Good Peoples

Read an Excerpt

One

Geh up, Un-kel Myles, Geh up!"

Some people are awakened by the first rays of the sun gently kissing their foreheads to signal the dawning of a new day. Others are awakened by the soft coos of a lover nuzzling them on the nape of their neck. Still others have their noses tickled with aromatic scents cooked by a lover whose world was rocked the previous night. But they are all fools, Myles thought, for they do not know true morning joy unless they are stirred out of their slumber by the fingers of a pair of three-year-olds, digging into their eyes and telling them, quite loudly, to "geh up!"

They were not exactly the female companionship he had in mind, but there were worse sights to behold first thing in the morning than his twin nieces, Deja and Jade. Their hair was braided and beaded, and they were looking cute in their bright (a little too bright first thing in the morning) yellow matching jumpers. He couldn't resist the opportunity to play the "mix-up game."

"Good morning, Jade," he said to Deja.

"Nnnnoooo," they replied in gleeful unison.

"I'm(she's ...) ... Jade/Deja ... she's(I'm ...) Deja/Jade."

"Ooohhh," he replied, "now I understand. Hello, Deja," he said to Jade.

"Nnnnooo," they answered.

As the twins squealed with laughter, accompanied by his bulldog Winston's yelps of bewilderment, Myles's brother decided that he'd had enough of this foolishness.

"Myles, I know Deja and Jade are probably the first females that you have had in your bedroom in months, but could you get a move on, please? I'm ready to play some basketball, and I'm feeling kinda right today."

His brother, Amir, always ready with the snide comment.

"Girls, go in the living room so Uncle Myles can get ready. Winston wants to play with you."

The dog glared at him as if to say, "Yeah, right." Then he headed off to the living room with the little girls hot on his trail.

Myles went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he looked up from rinsing his mouth out, he saw Amir's reflection in the mirror. His brother was looking over his shoulder, admiring himself while pretending not to.

Amir was the type of man that sisters swooned over. He was a regal, tall, muscular man with smooth chocolate skin, thick eyelashes, and a curly crop of "good hair." Further adding to his ego was that his eyes were a shade or two lighter than the average brother's and would sparkle when hit by light. Being the younger brother by two years, Myles had considered him the bane of his very existence when they were children. Amir was personable, a natural athlete, while Myles was the pudgy, contemplative, intellectual child. One guess as to which one was the star in their neighborhood. Even aunts, uncles, and grandparents, when they weren't poking Myles in his stomach to see if he said, "poppin' fresh dough," focused the majority of their praise and attention on Amir.

"You know," Amir said, taking a break from looking at himself,

"I don't understand this monk lifestyle of yours. You're not a bad-looking guy."

"But, I'm no 'you,' right?"

"Hey, don't set the bar so high. If you try to reach that ideal, of course you're doomed to fail."

Even Myles had to laugh.

"As I was saying, you're a good-looking guy. You seem to have got that weight situation under control, you're smart, available, professional ... what's the problem?"

"Just because I haven't turned my apartment into a sanctum of skankdom does not mean there is a problem, Amir. Lord knows, before you got married you had enough women for the both of us, Mr. Seventeen-hoes-in-his-freshman-year-alone."

"Hey, hoes can be good people."

"I'm sure they can be," Myles said as he brushed past him to go back to the bedroom. He peeked into the living room and saw that the girls were engrossed with some cartoon on the TV, much to Winston's relief. "But if I try for something more than empty one-night stands, should I be faulted for holding myself to a higher standard than 'skank-'em and thank-'em'?"

As Myles put on a pair of sweats and laced up his sneakers, Amir
answered in an affected, hat-in-his-hands, southern drawl, "I reckon us common Negroes can't wait for true, undying love because we just like the feeling of a pair of titties in our back at night."

"As do I," he replied, ignoring Amir's sarcasm. Myles opted for a T-shirt rather than the tank top he had on because that showed the top of his surgical scar from childhood heart surgery. Another source of insecurity was that he had been born with a heart murmur. "But I don't know ... I'm just tired of meaningless encounters with women."

He regretted saying that as soon as he said it. Had he forgotten who he was talking to?

Amir gave him a look of incredulity and cracked up. "You ain't had enough pussy in your life to say what you tired of. You have zero credibility about what you're tired of until you staaaa-rrrrrt fuckin'."

Myles glanced into the living room. "Damn, you're ignorant. Don't say anything when one of your daughters comes in here to ask you what 'fucking' means."

"True that, which would be funny because this is the last place they would actually see anybody doing any."

"All right, all right, your point is made. You ready to go?"

"I'm waiting on you, remember?"

The ride to the basketball courts took about ten minutes. After they strapped the twins into the back of Amir's Pathfinder, Myles turned on WPRS. They were playing "It Only Takes a Minute" by Tavares, which had been one of his and Amir's favorite songs when they were kids. They alternated lead vocal duties and still remembered the words after all these years.

When they stopped at a red light next to a car driven by a pretty woman, Amir could not resist the opportunity. He pulled up alongside her car on the left. He then tapped the horn lightly while at the same time rolling down the passenger's-side window from the master control panel. The horn tap got the woman's attention. She looked directly at Myles, giving him a "what the hell do you want?" look.

Now, having been the victim of this before, Myles knew there were a couple of ways he could play it. One way was to duck your head down, act like you dropped some change on the floor. It sounded good in theory, but then Amir would yell something along the lines of: "You reach across my car, honk my horn, bothering this attractive young lady and now you gonna duck your head down like some scared little punk?"

The better option, Myles had learned, was to feign indifference when Amir tapped the horn and rolled down the window. The key was to look straight ahead and hold it. This worked best because Amir ended up looking like the fool. Myles looked like the indifferent, intriguing dude who could care less.
But with this particular Latina in question, he got caught looking, and Amir moved in for the kill.

"Excuse me chula, mi hermano has not been out with a mujer in muchos años. He has no cojones. Por favor, help him."

The woman and Amir were still laughing at Myles as the Gods of Mercy changed the light to green and they took off.

"Amir," Myles said, pissed for letting himself get embarrassed, "must you always be the jackass?"

Amir put his hand on Myles's shoulder, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Yes, I must." He then started to laugh again.

"It must be nice to be able to crack yourself up, Amir." Myles turned around to face the twins. "Deja and Jade, your daddy is a funny guy. Can you say 'simpleton'?"

"Thimbleton."

"Shimpledon."

"Look at you trying to turn my daughters against me. Talk about ungrateful. This is the thanks I get for trying to help you out?"

Myles looked out the window. That woman in the car had had a pretty smile and catching laugh, even if it was at his expense. It would be nice to have a woman like that laughing because of him and not at him. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Myles pictured then window shopping down some quaint little street, strolling arm in arm. She would toss her head coyly and say cute things like "Oh, Myles, you're something else." Since it would be cold outside, a picturesque winter day, she would be bundled up from head to toe, which would draw even more attention to her sweet, gentle face. As they continued their stroll they would reach a jewelry store, where she would slow down to give him the not so subtle hint that she wanted him for a long-term commitment. Because he was too good a thing to let go of. Subconsciously, as she looked at the rings, she would be squeezing his arm tighter, hoping that he felt the same way about her.

The smile that spread across Myles's face quickly turned to agitation as he felt a sharp elbow in his side. He opened his eyes and glared at his brother.

"There will be no daydreaming on my shift. You should've said something to her when you had your chance."

From Good People, Marcus Major. (c) December 1999, Marcus Major used by permission.