Control, page 13
“Well, is there a special woman who has you thinking about that?”
Joe paused and thought of his biracial daughters. “Two actually,” he answered.
“Oh my God,” Katherine groaned. “You’re such a diva.”
“It’s not actually what you think though. I just need a little more time to work it all out,” he told her.
“Joe, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not gonna work anything out with two women. That’s crazy,” his sister leveled with him.
Joe continued to smile while not telling his sister the details. He liked it that way.
“It’ll all come out,” he mumbled.
“Okay. Whatever. Next topic.” Katherine was ready to move on from it. “Have you spoken to Mom and Dad lately?”
It was hardly an every-week phone call in their family. Sometimes they could go months without talking to each other, especially the three brothers. They all viewed life very differently.
Joe said, “I’ll get around to it. You know that.”
“What about Mike and Tommy?” his sister asked him about their brothers.
“Same deal. I spoke to Tommy a week ago.”
“Was it a long one?”
Joe shook it off. “Not really.” His estranged family was one of the main reasons for his disconnect in life. Outside of Katherine, Joe didn’t really bother with them. And he surely didn’t want to tell them about his fetish for Black women, let alone inform them about two biracial daughters out of wedlock. He had to warm up to even consider telling Katherine.
“What if I had to make a choice between two Black women?” he blurted.
“What?” Katherine responded dryly. Was he joking? Did she hear him correctly? “You said two Black women?”
“Yeah, what if that was my choice?”
He was prepared to ease his sister into the conversation, little by little.
“Are you serious?” she asked him. It wasn’t particularly shocking, she just wanted to know if her brother was pulling her leg or not.
“I’m just saying hypothetically,” Joe bullshitted, backing off a bit.
Katherine jumped right in on him. “There’s no hypothetical to that. You’re dating two different Black women?”
“I used to,” he corrected her.
That made his sister even more confused. She stopped her work and said, “Okay, what’s going on here?” The whole time she had been working while talking, but now her brother had her undivided attention.
She said, “If you used to date them, then what’s the point? You’re trying to go back? To both of them?”
He wasn’t making much sense to her, and he still wasn’t open to explaining it all. Not yet.
“Something like that,” he told her.
“All right, I’m done with it. You’re obviously talking in pieces right now, so you call me when you’re ready to discuss all of it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m not quite there yet,” he admitted. “I’m working toward it though.”
“Yeah, you’ve always been the loose cannon of the family,” Katherine said with a chuckle.
“How do you feel everyone else will respond to it?” Joe asked her.
“So, is that what you’re trying to do, bounce this off me first?”
“Well, yeah. You know you’ve always been my favorite, most honest and trustworthy family member. Who else am I gonna talk to about this?”
Katherine paused again. She said, “You really wanna get serious with that? Like, there were no regular White girls that you cared anything about?”
It was a great question. There had been regular White girls. But that was the problem. They were all regular, where Joe wanted something extra, he just didn’t know how to commit to that extraness long-term.
“Yeah, I gotta . . . I gotta just work all of this out,” he responded.
It wasn’t just the race issue, it was the overall perception that he worried about. But it was what it was. He was attracted to the deep rootedness of Black history, and the history of his own family, who had sired a half dozen mixed-race slaves. Joe felt as if he was haunted by it and possessed to do it all over again by the ghost of his great-great-grandfather.
He even felt compelled to ask his sister about it.
“Have you ever felt, ah, attracted to Black men at all?”
“No,” Katherine answered immediately. She was a married mother of three children with her White husband. She wouldn’t have said yes even if it were true. It would have felt like disloyalty to her husband. And she admitted as much.
“I mean, how could you even ask me that? I’m not some single woman in my dating years. I’m not you. And I’m not in your position,” she told her brother. In fact, he was starting to make her feel uncomfortable.
“What about when you were dating?” he questioned.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m getting back to work.”
Joe chuckled and said, “You can’t even answer the question?”
“No, I can’t. And I don’t want to. Because it doesn’t mean anything,” she commented. “And you have to let the guilt go,” she alluded. “We were not a part of slavery. Okay? We had nothing to do with that. But you’ve always been the one who was most disturbed by it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t want all of that on my conscience. And I have a right to ignore it, because I didn’t add to it.”
“Yeah, but ignoring it is adding to it. You don’t get that? There were millions of us who ignored it and let it go on for hundreds of years.”
Katherine said, “This is not the time to have this discussion. I’m at work right now. So. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to work, Joe.”
“That’s not gonna make it go away,” he countered.
“Make what go away?” she asked him. “I’m not the one calling you up feeling guilty about anything. And if you want to go out and marry a Black woman or two of them, for that matter, because it makes you feel better about the situation, then go right ahead. It’s your life. But don’t think everyone’s supposed to feel the same way you feel because we don’t. And you’re not gonna be able to force yourself on people that way.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Yes, you are,” she cut him off. “And it’s not fair.”
Joe frowned and said, “Nothing is fair in this world.”
“Well, you do something about it then,” she challenged him. “And dating two or three Black women is not it. Make yourself useful to them if you feel so guilty. Because I don’t. I’m sorry, but I haven’t done anything to them. Okay? Bye.” And she hung up on him.
“Katherine?” Joe spoke into his office phone. “Katherine?” he repeated for dramatic effect. He realized that his sister had already hung up the line on him. So, he exhaled and sunk into his chair, feeling like a lonely man in a big world.
“What the fuck did I do to my life?” he asked himself. I just made a big mess of it, he thought. Now I have to figure out what to do next.
TYRELL HODGE
Reflection 21
JOE WASN’T THE ONLY ONE WHO NEEDED TO FIGURE THINGS OUT. Tyrell Hodge was off his rocker as well, while driving like a demon for PDS. And he was making good money doing it too, to the tune of twenty-five hundred dollars a week.
But it didn’t matter to him. Tyrell wanted to be in the creative space of making movies, while no longer having the agreeable temperament or patience to make it happen. And as time wore on, with deal after deal falling apart on him, he continued to deteriorate into a very sour and unfulfilled man.
Nevertheless, he still had people in his corner who were willing to help him. For free.
“Look, just pull out something old, and let it go. Let me deal with it. Can you do that?” I told Tyrell on a late afternoon. He was out in the city of Atlanta driving hard and crazy as usual.
“Nobody wants anything old,” he argued. “They all want this kid shit now.”
Although he wasn’t landing anything big, he still talked enough about filmmaking and writing that he was constantly on his cell phone, even while driving some of his passengers, which was not good for the business. It made him appear very distracted. Nevertheless, he somehow got away with it, even after passenger complaints.
I said, “Tyrell, you really need to get out of your own way and let someone else pitch something for you.”
“People pitch shit for me all the time,” he barked. “And they come away with nothing. Or they come back and ask me to make a bunch of changes, which means they don’t really like it.”
“Or they could just need a few adjustments,” I countered.
“Well, in that case, they can sign the deal and make the adjustments in the rewrites, where they pay for them,” he snapped back. “I told you, I’m not a damn rookie out here. And I’m not gon’ let them treat me like one.”
At least he had a headset on where he could drive and talk with both hands on the wheel. So, he was perfectly able to make his turns when the airport exits popped up.
“I’ma call you back later. I’m heading into the airport now,” he commented.
“You don’t have anyone in the car, do you?” I asked him.
“Not yet,” he lied as I found out later. The truth was, he had done a whole conversation with me while a professional Black woman sat in the back seat, minding her own business. But she definitely heard him. Tyrell was a loud and clear Chicago speaker.
I said, “All right, well, I still want you to be a part of this project that I’m pulling together.”
I was just about to mention the name Charles Clay again, but I thought better of it. I didn’t want to end the call with Tyrell on a bad note.
He said, “All right, we’ll keep talking about it.”
* * *
As soon as Tyrell hung up, the woman in the back seat was right on his case.
“Are you a film writer or something?”
He looked back and said, “Yeah. I used to be. But when you get old, they throw you away.”
The attractive businesswoman in her mid-thirties smiled. “You don’t look that old.”
Tyrell grinned and said, “I’m not. But in the film and television writing business, once you hit forty, you’re old. So, I’m trying to figure out how to be young again.”
“You’re only as old as you feel,” she told him.
“Well, in that case, I feel like an ox. And I don’t need none of that Viagra.”
That wasn’t the most professional thing for him to say as a driver, and the woman felt uncertain about it. However, Tyrell didn’t say it with any flirtation or malice. He just said whatever the hell was on his mind. And those things were unscreened and uncensored. It was like taking a ride with Stephen King, Spike Lee, Dennis Rodman, or Howard Stern. You had no idea what they would say or where they would go with any given conversation.
The woman chuckled at Tyrell’s response and said nothing. It was safer to take the Fifth with him. She was a professional woman in a committed relationship, and she had a plane to catch. So, her trip was what she bothered to focus on.
When they pulled up to the Delta terminal, Tyrell hopped out and grabbed her luggage from the trunk to roll over to her on the curb.
“Thank you. I’ll give you a good tip,” she lied. She just wanted a pleasant conclusion to their awkward conversation.
Tyrell nodded. “All right. Thank you.” But he didn’t care about her tip. What was an extra five dollars on a trip where he had already made thirty? Then again, if he had been more friendly and thoughtful with some of his riders, maybe he could have earned another two hundred dollars a week in tips alone, which would amount to another ten thousand a year.
It was simple math and logic. Be nice and make more money. But Tyrell considered that to be too much work. He’d rather just be himself, a raw and unpredictable man.
I’m not going out of character for an extra five dollars, he argued.
That same hardcore, Chicago disposition is what stopped him from securing many film and television deals that could have easily swung in his favor with more sugar and cream in his coffee. But Tyrell refused to be sugared down, as if it would kill him.
He jumped back to work behind the wheel of his silver Chevy Malibu and took off for his next pickup, feeling a bit horny.
“Damn, she looked good,” he mumbled with a grin. He looked up into his rearview mirror to see if he still had a handsome look of his own. And he did. With a smooth brown mug of perfect symmetry, Tyrell had never been an unattractive man, he just had an unattractive attitude. Unless you were the kind of woman who liked his edge.
As a respected professional writer, Tyrell refused to realize that he didn’t need to be that South Side Chicago kid protecting his lunch money anymore. He didn’t have to fight the bullies in the schoolyard, and no one was coming to get him. But he couldn’t seem to get his environmental need for toughness out of his system. And it was taking longer than normal for him to let his old neighborhood ways go.
Feeling the hard-on from the attractive woman he had dropped off at Delta, Tyrell was inspired to call up his lady friend at work.
“Hello,” she answered softly.
“Hey, what you doin’?” he asked.
She paused. It was the middle of the day and she didn’t get off work until five. “I’m working,” she told him. But he knew that already.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about you, that’s all.”
“Okay.”
Tyrell paused, disappointed. “That’s all I get is an okay?”
“I mean, what do you want me to say? You know I’m at work.”
“It would be beautiful if you could say something like, ‘That’s nice. I can’t wait to see you later.’ How ’bout that?”
She went silent, so silent that he thought something was wrong with his phone.
“Hello?”
“Yes.”
“How come you didn’t say nothing?”
“I told you, I don’t have anything to say. I’m working.”
Tyrell exhaled and said, “Look, I take the time out to call you like this in the middle of the day, because I’m thinking about you, and all you got to say is, okay?”
“Why are you thinking about me, Tyrell?” his lady questioned.
“Because I love you,” he answered immediately. There was no hesitation about it. And he was not the kind of man to lie about his emotions. Everyone knew that. Tyrell was the last man on earth to tell you something he didn’t believe in, and he was proud of his honesty. It was the same bold honesty that got him into trouble in business, where everyone else would lie to get what they wanted.
His lady friend responded, “You love the fact that I’m still here. That’s all you love.”
Tyrell paused to think about it. He said, “Any man would love a woman’s who’s loyal.”
“Yeah, but you’re not loyal to me,” she countered calmly.
“Here you go with that shit again. I was just trying to get some, man. You can’t keep turning me down all the time and think nothing’s gonna happen. What’s wrong with you?” he fumed. “That’s obvious.”
“What if I went out and got some?” she asked him.
Tyrell cringed and said, “For what? I give you everything you need. You know that. You’re the one not giving me what I need.”
She said, “I can’t do this right now. I’m at work.”
“You never wanna fuckin’ do this!” he shouted. “That’s the problem. Then you come home and lock yourself in the bathroom all the time. What’s wrong with you?”
“Bye,” she told him and hung up.
Tyrell took a few seconds to process it all before he went ballistic.
“This fuckin’ woman! She’s driving me crazy!” he yelled inside the car. “Just fuckin’ leave her already! That’s what she wants you to do. It’s over! She just won’t say the shit! But she’s tellin’ you it’s over with her actions. Now she’s fucking torturin’ you!” he argued to himself.
“And I’m allowing the shit to happen by staying with her. Just fucking leave!” he ranted.
But he couldn’t leave her. With all of the chaos in his life, she was the only calmness and stability he had left. No matter what, Tyrell could always count on her serenity, to the point where he felt he might die if he left her. Maybe he would wreck his car in a fatal accident on the same day that he left. Or get sick with no one there to take care of him. So, he was terrified.
With no kids and an ex-wife who couldn’t handle him, he had been empty hearted for years before meeting her, and he didn’t want to go back to the emptiness. So, he accepted everything she dished out to him.
And sure, he still had friends and family. But it wasn’t the same as being cared for by a woman who knew him deeply and loved him. She just refused to allow him to consume her. And Tyrell could be an all-consuming man. There was no halfway with him. He wanted all of his woman. So, she held that one piece of her soul away from him. The piece that he needed the most. Sex, the human soul connection.
Whether women wanted to admit it or not, it was true. A man could be sucked into a woman’s soul through her vagina. And the more she gave it to him, the deeper he could fall in. Especially for an all-consuming man like Tyrell. He had never had that before, that unconditional love and sex. Not from a woman that he really wanted. And never as often in a real relationship. That’s what she did when he first met her. And he couldn’t get those happy days out of his head.
Even his four-year marriage had been pretended. Tyrell had previously married a woman who wanted to be with a famous man. He was younger then with plenty of success and money. However, he and his ex-wife had taken more public pictures than they had private lovemaking. It was a sham of a marriage that he was happy to be done with.
But after his divorce, he seemed to be chasing women forever, while never finding what he wanted. Or being able to get it once he found it. Until he found her. Or did she find him? Tyrell was confused about that part now. All he knew was that their relationship had changed, as soon as she moved in with him and failed at what she wanted to do in life. Then he began to fail at being there for her, because she was no longer there for him. She had tapped out mentally, physically, and spiritually, but he was still holding on to her anyway, hoping for a miracle of revision, where they could go back to the beginning.
