Heat Page 9

  And here I was now, on the brink of forty, getting ready to fuck Ms. Drama up!

  I’d spotted her just as she was backing out of the doorway and caught her by the opening of her blouse, yanking her narrow ass back into the house. My intention was to hit her like a woman; an open-palm smack right across that funny valentine–looking face of hers. But she beat me to the punch and brought that crocheted pocketbook she carried down onto my head.

  I don’t know what the fuck she had in that bag, but it felt like a paperweight and I saw stars.

  After that, it was on!

  I balled up my fist and swung, but that Chevy was quick and ducked it before I could make impact. We tussled with each other into the living room, where I managed to throw her down onto the couch. I had her pinned, but she was fighting like a wildcat, and I had to jump off her because she was trying to claw my face!

  “Bitch, are you crazy!” I yelled when I was finally able to catch my breath. Chevy had her fingers arched, ready to swipe. One leg was planted on the floor, the other dangled in midair, bent at the knee, poised to strike.

  She looked like one of the characters straight out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

  “Are you crazy!” she hollered back.

  I spread my arms out at my sides. “Look at my house, Chevy—just look at it. How could you let my home come to this?”

  Chevy’s mouth opened and then closed. That bitch had no excuse.

  I pointed to my fish tank. “That’s two thousand dollars’ worth of dead fish, Chevy!”

  Chevy’s eyes rolled toward the tank and then back to me. She remained quiet.

  Her silence just further infuriated me, and I took a quick step forward, ready to pounce again. Her leg came out and the sole of her shoe connected with my stomach. I went flying backward into the wall. My head made contact with the glass of my framed Purple Rain movie poster.

  CRACK!

  Before I could recover, Chevy was up and out the door, her weave flying in the wind.

  “And don’t come back, bitch!” I yelled as she double-timed it down the street.

  Geneva

  i hadn’t expected to get Noah on the phone. For some reason I thought he was coming in the next day.

  I just wanted to leave him a reminder message about the party, so imagine my surprise when I heard Noah’s British-tinged “Hello?”

  “Noah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s me, Geneva.”

  “Hey.” Noah sounded stressed.

  “Um, is everything okay?”

  “Now that that bitch is out my house it is.”

  “Chevy moved out?”

  “No, she ran out. We had a fight.”

  Well, it was bound to happen.

  “A fight? Are you serious, Noah?”

  “As serious as a heart attack,” Noah huffed. “I don’t want her back in this house. I don’t want her back on this block!” he screeched. He sounded close to tears.

  I truly didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Well, okay, don’t forget about the party—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, Noah slammed the phone down.

  Whatever Chevy had done this time, it must have been bad.

  I dialed Crystal’s number. It was just past seven and she should have been home from work for at least an hour.

  “Hello?” Crystal’s voice was groggy.

  “Crystal, are you sleeping?”

  “I was.”

  “Didn’t you work today?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sick?”

  “Sick and tired,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  “No, just tired and needed a day off.”

  Well, it seemed to me she’d been taking off plenty of days.

  “Oh, um—have you heard from Chevy?”

  “No,” Crystal began in a bored tone. “What she do now?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but I just spoke to Noah and he says that they had a fight.”

  “I’m surprised it took so long.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I ventured again.

  “Yeah, just tired. I’ll call you back later.”

  “No need. Just don’t forget that the party starts at—”

  I heard a soft click and then the dial tone followed. I had been hung up on twice in less than ten minutes. What the hell was going on?

  Chevy

  once I got on the street and down the block and around the corner and still didn’t see any signs of Noah behind me, I knew I was safe.

  I looked a mess. Noah had ripped the entire front of my blouse, so my beaded La Perla bra was on show.

  Two young men made vulgar gestures with their crotch as I hobbled along, clutching the material closed. I had broken the heel of my left shoe in my haste to escape, and to make things worse, Noah had pulled my hair so hard that now one of my tracks was hanging.

  Damn him and his overblown temper. Had he been truthful about his arrival date, none of this would have happened. I would have had the house spic and span by the time he sashayed his faggot ass through the door.

  Of course, the fish would have still been dead.

  I knew him, though. He was all mush in the middle, so I figured it would be safe to return in the morning. He’d be calm by then, and I could finagle my way back into his good graces and his home. But for tonight, I needed a place to stay.

  I thought briefly about walking down to the Akwaaba Mansion, Bedford Stuyvesant’s black-owned bed-and-breakfast, renting a room, and chilling there. But that would cost me. I needed to crash somewhere for free.

  I racked my brain for a minute. I could call Crystal, but I certainly wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

  Geneva wasn’t an option. There was no way I was sleeping on her ratty couch in her tacky apartment, in the projects, no less.

  Then it hit me; I had the key to Anja’s Upper East Side apartment.

  It was Friday night, and as far as I knew Anja was spending the weekend at her home in Connecticut, leaving the apartment free and clear for me to use.

  I started toward the train station.

  Tomorrow would be a better day, and all this drama would be over.

  I was sitting on the A train, feeling real good about myself, when I was suddenly accosted by a stench so powerful, I felt as if I had been slapped. My head jerked on my neck and my hand came instinctively up to cover my nose.

  Slowly, my eyes rolled to the left. There beside me stood a bum, a homeless person, a sanitarium refugee left over from the Rockefeller release program!

  He was dressed in a moth-eaten orange and gray plaid woman’s coat complete with rat fur cuffs and collar—and he was grinning down at me.

  His hair was a matted mixture of Afro and dreadlocks, complete with bits of lint and ragtag yellow ribbon.

  “Hello,” he said, sneering.

  My mouth fell open and then snapped closed again. I took a quick inventory of the car, and from what I could see there were no empty seats available, so I slid closer to the person next to me.

  “Oh, you gonna act like you don’t hear me talking to you?”

  I felt laughter building in my throat and coughed, trying desperately to clear away the giggle.

  I chanced a glance at the face again. His expression was stone-cold mean, and my eyes dropped back down to my lap. I was beginning to shake.

  “Don’t ignore me. I’m a person too, you know,” he jeered, showering me with spittle.

  That was it for me.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” I hissed, pressing my hip bone deeper into the one of the man next to me, who promptly closed his Da Vinci Code paperback, stood, and walked away.

  Oh, shit!

  The bum seized the opportunity and settled himself down beside me. He gingerly crossed his legs, carefully shaking the lapels of his beaten coat and patting what I was sure was lice-ridden hair. I shook my head in disgust and wondered why it was fucked-up things always seemed to happen to me.
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br />   My fear was slowly being replaced with anger, and what I really wanted to do was cuss that man from head to toe and then take my pocketbook and slap him across the head with it a few times. He was a big man, but I was quick and agile and curious to see if those Tae Bo classes would pay off.

  “Okay, what the hell is your problem!” I turned and shouted into his face.

  I had to pull the crazy card before he did.

  The man’s eyes popped in his head and then narrowed. “Problem? I have no problem. It seems you’re the one with a problem. I said hello to you, and you were too rude to respond.”

  A woman, two men, and a teenage girl all stood in unison and walked toward the front of the car.

  “I don’t know who the hell you are, but I’m warning you, I have Mace!” I shrieked and began rifling through my pocketbook. In truth all I had were keys, half a pack of chewing gum, a compact, lipstick, comb, cell phone, and wallet.

  In a flash, the bum snatched the bag from my hands, turned it over, and dumped the contents. I was stunned as I watched my stuff slide across the filthy floor.

  “Things! Things—that’s all you people care about!” he bellowed.

  I turned astonished eyes back onto the man. A litany of cuss words coated my tongue, but I was so angry that all that would come out were gurgling sounds.

  “All I wanted was a hello! I’m not garbage, you know—I’m a real person, with real feelings!” he wailed, beating his fists dramatically against his chest. “Just a hello, is that too much to ask?”

  I abruptly stood, careful not to turn my back to him as I stooped to collect my belongings.

  “I used to have a home, a family, friends,” he ranted on, “and then my job was downsized, I lost my apartment and my family…Ohhhhhhh, in just three months I was living on the street!”

  I walked away from him, down toward the conductor’s booth. I willed the train to move at the speed of light. I needed to get away from this maniac.

  “You!” he bellowed pointing a filthy finger at me. “You too could end up like me—hungry, displaced…just wanting a hello!”

  “Not me!” I screamed back at him as we pulled into the station and the doors parted.

  I stormed into the building, right past the shocked doorman.

  “Um, miss. ’Scuse me, miss!” he cried as he took off behind me, finally catching up with me at the bank of elevators.

  “What?” I snarled, my hands on my hips. “What, you don’t know me now”—I zoned on his name tag—“Carl?”

  Carl watched me with a stupid look on his face. It was clear he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. “I’m Anja’s assistant, Chevy,” I said as I jabbed impatiently at the elevator button.

  Carl pressed his index finger thoughtfully against his chin. “Um…”

  “Um, nothing, Carl. Go away,” I ordered, waving him away with my fingers.

  When the elevator door opened, I nearly knocked over two female teenagers, iPod earphones coming out their heads like millennium-issued appendages. I bullied my way into the elevator before they could step off. “Bitch,” they shouted after me over their shoulders. “Your mama,” I replied as the door began to slowly close.

  All I wanted to do was take a hot shower and crawl into bed.

  The elevator door creaked open and I stepped out onto the sixth floor.

  I pushed the key into the lock and turned, but nothing happened. I pulled the key from the lock and examined it. Yep, this was the right one, the only red key I had on my key ring.

  I inserted it again and tried to turn it in the other direction, but nothing happened.

  I stood there staring blankly at the black door for a minute, trying to comprehend what was happening. After two more tries, I had to accept the truth.

  Anja had changed the fucking lock!

  I knew this had something to do with LaTangie, I just knew it.

  I stormed out of the building, flipping the bird to the grinning doorman as I went.

  I didn’t have any money—well, not enough for a hotel—so I stormed down the street, attempting to walk off my anger.

  It would be a while before the realization hit me that I had no place to go.

  Noah

  it was nearly midnight when I finally got my house back to normal. The dead fish had been placed in plastic bags and thrown out into the garbage. My floors were swept and mopped clean, the linens on my bed changed, and I had even found the strength to Hefty-bag all of Chevy’s belongings.

  After pouring a glass of wine, I dimmed the lights in my living room, put on my Syleena Johnson CD, and sat down on the couch, propping up my feet on my leather ottoman.

  I was home.

  Just as I was beginning to completely relax, the thumping bass of Kanye West and Jamie Foxx’s “Gold Digger” began to pound through my walls.

  I was annoyed but figured the song was coming from one of those black Yukons the neighborhood drug dealers drove up and down the streets in.

  I told myself, This too shall pass. But it didn’t. It just kept coming. My windows were shaking, the framed photographs on my walls were rattling, car alarms were going off and my temper was about to follow.

  Jumping up from the couch, I ran to the front door, swung it open, and stepped outside. My head turned left and then right, and that’s when I saw the problem.

  My new neighbors had set up six-foot-high speakers in their yard. There were four teenagers sitting on the front steps and five children playing tag around the speakers.

  My other neighbors had come out to look too. But not one said a word. They just shook their heads in disgust and retreated back behind their doors.

  After a moment, a large black woman emerged from the house, dressed in a pink bra top and denim miniskirt. She looked like a poster child for bad taste. She had no business dressing like that. I laughed into my hand, guessing that she weighed three hundred pounds.

  Around her neck she wore at least eight different gold chains, each holding three or more charms. The gold was cheap, I could tell from where I stood. I had an eye for precious metals.

  She had a slew of gold bangles on each wrist, and they made an annoying chinking sound when she raised her arm to guzzle the forty she gripped in her fat hand.

  “Hey, neighbor!” she turned and hollered at me.

  I brought my hand up to block the glare; the top front row of her teeth was encased in platinum.

  Geneva

  yes, we’d finally been busted by my six-year-old. Deeka still couldn’t look Charlie in the eye, even though I’d explained to him a million times that Charlie was still just a child and wasn’t quite sure what it was she witnessed.

  But Deeka kept saying, “’Neva, she asked you why my pee-pee was in your kitty!”

  I told Charlie that she’d seen wrong and that Deeka and I was just playing a game of horsey.

  When she asked why we were naked, I told her that we’d gotten really hot and so took our clothes off.

  When she asked if she could play next time…I just sent her to her room.

  I don’t think she’s traumatized by what she saw; in fact, I think she’s already forgotten all about it.

  But just to be safe, tonight I sent Charlie down to my mother’s house so that we could get as wild and as loud as we wanted to.

  We’d been watching Lackawanna Blues for the second time, and when I looked over at Deeka, he was nodding.

  I nudged him in his side. “Deeka, wake up.”

  Deeka’s eyelids fluttered, and he wiped at the spittle that was forming in the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry, baby.” He yawned, reaching for his glass of Pepsi, which had gone warm an hour ago. “I’m just beat.”

  I knew he was and tried not to complain, but damn. He’d walked through the door, pecked me on the cheek, and handed me the bag of Popeyes chicken before flopping onto the couch, pushing his hand down into the waistband of his pants, and fixing his gaze on the television. Before long he was out cold, leaving me, the two drumsti
cks, biscuits, and the container of coleslaw all alone.

  “I saved you a drumstick, baby,” I said, wiping frantically at the grease around my mouth. I wanted so much to be ravaged by him tonight.

  “Nah, you go ahead and have it. I’m so tired I can’t even chew.”

  The alarms went off inside my head. If he was too tired to chew, then he was certainly too tired to do anything else. I nudged him again.

  “Is Mr. Peter tired too?” I said coyly as my hand slipped into his lap and then up to his crotch.

  Deeka grunted, smiled, and then politely moved my hand. “Yeah, I think so.”

  I huffed. Is this what my life had turned into? A Friday night in front of the television with a Corona and a bag of chicken?

  Shit, I’d had that life before Deeka came along.

  “How come we don’t go out anymore?” I whined.

  Deeka opened one bloodshot eye. “Don’t start, ’Neva,” he warned.

  I folded my arms like a two-year-old. “Why?” I demanded.

  “Geneva, you know I’m still trying to catch up on my rest. Do you think that month on the road was easy? It was tiring.”

  I pouted.

  “Stop being so dramatic,” he said as he stood up, stretched, and started toward the bathroom, where he proceeded to take a loud piss with the door open.

  We were like an old married couple. Where had all the romance gone?

  “Can’t you close the goddamn door!” I bellowed, and then grabbed the remaining drumstick and took a huge bite out of it.

  Deeka reemerged, pulling up his zipper.

  “Wash your hands, Nasty,” I ordered without looking at him.

  “You keep talking to me like I’m one of your children,” Deeka chastised, and walked back into the bathroom, where he washed his hands. Returning to his seat beside me, he tried to pacify me by laying his head in my lap.

  “Get off,” I said, thumping his head with my forefinger and thumb.

  “Oh, it’s like that, huh?” Deeka turned and looked up at me.