“I think this is the first time some shit like this has happened to me,” Basil said. His voice was solemn and deeper than usual.
“How did that make you feel?” the doctor asked.
Basil had predicted this question, so he let off the anger he had felt since the night before.
“How does it make me feel? Is that the only thing you fuckin’ doctors know how to ask? Is that the first thing they teach you in med school? Just ask the patients how it makes them feel? It made me mad as fuck. How dare that mutherfucker stand me up and not even call. And when I call him, his punk-ass boyfriend answers the phone. He never said anything to me about his boyfriend coming to town. That goddamn Raymond wasn’t even man enough to talk to me and tell me he didn’t want to go to dinner with me,” Basil said.
The doctor wanted to ask Basil if it made him think about some of the women he had stood up, but after Basil’s tirade he decided against it. Instead, he asked, “Why do you give Raymond so much power over your life?”
“That mofo ain’t got no power over me. I’m the one with the mutherfuckin’ power. I just don’t understand why he tried to make a fool out of me. There I am sitting at the bar, drinking beer after beer, and eating stale-ass peanuts. Having to give my don’t-fuck-with-me look to men and women who tried to strike up a conversation with me,” Basil said as he stood up, placed both his large hands on his knees, and bent over, trying to relieve some of the tension in his lower back. After a moment, he straightened up and walked toward the bookcases, his aching back to the doctor.
“How long did you wait?”
“Almost two hours. I called his hotel and he didn’t answer the phone and then I called and the bitch-ass operator tells me, ‘Mr. Tyler has requested a do not disturb.’ Ain’t that some shit?” Basil asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “I carried my ass home and pulled out my phone book and wasn’t nobody home. Couldn’t even get ahold of that faggot-ass Monty. I started to just call a ho.”
“So you wanted to spend the evening with somebody?”
“I wanted to get my jimmie off. That’s what I wanted,” Basil said firmly.
When the doctor asked Basil how could he be certain it was Raymond’s partner who answered the phone, he told the doctor how, when someone finally answered the phone early the next morning, he had said, “Raymond?” and the person on the other end said, “No. Raymond’s not here. This is his partner, Trent.”
“And you still haven’t spoken with Raymond?”
Basil turned and stared menacingly at the doctor. “Do you think I’d be mad as fuck if I’d talked to Raymond?” Basil shouted. “Do you think I’d be talking about this if I’d had the chance to tell that mofo how don’t nobody stand me up?” Basil saw a bit of fear in the doctor’s eyes and tried to concentrate on keeping his voice under control. He gave a fake laugh that sounded more like a cough when he said, “I guess my father was right when he said love and sex makes strong men into fools.”
Through the smoldering anger in his eyes, the doctor could detect a deep sadness and a crack in Basil’s veneer of toughness. “And which one of those things applies to Raymond?”
“Which what?”
“Is it love? Or is it sex?”
“I don’t know,” Basil said softly.
“You don’t?”
“Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Do about what?”
“About your relationship with Raymond. Are you going to try and contact him?”
“You know I’ve got to get him now. And all I gotta say is it ain’t gonna be pretty.”