Sweet St. Louis Read online

  Weird. How is it that we can feel an automatic connection to someone we’ve never been around before? A complete stranger.

  “Come on now, you knew I was trying to catch up to you. This is the second time you walked away from me,” he answered her. “The first time was on Kingshighway Boulevard.” He wasn’t trying to pick himself up either. They had the floor all to themselves.

  “I bet you don’t even remember that,” he added. He knew damn well she remembered. He just wanted to hear her say it.

  “Are you going to help me up, or are we just gonna sit here? You did knock me down, you know,” she commented instead. She had a feeling he didn’t exactly need ego boosting, so she wasn’t planning on giving him any.

  Ant climbed to his feet and proceeded to help Sharron to hers. And they were on shaky ground, just like they would be on a first date.

  Then came Celena again. “Are you okay?” she asked, peeking at Ant.

  “Yes, I am,” Sharron stated. She hated to be so frank, but it was time for Celena to experience some of her own blunt medicine.

  “Well, excuse me for asking. I’ll just leave you two crash-test dummies alone,” she responded, amusing herself as she skated away.

  “You’re the nice one, aren’t you?” Ant asked Sharron with a knowing smile. She didn’t even have to answer. He knew it already.

  “Let’s go sit down and talk,” she told him, grabbing his hand to lead him away from the rink.

  Ant smiled, realizing who was in charge, and with better skates and form. Or at least until he got the hell off of that rink and out of those cheap rentals.

  Sharron lead him straight to the red refreshment booths.

  “Are you hungry? I’ll buy you a slice of pizza and a coke,” she told him.

  Wait a minute, Ant asked himself. What the hell is she trying to do?

  “Naw, I can buy my own food, sweetheart. I don’t need you to do that. Do I look like I’m broke or something? I’m not even hungry.”

  Amazingly, Sharron was in a comfort zone. She was just feeling it. Since she knew that he was a player, she planned to have a good time with him. She figured she could use some enjoyment in her life anyway. But while he may have had plans of playing her, she was thinking deeply about playing him right back, and letting him feel the complete impact of his game.

  Sharron looked him straight in his eyes and said, “When you asked me if I wanted to make a trade, a piece of you for a piece of me, what exactly did you mean by that?”

  In other words, she was effectively saying, Show me what you got. Explain yourself.

  Ant smiled as tellingly as she had. She did remember. He was flattered. His precious line wasn’t wasted. Sharron had no idea how much that meant to him.

  “So you understood what I was trying to say to you?” he asked.

  “Not really. I’m still trying to understand it now. So tell me what you meant.”

  Ant frowned at her, not annoyed, just perplexed. “It’s not like it’s some … thousand-year-old riddle or something. I’m just saying a piece of me for a piece of you, like we sharing each other, that’s all. Sharing.”

  So far, so good.

  Sharron smiled, wanting more.

  “Sharing what parts of each other? I mean, is that just physical or what?”

  Of course some parts were physical. But it was more than that too. Nevertheless, how exactly could he explain it as a man to a woman, when many women couldn’t understand?

  Ant smiled, intrigued by the challenge. He felt like a con man in a million-dollar card game. He was pumped! But like all real players, he showed her nothing but calmness.

  “Well, it’s physical, mental, spiritual, and a whole lot of other things,” he answered.

  Somehow, Sharron didn’t expect him to use the word “spiritual.” Not a player.

  “Spiritual?” she was forced to ask, confused. “Explain that to me.”

  “Well, I believe in God. I got to. How else can we explain half of the things in this world? And sometimes, when I’m working on people’s cars, they look at me like I’m a god. Ever since I was a teenager. But I just know what I’m doing. So the concept of God is real. It gotta be. And when a man and woman really get into each other and they start moaning and groaning toward that thing, you know, that climax, that’s more than physical. That’s godly! Spiritual.”

  Sharron broke up in laughter. “I can’t believe that you’re actually equating sex to God.”

  Ant looked confused. It made perfect sense to him. Why didn’t it make sense to her?

  “How can we not equate it to God? How do we reproduce? By sharing each other, right? I’m telling you, sex is godly.”

  “I see. So you like having sex that much, hunh?”

  Sharron was in a zone, and willing to let it all hang loose. Why not, when she had been so uptight for the past couple of weeks? Ant had caught her at the wrong time. Or in this particular case, it could have been the perfect time. He had been wanting to let himself hang loose as well.

  “You don’t like sex?” he asked her. “I mean, when it’s good. ’Cause I’m not talking about that wham, bam, thank-you, ma’am, shit. I’m talking about real, sweaty, deep-breathing stuff. You know what I mean? Howlin’ at the full moon and shit.”

  Sharron laughed out loud. “Is that what your women do, howl at the moon?”

  “I do it too, when it’s good. It makes it complete. I wouldn’t be giving you a full piece of myself if I didn’t.”

  A full piece of himself? Interesting, she thought.

  “And what does a ‘full piece’ mean? And how come you don’t say all of me for all of you?”

  Ant stopped her in her tracks.

  “You know what? Think about that question for a minute. I mean, really. Can you actually give me all of you, and expect to get all of me? That’s unheard of. To do that, you would have to live my entire life with me. I can’t even remember all of that shit. Nor can you. Nobody gets all. The closest thing to all would be identical twins. And everybody who’s ever been around twins can tell you how weird that shit is, that they can be so much alike. But they’re also different, because it’s usually a nice twin and a mean twin. Alter egos and shit.

  “So, naw, we don’t give all of ourselves,” he continued. “What we do is give important pieces that build up to a whole, little by little. That way, you’re always looking for that next piece. Because when you give somebody too much too fast, they don’t respect you for that anyway. They get bored with you. So you show ’em something new every day. In full pieces, and none of that half-steppin’ shit. That’s why a lot of guys can’t keep their women now. They don’t know how to go deep enough to reach a woman. Reach her to where she really knows you, trusts you, and respects you. And I’m not talking about for the meantime. I’m talking about for life!”

  Enough said. Wow! Sharron wasn’t expecting all of that. Not from a player. It was just supposed to be a line. He wasn’t actually supposed to understand it. And he damn sure wasn’t supposed to be able to explain it. Before she realized it, she was staring across the table in awe. She was speechless. As was he.

  Ant had no idea that he could open up to a woman like that. He wanted to. Someday. But he doubted if women could really handle it. The full, unleashed mind of a man. But Sharron had asked him the right questions at the right time, and got the right answers. And wow! With such buildup, what else could they possibly say to each other?

  “Hello, my name is Celena Myers.” Sharron’s friend appeared from nowhere and addressed Ant with her hand extended. “And your name is?” she asked him.

  “Anthony Poole,” he answered, taking her hand in his.

  Sharron hadn’t even asked. Nor had Ant asked for her name. And did it matter? Was a name more important than searching a person’s soul? What could be more important than a person’s views on God, sex, and human life. Given names said more about a person’s parents and culture than they did about the individual being anyway. Nevertheless, it was
embarrassing not to know them.

  “Sharron Francis,” she announced, with her right hand extended across the table. “And that’s spelled Shar—S-H-A-R—ron—R-O-N.”

  Celena frowned, horrified. “Well, what the hell were you two talking about all this time? Y’all didn’t even know each other’s names?”

  “What’s up?” Ant’s friend Tone interrupted, crashing in on the party.

  “This is my boy, Anthony Wallace,” Ant filled in.

  Celena jumped all over that.

  “Wait a minute. You both have the same first names?”

  “Yeah, but I’m older,” Tone said proudly.

  Only in age, Sharron thought to herself. She could tell who was whom between the guys, just like Ant could tell between her and Celena. The party crashing had brought them down from their high and back to earth, because for a minute there, they were both floating with no place to land.

  Ant said, “We were just having a deep conversation here.” He was rather annoyed that their friends had broken it up.

  “It must have been deep if y’all didn’t even know each other’s names” Celena noted.

  “I mean, is a name that important?” Tone asked rhetorically. “Your name could be Jane, Judy, Jackie, Jill, or whatever, and the conversation would still be more important than that. Unless your name was Janet Jackson. Now that would be something else.”

  Ant chuckled. His boy Tone never failed to amaze him.

  Celena presented the same bundle of surprises for Sharron.

  “Well, in some cultures, names actually mean something,” Celena countered.

  Sharron let out a long sigh, reading where things were starting to go.

  “Can we go back to skating?” she asked her new companion, holding his hand again.

  Ant had other ideas in mind, but he went along with it just to regain their privacy. He broke away once they hit the skating rink.

  “Look, ah, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything, Sharron, but I don’t really feel like skating anymore. I just wanted to talk to you alone again.”

  She slipped into another smile. Now that was a man. She guided him over to another empty spot where they could be alone again.

  “Actually, I didn’t want to skate anymore either,” she leveled with him.

  “Good. Because my damn feet are killing me! I’m about ready to return these skates. Do your skates feel comfortable?”

  They sure looked comfortable. They were all black with black wheels and red tassels.

  “Of course they feel comfortable. Rented skates are just to get you rollin’. They’re not supposed to feel good. That’s why real skaters buy their own.”

  “So I guess you can tell that I’m not a real skater, hunh?”

  “Definitely. So why did you come here tonight?” she asked curiously. “Was it just to meet more women?”

  He began to untie his skates as he looked up to answer her. “Naw, it just could have been fate. It was meant for us to meet again. Because evidently you must have been thinking about me.”

  She grinned, captured by the truth. “I guess you had too many women on your mind to think about me; you know, with your godly sex and all, howling at the full moon,” she mocked him.

  He laughed it off. “Now you gon’ rewind it and play it to death on me. How many people have you told about my line already?”

  “Actually, I haven’t told anyone,” she answered. “It was my own private secret. Why? How many women have you used it on?”

  “About a thousand,” he lied, just for a reaction.

  “That many?”

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so why bother?”

  “Try me anyway. That’s what life is about, isn’t it?”

  “All right then. You really wanna know how many women I said it to?”

  “I’m asking.”

  He said, “One. Some girl named Sharron Francis. And she walked away from me, smiling. Then my boy laughed at me, talking about it wasn’t gon’ work. And I thought I wasted my damn line, and that this girl was gonna go and tell everybody. So I didn’t even want to use it again.”

  Sharron couldn’t believe her ears. She was really tickled by it.

  “You mean, you went through all of that stress over a line?” she asked him, laughing.

  “Well, you obviously remembered it.”

  She nodded. “It was different.”

  He smiled. “Well … I’m different.”

  “Everybody’s different in the beginning,” she said.

  “Have you ever had a beginning this strong? I mean, not just physically, but mentally?” Then he grinned, adding, “And spiritually?”

  She grinned right back at him. “Honestly, no. But then again, there’s a first time for everything.”

  He nodded and pulled off his skates. “You know what your problem is? You think too damn much. You’re trying to have a comeback line for everything I say. Learn to just go with the flow. Just make sure that you don’t lose yourself.”

  “But isn’t that what you want me to do, lose myself? Honestly?”

  He started to chuckle. A player being called for a hidden deck of cards.

  “You know what? I wanna lose myself, too. That’s what women can’t understand. Guys want to fall in love. But then we wake up with nightmares, thinking about that pretty girl way back in high school or junior high who gave us the okeydoke. Then we freeze up and say, ‘Naw, man, I ain’t goin’ through that shit again.’ And that’s the truth. Whether guys want to admit it or not.”

  “But you have to admit it. That’s life,” she told him.

  “You know what? That is life. You’re right,” he agreed. “So we have to get back on that wild horse and ride it, hunh? Ride it good.”

  She smiled at him, mischievously. That deep, penetrating natural smile of hers. “Or, you could let the horse ride you for a change. If you could handle it?”

  Hmmm! What a proposition! he thought. And he was definitely interested!

  “Dawg, when we first met this girl, you said she wasn’t all that. Now you meet her again at the skating rink, and you spend the whole damn night with her. What’s up with that?” Tone wanted to know. It was after midnight. They were on their way back home.

  Ant was too satisfied to even respond. He was driving as if he were floating in a spaceship on cruise control, thirty-thousand miles away from earth. He was already thinking of his future with Sharron. How long would the honeymoon last? They always seemed to die somehow. Crashing and burning into oblivion.

  “Hey, man, are you daydreaming or what? YO-O-OH!”

  Ant snapped out of his deep thought and said, “What’s wrong with you, man?”

  “I’m sittin’ here trying to talk to you, and you over there spacin’ off and shit,” Tone explained.

  Ant said, “Look, man, I had me a good night. Aw’ight? So let me just enjoy it in peace.”

  Tone said, “Her girlfriend was snotty as hell. That’s all I know,” he complained. He actually tried to talk to her, but Celena wasn’t having it. Nor was Ant paying any real attention to him. He was off in his own world, blocking everything out, even when he arrived up the street from Tone’s mother’s house, off of Grand Boulevard.

  “Don’t crash on the way home while you spacin’ out over this girl, man,” his boy advised him as he climbed out of the car. “’Cause it look like she got your ass whipped just through holdin’ hands and shit.”

  Ant was in such a love high that he could only laugh.

  “I’m whipped without even gettin’ no ass yet, hunh?” he reiterated. “That’s the way it should be. Because once I hit the G-spot, the excitement all fades away,” he told his partner.

  Tone stopped and thought about that for a minute with the passenger door still open. “Yeah, I don’t know about this one, man. This girl seem like she go t you on some old spooky-type shit. Fuckin’ voodoo.”

  Ant laughed even louder. “Naw, man, you trippin’ now. She ain’t got me that ba
d. And I got her, too. Don’t forget that. She back home thinkin’ ’bout me now.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Go on home and have wet dreams about her. But just remember, I hooked you up with her.”

  “What?” Ant questioned with a frown.

  “Aw, don’t act like you don’t remember now. You wasn’t even into this girl. I saw her first and made you talk to her on Kingshighway. You was talkin’ some trash that she was too tall.”

  Ant nodded. “Aw’ight, I’ll give you that. You spotted her.”

  “I know I did,” Tone said. “You just don’t forget that shit,” he added, closing the passenger door. Then he walked off toward his mother’s house.

  Ant drove off and remembered that Tone had spotted Dana Nicole Simpson for him as well. He thought about it all, and began to pity his partner as he headed farther south to Nebraska Avenue. How did Anthony Wallace really feel about being second fiddle for so many years? Ant had thought about that before, but never seriously. He figured that it had to hurt. How damaged had Tone’s ego been over those years?

  No wonder he seemed to lack drive, direction, and consistency. He was forever being left out and shot down. And while Ant had a great damn time with his life, Tone had only learned how to live through Ant, and his women, and his adventures.

  Ant jumped on the phone line as soon as he arrived at home and called up his boy to let him know that he cared. And he did care, because Tone was his lifelong partner.

  “I just wanna let you know that I love you, dawg. No doubt.”

  “What? Man, that girl done drove you crazy already,” Tone responded drowsily. He was long due for a rest. When you stay up halfway through the night for the majority of the week, the need for sleep will surely catch up to you.

  “I’m not thinkin’ ’bout her, man. I’m just talking about me and you now,” Ant told him. “We been through a lot together, man. And I just want you to know that I appreciate you, that’s all. I love you, man.”

  Tone paused and let it all sink in, tired or not. “Yeah, man, I guess I love you, too. But I love pussy a lot more, so don’t ever think about gettin’ funny on me, man, calling me up to tell me that you love me after midnight and shit.”