Capital City

  “Yeah.” I answer solemnly.

  Corey turns a bit red too now. I guess he’s feeling guilty. “Well, I mean, you’ve been here longer than I have so it’s probably a thing where, you know, they’re trying to equal out time. I mean, who knows? Maybe they haven’t called me yet . . . But damn. That would be really fucked up if they were cutting hours. You know?”

  I walk off rudely to get away from his rambling. I return to my station to finish up my five-hour Wednesday shift.

  At nine thirty-five I get off of the elevator at the bottom floor level and find NeNe waiting inside the building for me. She’s wearing a short, chestnut-colored fur coat and matching leather gloves. And boy does this make me feel good after just being cut out of a sum of one hundred and twenty-eight dollars per paycheck.

  “Hi,” she says, beaming. “Do I get a hug?”

  “Of course you do.” I hug her and step back. “This coat must’ve cost a pretty penny.”

  “Naw, my sister got it for me.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not expensive.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But Wes, let’s go to Friday’s restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue before we go home, okay?” She slips her left arm underneath my right arm and leads me out of the building.

  “Well, I’m a little low on funds right now. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to go to dinner or anything tonight,” I tell her apologetically.

  “I’ll pay for it. But don’t let this happen again,” she responds playfully. “My mother taught me to always have a li’l bit on me to splurge, because you never know what might cross ya path when you’re walking around broke.”

  “What if you don’t have any money to carry?”

  She smiles, sly and sexy. “Oh, well, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  We walk down to Pennsylvania Avenue and jump on a 34 bus. We arrive at Friday’s. It’s very comfortable inside with a dimness that has a hint of romance. I must say, NeNe has made a good choice.

  “Have you ever eaten here before?” I ask her as I look over the menu.

  “No, but I’ve always wanted to.”

  She’s wearing a yellow outfit which highlights the yellow stripes in my multicolored Cross Colours shirt. She has a freshly-cut bob hairstyle that shines with professional care, the old En Vogue look.

  “What about you?” she asks me in return.

  “Nope, I haven’t. But I do like this place.”

  She smiles while observing the pleasant surroundings. “I know. It is nice.”

  We both order Italian pasta meals with chicken, accompanied by salad and water. NeNe orders a mediumsized Sprite and I order a Coke.

  “So how was ya day?” she asks me, sipping her Sprite through a straw.

  “Terrible. I just had more than a hundred dollars taken from my paychecks.”

  She puts her drink down, eager to speak on it. “Don’t even worry about it. As long as you in wit’ Butterman, you don’t have t’ worry about money.”

  “Hmm. Why are you so sure about that?”

  “’Cause he likes you, a lot.”

  “‘How you know?”

  “Because he would’ve never introduced you to me if he thought you wasn’t right.”

  I’m starting to wonder if she’d say anything about me selling drugs. “How would you feel if I started working with J?” I ask her curiously.

  “What? You think I would tell you not to?”

  “What would you tell me?”

  “First of all, you’re not the drug-selling type, so he wouldn’t even have you doin’ dat.”

  “So, what would he have me doing?”

  “Well, when his friend Tub was still livin’, Tub would break down all the money and make sure they kept things organized. ’Cause you know, a lot of times when guys hustle all they end up doin’ is spen’in’ up the money.”

  I shake my head.

  “What?” she quizzes me.

  “I mean, you talk about the drug trade as if it’s a regular thing.”

  She frowns at me. “Hmm, Joe, it is. It’s so many drug dealers in D.C. that it seems like a normal career occupation.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “Why, because some people are strung out on drugs? That’s America’s problem, not my problem.”

  “But what if someone close to you was strung out on drugs?”

  “There is—my uncle. And he used to bother my mother for money until my father almost shot and killed ’im. Now my uncle is in Alexandria, Virginia, some damn where.”

  “And you’re telling me that that didn’t bother you?”

  She plays with the food on her fork. “Of course it did. But it ain’t nothin’ can do about my uncle. He gotta get his own life together.”

  Neither of us are hungry enough to finish our food. We order doggie bags and run to catch a 32 bus. We head for Seventh Street at Judiciary Square so we can catch the Red Line Metro to Fort Totten.

  NeNe has spent the night with me five times already. She doesn’t lie to her aunt about being at one of her girlfriend’s houses anymore. That was just that first night. Raidawn is nineteen years old, turning twenty in August—a “grown woman” she calls herself. I’ll be turning twenty-two in July, so I guess we’re a perfect couple age-wise.

  NeNe hollers as soon as we enter my hole-in-the-wall but neat apartment, “We should go to the movies this Friday, Wes!”

  “To see what?” I ask, hanging our coats inside the closet.

  She turns on the TV and pounces on my living-room couch. “Umm, Universal Soldier. And Unlawful Entry is comin’ out. Which one?”

  “Okay. Either one is fine with me,” I tell her.

  I sit down beside her on the couch. She immediately runs her long painted nails through my thick and growing hair.

  “I need a haircut, huh?” I ask her, feeling a bit embarrassed.

  NeNe’s fingers massage my nape, where my hair used to blend into a fade. “Yeah, you should get another temple-tape.”

  “High, like J’s, huh?”

  She smiles. “Yup.”

  Now I’m starting to wonder if they ever did anything. Or maybe it’s just that platonic love thing going on.

  “You seem to like J a lot,” I comment.

  She grimaces at me, reading my ill thoughts. “Yeah, but not like that, Wes. But I like that you’re jealous about it.”

  My brow raises in shock. “You like that I’m jealous?”

  “Yeah, it shows that you care.”

  “But we go with each other. Of course I care.”

  She grins at me. “But even still, Wes, when a guy shows that he’s jealous, it’s like proof that he likes you.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  NeNe kisses me on my mouth with her moist lips. “Shut up. You argue too much,” she tells me, still teasing my lips with her tongue. By now my tool is gearing up to attention. And NeNe puts her left hand right where it feels good.

  I run my left hand softly across her breasts. NeNe stops me with her free right hand.

  “Don’t be bad,” she whispers.

  “Why not?” I whisper back.

  She giggles. “Because I tol’ you not to.”

  “Well, how long do I have to be good?”

  She giggles again. “Until I say you can be bad.”

  “Well, say it then,” I demand seductively.

  All the while she continues to tease me with her tongue and tickle my neck with her left-handed fingers. Before I know it, we’re wrapped into each other like snakes.

  “You don’t have ta get me your robe t’night,” she tells me dizzily. By now my glasses are off, but I can still clearly see how sexy and pretty she is, even with my farsighted vision.

  “So what are you planning to sleep in?” I ask her. She huffs in my ear, “Nothin’.”

  “And you still expect me to be good?”

  “If I tell you to.”

  “Well, are you gonna tell me to?”

  She smiles. “I’m
still thinkin’ ’bout it.”

  We get up from the living-room couch, turn off the television and head into the bedroom, still tingling with sexual vibrations. NeNe pushes me softly across my bed and stretches out on top of me. We resume our kissing as she wiggles out of her clothing. I virtually rip mine off.

  “Do you have any protection?” she asks me.

  I scramble nakedly to my tall dresser drawer and pull out my lubricated Trojan-Enz. NeNe slips underneath my quilt blanket as I snuggle back into bed with her and rip the condom package open.

  “Take your time, Wes. We got all night. I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” she tells me through a barely visible smile in the darkness of my silent room. I think I heard that line before in a SWV song. Or maybe it was Mary J. Blige. But now is not the time for musical commentary.

  “I know,” is all that I can muster as NeNe ravishes me with her hands, lips, legs, and toes.

  We destroy my neatly made bed with our pushing and pulling and tossing and turning and loving each other.

  I roll over in exhaustion once we’re done. NeNe edges her head to my chest. Her left leg wraps across my body as I lay stretched out on my back.

  “Was it good?” she asks me.

  “Aw, man, was it!” I respond breathlessly.

  She chuckles softly and squeezes my ribs. “It was for me, too.”

  I smile and stare at the ceiling as I run my hands through what’s left of her once neatly bobbed hair, which is now wet from our heated passion. I feel ticklish inside as if a swarm of butterflies were racing back and forth from my toes to the top of my head. And I want to shout to her, “Yes! This is life! I love you!” But I don’t, because I don’t think it would be too cool. So instead, I squeeze her back as hard as she squeezes me. And I let our satisfied silence shout it for me.

  Butterman

  “Yo, nigga, I got what’cha need!” I yell from my 3000 to my boy Drake from the old school. We go wa-a-a-y back.

  Drake walks over, smiling and still looking like an oversized, light brown teddy bear. He’s wearing a gray ski hat pulled down over his ears and a matching gray down coat.

  “Yo, Joe, where you been at?” he asks me, extending his hand through my open window for a pound.

  I smile. “To the moon and back, you’n.”

  He grins with kiddie-looking dimples. “Did’ju sell any drugs to Martians while you was flyin’ around in’nis space mobile, shawdy?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, dey some cool ma’fuckas, shaw’.” Drake looks over to Shank, who’s sitting in my passenger’s seat.

  “Oh, this my boy Shank,” I tell him.

  “What’s up?” Drake says.

  Shank nods his head in silence. He’s listening to Kool G Rap & Polo on my system.

  “Nigga don’t talk much, huh?” Drake says, smiling.

  Shank looks over to him with penetrating eyes, like he got X-ray vision.

  I chuckle to lighten things up. “Be cool, Shank. Don’t kill ’im. He was just jokin’.”

  Shank shakes his head and looks out the window to his right.

  “What’s up wit’cha boy, man? I mean, I’m just tryin’a be cool wit’ you’n, Joe. See, that’s what’s wrong wit’ niggas now, always thinkin’ somebody tryin’a carry ’em.”

  Shank turns and looks at me. “Yo, dis ya boy? You about ta lose that nigga, Joe. You betta tell ’im t’ shut da fuck up.”

  “Yo, I got ounces, man, so beep me when you ready,” I tell Drake as I pull off.

  He nods, still thinking about responding to Shank. That’s why I’m jetting out, because I don’t want these two niggas getting into nothing. Drake was never one to back down. He even gave Red a run for his money.

  Me and Shank coast up Eighteenth Street in Adams Morgan before either one of us says anything.

  I say, “Yo, Shank, chill out a bit, man. Drake is cool. He jus’ got a big mouth sometimes.”

  “Niggas wit’ big mowfs find big holes in’ney chests.”

  I chuckle. You’n a straight-up killer. “Yeah, but he aw’ight,” I tell him.

  “Yo, we should get some grub while we up here,” Shank says, checking out the flashing neon lights from the restaurant signs.

  “Yeah, but first I gotta check my boy, Ahmad.”

  Shank looks over at me. “He a Ethiopian?”

  “Yeah, how you know?”

  “Shit, da ma’fucka name Ahmad and we in Adams Morgan. Nigga gotta be an Ethiopian.”

  I chuckle again as we pull up into a parking spot.

  “Damn, this must be my lucky night! I can’t never get a parking spot when I got a girl wit’ me.”

  Shank smiles with a tight face, as if he’s straining to let it show. “Yeah, well, it’s good t’ make bitches walk.”

  I laugh like shit as I hop out. Shank gets out after me and leans with his back against the door.

  I run into this dark Ethiopian restaurant. Ahmad is cleaning tables.

  “Yo!” I yell to him and walk back out. He knows what I want.

  Ahmad strolls outside wearing a rayon shirt, open at the chest. He’s wearing purple slacks and black snakeskin shoes. He has a high-rounded Philly cut with thick black hair, looking like he’s some kind of ethnic pimp.

  “Yo, so you got some new weed for me?” I ask him. Ahmad walks over to my car, ignoring my question.

  “This a nice baby.”

  “Yeah, she aw’ight. She got some good pussy though. I be fuckin’ ’er all da time.”

  We start laughing, standing out here in the cold and watching our breaths turn into the cold wind.

  “Ain’t’chu freezin’, man? This ain’t summertime, Joe,” I ask him.

  Ahmad shakes his body against the wind. “Nope, I can take it. Ethiopians are warriors.”

  He and Shank make eye contact. “What’s up?” Ahmad says.

  Shank nods his head, again in silence.

  “I’ll have it for you later on t’night,” Ahmad says, turning back to me. “Come back around twelve.”

  I joke with him. “Aw’ight, I’m gon’ buy a pound.” Ahmad smiles. “Naw, I’m just jokin’, man. Gi’me the usual.”

  He nods. Me and Shank hop back into the car, where the shit is still warm.

  “God damn, man! February is colder than it was in December!”

  “No bullshit!” Shank says.

  We roll out and head up Sixteenth Street. This street is familiar territory for me. But my parents don’t live up on The Gold Coast no more. They moved their integrating asses out to Fairfax County, Virginia, commuting on the Metro to get to work every day. Shit don’t make no damn sense.

  “I heard rich ma’fuckas live up here,” Shank says, looking out the window at the four-, five- and six-bedroom houses with pretty lawns lined up on Sixteenth Street.

  I make a right on Kennedy and head back toward Georgia Avenue. This is the same route I used to take when I rode my bike. I say, “I used to live up here.”

  Shank smiles as if he already knew. “Yeah, you act like a rich nigga.”

  I grimace. “How?”

  “Man, can’t explain da shit. You just do.”

  “What makes me any different from other niggas sellin’ drugs?”

  “You act like you sellin’ for a damn hobby. Other niggas be clockin’ twenty-four-seven. You out here ridin’ ’round in your car all day.”

  “Aw man, dat’s ’cause I got runners workin’ for me. I mean, when you start sellin’ ounces, you ain’t all out here on’na street corna wit’ a couple bags hidin’ in’na bushes and shit.”

  “Yeah, whatever you say.”

  We sit quiet as we roll around to where I told Steve, Rudy, and Otis to meet us. I had to let Fred go. Joe was too lazy to work for me. And I’m pretty cool about shit, so I know he couldn’t get put down with nobody else, except with some New Jack niggas who don’t know nothing.

  I’m still thinking about that shit that Shank said though. “Ay, man, Bink rides around with his niggas all day, too. Is he actin’ like
a rich nigga?” Shank looks at me. “How long you knew Bink?”

  “’Bout six years.”

  “Have you ever seen him look like he was poor?”

  “Hell no! That nigga was always paid!”

  Shank smiles. This nigga got me hooked on a string. I ain’t even gonna lie. I’m curious about what he’s thinking.

  “You ever heard about his pop?” he asks me.

  “Naw, but Bink’ll talk a little about ’im e’ry now and then.”

  “Yeah, well, his pop been in’na game for years. He from New York. And that ma’fucka Bink ain’t never know what poverty was. The way I see it is like this, some ma’fuckas may live in a poor neighborhood, but that don’t mean they poor.”

  “So how come dey livin’nere?”

  “Because they used to da shit.”

  I frown at him. “No it ain’t. It’s because they don’t know how ta move!”

  “What if they ain’t have no money for movin’?”

  “Wait a minute. I thought you said that they wasn’t poor.”

  “I’m talkin’ about bein’ poor in the mental state. It’s kinda like feelin’ poor.”

  Aw, man, this nigga is crazy! “I don’t give a fuck if you don’t feel poor! If you can’t do the types of shit that middle class and upper class people do, then you ain’t got no money.”

  “Whatever, man.”

  Shank looks out of the window while we wait inside the car for these niggas to show. And I still have some things to tell you’n. “You know, it’s a lot of people wit’ no health care, no life insurance, no home insurance. No shit! Matter fact, a lot of these people don’t even own their damn homes, livin’ in fucked-up-ass apartment buildings from Section Eight.”

  Shank looks mad at me now. “Aw’ight den, you a Richie-Rich-type ma’fucka! How come you ain’t somewhere in law school so you can get out and work for your father’s company? And how come you ain’t got no stocks and bonds, and other shit like that?”

  I giggle like a silly-ass girl that’s just been carried. “I got some stocks and bonds, nigga.”

  “Yeah, sure ya right.”

  Shank sits smiling as these three stooges come rolling around the corner with chips and sodas. I hop out of the car. “I hope that ain’t my money y’all just spent!”