“I’m tellin’ you, Bruce, you should get classy, man. The bitches love it.”
“My gear is aw’ight,” Bruce retorted. “But yo, ‘Buck,’ I’m gon’ go up to Raheema’s house to see if she wants to go.”
Bucky frowned. “Man, that girl can’t go to no parties. You wastin’ your time.”
“Well, I’m gon’ go see anyway.”
Bruce left immediately, taking the long walk by himself. When he got there, it was eight-thirty, and Raheema and Tracy were outside talking. Bruce hesitated after seeing Tracy there, but then he walked up as if everything was cool.
Raheema greeted him excitedly, “Hi, Bruce.” Bruce was apprehensive, wondering what Tracy was thinking, and what she planned to do about her thoughts.
“Wasn’t you at the mall, earlier this week?” she asked, as if she was not quite sure.
Bruce answered, “Yeah,” nonchalantly.
Tracy wore a pair of tight black jeans and a red Sixers jacket. Bruce was more interested in Raheema, wearing a long royal-blue skirt and a colorful blouse.
“So, Raheema, you wanna go to this party with me tonight?” he asked her.
Tracy was immediately jealous. “Some boys just asked us about that,” she interjected.
Raheema said, “I gotta go ask,” to Tracy’s surprise.
Oh my God! Jantel was right; she do like him, she thought to herself with a smile. Her neighbor then ran into the house and left Bruce alone with Tracy.
Tracy asked him with a devilish grin, “You came up here with Bucky, looking for me yesterday?”
Bruce lied and said, “Bucky was lookin’ for you.”
Tracy stood up and walked closer to him on the steps. Bruce turned away to avoid her hazel-eyed glare.
“You like Raheema?” she quizzed.
“Yeah, and I wanna go with her,” Bruce answered bluntly.
Tracy felt like cursing him out. Why does everybody want to go with her? she fumed. Bruce continued to avoid her, giving Tracy a challenge.
Raheema came back out with a jacket, and Tracy was shocked.
“They said that you can go?” she asked, confused by it.
“Yeah,” Raheema told her. “I told them that I was going with you and your friends, and they said to be back before curfew. That’s all.”
Tracy grinned, excited as ever to see how Raheema would act at her first house-party. Her neighbor was finally ready to start experiencing life.
Tracy dashed into the house to tell her mother where she was going, and then the three of them headed to the party, which was eight blocks away. Tracy and Raheema giggled behind Bruce’s back at how pretty he was while on their way. Tracy then slid her hand near his butt. Raheema grabbed her hand and playfully hissed at her.
“Stop that, Tracy,” she whispered with a grin.
Tracy whispered back to her, “I would do it good to him.” But she realized that Bruce would rather do it with Raheema.
By the time they had arrived at the party, it was nine-thirty. A gang of teenaged boys were crowded outside. Bruce recognized none of them, as they jealously began to stare at him. He had two pretty girls. Who the hell is he? they thought.
Although she didn’t feel like associating with them, Tracy was familiar with several of the boys. One of them even called out to Raheema, but she refused to respond. They entered through the front door and paid their dollars. A girl then led them into the basement and down the crowded stairs.
Bruce walked down the steps and into the packed dance floor accompanied by two fine young women. And no sooner than he had reached a comfortable spot inside the room with them a boy rudely stepped in front of him, addressing Raheema.
“What’s up, Raheema? Come here for a minute. I got somebody for you,” he said as he tugged at her hand.
Bruce cut him off as Raheema pulled her hand away. “Naw, cuz’. She wit’ me.”
“If she really with you, then let her say it,” the boy contested.
Bruce responded, ready for a fight, “Yeah, well, you see that she ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Tracy was impressed, but it made Raheema afraid of him. She hoped that Bruce was not a control freak like her father. Yet Bruce was simply standing his ground. Dude had no business grabbing her from me like that, he thought. Who the hell he think he is?
The boy walked away to join a group of his friends, and Bruce began to fear for his safety. He wondered where Bucky was.
After his nerves calmed, Bruce helped Raheema from the wall to dance with him. The DJ played “Angel,” by Anita Baker. Bruce and Raheema caressed each other as Tracy watched them enviously. She was then appalled, noticing Victor kissing another girl. Tracy was horrendously jealous. Her heart burned inside of her chest with rage. Victor had not given her a treat in three weeks. Tracy counted the days.
“I wanna go home,” she snapped to Bruce and Raheema. They were dancing as if they were married.
Bruce said, “Aw’ight, just wait until after this song.” It didn’t take much for Bruce to grow a hard-on, and he wanted to stay close to Raheema to get his thrills.
“I wanna go home,” Tracy repeated.
Bruce looked at her with an evil eye. “Come on, now. We gon’ roll, but just as soon as this dance is over.” He regained his stance with Raheema.
Tracy glared at him. “NO, BOY! I want to go home! NOW!” she roared like a baby. Teenagers glanced at her as she hastily began moving through the crowd and toward the stairs. Bruce followed with Raheema, hating Tracy. She acted like a big kid. The thug types tried to entice her with conversation as soon as they walked outside. They were the guys no one wanted inside the party.
“Ay, come here for a minute, Tracy,” one of them called.
Tracy already had an attitude. “NO!” she screamed at him.
He looked to his friends and frowned as they laughed at him. “What the hell is her problem?” he asked.
Bruce and Raheema held hands, pacing behind her.
Tracy looked back to Bruce and decided to pick with him. She had nothing better to do, and she knew that he was pissed. Tracy had ruined his hard-on. “You mad at me, ‘Brucie’?” she said, giggling.
Bruce smiled at her humor with no comment. This girl is a damn kid, he told himself. But she sure is attractive, he could not help thinking. Tracy carried herself with a lot of passion.
“Are you gonna walk us back home?” Raheema asked him.
“Naw, ’cause that’s outta my way.”
“Well, what’s your phone number, so I can call you?”
Bruce gave it to Raheema aloud. Tracy overheard it as they headed on their way back up a well-lighted Chelten Avenue. It was only ten-thirty.
Bruce then stepped to Bucky’s house and waited out on the steps.
“BRUCE!” a girl yelled from her patio across the street. She ran over to the steps with him, looked into his scar-free, chestnut-colored face, and began to shake her head.
Bruce asked, “What ’chew do that for?”
“I was looking for you all night, ’cause my mom had left.”
“Aw, for real?” he asked, disappointed that he had missed out on an opportunity.
“Yup, but nobody knew where you was,” she told him.
His friend Bucky knew, but he couldn’t tell her. “Damn!” Bruce exclaimed. “Well, when is she goin’ out again?”
“I’on know. But you blew it tonight.”
The girl scrambled back to the house as her mother called her. Bruce continued to sit and wait on Bucky’s steps, feeling idiotic.
“Hey, dummy,” Bucky said. His words seemed to drop out of the sky, as Bruce was caught daydreaming. “I just came from gettin’ some ass. But what did you do, lover-boy?” his friend asked him with a laugh.
Bruce answered glumly, “Nothin’, man. I went to that party with Raheema, and Tracy messed everything up. Stupid-ass girl!”
Bucky joined him on the steps. “Jackie was lookin’ for you,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. She just tol
d me.”
Bucky shook his head. “You hard-headed, man, and that’s why you never gon’ get no ass. Now Bruce, if you would’ve stayed with me, you would’ve gotten with Jackie t’night. And we could have gotten with them other babes next week.”
Bucky shook his head and smiled. “So did you get her number, Bruce?”
Bruce shook his own head. “Naw. She can’t have phone calls, so I gave her mine.”
“She can’t have phone calls?” Bucky asked, not believing what he was hearing. “Get the fuck outta here! See man, you going out like anut again, Bruce, just like you always do.”
That Sunday morning, Bruce watched baseball while thinking about the chances he had missed out on with girls. He could not seem to catch any lucky bounces. He shook his head and refused to answer the phone when it rang. He didn’t care if it was for him. He felt miserable and wanted to be left alone. Everyone else seemed to be having sex but him.
“Bruce, the telephone!” His mother called from upstairs.
“Who is it?”
“Some weird name like Ra-ha, or something.”
Bruce jumped up on the phone. “Hello.”
“Hi, Bruce. What ’chew doin’?” she quickly asked him. She seemed to be in a hurry.
“Nothin’. I didn’t think you was gon’ call this early.” Bruce looked at the time on the VCR clock under the television stand. It was a quarter after one.
“I know, but I had something to tell you.”
“What?” he asked.
“My parents went to church, and I wanted to know if you’d come over.”
Bruce got excited. His pants tightened below the zipper. He asked her hysterically, “Like what time?”
“Right now.”
“Right now?” he repeated, to make sure he was not hearing things.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“Aw’ight then. I’ll be up in like twenty minutes.”
Bruce tossed some clothing on and ran all the way up Chelten Avenue. It was a twelve-block jog. He got to her corner and slowed down to gather his breath with his pants wet from expectations. He knocked on Raheema’s door, and no one answered, so he tried again.
Tracy walked out of her house, laughing.
“What are you doing up here?” she asked.
“None of your business,” he snapped at her.
“Well, Raheema ain’t home.”
“Where did she go?”
“To church, with her parents.”
Bruce felt like a numbskull. He was confused about the phone call. “Umm, do you have my phone number?” he asked Tracy quizzically.
Tracy said, “No. You didn’t give it to me.”
Bruce shrugged and started to walk away, still bewildered. “Well, tell her I was up here.”
“Oh, you can’t sit and talk to me?” Tracy responded. She was wearing a pair of tight blue-jeans and a red tennis shirt while standing inside of her screen door.
Bruce looked at her cracked open door and wondered. He had already had another hard-on. He felt desperate to get some.
He grinned, walked back and asked, “Who’s home at your house?”
“Nobody.” Tracy lied, grinning back at him. Patti and Jason were both home. Tracy just wanted to see what Bruce would say to her.
Bruce thought about it, no longer caring about the consequences. “Can I come in?”
“I can’t have company when nobody’s home.”
“Aw’ight then. Fuck it,” Bruce huffed, heading back on his way home. He sprinted back down the street, disappointed again.
Tracy laughed and walked inside. He’s funny, she thought to herself. I’m gonna have some good fun with him. He should have never tried to talk to Raheema instead of me.
Patti took her son and daughter shopping Monday evening after work. She bought Tracy some of the new fads in fashion. Tracy had been saving up for a pair of Guess glasses and a gold herringbone chain, and with the combined money that her father had given her and with Patti pitching in for the balance, Tracy got what she wanted, plus some. The school season was rolling back around soon, so sales were plentiful. Patti bought her children new coats for the winter, and a few new pairs of winter shoes.
Tracy walked into Germantown High School on the first day of classes with her head up high, and noticed that it was a fashion show in itself. All the teens had new gear.
The older boys at “G-Town” came off to her with conceited attitudes. They knew that she was a freshman. Nevertheless, Tracy was confident that she would quickly rise to the cream of the crop at her new school. She considered herself too flyy not to.
She arrived home that first afternoon and stumbled across Bruce and Bucky, who were out talking to Raheema. Tracy looked at Bruce and smiled. Bruce then frowned at her as his friend Bucky took a peek at her attention-getting behind. He shook his head, enjoying the view and realizing that his partner was making his usual mistakes. I would have never chosen Raheema over Tracy, he reflected.
Tracy said, “Hi, Ra-Ra.”
“Hi, Tracy,” her neighbor perked. Raheema seemed to be in a good mood again. She had been much more pleasant since meeting Bruce.
Tracy greeted her and proceeded to stare at her neighbor’s new friend. Bruce turned his head. Bucky smirked at him, wishing that his friend would take his advice, for a change. Tracy decided to go inside the house and get ready to pick up her brother from the day-care. Bucky then took another walk.
Bruce asked Raheema, “So what are we gonna do?”
“I have to think about it, Bruce.”
“Look, I’m not leaving here without a girlfriend,” he pressed her.
Raheema had been avoiding giving him an answer for weeks. Bruce could tell that she still was not ready to have a boyfriend. But he liked her too much to let it go.
A group of three boys approached them from up the street and started to misdirect Raheema’s attention, which was aggravating to Bruce. He had important business to take care of.
“Who is this right here, Ra-Ra? Is this your boyfriend?” one of the boys asked.
Another guy commented to her boldly, “Ay Raheema, when you gon’ come and see me?” The three of them were relatively all the same size and age as Bruce, trying to scare him off. Why should we let this new guy come around here and get with Raheema when she wouldn’t talk to any of us? they pondered to themselves. One boy looked away, realizing that Bruce was not intimidated by them.
One asked Bruce, “Is this your girl, cuz’?”
Bruce lied, as he smiled to lighten up the tension between them, “Yeah, man.”
Raheema snapped, “I didn’t tell you, ‘yes.’ ”
“Aw’ight then, forget it,” Bruce said angrily.
Raheema continued to reprimand him. “I don’t know why you even said that.”
“Because I wanted to!” he flared up at her. “Look, just forget it. Okay?”
Tracy listened in from her doorway and giggled.
The boys saw that Bruce was not to be played with and headed back on their merry way into the streets.
Raheema was still upset about it after they had left. “You didn’t have to tell them that.” She felt mistreated. The last thing in the world that she was going to stand for was some boy trying to make her decisions for her.
Bruce told her what his intentions were. “Look, if you think I’m gonna come to see you and have some punk dudes try to scare me off, then you got another think comin’. I want to go with you, so I’ll let them punks know right away where I’m comin’ from. Now, if you can’t deal with that, then fine, ’cause I’m not goin’ for no dumb shit.”
Raheema was speechless.
Tracy hid behind her door, impressed. She then walked out of the house to get her brother from the day-care center as if she had not heard a thing. She spotted Bucky heading back up the block to return to his friend.
“Your friend is a trip,” she said to him.
“Why you say that?” Bucky asked.
Tracy answe
red with giggle, “He just got mad as hell at her, and told her off.” Tracy had never witnessed a boy talk to Raheema the way Bruce had.
Bucky grinned. “For what?”
“ ’Cause, these guys came around here tryin’ to punk him. And then Ra-Ra said he shouldn’t have said what he did.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that they went with each other.”
Bucky frowned and headed back to Raheema’s steps, gesturing for them to leave. Bruce had said all that he could. He then asked Raheema to walk him to the corner. Bucky followed them, shaking his head in disappointment. He’s doing it to himself again, he thought.
Bruce pressed her. “So are you gonna go with me, or what?”
Raheema remained unsure about it. “Yeah, okay,” she said, just to get him off of her back.
“I’m serious though,” Bruce told her. She had answered too quickly for him to believe her.
“I said, ‘okay.’ ”
Bruce smiled and happily tried to kiss her lips. Raheema refused. He then headed off with his friend, grinning from ear to ear.
“I told you I was gon’ get her,” he said on their way back.
“We’ll see what happens,” Bucky mumbled. He still felt Bruce was crazy for not wanting Tracy.
Raheema didn’t call, but Bruce came to see her during the weeks that followed anyway, and Tracy was always there, bothering him. She decided not to tell Raheema that Bruce had tried to come on to her. She would use it instead as a last-resort weapon against him.
Bruce had a one-track mind when it came to Raheema. Nothing turned him away from her, kiss or no kiss. Bucky called him stupid though. His friend Bruce seemed to be the only one in the relationship. He could only see Raheema on Fridays and Saturdays, with no phone calls in between. And after a while, Bruce slowly began to lose interest.
It was late October on a Friday night, and a party was happening around the corner from Diamond Lane. Bruce went to see if Raheema wanted to go, and she refused. Bucky then called him another dummy.
“Ay Bruce, come here for a minute, man,” he called, while out in front of Raheema’s steps. Bruce walked over to him reluctantly. Bucky whispered, “Man, for the last time, leave, that, nut, bitch, a-lone. You wastin’ your time with her, man.”