it’ll take to keep you here,” chimed in the woman like a sister from the amen corner.
We finally made it to the room. I opened the door and we stumbled inside. Closing the door behind us, we fell onto the bed. I started to tear off her swimsuit, but I thought, “Shiiit, I paid good money for this thing. What the hell, you only go around once anyway.” So I ripped it off of her like they would have in a porn movie. It was exactly what I had been waiting for. Terri looked like she had transformed again right before my eyes. My, how pleasant it was. I wanted to take it nice and slow so that I could give her something to think about; a kind of bookmark from our honeymoon, which I hoped she would remember forever. I wanted to be on her mind even when she was a thousand miles away. I cupped the roundness of her buttocks again with both of my hands. Her cheeks felt as though they were custom-made for me. It was like watching a fireworks show. No matter how hard you looked, you could never experience everything. I was doing my damnedest to see, feel, touch, and taste it all. I was making love like it would be my last chance before being sentenced to life in prison.
From that point on, we only left the room to go to the straw market, where two native Bahamian girls asked Terri to introduce them to me. They thought I was a model from Ebony magazine. Terri laughed, but you know that pumped a brother up and made me feel like the sexiest man in the world. She informed them that I was not her brother, but her husband, the non-model. Later on that day we stood in the middle of Market Street. We ate every last conch the street vendor had for sale. Terri and I must have sucked down eight conchs worth of conch salad. The man warned us that too much would make the horns grow right out of the top of our heads. We didn’t believe him, but he was right, because we did not see the sun for the next two days. We were, as they say, “working off the conch.” We had the do not disturb sign hanging on the door to make sure nobody knocked and threw our groove off. We almost missed the ship back to the mainland.
On the cruise back, I figured everything was going to be fine. Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I just overreacted. Being married and dating were two totally different things. Terri apparently was trying to get into the mindset of being hooked to me for the rest of her life. To tell you the truth, the idea kind of shook me up too, despite forever being on my P’s and Q’s. I must perfect the art of looking, without looking...Damn...this is going to take some getting use to. As Suge Avery said in the Color Purple, “I’s married now.”
Walking On Eggshells
The grind is rough on a brother. I get up in the morning, kiss the wife and go off to school. I pour out all the heart I have to give to the kids I have in my seven music classes. I don’t try to force-feed them like I used to. I am trying to get them to love this lady or this man I call music from a personal point of view. As I glide through the days, the thing that is paramount on my mind is what has transpired between Terri and me over the past ten years.
She has progressed from being a classroom teacher, to a top-notch assistant principal. I am so happy for her. Words cannot explain how proud I am of her. As I drive home I question myself about the feelings I have. I know that going home is supposed to be a pleasant thing. Each day I drive home, I get more and more nervous the closer I get to home. “Is she home yet? Is she happy or mad? What will she bitch about today?”, are just a few of the questions I ask myself. I plot and strategize for any defensive action I may need to take. God forbid I go on the offense. That would be something I will never live down. Yeah, I might be right, but it ain’t about right. During ten years of marriage, I have talked to many men in various stages of relationships with their main lady, and it always comes up jacked up. Even when you are right, you are wrong, if you know what’s good for you.
Now, I know that the connection between the black man and the black woman could not have been like this in the Garden of Eden. God would have smote her right where she stood. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not down with the violence. It just seems as though there is no recourse when the first lady of the house starts her campaign. I drove my hoopty up into the driveway and quickly tucked it away in the garage. She was home. I sat in the car and took a deep breath before opening the car door. I stood and mentally coached myself before closing the car door, then eased my way around the lawn mower and entered the door by the washer and dryer like a cop raiding a dope house. There she was sitting on the love seat in front of the TV. She was looking good as usual.
“Hey, how was your day?”
“Just another day” her eyes stretched open, brow raised with a tight lipped smile as the foundation of her total expression.
I cut into the master bedroom and dropped everything I had.
“Don’t put that junk down in that room. You are always making a mess,” I heard her voice shriek out.
“Terri. Clothes won’t hurt the bed.”
“I won’t have to tell my next husband the same thing over and over again.”
I thought about Terri’s reference to her new husband. The more I thought about him the hotter I could feel myself getting. That’s when I started getting the tightness in my chest. I took another series of deep breaths and put my satchel in the closet before dropping my clothes and taking a quick shower. I jumped out of the shower feeling good and relaxed. After putting on a T-shirt and some gym shorts, I walked out to the den with my mental guard already up.
“What do you have planned for tonight?” I asked. There was a thick silence. “I asked because I thought maybe we could go out to get something to eat.”
She uncrossed her legs on the love seat. I sat down next to her to see if there was any sign of warmth. As soon as my butt hit the cushion, she hopped up and moved to the couch.
“I have to go back to the school and show my face for the eighth grade talent show. You know I want that principal spot so bad I can taste it.”
“I know the feeling,” I said under my breath.
“What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing! I was just thinking to myself! How about if I go with you, and we get something to eat on the way home? You know I don’t like for you to be out by yourself late at night.”
“About what you said earlier.”
Terri looked at Chapman as if he were speaking a strange language.
“You know.”, continued Chapman.
“No, I don’t!” Snapped Terri.
I turned to face Terri and prayed that I would not be misunderstood when I spoke. “You always talk about your new husband and when we get divorced. You know if you say something enough or think about it enough, it’s bound to happen.”
“Negro pa-lease! Save that chivalry shit and that psycho-babble for somebody else. I don’t need a bodyguard.” Rising up from the couch and turning to face Chapman. “You have been talking and thinking about being a recording star for the past ten years and it hasn’t happened yet, so I guess it might take longer for my new husband to show up.” Terri exited the den.
Choking her was paramount on my mind. But, I took multiple deep breaths and I remained seated in front of the TV and surfed the channels to see if there was something I could watch until I went into the woodshed to practice my horns. My mind created a multitude of slick-mouthed comebacks I could use to get back at Terri the next time she said some foul shit to me. It kind of made me feel better on one hand, but, talking to her like that was the last thing I knew I should do. Just like the song says, “Once you get started, its hard to stop”. So, instead, I dozed off watching a rerun of Sanford and Son.
A
