Drive Me Crazy (10 page)

She’d cooked for me. Good woman. I added sugar to my grits, stirred it up, ate.

I said, “You’ve lost some weight.”

“Been working out a lot.”

“Running?”

“Nah. Tae Bo.”

“Where?”

“Billy Blanks’s sister’s class.”

“Heard she was tough.”

“She’s a damn Nazi.”

“You’re toned.”

“Been pushing weights after class too.”

“Trying to get buffed?”

“Light weights. I don’t want muscles.”

She sat next to me, her leg touching and warming mine while I ate.

She asked, “You gonna tell me how you busted your head?”

“Slipped, tripped, and fell.”

“Rrrright. Thought we were the kind of people who kept it real with each other.”

Then I changed the subject, asked, “You still kicking it with ... ?”

She shook her head and gave me a smile that said she didn’t want to talk about
him.

I waited a moment before I asked, “How’ve you been?”

“It’s been rough.” She shrugged. “Sick and tired of being sick and tired. ”

“What’s the problem?”

“I’m lonely. Want to stop fucking and start making love.”

Even with what I’d seen in her bathroom, her heartfelt words caught me off guard. Maybe the timing was bad, the personal shit in my head wouldn’t let emotions settle in a place where I could handle this conversation. I nodded, kept my attention on my grits and sausage.

She rubbed my hand. “Sorry for rambling. It’s just weighing heavy on my heart.”

“It’s cool. Everybody gets sick and tired of being sick and tired of something.”

“I get really attached to people. The wrong people for the right reasons. That’s just the way I’m made.” She laughed at herself. “I don’t have control of my emotional barometer.”

I asked, “What’s going on with you?”

“Did some things I’m not too proud of. Same old.”

When I was done, she took my tray away, rinsed off the dishes. I walked up behind her, kissed her on her neck. Whatever she wore tasted like sugar, made me want to lick it all off.

She yawned, looking more bored than sleepy. “We gonna do something before you go?”

“You wanna?”

“I always wanna. And I know you didn’t call me because you like my cheese grits.”

She smiled but I could see the truth behind her eyes. She needed to get away, lose all thoughts and sense of time. Wanted me to do for her what she couldn’t do for herself. Sometimes it felt like sex was a good way to mask deeper issues. Everybody was running from something. Sex was the easiest thing to run to, cheaper than alcohol. Nothing more soothing than scratching an itch. Sooner or later all that scratching made a wound, then a scab.

In my eyes Panther was young, beautiful, powerful.

Small breasts. Full lips. Tight eyes. Skin deep brown, baby smooth. Thick and curvy.

I kissed her neck. She cooed. I sucked her skin until she was hot as a thousand suns.

She moaned. “You do that, I lose my breath and my legs part like clouds.”

I touched her, licked her shoulders and spine, got her riled up on the inside. I shouldn’t have, but I pulled her boy shorts down, took her slow and easy right there. Real slow. Let her lose her breath over and over, let her have knowledge of me moving across every fold and ridge.

She pushed back into me and shivered like I was scraping against her soul.

My mind was stuck at a red light. I’d lost control of my life a long time ago, when I first heard those sirens and made a hard choice that would let Rufus remain free while I became the one in shackles. Panther has had a rough time too. When I first met her and she invited me into her private world, she’d tell me about Atlanta and its bosky landscape, about Club Vision, Phipps Plaza, Café Intermezzo, and a million streets named Peachtree.

She was lovesick, lonely, and confused. I was a passenger on the same road.

She used to call me when she was on her way home. For a while I used to kick it with her, was at her apartment over in Hawthorne a few nights a week. Panther loved to cook and hated eating alone. She’d throw down black-eyed peas, corn bread, and some of the best fried chicken I ever had, or catfish and yams, a different Southern meal each time. I’d bring Jack Daniel’s for me, then have a six-pack of soda, Kool-Aid, Riesling, whatever she wanted. We’d eat, cuddle up, start rubbing each other’s pain away the best we could, and we’d use each other.

One woman could kill a man’s soul but a different woman had the power to make him feel alive, if only until sunrise. Damn shame how sunrise highlighted those problems again.

She got me through some rough nights.

Last night was rough for me. I was glad she called me back right after I was finished dealing with the lion and the jackal. After that phone call with Lisa, I needed a safe place to rest.

Panther was in love with a married man. I’d fallen for another man’s wife. The only difference was I had given up my sin and she was hoping for hers to come back.

Panther was cool, a great woman from what I could see, but she wasn’t the kind I’d get serious about. I still had fantasies of some wholesome and trustworthy woman stumbling into my world. Doubt if Panther’s Southern-fried family wanted a divorced felon in their family pictures. Bad boys didn’t make good husbands. And I doubted if a man wanted a wife who went off to the strip mines every night. At some point that would create some problems.

But I liked her. Liked her too much for my own good.

Panther reminded me of my ex-wife. Maybe when I walked into the strip mines to have a drink and saw her, I felt some sort of a needed connection to my past. Not all ghosts were bad.

Panther took me to the futon, took charge and mounted me, closed her eyes tight, bit and sucked her bottom lip, went into a slow ride, whispered, “Too bad sex ain’t a spectator sport.”

“Why you say that?”

“You’re good. Like the way you ... get up on it like you own it.”

“You should’ve met me twenty years ago.”

“When I was in preschool?”

We laughed. Laughter made me flex inside her, she tightened around me all at once. She moved the way she danced. Isolated body parts. Matched my rhythm. Used her hips, moved in sort of a circular motion while moving back and forth. Tightened up like she was doing kegels.

I slapped her backside, rubbed her Sankofa tattoo, squeezed her flesh over and over.

She said, “You are so doggone mannish.”

“You know you like it.”

Her pheromones made me lose control. Made me wanna act like I was in a Lexington Steele video and do some special things to her. Don’t know why we had that kinda chemistry.

She kept talking, swaying and sounding like she’d had two shots of my friend Jack Daniel’s. “Seems like forever since the last time I had sex. I’m tighter than new braids.”

Her sounds spread around the room.

She turned over, got on her knees, ass up high, that heart-shaped backside looking good in the morning light. I rubbed her flesh, ran my fingers over her Sankofa tattoo, held her waist.

“Damn, Driver ... sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus. Driver. That’s. My. Spot.”

Couldn’t count the number of times I’d had sex to see if I could still feel. The same way people hurt themselves to see if they were alive, I fell into the arms of nurturing women. I focused on pleasure instead of pain. For some people sex was the same as self-mutilation, and serial sex could be more anesthetizing than anything. It wasn’t always about lust or getting over. Some of us had to be reminded that we could still feel. Even if it was just in our loins.

“I’m ... coming ... again ... Driver ... you are so hard ... hurts so good ... hurts so good.”

Her left leg trembled and she held on to the sheets. She was intoxicated, in a good place.

“God, you’re hard ... that’s it baby ... ooo yeah ... I feel you ... come for me ... come for me.”

Electricity moved up and down my spine.

“That’s it baby, take this pussy, take this pussy.”

Heaven surrounded me.

“Mmmmmmhhhh. Oooooo. Driver.”

She moaned so sweet. Her hands gripped the sheets, nails dug into the covers. I held her hair, spanked her, bit her, gave her measured strokes. But most of my mind was somewhere else, doing the quick math on my life, not liking the bottom line.

“Get it baby that’s it get it baby Driver mmmmmmm damn mmmhhhh.”

Sweat dripped from my flesh. I grunted over and over. If I had a heart attack on the downstroke and died this morning, I’d die with nothing to show I’d ever lived.

I showered while Panther rested underneath the colorful quilt and soft sheets.

Tiredness heavied my eyes. Lisa wouldn’t leave my mind.

Fifteen thousand in the hole.

I stared at the money scattered on Panther’s dresser.

She moaned. “Nice suit. You’re sexy as hell.”

“Thanks.”

“Dag, Driver. You sex so doggone good.”

“That’s your wild ass.”

“You’re the best I’ve ever been with.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“Now I’m blushing.” Her smile was so broad. “Thanks.”

“You feel it, respond to touches, kisses, not a boring lover.”

She laughed. “Sex is only as good as the weakest partner.”

“Well, you’ve raised my game.”

On the dresser was the smoky money from her late-night hustle. We sexed each other every now and again, but I didn’t know her in a way that would allow me to form my lips to ask for a loan, not even for one of those smoky greenbacks, let alone fifteen thousand. Sex was shared, company shared, but when it came to money, that was a lot of people’s line in the sand.

I asked, “Know where I can get a burner?”

A burner was a gun. Hadn’t had one in years. Never thought I’d need another one.

Without questioning me she yawned and asked, “What you looking for?”

“Something easy to hide with a decent kick.”

“Something to stop a man or a mule?”

My fingers went to my fresh injury. “Both.”

She became silent. That made me uncomfortable.

I went on, “I know a couple people, but they can’t get what I need as fast as I need it.”

“Why not ask them then?”

“One’s dead. The other in jail.”

The other truth was that I was a felon. I didn’t have the right to bear arms anymore. I’d rather let Panther get me what I need instead of having to go out and get it. Too risky. And I knew she knew people. She worked at a strip club on the edges of Gardena and South Central and she had to know people with their ears to the streets, people who could find some heat.

I added, “I would check my connections at Back Biters, but I have to work this morning and nobody’s up in that joint until late in the evening. Kinda need something quick.”

Time leaned against the wall while I waited for her response. Outside of cheese grits and us pleasing each other, I didn’t really expect her to help me out; I was throwing a Hail Mary.

She evaluated my injury before she whispered, “I’ll ask around.”

Time sighed and moved, went wherever it had to go.

A while later I touched her face. “What you said, you know, about being lonely ...”

She took my hand. “It was nothing. Saw this documentary on Rita Hayworth yesterday. Four failed marriages, kids by two men, all the men she met either controlled her for money or just wanted her pussy, never found love, died of Alzheimer’s. Shit made me sad, that’s all.”

“Panther...”

She shushed me like she wanted me to stop before I said something stupid. She took my hand, kissed my fingers and my palm, told me she’d call if she could get me what I needed, then told me to have a good day. Part of me ached. We never shared tongues. Wasn’t that kind of party. Tongues were saved for lovers, everything else was open season. I knew the routine. Soap, clothes, cuff links, I did inventory and made sure I had everything I’d brought with me.

Panther’s soft voice followed me. “Only two kinds of trouble in the world. Love trouble. Money trouble. You don’t come across as a man with love problems. I’m going with the money trouble. Be careful, Driver. I don’t look good dressed in all black, not when I’m crying.”

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t think I was supposed to.

She ended her little speech with “Don’t get dead on me. You’re a nice guy.”

The thing about a young girl was if you talked to a young girl long enough you realized that she was a young girl. She might have a mature moment, but somewhere along the line she digressed into being concerned with shit you haven’t given a fuck about in the last twenty years.

Panther hadn’t done that yet.

Overnight bag in hand, dressed in a fresh black Italian suit, white shirt, rimless glasses, spit-shined shoes, I locked the door on my way out, pulled it tight and stepped into the cool air.

The morning was dull and gray, as overcast as my mind. Fog strolled the beach cities. Temperature right at fifty degrees, but would be close to seventy by noon. Pick a freeway or a surface street and traffic was already a bear with PMS. Head ached, and add to that ache my dehydration—side effects from going drink-for-drink with Miss Baklava Glue, then sipping on that JD at Rufus’s place, not to mention the lion and jackal—and I was in a pretty foul mood.

I asked myself why I was going to work. Why I bothered working for Wolf. My job wasn’t much, but right now it was all I had. If that was taken away, I’d go back to being nobody. Just another lost soul wandering the piss-stained and dilapidated boulevards. Months ago there were no Italian suits, just living hand-to-mouth, nothing but borrowing and hustling.

I took out my phone, called Lisa’s cellular. Got her voice mail. Hung up. Cursed.

I didn’t worry about Wolf finding out it was me calling his wife. My number didn’t show up because I had it blocked, only read RESTRICTED on her caller-ID. But she knew it was me.