece of paper and accused me of throwing it out. I denied it, but I probably did. He said, “That’s it.” And I thought he was going to throw me and my kids out the apartment. I was shocked when he said he wanted to buy me a house.
Dream was school-age, and I told Fashad I wanted her to have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I had no idea Fashad was gonna buy the house he bought. This nigga bought a house out where the white folks stay. I’m talking about a sharp house with screen doors, central air, a pool, and a backyard. Everything. And most importantly, a garden. Momma always told me, “Cameisha, make sure you got a garden no matter what. That way you know you and your kids won’t starve.” I work my garden every day, and sometimes twice a day. My tomatoes are gorgeous.
About a year after we moved to the white folks’ neighborhood I asked him if we could get married. See, Fashad is really religious. He bought me stuff. He moved in with me, but we never had sex. He said that he don’t believe in having sex before marriage. Problem was, he ain’t want to get married, either. Typical man—scared of commitment. Why can’t it just be like it is in the soap operas. Hell, Erica has had seven or eight husbands, and a heap more than that who wanted the honor. In the real world we got to move heaven and earth to get a ring.
I started begging him to marry me, but he ain’t listen. He told me his love for me was deeper than hot and heavy sweating and a piece of paper signed by a judge who’ll probably put him in jail someday. He told me I meant the world to him. That he was going to create a special kind of life for the both of us. A life that wasn’t like nobody else’s. Said he had to. I said okay, but I didn’t really want no special life. I told him just having a fine, rich, black husband to take care of me and my children would have been special enough. I don’t think that was asking too much. Shit, to look back on it, I could have had any man I wanted. A real baller, somebody with real money that’s legit. Money that don’t got to be cleaned, and a husband that can fuck. I could have had a real life. Damn him.
We went to the Fourth of July cookout at his momma’s house, and his brothers got to talking about sex. Fashad’s the youngest of six, so they always trying to tell him how to do everything. Even fuck. Maniac, the most drunk muthafucka of them all, got on top of me right in front of his wife, Stella. He started jerking and gyrating on me like I was his right hand, talking about: “You got to beat it up like this, Fashad…. Fashad don’t do it like this, do he?” he asked from in between my legs.
Back then I didn’t even think about it being disrespectful for a man to be on top of me like that. I was laughing right along with them when I told them, “Fashad don’t do it no way, because me and Fashad don’t fuck.” Then they started in on him something crucial. I tried to defend him by saying he don’t believe in sex before marriage. They said he wasn’t no kind of Christian no way. They said he had sugar in his tank and was sweet like Pie. Fashad grabbed me and we left. I ain’t never seen him so angry.
That night he damn near ripped my clothes off. I ain’t never had it like that before, and ain’t had it like that since. We did it so many times even the orgasms couldn’t stop the pain in my back. He would come, and then come again, and then come again. When he finally finished he threw the phone at me and hit me on the forehead. He told me to call Maniac’s wife, Stella, and tell her all about it. I didn’t even like the bitch, but he insisted, and that was rare. Normally Fashad didn’t give a shit about anything I did, so when he looked at me like he was going to leave me if I didn’t call her, I called.
His momma phoned to check up on him the next day. She told him he needed to find a girl to settle down with. Said she knew he was her “good little Christian boy,” but folks talk. Fashad always wanted to be so classy, so in his eyes Detroit was never good enough. The next day he took me to a jewelry store in Chicago. He didn’t tell me why we were in the store. He just asked the nice white lady behind the desk for the biggest wedding band she had. I got all excited, and then he finished the sentence—“for a man.” He said he didn’t care how much it cost. Said it didn’t have to be the most expensive, but if it was, that was fine too, long as it was the biggest. Said he wanted eagles, astronauts, and aliens to know he was married. He turned to me and asked if I would belong to him. It was the worst marriage proposal I’d ever heard. Still, it was the only proposal anyone had ever offered me, so I told him yes.
We got married and produced my youngest son, Taj. Fashad was a good father at first. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t have even been able to tell that Dream and JD weren’t just as much his as Taj was. He bought them the world. He took Dream to some father-daughter dance. He would even take the boys to the park and play basketball with them like fathers do in the movies and shit. Then for some reason it all stopped. I asked him about it and he told me he was mad because this ain’t the special life he wanted. I asked him what I needed to do to make it like he wanted. He told me there wasn’t anything I could do and that he didn’t ever want to talk about it again. That’s when I started getting suspicious about Fashad. He wasn’t fuckin’ me no more, he wasn’t spendin’ time with his kids, so what was he doin’? What was the special life? What did he expect?
They say that type of shit happens over time, but I can pinpoint the exact moment Fashad lost interest. Me, Dream, and the kids went to see my momma up in New York for a week last year. It was right after I came back from visiting Momma that things fell apart. Everything wasn’t fine before I left, but it was how it always was—it was what I’d come to expect. I got back and it was like the home was a different place. First thing I noticed was that he destroyed our red rose bush, the one he had insisted on having. Fashad was in love with them. For him to just smash them all of the sudden was just odd. I was never partial to the roses, but the house looked different without them. Little did I know
Fashad was different too. It was like he got bored with us or something. The worst was that I found two condom wrappers in my trash can! I didn’t say nothin’. I ain’t stupid. I know what I got. Fashad puts food on our table, and diamonds on our wrists and fingers—that’s the public part. When bitches see me they know I’m Fashad’s wife and they look at my diamonds and my Lexus, and they fix their faces like they mad at me. Dream got a car too, and the boys stay in Tommy, Platinum Fubu, and Ralph Lauren. I want and I get; we need and we have. I ain’t ’bout to give that shit up for nobody, but when I saw them condoms something happened. It was like I stopped believing in the public part. For the first time I looked past the façade. I knew Fashad never gave up on the special life he wanted, he just gave up on sharing it with me. He shared his special life with her. I was just a reason to have a four-carat diamond on his finger. I was a Honda—somebody else was his BMW.
When he got home, I couldn’t bring myself to ask him about the condoms, so I just asked him about the roses. The pretty little red roses we planted together, and loved together, cared for together. He said he didn’t know if he wanted them anymore, said they were becoming a nuisance to walk around. He said he was just confused and needed time to think. Said he was sorry he did it so quickly, but red roses might not have been the right choice in the first place. But I know what happened. He gave them to her. I don’t know how I know. I just do. Eventually he got over his confusion: he wants me to plant them again—by myself. In other words, I should keep up the façade while he has his fun behind it.
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