Cheaters (42 page)

Darnell looked irritated. I felt the same way.

From behind me Pamela said in a scathing voice, “His babies.”

Jake jumped and shot a serious frown her way.

Darnell said, “What was that?”

She said, “He’s dreaming about his babies.”

Pamela marched away again. Hard, even steps. She went into the kitchen. Opened cabinets. Sacks ruffled.

I asked Jake, “What baby?”

Pamela’s agitated voice came back, “
Babies
, not
baby.
”

“You have kids?” That was Darnell.

“I ain’t got no kids.” His voice was heavy.

Pamela said bitterly, “Not the babies he had, but the babies he didn’t have.”

I was confused. Darnell’s brow rose too.

Jake summed it up in a word: “Abortions.”

I swallowed at the icy way he uttered that.

Jake slumped on the bed. “I’m haunted by the babies that I had women put to sleep. That’s why all of ‘em look familiar. They resemble women I used to kick it with because they’re the babies of those women. All of ‘em are women that I slept with.”

Darnell said, “Every one of them had terminations?”

Jake massaged his goatee. Lines appeared in his forehead. Veins in his neck. His six-foot-one frame shivered.

Darnell swallowed, looked like he wanted to puke.

Jake stuttered, then found his rhythm. “It’s their faces on those babies, on those teenagers that keep chasing me down.”

I mumbled, “That’s why they resemble your folks.”

“‘Cause some of ‘em look like
me.
”

I said, “Your own children are after you?”

Darnell’s voice echoed, “Your babies are hunting you down, trying to kill you, just like you did them. That’s what you’re telling us?”

Tears ran down Jake’s face, flowed like the rain that was sliding off the windowpanes. But he still played the part he’d grown used to, wiped the useless water away from his face with the back of his hand, then masked it with an insincere chortle.

Darnell was standing stiff, mouth wide open. Speechless.

I was Darnell’s mirror to Jake’s horror.

“Damn, bro.” I asked Jake, “How many times?”

He knew what I meant. We all did.

He shrugged. “A nigga don’t count crap like that.”

Darnell said, “Just hit it, quit it, forget it.”

Jake jeered, “
Fuck you.
I ain’t done shit that neither one of you ain’t done.”

Darnell said nothing. Neither did I.

Jake stared at the photo of his parents for a moment, stroked his goatee over and over, dropped his eyes. “We’re men. That ain’t supposed to bother us, right?”

Darnell said, “Consequence. Everything has a consequence.”

“What’s that shit got to do with me?”

“What about the women?” Darnell said. “You carrying this shit, you don’t think they’re carrying that shit too?”

I’d read about women who marked the day an unborn child would’ve been born, women who secluded themselves and lit candles on birthday cakes, but they did it unseen and unheard.

This shit was too eerie. I said to Darnell, “Lighten up.”

But he thundered, “You owe some people some apologies.”

Jake’s voice boomed back, “And neither of you don’t?”

Darnell nodded. “Dreams are the X ray of the soul.”

Dreams. I thought about mine.

I shook off that memory, said, “Charlotte said you knew.”

“Hell, she ain’t no damn psychologist. She might not be right.”

Darnell said, “Just like you don’t want to believe she’s not coming back.”

Jake whispered, “Don’t let her attitude deceive you.”

“Want to put some money on it?”

No answer from Jake.

No words from me. I was too busy thinking about my own past.

Straight up with no chaser, Darnell stated, “You’re a fool. Every man kills the thing that he loves. Some with a look, some with flattery, the
coward
with a kiss.”

Jake stood up, grimaced at Darnell like he wanted to drag him over the hill and kick his ass all up and down Crenshaw. Darnell’s chest stood out. A dare.

Then Jake backed off, said, “Think about that when you’re with Tammy. Everything has a conse-fucking-quence.”

His woman friend came back into the living room holding a yellow gym bag that was stuffed to burst. She grabbed an umbrella from behind the door and lugged her baggage

out the door, bumping side to side, her mood as dark as the sky.

Jake asked her, “Where you going?”

“Call me when you stop crying over that bitch.”

She paused long enough to massage her neck, then opened the door. Didn’t look back. Winds sent a burst of cold air into the room. Pamela went into the storm without opening up her umbrella, no coat, no hat on her head.

Jake went to the door, looked down where she must’ve been, then gestured like she had a problem. “She’s tripping.”

We talked a few minutes, pretty much staying on the same topics, still getting nowhere. All I’d eaten was a blueberry muffin and a banana, and my stomach was growling like a bear. I tried to talk Jake into washing his ass and riding over to Inglewood to Coley’s for the Jamaican buffet, my treat, but he didn’t want to leave his space. Depression was on his shoulders.

Darnell went into the kitchen and used the phone. He paged Dawn. She called back in less than a minute. He told her that he was with me, that we were at Jake’s.

He hung up, then made another phone call. His voice was too low to hear, but I heard him laughing, saw him check his watch.

I thought that we were going to stay awhile, but when Darnell hung up the phone, he said he was leaving.

I said, “We might as well wait for traffic to thin out.”

“It’s raining,” Darnell said, again looking at his watch. “Traffic won’t thin out until damn near nine tonight.”

Jake grabbed our coats, handed us our black umbrellas.

Even then I tried to talk to Jake some more, but right now there was no talking to him.

Jake said sullenly, “I’m not crazy. Both of you can leave me alone.”

We left.

My Mustang was next to Darnell’s BMW. We stood there for a few seconds, under our umbrellas, the rain rat-tat-tatting down in soft baby thumps. Sky so glum it felt like I was in a black-and-white movie.

I put my fears out in the open. “You don’t think he’ll do anything to himself, do you?”

“I’m worried more about him doing something to Charlotte.”

Horns blared. A crash came from over near the Fox Hills Mall. Fiberglass mating with fiberglass at forty miles per hour. That grabbed our attention for a second. Just a second.

I asked, “You said dreams are the X ray of the soul.”

“They are.”

“What do you dream about?”

“Getting published.”

Darnell got into his car. I tapped the window. He unlocked the passenger side. I got in and closed the door.

I asked him, “Dawn in your dreams?”

“She used to be all I ever dreamed about.”

He checked his watch again. I was still rattled about Jake dreaming about abortions, about his children coming back for retribution, but I didn’t want to talk about no shit like that.

I asked, “You’re going home or back to work?”

He shook his head. “Heading to North Hollywood.”

It took a moment for me to understand what he was saying. That was when I realized why he’d paged Dawn from Jake’s, to give the illusion that here was where he would be for a long while.

“That’s not cool, Darnell. Not at all.”

“Why not?” He leaned toward me. “I’ve been covering for you and Jake for years.”

“You’re not me. And you ain’t as stupid as Jake.”

“You think you’re better than me?”

“I know you’re better than us.”

He was more forceful: “Would you do the same for me that you’ve done for Jake?”

“Jake ain’t married.”

He argued, “He’s engaged. Well,
was
engaged.”

“I wouldn’t do that to your wife.”

“But you’d do it to Charlotte. You did it to Charlotte.”

Our eyes met for a moment. Man to man. Friend to friend. We’d had years of friendship, years of him covering for me.

Now the tables had turned, and he was testing the waters.

Oh, what a tangled web we had weaved.

He said, “Let me rephrase the question then: would you do the same for
me
that I’ve been doing for
you
?”

It felt like there was no right answer to his request. I felt lost. Either way I’d feel like I was less than a true friend, betraying somebody. That wasn’t cool. That was what a man felt when the shoe was shoved on the other foot.

I hesitated, rubbed my eyes, said regretfully, “Sure.”

Then I felt bad. My soul was lined with guilt.

A burst of hard rain came down, thumped the pavement, beaded up on Darnell’s car, reminded me that I needed to wax mine. The whine of a police siren interrupted my superficial thoughts, headed toward where we’d heard the crash.

I said, “Didn’t you just give a speech on consequences?”

His voice was removed from my reality. “Nothing on the freeway but tension. Nothing at home but tension.”

“Let me quote you: ‘Deal with it.’”

He shook his head. “It’s bad enough that I have to deal with Dawn’s pressure, but now Jake’s fucked-up anxiety is inside my four walls too. I need to find a few minutes of peace.”

There was nothing I could do to sway him.

“I need peace. Something just for me.”

I saw it in his eyes. He was on the verge of a change.

His last words were, “Dawn thinks I’m with you.”

That was his way of telling me not to dial his home number, not to return any calls from his wife, until he heard from me.

I got out. He drove away before I could open my car door.

By Sunday the grounds were dry again. L.A. had sun to bring in the month of June, and after church service at FAME we all changed and were dressed in jeans. I was holding hands with a lovely woman, walking around my folks’ home, going from den to foyer to all four bedrooms.

Chanté said, “This is a boss crib.”

I said, “It’s all right.”

“Learn to take a compliment.”

“Thanks.”

We were talking, looking around, when one of the kids found us and said, “Uncle Step, Big Momma said it’s time to eat.”

It was Soul Food Sunday. A lot of the neighbors had come by, and between the kids and adults, it was crowded over here.

Momma, Pops, my two stepaunts, my maternal uncle, Chanté and myself sat down to eat in the formal dining room. I let Chanté’s chair out for her, got ready to grub and relax a bit.

All the children were in the den. Momma called out, “Children. Stop fighting over the TV.”

At the same time all the kids said, “Yes, ma’am.”

The doorbell rang, and Momma hurried to the door. A second later, Momma was laughing and talking while Dawn and Darnell followed her through the living room, back down through the den, and into the dining room. Dawn was wearing a green shorts set. Darnell had on jeans and a lime polo shirt.

I told them, “You got here just in time to eat.”

Dawn spoke to everybody; so did Darnell.

Darnell had an unnatural smile. “How are you doing, Chanté?”

“Fine.” Her words were knowing. “How’ve you been, Darnell?”

Dawn said, “Oh. You know each other?”

I said, “They’ve met. Dawn, this is Chanté.”

Dawn raised a brow. “And you are Stephan’s…?”

Chanté evaluated Dawn, then looked at me.

I said, “We’re dating.”

Pops said, “Everybody get settled so we can bless the food.”

We did. The TV was turned down, all the kids came in, stood still and held hands, while Pops almost prayed the food cold.

When he was done, Dawn asked, “Jake coming?”

I shook my head. “Haven’t heard from him.”

Darnell said, “No news is good news.”

I asked, “Charlotte coming?”

Dawn shrugged. “She wanted to pop in and say hi, but she didn’t want to create any drama.”

We had started eating when the doorbell rang again. One of the kids ran-jumped-stumbled down the stairs in the direction of the door.

Chanté scooted her chair closer to mine and fed me one of the ribs off her plate.

Debra DuBois came in, carrying a couple of sweet potato pies. We moved the ribs, corn on the cob, turkey links, greens, and other food to the side so Debra could put the pies down on the table.

Across the table, I saw Darnell tense up a bit.

Debra smiled at Chanté. “Aren’t you Tammy’s friend?”

Chanté smiled. “Yeah. I met you a long time ago.”

Dawn looked at Debra, then at Chanté. Darnell shifted enough for me to notice.

Dawn asked, “Debra, are you talking about the same Tammy that you saw down on Venice Beach having lunch with Darnell?”

“Yeah.”

A few more clumsy words were said before Debra left.

The moment we heard the front door close, Dawn said to Chanté, “So, you know Darnell through Tammy?”

“No,” Chanté said. “Not exactly. I met Stephan a while back, when he fixed my car for me.”

“Then Stephan introduced Tammy to Darnell?”