Liar's Game (41 page)

They swarmed the stage and yanked Gerri off balance, snatched the blonde wig off, threw her from the six-foot-high stage, and were on the floor beating her down before the bouncers realized what was going on.

I screamed like there was no tomorrow. My throat hurt like it had first-degree burns, already raw from yelling half the night.

Curses and squeals came from Gerri.

Flying chairs.

Butter staggered like she’d been hit or kicked. Then she yelled, dove on top of Gerri, and the fight vanished from my sight.

I tried to get to her, but people were in the way.

Gerri was yelling for help. Her pleas frosted the room, an aching sound that filled the air like the howls of a wounded animal.

Waitresses dropped trays, ran topless out into the streets. Customers fled in the middle of lap dances and ran like hell.

Butter’s friends were swinging at anybody who came close and tried to stop the fight. Ice Cube had stopped rapping. One of the bouncers shrilled that he had been cut. I knocked chairs out of my way, stumbled on other things, but before I could get to Gerri, a bouncer grabbed me, lifted me in the air with my feet kicking, tried to make me go the other way. I wrestled with him, clawed him, finally got free.

By then the girls were breaking for the emergency exit. Butter was hurt, her hair all mangled, blood on her face like she’d been slashed by a wolverine, stumbling into tables, clawing to get free from whoever tried to stop her, the white blouse she had on covered in blood.

The side door flew open and slammed the brick wall, allowed a streetlight to create a moment of visibility. Outside was the same truck. Yellow fog lights on the front. Its engine revving, lurching like it was ready to take flight. I heard the squeaky voices of the young boys panicking, screaming at the girls to come on and
hurry the fuck up
.

No more screams from Gerri. Not a single sound.

I woke at sunrise. No woman at my side. My mind ablaze. Dana had been my sunshine and happiness. The river that flowed through my life and quenched my every thirst. I’d have to thirst again. Would have to find a river that was truly mine.

This afternoon I had an interview over at Dan L. Steel. Was nervous about that. Job changes, just like the possibility of a layoff, raise a brother’s stress level. At Boeing, unless a new contract dropped in their laps this week, I was the next one scheduled for involuntary unemployment.

Nikes were in the corner, so I put those on and ran the Crenshaw Loop. Eleven miles and some serious change. Ran the course in less time that it usually took me to run Inglewood Ten. Probably because while I ran, I blanked out, and with every step I became more nervous.

Dana was sitting at the top of the stairwell. I was about to go off on her for not calling before she came to get her stuff.

Until I was close enough to see her uncombed hair. Eyes bloodshot. Face oily. Trembling. Hands massaging each other.

She wiped her eyes. “I need a friend.”

Dried blood covered her shirt.

It was right there in black and white. The metro section of the
Times
had an article about how Gerri Greene, real estate agent, divorced mother of two, former Cal State Long Beach honor student, was attacked at a strip club on the Sinset Strip. That summed up what was printed in the mainstream papers. Stories that had more empathy, that hit from that struggling single-mom angle, ran on the front page of the African American newspapers:
Wave
,
Crusader
, and
Sentinel. Gerri’s face, the one grinning on every bench and bus stop on the west side of L.A., was on the front of every paper.

Reporters called my job and asked me a question or two, but I hung up in their faces. The Asian girl who worked down at Blondies saw opportunity knocking like a Jehovah’s Witness, opened her big mouth and told the whole world her version of what went down that night. Did that bull while she posed for the reporters, swinging upside down from the trapeze. She said that Butter and her friends had come down, said that they wanted to audition for the club, but wanted to sit in the back and watch first.

Played the owner big-time. All of that young T&A looked like a gold mine in the making. Let the whole crew in without checking ID. Even bought them a round of drinks. When the dust cleared, the owner of that gentlemen’s bar had no comment. I pretty much expected that.

On that floor, I had held onto Gerri and screamed for help. Hadn’t ever seen anybody look the way Gerri did when I made it to her.

Fifty stitches to Gerri’s pretty face, chest, arms, and back. A concussion. Ankle twisted, leg fractured from being pulled from a stage that was six feet high. Yanked from heaven to the hell below.

I was glad that she was going to be okay, in the physical sense.

The two teenage boys who had tried to jack us and two of the girls from Dangerous Lyrics had turned themselves in. They did that after their pictures were shown all over the news. Butter was still on the run. On the morning and evening news, reporters showed that girl’s estranged mother in front of the camera, begging for her only daughter to come back home.

That wasn’t the end of it. The midday news played a snippet from a Dangerous Lyrics tune, let it be known that the rough lyrics were written by Butter; they emphasized that a thousand times. By the end of the day, all of the local news stations had picked up the story. The struggling mom doing what she had because of her delinquent C.S. was a damn good angle. And to top it off, they rolled some video that had been taken with the security cameras, scenes from that night at Blondies.

It was all negative. But, like they say, any publicity is good publicity. And Dangerous Lyrics was getting pumped up like hell.

Within two days, Tower Records, the Wherehouse, Sam Goody—nobody could keep Dangerous Lyrics CDs on the shelves. That’s what the paper said. I had to go by their word on that. But I did know, firsthand, that not one of the a.m. drive-time D.J.’s missed a beat either talking about it, taking a people poll, or doing wicked spoofs on the wretched situation. And I know how my people are; this time next week, every unfunny brother and sister would be using Dangerous Lyrics as a punch line.

Jefferson never called my road dawg. Never went to the hospital. Didn’t call a friend of a friend and ask them to check on her.

No note. No good-bye.

By the end of the week, I’d gone to UCLA Medical Center all but one day to see Gerri. The only day I didn’t go was the day I used to finish most of my packing. I was so worried about my girl that I called a few times every day, but being there, seeing her laid up like that, puffed to the max, damn near unrecognizable, was too much for me.

Besides, her private room was a little bit on the crowded side twenty-four-seven. Flowers. Cards. Her family was there, standing over Gerri’s tattered body and swollen face. Ex-in-laws. Parents had flown out from Little Rock. Her children. Her ex-hubby, Melvin, was boohooing the hardest. I didn’t know if he was sobbing for Gerri, or his children, but he was dropping tears left and right.

Not one person from work had showed up. No one at all.

Gerri was on painkillers, using bedpans, slipping in and out of consciousness, but I watched her wake up and hold Melvin’s hand like she wished she’d never let him go.

A tense moment came when Gerri told me, “Put a mirror up to my face.”

“No. You don’t want me to do that.”

“Put a mirror up to my face.”

I did. It took all my strength, but I did.

Gerri started to cry at the sight of herself. As a matter of fact, everybody started to cry.

In between, I tried to get some sleep, stay rested so I could handle driving all the way back to New York. Had mapped out my route, hotels I was going to stop at. Drive six to eight hours a day, depends on how much my booty starts to hurt, and sleep all night.

But sleeping was hard to do. Gerri’s parents, other people from her family, her kids, everybody was at her condo, every spot being used as a bed. Too many people, not enough bathrooms. Melvin was over there every day, getting the kids to school, taking care of business for her. No space in her place for me.

 

At the crack of dawn I heard an argument on the Naiomi and Juanita side of the wall. Once again I was kicked away from dreamland. In my dream Gerri wasn’t hooked to an IV, legs weren’t in a splint, didn’t have to buzz the nurse for a bedpan. She was herself. No scars. All smiles and laughs.

My pillow slipped to the carpet as I sat up on Vince’s sofa. The furniture squeaked a little. I let the layers of covers fall from my bare chest to my lap. As I looked around for the peach-colored silk scarf that had come off my head sometime last night, Vince stirred on the other side of the wall. In the bedroom. On the floor. That’s where he’d been sleeping ever since I came back to Stocker and Degnan. At night I closed the hall door and confined myself to the living room. He’d closed the door to the bedroom.

Sounded like something broke next door.

Vince came to the doorway.

I said, “Good morning.”

“Morning.”

That pretty much summed up our conversation.

His eyes fell on my packed suitcases, on the boxes that I’d have to cram inside my Q45 this evening. He hovered there, barely dressed in his green plaid boxers, nothing else on that brown skin.

I pulled the covers up, hid my breasts, and as I untangled my hair, I thought about how we used to be. So passionate. So much conversation. Heading for a hot shower, loving under hot water and steam. Kisses on my face so light and tender. How I’d jerk, then laugh, when he began to nibble on me. How flaming butterflies danced in my belly at that moment when we became one. In my mind, he whispered my name.

Vince was in the doorway, arms bare, chest out, staring at the wall between his apartment and the landlord’s.

I asked, “Malaika called you yet?”

He nodded. “Kwanzaa’s singing up at the mall today.”

“You had a chance to meet her again?”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t think that’s right, having you on hold like that.”

“I know.”

Then I encouraged him. “Take her to court.”

No response.

Love for his child was in his eyes. Above all of the other madness that had invaded his life, our lives, that was what was important to him. That little girl would always be the most important.

If we’d had children, I’d want him to feel that way about what we’d created. I wish my daddy had felt that way about me. He loved me, I know that, but he didn’t put me in front of other women in his life. He sacrificed his relationship with me to make his relationship with his new wife stronger.

I said, “Vince.”

The argument next door sounded more like Juanita’s voice.

Vince hesitated. “Yeah?”

“You know this is gonna be my last day here.”

He went into the bathroom. I recognized the sound of water breaking water. The toilet flushed. Recognized the sound of him washing his hands.

The bathroom door opened. I called his name.

A while went by before he finally stood in the doorway. He was close, but his voice was faint, far away: “What’s up?”

“I’m going by the office to close out my business. Make plans to pay them back for my delinquent desk fees. I have to call the IRS and do the same. Tonight, after traffic dies down, I’m driving back to New York.”

“Why at night?”

“It’s cooler. Less traffic.”

Silence, for a long moment.

I said, “I just wanted to thank you for everything.”

Finally he cleared his throat, said, “You want me to carry your stuff to the car after I get home from work?”

“If you’re not too busy. Just the heavy things. I’ll take my clothes down this afternoon after I finish running around.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe before I bounce out of here, we can ride up on Pico and get something to eat from Roscoe’s, chitchat over some chicken and waffles before I go.”

He said, “We can skip the chicken and waffles. You always said that place in Harlem has a better recipe.”

I ran my tongue over my lips, slow and easy, let the covers drop and show the blackness around my nipples, saw Vince shift. I pulled the covers back up to my chin. His eyes made me ashamed of my nakedness.

I asked, “How do you want me to settle up what I owe you for rent, the phone bill, and what have you?”

“I’ll leave that up to you.”

“Will you take a postdated check for part of what I owe?”

“I’ll leave that up to you.”

I imagined us on a cool summer night, with the ocean breeze blowing through an open window, cooling off our sweat just when we needed it most.

Next door somebody shouted. Not like the other times. That one was a painful cry that made me jump. Vince did the same.

We looked at each other. Vince knew he should be the last one to get involved. And if they were fighting about what I thought they were fighting about, me sticking my head in their biz wouldn’t be any better.

I said, “I’m about to eat a quick breakfast, maybe toast and a boiled egg. Want me to make you some before you go?”

“Nah. I’ll grab something at Dan L. Steel in the cafeteria. Tyrel wants me to meet with some more people in metrology.”

“No problem. How do you like your new job?”

“It’s a much better gig than Boeing.”

“Pays a lot more.”

“Yeah.” He smiled a true smile. “Benefits are better. Thanks for the hookup. I don’t know if I thanked you.”

“What are you going to do if Boeing calls you back?”

“Try and get on and work second shift.”

“You’re gonna work two full-time gigs?”

“If I can swing it. That’ll keep me busy.”