Kiwana answered, “I don’t even think about other mates. I have no reason to.”
“Does your husband think about it?” he asked her.
Kiwana looked at Bruce as if she was appalled that he had even asked the question.
“No, he does not,” she told him.
Tracy had opened up a hot can of beans before we had even received our appetizers.
“Are you sure?” Bruce asked.
I had to hide my face behind my menu to stop from smiling. I could tell that Kiwana was irritated by it. But I’m sorry, I agreed with Bruce. Maybe I just hadn’t been around enough happy-faced marriages to believe in what Kiwana was saying. I would rather hear the real deal and not the Hallmark card. I was still confused as to why she would bring a child to an adult meeting at night inside a jazz restaurant.
Kiwana finally told him, “Look, just because you’re not happy with who you married does not mean that the roof is falling in on my house like it is on yours. Okay?”
Now she had my attention. Her spice was real, but her sugar . . . I just needed to have it with the spice to make sure that Kiwana was balanced in the world. Because every time my cousin Tracy had written or talked about her, it was as if Kiwana was a holy angel who could do no wrong, even after she decided to marry a white man. I mean, to each her own, but . . .
Anyway, Tracy finally decided to cool them off.
“You think we could have been a happy couple, Bruce?” she asked.
I was beginning to like this dinner. I was sitting right in the middle of things. I had the best seat in the house again.
Bruce answered, “Honestly, I would have to say no to that twice. No, we wouldn’t have made a good couple out of high school because you were far too materialistic for me to be able to keep up with. And no again after college, because you had then grown to be too headstrong.”
“So, in other words, you like meek, do-what-I-tell-you-to-do women?” Kiwana jumped in and asked him.
He answered, “No, I actually like strong-willed women, but I also
understand that it would be a bad decision on my part to marry one, because I’m not able to transform into the docile husband I needed to be to make that union last.”
“Okay, so that means that you can’t have two strong-willed people in a successful marriage? Is that what you’re saying?” Kiwana questioned.
Bruce said, “Somebody has to take the lead and there can’t be a lot of confusion about it.”
Tracy said, “Don’t they have copilots on a plane?”
He was a member of the United States Air Force.
“On a commercial plane,” Bruce answered. “And they’re not working the same equipment at the same time. But we don’t have commercial marriages,” he commented. “Marriages are extremely personal.”
“So what is your beef with your marriage? You don’t love your wife anymore?” Tracy asked him.
“It’s not that I don’t love her anymore, it’s just that there are so many infinite possibilities out there.”
Kiwana began to smile as she sized him up.
“Greedy,” she told him to his face.
“Well, what if you had one pair of shoes for the rest of your life?” he asked her.
She said, “We’re not talking about shoes here.” Her baby began to cry before she picked her up out of the car seat to hold in her arms.
I was openly chuckling to myself at that point. I felt the two of them together was hilarious. You had an optimistic dreamer in Kiwana and a scientific mathematician in Bruce. However, Bruce dreamed about experiencing other situations, whereas Kiwana applied the math of one to her situation.
“Are you thinking about divorcing your wife?” Tracy asked Bruce.
“I don’t believe in divorce. I plan to finish what I started,” he answered.
Kiwana shook her head with disgust.
“Marriage is not another military objective to be dealt with, it’s a sacred and beautiful bond that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.”
Bruce looked at her and nodded. He said, “Hundreds of thousands of years, hunh? That sounds like a mighty long time.”
Judging from Tracy’s minimal participation, I figured she was enjoying their conversation as well. They were really going at it. It was a battle of the minds. But then the baby started really acting up and having a fit.
“Okay, okay, Mommy has you. Mommy has you,” Kiwana tried to console her daughter while rocking her in her arms.
Bruce looked at me. I was certain that he was thinking the same thing I was thinking, Why did she even bring the baby? So I just smiled at him, knowingly.
We finally began to order our entrées. Kiwana, however, was looking at her watch again while Treasure continued to act up.
She said, “Yeah, I’m really gonna have to go, Tracy. I knew this was a little too late for me. I’m sure you understand.” She set her pouting daughter back in the car seat and gathered her things to leave.
Bruce said, “Nice meeting you.”
“Likewise,” Kiwana told him.
It was the cordial thing to say, but I don’t believe she really meant it. She then hustled away with her baby in her arms and left us at the table.
As soon as she walked out the door, Bruce smiled and mumbled, “Why would she bring her baby here with her? If the older daughter’s at home or somewhere else, then why couldn’t she have left Treasure there as well?”
“Like she said, she’s still breast-feeding her,” Tracy explained.
“So you feed her right before you leave, and you feed her as soon as you get back home. I know the breast-feeding game. My wife breast-fed two of our boys.”
“Well, maybe her daughter needs to be breast-fed more often,” Tracy suggested.
Bruce smiled and said, “Well, that’s one spoiled baby then. And she needs to check that before it gets out of hand.”
Tracy looked at him and said, “Excuse me? I don’t believe you just said that. You don’t know her like that. That was totally uncalled for. Say something like that to her face.”
“She left too soon,” Bruce commented. “But you see how the baby was acting up. She’s already spoiled. And she got her way again, didn’t she?”
I started smiling again. Bruce didn’t seem to hold his candor at all. He was telling the truth, and nothing but the truth.
Tracy looked at me, and I didn’t have anything to say about it. I wasn’t loyal to Kiwana like she was. It was not that I didn’t like her or anything, I just didn’t idolize her because I didn’t feel I knew her well enough to do so. I knew Tracy, and Bruce was showing more of himself than Kiwana was. Hell, we only got to talk to her for ten minutes. I did feel that talking about Kiwana behind her back was bad taste, but people always talk about each other when they’re not around. I was sure Kiwana would say a few things about Bruce had he left before she did. So I respected Bruce’s honesty in the situation.
Tracy asked him, “So, is that how you treat your wife, with blatant disrespect? I see why you don’t like marriage. I wouldn’t like being married to you either,” she told him.
He said, “I know you wouldn’t. Like I said earlier, I could never handle you back then, and I can’t handle you now. But I’m mature enough now to understand that reality. The world is all about imbalances and trying to figure out an even playing field for all of us.”
Tracy waved her hand with the whole conversation. “All right, whatever. So anyway, what is your take on the movie we’re trying to put together?”
That’s what we were all there to discuss before we got off on a marriage and kids tangent.
Bruce asked, “Will they even do a film like Flyy Girl? I mean, it’s not really a comedy. And since it’s not dealing with me . . .”
“You’re in it,” Tracy cut him off and told him.
He said, “Yeah, but the title is Flyy Girl, and I’m assuming that it has to be sold that way.”
“Not necessarily,” my cousin stated. “We could
use different trailers where we have more of a masculine presence. Hollywood does it all the time, they cut up the parts that fit your marketing angle.”
Bruce said, “Well, if I’m not mistaken, inner-city girls are the main supporters of the book, are they not?”
“Yeah, but they write me about the guys in the book all the time.”
Bruce smiled and said, “Yeah, and I know just who they’re writing about, Mr. V.H. How is, ah . . . Qadeer doing now anyway?” he asked my cousin.
Tracy smirked and chuckled at it. She said, “You’re still a smart-ass, I see.”
“And you’re still in love with the man,” he told her. He said, “Now if you really want to push this movie and make it work, you find a young heartthrob for the girls to go crazy over, and you make it work from that angle. Kind of like what Terry McMillan did for Taye Diggs in her movie.”
“So, you don’t believe this movie has any other value to it than that?” my cousin asked him.
Bruce stared into her eyes and remained poised. He was in total control of himself.
He said, “Tracy, in this country, the entertainment industry is all about three things: sex, drugs, and violence. And in the movie industry, they also like special effects. That’s why we have such a craze for this comic-book mentality in the movies right now. I’ve been to theaters all around the world, where the stories still mean something. Then I come back home to the theaters in America, and it’s all the same things: sex, violence, drugs, and special effects. Now what does your film have?”
“Sex, violence, drugs, and music,” I told him. It just jumped out of my mouth. I was following Bruce’s entire train of thought. And we did have those things.
I said, “Flyy Girl is loaded with drama, but it also has a heart to it. It’s just like Spider-Man to me. It’s packed with action, it’ll have plenty of hype, it has a lot more than a kiss, and people will definitely want to see it again.”
“Black people,” Bruce commented, “and not white folks. And that’s the major difference between Flyy Girl and Spider-Man. Or even Harry Potter for that matter. I didn’t see one black face in that movie, but we were all in the theaters watching it.”
“Why wouldn’t they watch it?” I asked him referring to white Americans. “They’re into hip-hop. Majorly.”
Bruce looked at me and nodded. Then he smiled.
He said, “I can see you’re one of the many Flyy Girl fanatics this book has created, including my wife. She would love to see this book made into a movie. But my point is this: If the idea is so sure-shot, then how come it hasn’t been produced already?”
Tracy said, “It took Spider-Man, what, forty years to make? And how many years for X-Men? I’ve been seeing those comics for years. So all we have to do is prove that we have an audience for it and make it happen.”
Bruce gave up his argument and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, if you have it all mapped out, then what do you need my comments for? Make the movie. I’ll go see it, if just to see how the people react to my character,” he responded with a grin. “Who you got in mind to play me?” he asked.
Tracy lightened her mood by saying, “Any old cornball would do. Your character’s not that hard to portray. All the young actor has to do is walk around with his nose being pulled open.”
Bruce chuckled at that. He said, “Yeah, that’s about right. But make sure he still has the flyy gear on. I was always a sharp dresser. Just like you were.”
Tracy agreed and nodded to him. “I’ll see what I can do. But we may have to dress him in awkward clothes to nail the point home that he was a sucker for love.”
I chuckled at that myself. Tracy was giving the candor right back to him.
Bruce said, “Or, you could just have a good actor to nail the point home that this guy was really infatuated with the glitter, but under that glitter was some real gold that he was happy to experience for a minute, no matter what he had to pay for it.”
I looked at Tracy and wondered how she would respond to that. He was actually paying her a compliment.
She said, “Is that really how you feel about me?”
“It’s the truth, Tracy. You’re a special woman,” he told her. “And every time you make another move in your progress, you prove it. So I expect for you to make this film, and I expect for it to be good, too. And after that, you’ll be thinking about doing a sequel, and then a television series, and then you’ll become an even bigger urban-girl icon than you already are.”
He opened up his palms and said, “That’s just who you are. And the thing that makes me know is that you don’t even really think about it. It’s just there for you. And you can turn it on or turn it off”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that.”
Tracy was speechless. She only nodded to him.
“Well, I thank you,” she told him.
He said, “Don’t mention it. Now, where’s this food? I’m ready to eat.”
As soon as he said that, our server arrived with our entrées.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about right there.”
I grinned. Bruce was not a big beefcake of a man, but I could tell that he had an appetite. He had ordered a large steak dinner to prove it, and I was quite certain that he would put it down. He struck me as just being real with it, and I still liked him in a fatherly kind of way. Just give me the facts, and let me deal with the conclusions.
So I went ahead and asked him what I was thinking.
“Why did you seem so hard on Kiwana?” I wanted to hear more of his honesty. Tracy looked at him for an answer herself.
Bruce chewed up his first bite of steak dinner and mumbled, “Good question.” Then he looked at Tracy with his answer.
He said, “She may be your friend on one hand, but I’ve been around enough fence-jumpers in my life to know one when I see one. There are certain types of black people who will carry the pompoms for you on one end, and then shoot you in the back on the other. I’m here to tell you that many people in our community, after they see the film, will not like it no matter what. I mean, these people have this delusionary idea that everything we do is supposed to be perfect. And it ain’t. It never has been, and it never will be.”
He said, “So yeah, I can join the military on one end, but I did so to put myself in a mental and professional position to be able to do many of the things in our community that need to be done, and at the same time be respected for the time that I served in uniform for this country, where nobody can tell me what I can’t say or do. You feel me? It’s called paying your dues. And there are times when you just have to stand up and support the cause for black folks past your individual desires or shortcomings.
“That’s what I mean by marriage being interesting,” he continued. “I had plenty of white girls that I could have married. White girls are easier for me. I’m not gonna lie about it. But at the end of the day, easy is not what I want to stand for.”
He looked at me again and said, “So I learned to call a spade a spade. And if people get offended by it, then they should stand up and defend themselves.”
Tracy said, “Well, I’ll defend my friend since she’s not here right now. Because I know she’s not a fence-jumper—”
But before my cousin could get started, Bruce cut her off. “Of course you would defend her. You have that inner-city loyalty about you. You’re loyal to all of your friends. I just wonder if she defends you the same way you defend her. I know Raheema would. Even Mercedes, in her twisted kind of way. But this Kiwana girl?”
He stopped and shook his head. “She’s a fence-jumper, that’s why she brought her baby with her tonight. She wanted the distraction, and she planned to leave early all along. And I don’t believe she’s sincere about her support for you either.”
“I don’t think you know her,” Tracy insisted. “And she has a right to take her kids wherever the hell she wants to.”
Bruce chomped down another bite of his steak before he responded. Tracy had ordered fish
; I had chicken.
He held his fork in the air and said, “You just do me this one favor. You ask her to help out in this movie of yours, and I’d be curious to see what she says about that.”
“If she has the time, she will,” Tracy assumed for her.
Bruce nodded and smiled.
He said, “Just ask her for me, that’s all. Just ask her.”
* * *
As Tracy and I walked back to the hotel after dinner, a man stopped his car and rolled down his window to holler in our direction.
“Hey, Tracy Ellison Grant. You’re very sexy, baby. And I love your work.”
Tracy smiled at him, said “Thank you,” and kept on walking.
I really felt she needed a bodyguard sometimes, in case someone tried to take things too far, but Tracy liked doing things on her own without the extra hassle of too many people around her.
So she ignored the whole scene on the street and asked me, “So, how do we do it, Vanessa?”
I looked at her in confusion. I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“How do we do what?”
“How do we live without having men in our lives? Well, a younger man for you, but you get the point,” she said.
I smiled at her. I said, “You do have a man.” I was assuming that she would work things out with her friend in L.A.
My cousin looked me in the eyes and said, “Look here, if you’re a woman in your thirties, like I am now, people expect you to have a husband and kids, so my little ‘friend’ doesn’t mean anything. And maybe that was the message Kiwana was trying to send me by bringing her baby out with her tonight.”
“Is that what you think?” I asked her.
She said, “I don’t know. But I have to find peace with myself about this whole attitude that society has that says I have to be married with kids to be happy. I mean, I look at that as the biggest lie in the world. Bruce was right about that. A family doesn’t necessarily make you happy by itself. That family has to work out for you.”
She said, “My mother wasn’t happy. Raheema’s mother wasn’t happy. Your mother’s not happy. But you find a way to keep doing what you do and you make things work for you however you have to. You know what I mean?”