During his “confusion” I fell out of love with Fashad. I stopped botherin’ him for sex—and he never did bother me. So we haven’t fucked in a year. He can take his flowers and shove ’em up his ass.
As for the drugs. I can’t say for sure when I knew Fashad was into drugs. I just sort of slowly put all the pieces together. I do remember the first time he admitted it, because it was on our first-year anniversary. Said his business was getting out of control. I said, “Which one?”
“Cameisha, you know which one.”
“No I don’t know.”
“You know,” he said grabbing my hand and staring into my eyes like he was asking me not to make him say it.
“You mean slangin’,” I said.
He nodded his head yes.
I wasn’t mad or nothing. I don’t see nothing wrong with slangin’. Niggas know what they buyin’, it ain’t like Fashad is forcing shit into niggas’ veins. I don’t give a fuck about the law or the government, and I go to church every Sunday and I ain’t heard nothin’ in the Bible about “Thou shall not slang shit,” so I’m like, whatever. The way I see it, niggas need to make money the best way they can, ’cause God said “Everybody is somebody,” and everybody knows if you ain’t makin’ money you ain’t shit.
Still, I was worried about our security. Anything could have happened to him out there, and then what would we do? I asked him why he had to slang.
“It’s the only way I know how to be something more.”
“More than what?” I asked.
He told me, “Never mind,” but started to cry. I tried to hug him and make him feel better. I said, “Baby, you’re already enough,” but that didn’t comfort him. In fact, it did just the opposite, I made him so uncomfortable he left.
Earlier this month he said he knew cops were coming after him, said they probably already had snitches up in his business. After years of lies and deceit, I don’t really care about him being safe, but I do care about my wants, and our needs. I swear to God, I told his ass right then and there:
“I don’t care what happens. I don’t care what you get into. You just make sure you’re a real man and take care of your responsibilities. You understand me?”
“Yeah, baby. Always, baby. No matter what, baby. I’m a real man, baby. I’m a real man.”
Well, here we are. These muthafuckas have been parked out across our street for a week, and all the money I know of is the one million in that TV. I mean, I watch Law & Order. I know when a nigga get arrested for drugs they freeze all his assets. So when they come for Fashad, this is gonna be the only money we have left! I know that’s a lot for most people, but one million ain’t gonna last me no more than five years. Then he talkin’ ’bout, “Well, I need you to pay for a lawyer with this.” Nigga, please. What if he gets convicted and all that money goes to waste. It’s not like his businesses make any real money—they’re just covers for his real business. I know Fashad can make more money for me out than he can in, but I don’t know if I can deal with his shit no more. Maybe I want a real life.
When Fashad told me the feds were coming at any moment he also told me I couldn’t leave the house and abandon the money, so I guess you could say I stand guard. At first I didn’t mind. Didn’t seem like there was all that much to do during the day no way, seemed like by the time I got the kids up, cleaned, and did the laundry, it was time for my stories to come on. Since Fashad put me on house arrest, his boy Smokey comes by to get my to-do list every day. It’s been three weeks now, and watching stories ain’t cuttin’ it. It’s been seven years with Fashad, one year of courting, five years of marriage, and one year of façade. I want my own story, dammit.
I want a real husband. I’m tired of being a ghetto buster in a suburban mansion. I want a nigga whose ballin’ for real, like a rapper, or a basketball player. Maybe I want Fashad to go to prison so he can get the fuck up out of my way. I might be thirty-five but I still got it. I STILL GOT IT. My titties are C’s, and no sag whatsoever. My face has no wrinkles, and my skin is as light as you can get and still be one hundred percent chocolate. It won’t take me long to find a nigga that really wants this.
And I don’t believe this is the only money he got, either. He probably givin’ the rest to her. That’s what’s really pissin’ me off. I’m at home fixin’ the kids’ dinner, cleanin’ his house, and blowing that trumpet. All that bitch gotta do is lay on her muthafuckin’ back? Oh hell no! She don’t deserve shit! So I said to myself: Cameisha, if Fashad is gonna fuck you over, that’s his shit. That’s between him and God. But you gotta make moves to make sure you all right.
So I had to come up with a plan of my own. Fashad told me and his boy Smokey to find a way to hide the money and flush the yayo. I said I can’t do all that shit by myself. Well, Smokey used to play the trumpet in high school, before he got caught up with Fashad and dropped out. He can’t really play it, but he stole the trumpet the day he dropped out, said he was going to play it on his own rap album someday. Said one day he would blow that trumpet and all his dreams would come true. It’s sat in his closet for six years. Now it’s in mine.
When I get the word, I’m supposed to blow the trumpet—that’s the signal for Dream to get the chain saw, and for the boys to flush the yayo and get their salt shakers to throw off the dogs. That’s if they’re home. If they ain’t, I gotta do it all myself. I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if I have to. Even if they are home I might forget to do something. You know? Maybe Fashad might have to go to jail. Maybe it will do him some good to have some time to think. Maybe Fashad has to enter his prison cell before I can exit mine.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to Fashad. What I do know is: my name is Cameisha Bradley and when that trumpet sounds, that money is going to be mine.
DREAM
Where she at? She ’bout to make me miss Bow Wow on Regis,” barked Andalacia Johnson, twirling her blood-red beehive as she spoke.
Dream walked boldly through the salon’s front doors, not bothering to avoid her coworkers. The way Dream saw it, now that Smokey was going to get her out of this hell-hole they called a beauty shop, she could care less if there was conflict or not. For the first time in her life, Dream felt like she knew who she was, where she was going, and how she was going to get there. The horrible things her coworkers said, or thought, didn’t mean a damn thing. For Dream, the shop had gone from life-and-death to trivial. This wasn’t a permanent gig, it wasn’t even temporary—it was meanwhile. Smokey was preparing to take care of her, the way husbands are supposed to take care of wives, the way Fashad took care of her mother. In the meantime, she’d do some hair. Fuck the impatient clients, and, most importantly, fuck her shit-slinging coworkers.
“It’s so unprofessional to keep clients waiting,” said Daryl as if he were simply stating a fact, rather than firing off an insult, as if his statement were directed at no one. The place fell silent, as it always did when Daryl badgered Dream. In that silence Dream could always feel the dynamics in the room: the others felt sorry for her, but they didn’t necessarily disagree with Daryl’s assessment. Her own client would contemplate whether or not to step in on Dream’s behalf. Everyone would stare at her, the way the kids used to when this one or that one replaced her regular Pepsi with a Diet Pepsi at lunch. Over the years she’d learned to close her eyes. She figured people had always thought she was praying; the truth was, she was simply closing her eyes and daydreaming—of disappearing.
Instinctively her eyes began to shut, before jolting open as if she had been electrically shocked. She knew she had to make a choice. The new Dream could either be as timid and bashful as the old, or she could be venomous and no-nonsense. After a year at the shop it had become clear that avoiding conflict meant permitting, sometimes even promoting, her own disrespect. Quietness had gotten her nowhere, so with the knowledge that Smokey was behind her no matter what, she spoke. “At least I got clients, ya broke-ass faggot,” she said, pluggin’ in the curling iron with one hand an
d planting the other on her hip. There was a symphony of “oooooohs,” then a chorus of laughter that drowned out Daryl’s spirited response.
Dream didn’t have to hear him to know what he said, he probably said all the things she’d been afraid to hear since middle school. You’re fat. You’re ugly. No one wants you…etc.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think about me. I got a man. Do you? Do you have a man?” The laughter grew more raucous, as Dream found herself yelling at someone other than Cameisha for the first time in years.
When the laughter finally subsided, Daryl took a deep breath, then spoke regally. “I don’t know how you people can behave like this, but I am a professional and I cannot work in this environment. Miss Ford and I will be utilizing the chair in the back. Do not disturb. Come on, Carolyn.”
“Somebody been holdin’ out,” said Xander, as he positioned his client underneath the hair dryer.
“Not yet,” said his client, Shenay Jones, her eyes wide with anticipation. “This is too good, and I can’t hear under there. Who you shackin’ with?” She removed a roller that was hanging down and blocking her left ear, eager to have something to put through the Detroit grapevine.
After years of listening, never speaking, Dream could feel the underlying meaning of a sentence with a sixth sense. Shenay didn’t want to know who Dream was shacking with because she was happy for Dream. Shenay wanted to know who Dream was shacking with because she wanted to know who in the hell was ugly, broke, or desperate enough to shack with her. As tempted as Dream was to break her promise to Smokey, and taunt them all with her gorgeous beau, she feared word would get back to him, and he’d leave her. “I’m not telling,” said Dream.
“Why not, girl?” asked the client. “You got some good man news, share it. Lord knows we hear enough of the bad in here.”
Translation: If you’re not lying, tell me who it is. Dream sucked her lip and bit her tongue. “I saaaaid I’m not tellin’.”
Shenay laughed. “Xander, are you hearing this?” she asked, and her tone clearly implied Dream was telling a blatant lie.
“Yeah, I’m hearing it,” said Xander, sighing as he placed the roller back in Shenay’s head. “Sound like you got the same problem I do.”
“And what’s that?” asked Dream with a sass in her voice she didn’t mean to use on Xander.
“A man that wants you to keep secrets,” said Xander.
“Nigga, my situation and yours are two totally different things, so don’t try to tell me what the fuck is going on between me and my man, okay! ’Cause my man is one-hundred-percent straight!” That time she meant every last bit of it.
“Well, if he ain’t trying to keep it on the low, then why can’t you tell nobody about y’all being together?”
Dream said nothing.
“Mmmmhmmm. I’m not mad at you, girl. We all gettin’ played—it’s going around like the flu. I know how it is, though. People talk about it like it’s so easy. It’s like a roller coaster—you like it, and you hate it at the same time. You want to get off, but you don’t. You want to complain, but then you remember you stood in line for the torture.” He paused to put Shenay back under the dryer. Dream tried to pretend like she wasn’t paying him any attention, but when he described her sentiments exactly, her ears couldn’t help but perk up.
“You just got on,” Xander continued. “All that drama and danger might feel good right now, but wait a few years, you gonna want to get off. You’ll want it to stop, but you won’t be able to live without it. By then you’ll be past addicted. You’ll be a-DICK-ted.”
Dream immediately closed her eyes and wondered if she really was on a roller coaster, if Smokey was taking her for a ride. The very thought turned her stomach more than any roller coaster ever had. She was about to give into doubts, but she concentrated instead on what she used to be and who she had become with Smokey. She figured Xander was just mad he didn’t have her to kick around anymore. Finally she opened her eyes and said, “Shut up. I’m trying to do this girl’s hair before Regis.”
XANDER
Sprawled across the bed he’d lain in for the past ten hours, unable to sleep, Xander reached for his cell phone and pressed one on the speed-dial.
“Stop calling me,” said the voice, picking up for the first time that day.
“Why you been avoiding me?” asked Xander, ignoring the request he was sure his lover didn’t really mean.
“I ain’t been avoiding you. I been busy,” said the muffled voice on the other end of the line.
“Doing what?”
“Minding my own damn business. Why don’t you try?”
“You are my business.”
“I told you I hate fags, Xander,” he yelled. Then he whispered, “I ain’t gay.”
Xander had no idea how to handle the whole “I’m not gay” thing. He didn’t believe his man when he said it, and he knew that if he ever wanted to be something more than just a piece of man-ass on the side he’d have to confront his lover, eventually. The problem was, he didn’t know how to say what he felt without pushing him farther away.
“I don’t know about this no more, Xander,” he continued, breaking through Xander’s stammering.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I should just be with my wife. I told you, I ain’t gay.”
“I know you aren’t.”
“So why you always acting like I’m your boyfriend?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
“We fuck. That’s it,” said his lover, raising his voice once more. “Just because we fuck, don’t mean I’m a fag. Niggas in the pen fuck all the time. It don’t mean shit, Xander. It don’t mean shit.”
“I never said you was a fag,” said Xander, trying to quell his lover’s tirade. He waited for a response, but all he heard was a click.
“Fashad. Fashad, are you there?” asked Xander. “Fashad, answer me,” he commanded. Then called back again and again for the next hour before work.
XANDER: A CONFESSION
My name is Xander Thomas, and when that trumpet sounds Fashad Douglass will be mine.
I met Fashad way back in the day, before anyone knew he was down low. He used to play ball for St. Vincent’s, and every time they played my school, PS 23, I would sit behind the visitors’ bench and stare at him until my eyes watered. Fashad was different. A lot of guys can make me think happy thoughts, and bring me to orgasms, but not too many can make me stare. Fashad’s beauty goes beyond blood flow and spasms. He has the type of looks that hit you in the chest and take your breath away.
One time St. Vincent’s was getting they asses whooped worse than usual and put in all the scrubs that never got to play. Usually when the scrubs get in everyone assumes the game is over, and hurries out to the parking lot before the gangs start shooting. This time Fashad was one of those scrubs, so we stayed. Soon the gym was empty save for the players, the PS girls, and myself. Every time he touched the ball, we went wild. Shouting and shit, as if every pass were a marriage proposal. When he made a three-pointer we started jumping around, pretending to have the Holy Ghost. Maybe that’s why I wanted Fashad, because everyone else did. It was like a competition, a free-for-all basketball game, with everyone out for his or herself.
I was in the parking lot at 4–1–1, an under-twenty-one club that every teenager who mattered in Detroit used to go to on Saturday nights. I was there with two of my homegirls, but they both went home with old heads. I was walking back to my car and somebody called me fag. There were a bunch of niggas in the parking lot, but they seemed more likely to help someone hurt me than help me get away. I knew I had to speed up.
I was almost to my car when I felt somebody pull me back out into the middle of the parking lot. When my momma found my purse underneath my bed the week before, she didn’t yell or call me names, she just put a meat clever inside it and handed it to me when I got home from school. She told me not to be afraid to use it. But outside in that parking lot, there were too many of them. I
got two of them, but it probably only made them madder. They beat my ass so bad I can’t but hardly remember it.
I do remember waking up in the hospital about a week later. The doctors said if I hadn’t been brought to them so quickly, I would have died. I asked them who brought me in, and they told me it was a handsome caramel-toned boy with long hair and piercing brown eyes. Fashad was my hero. He was Romeo to my Romeo and we were meant to be together.
I tried to find Fashad the day after I got out. Just to thank him, and tell him that I felt just as passionate as he did. Silly me, I thought we could skip the drama cursed upon all lovers and jump right to the happy ending. It was the week after graduation. I saw Fashad standing outside of 4–1–1 with his friend Pie and two other boys I didn’t know. When I saw Fashad, I panicked. I’ll never forget it. If I had just taken that chance and gone over to talk to him, who knows what might have happened. But I couldn’t. I didn’t yet believe I deserved that happy ending. So I turned around and went back to my car, just to make sure everything was perfect. I decided to pick my hair a little on the left because my fro was a little flat. I put some lip gloss on because my lips aren’t full enough without it. I put on lotion underneath my Levi’s just in case, because I didn’t want my knees to chafe later on that night. By the time I got out of the car, Fashad was waving good-bye to his boys and heading off with some beautiful light-skinned sister.
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