The Man in 3B (18 page)

“What if happily ever after includes you?” I knew I was taking a shot in the dark, but I also knew that most men thought with their dicks. Daryl may have been smarter than most men, but he was still a man, and I had yet to meet one who could resist what I had to offer—no matter how mad I’d made him. “We can make this work if we want to,” I explained. “And nobody’s got to get hurt.”

“Is that right?” he sneered as he pulled his hand out of mine. “What exactly are you suggesting? A threesome?”

That might be fun,
I thought but ultimately said, “No, silly. You two have way too much testosterone for that.” I was hoping my joke would break the tension a little, but no such luck. He was still glaring at me hatefully. I pressed ahead anyway, determined to break down his wall. “What I’m suggesting is an arrangement between you and me. We may not be able to be together twenty-four-seven, but you have to admit, nobody has chemistry like me and you.”

I could see in his eyes that he was contemplating my idea. There was a glimmer of hope, so I continued, “Slim spends a lot of time away from home, and well… think about it. Do you think it’s a coincidence that we ended up living together in the same apartment building? Don’t you see? It’s fate.”

He put up his hand to interrupt me. I was kind of glad, because I had been working so hard to convince him I felt like I was about to start rambling. And no matter how much I wanted him, I did not want to beg. That is not a good look.

“So, that’s it?” he said. “You want me for sex? And on top of that, you want me to play second fiddle to him and lurk in the corner like some punk? Ain’t no way in hell that’s gonna happen.”

Oh, my, this was not turning out the way I had intended. I definitely
hadn’t meant to offend him. Appealing to his manhood wasn’t working. Maybe Daryl was different, I decided. Maybe he needed romance.

“Baby,” I said, trying a new approach. “You can’t deny that we have something special. You can’t deny how we make each other feel whenever we’re together.”

I reached for his hand, but he took a step back to increase the distance between us. “I think you forgot who the hell you’re dealing with,” he said. “I’m no jump-off. I don’t share women. He can have you. I’ve moved on.”

I tried again to reach for him, but he threw my hand off his arm as if he were throwing away trash. I refused to accept the thought that he was really through with me. I mean, why else would he have been blowing up my phone like he did? Daryl was just playing hard to get as far as I was concerned. I guess he thought I needed to be punished, but I was still confident that he would eventually give in.

Maybe I wasn’t using the right words to get my point across. Like he said, actions speak louder than words anyway, so I placed my hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes, prepared to take action. I pressed my body against his and began molesting his mouth with my tongue.

“Stop it, Krystal,” he said, although it wasn’t easy with my tongue working its way down his throat.

“You know you want me, Daryl,” I breathed out heavily, then mashed my lips against his.

“Damn it, Krystal! Stop!” He gave me a little shove. “I don’t want you. I’ve found somebody ten times better.”

“I’m not letting you go!” I didn’t give a damn what he claimed. I knew we were meant to be together. I did a little jump up in the air, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

“What the fuck is going on in here? Get your hands off my woman!”

Shit!
I thought my heart would bust out of my chest when I heard Slim’s voice. I immediately released Daryl, letting my feet hit the floor.

I turned around, prepared to apologize. After all, he’d caught us in the act. But then I noticed the look on his face and realized there was still hope for me. See, he wasn’t looking at me at all. His eyes were burning with rage, but it was all directed at Daryl. Slim was staring him down, breathing hard, and clenching his fists like he was about to go postal on Daryl’s ass.

In a nanosecond, I knew what I had to do to save myself and my relationship. I reared back and slapped Daryl as hard as I could.

“Get away from me!” I screamed as I scrambled across the lobby into Slim’s arms. “Did you see that, baby? Did you see that? He tried to attack me! He was gonna rape me.”

“What! What the hell are you talking about?” Daryl massaged the spot where I had slapped him. “Why did you hit me?”

Looking back on it now, I know I should have been ashamed of myself, but at the time, I was acting on survival instincts. I was between a rock and a hard place, a position that only a snake could slither out of. Call me a snake if you want to, but I had to do what I had to do.

The look of betrayal on Daryl’s face bothered me, but not enough for a confession. I’d make it up to him later.

“You should kick his ass, baby. Get him!” I cried into Slim’s chest.

“Are you out your fucking mind?” Daryl spat.

“No, but you must be out of yours if you think I’m gonna let you get away with that foul-ass shit right there,” Slim shot back. I felt him grab my arms, moving me aside so that he could go after Daryl.

“Baby, baby, wait!” I said, planting my feet and keeping my position in front of Slim. “It’s not even worth it. The only thing that’s gonna happen if you go after him is you ending up in jail.” I nodded my head in the direction of the stoop ladies, who were all standing behind us, looking like they were ready to enjoy a show. They would watch the fight and love it, but those heifers wouldn’t hesitate to talk to the cops after it was all over. Slim got my meaning and backed down a little, but he didn’t like it one bit.

“I ain’t gonna let some punk-ass nigga do my girl like that and—”

“Punk-ass nigga,” Daryl repeated, taking a step toward us.

“That’s ri—”

I cut off Slim’s words with an eruption of loud crying. “Please, Slim, I can’t lose you. I’m okay. I just wanna go inside,” I wailed, putting on an Oscar-worthy performance.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here,” Slim comforted me. He turned to Daryl and pointed a finger at him. “You one lucky muthafucka. Believe that. Next time you ain’t gonna be so lucky.” Slim wrapped his arms around me to escort me to the stairway.

I looked back at Daryl over my shoulder. He was standing there in utter confusion.

“Krystal, are you for real? You really gonna get down like this?” Daryl’s eyes questioned me as well. “You ain’t got nothing to say?”

He should have left it alone, because now I had to throw one last bomb so Slim wouldn’t get suspicious. “Yes, I do have something to say,” I replied. “I got a man, so keep your fucking hands off me!”

“Hey, son. Look, Pam is stopping over tonight, so if you don’t mind, I’ma, you know, need you to make yourself scarce,” Pop said as he entered the kitchen, where I had made myself a sandwich and popped open a beer.

I had just finished working on my blog, and I was about to go into the living room to settle in for the night and watch a movie. Needless to say, my pops telling me to get lost did not sit well with me. “What if I do mind? This is my house too,” I said, probably in a more harsh tone than I’d meant to. But why did he have to throw a monkey wrench into my plans just because he had plans? Why couldn’t they go somewhere else to handle their business? Why the hell couldn’t they go to her apartment?
Uh, maybe because she’s a thirty-five-year-old whore who lives with her momma.
Of course, I would have never said that out loud to my father, but that’s how I felt.

“I understand,” he said, “but you are the one who said that you feel a little bit uncomfortable when my lady friends come over, so I figured you wouldn’t want to stick around.”

Standing there with my plate in one hand and my drink in the other, I knew that in the end, it didn’t really matter how I felt about it. Pam was coming and I was leaving. I slammed my plate and glass down on the counter. Brushing by my father, I mumbled, “If you could keep it in your pants once in a while, then maybe we wouldn’t have to go through this.”

“Excuse me, young man? I don’t know exactly what it is that’s got
you feeling all big and bad, but you better watch it. At the end of the day, I’m still your father and this place is in my name.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I should see about getting a place of my own.”

On that note, I exited the kitchen quickly in case he felt like proving that he was still the man of the house. I knew better than to come at him like that, but I was twenty-one years old now, a grown man. I wasn’t that same nerdy kid he loved bragging about, and sooner or later he needed to recognize that.

I went into my room, grabbed my knapsack, and then headed for the front door, figuring I’d go to the library or catch the train to Starbucks. In the living room, I called out, “I’m out. Call me when you get finished screwing!”

As I walked down the hall, I thought about knocking on Daryl’s door. Other than our fishing trip, we hadn’t hung out since my birthday, and to be honest, the fishing trip was a little awkward because I kept thinking about those books. To top that off, Pop ended up inviting himself to come along. He never came out and said it, but it seemed like he didn’t like Daryl very much lately, so the conversation between them was always forced. At first I thought it was because Pop was jealous of how much time I spent with Daryl, and I’m sure that had something to do with it, but now that I’d seen those books at Daryl’s place, I wondered if maybe he had picked up on something about Daryl that I hadn’t.

I still didn’t know what to make of those books. Was dude gay or bisexual? And if he was, had he turned that way after being locked up in jail, or was he born that way? What the hell made someone like that? As confused as I was, though, I still considered him a friend—perhaps even my best friend. He was the first real buddy, other than my father, that I’d ever had. I didn’t want to lose that friendship. As long as he kept his hands to himself, he was still cool with me.

As pissed as I was at Pop, I decided I didn’t feel like dealing with my confused feelings about my friendship with Daryl either, so I headed out of the building. I’d only gotten halfway down the block
when I heard the worst sound a black man could hear in New York City.

Whoop-whoop!
That’s the sound of the police.

I turned to see a squad car rolling up beside me. “Hey, son, whaddya got there?” the officer on the passenger’s side asked. He was staring at my backpack.

“Books,” I said and kept walking, praying they would leave it at that and go bother someone else. I did not need this right now. My dad had already made it clear that he was running things and I was still a kid. Now the Man was trying to fuck with me. Did I have
punk ass
written on my forehead or something?

“Books, huh?” the officer mocked as the squad car rolled slowly beside me. “Well, why don’t you stop walking for a minute and let me talk to you about those books?”

“Is that a request or a command?” I snapped, tired of being told what to do by everyone. That was definitely the wrong move because now the cop was pissed.

“I’m a muthafuckin’ cop,” he spat. “What the hell do you think?”

The car stopped, and the cop jumped out of the passenger’s side. I knew better than to keep walking now or else I might end up with two warning shots in my back.

“Some of the neighbors say there’s a lot of what appears to be drug dealing going on around here.”

“Oh yeah? Then why are you wasting time talking to me when you got drug dealers to catch?” I should have lost the attitude, but somehow I couldn’t.

He shot me a sharp look. “Who’s to say I ain’t already caught me a drug dealer?” He turned to his partner, who was now exiting the squad car, his hand on his holster. “I mean, he could pass for a drug dealer to me. What do you think?”

Cop number two shrugged, playing along with his partner. “Um, I don’t know. Looks too pussy to be a gangbanger. I’d go with a lookout.”

Officer Hard-Ass turned back to face me. “I’m going to ask you to allow me to see that backpack of yours.”

By now there were a couple of bystanders watching New York’s Finest try to punk me. Something about that made me boil inside. “I ain’t lettin’ you see shit. I know my rights.”

“First of all, you ain’t got no rights around here. This is a known drug area, which gives us probable cause to search your bag. Now, assume the position, dirtbag.” Before my last word was finished, the cops had slammed me against a concrete wall. The driver pinned my hands behind my back while the other cop proceeded to go through my bag.

“You say you got books in here, huh, son?” He was breathing heavily as he fished around through my bag. Stupid son of a bitch probably got off on harassing brothers on the streets. “Well, this sure doesn’t look like a book to me.”

I looked over and saw him pulling the gun out of my bag.
Fuck!

The cop who had me hemmed up against the wall asked, “What do you have to say about this?”

There was so much running through my head. I’d never been in trouble before, and I’m sure the cops thought if they used enough force they could scare me into saying anything. But I remembered the advice I’d gotten from both my father and Daryl. It was good advice that every black boy growing up in the inner city should learn. I turned my head and said to the cop, “I ain’t got nothing to say other than I want my phone call.”

Being in that police precinct felt like being on an episode of
The First 48.
The cops had secluded me in this little room with nothing but a table and three chairs for most of the night. I figured the other two chairs were awaiting a couple of officers to come in and do their good cop/bad cop routine.

“Here’s that soda you wanted.”

I looked up to see a male detective coming through the door with a can in his hand. I figured he would be playing the good cop. Behind him I saw one of the arresting officers, the one who had pinned me against the wall. Bad cop for sure.

“Thanks,” I replied as the officer slid the can across the table to
me. I wanted to tell him that I’d asked for the soda six hours ago. He sat down in one of the empty chairs. Bad cop stayed standing, doing his best version of an intimidating scowl.