Between Lovers (17 page)

“Somebody's tripping on ecstasy.”

We run through the crowd and race upstairs. Inside the tiny coed bathroom, alcohol, urine, and perfume permeate the air. Women are in the mirrors, giggling, doing makeup. Men and women are crowded inside one stall, either tiptoeing or standing on the edge of the toilet, cheering as they look over the metal wall into the other stall. We push our way into the powder room, move into the cheers, ease a few of the stumbling drunks aside, and look over into the other stall. Two girls are in the booth. Away from the rest of the world, living in their own little box. Face-to-face. Pretty much bottomless. One straddling. Kissing. Hips rolling against each other. Making love for the crowd that they are too intoxicated to care about. Too deep inside their sin to notice a hundred eyes hovering over their heads. One gets too excited. Moves too fast. Their vibrator drops. Rolls to my feet. I kick it back. The one on top grabs it. Without looking up, they say a well-mannered thank you and keep on loving. On our tiptoes, we blend with the crowd and keep on watching.

I tell Nicole, “Ecstasy. I heard that if you take that shit you can see dead relatives.”

“Now you know where they got the plot for
The Sixth Sense
from.”

“Truth or truth: ever try it?”

“Once. That crap gave me a depressive hangover. Had a serious Terrible Tuesday.”

I nod and wonder who she was with, where she was when she took the drug. “I read that men can't get erections when on it, but when it fades, it's like being IV'd to Viagra and Yohimbe.”

“Yep. It has that Spanish Fly effect. You'll feel so wild that you'll do anything.”

“Speaking from experience?”

She gives me a curt smile. “I can get you one.”

“Where?”

“Look at these weirdos. All I have to do is ask anybody here.”

“Serious? Wow. How much?”

“About forty a pill.”

“Forty ducats for one pill?” I shake my head. “This is wild.”

“You haven't seen wild yet.”

Then this sound, like a cat whining in the distance, a purr that grows and grows with their kisses and grinds, and not to forget the humming of that love handle supplied by Black and Decker.

“Look at her come.” Nicole says that, her words blending with all the
ooo
s and
ahhh
s
.
“She's on a magic carpet ride soaring at thirty thousand feet. She looks so beautiful.”

Ayanna has been watching the whole time. Listening to us talk, holding Nicole's hand, and watching the performance.

When the show is over, hands are pumping in the air, and there is scattered applause.

We go back to the dance floor. We all dance. And we stay close to each other, with Ayanna dancing closer to Nicole than she does to me. Watching the live porno has changed everyone's mood, has heightened our senses, accelerated the sensuality. Now people are watching us as they dance, as they pass. Ayanna's eyes glow when Nicole touches her, say yes, whatever you need, I'll make sure you get.

A guy peacocks over and intrudes on our flow. He has short brown hair, a six-footer, inches taller than I am. A weightlifter's build under baggy clothes. At first, based on his smile and gaze, I think he knows Nicole, or Ayanna, maybe both, but it becomes apparent, by Nicole's reaction, that he doesn't.

He gets too close to Nicole and asks, “Wanna dance?”

Nicole cringes; her grip tightens around my waist. “No thanks. Have a nice night.”

The room is filled with women, coochie central for the coochie deprived, some beautiful, some cosmetically challenged, yet he persists, eyes always on Nicole, eyes fucking her over and over.

He licks his lips, doesn't back away. “One little dance?”

“Back off,” I snap.

His cold green eyes meet my stiff gaze. My steel gray eyes become blacker than the political climate of the sixties and twice as volatile. I'll protect Nicole from all enemies both foreign and domestic, do what I have to do. He chuckles in his inebriation and winks at Nicole, reaches to touch her locks but she moves her head. He persists, “I know he can't handle both of you. I can do more for you than watching some freaks get busy in a bathroom.”

Ayanna has become quiet. She moves closer to Nicole.

He reaches for Ayanna, she moves away. Nicole moves to protect her.

The guy's eyes fill with surprise, then he smiles. “I get it.”

Nicole snaps, “Brother, please don't disres—”

I pull Nicole away and repeat, “Back off.”

“Fuck you and them dykes, faggot.”

I push him and he stumbles three steps, drops his drink. The glass shatters. He teeter-totters and gazes down at the floor, watches his liquid foolishness soak into his trendy hip-hop boots.

I'm strong with men, strong with women too, except for my mother, who I love more than the air I breathe, and Nicole, whom I love in ways even I can't fathom.

We stare each other down for a moment, and the prelude to violence scents the air. He creates two fists, so do I, fists that feel like hammers, and the longer I stare the more his face looks like a nail.

Nicole is behind me, gripping my hand, pulling me, leaving me vulnerable, the worst thing a woman can do when a smack-down, no-holds-barred, foot-up-the-ass fight is about to happen, because now she's in the way. Her pulling me is leaving me vulnerable to the first strike in an impending war.

“Sweetie—”

My hand comes free when I pull. I become Sean Penn going after the paparazzi, a pissed-off Jack Nicholson with a golf club in traffic, ready to become the next American Psycho, bump by people and try to get within striking distance.

Nicole catches me, tugs me, gets in front of me, says my name a thousand times, holding both my arms, again leaving me open to being attacked. I pull, try to jerk free. She will not let me go.

Then he laughs and backs away, his eyes the size of manhole covers, glancing over the part of the crowd who were watching us in a combination of fear, excitement, and boredom. He's not rushing, but as he staggers he glances back three times in ten steps, in caution, because the kick-ass-ask-questions-later look in my eye tells him that I have a dark side, one that will leave him bloody and bruised.

Or dead.

Or leave me dead, leaving this plane of existence with my dignity intact.

Nicole calls my name, her tone extreme, very firm.

I don't answer. My eyes are still on the prize that is fleeing.

Ayanna claps her hands twice, says, “Looks like the cowardly lion was run away by Toto.”

Again Nicole calls my name, this time much sweeter.

We face each other.

She smirks. “It's okay, sweetie, it's okay. He's just another asshole.”

Nicole touches me and anger fades; winter becomes spring, then when her lips press mine spring becomes summer. Under psychedelic lights her tongue eases to slow dance with mine and I see angels. Thousands of angels smiling with open arms.

Nicole smiles. “Oatmeal cookies?”

I nod. “Oatmeal cookies.”

“Your hotel?”

Then I surprise her with my firmness. “No. Your home.”

Then Nicole is jarred. “Where did that come from?”

“Your home. Let's shake the spot and go to your crib.”

“Well,” she elongates that word, “I'd rather go to your room.”

I shake my head.

She says,
“S‘il vous plaît?”

Once again she has given me Paris. Once again she's trying to get her way.

I tell her, “Your crib or it's not happening. I wanna see your sugar shack.”

“Maybe tomorrow then, after your book signing at Alexander—”

“No. Tonight is the night.”

We go back and forth on that for a moment, my position never changing. I remind her that she wants us all to get along, to share, to move toward communal lives at some point. Then she should have nothing to hide. No reason to not want this to happen in her space, in her nest.

“Your hotel. Please?”

I want to ask why she doesn't want us to go to her home and create her fantasy. I know the answer. The same reason I won't take this party back to my room. Only a stupid bird shits in its own nest.

Without shaking my head, without a word, with direct eye contact, I stay firm.

She chews her lip and whispers, “Okay.”

Ayanna is behind her, her ears tuned to our conversation. Nicole tells her the new game plan. Ayanna turns and heads for the door, shaking her head. It doesn't take me but a second to catch on. I think Ayanna agreed to give Nicole her fantasy, but didn't want it to happen at her home.

Nicole calls, “Ayanna. Wait.”

Ayanna stops on a dime, touches her hair, toys with a long reddish lock, but she doesn't turn around. Nicole goes to Ayanna, caresses her, and I watch Ayanna's expression change. Her anger melts like a snowball at the equator. Ayanna's eyes soften, she licks her lips, licks their ripeness in a way that tells Nicole that she wants a kiss. That she needs a kiss. Nicole gives her a smile, runs the tip of her fingers across Ayanna's mouth. Ayanna's tongue licks what she can get as those fingers pass.

I take one last glance through the crowd. Search for the enemy before I turn my back.

Again Nicole comes over and touches my face, her embrace asking me to let it go.

She asks, “Would you have kicked his booty for me?”

“Would've kicked his ass back up into his mother's womb.”

She smiles like I've just slain the almighty dragon. But I haven't. The true dragon is standing nearby with heart-colored hair, the hue of a raging fire, wearing a dress as black as our intentions.

One way or the other, I will slay her. Have to slay her before she slays me.

All for Nicole.

In this age of foolishness, in my quest for wisdom, during these best of times, in the midst of these worst of times, she is my Lolita. With a smile she can get me to do whatever she pleases, give her what she needs.

Nicole drives us back over the bridge and heads into North Oakland, takes Broadway to Broadway Terrace, then rides up the winding streets. Hundreds of trees, plenty of leaves that need to be raked. We pass by apartments, small homes, a golf course, see a raccoon or possum dead in the road. Then the houses get larger, start looking like the pages of
Architectural Digest.
The type of area where the hardworking people who ride buses to this part of Oakland and clean these museum-sized homes will never make enough money to own one.

I say, “All the cribs look brand-new up here.”

Nicole says, “This is the area where there was a huge fire back in ninety-two.”

Ayanna corrects her, “Ninety-one.”

Nicole goes on, “Broadway Terrace above the Caldecott Tunnel, this burned down back in ninety-one. Those wood shaker roofs were a hazard.”

I say, “Same thing that burned down a lot of Baldwin Hills.”

“Yeah. Up here, it was ten times as wild. Flames jumped from house to house. Landscaping was too tall, that's what people tell me. Correct me if I'm wrong, Ayanna.”

Ayanna says nothing. Nicole tells me that mountain lions, woodpeckers, deer, all kinds of wild animals live up here in the hills. And these are the hills she runs, why she is getting so much stronger. With every word, she's selling me Oakland again. Ayanna says nothing at all, but I hear her thoughts.

I look at the houses. No two the same. Some are an architect's dream.

“We can see the whole city from our home,” Ayanna says, then turns and faces me. “You have a view at your place in Carson?”

“All I can see is the stucco house next door. Maybe a corner of Cal State Dominguez.”

There is a smile. Her energy heats up the car. A victory for her.

While Nicole drives, Ayanna goes on, “Nicole tells me you live in a planned community.”

“I do.”

“Can you add on?”

“Nope.”

“How many floor plans?”

“Six. Twelve if you count reversing.”

“How many color choices?”

“Three.”

She turns back around. “Not much.”

“No,” I say. “Not much.”

Yep, only three bland colors, so the individuality, the freedom I'm witnessing here does not exist in my world. Mine is all about conformity and comfort. About seasons of predictability. This is about freedom to create and be. Once again, I'm living in awe. Once again jealousy rises.

Nicole says, “Everyone was devastated by the fire, clinging to the old, to what was comfortable, but now everyone sees that change is good. They let go of the old and everything came out better.”

There is a pause, long enough for Nicole's meaningful words to sink in.

Nicole's fire started in Paris, the flames from a woman, a dancer who set her on fire for ten dollars. All that was old about her has been burned away, cleansed by fire. And now Ayanna is her new flame.

I wonder when Ayanna's fire started.

We pass by a huge house that has an American flag out front. The fifty stars are in place, but the red-and-white stripes, those patriotic symbols have been replaced with rainbow-hued stripes.

I ask, “What's up with all the flags?”

They look at each other.

Nicole shifts, clears her throat.

Ayanna speaks up. “That means the people inside are—”

Nicole cuts her off. “That means they have an alternative lifestyle.”

Ayanna makes a sound, like maybe she's not down with the alternative lifestyle statement.