“Thanks.” He grinned. “Want to join me for dinner?”
“Not a chance.”
“Have it your way,” he said. “I’ll have the car waiting for you downstairs…ciao for now.”
The elevator arrived in time, before I could say something that might render the deal mute. I was this close to turning around and clocking Hamilton, but he held all the cards. I stepped in and rode down to the ground floor. Felt like I’d made a deal with the devil.
But knew it was better than letting my nephew’s future hang out to dry.
Chapter 33
It wasn’t the way I imagined I would die.
Not that I believed I had a right to script the exact moment and manner of my last moment on earth. Somehow, though, I imagined that I wouldn’t know when it was happening. Thought I’d go to bed after a grand evening with friends or family, and just not wake up. That those memories of a last festive evening would forever be sketched in the minds of the significant people around me. Or I thought I would wake up one morning and, as I was going for the morning paper, collapse just outside my front door. That I wouldn’t know what hit me. That I would be old and have lived out my natural life, the way it should be…ideally. That my life would have felt complete and natural to be ending. A purposeful life that fulfilled its purpose.
Not the kind of death that would create headlines and questions.
“Mr. Campbell.” I heard the driver’s voice through the partition speaker. “I think we’re having car problems. I’m going to pull over and check things out. You’re free to step out while I figure out what’s up.”
Though it was nighttime by now, I was familiar with where we’d pulled over—somewhere in East Hollywood, where I could have easily walked or cabbed to Silver Lake. No need to wait for Hamilton’s employee to drive me home.
“I can get home from…”
“Faggot.” I heard a voice beside me as I walked to the raised hood of the car, where the driver was.
The man standing beside me was not alone.
“Fucking faggot.”
Neither was the voice behind me alone. The same voice giving directions in my nephew’s video. Lamont Murphy’s voice.
Before it made any sense to me, before I could really comprehend what was happening, I felt the strike against the back of my rib cage. Felt the wind knock out of me. Felt myself lurch forward. The kind of blow I’d never received.
It came again, this time striking just to the right of where I’d been hit a few seconds earlier. Heard the smashing of glass. Getting me in a spot where it was impossible not to feel it, where it was impossible not to hear the cracking of bones, where even if I didn’t want to react and fall, I had no choice but to. Had no control. Left side of my face against the asphalt. Cold. Rough. Hot. Felt my skin rip as I hit the ground. My face. Always the area I protected when I perceived myself in danger. Now I couldn’t protect it…or myself.
Yelled. Thought I was. More like a whisper. A gasp of air. Sunset Boulevard. East Hollywood. Busy night. People should have been around. Someone should have been running to my rescue.
“Shut up, faggot.”
Saw construction boots gain momentum, pull back, and accelerate toward my chest, then stomach, then groin. The force rolled me a couple feet along the ground. Gravel and glass sticking to my arms and face, like glitter on that Styrofoam ball planet my dad helped me make in third grade. Floating. Kind of awake. Dreaming? Reminiscing?
Now facing the late-night sky. Saw the bat flying toward my face. Slow motion, yet real time. Little time to react. Felt part of the force on my elbow, part on the top of my head.
Why? Me? Now?
“That’ll learn you, faggot.”
Heard construction boots walking, then running. Two doors slam. Engine rev up. Tires skid as they drove away.
Afraid to move. Paralyzed in fear. Too tired to do anything. Looked at the night sky. Knew, well, hoped it would be minutes before anyone would find me. Wondered why merely being a faggot was enough to beat me, leave me. Felt tears forming in my eyes. Not the way I wanted to die, but ready.
Dreamed. Rested. Gave in to the pain. Relaxed. Prepared to let it be over.
Chapter 34
Blake said I had been unconscious for a day. After another two days of continued improvement and observations, Kyle drove Blake and me home. I’d escaped, they said, with mostly bruises and braised skin on my face. I guess I was physically tougher than I thought.
“You’re lucky you woke up when you did,” Blake said as we drove out of the Kaiser Permanente parking lot. “For a minute, I thought it was touch and go. I thought I was going to have to fly my mom or grandma out here, but I didn’t want them to know what’s going on.”
The last thing I, or Blake, needed was for my sister Marlena to be in L.A.
“We’re all trying to figure out why you’d be walking alone in East Hollywood at night,” Kyle said. “That’s not even your scene. The police thought it was strange.”
“Especially since your car is still parked at your place,” Blake said. “I mean, they were trying to call you all kinds of a crackhead prostitute, Unc, but I had to clear it up that you don’t do any kind of drugs or illegal stuff. Still, they can’t figure out why you have no memory of being out on the streets at night.”
“It’s just going to be one of those unsolved crimes until you remember something,” Kyle said. “But it’s a hairflip now. You’re well. You’re with us. And now you’re going home.”
“Yep,” I said. “I guess it’s all a mystery.”
I wanted to change the subject. Talking about my encounter with gay bashers wasn’t on the top of my list at the moment.
“Kyle, you have any Nancy Wilson in your car?” I asked. “I feel like listening to that one song where she advises the poor woman her relationship is over.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” Kyle said. With a press of a button, we were listening to Nancy Wilson’s “Face It Girl, It’s Over.” And Kyle pretended that he wasn’t that tech-savvy, though I knew he had over five thousand songs stored in his Cadillac’s dashboard hard drive. “Love this song. Miss Wilson’s telling the truth…face it, girl.”
“I don’t like this old music,” Blake said and started putting his headphones on. Brat. “Y’all didn’t believe in dope beats back in your day.”
“This is before Kyle’s and my day,” I said. “But it’s still good music.”
“Just listen,” Kyle said. “You might learn a thing or two about life.”
“I know everything I need to know about life,” Blake said and laughed.
If only Blake knew one thing. That I remembered everything, from the limousine ride to The Standard, to my meeting with Hamilton James, to being a captive audience to Blake’s porno video in Hamilton’s hotel suite, to getting beat up on the dark streets of East Hollywood, to hearing Lamont Murphy’s voice giving directions in the video and just as I was attacked. I remembered it all, but chose to protect Blake’s reputation by pretending not to recall what had happened.
We continued north until we hit my street. I was happy to see familiar territory. Silver Lake. The ride would give me a few more minutes to decide how and when to tell Blake or Marlena (or both) what they knew to be true, but I’d been naïve enough to wish was not.
That Blake would never change his ways.
Chapter 35
“Aaah, it feels so good to be home,” I said when Blake and Kyle opened the door of my apartment and led me inside to familiar territory.
I really meant it. I felt like a free man. Not only was I free from the confines of my hospital bed, and the tubes and bland food, but I was free of the video drama of the past weeks, free of my job, free of Tyrell and Tommie, free of any men who didn’t have my best interest at heart. It was nice to not have tabloids and photographers pursuing me for a story. Pretending like I didn’t remember anything gave me a chance for freedom from all drama around me.
Then I looked at my nephew ac
ross the room, as he grabbed his laptop from the dining room table and took it into his room.
“What’s that look for, Malcolm?” Kyle asked as he poured hot water over tea bags. He sat at the dining room table with me while the tea brewed. “Looked like you wanted to kill the kid.”
“I think Marlena was right about Blake,” I said. “I think he’s beyond repair.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyle said. “He was at your hospital bed the whole time and wouldn’t leave until he knew you were going to be okay.”
“It was only because he knew he was responsible,” I said. “Get the tea and we’ll talk.”
“You’re scaring me, Malcolm,” Kyle said as he brought the tea set to the table.
I squeezed a little honey into my cup and stirred.
“My nephew has been doing gay porn since he got to L.A.,” I said. “He doesn’t know I know it yet.”
“What?” Kyle asked. “Get out.”
“Hamilton James is behind all of this,” I said. “He’s got Deacon working for him starring in videos and that’s how our private videos got leaked. Had to be. He’s got a whole lot of young men working porn for him, including DeMarco’s man Compton, and now my nephew.”
“That’s crazy.”
“And I’m pretty sure Hamilton was behind my getting beat up in East Hollywood,” I said. “I think Lamont Murphy is in on it too. I’d know the man’s voice anywhere.”
“Wait, hold up. Explain.”
I updated Kyle on everything I remembered but pretended not to. The invitation. Thinking I was summoned by Tyrell. Hamilton’s revelation. My deal to call off the LADS guys and keep quiet in exchange for Hamilton not releasing Blake’s videos.
“I never should have made that deal,” I said. “Hamilton’s crazy. The boycott was obviously working.”
“Well, I never got to tell you how well it was working,” Kyle said. “You went off and got yourself beat up while I was in Vegas. The gospel single never took off—a flop. And he lost his billing on a very lucrative old-school tour planned for the holiday season.”
It was exciting to learn we’d made a bit of a difference in Tommie Jordan’s career.
“Of course, now that I lived…what if Hamilton decides to go after me again?”
“He won’t if he’s smart,” Kyle said. “He knows there’s too much attention on you because of the loose association with Tommie and Tyrell. He won’t want any more of those associations coming to light, and he certainly doesn’t want any more hits to their checkbooks.”
“You think?”
“Girl, please,” Kyle said and started laughing. “If anything, you need to go out there and get your man, Tyrell, and get LADS back. You wouldn’t advise DeMarco and them to sit back, would you?”
“Of course not,” I said. But making empowered decisions often came when the odds looked in your favor, not when you were being blackmailed into doing something you didn’t want.
“Because you’re forgetting two things, Malcolm,” Kyle said. “One, you’ve got Tommie and Hamilton on tape revealing everything about Tommie’s undercover life.”
“True.”
“And two, I didn’t make a deal with Hamilton,” Kyle said. “I’ve got your back.”
Chapter 36
Before reaching out to Tyrell Kincaid, I needed to clear the air with my nephew. I was the grown adult and knew, after my talk with Kyle, that sitting back like a long-suffering heroine wasn’t the way to teach Blake what he needed to learn this summer.
I opened the guest room door—no warning—and saw Blake lying on his back pleasuring himself while half keeping an eye on the computer screen next to him.
“Get out here in the living room,” I said. “Now, Blake.”
“Oh shit,” Blake said and sat up, his thing still at high noon outside the elastic of his basketball shorts. “Unc, don’t I get no privacy?”
“Get decent and get out here. Two minutes.”
I was firm, but not angry, as I didn’t want to erupt into a shouting match with my nephew. That was Marlena’s way of dealing with her problems with Blake. Still, I needed him to know that I meant business.
“What’s so important that you couldn’t wait for me to handle my business?” Blake asked when he emerged from the guest room. His basketball shorts had been exchanged for jeans, and he was shirtless.
“Sit down, mister,” I said and pointed to the exact spot I wanted him to be. “First, you’re nineteen, you own no property and have no money, so you do as you’re told…especially when you’re in my place.”
Blake rolled his eyes and head around, in one of those I’ve-heard-this-before reactions.
“So what happened? You talked to my mom again? She tell you something else I did wrong back in Indiana?”
It would be so easy to send you back to Indiana, I thought.
“Actually, this is about what you’ve been doing wrong since you moved to L.A.”
“I ain’t been up to nothing,” Blake said and got up in that guilty-but-pretending-to-be-innocent mode of youthful pleading. “I been stuck in this house, if anything, bored out my mind.”
“But you’d say it’s better than being stuck in the house in Indiana, wouldn’t you?” I asked. “Because your mom and I can easily arrange for you to go back like yesterday if you want.”
Blake started walking toward the guest room.
“Make one more step and I’m telling your mom about the porn and about how you’ve been making a few dollars on the side with Hamilton James.”
He stopped and turned back to me.
“Huh?”
“I know what you’ve been doing here in L.A.,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know how you’ve been sneaking out to do this, or how you got hooked up with Hamilton James and his porn circuit, but it’s going to stop today.”
“How do you know this?”
“I talked to Hamilton directly,” I said. “I saw you on the screen acting like a whore in heat.”
“Well, I don’t see how that’s any different than those videos you made with your ex,” Blake said, as if he had something on me.
“Those were private videos and I didn’t get paid for them.”
“Blah, blah, blah. It’s the same old story. You didn’t consent. You didn’t get paid. You were in a relationship,” Blake said. “Tell me what’s worse? Gettin’ paid, or being a ho for nothing.”
Don’t engage him, Malcolm. But it might be time to pull a Marlena.
“WHY DON’T YOU ASK YOUR MOTHER?” I said and pulled out my cell phone. “Marlena would love to know that you have proven her right. That you’re a LOSER LIKE YOUR DADDY with no plans and no future.”
I hated pulling the like-your-daddy card with Blake. I knew, based on my conversations with Marlena, that Blake had issues when it came to his father not being around most of his life. Marlena’s and my father was the closest thing Blake had to a father figure while growing up. I was that figure now.
“That is not true,” Blake said and sat down. I couldn’t tell if this was an act or an effort to tone down our discussion before it escalated. “I am not a loser. Don’t tell her. I don’t want to go back to Indiana, Unc.”
“Really? Because you’re going to have to man up and prove you want…you deserve to stay here in L.A.”
“I want to stay,” Blake said. “I can’t help it that I’m young and I have needs…sex, money, fame, you know. I know you know. You were nineteen once.”
I knew quite well what nineteen was like when you’re young, Black, and gay. Kyle and I had done our own share of damage and potentially damaging scenarios back in the day. The difference between Blake and me was that I was in college and focused on things in addition to being young, Black, and gay. Like studying. Doing student government. Celebrating at dorm room birthday parties. We were still too early in the tech age to have ready access to computers, the ability to make our own videos or to meet online stra
ngers who were not looking out for our best interests.
“I’m not going to fall for the shared life experiences line,” I said. “But I will let you in on something before we continue. It’s only fair.”
“What?”
“I believe Hamilton James and Lamont Murphy ordered those men to beat me up,” I said. “I can’t prove it, but it’s just a hunch. Hamilton probably didn’t trust me as much as I didn’t trust him, so after he and I agreed to keep silent about our respective secrets, he arranged to keep me silent…permanently.”
“You saying this is all my fault? That you got beat up?”
“I’m not saying it’s your fault,” I said. “I’m just saying if you don’t shape up soon, going back to Indiana will be your fault.”
Chapter 37
Tyrell hadn’t been around for a few weeks, but I knew that I wanted to see him. Mainly to make sure he had emerged unscathed from his recent tabloid follies. Somehow, the social-worker-as-romantic was emerging, and that was a side of my personality I knew was dangerous. Led me to feel sorry for and date men like Deacon. And the few before him.
After all, it was being linked to Tyrell and Tommie’s scandal that had brought on weeks of public scrutiny by the paparazzi as well as isolation in my apartment. If anything, it should have been Tyrell reaching out to me. Along with Deacon. Along with Lamont Murphy.
The funny thing, though, is once your mind puts something out into the universe, the universe delivers.
Later that evening, just as I was looking to find a contact number for Tyrell, there was a knock at the front door.
Tyrell was there looking for me.
Chapter 38
“I wouldn’t be surprised or upset if you didn’t invite me in,” Tyrell said.
He had a blank look on his face as he stood outside my screen door. Nothing about Tyrell had changed over the past few weeks. He looked like he’d had his regular share of meals and fitness, and I knew that celebrity isolation was nothing like regular-people isolation. In the event there were still photographers lurking around or following him, I opened the door to let him in. Quickly.
Play It Forward Page 14
