The Present Part 3
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What’s a black man to do with Reggie at a dance club? Especially if he comes streaming in from washing dishes? We just went in after the dinner rush. He didn’t shower or change his clothes. He never went along with the hip-hop flow of things. Actually, we were probably the oldest ones there - each of us looking for a woman in a joint where they just weren’t interested in anything real. They only cared about being pampered with clothes and jewelry, fine dining, getting high at the club, dancing with notorious gangsters who then drove them around the city in their brand-new Escalades.
I could identify with their female logic. They wanted super-stardom someday, and they shouldn’t be at fault for that. After all, both males and females dream of these things in our ‘hood. Everyone in America must have dreamed about fame and fortune while desperate, young, and yearning for closer attention, even if it might have killed them. For us, the street was ripe with plenty of temptations. But who could deny that the street delivered these fantasies, depending on how attractive a girl was. It may have lasted these women a short while, just to feel important and loved. Also, these women always fell for the criminal guys.
These are the type of women who marry convicts or anyone who delivers the gangster dream. Their men go straight for the gold. Sometimes the women get liars who just want to have sex, but the convicts, in all of their manhood, at least stay in touch with the women in the clubs. They have their own form of chivalry. The women follow them - those men with hefty gold chains and real diamonds that they cement to their teeth.
Actually, the diamonds on the teeth is done for a reason. How the hell is anyone going to steal priceless diamonds planted on their teeth? To hell with the banks and the safe deposit boxes. They needed security that didn’t charge. Better to keep the diamonds in their teeth. It worked much better than any vault.
The women ultimately witnessed those diamonds and swooned at their good luck. No one wanted a mail-room clerk and a dishwasher turned teacher. But I made the best of it, while Reggie could only look upon the scene like a dud. He didn’t even drink like a man. He ordered a Malibu Bay Breeze - one of those girly-girl cocktails. The other folks around us drank hard. They drank whiskey and bitter beer. They could sprout their philosophies about being a gangster. They avoided Political Correctness, almost like a guy who turns to rap music instead of heeding the many warnings issued by classic rock or the jam bands about rap. In the club these gangsters were kings.
Reggie and I weren’t exactly the happening couple.
He stayed in the corner away from the dancing, while I began my desperate search for any woman at all - even a woman with girth. A number of these heftier women danced, and even though looking at them kind of repulsed us, we both couldn’t deny that these women - if they were willing to lose weight and wear make-up - could be the hottest chicks around, no question.
Reggie, in fact, turned me on to that. I could see that these women were fairly good looking. Reggie told me to imagine them skinny. I’m not Richard Simmons in the least, but Reggie had thought this for several years, and just now he tells me. It reminded me of something about Reggie - that he hid a secret world behind that intellectual mask of his. Come to think of it, we didn’t have anything to smoke with us. All of the beautiful people snorted the cocaine. The men wore chains, as I said, but they also pulled their pants down around the back of their knees, leaving their underwear exposed. I figured that they just conformed to the pressure of the streets to look that way.
Reggie actually nudged my arm with his elbow. I almost forgot he stood there.
“My class is going to be much different. I won’t allow anyone in the class who doesn’t pull up their drawers. It looks ridiculous.”
“We’re not in class right now, Reggie.”
“So? The streets are my classes.”
“We need women,” I said pleading with him. “Don’t you understand that? We’ve wasted a lot of time, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to start a family with them either. We’ve been fucked up for a long time, and we need to get rolling on these late-night quests of ours.”
“But these women. I don’t think they are up to intellectual challenges.”
“Would you stop acting like a fucking professor, please? We’re listening to Hip-Hop right now. It’s time that you unbutton your jacket and stay awhile. It would be much better if you participate in the hunt.
Time is running out.”
“Should I pull my pants down too?”
“Smart-ass,” I laughed below the reign of electronic beats and a rap style that appealed to the gangsters.
I decided quickly that I had to separate from Reggie in order to be effective with the ladies. I said that I would meet him in a couple of hours, and I immediately dove into the thickest part of the dance floor. I lost myself just then, because I was having the time of my life dancing with women who wore tight dresses and looked so good that I had to hunger after them. I’m no predator to say the least. I just had to have one, and after a half hour of straight dancing with women who had partners but then abandoned them to dance with me, I finally snagged a woman who asked me to follow her up to the bathroom. I wanted to fool around, and she did too.
We may have been older, but we weren’t dummies either. I began side-winding through a route that most of the clubbers snaked through like a moist, perspiring stream, and just when I was all clear to follow this woman towards the far reaches of nirvana upstairs, I felt a pat on the back. I turned around to see Reggie stopping me from following the woman I was with.
“We’ve got to go,” he said. “I have class in the morning, and my hours at the restaurant.”
“Now’s not the time,” I yelled over the loud music.
The woman whose hand I held on the way to the bathroom wondered why I stopped.
“We have to leave,” he said. “You can come back here by yourself if you like. But I’ve gotta go.”
“Just a minute, okay, cup cake?” I said to the woman. “Reggie, I’m in the middle of something right now. If you really want to go home, you can take my keys and drive yourself.”
“And how will you get home?”
“Guess, Reggie. Just guess why I’m not going home tonight.”
“She is attractive,” said Reggie peering over my shoulder to see her.
“We’re all straightened out now?” I asked.
“Only if you make it to class tomorrow, I’ll leave you alone.”
“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“No way. I want a promise.”
“Fine, Reggie, okay? Now take my car and get the hell out of here, okay? I’ll be at your house first thing tomorrow.”
Reggie vanished into the crowd towards the exit.
In the meantime, I rushed to the woman who now talked to another man. I put my hand on her shoulder to remind her why she was there in the first place.
“Can you get me a drink from the bar, please,” she asked of me.
By the time I returned, she vanished with this other guy whom she talked to after I had already claimed her. I was really pissed, but the only thing I could do at that moment was to sulk back to the bar and drink myself silly. I ordered a full quart of Olde English, and sat there feeling sorry for myself. And of course, Reggie angered me to the hilt. He was turning into quite the nerd. I didn’t know how I would get home that night, but at least the buses ran late, so I could get a two dollar ride into the ‘hood. I did just that, and slept all night when I got home.
I again was pissed off at Reggie who just happened to wake me up at seven in the morning by calling me.
He reminded me of my promise to attend the class again.
He said he wanted me to see him perform, as though the class were some Olympic contest that Reggie had to win.
I still didn’t know why Reggie resorted to such punishment and torture with the jobs that he had.
Teaching can be torturous. Maybe he wanted me there for support? Or he wanted me to share with him what was wrong with the class? I felt nervous about anyone from the faculty catching me. I definitely looked much older than the average student.
With one eye on the clock and the other on Reggie, I survived yet another class. I went to the bathroom to vomit up whatever residue there was from the liquor I had last night. I was sick to my stomach. I felt sickened just sitting at my desk, which was, again, too small for my body.
Reggie even asked me to take off my hat. At this point I could have killed him. When my hat came off, so did my messy hair. I didn’t have a chance to brush it before class.
“Can anyone tell me who some of our black heroes are other than Dr. King and Malcolm X?”
The class drew a blank. I did to. I had no idea where Reggie led us.
“How about W.E.B. DuBois? Can anyone tell me about him?”
“He was a novelist for black people after the Civil War,” said one of the white students in the back, fiddling with his smart phone.
“Okay,” said Professor Reggie. “At least that’s a start. Can anyone else paint a more complete biography of who DuBois was and what he did?”
The silence in the room was unbearable. I hated the silence, and I could tell that it made Reggie uncomfortable. The only thing I heard was the buzzing of the fluorescent lights above us.
“He was a philosopher,” said Wonder Robins who sat in front of Reggie’s heavy wooden desk.
“Go on, Wonder. Please explain.”
“DuBois was the father of Pan-Africanism. It was a movement to unite all the peoples of African descent.”
“Excellent, Wonder. Keep going, please.”
“He lost funding for the conferences he set up at Atlanta University, and so he went elsewhere, although I’m not sure where exactly. But then he ran into a lot of trouble with the government who opposed him, because he was a communist.”
“Wonder, keep this up, and you could get an A in this class. But Wonder is right. Pan-Africanism also includes the diaspora of African descent, whatever country they lived in. This is where DuBois differs from Frederick Douglass and the range of Black American leaders who advocated leaving America and setting up a different Black society in Africa.
“DuBois also studied in Germany and received a high honor from the Soviet Union, because he was a hero to them. He eventually left the US, and because of his Communist leanings and the harassment he faced, he traveled to Ghana. Before he left he also helped to establish the NAACP. Now here’s a writer who wrote some very important books that considered race relations. Did anyone read, The Souls of Black Folk?”
Wonder cautiously held her hand up. Reggie and I both noticed her as the only person engaged in the class, and even though there were others he wanted to call on, he couldn’t help but face Wonder with her hand waving in his face. And yes, she looked quite good in her tight jeans and tee-shirt. They had some kind of intellectual connection, and I knew right away that Reggie liked her. Or to put it another way, Reggie was surely on his way to prison if he kept this up.
“Go ahead, Wonder,” said Reggie.
“The book fights against the idea that blacks needed a lot of money and materials to be considered better men and women. He also thought that American values among whites - the quest for money and materials - only got in the way of a black man’s moral superiority over whites.”
“Great, Wonder. It’s obvious that you’ve done your homework.”
Reggie steamed ahead with other examples of lesser known Black Americans. Actually, the only person who knew the names that Reggie referred to was Wonder. He tried hard to get the rest of the class engaged, but it was Wonder who stole the show.
Reggie heard names like Paul Robeson, Roy Wilkins, and Claude McKay. The students easily saw that Wonder was a superstar. She took notes, and at times, she refused to raise her hand, thinking that she pissed off the others in the class or was a part of Reggie’s campaign to get more students to share. Funny enough was how several students approached Wonder after class to get first crack at her notes. She was almost a teaching assistant, but she really knocked me and Reggie for a loop when she asked to see Reggie during his office hours. Reggie talked a little about a midterm paper that the class had to write on whatever black man or woman influenced them the most.
“Wonder, you really don’t need to see me,” said Reggie after class. “So far, you are an exceptional student.”
“But Professor, I need some help understanding some of these philosophies. I don’t understand some of them.
Please, Professor. I need your help. I need help with this midterm paper too.”
“Very well, Wonder. How about you stop by later this morning. Say ten o’clock at my office in the History Department?”
“Yes, Professor, I will be there. Thanks so much for helping me.”
“Not a problem. I’ll see you later.”
She was the last person besides myself and Reggie to leave the class. I had to get to the mail-room, but I told Reggie what I thought of him as a teacher.
“You better stay away from her,” I said seriously.
“She obviously has some kind of crush on you.”
“I can sense that, yes,” he said, “but at the same time, she’s the only one in class who knows exactly what I’m talking about.”
“She doesn’t need the help. You should have said no to her.”
“That’s the wrong route,” he said. “If any of my students needs a hand, I will lend it.”
“That’s just stupidity. I think you like her.”
“Who, me?”
“Yes, you. Don’t bullshit. You like being around her.”
“You’re tripping, man. She’s too young for me.”
“Uh, huh,” I said incredulously.
“I’m not shitting you. These students look like children to me. They’re just too young for my tastes.”
“Just so you know, you can get kicked out of the college if you mess around with her. I’d hate to see that happen.”
“I’d hate that too,” he said.
But Reggie couldn’t help but smile and laugh on the long underground route to the mail room.
“I’m serious,” I said before standing in front of cardboard boxes and envelopes at the entrance of the mail-room. “You’re going to fuck things up. What would your family think?”
“I don’t care what they think. And they can kick me out of the restaurant too. I only need my mind from here on in.”
“You need that income, Reggie.”
He didn’t care about losing his dish-washing job in the least. You would think he were some ancient poet or philosopher from the school of Athens. Next thing you know, he would start looking like Cornell West, and none of us wanted that.
It turned out that Wonder did meet him in his office later that morning. I begged to learn more, and Reggie wasn’t too shy to share every bit of it.
“Hi, Professor,” said Wonder with her knapsack full of heavy books.
“Take a load off, Wonder,” said Reggie in his shared office space. “How can I help you?”
“I want to write my term paper on Maya Angelou, and I was wondering if you could give me some help.”
“That’s a great topic. What can I help you with?”
“I know she was a great poet and all, but I don’t know what beliefs she had, philosophically speaking.”
“Maya Angelou’s poetry really focused on the Civil Rights Movement, and her belief in exploring all religions.”
“When she died, she claimed that she had found Christianity.”
“Yes,” said Reggie. “She also wrote a play. The proceeds went to Dr. King’s organization. I forget what the name of the organization was called.”
“The Southern Christian Leadership Conference.”
“I think that was it, yes.”
“And at the end of her life, she was a really hardcore proponent of the Democrats.”
“Yes, Wonder. I have no idea why you need help from me. You are doing fine.”
She gave him a sad look. Apparently, she didn’t want the session to end that quickly. She looked upon Reggie with his cheap collared shirt and khaki pants, her blue eyes just too young to understand the terrors of a racial world filled with reptiles. In fact, that’s what she claimed she faced. She seemed to know that the pattern of racism would rise again, even though the country elected Obama. She made a stab at the future of black and white relations. Beneath her shoulder-length blonde hair and crystal blue eyes – her sizable chest and tight jeans – she wanted to say something profound to Reggie, but she pussy-footed around the points of contention in black and white relations.
“Maybe I can do what Maya Angelou did,” she said searchingly.
“Now Wonder, no one expects you to be like Maya Angelou. Granted that she is a hero to most of the
country, but you don’t have to copy her in order to study her.”
“I just want to study black culture. Like you did.”
“Okay. That’s good. It’s always good to have a goal like that. But I can tell you that I’m not a well known teacher or anything like that. I’m an average man with average intelligence and average knowledge.
I’m not anyone special, but I appreciate the thought.”
“But you must know what it’s like to be black in a mostly white world.”
“You should know that not every black man has the same experience in America. There are millions of experiences among black men as there are black people on the face of this earth.”
“But I want to learn. Can you meet me for dinner tonight? I know you’re short on time, but I want to know what it’s like to be black.”
“Dinner? That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’m busy most nights.”
“Can you do it tonight?” she asked with precious innocence.
“How about we do it tomorrow night. And it’s on me, as I know how tough it can be for students around here.”
“It’s not tough for me.”
“Oh?”
“My parents are well off, so they provide.”
“Well, you’re really fortunate then. Do you want to meet here?”
“Why don’t we meet at my place? I live in an apartment about a mile from here. It’s close to a lot of good restaurants.”
“Okay, Wonder. It’s a date. Make sure you bring some questions. I usually don’t see my students after class, but I think you are an exception to that rule.”
He took the bus home, since I was in the mail-room until dinner time. I couldn’t get Reggie off of my mind while sorting through packages. Most of them were heavy books sent by media mail. During lunch break, I was tempted to check in on him – just to see if he met with Wonder. I knew Reggie so well, that I knew without a doubt that he would hit on her, or even more mysterious – she would be hitting on him. I worried for him, but Reggie and I weren’t school kids anymore.
He was an adult, and he just had to make his own decisions regardless of what price he’d pay for them.
I couldn’t interfere in his plans. I just ate my lunch in the employee recreation room and pondered what would happen to Reggie.
At the end of a long day, after Reggie had finished up his morning appointment with Wonder and returned to the restaurant, I caught up with him in the back of the restaurant’s kitchen where he scrubbed empty glasses of soda and beer, stuck breadcrumbs and dry gravy on heavy plates, and old silverware, the tines of their forks askew. He couldn’t help but tell me what happened after class, even though all of his energies focused on scrubbing and washing.
An exception she was. After the dinner rush, I lit up a blunt and smoked a little reefer outside of the restaurant. Reggie told me everything, and I had to admit to him that I was somewhat disgusted with him.
One of the reasons had to do with a black man seeing a white woman. An incompatible match it was, and no black man belonged with a white woman anyway. Black goes one way, and white goes another way. That’s how God wanted it to be.
“Why white, Reggie? Too ashamed of your own skin to date a black woman?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” he said. “I’m giving a student some extra help.”
“If you don’t see it my way, then you’re one ignorant son of a bitch. That white girl is going to get you fired. You’ll be blackballed by every college coast-to-coast.”
“Stop being so dramatic. I get enough of that walking home at night. I’m sick of the ‘hood anyway.
A black man deserves to live in a nice place.”
“Yeah. If you like being forced into selling crack on the street.”
“Y’now, Archie, you always seem to be working against me. I don’t know what you have against educating yourself or being friends with a white woman.”
“I’m not working against you. I’m trying to save you. That white girl is nothing but trouble.”
We argued back and forth, but nothing came of it.
Reggie was ready to dine with the white girl. Luckily, he didn’t want me to audit his class anymore. I was thankful for that. I didn’t want those uncomfortable silences and the way that white girl stuck her hand up all the time.
The next night, after the dinner rush, I drove Reggie to Wonder’s apartment after his shift. Reggie and his family lived on the other side of town.
“Can’t you walk to college, boy?” said his father to Reggie before he left.
“Archie is here. Might as well get a ride from him.”
“That’s just plain laziness,” said his father, cleaning the grill. “And look at all those dishes you still have. You’re not getting outta here that easily.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow before the lunch rush, okay Dad?”
“You just a lazy fool,” said Laney, holding in her laughter.
“Mind your own business,” said Reggie to his kid sister.
Laney relished that her father grilled Reggie for clues as to where he was going and whom he was seeing.
Reggie wouldn’t dare let his family know that he headed over to a white girl’s apartment that night. Hiding this from his family became a top priority.
He left early, after having scrubbed large pots and pans. He soon discovered, though, that Wonder had cooked the meal at home with her two roommates, who were also white. The three women surprised him, as he had no idea that Wonder also had two very attractive white women who shared the apartment with her.
Reggie, however, found it easy to adjust.
Apparently, since they all cooked the dinner together, they would all eat together as well. There was something very Christian about it. These were smart college women who paid no mind to the color of Reggie’s skin, as they could have. Because they were young, Reggie, feeling like an elder statesman, didn’t feel uncomfortable around them. He was there to help Wonder, and he thanked God for helping him avoid the restaurant food that he normally ate after every shift. He had a home-cooked meal on his hands.
But these were three young, good-looking white women. They cooked him a steak dinner with a baked potato and salad as an appetizer. It clued Reggie in to how all three of them were interested in the Black American experience, but after the dinner and some interesting conversation on what they all did for a living, they managed to avoid the topic of race altogether. He would save that for Wonder. He also needed a short nap, because he ate so much.
“You can sleep in my room if you’d like,” volunteered Wonder.
He also saw that her roommates were headed to a bar in one of the nicer sections of town. It relieved Reggie to know that he wouldn’t have to deal with all three of them while talking like an academe.
Wonder opened her bedroom door for him. He slipped into cool, clean linen sheets, and for a little while he fell fast asleep. In the meantime, Wonder watched television and then prepared a slice of her well-known cheesecake for him. When he awoke after a couple of hours’ rest, he saw Wonder standing over him with a tray of a chilled cheesecake slice with a graham cracker crust.
“God, what time is it?” asked Reggie, through the haze of his vision.
“It’s seven-thirty,” she said.
“In the morning? Is it still Tuesday?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “You took a nap for a couple of hours. But it’s seven-thirty in the evening.”
“Wow. Sorry about that. I didn’t expect to sleep for so long.”
Wonder crawled next to him on the bed and fed him some of her famous cheesecake.
“Y’know, Wonder? You are really talented. You even cook. That’s a great thing.”
Reggie made sure not to tell anyone about his dish- washing job. To her, Reggie became part of all that she had studied. She loved feeding him the cheesecake, and the both of them couldn’t help but laugh about it.
“I guess I’m ready for the retirement home?”
“That, or you’re ready for the baby chair.”
“This is very good,” said Reggie of the cheesecake.
“Why don’t you have some of it with me?”
“No thanks. I’m on a diet.”
“You? On a diet? You don’t need a diet. You look just fine the way you are.”
“Thanks, Professor.”
“Call me Reggie. All of my friends call me that.”
“So I guess I’m one of them?”
“Of course!”
“Great. But, umm, you dropped some cheesecake on your shirt. Why don’t you take off your shirt? I can get it out.”
Reggie did as he was told. He carefully unbuttoned his shirt, but he was too afraid to show her his black body. Reggie had all the muscle in all the right places. It denoted a fast metabolism that most people would die for, and when he removed his shirt, Wonder knew that Reggie would never get fat eating cheesecake.
He came ready with a body that could have been seen or read about in a magazine.
As he lay on the bed with his shirt off, and while Wonder brought him a face-towel, she emerged with only a loose white tee-shirt and tight spandex shorts that cradled her two ass-cheeks. Reggie made sure not to get excited, but his libido was strong, and it could be easily seen that he hid an erection under her linen sheets. He tried anything he could to soften his attraction to Wonder’s body, but he couldn’t hide it.
“I must look like a fool to you,” said Reggie.
“It’s normal,” she said. “It’s as natural as my nipples getting hard. We don’t have to act upon it.”
She then pulled her shirt tightly around her breasts. She rubbed to where her nipples hid. Through the shirt, he saw that they were hard. Reggie couldn’t help but think about sex, and he figured they would have to do it, now that both of them were completely and utterly aroused by each other. She slid into bed with him, but Reggie, still nervous about seeing a student, made sure that nothing happened. Maybe Wonder just wanted to talk. There seemed to be something on her mind, especially when she turned her back to him, and called out to him.
“Reggie? I don’t know if what we’re about to do is a good idea.”
Reggie found himself in a struggle between either taking off his clothes or simply stroking her blonde hair. He chose the latter. It was obvious to him that something much deeper bothered her. He tried to talk it through.
“What’s the matter, Sweetie?” said Reggie.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Think about what?”
“How so many people are prejudiced.”
“Yes. It’s a bit disheartening, but you shouldn’t have to worry about that. That would be more of a black man’s concern - not yours.”
“It bothers me. I see and hear it all the time.”
“When students get together,” said Reggie, “they want to be and act like adults, just how a senior citizen wants to feel young again. They say things that on the surface are adult words and adult language.
They’re really not, though. Most of the time it comes down from their families who think that black people are animals and everything is genetic, and this gives them some kind of supremacy over every other culture.
They give no credence to the intellect. Those guys ought to be working on a farm. They’ll learn a lot more minding their manners through this life’s grand experiences. People may be racist, but that has never stopped me from achieving things and moving ahead. It shouldn’t stop you.”
“I guess,” she said.
“Can you at least tell me about it,” he asked.
He moved closer to her with her soft backside facing him. Spooning her was a serene comfort that couldn’t be found anywhere else. They made sure, though, not to have sex. Even for Reggie, there were too many complications. He remembered what I said to him - how such a relationship would spell Reggie’s doom.
For now, though, he just stroked her hair. Something still bothered her.
“I have something to tell you,” said Wonder.
“Say what you need to say,” whispered Reggie in her ear. He felt the contrast between his sculpted muscles and Wonder’s soft and delicate skin. He could hold her for a lifetime and not get sick or tired of it.
“Something is wrong with my thinking,” she said.
“Really? Like what? I don’t see any proof of that.”
“That’s because it is in my mind.”
For the first time in a long while, Reggie felt like he was an amateur next to Wonder’s thinking. He didn’t know what Wonder’s thinking-problem was, but he could tell that she wanted him to know, to keep their first steps within their relationship a private affair, and learn how to live in mutual harmony. Reggie came up with this short list in order to make whatever relationship they had a near-sacred event. There were also political and familial problems as well, but for now, Reggie focused on what may have been Wonder’s distraught mind.
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