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Vessel

Posted on April 24, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

“Wait. No really, just wait. Okay now! Check it out. Don’t let her see you. Just look at her and tell me you wouldn’t hit that. Well guess what, she can’t be hit. You can’t ask her out, you can’t buy her a drink. You can’t have relations with her for love or money. How fucked up is that? I mean look at that ass! She could stop traffic at Times Square with that ass. She could end world hunger with that ass. Hell I’d give all my money to Africa if she flashed those titties in my face!”

“But forget about it man. No sale! I tried! Nothing. She’s shot down more brothers than the anti-aircraft guns in World War II. It can’t be done, I’m telling you!”

With a sales pitch like that I had to give it a shot. It’s the reason why men swim the oceans and jump off tall places with just a rubber band around their legs. What else you going to do in a neighbourhood where everybody knows everybody’s business before they know it themselves?

Old Mr. Berkeley on the third floor of Five was walking like a man with a hernia long before the bruising and pain made him see a doctor. Little Ms Walters on the seventh floor of Nine got all kinds of anonymous donations long before she even realised money would be tight that month. She didn’t know whom to thank so everybody got a key lime pie. I hate key lime but Ms Walters is cool.

Shariqua in number six on Six thought she’d abort her baby without anyone knowing. Since KayShaun from three on Seven was the father everybody knew something was wrong because the two inseparables could no longer be put together, anywhere at any time. Somebody blabbed at the wrong time, her mother walked by, heard the whole thing and beat Shariqua to within an inch of her life. She got the abortion but she also got sent away to live with some uncle in the sticks. KayShaun would have been Bobbitized if it hadn’t been for the intercession of Pastor Oyle.

He rubbed Shariqua’s mother’s shoulders and encouraged her to forgive the boy. Mrs. Wallace, Shariqua’s mother, attempted to jump the good looking man of God but the brother got away before his own secret came out. Nobody knows it but everybody knows Pastor Oyle’s got a secret. All the kids in the neighbourhood, they were just hoping the Pastor would have himself a daughter and call her Olive.

Silly things amuse a brother sometimes.

The point was, everybody knew everybody’s business so I knew I had to make my move on the outside. If I was going to get shot down it wouldn’t be where my clowns could see. Word would get out for sure, but I’d be able to control the damage. And if I made the hook up…hell, everybody would know then!

I’d get my strut on, walk around with my arm around that itty-bitty waist and everybody would know I’d tapped that traffic-stopping ass!

Her name was Moesha and even though I didn’t want to be thinking of no television character while I was trying to get my flow on there was no denying that she wore the name better than some chick on TV. That girl had some freaky ass teeth!

Now our Moesha had skin the colour of honey, and from the distances I was used to seeing it, it looked about as smooth. She rocked the braids sometimes and sometimes she wore her mane straight but I liked it best when she let those natural curls frame her face.

Kind of like Julia Roberts before she became a demanding ass superstar.

Which was way better than that flat-as-a-table-top do Vanessa Williams paraded and liked so much.

I had school and a job but I cut down on lounging-on-a-stoop time to follow her around. I had to get my fix on her routine so I could finally run into her accidentally (on purpose) in a neutral setting.

Now around the neighbourhood we live in, if a brother wants some coffee, he puts the kettle on. So imagine my surprise to find Moesha drinking cup after cup of some gourmet shit at a fancy ass coffee bar in town.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Was she a rich kid hiding out in the semi-projects? No girl who could afford to pay ten dollars for coffee needed to be living in our neighbourhood. Not that we was poor or nothing. Just that nobody in their right minds would be paying the price of two meals for one cup of coffee.

The good thing about our neighbourhood was that it hadn’t become a magnet for hustlers, yet. No drugs on the street meant no mad money to flaunt. Only beat up Civics and ten-year-old Cadillacs on our street, y’know what I’m saying? I couldn’t remember an Escalade driving through our neck of the woods, not even because the driver was lost.

So what was this fine ass coffee-drinking hot tamale doing on the first floor of Eight?

I had to take a couple of extra shifts to make some extra cash and then stay up several nights to catch up on the homework I missed. By the time I thought I had enough to make my move I looked so raggedy ass I had to put myself to bed and get my rest in so that I didn’t look like no hobo looking for no handout.

Nearly a month passed before I made my move.

The clerk behind the counter had to tug extra hard to take my ten dollars. I took four sugars and an extra cookie but it still didn’t make it right to pay that much for coffee. I wandered out into the sunshine knowing fully well that hers was the only single-occupancy table.

“Excuse me, would it be okay if I sat down. All the other tables seem to be occupied.”

She looked at me but all I could see was my own dumb ass face holding a ten dollar cup of coffee reflected in her giant sunglasses.

When she took them off my knees buckled. Distance did not do justice to this girl’s hotness.

And then she smiled.

There was no way I could drink my coffee just then. My heart was already racing like a Bone Thugs N Harmony rhyme. A shot of caffeine to the system and I’d Road Runner all the way home.

“Sure. Have a seat.”

“Thank you. I’m Reggie.”

“I know who you are.”

“You do?”

“You’re from Three right? “

“Wait, you’re from the neighbourhood? Where you live?”

The sunglasses were on her head and she was looking at me all sceptical but I played it cool and sipped on my coffee.

Damn!

Ten dollar coffee tasted good.

She was watching me drink so I had to make it look like I’d done this before. Not easy. I wanted to make love to that coffee. Treat it right, buy it flowers and shit. I couldn’t believe I was getting all excited about a cup of coffee when I was sitting with the hottest girl on my latitude.

“So I guess they got backup hunh?”

“I’m sorry?”

“There’s no way a man from the neighbourhood is buying coffee in this place unless someone else is paying for it.”

“What do you mean? You drink coffee here.”

“Exactly.”

“Not following.”

“Cut the cute, we’re on the same side.”

“That’s good.”

She stopped talking, which was fine by me, because I had just discovered the cookie that came with the coffee. My mouth was having an orgasm and I didn’t want to be talking if I could help it. If I had a hundred dollars right then I’d probably have bought every cookie in the store and washed it down with more ten dollar coffee. I didn’t care if I didn’t sleep for a month. That shit was the shit!

When I finally saw the bottom of my coffee cup I thought I was going to cry. I even thought of borrowing money form her to score some more.

“You ready to leave yet?”

She had dropped her sunglasses back onto her nose.

“Hunh?”

“Come on, you can walk me home.”

Goddamn! Reggie was about to become the man in the neighbourhood.

“You feel like you need a little piece of Reggie hunh girl?”

There was a look, I couldn’t tell what it meant. Fucking sunglasses!

When we turned the corner there was nobody around. Not on any of the stoops, not in any of the windows. What the hell!

She took the stairs, I was right behind her. I would have kept on walking all the way to heaven if it meant that ass was in front of me for the entire journey. Forget traffic, that thing could hypnotise world leaders into abandoning the arms race.

It was turning into a day of discovery and disappointments for me though. First the coffee that didn’t go on forever and now the apartment on the very first floor…a brother needs exercise. Come on!

But what was I talking about, right? This fine Nubian princess was about to give me all the exercise I needed. A ten dollar investment seemed like a bargain when it paid for the Rockefeller Center…

Her apartment was like a damn command centre or something. There were maps and schematics…who knows what else. I didn’t understand a word of what was written on any of the charts or pictures. I said to her, “You’re not an alien right? Because it would make sense if an alien turned into a super hot chick and drank ten dollar coffee.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What is that? That ain’t English.”

“It’s Arabic. What’s wrong with you?”

“What is this place?”

“Wait, you’re not my handler?”

“Now we’re talking. Come here. Let me show you how Reggie handles a fine ass woman like you…”

I went over to put my arms around her waist, pull her in for a little lip-on-lip action if you know what I’m saying, but she pushed me. Hard.

That bitch was strong!

“Baby, what the hell?”

“I’m not your baby.”

“We can change that. I can treat you real nice. Put on some Barry White, pour us some wine …you like wine, right? Of course you like wine, I can get us some wine…it’ll be nice.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Of course you do!”

“No I don’t. We don’t.”

“We? Who’s we? Someone else in here?”

“Us! Our people. The Vessels of Wrath. We don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t…fornicate.”

“Fornicate? What the hell is fornicate. I don’t think I’d do that either. Sounds nasty!”

“Sex.”

“Amen.”

“Fornication is the act of sexual congress.”

“For real?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t…?”

“None of us do.”

“I’m confused.”

“Have you been following me around just so you could pick me up?”

“Pick you up? That’s so…wait, you knew about that?”

“You’re not my handler.”

“Baby don’t be like that. I’m sure I can ‘handle’ you real nice.”

That’s when she pulled the gun on me man. Anybody want to tell me what’s going on, now’s the time. I know you got the bullet and shit but this shit still hurts like a motherfucker!

Officer Arnold turned away from the young man. Several officers were taking down the images, maps and schematics. Officer Dupree came over to watch.

“No sign of her.”

“Did we get the description out in time?”

“Hard to say. She obviously had an exit strategy.”

“Any pictures?”

“We’re canvassing the neighbourhood, trying to see if anybody has pictures from a party or something, word is she wasn’t very social.”

“Vessels of Wrath. That’s a new one right?”

“Who knows…It’s hard to keep up. They take five minutes to find a new name we spend five years picking up the pieces.”

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