Novel Treatments / Chronicles of A Confused Black Man
Now that my headache is gone, and when I say headache I’m referring to the woman I woke up with this morning, I suppose I’ll have a decent day. Stepping out my apartment and into the hall, I begin inhaling what I think to be air, or at least it is suppose to be. I gag and twist my face for a moment. It smells as if someone just didn’t bathe for a week, and decided to run a mini marathon and use the hallway carpet as a sweat band. The hallway was so humid today; I could literally see the funk rise from the carpet.
The hallway atmosphere is normally bright and semi-welcoming. I say semi-welcoming because that’s only if you like to hold your breath as you as you walk to your apartment.
The air, not the best smelling or healthiest to expose your lungs to, but it would do (then again what air is). But this morning the narrow hallway was dominated by a stale stench that danced around my nostrils. And at one point the air changed to a rather distasteful odor. That point was in front of Mrs. Burn’s apartment. Holding my breath before I made it to her door, I sped walked past her door. I didn’t want to risk inhaling and risk the possibility of my lungs melting.
Once I was far enough past her door to breath again, I pulled out my key to check my mail box. Nonchalantly I flipped through all the junk, until my concentration was broke by the ‘love birds’ in 3-B arguing. As usual it was their early morning fight, before Romare went to work. Apparently Romare, an Arab construction worker, ‘works’ a lot of overtime, and its not reflecting on his pay check, and his chica Gloria, a Porte Rican vocal power house, isn’t pleased.
Silently laughing to myself every time I hear Gloria talk I think about Rosie Perez from “White Man Can’t Jump”. That high pitched annoying and nagging voice has ruined many of my dates and sexual moments. And to make it worse it sounds as if she has a Dolby 5.1 surround sound system for vocals chords.
I quickly halted my laughter as I heard something crash, and saw Romare come flying out the apartment. He spoke in his native tongue cursing and swearing at his wife. Gloria throws a glass, just missing him by mere inches. Judging by how fast the glass whizzed by his head, and how hard it smacked against the wall and broke, made me think she has quite an arm on her. Hm, maybe she should trying pitching for the Gary Rail Cats.
The next thing that flew out the apartment was Gloria herself, like a Tasmanian devil, spitting her native language back at him. Her mouth was going a hundred miles a minute, while she waved some panties around in her hand like it was her native country’s flag. From the just of it Romare was stepping out on Gloria, and she caught him up this time.
You know that saying, ‘wrong place wrong time’? Yeah, well, that’s exactly where I was, all because I minding my own business and checking my mail. Before I knew it, Gloria had a bottle of ketchup to attack her husband with. Long story short, I was sprayed in the process. Romare ran off like a scolded dog, while Gloria eyed me up and down without an apologetic eye.
“Don’t look at me like I do something wrong. You probably deserve it. I see many women come from your apartment” she said, holding the bottle as if she wants to take another shot at me. “You men are all alike. You must think you are some hot shot or hot dog.”
Smiling and wiping my shirt off, I say, “Why wouldn’t I think I was a hot dog, you just sprayed me with ketchup.”
“You and your dirty magazine, you should be punished you are nothing but bad boy.”
She stood there only five foot-six, talking to me as if I’m some midget. I leaned my six foot even frame over closer to her and said, “ I’m not into spanking…hmmm, not until the fourth date chica.”
“Muy tonto…..”, she began and then went off like a hurricane and slammed the door.
“You have it all wrong I only read these magazines for the articles”, I yelled out as she still cussed me out in Spanish.
I take it she wasn’t in the joking mood, or maybe my joke was that bad. Go figure. In between checking my mail, I was still getting ketchup off my shirt. In fact I was glad I didn’t grab any decent clothes to put on this morning. Besides I was just going down to Christine’s apartment, there was no need to get all spiffy just to drop my god daughter off at school. So I simply had thrown on some jeans, a black T-shirt, (that now was accessorized by ketchup thanks to Gloria) and my air force ones.
It didn’t take me long to get to Chrissy’s apartment she stays on the first floor and I stay on the third. There’s a real advantage to having one of the women you sleep with on occasion to stay in the same building as you do. Well for those men that are ‘blessed’, but a lot of people knock crossing the line of friendship into the uncharted territory of causal sex or booty calls. As for me, there’s no complications, Christine and I, as well as Keishin have a very mature understanding. Yes, you heard me correct, all three of us have a very iron clad mature understanding of the situation. And yes for those of you wondering, yes they know that they share me from time to time. I mean we’ve all been through hell with one another. So we’re very comfortable with another, and when I say comfortable I do mean comfortable. What do you expect we all use to spend the night at each other house’s as children, and no adult was the wiser. Well they knew of the ‘legal’ sleep over’s, just not the other ones.
In fact to be honest, the four of us, Christine, Keishin, Chaundra and myself, all learned everything we knew about sex through experimentation as teenagers or pre-teens with each other.
The laid back arrogant swagger I had going was sped up as a certain rush of hunger hit me. I rushed onto the elevator and just as the door was closing I heard someone yell out to hold the door. It was a woman’s voice, and since I wasn’t really in the mood to play ‘captain save-a-hoe’, I let it close. Just as I thought I was home free, a cane came flying through the opening, stopping the doors from closing. It was Mrs. Burns, the meanest spit fire of an old woman I’d ever seen in my twenty seven years of living. I thought old people were suppose to be nice and gentle, not act like they were the direct bloodline relatives of Satan himself. This was the nosiest lady in the building, she knew everyone’s business. If you were to look up the words ‘evil’, ‘rotten’, and ‘bitch’, I’d bet any amount of money you’d see her wrinkled bulldog looking face next to the words.
“Didn’t you hear me yell for the elevator,” she asked in a rough voice.
“Sorry, Mrs. Burns my mind was on something else. I didn’t hear you”, I lied with a smile that was fake as Pam Anderson’s breast.
“Well if you’d take your head out whatever woman you sinning with, then maybe you’d hear”, she retorted as she waddled onto the elevator.
Mrs. Burns was exactly five foot four, had a faded russet complexion and looked to be no more than ninety pounds. Her skin was rubbery looking, but rough and she reeked of mothballs and rubbing ointment. Watching her I could see the flaccid facial skin vibrate as she breathed heavily. Each time she exhaled air she grunted and it sounded as if something was knocking around in her lungs, similar to the sound a car makes when it throws a rod.
She was one of those old women who’s social life revolved around what was going on at church. The only way I can describe her is to compare her to that one woman everyone talked about. No not the church whore who was flirting and skirting with every deacon, usher and everything with a penis that walked through the door.
You know that one woman, who could possibly be on the mother’s board, with one of those ugly, oversized, retarded looking feather hats. She was one of those women who stood up during testimony service, and you either loathed the fact that she stood up or you as a child anticipated what she had to say cause it was just like story time. I mean some of the things they said we’re just off the wall and amazing. We’ve all seen those ladies in church, no matter where in America. The leaders of testimony service say sing a song ‘or’ give your testimony about what the Lord has done for you. Key word ‘or’, meaning one, not start with one and finish with the other.
But anyway when they sang, it was a song that no one ever knew. Like one of those songs you make up while sitting in your car waiting for the light to change. Your favorite song will be playing, and for those few moments the instrumental is playing and the song is fading out, you make up your own verse and call it the remix. Well that is until the big mouth disc jockey decides to talk through the song. But anyway, that’s how most of their songs sound, like they just made it up in traffic.
It’s always a song no one has ever heard of, the kind of song that has the musicians looking at each other and feeling around for the key that she’s singing in. But then again I don’t think any organ, or any instrument for that matter, has yet made a key called ‘sounds like a cat being run over’. She’s just annoying on all levels, and worse of all you wonder how someone like that could ever be married. From what I understand Mrs. Burns was married for sixty years to her husband, before he died. In some people’s eye no matter what sins Mr. Burns did, he got or should get into to heaven without a hitch for being married to such a battle axe for so long.
From hear say they were a beautiful couple, childhood sweethearts. If you ever wanted your relationship and marriage to be like anyone’s it was theirs. Then one day it just kind of hit the fan, she became this old battle axe they say and no one knew why. The Burns had a total of ten children, and twenty five grand children. Mr. Burns was the only mans touch Mrs. Burns knew. He took her virginity and she took his sanity, I guess you could say it was an even trade. Mr. Burns passed away about three years ago. I remember him well, a real nice elderly man, he’d secretly flirt and hit on a lot of my dates as they passed by his apartment. I didn’t mind that in some ways I figured that was the highlight of his day. But the one thing that was funny, yet disturbing, was the couple times he’d catch me coming in with my date. He’d politely introduce himself, and pull me out of hearing range of the young lady, and say ‘make sure you get some for me.’ The funniest line of all time was when he’d pull out a rubber and told me ‘if you need any help I’m right down the hall my boy.’ He was quite a character, full of life and comedy but how he fell in love and ended up with broad zilla is beyond me. Some say that he knew he was about to die. God Bless his heart they found him with a smile on his face, he went peacefully in his sleep. I mean hell, if I had an evil woman for a wife and I knew death was the only way to escape her, sign me up.
She presses the button and the door closes, and the only thing to be heard is the buzz of the elevator as it moves and her heavy elderly breathing. A smirk came across my face as I looked over to see her wig was crooked on her head. Then suddenly my nostrils were set a blaze due to her loud body odor. Why is it that most of population of old folks smell like moth balls? I guess that’s one of the many questions in life that will go unanswered. Kind of like how did shows like ‘northern exposure’ and ‘knots landing’ last so long on television, let along make it on the air.
The elevator doors couldn’t open fast enough, I quickly began walking out to Chrissy’s apartment.
“From one seductress to another, you are a shame boy. May He save your soul”, Mrs. Burn grunted as she wobbled by.
“Excuse me?”, I asked trying to hold my anger back. I have to remember this is one of my elders, and yes there are times when old folks don’t know when to shut up or when to keep their nose out of business that they have no concern.
“You heard me you jigga boo. I know men like you using women for sex and money. God don’t like ugly”, she continued as she shook her cane at me.
“Well Mrs. Burns if that’s the case you loss favor with God the minute you were born”, I said just as Chrissy opened her door.
“Good morning ma’am how are you”, Chrissy said smiling. Mrs. Burns grunted, which led to a nasty tantrum of violent coughing. The coughing was so bad I could hear her dentures rattling, any worse and I’m sure they would’ve come flying out her mouth. But the good thing about it was that her head jerked so bad while she coughed, it straightened out her wig. Once the coughing spell passed Chrissy wished Miss Burns a blessed day, while Mrs. Burns grumbled something disrespectful about the both of us.
Chrissy and I looked at one another, shrugged it off and went inside her apartment.
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this was a really good read. i thought that the lady Mrs. Burn was really mean though (that’s probably the way she was made to be…ha ha) good job, i really enjoyed this
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Strong stuff. Some great descriptive passages. I like the flaccid neck skin.
Conversational tone that works quite nicely.
I like your use of descriptions; However, some of them need less detail and some need more. For example, your musty hallway description needs less emphasis. Maybe put more emphasis on how the storyteller is feeling about the situations. I would like to read more, keep up the great work !
I enjoyed reading this piece very much. Excellent use of vocabulary and I particularly like the phrases,”He took her virginity and she took his sanity…” ”Then suddenly my nostrils were set a blaze due to her loud body odor.” Creative, descriptive and humorous. Excellent job. I’d like to read more.
Thanks for writing.
Oh, and I haven’t heard the term, Battle axe in ages! LOL
This was a very nice story though it seemed to lack some realism. I didn’t feel like I was a part of this story. I did enjoy it very much. Try working on the descriptive paragraphs a little more.
I enjoyed reading the exerpt. You left me yearning for more. I think that this would make an interesting book that I would enjoy reading. I say continue to work on developing this into a book if you haven’t already and I wish you the best of luck.
The first paragraph is a little gramatically rough. Re-read it and edit it for flow and sentence structure and I think it would be a lot easier to get through. I love the paragraph where the neighbor lady is introduced. We’ve all had neighbors like that and you paint a fantastic word-picture.
All in all, the story has potential. It feels very much like a rough draft, though. Take a break from it for a couple of days and re-read it before you change much, though. Sometimes a little distance helps your perspective.
You have the very beginnings of something here. However, there is a lot of work to be done on editing, sentence structure, spelling and the like.
Decide if this is going to be a fiction piece or a diary entry. Find more intersting ways to reveal your characters thoughts and those around him than the current style. The “chit-chat” style can be done, but you have to be careful and consistent for it to work properly, even for a short term.
I loved the “he took her virginity…she took his sanity line”. It was fabulous and very true.
Don’t give up. Just work on style and technicals and make sure you have a clear direction of the beginning, middle and end of the story.
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