For the Love of Money (40 page)

“I would say that you're somewhere around the top. No doubt in my mind.”

I thought,
How does a dentist come off as a player anyway?
Maybe I was stereotyping the dental profession, but I couldn't see a man who worked inside of people's mouths all day as a sweet talker. You just give them a big needle in their mouth, and go on about your business. I didn't see any social skills there myself. However, my father was a pharmacist, and
he
sure put a whammy on my mother. I didn't see many social skills in filling out medical prescriptions either.

I ordered a seafood combo, and Artis ordered a lobster dinner. I didn't know if he had something to prove with his order, but I never really liked lobster. The big deal over lobster was overrated if you asked me. It never tasted that good. It was damn chewy, like eating white rubber.

After a while, I began to understand how Artis could still be single at age thirty-one. He was boring. I mean, after we got past the initial bullshit stage of how many women he was supposed to have dated (either real or fake), our conversation wasn't really stimulating. He started talking about black art and jazz as if that was supposed to turn me on or something, but maybe I was just too hip to new-school art forms like hip-hop and videos to really get into his old-school talk of jazz improvisations and the love of John Coltrane.

I was more familiar with Miles Davis myself, maybe because he was always changing for the new age instead of holding on to that old-time shit. Or maybe I just didn't know enough about jazz to follow Artis in his conversation, so I led him back to what
I
was more comfortable with, poetry and film.

“Do you read poetry at all?” I asked him.

He wiped his mouth with the red mouth cloth and said, “Funny that you asked. I was just listening to Gil Scott-Heron the other night. I think poetry is back on a cycle of popularity. Have you seen that
love jones
movie?”

Now
that
was my kind of conversation. I said, “I absolutely
loved
that movie. We need more of those deep-down, talk-to-your-soul movies.”

He smiled and said, “So, I guess you liked
Soul Food
too, then.”

I nodded, “It was all right. I just wanted to see more of Mekhi Phifer. We need to put
that
brown sugar in a black love movie, a hot and steamy one.”

I caught myself, but it was too late. Artis was already grinning and sizing up his competition.

“So, you like the bald-headed, roughneck variety?”

I had put my foot in my mouth, so I had to cover up my tracks. I said, “Bald heads don't look so hot on everyone. And it shouldn't always be related to roughneck street culture either. I think the most
famous
bald-headed black man on the planet is Michael Jordan, is it not? And he is not
hardly
some street-walking roughneck.”

“He could have been if it wasn't for basketball,” Artis responded.

Damn that was low! I was shocked, and it left me speechless, because if I would have responded to it instinctively, I might have cursed his ass out. Who's side was
this
brother on? That was a major turnoff. I understood the whole deal with male competition and all, but a brother dissing Michael Jordan like that was unheard of. I mean, Jordan may not have been the most politically active brother in the world, but I thought that
everyone
agreed that he displayed the ultimate representation of black class and manhood.

I opened my mouth and said, “My best girlfriend from back home in Philadelphia named her first son, Jordan, after Michael. He was born this past April. She named me his godmother.” That's all I planned to say about it.

I guess that
Ar-tu-ro
got my message. He said, “Well, I really can't say how his life would have turned out if it wasn't for basketball. I hear that he comes from a close-knit Southern family.”

I didn't like how that sounded either, with that
“Southern”
crap. He
made it sound more obedient and less respectable. I was just about ready to get up and leave. That man had soured my mood. I guess he felt that his professional status gave him the right to talk down on other brothers and sisters. It was a classic house-nigger, field-nigger move, and
Ar-tu-ro
was obviously very happy to be in the house.

I said, “When are we gonna stop all of this classism stuff? This North and South stuff? This East Coast, West Coast stuff? That shit is all nonsense. And now Biggie Smalls is another brother dead because of it. However,
you
don't even know who he is, because he was just another
street
nigga to you.

“Well, you can pay for the bill, because you got it like that, right? You're a professional.” I stood up to leave, but before I walked out, I lied to the brother for a grand exit and a reminder for his weak state of consciousness.

“And you see this dress I have on?” I asked him. “I stole this shit from Macy's department store this morning. I just wanted to impress you.”

I guess that he would never find out that I had a master's degree in English from Hampton. What difference did it make? If education was only to be used to allow you to look down on your people instead of trying to uplift them, then
fuck
education!

$   $   $

I was still pissed off about my date when I got back to my townhouse in Baldwin Hills that night. I couldn't even write a poem about it I was so mad. I got this crazy-behind thought in my mind. I wondered what Coe Anawabi was doing. He wasn't necessarily a street brother, but he
had
bought into the mysticism of black bald heads, and he was a lot more interesting to be with than Mr.
Ar-tu-ro
Squire any day of the week, even in Coe's show-off immaturity. At least he wasn't snobbish.

I dug up his phone number and called him for the first time at a quarter after ten that Saturday night only to get his message machine. He had a smooth jazz instrumental in the background of all things:

“This is Coe, the man you've been looking for, but I'm not in right now, so leave a message and I'll make your dream come true when I get back in. So peace out for now, but make sure you leave that number for later.”

I felt like a silly-ass groupie leaving him a message on that machine, but the brother actually sounded poetic against the jazz track, and that turned me on, so I left him a message to call me anyway:

“This is Tracy Ellison from Philly, the sister you wanna know better. So
if you get in tonight at a decent hour, give me a ring on this thing . . .” and I left him my phone number.

After I hung up, I thought of the many poems that I had written on black-on-black sexuality, and I began to dig them up on my old notepads to read. I didn't expect for Coe to get my message until the next morning sometime (it was a Saturday night—party time), but in the meantime I figured that I could use my own poetic words, written over many lonely nights, to love me down.

I started reading and laughing out loud while enjoying my own shit and forgot about the time. When the phone rang, it was eleven thirty-seven. Who could it be?

“Hello,” I answered.

“I just happened to call my message machine before I walked into this party, and found out you called me.”

It was you-know-who, the man in demand, with the cream-colored Porsche.

I had no time to waste. I said, “Are you going into that party, or are you coming over here to see me?”

He started laughing as if it were a joke.

“I'm dead serious,” I told him.

“I know you are, but my man Jonathan was expecting me to be there tonight at his Bistro 880 Club in Carson,” he responded. “He has a special party for distinguished brothers going on, and I'm one of the distinguished brothers.”

I wondered if I could talk him out of going, but I couldn't whine like an amateur. I had to use reverse psychology on his young behind.

I said, “Well, you have a good time down there in Carson, and I'll find a way to have a good time up here in Baldwin Hills.”

“I can come by later on,” he said.

“No you can't.”

“Why not?”

“I don't take cold orders. If I can't have it right now, then I just can't have it, because I like it hot.”

He broke up laughing again. “Girl, you trippin'.”

“Okay, well, have a good time.”

“Wait a minute. I haven't made up my mind yet,” he told me in a hurry. I guess I sounded pretty convincing to him. I took it to the next level.

“Look, it's already a quarter to twelve, and I want long-term company tonight, so don't make me wait for it.”

“Long-term company?”
he asked.

I said, “If you come over here tonight, you can't leave until ten o'clock in the morning. That's what I mean by ‘long-term company.' I don't want no quickies.”

“Oh, it's like that.”

For a second, I believe that I told him too much information. He could have taken me for granted, so I had to cover my tracks.

“If
I'm still in the mood at all by the time you get here. I might just change my damn mind about the whole thing,” I teased him. “In fact, I'm tired of talking about it now. I mean,
I
know what I wanna do,
you
just don't.”

He said, “All right, all right, I'm coming. I'm not even in Carson yet. I can make it back up to Baldwin Hills in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? Don't kill yourself, just get here. And please . . .” I paused for effect, “don't play with me. If you wanna come ...then come.”

When he laughed again, like he was high on weed or something with the giggles, I knew that I had him, so I gave him directions. I hung up the phone and said, “Damn, how come none of my shit works on Victor, while everything
he
does works so well on me?”

I pulled out a thick purple candle and lit it in my room. I got ready for company with the right body scents and slippery clothes: purple for royalty. Coe was just plain lucky that night. I even bought myself a thirty-six pack of condoms that week to make sure that I never broke my rules. If it wasn't for Mr.
Ar-tu-ro
acting like an asshole that night, then maybe I could have fallen to sleep without needing to release so much pent-up energy. As it was, I had a love jones of my own, and it needed to be satisfied.

Coe rang my doorbell in good time, and I answered it with nothing on but a long purple nightshirt of satin. He was dressed in all cream like his car, looking one hundred percent like a fine-ass model, and I was glad as hell that I had called him. However, it
still
had to be on
my
terms.

I stopped him at the door before he entered. “Now what did I tell you you had to agree to do before you came in here?” I asked him.

He laughed again. Maybe he
was
high. I don't remember him being that silly at Venice Beach, but his eyes were clear, and he smelled like sweet cologne.

I pressed him for an answer. “What did I tell you?”

“You told me I can't leave.”

“Until what time?”

“Ten o'clock.”

“Okay, as long as you know.” I backed up and let him in.

He walked inside and finally stopped laughing. I locked the door behind him.

“What kind of cologne do you have on?” I asked.

“Jean Paul Gaultier.”

I nodded. “It smells good. You want something to drink?”

“Yeah, something fruity,” he answered.

I pulled out the Hi-C fruit punch from the refrigerator and poured us both a small glass.

“That's all you're gonna give me?” he said, looking at the small glass.

I answered, “Yes and no.”

“What?”

I explained, “Yes, this is all of the
juice
that you're getting, and no, this is
not
all that I'm gonna give you.”

He started laughing again. “Are all the women in Philadelphia like you?”

I noticed a bulge in his pants.

I smiled and said, “There's only one me, but we
do
know what we want in Philadelphia, and we're not afraid to say it.”

“Yeah, that's what I know.”

I led him to the stairway and said, “Come on.”

He nearly tripped over his feet to follow me.

“Are you okay?” I asked, smiling.

“Yeah, I'm all right.”

“You weren't drinking and driving were you?”

“Naw.”

“Good.”

When we got up to my bedroom, I told him to sit on the floor at the foot of my bed.

“Why?” he asked me.

I gave him a no-nonsense look and said, “Just do it.”

“For what?”

“I want to read something to you. Are you into poetry?”

He said, “Good poetry, but I don't like that twisted stuff that I can't understand. What the hell is that?”

I laughed. “Me neither. I never write that kind. My poetry is straightforward.”

“Oh yeah. I wrote a few poems, not that many though, and I don't know them by heart, so don't ask me to say them.”

I smiled. “I wasn't. Sit down and turn around so I can put my legs on you.”

He looked at me and started laughing again. The bulge in his pants was still visible. I hoped that he knew how to use it.

He finally sat on the floor and I flipped to the poem that I wanted to read to him, and tossed my bare legs across his broad shoulders. The candlelight was on the dresser where I could see.

I said, “This is called ‘A Homemade Twinkie.'”

He turned around and started laughing to see if I was serious.

“Why do you keep laughing so much? God! Am I blowing your mind, or
what
?” I asked him.

To my surprise, he said, “Yeah, you are. I mean, you just ...you just . . .”

“I just say what the hell is on my mind, right?”