Mama's Girl

by Daybreak Jones

  Michelle is going with us, and that has Carlos all giddy. He hasn’t seen her without an adult around since their parents found out she was pregnant, which I don’t understand. It’s not like she can get double pregnant. The damage is done. They might as well let them go at it like bunnies.

  I really don’t want to go to the pizza parlor interview. Samuel said whatever I need he would get, and with Uncle Doug living with us my allowance day was moved to Wednesday, his payday, and it went up to sixty dollars. Plus, Mama said I would still get my share from the store. I am going along with all this pizza parlor stuff to meet Samuel, and of course, the plan is to stop by his brother’s place before I go up to the park and do some real work. Carlos and Michelle have similar plans. The only people who are really going to see about the job are Walter and Edith.

  When Carlos pulls up in front of the pizza place, I see Samuel’s little red car three cars ahead. He’s standing outside of it. While admiring his stance, his style, and his whole presence, I decide not to do the interview thing.

  “I’m not going in.” I open the back door of the car to exit.

  “May, what are you doing? I told the lady five of us are applying.”

  Walter looks at me, pleading, but Samuel is looking real good in his shearling coat and cap. So, right now, for me, being with him is more important than applying for a job I don’t want.

  “Why you going out with him anyway? Don’t you think it is a little weird that a grown man with a Porsche is dating a high school girl?”

  “Depends on the high school girl,” I say and give him a kiss on the cheek.

  “May, please tell me those are not the earrings I just gave you.”

  “Yes, you like?”

  “Yeah, I like them. I gave them to you, but I didn’t give them to you to wear out with dude. Damn, girl.” He opens his door, looks back at me, and shakes his head. He leaves without saying another word. Walter is tripping.

  “Are you coming up to the park?” Edith asks.

  “Of course, see you there.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Instead of Samuel’s brother’s apartment, we are at a motel on Eighty-seventh Street. It’s closer to the park, giving us more time to be with each other. He picks me up and gives me a big kiss and tosses me on the bed as soon as the room door closes.

  “I missed you so much, babe,” he says diving in the bed next to me.

  “Yeah, right, you missed me so much that you hung up on me Saturday.”

  “I had to do that. I was with my wife.”

  “So, when you are with your wife, we don’t talk?”

  “That’s right.” He sits up. “If I tell you I can’t talk, I can’t talk. And I mean that.”

  He means that? “What is that like one of your rules or something?” I sit up now.

  “There are rules to every relationship, babe,” he says while helping me out of my coat. He gets out of the bed and takes his coat and hat off and hangs both our coats on the chrome rack with chrome hangers. He sits back on the bed and starts untying his shoes.

  “Rules huh? Well, tell them all to me. I don’t want to find them out as we go along.”

  “Okay, the first and most important rule is that you date only me. Oh, and I bought a black tux to wear to your prom. Figured it would go with whatever color you wore.”

  “My prom?”

  “Yeah, these young dudes be thinking that since they take you to prom they getting some. And that’s not happening, and to avoid all that I decided to go with you. No sense in you missing out on an important event like that. So what I’ll be a little embarrassed being as old as some of the teachers? At least this way you can still go.”

  He continues to undress all while he is telling me what I can and can’t do. I had been looking forward to seeing him, but after hearing all this, I am wondering why. My brain is telling me to have him take me home. My eyes, however, are looking at his nude body with his eight-pack abdomen and defined arm muscles, and his hard ding-a-ling bobbing up and down. Then my eyes send a message to my pussycat that it’s time to get wet, and suddenly I’m thinking about the good time we had over at his brother’s house, and I start taking my clothes off too.

  Today, I felt like the bra with the nipples out would be okay to wear. Of course, I had to wear a heavy sweater to school and put Band-Aids over my nipples to cover their protrusions throughout the day. And judging by the hungry look on Samuel’s face, he thinks my wearing the set is okay too. His eyes haven’t moved from my C-cup chest since I took the sweater off. My breasts aren’t usually what hold a boy’s attention. They stare at my butt and hips. Mama says I have a Parliament/Funkadelic booty. She dug out an album cover to show me what she was talking about. Mine isn’t that big, but it’s big.

  “This is the set I bought for you. You like?” I stand on the bed and turn around for him to get a full view.

  “Oh, hell yeah, I like,” he answers.

  “I thought you would.”

  “Come here, girl, and bring me what’s mine.”

  The words he said sounded kind of sweet, but the tone in which he spoke stops me cold. He said it like he was commanding a dog to heel. I step down and out of the bed, picking up my clothes, and I walk over to the only other furniture in the room: a table and single chair.

  He stretches out across the bed lying on his back. His ding-a-ling is pointing to the ceiling. I really want to get back into the bed, but my brain won’t let go of his “come here, girl” statement or his commanding tone.

  “You, Samuel Talbert, are a married man. And as a married man, you have a wife.” I put my bundle of clothes down on the table.

  “Girl, what are you talking about? Get on back over here.” He doesn’t bother to sit up. He’s still lying on his back with his ding-a-ling pointing to the ceiling while talking to me.

  “I am a single woman, and under no contract with you either verbal or written. If you think that three hundred dollars you gave me makes you the head of my life you are mistaken. I can return that money to you right now. You or no other man tells me what I can and can’t do. That attitude you save for your wife.

  “And we might as well get this out in the open now: you are not my only male friend, and you will not be going to prom with me. You are a married man I like, and I have a high school boyfriend, and if I decide to fuck him, I will fuck him. You are not the boss of me. Now, put your clothes on so you can take me to go get your three hundred dollars.”

  He moves so quick that I didn’t see him cross the room. He’s in my face with a hand around my neck. “Babe, don’t ever talk to me like that.” He carries me back to the bed and forces me face down on the motel bed.

  “You can keep the damn three hundred dollars. But know this: if we are going to be together, you are only making love to me. No other man can touch you, not if you are mine. And if you ever mention my wife again when we are together, we are finished. We don’t talk about me being married when we are together. Understand?”

  I nod my head yes.

  “And your little high school boyfriend, quit him tomorrow. You over there doing all that big talking but you didn’t put on a stitch of clothes.” He sticks his hand down the back of my panties into my pussycat. “And your pussy is soggy.”

  I hear him sucking my juices off his fingers. Oh, I don’t know why but I like that. He smacks his lips, and that makes me feel tingly.

  “Damn you taste good. You want to make love to me as bad as I want you, so put an end to all these silly, childish games. You my woman and that’s all there is to it.” He snatches my panties off. “My women fuck only me, so, the question is, is you mine or ain’t cha mine?”

  I feel his hot ding-a-ling against my thigh.

  “If you mine, you get up on your knees so we can go at it doggie style. If you not mine, put on your clothes and hit the door.”

  He releases me. I turn my face from the bedspread and look back at him. Despite the harshness of his words, he’s smiling. He raises one
eyebrow and grins wider. I get up on my knees.

  * * *

  Samuel thinks he is in control. He thinks he can steer me around and direct me just like he does to his car, but he’s wrong. I got what I wanted plus some. I kept the $300, shivered from the inside out a bunch of times, and he gave me another $200 to get my hair and nails done. Mama cuts and styles my hair, and I do my own nails, so this $200 is going straight to the bank. As long as I get what I want, he can think he is the boss of me.

  But, he is obviously serious about me being with only him. I am flattered a little by his possessiveness, but me going out with him alone is not going to happen. What he doesn’t know won’t get me hurt.

  He was a little scary there for a minute. One thing is for sure: he’s not like Walter or any of the other boys. I can’t just tell him what to do. He knows stuff, and that’s kind of sexy. He was inside of my head a little.

  “What are you thinking about, babe?”

  He’s parking his car on the corner of Loomis. I will have to walk across the grass to the field house. It’s a quarter to five. I got a couple of minutes before work time. I open up the box of chicken Samuel bought me, and I eat a couple of my leftover fries. “I’m thinking about you mostly,” I say. “Wondering do you really love me, or am I just a young girl you playing with?”

  He turns the car off and cracks his window a little. “Nope, that’s not what you thinking. What you wondering is if our love will last. You feel the love, we both do, so it’s not a question of are we in love. The question is will it last. Some love never makes it out of a hotel room; some lasts for years.”

  I offer him a piece of my chicken, but he waves a refusal, so I close the box. I think he’s talking more about physical lust than love. “Are you talking about lust or love?” I ask him.

  “I believe lust is the predecessor to love, romantic love anyway.”

  “So, you saying if we wouldn’t have done it, we wouldn’t be in love?”

  “Yeah, that’s why they call it making love. All of the attraction, the physical contact, the kissing, the holding, the copulation, the conversation, are all ingredients that go into making love.”

  “What about crippled people who can’t do it and are in love?”

  “Copulation is only one ingredient needed. They are stronger on the other ingredients. Let’s say they spend hours talking and holding hands, listening to music, and doing jigsaw puzzles. They’re making love, babe. The same with older people. When they are young, copulation is the mainstay of their love, but over time the love recipe changes, more conversation perhaps than copulation.”

  “So, we strong on the copulation right now I suppose?”

  “That and the physical attraction, ’cause Lord knows you fine, and the kissing.” He lightly kisses me on the lips. “We got a lot of strong ingredients in our love, babe. But wait and see. It’s gonna get greater later.”

  “Mm, we’ll see.”

  This kiss I initiate.

  * * *

  There are not as many children in the field house as there were Saturday. Mr. Pickens has all the young actors in the gym. He is floating from group to group giving directions and listening to lines. If someone didn’t know how Mr. Pickens worked, the gym would look chaotic. But I know. My one-on-one is a thin little boy named Marcus. He has locs and a lazy eye.

  “I know my lines already. I told Mr. Pickens I didn’t need a coach. You could work with another, slower kid. I’m straight and ready. If the play was today, I would be ready,” he challenges.

  “Okay, that’s great,” I tell him. “So how many scenes and acts are in the play?” I put my book bag down on the bottom bench of the bleachers and sit in front of the skinny boy while I pull the folder from my book bag.

  “What?” he asks, looking a little confused.

  “How many scenes and acts are in the play?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “That’s okay. Tell me, what is your motivation? What is driving the character?”

  “Huh?”

  “What makes the character say what he says? What makes him do what he does?”

  “His lines.”

  “But why is he saying them?”

  “Because they are in the play.”

  I smile and exhale. Ten-year-olds. “Yep, the lines are in the play. You are right. But an actor needs to know why the lines are in the play. An actor needs to know what the lines are trying to do. Knowing what the lines are trying to do helps you get into character.”

  “Get into what?”

  “Character. You have to become the character, and you can’t do that if you don’t know what the lines are doing.”

  “I remembered the lines. That’s what Mr. Pickens told me to do.”

  “Okay, that’s a good beginning. Now, it’s time to be coached. Here sit here, next to me.”

  He does, and I open the play.

  “This play has three acts: a beginning, act one; a middle, act two; and the end, act three. You see how they are outlined here.”

  He looks down at the table of contents. “Yeah, I see that.”

  “And under each act there are scenes. Do you see that?”

  “Yeah. Act one has three scenes, act two has three, and act three has two?”

  “Very good. Did you notice you have no lines in act three?”

  “No. I thought I was in the whole play.”

  “You die in act two, scene two.”

  “Oh, yeah, the police shot me. I cry out, ‘Freedom,’ then fall to the floor.”

  “That’s right. You do know your lines.”

  “I told you.”

  “So why did your character yell, ‘Freedom,’ after he was shot?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think that’s important to know?”

  “No, not really.”

  I laugh. “It is, and let me tell you why. You went to see the Langston Hughes play yesterday, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you know about Langston?”

  “He was a poet, and he loved Black people.”

  “How do you know he loved Black people?”

  “Because he wrote about them and the hard times they went through, and he said he loved his people.”

  “So, you believe Langston Hughes loved Black people. Why?”

  “Because he said it.”

  “You heard Langston Hughes say he loved Black people.”

  “Yeah, I told you he said it.”

  “You didn’t hear Langston Hughes say he loved Black people.”

  “I did.”

  “No, you heard an actor playing the part of Langston saying he loved Black people, and that actor convinced you that Langston Hughes loved Black people because he was in character. He understood how Langston Hughes felt about his people. He understood enough about Langston Hughes to make you feel that Langston loved Black people. He made you feel that you were looking at and listening to Langston Hughes.”

  He puts his lazy eye and his healthy eye in my eyes. “Oh.”

  I smile.

  “He kind of tricked me.”

  “No, he got into character. He understood why Langston said what he said.”

  “Did you coach that actor who played Langston?”

  “No, I didn’t, but I will coach you.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’m at the back door, fumbling with my keys, my book bag, and my box of chicken when suddenly someone has their arm under my chin and wrapped around my neck. The chokehold takes my breath away. While attempting to twist myself free, I try to stomp the attacker’s foot but whoever it is tosses me back and forth, not allowing me to get my footing or position. The box of chicken and my keys fall.

  “Yeah, you and yo’ mama thought that was funny keeping my pistols and me getting shot in the leg. Didn’t y’all?” He has put a knife to my cheek. Both of us have stopped moving. “Shit ain’t funny now, is it?”

  It’s Mooky. Lo
rd, how stupid is this boy? “Dang, Mooky, what you gonna do, stab me in the face?” God, he stinks of wine, musk, and cigarette smoke.

  “Naw, I just need my guns back. I don’t want to hurt you or yo’ mama, but I need my guns, and if I got to hurt you to get them, well, there it is.”

  He tightens his arm around my neck and presses the point of the blade into my flesh. I’ll cut him before I let him scar my face. My hand has gone into my coat pocket and thumbed open Papa’s razor. If he doesn’t let me go, we are both going to be bloody.

  “If you don’t take the knife from my face, you are going to hurt me because it’s starting to dig into my skin.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.” But he moves the knife and lets me go. “Go get my guns, May.”

  I turn around and slap him hard across the face. He wants to hit me back. I can see it in his face. I pull the open razor from my pocket, and he sees it, but I don’t think that’s what’s stopping him from hitting me back.

  “What’s wrong with you, Mooky? Dang. We grew up together. Why you tripping like this? Mama was doing you a favor keeping those guns. Don’t you know that? You headed for jail or the graveyard with them. What, you gonna go rob somebody tonight?” I lower the razor.

  He doesn’t answer me right away. He looks down at my feet then up in my eyes. What he has actually done might be kicking in. “What I’m doin’ tonight ain’t cha business. Just go get my pistols.”

  I put my hand on his chest and push him hard. He stumbles back a few steps into the shadows of the yard. I can barely see him. He appears and walks from the darkness of the backyard to me stepping into the light.

  “What, you now started smoking crack with Blake and lost your mind? You need money to get high? I’ll give you twenty dollars. Just leave the guns here.”

  I would do this because like everybody else on the block, I love his mama. Ms. Holden used to have summer camp in her backyard when we were little kids. We all went down to her yard and played games during the summer: croquet, horseshoes, one-two-three red light, shuffleboard, and she even had a real boomerang from Australia. We drank hundreds of pitchers of Kool-Aid and ate thousands of jelly sandwiches. We had story time and Bible Study. Her camp was the bomb.