Whispers in the Night Read online

  When I come to, I find a pimply-faced redheaded boy, who could be no more than twenty years old, kneeling down beside me. He’s trying to assist me in sitting upright. The whole time I see his lips moving, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. The Olson’s name tag on his shirt reads RUSTY.I look at him, straining my eyes against the fluorescent overhead lights of the aisle.

  I watch his lips move, and I start to gradually make out what he is saying. “I’m sorry, mister,” he repeats over and over.

  My mind is muddled with thoughts of the old man and wondering what time it is. As I sit up, I frantically look around for the man. Rusty and I are the only ones on the aisle, though. I look around for my bread and the dented cans of beer, but they are no longer there.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rusty says again.

  “Rusty? Rusty, look, what’s going on here? A man just assaulted me with food from my cart.”

  Rusty stops for a moment and looks at me, his eyebrows raised in curiosity. He doesn’t seem to understand what I’m talking about, so I repeat it.

  “Rusty, an old man just assaulted me in this store. I need for you to notify the authorities right now!”

  “Sir,” Rusty says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What do you mean?” I rise to my feet and look for my cart. It is resting off to the side of the aisle with a small bag of tied-up bananas, a package of choice steak, a loaf of bread, and a six-pack of Budweiser.

  “There’s no one else who’s been over here. I had just finished mopping the floor, and I forgot to put the sign down. I just started working here last week, and I can’t take it if they fire me. I have a kid at home. Please, mister, if you’re okay, let’s just leave this between us.”

  I look at Rusty, and I can see in his eyes that he is genuinely scared. I touch my back and twist my waist to see if I’m all right. I don’t feel any pain, but when I glance at my watch I see that it’s now 11:40 p.m.

  My heart is aching now. I reach for my cart. “You know what, Rusty? I just want to get my stuff and get out of here. No harm, no foul, right?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” he responds and stands back from me.

  I grab the first package of butter I come upon and push my cart toward the checkout. My stomach is all out of sorts, and my head is starting to hurt like hell. There is no line on the only open checkout lane, and when the cashier recognizes me, she tries to weigh my bananas and ring me up as quickly as possible. It’s too little, too late, though, and I’m already frustrated and upset, so I just reach in my pocket and pay her from the twenty I had folded three times and placed squarely across the bottom of my front right pocket.

  My head feels like fireworks are going off inside my brain, and now I only want to go home and sleep off this night. I grab the paper bag, tucking it in my arms like a toddler, and I walk out of the store into the cool night. Each step I take is heavy and my vehicle seems so far away. The cars drifting randomly through the night don’t even register to me.

  I place the bag on the backseat of my Jeep, plopping myself down in the driver’s seat. I feel as if all of the wind has been snuffed out of my sails. I can’t explain why I feel so dejected. I just do. I feel dirty and worthless. I only want to get home now and be inside the safe confines of my own home. Everything just feels totally out of sync.

  I crank up the vehicle and pull out of the parking lot. My eyes are heavy, and I find myself almost completely consumed in disappointment, so much so that it takes me a moment to recognize the stench rising from my backseat. Then it hits me! I know the smell, and I remember from where I know the old man!

  I see myself, not yet ten years old, standing with my father in front of a fast-food restaurant. A ragged, homeless man approaches us, and the scent of garbage and cheap liquor is screaming from his pores. He asks my father for change, and my father hands him a few folded dollars. I remember asking my father, “Why did you give that nasty old man your money?” My father responded, “Sometimes people need a little help from time to time.” As we walked away, I told my father that I would never allow myself to get to that point, where I was smelling rotten and walking up to strangers. My father then looked me dead in my eyes and told me, “Son, sometimes we can’t always control our circumstances.”

  My father’s words still ringing in my ears, I look in the rearview mirror and am now horrified to see the old man, sitting hunched over, quietly tossing my groceries out of the window into the dark street.

  Dream Girl

  Dameon Edwards

  “Typical,” Damon Mitchell muttered to himself, tossing the crinkled issue of last month’s Essence back onto his cluttered desk.

  Left in the office about a week ago by either one of his residents or resident assistants—he hadn’t really cared to discover whom—Damon finally yielded to the glaring headline beside the pretty mahogany face beaming from the glossy cover: WHERE ARE THE GOOD BLACK MEN? it had brazenly asked.

  Pushing his paperwork to the side, Damon had chanced the waters, peeking at the article. After several paragraphs, he had read enough to confirm his initial suspicions. It was yet another griping missive featuring so-called professional, got-it-together women bemoaning the dearth of “worthy” black men. Brothers who had jobs, were “spiritual,” respected them, and weren’t afraid of commitment, yadda, yadda, yadda . . .

  Damon, himself a young black man with a college degree, a job, and a car, who hadn’t been on a date for almost a year, knew such “heartfelt” testimonials were full of shit.

  His last tepid romance had evaporated as quickly as morning dew. Cheryl, a paralegal he had met by chance at a bakery he used to frequent downtown, had first started in on him by telling him that he was moving too fast, pushing too hard.

  At that time, Damon had been listening to the crap Essence and its ilk were selling, trying to be attentive, attempting to show her that he was the one man who was different, that he wasn’t afraid of settling down.

  But he had forced himself to accede to her wishes and had backed off. Restricting the previously daily phone calls, e-mails, and text messages first to every other day, and then to two-, three-, four-, and five-day stretches.

  His contacts became less frequent, but no surprise in hindsight, so did hers. Until eventually she didn’t call at all. The wound left by her abrupt dismissal still hadn’t healed. Damon knew he could be pushy at times, even needy on occasion, but he couldn’t have been all that bad.

  He had always paid for their dates, always picked her up in his car. He had laughed at her jokes even when they weren’t all that funny, tolerated her need to forage in every discount shop and boutique she discovered, and really tried to listen and empathize with her when she raged about her bosses at work. But it had all been to no avail.

  At first, unwilling to accept the finality of their breakup, he had left message after message, via phone and computer, seeking answers from her. She had never responded.

  Her coldness had hurt him, pissed him off even. He had contemplated, on more than a few occasions, driving over to her apartment to demand an explanation, or at least to see if another man had taken his place.

  But he had never done so. Not so much because he was afraid of what he might do, or whom he might find, at Cheryl’s apartment. He was disgusted by the thought of what he would do. Which was nothing but cry and beg Cheryl for another chance, or even worse: ask her to be his friend.

  The one thing he hated almost more than anything, being the neutered friend. Always reliable, infinitely understanding, and forever listening as women wringed out their frustrations about how bad their boyfriends were treating them, but never once letting the thought enter their minds that the friend they were leaning on might be the better choice for them. Instead they were more content to often use said shoulder like a tissue, discarding him as soon as he was no longer needed.

  Damon had been down that road far more times than he could count. The very thought of contemplating such self-castration dissipated the na
gging curiosity he had over the breakup. He had forced himself to let it go, or at least to continuously tell himself that he had moved on, which was good enough.

  He just accepted the maxim that he would never understand women. He was almost thirty now and he felt as confused around them as he had since puberty.

  But he had at least discovered one thing about females along his journey: For the most part, they were confused themselves, if not outright deceivers, then self-deluded about what they really wanted in a man.

  In almost every magazine, book, TV talk show, or movie, black women complained about black men, declaring them dogs, cheaters, abusers, freeloaders, ad infinitum. But it was these same louts, the thugs, the bad boys, that these women were constantly spreading their legs for. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t logical. But it was real. Women were just creatures of drama, unable to leave a pot unstirred, he had bleakly realized.

  Not at all like the women at the club....

  Damon smiled at the familiar hardening in his pants that occurred whenever the thought of Tamales slid into his mind. An hour out of town, Tamales was the best shake joint Damon had ever been to. Most of the women were fine, the drinks were cheap, and the music decent, though a little hard-core for his taste. Best of all, the dancers knew how to treat a brother. Like a real man, he thought: attentive, accommodating, willing to listen to his needs, concerns, and desires for a change.

  So what if it was all an act that ended when the cash ran out? So-called real relationships were often fueled by the green, too. His own relationship train wrecks, along with the stories he had heard from his relatives and friends, attested to that.

  Damon tapped the keyboard on his computer, deactivating the screen saver. Not a fan of watches, he checked the time in the right-side bottom of the screen: 5:45 p.m.

  Only fifteen more minutes. Time’s stretching out forever today, he sighed. But of course, Fridays were always like that. Fridays that fell on the first of the month, payday, were the worst.

  Leaning back in his chair, he was content to let the dwindling minutes run out like sand grains in an hourglass. He closed his eyes, holding back a yawn as he imagined sitting in front of Tamales’ main stage, with his favorite dancer, Hypnotize, opening her legs for him, pulling a hot-pink G-string to the side to show him a special treat.... Unbidden, his hand made its way to his crotch, massaging his expanding hardness.

  “Mr. Mitchell,” an amused voice softly trilled.

  Damon almost fell out of his seat. Scrambling to recover, he began shifting books and papers around on his desk. Damn, he had forgotten to close his office door. Fridays were usually slow, with most of his residents either at the cafeteria or heading home at this time of day. He hadn’t expected anyone to walk by his office, or stop by to see him. But of course, he hadn’t expected to be fantasizing about the pussy he would hopefully be seeing shortly, either. If Hypnotize accepted my apology, that is, the sour thought cooled his anticipation.

  “Girl, don’t ever creep up on a man when he’s sleeping,” he huffed jokingly, trying to play off both his arousal and his trepidation.

  Aria, one of the shapely cheerleaders residing on the second floor of Hayes Hall, merely smiled at him, her hazel eyes bright. “My light went out.”

  Not sure if she was giving him a pass or not, but grateful if she was, Damon slipped into his professional, dorm director mode. “Which light? Overhead? Closet? Desk?” She pointed at the ceiling.

  “Overhead, huh?” he asked.

  Aria nodded.

  Normally, he would advise residents to write a service request and leave it in the tray on the counter outside his office for Housekeeping to attend to on Monday. But what the hell? Damon thought. By the time he finished installing her bulbs it would be past time to get off. Plus, he didn’t mind spending a few minutes gazing at Aria’s luscious form before the real fun began.

  “I’ll have to go to the housekeeper’s closet to get you two new bulbs.” He got the statement out before a yawn finally escaped from his lips. He shook his head, hoping he wasn’t getting sleepy. He had been hitting the sack pretty early lately. He hadn’t really known why, chalking it up to advancing age. It wasn’t a real concern because he didn’t have much to stay up for anyway. But this Friday night, payday, was a different animal. He was going to Tamales, if not by willpower, then girded by Red Bull. Jangling the large ring of keys in his pocket, he gestured gallantly with his free hand. “After you, Ms. Jenkins.”

  Damon didn’t even hide his smile as Aria bounced out of his office, her apple ass straining against tight purple shorts. He was going to have a good time tonight whether Hypnotize could be mollified or not.

  The third beer eased Damon’s mind but not his disappointment. Slouching farther down in the wooden chair at the back of the room, he sighed at both the empty stage and its ancillary, the blinking string of Christmas lights adorning each only highlighting their barrenness. Beyond the main stage’s single pole, he saw his reflection in the large mirrors covering the wall behind it.

  Damon shifted his eyes away, not wanting to see himself. Afraid of what he would see glaring back at him: a chunky loser clutching a sweating bottle of beer, eagerly awaiting the arrival of women who would be in his company only if he paid them to be.

  Damon instead turned his attention to the nearly deserted club. Two guys, with the worn-down, disinterested mien of locals, played pool at one of the three pool tables beside the bathroom and dancers’ changing room.

  At the bar, the club’s burly owner, bartender, and bouncer, a walking slab named Vern, polished a beer mug absently, a similarly bored look mixed into his perpetual scowl.

  The only dancer who even appeared to be in the vicinity of Tamales squatted on a stool by the bar, her porcine face stuck in the video poker machine on the bar top.

  Damon had never seen how Peaches got any business. Her very noticeable gut hung down from her frame as if gravity was drawing it to the floor. He imagined that he could see her stretch marks and varicose veins even from where he was sitting. But of course, he had been here enough times to see her ply her raunchy wares for old men who didn’t want to go home just yet to their wives, and young boys who couldn’t distinguish between easy and stank.

  Damon glanced at his watch. He hated wearing them, the bands always cutting into his wrist, but he really didn’t like losing track of time, or too much of his money, in a place like this. He liked to maintain a modicum of common sense, of self-control, a feeling that he could leave any time he wanted to.

  He had made the watch a part of his pre-Tamales ritual, which also included a shower, a fresh set of clothes, and even a few dabs of cologne.

  It was approaching ten o’clock. He belched his displeasure. This had to be the slowest Friday night in the history of Tamales. Usually the girls would start filing in at nine on Fridays because of the good crowd and flowing money. Tamales usually fielded ten to fifteen honeys on Friday.

  Of course, his girl, Hypnotize, would usually arrive about thirty minutes after the others, making a grand entrance, usually in something low cut, pumps accentuating the curves of her stallion legs. The night she had first come to his attention Hypnotize had been really bold, sashaying straight into Tamales wearing nothing but pasties and a thong.

  She had playfully bumped her hip against his shoulder before ascending the steps and dispatching the pretender to her throne. The poseur, a lithe beige newbie calling herself Star, had cut her eyes at Hypnotize, rolling her neck to get Vern’s attention. Damon had followed the rookie’s eyes. Ensconced, as usual, behind the bar, the big man had merely shrugged.

  Star had snatched up her bra and a few, but not all, of the dollars the patrons had thrown on the stage for her, and stomped off. The DJ had continued playing records, unperturbed by the spat. And Hypnotize had not disappointed.

  Damon had never seen the rookie again. Surprisingly, he had felt a little sorry for the girl. Hypnotize had jacked her spot, and Vern should’ve intervened. A su
pervisor himself, he knew how unwise it was to play favorites or choose sides among subordinates, but then again, he really couldn’t blame Big Vern.

  Hypnotize was a star, in fact, the real star of Tamales. Five seven, butter pecan skin, and a voluptuous figure with tits and ass for days on end, she was the belle of the ball. Intricately woven, reddish-tinged microbraids wreathed her heart-shaped face, going all the way down to the small of her back. Despite her stunning physical dimensions, Damon had found her eyes, of all things, to be her best feature. Large, brown, warm, and soft, they reminded him of the thick chocolate chips in the cookies his mother would make when she felt in the mood for baking.

  They weren’t the hard, predatory orbs belying the practiced smiles on many of the other dancers, constantly scouring customers for the biggest paycheck. And blessedly, they weren’t the dulled glaze of the girls willing to do anything for a hit.

  No, Hypnotize was different. Actually demure, after a fashion. Nothing at all like her onstage persona, he would come to find out. Damon had almost spilled his beer when she had asked him to buy her a drink about a month after the Star incident.

  He had promptly done so, and she sat down across from him, ample breasts spilling out of her powder-blue top. Hypnotize had sipped the Long Island iced tea quietly, her tongue flicking delicately over the straw every few seconds like a serpent seeking a vibration or scent.

  Damon had known he was ready to be her prey from that moment on. But she hadn’t asked him for a table, lap, or private dance like so many other girls did almost immediately when they approached him. She had asked him something much more shocking. Hypnotize had asked him his name.

  “Da-Damon,” he remembered stuttering, not sure if he should’ve supplied a fake name instead. He hadn’t wanted anyone to even know he had set foot in Tamales, much less know he was a damn-near fixture. Damon had never liked people being in his business. Her eyes had sparkled at him, and she had rewarded his awkwardness with a flawless smile.