Something She Can Feel (16 page)
Read Something She Can Feel Online
Authors: Grace Octavia
I'll give you my heart.
I'll give you my mind.
I'll give you my body.
I'll give you my time.
Prince crooned and I believed him. He was sexy and strong, whispering and just nearly screaming the most intimate needs I felt deep inside. I could feel my heart racing down in my stomach. I wanted to move, but this was the closest I'd felt to music in so long. I needed it. This honesty. It was controlling me. Reminding me of what music could do. And it wasn't even about Dame. It was about being there and hearing the sound of emotion coming from someone else.
And then, without knowing what I was going to say, I opened my mouth just as the song ended and Dame's hands slid to my lower back.
“Thank you,” I whispered into his ear. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
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Something was happening. At some point between the dance beneath the blue lights at Fat Albert's and Dame and I giggling as if we were drunk as we stumbled out to the truck, I'd lost my barrier. I was laughing at nothing at all. I was just happy to be out in the night air, in the world, feeling and hearing and smelling it all around me. It was as if I'd never been in this part of the world. At least not in a long time. Not like this. And all I really wanted was someone to be there to remind me that this was really happening. And that was funny because nothing had actually happened. Not something someone there could see. But it just was.
The white moon was hanging low in front of the truck. A crescent shaped upward, it looked like a smiley face was bearing down on us.
Sitting in the truck beside Dame as we drove along University Boulevard through downtown's crowds of beer-sipping blondes and frat boys waiting to get lucky, I rolled the window all the way down and sunk low in my seat to let the breeze come in all around me. My neck, my shoulders, around my ears, and through my scalp. I thought to slide off my right shoe and stick my foot out the window and then without considering anything else, I just did it. I just wanted to feel the air press against my foot and dare me to keep on coming toward it.
Dame turned the music up high and leaned to the side in his seat, too, looking over at me and laughing every few minutes. In this dark night, he looked brilliant, exciting, and familiar like the stars above us. Every few feet, someone would look, and then look at him again, and then whisper to the person beside them. It seemed that I noticed each of these heavy stares, but Dame just kept on rolling.
I knew that what was happening to me in that car was also happening to us. And I was happy about it. Happy to have a new friendâI could even call him that nowâwho could sit so close to me and ask nothing. He seemed to only want to give. And while something inside of me was saying this was dangerous, another side was tired of being afraid of what was dangerous.
“I had a good time,” I said, not looking at Dame.
“I knew you would,” he said. “Man, ain't nobody allowed to have a bad time at Fat Albert's. That's certified.”
“Certified?” I laughed and looked at him.
“Hell yeah. I've been all over the world and I'll tell you, ain't no place that gets down like that. A bunch of old, fat ladies that can outdrink the ex-cons sitting next to them.... That's a damn party.”
“You're crazy,” I said as we both laughed. “And there were no ex-cons in there.”
“What? Fat Albert's not even an ex-con. I think that fool is still supposed to be in prison. He escaped the chain gang in like 1901 or something.”
“Not true,” I said, slapping his hand and feeling it raise slightly, as if he'd wanted me to keep my hand there. I jumped and pulled my leg back into the window.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just, um ... need to get ready for ...”
“Oh, Baby Barack,” he said as we turned onto the road that led back to the school where my car was parked. “It's not even 1 a.m. Just tell him you were out with your girls.”
“Out with my girls? You just made that sound so easy. I can hear it now, âHey, I was just out with my girls!' That might work if I had girls and we ever went out.”
“You expect me to believe that you don't go out?”
I shook my head.
“Ever?” he added.
“Ever.”
“But you're grown and you have a job. And you're married. You deserve to go out and have a good time every once in a while.” He looked at me and touched my hair.
“It's not that simple,” I said, pulling away.
“It's as simple as you make it.”
The light ahead of us turned red and Dame pulled to a stop.
“Like these folk over here, they're out having a good time. Enjoying a fun Friday night in Tuscaloosa,” he said jokingly and pointing to a car on the other side of the truck that I couldn't see. “Oh, never mind. It's just a woman by herself. Looking really crazy ... probably like you do on Friday night.”
“Not funny,” I said. I pushed up on my knuckles to look to the other side through his window. Right away, I noticed that it was Jethro Jr's old Buick, the car May drove. Both of the windows were rolled all the way down and May was sitting in the driver's seat with both hands tight on the wheel.
“She looks like she's about run a nigga down for something.” Dame laughed.
“Shh,” I said. “May?” She didn't answer. She just loosened her grip to wipe a tear I saw fall from her eye. “May?” I hollered again.
Just after I called her name the second time, the car scurried up the road and I looked to see that the light in front of us changed.
“You know her?” Dame asked, taking off behind May.
“She's my sister-in-law. Could you catch up?”
Dame sat up in his seat and pushed the gas as we chased the tail of the Buick. May was swerving slightly and then she ran a red light. Dame, without so much as blinking, followed suit, and a block later I was poking my head out the window hollering out, “May!”
If it was anyone else at any other time of day, I might have thought it was better to mind my own business. But May? Something had to be wrong, and whatever it was, May was leading us to it.
“You know where she's going?” Dame asked.
“No clue. It's just not like her,” I said as we hit a bump and the seat bounced me up in the air.
“Does she live on the east side?” Dame asked, and I realized that was where we were headed. It was the neighborhood I grew up in. While we'd moved to another side of Tuscaloosa when I was in middle school, we still kept the old, three-bedroom house and Jr rented it out to church members in need of low-cost housing. May turned onto the avenue that led to that house.
“No,” I said, cautiously reaching for my cell phone now. “She lives north of the river.... I think I need to call my brother.... Tell him what's going on.”
“I think he's about to find out.”
“May!” I screamed out the window again. “Why is she coming here?”
When we turned onto the street that led to the cul-de-sac where the three-bedroom house was that I'd grown up in, I knew why May was headed there.
Jethro Jr's new Buick was sitting in the driveway of the old house. Lights off. No Jr in sight. It was 1:30 a. m.
“That's yourâ”
“My brother's car,” I finished Dame's thought as we pulled up behind May's stopped car in the middle of the cul-de-sac.
“He lives here?”
“No,” I whispered as if the night would hear me. I wasn't sure what I'd stumbled upon at that stoplight, but now I was certain it wasn't good.
“Ooooohhhh.” Dame gritted his teeth and gave a shrug of innocence.
May's car just sat there silent and dark in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Suddenly, I realized I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. But I knew May needed me there.
“Look, I'm going to talk to her,” I said to Dame as I gathered my things and slipped on my abandoned shoe. “You can go.”
“You sure? What about your car?”
“I'll get home.... I just feel like I need to handle this ... alone. And I can't let them seeâ”
“No need to explain,” Dame said, turning the truck back on. “I'll just catch you in the breeze.”
“Sure.” I smiled nervously and slid out of the truck.
“May, are you okay?” I asked after approaching the car when Dame had left. “I was in that truck ... calling you.”
“I need to get my husband,” she said caustically. Both of her hands were still on the wheel.
“He's in the house? Did you two have a fight?”
“I need to get my husband,” she repeated and I noticed that while her voice was cracking not one tear was in her eyes now. Her Bible, the one she always carried with the red leather cover case, was sitting on the seat beside her. It was open.
“May, I can tell you're very upset,” I said, feeling my heart begin to race. I wanted to ask her why Jr was in the house again, but I knew I shouldn't. I was afraid of what might happen next. “I think maybe I can go get him from the house. Do you want me to do that?”
She didn't respond. She just nodded and kept her hands on the wheel. It seemed that she was afraid to let go. Afraid of what she might do herself.
“You stay here,” I said. “And I'll go get him for you. okay?”
“Yes,” she said uneasily.
I backed away from the car and then turned to face the house repeating, “Please don't be doing what I think you're doing” to myself. “Please! Please! Please!”
I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure May wasn't coming up behind me. Whatever it was, May was in no condition to confront Jr.
When I got to the door, the door of the house I grew up in, I didn't know if I should ring the bell or just walk in. I knocked lightly, holding the screen door my father had put up one hot summer back with my foot. There was no answer, so I knocked again, almost a light tap. It had to have been after 1:30 a.m. now and all of the lights were off. I looked back to the car to see that May still hadn't moved.
When the door finally opened, Jr was standing there looking back at me. Neither of us said anything for a second. We just stood there in the awkwardness of the situation, silent and looking at one another.
“Your wife is here,” I said.
“Honey,” a tired, feminine voice called from behind Jr. “Who's here so late?” The woman's head came poking out. She was a tall, light-skinned woman, who looked a lot like my mother had when she was much younger. I'd seen her at the church before.
“Kim, I told you to stay in bed.”
“Who's this?” I looked at the woman. “Who is she?”
“I'm Kim, Journey,” the woman said defiantly. “Would you like to come into my home?”
“Kim, I just told you to go back to bed,” Jr repeated more forcefully, but she just stood there.
“I ain't going back to bed. I'm tired of hiding. This is your family.” She stepped around Jr and came closer to me with her hands folded across her chest. “I'm his fiancée.”
“How could you do this to me?” I heard May cry out. I turned and she was right behind me, crying and shaking. “You lied to me!”
“I told you to stay home,” Jr shouted at May. “Go home. Journey, get her back in the car.” He looked at me.
“Ain't nobody listening to you tonight, so you might as well just tell everybody what's going on. Tell her,” Kim demanded, pointing her finger at Jr, and I swear in all my life I'd never heard anyone speak to him in that way. “Tell her now.”
I reached back and grabbed May's hand. I hadn't processed what all was going onâhow long it had been going on and how long May had been dealing with itâbut this was way out there for Jr.
He pushed Kim to the side and came charging out the door, trying to get past me so he could get to May. I stumbled back, but then I jumped and tried to get in front of him.
“No!” May started inching back. “I want to know what's going on.”
“Leave her alone,” I said, pulling at Jr, who seemed like he was about to hit May.
“You want to know?” he shouted. “You really want to know?”
“Yes,” May cried and Jr broke away from me. He was standing right in May's face.
“This is my girlfriend,” he said as calmly as he might have had he been ordering a cup of coffee. “You don't make me happy anymore. You've put on all this weight. I'm not attracted to you. I haven't had sex with you in months. We don't have a life. You couldn't even give me a son.”
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