Married Men Read online

  I shook the memory of passion out of my mind and turned my attention to the back seat, where my three daughters sat smiling at me.

  “Bye, girls, I love you.” I smiled.

  “Bye, Daddiiee!” they replied in unison, blowing kisses tome.

  “I’ll call you later, Hun.” I kissed my wife again.

  “Do you want me to pick you up tonight, Kyle?”

  “Naw, it’s aw’ight. Allen’s going to Rose’s tonight. I’ll catch a ride with him.”

  “Okay, babe. I love you.” Lisa smiled.

  “I love you too.” I smiled back, stepping out of the van.

  “Kyle!”

  “Yeah, Hun?” I turned and spoke to her through the open window of the passenger side.

  “Last night was wonderful. Let’s do it again tonight,” she winked.

  I smiled as she pulled off. I didn’t tell her often enough, but I really loved my wife. It was times like these that reminded me just how much.

  As I watched Lisa pull away in the van, I thought about our life together. I’d fallen for her the day we’d met eight years ago, and she’d made me the happiest man in the world when she agreed to marry me a year later. We’d struggled the first few years when I maxed out the credit cards and used all our savings to buy a struggling African-American beauty supply business. The bill collectors were calling on practically a daily basis, harassing her whenever she answered the phone. Lisa had actually packed her bags to leave me, the stress had been so bad at one point. The truth is, if it wasn’t for our first daughter, I would have let her go. Our relationship was so strained because of money, there were more than a few nights I didn’t want to come home. I didn’t want to face the dirty looks and the arguing. She just didn’t get it. We were going to have to struggle a little in the beginning if we were going to have a successful business. Lisa didn’t seem willing to struggle with me, and at times I resented it. To be honest, I didn’t think our marriage was going to last.

  But slowly and surely I turned the business into a successful chain, moving us out of our tiny Rochdale Village apartment and into a huge, five-bedroom house in the exclusive Jamaica Estates area of Queens. I’ll never forget the look on Lisa’s face as we lay together in our Jacuzzi bathtub the first night in our new home. It was the first time she’d looked truly happy in years. Not that my wife was a materialistic person, but a $500,000 house will do that to you after you’ve lived in fear of not making the rent every month. The day we moved into our own house was the day my life went back to normal and my wife became my wife again.

  I checked my watch as I walked up the stairs to the Long Island Railroad. It was only 10 A.M. I had plenty of time before my train, so I took out my basketball from my duffel bag and practiced dribbling on the platform. I was on my way to Chelsea Piers in Manhattan where my friends and I would whup some ass on the basketball court against another team trying to recapture their youth.

  I wasn’t a great basketball player, like my friends Jay or Wil, or even good like Allen. The truth is, I couldn’t shoot worth shit. Jay had threatened to kick my ass if I took a shot this year, but that didn’t stop him from wanting me on the team. Especially since I was the most unselfish player in the group. Combine that with the fact that I could dribble and pass with the best of them, and I made the perfect point guard.

  As I practiced on the empty platform, someone slammed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground.

  “What the fuck!” I yelled as I watched my ball roll off the platform and onto the tracks. As I gathered my senses, I saw this tall, light-skinned teenager scrambling to his feet. That son of bitch didn’t say sorry, excuse me, or nothin’. He just took off down the platform.

  I was pissed! I’d just bought that damn ball, but there was no way I was going to jump down on those tracks to retrieve it. The train was due any minute. I looked down the platform and saw that the kid was still running. What the hell, I thought, struggling to my feet to give chase. I’d been a track star in high school and college so I caught up to him pretty fast, but before I could get my hands on him, my body reminded me I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was thirty-six years old, way past my athletic prime and about to pull a hamstring. I slowed down and watched the kid take off.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” I watched him getting away as I hunched over and struggled to catch my breath. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t catch him. What was I gonna do, make him go get my ball? Besides, these young brothas are crazy. For all I knew, he was packin’ a gun.

  Dusting off my sweatsuit, I went to get my bag, hoping it would still be there. I’d been the only person on the platform, but with the way my luck was going, anyone could’ve walked up and snatched it by now. Plus, I still wanted my damn ball back. I walked to the edge of the platform, and there it was, in plain sight, right by the third rail. I considered jumping down there to get it, but I’d never outrun a train with a pulled hamstring. I stepped back and was startled by a loud voice behind me.

  “Freeze, police!”

  I turned my head quickly. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was shocked to see two police officers pointing their guns at me.

  “I said, freeze! ” one of them screamed.

  I didn’t move, I didn’t blink, and I tried not to breathe. The last thing I wanted was to become another statistic. Amadou Diallo and every other brother who’d been wrongfully shot by cops taught me that lesson. I was just glad I had told my wife and kids that I loved them before they left, because you never know what could go wrong when cops have guns drawn. Especially in New York City. I was scared to death.

  “Officer, I’m gonna put my hands in the air. Please, please, don’t shoot me! I got a family.” I raised my hands slowly over my head.

  “Lock your fingers behind your head!”

  I did what I was told and thanked God when one of the cops let down his gun. He twisted my hands behind my back and handcuffed me. Even though I was handcuffed, I let out a long sigh of relief. Now I could get things straight and find out what was going on without worrying about a trigger-happy cop.

  “What did I do, Officer?” I asked, trying my best to be respectful. I kept telling myself the cops were only doing their job and this must be a big misunderstanding.

  “Stop acting stupid,” one officer said, slapping me in the back of the head.

  “Hey! What the hell’d you do that for?” I protested as I turned toward him.

  “Shet-the-fuck-up,” the other cop snarled, slapping me in the same place.

  “That old lady’s gonna be in the hospital a long time,” his partner said.

  “Hospital? Old lady? What’re you talking about?”

  The cops obviously didn’t wanna hear anything. Maybe cleaning up this misunderstanding would be harder than I thought. A small crowd gathered round as the officers frisked me roughly. And it was just my luck that three women who frequented my Jamaica beauty supply store were among the onlookers. I’d never been so embarrassed in my life.

  “What’d he do?” one of the women asked the sergeant, who was pushing his way through the crowd. I was happy to see the sergeant was a brother. Finally someone who would listen to my side of the story. He was an officer, but I figured every black man alive could relate to the whole mistaken identity thing.

  “He smashed a lady’s head in with a baseball bat over at the ATM on Archer Ave,” the sergeant explained to the woman with a look of disgust on his face.

  “Oh, my God!” The woman stared at me as her friend dragged her away.

  The sergeant stood in front of me. His face was so close I could smell the cigarette he’d been smoking earlier. “Ya know its niggas like you that give our people a bad name,” he whispered. So much for my hope. But I pleaded with him anyway.

  “Sergeant, I didn’t hit no woman with a baseball bat.” My voice cracked. “If ya just let me ex—”

  “You’re full-a-shit,” he interrupted, purposely spitting as he talked. “Before she passed out, that woman said it was a black m
an in a red sweatsuit. Then she pointed toward the train station. You the only one I see wearing a red sweatsuit at this train station.” He made a show of gesturing toward the crowd, pretending to search for more red-clothed black men.

  “Look, this young boy was runnin’ through here about ...” I tried to explain, hoping somehow to reach this brother through all his super-cop arrogance.

  “Sarge! ” My explanation was interrupted again, this time by one of the officers who had been searching my duffel bag.

  “He’s got three hundred bucks in his bag, Sarge. Crisp bills, like they came out of a bank machine. Plus, when we cuffed him, he was sweating all over like he’d been running.”

  “Read this son of a bitch his rights, Mike.” The sergeant growled. He didn’t even look in my direction as he strutted toward his car. I decided to try one last time to find some human compassion in this cop.

  “But, but, I didn’t do it. You gotta listen to me!” I practically begged. “I got that money from my account.”

  The sergeant spun around angrily. “Lemme give you some advice. One of your rights is the right to remain silent. Use it.”

  I watched the sergeant’s eyes get smaller. That’s when I realized I was in trouble, real big trouble. I decided to take the sergeant’s advice, remembering a time I’d heard Johnnie Cochran speaking to a group of black youth on television. When you’re arrested, never talk to the police. Always demand a lawyer.

  The officer read me my rights and shoved me into the squad car.

  “Now that you know your rights, would like to tell us why you robbed that old lady?” The officer finally asked without even looking at me.

  I had tears in my eyes and was struggling to hold them back.

  “Look, for the last time, I didn’t rob that old lady.” Being respectful had gotten me nowhere. “And I ain’t sayin’ shit till I have a lawyer.”

  “Suit yourself.” The officer shook his head.

  The rest of the trip to the station was in silence, save for the occasional squawk of their police radio. The lack of conversation left me with ample opportunity to worry about how the hell I would get myself out of this nightmare.

  2

  Allen

  The look on Jay’s face was frightening as he stared Malcolm down on the basketball court, and I kept waiting for one of them to snap and go off on the other one. Don’t get me wrong. I knew Jay had a quick temper, but for the most part he kept it under control. But for some reason he and my cousin Malcolm hadn’t gotten along since junior high school. They’d had at least five knock-down drag-out fights when we were kids, and a few more as grown men. And Jay looked like he was trying to provoke another one by talking shit as he hit shot after shot on the court.

  I’d asked Malcolm to join our team when Jay’s older brother Dump told us he wouldn’t be able to play after the first game. He was moving to Atlanta. Malcolm had just moved back from San Francisco and I figured that it was time to put this petty squabbling between him and Jay to rest. Besides, I knew Malcolm was a decent player, and we needed all the help we could get.

  I knew Jay was gonna have a problem having Malcolm on the team, and he protested the minute I opened my mouth to suggest it. But I’d already talked to Wil and Kyle, hoping to defuse the situation. Jay tried to bully me as usual, saying there was no way he would play on the same court as that uncoordinated fool. But Kyle intervened before the discussion got out of hand. He pulled Jay to the side for a little talk, and when they returned, Jay was cool. Now it looked like Jay had just delayed all of his aggression until they were actually on the court together.

  During their one-on-one, Jay played hard, and pretty much dominated the court. Finally, Malcolm got the ball and drove to the basket. He was about to finger-roll the ball like he was George “the Iceman” Gervin when Jay seemed to fly out of nowhere.

  “Get that shit outta here!” he screamed, slapping Malcolm’s shot away from the basket.

  I could hear a chorus of ooos and ahhs from the small crowd that had gathered around during our warm-up. Malcolm’s handsome high yellow face was now a hardened crimson red from the embarrassment. I felt kinda bad for him, but he was the one who had challenged Jay to the game of one-on-one. I tried to tell him Jay was one of the best players in the league, but he had to prove a point. Jay gave Malcolm a little shove with his hip and ran to the ball. He dribbled between his legs, laughing all the way to the basket, where he slam-dunked the ball.

  “Game, mothafucker!” he said confidently, throwing the ball hard at Malcolm, barely missing his face. I wasn’t sure if Jay had done it on purpose or not, but the look on Malcolm’s face said he took it personally.

  “Ay, what the fuck is yer problem?” Malcolm took a few steps closer, clenching both fists.

  “What! What! You got a problem? I’ll kick your pretty ass.” Jay lifted his fist as an invitation to fight.

  “Uh-oh,” I muttered. I was wondering if their little game was gonna come to this. Keeping the peace between these two was going to be harder than I imagined. I glanced up at the bleachers, hoping Wil would come down to help, but he had his ear glued to his cell phone. He was probably talking to his wife Diane. I loved Wil to death, but since he got married, he’d been one henpecked brother.

  “Jay, man, why don’t you just chill out? Malcolm’s on our team.” I stepped in between them and turned my attention to Malcolm. “You need to chill, too. He was just trying to pass you the ball.”

  “Fuck that punk,” Jay grunted, turning to walk away.

  “No, fuck you, faggot!” Malcolm returned the insult.

  “What’d you call me?” Jay screamed damn near jumping over me. Thank God his brother Dump grabbed him, ’cause he was out of control.

  “You heard me, faggot,” Malcolm smirked.

  I turned to Malcolm. “If you wanna play with us, you need to chill out. I told you before. This is Jay’s team. He’s the captain.”

  “I don’t give a shit whose team it is. Next time that faggot hits me with the fucking ball, I‘ma smack the shit out ’im,” Malcolm threatened, ignoring my warning. I guess he must have felt safe with Dump holding Jay, ’cause on a bad day, Jay’d kick his ass without much effort.

  “Lemme go, Dump!” Jay struggled like a madman to get out of his brother’s grasp.

  “Yeah, let ’im go, Dump.” Malcolm demanded taking a few steps closer.

  “You sure you want him to do that?” I asked Malcolm. “ ’Cause I’ll tell Dump to let ’im go.”

  Malcolm looked me in the eyes, probably wondering if I was serious. He must have been considering his options, ’cause he stood silently and glared at us for a few seconds before he finally sucked his teeth and turned to walk away. He knew he didn’t wanna mess with Jay. Last time he and Jay got in a fight was five years ago, and poor Malcolm got his ass kicked. He never even threw a punch.

  After Malcolm walked away, I pulled Jay to the side, trying to take his mind off the confrontation. I would deal with patching up their latest squabble later, when my friend was a little calmer, and a little less likely to hit anyone. “Jay, man, where the hell is Kyle? The game’s gonna start in ten minutes.”

  “I thought Wil was talkin’ to him on the phone. He shoulda been here.” Jay was still watching Malcolm walk across the court while he spoke.

  We walked up the bleachers to talk to Wil, who was frowning as he hung up his cell phone.

  “Yo, Wil, what’s up with Kyle?” Jay asked, as we sat beside our friend.

  “I don’t know,” Wil shrugged. “Lisa said she dropped him at the train two hours ago.”

  “Get that nigga on his cell phone,” Jay demanded.

  “Already tried. No answer.”

  “Damn! I’m tellin’ y’all, Kyle’s up to somethin’. He always answers his cell. He’s probably knee deep in some booty right about now.”

  “Not everybody’s like you, Jay,” Wil scoffed. “Besides, Kyle wouldn’t miss a game.”

  Jay smiled at me. “Yo, Al
len, tell ’im about that fine-ass nurse you and Kyle met last week. Didn’t she give Kyle her number?”

  “Please! She wasn’t all that. Kyle was just tryin’ ta be nice ’cause she was buying a whole lot of hair at his shop,” I told him.

  Like Jay, Kyle always had women trying to hit on him. He didn’t have those pretty-boy looks like Jay. He wasn’t bad looking, but he definitely wasn’t one of those light-skinned pretty boys. You’d be surprised how many fine women would try to seduce that brother. They’d come into his shop, figure out that the friendly brother behind the counter was actually the owner of the business, and they’d practically offer to give him the goods right then and there. It didn’t matter if he told them he was married. That little bit of information never even slowed their game. For some of them, it just made them play a little harder. And with the problems he and Lisa went through a few years back, even I’m surprised Kyle remained faithful.

  Jay, on the other hand, was a totally different story. He didn’t know what faithful was. I can’t remember him ever walking out of a bar alone.

  “Trust me, Jay, a brother like Kyle doesn’t just disappear without a good reason.” Wil knew, like I did, that Kyle wasn’t one to mess around on his wife. He sounded worried. “Look, after the game I think we better try and track Kyle down. If he is on a booty call, we better get our stories straight before Lisa finds out. ’Cause you know she’s gonna ask fifty million questions.” Jay and I nodded our agreement.

  “Damn! That means we gotta play with Malcolm a week earlier,” Jay complained. “Shit! With him playin’ we gonna lose for sure.” Jay hated losing more than anything.

  “Don’t worry, bro. If we lose, I got the first round tonight,” I told him, patting his back.