That's how Louis put it, where he placed the blame.
You knew there were some moments when the marriage was just that, failed promises and compromise. But you saw them as the price for happiness, meals at five-star restaurants, monthly getaways, and designer clothes when there is no sale. You inadvertently taught Faye, a father was just that, a little girl's ability to make a fashion statement.
Faye had become his favorite girl. At five, with large whites and small pupils, she had become your spitting image. Had learned the power of a smile and a whine. Knew to sit on daddy's lap, throw both arms around his neck and plant a big kiss on his cheek, then say thank you. You and Faye thought he lived for the adulation. But, the monthlies threw him for a loop. The payment cycle cut him so deep, the bills were bleeding him dry. So, he said.
During the finger-pointing episode, you defended yourself by stating that you spent the money on Faye and the upkeep of the household. His income carried the load. Then, without your knowledge he did the math, and on Faye's ninth birthday, he asked that you return to the workforce. For you, that was the end. The courtship was based on his climbing the ladder, and you raising the family. His argument that one child is not a family was his choice.
You wanted at least three children, but Louis said to wait until you two were in a better financial situation.
As if he knew your train of thought, he started using condoms the day you secretly got off the pill. To spite him and try to force a compromise, you refused to work and tried to make his life harder by not maintaining the household. His petition for a divorce left only one question. What about Faye? He said not to worry. Not to involve the judicial system. The two lawyers worked out an agreement. He would still pay the full upkeep of the house and an additional ten percent of his monthly gross for Faye's personal things. All you had to do was get a basic gig, perhaps part-time. Instead, you chose to poison her mind. Painted a picture to her and your friends of an irresponsible father who left as his daughter was crying.
Said that his not giving enough money was the reason Faye had to start shopping at low-budget stores, penny pinching at the five and dime. She never got his side of the story because she never asked, and he never told anything against you. In her mind, it was a matter of time before she would get her working papers for after-school and summer employment. When she spoke of work, Louis saw it as her having adopted his values. She only wanted to do it to afford nicer clothes, but he never really noticed the quality difference in her clothes. To him, her diction and behavior was how he measured her childhood development.
Summer youth employment, at a local college during the summer before senior year in high school, opened her eyes to an independent woman's mindset and power. She loved to hear them talk about payday and their plans for their next purchase or trip. All of them had degrees and counseled her to further her education. By the time Faye left for college, she had stopped the visits by either blowing him off when he called or not showing up after confirming. Still, he sent her gifts and extra spending money. You had succeeded in isolating him but could not tell that she was only tolerating you until she could be out on her own.
College was ready for Faye. Swallowed her up like dishwater going down the drain. Though she managed not to gain the freshman fifteen, she thought she had weight. Tossed her hair off her shoulders, smiled and partied hard. Learned to hold her liquor, pull deep on the zigzag smoke and keep her composure after standing on lines. To her credit, the drugs weren't why she hung on the scene as if auditioning to become a starlet. The men were her vice. Had become such since Bye-Bye Lenny pinned her against the wall at a high school basement party and slid his right ring finger through the side of her pink panties. At thirteen, fresh meat in high school, she started dating him, a leader in the circle of ringers, small-time hustler who never veered more than six miles away from his birthplace, yet had the nerve to have a nationwide plan for his cellie and a two-way pager, yet had no internet connection or email address.
As in high school, Faye knew the power and vulnerability of being a pretty young thing. Though she partied and kept the façade of fast girl no rules, she kept her lovers to a minimum and took the pill on a regular. Yet she had to admit that college life was different. Living away on one's own. How the major players had little money and no hustle, yet shot their game straight with no chaser. She knew the deal when she indirectly agreed to become Kappa Kenny's Wednesday night, left scrotum girl, swallower of depleted nuts. Leftovers. It took Faye a whole year to realize that the college week began on Thursday night. Get your party and freak on until Sunday dusk. Then hit the books until Thursday dusk. So Wednesday night was when major players rested and released excess energy.
By the end of the first year and his graduation, to which she was not invited as a special guest, she felt that she had maintained her dignity and image because she was not the "do his homework" girl. Faye and Dime Store Divas, in general, know how to focus on the top layer of things. To her all that mattered was that he was graduating with honors, was cheating on his "real" girlfriend and not her, wore a fraternity brand on his left pect and had a good job waiting for him.
During the summer, she felt as if she had graduated. You never asked when she'd be home. She did the party circuit and knew she had to move on to bigger things such as KAOS, as in Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma parties, boat rides and anything she could afford. While living the college luxurious life, she gained an interest in DAZS, as in the Deltas, AKAs, Zetas and Sigmas. Studied them hard to see which was more her style and who would accept her. So the first semester of her sophomore year, Faye wore her hair in a bun, kept her name out of the grapevine and limited her partying to only the top campus events. One thing she forgot though: higher achievement in college was predicated on the books. By the third semester, she had done two straight semesters on academic probation after barely getting a 2.1 on a 4.0 point scale in her very first semester.
Faye disappeared without a clue, like spring in global warming times. Since she was a loner, no one knew the real story. Word she help spread was that school up there had gotten lame, and she needed to be in the big city, doing big things. Got a job as a sec'y who roved as a receptionist during lunch hours. Could no longer stand living with you, so she got an apartment of her own.
Her roommate, Loose Booty Judy, her girl since tenth grade. That didn't last long. Judy was living another form of Dime Store Divahood. She was a criminal-minded booster and major scammer. A topless dancer, who when she needed the extra loot, brought club customers to the rest. Judy would hit them off for the right price. She was also a switch-hitter, and as if baiting Faye, walked around the apartment in her thong. Messy broad, always sloppy drunk or high, quick to cuss a person out and thought Faye was living slow and basically a nerd. Tried to beat Faye out of two months rent.
They got into a scuffle, catfight- scratches from acrylics, pulled weaves and torn t-shirts. Faye moved out. A few months later, they accidentally bumped into each other at an upscale department's store half-off sale and they made the peace. Not to the point where Faye gave her the number to her new spot, a tiny basement joint in somebody's one-family home. Live and learn was how Faye rationalized the situation with her former roommate. The four months living with Judy convinced her that she needed to get back in school, even if she had to attend at night.
Clap for her, for she managed to do undergrad in six and a half years while maintaining a full-time job, switching workplaces now and then, and climbing up the ladder. Now that school was done and she had a lighter schedule, Faye began to live her dream of vacationing at the hotspots like she did when she was a little girl.
Armed with a degree, she regained some of her lost confidence, started considering herself a scholar. Started hanging out on the bourgie, beige people wearing khaki with loafers set. Plus, she was clubbing at thirty years old, had a gym membership to keep it tight, and kept appointments to get her hair done every weekend.
Shortly after her thirtieth birthday, I remember meeting her at a Nupe jam. She said Dude was too short though she was only five-five. Still Dude kept her talking, made her smile and laugh, all night. Faye agreed to give me her number because the release, laughter, had been missing in her life. That night as we parted, everything about her, especially her look and conversation, told me she was an oversexed surface dweller, a shallow broad who used dates, the courtship ritual, as a meal ticket, and boyfriends as plane tickets and cardboard figures for special occasions where pictures would be taken. When we hooked up for lunch on the following Wednesday, Faye acted as if she was the one hiring. She didn't realize that it was mid-May and Dude was looking for a replacement killer, a scab for seasonal, no chance of promotion employment.
I still didn't get why, after the hard road she had walked, she was maintaining the same old diva attitude of returning food such as rice, harassing waitresses like she was at the local Red Lobster. She then tried to play that intellectual, where did you go, grow up, wanna be in five years! Oh, the State U. My last boyfriend went to Morehouse, this and that…I flipped the script and put her on the defensive by asking where she went, her age and whether she was too old to be doing the boyfriend bit. What made Faye tolerable was that Dude had met a whole lot of Dime Store Divas who had no dinero, talking the same old, father left, times got rough, don't trust no man. I told her not to sweat the past and that the U.S. is still kool with England, France and Spain.
Though Faye's face drew a blank at that analogy, she was a good actress and pretended to get what I was saying. Faye had a high tolerance until Dude asked her why she keeps Dude around. That was the last time she came by, called- even on the return, and had sex with me.
Faye was full of assumptions on what Dude should do to be with her. She thought the rap she used where she pretended to be a fag hag would work on me. But I had seen better-equipped women run that same game and turn horny men into platonic boyfriends, shoulders to cry on, ears to blow smoke in.
Up to the fourth time that we hooked up for either lunch or drinks, things were kool and platonic. She had begun to confide in me as if Dude wasn't a hetero, and was not willing to spend on material that Dude can get for free. She drew me a road map to her weaknesses and her soft spot. As I pulled the car in front of her apartment to drop her off, she hugged me like I was her father, complete with the kiss on the cheek. All I could do was laugh. I am not sure if Dude's laugh confused her, but she wanted to know what was so funny. I chuckled and rubbed my belt buckle. She laughed at Dude, stating that it would never work. I closed the deal by telling her to let me know when she got tired. Nine and a half weeks later, she told me that she could no longer take it, that she could not breathe and needed her space. Girl had never even been to Dude's apartment, and she was falling in love.
Then and now, a Dime Store Diva holds no regrets. Even if she did, she would not wear it around her neck like a gaudy medallion, or shade her eyes with designer wear. Faye bore her scars as if the crest of a secret society; to the public like sagging breasts in a plunging neckline; for she has come to accept them as the scars of her tribe.
That night at the club, we made a conscious effort not to approach each other. Our only sign of recognition: half a head nod and half a smile. Near closing time, at four a.m., she was still there, flittering between the pool table in the lounge area where the poseurs, in crowded thousand-people nightclubs, hang out. She was sipping some nouveau martini, her eyes looking up at some guy's Adam's Apple.
II
Not just some guy. A tough guy. Starvin Marvin was what they called him when he was a kid. He owned only four pairs of pants and wore them in an offbeat cycle for the school year. Would always find a reason to be at the next man's around dinnertime. His story was well-documented in the media and it was similar to Faye's. He was another form of Dime Store Diva.
Raised by mother because as a father, you were-a shot glass in one hand, hat tilted to the side, hanging at the local watering hole, hollering at some twenty-six year-old chick-type of guy. That's how Marvin's mom met you. You were both poor people and hooked up strictly because life had limitations and its core truth was that the game was meant to be played. So you played doctor then house. Times were rough but manageable until you got tired of playing husband and daddy. Cicely could have handled you not playing one role, but not both. So thirteen years and four kids later, Cicely got friends asking her, "Girlfriend, how could you let him treat you so bad?" All they ever saw was your trifling ways. All she ever heard were the rumors. Cicely had come to yearn for only a new truth, and that was for you to help pay the damn bills.
To you, this marriage had one refrain, time and its practical applications. Cicely didn't understand why you wasted so much time hanging out with your friends. You didn't understand why she let time do her figure and her mind so bad, to the point she thought you were no good. You thought she was acting out, acting old, nagging the man out of his house and down the road, way past yonder…a warp signature…caught in the annals of time where twenty-six was the cut-off age for a woman to be considered a dime. By then a woman should either be married or have at least one child to prove that she was reasonable enough for some man to have left his seed. You told Cicely that at thirty-nine, she was not to expect some next man to come and take care of her and the kids.
At seven, Marvin became the man of the house. Third child but first boy. Cicely was raised on old school ways and made due by getting a part-time job to go with her regular job. She believed daughters are girls forever but should be treated as women as soon as they are able to wash their own stuff. From there, give them the added responsibility of laundry, cleaning and fixing the household's meals. Though the title of man has been affixed on their chest, sons should be treated as boys until they are able to take care of their mothers.
So Cicely kept an eye on Marvin. Put the word out to the neighborhood women that she be notified if anyone caught Marvin slipping. It was a woman thing, a secret society whose primary objective was to protect the boys so they'll one day be there for their mamas.
Meanwhile, first daughter, Shirley got her curves then swerved off the path of chores around the house, and right into cheapie around the way. It was a glorious moment from a picturesque, artistic standpoint - the way she let time smack her with two toddlers before high school's end, and right into Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Happened so fast that Cicely was actually proud of her daughter. Made space for her at the crib. For Cicely had seen teen pregnancy in hers and other families throughout her life.
Nearly fourteen, second daughter, Bridget was flying through her teenage years. Had an image problem since five years old, so she used petroleum jelly, to soften the darkness. Instead it made her glow, and caused the kids to call her Greasy. She hated the nickname and fought and cussed the kids but Greasy stuck anyway. Eventually she took to the nickname because it made her stand apart. That, and her gift of gab that she used to jab at other people's insecurities and misfortunes, gained her popularity. In her clique, she diverted attention. First, as cheap wine drinker and occasional dime bag buyer, she boosted clothes and sold them cheap on the streets. Then, as a mad crack smoker, Greasy Bridget sold herself cheap on the streets.
As a high school senior, Marvin was All-City, Three-Letter Man. Passed on Football because he was a quarterback being asked to convert. Wide Receiver scared him because too many of the neighborhood boys had gone to jail. Since Track and Field rarely came on TV, he ran away from it. In those days, Marvin was playing sports only for the dream of making lots of money and achieving national fame. And, for his family. So he used his cross-over, hand-eye coordination and decent grades as leverage. Never outright said it, but the college recruiters knew there would have to be money under the table. So they got the point they wanted.
The Midwest was stormy but as long as things were calm at home, Marvin directed the offense and hid behind his toughness. Being tough for a man has more to do with growing a thick skin than it does bench pressing.
Looking at Marvin, you never see his real eyes. What you see is a shield, hiding the years and tears of receiving a call that his little brother, Brandon, got smoked over territory. Fifteen years-old. Was a mama's boy until thirteen. Got respect because Marvin went from starvin to carvin turkeys at all kinds of tables. But, Brandon wanted his own rep. There came the need for a new family. The Glock Assembly, gun toters and drug hustlers. High school vandals. The bathroom was their storefront. The cafeteria, their stage, the war room that turned the streets into a battleground.
Brandon's obituary might as well have been written in Braille because his crew carried on as if they could not see their deaths coming. Eulogized by Shirley who now had a third child. Marvin's broad shoulders helped carry the coffin. Appalled that his family was squandering this opportunity of financial stability, he demanded that they get their act together. That was his first taste of his father's medicine.
Women don't listen to men, even if the funds are flowing. Why should they when the lineage is handed down through them? To them what men say is not the whole truth. For a man's story is only written on his back. Women have their stories written on their backs, as well as their guts because big-headed Marvin and the likes of him could not pass through. So women have either broken pelvises that time never truly healed, and the scars of having their guts cut open. C-Section-8 - for clarity in the duality.
So Marvin headed back to the Midwest. The deal he made to have the invisible money reach the family was that he would stay four years. But national recognition is a temptress, a short voluptuous woman that gives only a small window of opportunity. So, during his junior year, averaging a double-double and a half at a top-ranked program, he was ready to face the consequences of reneging on his promise. The coach knew it. So, in anticipation, Coach S recruited a point guard. During the final half of the season, Marvin learned that fast break also has a dual meaning.
It led to a rough rehab period for a reconstructed knee. Though the dream would not be deferred, Marvin leaned back on the smile of Serenity Smith. She, a local girl working her way through college, was majoring in Physical Rehabilitation. This was her internship year. Preparing to attend medical school. To one day open her own practice. Got a chance to practice her skill as a counselor. Not only did she help Marvin find peace with his injury, he realized that he was actually in school and learned to use his education as a crutch. Switched from Basket Weaving as a major to Finance. Got a job in the big city at an investment firm for the summer, back East, near home, but far enough from his family.
In the fall, he followed the course the doctor and Serenity laid out for him. He would study as hard as he would play, coming off the bench because Coach S had promised the freshman, high school All-American that he would start. It was the same promise he had made to Marvin during recruitment. So, Marvin worked on his jump shot, hoping to get some minutes at the shooting guard position along with the point. The night before the first home game, in the openness of the campus's largest quad, as the sky grayed and the moon wore the sky like a mask, as if the finished canvas of an impressionist painting, Marvin and Serenity made love for the first time. They had had sex before but had never fully undressed their emotions. She was wearing a short skirt with no panties and he had his pants and draws around his knees. As she rocked back and forth on his lap, he said them then she repeated the three words, I love you. Not just Love Ya, as he often said to his family.
The words stayed with them until the next fall when Serenity Smith realized that like men, seasons did not change, they left. Yes, they came back but if you knew what to look for, you would realize that it was not the same season. For time had marched on, and time marchers did the same.
Marvin was not drafted. Got invited to two NBA training camps. Chose one. Did not make the team. Planned to play overseas. Serenity got into Meherry. Turned down his engagement. She realized that he, after all, loved the game. It was either that or he craved the fame and money so much that first love was a hindrance. Middle class status, failure. The game, however, was perpetual. Marvin made the pros after years of toiling overseas.
Was having a good year then the second knee gave. He rehabbed again but never regained top form. Was doing the CBA thing. Earning a ten-day contract here and there. Enjoying his last days as a professional athlete. Had decided to retire after this season, at age thirty-one, and put his education and those various spurts of employment to use. Top on his list was broadcast journalism or becoming a sports agent.
At first he was living the luxurious life off of what he had saved and was basically doing the club thing. What got Dude was how Marvin and Faye hooked up. As they compared stories around the pool table, they seemed to be licking then bandaging one another's wounds. The fact that they had confined their lives to the surface did not bother them. Unlike when Dude and Faye talked, Marvin saw the symmetry not the inequality. They saw the worth of each other's struggle.
Their union showed me that Dime Store Divas is a period piece. Of a ladder with a missing rung. A masterpiece capturing those whose legacy is tainted by deft, razor-like strokes, etched in an unfixed pattern across a human's back. To achieve their former royal status, Dime Store Divas stretch themselves across life's canvas and allow their struggle to be painted as an original, ugly picture. The truth is twisted, two-sided and two-faced. Dime Store Divas is a period piece meaning the end to two families' struggle, a return to what home was meant to be. Or is it the dead-end of marriage, over-consumption and no community involvement? Is it divorcing yourself from the community, not reaching your hand back to help pull others up so they do not fall in between the crack, the missing rung?