I’m desperate.
I guess I haven’t actually had enough time to come up with an alternative to this column idea, and it seems so over the top. But what the hell, it just might work. I don’t want to lose. Period. Plus, this John-John dude doesn’t deserve Roxy. I don’t know him, but it really wouldn’t matter who it was; there isn’t a brotha alive who understands her like I do.
“So get your book bag off of the floor and let’s get to work, son,” J says in front of the information desk of the Gallaudet University library. Gallaudet is a college for deaf kids, probably the best in the world. I almost feel like I’m in an alternate dimension or a tiny European country where the people stare at you and know immediately that you can’t speak the language. Everybody in this piece is using sign language; fingers are configuring and bending in shapes I’ve never seen before.
J leads the way like he’s been here a million times. He probably has. There’s a deaf girl he’s been freakin’ for about a month now. He says she works in the archival department, specifically on a newspaper called The Silent Worker. Deaf girls, big girls, old ladies, or three-legged traveling trolls, J don’t give a fuck. He says this deaf girl is nasty. He says, “She doesn’t talk much, but damn, she can work that tongue!”
I thought he brought me here for some bullshit, but my man is serious. He opens the door to a soundproof room that’s so far in the back, it feels like a different building. (A soundproof room in the library of a college for deaf kids? Who was the genius architect who thought of that one?) As soon as we shut the door, even the little hum you hear in silence is gone. There’s a round mahogany table and two thick, oak-carved chairs in the center of this walk-in-closet-size room. On the wall, facing the door, is a small black-and-white framed photograph of a scruffy, dirty-looking herder and a lamb. In the lower right-hand corner it reads “Montana, circa 1935.” J asks me how many times I think that ol’ dude probably has had sex with the lamb. I ignore him.
He opens his backpack, pulls out his laptop, and pulls up news articles, research, graphs, charts, and all kinds of information dealing with the hottest columns in the country. If he’d only put this much effort into his schoolwork, his parents would stay off his ass.
“All right, playboy, what you got?” J asks as he hovers over me, jacket thrown across the room, sleeves rolled up. “Have you thought of a name for your alter ego or what?”
“I threw together a couple of names. How ‘bout Corey Casanova or maybe Rickey Romance? I know you gonna feel this one: Sergeant St. Sexy. Tell me you love it!” I had these names scribbled on the notepad J told me to bring. He rips out the page, balls it up, and pitches it over his shoulder.
“All that sounds cute, but I got this one, yo. After watching a few soap operas and a couple of old Eddie Murphy stand-up flicks, it came to me. Are you ready for this one? Dr. Dexter Truelove. YOU CAN’T TELL ME THAT AIN’T THE SHIT!”
J stands up in his chair and beats his chest like Tarzan. All of a sudden the name of the column and the website comes to me.
“Okay, since I’ll be a doctor, and supposedly I’ll be giving people info they’ll need on a weekly basis, why not call the column and the site ‘The Prescription’?” J jumps down out of his chair, grabs my face, and stares into my eyes like he was a four-hundred-fifty-pound dude and I was the brotha who invented the chili cheese dog.
“That’s it! That’s what the fuck I’m talkin’ about! We’re on the same wavelength now, baby boy!”
“So that’s the gist of the meeting, right, J? I mean how much more do we need to talk about?” J shakes his head at me like I just told him I still pee in the bed.
“I see you ain’t serious. You ain’t serious, D. You can’t be. This gon’ take a while, son. Dr. Truelove is gonna be on the minds and lips of every honey in this area. For real.” I click my ballpoint and get ready to put in some work.
I’m ready to take a nap.
J got all kinds of shit pinned up on the walls. It looks like the war room of an NFL team on draft day. It’s starting to get a little musty up in here. I can’t front, though. By the time we leave, I’ll have enough info to take back and get started on the introduction column. He showed me the format of the website on his laptop and what the promo banner would look like. It’s bangin’, I can’t lie. J taught himself how to do websites when he was twelve.
“I got a list of at least ten sites that have agreed to post our banner on their sites. Hitting our target demographic is important, very important,” J says like a Wall Street type.
“Target demographic? Sounds like somebody’s been staying awake during their business elective. Watch out, son!”
“D, don’t play me. You know I know my shit. I may not be a brainiac like you, but in order to become the hottest A&R exec in the music business one day, I gotta stay up on everything.” J’s lifelong goal is to follow in Diddy’s footsteps and direct videos, have his own clothing line, and own an entertainment empire someday. I think he’s gonna do it. “Here’s the rundown for our promotion and advertising strategy—Dr. Truelove paraphernalia like stickers, T-shirts and baby tees, flyers, buttons, and at least three billboards placed in prime positions….”
“Hold up, dawg…. Where the hell we gonna get the money to pay for all of this promo?” I question his budgeting skills.
“D … what’s up with you, man? Why would I mention any of this if I didn’t have our bases covered?” He really looks pissed. J hates to be second-guessed. “What’s the deal? You don’t trust a brotha?”
“You know I trust you, J. But when you start talking all of this grandiose stuff … I don’t know … it sounds kind of far-far-far-fetched … with bullshit on top.”
“Check it—you remember my aunt Frooty? Well, she married this old rich dude that just so happens to be the biggest concert promoter in this region. He’s a fat warthog-lookin’ bastard name Sammy Sureshot.”
“Is he gonna loan us the money?” I ask again, still curious about our budgeting.
“Nah. Better. I went to his office one evening over there on Pennsylvania Ave. I was dropping off money my parents owed for some Frankie Beverly tickets. The whole building was empty, but I could hear Sammy’s stereo in his office playing some New Age, John Tesh shit. I bust in the door to find Sammy’s chubby, naked butt standing in front of his desk with his slacks around his ankles, getting a sloppy hand job from his assistant.”
“Damn! If this is the same crazy Aunt Frooty you introduced me to last year, his ass is grass … literally. She’s gonna cut him up in so many pieces, he’ll have to change his name to Sammy Confetti. I’m sorry ’bout that, J.”
“Sorry my ass. I got him by the balls now. In order for me to keep his little secret under wraps, I offered him a proposition—a little financial and promotional muscle behind my venture … our venture … or else.”
“Damn, you’re a genius—an evil, heartless bastard of a genius—nonetheless, a genius.” Anyone else and I would question their morals, but not J. He can be very cutthroat when he wants to be.
I guess that was it. It looks like J has his end covered. Now all I have to do is start developing Dr. Truelove’s voice. I’m feeling it. Yeah, I’m feeling it a little. What the hell. Something’s gotta work. If I lose Roxy, I don’t want to lose her and know that I didn’t try as hard as I could, ridiculously hard, to get her back. J is still crackin’ up at his uncle Sammy’s compromising position, but suddenly he freezes up, pauses in mid-laugh.
I turn around and through the little square window on our door I see a light-skinned girl, damn near mulatto, with a head the shape and size of a green pea. Her neck is as long and thin as a candy cane without the hook.
“Yo, later for that, D. There’s my girl now.” J starts licking his lips and winking at the girl like he’s LL or somebody. He’s motioning for her to enter, and she kicks in quicker than I can say Olive Oil from the hood. She hurries up and snatches off a pair of glasses that are as big as petri dishes. She’s spaghetti thin, and I’d say an inch and three-quarters away from being a six-footer. When she enters the room, I’m blown away—her titties are bigger than my head (well, maybe J’s head—his head is a little fatter than mine). Those things are huge! I’m surprised she doesn’t walk with a forward lean. How does she keep herself upright? I bet J has a ball with those fun bags!
J leans in to me and starts to whisper like the ol’ girl can really hear us. I guess she can read lips, though. “Meeting is adjourned, my boy. Yo, D, why don’t you do me a favor and stand guard outside the door?”
“Slow down! Aren’t you going to introduce me to her?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah … her name is Lola Bean.” He scrambles for a sheet of scrap paper and jots down:
What’s up, delicious? This is my boy, Diego. We’re just over here studying and you know I was chekin’ for you, love.
I stand up to shake her hand and she towers over me. And I can’t help but notice how abnormally round and surprisingly beautiful her face is. Maybe it’s her smile. Her lips are full and puffy; they cover at least a third of her face. No lie. She smells like something one of my mother’s friends would spray on, but it’s good; it’s something I wouldn’t mind smelling on my hand later on that day. She mouths a hello and nods. Her hearing aids are barely visible. They’re clear and buried in her ear. I would never guess that she’s the one J says is nastier than Lil’ Kim high on some designer form of Ecstasy. All of a sudden the freak emerges.
She shoves me out of the way, then pulls the table out; her little triceps tighten up as the table legs squeal against the marble floor like wooden pigs. She goes around to J’s side of the table and straddles him, one long, skinny leg at a time. Suddenly I feel like I’m at a peep show. Her monster lips are sliding up and down J’s face and neck. She unbuttons his shirt, then wraps her legs around the chair, confining my man like a black widow’s web.
“D, I’ll get at you later—work on that column and write your ass off, man.” He can hardly speak between taking deep, heavy breaths. And to my surprise, Lola is messy; I see slobber running all down J’s cheek. She’s loud, too; grunting like a bull, nostrils flaring, wild as hell. By the time I get outside the door and pose as a makeshift guard, this girl is just about naked. The only thing she has on is an industrial-size grandma bra, a pair of long, candy-striped bobby socks, and pink Chuck Taylors.
J is now sitting on the table with one leg out of his pants and the other one just hanging on. He reaches a hand inside his bag and pulls out a roll of flavored condoms; I see cherry, raspberry, and hot sauce. Lola bats her long lashes, drops to her knees, and then pops one of the condoms in her mouth like a Pringle—damn, no hands. J spots me peeping through the door, throws up an okay sign with one hand, and digs his nails into the tabletop with the other hand.
I’m pathetic. A horny peeping Tom. I’m outta here. I’ve got a lot of work to do.