Authors: Carl Weber
Lookin' For Luv (48 page)
“What was that all about? What did she mean, love you for who you are and not what you were?”
Shawna walked over to the love seat and sat down beside Antoine. She literally had a thousand different thoughts running through her head. Each one of them was more confusing than the next. After a long while, during which Antoine kept shifting uncomfortably in his seat, she decided it was time to lay all her cards on the table.
“I have something to tell you, but first I want a kiss,” she told him in barely a whisper.
Antoine looked at her affectionately. He was afraid that she was going to tell him that she was a prostitute or that she had cancer. What he was about to hear would change the way he looked at women for the rest of his life.
He leaned forward to kiss her and was pulled in tightly by Shawna’s urgent grip. She kissed him as passionately as she could, exploring his mouth with her tongue until Antoine broke the kiss, gasping for breath. Shawna knew this could possibly be their last kiss, and she wanted to remember it forever.
“Wow, that was some kiss!” He was still gasping for air. “Now, what did you have to tell me?”
Shawna stood up and began to pace slowly in front of him. She wanted to tell him the truth, because she knew he was going to find out soon enough. Her charade would not last forever, and she was finally admitting it to herself, though she had known it all along. Even if by some miracle she could prevent Keisha from giving up the information, someone like Roberta would eventually slip up. Shawna wanted him to hear it from her first. When she finally gathered her courage, she spoke rapidly.
“That wasn’t my brother you saw in my album.” This was one of the most painful moments in Shawna’s life, but she knew there was no turning back now.
Antoine watched her for a few minutes. Slowly the reality of the situation was seeping into his consciousness. Before he asked his question, he had an inkling of what the answer would be, and he was terrified.
“Well, who is it, then?”
“It’s me,” Shawna said so quietly that he could not hear.
“What did you say?” He stood up, struggling to hear her words.
“It was me in those pictures, Antoine.” She moved away from him slightly.
“That’s not even funny, Shawna. That would mean you’re a man.”
He looked at her beautiful new breasts and around at the feminine living room. It was nearly impossible to fathom that this person he had fallen in love with was really a man.
Shawna was silent, trembling.
“Shawna, why would you play with me like this?” He started to become agitated. “Just tell me who’s in the picture.”
She began to cry and repeated her words. “It’s me. But I’m going to have an operation soon to become a complete woman.”
There were no words for the rage that overtook Antoine. What come out of his mouth sounded more like a roar as he threw anything that was within his reach. Framed photos flew across the room and shattered against the wall. Books landed in every corner after he ripped the pages out. In a frenzy he pounded his fists against the wall until there was a gaping hole in the Sheetrock. Then he turned his fury on Shawna.
She tried to escape his reach but did not move fast enough as he lunged at her over the love seat. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head around as he screamed obscenities at the top of his lungs.
“You motherfucker! Tell me this is some kind of sick fucking joke! Tell me you’re not a man! Tell me you are not a man!”
The words flew out faster than a locomotive, and his fists flew just as fast, pounding Shawna about her face and head. She fell to the floor and curled up in the fetal position.
Shawna screamed for help, praying her landlord was still outside and would hear. Fear gripped her as she imagined the end of her life. There was good reason for her to worry when Antoine grabbed a brass candlestick holder from a nearby table. He raised it high above her head, trembling, a crazed look in his eyes.
“Tell me you’re not a fucking man, or I swear I’m going to fucking kill you!” he screamed. Suddenly he was startled out of his violent trance by a rapid knock at the door.
“What the hell’s going on in there?” Shawna’s landlord demanded.
Antoine dropped the weapon, which landed with a thud very near Shawna’s head.
“You are so fucking lucky someone was here to stop me, because I swear to God, you were five seconds away from being dead,” he hissed as he turned to leave. Shawna did not budge from her defensive posture on the floor.
Throwing the door open, Antoine came face-to-face with her landlord. Without a word he shoved his way past him and stormed out of the building. The landlord rushed to Shawna’s side and slowly helped her up from the floor. He helped her limp to a seat and grabbed the phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked painfully through her swollen lips.
“Calling the police. What else would you expect me to do about that animal?”
“Please don’t do that,” she begged, and he looked at her incredulously.
“What are you talking about? He could have killed you!”
“I know, I know,” she answered sadly. “But it’s much more complicated than you know.”
Mr. Good couldn’t imagine anyone having a valid reason for doing the damage that he saw to his apartment and to Shawna’s face. But he had learned long ago to stay out of his tenants’ business. He placed the phone back on the receiver and went to the kitchen to get ice for Shawna’s face.
38
ANTOINE, TYRONE, AND KEVIN
It was almost midnight when Antoine finally stumbled to the block he lived on. He had walked home from Shawna’s. It had taken two hours, all of which he spent deep in thought. For at least the first two miles it was all he could do to control his rage and not go back and finish the job. But as he walked farther, he realized that would not solve the problem he was left with. Even if Shawna were dead and gone, he knew he would never trust any woman as blindly as he had trusted her. And much, much worse, he now had doubts about his own sexuality.
He worried that perhaps there were obvious signs about Shawna’s true identity that any perfectly straight man should have recognized. His mind wandered back over the length of their relationship, and of course he was able to come up with things he felt he never should have missed.
She was awfully tall for a woman, with those big damn hands. Why didn’t I know what she really meant when she kept talking about her operation? No breast operation costs so much that you need to take a second job. And no woman nowadays is so uptight about giving some up unless she’s got something to hide.
He shuddered at his own ignorance about what he now thought were obvious details.
He shuddered at his own ignorance about what he now thought were obvious details.
A wave of nausea hit him as he realized that less than two hours before he had had his tongue inside Shawna’s mouth. He silently thanked God that things had never gotten further. As difficult as it was to remain celibate during that time, he was now extremely grateful. If much more had happened, he would be in need of some serious psychiatric help. Stopping suddenly, he doubled over and threw up on the sidewalk for the fourth time. The first time was right in front of Shawna’s building.
As he approached his own neighborhood, Antoine stopped in front of Benny’s Bar, his hand on the door. All he wanted to do was end all the painful thoughts and self-doubt that were swirling around in his head. He knew that Benny could mix a few strong drinks that would take care of that. Opening the door slowly, he glanced around at the bar’s patrons. Benny saw him at the door and waved to him. Antoine returned the wave with a weak smile but knew he couldn’t go in there. He was in no mood for pleasantries, even if Benny was his favorite bartender and somewhat of a friend. He closed the door and trudged toward his own building.
He planned to open a bottle of rum and drink himself into oblivion. The irony of the situation hit him as he remembered the last time he had gotten dangerously drunk in his apartment. Then, he had been drunk because he had lost Shawna. Now he wanted to get drunk to lose any memory of her. His head pounded with an intensity he had never felt.
Passing Keisha’s apartment, he paused momentarily. A thought crossed his mind. At least with Keisha he had proof that she was indeed a woman. Maybe he could go to her and apologize, then give her some good loving the way only a real man can. He laughed wryly and imagined pounding his chest like Tarzan, a true he-man.
Although some good sex might have dispelled his own fears just then, he knew he wouldn’t be getting any from Keisha that night. After all he had said to her during their fight earlier, she wouldn’t be giving anything up without another round of verbal abuse. Antoine knew he couldn’t put himself in that situation. He didn’t want to risk letting Keisha get a rise out of him because all his rage at Shawna was still pretty close to the surface. It could resurface at any time, and Keisha didn’t deserve any of the pain he still wished he could inflict on Shawna.
“Yo, Antoine, what’s up?” Tyrone’s voice startled him. He and Kevin were sitting on Kevin’s car, parked at the curb in front of Antoine’s building.
“What’s up, guys?” he answered sadly. “I didn’t even see you standing there.”
“I can see that.” Kevin walked over to his friend and spoke gently. “What happened to you, man? Tyrone and I waited at the school till ten o’clock for you. I was worried about you. You okay?” He could see that Antoine was not in good shape.
“Sorry, guys,” he replied, unable to look his friends in the eye. “Right now I feel like less than a man.”
“You’re not the only one to feel like that after you got your girl pregnant, Antoine,” Tyrone told him. He had made a promise to himself that he would refrain from his usual jokes tonight. He knew how it felt to be worried about a. pregnant girlfriend. Jokes were not what Antoine would need from his friends.
Tyrone placed his arm around Antoine’s shoulder sympathetically. “I couldn’t even look in the mirror when my girl got pregnant with my first daughter.”
Antoine looked up at his friends. He had shared most, if not all, of his personal life with the two of them in the past year. Now he was at a crossroads. Should he tell them that Shawna was a man? Would they understand and be supportive, or would they laugh and ridicule him? He was desperate for someone he could talk to about the depth of the situation, but something stopped him from telling his best friends. Recalling their night in the Men’s Club, he remembered that Tyrone had seemed to be enjoying Antoine’s trouble. Tyrone seemed to think it was funny that Antoine’s girl might work in a place like that, and he kept egging Uncle Billy on to tell more about the most raunchy aspects of the club. Antoine was afraid that if he shared his latest dilemma, Tyrone might find a way to twist that into a joke also. He wasn’t ready to take that chance yet, so he decided to keep Shawna’s secret to himself.
“Look, why don’t we go upstairs? I don’t want to see Keisha right now,” Antoine suggested. The three of them walked up the stairs to Antoine’s apartment and sat down in the living room.
“So, your girl’s pregnant, huh?” Tyrone stated this more than asked, ending a five-minute silence.
“Yeah.”
“Does she want to keep the baby?”
“Yeah, at least that’s what she told me.” Antoine lowered his head in shame.
“What about you, Antoine? What do you wanna do?” Tyrone asked as he searched his pockets for a cigarette.
“If you had asked me that a couple of hours ago, I would have told you the last thing I want is a baby. But I’ve had some time to think things through.” Antoine looked over at the picture of Keisha. “Real men take care of their responsibilities, don’t they?” He looked at Tyrone, then at Kevin. They both nodded their agreement.
Tyrone was especially proud of Antoine at this moment, because he felt a man’s greatest responsibility was to his children. It had taken him years to earn the trust of his daughters’ mothers after his initial desertion. After he made the decision to truly devote himself to his girls, their mothers eventually praised him for his fathering ability, even though neither woman was able to make a relationship with him work. Tyrone knew it was pretty rare for a single woman to speak as highly about the baby’s father as these two spoke to their daughters about him. He also knew that the next best thing for a child, if the parents couldn’t stay together, was for the parents to be respectful to each other. For Antoine to say he was ready to accept the responsibility of fathering was a first step in the right direction.
“I’m a real man, right?” Antoine asked, his mind on things totally different from Tyrone’s. He was still concerned about his sexuality. “I mean, you wouldn’t think I was gay or anything, would you?”
“Of course you’re not gay. We
are
discussing the fact that your girlfriend is pregnant, aren’t we?” Kevin gave Antoine a confused look. “What the hell are you talking about anyway?”
are
discussing the fact that your girlfriend is pregnant, aren’t we?” Kevin gave Antoine a confused look. “What the hell are you talking about anyway?”
“That’s right, Keisha’s my girlfriend. One hundred percent woman, wouldn’t you say, fellas?” He smiled, ignoring Kevin’s question. “You always said you liked her body, didn’t you, Tyrone?”
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