My younger brother André and I were outside the top comedy club in downtown Long Beach, taking in the cool ocean air under the palm trees. I’d just landed at LAX two hours ago and surprised him at his show. I had on black joggers and a white T-shirt underneath a Jedi hoodie. André had on slim jeans and a WAKANDA FOREVER T-shirt. He sat on his yellow BMW motorcycle, helmet at his side, while we watched the crowd file into the club.
My younger brother asked, “When you get back?”
“Plane landed two hours ago.”
“Glad you’re back home. For how long?”
“Not sure. I have to deal with Frenchie. Court. Family court.”
“Again? You’re down there so much, they should be sending you a paycheck on the first and fifteenth.”
“And I haven’t seen my son in three months. We talk all the time, but I need some face time.”
“Been that long? I don’t see how you stay on the road with those shows year after year.”
“It’s theater. We live on the road. New city every week. Some folks have been on the road thirty years.” I motioned at the time. “Showtime, Baby Brother. Get me a seat in the back. Don’t want to upstage you.”
“You wish.”
“Get me a drink too. A greyhound.”
“You talked to Brick?”
“Not yet. He coming down?”
“Said he might.”
I wanted to tell him about the disturbing text messages I’d gotten from my son, texts that had my anxiety through the roof, but it wasn’t the type of thing you dropped on an entertainer before he stepped onstage.
I’d let him finish working, then go by his crib, bring up my concerns. I was worried about my son, Fela, and his well-being.
André had to do three one-hour sets that night: he was headlining the seven, nine, and eleven shows. First show was always the hardest because people weren’t drunk enough. Second show, they were just right. By the third show, people could be too intoxicated. Intoxication always woke up a hoard of hecklers.
* * *
—
AT THE LAST show, André stood onstage, laughter coming down hard, talking about his years of unprovoked run-ins with the cops, same experience damn near every black in America seemed to have had at some point. He did a new bit about when he was getting fucked with by the cops in Beverly Hills a few days ago.
“I was not speeding. No missing front plate. No broken taillight. Wearing my seat belt. Hadn’t broken any laws. I don’t look like OJ or Rodney King. Basically, I was in a very nice car, as nice as those driven by the white people being allowed to go from point A to point B unprovoked, enjoying my motherfucking Sunday, driving while black. I didn’t have a white woman at my side, which, for this story, is very important to note, because that means there was absolutely no reason for anybody of any race to fuck with me on my Sunday, black women or white men. But I’m a black man in America. Who needs a reason? Shall I proceed?”
People in the crowd shouted, “Yes, proceed.”
He let the laughter die down a bit.
“So, I was in Beverly Hills, in a drop top . . . going under the speed limit . . . minding my own fucking business . . . and that has somehow disturbed the police, the way that chilling in Starbucks now is like sitting at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s during the civil rights era. So. Was minding my motherfucking business.”
A heckler in the front row yelled out, “Get to the punch line.”
He had disrupted the two acts that came on before André too.
André walked to the edge of the stage, looked down on him, smiled. “Oh, I will, white boy.”
“White boy?”
“Yeah, I called you a boy. Did I get the gender right? I don’t want to assume.”
“Racist.”
“Did you call me racist? Well, you have to remember that no black people work at the Department of Racism. That’s all white people, Chuck. Doesn’t he look like a Chuck? Now, you could’ve called me a bigot and I might have agreed, or a nigga and I would have agreed, then beat your ass, not in a violent manner, but in a very intellectual and educational sort of way that ended with a punch line and maybe a standing ovation.”
His snark brought out waves of laughter.
“Call me a racist? Nah. Bigot? Yes.”
Laughs kept coming.
“Racist? Never. But you also have to remember that if I am a bigot, the Department of Bigotry is secretly funded by the Department of Racism. They set the rules; we just follow their lead. The Department of Racism, where most of the employees are white men. I’m joking. They’re all white men. That’s where it all started and that is who is still in control. Yeah, I might be a bigot, but that’s only because I’m in a country of racists. It’s a defense mechanism. You get rid of the head office and all of this shit might go the fuck away.”
Huge applause and laughter. He was Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Richard Pryor 2.0.
Chuck yelled, “Asshole.”
“Former asshole, Chuck. Former. Let me explain this to you. Chuck, did you know the first body part developed in an embryo is the anus? The asshole comes first. My point? We all start off as assholes, but the rest of us have developed into decent human beings, Chuck.”
Hilarity ensued.
“I’m the clap-back king, Chuck. You’re probably the king of bringing the clap back. White people. Infecting America since 1492.”
People died in the aisles; women had to run to pee.
“You get what you get, Chuck. You’re barking orders, basically said, ‘Nigga, hurry up.’ Like you’re my comedy overseer.”
He paused as the heckler whispered something to his date.
André asked, “What was that? You can say it to your woman, so say it to me.”
Then my brother took it down to a whisper. “This is between us. You don’t like that I called you boy? Neither did my people when your momma and daddy did it, yet little white boys called our black grandmothers by their first names. This is for them, Chuck.”
Applause and laughter showed who was in charge. This was André’s house. The heckler’s girlfriend was laughing so hard it was twice as contagious as the measles. Her laughter was fuel; André pointed at her, and everyone had a show just watching the pretty girl struggle to stop laughing.
André asked her, “Okay, I’m not that goddamn funny. Wish I was. What’s the joke, Tammy?”
She wiped her eyes. “You. Keep. Calling. Him. Chuck.”
“And?”
“His. Name. Is. Chuck.”
The room erupted in explosive laughter, except Chuck the Heckler. He needed an enema.
André addressed the heckler’s date. “Don’t tell me your name is Tammy.”
“No.” She could barely talk for laughing. “My name is Becky.”
“Becky?”
“Yes. Becky, not Rebecca. My name is actually Becky.”
“Like Becky . . . with the good hair?”
“Yes. It’s orange and yellow this week, but it’s good.”
“Beyoncé’s after your ass, girl. Don’t drink any lemonade.”
The room fell out laughing again. People rolled in the aisles.
“Where did you find Chuck? DealDash-dot-com? Or does he work at the Department of Racism?”
She laughed. “He works for the government.”
“So, yeah. At the Department of Racism.”
André died laughing and the room loved it. Chuck was pissed the fuck off.
With a kind voice and a genial smile, André said, “Chuck. If you’re thinking about kicking my ass, I’ll let you know that will be a one-way trip. No need to pack, because you won’t be coming back. Always bet on black.”
André was crude, rude, likable, intellectual, very funny, and in your face at the same time.
“Anyway, I was driving and
minding my own motherfucking business, just like I was doing a second ago when I started this joke, and next thing I know, Johnny Law was up in my window, looking all tense, gun at his side. I thought his IBS was acting up and he needed me to drive him to the emergency room . . .”
André got back to his routine, his segue as smooth as butter.
When he finished, he dropped the mic, threw up two fingers, then left to a standing ovation.
Chuck the Heckler stormed out of the room and left his date smiling at the stage, clapping hard for André, until finally she disappeared, shadowed her date into oblivion. She had laughed harder than anyone else in the room.
Watching my baby brother own the room, feeling how the crowd loved him, I was jealous. Proud, but still jealous. That used to be my life. His star was getting brighter and I was trying to stop mine from dimming.
CHAPTER 5
DWAYNE
“ANDRÉ. BECKY IS watching you.”
“She’s out here?”
I said, “By the front door.”
He turned around and saw Chuck the Heckler’s front-row date. She was staring out toward Pine Avenue and the convention center. Her butt had a nice hook. Shoes looked like Ferragamo. Her legs looked smooth. She had a single-button jacket on, so I couldn’t tell if she was firm or soft around the middle. She shifted from one high heel to the other. Something about the way she moved her thighs warmed me up, sent a tingle up my spine.
André said, “She ain’t looking at me. She must be waiting on Chuck to pull up in his heckler-mobile.”
“She’s using the window and checking you out in the reflection.”
“When did she come out?”
“When you were talking to that producer about being in some movie at Lionsgate.”
“Think she’s waiting on Chuck to pull his car around? Women in sexy shoes don’t like to walk far.”
“Never know until you ask.” His words stayed with me, but his eyes were on her.
André said, “So, you’re back in town to do that court thing again?”
“Now that you bring it up, you owe me two grand. I need that cash to pay my attorney.”
“Since when do I owe you two grand?”
“A year.”
“For what?”
“I loaned you two grand. I don’t know what you did with it.”
“Did you?”
“Nigga, please.”
Becky shifted, moved her thighs in a way that gave a man wild thoughts. Her reflection smiled. André shifted like he felt that tingle, like her electricity had enveloped him; then he slid his chair back.
I asked, “Where you going?”
“To holla at Becky before Chuck gets back and starts saying that I’m a racist.”
André moved in her direction. She didn’t turn around. André stood next to her and looked out the window.
André asked, “Where’s Chuck?”
“He left.”
“Was he your ride?”
“No. Thank God.”
“How’d you end up with Chuck?”
“Guy I was seeing, we broke up, so I was online and swiped right.”
“Why you and the guy you were seeing break up?”
“Getting caught makes a motherfucker have to decide.”
“He decided?”
“I decided.”
“You smell nice.”
“You’re handsome. Very.”
André grinned. “Enjoy the show?”
“You come at them hard.”
“When you call a black man selling loosies a criminal, yet you have Manafort, you get what you get.”
She said, “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. But when you smiled at me, when you looked me in my eyes . . . you’re so handsome I guess I zoned out and went to another plane. Chuck noticed. Said I was flirting.”
“Were you?”
“I was.”
“Chuck coming back?”
“Fuck Chuck. Fuck my ex and fuck Chuck. He embarrassed me by heckling you. Chuck was mad because I wouldn’t walk out and leave like he wanted to, then mad because I had a great time without him.”
“My name is André.”
“I know your name.”
“I know yours. Becky.”
“I lied.”
“Egads.”
“Joëlle is my real name. Becky was the name I told Chuck. My Internet name.”
“Surprised you stuck around so long.”
“A lot of people were talking to you after the show, so I googled you. Had never heard of you. Impressive résumé. I decided to hang around. I was wondering if or when you were going to notice and say something to me.”
“I thought you were waiting on Chuck.”
She nodded once. “You’re very funny. That’s all I wanted to say. I’m going to leave.”
“Can I go with you?”
“I’m not that kind of girl. I just wanted to thank you for being the best part of my night.”
“I’ve been looking at you, and you’ve been looking at me. You know what that means?”
“What?”
“We’ve been looking at each other.”
Her face switched to the enamored stare she had on when he was onstage.
Her hips shifted again.
She put her hand on the door, pushed it part of the way open. “Nice meeting you.”
“You’re really going to leave without me?”
She took a step, turned her eyes back to André, asked, “You shoot pool?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be in the parking lot. Dark green Nissan.”
“I’ll follow you. I’ll be on the yellow BMW motorcycle.”
“That’s yours?”
“Yeah.”
She was impressed. “Bet you ride women around the way Prince did Apollonia.”
“Bet you’d look good on the back of it going down the Pacific Coast Highway with me.”
“I’ve never been on a motorcycle.”
“I could be your first.”
André came back over to me.
I said, “We running in the morning?”
“See you at seven.”
“Brick running?”
“He hasn’t been running lately.”
“Was going to crash at your pad.”
“Snap, bro. You got somewhere else you can go? Just in case.”
I was stressed about money, about life, worried about Fela, and didn’t want another nasty confrontation with his mother, sort of needed my brother emotionally, but I nodded. “I’ll book a room.”
CHAPTER 6
BRICK
I CHAUFFEURED THE pace of asses to Inglewood, then parked on Market Street. They changed in the car and sashayed into Savoy Entertainment Center in dresses barely long enough to cover a man’s number one obsession. Those showstoppers had made money and wanted to drink and dance because the eagle was flying high, and drink and dance we did. I love to dance. Dancing increases happiness. Drinking numbs problems and fears. The pace of asses hit the floor together, attacked the beat, and were in the middle of thirty other people, tripping the light fantastic like yesterday didn’t matter, today was a done deal, and there was no tomorrow. My phone vibrated. A Florida area code. My older brother. A little worried that he was calling so late, I stepped off to the side and answered.
Dwayne said, “I’m back in LA. I’m in Long Beach with André.”
“Cool. Was going to call you to check in tomorrow.”
“You have all my documents from CSS?”
“Yeah, I have your child support notices stacked up. Your other mail is there too.”
My older brother claimed my address as his residence to keep his fifteen-year court case in California and guided by the rul
es here. The pussy you fuck gets you fucked in the end. If he used his address in Florida, he’d have to pay for a lot of other shit, and he’d be broker than he was now.
I asked, “You okay? I hear that sound in your voice again.”
“Stress. This shit is killing me. Different city every week, and the show was falling apart. Everyone was getting fired, from musical director to choreographer. Even the lead was replaced. They let me go too. I spoke my mind and asked them to, so I could be eligible for unemployment. Fuck ’em. Pay was so low that when I worked it out, between all the rehearsals and performances and this and that, I was making ten bucks an hour.”
“Nothing back in New York on Broadway?”
“Nothing right now. I’m back. My agent will get me some auditions while I’m here. I’m working on something else too. But first I have to get a court date to see about getting child support lowered again.”
“How long will that take?”
“Will take a minute. Couple months at the earliest.”
Christiana saw me, beckoned me to the dance floor seductively.
I said, “Dwayne, let me call you back.”
He ranted, “She said she couldn’t get pregnant. Polycystic ovaries. She lied. Soon as she missed her period, she called a top-shelf attorney to figure out how to file for child support right away.”
“Dwayne.”
“‘Gold digger digging all the gold out the child star’s mine.’ My attorney said that. The first time we went to court she demanded sixty grand a month and wanted it to be increased each year by fifteen percent. She got laughed out of the room. The judge rolled his eyes at her and her attorney. She got four thousand a month and left family court outraged, crying like she was the one being robbed. Forty-eight thousand a year, tax-free, and she was mad because she didn’t score enough money to buy the west wing up at Hearst Castle.”
“Y’all been fighting a long time.”
“Sixteen years.”
I had to yell over the music. “Dwayne, checkmate. I’m at a club. Dancing. Gotta go.”
“You have company tonight?”
“Not sure. I’m with Penny right now, getting my dance on.”
“Penny?”
“My neighbor. The USC girl.”
The Business of Lovers Page 3
