Hyena (11 page)

I’m like, “Cool, I got you, no worries.”

I stay the night, because I’ma take her to the clinic in the morning.

I wake up the next day wanting to fuck, because I know I won’t be able to smash for like a week once she handles the little ball player in her belly. I’m kissing on her, but for some
reason she’s not in the mood. She’s like, “Quit it, Jude, I’m tired.”

I’m like, “You just woke up, girl, how you gon’ be tired?”

She’s like, “Come on, we gotta go soon.”

I whisper, “Girl, why you so grumpy? Lemme just do this. . . .”

I start going down on her. She’s like, “Come on, Jude stop. . . .”

I put my finger to her mouth. “Don’t say nothing, I’ma make you feel all better.”

I’m down there licking away, trying to get her in the mood, but it was smelling kind of foul.

I keep going. I come from the school of pussy eating where if the shit tastes bad, you just eat past the taste.

I’m down there for like five minutes, and it’s only getting worse. It tastes like fish and pennies.

I quit; I stop eating and start fucking. She’s not into it. The smell’s caught in my beard and my dick goes soft. I hop off, I’m like, “Come on, we got places to be.”

The ride there’s silent. She’s annoyed I tried to fuck her on her abortion day.

It’s wintertime, the sky’s gray, the snow’s gray, it’s a good day for it. The clinic’s on the east side in a strip mall somewhere in Sterling Heights. We roll up, she signs in, the doc takes her to the back. I take a seat, crack a magazine. I’m reading, it’s gonna be a minute. She comes out ten minutes later, looking stuck.

“That’s it?”

She’s like, “Yeah. You ready to go?”

I’m like, “Damn, that was fast.”

She says, “I didn’t get one. . . .”

I say, “You didn’t get one? What, you keeping it?”

She says, “No. I had a miscarriage . . . this morning.”

I wipe my mouth.

“Oh.”

I USED TO GIVE MYSELF
haircuts. I’d climb up on top of the bathroom sink, get in the mirror, and chop away. My grandparents hated it, but my aunt’s first husband, Rick, loved it, thought I looked New Wave.

When I was around seven or eight, my pop started taking me to Mario’s over at the Meadowbrook Village Mall for my cuts. He used to hook it up, cut a part in my hair, finish with some talcum powder. I liked going to Mario. I grew up with blacks, Mexicans, and white trash, so it was nice to be around an Italian every now and then.

Mario knew Madonna’s father from the old country, so my dad thought that if Mario gave Madonna’s dad his head shots, he could in turn give ’em to Madonna, and she’d hire him in a movie or, even better, wanna fuck.

For months after he gave him the pictures, my pop’d be at the house claiming, “When Madonna sees those pictures of your old man, she’s gonna wanna help me out. She’s gonna
wanna give me work. Or you know what else? She might even like your daddy.”

And we’d be like, “Madonna’s gonna be our stepmom?! Cool!!”

He’d be standing there next to the dresser, scratching his back with a hairbrush taped to a stick, smiling, saying, “I’m a good-looking guy. It could happen, it could happen.”

Mario never gave Madonna’s dad the pictures; he didn’t feel right doing it. But Pops kept hounding him till one of the other barbers finally blew up: “Look, it’s a little weird, okay? They go back a long time and he’s not just gonna start passing out pictures, trying to get strangers work. It’s just weird.”

My pop stood there looking all hurt, said, “Oh I’m a stranger now? You’re not even Italian, what do you know, you pencil dick?! He forgot where he came from. Jude, come on, let’s go.”

After that, whenever we drove by the Meadowbrook mall, we got to hear about it. “That white-bread Italian fuck wouldn’t fucking help me. He’s jealous I’m an actor and he gives haircuts.”

When I was in my twenties, I had Billy-54 cut my hair. He was the doorman at the hottest club in Ferndale. It used to be a Rite-Aid. He’d hook up the ill highlights à la ’N Sync. I swore I had ’em first but no one believed me. We ended up being friends. I even took him to
Jenny Jones
. He wore a zebra-print trench coat on the train and people thought he was a rock star.

When Gabbie and I broke up, I’d sit there in his chair spilling my guts, telling him how fucked-up I was over her. He’d shake his head and tell me he felt for me.

Turns out they were fucking the whole time during the breakup. When I found out, I didn’t even fight him. I just wrote a rap song about it and played it for him, like a bitch.

I couldn’t believe she’d do that to me. “Out of all the people you can fuck, Gabbie, you gotta fuck my hairdresser? You gotta fuck Billy-54? He wears a fucking zebra coat for Christ sakes. Who the fuck’s sposed to cut my hair now, Gabbie?”

I dumped Billy, got back with Gabbie, and made her tell me everything about it. Was his dick bigger than mine? It was. How many times? A bunch. Did he fuck better than me, when, where?

That’s why when I met Julie, I was afraid to hit on her. She did such a good job cutting my hair that if it didn’t work out I’d have to find someone else.

When we started fighting, I stopped liking my haircuts. I got more critical. I blamed her for going bald. By the time we broke up, I ain’t even want her touching my head anymore. I just shaved my head. Fuck haircuts.

I hear Julie’s on tour doing hair for some rock group. I’m happy for her. When I drive by her salon I pretend she’s out of town. I know just cuz you miss something it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you. I try and keep that in mind as I grow my hair out.

REBECCA TOOK ME TO THIS
obnoxious movie about some rich white lady who feels bad for being rich so she gives money to bums and not to her spoiled-ass kid. And the kid spends the whole movie all mad about being neglected and ugly. Then the rich lady tries to volunteer at group homes but she cries when she sees the retards. In the next scene a little mongoloid is in the bathroom checking on her to see if she’s okay. It’s supposed to be poignant. The movie ends with her buying her spoiled little asshole kid some $250 jeans.

I said to Rebecca, “Rebecca, why would you take me to see a movie about a bunch of people I hate?”

She’s laughing. “Because I knew you would hate it.”

“Asshole.”

She likes to get me riled up.

I was talking about it to Anthony, the masseur at my fancy-pants chiropractor’s office. We were talking movies while I was
trying to avoid the fact that the back of his hand was touching my ball sack.

I told him, “The only people who want to watch a movie about a bunch of rich white people feeling bad about being rich and white is rich white people.”

He didn’t say shit. He just kept working my inner thigh.

The same lady who did that movie did another one about some white people adopting a fat little black girl because her mom was a crackhead or had AIDS or something. I’m sure all my liberal friends creamed their pants over that one. Can you imagine having your very own black person that you rescued from the ghetto as a pet? You get to touch their hair and bring ’em to parties.

Z took me to a dinner party in the Hills last week and I was talking to this white writer lady in her forties. Right after she finishes telling me about her daughter graduating from Harvard, she starts talking about how much she hates white people.

We’re in a party full of people dancing around to U2 with their eyes closed, and there’s only one black person there and she’s Canadian.

I tell her, “Be proud of your whiteness; white people are the shit. We run things.”

She’s like, “But deep down inside, I’m black. I feel like a black person. I feel it in my bones.”

You feel like your ancestors were enslaved, stripped of their culture and traditions, and you’re a product of that? You feel black? Black like she struts around her house listening to Miles
Davis, drinking Cabernet, black. Black like she eats sautéed collard greens with her quinoa, black. Black like you blew a black guy in college.

I keep it light. “Well, you look white as hell to me.”

She says, “No, I already have two strikes against me as a double minority. I’m a woman and I’m Jewish.”

I’m like, “You’re Jewish!? You ain’t no minority. Shit, that’s like being white with benefits! You’re like white-plus.”

She grabs my arm and looks dead in my eyes. “Yeah, but deep down . . . I am black.”

I take a bite out of my wood-oven gorgonzola-and-shallot pizza. Chew it up and swallow it. I let that one sink in.

Man, I think I hate white people, too.

I GET A CALL FROM
solo, a longtime listener. He says he can get me some PCP if I can get him some mushrooms. I usually don’t do drug deals with people I’ve never seen, but he calls in all the time and when he talks, he reminds me of my homie Jinx, so I’m like, yeah, what the fuck.

What do I have to lose? What’s he gonna do, rob me for an eighth of shrooms? Kidnap me? Kill me? Then who’s he gonna listen to in the afternoon?

I don’t tell anyone about the deal, because smoking dust is looked down upon in my circle. Back in school, they show you the movie where the guy rips out his own eyeball off that shit. I don’t know about all that, that’s the same movie that said weed would kill you. I’ve never done dust; all I know is, it’s in the same food group as ketamine and I like that shit.

I’m out of K and I don’t have a connect out here in LA, so sherm might just be the answer. I snorted up my last bit a few weeks ago with my little nineteen-year-old homie. We were sitting
at the dining room table passing the plate back and forth, listening to Frankie Valli.

I tell him, “I’m running outta cats to do drugs with; all my homies are going to rehab from fucking with that heroin. That shit’s the devil, bruh.”

He tells me, “That’s funny you should say that. Don’t say anything to anyone, but I’ve been off it for thirty days now. Once I’ve been clean for a year, I’ll tell my sister.”

“That’s your business. Be careful with that boy, though.” I snort a line; the dude’s face goes all fun-house mirror on me. And I say, “I watched it take a gang of people out. You either end up a fucking loser or in AA, and I don’t know which one is worse.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

“Nah, if I tried that shit I’d be a straight junkie in no time. A man’s gotta know his weaknesses and respect them.” I pause for effect. “You gotta respect your weaknesses.”

A couple weeks later, he OD’d. His sister found him in his room slumped over and blue, music blasting. She’s in her bathrobe, titties flopping out, smacking him up, trying to wake him.

He’s all right now, I guess. She’s fucked-up though.

She told me not to do drugs with him anymore. Fair enough.

So here I go again on my own. Heading down to South Central to swap these things. I’m bumping Prince, singing along at the top of my lungs. It’s dark when I get there. I’m in the fucking hood, the street is active. And Solo’s house is pitch black.

I call him up. “I’m here. This the right address?”

He says, “You in the Black Grand Prix? I see you, come around to the alley. You good, I’m watching for you.”

I get out the car, and I’m walking down the street looking for this alley. I walk up on what looks like a fenced-in road. Is that the alley? These dudes are standing there; one of them might be Solo.

It’s not Solo.

It’s some gangbangers posted up in a driveway selling dope. I try and play it off like I just decided to take a stroll, have a glance at the fence post next to them, and now that I’ve seen that fence post, I’ll just be on my way.

They’re staring at me like I’m crazy. I must look it, some white dude with glasses, a button-down, and hard bottoms wandering their streets looking lost. The Mexicans are mugging me; the black one in front says, “You looking for somebody?”

I’m shook, but I’m trying to hold it together. “Yeah, I’m looking for Solo.”

“Well, you better call him.”

“Yeah, I’m ’bout to.”

I dial the phone, turn, and leave. It goes straight to voice mail. Shit. The black dude calls out, “Ay! What kind of car you driving? What size are them shoes?!”