Control, p.8
Control, page 8
I nodded as they eyed me across the desk. “I have a friend who could write something based off of what you both are going through in your lives right now. Like, what would it take to push you over the top? And what would happen if you lost control of yourself?”
I was making it up as I spoke. Surely, Tyrell Hodge could do something with that topic. He was borderline losing control himself.
Mrs. Melody started grinning. She said, “You always have to keep your control. That’s one of the only things you have left in this world. How do I control the shit I choose to do?”
DM was more pensive. She looked at me and said, “You know how I feel about that. We all want more than what we’re allowed to have.” She looked at Mrs. Melody and added, “Even you. You dress all sexy and do sex music to try and control the response of your audience. But in doing that, they end up controlling you.”
“Yeah, but then I’ll have more control over my own life when I got more money because of the decisions I make,” Mrs. Melody shot back. “So, you can be hardheaded and go your own way if you want, but then you’ll end up complaining when you don’t have the money to do the shit that you’re really trying to do. Then you just end up complaining all the damn time.”
She said, “I got girlfriends like that now, including my mom and my sister. They’re always complaining about shit that they can’t change, and I’m the only one helping them the fuck out. But yet they call me the crazy one!
“So, say what you fuckin’ want. But I know how this real world works,” she continued. “And if you don’t work to please no-fucking-body, then nobody’s gonna please you. And you’ll be a lonely motherfucka out here by yourself.”
I looked across my desk at DM and smiled. Of the two girls, Dark & Moody was the one brooding, and Mrs. Melody was the one shining. So, she knew what she was talking about.
DM grinned back at me and said, “So, the light-skinned Becky with the good hair gets to be the star of the movie, and I just make the music for it.”
Mrs. Melody grimaced. “Oh, we goin’ there? Is that where we’re going now?”
Dark & Moody said, “It’s the truth, right? That’s what the people want. The light-skinned, mixed girl with the big titties, the big ass, the swimming hair, the yuck mouth, and the nasty-ass clothes up her ass.”
I was ready to jump in and stop a full-fledged fight. That comment had nowhere to go but into unadulterated ugliness. But to my surprise, Mrs. Melody kept her poise.
She said, “I don’t wear no nasty-ass clothes. But I know how to get nasty when I need to. Do you?”
She looked Tasha Samuels right into her eyes as the room went silent. And then they . . . started laughing, and it shocked me. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought they were about to start throwing punches and pulling hair in there, because Dark & Moody had hair too.
She responded, “I know how to do what I need to do when I need to do it. Ain’t nobody no little girls in here. I know how to handle mine.”
Mrs. Melody said, “Okay then. Do you and stop hatin’ on the next bitch. That’s my motto. I ain’t got time to be thinking about Becky or no other bitches. She ain’t filling up my pocketbook with spinach. So, why am I concerned about what she’s doing?”
I jumped right in and said, “Good. You shouldn’t be. So, I’ll start working on that movie idea and see if I can get my friend to interview both of you guys. Because it doesn’t have to be about just one person. You both have interesting stories to tell. And that would make a more interesting movie.”
TYRELL HODGE
Reflection 13
TYRELL WAS AT IT AGAIN ON SPEAKERPHONE, AIRING HIS FRUSTRATIONS with an agent friend, while driving to pick up his next rider.
“They’re only offering two thousand dollars? We waited all this time for that?”
“Look, Tyrell, you have to allow yourself to get back in. Sure, I know it’s worth at least ten, but that’s all they want to offer. So, take it, bank it, and write something else for tomorrow.”
Tyrell yelled, “These motherfuckers! They’re toying with me, man! They could’ve said that shit weeks ago. Why wait this long just to lowball me?”
“You’re running out of options, Tyrell, you really are. Everyone calls you difficult at this point, and they’re trying to see if they can even work with you. So, if you turn this down, they may never make another offer no matter what it is.”
“Okay, so, I take the offer and keep writing for pennies? How does that help me?”
“It helps you by getting you back in. Then they could offer you four thousand for the next one, and ten thousand after that. Just give it a chance.”
“Give it a chance to do what? To rob me?”
There was silence over the car speakers as Tyrell pulled up to his next pickup location outside a Walgreens drugstore. A tall Black man in his mid-twenties waited there for his pickup and checked the PDS app on his phone.
“Okay, that’s him,” the man mumbled as he began to walk toward the silver Malibu.
Tyrell remained focused on his call, oblivious to the rider walking up behind him on the passenger side.
The agent said, “I’m ready to just stop doing this for you, Tyrell. I put my neck out there for you and you don’t seem to care. But I have a reputation to protect in this too.” He said, “I’m not getting anything from this two thousand dollars. I’m trying to help you out.”
“Help me out how? By selling me into child labor, like I’m a damn kid,” Tyrell yelled into his car speakers. He said, “I write grown-man shit and I want a grown man’s paycheck for it.”
The rider froze just as he opened the back passenger door to climb into the Malibu.
Tyrell finally noticed him and was startled by it. “Shit! I ain’t see you back there,” he snapped with a smile.
The young man hesitated while holding the door open. “Is everything all right?” He didn’t know if the older driver was talking to himself inside the car or not. And angrily too.
“Yeah, I’m just having an argument with a friend of mine. Everything’s good. Come on in.”
The younger man climbed into the back and sat down cautiously. Tyrell often put people on guard that way. And he liked it. It was his Chicago edge to rule his car no matter who sat inside it.
His agent friend said, “Okay, I’m done.”
“Yeah, I’ma call you back after this ride, man,” Tyrell told him.
“For what? You already told me you don’t wanna do it, right?” the agent responded. “And I take offense to you saying I’m selling you into child labor. Why would I want to do that? If your price remains low, then my commission remains low. But at the same time, if you can’t land anything, then what’s the point in me trying to represent you?”
“Aw, man, that child labor thing was just a figure of speech. Stop gettin’ all sensitive. I’ll call you back later.”
Once again, Tyrell hung up rudely to drive. He looked back at his passenger and said, “My bad, man. I got a lot of shit going on. How ’bout you?”
The passenger shook it off, not wanting to share his personal life with an angry old man. All he said was “I’m good.”
“Yeah, well, that’s good to hear. We all don’t need fucked-up lives out here. Somebody gotta be doing good.”
The younger man listened in silence. He wanted the ride to be over with as quickly as possible, especially when Tyrell kept talking.
“Yeah, man, motherfuckers try not to pay you what you’re worth, and then they expect you not to be offended by it. Like, you’re just supposed to take anything. You know?”
The younger man nodded and remained silent in the back. In his silence, he hoped and prayed that Tyrell would follow his lead and just drive without talking. The young man didn’t care to hear the extra commentary.
“Aw’ight, let me see where we’re going,” Tyrell continued. He looked down at his cell phone, which was front and center with an attachment on the dashboard, and he made a hard right turn, following the directions of the app.
“Aw’ight, you just got nine minutes. I call them baby rides,” he commented.
Finally, he got another response from the young man. “Baby rides?” He was confused about the context of the word baby. What did a “baby” have to do with his ride? Was the older man calling him extra young because of the short distance of his destination? The analogy didn’t connect for him.
Tyrell grinned and explained it. “Anything under ten minutes is like riding a tricycle instead of a bike. So, I call them baby rides. You get it?”
The younger man grinned and mumbled, “Okay,” He didn’t want to lead the older man into another aimless conversation, but it was too late. Tyrell was already in a talkative mood.
“What about you, man? Would you keep taking less money than you deserve on a job? ’Cause I’ve done that shit before and it didn’t add up to nothing. Either they get happy ’cause they got you for a discount, or they keep trying to get more deals out of you.”
The young man tried his hardest to mind his own business and make it home without conflict, but Tyrell was determined to push his point.
“I mean . . . it depends on the situation,” the rider answered carefully. “But I’m not gonna keep doing it,” he added.
It was the right answer. Tyrell got excited and said, “Exactly. And once you figure out these motherfuckers gon’ keep trying to get you, you gotta cut off the well.”
The rider nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”
The problem was, Tyrell had cut off the well with his opportunities years ago by being so acidic in his responses. Of course he had a point about the value of his work and pay, but he had yet to understand that the majority of humans liked sugar more than spice. He still had to learn how to negotiate civilly. And it didn’t matter how talented he was, how hard he worked, or how much writing experience he had, humans continued to value charm that Tyrell refused to utilize.
He had created the same issue for himself at home with his lady friend. He would drive all day and night, arguing about every issue that disturbed him, and then come home looking for healing. But she was tired of healing him, and tired of his toxic attitudes. He even walked into the house wrong.
“Yo, I’m home. Where you at?”
It was after eleven o’clock at night when most people are ready for bed. But Tyrell was wired like the strongest coffee. He was an all-night-long man, and it took a lot to deal with him. So, his lady slipped into the bathroom upstairs as soon as she heard him walk in, which was easy to do because he was so loud and predictable.
“What you got down here to eat tonight?” he yelled up the stairs. Without an answer from her, he headed into the kitchen to find food.
On the stove was chicken, broccoli with cheese, mashed potatoes, and buttered rolls, but it was all cold because she had prepared it all before eight.
“Aw, shit, I’ma eat good tonight,” Tyrell told himself as he prepared a plate for the microwave. He had the same modus operandi, nearly every night. He’d walk in late with new, hard-earned money, while hungry and horny. Sometimes, he would bring fast food with him. Then he’d eat while watching sports highlights on ESPN inside the living room. Once he retired from that, he would expect to jump his lady’s bones inside their bedroom, as if it was as easy as washing his hands. Yet . . . he couldn’t understand why she had grown tired of it.
As talented as he was a creative writer, Tyrell was what relationship experts liked to call a Neanderthal. He just didn’t get the basic need for change. And he was at his bad habits again that night.
He finished eating his food, watching the sports highlights on TV, and was still feisty with energy after midnight. But when he walked up the stairs, expecting to find his lady friend inside the bedroom, she had yet to leave the master bath that had now become her sanctuary.
Tyrell looked around and said, “Yo, you still in the bathroom? What the fuck you doin’ in there?”
He took off his shoes and sat on the edge of their king-sized bed, which was peppered with magazines that she still liked to read and flip through.
“Hey!” he yelled again toward the bathroom door. “What you doin’ in there?”
No answer. She had gotten used to ignoring him. But a Neanderthal would always pursue. So, he stood up and walked over to the bathroom door, expecting it to be locked, and it was.
“Are we doing this shit again? You gon’ spend all night in the damn bathroom?”
“Did you put the leftover food away?” she finally responded to him.
“Yeah, I always put it away.”
“No, you don’t,” she argued.
“Whatever. Just hurry up and get out of there.”
“Why? Do you have to use the bathroom?”
Tyrell paused. They had a second bathroom out in the hallway, and a half bath downstairs. But he answered her anyway. “Yeah, I gotta go.”
“And you have to use this one?”
It was fascinating how they continued to play a game of mental chess with each other, but it was what it was. And once those mental games had started, they continued going until someone or something would end them.
Tyrell realized that he was being ridiculous, and so was his lady. They were being ridiculous together. Yet, they continued with the charades.
“Why you always gotta paint your toenails late at night with the damn door locked? You can do that shit out here in the bedroom,” he complained. He could smell the polish through the locked door. It was that pungent.
“No, I can’t, because you’re gonna complain and bother me.”
“Well, why you gotta do the shit so late? You could have done it before I came home.”
She ignored him again. She had explained it all before. Like anyone else with an active schedule, she was busy doing other things during the day, and she needed to be stable for her toes to dry instead of moving around. So, she chose to do them late at night, particularly when she didn’t want to be bothered by him. She understood that the process of toenail painting gave her a perfect diversion. But when a man lives with a woman, he already knows as much.
“Yeah, I know what you’re doin’. You try’na create another excuse not to fuck with me tonight. You ain’t slick.”
“Whatever,” she responded casually through the door. No matter what he said, she was not opening it. He would just have to deal with himself. Tough cookie.
Realizing as much, Tyrell exhaled and thought about grabbing a beer out of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
“Shit!” he snapped. “Fuckin’ playing these damn games all the time.” He walked off for the kitchen, still mumbling to himself. “Motherfucker work hard every day to pay the bills in this camp, and she wanna paint her damn nails all night. She knows my damn dick hard out here.”
What could be said about the raw emotions of an unapologetic man? It was just too much. He may as well have gone out and grabbed a dinosaur bone and knocked his lady over the head with it. No self-respecting woman responds glowingly to that kind of denigration. He was fortunate to still have her. But you couldn’t tell Tyrell that. He still lived on Mars, while his lady lived on Venus.
The man finally walked back down into the kitchen and grabbed two beers from the fridge. He sat back on the living-room sofa, clicked the TV on, and drank himself to sleep, while watching more ESPN highlights.
CHARLES CLAY
Reflection 14
“SHOW ME HOW MUCH YOU WANT IT. SHOW ME.”
“I want it bad. I want it.”
“Then show, baby. Show me good.”
Charles leaned back on a hotel bed and allowed a pretty, aspiring actress to perform oral sex on him.
“Mmm, hmmmm,” she hummed in between the director’s open legs.
“Is this how your boyfriend likes it?” he asked her.
“Yesss,” she slurred. “Mmm, hmmmm.”
“Then show me, baby girl. Show me!”
He gripped the pretty young woman by the crown of her curly head with both of his hands and pushed her down faster and faster.
“Show me. Show me. Shooowww meeeeeee. . .”
His climatic explosion squirted all over her face, her shoulders, and her hair as she closed her eyes at the foot of his hotel bed, where she had kneeled down below him.
Charles fell back against the pile of white pillows behind him, exasperated and panting. “My God, you’re good!” he told her. “You need to be a star!”
The poor girl had a happy enough disposition to giggle at it, while wiping off the mess that he had made of her with a fluffy white towel.
She said, “I really do need to be a star. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
The young twenty-something was so beautiful she was hard to look at without feeling hypnotized. She had the thick, curly hair of a Latina, coupled with the smoothest peanut-butter brown skin you could imagine. She looked like a painting with no makeup needed. And Charles had ruined her.
He looked up at the ceiling and said, “I’m gonna see what I can do for you. I really am.”
“Are you serious?” She said it as if she didn’t believe him. Why should she? The popular director had lineups of grown women from all over the country wanting to be cast in his films. So, why would he need to promise a young hopeful anything? She hadn’t even been featured in a music video yet, let alone a movie. But in America, people were taught to believe that anything was possible, no matter how unfathomable.
Charles looked into her young and pretty face as she stood beside him and continued to wipe herself off. She wore a hot pink top off the shoulders with ruffles, and blue jeans so tight she had to yank them up and peel them back off. Her colorful clog heels completed her stylish look. You could tell that she was into high fashion. All of that . . . just for him to ruin her.
The guilty director said, “Yeah, but you know we can never talk about this, right? This would be the worst way to start your career.”
She grimaced as if it was the worst comment for him to make. “Oh, I already know that. My boyfriend wouldn’t like that shit either.” She grinned and added, “He would try to kill you.”
