Cheaters by Eric Jerome Dickey

Author:Eric Jerome Dickey [Dickey, Eric Jerome]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Adult, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781101209158
Google: 965HjLdG178C
Amazon: B000OCXI44
Barnesnoble: B000OCXI44
Goodreads: 9749762
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1999-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

25 Stephan

Saturday. Six p.m. I was at Pops’ shop on Crenshaw, across the street from Crenshaw Car Wash. The sky was gray out this way, so not many people were getting their hoopties flossed, but the barber shop was crowded, all kinds of conversations going on. Every other minute one of the boulevard’s career hustlers stopped by trying to sell everything from Disney T-shirts to XXX videos.

Jeremiah Junior, my baby brother, was cutting my hair. I wanted my top short, sideburns long. I kept my face clean-shaven, sort of like the models in EM. Posters of Mo Thugs, The Fugees, Rappin’ 4-Tay, Snoop Dogg, and others were on the mirrors at Junior’s stand. The largest poster was of a caramel sister in a two-piece bikini, with inviting lips. The caption read “NOTHIN’ LIKE A BARBER’S TRIM.”

We were arguing sports.

I said, “Sacramento is a graveyard for NBA players. It’s the elephant’s graveyard of the NBA.”

“That’s cold.”

“That’s the truth. Damn.”

“Be still before I mess your wop-sided head up.”

A Best of Jerry Springer tape was playing on the television facing Crenshaw. About five barbers had customers lined up along the wall; all were watching the tube and talking. On the show, a heavyset sister wearing a ton of gold sucker-punched a skinny sister who’d been in her face talking crap. Everybody in the shop cracked up and pumped it up, “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.”

Pops walked in looking like a short, aging Michael Jordan. Junior looked just like his daddy, only with hair.

I said, “Evening, Pops. Momma up at the house?”

“She’s up there.” He wiped something off his jeans and polo shirt. “Come see me when Junior gets done with your head.”

He didn’t look too happy. But he never did look too happy to see me.

Junior said, “What you do this time?”

“Hell if I know. Knowing him, he’ll blame the rain on me.”

Junior said, “It’s overcast. It ain’t raining.”

“He’ll blame me for that too.”

Five minutes later, I went into his office.

He was behind his chipped wooden desk. I stopped in front of a poster of Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, and Norton, all in tuxedos. Champions Forever.

Pops motioned for me to sit. I did. I always did what he told me to do. Always had to. Everybody had to.

He said, “What you do to that pretty girl with the ugly name?”

He was talking about Toyomi. I said, “Nothing.”

Pops told me that she’d been calling up to the house all day, ranting and raging.

He asked, “You thank a television and a few other thangs worth all this trouble?”

“Those were gifts.”

“If she bought ‘em, then give ‘em back.”

I shook my head. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

He shook his too. “I talk, but you never listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Son, if she paid for it and she want it back, give it to her. You working, get another one. If you done fall on hard times, I’ll buy you one and you can pay me back when you can.”

“I can afford a television. Like I said, this is about principle. What about what she did to my car, to my clothes—”

“That’s not the point, son.

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