Control, page 18
“All right. I’ll call her right now,” he agreed, while waiting outside the airport.
He hung up the line with the mother and took a deep breath before calling the daughter as planned. It took three rings before she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Ayana. It’s your dad,” Joe said with confidence. He wasn’t going to let a seventeen-year-old scare him. He had just spoken to her a few days ago. But he had not asked her and her mother out to dinner like he was about to do now. That part changed things.
“Oh, hi,” she responded calmly. Sure enough, she was at work on her high school assignments at the kitchen table, where there was more natural light and space than in her bedroom. As with most biracial girls with a White parent, she was light-skinned with a wild grade of light brown hair that she allowed to grow into long and neat dreads. Upon first look, she wasn’t particularly striking, but she did have a pair of kaleidoscope hazel eyes, the kind that looked like they changed colors depending on the lighting.
Carole said they came from her Jamaican side of the family, where she had “Cooley” grandparents with East Indian blood, combined with the blue-eyed genetics of Joe. It was an exotic eye color shared by many biracial children, and an element of Ayana that stood out, along with her Nigerian surname—Ogurah.
“Did I catch you doing homework?” Joe asked her.
She chuckled. That was a good thing. “Yeah, you kind of did,” she told him.
“Are you gonna be hungry tonight?” he asked.
Her easy smile turned into a frown. It was an obvious question.
“At some point, I assume I will,” she answered.
“Good. How ’bout we get some seafood? Or would you rather have Jamaican? It doesn’t matter to me.”
Ayana stopped what she was doing and focused completely on him. “Are you here?”
Joe continued to chuckle as if it was all a game. “Yeah, I am. I just got in at the airport?”
“Are you here on business?”
She figured there had to be a reason for it, and it wasn’t for her or her mother.
Joe said, “Actually, I came here to see you guys. You and your mother.”
Ayana paused, perplexed by it. “Did you tell my mother that?”
“Yeah, I just got off the phone with her.”
Ayana looked confused as hell. “Did she know that you were coming?”
“Nope. Not until I got here.”
His logic wasn’t adding up for anyone but himself.
His daughter asked, “And what did my mother say?”
“She said to call and ask you?”
“Call and ask me what?”
“If you wanted to meet up for dinner tonight.”
It all seemed awkward and forced. She didn’t really have any feeling toward the man. He was pretty much a gene donor who paid monthly for her life expenses. She didn’t even ask about him anymore.
“Ummm . . . wow.” Ayana didn’t know what to tell him.
“Look, it’s just food, right? Let’s just get something to eat,” Joe pressed her.
“Yeah, but . . . did my mother tell you she has a boyfriend?”
Joe paused. “Okay . . . I didn’t ask her about that.”
“Yeah, well, he kind of . . . lives with us,” his daughter revealed to him.
Finally, Joe got the point. Him flying up there to Boston, unannounced, to meet up with his estranged daughter and her mother was ridiculous. But he wouldn’t allow anyone to tell him differently. It was his little secret, like his whole relationship with them had been.
He said, “Okay, well . . . what does that have to do with us going out to a dinner? We’re just sitting down to eat.”
That’s what he said, but deep down inside his feelings were hurt. How could Carole have a man living with them in a house that he helped her to pay for? He didn’t like that idea at all!
If you want a man, then marry him and move into his house. Why let him freeload off yours? Joe thought to himself, disturbed by it.
Ayana said, “I mean, this is just kind of... weird.”
Joe snapped, “What’s so weird about it? We’re just having a dinner? What’s the big deal?”
He was ready to blow his top at the airport. He had been paying out of pocket for child support and other gifts for years, and now he couldn’t ask them out for a basic dinner. It sounded incredibly unappreciative. The next thing he knew, he started thinking about his wealthy White partners in his hedge fund and venture capital enterprises.
Shit! Maybe those guys are onto something! he pondered.
He said, “You know, I had no idea that me asking you guys out to dinner would be such an issue. I mean, I may not have been around you all these years, but I don’t consider myself to be a stranger, either.”
Particularly after sending your mother more than a million dollars over seventeen years, he reflected. But he surely didn’t want to blurt that out to his daughter.
She said, “Well, it’s just . . . we would need more preparation for that. But you just got here today? I mean, it would be better if we went out tomorrow. That would at least give us a day to think about it.”
Joe was incensed. What is there to think about? It’s a fucking dinner! He couldn’t see what the issue was. Nevertheless, he realized that he needed to be more patient. His decision to visit them had been very sudden.
“Okay. Tomorrow then,” he responded, compromising.
“Yeah,” his daughter told him.
Joe calmed down and took another breath. “How’s everything else going?”
“Fine. Everything’s good,” Ayana answered casually.
“Well, that’s good.”
“Yup.”
That was the norm of their usual conversations. Nothing was really being said or asked. So, when Joe finally hung up the line with her, he felt like a lonely man on the moon again.
“Shit!” he fumed with his luggage still in hand at the airport. “This is just what I get for waiting so long. I should have done this years ago.”
Then he started thinking about his younger daughter and her mother.
“Yeah,” he mumbled to himself as he nodded and eyed the taxis. “I need to call them in advance.”
TYRELL HODGE
Reflection 27
WITH THREE DOWN AND TWO TO GO, I DIDN’T WANT TO TALK TO Tyrell about my film ideas over the phone again. He was too argumentative and difficult to deal with over the phone. And with all of his driving, I rarely felt like he was giving me his full attention. So, I needed to talk to him face-to-face, where I could calm his ass down, even if I had to pay him for his time. And if he blew me off in a face-to-face meeting . . . then fuck it. I would have to find a new talented writer.
I caught the temperamental Chicago man on the line and made my pitch. “Tyrell, let me treat you to a late lunch and give you a hundred dollars to talk to me about my film ideas.”
He paused immediately. I knew I had to front-load my pitch with the money, otherwise it would take too long with the back-and-forth. Tyrell was the kind of man who forced you to put everything out front. There was no stringing him along. You had to put it all on the line with a total commitment to him. That’s why he lost out on so many business opportunities. Most people weren’t willing to meet him at 100 percent. But I was.
He said, “Let me get this straight. You’re gonna pay for my lunch and give me a hundred dollars?”
“Yes,” I confirmed to him. “I’m that serious.”
He chuckled and said, “Aw’ight. What time you wanna meet?”
“Three o’clock. At the Midtown Cafeteria at Georgia Tech.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s easy to park around there.”
“I know. That’s why I chose it.”
“Cool. I’ll see you at three.”
I hung up and smiled at how easy it was. You have to commit to Tyrell the whole way. And if you commit to him, he’ll commit to you. He was that easy. What made it hard was when someone failed to take him seriously. And in the business of paying writers, people were forever bullshitting. So, he complained about it. Plain and simple.
* * *
I walked into the Midtown Cafeteria on time, looking and smelling good. I had a full-package plan ready just for Tyrell. I knew just how to deal with him.
I found a booth table near the front entrance to catch him as soon as he walked in.
When he walked in shortly after me, I made sure to stand and greet him with a hug so he could take in my fashion and smell my perfume.
“Thanks for meeting me today,” I told him.
“Yeah, you paying for lunch and a hundred dollars. I can’t turn that down.”
Like a real Chicago man, Tyrell was incredibly physical. You could tell he was used to being around hardened men. Even his hug felt as if he could shove me through a glass window.
“Have you ever learned how to be gentle?” I joked as we sat across from each other.
“Yeah, I know how to be gentle . . . when I need to be,” he said, taking off his black Chicago White Sox baseball cap and setting it on the far end of our table.
“So, you don’t need to be gentle with me, huh?” I teased.
“Oh, my bad. My hug was too rough for you?” He had a fresh haircut and a shave that made him look ten years younger than his mid-forties.
I shook my head and grinned. “Seems like everything you do is rough?”
“If you like it that way,” he flirted.
I gave him a knowing eye. “Cut it out,” I told him.
“With a razor blade or scissors?” he asked me. He was that sharp mentally, and it was hard for many people to keep up with him. But I understood it. Genius was simply different. It didn’t do what you wanted it to do. It was out of your control. So, you simply had to deal with it or not. And most people chose not to.
“Anyway . . .” I began. “So, someone came up with the title Trading for my new project. What do you think about that title?”
“Trading what?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “You tell me.”
I wanted to hear what he would do with it.
He said, “It reminds me of Trading Places with Eddie Murphy. Or trading hearts . . . Trading bodies . . . Trading souls . . . Trading dispositions . . . Trading economics . . . Trading cultures . . . Trading gods. You could do a lot with that. It depends on what angle you wanna take with it.”
I smiled and said, “Bitcoin people talk about trading too.”
Tyrell frowned immediately. “Aw, them motherfuckas are crazy. You’re buying coins that you can’t cash in. What the hell is that? That’s like putting your money in a vending machine and nothin’ come out that motherfucker. Then you start shaking it and banging it.”
He grabbed an imaginary vending machine with both hands and shook it. “If this motherfucka don’t give me back my money.”
I chuckled at it. The man was extremely passionate and visual. Now you’ll get to see why I respected him.
“So, a college girl loses her money in this trading group. But you can’t necessarily make it about Bitcoin,” I told him. “You don’t wanna make it seem like we’re calling them out.”
I was keeping in mind what Joseph Drake had told me.
Tyrell nodded. “And then this girl goes crazy trying to get her money back. When people told her ass not to do that shit. But she thought she knew something. Yeah, that’s easy. A young bigheaded bitch. Excuse my French,” he apologized.
I grinned and waved it off. “We’re grown. I heard it all before. So, how complicated could you make it?” I asked him. We couldn’t keep it that easy. Or could we?
Tyrell thought about it. He smiled and said, “You know, that Angel Heart shit was deep. You remember Lisa Bonet got in all kinds of trouble for that movie? They kicked her off The Cosby Show for that. I guess Bill wanted some,” he joked, and laughed.
I didn’t touch that joke at all. Like I said, Tyrell was more than most people could take.
“What does Angel Heart have to do with what I’m talking about?” I asked him seriously. I needed to redirect him. He was falling off track from discussing my ideas.
He said, “In this day and age, you notice how much these kids talk about the Illuminati and blood sacrifices and all that shit? That shit been around. But these kids talk about it in pop culture now like it’s all new.
“Well, what if this trading idea is deeper than money? And we give these kids what they keep talking about?” he commented.
“So . . . you wanna make it a demonic group?” I asked him. I wasn’t thinking about that angle. I frowned and shook my head. “That sounds too dark,” I complained.
Tyrell said, “Money is the root of all evil, right? So, it’s all dark and demonic. That’s why these kids are always talking that shit. They’re already dark. Listen to the music they like. It’s dark pop music,” he stated.
I smiled. “Or gothic funk,” I added.
Tyrell was intrigued by it. “Yeah, I like that. That funky, spooky shit.”
Of course, I was thinking all about Dark & Moody again. She was my next conversation.
I said, “I have someone who does that.”
“And we can use that shit for the soundtrack.”
He was reading my mind. That’s why I loved him.
He said, “But let’s take it even deeper. These people don’t know who they’re fucking with. And while they’re out here trading and deceiving people, they stole some shit from her father years ago. And she infiltrated them to get it back. So, she’s really been huntin’ these motherfuckas down.
“And it ain’t about the money. It’s their souls that she’s after,” Tyrell explained to me. “And like The Usual Suspects—one of my favorite movies—they find out that she’s the daughter of the devil. But by that time, it’s too late. She’s already slaughterin’ these motherfuckas.
“So, it’d be best for us to fake it like it’s about Bitcoin anyway, knowing that’s it’s much deeper than that,” he told me. “The Bitcoin angle would only be a front.”
I cringed. “But they would still complain about it. Then they would say we think they’re demonic.”
Tyrell sat back against the booth and frowned. “Real art takes that chance. And if you don’t want to offend anybody, you end up creating vanilla shit,” he argued. “But we’ll figure it all out. And whoever plays this college girl role gotta be bad. A girl that everybody wanna fuck,” he added with his typical rawness.
I smiled again. I said, “I got someone like that too. And I want you to meet her before you start writing it.”
“Who’s paying me for the writing?” he asked immediately.
I shook my head. Tyrell was always about his money.
“Money is the root of all evil, Tyrell,” I reminded him sarcastically.
“And I’m one evil motherfucka,” he countered.
I smiled and chuckled. “I’m still working on that part,” I told him.
He said, “And this girl you’re talking about. Are you sure you wanna introduce me to her? Because, if she’s all that, then I might wanna fuck her too. You know I ain’t getting none at home right now.”
I started laughing. Tyrell was outrageous. But he was actually safer to me than Charles Clay was, because he was so straightforward and honest—to a fault. If any girl chose to fuck him, she would know exactly what it was about, his pure, unadulterated hunger, and nothing else.
I grinned and said, “She wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
He frowned and said, “Why not? I ain’t a bad-looking guy. I still got my swagger.”
I continued to smile. There was nothing wrong with Tyrell’s looks. And I was certain that he had plenty of women in his prime. That’s why his lady wouldn’t fuck him now. She was still in anger mode over the women he could still pull—if he wanted to.
I said, “Because you’re too obvious. And she would know she’s not getting anything from it. Unless she just wants to see how you fuck.”
The man had turned me into a potty mouth to match his rawness. So, I was embarrassed when a young Asian girl walked up on us as our server and overheard me. Tyrell and I had been talking all that time, and she had just made her way over to us.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her. She was grinning and covering her face with both hands.
“Yeah, bring us out some water to cool things off. I can make women hot like that, you know,” Tyrell teased. That made the girl squeeze her hands to her face even harder.
“Okay,” she told us, and walked back away.
“You think her panties are wet now because of your mouth?” Tyrell asked me.
“Stop it,” I told him with a glare. “That’s perverted.”
He frowned and said, “That’s not perverted. She’s a college girl.”
“Exactly,” I told him. “She’s too young for you to be making those comments about her.”
He smirked and said, “Yet, you want me to write about a college girl for your movie. What, she don’t fuck nobody in the film? She’s trading kisses and Valentine’s Day candy?” he asked me.
He had a point. I was busted. So, I took a deep breath and sighed.
“Anyway . . . now I forgot what we were talking about,” I told him.
“We were talking about me fucking your college girl, the one you want me to meet for your movie,” he reminded me.
I said, “No, we were talking about you not fucking her.”
“Well, there’s a whole lot of fuckin’ and not fuckin’ that we’re talking about at this table, huh? No wonder our Asian girl walked away,” he joked. “You need to be ashamed of yourself. And you call yourself a psychologist?” He shook his head. “I don’t know about you sometimes.”
I grinned and kept right on grinning. I genuinely liked being around Tyrell when I could get him to stop being so angry. I said, “So, getting back to the movie . . . you would make it like a Jordan Peele kind of thing?”
He stared across the table at me and said, “No. I would make it like a Tyrell Hodge kind of thing. Because I was doing this shit before him. He just got a chance to do it bigger. And I’m proud of him for it, but I’m not taking shorts to nobody. And I liked the original Candyman better,” he griped.
