Control, p.1
Control, page 1
Dear Readers,
It’s been a while since I published a major book, as I’ve been trying to get movie deals done, and I’m still working on that. There are far too many Black books that would make great films, including several of my titles. I’m determined to make that happen. I eventually want us all to be able to see why we fell in love with reading. When I first started writing Flyy Girl as a nineteen-year-old sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh in 1989, it was a young, urban book that opened the market for hundreds of new writers, millions of new readers, and made me a household name in Black literature. I’m a bit older now, and I know much more about the details of adult life to write about it, starting with my new book Control—a psychological thriller on the hot topic of mental health and our interpersonal relationships.
It explores the questions of how much control we have in our own lives, how much control we would like to have over our children and family members, how much control we would love to have over our mates or our bosses at work, and what would you like to control the most in your life? We can’t control what everyone else does, no matter how hard we try—something I had to find out the hard way. We don’t control life. We only live in it, and we do the best that we can with what we’ve been given.
Control features a Black psychologist, Dr. Victoria Benning, who has six clients, all with deep control issues that need to be resolved, including a young, female rapper who will do anything to sell her music to gain control over her money and career. A popular film director who needs to control the narrative about his personality and his masculine urges with beautiful young women aspiring to be movie stars. A used-to-be successful screenwriter who is out of control with everything to the point of needing pills, but refuses, thinking his lack of control enhances his creativity. A bisexual music producer who believes in the Illuminati and possibly gaining more control over her own career—even if a “blood sacrifice” is needed. A rich, White businessman who wants to control his guilty feelings over the atrocities done to Black people in slavery—including his great-great-grandfather on their family plantation in South Carolina. He’s conflicted about race, class, gender, education, religion, and everything else. But he can’t control himself. And finally, an overly emotional woman who can’t even control her reality . . . or is she just crazy?
This all takes place in the historical city of Atlanta, Georgia, which has now become the new capital of Black Entertainment—in the A-T-L. Please enjoy it and spread the word!
Sincerely Yours,
Also By Omar Tyree
All Access
The Traveler: Welcome to Dubai
Pecking Order
The Last Street Novel
What They Want
Boss Lady
Diary of a Groupie
Leslie
Just Say No!
For The Love of Money
Sweet St. Louis
Single Mom
A Do Right Man
Flyy Girl
The Urban Griot Series
Cold Blooded
One Crazy Night
Capital City
College Boy
Anthologies
Unleashed: Provocative Short Stories
Dirty Old Men and Other Stories
Dark Thirst
Not in My Family
The Game
Proverbs of the People
Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur
Testimony
Original Ebooks
The American Disease
Psychadelic
The Traveler: No Turning Back
Insanity
Corrupted
Young Adult Books
Sneaker Kings
12 Brown Boys
Business Books
The Equation: Applying the 4 Indisputable Components of Business Success
Autobiographies
Mayor For Life: The Incredible Story of Marion Barry Jr.
Poetry
Poetry: For the Love of Black Women
CONTROL
OMAR TYREE
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
PROLOGUE - Dr. Victoria Benning
MRS. MELODY - Reflection 1
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 2
DARK & MOODY - Reflection 3
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 4
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 5
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 6
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 7
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 8
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 9
MRS. MELODY - Reflection 10
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 11
DARK & MOODY - Reflection 12
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 13
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 14
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 15
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 16
DARK & MOODY - Reflection 17
MRS. MELODY - Reflection 18
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 19
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 20
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 21
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 22
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 23
DARK & MOODY - Reflection 24
MRS. MELODY - Reflection 25
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 26
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 27
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 28
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 29
DARK & MOODY - Reflection 30
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 31
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 32
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 33
MRS. MELODY - Reflection 34
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 35
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 36
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 37
JOSEPH DRAKE - Reflection 38
MRS. MELODY - Reflection 39
CHARLES CLAY - Reflection 40
DARK & MOODY - Reflection 41
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 42
TYRELL HODGE - Reflection 43
DESTINY FLOWERS - Reflection 44
WHO AM I? - Reflection 45
Discussion Questions - for Control by Omar Tyree
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
900 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2024 by Omar Tyree
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023952649
The DAFINA logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 978-1-4967-4804-1
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: June 2024
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-4806-5 (ebook)
Dude wrote a lot of books . . .
He must have a lot of shit on his mind.
What the streets say about Omar Tyree
PROLOGUE
Dr. Victoria Benning
I’m in con-trolllll / never gonna stop.
Friday, February 2, 2024
“CONTROL,” BY JANET JACKSON, PRODUCED BY JIMMY JAM AND
Terry Lewis. I was a little girl when that record first came out, and I immediately fell in love with it. I just understood what she meant. Every little girl would like to have more control over her life. It seems like we have a million restrictions compared to the boys.
Lotion up your elbows and knees. Comb your hair. Straighten out your dress. Cross your legs. Put some baby powder on your neck, your underarms, and down in your tush. Don’t you get dirty. Put down them rocks. Get out of that water. Don’t play with them boys. Don’t you touch that damn dog. Don’t you hang out on that street. Get off that corner. And you watch your damn mouth when you speak to me, girl! You hear me? Now get in the house! Good girls ain’t supposed to be out this late.
That’s why I went out of my way to be a tomboy. I didn’t ask to be born a girl. Raising a girl seems to present extra challenges. Your parents and family are always in protection mode. Like the boogeyman is always out to get you.
Anyways . . . back to Janet Jackson. She had six older brothers and two older sisters. But I was always more interested in her parents, Joe and Katherine. As much talk as we hear about Joe being a control freak and a dominator, I would always study Katherine Jackson as the woman who allowed it. As a Jehovah’s Witness, she was actually as strict as Joe was with her children. I’ve been around Jehovahs before, and I wouldn’t want to be one. It seems like they have a whole lot of repression going on.
Then I thought about Katherine’s limp from polio and how that may have affected her confidence and ego when up against a man like Joe, a wannabe boxer. Katherine was an absolutely gorgeous woman in my humble opinion. And Joe . . . he reminded me of a 1970s horror movie called Blacula. It’s just something about his eyes, his hair, and his eyebrows. He was just a spooky man to look at, almost like hypnosis in his eyes. I could only imag ine the constant voodoo he put on Katherine, and the countless women he had jump-offs with as the father and manager of one of the most famous singing groups in history. But Katherine stuck by her husband and her kids no matter what. I have to honor her for that.
I’ve always been fascinated by control issues, who has it, who doesn’t, and how we all respond to its absence or its gain. I know one thing, kids have a lot more control today than we ever had when I was growing up in Camden, New Jersey, in the 1970s. We were right across the bridge from Philadelphia, but I was never allowed to go there by myself in my teen years. So, I snuck over to Philly as much as I could and paid for it with a strap to my ass whenever I returned home and got caught.
I honestly didn’t mind it though. As the old saying goes, no pain, no gain. So, I took my ass whoopings in stride and maintained my wild side.
Then I went away to college to study psychology at Clarke Atlanta University before earning my doctorate at Georgia Tech. My dissertation was all about the psychological elements of control.
What it all boils down to is power, really, who has it and who doesn’t, and how that power, or the lack thereof, affects our desire to control whatever we can at all costs, while stressing over the things that we can’t control.
I’ve now put in twenty-five years in the field as a professional psychologist in the Atlanta area, counseling stressed-out employees, corporate bosses, actors and directors, musicians and managers, and plenty of couples in relationships, whether they be married or just dating. I’ve even counseled a few “side chicks” which we have an abundance of in Atlanta now.
A lot of these girls would rather be connected to someone with money and power than be alone or with a man who doesn’t have it, which places them right back under the control of a man who has it. So, I’ve advised women young and old on how to deal with the side chick disposition mentally and spiritually.
There’s a lot of everything going on down here in Atlanta. This place has become full of drama, with people moving here from all over the country and the world, especially people of color. And it ain’t all good either. Some of these new clients have taken my career to the edge of madness.
Typically, you’re not supposed to talk about your clients. It’s against the code of ethics, confidentiality, and professionalism. But over the past week, I’ve had five fatal cases with my clients and one on the brink of insanity. And it’s all left me unhinged and in need of a vacation. So, I’m gonna break protocol here and talk about these six clients of mine as a part of my own therapy.
Shit, I’m human too. My doctorate degree doesn’t absolve me from the drama. We all get caught up in life. So, I’m gonna start off by reflecting on Mrs. Melody, the youngest of these six clients at twenty-three. She was an up-and-coming rap star who I took on in the fall of last year. She was a gorgeous girl from Florida with a mouth on her that was atrocious. . . .
MRS. MELODY
Reflection 1
“THAT’S NOT A TYPO. I CALL MYSELF MRS. MELODY BECAUSE I’M married to the game,” she told me. “I got no husband, no boyfriends, no managers, or none of that shit. They all just get in the fuckin’ way. Jealous motherfuckas. So, I do a lot of shit on my own.”
She sat down in my office wearing a lime-green, wraparound one-piece with golden heels that made me think of the character Poison Ivy in Batman. But her style and body were ten times tighter. And she looked biracial with smooth tanned skin, dark, almond-shaped eyes, and slippery, dark brown hair that moved easily on her scalp, the kind of hair that guys loved to touch to make sure it’s real.
I asked her, “How long have you felt that way?”
“About three years. I just got tired of motherfuckas catching feelings and fuckin’ up the business. So, like, I get in the studio to record. And the producers be feeling me to the point of wanting to give me free tracks or whatever. But then your dumb-ass boyfriend or manager starts tripping on some jealous shit.
“They pulling you aside, like, ‘I’on like how he looking at you. We here strictly on business.’ So, then the motherfucka charges us a thousand dollars and shit, when I could’a got the shit for free myself.”
“But it is business,” I reminded her. “You’re not getting my services for free.”
She glared at me with her dark, sexy, piercing eyes that I’m quite sure she’s used a lot with the guys. But I was a professional, old-school woman from up North, who didn’t go that way. So, she smiled and shrugged.
“I mean, some things you gotta pay for. But you don’t charge nowhere near as much as these producers,” she commented. “So, I ain’t sweatin’ it. Fuck it. I need somebody to talk to who won’t judge me. Right?”
She eyed me again to test what my professional ethics were.
“I may not be here to judge you, but I am here to help, and if I can offer you a better suggestion on how to conduct your business, I will,” I told her.
“That’s fair. That’s what I’m here for. But I get a lot more done with my career by myself now, and I just take friends with me. Because the reality is, guys are always gonna catch feelings for a pretty girl, particularly if they think she’s available. But once you have all these other motherfuckas in the way, they start changing their minds on deals and shit.”
“Okay, but”—I chose my words carefully to nail the point home to her—“business is still business. I mean, how would you feel if a handsome guy expected to get your restaurant cooking for free, just because he looked good?”
She pierced me with her eyes again. “I mean, that would be my choice. I could tell a motherfucka, ‘No, you gon’ pay for it.’ Or I could give it to him for free. That’s my choice. But if somebody else jumps in the fuckin’ way, then it’s not my choice. You know what I mean? I just wanna be in control of my own shit now. That’s what I came up here to do in Atlanta.”
I nodded to her, acknowledging her point. “Okay. I get that. But we all give up some control to people who can make better business decisions for us.”
“Did you give up control of your shit?” she asked me.
“When I first started, yeah. I had to build my own client base and reputation. Nobody’s gonna go to a girl fresh out of college.”
“But once you had your own clients, you did your own shit, right?”
Cunning. She was a chess player, looking for her checkmate. I nodded to her from behind my desk. “Of course. We all want control once we know what we’re doing.”
She grinned. “Well, I know what I’m doing now. And what I found out is that guys are always looking for a hookup if they think they can get some. It’s like a trade-off. And it never stops. I’m talkin’ ’bout from the twenty-five-year-olds to the fifties. They all want some of this bright yellow pussy. And if you don’t know how to manipulate that then shame on you.”
I smiled, even though I didn’t want to. I was sending her the wrong message. So, I quickly rebuked her logic.
“That actually feeds right into the Neanderthal philosophy that ‘boys will be boys’ and makes situations worse for young women and not better. We need more men to behave, and not act out like that.”
She frowned immediately and said, “Please. You really think that women’s lib shit is gon’ stop guys from being guys? Music is the wrong fuckin’ business for that. If you want guys to keep their dicks in their pants, then go be an elementary school teacher. Ain’t no guys in there but math and gym instructors. But in the rap game . . . these guys out here all want pussy, and that’s the rappers, the producers, the managers, promoters, fathers, uncles, cousins, you name it.”
She counted them all off on her fingers, and I failed to hold in my chuckle. This girl, Mrs. Melody, was that raw with hers.
