Texts from Bennett (24 page)

“Welcome to my house!”

“Thank you, boo! It’s so pretty.”

Every single person Bennett knew talked in a ghetto twang. Sabrina was no exception. She had cheap black eye shadow sluttily painted across her eyelids. She kept her lips tightly pursed and close together when she talked. As she introduced herself to the other guys, I detected a jagged front tooth that slightly slid over the other front tooth next to it. Her bottom jaw was a cemetery of crooked, chipped canines and curved, discolored incisors that zigzagged and intertwined like stalagmites growing from the bottom of a limestone cave.

All of which I discounted, because it’s easy to disregard “physical flaws” when you are attracted—or
want
to be attracted—to someone. Which felt right at the time, I mean, not everyone’s parents could get their children braces, right?

She put her hand on my thigh and leaned in close enough to have a quiet conversation. “You’re the one and only Mac Lethal, huh?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“That’s so tight! I used to work with a kid who loved you so much. He used to always rap your lyrics to me.”

“Oh, really? Ha. That’s cool. What was his name?”

“His name is Byron.”

“Cool, cool.”

“I was his boss at Sonic. He wrote me a poem of your lyrics and pretended it was his one time! He used to have the biggest crush on me.”

“He wrote you a poem? With my lyrics?”

“Yeah. But I knew he didn’t write it, it was too good. So I was like, ‘C’mon, dude, quit lyin’, who wrote that shit?’ And he was like ‘You,’ ” she said, pointing to me.

“Ha—what were the words?”

“Huh? Oh . . . uh . . .” she said, nervously. Her eyes were darting around, focusing back and forth from the sky to the ground, “It was like, umm . . . ‘Baby, you’re my somethin’ somethin’. My angel . . . uh . . . something. I wanna hit that booty all night long. Get money!’ It was like . . . really sweet. If I heard it I’d know. It was one of your older songs.”

I’d never written a single thing that sounded like that. She was actually, absolutely full of actual, absolute shit.

But . . .

I did not care. The instant attention and admiration she so generously provided me with was practically medicinal. She was a radiant sylph, inspiring my overlabored, underappreciated, and out-of-sick-days heart to put on its boots and head to work. At that point, it felt like anything about her that wasn’t compatible with me (which was probably a lot), wouldn’t even matter. I’d
make
it work.

“So, are you like, the next Eminem?”

“Everyone seems to ask that question. Haha. No, I’m the first
me
. The only thing we really have in common is that we’re both white.”

“That’s cool, baby. Eminem is super sexy. Mmm. You have that in common too!”

“Thanks. I guess. The stuff we rap about is a lot different. I’m more cerebral.”

“Oh, cool. So you do stuff for mentally slow people.”

“Huh?”

“Cerebral palsy? You rap about that?”

“Ahh. No. I meant, my content is a little more . . . deep. I guess. Make sense?”

“Helly yeah—I love deep lyrics! Like that jam by Nelly and Kelly Rowland, ‘Dilemma.’ It’s about how they wanna fuck but don’t wanna date. That shit makes you think, you know?”

“Yeah. Yep. I know. I love thinking. Hehe.”

I was on autopilot. I had zero judgments to pass. All I wanted was primal love and companionship. At this point, all I had to do was figure out how to introduce her to my family without getting weird looks, and I’d be set. Maybe I’d just move away with her instead.

“So did you buy this house with money from rappin’?”

“Yes. Sure did.”

“Mmm. All you need is a down-ass bitch to cook you dinner.”

“Cook? Wait! Can you cook? I love a woman who can cook.”

Harper’s cooking abilities were second to none. One of my biggest fears had become never being able to replace how it felt to have someone cook like that for me. Homemade lemon meringue pie on Sunday afternoons for no reason, Copper River salmon, home-broiled lobster tails, garlic-butter-slathered filet mignons, bouillabaisse. You name it.

Did I just find her replacement? Holy shit.

“Hell yeah. I cook every day.”

“What’s your number one recipe?”

“Prolly blue box macaroni ‘n’ cheese. I put hot dogs in it too. Makes it so dank!”

I had not tried Kraft Macaroni & Cheese with pieces of hot dog in it and wondered why Harper had never bothered to make it for me.

“Yum. Sounds great!”

Sabrina leaned forward and brushed the tip of her nose against my
cheek. This girl had a serious bout of promiscuity circulating through her. And I needed female companionship of some sort. Validation. Ego-stroking.
Any
stroking. Sorry for being crass, but when her nose touched me, it was like an eyedropper of grain alcohol squeezed over a fresh exit wound. It caused my body to shrivel and sent a frighteningly orgasmic sensation through my body. She noticed.

“Awww, boo, it looks like we’re a match! Mac, baby, what’s your sign?”

“I’m a Leo.”

“Ooo—I’m a Gemini. I’m a great communicator. We’re a match. Our sex life is the best too.”

Krystal stopped tonguing Bennett and looked over at us. “Awww. Are you guys gonna get married?” she said.

“It looks like I might have found the one!” Sabrina said, rubbing my thigh and smiling before pressing her lips to my neck and making airtight, compressed slurping noises.

I had no qualms with any of this. Broken logic is a side effect of a broken heart.

“So . . . you work at Sonic?” I said.

“Yeppers. I’m the manager. It sucks. But, I gotta raise mah kids!
Haha!
”

Ohh. She has kids.
“Ohh. You have kids. Uh. How many kids do you have?”

“Six.” She smiled.

“Haha. Oh, really?” I joked back.

Instead of telling me the real answer, Sabrina looked over the table at the other guys. “Hey, someone pass some herb over here! I’m trying to smoke!”

Bolo leaned across the table and gave her the burning cigarello. Taking it, she rocked back in the chair, putting her legs on top of mine. I had no idea why she was being so frisky with me, but I didn’t care. She babysat the spliff for a few minutes and pulled out an unopened flask of gin from her purse. She broke the seal, twisted off the lid, and took an enormous swig from it. She offered it to me, but I declined with a wave.

“You smoke, baby?” she said, wrapping her lips around the blunt with sexual savagery.

“Um. Not really. I’m not really a big fan of getting high.”

“Awwww, baby, get high with me!” She put the jay in my face.

God damn it. I hated getting high. I’ve smoked pot thousands of times, but it always ended up creating the same feeling for me. I’d smoke once and enjoy it a lot. Then I’d decide the missing piece in my life was regularly smoking weed. So I’d buy an ounce and some papers and go at it daily for a few weeks, and I’d be relaxed, sleep better, be all therapeutic.

Then, after accepting it as my favorite vice for a few weeks, it would change on me. I’d start becoming paranoid. Anxiety-ridden. Completely zapped of motivation. Lethargic. Everything became fragile. My judgment became that of a nine-year-old, and even though I was finding it challenging to connect thoughts, I’d become very analytical of people and things. When I was high, I thought everyone knew something about me that I didn’t. I’d sit there in social situations, convinced that people thought I was a weirdo. It had been years since I smoked. This had disaster written all over it.

I took the cigarello from Sabrina and pulled a hit from it.

“Damn, my cousin Mac is smokin’ that cheeba with them Avalon Crip gangstas tonight!
Hell yeah!
” Bennett said.

“Hit that shit again, baby!” yelled Leshaun.

Now everyone was looking at me. Now there was social pressure.

I took a
huge
hit from the blunt. The smoke burrowed deeply into my chest, sneaking into my capillaries. I felt it torching the cilia of my lung tissue. It was infernally hot. I instantly started coughing and felt compression in my face and throat.

“Oh, shit! Careful, dog! Weed is way better now than it used to be in the 1980s, homie!” Bolo said, very,
very
concerned.

I crouched down, violently hacking, over and over. A yellow mucus-filled loogie flew out of my chest tube, completely surpassing my mouth, and landed on the back of Sabrina’s pant leg. Fortunately, she didn’t even notice.

Once my body stopped freaking out about the smoke, I felt very light-headed and floaty. I was sooooooooo high. Fuck.

Bennett and Krystal were kissing. Leshaun and Angel were talking nose to nose. These girls wasted no time. Unrestricted, irresponsible, adolescent sexual energy is very discomforting when you’re high. Kino and Bolo stood up and started slap-boxing in the grass. They were so fierce and agile. Combative, masculine strength—also very discomforting when you’re high. What if someone gets hurt? But at the same time, I was enamored with their physical ability and graceful footwork. If I was sober, they would have looked like two teenage idiots slap-boxing. But right then, they were well-polished pugilists, employing the sweet science of boxing and human-chess trickery of Brazilian jujitsu.

No one ever depicts getting high correctly. In the movies, people always have visual hallucinations and imagine themselves possessing supernatural abilities (e.g., flying, shooting lasers from their eyeballs). This is very inaccurate. Weed just turns the volume up on every single facet of your life. If you were hungry, you’re suddenly famished. Music is so good that it weakens you. Insecurities become full-on panic attacks. Things that are semifunny shatter the bounds of comedic genius. It can become mentally and emotionally messy if you don’t take charge of it, aren’t accustomed to it, or haven’t smoked in years.

“There ya go, boo. Now you’ll feel nice and relaxed,” Sabrina said, interrupting my thoughts by putting her hand on my thigh. Her fingernails were cut short and had red polish chipping off them. They felt great. She rubbed my thigh and the back of my neck. I wanted to scream. The female touch was fantastic.

“You never told me how many kids you have,” I said.

“Yeah I did, baby. Six.”

“Six?”

“Six.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“. . . Six? You
have six
kids?”

“She
does
,” Krystal snapped, coming up for air from Bennett’s mouth.

“Yeah, I know, it’s a lot.”

“Wow. Okay. . . . What are their names?” I said.

“Why you wanna know their names?”

“Just tell me. I don’t believe you have six kids.”

Sabrina sighed. Her face became very serious. She leaned forward and began. “Katia, G.G., Latrell, Misty, Denzel, and Lil’ Nevaeh.”

“I
love
the name Nevaeh,” Krystal said.

“It’s
heaven
spelled backwards,” Sabrina explained.

“
Heaven
spelled backwards?” I asked.

“Yes, baby. My lil’ Nene. She’s my angel.”

“And you named her after heaven?”

“Yeah?”

“And spelled it backwards?”

“Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you just name her Heaven?” I asked. “Why spell it backwards?”

“I dunno,” Sabrina said, shrugging. A woman with tremendously low self-esteem suddenly manifested herself within the look she was giving me.

The weed was engaging my brain on full blast. I was hyper-analyzing Sabrina. Who the fuck names her kid Nevaeh aka heaven spelled backwards?” Why not name her Unicorn, or even better, 432836, which spells out
H-E-A-V-E-N
on a phone’s keypad.
What the super, ultimate, actual, absolute fuck?

“How many kids do you really have?” I said, trying to have a very serious, stop-fucking-with-me tone in my voice.

“Okay, I’m lying, three.”

“Oh, okay. Only three?”

“No, I have
six
kids.”

“All with the same guy?”

Sabrina made a notable break in the eye contact she had been making with me the entire night and took another pull from the joint.

“Nah. Not with the same guy,” Angel replied for her, which was the first thing she had said loud enough for everyone to hear since she got there. She had been showing pictures of her own child to Leshaun on her cell phone while he licked her neck.

Instantly, the feeling of Sabrina alleviating my desperation completely vanished. I started scratching the knuckles on my left hand, one of my ticks from childhood. Holy shit, these were
Bennett’s
friends, not mine. Bennett, my troubled, gangbanger cousin who wasn’t even old enough to buy cigarettes, had set me up with a girl who had
six
kids. And wait a second. . . .

“How old are you?” Now I was definitely interrogating Sabrina, not just being curious. “I never got your age.”

She blew a huge puff of smoke and stood. “Come inside with me, I wanna show you something.”

She grabbed my hand and led me behind her into the house, guiding me through the dark, main-level hallway, into the foyer where the stairs were.

Leading me upstairs and into the guest bedroom that Lillian was supposed to sleep in but where really she just kept her luggage, Sabrina fumbled around for the light switch. I heard the sound of the coffee mug I used to keep pens and pencils in tipping over.

“Where’s a lamp, boo?” she said finally.

I reached over and turned on the light. She smiled at that and walked toward me. Grabbing the bottom seam of my shirt, she started to lift it over my head. I attempted to resist, not wanting anything to do with this woman, but when I felt her stubby-edged nails graze my ribs, my hormones kicked in—betrayal—and I helped her slide the shirt off me, exposing my full deepwater-themed sleeve tattoos on my arms and various other pieces of skin ink on my chest and ribs.

“
Wow!
Oh, baby, those are hot tats!”

“Ha. Thanks.”

With the nails and the compliment, my ego was almost fully hydrated and my reservations about this girl had all but vanished.