Mister Gumbo: Down and Dirty with Black Men on Life, Sex, and Relationships

Mister Gumbo\ 1\ RELATIONSHIPS\ DUCE'S SHRIMP ÉTOUFÉE\ SERVES 4\ 1/2 cup (I stick) butter 2 green peppers, chopped I can of Rotel diced toma- toes and chilies 3 cloves garlic, minced 3 stalks celery, chopped 3 green onions, chopped 1 large onion, chopped\ Tony's Cajun Seasoning\ Worcestershire sauce\ Salt\ Pepper\ 1 (10-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup 1 pound peeled shrimp 4 cups cooked rice\ In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add all ingredients except the soup, shrimp, and rice. Sauté for 10 minutes or until tender.\ Add the peeled shrimp, and cook for another 15 minutes. Serve the étoufée in bowls over cooked rice.\ 1\ PAST\ DANTE\ 37, MARRIED, AIRLINE BAGGAGE HANDLER AND PART-TIME MODEL\ Dante, always one who's dressed to impress, comes flying into the library parking lot in a brand-new Humvee that he probably can't afford, and why he's wearing a burgundy leather suit in September is beyond my understanding. Oh, he's cute and everything, but it's only fifty degrees outside, not nearly cold enough for leather—unless, of course, your name is Dante Malone.\ Look at him, talking on his cell phone. People walking past him are looking at him like he's crazy because he's got one of those little ear-pieces in his ear that you can't see. They're probably thinking, "Why is this man laughing and talking to himself, wearing a burgundy leather suit in September, and climbing out of a Humvee?" Then again, they're probably looking at him like he's a little strange because he's talking much louder than he needs to be, probably just to draw attention to himself and his new truck, which he's been trying to lock for the last ten minutes. Either he doesn't know what he's doing or he's just taking extralong so that more people can see him using the key to that massive box-shaped truck and think he's rich or something.\ "Dante, boy, would you come on over here so we can go inside," I yell. But he looks at me over the top of his shades, which are trimmed in the same shade of burgundy as his suit and alligator shoes, and keeps right on talking—if he's even talking, that is. When he finally gets the door locked and crosses the street, he's chattering away, as usual. "That was my agent on the phone. You know I'm about to get back into modeling. See y'all don't know nothing about Dante Malone. I gots it like that. But enough about me—what's up, ladies? You two are looking lovely as usual, almost as good as me." He laughed as he gave us both a hug, even though we were looking upside his head like he had lost his mind. "Y'all know I'm just kidding—damn, stop looking all crazy. Come on, let me get the door."\ Yep, he's still the same old Dante. Ain't nothing changed since high school. He's still cute, conceited, and loud. His hair is still jet black and curly, he's still got those thick eyebrows and long eyelashes the girls always loved, and his skin is still a flawless caramel color. Fortunately, one thing did change: he's grown maybe six inches since high school, which makes him about six-one.\ The burgundy leather suit—and I know I keep bringing that up, but it's only because I can't believe he actually wore it—looks good on him because he's nice and slim. He stays in shape by running. He's forever saying he'll never be fat because he comes from "good blood," whatever that means. I'm not hating on Dante, I just think he's a trip. He's always been a trip.\ We took the last private room available in the library, and Mr. "I'm Marvelous" finally took off his burgundy shades, and not a minute too soon, because he was beginning to look like a drug dealer or something in all that burgundy, and wearing dark shades in the library in the middle of the day. "Why are your eyes so red, Dante?" I asked, already knowing the answer.\ "Wha—Now see, there you go, worrying about the wrong thing,but since you asked, I had to have me a little gin and juice on my way over here so I could be mellowed out for this little interview."\ He picked up our sheet of questions, looked them over, and said, "Umm-hmm. Okay, let's get busy, ladies. Y'all know I'm wanted somewhere else as soon as I finish up here, so let me just run it down for you.\ "I really didn't have a very eventful childhood, but when I was fourteen, I started hanging out with people who were eighteen or older, and people on the outside looking in said I was growing up too fast. My parents didn't like it, but I wasn't really out there being wild the way people thought I was. People thought I was a ho, but I wasn't.\ "Around age sixteen, I started to become interested in cars and women, in that order, and the women I hung around were in their early twenties. I wasn't having sex yet, but I loved being in a fast environment and I loved being in the presence of women who were that old, just to see what they were about. They always thought I was older than I was, and I think that's because I'd been hanging with the older guys for so long. I already had a mustache, so I looked older than most guys my age, and I was already going to clubs. I had the clothes to wear wherever I went 'cause my friends bought them for me, but it wasn't a gay thing. My male friends just wanted to dress me up so I could look appropriate when I was out with them, and I accepted their gifts.\ "My mother and father would complain and tell me, 'You growing up too fast. You shouldn't be hanging with older people,' because they were under the impression that I was out there screwing around, but it wasn't like that. I just hung out with them because they liked me. They treated me like I was their little pet. I had the freakiest and richest friends you could have when I was a teenager. I was in an environment where I met people like Grace Jones and Donald Trump. It was an eye-opening experience for me.\ "I saw the drugs, the sex, the orgies, all of that at a young age, but I never participated. I could be sitting in a chair just like I am now, and a man and woman would start going at it. Even two women or twomen might get busy right there in front of me, but I just looked and learned. That's why I say the assumptions that people make about another person are not always correct. Just because I hung around with people who were into drugs, sex, partying, and all that, didn't mean I was doing the same thing.\ "During high school I had one girlfriend—well, only one I considered a girlfriend. We dated for a while, but I didn't really click with her, because she told me she wanted a baby, and that just threw me off. It was my senior year in high school, and I was like, 'Oh no, sweetie, we're not going to have no baby. Dante ain't ready for that.' Here I was only seventeen, and I hadn't even had sex yet, and she wanted a baby. I guess she didn't know I was a virgin and I didn't bother to tell her, but I was not interested in having a baby or being that serious about anybody, because I believe in God and I felt like he would let me know when the time was right.\ "I can't lie. I didn't have a role model when I was growing up. I can't say my dad was a role model for me, because he was a whore and I never respected him as a man. The reason I say that is because when I was around sixteen, I came home from school early one day and caught him messing around with another woman. They were going at it on the living room sofa, the very same sofa that we weren't even allowed to sit on. When I walked in on them, nobody said a word. The woman just got up, pulled on her clothes, and left, but I saw her at the grocery store about a week later, and the slut had the nerve to proposition me. As I got a little older, I began to find out that he knew and had dated a lot of the same women I knew. Word was he'd sleep with anybody if she lay still long enough, and that made me sick because he should've had his ass at home. He didn't have any respect for women. None of the men in my family had a lot of respect for women from what I could see, and I always vowed that I wouldn't be that way.\ "I left home and moved to D.C. with two buddies as soon as I graduated from high school, and I was out there trying to break intomodeling and going to even more freak parties. I was like, 'Damn, I want to hit some ass like all these other guys,' but something in me just wouldn't let me do it. Something kept telling me I should wait, but because of the environment I was in, I had a lot of friends who were drug dealers. So they had money and gave me money—I mean paper, big money—and there were a lot of women who wanted to date me just because they knew that.\ "I would take women on dates and kiss them and fondle them and shit like that, but that was as far as it went. They could kiss me and feel me, and get close to me, but they couldn't have me, and I enjoyed having that kind of control over myself. It always got back to me that some chick had said something like, 'Damn, he had me all horny and shit, then kissed me and left my ass at the doorstep,' because I did that a lot. I always had an excuse as to why I couldn't stay and hit it, because I felt like I should wait.\ "When I was twenty, I decided to get into modeling seriously and I was still a virgin, for real. I mean, don't get me wrong, there were a lot of women I kissed and let give me head because I was modeling and hanging with all these fine women, so I couldn't say no to everything. But as far as having sexual intercourse with a woman, hitting the skins, no, I didn't do it. I even told one woman, 'I can't go to bed with you, because I'm not going to marry you. You're nice and everything, but you're not the type of woman I'd want for a wife, and I have more respect for a woman than to take a gift like that when it means nothing to me. I'm not going to play games with you or break your heart. I'm being real,' and believe it or not, she actually wanted to be with me even more after I said that."\ G.G.\ 33, SINGLE, RESTAURANT MANAGER\ I met G., as he chooses to be called, on a Friday evening while hanging out with a few girlfriends over dinner and drinks. He's the manager ofa swanky restaurant in Dallas's upscale Oak Lawn area, and he'd stopped at our table to make sure we had everything we needed. When he approached us, we were laughing and chattering like magpies, and my friend Elise almost choked on the glass of wine she was sipping when she saw how extremely fine he was.\ "Good evening, ladies," he said with a huge smile, causing all six of us to drop our forks and secretly hope that there was no smeared lipstick or misplaced salad dressing anywhere on our faces. "Y'all are having way too much fun over here, you make me want to take a seat and join you. What in the world are all you beauties laughing about? Are y'all over here talking about men?"\ Casey, the only one of the group who wasn't married, ran her tongue across her teeth to make sure all was well, sat up straight, gave him a huge smile, and made herself the spokeswoman for all of us when she told him that the service was impeccable, but we could certainly use a refill on our water. In the process, she pointed to her half-full glass with her left hand, making sure that he noticed she wasn't wearing a wedding ring.\ After giving all of us a friendly nod and promising to send our waiter over, he continued to work the room, and I told Casey that I didn't know why she was flirting with him, because he seemed like he was gay.\ All five women clicked their tongues in the negative, Casey being the loudest when she replied, "Girl, you're tripping. That fine-ass man ain't gay. All this talk about black men being 'on the down low' just has women spooked, even you married women. You can't look at every black man and just assume he's creeping with another man just because that's the latest hot topic of conversation."\ I sat back and kept working on my salad, but all the while I was thinking there was something about him ... something about the way he moved or kept using the word sweetie that had me convinced. Since we had been unsuccessful at finding a man "on the DL" who would discuss his life with us for the book, I thought I'd try G. and see if he might be interested. I slipped away to the ladies' room and pulled himaside on my way back to see if he was game for an interview at a later date. I told him about Sister Gumbo and told him we were looking for a few interesting men to interview for Mister Gumbo, and handed him my business card, which included my phone number and e-mail address. Even though he gave me a wonderful hug and kissed me on the cheek before I left, I wasn't sure I'd hear from him, so I was pleasantly surprised when he called me about a week later and said he'd be willing to answer whatever questions I had if I would like to meet him one evening after the restaurant closed.\ Sexy, slim, and standing about six-three, G. has a deep baritone voice, smooth golden brown skin, and long thick eyelashes. He had the bartender pour each of us a glass of white zinfandel before inviting me to follow him to his office in the back, where we could have some privacy. I noticed a picture of a beautiful young lady on his desk and thought that asking about her would be a good way to start off our conversation, so I did just that, and G. took it from there.\  \  \ "That's Tia, my girlfriend, and for the record—since you've already said you're writing about life, sex, and relationships, and since you promised me that what we say is confidential—I'll admit that I'm one of those men who loves women, but I do keep a male friend to get with every now and then to keep things interesting. Even though I don't publicize the fact that I like sleeping with men and women, I don't consider myself to be one of those guys on the DL. Tia knows my sexual preferences, and she's okay with it because she's as open as I am about sex. I am definitely bisexual, but only the people I'm close to and intimate with know that, and that's how I prefer to keep it. I'm very private, and I don't believe what I do in the privacy of my bedroom is everyone's business.\ "Growing up, I lived in a predominantly African-American community and attended private Christian schools before leaving home to attend college in California. My family is extremely conservative. I grew up in the church, my grandfather has been a Baptist ministerfor well over fifty years, and I'm one of the head deacons in his church.\ "My parents have been married for forty years, and even though they haven't gotten along for most of those forty years, they are still together because they don't believe in divorce. They live in the same house but sleep in separate bedrooms, and they've been doing that for as long as I can remember.\ "I have a sister and brother who happen to be twins. My sister is a doctor, but she's also an alcoholic. She starts drinking from the time she gets home in the evening and doesn't stop until it's time to go to bed, and she doesn't think anybody knows it. We all know about it; we just don't talk about it. My oldest brother was accepted to law school but got burned out and started running with a fast crowd. He recently got out of jail for dealing drugs.\ "So as you can see, even though outwardly my background is conservative, if you look real close, you'll find that beneath the surface my family life is pretty interesting, to say the least.\ "My father was always a very stern disciplinarian, and he was always on me about being too sensitive. I was the kind of boy whose feelings were easily hurt, and my father couldn't deal with that and he would chide me when I would break into tears when he would speak to me too harshly, while my mother would take me aside and hug or kiss me to take away the bluntness of his words. She never had to do that with my brother or sister, because they could hold their own with my father whatever the situation. They would nod their heads and agree with whatever it was my father told them to do but as soon as his back was turned, they would become children he wouldn't recognize in his wildest dreams. My siblings could outdrink, outsmoke, and outcuss anybody in their peer group.\ "Coming up Southern Baptist, I wasn't taught anything about sex except that it was bad, and once puberty set in, I had a burning desire to know what was so bad about it, but was too scared to take the action and find out. The first time I had sexual intercourse with a man, I wasnineteen years old and a freshman at UCLA. It happened in the apartment of a popular thirty-year-old radio and party DJ who was on the DL. I was nervous and excited at the same time, and even though I've dated women and have continued to have sex with women since then, for me the sex act with a woman is not nearly as intense as it is when I'm with another man.\ "My mother and my sister know about my sexual orientation because I've told them, but my brother and my dad, who are also deacons in our Church, reside in the land of denial with their 'We're not going to ask, so don't you dare tell us' typical Southern Baptist crazy-ass mentality. I think they feel that if they really knew that I liked having sex with men, then they'd have to deal with it, and that might compromise their feelings about their own sexuality, so we don't even go there. And my brother was in jail, so I know he had to deal with that when he was locked up. When I'm back home and me and the fellas are just sitting around talking or whatever, I pretend I'm a womanizer like the rest of the men in my family, which seems like an acceptable way to be and the only thing they can be comfortable with. If it works for them, it works for me too, what the hell.\ "I honestly feel I was born sexually uninhibited or bisexual. I can remember one evening during the summer when I was at church waiting to attend youth choir rehearsal. I was ripping and running all over the church because my grandfather was in his office working. I know he probably would have killed my ass and laid me out on the Communion table had he caught me all up in the pulpit, but luckily he didn't catch me. I eventually tired of playing in the pulpit and decided to explore some of the empty rooms in the long hallway and happened upon one of the Sunday school classrooms in the far corner of the church, where a muffled sound caught my attention. I peeked inside the dimly lit room, and my gaze fell upon the church's very married choir director and a teenaged boy kissing, and the boy wasn't fighting him off. He was acting as though he liked it. I knew instantly that what I was seeing was taboo, but I continued to watch because it excited me.\ "I guess I was around ten years old at the time because shortly after that happened I remember having a birthday party and playing hide and go get it after all the adults went inside. This was a game that entailed catching a member of the opposite sex and then feeling that person up. The thing is, I was looking to "hide and go get it" from a boy rather than from one of the many girls at the party, and I think that's when I first realized that what I'd seen at the church appealed to me more than it should have. I never told my parents or grandfather what I had seen, because Lord knows I probably would have gotten a beating just because I'd witnessed something I shouldn't have and then to add insult to injury had the nerve to talk about it. But now that I look back on it, I must have known at that young age that I was maybe a little bit different than most other boys.\ "I didn't consider that experience to be a traumatic one, because as I've said before, I was born sexually uninhibited. I have never felt that there was anything wrong with being sexually attracted to both men and women, even though the church has always taught me different. The thing I don't quite understand is that while the Bible says one thing and the preachers preach what the Bible says, why are there so many openly gay men in the church like the musicians, ushers, and so on who are accepted? My grandfather's church is huge, and his minister of music and several of the men in the choir are openly gay. I know for a fact that several of the deacons are DL, and while it is quite obvious that the gay men are gay, the church members must discuss this fact only amongst themselves in the privacy of their homes—because I have never been in one meeting or had one conversation with a family member or anyone else who would dare bring it up. It makes no sense at all, but that's the Southern Baptist way, isn't it? If you ignore it long enough, it doesn't exist.\ "Outside of that, the most significant thing that happened in my life, that made me the man I am now, is when I was introduced to several glamorous, trendy, substance-abusing, self-righteous, but self-conscious, openly gay men at the age of nineteen, when I first lefthome and entered college. My roommate happened to be one of these characters, and that's how I became involved in the life, although I do remember innocently wanting to establish same-sex relationships as early as age ten."\ J0E\ 41, SINGLE, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER\ When we met with Joe, the first thing he said was, "I don't know if y'all really want to interview me, 'cause you know I keep it real," and that's the truth if I've ever heard it. At first he tried to act like he didn't want to talk to us, but as much as he loves to be seen and heard, we knew he was just fronting.\ Joe is a Texan to his heart, and proud of it. If I'm not mistaken, he mentioned it at least three times during the interview. "My mama and daddy owned the first dry cleaners in the community, and they made a pretty good living, so I didn't want for nothing. That's why I'm so well dressed, my mama starched my clothes from the time I started kindergarten all the way through high school, and even today I won't wear a pair of jeans unless they're starched."\ Today Joe wore a pair of blue jeans that had been starched to within an inch of their life coupled with a shiny black shirt and black eelskin dress shoes that had to be at least twenty years old but were shining like new money. Everything on Joe was shining. He wore at least six rings, a black square onyx, a couple of gold nuggets, and a few simple gold bands studded here or there with smaller diamonds, and when he smiled, the gold tooth with the half moon that capped his front tooth sparkled and glimmered as brightly as his rings. He's the type of brother who will show up at a wedding wearing a red suit, red socks, red shoes, red hat, and carrying a red walking stick if he can find one. And get this, if he's dating a woman and they're stepping out, you'd best believe she'll be wearing the exact same color he is and walking so close to him that all you can see is one big block of color as they approach.\ From the first impression one believes, and rightly so, that Joe is stuck in the 1970s, but he is very much aware of what's going on concerning money, politics, real estate, and anything else that's happening in his community. You can laugh at him wearing that red suit all you want to, but don't try to run no game on him, because he's no fool when it comes to life, women, or how to make a dollar. Joe is barely five-eight and a little on the heavy side, has beautiful jet-black skin, dark brown eyes, and a Jheri curl that he has worn for the past twenty-five years. He's by no means handsome, but the way he handles himself makes him attractive, and the women certainly like him. Joe always has and always will drive the biggest, longest car he can find. In the eighties it was a gold two twenty-five (better known as a deuce and a quarter), in the nineties it was a gold Lincoln Continental, and now he drives a Cadillac and, you guessed it, it's gold too.\ I first met Joe back in the early 1980s, when we all frequented a club called Panther Hall. I was at the bar ordering a rum and Coke when I saw him walk in, looking around like he owned the place, and politely ignored him because I was waiting for my ex-boyfriend to walk in so I could spend the night pretending to ignore him too.\ Joe walked around to where I was standing, looked me up and down, and said, "Damn, you fine. Who you here with?" When I didn't respond, he kept right on talking.\ "Say, cutie, I know you hear me talking to you with your fine self. Why don't you let me buy that drink for you?" When I still didn't respond, he got silly. "Oh, I see, I guess the cat got your tongue, huh? What, you can't talk? I bet you gonna talk to me tonight 'cause I'm gonna make it my business to bother you all night if you don't. You gonna dance with me too, 'cause you know you like me. Look at you, trying everything you can to keep from smiling with your pretty self. You even got pretty hands and pretty lips. What yo name is, girrrrrl? Is you got a boyfriend? If you do, too bad for him, 'cause I'm gonna take you from him. I'm one of a kind—you can't resist me. Just lookover here at this big smile I got on my face and tell me I'm not irresistible," and that was all I could take before I burst out laughing.\ We've been buddies ever since.\ For the interview, we met Joe at the BBQ Stand, a place he co-owns with a cousin. Joe said the BBQ Stand was known not only for the smoked brisket but also for the sweet tea his aunt made daily, so we both agreed to have a glass, and once the sugar kicked in, we were ready to roll.\  \  \ "I grew up right here in Funky Town aka Fort worth, Texas. My parents are from the north side and relocated to the south side right before I was born, so I've lived here all my life. Since they owned their own business, I had the opportunity to learn how to make money because I was always hanging around and watching them make decisions. Every time my dad made a business deal, even though all of them weren't legit, he'd say, 'See, son, that's why I like having my own business. I get to call the shots, and there ain't no glass ceiling unless I make one. Always remember that you can never be financially independent as long as you work for someone else.'\ "My mom worked in the cleaners right along with my pops, but her main responsibility was keeping the money straight, and she did it well. She can hold a dollar tight enough to make Washington's hair sweat and curl up in an afro—that's the tightest damn woman I know—but I appreciate her thriftiness because if it weren't for her, Pops probably would have given all the money to some little hot-ass woman he was messing around with. I love him, I'm proud to call him Dad, and he taught me a lot, but I damn sure inherited his trifling-ass ways when it comes to women.\ "I can't come right out and say I ever saw my dad with another woman, so maybe that's taking things a little too far, but from what I did see, I know he was a ladies' man. For years I watched the look on the different women's faces when they came by the shop to present Pops withone of their homemade pound cakes or sweet potato pies still warm from the oven. They'd always say, 'Brother Joe, I was just thinking I'd bring this by to make it easy on Mrs. Palmer so she won't have to do all that cooking when she gets home.' The funny thing is they never seemed to bring any of that food over when Mama was at the shop, and she never ate any of it either. I can remember her telling Pops one time, 'Keep on letting them little black-ass women bring you food. One day they gonna come up in here looking for your old gray ass thinking I'm not here, and I'm gonna get a stick and beat their asses all the way back out that door.'\ "I did some crazy things as a kid, even as a young man, but I always had self-respect. I think your self-respect shows in the way you dress. In the late seventies and early eighties, you didn't go to school—or anywhere else, for that matter—with your clothes wrinkled. It just wasn't something we did. I don't know how many girls in my graduating class have messed-up feet to this day because girls even wore heels with their starched jeans when I was in school. We enjoyed dressing up, and we wanted to look good when we went to school, not like these bad-ass kids nowadays. The boys go to school with their pants hanging all off their ass, and now that those hip-hugger jeans are back in style, the girls got all their shit hanging out too. It's like the boys wear all their stuff two sizes too big, and the girls wear theirs two sizes too small. It's crazy. The sad thing about it is they think they look good dressed like that.\ "People may say I'm a little eccentric with the way I wear my hair and the loud colors I wear, but that's me. That's my style, and I don't care if other people like it or not. They might not like it, but I'll bet they can't say they've ever seen me sloppy or dirty, or looking like I wasn't prepared to conduct business if the opportunity presented itself. I'm always up on my game, and that's the reason I've been successful in life, which to me means having money in my pocket 24-7, driving a nice car, wearing nice clothes, and owning my own businesses."\ KEN\ 31, MARRIED, CHEF IN TRAINING\ We met Ken at the Essence Music Festival during the Frankie Beverly and Maze concert in the Louisiana Superdome. He was seated in the row in front of us with a bunch of other guys and their women, and you couldn't help but notice him, because he was an extremely talkative cutie with cinnamon-colored skin, high cheekbones, and dreadlocks that reached the middle of his back. By the time Anita Baker was through singing, he had struck up a conversation with everybody in his immediate vicinity.\ "Damn, this beer is too expensive to be lukewarm. I ought to take it back," Ken complained.\ "Nigga please," the brother sitting next to him scoffed. "It's not like you can't afford it."\ "That's beside the point," Ken replied. "You just wait until my wife gets back in town and I tell her how her cousin was all in my business." Before the other guy could comment, Maze had hit the stage, and why did they go and start off with "Southern Girl"? Everybody was on their feet immediately moving to the rhythm, and then the whole stadium full of people had the nerve to break into the Electric Slide and keep on beat. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.\ "Go 'head, go 'head," Ken sang as he moved his shoulders and danced to the beat. When he went to raise his hands, he must've forgotten he was holding a cup of beer because what was left went flying out and landed right on my feet just as I was ready to go into my turn. I know he saw it happen because he stopped in the middle of his own turn and said, "Aw, damn, sister—I'm sorry." But I couldn't get angry with him, especially when he grinned at me.\ I told him no problem; I had kicked my shoes off anyway, so at least my shoes hadn't gotten messed up, and instead of my feet just being sore from all that dancing, they were now sore and sticky.\ "So, where y'all from?" Ken asked after handing me a cleanhandkerchief so I could dry my feet. We told him we were in town doing a book signing, and he looked somewhat impressed.\ "What? I've been telling my wife for the last few years how I plan on writing a book when I get finished with school, and look, I run into authors. Things always happen for a reason. I need to keep in touch with y'all. Once I get my restaurant up and running, I'm gonna write a cookbook. You're looking at a man who can cook his ass off. Right now I'm going to the Culinary Institute of New Orleans because I plan on being a chef, and my wife, Zonora, is going to Xavier and is about a semester away from graduating."\ Because he was so personable, we asked him if he'd agree to an interview the next day. He said yes and invited us to his home.\ Their house was located in the Garden District of New Orleans, and once we arrived it was obvious that spilling an expensive-ass beer in the Superdome and worrying about where he was going to get the money to pay for another one was the least of Ken's worries. Obviously he or his wife came from a family with money—because property in this area of the city didn't come cheap. There was no way he could've afforded to purchase this property on his own, since he was barely thirty if that.\ I pursed my lips and whistled silently as I took in the huge mahogany door inlaid with leaded glass, the well-manicured lawn, lush foliage, profusion of flowers, and the hundred-year-old moss-draped oaks surrounding the two-story house. The house wasn't as large as some of the others on the street, but it was still very impressive.\ Ken opened the door and laughed when he saw our twin looks of surprise. After watching him carry on last night and seeing how down-to-earth he had been, 1 never in my wildest imagination would've thought he was living like this. I had been under the impression that he lived in some little garage apartment in the Garden District, being that he was so young and still in school, and here we stood in the foyer of this mini-mansion.\ "I came into my inheritance when I was twenty-one; the housebelonged to my great-grandmother," Ken explained. "I don't have to work for a living, but I do, and at least I got to choose to do something that gives me pleasure, unlike most people. Besides, my wife is not about to have a man sitting up on his ass all day, wealthy or not, and that was the promise I made to her when we got married six years ago."\ He led us deeper into the house, and I stared in awe at the obviously expensive and original antique furniture. "Why don't we sit out in the sunroom. It's pretty comfortable. I fixed lunch and it just needs eating, so y'all are right on time."\ Ken was about five-eleven and had a nice body. His wore a short-sleeved T-shirt that didn't reveal much, but it was tucked into jeans that outlined thick thighs and a slim waist, not too bad. Today his locks were held back with a bandanna.\ "It's nice of you to take this kind of time with complete strangers," I said.\ "Humph, I love to talk about me—tell me what man don't?" Ken asked, slipping into a Cajun dialect as we followed him into the sunroom. He already had the food warming in silver containers on the sideboard.\ "1 cooked y'all some shrimp Creole with my famous Ken's Creole sauce, and for dessert I fixed a white chocolate French custard bread pudding, and yes, it's fattening but you don' come down here to Nawlins expecting to be on no diet. Diets are for when you back in Texas."\ "What prompted your interest in cooking?" I asked.\ "I have to say my mama, because she loves to cook. Even today, all my mama watches on TV are cooking shows." Ken continued as we prepared our plates "I have a twin sister, and when my mama would show her how to cook something, I'd be right in there with them, and she was always able to make the lesson interesting."\ "So", I said, "you're a down-to-earth kind of man, so that means you're going to be open, honest, and interesting, right?"\ And with a sexy little smile, Ken replied, "Hey, all I got to say is be careful what you ask, because I'm ready."\ SIMEON\ 38, SINGLE, ACCOUNTANT\ Simeon flung open his front door and ushered us in, mouth running a mile a minute. "That's what I'm talking about—sisters who know how to be on time. When y'all said one o'clock, I was like, Okay, in CP time, that means two."\ Simeon said that he spends the majority of his time in the family room when he's at home, and apparently he shops at the same import stores that I do, because I have some of the exact same masks decorating my walls that he does his. I looked around and thought to myself, Damn, this man doesn't need a woman. He's decorated this house, keeps it clean, and knows how to cook? Homeboy got it going on. A flokati rug lay in front of the upright CD player and a zebra print rug was situated beneath the glass coffee table. In the center of the room was a pool table, and the far wall held a wide-screen plasma TV, a fully stocked bar, and a mini-fridge. Simeon pulled out a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew and poured equal amounts into the handblown wineglasses he'd set out for us.\ He's six feet five inches tall with cocoa-brown skin and the build of a basketball player—nothing but legs and arms. In his ears he sports diamond studs that weigh at least two carats, and while he's not the pretty-boy type, his charisma and income go a long way to ensure that he has no problem getting or keeping a woman's attention.\ When the first question out of my mouth was what he thought of women in general, he was quick to reply. "They ain't no good! But let me sip on this Rémy for a few minutes before I get into that," and it was clear he wasn't joking.\ After handing each of us a glass of merlot, he sank down into one of the large chairs stationed in front of the CD player, took a sip of cognac, and began to talk.\  \ "I grew up in a home with no father, and my sisters and I went to private school since my mom was big on education, but the majority ofthe kids in my neighborhood went to public school. Our neighborhood had a mixture of everything, and by mixture I mean some families had both of their parents living at home and some families just had a mom, and we fell into the latter group.\ "Because our mom was a single parent, we understood at an early age that we couldn't have some of the things that kids with two parents living in the home had, and sometimes our not having a father around kind of made us feel left out. Back when I was growing up, it was a big deal for parents to be divorced and for a woman to raise a child by herself. It was almost like it was something to be ashamed of. Nowadays, it's the opposite.\ "I learned and understood the essence of what was important, and even though we weren't poor, we definitely weren't rich. We never went to bed hungry or anything, but I did learn how to appreciate things. When I was growing up, it was like this: if somebody offered you a compliment or if someone gave you something, you appreciated it and said thank you. I was raised to never take anything for granted.\ "My mom worked a lot, and because she worked a lot she required a lot from us. She was like, 'You know what, I'm going to bring the money home, but don't ever think that you're not gonna keep your room straight and keep this house clean.' It wasn't like we had a choice in the matter anyway. There was never an option. She'd never say, 'I would like you to clean your room and I would like you to make good grades.' No, it was, 'This is what I expect from you.' She was a true believer in that old saying, 'I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.' That was the kind of upbringing I had.\ "My mom expected us to make good grades in school, and she also told us to be respectful because, as she said, 'It makes no sense for you to come in here with an A or a B and then get an N in citizenship. If you get A's and B's, that's fine, but you're still going to get an ass-whipping if you come up in here with an N in citizenship,' and I tell my nieces and nephews the same thing.\ "My mom and grandparents instilled a good work ethic in me. Itwas like, screw what a person can give you—if you go out and earn it, you appreciate it, and I respected that. Even when my mom was disciplining us, she was going to give us an explanation for it."\ Simeon turned the jazz music down some and placed the remote control on the glass tabletop.\ "My sisters and I joke about it now. We would grumble amongst ourselves, but we made sure that Mom didn't hear us, because she didn't play that. You'd get a serious beat down if you caught yourself talking back after she said something. We'd be mumbling, 'Mom just whip us, we don't want to hear all that talking,' because when Mom talked to you, oh my God, it took forever. She would start off with, 'We going to have a talk.' Even to this day, those six little words chill me to the bone. I could come in thirty minutes after my curfew and she would hear the door open and call out, 'What time is it?' and I knew good and well she knew what time it was, and then she'd say, 'We going to have a talk in the morning.' I hated that shit, I hated the anticipation of knowing she was going to get on my ass about something and that I had to spend the whole night wondering what the punishment was going to be. Once she started talking, it seemed like she could go on for hours.\ "But, really, everybody I knew worked to get what they wanted. If it meant working some overtime or whatever, that's what you did to get ahead. You didn't do no scamming, sell drugs, or try to beat somebody out of their money. You just worked real hard. When I got into accounting I was taught that it's okay to work hard but it's also okay to work smart. You can work from sunup to sundown, but the work's still going to be there, so if you can be more realistic about what you want to accomplish, then things kind of fall in line.\ "I think the discipline Mom instilled in us helped me when I started working, because I was really young and I worked with a lot of individuals who were older than me, so I was always getting some kind of advice and I didn't mind it. I was used to listening to Mom and my grandparents anyway. It always pays to listen to people who are older than you and adviceis free. It's up to you to take advantage of it and to use it as you see fit. I find that people who follow good advice and put a lot into life get a lot back, but if you don't put too much effort into life, you really shouldn't be expecting much out of it.\ "My family didn't have a whole lot of material things, but truly speaking, when Christmas came around we were happy, and when birthdays came around we were happy. We had peace, friendship, love, and respect back then, and I feel like if I still got all of that now, I'm successful."\ Simeon lowered his voice to a whisper and added, "Well that and a whole bunch of money too." Then he shouted out again like he wanted to make sure that we hadn't forgotten his earlier comment, "They ain't no good, every color, every creed, every shade, ain't none of them no damn good!"\ QUINCY\ 36, DIVORCED, HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL COACH\ "What's going on ladies?" Quincy said, greeting us. "Sorry there's not much room to park. Damn Mexicans and Asians got six cars in each yard and ten to fifteen people living in each house, just gets on my nerves." Quincy was sounding like a crotchety old man as he led us inside.\ "I walked outside the other day and thought I was living in Chinatown, and the people in the house across the street had their music up so loud, I couldn't hear my TV If it's not that, it's the Mexicans next door moving cars all damn night. One of the boys will come outside and start up one of those old buckets, rev the engine up as loud as he can, drive off real fast and return five minutes later, parking the car in the exact same spot he just pulled it out of like he ain't used to nothing.\ "The black folk living in that house behind me ain't much better, 'cause they got a different group of people staying there every time Iturn around, and they're partying every week, probably selling drugs. I swear, I probably should just sell this house and move, but I don't feel like buying a new house and being broke. I'm not one to try to impress the ladies with material things anyway, so I'm not getting into no debt just to keep up with the Joneses."\  \  \ Quincy, a friend of a friend, is a young man from the old school. He's old-fashioned and down-to-earth, and he believes in things like hard work, commitment, and being true to your word. He's five-eleven, weighs around 190 pounds, has Hershey's dark chocolate brown skin, and a quirky little smile to go along with his sense of humor. A divorce with two boys ages ten and eight, Quincy is a high school football coach. Except for the weekends when his boys are with him, he lives alone in one of the three modest two-bedroom town houses that he inherited from his grandfather in a neighborhood that used to be pretty decent but is now well past its prime.\ The house is pretty neat for a bachelor and is chock-full of antiques on loan from his mother, even though he says he really doesn't like antiques.\  \  \ "I'd been separated from my wife for a month before my mom found out, and the minute she found out, she demanded that I go to her storage room and get whatever I needed because she said she couldn't stand the thought of me being in an empty house with no furniture. She also made it very clear that if I up and married another sorry-ass woman, the furniture was not part of the deal.\ "So I went and picked up that bench in the foyer, that armoire with the double doors that I remembered seeing in my grandparents' house when I was a kid, that Victorian bookcase in the corner which I converted into a gun cabinet, and this sofa and the wingback chairs. Oh, I also got a dining room set that consists of a china closet, sideboard table, and six chairs. Other than the sofa and chairs, nothing seems toreally match, but I guess it's better than nothing at all, and it is quality furniture. I could have taken a few things from my house when I left, but my wife was such a bitch, I didn't want any reminders of her."\ Oddly enough, the furniture seems to fit Quincy because of his old-fashioned nature. When you look around, it just seems like this is the kind of atmosphere he'd be comfortable in—if you exclude the neighbors, that is. He said that when his grandparents first moved here, the neighborhood was about 70 percent white and 30 percent "other," and the homeowners kept everything nice and clean because they realized the value of real estate. Now that the older people who were the original owners have either moved on or died, their children and grandchildren have turned the entire neighborhood into Section 8 rent city, and most of them don't even check backgrounds and references like he does before allowing someone to rent their property, which is causing the property value to drop and the homes to look run-down.\ Quincy was dressed like he was prepared to go somewhere after the interview, and when we mentioned how nice he looked and asked about his plans for the evening, he replied, "I always dress like this, even when I'm not going anywhere. I like to be comfortable-casual just in case something jumps off, because you never know. Khaki pants and a button-down shirt aren't what I would call dressed up, but if I decide to go somewhere on the spur of the moment, I'll be ready. It's not that I don't own any FUBU, Polo, or Sean John, but I'm not really into faddish, name-brand-type clothes. I wear that stuff if it fits the occasion, but I'm a bargain shopper—and if I can't get my FUBU on sale, I'm not buying it. Besides, if a woman is looking for a hip-hop kind of brother with his pants hanging off his ass, I'm not the one anyway, because I'm not spending my hard-earned money on clothes that are too big.\ "I've been through a lot in the past few years, and although I used to be very bitter about my divorce, I'm now at a point where I'm free of all the resentment and anger. Counseling and a few self-awarenesscourses really helped me understand more about myself: my likes and dislikes, and my feelings about women, love, and marriage. I think I may be ready for a serious relationship, but I'm not in any hurry to be committed again.\ "I'm a by-the-book kind of guy. I follow the rules and expect others to do the same, especially where love and relationships are concerned, and that's one of the main reasons my marriage didn't work. I gave one hundred percent and then some, while she barely gave twenty, and she didn't want me to say anything to her about it. She turned out to be totally different from the woman she'd appeared to be the short time we dated, so after trying to make things work for three years, I finally gave up and decided that if I couldn't be happy with her, I'd have to be happy without her. I refused to raise my boys in an environment with fussing and cussing all the time, because it was unhealthy. I was just about to file for divorce, but she beat me to it and I wasn't mad at her. I guess she thought I was going to break down and cry and beg her to change her mind, but I was practically smiling when I signed those papers, and she's been pissed ever since.\ "As far as growing up, I had a great childhood. I'm from San Bernardino, California, and grew up in the city, but my dad was a country boy and wanted us to experience the same things he experienced, so we did a lot of hunting, fishing, camping, and stuff like that when I was a kid, I had the best of the suburban and country life.\ I'm the oldest of three boys, and me and my brothers are only like a year apart, so when we became teenagers and got inquisitive about sex, my dad started taking us to R-rated movies, and afterwards we would have a discussion about it. We didn't go see stuff that had a lot of low-down, dirty, rated-X sex in it, just good movies where sex happened to be included. Dad would ask us if we understood what we'd just seen, and that was our opportunity to ask questions.\ "He always said that sex was a wonderful thing, then turned right around and said we should always remember that in order to play big-boygames, you had to be willing to pay the big-boy price. That meant if we got a girl pregnant, it was going to be our responsibility, and even though I had sex as a teenager, I was always very careful and I still am to this day. Actually, I was a little scared to start having sex, because I'd had that conversation with my dad so many times. His favorite saying was, 'If you don't want to see her face across the table from you every morning, then don't get her pregnant—because if you do, you're marrying her and you're gonna help raise that baby.'\ "I sure as hell wish I'd had a little more fear and a lot more insight before I married my ex, because it seems like once we said, 'I do,' I wasn't looking at the same woman at all."\ JARED\ 30, SINGLE, ENGINEER\ We met Jared in a Mexican restaurant at the San Antonio International Airport during a short layover.\ We'd just feasted on a bowl of charro beans that tasted homemade, the deep red ceramic bowl nearly overflowing with the hot and spicy mixture seasoned with onions, tomato, garlic, bacon, and jalapeño peppers.\ Facing us were two wall-mounted, flat-screen TVs with the sound turned low as Mexican music played quietly in the restaurant. The walls were inlaid with yellow and cobalt blue Mexican tile and faux windows decorated with wrought iron. Small white Christmas lights brightened up the room. The floors were hardwood, the sheen dull, the tables stationed between thick round oak beams.\ Jared had just finished his meal when he looked over and noticed our shirts; they never fail to get a second glance, but of course something that reads LIFE, SEX, AND MORE SEX will make almost anyone look twice. Catching our eyes, he flashed a smile and asked, "So what's Life, Sex, and More Sex mean?"\ We described our first book, told him we were working on a sequel, and asked if he'd be willing to respond to a few questions.\ Checking his watch, he shrugged slightly and said he had at least two hours between flights, so that sounded like a great way to pass the time. He picked up his Corona and walked over to our table where we sat nursing our own drinks. He was a tall, good-looking man and wore his long-sleeved white cotton shirt, blue jeans, and black leather boots with the grace of a male model. His hair was cut close, his eyebrows thick, black, and wickedly arched, and his only facial hair was a thin mustache and sexy goatee.\ When we made mention of his awesome height, he said he was six foot six and that it had come in handy when he'd played ball throughout high school and college, and he had even been on track to becoming a professional player until he'd busted his knee.\ "My parents were proud of my skills on the court, but they were even prouder when I brought home good grades. To this day, I'm glad I had the sense to listen to them when they stressed the importance of an education, or else I would've been up a creek because an uneducated black man with a bum knee who used to be good at basketball doesn't get very far in life." Jared flashed that perfect smile again. "After the knee injury, I put more effort into my studies and was able to graduate with my master's degree in engineering."\ Jared shifted a bit in the wooden chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him and crossing his feet at the ankles.\ "My dad is an engineer. He worked for the same aeronautics company until he retired, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so she was always around. Me and my brother didn't even think about getting away with anything. Well, let me take that back, we did make a few attempts to try and get away with stuff, but our mom would always find out. I don't know how she found out, but she did. She must've attended every PTA meeting, school outing, and anything else they needed parents to volunteer for. I swear, she should've been on the payroll she was around our school so much, and I mean elementary through highschool. She probably would've hung out with me at college too, if I hadn't of gone out of state.\ "I wasn't too fond of school early on, and I remember being in the first grade and my teacher, Miss Reese, teaching me how to write the letter of my first name over and over again. Apparently, I quickly got tired of that, so I issued her an ultimatum. As the story goes, or at least my mom's version of it, I told Miss Reese, 'Look, I'm going to write one more J. My mama didn't send me to school to write J's—my mama sent me to school to play.'"\ Jared shrugged his broad shoulders as we stifled our laughter, and then he raised his bottle of Corona in a toast. "Here's to the innocence of youth."\ GREG\ 38, DIVORCED, BEER COMPANY SALES MANAGER\ Greg, a handsome chocolate brother who spent a lot of time in New York while he was married, is originally from Georgia. He's a senior sales manager for a large beer company and has four children by two different women. At five-eleven and 210 pounds, Greg is extremely well built because he works out faithfully six days a week.\ He has nice dark brown skin, beautiful eyes, and is always flashing this sexy yet playful smile that seems to hint, "Be careful—there's more to me than you think." Judging from the way he carries himself and his mannerisms, it's obvious that he knows how to treat a lady, and because of that, he has no shortage of female friends. Greg was dressed in black cotton house pants, the type teenagers wear to the mall nowadays even though they shouldn't, and a sleeveless white V-neck T-shirt that showed off his muscular chest, arms, and stomach. He was also barefoot, and even his feet, which he propped up on the coffee table, were pretty.\ Greg's apartment was immaculate. I'd already checked out his kitchen when we first walked in and noticed that there wasn't a dirtydish in the sink. The sink was chrome and had obviously been wiped clean because there weren't any water spots, and let me tell you, the smell of scented candles burning, his cologne, and that beautiful smile made for a superb setting. It was so cozy and inviting that it took me a moment to gather myself and get focused.\ There is something sexy about an attractive black man sitting there smiling at you when you're trying to act like you don't see him smiling, because you're trying to be all about business. But the harder you try to keep your cool, the more you start to sweat because married or not you still realize that he's sexy as hell and knows it, not to mention the fact that you're on his turf.\ Greg grinned.\  \  \ "I'm not a shy brother, so if I get too talkative, let me know. Growing up, I had a pretty normal childhood. Both my parents raised me, and my father was a serious disciplinarian. He stayed on me, and now I realize that I needed that because if he hadn't, I probably wouldn't be where I am now.\ "I was never crazy about school, but I wasn't no dummy either, and I should have gone to college. I had the opportunity to go, but I didn't want to, and that's one of my biggest regrets to this day. I didn't take the opportunity that I had available to me, because I felt like I would be missing something out in the streets. Fortunately I got with the company I work for now right out of high school, and I've worked my way up, so I make pretty good money.\ "I just turned thirty-eight, and I'm looking to find the right person to settle down and grow old with. I've been married before, so I know what it's like and I know what it's like to be single, and I think marriage is a good thing. My parents have been successful at it, and I think I can be too if I can find the right woman."\ XAVIER\ 24, SINGLE, FULL-TIME STUDENT AND ENTREPRENEUR\ Oh Lord, here comes Xavier. He's late as hell for the interview and taking his sweet time getting off and parking that expensive motorcycle. It looks just like one of those bikes they call a crotch rocket in the movie Biker Boyz.\ He finally strolls in, jeans hanging low on his narrow butt, and gives us each a hug and kiss on the cheek. When I look at him, smile, and say, "Boy, every time I see you, it seems like you've grown another two inches. You're just as handsome as you can be, you know that?" he grins and replies, "Yes, ma'am," showing all his big, white teeth. Looks almost like Tiger Woods, except he's taller and skinnier, and his teeth are not quite as big as Tiger's.\ Did you notice that he said, "Yes, ma'am"? Well, we could have been offended, but Xavier was born and raised in Baton Rouge, and he, like many of the other young men he hangs with, was raised the southern way. That means he was raised to respect his elders, even though we don't consider ourselves elders. He still says "Yes, ma'am" to ladies and "Yes, sir" to men, because he was taught to do so.\ Xavier is twenty-four years old and lives at home because he partied a bit too much when he went away to school in Houston, so he didn't graduate when he should have. Now he's made up his mind to stop playing around and to finish school, so he's attending LSU full-time, majoring in business management, and running his own car wash and detail shop that he started a year ago with money he saved while he was working full-time and not going to school.\ Q's Qwik Wash and Detail Shop, appropriately named after Xavier's best friend and our young cousin Q, because that's where he got the idea from, appears to be a lucrative little business. He's open all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but on Sunday he's open only from two until seven p.m., because, he says:\ "You know black folks got to have time to go to church and then go eat before they do anything else, and I don't want them telling me how many stripes the Lord's gonna beat me with for not being in church myself. I used to open the shop every other Sunday at noon, but my grandmother got all upset and said the devil was gonna come driving up here one Sunday to get his car washed if I wasn't careful, and even though I didn't believe her, the thought of that scared me a little bit. You know how superstitious people in Louisiana are. Gram says the only people who would get their cars washed on a Sunday morning are heathens anyway, and that I already had two of those working for me, so that's enough."\  \  \ Q's is a cozy little place with mismatched sofas and chairs scattered in front of a large TV so the customers can catch a basketball or football game while they're waiting. There's even a pool table and dartboard, and in a corner Xavier has a vending machine full of snacks and one of those old-time Coke machines where you have to open the door and pull your bottle out after you've inserted the proper amount of change.\ The office has one of those glass windows where Xavier can see out but people in the front room can't see in, so he's able to keep an eye on things while he's doing homework, making phone calls, and handling other business. The office is just large enough to accommodate a love seat and a small desk, and this is where we decided to do the interview since it was private and quiet, but the building is old, so the heat wasn't working like it should. Xavier had borrowed space heaters from just about everybody he knew, but it was still cool, so we sat there bundled up in our sweaters and decided to jump right in.\  \  \ "My childhood was all right, but my parents didn't get along too well. They argued all the time, and as a result I learned to talk really loud in order to be heard, and I believe that's the reason I'm so aggressive sometimes. Before they got divorced, we did a lot of family things together and went on some great family vacations, so I try to rememberthose times because those were the nice times. I was a pretty quiet kid for the most part, did okay in school and made friends easily, but once I got through high school and college, it was like I just blossomed. I left home and went to school for my freshman and sophomore year, but I partied so hard that I couldn't maintain my grades, so my mom made me move back home. At first I was pissed, but it's cool now because I've settled down and decided to go ahead and finish because I don't want to be in school all my life.\ I want to be a successful man, which for me means happiness and having the ability to be free to do whatever I want to do with my life. That's why I want to eventually get into real estate because then I could be my own boss. I could set my own schedule and come and go when I want to, and I wouldn't have to be loyal to one particular company for so many years just to get a retirement. Working for the same company for thirty years is nice, but the way businesses are right now, they'll get rid of a person before they have to pay their retirement, and I don't want to end up in a situation like that. So, now that I've decided what I want to do, everything's cool; I'm a young, strong black man, I've got my head on straight, and I'm on my way to the rest of my life and I'm excited about it."\ MALIK\ 41, MARRIED, POSTAL WORKER\ When we arrived at Bennigan's to have lunch with Malik, we were running late because we had gotten lost—but he had no mercy on us. "Oooh, y'all ought to be ashamed to invite somebody to lunch then show up late. The waitresses have been looking at me like I'm crazy because I've been sitting over here for the past forty-five minutes by myself drinking homemade lemonade. I was going to order an appetizer, but after I'd been waiting for fifteen minutes and y'all hadn't shown up, I decided I wasn't buying nothing, and you know damn well I'm expecting y'all to buy me a drink for keeping me waiting so long."\ We each gave Malik a big hug and told him how sorry we were, and even tried to explain that the reason we were late was because we had taken the wrong exit, but he wasn't even trying to hear no explanations. "So do y'all have everything? Do y'all need batteries? Need me to go to the drugstore across the street and get some tapes? Hell, did y'all even bring your recorders? I thought you would have at least called me or something. I got my cell phone right here," Malik said, holding up the phone for us to see. "why didn't y'all call a—? Oh, damn, my bad." Malik squinted at the phone. "I see that you called six times but I had it on silent. Sorry."\ "Uh-huh, you ought to be sorry," I said. "Just running your mouth and not even giving a lady a chance to talk. Now that your lips aren't moving, can I explain what happened? We got lost because the exit you told us to take was the wrong one. We passed this place thirty minutes ago and kept right on going, and now I'm about to starve to death." Before I could go any further, Malik looked me up and down, eyebrows raised, then stopped and stared pointedly at my hips.\ "What you trying to say?" I challenged him. "Are you trying to insinuate that I'm a long way from starving just because I'm a little thick in the hips?"\ Malik laughed and clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Woman, please, I know you pretty good and I know you ain't going to starve, because you'd hurt somebody first. So what's up, how y'all been living? But wait—" Malik held up a hand and beckoned for the waitress. "—before you answer, can we please order lunch because my ass is starving too. I'm going to order the country chicken salad with extra chicken and depending on how I'm feeling after that, I might just order dessert too."\ Malik will tell you what's on his mind in a heartbeat. He's from Chicago and is flirty, friendly, and outspoken. He's short and stocky but not fat and has nice, smooth light brown skin and dark eyes. He's bald by choice and has a nice beard that he says makes him look young and sexy, to which I jokingly reply, "Okay, Malik, whatever you say."\ He and his wife of fifteen years have a thirteen-year-old son, aten-year-old daughter, and an eleven-year-old niece they're raising because her mom died and her dad, Malik's brother, is in prison. He's very much involved with the kids; therefore, he's a little rushed today because he has only two hours before he has to pick the girls up from school. We placed our orders and then listened intently as he started to talk about his life.\