If You Don't Tell Ch. 02

He answered the door ten seconds later, but I knew he had taken his time in doing so. As soon as the door opened, I burst through and ran straight to his bathroom.

"Lae cooked you breakfast, I see."

"Eat shit!" I screamed back before running into the bathroom and slamming the door. I sat on the toilet and released the ferocity of my misdeeds. By letting Laela feed me, I had essentially allowed her to poison me and my body hated me for it. Don't get me wrong, I wanted Lae to continually try to improve her cooking, but not at my expense or at the cost of my well being.

I knew Dre would never allow me to get past this particular incident without ridicule and he spent no time chastising me. "Didn't I tell you not to eat that girl's cooking? But no! You had to love her and therefore eat her shit! Now look at you! And I'll tell you what. If you get any of that shit anywhere but the inside of that bowl, we's gone have us a real problem!"

"Dre man, okay I get it. Now can you leave me alone please?"

As he walked away from the bathroom, spraying what I could only guess was deodorizer; he made sure that I heard him. "Poor thing, she's received her father's talents at cooking; a true daddy's girl."

I came out of the bathroom feeling a great deal better than when I went in. Looking around the house for Dre after I exited his now awful smelling bathroom, I found him in his bedroom in his most favorite position; on the phone. With all the smiling and whispering he was doing, I suspected he was conversing with his next conquest. I was about to let him know that it was time to go when he put up his index finger, a sign that he wanted me to hold off on talking.

"I'll see you tonight at your place, okay. Be naked when I get there." He smirked right before he hung up. "You ready to go?"

"I've been ready. Man we need to leave now before we end up being there till tonight."

"Okay, let me throw on my jacket." I shook my head as he looked around his bedroom for a light jacket. It was a little cool outside, but even I knew that the jacket was pointless. In Houston it never stayed cool for long.

We both left the house and got into Dre's Cherry Red Escalade, a chromed out SUV that we affectionately termed "The Pussy-Mobile". If Dre was driving TPM, it meant there was some new ass on the horizon he had to impress. I didn't bother him about the girl on the phone or the fact that we were in his most treasured automobile. All I cared about was the line we were going to have to face at Mr. Larry's.

Between Mr. Larry, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Arturo, Mr. Larry's had the best trio of barbers in all of Houston. It was said that that the three of them could put a fade in nose hair, but I'd never met anyone who was bold enough to test that theory.

Mr. Larry's was the premier barber shop for black people in Houston and there wasn't a black kid in Houston, urban or suburban, who hadn't heard of him. His shop was in the heart of 5th Ward, right across from the library on Market Street, in the oldest and one of the poorest neighborhoods in Houston. The plaza his shop was in was all but destroyed after an arsonist set fire to it right before Christmas a few years back, but even after the tragedy, his shop was untouched and he remained in the same place he'd been in for the last 23 years.

Dre and "Chicken" had grown up in the area and had gone to Mr. Larry's since they were kids, and I'd been going since we moved to Houston twenty years ago. When my father began asking around about black barber shops, there wasn't a person he asked who didn't include Mr. Larry's, even though it was a half an hour drive from where we stayed.

The shop didn't open until 8:00, but there was always a line before it opened, especially on days like today. When we arrived, it wasn't even 7:35 in the morning and we were the ninth and tenth prospective clients.

I sat in the truck and looked out the window at all the other people waiting, wondering if they were playing hooky from work like I was. I was supposed to work today and chose not to. Today was Valentine's Day, the heaviest day of the year for us at EPD. With all the city-wide flower, chocolate, and package deliveries, it was the worst possible day to work. Through the years that we'd been together, I'd always been forced to work and when I returned home, I was too tired to move. So this year, I took managerial privilege and called off.

I would've told Laela about my day off, but I wanted to do something unexpected for her besides pass out. This year I had everything I wanted to do planned out and it all began with me getting a much needed haircut.

"What time do you think they'll get here?" I asked Dre. I needed to stay on my schedule if I wanted my plan to work.

"My guess is this time they usually get here; bout five after eight." He turned to me and smiled. "Quinton, I never told you how proud I am that you're going back to school, man. That's good shit and I'm not bullshitting when I tell you that you're doing the right thing."

"Did my parents put you up to this one too?" I asked, curious about his sudden outburst.

"Naw man, they didn't. You've been in school for a few weeks and I just never congratulated you. I wanted you to know how I felt." He leaned over to give me a hug and I stopped him.

"Okay, I get it; you're proud. But leave out the hugging."

"There's something I wanna ask."

"What's up?" I asked.

"You boned Sakilah." The statement was so out of left field that he caught me off guard.

"What?" I managed to force out of my mouth. "That's not even a question."

"That's not even an answer. C'mon man, I'm your boy. You can tell me this and I'll take it to my grave. The last time we talked about her you sounded like you did something wrong. I just wanna know for sure."

"No Dre, I didn't sleep with her." In order to get away from the inquisition I needed to change the subject as soon as I could. "Who was the girl on the phone?"

"Don't do that shit Q. I'm the master of topic diversions. I'm gonna beat this horse til its dead, buried, decayed and reborn until you tell me the truth. Has it already come to where you can't tell me the truth? That really hurts me man."

I laughed. "What makes you think I'm not telling the truth? I told you everything already; you just want to believe there's more."

"Dawg, I've been living in the same house as you since high school and I know when you're lying. Just like I know when you got a good poker hand, you have tells. I ain't about to tell you what they are, but we're family! Why don't you just fuckin come clean and tell me! I always tell you about what I do! Why is it such a secret that you screwed her?!?"

"Because I didn't screw her, man." It wasn't even eight in the morning and a headache was already growing near the base of my skull.

"You a goddamn lie! I don't even know why you acting like this. Okay, okay, you didn't sleep with her, but I know you got some head."

I opened my mouth to lie, but I knew he'd hassle me until I told him something. "Yes." I said dryly. "Yes, okay she did it for about 30 seconds, but I stopped her. Is that what you wanted to hear?" I admitted trying to make it sound as uninteresting as I possibly could.

"I knew it! Dammit I'm good! Tell me about it! Did she suck on the top?" In the time it took me to take a breath, he went from being my personal paparazzi to an inquisitive student.

"Ewww. Without getting into details like some of us," I raised my eyebrow at him, "it was alright, but I couldn't get into it."

"She-it, I bet you I could get into it. What did I tell you before about that? Do we have to go over my sucking ain't fucking motto again? It was a long time coming, but my boy is on his way back!"

I shook my head. "I'm not back. It was an accident and I don't want to talk about it anymore. It was the first and last time anything like that is ever going to happen and I don't want to ever hear anything else about it." He shook his head and we were both in agreement.

Tired of hearing Dre talk, I was glad to see that Mr. Larry and Mr. Arturo were walking towards the shop, laughing loudly at something the other had said. I pointed behind Dre's head and told him, "They're here." We both jumped out of the truck and patiently waited as they unlocked they steel curtain and finally opened the shop.

A following had built up in the twenty minutes we waited outside the shop. I didn't know an exact number, but there were roughly ten to twelve other people who were also waiting. Everyone knew that the shop only had eight available seats and with two people in the chairs, Dre and I were the last one's to find a seat.

The shop remained silent until Mr. Arturo turned on the old colored TV to the sports channel where they were showing basketball highlights from last night.

"You know what the worst thing about basketball?" Mr. Larry looked at the row of waiting patrons as he spoke. "Those damn women basketball players. You gotta be manly as hell to want to play a man's sport. Like the other day I ran into one of them college players, what's her name, Tequanda Frazier and her "man", right? This nigga had tattoos all on his neck, muscles like a bodybuilder and when I accidentally bumped into them at the checkout line, this nigga turned around and I saw it was a shim! A damn woman that looked like a man!"

Dre was the first to speak up. "Mr. Larry, why do you insist on using that word? It ain't doing nothing but holding us back. It's a reprehensible word and we go over this every time. We belittle ourselves every time we use it. White people been using it for centuries to degrade us, so what do we do, we say 'Why let them do it when we can degrade ourselves?'"

Mr. Larry stared at Dre and then looked over at Mr. Arturo before walking his lanky, six foot frame over and standing right in front of where Dre and I sat. He seemed to address everyone in the shop, speaking in a boisterous tone, but focused his finger solely at Dre. I knew by Mr. Larry's stance Dre had stepped in it so I slightly moved my chair to the right, away from Dre and Mr. Larry. "This motherfucker right here been coming here all these years and still won't le me talk shit in my own damn shop. Listen here and listen good Mr. Townes. I know your aunt and your foster daddy." He turned to me and flashed a crooked smile smiled. "Just because you got a good job, don't think you can come down here and lecture me on semantics. I hate it when motherfuckers that think they know everything come down here and grandstand. Don't be using shit like reprehensible and belittle in my shop. Like I told you last time, I say what I want. White people don't say nigga; they annunciate and say shit like nig-ger. Nigger has a definition, nigga does not, so shut the fuck up please or I will personally see to it to that I fuck up your motherfuckin head."

I looked at Dre and shook my head. I held my lips so that I couldn't laugh, but no one else in the shop refrained at all as the whole shop was in an uproar. We both knew that Mr. Larry didn't tolerate being told what to do, but Dre had his beliefs even if no one wanted to listen. He opened his mouth to say something to Mr. Larry, but I furiously shook my head to keep him quiet.

"Now back to what I was saying before I was interrupted. Those girls in college and in the pros that ball got at least 50% man in them. That's why they get all them tattoos and grills, they wanna be men."

"Now you know that ain't true Mr. Larry." A man sitting in the first seat wearing a gray suit spoke up. "Most of them girls is married with kids. With all those stereotypes you have, it's a wonder that you're even married. Some of them girls might be gay, but not the majority."

Mr. Arturo spoke up. "You know how his old ass is. He believes in every stereotype there is. Last week he was talking about how white people smell like wet dogs, how stingy and selfish Jewish people are, and my personal favorite, why we Mexicanos try to fit twelve people in a four person car. I had to get in his ass about those too. Like black people don't have their stereotypes."

"I don't need nobody talking about me to my face, Turo. All I'm saying is that most of these women out here want to be with other women. Why you think they all coming out now. They doing it in Hollywood, in sports, hell they even marrying, if you can call it that."

It was my turn to speak up. "So what you're saying Mr. Larry is that all women want to be with other women? I can't believe that for a second."

"Yeah that's what I'm trying to say. It's an internal thing than men can't always get out of them. If you talk to one of them gay women who got a kid, what do they say? The first thing outta they mouth is that they got tired of being done wrong by men. How many gay men out there say the same shit? How many say they went gay because a woman done did them wrong, huh?"

Dre was the next to speak. "That might be true, but you can't make generalizations based on opinion. I've dated a few basketball players and they certainly weren't attracted to other women. The truth is that when most men see a woman do something that he himself can't do, they think there has to be a reason. It used to be steroids, but now it's sexual preference? I mean really. Women, just like men, are born with the desire to be with the same sex. All that matters in the end is choice. Do you choose to live normally or do you choose to be an outcast?" I was surprised to hear him say anything at all after the lashing he had just received.

Mr. Larry cut his clippers on and began cutting hair before he spoke up again. "Choice you say? That's what's wrong with y'all young folks today, too many choices. Y'all just don't know no better. You give up because it's easier to do than trying. Back in the day, we made marriages work because it was the right thing to do. We chose to stay together and make it work, which is why we stayed a community, stayed united. Back then a marriage was between a male and a female. Sure there were queers out there, but even they knew marriage wasn't what you called a same sex partnership. It was called a union. Nowadays there's all sorts of terms for it; alternative lifestyle, gay, bi, open, swinging and what's the new one--metro sexual. Metro sexual? Please, that man is gay as a piccolo. Cheating is at an all time high and babies are being born out of wedlock and to only one parent. What happened to commitment?" There was nothing any of us could say.

Mr. Arturo picked up where Mr. Larry left off. "I read this article on cheating. The man and woman had an open relationship. Now this is the kicker, because I never heard this shit before. They said they slept with other people, they said it wasn't cheating because the other person knew about it and accepted it! What type of shit is that? Is that cheating to y'all?"

Dre was the first to speak up. "Damn, now that's a hustle. But naw it ain't cheating to me. Cheating is the attempt to fool by trickery or deceit, but if the other person knows about it, it's not cheating. It may not be ethical, but it ain't cheating. "

Gray suit spoke up next. "I agree with the brother down at the other end. Cheating is when you put forth the effort of being with someone else, even when you have someone to go home to."

I wanted to say something, but Mr. Larry spoke as soon as I had opened my mouth. "Youngblood, you don't know nothing about hustle. That's the new word out, but y'all don't even know the definition and I'm gonna share it with you. Hustling is when you do the things you don't wanna do in order to get to where you want to be. That's a hustle and a hustler. It's a means to and end, not someone who dances around the system, but someone who goes through the system and still comes out on top and still smells good cuz he ain't been in no shit. Ya hear me?"

Everyone nodded in agreement with Mr. Larry, but I was disgusted at what I was heard come out of everyone's mouth about cheating. "Whoa, cheating is cheating, regardless if the other person knows it or not. You guys are thinking about the act and not the intent. Anytime and I mean anytime you have the intent in your heart to sleep with someone else other than your spouse it's cheating. When people recite their vows, it says in the vow that they "will forsake all others." When did that stop meaning something? Why even get married if you're going to have an open relationship. Monogamy is the principle foundation of marriage and an open marriage defeats the purpose of what a marriage is and stands for. We chastise gay people for calling it marriage, why don't we do the same for polygamists or poly-amorists?"

Mr. Arturo nodded at me and added his point of view. "Well said Mr. James. Your generation has forgotten what it means to be committed because of what they feel like they're missing. It's true that I haven't lost my wife to another man or woman for the twenty-seven years we've been married, but if you treat your woman like she should be treated, you wouldn't have to worry about those things. You gotta be pretty sad to lose a good woman to another man, or even worse, another woman because of what you continue to do wrong. That's just my belief."

The man in the suit pointed at me. "I agree with some of what you said, but I have to disagree with the part about open relationships. I don't agree with them entirely, but being married to someone else year after year means that you have to add some spice every now and then. My wife and I have entertained a few extracurricular activities over the years, but that was to enhance the marriage, not take away from it. As people, especially black people, we're taught that all that shit is wrong, so we do it in secret. We don't swing, but it doesn't hurt to have another woman in the bedroom from time to time."

"So let me ask you something," I interjected, "what if your woman wanted another man in the bedroom? Would it still be cool then?"

"Hell naw! This ain't jail." Gray suit said.

"What a double standard! If it's wrong for another guy to join, what makes it right for another woman? If you weren't married, I'd say so what, but you made a promise before God to reject anyone who wasn't your wife. When did that become so trivial?"

He didn't respond, but Mr. Larry took no time adding his thoughts. "Yeah! What Mr. James said! I knew that boy had some sense even if his brother don't." He made sure that Dre saw him glaring.

When Mr. Duncan walked in the topic about open relationships seemed to fizzle and we instantly began talking about sports. Everyone in the shop knew that Mr. Duncan was a man of God and steadfast in his beliefs when it came to talking about fornicating or extra-marital activities. It was best to save that type of talk for early in the morning, before he came or right after he left around four o'clock, or be forced to sit in the front pew every night this week at his adult service. I sat quietly and watched TV while I waited for my haircut.

11:00 AM

We both left Mr. Larry's a n hour later than we'd hoped, with a lot less hair on our heads and faces then when we came in; Dre's cut favored the taper and received a razor shave to maintain his baby-faced appearance, while I received a bald fade and a thinned out goatee.

"Damn, I look good, there is no denying that." Dre said as he looked at himself in his rear view mirror.

"Okay Mr. Sexy, if you'd please drive us home, I'd be very appreciative."

"We never finished talking about ya gal. So are you gonna call her again?"

I looked at him and raised my eyebrow to express my distaste at his repetitive attempts to get me to sway away from Lae.. "It was a one time thing, that shouldn't have even happened one time. I don't have a reason to call her, especially now that I know what she wants. And for your information I'm not messing around on Lae ever again."