SELLOUT

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Inspiration behind "Sellout"

Over the years, I've met people who claimed to have "given up" on the opposite sex of their own race. The reasons vary: "Black men are players"; "white men are boring"; "black women too bitchy," etc. In regards to interracial relationships, it seems no male-female combo stirs the pot quicker than black-white pairings. The ultimate taboo. Worse than the forbidden fruit.
But, apparently, "forbidden" fruits are quite tasty. Many have decided to take a bite. Hell, some have collected baskets of these "fruits," never to go back to anything else again.
This way of thinking led me to write "Sellout" (working title) from three POVs--a black man, white woman and black man. Check out an excerpt of the first chapter:

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Another so-called man bit the dust.

I cannot believe I stayed with Craig’s sorry ass for so long. After the string of zeros I’d run through--including I-still-suck-on-my-mama’s-tit Andre and wifey beater Larry--I thought I’d completed all the on-the-job training necessary to pick out one from a line-up. But somehow, Craig slipped under the radar. At the end of the day, he was no different than the others--just another sorry example of underdeveloped male sperm.

The actors may change, but the same tired script never does. Well, I pressed the pause button on that low-budget flick. I was done with men. Especially black men.

All it took was a piece of paper to break the proverbial camel’s back. That fateful day started off like any other Saturday. Like a good "wifey," I was sorting laundry while Craig played basketball. At the start of our so-called courtship, I didn’t mind serving up the king’s treatment, but I’d noticed after a month of cohabitation, me doing all the cooking and cleaning had become the routine.

As I separated darks from whites, I checked the pockets. Craig had always left a trail--change, pens, receipts. Inside the back pocket of his jeans--the same baggy pair from the night before--a piece of paper brushed my finger.

I almost threw it away, but the cursive style caught my eye. I flipped the note over, then read it. My jaw dropped, ringed glasses slipping down my nose as I digested the bitter taste of betrayal:

I felt my insides turn, a volcano on the verge of vomiting lava on Craig and anyone around him. A tick formed in my cheeks, then somehow shot to both hands. I stood seconds away from smashing something against the wall. Such a damn fool!

To ward off the demon in me, I clutched the heart-shaped gold pendant around my neck, channeling my father. It’d been seven years since my number one fan left me for Heaven. Moments like these made me miss him more. Daddy had always been the antidote to a jacked-up situation, but thanks to pancreatic cancer, I had to fend for myself. Mom died when I was three in a car accident.

I traced a finger across the smooth texture of my pendant before I flipped it open to gaze at my father’s handsome face. In the photo, Daddy’s little girl sat atop his broad shoulders. He wore fatigues, an Army vet after twenty-four years. Our wide smiles and chocolate dimples were so alike it looked as if someone had stamped his facial impression on me.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to draw strength from my father’s memory. As I shook the cobwebs from my eyes, I experienced a long overdue moment of clarity. Craig and I had been together four months, the last month in my apartment. Two weeks after moving in, Craig’s job at a local plant laid him off--or so he said.

I worked as a mortgage loan officer, but thanks to the housing bubble, I navigated through the tangled web of short sales and foreclosures. Despite the ten-hour days at the bank, I still worked as Craig’s wing while he "searched" for another job. I became the Whitney to his Bobby, always on the lookout for gigs. I even brought home classifieds from just about every Dallas newspaper.

But I never found evidence of a job search. The classifieds I’d placed around the house never gave me the impression of someone searching for a 9-to-5--no highlighted sections, no pen marks, crumpled pages. Can’t say the same about umpteen rap magazines with big-booty hoochies on the front page.

A friend even emailed me asking why Craig hadn’t called him back about a position at an airplane parts factory--a job that I, the naive "ride-or-die chick," tried to hook up. When I confronted Craig, he invoked his inner ten-year-old:

"I forgot."

He forgot. Whatever. Just like his dumb ass forgot the note in his pocket. Who leaves a damn note in a pants pocket anyway? So stupid.

I stood up from the bed. Oh yeah, the blinders came off. No more blind love--I was done.

Cuss words and basketball thumps pierced my thoughts. Craig’s cackle echoed through the hallway outside my apartment. "Bitch this, nigga that." I told that boy about his nasty mouth. Who wants to hear that mess?

The front door opened and foul-mouthed chatter permeated the living room. Slipping Tracy’s secret message into the pocket of my sweatpants, I turned back to the clothes, a new agenda on my plate.

"Tammy?" Craig yelled. "Where you at, girl?"

I picked up a stack of his clothes and designated a pile by the door. He entered the bedroom a moment later. "Hey, shawty?"

He got no reply. In the past, my heart would jump when he’d come home from playing basketball, his body shiny from sweat. Sexy as hell, especially with cornrows and a neatly trimmed goatee. His bad boy swagga always pushed my buttons, but not today. Not anymore.

"Laundry, huh? Cool, cool." He pointed at the sweatsuit on top of the pile by the door. "Ima wear that after I shower."

"You’re going to wear baggy pants while looking for a job?"

He didn’t respond to the question, just chuckled a little. Instead, he said, "say, baby, before you wash these clothes, can you whip up some of dem apple cinnamon pancakes?"

Wow, he’s got some nerve, I thought.

Words sounded off in my head, reminding me of Craig’s vitals. Liar. Cheater. Unemployed. Lazy. He didn’t want a partner; he wanted a mother.

My new path became billboard clear. I didn’t need extra mess in my life, especially from someone four years younger than me.

I threw up a smile as fake as Joan Rivers’ plastic face. "You want pancakes, huh?"

"Yeah, whip ‘em up for me and Grip. And later on, Ima whip on this ass." He slapped my butt.

A loud rattle drew my attention toward the living room. His homeboy Grip pulling out that damn Xbox, I bet.

"You can make your own damn pancakes," I said, as Craig headed back toward the bedroom entrance.

Craig braked in his tracks as if he’d slammed into a wall. "Huh? Whatchu mean?"

"I mean, I’m not cooking you anything," I replied, my back to him. "Not anymore."

(End of excerpt)