Married Men (19 page)

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Authors: Carl Weber

BOOK: Married Men
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“I don’t give a shit what her name is. And I’m gonna give her about as much respect as she gave your wife when she fucked you in her house. You tryin’ ta tell me some
bitch
is more important than Kenya?” Wil pushed Jay. “Well, is she?”
“Look, I gotta go check on Kenya.” Jay tried to step around Wil, but he wouldn’t let him.
“Let me pass, Wil.” Jay’s tone made it clear he’d had enough.
“Answer me, Jay. Is some
ho
off the street worth losing your family? Losing Tiffany? Or your new baby? Damn! I don’t even know what the baby’s name is yet.” Wil pushed him again. “You know what, Jay. You’re acting just like your father.”
“Fuck you, Wil. I am not my father!” Jay pushed him back and clenched his fists.
“What, you gonna fight me over some
bitch?”
Wil threw both his hands in the air, daring Jay to take a free shot.
“I told you not to call her a bitch!” Jay threw a punch that landed directly in Wil’s eye. I could tell he regretted the blow as soon as it landed. “Oh, shit! Wil, I’m sorry, man.”
Wil’s first reaction was to grab his eye in disbelief, but then he lunged for Jay, grabbing him by the shirt and slamming him against the ceramic tile of the rest room wall. Kyle and I both ran to split them apart before any more blows were thrown.
“Wil, man, chill out. He didn’t mean it!” Kyle yelled, struggling to keep Wil under control.
“Fuck that shit! He meant it.” Wil lunged at Jay again.
“Wil, I’m sorry, man. It was an accident.” Jay wasn’t scared, but he meant his apology. I could hear it in his voice. “You was aggravating me.”
It took a few minutes for us to calm Wil down.
“You know what, Jay? Next time you get in trouble, don’t call me to help your sorry ass.” Wil was obviously still angry, and it was a good thing he didn’t look in the mirror, ’cause his eye was swelling by the second.
“Wil, man, I’m sorry.” Jay offered Wil his hand, but Wil ignored it.
“I’m outta here, I’m going to find my wife.” Wil walked toward the door. “But I promise you, Jay, you’re gonna need me one day. And I ain’t gonna be there for you.” Wil left the rest room without another word. Kyle and I looked at each other in shock. Was it possible that twenty-five years of friendship were truly over?
14
 
Wil
 
It was early Tuesday morning and I was jammin’ to the sounds of the Doug Banks Show on WBLS. I’d taken a few days off work to give my eye a chance to heal after my little scrape with Jay. He’d hit me a lot harder than I thought and my eye was so swollen it was damn near shut. After all I’d done for that guy, I still couldn’t believe he actually hit me over some woman. I heard the doorbell ring, so I slipped on a pair of shades before I went to the door. You’d never believe how embarrassing it was for a guy my size to be seen with a black eye.
Matter of fact, yesterday when Diane sent me to the supermarket to pick up some groceries, some guy stopped me and said, “Damn, brother, if you look like that, what the hell’s the other guy look like?” He thought he was being funny. I didn’t.
I smiled when I saw Lisa standing in the doorway with my goddaughter, Willow.
“Hey, Willow.” I picked up my goddaughter and gave her a kiss.
“Ay, Uncle Wil.” She hugged me.
“Hey, Lisa, how you doing?” I kissed her on the cheek.
“Fine, Wil, how are you?”
“I’m aw’ight, but if you’re looking for Di, she’s not home.”
“I know. She told me you were taking the day off, so I stopped by to talk to you. How’s your eye?” I gestured for her to come in.
“It looks like hell, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.” I took off the shades to show her my shiner.
Lisa grimaced at the sight of my poor eye. “That Jay is crazy,” she stated.
“Tell me about it.” I put the shades back on. “So what brings you here?”
“I came to talk to you about Kyle.” She walked over to the living room sofa and sat down. I sat across from her on the love seat.
“Willow, why don’t you go play with Teddy’s toys in the family room?” I watched her scamper away before I spoke. “What about Kyle?”
I knew Lisa wanted information. The truth is, I didn’t have much to give her and what I did have I wasn’t.really sure if I should share with her.
“Wil, I need you to be straight with me, for the kids’ sake. I promise nothing we talk about will ever get back to Kyle.”
“Lisa, I don’t know if this is such a good idea. If you wanna know something about Kyle, maybe you should ask him.”
“I would if he’d talk to me. I tried to sit down and talk to him Sunday when he dropped off the kids, but all he did was hand me a check. He wouldn’t even come in the house.” Her eyes were brimming with tears. “Wil, you’ve got to help me. I don’t know where else to turn.”
“Why don’t you guys go see a marriage counselor or something?”
Lisa laughed cynically. “I tried that. I even tried to get him to go see Father Smith, the priest who married us, but he won’t go.”
“What do you want me to do, Lisa? Since Katie’s been born, I barely see the guys.”
“I just wanna know if he’s planning on getting back with me or not. So I can get on with my life.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I didn’t believe her at the time, but Diane had told me Lisa was dating this guy named Mike. Mike was the brother of Lisa’s best friend.
“What do you mean ‘get on with your life’?” I tilted my head and made sure my voice was serious. “Have you been seeing Mike?”
“Please, Wil, Mike is engaged.” She waved me off. “And your wife has entirely too much time on her hands to be speculating on me.”
“How’d you know it was Diane who told me?”
Lisa chuckled. “When I told Diane that I had a really nice dinner with Mike Friday night, the first thing she asked me was if I was sleeping with him. She didn’t even wanna hear that Mike’s fiancée and his sister were at the dinner too.”
“Yeah, Di does have a tendency to hear what she wants to hear.” I’d been putting up with that for years. “Lisa, do you really wanna file for divorce?”
“Of course I don’t wanna file for divorce, Wil. I love Kyle, but I’ve been sitting in that house for three going on four months waiting for him to get over his little problem and come home.” Tears began to stream down her face so I handed her a box of tissues. “And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make things work, but I’m not gonna sit in that house and wait anymore. Now he’s your best friend, and you know I’ve been a good wife to him, but I need to know something. I need to know if he’s planning on working on this together. Otherwise I’m filing for divorce.”
“Aw’ight, I’ll talk to him today. I promise.” I’d planned on talking to him about Jay, but this seemed a little more pressing.
“Thank you, Wil.”
“I’ll do what I can, Lisa.”
Lisa stood up and called Willow. “I’m going to Jersey City to see Kenya’s baby, then I’m gonna ride down to Philly and spend the night with my mom. Why don’t I call you tomorrow?”
“That’s fine, but who’s watching Jade and Jewel tonight?”
“Mike and his fiancée Jenny are going to pick them up from school.”
“You know we coulda watched the kids for you, Lisa.”
“I know, Wil. Truth is, Kyle would have probably watched them. But Mike and Jenny both live with their parents, so they jumped at the chance to stay at my house for the night.”
“Say no more. It wasn’t that long ago Diane and I were living at home.” Both of us laughed as Lisa and Willow walked out of the house. “Call me tomorrow.”
I closed the door then walked up the stairs to change out of my sweats and go pay a visit to Kyle.
 
I walked into Kyle’s Jamaica Avenue store and smiled at Sharon, the store manager, as she helped a customer.
“Hey, Sharon. Kyle in?”
“He’s in the office, Wil.” She did a double take, probably wondering why I was wearing sunglasses on a rainy winter day.
“Thanks.” I walked to the back of the store and knocked on the door to Kyle’s office, which was marked PRIVATE.
“Come in.”
I walked in and Kyle smiled, taking his feet off the desk.
“Big Wil, what’s up?” He leaned over his desk clenching his fist so that we could knock knuckles.
“Same ol’, same ol’, bro.” I sat down in a chair in front of his desk, admiring his office. Kyle’s office was a shrine to his family and friends. Not only did he have pictures of his family all over the place, but he also had pictures of his friends, including Jay’s family and mine too. He even had quite a few pictures of Allen and Rose.
“Hey, what’s up with the shades, man?” He sat back in his leather chair.
I took off my sunglasses to show him my eye.
“God damn! Did Jay do that?” He scrunched up his face in disbelief. “Ya know, what he did to you the other night didn’t make no damn sense.”
“Yeah, well I got somethin’ for your boy Jay next time I see him.”
“Oh, so he ain’t your boy no more?” Kyle frowned.
“You got that right. I can’t fuck with him no more.”
“Wil, man, I know you’re pissed at him, but Jay didn’t mean to hit you.”
“You can defend him all you want, Kyle. I’m still not fuckin’ with him no more.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“Look, I know he plays by his own rules sometimes. Hell, that condom stunt he pulled a few years back almost cost me my marriage. But Wil, I know he didn’t mean to hit you,” Kyle repeated.
“Even if he didn’t, Kyle, Jay’s out of control. He don’t care about nobody but himself. Look at that shit he pulled this weekend. Would you ever dream of fucking some woman in your wife’s house?”
“No, but...”
“There ain’t no buts, Kyle. The man’s thirty-six years old. That shit was all right when we was teenagers, but we ain’t teenagers no more.”
Kyle sat back in his chair and rocked a few seconds. “I hear what you’re saying Wil, but I’ve got too much love for Jay to give up on him.” Kyle pointed to a picture of Jay and his family on the wall. “Plus, I know he loves his family.”
“You actually believe that shit, don’t you?” He nodded at me. “Do you think he and Kenya would still be together if it weren’t for us? Hell no!” I said, answering my own question. “And that’s because we’re his conscience. Do you know how many times I’ve saved his ass from losing Kenya over the years?”
“Probably about as many times as Allen or I have, but that’s what being a friend is all about. We’re his conscience, Wil, and it’s our job to remind him he’s married.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sick of being his conscience, especially when this is what I get for it.” I pointed to my eye. “From now on, he can fuck up his marriage for all I care.”
“You don’t mean that, Wil.” Kyle leaned toward me.
“Oh, yeah I do. I’m starting to think that Jay and Kenya would be better off divorced.”
“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t subscribe to that theory. I think a family should stay together.”
“No, you didn’t ... No, you didn’t just go there. You got some fucking nerve,” I muttered, sitting back in my chair.
“What’d you say?”
“I said you got some fucking nerve!” I really didn’t wanna go there this way with Kyle. I’d hoped to discuss his situation over lunch, but he’d opened the door, and I was still upset about Jay.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I picked up a picture off his desk and stared at it before placing it back down, facing him. It was a family portrait of him, Lisa, and the girls.
“It means you’re tryin’ to fix someone else’s shit when your shit is twice as fucked up. I guess I gotta give Jay some credit. At least he still lives at home.”
Kyle shook his head. “Ohhh, that’s fucked up, Wil.”
“I call ‘em as I see ’em, bro.”
“So that’s how you see it?”
“Ya know what, Kyle? I never really gave it much thought ’til today. I figured it was your business, and that you and Lisa were working on things and eventually you’d get back together. But Lisa and Willow stopped by the house this morning, and Lisa and I had a nice little conversation.”
“Conversation about what?”
“About you.”
“What about me?” Kyle asked suspiciously.
“Let’s put it this way, Kyle. If you don’t get your shit together and go home soon, you ain’t gonna have a home to go to. Aw’ight?” I stared him down after I dropped that bomb.
“What’re you tryin’ to say? She wants a divorce?”
“She did mention filing for divorce, but it’s a little more personal than that. She’s seeing someone, Kyle. Which means she’s probably giving up—”
“The booty!”
Kyle finished my sentence for me, and I could see the concern on his face. I’d lied about Lisa seeing someone, but it was for Kyle’s own good. He really needed a wakeup call. He was probably the most jealous guy I knew next to myself, so I figured the thought of Lisa with another guy would drive him crazy enough to get him home.

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