Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 16:05:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Steven Saunders Subject: Boxy Grove 2 Felix rocks gently behind me and says, "Come the fuck back to bed." I didn't look back at him...I had discomfort streaming through my veins. It kept jerking, draining, pumping my body. It was as though I was high. I couldn't tell what the drug was. It could have been those purple pills. Those beautiful purple pills could have made high...or maybe the drug was Felix. Felix... My Drug...my phobia...my superman, my kryptonite! I fear da plight! Top man for so long, he gotta fear of heights! His crown is his fitted, his throne is the dark of a ghetto night So satisfied with his life and completely draining my fight Grounding my flight! And my sight...to be better... Flickers away like neon Project lights In the Grove, Felix is the only superhero with might And in the end I'm left here...with... Felix... I scraped the poem. It was pointless. It all was. I looked out of my bedroom window. It was 2:30 in the morning. It was completely quiet. I had to have inspiration for my work tonight. It was never quiet at 2:30 in the morning. Not in the Grove. Why weren't the Spanish babies from upstairs crying out the night, upset because their mother had no food to give them? Where were the prostitutes who always stood on the corner of Boxy Ave and 5th and fought over who would go with the latest trick? Where were the loud gay guys who lived next door and always knocked on my door trying to get me to be apart of some sex party or whatever they had going on in their apartment. "Come the fuck back to bed...don't make me say it again." I ignored Felix once again. I couldn't let this silence go. There were no stars in the sky. You couldn't see stars from the Grove. All you could see is smoke that was lined up from the factories a couple blocks down. It was fine though. I put away my poetry book and picked up my paint. I would get my craft across now that the timing was perfect. It was the perfect time to find my muse. "What the fuck did I tell you?" Felix exclaimed. "Wait let me..." I couldn't even get it across. I felt a strong smack around the side of my face. It jerked my body hard as hell. I didn't even see him get up. I dropped my paint brush and canvas. I grabbed onto my face seeing if he had broken the skin with his sharp smack. He was sitting on his bed now, "You know I can't sleep without you! Bring your ass back to bed. I'm not going to tell you again." It turned me on slightly. I must have been a glutton for pain. There was something about the "hood" part of him that I loved. I usually would have talked back, we probably would have argued. He probably would have ended up whooping my ass, we would have had some banging after fight sex and called it a night. It wasn't a healthy relationship. I wasn't a healthy person. If I was...I wouldn't be reaching for this purple pill... I let him get his way...I went to sleep because truth was he left first thing in the morning to go sell his pills anyway. Morning. Paint. Pills. I'm sitting here with the white pills dusting my fingertips and soul music playing in the background. Soul music filled my ears. It filled my whole entire soul really. Still...even with the music highest that it can be, I realized that I could still hear all these voices. What are all these voices outside my door? Love doesn't live in this 10 story apartment building called Boxy Grove. It must have left a long time ago. It must have been smart. Maybe Mr. Andre Mann, our precious landlord had booted love out on the street like he did the Tamisha Johnson and her four kids last Tuesday. Either way love wasn't in the Boxy Grove Apartments. There were plenty of drugs, plenty of prostitution, plenty of...well...sin...but there was no love. I didn't know whether or not to say that the Grove repelled good things or whether it attracted bad things. Does it really matter either way? Knocks on the door... More pills. It was cold in my apartment building. Mr. Mann turned off the heat early in the year. In his mind, when it was spring, there was no need for heat even if it was 20 degrees. Paint. Pills. Paint.... More knocks on the door. I finally get up. Damn, my head is aching. I walk to the door and open it to see Tommy. Felix would kill us both if he knew Tommy was still coming around. He damn near killed Tommy the first time Tommy tried to talk to me. Tommy doesn't live in the building. He just somehow manages to walk past the guard without signing in or anything. Tommy is rich...he doesn't even have to be on this part of town at all. He just decides to come down because there aren't any single blacks where he is. He is attracted to the ghetto...to the danger. He gets hard off of it. In fact, he was semi hard right now. I could tell because he has his hand lapped over his crotch area. That is what he does when he gets hard. "Hey sexy," I tell him, cleaning myself up, by dusting off slightly. I'm not fully gay. I guess I would consider myself bisexual. A lot of people out these parts didn't really care about gender. Why limit yourself in Sin City? The Grove was the center of what others considered `morally' wrong. There is no other place I'd rather have lived. "Damn boy...I came down for some dick and you can't even let a nigga in." I hate when he tried to put on this hood boy image. It didn't fit him. Tommy was almost 6 feet tall, lightskin with great posture and a wide flashy smile. He had curly hair...not the nappy stuff like I had. He had dimples. He was the All-American boy who probably could get away with playing baseball or something. He made a pass trying to get into the door, but I stopped him with my arm. "Why didn't you call first? I'm kind of busy." He kind of sighed. He does this often and I always send him on his way. Tommy is a guy who likes to be unexpected. I met him when he was throwing a seminar for young black men on HIV. He had a couple speakers but was short on staff. I had just went to get some free condoms and before I'd known it he was begging me to help him pass out some flyers because I was the first person who caught his eye. Ever since then he feels like he has to pay off the debt by showing up to my apartment for some meaningless sex. "Well can I make you less busy?" he asked. He licks his lips thoroughly. He starts rubbing up against me. The friction arouses me. It slightly makes me hard. Tommy knows what to do with his body. He was an extremely physical person. His touch was amazing. Before I know it, he is reaching for my dick... "What the fuck?" I say, backing up, "This isn't the time. I'm busy." "Look at you...you are high aren't you?" he tells me, "That guy Felix keeps getting you high. You can do so much better. Why do you have to keep taking those painkillers?" "They help me with my art." "You don't need help with your art. You do fine when you are sober Josh." "My name isn't Josh anymore..." "Ok...fine...Jadezo or whatever," Tommy said and began his whining session, "Why do you have to take those? You are too fine to be messing your life up like that...I mean..." "You mean what? What makes you so great?" I say, looking through him, "Is it your job! Or your car! Or the fact that you haven't had to struggle! Have you ever taken a pill? You don't know how it makes me feel. When I take one, I am above you and all you uppity people coming down trying to judge me. Everything is beautiful when I'm high. Everything is perfect." I slam the door. I know I probably wouldn't see Tommy again after slamming the door in his face like that. I kind of felt bad for a little while, but after thinking about it for a second, I changed my mind. I wanted to get my high. That is all that mattered. I took my pill. I took my paint. Then I floated to Cloud 9. I painted what I saw around me. There were complementary colors blending to form figures of people around me. It was a collage of the people in the Grove. My father lived on the 1st floor. My aunt and nephews stayed on the 5th and two cousins that had separate apartments on the 9th and 10th floor. They were dull colors to match their personalities. They were colorless. I painted them gray. I had a brother on the 5th floor and my sister stayed on 2nd floor. They were all in my collage. Evil Mr. Mann lived in the basement and I had painted him with black. There were a few sexy guys and girls from the 3rd floor (the sexy floor) that I painted in the portrait. I painted them red...because who knows what evils they had attached to them. I was floating as I mixed the paint. The pimp was the next image I had on the canvas. He had a few of his whores living in the Grove. They were scattered throughout the building with all their kids. People would look at this and see the bad, but they couldn't really see it all like I could. I could look deep and see it all. There was good in some of this. The pimp was like a father to a lot of those kids. The pimp came out beautifully when I was high. I hadn't even noticed the phone was ringing this entire time. Oh well...it's been ringing for this long. Why pick up now and lose my high? As I floated into the sky with my canvas, I realized that it was probably my father calling. My father was like Tommy. He wanted me to go to rehab just like Amy Winehouse. I wasn't a crackhead, but I guess that didn't matter. I was addicted to my painkillers. To some people there was no difference. There was a difference to me though. My father had his own addictions. He was addicted to gambling. When I was younger, my mother had a college fund for me. He had somehow managed to talk her into giving him that money and he lost it all at the stables. My mother died of a heart attack soon after. I painted a picture of Old Bitch. Old Bitch was just that. Her name was Ms. Waterhouse, but no one knew her as that. She was just Old Bitch to a lot of people in the building. Her apartment was the first one next to the elevator in the lobby. She would sit out there and find something evil to say or do. There wasn't much you could do but call her an "Old Bitch". She was much too old to fight and just wanted to start something for the sake of doing it. Knocks. It seemed like it would never end. I walked up to the door and saw my sister Mya. Unlike Tommy, she didn't need permission to walk in my apartment and she knew it. Mya was the mouth of the Grove. She knew everyone's business and made it her business to keep up with everything. "Why did Felix walk down your hall earlier this morning and I just ran into Tommy in the elevator?" she asks me. She was smart. She was well aware of what was going on. I had returned to my painting. I didn't even know what she looked like today. I didn't pay attention enough to realize. Why couldn't I just paint in peace? My apartment was like a department store's revolving door. "I got things to do..." "You need to find yourself a nice guy. Tommy likes you, why the hell are you messing with Felix?" she asks. That was the question of the year wasn't it. They wouldn't understand...even if I explained it. Felix has some kind of hold on me. Tommy was nothing but a cute face. "Look, I don't do good boys," I tell her. That would be the easiest thing to say. She wouldn't be able to understand the passion that Felix had was good for my painting. Five years I'd been messing with Felix. I hadn't even gotten the title of boyfriend yet, but I've also been so motivated with my art like I'd never been in my life. "You are 25...you sound like a high school girl right now?" "Girl?" "You have talent...why don't you go study something...interior design...graphic design...some type of design." Who would pay for that? "I'll be fine Mya...you sound like Dad..." "Whatever nigga, I hope you come to your senses and find you a real man instead of sitting around fucking with that loser. You are throwing your life away. These drugs aren't going to get you anywhere but painting the walls in a rehab center." "Why did you come here Mya?" I ask her. "I want you to go out with Malik." Malik. She had said the name before. Mya worked for this guy named Malik and she had been trying to hook me up with him for almost a month now. She found out he was gay because she had tried to hook him up with our cousin Janette. Janette is a notorious golddigger and had first rate gaydar. She said he was gay and Mya being the scandalous bitch she was, decided to set me up with him instead. I ignore her, mixing my paint in the tray to make a reddish orange, "I am not going to sell my body so that you can get a raise." "One date..." "Absolutely not...tell Janette to do it." "He drives a Porsche. Why the hell are you sitting around fucking with Felix for? He'll do nothing but bring you down. Don't you want to get the fuck out of the Grove one day? This ghetto ass place. They are probably shooting someone right outside." She was right. I could hear sirens. I did want to get out the Grove. However, I couldn't. I needed Felix around. I needed that passion that he brought with him for my art. She wouldn't understand at all. "I'm not doing it...this is the Grove. I'm sure you'll find some other silly faggot to work your scheme with." "Whatever nigga..." she says walking out the door. "Whatever..." She pokes her head back in the door, "Pick me up at 9." She storms out. My sister can be very conniving and she takes pride in tricking people to get things. Then again, around this way, that wasn't unusual. She doesn't even see all the things I've made around her. She never picks up any of the poems I've written. She never takes a look at all of the paintings, sketches or sculptures that line up the apartment wall to wall. None of them realize what I do. They don't care. They all look right past me and my painting. Once in a while, someone might make a comment. "That's cute," they would say. "Thanks," I would say. I never really formed a real worth about how good my work was. I never had an expert look at it. I wasn't that brave. I just painted to make myself feel good. It helped me escape the fact that I was just another black, gay, poor struggling artist in the Grove. I paint all day and by the end of the day I have finished the painting. Time must have flown so fast and before I knew it my eyes were heavy. I looked at the time. I had to go pick Mya up. Suddenly I hear the door bust open and it's Felix. He was drunk. I can smell the toxic from a mile away. He stumbles into the door. Felix has always been tall. He was always sexy in a ghetto way. He always wore wife beaters around this time of year, no matter where he was going. His pants hung all the way off his ass. He was dark skin and had this real Nubian elegance that was hidden under his ruffneck tattoos. I thought he was gay because a lot of these girls just couldn't handle his attitude. Its not that they weren't strong enough, but a lot of the gay guys around my parts would put up with anything for a sexy guy...just like I was... It wasn't how he looked though wit me. It was Felix had such a passion about him. He stumbled across the room and almost bumped into my canvas. "Felix!" "Come here," he says. He reaches his hand up over his shirt and starts massaging his stomach over and over. He used to have a six pack, but then he started drinking heavily. He still had a flat stomach but it just used to be so much sexier. "I got to pick my sister up but I'll be back," I told him. He looked at me like I had two heads or like I was speaking an unknown language, "What?" "I told her I was going to pick her up. You know the crack heads car jacked her last week." "I don't give a fuck about that bitch," he says, almost spurting out his words, "I'm trying to get it in. You want me to go fuck somebody else, nigga?" I give him this look. "Why would you say that?" I ask, giving him this stern look. It is so annoying that he would say some shit like that. He was so comfortable saying it too. "You want me to? I will, I swear." "You know what...go ahead!" I say and walk away. He grabbed me by hand like I figured he would. He was good with grabbing my hand like he did. He pinned me up against the wall. Damn...this nigga was mean as hell, but there was something so sexy about it. He looked me in my eyes. The smell of liquor and hormones surrounded me. He wanted me. I could see how he stared into my eyes. "You really was going to walk away from me like that?" he asks. He grinds his waist against mine like a Sean Paul video. I can feel his dick pressed up against mine. His dick is hard and I can feel it almost as though we had no clothes on at all. He pins my hands up against the wall and raises them until he can grasp both hands above my head with one of his. The other hand goes down my face, slowly, touching me very softly. No one has ever touched me like Felix. There was something about it that...trapped me. "Get off me, I have to go," I say, trying to run away...trying to break the spell. It doesn't work. It never works. He puts a pill in his mouth and leans over to me. His tongue enters my mouth. The pill enters my mouth. He kisses me deep, shoving the pill down his throat. He knew that would be the end of my resistance and I did too. Flash. That was how it always was. The sex with Felix was always a flash. A hot fuck that I couldn't really remember but I couldn't live without. I didn't know whether it was the drugs or just how emotionally draining it was. It was always a Flash. He was there naked, gave me a final kiss and headed to the shower. I looked at the time. Damn...I was going to be late picking Mya up! I grabbed my keys and ran for the door as quick as I could. Mya gets mad. I knew it as I walked out of the door. That bitch really goes off about small things, not to mention completely forgetting about here because I wanted to have sex with a guy who she and everyone else in their right minds knew was horrible for me. I wasn't in my right mind though. I raced to the south end of town. It was about 35 minutes drive away from the Grove but it was in a kind of uppity area where buses really didn't run at all. I wasn't surprised Mya got a job all the way out here. She did house cleaning and was always trying to rob somebody for everything they had. I don't understand how she got away with making these fake references after she robbed so many people. I pulled up to an apartment building. It wasn't the Grove. No this apartment building was "The Piazza". This was where all of the cities most eligible bachelors stayed. They probably stayed here because they didn't have wives and didn't feel like doing all those womanly chores. The rent here was damn near some people's mortgage. This place was fucking hot. I watched as a guy came up to my car. I could tell by his red uniform and uppity nature that he was a valet. He was probably gagging when he saw how beat up my car was. He would probably park this shit right in the trash. "Listen...I don't need to park," I told him, "I am waiting for Mya Coles. Can you please tell her that her brother is out here waiting for her." "Yes sir...I'll get her in just a second," he instructed me. The valet looked so damn concerned like he had never seen a nigga pull straight out from the hood like this before. He rushed back inside and I could just tell by the look on his face that this man was kind of in a rush to get me out of here before the white, old residents started to feel uncomfortable. The apartment building wasn't beautiful to me after taking another look. It wasn't as beautiful as the Grove was. Already I had begun to miss the strange curse that the Grove had on me. I was beginning to miss the hard pull of drugs, sex, lies and scandal. I was beginning to miss the crack babies and crack whores. I was beginning to miss the crack. I was beginning to miss the way people ignored redlights after midnight and the way the Narcs (Narcotic police division) would pull up searching everything from infant strollers to student lunch bags while walking right past the criminals that were really selling it. That was what was beautiful to me. Poetry was found there. There was nothing beautiful here...nothing beautiful until...I saw beauty itself. "Hey," Beauty told me, as he walked up to my car. It wasn't Mya. No...hell Beauty was standing right in front of me. He was a tall man, clean shaven with a model's face. His jaw structure was perfect. His teeth as they smiled were perfectly white. He had a caramel complexion with these eyes that seem to sparkle almost as though the stars were buried behind them. "Hi," I replied. Beauty's stare was unique. He had on fitted blue jeans, some diesel shoes and a blazer. He looked so damn comfortable...so damn...perfect. He came up to me and smiled. He had this smile that really melted my heart. Damn...I'd never seen someone so real. "You must be Mya's brother," he said and extended his hand. Perfect hand. "Yes...my name is Jadezo," I said smiling and trying my hardest not to fall into infatuation, "I came here to pick her up." "I'm sorry Jadezo...she left already." "Are you serious?" "Yeah, she waited for you in my apartment for awhile. When you didn't show up, I just sent her home in a cab." "Oh...I feel bad. Thanks a lot." "No. It's fine. Really." I turned away looking at the time. Damn I really had been late. I tried to smile again while saying, "Well, it must have cost a lot and I feel bad cause I promised I would pick her up. How much was it? I'll pay you back the money for the cab." I pulled into my wallet and leaned the money out of the window. As I did that he grabbed my hand with his powerful hand. His hand encased my own. Instead of taking the money, he strengthened my grip on the money. He was rejecting the money, pushing it back into the car but at the same time I felt his skin against mine. Perfect skin. "That won't be necessary. Me and Mya are actually good friends...my name's Malik." Malik! This was the guy who she had been trying to hook me up with all this time. Mya...you bitch! Why didn't you tell me you were hooking me up with Uppityville's version of Nelly. "Oh really..." I didn't mean to flirt, but it came out like that. I couldn't help it. I knew with my pause that he could tell that I had made the connection. It was the connection that he was probably well aware of before he walked his perfect sexy ass out here. My sister had been trying to hook us up for such a long ass time. Now...we were meeting and I looked like hell. I looked worse then that! I had paint all over me. I was wearing the same clothes that I wore around the house all the time. I hadn't had a haircut in forever. It was a mess. "Yeah. I live here," he explained, "Hopefully your sister has talked to you about me. She talks to me about you all the time." Hopefully? Oh wow....he was hoping. "Yeah. She does." "Maybe...me and you can be friends too. I figure the guy from all your sister's stories must be real amazing." "Uh..." I say...about to talk but then realizing my phone is ringing. I look down at my phone and realize who it is. It is a text message. It is from Felix. "You ok?" he says, leaning down into the car. He probably leans because he wants to get a little more comfortable or he probably leans to get a better look at me. Either way, it makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. This was too much...this was too much for a struggling painter from the Grove who was addicted to pills and a guy who was two steps away from being Ike Turner. "Yeah, listen...maybe we'll see each other again. I'm real busy, but I'm pretty sure I'll come pick Mya up again. I'll see you later ok?" He looked kind of blank as he walked away. I didn't know what that face was really saying. He looked like all those other "Nice" boys that I let down. It hurt for me to do it, but they always seemed to just give up. That was what good guys did. They gave up. I didn't have to worry about that with Felix. He would be on my ass way harder. That was what bad guys did. That is why I fell for the bad ones. "Ok," he said. Just like that. And just like that I drove away, but unlike all the other good guys that I just let down, I looked back in my rearview mirror. I saw his silhouette in the moonlight. Damn...he was perfection. Oh well... Back to the Grove... Back to only having dreams about flying with superman at night like Lois Lane in that one old movie where she just breaks out into poetry. It was called "A night with Superman". It was a real corny old movie with Christopher Reeves, but that poem just seemed so real to me. Yet, I knew it wouldn't be real for me. I was a guy. I wasn't Lois Lane. In the Grove, Felix is the only superhero with might And in the end I'm left here...with... Felix...