Dirty Old Men [And Other Stories] (Zane Presents) (40 page)

“So, what do you mean when you say you can go all night long? Did you really say that?” he asked his son.

Marcus attempted to sit there quietly again. The open and honest approach wasn’t working so well for him now. But there was no way around it. His father was right on top of him inside the truck.

“Marcus, did you say that or not?” Derrick pressed him.

“I said it,” he mumbled.

“And what do you
mean
by that?”

Marcus felt trapped. He knew that his honest answer would only lead to more reprimand. Nevertheless, he let it out.

“Umm…I can make her…” He paused and looked his father in the eyes before he finished. “…talk all night.”

“Talk about what?”

“You know…how it feels.”

“How
what
feels?”

Finally, Marcus shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

“
Exactly,
” Derrick repeated. “You don’t know what the hell you’re
talking
about. And what’s a ‘big girl’ supposed to be able to handle from
you?
”

His father was grilling his ass hard now. And it was all coming out on instinct.

Marcus sat there in the truck as stiff as a statue. He couldn’t even look his father in the eyes anymore.

“Now you see why you can’t talk like a grown-up in school? Because you don’t know what you’re
talking
about,” Derrick repeated. “So you want to be a
boy,
and enjoy yourself doing sports, playing tag, marbles, and other things that little boys
do.
You hear me? You’re not
ready
to be a grown-up yet.”

After his rant, Derrick calmed down and allowed his son to breathe again.

“You hungry. You want something to eat?” he asked him.

Marcus nodded. “Can we go to Wendy’s?”

He saw the Wendy’s sign on the upcoming exit as they reached Interstate 5 for downtown.

“All right. Wendy’s it is,” his father agreed cheerfully.

As soon as they pulled into the parking lot to move into the drive-thru line, a big-behind woman in black jeans climbed out of her car and bent over to fix her shoe strap. She did so right beside the truck as they passed her by.

“Jesus…” Derrick stated and immediately caught himself.

Okay, now I have to watch everything I say around him,
he thought.

They received their food and drove back out into the street to return to the interstate for downtown.

Marcus took one bite of his burger and said, “Daddy, what’s a blow job?” as if he were asking about flavors of bubble gum.

Derrick took a sip of his large drink and chilled. Then he set it back down in his cup holder.
Now ain’t this some shit,
he pondered to himself. He thought that the worst of their talk was over, but evidently it was not.

“Where’d you here that word from?” he asked his son.

“Two women were talking about it at the coffee shop.”

Marcus continued to chomp down his Wendy’s burger as if it was nothing.

Yeah, we’re definitely gonna have to find him a new after-school hangout,
Derrick convinced himself.

“First of all, don’t
ever
repeat that question or use those words again. They are
very serious words,
” he emphasized.

Marcus had a look of intrigue on his face.
But what do the words mean?
he still seemed to be asking.

But that one was out of his father’s range to answer.

“You don’t even
think
about those words. Those word are…
off limits,
” Derrick insisted. He felt guilty and ridiculous at the same time. How utterly embarrassing were adults and the things that they chose to
say
and
do?
At the same time, he realized that the more he backed down from explaining the word, the more his son would probably think about it.

Fuck!
Derrick cursed himself.
This little motherfucker gon’ back school and…

He didn’t even want to think about it, but he
had
to. What if Marcus slipped up with some even
nastier
words at school?

Yeah, I gotta nip this shit in the bud, right now,
Derrick told himself. His son’s intrigue in grown conversation and sexuality was so important to him that he pulled over on the side of the highway and slammed the truck in park.

“Okay, son, how many other words and things do you know about that we need to talk about? Because you got me a little concerned right now. And if you go back to school and say
any
of these things, you may not be able to go
back
there, and you’ll have us
both
looking crazy.”

“I’m not gonna say anything,” Marcus promised his father.

However, there was no way for Derrick to believe him. He wasn’t sure if Marcus understood what to say and what
not
to say.

Derrick said, “Look, son, I don’t know what you
know
right now. And if you
don’t know the difference between
grown
conversations and
kids’
conversation, then you’re about to scare me to death, man. Now tell me everything.”

Marcus looked at him and whined, “
Everything?
”

Derrick nodded. “Yes,
everything.
Now give me all the words that you know.” “You’re not gonna be mad at me?”

“I’m gonna be mad, if you let these words slip
out
. Now I need to know what you
know
so I’m not
blindsided
by it. And then I can help you to understand what you can’t
say
and
why.
”

Marcus took a deep breath and muttered, “Fuckin’.”

“Now you know you can’t say that, right? Now what else?”

Marcus paused and added, “…Pussy.”

Derrick grimaced from simply hearing the words. Each time his son let one out, he peeked at his father’s face to see how he would respond to it.

“Ass.”

“Keep ’em going,” Derrick told him.

Marcus obliged. “Suck my dick. Eat my pussy. Oh, shit. Fuck me right. I’m cummin’. Give it to me harder…”

Finally, Derrick shook his head and covered his face in shame. “You’ve been listening in through my door at night, haven’t you?”

Marcus looked into his father’s eyes again before he answered. “Yes.”

Derrick took another calming breath and continued to shake his head, not at his son, but at himself. He had been a reckless, damn
fool!

“What the hell was
I
thinking?” he asked himself out loud. “I can’t blame you for hearing this stuff, man.” Then he looked his son in the eyes and said, “But you
do
know that you’re not supposed to
say ’em.
Don’t you? That’s why you’re telling me these words now. You
know
they’re wong.”

He son nodded. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Good. And in the meantime…” Derrick stopped himself in mid-sentence. He didn’t want to tell his son out in the open that he planned to stop dating so many women, just in case he would change his mind. But he did need to find a more secure way of dealing with the women that he
did
date.

“So…how do you feel about me having women over at night?” he asked his son.

Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know… They just
noisy,
I guess.”

Maybe I’ll just tell these women to shut up,
Derrick mused with a grin. But that would take away from the whole fun of love talk.
Maybe I’ll fuck ’em now at their house,
he thought. He surely didn’t plan to give up fucking all together. He had to figure out what to do with his midnight-roaming son.

“So, how long have you been listening in?”

“For weeks,” Marcus noted.

Derrick came to the only sane conclusion. “Well, I’ll tell you what, if you stay away from these words, and don’t get into trouble at school, then when you’re ready, I’ll answer all of your questions about grown-up stuff. But right now, son, you’re only nine years
old
. And you really need to leave these words
alone.
Okay?”

He looked into his son’s eyes and awaited his response.

“Okay.”

“Good,” his father told him. He then slapped his Cadillac Escalade in drive and returned to Interstate 5 toward downtown. Derrick had no idea whether or not his son would make it through the rest of the school year without slipping up with his words again. But he was forced to have to trust him. In the meantime, he figured he had a lot of changes to make regarding his lifestyle and daily routine. He had a young and impressionable son to look out for now.

We need to check out the YMCA’s after-school program as soon as possible,
he told himself.

But before going to check out the Y, Derrick wanted to make sure his staff was set at the coffee shop. And as soon as he stepped foot into his shop with his son in tow, Jennifer Selig, his notoriously flirty staff manager, blurted, “Hey, baby, how was school today?”

Derrick shook his head on cue and said, “His name is
Marcus
Gamble. And he just told me that he’s not a
‘baby’
anymore.”

Jennifer looked at them both to see if her boss was only teasing. But once she read that he was serious, she said, “Well,
excuuse me.
Hey,
Marcus,
how’s it going? How was
school
today?” she asked sarcastically.

Marcus looked up at her and smiled. She was a freckle-faced redhead with an enticing body, dominated by pert titties that always seemed to climb out into his face.

“It was okay,” he answered. “My dad picked me up early today.”

Derrick looked around at the normal high-traffic crowd inside of his coffee shop. He wondered if he should have left his son inside the car, reading one of his books for homework.

Let me make this fast, and get him registered at the Y,
he plotted. The usual atmosphere of his Seattle coffee shop was very sexy. Pretty women were everywhere, and that made more confident and assertive men show up. It was all great for business. However, the happening pick-up place that Derrick had obviously created was hardly a safe haven for a boy with great ears and a sharp memory. His father could see that more clearly now.

“Ah, Jennifer, I’m gonna be gone for a few hours, making some runs with Marcus, so hold down the fort in here for me. Okay?”

Jennifer looked at him incredulously. “Honey, you need to let your attachment to the shop go. We all understand you have other things to do. You’re the
owner,
for cyring out loud. So have a little
faith
in your girl. I can do it, I really
can.
”

Everything Jennifer said was flirty and sarcastic, and so were her grins, her eyes, and her curves. The fact that Derrick had been intimate with her on a few occasions didn’t make matters any better for him. So he grimaced at every word of out of her mouth, knowing that his son held a deeper understanding of it all.

Derrick nodded in haste, ready to leave her as quickly as he could. “Yeah, so I’ll be back then.” He started to move and pushed Marcus toward the door.

“Hurry back soon, Big D,” another customer teased him. “You know I come down here every day to have my
fix
,” she emphasized with a devilish chuckle.

Now there’s another word I gotta watch out for,
Derrick assumed.
Come and get your fix, baby,
he imagined Marcus stating next at school.

All of sudden, his coffee shop seemed borderline pornographic. With all of the sexy, professional women and opportunistic men inside the room, with a giant, athletic, and sociable black man in the mix as their ringleader, Derrick fantasized that an all-out, verbal
orgy
could pop off at any minute in front of his son.

Marcus smiled at it all. He could clearly see his father’s new struggle. And he really liked being around grown-up talk. But an after-school program at the Y was still a much better deal for him. Nevertheless, Marcus would miss the place.

“Come on, man, let’s go,” his father said, pushing him urgently toward the door.

Once Derrick got his son back out into the fresh, downtown air of Seattle, he thought,
This is crazy! I’ve really built a swinging place in there. But it’s definitely not a place for a kid. I almost feel like a coffee-shop pimp.

He even smiled at the idea. He liked the sexiness of his shop. He needed to separate his son from it. But then he thought about his bedroom, and the late-night visitations of horny women.

Yeah, fuck that! I’m not giving up getting pussy,
Derrick persisted.
So if his little ass won’t let me get mine in peace, without going back to school with the shit on his mind, then I might have to send his ass back to his mother.

And as they walked back toward the truck, he wondered if his son had ever listened in on his
mother
fucking someone in
her
bedroom. But he became gun-shy himself about asking.

Yeah, I don’t think I want to know that,
he told himself with a smirk. That seemed like too much information for him. And some things were simply meant to be left alone, like grown-up talk.

“Where are you going?” Antonio Greene asked his young wife. She was his second, at thirty-two years old, and he was fifty-four. He stood at the kitchen sink, washing off dirty dishes to place inside the dishwasher.

Suzanne Smith-Greene, his wife, pulled on her long, black overcoat at the closet and answered, “Out.”

“Does ‘
out
’ have an actual name?” her husband asked her softly.

“I’m running out with some friends, Tony. What’s the problem?”

“Well, where are you headed?” All he needed was a simple answer.

Instead, Suzanne let out a long, irritated sigh. “Sometimes we make up our minds on the fly. We don’t always know where we want to go. We’re just out having girl talk.”

“You can have
‘girl talk’
over the phone.”

That was the last irritable straw for Suzanne. She told him, “You know what, I’ll see you when I get back. Because I can tell you’re in a
funky
little mood of yours again, where you wanna ask a
million
questions, like I’m doing something
wrong.
And if you
think
that way, then why not come right out and
say it?
” she challenged him.