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I opened my eyes slowly and scanned the room. The first thing I noticed was that I was still fully dressed. I took a look at the clock. It was 10:45, on the Saturday before Labor Day. The second thing slapped me in the face: I grabbed my head with one hand and covered my eyes with the other to block out the sun. I had the serious head-throbbing hangover. Blazing sunshine was the last thing I needed after last night.
Last night’s poker game was too wild.
I dragged myself out of bed and staggered into the living room; it was trashed. Empty glasses and beer bottles were everywhere, every ashtray in the house was full and empty Krystal hamburger boxes and half-eaten burgers were everywhere. And to top it off, somebody had crashed on the couch.
Wonder who that is?
But I simply could not find the motivation to walk over there to find out. I shook my head, turned around and headed back to bed.
I’ll deal with this mess later.
I tossed and turned, rolled around and tried to hide under the covers, but the sun was inescapable. To further complicate matters, the telephone rang. My mind told me don’t answer it, but instinct had already taken control. “Hello.”
“Hey, Tavarus.”
“What’s up, Angelique?”
“Did you have fun last night?”
“Other than drinking too much, yeah, we had a good time.” Once a month my boys, Zack and Chris, and I, along with a few of my friends, get together to play a little poker. “Way too much to drink,” I answered rubbing my head.
“You got a hangover, huh?” She laughed.
“I think hangover is an understatement. Angelique, I swear, I’ve never felt this bad in my life.” I’d tried massaging my temples, but that wasn’t helping either.
“You shouldn’t have drunk so much.”
“Yeah, I know. But I had a ball.”
“How many women did y’all have over there?” Angelique asked.
I took the phone away from my ear and began tapping it. I liked her, but it wasn’t my place to tell her. Angelique was Zack’s wife, so if he wanted to tell her that we had a couple of strippers over, that was his business. “Hello, hello. Angelique, we must have a bad connection.”
“Yeah, see how you do me? You ain’t right, Tavarus. Anyway, as much as I’d love to sit and chitchat with you, I have to say good-bye. You know what a busy woman I am,” she said jokingly. “So—is, Zack there?”
“I don’t know? Somebody crashed on the couch; it might be him.”
“You don’t know who’s sleeping in your condo?” Angelique asked.
“Hey, hey, they got a coat over their head. But hold on and I’ll see.”
I put down the phone and sat up in the bed. I shook off the nod and stood up too quickly. I had to steady myself before I attempted to make way through the mess. I snatched the coat off and it was Zack.
Zack came here to Atlanta from Boston to go to Morehouse on a basketball scholarship, but he blew out his knee in tryouts, and so ended the scholarship. Zack dropped out after his sophomore year due to lack of money, and not to mention a lack of interest.
I’m an ATL transplant, too. I grew up in Detroit. I’m the oldest of three children. Me and my two sisters, Pat and Anita, were all born fourteen months apart, almost to the day. Growing up in Detroit, both of our parents worked for GM on the second shift. They met on second shift, he asked her to marry him on second shift, and they got married the next day while they were on break. Pops had Reverend Jenkins meet them there. They got married and were back on the line in fifteen minutes. They wouldn’t work any other shift but second shift.
After school, we’d go to my grandmother’s house until they got off. When I was thirteen, my grandmother died in her sleep. After that, a whole new world opened up to us. As long as we made it home by the time Moms and Pops got there, everything was cool. It must have been funny some nights to see the three of us come running up from different directions, trying to make it home. All three of us were pretty wild. Anita finally chilled out after she got married and had a baby a couple of years ago. But not Pat, that girl is still wild. They were into everything, and then they got boy happy. Anyway, my parents realized this about them early. So in a vain attempt to slow them down, my parents sent them to private school.
Now my pops is a working man—don’t know nothing but work. Other than women, I mean. All his money went into trying to keep my sisters out of trouble.
When I was seventeen and started thinking about going to college, my parents were in the middle of an ugly divorce. Pops was messin’ around; got caught with a younger woman. My mother caught him com
ing out of the motel. He ended up marrying the woman he got caught with. He was forty-one; Simone was twenty-five. My stepmother Simone, she’s pretty cool and she still looks good. Matter of fact, she’s fine! They’ve been married for fifteen years. Now Pops is damn near sixty and has four more teenage girls to get through. I feel for him. Anyway, when it came time for me to go to college, there was no money.
Pops told me that if I’d be a little flexible, he could hook something up for me. But I wasn’t interested in waiting around for a job at the plant. I was going to college one way or another. I joined ROTC and juggled any part-time job I could find around my classes. I waited tables, been a cook and a bus boy. I hate the name bus boy, but shit, that’s what I was. I sold shoes, did security. Did all kinds of warehouse jobs. It was hard some days, but I got through it. When it was all said and done, I graduated with a degree in accounting, served three years in the Army and got out.
I shook Zack. “Yo, man, Angelique’s on the phone.”
