Erotic City (5 page)
Lavender asked with question marks in his eyes. “What the hell is that?”
“You have bleeding on the brain,” the doctor said. His face was apologetic.
Lavender’s grandmother spoke up immediately. Her words were rushed. “What? What do you mean bleeding on the brain? He’s been feeling fine, just a little groggy, that’s all. He can’t possibly have any damage. Our boy barely got hit.”
The doctor seemed to choose his words wisely. He talked while giving both Lavender and Mrs. Lewis equal focus. “One of those blows caused a traumatic brain injury and blood has collected between the outer covering of the brain and the middle layer. Basically, there were small perforations in the vein caused by a punch. Symptoms have a slower onset in that area. That’s why you described some confusion or disorientation. The MRI we took before the fight was totally normal.”
“Oh Lord Jesus.” The elder Mrs. Lewis put her age-worn hands over her mouth.
Lavender asked quickly, “So what’s next?”
“We’ll monitor you for a while. Sometimes a craniotomy is required, which requires opening the skull and removing the clot.”
Lavender’s grandmother’s eyes told on her level of alarm. She shook her head. “Oh no. Please no.”
Lavender put his hand on his grandmother’s knee.
The doctor spoke to her and then to Lavender. “We just don’t know. There’s a chance that the hematomas can heal, though we’ll just have to wait and see. But, Lavender, you won’t be traveling anywhere right now. We want you to stay put and relax and come back to chart the injury.”
“Doctor, my grandson will be okay. In Jesus’ name, I’ll see to that,” Lavender’s grandmother said, placing her hand over her grandson’s hand while a weighted tear rolled down her seventy-year-old cheek. “I’ll see to it.”
Monday, October 4, 2004
3:31 p.m.
Lavender sat still in his sprawling home office in Miami. His boxing memorabilia and cherished Plexiglas-framed gloves and trademark lavender shorts graced the maple-paneled walls.
The custom-made walnut plantation shutters were barely open. The afternoon sun seemed to beg to enter through the narrow slats. As was the case recently, Lavender had planned it that way. Even one year after his last fight, the light of day battled with his moods. His gloom and doom thoughts had won over long ago. And so the darkness remained a welcome resident. It was his comfort zone.
He had been sitting at his desk for hours, wearing royal blue sweats and sports socks. His longer than normal hair was unkempt, and his five o’clock shadow was at ten o’clock.
Lavender squeezed and released a hand exerciser over and over with his right hand and held on to a glass of Hennessy in the other. It was Crown Royal yesterday and Rémy the day before. His manager entered the dark room and Lavender stopped his grip but started hittin the Henn. He gulped, admitting the liquid into his system as though it could cure his ills. He drained the last of it.
His eyes were stuck upon one wall in particular, seemingly without blinking. It was the wall where a photo of his last fight hung. It stared back at him in an annoying way.
Lavender’s speech was monotone and angry and his words dragged. “I’ve tried to get a license over and over again. The Nevada State Athletic Commission won’t do it because of the damn hematomas. How many hour-long hearings have we had and they still won’t lift the medical suspension?”
His manager spoke angrily as he sat in the brown chair on the other side of the rectangular desk. “This still makes no sense to me. I’ve talked to a team of doctors and neurosurgeons from all over the country who say you’re in no more danger than any other boxer. They agreed that there are football players with even more serious head injuries than this, and they still continue their careers. Yet the commission refuses. They still voted five-zero anyway.”
“This isn’t football. This is what it is.” Lavender still stared.
“Well, we’ll keep challenging the commission. We’ll file papers in federal court.”
“My career is over.”
“Maybe so. Maybe not.”
Suddenly, Lavender’s office door opened at a snail’s pace. The creaking seemed to go on forever. Lavender’s grandfather had been staying with him. He peered in and said, “Excuse me, DeMarcus. Your career might be over. But not your life. Your destiny is better than your history. Remember that.” He stood and stared until Lavender’s eyes joined his. Lavender smiled. His grandfather smiled. And then he closed the door just as slowly and disappeared.
Two weeks later, his grandfather died.
“Hate on Me”
Sunday, March 30, 2008
10:58 a.m.
N
ew and upscale Open Word church in Cumming, Georgia, was as big and popular as big megachurches get. And Pastor Michael Bellaire was as charismatic and renowned as big megachurch pastors get. He was tall, he was charming, and he was very, very rich.
Rolls Royce and private jet rich.
Eight-figure bank account rich.
Twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion rich.
The brotha was rich.
Milan and her sister, Tamiko, grew up in the church, mainly attending with their mother in Miami. Even after their mother passed away when they were teens, some Sundays they would go to church with their father and his new young wife, Nancy.
As the late morning orange sun and pale blue, cloudless skies hovered overhead, Milan and Lavender stepped away from Milan’s pearl white CLK 320 coupe. The license plate read “EROTICA.”
They were dressed impeccably. He was in his silver gray single-breasted suit with a black shirt, black tie, and vintage Prada black leather shoes. And she wore her pencil skirt and tailored jacket with silver-and-burgundy herringbone slingbacks. Her extralong natural pearls were tied in a knot just under her wide breasts. Milan and Lavender proceeded step for step.
The regular churchgoers always greeted the well-known couple. Lavender had only moved to Atlanta three years earlier, but was often recognized. He was muscular with a neck like a running back. He stood six one, weighed two ten, and was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. And before meeting Milan, he had been a heavyweight ladies’ man.
“That’s a doggone shame,” one church hat–wearing woman said outside as she and her friend walked just behind the couple. She failed to keep her slow-moving words under her breath. She looked back at Milan’s license plate and then examined the couple.
“What did that mean?” Milan asked Lavender.
“What?” he asked as he adjusted his collar and placed his navy blue Bible case under his arm.
“Hypocrite,” the woman mumbled behind their backs.
Milan turned her head to check out the ladies as Lavender placed his arm around her waist. She turned back around after the women offered zero eye contact.
Lavender stepped up and held the glass door open for Milan to proceed first. As he walked in right behind her, he held the door open for the ladies as well. They proceeded inside offering him a nod. “Thanks,” one of them said to him, proceeding to the right, mumbling to her friend.
“Hi, Ms. Kennedy, Mr. Lewis,” a woman said to the couple. “God bless you.” She handed them each a daily program and an envelope.
They accepted the handoff and both replied in unison, “Hello.”
“Nice to see you both. Praise the Lord,” she said with vigor. Her name was Beverly Sepulveda, a woman in her late forties who had known Milan from church years earlier.
“You, too,” Milan said, beaming her way.
Beverly was always warm, always smiling, and always praising the Lord.
Once inside and down the main aisle, Milan and Lavender found their regular seats. They stood in place as Milan placed her purse and Bible under her seat. A forty-something couple in front of them turned back, giving careful examination just as the choir winded down their final praise and worship song, “The Spirit of the Lord.”
Upon taking in their glances, Lavender smiled and bowed his head, closing his eyes in silent prayer, as did Milan.
The couple turned back around and bowed their heads, too.
Moments later, Pastor Bellaire stepped up to the podium, clean and dapper in his light-brown-and-white-pinstripe suit, a white silk tie, and winter white leather ostrich-skin shoes. He stood tall with his clean-shaven head. He was a graham cracker–colored Mr. Clean. He had Afro European skin and wore a tightly trimmed goatee. Everyone in his place of worship arose to his or her feet as a symbol of respect, and they all applauded, loudly. His short and perky wife, Tatiana, smiled proudly as she stood, clapping the loudest.
“Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. I’m so happy to be here today to talk to you about your life. You may be seated.
“I want to ask you this morning if you’ve ever noticed that sometimes, for some people, everything they touch turns to gold? We think they’ve got the Midas touch, right? In Greek mythology, King Midas had the ability to turn everything to gold. He was known for his garden of roses.
“The difference between those people and people who seem to struggle is they never rest. They tend to their gardens with time and focus. They never become complacent. They never give up. They eliminate excuses because an excuse gives you permission to stay where you are. They seize the moment. They stay ready so they don’t have to get ready, if you know what I’m saying. They are passionate about what they do. Passion is like fuel. It gives you energy to get where you need to go. They have found what they love and they surround themselves with people who are passionate, too. Passion is contagious, you know. And, they have visualized themselves being where they want to go.
“Now, I know some of you are thinking that some of the successful people you know seem to be some of the biggest sinners you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s like they’re shouting in church on Sunday and shacking up on Monday.”
“Hallelujah. I know that’s right,” one man could be heard shouting behind Milan and Lavender.
“But don’t worry about Joe and Jeffrey and Jenny. Life is abundant and it’s yours for the taking. See it as an all-you-can-eat buffet. Be a victor. Hold your hope. Don’t worry about why your friend’s marriage is working and yours is broken. Bless them and focus on your own marriage. After all, a marriage is two sinners saved by grace who live together. Tend to your own crop, your own house. And know that if along the way you find a path without obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere. Be thankful for your challenges because there is a hidden opportunity in every crisis. Don’t let the devil throw a pity party and invite you as the guest of honor. Life is not about what happened to you, it’s about what happens through you. Look to your neighbor and ask, ‘Can I get an amen?’”
“Amen,” Lavender and Milan said to each other.
Milan heard one word from the woman sitting to her right. And it wasn’t amen.
“Jezebel.”
Milan immediately turned toward the young woman, who stared straight ahead. Milan looked around and then at Lavender, who kept his focus on Pastor Michael.
Milan sat still, crossing her arms and legs, pulling her distracted mind away from the thoughts of the sometimes cold and distant vibes she’d get in the Lord’s house.
This is obviously something I’ll just have to get used to
, she told herself, twisting the oversize pearl ring on her baby finger.
Pastor Michael said, “It’s not what they call you that matters, it’s what you answer to.”
The woman next to Milan folded her arms and leaned away just as Lavender put his hand over Milan’s knee and gave a firm squeeze. She turned toward him and squeezed him back with a smile.
More than an hour later, Milan and Lavender were in the slow-moving line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot of the church. Lavender wore his Marc Jacobs stunna shades as he looked down to fiddle with the radio.
Station 102.5 announced out loud,
“As we reported earlier, Gwinnett County resident, popular rapper Big Mack was charged with assault early this morning after attending a sex club in midtown Atlanta called Erotic City. An unidentified victim has allegedly accused him of assault with a deadly weapon after claiming that force was used in an effort to engage the victim in the act of oral sex. The owner of Erotic City was charged with one count of negligence. Our records indicate that Erotic City opened its doors in 2006. The owner, Milan Lee Kennedy, is the daughter of legendary singer Charlie Kennedy who passed away last November. Both Big Mack, aka Mac McCoy, and the club’s owner are due in court for an arraignment soon to discuss the charges.”
Milan did not flinch. She did not blink. She simply stared forward and swallowed. Without looking, she reached into her purse and pulled out her tinted sunglasses, securing them along her youthful face. She leaned her head back and rested her elbow along the door, bringing her hand to her chin in thought.
Lavender pressed the button to switch from the radio to the Jill Scott track that was Milan’s favorite, “Hate on Me.”
He took her hand and squeezed. “Everything’s gonna be all right. We’ll be fine.” He pulled out onto the street and headed to Milan’s home.
Milan had no reply.
Silence sat in the car with them the entire way home.
“When I’m with You”
Sunday, March 30, 2008
4:00 p.m.
L
ater that afternoon, Tamiko Kennedy and her man, Jarod Hamilton, rode back home from a matinee at the Fayetteville Pavilion theater. They rode in his freshly detailed, coal black Audi A8 with deep gray privacy windows and black leather seats. They always made a point to attend movies on a regular basis. It was just one of the things they liked to do together.
She asked, “Still can’t believe what happened last night at the club. Was it a crazy scene or what?”
“Not really. Most people left once the police got there.”
“Do you think Big Mack did that?”
“I have no idea. I was downstairs. With the only witness being Ramada, who knows?”
“True.” Tamiko smoothed her black bangs along her forehead and brought her long hair from behind her back to over her shoulder. She was a couple of shades browner than her older sister, a little bit shorter and about twenty pounds heavier. She looked more like her black father than her Asian mother. “I thought that movie was pretty good. Did you?”
