Disappearing Acts Read Free

that could come from just me licking ’em. Pauline was a hundred percent grade-A woman. Lived in the projects with her two-year-old son. Treated me like a whole man. She was going to secretarial school so she could get off welfare. That’s one thing I really liked about her. She tried. And Pauline had pride. She never called me, it was always me doing the calling, and I didn’t mind. Some women you just want, ain’t satisfied till you get ’em. Don’t ask
me what happened, but a few weeks ago when I called, she said she was busy. Busy? I let it go. The next day, I called back. She still busy. “What the fuck is going on?” I asked her. She didn’t say nothin’ for a minute. My chest was heaving. “Pauline, don’t play with me.” Then I heard her mumble something like, “I met somebody else.” Met somebody else? What? Who? I heard her say some shit like she was sorry, but I just hung up the damn phone. A man don’t need this kinda shit. What kinda dude could she possibly have found that could make her feel better than me? I hate this shit. I wanted to marry this woman. To tell the truth, my head was all fucked up, ’cause I kept sitting around wondering who the fuck it could be. And what he was doing for her that I wasn’t doing. Didn’t do. I kept drawing a blank, ’cause when I love a woman, I try to treat her like she’s the only woman in the world. Sometimes, I guess, that ain’t enough.
    That’s when I decided to take a vacation from all of ’em. They think they’re the only ones who can go without sex. Well, that’s a lie. A man’s mind is about the strongest thing he got going for him. Let women tell it, you’d swear our brains was all in the head of our dicks. Sometimes this shit is true, but right now I’m trying to get my constitution together. I’ve made too many stupid mistakes, too many bad decisions. I guess dropping outta high school was the biggest one. I ain’t never liked people telling me what to do. I couldn’t sit still for another two years, listening to that boring shit about America and how to write a fuckin’ sentence. Couldn’t just learn to add, subtract, and multiply. Naw. They had to make the shit even more confusing. But woodshop. Didn’t miss a class.
    This was just one more reason for my Moms to despise me. She started with my Pops and worked her way down to me. But he’s so damn henpecked, I still don’t know how he feel about me, really. To tell the
truth, I ain’t never been all that crazy about them either. But when you’re sixteen years old and already six foot two, ain’t much they can tell you. My Moms would lay it on thick, just running her fuckin’ mouth to hear herself talk. “You gon’ end up with a bullet hole in you, boy. You stupid, just like that sister of yours. Y’all shoulda been twins. Can’t do nothing right. Nothing. Sit up straight. Naw, just get outta my face. Make me wanna shoot you my damn self.” Pops usually stood in the background, pretending like he was doing something else, like he didn’t hear nothin’. He always ended up in the pantry, where he kept his scotch. But there was only so many more stupids I was gon’ be. One day I was gon’ punch her damn lights out.
    So I did what I wanted to do anyway. Shot dope. Played hooky. Fucked whatever was pretty and was willing to give it up. It took me fifteen years to get my GED. But I got it. Didn’t take me that long to give up dope. That shit got old. Had to scramble for it. Five nights in jail once, and that was enough for my ass. It wasn’t the kind of life I pictured for myself, that’s for damn sure. Neither was marrying Pam when I wasn’t nothin’ but twenty years old. She was so fine and so sweet, I couldn’t get past it. Everybody warned me. “Leave them West Indian women alone, man.” She was from Jamaica. Two babies later, Pam was a different woman. Fat as hell. Never felt like making love no more; we stopped that after Derek was born, and by the time