Hold Me in Contempt (10 page)

“Jameson—on ice!” I shouted, nearly hanging over the bar. “Jameson!”

“Okay. Got ya.”

I backed off the bar and noticed that one of the officers had left and in his place was the white guy who'd come in with the other cuties.

Somehow I was surprised that he was standing there, since I hadn't noticed him when I walked past the other guys. He was facing away from the bar, and I kept peeking at inches of him. His watch. The tattoo of an angel on his forearm. His muscles. I guess he noticed, because he looked over at me and asked, “You aight?” sounding like Kent or one of his boys.

“Sure,” I said. “I'm fine.”

I looked at the table to see that Monique's admirer had taken my place on the stool.

The bartender sat my drink on the bar, and I paid her.

“You want something, King?” she asked the white guy.

“Yeah, Iesha. Let me get a Red Bull and Ciroc,” he said. “Light on the Bull and heavy on the vodka.”

The bartender laughed like they were very familiar and went to make the drink.

I tittered to myself about the order. It sounded like something Kent would request, thinking it was classy.

“What you laughing about, brownskin?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Come on,” he pushed. “Indulge me.”

“It was the drink order. It's . . .” I paused, afraid my comment would come off the wrong way.

“What?” He smiled and exposed a dimple just like mine under his lip. “Ghetto?”

“Well . . .  ​yes,” I admitted nervously.

We both laughed.

“I guess you caught me with my pants down, then,” he said, and I noticed that his voice was so smooth, so easily melodic, he sounded like a late-night Quiet Storm DJ. “Ellison would say, ‘I yam what I am.' ”

“A
king
?”

“Oh, you're tripping on my name, too?”

“It's not every day you come across a white boy—”

“Man,” he corrected me. “I'm a man. Full man.”

“Yes . . .  ​a white man named King.”

“There's a lot of things about me you've never come across,” he said coolly. “And don't trip on the name. It's just a little nickname I got in these streets.”

“Okay.”

“What about you—what's your name?”

I tried to think of a fake name quickly, but nothing would come out.

“Oh, you're trying to think of a club name?” he asked, laughing. “That's real. Word life. It's all right. I know how sisters do. We'll just call you Queen.”

Monique was walking out with the guy who'd come over to our the table, and he gave King five.

“Later, yo,” King said, and then he turned to me. “That's your girl?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Don't worry about her. She's in good hands. I don't fuck with lames.”

“That was the farthest thing from my mind,” I said, picking up my drink and starting back to the table. “He should be worried about her.”

“Wait, Queen,” King said, holding my hand so I couldn't walk away. “You ain't going to give me your number?”

“I can't,” I said. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Okay. I can respect that. You be good in these streets, then,” he said. “And stay fine.”

When I got back to the table, Heather and Tamika were like vultures, firing off one hundred questions about the white guy at the bar and telling me that Monique was taking the young guy back to her place to try six of the tantric moves she'd studied with Brother to the Night.

“It was nothing,” I said when they calmed down.

“It didn't seem like nothing. Not the way that cutie pie was looking at you,” Heather said. “That's that white chocolate.” She groaned and licked her lips.

“Did you give him your number?” Tamika asked.

“No, I didn't. You know I don't swirl.”

“Girl, it's 2014, and that thing is fine as shit. Looking like a mix between David Beckham and Justin Timberlake,” Tamika said, groaning with Heather. “Bet he got a big dick, too. I told y'all what one of the models said about Timberlake.”

“Y'all are gross.” I looked over my shoulder at King.

He was back talking to the bartender and laughing. He turned and looked at me like he sensed my stare, and winked.

“Oh, Lord. He's got a little swag, too! Shit. I'll take him if you don't want him,” Heather said, waving at him.

Tamika grabbed Heather's hand and held it to the table. “Kimmy, I demand that you go and get his number. He's fine and he's trying to holler.”

“Just because he's hollering doesn't mean he's worth my time. He's not my type.”

“Well, what's your type?” Tamika asked harshly. “Must be
no
type, because you're not getting any. What are you waiting for?”

“Bring it in, cousin,” Heather warned.

When Tamika got drunk she had a tendency to be even more confrontational than usual.

“No, I'm serious, Heather. She has to stop this.”

“Stop what?” I asked Tamika.

“It's over with Ronald. He's gone. That's it. Move on. And to someone who's available to you.” She knew about my affair with Paul.

“You make it sound like it's so easy. He was the first man I slept with. We were supposed to get married.” The alcohol set in deeper. In contrast with Tamika, when I got drunk, I got weepy.

“We've all been there. Shit, I've been there,” Tamika said. “So what? He left you for some fake-ass Rocawear model. I had the bitch dropped from the agency. Fuck her and fuck him. You gotta get yours.”

“Gangster Mika is in the house! I know that's right,” Heather chimed in. “Keeping yourself closed off ain't hurting nobody but you, mama.”

Tamika pointed at me. “And quiet as kept, Ronald wasn't all that anyway. He was lame as fuck. And you know it. You only held on because of that dick. And the worst part is that you don't even know it. Shit wasn't about him. It was good fucking. Years of it. And now he's gone.” She fell back in her seat and dropped her pointed index finger like she'd revealed some great secret.

I rolled my eyes at Tamika's speech and looked back over my shoulder at King. A new woman was standing in my old space, and he was smiling at her.

“So, what are you going to do?” Heather asked.

“Go home and get some fucking sleep,” I said, getting up from my stool.

“Oh, don't be like that. Don't go,” Heather begged. Tamika rolled her eyes at me.

“It's cool.” I cut my eyes at Tamika as I hugged Heather good-bye. “I'm not mad. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning.”

“Okay,” Heather said.

“Whatever,” Tamika jumped in, getting off of her stool, too, but I don't remember what she did after. “You just remember what I said.”

“Right. I'll do that.”

As I walked out of Damaged Goods, I could feel King looking at me. His eyes on my entire body so hard, I struggled to swallow. I heard his laugh, and at one point I thought I heard him call “Queen.” I didn't turn around though. Something in me couldn't.

“Let me walk you out,” Tamika said, grabbing my arm. “You stumbling.”

“I'm fine,” I said, pulling away. “I'm just getting into a cab. I'll be fine.”

Chapter 5

T
hursday morning I was in Dr. Davis's office describing my pain.

He sat back in his chair with his feet up on his desk, exposing some ugly orange and teal argyle socks I could tell he thought were cute, because he kept looking down at them with a little smug smile as he asked me questions.

“So, when do you start feeling pain—like, what time of day?” he asked.

“Well, I'm sure it's before I get out of bed,” I answered, sitting in a chair on the other side of the desk.

He grinned at his socks poking out from under his frat-boy khakis and shook his head in a way that was neither approving nor disapproving—more a confirmation that he could hear what I was saying.

“Before you get out of bed? Every morning?” he asked.

“Yes. Early. Every day.” I felt like it was the hundredth time I'd said that since he'd been treating me.

After another quick head shake, peek at his socks, and grin, Dr. Davis asked, “Are you sitting up or lying down when you feel the pain?”

“I don't know. Does it matter?” I asked. “I just feel it. That's what's important.”

“Well, actually, when you feel the pain is important.”

“To whom?”

“To me.”

Dr. Davis turned on his polite voice to talk to me about my pain, how I should describe it, and why he was volunteering to listen. Sometimes I felt like my little descriptions were pointless, just every doctor's way of making patients pay before getting their prescriptions. And that was because really the prescription was the bottom line. It was why we were both there.

I looked around his office as he spoke. Everything was cream and red and expensive. A nautical theme with seashells and charcoal sketches of sharks Dr. Davis had done himself. He even had one of those sound spa ports that played a continuous loop of ocean waves crashing.

He said it was supposed to be relaxing.

After my accident, I wanted to find a black doctor near the office, and one of my old classmates suggested I give him a try. Hearing his name, Dr. Delroy Davis, I was sure I'd meet some gray-haired Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable wannabe the first time I visited his office. But in he walked, big and black and so in shape, I thought he was gay. And then I saw the ugly argyle socks—that day they were red and blue—and I was sure he was gay. But then, in the examination, he had me stand in front of a chair as he ran his fingers up my spine from behind. As he palpated each vertebra, telling me to relax, my spine began to loosen and I lost my balance, falling back into his chest. He tried to hold me up, but it was too late, and quickly we were on the floor, me on top of him. In my scramble to get to my feet, I noted the big bulge in his pants. Erect and new and pointed toward me. Neither of us said anything. There was just an odd look and awkward smile. Ever since, I always thought he wanted to ask me out, but he never said anything. Just smiles and grins.

“Kimberly? Kimberly? Can you hear me?” Dr. Davis called from the other side of his desk.

“What?”

“I just asked you a question,” Dr. Davis said.

“What?”

“Do you feel the pain when you're asleep?”

“Asleep? What? How would I know that?” I replied.

“Well, you just said that you feel it when you wake up.”

“Okay. Fine, Dr. Davis,” I said, sounding dramatically defeated by his questions. “I feel it in my sleep. Okay? Is that all?”

“
All?
What do you mean ‘all'?” He shifted his feet off the desk and looked at me.

“Like for the prescription. Is that all you want to hear for me to get the prescription? I feel it in my sleep. When I wake up. When I'm in the shower. Walking down the street. All day. Okay? So now can you give me the prescription?” I raised my voice with each sentence. I didn't know how else I was supposed to communicate my urgency. I had to take two shots of the Jameson I bought on the way home from Damaged Goods just to get out of bed to make it to the appointment. The ibuprofen did nothing for my pain.

“Slow down!” Dr. Davis held up his hands, and his eyes softened on me in concern.

I repositioned myself in the seat, looked off at a sketch of a hammerhead, and took a deep breath. The pain was ticking up my back again, jabbing through each muscle and bone like an ice pick.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I'm fine.” A tear escaped my right eye.

He pushed his cream-colored tissue box toward me.

“I don't need it,” I said, and then after taking another deep breath during a silence where Dr. Davis eyed me like I was nearly suicidal, I asked, “Look, can I just get the prescription? I have to get to work.”

“Well, that's why I wanted you to come in today,” he said, getting up from his desk and walking around to sit in the chair beside me.

“Why?”

“I'm not giving you another prescription,” he said.

“What?” I laughed to let him know that if he was joking, I'd gotten it and we could move on.

“I think you're done with that part of your treatment.”

“Done? What are you talking about? I'm still in pain. I need the prescription. I need to take those pills. It's so much pain. I hurt,” I said, feeling a few more tears slide from my eyes. My heart was beating so fast, and my hands started to clam up.

“I don't think you do. See, I started you on placebos a few weeks ago.”

“Placebos?”

“Yes,” he said, and then he reminded me of a pilot program I'd agreed to take part in on my first visit. They were testing the efficacy of standard medications. They wouldn't switch my medication or try new ones on me, just play with the dosage to see how much each person needed at each point during treatment. I thought it sounded pretty interesting a year ago, but I'd forgotten all about it. “We didn't say what we were looking for in terms of dosage. The real focus of the test was patient overuse.”