Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns (13 page)

Like a gentleman, he asked her for a dance. The music was slow. The DJ knew what his job was. He had two or three females hanging around his own corner. As Greg and Tashyah melted into each other’s arms, they smiled. Their bodies felt good together.

After that dance, Greg, holding Tashyah’s hand, found an empty space where they could, at least, be alone to talk. He wanted to talk to this woman with the hot body.

Now he knew she was an attorney. They danced and talked over three more drinks each. Among other things, Greg told Tashyah she was a perfect fit in his arms. “This could work, baby.” And his favorite line, “I only have eyes for you.”

Tashyah was flattered. She had held her head back, looking up into his face, with all the interest and beauty she could. She flashed her looks, smiled shyly or innocently or invitingly or admonishingly as his words might demand, while he looked down on her with delight. His eyes holding hers, he talked smoothly in his best voice about his accomplishments and a few made-up dreams and goals.

“I’m not married, but I really want a good wife and a few kids . . . a son.” He thought he was jiving, but he was telling the truth and didn’t know it.

Tashyah almost shared her desires. “I do, too. I want to be married, and make a good home for a family. But there seems so little to choose from.” She had told the truth. “I’m not in any hurry, though. I have a very satisfying life.” She lied.

He had already told her she was the most beautiful woman there . . . and she believed him because she thought so, too.

They were loath to part when the club was closing, emptying out. So she clung to his hand, casually. He didn’t want to be alone, so he let her cling to his hand while he clung back.

Shirla and her friend caught up with Tashyah and told her they were ready to go. When Greg found out she was riding with Shirla, he said to her, “Come ride with me. I’m safe, ask my secretary.” That was for Shirla’s benefit. He continued, “It’s too early to go home. Let’s go to breakfast, Tashyah.”

She answered, “A marvelous idea! I’m starved.”

As they had the late night, early morning breakfast, they talked. In the clear bright lights he saw she was really quite attractive. And he remained really handsome to her. They could have fallen in love. They were, both, potentially good life-partners. Possible good husband and wife. The longest journey begins with one step.

By the time their breakfast ended, they said they thought they were falling in love. They admired and complimented each other for what they had accomplished. They liked looking at each other, even if they were pretty high from the club liquor. They held hands during the final cup of coffee. He placed his arm around her shoulders as they left the Breakfast Inn. She put an arm around his waist. They ran through the drizzle to his glistening red car. Smiling through the moist air, he gently helped her inside.

They didn’t want to part, to be alone again.

Smiling coquettishly, Tashyah said, “I should have fixed you that last cup of coffee at my house. I make very good coffee; do you like French roast?”

Grateful, because he had been wondering which tack to use to extend the night with her, he smiled and answered, “It’s not too late. I have no need to rush home, and I could use a good cup of French roast coffee.”

They sped through the street, rushing, perhaps, into a meaningful relationship. Hopeful. A little desperate even. He pulled into her long driveway as he looked her house over. “Not bad at all. I could live here comfortably,” he thought to himself.

Tashyah checked his face to see if he recognized her position in life through the look of her house, and the yellow Mercedes parked, nestled under overhanging trees, in front of the garage. She was satisfied.

With low, mellow, sexy jazz flowing throughout the house, she prepared the coffee. Then poured it, steaming, into her new, expensive Swedish-design coffee cups. Smiling intimately at him, she served it in front of the living room fireplace he had relit. They talked a moment, about nothing. Then they looked into each other’s eyes, and, finally, kissed until the coffee was cold.

The fire crackled and glowed warmly. The rains still came.

Together, they decided since it was still raining, Greg might as well spend the night. “Oh, not for sex,” she explained, “of course not.”

“Oh, of course not!” Greg explained. “I respect you too much for that. You mean more than that,” he declared.

His arms around her shoulders, he drew her close to him. Her arm around his waist, they moved slowly, kissingly, to her bedroom.

He used a second bathroom to prepare himself for her bed. She prepared herself, then got into her bed . . . and posed, not unalluringly. He joined her with a small rush; he was in his underwear with his thin legs showing.

After the proper interval, where he could seem to keep his word and respect and she could keep her respect, they settled down to sleep. With his warm hand under the cover on her hip, his legs touching hers, he asked, “One last kiss? Then we’ll go to sleep.”

She turned to him, sighing. “Now, Greg, we said . . .” Then he kissed her anyway, and she said, “Ohhhmmm.” They kissed . . . and kissed . . . and kissed, as the rain pelted the roof and the windows. Atmosphere rife with warmth and togetherness. And love?

At last, she turned her body to him, and he took it mindlessly.

In the beginning their bodies moved slowly, then the pace quickened to the rhythm of the rain that poured from the sky. They were both desperate, but not for sex. They were reaching for something that had not had time to grow. And something more than a body: their humanness, a human warmth.

Their loving lasted a long time. He couldn’t reach the place he was striving for, and she could not get all of what she was reaching for. It was good . . . sometimes, frantic other times.

A long time later, when they were through, they lay slightly gasping for breath. She hadn’t been satisfied because it wasn’t exactly what she needed. “All that for a short, quick orgasm,” she thought to herself.

He thought he had worked much harder than the situation should have demanded. He didn’t really need it, but at least he had had another orgasm. He fell asleep as the thought almost entered his mind, “What I need is something more, something deeper.” But, at least, they weren’t home alone.

He slept fitfully because he wanted to be in his own bed, not that of a stranger. She was still a stranger; lovemaking had not changed that fact.

She slept uneasily, because, after all, he was a stranger. And in the morning, oh, my, he would see her in such a mess, drinking and staying up all night! “Oh, well,” she thought as she drifted off to sleep, “I’ll wake up first.”

Greg woke early and got up with as much jostling of the bed as if he were alone. He yawned, stretched, relieved gas, scratched, washed up, and dressed. He refused the offer of coffee from a rudely awakened, and thankful, Tashyah.

She shut the front door behind him after pressing her card, with her phone number, into his hands. He slipped it into his pocket, hit her on the hip, and left. She heard his automobile smoothly roar as he took a while to warm it. She frowned. “Damn! All my neighbors are gonna know someone was here all night!” Then, she yawned and waved the thought of neighbors away. “Oh, well.”

Tired, she showered, dressed, and left her house to begin her day. Driving to work, someone played an oldie, Dinah Washington, singing, “What good is love that no one shares? Today you’re young. Too soon, you’re old.” She turned it off. She wanted her mind clear for work.

The week went by at the usual pace, but time is a little lighter when you are expecting something good to happen. Saturday morning, Tashyah opened her eyes slowly. She was groggy, still half-asleep, really. She slid her hand over to the other side of her bed and . . . naturally, it was empty. She had been dreaming. She sat up and looked at her empty room.

As she showered, she thought, “He’ll call me later today. I hope he doesn’t make a pain of himself!” As she had her coffee, she mused, “This could grow into something real and good. He was really fine. A male fox. I can’t remember the sex, too high, but, I’m sure it was good. And I know, he’ll come back for more. I hope he is not the kind who just comes without calling first. I couldn’t stand that. I really hope he doesn’t make a pain of himself.”

At moments throughout the day, she put on certain clothes and situated herself in different areas of the house: kitchen, living room, office, and even the garden. Busy doing things in attractive poses. So when he “just happened” to stop by, he would see she was attractive and much, much more than just a sex object.

But he didn’t call and he didn’t happen to drop by.

Sunday, instead of going to church “because he might have been busy yesterday and might drop by today,” she lit the fireplace and sat in front of it. She gazed through her windows at her driveway that had no red Mercedes in it, only her yellow Mercedes that she seldom, if ever, put in the garage.

Her thoughts were, “A game player! Well, all right, I know that game, too!” She said that for the next several days when he didn’t call. She didn’t know his phone number, and he didn’t call the next week either. She could look his number up, but her ego wouldn’t allow that.

By the next busy holiday time, when The Club or some social happening was happening, Tashyah was planning to go out. Early in the evening, she relaxed in her lounge chair, gazing to the end of her foliage-full, lush backyard. Greg never had called; she tried to remember his face, but couldn’t. “It was so dark in the club, and we drank so much. I remember the look in his eyes, but I can’t get the feeling back of when he looked at me. But, I think of him all the time.”

She laughed sadly, softly, at herself. “Him and a few others.” She looked up to the skies, wondering where the sun had gone. Everything in her mind was dark. “But,” she asked herself, “why should my life be dark? I have everything I need.”

She laid her head back, thinking, “Why am I feeling so depressed? I’m too alone . . . that’s why. I feel like crying sometimes, and I don’t know why I should. Someone will call one day, I know it. Somebody will! I can take the days, I’m busy then, Lord, but, oh, the nights, when there is no one caring about me, but me.”

After a long interval, she raised her head, and gave herself the reasons men should pursue her. “I’m successful. Too good a catch to just pass by. I am somebody!”

She laid her head back again. Tears seeped beneath her eyelids and slid down the makeup on her face. She opened her eyes, and appealed to God, whom she very seldom spoke to, unless she was in some pain.

“Oh, God. God. God. I am so lonely. I am so lonely, I could almost die. You made Eve for Adam. Make someone love me. When is someone going to love me? Love me and stay with me?”

Some voice, she had almost pushed too far back to hear, said, “Try God.”

But she shook that off, and then, really cried from her soul, into her life.

Meanwhile, across the brilliantly lighted city, was Greg. Greg was sitting on his couch in one of his smoking jackets, with the ascot from England he loved. His couch was situated in front of a huge mirror, in which he could see himself.

His phone was not ringing either. He had flicked through his address book, but was bored by all he found there.

Greg seldom mentioned “God.” He always thought, “It’s just a word anyway.”

But, this evening, he was doing some new thinking. And so he thought, “God, why did you make this world so dead? So boring? I am too much man to be as lonely as I am. Where is Somebody?”

He couldn’t remember Tashyah, or her body either.

He sat there trying to decide to call a buddy to go out somewhere and find somebody, women, who would, at least, be what he wanted, needed. Instead, he called God. “What the hell am I, ME, doing here wondering what to do with myself, and who to do it with?” He sighed. “Am I paying for something, God? Something I don’t know anything about? Cause if I knew it, and it would make me happier, I would do it! Damn! I’m tired of this, this . . . loneliness! I got women who want me!” Then he smiled at himself. “You know I’m going crazy, cause here I am talking to You. I must be getting old! But, God, if You really are there, please send me the type of woman You know I need. Please! Because this being alone, ain’t shit sometimes. I am a successful man, smart. But, God, I’m a lonely man.”

He heard his aunt’s little voice in his mind: “When Love finds you worthy, Gregory, it will be yours.”

Annoyed, he shook her voice off and lifted his eyes to his mirror and contemplated his handsome face.

And now, let’s you and I leave this city alone. Together.

Or is this your city?

Rushing Nowhere

I’m not sure why I want to tell you this story, because it isn’t happy. But it was important to me. It’s about coveting and jealousy. But there is something else to it, too. Life.

I am fourteen years old, and I was in love with my best friend’s brother, Jamal. Whenever he was around my heart would pound so hard, and I could hardly breathe. I don’t know if I still love him, but, oh, I did, I did!

Once he pinched the nipple of my breast as he smiled at me, and said, “I’m going to wait for you to grow up, cause you gonna be a beautiful woman someday!” I could hardly wait to get grown.

At Twyla’s house, I stayed in his face; I wanted him to say something else to me, but he was always rushing somewhere. Being best friend to his sister, Twyla, gave me a close look at everything about him.

Jamal Pistle was thirty years old, and just about the handsomest man you ever want to meet! Somewhere between cute and pretty, but a masculine man. His personality was engagingly attractive, sparkling with wit and nonsense, romance, and jive.

All the women sought him out and he often answered their calls, because he loved hisself so much it spilled over and some of it fell on them. Not each one, but every one. He loved the female sex. He smiled at all of em.

He had a main lady, Kamika (who I hated), but he had a dozen stashes or extras. Since he was so fine, no matter what he did, she remained faithful. Still, even with Kamika on his arm, he just couldn’t help turning his handsome head to see the one passing by. Someone who he didn’t have on his arm, or in his big king-size bed . . . yet. I had seen that big bed and rubbed my hand across it.

His life was full. You hear me?

He was employed in a very good position, and made very good money. He loved clothes, and had quite a few, of excellent taste, they say. He was well-groomed. Regular appointments at the barber’s. Always had a manicure, and sometime a pedicure. I ain’t never had a pedicure, myself. My cousin gave me my manicure.

He didn’t shop much in department stores, chile. He had his own tailor. A good one. Much of his money went out that way. I heard him say, “Hell, I’m young and healthy! I want everything I need to have a good, full life; and I am going to have one!” And he did.

Jamal didn’t ever feel the years rushing slowly forward with him as he got older. Years do rush slowly; today you are twenty, and seems like next week you are fifty. I hear older ladies say that.

Jamal liked everything but his neighbors. Because they were always trying to tell him about the “hereafter” and God. And about going somewhere after death. Telling him to change his life, or he would be left behind. Dead forever.

They bored him, but they been knowing him since he was a young kid, I guess. A long time anyway. He avoided them. Then they wouldn’t press on him, just smiled and waved out from their quiet, satisfied life.

“Left behind!” he would smirk, as he sauntered to his flashy riding car in his new finery. “Hell,” he said again, “I’m in my prime! Young and strong. I spend too much on my clothes to let them sit in some church!”

And so he was, and so he lived his life. And so he should have, because it was his life and his choice. Can you hear me?

A few years passed as I got older. Jamal began to get bored with dancing and dining, parties and plays. Staying up till all kinds of hours. And women? He had already slept with most of them anyway. He still had his old neighbors, and their young daughter, Esther, a little older than I was, was growing up to be a beautiful young lady too. I didn’t like her either.

When he could catch her in the yard or at the local market, he tried to talk to her. The thought of his neighbor’s daughter excited him. Was a challenge to him, because they had tried to tell him, or implied, he was a no-good man; he wasn’t good enough for them. She was so proper and always talking God-talk. “What had they said God’s name was?” He laughed when he tried to remember and couldn’t.

He thought to himself, “I might marry her. I know she is clean. And might be, probably is, a virgin. Ain’t never had a virgin. I don’t b’lieve anybody has touched that!” He frowned. “Them bitches I had wasn’t near-bout no virgins.”

He seemed to have forgotten Kamika, who was still waiting patiently for the times he took her out. She worked a poor little uneducated job, because she thought he was going to take care of her. She should have been in some college learning something to better her own condition so she could take care of herself. Wait a minute, I’m going to tell you why I say that.

I stopped being jealous of Kamika and got jealous of Esther. Actually, half the time I didn’t know who to be jealous of there were so many.

The years had passed as Kamika was waiting to get married. They had been “engaged” bout five years. I think she was a fool, myself. Her life was like some fruit sittin on some vine: gonna fall off and hit that ground hard, squash or rot. Waiting for him.

I don’t believe in long engagements, myself. If you love me, marry me. If you going to do something, do it. I know you hear me.

So, he was thinking of Esther. But that young lady always smiled pleasantly, and kept moving on her way. Sometimes she said, “Don’t be left out, Jamal.” He would laugh a little with her as she moved down some aisle in a store. He would watch her as she walked away from him. Smirking, he would return to his own shopping needs. “Left out! I never have been ‘left out.’ ”

Some time later, six months or so, Jamal was out on some wonderful occassion, having “a natural ball,” as he would say. His lady of the night, that night, was his faithful Kamika. Both dressed to the sixes (as he would say), in the very best. Sparkling, flashing, in the crowded party. Cocktails in hand, everyone greeted them. They knew Jamal well.

A few of his other ladies were there, flashing angry looks from the corners of their eyes at Kamika and, later, alluring eyes at Jamal; whining whispers from some, angry whispers from others as they had quick occasions. Just as quickly, Jamal flashed back, “Call you later.” Women were his power, so long as they wanted him. Everyone had a ball. It was the greatest party of the year. Everyone said so!

Jamal led Kamika to his car and, though a little tipsy, gallantly opened the door for her. She stepped into the smell of leather and plush seating, gently. I know cause I’ve seen her do it.

She had not had as much to drink as Jamal. He had wanted to drive off like a blade of light in his flashy sports car, before everyone got away so he could leave a scene behind him; like riding away on his beautiful horsepower with the beautiful damsel. And he did. Everyone talked about it later. “How handsome! How sharp! How cool! That car!” The car was part of his power, as long as he could pay for it.

They were going to drive to Kamika’s apartment (couldn’t go to his; telephone too busy). They smiled at each other as they talked about the party. Kamika wanted to talk about marriage while Jamal was in such a good mood. She had decided to take her life back to school, get a degree, and meet some new men. She thought, “If he’s not going to marry me now, I’m not going to wait anymore. I might as well do better things with my time!”

But all he could talk about was, “Such food! Oh, the clothes! Did you see that outfit Earl had on? Screamin! And all that liquor! That good music.” He laughed happily. “It was just a good party! That’s all there is to it!”

As he was thinking of whom he would call first, to get his private business back in control, he reached across the seat for her hand. Said, “And I took my baby! My baby! You know I love you, baby!” He thought control was another power of his; he could think of more than one woman at a time.

Jamal always drove carefully. Careful to see who was seeing him, and who he could see. He liked to cruise, and this night his liquor told him to drive home on one of the well-lit boulevards, still busy, and full of people. I know cause I’ve seen him do it. He wanted his car to be seen. He wasn’t drunk. But someone else was.

At some place in a fairly busy strip of street, Jamal was, impatiently, waiting for a chance to go around a truck. Another driver swerved out, from nowhere it seemed, at an enormous speed, and headed straight into Jamal’s flashy fine automobile, one of Jamal’s main powers. And, you know these new cars are practically made of plastic. The other car seemed to rage as it tore right into the rear of Jamal’s power automobile with great speed. It hit, smashing, bending and tearing as it crashed, and crushed both people and fine car into the truck, crushing both Jamal and Kamika. To death, chile.

Everyone talked about it. “Too terrible!”

Kamika’s pitiful family took their daughter, sister, niece, grandchild, to the funeral home and gave her an honorable, beautiful, flower-filled, closed-casket funeral. Her family and friends grieved. “Poor beautiful, young Kamika never even had a chance to marry or have children of her own. She just gone. Gone.” Or, “I told her bout that bastard! He took up her life while she was alive; now he done took her life all the way to the end. She dead now, can’t do nothin else no more.”

I went to her funeral because I really felt bad for her. I didn’t hate her anymore. I liked her.

The memorial for Jamal was filled with people who brought food and much liquor. They played the latest music and had a ball! A regular ball! He would have loved it. Everyone talked about it.

And they talked about Jamal. “How terrible! He wasn’t even old; somewhere in his thirties, I think. And that beautiful car. Destroyed! Just crushed to dea . . . pieces!”

“How terrible!”

“How sad. Such a waste.”

Everyone talked about it.

His women were there, of course. As they checked the crowd out for their next man, they said, “And so handsome! He was fine, fine, fine, and could screw you to death, real good!” I was surprised when I heard the woman say that because she was one of the real ugly ones! He really didn’t miss anyone.

A few people came to the closed-casket funeral the next day. Most of his friends were too hung-over from the memorial wake. “There will be so many people there they won’t miss me. Won’t even notice I wasn’t there,” as they took two aspirin, turned over, and went back to sleep.

Then . . . they forgot him. As people do.

After a few days, “everyone” didn’t talk about him.

I don’t know if God remembered him, because Jamal had never introduced himself to God. Jamal probably wouldn’t care, because he didn’t believe in God anyway. Jamal would just have to wait until Judgment Day, unless you were already judged on the day you died. But, who knows?

Jamal lay in his coffin, looking as best the funeral director could manage, six feet under the surface of the earth. Just left behind when all his friends went home.

Poor Kamika. She waited too long, but the waiting is over, she is resting in peace.

Poor Jamal, always rushing, at last going nowhere. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Left behind.

Now, you may think this is a too sad story. But the reason I’m telling you is I used to be jealous of Jamal and Kamika. And now . . . I can’t hardly tell you how I feel. I feel sad for them. And I’m almost ashamed to be happy for me. But what can I say? I am happy for me that I didn’t grow up in time for him to rush me going nowhere.

I’ll be in college soon. There are plenty of young men there, and a education for me too! I’m rushing for that. Going to take myself somewhere!