Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 73556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
“No, I got it. I’ll be in touch.”
They saluted one another, then Roman headed out the door.
A few days later…
Two onyx beads were left for the necklace. The tips of Genesis’ fingers grew sore and red as she’d worked practically all night fulfilling an influx of orders at her long dinette table. Ever since her website went live, things had gotten hectic. Roman had put her in touch with a small business marketing manager, and now, here she was.
A clear pot of lavender tea sat to her left, her cup nearly empty, and assorted beads, jewels, scissors, pliers, glues and the like to her right. Chipped mauve fingernail polish covered her nails, driving her crazy, but what could she do? She was in the zone.
Gotts Street Park’s ‘Tell Me Why,’ featuring Olive Jones, played from her iPad. She looked at the time on her watch. Damn. It’s almost 10 PM. She recalled she hadn’t gotten her mail, and figured it was a good time for a break anyway. Grabbing her door keys, she headed out of her apartment. Down to the cluster boxes she walked, humming a tune in her head. She opened her mailbox, pulled out a fistful of junk mail, then returned to her abode. As soon as she reached her front door to go inside, her neighbor, Charlie, popped her head out. A thick fog of cigarette smoke followed her, along with the odor of fried chicken. The sounds of Lil Jon and The East Side Boyz’, ‘Play No Games’, featuring JoeyCrackTS, Trick Daddy and Oobie, were drifting out of the woman’s apartment.
Genesis immediately stuck her tongue out of her mouth and began hopping around, bopping about, and dancing in sync to the music. That was the club jam back in the day. “Hey, Ms. Charlie! How are you?”
“Biiiitch! You know I’m good!” Charlie laughed in that croaky, smoke-and-whiskey-coated voice of hers. “You’re glowin’, girl! You musta gotta hold of some good dick, strong weed, and long money!”
Genesis burst out laughing. “Life has been good, Ms. Charlie.”
“I saw dat pretty White boy crawlin’ ’round here the otha night. In fact, he been here a few times.” Her cigarette had a long log of ash hanging at the end of it. “Whooo weee! His car was cleeeean! He must have money! MONEY! Get it all for him! Lookin’ like that wolf boy from dem Twilight movies! He had pretty eyes, too. Dimples ’nd shit. Sexy man! Is he Italian? He look Italian!”
“I don’t think so. He said his great-grandmother on his father’s side I think was Native American, though.”
“Well, whatever he is, he is sexy! Too damn pretty! Whew! He a tall mothafucka, too! I would climb him like he was Magic Mountain, girl. I might be gettin’ old, but this thang still can grip! I got that snapper!”
Ms. Charlie started moving her pelvis as if she was the main attraction in some peep show. Genesis leaned against her door, laughing so hard, she almost dropped her mail. I see Ms. Charlie has been drinking again tonight…
The older woman danced about, making her reddish-brown hair full of curlers shake and roll as she fell into a fit of giggles. “Now, I ain’t one to get in folks’ business, but I was intrigued, so I turned my music down the other day and heard him knockin’ that pussy out the frame and takin’ you on a one-way trip to pound town! Y’all was smashin’ pissers like a mothafucka!”
“Ms. Charlie!”
“Ms. Charlie nothin’! I should have filed obscenity charges and a noise complaint,” the woman teased. “I might be sixty-four years old, but I’m young at heart, and let me tell you something…” The woman came further out her door and brought it up as if she was sharing some top secret. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with gettin’ with a White boy.” She looked at her real serious like. “I know all this political shit going on in this country got us at each other’s throats, but at the end of the day, it’s stupid. No rhyme or reason. People are people. We all bleed red. God made man in his image, honey, and skin color ain’t have shit to do with it.”
“Amen.”
“I tell you what.” Ms. Charlie pointed her long, clawlike, light pink painted nail at her. “My daughter, Candice… you remember Candice, right? She moved to Oklahoma.”
It took everything in Genesis’ power to not burst out laughing. She couldn’t help but think of when Roman had said her vagina was going to travel to that very same state.
“Oh yes, I remember Candice.”
“Well, she come ’round here wit’ a White man a few years back. They was engaged, and now they’re married and divorced, but that ain’t the point. Mr. Gregory round the way, you know he’s a minister, he was walking past and saw them hugging. Few minutes later, he knocked on my door like the damn police. Candice opened it, and he ain’t say, ‘Hello, you weird bitch,’ or nothin’! No greeting, just rudeness at stage one! He just got to ranting and ravin’. He was waving his Bible and talkin’ ’bout, “ONLY THE BLACK MAN CAN UNDERSTAND THE BLACK WOMAN, AND ONLY THE BLACK WOMAN CAN UNDERSTAND THE BLACK MAN!” I heard him giving my chil’ the business, so I stepped to the door. Asked him what the hell he wanted. He come lookin’ me dead in the face, ol’ fish-eyed fool, and say, “GAWD TOLD ME TO TELL YOU, THAT YOUR DAUGHTER AIN’T SUPPOSED TO BE WITH THAT MAN!”