Chapter 5

He returned to the restaurant a few days later.

His parents were pissed off at him, but they still sighed in relief that Reggie resumed his dish-washing duties. As usual as well was the return of Bianca who waited out on the front steps like a beautiful vagrant one encounters at the end of a drunken night.

“Can’t I just go home and go to sleep, Dad?” he asked his father.

“That woman is your first priority. Bianca is wonderful. Your mother and I get along with her real well, and she knows how to direct you so that we don’t have to anymore. She’ll take you places, boy. We worked hard on finding her for you. Now I don’t know what bullshit they’re teaching you at that school you go to, but you need a person who’s involved with real life.”

“I am involved with real life,” said Reggie. “I just don’t think Bianca is right for me. There are plenty of other women out there.”

“Let me put it this way, boy. You don’t go out with her, and I’ll throw you out of the house. Does that make more sense to you?”

“Fine. But I’m telling you that Bianca is not who you think she is.”

“We know who she is, and that’s what matters.

You’re an ignorant boy right now. You go out with her, or else we cut the chord.”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“Bianca will show you how to be a man in this God- forsaken world. You’ll go out with her, or else you best find someplace else to live. We can’t afford you anymore, and you’re old enough to live on your own.

You’re too old to be living with your parents.”

“I don’t have to see Bianca if I don’t want to.

That’s my own personal choice.”

“That’s because he doesn’t like Bianca,” said Laney, after greeting a hungry customer.

“You best keep out of this, young lady. All you have to do is make sure you don’t get pregnant before the age of twenty-five. As far as your brother here is concerned, he can learn to love like the rest of us.”

“Fine, okay, Dad? You always get your way,” said Reggie.

“That’s because I’m the Head Niggah in Charge around here. Not you. And I rule over my family. Not you. Now you go to her, before I toss your belongings into the street.”

When Reggie saw that Bianca had been waiting on the steps of the restaurant for an extended period of time, Reggie knew that he had no feelings for her whatsoever – considering how she spiked his drink a few weeks earlier. But he didn’t feel too comfortable hanging around white people either. He was trapped.

Reggie couldn’t deny, however, how good Bianca looked. She had gone to the beauty salon and had her hair and nails done. Her hair was frizzy now, and it made her look even more attractive than she did the last time. She wore a tight black dress with stiletto heals. Reggie wondered how she could even walk with those shoes on her.

“Tonight we’re going to the club,” said Bianca after kissing Reggie’s cheek.

“But I don’t have anything to wear,” he said, as they linked arms and walked towards the wealthier side of town.

“Would you rather go to a bar?”

“How about seeing a movie?” he asked.

“Movies are for old people. We have to get to a club or a bar.”

“I guess the club would be okay. At least I have something to watch and observe.”

“God, you are cute as hell, but you’re also a nerd.

Your parents told me about that.”

“Being cute, you mean?”

“No. About being a nerd. You go reading all of these books, and then you forget what it’s like to live life. We can be so much better without those white books, sweetie.”

“I teach Black History, not White History. Reading books, black or white, is a sign of strength.”

“Tonight is a sign of strength - what we do is have fun and laugh – that’s a sign of strength.”

“Let’s not argue, please,” said Reggie. “I’ll try to have fun, okay?”

She kissed him on his cheek again, linked arms with him, and walked to the club about a half-mile from the restaurant. The club always carried a greater diversity of people than the white bars that Bianca hung out in. Reggie liked that there were brothers in the place and also some very pretty white girls who tried to be adults but just didn’t know how make it yet.

After the bouncer unhooked the velvet rope, probably because they knew Bianca as a regular there, they entered a dark lobby with a ticket window.

“Can you get this?” asked Bianca.

“How much does it cost,” asked Reggie.

“Just pay it, silly,” said Bianca with an intoxicating smile.

Reggie rummaged through his wallet and found that it was sorely lacking. He pulled out a credit card that he was sure had a negative balance, but he tried it anyway. Through some miracle the card went through, and what little cash he had left could be used for a few drinks. It wasn’t long before Bianca had surrounded herself with questionable-looking drug dealers.

“You got another twenty in there?” she asked.

Reggie took out all that he had and gave it to Bianca.

“Thanks, Sweetie. By the way, I want to show you something a little later on.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. Just don’t be so impatient.” She kissed him on the lips and said, “you’re with me tonight. I’ll take care of you.”

Reggie surrendered what little money he had left.

Bianca bought him a shot and a beer, after she talked with all of her strange friends. Soon Reggie felt much better about being in the club. There were too many attractive young people there, but after his insides warmed and his mood started to lift, he loved staring at these young women and also loved Bianca who kissed him on the mouth this time and even sucked on his earlobe when she wanted more money. She forced him to take cash advances from his lone credit card, and for this more convenient act, they stuck him with a fee for using the plastic slice of American credit bullshit.

“Follow me downstairs, okay?” she whispered in his ear.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise. Don’t be such a nerd tonight.

I’ll take good care of you. You should know that by now.”

He followed her to the basement of the club, and it was another atmosphere altogether. The wealthy room postured as a street-level, graffiti-inspired alleyway.

The seediness could not erase the many wealthy young folk who visited the place – black and white, some Latino and Asian. Fumes from dry ice and peeling clouds of dense fog wafted in the place where the DJ played a fast, electronic tune. There were sofas and chairs upon which near-nude women sprawled out and smoked weed. A small bar with a slick bartender wearing leather and chain-mail added to the atmosphere of a drug den and a liquor-drinker’s dungeon.

Although it was not allowed, people not only smoked their weed but also lit up cigarettes. If it were not for the management paying off the local police, the place would have been condemned as a fire hazard and a meeting point for drug dealers and their clients.

Reggie circulated with Bianca who again seemed to know everyone there. Reggie saw how popular she was with the assorted groups that lounged on the comfortable sofas and lounge chairs. She could have been elected the club president or at least a functionary who drew more people into the place. She looked good, talked a lot, and smiled with every word.

She didn’t introduce Reggie to any of these people, which was probably a good thing. Reggie, a little buzzed, would have easily been sucked in, even though he looked and acted like a nerd, as usual. A university professor never would have been caught dead in a place like that. But the music thumped from above, and the downstairs of the club thrived with energy and expectation as more people entered.

After Bianca greeted her many acquaintances there, she led Reggie to a special room. The room might have been a bathroom at one point. The stalls had been set up, but there were no sinks or toilets – just stalls with people fucking each other in one of them, or what

Bianca came to the stalls for – to have a private moment with Reggie alone.

Reggie could only think of Wonder and how much he wanted to visit her at her apartment closer to the university. But Bianca led him inside the stall and locked the metal door. The stall had an old Lazy-Boy recliner in it, and Bianca pushed him into its soft plush comfort. She brought out a brown colored vial of white powder, opened it, and had a long snort from the small spoon that the vial came with. She snorted hard in one nostril and then the other. She then did the unthinkable move of sitting on Reggie’s lap with her front body facing towards him.

“Try this,” she said above the hum and beat of the music.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” said Reggie, already reeling from the gesture.

She placed his hands on her thighs and spread her legs apart. She exposed her femininity to him.

“Don’t be that nerd,” she said. “I’ll show you how to be a man, the kind that your father wants.”

She filled the small spoon with the white powder and brought it to his nose.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea, Bianca. I usually don’t do this stuff. I know you’re attractive and popular and all, but –”

Bianca brought the tiny spoon closer to his nostrils. With two hurried snorts, Reggie inhaled the cocaine in both nostrils, and once that was done he leaned back in the cushioned chair with Bianca still on his lap facing him.

In what seemed like a few minutes, Reggie felt confident. He felt good for once. He felt like taking on the world. He felt repaired from all conflicts and struggles. His tired bones were relieved. For once in a very long time he felt what must have been happiness.

He never thought that such a happy, warm feeling were possible. He surrendered to it and had another snort.

He flew high above the poverty and pain of the streets.

He got rid of all of the ‘hood’s obstacles and actually felt empowered. He had never had a high quite like it.

There were no more reasons to struggle anymore. His warring mind slowed to a slow truce. The work it took just to get out of bed every morning froze like the misty dry ice that enveloped them. And then there was the temptation of Bianca – her womanhood suddenly exposed to him.

She unbuckled his belt in a rush. Both of them felt like screwing in the awkwardness of the stall, but before anything like this happened, Reggie couldn’t get Wonder out of his mind. I guess Reggie did fall for Wonder almost completely. Almost. But while sitting on his lap, Bianca unbuttoned his trousers and shifted her exposed loins closer to his manhood.

“Bianca, please stop.”

She wouldn’t stop.

“Please, Bianca, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

She wouldn’t stop.

“I can’t do this, okay,” he said.

Bianca again sucked on his earlobe while holding him and guiding him into her sweet and musky warmth.

“We need protection. Please don’t do this.”

Bianca then simply grabbed hold of his erection and pushed him inside of her as far as it could go.

“Bianca! We can’t do this!”

Yet he couldn’t stop her no matter how hard he tried. She now had him inside her, and while doing so, she sniffed at the vial of coke again and made sure that Reggie sniffed some more as well. She wouldn’t let him go, as her body trapped his body into the smooth cushions of the recliner.

Reggie tried to relax, but he couldn’t anymore.

She was tight and warm around him, and with the coke, the pleasure increased ten-fold. The rush of it all made him comply with her solitary wish, and with her shirt unbuttoned, lacking a bra, and the defenseless

Reggie succumbing to her power as some kind of abused victim, he reached out to massage her abundant chest, and he could no longer deny that what he did was a mistake that felt like nothing in the world he had ever tried before.

The cocaine hooked him, and as Bianca took some more from the vial, Reggie also began to demand more.

But it didn’t take very long for Reggie to come inside of her – a strong orgasm that very few women in the past could have orchestrated, as though the body had its own secret plans that by-passed scholarly pursuits and a rotting intellect.

She was just too damn good at it. As he came, he pushed himself inside of her to the hilt, and when he did so, Bianca used her inner wall muscles to squeeze and tighten around him, squeezing out every ounce of come that squirted inside of her.

After they stopped, Reggie knew that he had made a great mistake. He would have stopped her, but now he understood his role as a victim of what Bianca did. He used to think the stories about a male being raped by a woman were nonsense, but now he had direct evidence that he was indeed raped and never wanted sex or drugs in the first place.

While a high school student many years ago, he had heard about this, and he thought the act impossible, considering the bodily logistics involved. Now, however, he realized that Bianca did, in fact, rape him, and no one would care.

Actually, he thought that I might laugh at this when he told me. Nothing sounded wrong with a woman taking charge. Call it a bonus! There was nothing wrong with having all-out sex when the woman forces herself upon him. The cases are few, but in this case, Reggie got stuck with it. Most men would be honored talking about this shit in a locker room at a health club or after a gym class, but Reggie, since he fell for Wonder, didn’t know how to explain it right. He could only tell me about it the next day when I picked him up for class. The story both shocked and confused me.

I never knew women could be so aggressive and domineering before. Hell, I wanted Bianca’s phone number too, but Reggie said that he would think less of me if I called her. Fuck Reggie, because I wanted to see this Bianca. I could use a little aggression and release every once in a while myself. But this brought the confusion to an all-time high, and Reggie talked sincerely enough that I knew he suffered the way he said he did.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked, as we drove towards the university.

“I don’t know,” said Reggie. “She went against my wishes every step of the way. She didn’t listen to me.

I wanted her to stop. And she is the woman my parents want me to marry? I’ll be dead in a year – a base-head fool wandering around the ‘hood, searching for the next Goddamned high and maybe a free meal at a church once a month.”

“Speaking of high, you didn’t get hooked on that shit, did you?”

“I think I did. At the end of the night, Bianca gave me some to take home, and I snorted all of it before getting home. I used the bus shelters along the avenue. I stopped each time and snorted the shit until it was gone. And you know what?”

“What?”

“When I got home, I wanted more of it.”

“Man, oh, man, Reggie. You have to stay away from that stuff from now on.”

“I called Bianca this morning. She’s giving me more tonight. I’m seeing her again. I’m really nervous about the whole thing. But that medicine makes me feel like I’m top of the world. It takes me away from all of my little hang-ups. I can’t describe how good it felt – to be an actual human being again. I want some more as we speak.”

“Stay away from that shit, Reggie. And stay away from her.”

“We’re going out again tonight. We’re going to do the same thing over again.”

“What about Wonder?”

“Wonder?”

“Yeah. You guys still getting married?”

“We come from different worlds, and everything with her is some kind of tragedy. Her parents forced an abortion on her, and she wants to try it again.”

“God’s giving you two choices.”

“I’m not sure I believe in God anymore. I’ve suffered so much. The people in the world are suffering so much. This morning I saw a news story about the starving children caught in the Syrian civil war. It disgusted me, and now I’m wondering if God is real, and if I should believe in Him.”

“Runnin’ with the Devil, huh?”

“Jesus, I’m so confused. I just want more of the stuff.”

“Reggie, and I hate sounding like your mother all of a sudden, but Reg, my man, you have to stay away from that powder. You can’t afford it. You can’t afford taking Bianca to these local clubs, either.

She’s no good if she’s doing that stuff. Stick with Wonder. Wonder’s young and naive, but she isn’t a coke-head, that’s for sure.”

I dropped Reggie off at the Humanities Building, and he gave me a look that chilled me. He didn’t look the same, as though a demon had been released from his pain and hunger and had etched a few new deviant expressions on his face. We weren’t getting any younger. If Reggie lost his faith now, I wasn’t sure if he’d regain it. Sure, it is hard – trusting God amidst all of the killing, the starving, the freezing cold, the homeless, the soldiers, the senseless torture of innocent people. It is all bitter, and it knows no bounds, but to give up faith in a God that he’s been praying to all of his life? That’s pretty fucked up, if you ask me. But Reggie wasn’t asking. I already knew that he was hooked on the powder, and would now aim his life in the direction of getting more and more of it.

And then I thought about Wonder. Never in a million years would I have picked a white floozy over a black sister, but I had to admit to myself, after parking the car and heading towards the mail-room, that Wonder was much better for Reggie, despite how she came from the rich white world, and Reggie from the unruly black ghetto. I never thought in a million years that a white woman would be good for a black man, but Wonder was the better choice, no matter what her family thought about Reggie.

The long afternoon in the mail-room hit a lull, so I spent most of the workday bored as all hell. The Reggie project was much more exciting, but also, aside from all of the drama and the bullshit, if Reggie continued to use that stuff, then I knew I couldn’t hang out with him anymore. He’s a dear friend, but if he’s hooked, it means that I’m probably next. I didn’t want to go through the sanctity of life with an empty wallet and a drug that could easily kill me. I’ve seen what happens to people who were once my closest friends.

Some of them have died, by overdose or suicide, and the others are just lost junkies that care only about getting more of it. I didn’t want to be a part of it.

When I picked up Reggie the next morning for yet another boring day at the university mail-room - and by boring I mean that there was plenty to be done, but I just didn’t feel like doing it - Reggie seemed to be a little on edge and also a little lost as well. I could tell by his quiet demeanor and his bloodshot eyes that he had been out with Bianca again.

Reggie, though, turned the tables on her. She was the girl after all, and he the boy. Even though Reggie had more control over the relationship with Bianca, he still wanted the coke from her. And in my car, he looked like a disgraced thug. He had the annoying habit of sniffling as well. I could tell he used some of it before I came to pick him up.