Flip Side of the Game (13 page)

I stood and stared at the bells outside of the building Taj lived in for at least fifteen minutes before I thought about pressing the buzzer. It had started raining again, and people were staring at me as I stood motionless, with raindrops covering my skin.

“Looking for someone?” a voice from over my shoulder said. I turned around and saw Taj. He was dressed in his scrubs and looked as if he had just come from work.

“I was in the neighborhood, so, you know.”

“No, I don't know,” he said as he turned the key into the door. “But look, I just worked a double shift. I gotta go.”

“Taj, I . . .”

“Go home, Vera. I have things to do.” He slammed the door in my face.

I cried all the way to my truck. I cried so much that when I started driving, I had to pull over to the side of the road and scream. I beat my hands against the dashboard and screamed in agony. I held my head down and cried into the steering wheel.

As soon as I placed my hands over my burning eyes, I heard a tap on the window and then I heard a muffled voice say, “Open the door, Vera.”

I looked up at Taj. “Open the door,” he said again. I shook my head.

“Open the door, Vera.”

I wiped my eyes and shook my head again.

“Open the goddamn door, Vera!”

I opened the door, and he gently lifted me out of my truck. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He placed his hands underneath my butt, and he placed me against my truck's door, with my back resting on the glass. The heavy rain dripped in slow motion as the night sky unzipped Heaven's tears and it began to drench our clothes. I placed my head on his shoulder and inhaled the scent of his body.

“Hold your head up and look at me,” he said.

I held my head up, but I didn't unwrap my legs or my arms. He locked his arms under my butt, and his grip was strong. “Do you love me?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“No, say it to me,” he said. “And look at me when you say it.”

“I love you,” I said, while licking the salty tears away from my lips.

“Then why you keep fuckin' up?”

“I don't mean to, but look, Taj,” I said, taking a deep breath. “All I know is that I'm in love with you. I can't lose you, and I swear nothing happened between Roger and me. Nothing.”

“Yeah?” he said with a frown.

“My right hand to God, baby. Nobody in this world is worth losing you for. I never knew that I could love someone as much as I love you. I can't let you go. I'm not letting you go. Whatever you need, I got it.”

“All I want is your heart.”

Tears started rolling down my cheeks. He kissed my tears away and he said, “Do you know how many times I thought about leaving and staying gone? Girl, I am so in love with you to the point where I can't even think straight. But I won't tolerate being played, because I'm not into that bullshit. Now, if you wanna be with me, then it's all or nothing.”

“Everything is yours,” I said. “Just give me another chance.”

“Then treat me like I should be treated,” he said. “Stop shutting me out. Love me. Let me hold you. Let me be there for you. Allow me to be your man. When you want to talk about Larry Turner or Rowanda, come to me. That's why I'm here. Talk to me, don't hold it in. Tell me your problems, and I will do what I can to solve them.”

“I have to solve my own problems.”

“But I can lead you to the solutions.”

“I love you so much, Taj.”

“Actions speak louder than words. Show me that you love me. I'm your man and that's it. Now, either you treat me like that, or I'm gone. No more two and three chances. I'm done with that shit. This is it. It's all or nothing, and I will only settle for everything.”

“All I can give you is my heart,” I said.

“That's all I need.”

I hugged him so tight that I ended up melting into his embrace. I never wanted to let him go.

He gently placed me on the ground, kissed me passionately while stroking my back, and somehow, in between the hissing breeze and the rhythm of the rain drops, we began to grind slowly, and somehow we ended up lost in the rhythm of one another's heartbeat.

By now, you would think that I felt safe, but I didn't. I was scared. Taj had my heart, and no matter what plans my mind made, my heart beat them out hands down, and here I was, ironically at the mercy of Taj's love.

It had started to get a little cold, even though it was only the beginning of September.

“Get up. Let's go for a ride,” Taj said. I wasn't the least bit surprised, but I was exhausted. We had been up all night talking.

“What are you going to do about Rowanda?” he asked, while slipping on his beige velour Sean John sweat suit.

“Nothing.”

“And you think that you can live the rest of your life doing nothing about your mother?”

“Perhaps,” I said extra snappy, letting him know that I didn't want to hear the shit! I was in love with him, yes, but the situation with Rowanda was not to be touched. “Plus, I don't wanna talk about it.”

“You need to stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop being so stubborn.”

“I'm not being stubborn. I just don't want to hear about it. Didn't you just say let's go for a ride? Well, let's do that!”

“Okay. Okay,” he said, throwing both his hands in the air, looking sexier than ever.

He went to grab his Coach leather paperboy knapsack, but I was already close and practically in his chest by the time he went to reach over to the dresser. I placed my head on his chest and hugged him around his waist. I almost wanted to cry, but I got it together and instead, held him close. I could feel with the tightening of his embrace that he understood.

“It's all right, baby,” he said into my double-strand twist that I had twisted into a French roll. “It's all right.”

When we got into Taj's Escalade, I could almost lose myself in the softness of the black leather seats. The sound of Will Downing's “A Million Ways to Please a Woman” was filtering throughout the speakers, and it was so crisp and so clear that I felt like Will Downing was sitting next to me.

“This is a nice CD,” I said to Taj with my eyes closed.

“Yeah, it is. I listen to it on my way home a lot of times. It relaxes me. Makes me think about you.”

I started blushing. “Jonathan Butler has a nice CD as well,” I said.

“Jonathan Butler?” he said, as if he were impressed.

“Yes, Jonathan Butler. What, all you think I listen to is Jay-Z and Lil John?”

“I never said that. Maybe not Lil John. More like Lil' Kim.”

“Whatever.”

“I'm playing, baby.” He laughed. “But look, do you know that the type of music a person listens to speaks volumes about their personality?”

“Really? And how do you figure that?”

“Because if all you listen to is hardcore gansta rap or heavy metal music, then that usually means that your world is somehow surrounded with what they are talking about. Otherwise, why you want to hear about bitches suckin' dick, niggers gettin' hit, and somebody killing their mama fifty times a day?”

“You have a slight point, but I happen to like rap.”

“Me too, but that's not all I listen to.”

“Well, my favorite is jazz,” I said.

“Jazz?” he asked, surprised. “Something I didn't know about my baby, huh?

“That's right, jazz. See, you learn something new every day.”

“What do you know about jazz, besides Mr. Will? Do you know anything about the real deal? Like Coltrane, Holiday, Davis, Parker? What do you really know about jazz?”

“Excuse you, boyfriend, but I do know that jazz is the only original American art form when it comes to music. And not only do I have the CDs by the legends you just named, but I also have a few by Lionel Hamilton, Sarah Vaughn, Nina Simone, and that's just to name a few, so don't sleep.”

“Don't sleep? You're something else. So, tell me, Miss Jazz Lady, how long have you wanted to be a hairstylist?”

“Since I was a little girl. Rowanda used to dream it all the time, so I just felt it was something I needed to become.”

“My mother died when I was twelve, and I always said if I were a doctor, I could've saved her.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt a little awkward commenting on that, so I left it alone.

As we headed through the Holland Tunnel, I felt a little sleepy, so I got lost in the world of Will Downing's music and drifted off for a short nap.

When I opened my eyes, Taj was rubbing my face and saying, “We're here, baby.”

“Where are we?”

“South Fourteenth Street.”

“Jersey?”

“Not just Jersey, Newark, baby girl. Brick City! My family lives in the red house on the corner.”

When I stepped out of the truck, I noticed instantly that the ghetto has a universal beauty no matter where you go, no matter what river you cross, no matter what train you take. It always has the same tune, the same beat, the same rhythm of the Puerto Rican corner store, the famous Madison Lounge with the storefront Laundromat, and black people everywhere of all shapes and sizes, some singing a poverty tune, some signing a home tune, and some singing a tune with a where-else-is-there-to-go flavor. People all over feel a connection with their ghetto segment of the world, and it's all love, it's all good, no matter what hood your ghetto is derived from.

So, I understood when Taj's father, who looked identical to his son, was eating a bowl of grits and sitting on the stoop trying to play dominos, and Taj's brother was kickin' it with his boys. I could relate to the fiend on the corner, and the middle-aged lady that seemed to be taking up some of Taj's father's attention. They were one of many in every neighborhood.

“Hey, Pop!” Taj said, giving his father a man-to-man hug and a kiss on the cheek. “What's up?”

“You, babyboy! How you been?”

Before Taj could respond, his brother, who bore a strong resemblance to Taj but seemed to be a few years younger, jumped off the crate he was sitting on and gave his brother a pound and then a hug.

“What's up, man!” Taj said. “I thought you were in Hampton for school?

“I transferred to Rutgers, downtown. I wanted to be closer to home. I started missing y'all, man.”

“All right, as long as you're still in school. Political science, right?”

“Yeah, man,” Taj's brother said. “Political science.”

A little girl, about five or six years old, came running out the door and hugged Taj around his knees. “Uncle Taj! Uncle Taj!”

He squeezed her tight and picked her up. “Tae-Tae, do you see this lady over here?”

“Yes,” she said, blushing.

“She's pretty, right?'

“Mm-hmm,” Taj's father answered for her.

Taj blushed and said, “This is Vera, everybody. And Vera, this is everybody.”

“Humph,” Taj's father said, giving me a hug. “Boy, you sure got your daddy's taste. You better be lucky you're my son, otherwise you'd be going home alone.”

Taj laughed. “It won't be the first time, Pop. You see you stole Ms. Betty from me,” Taj said, pointing to the lady sitting on the stoop with Taj's father.

“Hold on, now,” Ms. Betty said. “It ain't like it's too late to get me back!”

“Y'all got issues!” Taj's brother laughed. They all laughed and seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

“Come on in the house,” Taj's father said. When he got up, I saw that he had a shirt that said
Rest In Peace Bundles
. Out of curiosity, I asked, “Mr. Bennett, who was Bundles?”

“Oh, baby, he was one of the neighborhood kids that got shot a couple of years back. He grew up with my boys, Taj and Sharief.”

“Yeah,” Taj said. “I told you about him. Big Stuff. It's the same person.”

When I walked into Mr. Bennett's house, there was a young lady sitting on the couch. She was quite pretty, but she also seemed rather young.

“Baby,” Taj said, “this is my sister, Samira. My niece's mother.” She stood up, and I noticed that she was quite short, no more than five foot three. She had blond-colored box braids in her hair, and her skin was a honey-colored complexion. She resembled Taj slightly.

“How are you? I've heard a lot about you,” she said.

“Really?” I said, surprised.

“Mm-hmm. My father doesn't keep any secrets, no matter what my brother thinks. Soon as Taj called and told Daddy that he had found the one, Daddy was right in here telling us every bit of the conversation.”

The one?
I thought.
Did Taj really say that?
He didn't seem to flinch when his sister said that. Neither did he seem the least bit embarrassed, although what came out of his mouth was, “You talk sooo much, Samira.” It didn't seem that he meant that. Instead, it seemed that he felt relieved that somebody had finally lay it on the line.

“I'm glad that he told your father that,” I said. “It's wonderful when the feeling is mutual.”

Taj grabbed me around my waist, and I could feel his heart beating into my shoulder blade. “What's to eat around here? I'm starving,” he said.

The kitchen was lined with pictures of Taj, his brother, and his sister when they were children. Taj's medical degree hung alongside of a picture of his mother.

“She's beautiful,” I said to no one in particular, but everybody responded, “Thank you.”

“What was her name?” I asked.

“Viola. Viola Jones-Bennett,” Taj's father said with pride. His girlfriend, Ms. Betty, cut her eyes at him, as if she wanted to watch the way he responded to the question. I could tell she felt uncomfortable, so I figured I would leave the situation alone, and anything else I wanted to know, I would wait until Taj and I were alone.

“Let me show you my old room,” Taj said, smiling. His room was off from the kitchen and seemed to be virtually unchanged since the late 80s. There was an L.L. Cool J poster on the wall, and Kool Mo-Dee, and Big Daddy Kane album covers on the small schoolhouse desk. There was also a Snoopy Snow Cone machine and a Rubik's Cube, with all four sides matching.

“This is where I spent most nights studying for that academic scholarship to Morehouse,” Taj said.

“Did you get it?” I asked.

“Did I get it? I had no choice. Pops wasn't playing that, and I was the oldest, too. I had to be the one to set the example. Sharief and Samira were young when my mother died.”

“How old were they?”

“Five years old.”

“Oh, so how did that make you feel, when your mother died?” I asked Taj, sitting on his old twin-sized bed with the Papa Smurf sheets.

“I felt guilty.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to save her, but I couldn't.”

“What did she die from?”

“Breast cancer.”

“How could you have saved her?”

“Because if I had been a doctor, I may have been able to make a difference.”

“Baby, you were a little boy.”

“I know, but I felt like I should've been a grown man.”

I could tell that Taj was starting to get choked up, but he was trying to fight it off, so I changed the subject. “I didn't know you told your father about me. When did you do that?”

“When I first laid eyes on you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Quite.”

“But how would you have known that you loved me?”

“Because when I saw you, I just knew that you were it, no matter what.”

Taj laughed and slightly pushed me back on the bed. He lay sideways across me and said, “You ever made love on Smurf sheets?” Before I could answer, he told me he was just teasing.

“Come on in here and eat,” Ms. Betty yelled into the room to Taj and me.

“Dear, what exactly is your name?” Ms. Betty asked.

“Don't be so nosy, Betty. That's why Samira a single parent now, 'cause you were all in the boy's business. Leave these young folk alone.”

“I just asked the chile her name.”

“Vera Wright-Turner,” I said to her with a smile.

“Beautiful, baby. How 'bout your folks? How is yo' mama?”

“Vera was raised by her aunt,” Taj said, cutting in and giving Ms. Betty the eye, like,
That's enough
.

She seemed to quickly catch the hint and she said, “Nothin' wrong with that. My aunt raised me too, and she did a better job than my mama woulda done.”

“So, how's it going at the hospital, son?” Taj's father asked, sitting at the 50s-style round kitchen table and smiling at me.

“It's all right, Pop. A lot of long hours.”

“Yeah, it's rough out there. I read in the paper there's a doctor shortage.”

“Not really,” Taj said. “More of a nurse shortage.”

“What you do for a living, baby?” Ms. Betty asked, obviously trying to be slick.

Before I answered the question, I gave her a brief overview. She was a cocoa complexion, more like Hershey's chocolate than any other brand. She had auburn-colored hair that wasn't the best match to her skin tone, but it would do. She had a black woman's size eighteen hips, and a Southern girl's twang to her voice. She was standing at the stove, pouring herself a bowl of grits and waiting for a direct answer from me.

Instead of telling her that I was just a hairstylist, I figured I would give her the whole kit and caboodle. “I own a full service hair and nail salon on the corner of Thirty-third and Park in Manhattan. It's mostly for black men and women, although we do get a few whites and Latinos. I have prices that are more down to earth than the other salons in the surrounding area, which is why most of my customers will travel from Brooklyn, Queens, and other places to come and get hooked up at Vera's Hair Creation.”