I'd Rather Be With You Read online

  Four weeks ago on my wedding day, I was the envy of all women—single and married—in Houston, including my so-called best friend, Loretta. Should’ve left her ass alone years ago. She was a real jealous bitch. If she wasn’t trying so hard to impress my husband, she might have one of her own.

  Sadly I said, “Please leave.”

  Soon as the doctor left the room, I cried out loud, “Dear God, what’s the lesson here? I know I’m not perfect, but what did I do to deserve—” I stopped. I threw my hands up, then added, “Don’t answer that.” I touched my stomach. My only prayer was “Let Roosevelt be the father.”

  That way, I’d still have a piece of him to love. Our child needed a father, but not one who might be brain damaged. Roosevelt wasn’t the first man who proposed to me. He was the ninth. But he was the first one who loved me enough for me to marry him. When he died, I would become a lonely woman, but not for long. I’d scatter his ashes over the Gulf of Mexico, then celebrate the great memories we shared. We didn’t have a prenuptial, so legally I’d inherit his millions. Eventually another man would fall in love with me and help me raise my child.

  Many would call me a bitch. Roosevelt’s mother, Helen DuBois, would be first in line. His only brother, Chaz, would stand beside her.

  What they didn’t know was, I was not responsible for Roosevelt getting shot. My so-called Christian girlfriend was. She was the one who’d insisted that I not hire security, and she’d shown up at my wedding reception with a gun in her purse. That’s what I’d heard from our friend Tisha.

  In hindsight I realized Loretta could have pulled the trigger herself.

  CHAPTER 2

  Granville

  “Man, I keep telling y’all I was framed.” I wasn’t completely innocent. They knew that. I did too. It wasn’t 100 percent my fault, but the way it went down made me look like the bad guy. Now the government got my mama thinking I’m a freeloader.

  The Feds putting a roof over my head and food in my stomach at the downtown detention center was okay for a lil while, since I’d paid into the system, after all. But Mama said since space was limited, they could give my bed to someone who deserved it.

  No one could make Moms believe that her darling, adorable, precious son shot a man. No, siree. Mama was so sure I didn’t do it, she’d convinced me.

  During her visit last week, Mama told the guard, “I’ve fed my two boys all their lives till they was old enough to buy me tons of seafood. I like seafood. You like seafood? I’ma bring you some next time I come. Anyway, my sons ain’t never needed no welfare of any kind, and they ain’t never been in trouble with the law. You and nobody else gon’ make me a liar. I know my boy didn’t shoot nobody ’cause I raised him better than that.”

  Mama was right, but complaining to the guard wasn’t going to free me. I was ready to have my day in court, get out of here, and go back to a construction job so I could resume paying taxes, like the law-abiding citizen that I was.

  “Dude, you still hanging on to that not guilty plea. You been in here for four weeks,” No Chainz said. “Be lucky they haven’t found the gun, or your ass would be in the Texas state pen, sleeping with both eyes open just to keep your asshole shut.”

  Before the cops arrived, all the guests were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, so I kicked my gun into the swimming pool, hoping the chlorine would wash away my fingerprints. The fact that no one had found the gun, I guess that was luck.

  They housed all kinds of criminals in this joint. Murderers. Thieves. Drunk drivers. The Latinos doing time were usually in for doing something illegal to feed their family. The brahs, they were different. Most were back for violating probation. Duh! Didn’t they watch Parole Diaries ? To me, coming back for doing some shit you know you’re not supposed to do didn’t make any sense.

  Regardless of how I got a break and ended up at this location, I was happy to be downtown. This way, my brother didn’t have to travel all the way to state (wherever that was). Heard it was hours away. Being in Houston, Beaux could easily see me once a week.

  Precious, the broad I met before getting locked up, came to see me every week too. I thought about taking her off my visitors’ list, but she’d promised to slip me a cell phone on her next visit. I needed that phone so I could call Madison and apologize for losing my temper and embarrassing her.

  I sat at the table, adjusting my dick. “You see how big my shit is,” I said; then I spoke louder. “If any man tries to rape me, he gon’ regret it ’cause after I whup his ass, he’s gonna get all of this dick down his throat, then up his butt.”

  Our one openly gay guy stood, snapped his fingers, then said, “Granville, don’t tease me. You promise?”

  Jacking off had become my thing. Kissing or having sex with a man wasn’t. If I got life, I might have to change my mind on some things. I’d only been in for a month.

  No Chainz, my cellmate at the federal detention center, said, “Damn, dude. I keep telling you that thing ain’t natural. My females in Brazil would love your ass.”

  He called himself “No Chainz” after his favorite rapper, 2 Chainz. No Chainz believed no matter how long a man was behind bars, his mind was always free. He was up for parole in six months and would have to register as a sex offender.

  My Madison had the same number of months before our baby was due. If Madison hadn’t had my baby by the time my boy was out, and if I was still locked up, No Chainz said he’d stand in for me in the delivery room. Wasn’t sure I wanted his freaky behind seeing what was between my woman’s legs. A man doing time wanted to stick his dick deep in a pussy soon as he saw one. Didn’t matter who she was. If shit went right, I’d be out before him.

  When I first got to FDC, I remembered No Chainz telling me, “Why wait for some fucked-up dream to creep into your head, G, when you can fantasize at any time?” That boy had the wildest stories of traveling the world and sexing the most beautiful women in Rio, especially the girls from Ipanema. His shit about sexy, big-breasted women, with small waists and ridiculous humongous booties, flossing real shoestring bikinis, was so vivid it would make my dick hard as a rock. Sometimes it felt like I had sand in my mouth from going down on them females while they was laying with their legs open on the beach.

  No Chainz had served two and a half of his three years for rape. Said the girl was sixteen; he’d just turned eighteen. She’s white. He’s black. She told her old man and the jury that they were dating and their sex was consensual. That girl had begged her father not to make her press charges and pleaded with the jury not to find No Chainz guilty. But her old man was one of those rifle-toting rednecks who was outraged that his little Lucy had been spoiled by one of us. Her daddy had claimed either the system was going to give him justice or he was going to shoot No Chainz dead. Sometimes prisons saved lives.

  I boldly said, “Correction. I’ve been in here three weeks and five days.”

  “Shy forty-eight hours? Round up, nigga.”

  My dad, rest his soul, had told me and my brother, “Y’all too big and too black to be careless.” If we wanted to go with a white woman, our daddy told us, “Go to the West.”

  People in California didn’t so much mind that interracial dating thing. Same-sex thing. I heard they sat in trees to keep ’em from being chopped down. In the South, they might not lynch cha nowadays, but they sure won’t hesitate to lock you up. I managed to stay a free man for forty-five years. Guess it was just my turn.

  “Okay, so explain your position again, Granville, because every day your alibi changes.” No Chainz turned sideways on his stool and faced me.

  A new guy I hadn’t seen before sat between us at our lunch table. He leaned over his tray and started eating slop. We got quiet. He didn’t seem like he belonged in prison, so I didn’t bother raising him up and making him move. That, and I didn’t have anything to prove to any of these guys.

  My wrestling skills from back in my high-school days came in handy when I had to pin a fool to the floor for ch
allenging me. I only hammered the ones who refused to surrender. Act too big of a fool and off you go to unit seven, on the seventh floor, to be housed with the worst criminals in here. That was where solitary was too. I wasn’t trying to be in a small room twenty-three hours a day by myself. I liked to talk too much.

  “What you in for?” I asked the new guy.

  He swallowed his soupy mashed potatoes. Kept staring at his tray. “Life, maybe. Nothing, maybe. Depends on how the jury view my situation.”

  The new guy spoke slowly, like Ving Rhames did in the movie Baby Boy. Some said I favored the way that dude looked. Wish I had his fame. That way, Madison would be chasing me.

  This new guy had a smooth New Yorkish swag that I liked, but he was white. I frowned as I listened.

  “Depends on whether or not I represent myself.”

  Whoa. Represent himself? That’s it! Why hadn’t I consider that?

  “Dude, what makes you think you can present your own case? The jury won’t take you serious. Isn’t that like admitting you’re guilty?” I asked, more curious than anything.

  Some guys in my unit had done that, but they’d all lost. But we couldn’t all lose. Somebody had to be smart enough to beat the law.

  “It’s my right. Yours too. That, and I’m an attorney.”

  Slapping the table, I accidentally made his potatoes shoot in the air, then plop on his plate. I laughed. He didn’t.

  No Chainz said, “Stop playing with dude’s food.”

  “Well, obviously he’s not a good one. Or he wouldn’t be breaking bread with us,” I said, clearing my scratchy throat.

  Raising his brows, he rubbed his hand over his blond hair, staring at me with his dark brown eyes, which sank far behind his forehead. He said, “Well, I can tell you’re not a lawyer. You’re the type that’s accustomed to using your hands and not your head. A real Mandingo, dick-slinging African American who thinks his johnson defines him, huh, Shrek?”

  No Chainz laughed. I didn’t.

  No, that Herman Munster-looking dude didn’t call me “Shrek.”

  “You don’t have to respond. I can tell you’re not in here because you’re a criminal. You’re in here because you’re ignorant.”

  My mouth curved down. Above, my lip started sweating. I slid the back of my hand over my skinny mustache, then dried it on my pants. I should’ve wiped it on him. I didn’t know whether to be flattered, pissed off, or beat his ass.

  He was about five feet ten inches, and weighed around the same as No Chainz, 190, definitely under two hundred. Even behind bars a white man had more rights than me. I’d show him that I was smart. I focused on the part where he said he might represent himself. It was kind of hard, damn near impossible for him to insult me. My mom loved and sang my praises all the time. Women, they cursed me out almost every day.

  Mama had said, “Honey, that’s a woman’s way of saying she cares about you. Worry when she doesn’t curse you out.”

  I was overdue for a brawl. New dude was a fist away from getting beat like a bitch.

  What was messed up was Madison had refused to be put on my list to accept my calls. She hadn’t written or come to see me since I’d been in here, but Precious hadn’t missed a visit. I didn’t care about Precious, but her coming to see me made me feel good. All inmates, no matter what the crime, wanted a human connection to the outside world.

  My getting a phone soon made me happy. I wouldn’t need Madison’s permission. But if Precious got me caught, I’d be transported to state and she’d be arrested. That was a chance I’d take. I had to find out where Madison was.

  “I didn’t mean no disrespect. But can you teach me how to represent myself?”

  “What you in for?” he asked, shoving another forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. They stuck together a little better, since they were cold. He hadn’t touched his green beans or chicken.

  “They say I shot a man, but truth is I aimed at air and water. Wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been provoked.”

  No Chainz interrupted me. “Man, stop trying to use big words to impress dude and get on with the real details. Aimed at? Air and water? That shit’s new.”

  I stared at No Chainz, narrowed my eyes, and then explained. “I had a good construction job, making almost a hundred thou a year.”

  “Here we go,” No Chainz said, leaning back.

  I should’ve reached around dude and pushed my cellmate to the floor.

  So what if I exaggerated my salary a little this time? Ninety thou was close. I had to account for inflation. I kept talking like I didn’t hear my friend. “I met this fake beauty queen named Loretta Lovelace. She stole my heart, then broke it. At first, I tried everything to keep her.

  “Loretta had that silky, gingersnap-colored skin that made me want to dip her in milk, then devour her. And she always wore that raspberry gloss I loved to lick off. She was tall, with long legs, especially when she wore heels. Those nice curves were in all the right places.” I outlined the shape of an hourglass to give them an idea of what was in my head. “I missed the way she sucked my big, thick dick.”

  “We don’t give a damn, man, about what your dick felt like, G. Tell the part how that shit happened in three weeks.”

  “Shut up, No Chainz. This my story. Everything didn’t happen in no three weeks. I dated her for three weeks. Then one day on my way to take her to Port Arthur to meet—”

  The new guy laughed so hard that potatoes flew from his mouth and splattered onto the guy’s tray across the table. The guy was so interested in my story, he didn’t look down at his meal. He kept eating while staring at me.

  “That explains it. Say no more. Granville, dude, everybody knows all you guys from PA are fucked up in the head from inhaling all of those refinery fumes and making babies with your first cousins. Man, I already know. You have no boundaries.” The new guy insisted, “Whatever it is your ass is guilty of, plead the Fifth.”

  “How I’ma do that and represent myself?”

  The new guy shook his head.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “In here. It doesn’t matter. Call me what you’d like.”

  “You got kids?”

  He nodded.

  I wanted to know more. “Where you from?”

  “Here” was all he said.

  No Chainz said, “You the real deal. We gon’ call you G-double-A ’cause you got all the answers. Get it? This is a long story, dude. Now let my man finish so we can get a workout in before four o’clock count.”

  Count was like roll call in grade school. Grown folks answering, “Here,” like we were children. We had to return from our common areas, go to our cells, and wait for a head count to make sure no one had escaped. They interrupted us to do that shit five times a day, like their asses couldn’t keep track.

  “Thanks, bro. Like I was saying. On my way to take Loretta to PA to meet Moms, she confessed that her girlfriend liked me. Turned out she was talking about my boss. You think Loretta is fine. Man, oh, man,” I said, then stuffed my knuckles into my mouth and barked like a dog. “Madison makes Loretta’s gingersnap skin look like liver cheese.”

  Madison had that soft, light, creamy, melt-in-my-mouth, praline-tasting skin. Her hair was cut short, tapered next to her scalp, and colored like a platinum blonde’s. Big, tight titties, with an itty-bitty waist, and a juicy booty I got to hold on to the first time we had sex. Actually, it was the only time, but I was in love; and I’d bet none of those Brazilian booties No Chainz dreamt about were better than hers. Madison was all woman, and she was all mine.

  “Yep, you country, all right,” the new guy said, interrupting my thoughts.

  No Chainz said, “G-double-A, we ain’t got all day. Don’t let him call you ‘country,’ Granville. Wipe under your nose and tell this dude something.”

  Yeah! No Chainz was right. I swiped my upper lip, dried the back of my hand on my pants. “Bet you can’t beat my six-six, two-eighty-five country ass,” I said, pu
shing back to the edge of the immovable steel stool.

  Sweat rolled from my bald head, behind my ears, and down into the folds along the back of my neck. G-double-A reminded me of how I used to pound on my brother Beaux with my Wreck-It Ralph gigantic fists. Made me want to do the same thing to his ass right now.

  G-double-A nodded.

  “I haven’t lost a fight since I’ve been in this joint.” That was the truth, because I’d come close but hadn’t had a real shanking kind of one. G-double-A didn’t know that. I lied, “A few tried to run up on and in me. I whupped all of their asses. Tell ’im, No Chainz.”

  No Chainz squinted, then hunched his shoulders.

  “I believe you, man. I already told you anyone can see your biggest muscle is not your brain. You keep them off my ass and I’ll help you prepare your case,” G-double-A said.

  My eyes widened. “No shit?”

  I paused. Why was he so quick to offer? He wasn’t one of those free spirited dudes from California, and nothing in prison was free.

  “Man, finish the damn story,” No Chainz said. “So I can add to the journal I’m keeping on your lying ass.”

  “So now you a journalist?”

  G-double-A asked, “Mind if I see it?”

  “Naw, I don’t mind if you see it. If you shut the hell up and listen and help me represent myself too.” No Chainz nodded upward at dude.

  Inmates were always trying to take advantage of another man’s shit. No matter the relationship, a man behind bars had to wash his own ass and watch his own back.

  “Where was I?”

  No Chainz said, “Liver cheese.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Madison is the kind of woman who makes a man want to give her everything he’s got. She invited me to her house. Cooked for me. Let me eat her creamy, sweet pussy. Yum. Yum.” I snapped my teeth. “Then she got on top and rode me better than Loretta.”

  I thought about when Madison came down on my big dick and it went all the way straight up her ass. I thought she was screaming for pleasure; then I saw the blood. I didn’t want to share that part. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to rip the insides of her ass so bad she had to go to the emergency room. But had I been charged with rape, my asshole might be wide open. I shouldn’t have sent the link of the video to her at-that-time fiancé, but I did it, hoping he’d call off the wedding. He couldn’t have watched it, because what man would marry another man’s woman?