Karma's a Bitch (8 page)

“Wait, hol up. You got this girl sitting outside all this time while you in here with me?” Terrance asked incredulously.

“Yea, I just told you we came back from Red Lobster’s,” Tony said, screwing up his face as he went down to the door.

“Why didn’t you just bring her up here wit you? I wouldn’t have minded. That’s fucked up for you to be chillin’ in here all this time,” Terrance said, shaking his head as he opened the door for Tony to leave. He was starting to get more and more relieved each time Tony was leaving. He almost wished that Tony didn’t know where he lived so he wouldn’t keep popping up at his house unannounced.

“Cause she ain’t worth meeting my friends and shit. She more of a side jawn than anything,” Tony explained and then gave Terrance a pound. “Aiight man.”

A side jawn, and you laying up in her house like you live there
, Terrance thought.
What about Quanisha?

Tony came to the driver’s side of the car and saw Jenny sitting there strapped in with her hands on the wheel.

“Move over,” he said signaling to her through the window by pointing to the passenger side.

“No, I’m driving, go ahead to the passenger side. You had too much to drink Tony.”

“What? I said I want to drive, now move over,” he said in a more agitated tone of voice.

Jenny just sat there and looked forward out of the windshield, hoping that he would just go over to the passenger’s seat. Tony was about to grab the door handle, but changed his mind when he got a better idea.

“Oh aiight then. You wanna be like that then fine, I ain’t got time for this mess tonight. You go ahead home, I’m stayin’ with my boy Ran,” he said as he headed back toward the house. Jenny opened the door and flew out of the car.

“No no, I don’t want you staying here tonight. Alright, you can drive. Just promise you’ll be careful okay?” Jenny asked.

Tony smirked as he slowly turned back around and got into the car. He always got his way with Jenny, and he loved it.

They reached home, just barely since Tony was driving like a fool and Jenny was so sure that they would be pulled over. Tony got out and lit up his last cigarette. He walked up to the house as he was pulling out the key that Jenny had given him to the house.

“Anthony, baby, could you please smoke that out here? I don’t want the smoke smell in my house.”

“Geez, it’s just one cigarette, give me a break!” he said as he fumbled with the keys and held the screen door open. Before he could even put the key in the door, the cigarette slipped out of his fingers and fell behind the bushes.

“Shit!” he exclaimed. “That was my last one!”

Tony jumped down off the stairs and started searching through the thick bushes for the burning cigarette. Jenny stood behind him watching to make sure nothing caught fire. After several minutes of searching, and being pricked by the harsh brush, he finally saw the cigarette butt, which had miraculously burned up to the filter in that short amount of time, but hadn’t burned anything else.

“Damn!” he said, now on edge because he was looking forward to that cigarette. Now on his knees, he picked up the cigarette and tried pitifully to suck a few last puffs of nicotine. Jenny looked at him like he was nuts.

“Fuck it,” he said throwing the butt back down. “Do you have any cash on you so I can run to the corner store?”

“Nope, not a dime,” she answered. And she wasn’t about to put cigarettes on her credit card. She didn’t care what he said.

Tony looked at the time on his cellphone. It read 11:22pm. “Man, and all the stores that accept credit cards is closed. Awww. Fuck!” he yelled, as he got up and headed back towards the house. He tripped on the second step leading up to the porch, and tried to play it off.

“You alright?” Jenny asked, cracking a smile. Tony didn’t answer. He just snatched the screen door open and put his key in the lock.

That night Tony put Jenny down on the floor in her living room and banged into her so hard that she thought he was going to pierce her uterus. He was frustrated at missing his cigarette, and needed a release badly. At one point Jenny tried to stop him, because he was really hurting her, but he just ignored her complaints and kept on going. He finally pulled out and came all over her stomach. Tony didn’t know for sure about this girl and her birth control habits, so he wasn’t going to take any risks of getting her pregnant. Little did he know that a woman could still get pregnant with the ‘pull out’ method. Jenny was actually hoping to get pregnant by Tony this way, which is why she never complained about him always pulling out. Tony rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes as he tried to catch his breath.

Jenny sat up a little and rested her head in her hand. “I was thinking maybe we could go up to see your grandmother at the hospital tomorrow morning. You know, the doctors say she should be out of the hospital early next week!”

Tony opened one eye and looked at Jenny strangely. He didn’t know how she could be thinkiing about his grandmother literally five seconds after they had just finished having sex.

“Yea, whatever,” he said closing his eye back. But he already knew he had no intentions of going anywhere with Jenny that next morning.

“She’s been doing so much better as you know. The last time I saw her, she asked me if I was your new girlfriend, since I talk about you so much,” Jenny chuckled and reached over to rub Tony on the stomach as she spoke. “I told her that she should really ask
you
that question. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see us both tomorrow. I was also thinking that maybe
next
weekend we could make plans to go see my mom in Germantown. She’s been asking about you Anthony. Anthony?”

“What the fuck did I tell you about callin’ me Anthony? My name’s Tony! Damn it I hate that shit!” Tony suddenly burst out. “And I’m trynna sleep, so shut the fuck up!”

Tony was so tired of hearing Jenny’s whiny voice that it was starting to make his head hurt just being in her presence. Sometimes it was as if her mouth were running a marathon; she went on and on about subjects that meant absolutely nothing to Tony.

In fact, over the past few days he had been thinking more and more about Quanisha, and how much he missed her. He hadn’t seen her since she drew a knife on him in her car the day his grandmother went into the hospital. Quanisha could be very abrasive at times, but at least she was a challenge. Jenny was so easy that it was sickening to Tony. And she was like a cold fish when it came to sex; Tony had to do all the work while she just laid there. He needed his baby Quanisha back – that was his rock. He could have ten women on the side, but he knew that if anybody was going to have his back, it would be Quanisha. He started dozing off with thoughts of running his hand down Quanisha’s soft buttery thighs.

Jenny was taken aback by Tony’s sudden outburst, and remained speechless for a long time. Why didn’t he want her calling him by his God given name? She debated on whether she should continue what she was telling him, or heed his request for silence. The margarita with an extra shot of Cuervo she had at dinner gave her a little confidence, so she decided to just pick up where she left off in the conversation, in a softer tone.

“Well, I’ve told my mom all about you, and she really wants to meet you. So I’d appreciate it if you cleared next Saturday? I’ll drive,” Jenny said. She paused to see if Tony would have any objections, but he said nothing.

“Anth- I mean Tony? Did you hear me?” she asked. Before she could say another word, Tony started snoring; he was fast asleep. Jenny sighed and grabbed a pillow off the couch. She laid her head down facing Tony, and for a while she just watched him sleep. She felt as if she were falling in love with Tony, but didn’t know exactly why. He treated her like crap, ran through her money like a faucet, and hardly ever even said two words to her. But it was so nice to have a man around the house. It had been so long since she felt the rush of testosterone inside of those four walls.

“I’ll just give it some time,” she said outloud to herself. “He’ll come around. I’ll help him to get a job at the hospital, and as time goes on he’ll get to know me for the good woman I am. I just have to have patience.”

Tony woke up in the middle of the night. The room was dark except for the light of the television. He looked around him to see where Jenny was, but she was no where in sight. He got up from the floor and took a few seconds to stretch his back out. He looked over at the cable box which read 4:13am.

“Damn, I was knocked out,” he said, heading towards Jenny’s kitchen for something to eat. When he got there he quickly remembered why they had gone out to eat. There was nothing in the refrigerator except a half a bottle of spring water, some onions and a bag of lemons.

“She really need to go shopping,” he said outloud and slammed the door back shut. He went back out to the living room and flopped down on the couch. He turned to BET Uncut and could have sworn one of the girls in the video they were playing was Quanisha. She looked just like her; thick, brown skinned, with the long braids. He started rubbing his manhood as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He thought about how wild Quanisha could get in bed, and how she could be so gentle at other times when they were together.
Why am I over here thinking about her when she’s just ten minutes away?
he thought.

“I’m goin’ over there,” he said to himself, and then shot up from his seat to go find out where Jenny was at. Before he left the room, he saw one of Jenny’s purses sitting underneath her glass top coffee table.

Tony didn’t even think twice about searching through Jenny’s purse. There was no way he could resist. He found a $20 bill laying on the bottom of the bag. “I thought she said she didn’t have any cash,” he said as he crumbled up the $20 bill in the palm of his hands and started to go up the stairs.

He peeked into Jenny’s master bedroom and saw her sleeping peacefully with her back turned to the door. He shook his head, glad that he wouldn’t have to speak to her again that night. Maybe not anymore at all.

When he reached the bathroom he lifted the toilet seat quietly as he looked back at the door to make sure Jenny wasn’t behind him. She could be sneaky like that sometimes. He closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side as he relieved himself. When he finally looked down at the toilet to flush he was startled when he saw that there was feces in there. Jenny had told him earlier that the toilet was stopped up.

“Ewww,” he said as he tried to flush again and again unsuccessfully. Forgetting what he had in his hand, he accidentally let the twenty that he had balled up in his fist fall out into the toilet, right in the middle of two turds.

“Shit!” Tony exclaimed under his breath. He looked in the toilet, as the bill became submerged in the toilet water filled with urine and feces. He considered grabbing the money, but it was so disgusting. He was squeamish about things like this.

“Man. I need that twenty,” he mumbled to himself as he ran the palm of his hand down over his face. He finally just counted to three in his head and started picking at the twenty in the toilet. When he grabbed hold of it he threw it in the sink immediately. Running the water over the dirty twenty, he washed his hands five times in a row and then squirted some of Jenny’s liquid soap all over the bill.

Tony exited Jenny’s house holding the corner of the wet twenty dollar bill. It was still dirty as far as he was concerned. He hopped in his car and headed for Quanisha’s house. He decided to hold the money near the open window so that it would dry in the wind as he drove.

He was passing Baltimore Avenue and swerved to miss hitting a crackhead, who was only wearing flip flops and sweatpants. The crackhead was walking against the light, and apparently was not at all concerned about any cars that may have been coming down the street towards him. Cursing the crackhead in his rear view mirror, Tony saw a cop headed down Baltimore Avenue towards his direction. As he kept his eyes glued to the cop, an unusually strong wind whipped through the car. He lost his grip on the $20 bill. It flew out of the window and down the street. He hit the brakes on his car and was about to back up, but being that the cop was sitting there at the light he couldn’t. He continued on and made a U-Turn as quickly as humanly possible, heading back down the street where the $20 had flown. As he eased down the street looking for the green bill, he saw the crackhead he had just swerved to miss leaning down to pick something up. Before Tony could even stop the car and hop out, the crackhead had dipped out of sight. There was no doubt in Tony’s mind that he had found the money and ran.