The son of mr suleman, p.27
The Son of Mr. Suleman, page 27
“Jesus. Can’t leave y’all for one day. What went down?”
“All the neighbors were out in the streets. The Ballards. The Whites. The Kendalls. The Boatwrights brought Cokes and the Smiths brought hoecakes. Reverend Johnson ran down from his house and was there to keep it calm. We all held hands and prayed a good prayer.”
“Stop laughing.”
“When something funny to Momma, Momma gonna laugh. We famous here this week. Everything gonna be fine. Caught the lying heifer on Ring. They took Sis because we Black. Police come this way they ain’t happy until they got one of us sitting in the back of their car.”
“You sure?”
“We posted it and her IG following went up by five thousand. She catching up with me.”
I started laughing along with Momma. It was a Black thing. Our humor a family thing.
“What funny to Momma, funny to Momma, and I don’t care who don’t think so. We’re gonna tease Sis a long time over this one. A real long time, Sweet Meat, like we did your barbecue that time.”
I said, “I wished you had come, but now I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I had a ticket to go with you, same flight. They sent me one.”
“Why didn’t you come?”
“Those people don’t want to meet me, and I don’t need to meet them. Never said one thing nice about me, not once.”
“This is about you. This is a chapter in your book as much as mine.”
“This yours. I closed that chapter in mine. Now tell your momma you love her so she can go get her oldest daughter. Got me a Bruce Lee–kicking daughter. Mad at her, but proud of her. Never let folks do you wrong. She put that jealous girl in her place. That Dominican won’t be back on Kansas Street carrying nothing heavier than roses and an apology the size of a big bucket of KFC chicken here on out.”
“You cross us, you get what you get.”
“What else you have to do out there? I need you back home.”
“He wrote in his will for me to attend a few events.”
“Events?”
“Funerals.”
“He out there having two and three funerals?”
“More or less.”
“Bet he is doing like Aretha Franklin. She had three outfit changes for her viewings and funeral. Can’t die but once, yet er’body trying to get buried forty-eleven times with a seven-hour funeral.”
“He’s over-the-top.”
“How he look? They do him up good?”
“He looked better dead than most folks do alive.”
“Hate you by yourself out there.”
“My friend came out.”
“Yellow gal?”
“Yeah, she right here in the car with me.”
“Sweet Meat, I’m running my mouth and you didn’t say a stranger in the room?”
“She can’t hear you.”
“Fool, I hear you and if she sitting right next to you, she can hear your part of the conversation. Sweet Meat, politely tell your friend I need a word with both of you and put your phone on speaker.”
Chuckling, I did what Momma said, no hesitation.
“Good morning. This is Miss Infinity Molyneaux. I’m Pi’s mother.”
“Miss Infinity Molyneaux, my name is Gemma Buckingham. Nice to meet you despite the circumstances.”
“Likewise. You from out of town, I hear.”
“I’m from London.”
“I wanted to thank you for taking the time to go out there to be with my favorite son at his time of need. I don’t know you yet, but he likes you, so I will like you until he stops liking you.”
“Miss Molyneaux, it’s my pleasure to help him get sorted.”
“So you single, separated, divorced, or widowed?”
“Wow, well, if you must know, I’m divorced.”
“How long?”
“I married at sixteen, like a fool, and was divorced the same year.”
“Why you go off and do that?”
“Married to get away from my parents. They consented. He married me for citizenship.”
“Any babies?”
“No children and in no rush.”
“Where your peoples?”
“My mum is in Manchester and my father is in South Africa.”
“They divorced?”
“Not at all.”
“Well, come by the house when you get back in town. We only bite people we like.”
“I’ll make sure I come for a visit as soon as possible.”
“I’ll make you a Sunday dinner. Tell my son to text me what you like to eat. When you come don’t dress fancy. Wear your slippers if you want to. If you come in your pajamas, nobody gonna care.”
“I look forward to meeting you.”
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“My son special. Want you to know that. But you his secret friend, and already know you are with a good man. Never done wrong a day in his life. When they made my son, they broke the mold. He ain’t never going to brag on himself, cause that’s my job. Momma was sick a little while and my son worked three jobs, did that when he was in high school to help all us out. Smart boy but that load had him struggling with his grades. Never complained, not one time. Grades got low, but he stuck to it and he made a comeback. Then he worked over at Southgate at Piggly Wiggly the third shift so he could go to classes at UAN in the day. U of M missed out when they turned him down. He used to walk from here to work in the dark, in the middle of the night, because the buses stop running at ten, would sleep a couple hours, then get back on the 31 Crosstown Kansas by seven, be on the back of the bus asleep before it took off.”
“Had no idea he had struggled to achieve so much. Your son is truly an amazing man.”
“Send a selfie right now so I know what y’all look like; that way if y’all go missing I can tell the police what you look like today and show ’em the clothes y’all had on.”
We did.
“Oh, you yellow for real. Real yellow. You yellow enough to own the color. Not for your hair I’d swear you was skinfolk with Miss Ann out here in Germantown. You kind of pretty.”
On a disturbed exhale, Gemma Buckingham whispered, “Wow.”
“Y’all dressed real nice, look good together. But everybody daughter looks a little bit better when she’s sitting next to one of my boys. Okay, pretty yellow gal. Bye.”
Momma ended the call.
I asked, “You were married?”
Gemma Buckingham shifted. “That was interesting.”
“Your word again.”
“In this case ‘unique’ might be a better word choice.”
“Momma is unique.”
“You must be some momma and son.”
“You okay?”
“Yellow gal?”
“Southern thing.”
“Rude.”
“No harm meant. Red bone, red, high yellow, you’ll get called that and more here.”
“So, since Meghan Markle grew up in an African American neighborhood, she had it just as bad on this side of the pond.”
“Never heard of that actress until she married royalty.”
“Yellow gal. Own the color. Miss Ann in Germantown. Bet Sunday dinner will be a riot.”
“We okay?”
“You don’t understand what it is to be biracial.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yellow gal. I assume your mother isn’t a yellow gal, so Sunday dinner will be interesting.”
“No harm meant.”
“The damage is done.”
“I’ll call her.”
“No need for a second traumatization.”
“I can have her call you up and apologize, or do it face-to-face.”
“It’s cool; it’s cool; it’s cool; it’s cool.” She shook her head, chuckled. “Should be used to particular ways of thinking, but I’m not. I get all the crap Black people get from non-Blacks, plus the bigotry that Black people have. I’m the dumping ground for all that is wrong in the world. Everybody seems to think that my complexion makes it easier, that I don’t have real issues, so they remind me of their issues every chance they get. You know how much it stings to catch a wanker you been spending your time with . . . in the arms of a woman who looks three shades closer to Africa than you ever will?”
She rubbed her temples.
Then she tossed in a laugh. “Shit, sorry. Maybe I am overreacting. I mean, I have been called worse. I guess that came out of nowhere, didn’t anticipate that happening while I was in a car riding down a bloody freeway in Los Angeles. We’ve had a long day and it was a long trip to get here. I’m sleepy. Couldn’t nap on the plane because I was too worried about you. Sleep, I need sleep.”
“So, I lay the pipe one or twice real nice and we good?”
“We’ll pretend it never happened. At Sunday dinner, it won’t be an issue.”
“Be yourself. If you show up in booty shorts and slippers, they will like you right away.”
“She talks fast.”
“People who talk slow stupid; Momma not stupid.”
“So, do I come across as a dimwit, love? Should I talk a little faster?”
“It’s a joke. She’s always been a fast talker. When she lectures she makes herself slow down.”
“At least she called me pretty. Mind showing me a selfie of you and the lovely woman, honey? I’m sure you have a ton of them in your phone. Hand it to me and I’ll take a quick look-see.”
“You used to be married.”
“You have a sister in jail.”
“Interesting.”
“To say the least.”
“You were married.”
“For seed money to start my business, no other reason.”
“At sixteen?”
“At sixteen. It was a business transaction.”
“A business transaction.”
“Which defines marriage. At some point, all relationships evolve and involve business.”
CHAPTER 42
Hair styled like Misty Knight with a T as her cosplay uniform, eyes wild, Gemma Buckingham panted, craned her neck, looked back at me in my Power Man T, focused on my green eyes as she touched my hands, hands choking her neck harder, harder. She nodded she wanted more. In Luke Cage mode I stroked her at a steady pace, the cadence of a rapid heartbeat. Skin slapped, the bed rocked, the walls shook, and her wild hair bounced same as mine. I grunted like a man losing the plot one stroke at a time. She twisted her body, brought her tongue to mine. I added deep, wild kisses to the mix.
Orgasm frenzied her, its riptides yanked her under, had her stressed for drops of fresh air as her body shivered head to toe. She tensed against its power but was consumed by the surges of electricity, the crashing waves. She fell away from me, left my beard dank with honey from London. I watched her. Waves died down, became twitches, then spasms that lessened. She needed a break. I washed my face and came back. She was still panting, sweating, twitching. I got on top, took her missionary.
“Pi . . . Pi . . . oh, Pi . . . I . . . I . . . I’m going to come again.”
Soon she was on the suite’s plush sofa, on her back, legs hanging over the edges, open wide so I could tongue love Delicious while she worked her gag reflex at the same time. Her phone was on the table, recording our session. I changed positions, gave her big daddy long strokes, put her feet on my chest, sucked her toes, then pulled out as she was at the end of body-quivering, Jesus-calling, Afro-pulling orgasm eleven, because I was calling God too. With a caveman grunt I grabbed her ’fro and brought her mouth to the fountain to have communion; she greedily hurried her full lips to my erection. Stroked and sucked and stroked and sucked until I grunted louder and moaned and lost control and tried to feed it all to her, made love to her face the way she liked it, the intense way she demanded it, this her ultimate challenge, to take it all, and I came so hard I almost fell off the sofa and passed out.
“Jesus, what was that all ’bout and can you please do it again, but not now.”
I didn’t want to leave here.
We were in the London West Hollywood at Beverly Hills, ordering room service, smashing up the place. We could’ve been at a Motel 6 somewhere on a dusty section of Route 66 for all I cared.
All I wanted to do was avoid the lazy man’s load I’d left in the 901.
“You’re bloody different here too, Pi.”
“How so?”
“Uninhibited.”
“Like you’re different in Memphis than you are in London.”
She fluffed her magnificent Afro. “No one I know in London would recognize me here.”
“You said you want to see more of the South.”
“So much to see here. America is so bloody large. Did some research. You can drive for days and still be in America. You can drive for twelve hours and still be in the same state.”
“In at least three states, yeah.”
“And each of your fifty states has its own laws, which makes it sound like fifty countries.”
I said, “You’ll have to show me around London one day.”
“That’s about all it would take to see most of London, one day. Compared to here. We could walk from the Eye to Buckingham Palace and see everything from St. Paul’s Cathedral to Parliament.”
“I would love to take a selfie walking across the big London Bridge.”
“I think you have the bridges confused, as most Americans have done. That Victorian, gothic monstrosity is Tower Bridge, named for the Tower of London, where they had bloody executions. Americans think that’s London Bridge for some reason.”
“Where is London Bridge?”
“Two bridges away. Next to Parliament. It’s a very boring pedestrian bridge.”
I asked, “What’s the best hotel you’ve stayed in?”
“Lanesborough back home. No, maybe the Langham in Central London.”
“Outside of London?”
“Saxon in South Africa was nice. I’ve traveled extensively and stayed in some nice ones.”
“Top five here in the States?”
“Southernmost House Hotel, Key West, Florida. Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan. The Plaza Hotel, New York, New York. The Miami Biltmore, Coral Gables, Florida. The Peabody.”
“Jesus. How many places have you been to? Do you even remember?”
She named at least fifty spots around the world. “I’m sure there are more.”
The Lady from London was next to me, warmth to warmth, cuddled and calm, her body sticky, a Rorschach of come stains all over her skin, the bed a Jackson Pollack. She knew me, had known me over and over during more sessions of congress than I could count, her skin against mine, and she still had no idea about my secrets, the secret life of Pi, as I had no idea about the secret life of Gemma Buckingham.
My phone rang and she handed it to me as she got up to go to the bathroom.
It was Four Ds.
“Mane, I fucked up. Mane, I’m about to lose my job and my wife.”
I knew Four Ds, so I had a gut feeling what foolishness had happened. I had a gut feeling who had happened. I hoped I was wrong.
I told him, “Not now. Nothing I can do, so not now.”
I hung up.
When Gemma Buckingham came back, she mounted me.
CHAPTER 43
The next morning, three hours after the rooster had crowed back in Tennessee, I wore straight-leg Trues and a black T that proclaimed killmonger was right. My golden UAN zip-up hoodie was at my side. Gemma Buckingham had on jeans and a colorful Camden T, her hoodie Brixton branded. Fat Man met us in the lobby suited up like he was ready to do battle in court. Gemma Buckingham didn’t want to come upstairs into the office. She told me she had no problem catching an Uber and riding around.
I said, “I’m not comfortable with you going out into LA alone. Wait a bit.”
“I’ve seen over one hundred countries. Most of those places were developing countries where I traveled alone. I can handle myself in LA.”
As we stood at the private elevator I asked, “You sure?”
“Meghan grew up in Windsor Hills, not far from Hollywood, maybe nine miles or so. I want to see if I can find her mum’s home, take a picture out front.”
“Now I know why you really came here, for Meghan Markle, not to console the accoutrement.”
“I know how to multitask. It will take you hours to sort your affairs. I won’t be missed.”
I kissed her on the cheek, playfully gave her two dollars, and let her go on her way.
When we were in his office I stood in front of Fat Man’s contemporary bookshelves.
He asked, “Did you ever read any of his books?”
“Never. Knocked a few down if I saw them at the bookstore, but never picked one up.”
“He worked on a memoir.”
“Was it published?”
“Unfinished. Few pages. It’s part of the stuff you will inherit. To dispose of or sell or publish. Up to you. You can burn it in a barrel but be warned that might be like burning a barrel of money.”
“I have matches, a can of lawn-mower gas, and a barrel sitting in my backyard.”
“Last thing he worked on was the memoir. All the success, the women, the children, and he was dying all by himself, hoping one of his Motherfuckers would call to see how he was doing, or stop by to see if they could order him a meal from Grubhub. To occupy his mind and not feel so alone while his life was winding down, he started his memoirs.”
I didn’t add anything, but I wondered how my momma’s reputation was presented.
“Your father did the Forever series. That was what elevated his career. The Forever series.”
