(Part 2 of 4)
Now we were both looking at the plaster ceiling with the swirl design—I wish I could have seen how those plasterers did that. "Shoot your best shot," I said, my eyes still following the interlocking set of circular patterns as I reached out to hold Kristin's hand.
"Mike says you probably moved to Treme because you've got a black girl on the side," she paused as the gravity of her words tugged at a question I knew was coming sooner or later. Her grip on my hand involuntarily tightened slightly, "Have you ever done it with a black girl?"
"Yes."
Her hand went limp and I heard her exhale sharply. I turned to look at her. She frowned, closed her eyes and spoke softly, barely moving her quivering lips. I wouldn't let her hand go even though she was obviously a bit uncomfortable interreogating me and touching me at the same time.
"When?"
"Five years ago, in college."
She turned now and focused intently on my eyes, "That was the last time?"
"Yes."
"Do you... do you... I mean Mike says..."
"I'll answer any questions you have Kristin, but I won't answer Mike's questions. I'm not in love with Mike."
Silence.
My turn.
"You want me to compare doing it with you to doing it with a black girl, don't you?" Her face tensed. She pulled her hand away.
Silence.
There, it was out in the open. "If you want to know you have to ask."
Silence. She rolled onto her side, faced me and used her cherry red, lacquered, finger tips to outline my short, manicured, strawberry blond beard. She started at my ear lobe and when she got to my chin, she hesitated, sighed, lay back squarely on her back, and tried to sound as casual as she could, "Did you ever have trouble getting it up with her?"
"No," I replied quickly, almost as if I didn't have to think about it, but, of course, I had already thought about it when I discerned the direction her questions were headed.
A terrifying hurt escaped Kristin's throat, it sounded like she couldn't breath and was fighting to keep from being crushed. "I can't..." Kristin's words peeled off into a grating whine. "David, why..."
"Why, what? Why did I do it with a black girl? Why did I have trouble getting it up a few minutes ago? Why did somebody shoot Etienne? All of the above? None of the above? What?"
"I'm going home." She threw the covers back and started to climb cross me to get out of bed. I grabbed her waist and pulled her down on top of me. She tried to resist but she only weighted 112 pounds and was no match for my upper body strength.
"No, don't run from it. Let's face this. We can do this." I held her in a bear hug. She vainly tried to push away.
"David, stop. Let me go!" she hissed, struggling to break free as I determinedly tightened my grip. "Let me go."
Her small fists were pummeling my chest while I forcibly retained her in my embrace. She had been momentarily kneeling over me trying to scamper out of bed when I caught her in midmotion.
"David, you're hurting me." I used my left hand to grab her right wrist and yanked her right arm. As she lost her balance, I rolled over, pinning her to the mattress. "Stop! Stop!" She started pleading, "please stop. Let me go."
"Kristin, listen to me."
"No, let me go. Stop." She was tossing her head back and forth, trying to avoid looking at me.
"Kristin, that was five years ago. Five damn years. If you didn't want to know, why did you ask me?" We stared at each other. "Five years ago doesn't have anything to do with us to..."
"It has everything to do with us. That's why you can't get it up with me, because I'm not black."
I pushed her away, swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
"Did Mike tell you to say that?" I spat out the accusation over my shoulder.
After she didn't answer, I pushed my fists into the mattress and started to get up. I heard Kristin crying.
"Why... how do you think it makes me feel? I come out here to be with you and... oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."
I stopped midway in pushing myself up and allowed my full weight to sink back onto the bed. Now she was really bawling. I looked over at the Abita, grabbed the bottle and drained it. I sat focusing on the beer label and asking myself how did I let a couple of hours in bed degenerate into this mess.
I had drunk the remaining third of the beer too quickly. A gigantic belch was coming and I couldn't stop it. For some strange reason I just felt it would be disrespectful to belch while Kristin was laying there sobbing, but I couldn't help it.
The belch came out long and loud. "Excuse me," I apologized. Afterwards, I looked over my shoulder at a heaving mass of flesh and hair—even after our tussel, her long luxurious hair flowed beautifully across her shoulders as though sculpted by an artist.
Her back was to me as she faced the wall silently crying and sniffling. I didn't know what to do, what to say. "Kristin, it's not..."
"Give me a cigarette, please," she said without turning around while making a strenuous effort to stiffle the tears.
I had an unopened pack of cigarettes sitting on the night table. Neither one of us smoked that much anymore except after we made love, we liked to share a cigarette. I ripped the cellophane with my teeth, peeled the thin plastic from the box and nosily crumpled the crinklely protective covering. I started to ask, why do you want a cigarette and we hadn't made love, but realized that would be a silly and insensitive question at this moment. I flipped the boxtop open and took out one cigarette. I pushed it back and forth between my fingers. As I lit the cigarette I felt a sudden urge to urinate but it seemed inappropriate for me to step away now. I didn't want Kristin to think I was running from her, or didn't want to talk, or whatever.
"Here." As I reached the cigarette to her, she sat up and took it without really looking at me and without saying thanks or saying anything. She must have really been pissed because she seldom became so nonplussed that she forgot her equiette training.
I picked up the empty beer bottle and, at a loss for what to do next, I began reading the fine print on the beer label.
I felt movement in the bed. When I turned to see what she was doing, Kristin stepped to the floor, cigarette smoke trailing from the cigarette she held in her left hand behind her.
I felt like I was sitting for the CPA exam. Neither of us was saying anything, but I knew I had better come up with the right answers or this deal was off. I looked up as she stepped into the bathroom and partially closed the door behind her.
I saw the light go on in the bathroom. I heard her lower the toilet seat and then the loud splash in the bowl as she relieved herself. After she stopped urinating, I heard the flush of the toilet and then nothing. Maybe she was sitting there still crying.
I sat on the bed with an empty beer bottle in my hand. Damn, five years was a long time ago. Linda. I don't think either one of us was really in love. We thought we were. I rubbed the cool beer bottle across my forehead as I remembered those crazy days in Boston. I think what was the most surprising was how unremarkable the sex was. I mean it was good but it just was. It was no big thing. No ceiling falling on us, the earth didn't move. And there was no scene about it. We did it and enjoyed it and that was it. Not like... I didn't want to go there. I looked at the vertical shaft of light paralleling the edge of the partially open bathroom door.
I think Linda caught more grief than I did. A lot of her friends stopped speaking to her. All my friends wanted to know was what it was like. Sex really doesn't have to be all this. I remember how nervous I was the first time and how she just said, "look, I don't know what you expect and I don't care what you've heard. We're just people. I'm not into anything kinky. You will use a condom and if I ever hear you talking any jungle fever shit, you'll be swinging through the jungle all by your damn self."
The thing I most remember is that she said thankyou the first time I ate her out and she reached a climax. "I don't know what's wrong with me but this seems like the only way I can get a climax."
I had tried to cautiously ask her what she meant without being crude or rude.
"Head. Straight sex is ok but I can only reach a climax when I get some head."
"Is that why you're with me."
"David, don't believe that shit about brothers got dick and only white boys give head. And, for sure, don't believe that you're the only one willing to lick this pot."
"No, I didn't mean...ah, I didn't mean to im..."
"Shut up! You talk too muc..."
"David, I'm sorry. I kinda stressed out because..." As I snapped back to the present, Kristin was standing over me. I hadn't heard her return from the bathroom. I realized I had been sitting with my eyes closed, rolling the beer bottle over my face, thinking about Linda. "...well because I was afraid of losing you. I know you love me. And I think you know how much I love you."
Yeah, enough to come over to the black side of town at night, is what I thought but, of course, I didn't say anything.
"You don't feel like talking do you?"
"No, I feel like it. I want to talk. Let's talk," I answered quickly. I opened my eyes and focused on her petite, immaculately pedicured feet. Her toenails were polished the same brilliant red as her fingernails. Her feet were close together and her toes were twitching nervously in the shag of my persian blue carpet. Kristin was standing so close to me that when I looked up, I was looking right at her muff.
I quickly placed the empty beer bottle on the night stand. I pulled her close to me, embraced her waist and kissed her navel. I felt her slender hands caressing my head. Where was the cigarette?
"I know I'm not very sexy..."
"Kri..." I tried to turn my head upward but she hugged my head hard to her stomach.
"No. Just listen. I've got to say this. I know sex is important to you and I'm willing to try whatever you want to make you happy. Anything. OK? Anything."
"Hey babe, we're going to be alright. You'll see. We're going to make it just fine."
"Be careful who you love because love is mad," was all my father ever told me about love. Nothing about sex. Nothing about understanding women. Just love is mad. We were sitting in the front room listening to his Ellington records. He played that Ivie Anderson song where she sings about love being like a cigarette. And he played a couple of other songs. And a concert recording of Ellington, employing his trademark suavity, telling the audience, "We love you madly." I don't know how many other Ellington fans there were in Normal, Illinois, but early in my life my father recruited me simply by playing records for hours as he sat in the twilight on those evenings when he wasn't running up and down the road selling farm equipment.
I guess I just wanted to be around him. He was so seldom there for any length of time, when he was there I did what he did. I listened to jazz. Mostly Ellington, Basie, and Charlie Barnet playing "Cherokee." I remember once Dad played Charlie Parker's "KoKo." Dad said Koko was based on Cherokee but I couldn't hear any Cherokee anywhere. He laughed. "Yes, sometimes life can be complicated." And then it was back to Ellington and all those gorgeous melodies. I still have the record Ellington signed for us backstage at the Elks dance many years ago. Well, not really signed because his signature wasn't on there. Just a scrawled "love you madly."
"I believe you when you say that," Kristin intoned without missing a beat.
"That's because I love you madly and mean it with all my heart." It had become easier and easier to reveal that truth to Kristin.
***
"David, I just heard on the news that the casino is closing. What are we going to do?"
"Well, you're going to hold on to your job with the tourist commission and I'm going to draw unemployment."
"I guess now would be a good time for us to live together. I could move in with you—I mean if you want me to—and we could split the rent."
"A couple of months ago you were scared to spend the night, now you're talking about moving in with me."
"Only if you want me to." I detected a note of anxiety in her voice. Both of us were probably recalling that angry exchange we had when we first discussed living arrangements over dinner at Semolina's: "David, all I pay is utilities and a yearly maintenance contract, it would be a lot cheaper for you to move in with me even if you took a cab to work everyday."
That's when I had unloaded, "I didn't move down here to live in a white suburb twenty miles away from the center of town. I know your family finds it a lot more pratical, i.e. safer, to enjoy New Orleans from a distance, but if I'm going to live in New Orleans, I want to live in New Orleans. Besides, that's one of the main reasons the city's so crazy now."
And then Kristin had exploded with a preprepared litany of rationalizations: "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be safe. I love New Orleans. I didn't move to the suburbs to run away. I live in Metairie because it's family property and..."
"Because you can't live uptown anymore because your family sold their lovely, hundred year-old, historic Victorian house," I had replied drily.
"David Squire, you're just a starry-eyed idealist. You have no idea of how neat New Orleans used to be and how messed up it is now..."
"Now that Blacks run and overrun the city. Right? Now that they have messed it up and made it impossible for us nice white folks to have a really neat time?"
Kristen drew up sharply as if the bright faced college student who was our waiteress had put a plate of warm shit in front of Kristin instead of the shrimp fettuccini, which she hardly touched.
"David, let's just change the subject, please," Kristin had said in the icey tone she used when her mind was made up and, right or wrong, she was going to stick to her guns.
"Well just think about it, David. I'm not trying to push you or anything, it's just that my half would help with the rent." Hearing Kristin's languid voice flow warmly through the receiver made me realize that I hadn't responded to her question and that there had been several long seconds of dead air while she waited for my tardy reply.
"OK, I'll think about it, Kristin. You know this whole job thing has happened so suddenly, I'm not sure what I want to do. So I'm going to just cool it for awhile and see how the chips fall."
"God, David, you sound so cool to say you just lost your job."
"Yeah, well, getting excited isn't going to change anything. Besides, I can get another job. Good accountants are always in demand."
"David, I've got to go, but I just wanted to call as soon as I heard on the news..."
"Kristin?"
"What?"
"I love ya."
"And I love you." The worry vanished instantly when I reassured her that our relationship was not in jeopardy. Her tone brightened. "I'm on my way to the gym. I could swing by when I finish."
"No, I'm alright," I heard the disappointed silence like she was holding her breath and biting her bottom lip. Why was I being so difficult when all she was trying to do was reach out and touch? Besides I had come to really enjoy her perky company. "But, on second thought, babe, it would be great to be with you. Call me when you get back in."
"I can come now. Skipping one day of gym won't be the end of the world."
"No, no, no, no, noooo. Go to the gym. Call me when you get back home."
"I'll call you from the gym."
"S'cool." I said slurring my signature sign off of "it's cool."
"It'll be around 8:30."
"S'cool. I think I'm going to walk down to Port Of Call and get a beer or something. Later gator."
It was a near perfect November evening in New Orleans, what little breeze there was caressed your face with the fleeting sensation of a mischievous lover enticingly blowing cool breaths into your ear. It would have been a waste of seductive twilight to stay indoors. I grabbed my lightweight, green nylon windbreaker and ventured forth as though this evening had been created solely for my enjoyment. I didn't have to go to work tomorrow. I would hook up with Kristin a little later. My rent was paid. I had twenty dollars in my pocket and a healthy stash in my savings account. I didn't have a care in the world.
As I neared Rampart Street, just before crossing into the French Quarter, indistinct sounds of music mingled from many sources: car radios, bars, homes. No night in the old parts of New Orleans was complete without music.
This is where jazz began. My father the jazz fan had never been to New Orleans. Satchmo and Jellyroll walked these very streets. I looked up at the the thin slice of moon that hung in the sky, "Dad, I'm here."
I knew he'd understand what I meant. He had been a farm boy who never really cared much about the land. What he liked was meeting different people. All kinds of people, but mostly people who weren't living where we lived. Dad would have loved New Orleans and the plethora of street denizens of amazing variety who seemed to thrive in the moral hothouse of liscentious and sensual living which was the trademark of Big Easy existence.
Before I reached the corner a police car slow cruising down the street passed me. I looked over at the cops, one blond the other dark skinned, and waved. Their visibility was reassuring.
***
(end of part 2 of 4)