Chapter 4: A Fresh Start

Chapter 4: A Fresh Start

Something I’ve heard consistently for most of my dating life is “where are all the good men these days”.  Apparently, according to most women, the good ones are all taken which is mostly true I guess if you buy into hearsay.  I believe most “good men” have just been transformed through circumstance and experience into the not-so-good or less desirable types. 

Now don’t put the book down quite yet, just allow me to explain.  It is my belief there is a crossroad every young man comes to at some point in his life.  And it’s at this juncture a decision has to be made whether or not to journey down one of two paths.  Whichever choice he makes, for good or for bad, it will continue to be at the root of each major decision in his life and anyone’s life he may come in contact with.  The choice: does he do what is right or does he do what he knows and understands to be wrong.  It boils down to that complex decision and what he decides to do at that point will develop him into the man he will become. 

         Up until the point where I had my heart crushed and my world as I knew it collapsed around me, I believed I was the good man.  I felt I was the guy who would always do what was right. I had developed a strong sense of devotion and dedication.  I had a strong foundation in my faith in God.  I was raised the way any single mother would raise her youngest son in hopes he would not become one of the numerous “no good” men his mother resented because of their previous transgressions.  Most importantly, I liked the man I was inside. 

In one instance, one moment in time, my first love had violated all the things I knew near and dear to me and sent me towards a dark path of an unknown world.  Well, perhaps it was more than just the one particular event, the lies associated with it, or the drawn out break up which turned my emotions inward, shut off from myself and the things I saw as important in life.  It was these events mixed in with a little bit of influence from outside sources.

         Men, you see, we tend to congregate together if you haven’t noticed.  We rarely have the compatibility issues our female counterparts tend to have.  We bond with one another on so many different levels, and it is towards our most genuine companions we tend to most emulate and gravitate.  Perhaps it is the deep-rooted desire to have a personal relationship with our fathers, who sometimes have gone on to live their own lives, which forces us to build each other up. 

Whatever the case, statistically speaking, I’m confident saying if you find a group of men or connect with a bunch of guys, you will generally find they act a lot alike.  They will use the same phrases and mannerisms… that is if they truly consider each other to be brothers.  Maybe it’s the whole “alpha male theory” that applies here; basically, the most dominant traits in the pack float to the top.  I don’t know and maybe I am stretching a bit here, but I believe no matter how you look at it, my boys were partially instrumental in my initial transformation from childhood to manhood.

         I still remember the wait in line for financial aid when I was registering for the new semester.  I was still trying to figure out how Lady had managed to get me to leave the campus I admired for so long to end up in a place where my face vanished amongst a crowd of white students.  More importantly, I wondered how exactly black could actually fade into white.  Not that I am racists or attempting to be controversial.  I guess that’s another story. 

After sitting for more than thirty minutes the silence was broken by the comedian sitting across from me.  Apparently, him and I were in the same boat, both of us having transferred from other schools and finding our schedules and financial aid ridiculously complicated.  Our hysterical outbursts served to pass the time and relieve the stress felt by everyone else present. 

The hours passed, we entertained and went about our jovial lives.  Ironically, my comedic counterpart, who became known to me as Talent, and I would end up in a sociology class during our first semester, but we still kept our distance from one another.  Not sure why that was.  Outside of exchanging pleasantries and our discord about the professor, we really never talked outside of the ten-minute forums before and after our beleaguered hour of torture.  It wasn’t until the following year that the two of us would become brothers-in-arms.

         Talent had a gift.  Well, he had many gifts actually.  For one, the man could flat out sing.  Sure, we’ve all had friends who could sing, but this brother could blow like no other ironically, because he COULD blow like any other.  He could mimic any singer’s voice to the T.  “Except Keith Sweat,” he admitted to me once because the man “whined way too much.”  It was amazing how many women this man could bring around with nothing more than a hum. 

Talent was also a comedian.  I mean literally.  He did stand up comedy at a few spots around town.  He could mimic just about any comedian’s voice as well.  The brotha used his gifts to lure in women of all shapes and sizes.  Many times I sat in awe, as did everyone else who stood around.  He used to sing Jamie Fox’s stand-up comedy version of ‘Mary Mary’ all the time, which cracked me up.  I remember it going something like this: 

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Girl I bet you I can wet you, really nice and slow.

One day Mary, she got weary, and left me all alone.

I wonder if Mary knows, how much I love her so-

Mary and Talent in a tree

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First comes love, then comes marriage,

Then next comes Mary’s baby carriage…

Talent was an intellect.  He was one of those brothas, who grew up in the streets but made sure his common sense matched his knowledge of the hood.  He was a human thesaurus and could move a crowd when he spoke.  It was incredible how well he could articulate a thought and how he mastered the human language.

Talent also had a temper.  He was a big man.  He stood roughly 6’3” and every bit of 210 pounds.  His fists were large and worn, tested by the many battles of his youth.  He was the guy you would call if you were having trouble, or even if you weren’t having trouble but wanted to.  He enjoyed a good skirmish and constantly boasted there wasn’t a fight he had lost.  From the stories and jokes he told, he had quite an impressive resume.

It was the fall of my second year at my second university when our paths collided.  At the end of the spring term, myself and four other young men had begun a journey to become members of a Greek letter organization.  And though we were apart from each other over the summer months, we were required to keep in close contact with not only each other but with the big brothers of the organization as well.  A few weeks before the beginning of the fall semester, I received the call we would be adding another individual to our numbers and I needed to make contact with him.

“You know who he is,” I was told.  “Everybody knows him.”

“I don’t know that nigga,” I amusingly responded.  Come to find out, that “nigga” was Talent.  We stood face to face the first day of school and responded simultaneously with glee once we laid eyes on each other.

“Oh, this nigga,” we screamed!  We greeted each other the way most young black men do these days, with a firm grip of hands pulling each other into a manly embrace, as if we were old friends who grew up in the neighborhood together for years and hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks.  From that day on, it seemed as if we were inseparable.  And when the ordeal occurred with my first, it was he who gave me the path to healing.

“Man, you just need to pull yourself together and move on.  There are way too many females out here to trip out about some nonsense.  I think you’d better let it go (a la Teddy Pendergrass).”

He was correct in his wisdom and over time, he gave me his gift.  You see, though I had been around Talent watching him from a distance, it wasn’t until we were pledging that I realized how much of a womanizer he was back then.  This brother had the gift of confidence.  It was something I lacked at the time and Talent exploited my subtle shyness and eagerness to learn to express myself.  He used it all to our advantage. 

He realized my hazel eyes were somewhat of a female magnet.  So many times he would lure women in with the singing and they would cut an eye at me.  He would then be my voice.  It took me a while to realize it but I could see it happen more and more until eventually his voice became my own.  The first time I really saw and understood what was happening occurred in another class we had together. 

Although it had been a year since Sandra had tarnished my opinions of women and relationships, I was still struggling with breaking down the shackles that had me bound to Lady.  And it was around this moment in time I met a young woman who also would have a profound impact on my life, although she was never appreciated for what she was worth.  In hindsight, I should have taken the same approach with her I had originally taken with Lady.  I should have just waited.  There was no rush, but the way we met and the whirlwind that followed wouldn’t really allow for patience to play any type of role.

         Talent had met Lady during the year following his and my reunion.  He had a front row seat to the madness remaining from a relationship that had existed for far too long.  Longer than I believe anyone would and should have expected it to, including Lady and me.  There were terrible arguments between the two of us, Lady and I, and even through all of the drama, I couldn’t let her go.  I didn’t actually know how to let her go.

         Sandra continued to complicate my life for a short while, but our rendezvous grew desolate once the summer ended and I returned to college.  We spoke on the phone a few times, but the relationship, if that’s what you deem to call our few sexual escapades, was hollow from the beginning and therefore had no hope of ever budding into the relationship I believe she hoped it would.

         Talent would constantly ask me what the hell I was thinking.  Lady was not the female many felt I should have been with.  Not only that, it seemed as though apparently a brotha of my stature and appeal to women should not just “settle” for what I thought was all I could get.  So the search for a new life began.  Of course, I wasn’t aware of this quest, but Talent certainly was. 

         The first time I was privy to the esoteric quality my eyes held was during a class Talent and I shared.  African-American History.  It was his idea.  Not because either of us were history majors, but rather it fulfilled a general education requirement.  And at this traditional university, it was a guarantee the majority of the Black women in their first and second year of college were going to be in this course.  It was probably about an eight to one ratio, female to male, which was right where we needed to be apparently. 

         “Hey, are those your real eyes?” I was asked one day right before the hour was coming to an end.  The question came from a young lady Talent had obviously marked as a new victim. 

         “Yes, they are mine, last time I checked.”

         “What color are they,” she inquired.

         “I’m not sure, you tell me,” I responded laughing.  “You’re looking at them.  They tend to change depending on my mood and what I’m wearing.”

         “Like a mood ring, huh?”

         “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to describe them.”

         “Well, Babygirl thinks they are gorgeous.”

         “Bianca!” Babygirl responded shockingly, caught off guard when her friend had revealed the secret they had recently discussed.

         “Is that right?” I questioned.  My eyes now shifted focus from Bianca, the origin of the initial question to the now flustered Babygirl.  She was a beautiful young woman with phenomenal legs and an ass like none I had laid eyes on up to then.  The perfect muscle sat upright on her back, supported by thighs developed from years of dance, cheerleading and softball.  I had actually seen her five foot four inch frame around the campus a few times, most recently during the Greek softball games which I had taken part in although I was not officially Greek at that point.

         “Yeah, that’s right,” she answered.

         From there we carried on the normal exchange between college students.  Questions of where are you from followed by what’s your major were answered and there was a strong initial attraction.  The class was dismissed, we chatted our way out the door and then we parted ways.  Babygirl and Bianca went their way while Talent and I continued our regular routine towards the cafeteria.

         I felt good about the initial meeting.  I honestly never thought I would be able to speak to Babygirl although my eyes had definitely wandered her way from time to time.  But I really didn’t put too much hope into it until Talent wandered into my room later that evening.

         “Hey dog,” he began.  “Bianca is coming by after work tonight.”

         “That’s straight,” I responded, not allowing my eyes to wander from the Madden NFL game I was currently zoned into at the time, while lying on my bed.

         “She’s bringing Babygirl with her.”

         “Word?!”  I couldn’t contain my excitement as I sprung up from the bed and dropped the remote, game instantly forgotten.  “Tell me you’re playin’.”

         “Not at all.”

“Man, I love that woman.  She is so sexy to me.”

“Yeah she is.  And I bet the ass is like Campbell’s soup.  Mmm-mmm good!”

         Talent had a way with words.

         Bianca and Babygirl graced us with their presence before they went to work for the evening.  Bianca came upstairs and left Babygirl in the car waiting, so I went downstairs to keep her company.  I really don’t remember all of the conversation we had.  Pleasantries were continued from earlier in the day and flirtatious looks were exchanged.  I remember I stood outside the driver’s side of Babygirl’s car leaning into the driver’s window.  I started dancing to the music.  She asked why I was doing the butterfly outside of her car to which I responded, “Uh-uh that’s old, let me see you tootsie roll.”  As corny as it was, we both laughed and her smile made me feel as though everything was better than things seemed at this point in my life.

         The ladies came back late that night as promised.  After working long hours at the late night fast food restaurant, Babygirl and Bianca looked equally tired.  After some cordial conversation, Talent and Bianca disappeared into a back room of the apartment and left Babygirl and me alone in the silence of the moment.  I broke the silence by offering a tired woman a massage.

         “Of course.  Are you any good?” she inquired.

         “I do okay for myself,” I assured her.  She lay down on the floor of the living room and allowed my hands to investigate the curves beneath her uniform.  Her body was firm, yet soft and yielded to the slight pressure I applied.  The soft moans she released from time to time were confirmation my desires were eager to be accepted.  I interrupted her comfort to escort her to the bedroom where the physical arousal would continue. 

The massage continued.  I moistened my hands with lotion and allowed them to explore the terrain. 

“Is it ok if I unhook this,” I asked, referring to her bra strap.

“No, go ahead,” she whispered softly.

I asked because I didn’t want to violate her expectations.  I was also journeying into unchartered waters and didn’t want to come off the wrong way.  Every fiber in my being wanted to be with her the more I caressed her body.  My thoughts begin to play tricks on me as my body stiffened with anticipation. 

Up until this point, another woman had never aroused me other than Lady.  Sure, I had laid with Sandra on two occasions, but my mind was never there.  And without the mind, the body fails to perform to its fullest potential.  Though I barely knew the woman, I had watched her from afar for nearly a year.  I felt connected to Babygirl in a way I had never felt before.  I wanted to lie with her.  I wanted to show her all the love and affection pent up inside of me.  I wanted to perform like I had never done before.

Our lips met in the darkness and our hands undressed each other, guided only by the memories of our imaginations.  The light from the moon peeked in from the open shades and reflected off of the firmness of her naked body.  My pulse raced faster than it had ever done before.  The pace of our breathing heightened beyond measure.  My kisses traveled from her lips to the nape of her neck, from her hardened nipple to the edge of her belly button.  The journey ended between her thighs and at this moment, our two souls became one.