I'll Be Down for You: A Bay Area Saga Read online

  “Bennie…tell me how I’m dismissing anything, when I’m just stating facts? You know it’s true. Don’t front. You do love fuckin’ me.”

  “I mean, hell yeah…I do love sexin’ you. But it’s more than that.”

  Yeah, okay, I thought without saying it aloud.

  “I believe you, baby. Got love for you too.” I was super careful about how I said that because I didn’t love him and wasn’t in love with him either. And he sure as hell wasn’t anybody that my uncle would tolerate in my life for more than a fuck buddy. So yeah…had to keep him at bay. I did need to keep him around for good workouts though. Especially when I was fresh home from school like I was now.

  “Got love for me, huh?”

  “Yeah, I do. Why do you think you were my first stop fresh off the plane?”

  He tilted his head to the side, and then his eyes travelled down to my obsession between his legs. “Don’t make me answer that,” he responded, nonchalantly.

  “Okay, I’m busted. It’s all about him. He just fills me up sooo legit.”

  “That’s fucked up,” he said, pouting just a little bit.

  I pulled my leg from his side, plopped onto the pillow next to him and threw one leg back across his thighs, and turned his face toward me. “I was just playin’ with you. It ain’t just about Lil’ Ben. I like seeing you too.”

  Bennie’s chocolate ass was fine as hell and was cut all the way up the fuck from his neck down to his ankles—thanks to his frequent trips to Santa Rita county jail. Damn shame. But dude had detail everywhere, and every time he looked at me with those dark brown eyes, I got lost inside them. Then he had this long black, wavy hair that he wore in the most immaculate cornrows. They were like the ones Ludacris wore before he went all Hollywood. He had long ass curly lashes, and his lips were perfect and he used them the right way too. I remember when I first met Bennie the attraction was immediate only because something about him reminded me of the rapper, Nas. I couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but it was probably the eyes and the shape of his nose. But even though he was as cute as Nas, he couldn’t match him intellectually. Not even a little bit.

  “You hear me?” I asked when he gave me a blank stare. “I said I was playin’ with you.”

  He cheesed real big. “There’s only one way I’ll believe that; and that’s if you give me some more of that good-good before you gotta leave me.”

  “Shiiit, you ain’t said nothin’ but a word. But you don’t have to wait for me to give it to you. Come and take it!” I playfully yelled out preparing to surrender to some more of his lovin’. “Take all of it!”

  2

  Jazzmina

  “Shit! Just my damn luck! Ugh!”

  I pounded against the steering wheel of the rental I’d picked up at the airport. If I hadn’t been trying to fuck the shit outta Bennie, I would’ve bypassed all this damn traffic. But I couldn’t help it. I smiled thinking back to all that good sex I just came from. I was a lucky girl. Good dick was hard to come by while I was away at school, so whenever I touched down, I was blessed enough to have it handy. My little ‘boy toy’ at school didn’t know how to put it down like Bennie, so as soon as my hot ass got off that plane and had my rental secured, I ran straight to that. I knew Bennie was probably somewhere with his boys, but the minute he heard that I was here and wanted a piece, he was down. There is nothing like an obedient ass muthafucka, with good ass schlong. Not shit like it!

  “Come on…come on…come on, y’all. Move something,” I mumbled. This here traffic was doing the absolute most. It was damn near eleven at night and cars were backed up past Tracy on Highway 5. All I wanted to do was get to the manor and bust up in the house and see my uncle’s face. He had no idea that I was finishing out the semester early so that I could come home for good. The only thing I needed to do now was fly back out to New York and attend graduation—if I even did that. I was so over school and the only reason I went in the first place was so that I could have a degree to fall back on. My uncle always told me that a black woman with a degree is just as dangerous as a wanted felon. He said if I already had the beauty, common sense, and street smarts, that I was good; but with that supplemental education—in the form of that piece of paper—that I’d be lethal. So I was ready for the world. I was done with all the damn papers and seeing way more females than I wanted to see on a daily. And the mediocre dick game that I had to settle for through the rough times! Yeah, I was done. I was back in the Bay and I was about to turn all the way up on my way to the damn top.

  I inhaled a deep breath then puffed it out between pouty lips. I leaned my head back against the headrest, slumped down a little bit and prepared to wait shit out. If there was one thing I hated, it was traffic. My patience didn’t stretch far enough for that shit. I needed to get home, wash this sex off of me and chill for the rest of the night. I was in school with a few females who were Daddy’s girls, but not even some of their relationships with their fathers were as solid as the one I had with my uncle. He was the only father figure that I’d ever had. Now that I was coming home for good, I could go into one or more of the family businesses and do big things to make him proud, for everything that he’d always done for me.

  All the thinking about him had me about to call and give up the whole surprise, when my cell rang with an all too familiar ringtone. I smacked my lips and reached to cut the volume on Chief Keef’s “Love Sosa”, because in a second, I wouldn’t be able to hear it anyway. As soon as I pressed the button on my Bluetooth, I sat and waited for the outburst.

  “Bitch! Why didn’t I get a call the minute that you got here? Triflin’! The fraud of it all!” she yelled. It was my best friend Desiree. We had been best friends since we were about fourteen living in Alameda. She was one of the bougie chicks who lived on Bay Farm with the nice family and the nice house, and I was the one shacked up in foster care after being abandoned by my mother, and no family to take me in. But even as different as our lives were, we bonded and became thick as thieves; and that was still the case. I started laughing at her rowdy ass waiting for her to finish. “Bitch, you ain’t gon’ say shit? Why I have to find out through the grapevine that you touched down? You ain’t shit!”

  I could already see her pale ass all red in the face, dragging her petite ass across the floor, with her hand on her hip, as she called herself checking me.

  “You done?” I asked.

  “Depends on your answer!” she exclaimed.

  “Whatever,” I laughed. “Girl, you know damn well that I was gonna call yo’ ass. Calm all that down. You all on ten and don’t need to be.”

  “I just can’t believe you had to ride the pony before you even let your so-called best friend know that you—”

  “Bitch, you got dick at home. You ain’t in the middle of a damn drought. I had to get somethin’ up in me before I could focus. All I’ve been doing is writing papers and reading dense ass college shit for the past five years. If you woulda came when you got accepted, you’d know the struggle! Shit!” I laughed.

  “No, I wouldn’t because I woulda had my dick there with me!”

  “And yo’ ass woulda flunked! Or dropped out with a gut full of some thug seed!”

  “Annnyway!” she said, ready to deflect. “That at-home dick that you’re talking about is gone. We’re through.”

  “Y’all through, but I bet yo’ ass ain’t in a drought!” I laughed. “Don’t even lie either!”

  “Yeah, you’re right, girl!” she confirmed, guffawing loudly. “I already got this new-new that you gotta meet when you get some time.”

  “I got a lot of time now since I’m home for good.”

  “For good?! Really?!”

  “Yep. Done, girl. No more papers. No more campus. No more being homesick. I’z free now!”

  “That’s cool, babes!”

  “Yeah, so now you see why I had to celebrate. I deserved a reward for all the hard work I put in out there in NYC. I needed to be brought down a few notches from the stress
of it all. So, trust and believe I was gonna call you to—”

  “Girl, you ain’t gotta explain shit. I’m good now,” she laughed. “I just needed to check you real quick. This nigga called me braggin’ and shit about how he just got that ol’ thang back! Silly ass. I had to tell him that it’s only dicks over ya chicks when you ain’t had none in a while and that now that you’d used him up, he wouldn’t see you again until your twat was craving beef.”

  “No you did not!”

  “Yes the hell I did. This fool was like on some competition or shit, not knowing that he just got used the fuck up! So, hell yeah I did. Shut him up. He needed that the way he was gushing like a damn baby at Chuck E. Cheese, and shit.”

  “Wowww. You really got problems. Those light-skinned people problems. And now since I got this big ass degree and ‘bout to be paid, I’m gonna get you some therapy sessions for your birthday because I need you well in the brain before you give birth to my God babies. Okay?”

  “Fuck you, Jazz. Oh wait, Bennie already did that!”

  “Whatever!”

  “What’s up though, BFF?! When are we kickin’ it? After Unc get his time in with his spoiled ass baby girl, I guess, right?”

  “Yup. You know I gotta hang out with the fave first.”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s probably gonna throw a huge ass party to celebrate.”

  “I’m not sure what he’s gonna want to do, but I’m thinking I’d rather go to Vegas or something so you should ask permission from your little newbie as soon as you hang up.”

  “Permission? Bitch, I’m grown!” she shouted.

  “We’ll see how grown you are when it’s time to board that flight,” I chuckled. “But right now though this traffic is starting to flow, so let me get up off this phone. I’ll call you in the morning or tomorrow afternoon, k?”

  “Alright, chick. Glad you home! Love you, girl.”

  “Love you more.”

  When I finally reached the point of what was causing all the rubbernecking on the road, I saw that a single-car crash had been moved over to the side of the road. I shook my head, sadly. The coroner’s truck was there, several ambulances, and more than a few CHP cycles and cars. It was a big deal. The car’s rear end was partially on the road, and the rest slightly leaned over a small embankment on the shoulder. It was in bad shape. It made me sad that somebody’s loved one wasn’t coming home tonight. Damn. Ever since I was a little girl, I hated seeing accidents of any kind. Even worse were the ones where you could tell that the person or people didn’t make it.

  During my instinct to be nosey with the rest of the passersby, I saw a handful of pedestrians walking on the side of the freeway. Some were talking to police, and some were standing by observing. Why would the police even let them do that shit? As my car glided by, the coroner’s truck suddenly pulled out in front of me. My entire body shivered at the thought of a deceased person being that close to me.

  Minutes later, I was taking the exit to my house and breathing a sigh of relief. Something about making it safely after seeing something so horrific as that, that shakes a person up. I just wanted to get home. I drove down the long, dark road that led to our manor and when I got near, I turned the music off so I could regroup before I got in the house. When I reached the gate, I rolled down the window and punched in the security code and waited while the wrought iron gate opened. I was sure that when my uncle got the alert that the gates had opened, he’d already be waiting for me outside the double doors.

  I excitedly drove up the small hill to our circular driveway and was immediately alarmed when I noticed two police cars parked beside each other in the guest spots. I coasted slowly at first, but then pulled up curbside and quickly threw the car into park and hopped out leaving all my items inside the vehicle.

  “Uncle DJ!” I yelled out as I burst through the front doors. “Uncle DJ!” I called again, as I ran toward the voices I heard in the distance. “Uncle DJ! What’s going on?!” I ran down the lengthy hallway trying my best to get to the center foyer, where the light was coming from, and growing more frustrated by the moment that nobody was answering me. When I saw Eva standing down the hallway, and then an officer appearing alongside her, I slowed my pace. I was trying my best to make sense of the awkwardness that I felt. “Damn! Why y’all not answering me?” I asked exasperated. “Y’all had me scared as fuck!” I disregarded the officer because my only focus was my uncle. “Eva, where’s my uncle?”

  The officer gestured toward me. “Ma’am, can I ask you to have a seat?” But I ignored his request and glared at Eva, whose eyes had moved away from my stare and whose head was now lowered to purposely avoid looking directly at me.

  I turned my attention to the officer that I’d just ignored. “Have a seat for what? Who are you and why are you here? Where the hell is my uncle? I’m tired as hell of asking the same question and nobody answering!”

  “Come here, baby,” Eva requested. She’d finally found her voice. She extended her arms toward me. When I opted not to move from my spot, she called to me again. “Jazz—”

  I shook my head. “Nah. No,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. My tone was lower this time. For some reason I’d felt like the wind had been sucker punched from the pit of my stomach. “Where is my uncle, Eva?” I asked, backing away in the other direction and headed up the stairs to where his bedroom was, but something caused my legs to buckle midway up the stairs and I sunk onto the carpeted staircase.

  Seconds later, I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see that it was Eva. Looking past her, I saw the officer from a few minutes ago, and then a second officer appear. I was so out of it, I didn’t know if he had just come into the room or if he’d been there the whole time. When I looked in Eva’s eyes through my glossy ones, something unspoken was there and I started to wail at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t control the emotions that were pouring from me. Uncontrollable sobs riddled with my Uncle’s name were all intertwined.

  Eva stooped next to me in an attempt to console me. “Jazz, come on,”. I could hear her trying to calm me but at that moment, I was beyond inconsolable.

  “Where is he, Eva?! What happened?!” I demanded.

  I felt her lift me from my seating spot. She was trying to lead me to somewhere that we could talk. The whole thing felt surreal. It felt like I was in a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from, where I fought hard to avoid the answers to the question I’d asked several times. I was scared of what was on the other side of the response. Although I couldn’t really process my thoughts or my movements, I knew that Eva was led by Eva into the living room. The moment I sat down on the sofa, I swore I could smell my uncle’s cologne all over that room. I snapped my head in all directions looking for him. It had to be some sick joke they were playing and he’d come from one of these rooms any minute, scream out, “Honey!” and pull me into one of his bear hugs.

  But it was Eva’s voice that pierced through my fantasy in a saddened whisper when she said, “He’s not here, Jazz…” And even as she spoke those words, I continued to look around for signs of him. I closed my eyes and tried to become one with my thoughts. I was no longer in the present. I was in the past. I was somewhere in my teenage years when I used to spar with my uncle learning how to beat bitches and niggas with swift hand movements. I was in Alameda, running in between cars trying to get away from my him, while he playfully threatened to beat my ass for having stolen his fancy two-way pager so that he wouldn’t leave from visiting me at my foster home. No, I didn’t want to be in the present because in the present, these people were trying to tell me something that I wasn’t ready to hear. I wasn’t ready and I didn’t want to hear shit if it didn’t have something good on the end.

  I had zoned out, but once again it was Eva that brought me back . . . “He’s gone, Jazz,” she whispered through deep sniffles.

  He’s gone. Is that what she just said? He’s gone.

  I suddenly got a burst of energy from nowhere. “I don’t know what the fuck
that means, but I need somebody in this muthafucka to tell me what the deal is! Now!”

  “Jazz—”

  “Now!” I roared. “Stop saying my name and answer me!”

  “Ma’am, we came to let your aunt here know that earlier this evening, your uncle Derrick Jackson was killed in an automobile accident.”

  Killed…killed…that word rang in my head like an echo that wouldn’t stop. Killed. I felt bile creeping from the pit of my soul. My emotions became erratic. I wanted to fight, I wanted to grab the pistol from this muthafucka’s holster and shoot him for being the bearer of that fuckin’ piece of news! I wanted to do a lot, but even in my state, it was the answers that I wanted . . . that I needed . . . more than anything.

  “Killed!” I roared. “Car accident! How?!”

  “It happened not too far from home; we’re guessing he was on his way home. We have a single witness who says that it appears . . .” he paused for a brief period. “. . . that he was run off of the road. She said that when she saw what was happening, she slowed to a safe speed and dialed 9-1-1. According to the witness, the assailants were on motorcycles. We’ve already asked your aunt, but since you’re here, do you know of anyone who might want to bring harm to your uncle?”

  I sprang from my place on the sofa. “What do you mean ran him off the road?!” I charged, ignoring his question.

  “Your uncle was run off the road . . . after his vehicle was shot into. He had several bullet holes in his vehicle, and, uhhh . . .” he sighed. “He, himself, had multiple gunshot wounds; but we won’t have all of the details until we get the medical examiner’s full autopsy report.”

  “So somebody murdered him?! You said it was a car accident!” I yelled. “Oh my God! So they shot him! Oh my God!” I hollered.

  I began to pace the full length of the living room. I found my way near the ceiling to floor window that overlooked our outdoor pool. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It wasn’t just an accident. Somebody deliberately killed him! Murdered him! Wanted him dead! I’d never see him again! I shook my head before leaning it against the glass where I finally just sank to the floor from mental exhaust. I couldn’t take it. It was too much.