In This Life Read online

  “I bought you all kinds of underwear. Some of them are a little bigger.”

  “A little bigger,” he repeated sarcastically.

  “Yep, and they have leopard and other risqué colors.” He made a face at her. She turned her back to him and smiled to herself.

  He looked at her closely. Today she was wearing a tight-fitting beige dress with a low-cut neckline and pumps. Her long curly black hair cascaded stylishly down the side of her breast, giving her the appearance of a sophisticated woman in her mid-twenties. But today, something about her irked him. He got up off the floor. “Sasha, where’s my damn money at?”

  “What money?”

  “The money you took out my pocket, plus the money you took from me at the hospital.”

  “Oh, that money. I put most of it back in your pocket, except for what I needed for the baby…”

  “You talk like the baby is going to be here any minute.”

  “No, I act like you won’t be here any minute,” she shot back at him. “Besides, I need that money in the event that you become insolvent.”

  “Insolvent?” He hated when she used those big-ass words on him.

  “It means in case you get killed, or go to prison, or better yet, try one of them stunts like the President is doing.” She walked over to where he was standing. “Boy, you’re rich, remember? That little money ain’t gonna hurt you. Now take off them underwear… I’ve got another pair I want you to try on.”

  Irritated, he took a step forward, his breath hot on her face, his full six-foot-four frame towering over her, his voice rising. “Girl, every time I get hurt, you start tryin’ to boss me around, takin’ advantage of me…” He stopped abruptly, the morning sun having illuminated a sliver of light on her ebony cheek. Sasha was wearing makeup for the first time. “Girl, wuz dat shit on your face!?” he asked.

  She was visibly shaken by his observation, flushing as she placed a delicate finger over her mole, which she had covered with makeup. “Don’t worry about my face. What you need to be concerned about is whatever crawled up in your mouth and died. Find yourself some soap powder or somethin’.” Freddy closed his mouth.

  Sasha walked over to the mirror, inspecting her face. A knock came from the door, and Sasha spun around. “Come in.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Before Freddy could make it to the bed, Mykle and Dee pushed open the door. At first, neither one said a word as they watched Freddy make a dash for the bed in what looked like slow motion. They turned to look at each other as if to say, did you see what I just saw? Dee erupted in laughter and Mykle looked down at the floor, his shoulders bouncing. Freddy could tell that he was laughing but trying to hide it. The scene was comical to Sasha, and she covered her mouth with both hands as Freddy stood back up wearing the bed sheets around his waist.

  “Yo, Sasha, I need to holler at Freddy for a sec,” Mykle said, struggling to keep his composure, but his voice giving way to a snicker.

  Dee laughed hysterically. He looked as if he couldn’t breathe as he held his sides, laughing so hard his face turned red.

  Sasha walked up to Freddy and on her tiptoes, kissed him on the cleft of his chin. She didn’t mean to embarrass him in front of his boys like that, but sometimes he just made her so mad. “Y’all don’t be all day. Me and Freddy have business to attend to.” She strutted out of the room and they all wondered what she was up to now…

  As they entered the room, Dee was the first to razz him. “Man, where did you get them C.M.F.M.’s from?”

  “What’cu talkin’ ‘bout?” Freddy asked, puzzled. “What the hell is C.M.F.M.’s?”

  Dee responded haltingly. “I heard in prison they call them kinda drawers you’re wearing ‘Catch-Me-Fuck-Me’ drawers.”

  Mykle couldn’t hold it anymore and they all cracked up in laughter. Freddy hit Dee with a pillow. The potent aroma of marijuana permeated the room. He knew that they had probably been smoking all morning, especially since they were going to turn themselves into the cops today.

  “Son, no wonder you gettin’ all that pussy, wearin’ them l’il panties. You do some kinda acrobatics or some shit too? I thought only white folks were into that kinda thing—” They laughed even harder.

  “Man, while I was asleep, Sasha dressed me in these….” Mykle and Dee exchanged silly glances and broke up again.

  Freddy just stared at them, deciding to change the subject. “I talked with Marilyn this morning. That was her that called. The lawyer is supposed to come by…” They both looked at him as he spoke. He tried to wear the sheet nonchalantly, standing there with it wrapped around his waist.

  Dee giggled first and then Mykle, and then both erupted in laughter as he tried to look diplomatic while wearing them little panties under that sheet. “Damn it, man,” Freddy yelled, “y’all come in her to trip off me?”

  “No, no,” Dee cackled between laughs, trying to catch his breath. “It’s just with them l’il panties, your nuts got to be up somewhere in your stomach!” They roared this time, Mykle rolling on the floor with tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Freddy just sat on the bed and decided he could wait until they stopped acting so damn stupid. They finally quieted, and he continued. “I talked to Marilyn today…” He crossed his legs. Mykle looked at the carpet, and Dee was breathing heavily, his eyes still full of mischief. “Once y’all turn yourselves in, it should take no more than a few hours.”

  “What about you?” Mykle asked.

  “I’m still too weak… but I did manage to do two-hundred pushups this morning, and I punished Sasha last night with my sex game, to let her know that I’m still the boss ‘round here. Women just love a man with a wild sex game—“

  “Yeah, I bet,” Dee said, looking at Freddy’s frail body wrapped in the sheet. “What about the car, Mr. Boss Man? Are we gonna be able to take it for a ride and go with you this time when you take your trip?”

  Freddy looked away. “Man, I’ma hav’tah take Sasha with me this time.”

  “Muthfucka!” Dee cursed loudly. “Man, I would never let no bitch come between the three of us.”

  His harsh words moved Freddy, like being knocked down and then picked back up. He realized that Dee’s frustrations were out of comradery, but hearing Sasha being called a bitch just didn’t sound right, even though at one time or another they all had called girls bitches…it was just a name, right.

  “She has the keys to the car,” he said. “I’ve dogged her so much she knows my every move by heart now. She even told me the date, today, and that I was going to take y’all with me.” Freddy heard a pleading edge to his own voice that made him feel uncomfortable.

  Exasperated, Dee took a long look at him as if to convey, “Your sorry ass,” and then began to pace the room. Suddenly, he stopped, something drawing his attention. He walked over to the closet door, looked inside, and to his amazement, it looked like a small department store. “Holy shit! Man, y’all come take a look at this!”

  Mykle ambled over and looked in. “Wow, that’s ridiculous! All these clothes must have cost a fortune.”

  Dee responded, “That’s how the rich folks’ cribs look, fool.” He turned to Freddy. “Sasha is fine as hell with that nice, fat ass, but I would’ve kicked her ass to the curb by now. Ain’t that much love in the world… and besides, I wouldn’t let no hoe ever come between us—“

  “Hold up! Hold up!” Freddy could take no more. He limped over to the dresser and put on his pants, moving a lot faster than they would have expected. “Let’s get one thing straight… as long as you live, don’t you ever call Sasha a bitch or a hoe again…” Mykle stepped in between them.

  “Man, you got life all fucked up,” Dee said. “What you tryin’ to play, Captain Save a Hoe?”

  Freddy swung with all his might, barely missing Dee’s head, keeling over in pain just as Sasha walked in.

  “What the hell are y’all doin’ to him? She screamed in panic. Freddy writhed in pain. She rushed over, pushing them out of th
e way; cosmetics fell off the dresser and the antique mirror crashed to the floor, the noise deafening. Everything seemed to stop momentarily.

  Gently, she took hold of him while her brown eyes narrowed into slits of hate. They took a step back from her as she led Freddy to the bed. He looked up at her, trying to fake a smile. She could sense something was wrong, and intuitively, she felt that Dee was the culprit. She saw that Freddy had opened a superficial wound on his stomach.

  “See what you did, boy!?” she scolded him. She shot a look of disdain at the others. “Get out!”

  “No, Sasha, we were just playin’ around,” Freddy said, looking back and forth at Dee and Mykle. He signaled for Dee to come sit next to him by patting the bed with his had. Hesitantly, Dee walked over and sat down. Sasha sprang to her feet, sucking her teeth, her arms folded across her chest, looking at them in disgust.

  Freddy spoke curtly. “Dee, your grandmother baked a cake for me on my thirteenth birthday, at the time when my dad had just died and my mother was taken away to that place… I had nowhere to live and I don’t know how that old woman knew it was my birthday, but she did… Even with all those kids, she still managed to bake me a big ole chocolate cake, and I honestly believe she knew I as hungry and didn’t have no place to stay.” He turned his attention to Mykle. “Mike, your mom used to beat the hell outta us for skipping school, and then tell my mom she did it so when I got home, I would get another whipping. And Sasha,” he said, to her now, “when I had a family, you would chase me home from school, and my Mom would always be waiting for me to turn the corner with you right behind me… After the tragedy, you’d steal food from your house to feed me or sneak me into your room to let me spend the night when it was cold outside.” Freddy shook his head pensively. The room was quiet with the deep intensity of remembering. Freddy’s voice was filled with passion, and as he continued, Sasha thought she detected tears in his eyes. “Y’all are my family now… You’re all I got! And all we got is each other. I’d die for each one of you. Ain’t no money or material shit gonna come between us. I love y’all and we have’ta stick together!”

  Dee dropped his head, but when Freddy said, “Sasha’s pregnant,” Dee looked up at her and for the first time every, they stared into each other’s eyes. To everyone’s surprise, Dee reached out and placed his hand on her belly, and even more surprisingly, she let him. In return, she beamed a radiant smile that seemed to set the room aglow, a young woman’s resplendence of love for her unborn child, something no man could ever understand.

  Freddy continued as his eyes searched their faces. “I’m onto something… God works in mysterious ways and if things work out for us, we’ll all be set for life. We just gotta stick together and let no man or woman…,” he turned to face Dee, “…break us apart. Sasha and I are going to move to Africa.—“

  “Africa?” Mykle repeated quizzically.

  “That’s right, Africa,” Sasha said defensively, supporting Freddy even though this was the first she had heard of Africa. She picked up a Firs-Aid kit from the nightstand and began to dip at his would with clean gauze.

  “Man, that’s the Dark Continent. Them people over there live like savages. Haven’ you seen them Tarzan movies and shit where the black people are naked and starving?” Dee asked, making a face.

  “Man, it ain’t like that for real, at least not how they make us look. Africa is the richest place in the world,” Freddy said, wincing from the alcohol that Sasha applied to his chest. “Dr. Utomo taught me that Africa was the first civilized place on the planet, and that’s where the first kings and queens came from.” He looked at Sasha.

  “Who’s Dr. Utomo?” Sasha asked.

  “That’s the doctor who saved my life twice now at the hospital.”

  “If all that is true what you’re saying about Africa, then why don’t they teach us that in school?” Dee asked, perplexed.

  “I don’t know,” Freddy drawled as he watched Sasha apply a white cream to his chest. “Like I said, what’s important now is for all of us to stick together.”

  For the next hour, they sat around and discussed their plans to keep in touch in the event something went wrong. Even though he was the youngest, Freddy’s mind was the sharpest, at least when it came to strategizing.

  He stood and pulled Dee up by his shirt collar, and they all gathered in circle. Freddy embraced Dee and Sasha on each side of him, and Mykle did the same. They now formed one big hug, and ceremoniously Freddy exhorted with his eyes closed tightly, “No man, no material wealth shall break us apart! In life we live together, and in death, if we have to, we’ll die together. One love!”

  “One love!” they all chanted together.

  Freddy then turned to Sasha, pumping with new strength and vitality. “If the baby is a boy, we’ll name him Freddy Dee Mykle.”

  Sasha took a step back from them, snaking her neck sassily with hands planted on wide hips. “I’m not naming my baby no damn retarded names like that!”

  The spell was broken as they all erupted in laughter. Sasha just smiled back at them, wondering what they found so funny about that…

  Chapter Eighteen

  Later that same morning, Sasha and Freddy bathed together. She seemed to have an affinity for the luxurious bathroom with its music and its fragrant bubbles. She remained steadfast in her determination to not have sex with Freddy again until they were married.

  Finally, as they departed, Mykle and Dee just looked at them from the couch, the room was smoke filled. There was still some friction, and Freddy felt like a traitor to his friends, but it was a dangerous trip and he knew it would be a lot safer with a woman, than with three black males riding in a brand new Benz.

  As they exited the apartment, they were alarmed to hear the sudden staccato of doors opening and old white people staring at them through the cracked doors as they passed down the corridor. Freddy made faces at them, but Sasha caught him and pinched him, “Ooow!”

  “Freddy, that is real ignorant of you.”

  “Shit, look at them,” he complained while rubbing at the welt on his arm.

  Abruptly, they stopped their conversation as they noticed Ms. Crabtree with her hunched-back at the end of the hallway. Politely, Sasha said, “Hi.” The old woman slammed the door so hard that dust burst from its hinges.

  Freddy cringed, “Damn, Sasha, I don’t even know why you would speak to that old ass bag.”

  “Freddy, only love can conquer hate.”

  “I can’t tell that love can conquer hate, ‘cuz you won’t give me no love,” he said and squeezed her rear.

  Outside, he inhaled deeply, peering at the cumulus clouds moving northwest through a heavenly blue sky, seeming to beckon him to follow them on a long journey. Today, he was sure he would find the answers, the keys to all the locked doors.

  Inside the spacious car, he whistled in appreciation at the fine interior leather and all the gadgets. There is a smell to a new car that is extremely alluring to a young man. Slyly, he watched as Sasha inserted the key in the ignition. Though she only had a learner’s permit to drive, she acted as if she had been driving for the last seventeen years of her life. The large automobile purred to life, she casually reached down and popped a tape in the eight-track player, and Frankie Beverly featuring Maze crooned from the speakers. She backed the car into the street and let the top down. Reaching into her purse, she removed lip gloss and puckering her lips, she applied a moist sheen, loving the attention she was getting from Freddy. Playfully, she leaned over to get a pair of dark glasses out of the glover compartment, and with her elbow resting on his genitals, she looked up and said flippantly, “Where to, Sugar Daddy?”

  He just looked at her, a moment too long. The smile froze on her face. “Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” he answered. “We’re going to take a trip to visit an institution… The Institution for the Criminally Insane.”

  “Freddy, that’s over a five hour drive… What’s there?” she asked, dismayed, searching his face for an answer.
/>   “My life is in Milwaukee’s Criminally Insane building,” he whispered.

  ******

  Freddy slept four of the five hours with his hand resting on Sasha’s stomach. By the time they arrived in Milwaukee, Sasha was totally exhausted. She had never driven that far in her entire life. Both her legs and back hurt, and she had a full bladder.

  Freddy awoke to see her holding her stomach, in obvious pain.

  “Wait here,” he said, not looking at her, his mind distant. He opened the car door and slowly got out.

  She watched him, fighting the urge to help him. She realized that whatever force had propelled him to this dreary place must be stronger than her, and whatever lay ahead of them, from this point on Freddy must take the lead. For now he bore all the weight and strain, the kind that comes with years of struggle, a young man’s resolute and unwavering determination. But as she watched him now, it was difficult for her to see beyond the hurt and despair. Intuitively, she knew this was the most important thing in his life right now, whatever it was he was searching for, and maybe even more important than both her and the baby. Whatever it was, it lay hidden behind the ominous façade of concrete and steel that stood intimidating before them.

  He limped over to a pay phone. She had dressed him in a pair of brown slacks and a soft cotton, three-button collarless shirt. With his neat, short-cropped Afro and his tall, willowy frame, he looked like a college student. She caught his attention while he talked, and she smiled and waived at him. He ignored her and her heart sunk. He hung up and waited, slouching against the wall of the phone booth, wiping beads of perspiration from his brow. She pretended to be interested in a magazine she had found in the glove box. Freddy looked as if he was about to collapse. He waited. She watched.