Nasty (22 page)

Now, with the video behind him, he could focus on Eli Griffith. He knew his mother was spending a lot of time with him. Last time he spoke with her, she had even casually suggested that he visit him. But he didn’t want any part of him.

Later that evening, at home with Sherry, Tarik sought answers to the growing confusion in his soul. Seeking to run away from his problems, he grabbed Sherry in bed and aggressively, almost savagely engaged in lovemaking. He had entirely skipped any foreplay. This one was for him.

Confused by his aggressiveness, Sherry begged, “Baby, slow down. What’s wrong?”

“I need you real bad. Just this once, okay?”

Sherry felt like she was with a stranger. Before that night, Tarik was always a considerate lover. Always making sure she was ready. Though he was not a well-endowed man, he made up for it by his generous ways of petting and holding her tenderly.

But this time was different. He kissed her mouth once or twice and then tore her panties off. He grabbed his stiff penis and shoved it into her, roughly, and without explanation. He could have been with a stranger. He thought, it would have been better if he had been. Soon as he entered Sherry, the pressure of his growing problems totally deflated his erection. Tarik rolled off Sherry and turned his back to her.

Sherry lay on her side of the bed, unsure of what to make of it all. Insecure feelings surfaced and she wondered if that witch Nicola, the one Carlos brought to the party, had anything to do with Tarik’s performance problems. Or did the video chick ignore her threat and try something behind her back?

Sherry found her core center of strength and discarded all doubts about Tarik’s fidelity. The only truth that mattered was that he was in bed with her now…and she knew he loved her with all his heart and soul.

No, it wasn’t another woman; it was something else. And she was going to find out. She turned over and lovingly stroked and caressed Tarik’s back.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Is it something I did, or said? What just happened? This, this ain’t like you.”

He turned over, grabbed her and held her close. “Baby, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. All I know is that it’s you and me…and ain’t nobody ever gonna get a chance to get between us.”

“’Cause you do know what I’d do if somebody tried, right, Tarik?”

“Baby, you ain’t ever got to go there. Not with me, you don’t.”

Sherry relaxed in his arms. A little reassurance always worked. It helped him to regain and keep his erection. This time they made love passionately.

Later that night, as they lay in bed cuddled up with each other, Tarik told Sherry the entire story. He explained that his dark side, the “hell hath no fury like an abandoned child” side, wanted to have that knockdown, drag-out, shout-out talk with Eli. The one where he gets the opportunity to tell his father what a miserable low-down excuse for a human being he was. He wanted to rub it in his face; how successful he’d become. He hadn’t needed him after all. He wanted that conversation. No, Tarik explained to Sherry, he
needed
it.

The confusion entered when the “live and let live,” mellow, mystical, spiritual side of Tarik just wanted to let his father die alone in whatever peace he could create in his final days. He knew that dying from AIDS was no picnic. It was a hell he’d never wish on anyone. Even Eli didn’t deserve quite that much.

After all, he hadn’t walked away from a welfare momma without any means of support. His mother’s family was financially well off and according to the history, Pops was on the spot soon after they divorced. Tarik had never known a day of material want or need in his life. But should he go see this man? Now? After all this time? What was the point? Or was that the point after all? Did he really need a reason to see him?

Sherry listened to Tarik. Never interrupting him. She massaged his slumped shoulders. She knew what her husband needed to do. “I’ll go with you, Tarik. You don’t have to do it, but you do need to go see him. You’ll regret it, baby, if you don’t.”

He pulled away from her and jumped up out of the bed. He paced up and down the bedroom floor.

“No. NO! Oh crap. Yes. Who am I fooling? Mama was right. You’re right. I do need to see him.”

“That’s the right decision, baby. The only one.”

He got back in the bed and pulled Sherry close to him. Her warm body melted away all of his doubt.

A week later, he called his mother on the phone.

“Hello.”

“Mama, it’s Tarik.”

“What’s going on, hon’?”

“Well, actually, Sherry and I think it would be a good idea if I met with this guy before he croaks and all of that. Think you could hook it all up? I mean, do you have a way of reaching him?”

“I have some connections that might make it possible for the two of you to meet. Just let me arrange everything. And Tarik?”

“Yes, Mama?”

“You’ve made the right decision, son.”

“Uh, I have to go. Talk with you later. Love you.”

Tarik pulled his car out of the Mo-Sound record company’s parking lot. He had just finished re-recording one of the tracks on the CD. If everything went their way, this time next year, he’d be on the stage accepting a Grammy or at the very least, presenting. Joy was erupting in all places within him. But it was not lost on him, that he was also excited about the possibility of meeting his father.

On the other side of town, in Eli’s tiny little abode, Ophelia put her cell phone back in her bag. “Guess who that was?”

Eli looked at her puzzled. “Who?”

“Your son. He wants to meet with you. How do you like that?”

Eli could not contain his smile. “I think I like that a whole lot.”

T
arik, I’m with you. Baby, I’m here for you. You can do this.” Tarik looked up at the clean, modestly designed building, where on the second floor, his mother and Eli waited for him to arrive. At first, he regretted bringing Sherry along, but now that he was actually there, he was glad to have her there to lean on.

“How do I look?” Eli looked in the mirror at himself. A bony, emaciated face stared back at him. “Like shit.”

Eli frowned.

Ophelia shook her head and patted Eli on the shoulders for support. “Don’t worry about your looks. Believe me, Tarik is not the least bit concerned with outward appearances. Remember what you always said on campus?”

“Yeah, beauty’s only skin deep. But you know I was a bigger hypocrite then, Ofee.”

“What do you mean?”

“Though I always preached that skin-deep crap, I made sure my old lady was the finest girl on campus.”

Ophelia blushed liked a young coed. “Oh, Eli, stop flirting!”

He laughed. He always laughed when she came to visit. Today the laughter helped to calm his nerves. He was so anxious about finally meeting his son. A knock at the front door promised to end his stress.

“Come in; the door’s open.”

Tarik and Sherry entered the tiny apartment.

“Tarik, how, how…are you?”

“Fine, oh…this is Sherry, my wife.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Griffith. Hello, Mama Ophelia.”

“Sit down, young people, sit down.” Eli was in heaven. He couldn’t believe that he was in the same room as his son. He had so much love in his heart for him. He could never express it all. He knew he would take it with him to his grave. How proud he was of this young man. Sherry and Ophelia served as mediators to help the conversation between the two strangers flow easily.

“Tarik, your concert was, how do the young folks say these days?
The bomb
!”

“It was alright.”

“Don’t be modest; I was there. Right, Ophelia?”

“Yes, we were all there. It was some concert.”

Tarik smiled. There were awkward silences at first, but gradually Eli’s natural personality surfaced and he became an entertaining host. By the end of the visit, he was telling them stories about the art world and making them all laugh. Tarik was surprised by how relaxed he felt around this man. He could never relate to him as a father because that honor would always be held by Pops. But he couldn’t help but like Eli. He didn’t even feel sorry for him and his illness. Though Eli was obviously a very sick man, living his last days, he never insisted that folks throw pity parties for him.

Tarik visited his father two days later. He came without Sherry or his mother as chaperones. He wanted to have a man-to-man talk with him. He asked Eli to tell him about his life. What he heard made him glad that this man did not raise him.

“Son, I was one of those men who just had the bad habit of making the wrong choice. Unfortunately, I got stuck with the consequences of those decisions.” Eli paused to catch his breath. He looked at Tarik, and thanked God that his son would never live the kind of life he had chosen. “Before I knew it, my life was littered and poisoned by the consequences of my bad decisions, bad behaviors and now my life.”

Unable to complete the thought, he rolled his wheelchair over to the window, and looked out. On the tree branch, a mama sparrow fed her hungry babies. Eli shook his head. If he had even had the sense of a bird, maybe he would have taken better care of Tarik. Angry with himself, he looked back at the son he never fathered.

“Tarik, I always wanted to come and meet with you and your mama. But I wanted to do it with style. No drug habit. Successful. Money in my pocket. I kept thinking…next month, I’ll clean myself up. Start painting again. But, next month would come and go, and I still was no closer to getting my act together. Thenthen I ran out of next months. You’re all grown now, and I got no more next months.”

Tears fell down Eli’s face. He rarely traveled down memory lane these days. It was far too draining. He preferred to conserve his energy and celebrate what life he had left. But today, he had to take the trip back with his son.

“When you almost died because of my stupidity.”

“What are you talking about?”

Eli looked at his son, and realized Ophelia and her people had never told Tarik the story surrounding his first incarceration. How on the worst day of his life, he had made a decision to get high in his home with so-called friends. The decision that almost cost him Tarik’s life. They probably didn’t want him to know what kind of monster had sired him.

“Eli?” Tarik knew he was about to hear something that was more painful than a man should have to bear.

“They never told you, did they?”

Tarik sat motionless, afraid that movement would convince Eli to keep quiet. “Eli, I need to know all the truth. I deserve that much, I think.”

His son was right. He owed his son the entire story of what happened. Telling him the tale, the unedited version, was as painful as he thought it would be. But he had to do it. The truth of his life was the only thing he could leave his son. Maybe he’d avoid some of the pitfalls that had tragically tripped him up.

He cried like a baby when he described how it was pure torture, wondering if he’d ever come out of that coma. How he begged and bargained with God to take him instead. Judging by the life he eventually led, God had definitely made him keep his side of the bargain.

Hearing how he had accidentally got into Eli’s drug stash and almost died made Tarik look at his biological father. His mother’s version always made it seem like he just had a little drug habit and they couldn’t make it. He’d left because he could never come back after the incident. There is no coming back after you have relinquished parental responsibility.

He thought about his adopted son, Javon. He vowed to protect him from harm. Something his own biological father didn’t have the strength or clarity of mind to do. Still, Tarik did not—could not—hate this man. A man who self-admittedly was incapable of making a right decision.

All he said to him was, “Guess you’ve done some pretty dumb things.”

Eli was relieved when he finished the story and Tarik didn’t spit in his face as he felt he deserved. “Yes, I guess I have.”

He saw that his son did share some similar characteristics with him. They both loved beauty, poetry, and art. They were kind men who wouldn’t hurt a soul, at least not intentionally. He was also glad that they were different. Tarik was extremely disciplined. He must have gotten that from the man they called Pops, because he sure didn’t get it from Eli. Lack of discipline and courage and a never-ending supply of stupidity were his tragic character flaws. Thank God, they weren’t inheritable traits.

What they had most in common was precious. They both would only love one woman in their lives. He told Tarik that Sherry was a good woman for him. “That one, she don’t take no shit from you. I can tell.”

Tarik laughed. “No, she does not.”

“Always treat her like a queen. That’s where I really blew it. Not treating your mother as she deserved was the dumbest thing I ever did.”

Later that day, Tarik stopped by his mother’s house and shot some pool with Carlos.

“What did he look like?” Carlos watched as Tarik expertly hit striped balls into pockets.

“Huh?” With only one of his balls remaining on the table, he missed putting it away.

“Do you look like him?” Carlos grabbed his stick.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah. I might have looked like him back in the day.”

“Might? Seven ball in the side pocket.” Carlos slammed the yellow striped ball just seven centimeters short of its intended goal. “Shit!”

“It’s hard to tell.” Tarik positioned his stick and aligned the cue ball directly on the path of the twelve ball. “This baby’s going into the corner pocket.” As he promised, it rolled right into its
target. Carlos, obviously more interested in what was being said, barely noticed.

“Why?”

Tarik set up his next shot. “He’s thin. Wasted looking. What can I say? The dude’s dying. He looks like shit. Eight ball, right there, corner pocket, for the game.” The eight ball followed Tarik’s command and disappeared down the hole. “Want to try and beat me one more time?”

“No, I’ve had enough.” Tarik and Carlos put the pool sticks away and cleaned off the table, just like Pops always taught them to. Carlos went to the bar, and pulled out a soda from the refrigerator. He opened the bottle, took a long swig, and wiped his wet lips off with the back of his hand. “You glad you went?” Tarik collapsed on the leather sofa and let out a long sigh. Carlos stared over at his brother, waiting for a reply.