Control, page 5
“How long has it been?” I continued.
“Man, she’s always been that way. It’s like the method she finds the most successful to control me. So, she puts her panties on lockdown. And I hate that shit! I don’t try to control her like that. When she needs money, I just give it to her. If I got it.”
He fell into another moment of silence. I could tell he was distressed. He was borderline manic-depressive, where you fluctuate from high, ecstatic energy to low, depressive energy. In fact, a large percentage of celebrities, athletes, and businesspeople suffered from it as a part of their everyday lifestyles. They were constantly up and down depending on the success and failures of their projects and aspirations, and they were more intimately involved in their careers than people who worked your typical nine-to-fives.
“Are you okay?” I asked through his silence.
Tyrell shook his head and didn’t answer. Not immediately. Then he said, “Am I wrong for wanting what I want in America? That’s the American way, right? We all want what we want. People just like to lie about it with that humble talk shit.”
I grinned. At least he was consistent. I said, “Well, right now you don’t have a choice but to be humble because you’re not in the position you want to be in. And maybe when you’re finally back in it, you’ll be humble.”
“Yeah, if I ever get another opportunity to do something to be humble about.”
“Oh, you will. I have faith in you. Just be patient and keep working.”
“And keep driving too,” he added. “This PDS shit is the only consistent hustle that pays the bills. Everything else be some-timing.”
As he continued to talk, all kinds of ideas began to flood my mind.
“Have you ever thought about working on a project with Charles Clay?”
Tyrell frowned as soon as I said the name. “Aw, man, that asshole ain’t thinking about working on a project with anybody unless it’s already paid for. That’s the problem I have now. I save up just enough to shoot a short pilot, but not enough to keep it going. Then an asshole like him would tell me to get the rest of the money before he budges on it.”
“What about writing and shooting a cheap horror movie? You could even cast a few of these rappers and singers who are all over Atlanta.”
I was thinking about Dark & Moody’s gothic funk music and Mrs. Melody’s acting capabilities. I was certain that she could do it. Her personality was natural for acting. I had other clients and associates who were actors and musicians in the Atlanta area as well, who could fill out the rest of the cast.
Hell, I began to think like a producer myself. I was diving all into the possibilities.
Tyrell said, “No matter what you do, you’re gonna need money to do it. And once you run out of it, ain’t nobody else putting it on the table for you.”
I said, “Well, how come these kids are able to get so much done? They don’t have any money.”
“Yeah, and what they’re doing ain’t quality shit, either. It’s potential,” he responded. “That’s the reason why they worked with me years ago. You show your potential early, and they’ll work with you. But that’s only when you’re young and don’t know any better. They figure they can control you then. But they don’t treat you the same when you’re older. Now you’re a problem because you have your own ideas and you know how you want to execute them.”
“Well, didn’t you have your own ideas when you were young? I don’t understand the difference,” I lied. I understood exactly what he was saying. It was always easier to control a kid just coming into the business with fresh ideas than an adult who knows the game already. It was similar to older men dating much younger women. These older guys considered it fun, easier, and much less costly than an older woman with kids, baggage, and lifelong issues. Guys with real money were the last ones to deal with all of that. And when they could afford a girl like Mrs. Melody, that’s who they went after. She knew it as well.
All of these strategic dots began to connect in my head while counseling Tyrell that early afternoon in my office. Then he looked at his cell phone and stood abruptly from the lounge chair.
“Well, it’s time for me to go. I gotta get back to driving. That constant pocket money is addictive. I just wanted to get in here and clear my head for a minute with all the shit I got going on.”
“So, you won’t mind me working on a few things for you?” I asked him. My brain was running a mile a minute on moviemaking.
Tyrell paused and shrugged. “Sure. See what you can do. I never stop people from trying to help me. They just stop doing it when they see how hard it is. But it’s easy when motherfuckers just say yes. That’s all they have to do.”
I nodded, agreeing with him, while thinking about Joseph Drake again. I said, “I know exactly what you mean. A lot of times the right people are right there in front of you, but getting them to say yes . . .” I stopped and shook my head, just thinking about it.
“And those same motherfuckers will drop twenty-five thousand on a vacation, and a hundred thousand on a birthday party,” Tyrell added.
I smiled and didn’t disagree with him. The city of Atlanta was full of pompous people with money. But it was their money, so they did whatever they wanted to do with it.
“So, are we setting up another session, or . . . ?” I wasn’t sure how he wanted to do it. But I wanted to help. I felt like I could help him. I was optimistic.
He said, “I’ll call you up on it. And if you get anything working just let me know.”
I nodded and said, “I will.”
“All right, I’ll catch you.” He walked out of my office, and that was it.
As soon as Tyrell left, my brain exploded like a bomb. I started pulling all of these random ideas together and had no clue what I was about to get myself into. But that’s life. Sometimes we don’t know where it’s about to take us.
DESTINY FLOWERS
Reflection 6
BY THE TIME DESTINY CALLED ME THAT SAME EVENING—RIGHT before closing up my office after five—I was distracted by a full plate of ideas and failed to give her my undivided attention.
“Ah, I’m just about to head out of the office for the evening. Can you call back tomorrow morning at nine? That way, you’ll be my first call,” I told her.
“Well, I just wanted to catch you before you left. I mean, I know you close up after five, and I didn’t want to call while you were still in a session. So, I called right after.”
“Okay, well . . . again, you’ll be better off catching me in the morning where I can really focus on you. I’m sorry.”
“I mean, it’s not gonna take long. I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes.”
I paused. This girl was really pressing me. I said, “Well, are you trying to schedule a session?” I didn’t have time for free calls of rambling, and I tended to get that a lot when I allowed it. But at that moment, I was not in the mood.
She hesitated and said, “Okay, well . . . I’ll just talk to you in the morning then.”
That made it sound as if she wasn’t prepared for a session. She just wanted to talk.
“Good, I’ll speak to you in the morning then. What’s your name again?”
“Destiny. Destiny Flowers.”
I nodded. “Oh, okay, it’s Destiny. My bad. The caller ID didn’t pop up. But yeah, call me in the morning, nine AM, sharp.”
“All right. Are you gonna be there?” she asked me, uncertain.
I grinned and said, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m here every day. So, just call me at nine.”
“Are you there on the weekends too?”
I paused. Some people just knew how to rub you the wrong way. I answered, “No. I just meant the weekdays.”
“Oh, okay, because you said every day. And some people do work on Saturdays and Sundays.”
“Well, I meant the weekdays,” I repeated.
“All right, well, I’ll call you tomorrow then.”
As soon as I hung up with her, I shook my head and grabbed my things to leave out.
“I don’t know what it is, but something is definitely off with this woman,” I mumbled to myself. Sometimes you can just sense it.
JOSEPH DRAKE
Reflection 7
A GAINST MY BETTER JUDGMENT, I CALLED JOSEPH DRAKE THAT evening to see where he was on what we had discussed in his office a week ago. But I already understood how businessmen liked to operate. It was all about them calling you, and not you calling them. But I didn’t care anymore about the bullshit of protocol. So, I dialed his office number anyway.
“Capital Exposure Unlimited,” his receptionist answered.
I smiled. I guess she was working after hours again. But it was only after five.
“Is this Rochelle?” I asked.
She perked up. “Yes, it is. Who’s calling?”
“It’s Dr. Victoria Benning. Is Joe available?”
“Oh, hi! How are you? Ahhh . . . I think he’s finishing up a conference call, but I’m not quite sure. Let me check in with him and see.”
“Okay, you do that.”
She was so full of carefree energy. I really admired that. She didn’t seem to be boggled down by any issues, like the rest of us. Or maybe that was just her act at the job.
“Okay, he said he can get to you in just a few minutes,” she informed me. “Can you hold?”
I nodded while waiting at my desk. “Yeah, I can hold.”
“Okay, great. I’ll punch you both in when he’s ready.”
As soon as she put me on hold, I began to think about Destiny Flowers again. She was a thirty-something sister from Cleveland, Ohio. I had spoken to her a few times previously, and she was all over the place, a wannabe actress, singer, dancer, and a hopeless dreamer arriving in Atlanta eight years ago to try her luck at becoming rich and famous in the entertainment industry.
How original was that? Thousands of people wanted to become rich and famous entertaining in Atlanta now. And many of them were not successful.
When Rochelle clicked me back on the line with Joe, I was still daydreaming.
“Victoria, are you there?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m still here. I just zoned out for a second,” I told her with a chuckle. “I got a lot on my plate.”
“Don’t we all,” she responded. I wasn’t expecting that from her. “Anyways, let me plug you back in with Joe.”
“Thank you.”
Joe was still full of bravado when he jumped on the line. “Hey, Victoria. I never thought I’d hear back from you again.”
“Why? I thought we agreed to stay in touch and develop a real game plan for the money.”
“I mean, yeah, we talked about that. But with the way you left, I wasn’t quite sure if you still believed in it. You were pretty teed off at me.”
“Well, I just know how difficult it is to qualify for money when you’re not used to the process. It’s like asking someone to cook a meal in a new-technology kitchen. If they don’t understand how the stove works, even though they know how to cook the meal, they won’t be able to do it in that particular kitchen, because they don’t know what they’re doing in it.”
He paused a second. He said, “I see what you mean. That’s a pretty good analogy. They know what they’re doing, they just don’t know your particular process.”
“I’m just trying to make sure you understand me. Because we’ll have a few people who can pay the right folks to qualify them, and others—who really need the money—who can’t afford to do that. But if you could help prepare the people I bring to you . . .”
“Yeah, but that’s really not my job,” he said, cutting me off.
“You need to make it your job,” I countered. “That’s why I was upset when you introduced this to me. I already know where this is going, and you already know what’s needed to qualify.”
When he paused longer, I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad one. Was it a positive pause of consideration or a negative pause of deliberation?
Finally, he said, “You’re really gonna push hard for this.”
That confused me. Did he take me as just someone to share his emotions with, or did he really want me to help him qualify minorities for millions, and maybe billions, in business capital?
I responded real calmly, “It seems to me that you just want to talk about qualifying people and not actually help them to do it. Was that your intent with me? You just wanted me to analyze your feelings about it?”
After all, I was a psychologist. Maybe I had taken his business conversation the wrong way. But he surely didn’t introduce the idea to me professionally with the after-hours alcohol. So, I didn’t know what to think.
He answered, “No, I’m not just here to talk about it. It’s all gonna happen. We just have to figure out how.”
Once I had rooted him back into our previous conversation, I was ready to make my pitch. “Okay, so . . . you do know that we’re in Atlanta, right?”
“Right.”
“And you know that Atlanta’s the new entertainment capital for Black people,” I hinted.
“Okay. I get that.”
I paused. “. . . Are there any considerations in having some of this money to finance a new minority studio that includes film, television, and music?”
He chuckled. “I see where you’re going. You mean like a new Tyler Perry?”
“Well, not so focused on one person, but yeah, a film studio with music included.”
“Ahhh, the entertainment thing is always risky,” he whined.
I was waiting for him to say that. Many financiers viewed entertainment as risky. But not with that kind of money in Atlanta. So, I told him.
“Are you kidding me? When a certain market is hot for something specific, you jump in it and go with it. That’s like saying oranges are risky in Florida. Vacations are risky in Jamaica. Or a Broadway show is risky in New York City. I mean, that’s what those areas do. And Atlanta does television, music, and film now. They even have major tax breaks for it here. Am I wrong?
“Now, if I asked you to finance an entertainment studio in Camden, New Jersey, that would be a different story. That would be more risky,” I added. “But it makes sense down here in Atlanta.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. It’s the reality show capital of America,” he joked. “Do you have a certain company in mind to bring to the table?”
I smiled. “I’m working on that now. I just wanted to see if it was a possibility first.”
He said, “Everything is a possibility if the numbers look right.”
I nodded. That was positive. I said, “I’m already on it.”
TYRELL HODGE
Reflection 8
IT’S FUNNY HOW SOME OF YOUR MOST CREATIVE AND TALENTED people are just . . . off sometimes. Kanye West and Kyrie Irving immediately come to mind as two creative and popular Black men who consistently get themselves into trouble with their eccentricities. They don’t seem to view or respond to the world the way that normal people do—if there’s even such a thing as normal. Dark & Moody had a valid point about that. We are all crazy. It’s just a matter of what degree.
I had those thoughts in mind when I made a call to Tyrell Hodge that same evening after work. By that time, I was back in my car headed for home through Atlanta’s rush hour. So, I was headed nowhere fast.
“Hello,” he answered gruffly over his car’s speaker system. I was using my car’s stereo system as well.
“Are you able to talk?” I asked him. He was damn-near a full-time PDS driver now, addicted to the consistent money. He told me so himself. Driving was the total opposite of the slower, wait-for-it money of writing for hire. Not to mention the dozens of people who would renege on his writing jobs or not have all the money once he completed it. The PDS money came immediately, and as soon as his passengers hopped out of the car.
“Yeah, I got a minute,” he answered. “You caught me right before my next ride. What it look like? How’d your day go?”
Since we knew each other off the clock, Tyrell would check in with me every now and then, and I did the same with him. He just wanted someone to understand what he was going through, and I figured I could help him to manage his disappointments. But finally, I had something big that I could share with him.
I asked him, “Have you ever talked to venture capitalist or hedge fund managers about funding any of your projects?”
“Ahhh, man, fuck them guys,” Tyrell responded tartly. “You never qualify for any of that shit. Getting that money is like playing the lottery. You might as well play eenie, meenie, miney, moe with your toes, trying to get that shit. Now you got these Bitcoin guys talking their shit and can’t even spend the money. What’s the point in having a million dollars in Bitcoin money if you can’t cash it and do something with it? But these guys are forever bragging about how much their coins are worth.”
I had gotten used to allowing Tyrell to express his ire before I advised him on anything. That’s just how he was, a talk-first and listen-later kind of guy.
I said, “I’m working on something right now, so I’m gonna need some of those creative ideas of yours.”
“For a venture capitalist?” He sounded doubtful.
“I’ll let you know when I get further along with it. Just start pulling out your best ideas.”
He laughed and said, “Oh, so you must be going after some big-money people, because if you’re asking me for my best shit . . .”
Tyrell may have been frustrated, but his ego was still intact. And he really could write. His work was fast and furious and still good. He just had to learn how to pitch and sell it better. And that wasn’t going to happen with all of his ongoing frustrations.
I grinned and said, “I told you it’s big money. But I’ll handle it. Just start pulling your best stuff out.”
“All right, well, forgive me if I don’t hold my breath for it,” he commented.
“I didn’t ask you to,” I told him. “I know how this process works. It’s tedious. And if it wasn’t, everybody would do it. But just start thinking about your best work.”
