Bitch Is the New Black Read online

  “Oh, that’s a pretty little shiny dog you got,” he says without slurring, and coming increasingly closer to an increasingly frantic Miles with each compliment. By “dog” he’s about three feet away with an open palm, dirt in every crease, but friendly.

  Miles does not give a shit about friendly.

  “Thank you. He’s a little shy, though,” I say by way of explaining the poltergeist currently in possession of my dog’s body. Miles is having a grand mal seizure. Mr. Flagler, not giving a shit about this, continues on his path of destruction. I’m trying to be an authoritative pack leader (the books said!) by keeping the lead taut even though every muscle in this dog’s neck is against me. His eyes are darting from side to side so fast that he might give himself vertigo, which along with the bill for the bald spot on his head is going to cost me. Now he’s leaping into the air in an attempt to escape on the wind. Not working. I try dragging him, but he’s hit the emergency brake with his front legs stretched out in what looks like a yoga move someone would pay good money to learn. We’re parked. Next comes a wiggling technique he must’ve learned in his former life as a luchador I mentally name the Utter Mileage. Be the pack leader. Beeee the pack leader.

  “Don’t worry, he’s not gonna get outta that thing,” observes Mr. Flagler, still determined.

  Then it happens. The Utter Mileage works his neck in such a way that his collar just gives up out of admiration. Then he darts into the street faster than these three-inch heels can go, never looking back at what he was running from—a stunned junkie, someone out of 650 bucks. Fuck! Note to self: only walk dog in flats from now on. Note to self: buy flats. “Miles! Come on, baby. Come back. Miles-sies? Mi-iles? Sweetie. Come backsies!”

  It’s Mr. Flagler who tells me to stop chasing him. Let him come to me.

  “Just stand still.”

  “But he’s in the effing street!” I yell, wearing the inches down on my boots pacing the sidewalk.

  “It’s no cars out here. Just stand still and call him. He’ll come.”

  First off, I’m considering the advice of a crack addict who on most days I’d pretend did not exist. If I were religious, which I am not, Mr. Flagler would be my savior-equivalent. Because this whole thing reminded me of that story about Jesus being a smelly bum nobody wanted around until some guy gives him a bath and then Homeless Jesus grants him three wishes via a dead gorilla’s hand or whatever. If I were in possession of said magical monkey paw, I’d wish for Miles not to die today. Just stand still and he’ll come. Pffft! Who are we talking about here? My dog or that elusive he I’ve been waiting for, for like ever? Standing still unfortunately isn’t in the black-girl guidebook. So instead I tiptoe across the street, making sure to walk on the balls of my feet so as not to aggravate Miles with the clicking sound of taps on concrete, and seize him by the bonus skin of his neck before he can make another run for it. His body is flopping about like a dead fish, but thankfully he is neither. Mr. Flagler, prophet you are not.

  Every hair on Miles’s back has rigor-mortised along with the rest of him. He’s too traumatized to walk, so I carry him back home sort of cradled in my arms, his legs sticking straight into the air like an upturned tchotchke. If it weren’t for all the heavy panting, his hot breath smelling well past its sell-by date, I’d assume him scared to death.

  The point is, since the episode with Mr. Flagler (nee Homeless Jesus), Miles and black men just don’t mix. He’ll sniff a pair of Timbs maybe, but as soon as one of those construction boots–cum–emblem of ghetto masculinity take one step in his direction, he’ll turn tail and run behind my legs faster than you can say socially awwwk-ward. I was embarrassed at first—the dog I’d named after a jazz legend would lick a hand, any hand, as long as it didn’t have pigment on the flip side. He was making me look bad. The white guy up the street who wore all-weather Crocs? Miles loved him. The boys down the block in down jackets? Hated them. His black-man allergies got so bad I started crossing the street whenever a pack of them appeared on the horizon, and they in turn eyed me with sellout suspicion. It’s not me, I swear! My mom grew up Compton. Compton! “Ay,” one would point out excitedly, backhanding the shoulder of another. “That’s that dog from Men in Black!” I’d smile stupidly and offer a jumpy “ha ha” while safely on the opposite side of the street. Of life.

  Even more important than Miles’s discriminatory licking practices was the issue of finding a mate—for me. This would be problematic—me happening to like black men very much, and Miles, not so much. But then again, me and men haven’t been mixing so well lately either.

  “Well, dude, it’s not like you got any at the house,” said Gina when I told her about what an asshole Miles was.

  But she was wrong, for once. Actually, I’d had more than a few. Purchasing another living being, I found out, is a great conversation piece. People want to know his life—weight, height, likes, dislikes, sleeping habits, pooping patterns: If a tree fell on Miles in the forest, would you hear him? I figured letting folks come over to see for themselves was the proper thing to do. The book said to socialize him, so I did—lots, and with varying degrees of success.

  First there was Cleveland Keith, who liked to answer questions nobody’d asked. For example, we’ll be driving in silence—everybody’s minding their own business—and then out of nowhere he’ll go, “Yeah, so work was good today….” or “Right, yep, the drive down to Atlanta wasn’t bad, wasn’t bad at all.” Umm, for one, no one asked you how work was, and for two, no one cares how your trip went, and for three, shut it! Plus, he always called me “cutie” and pronounced my Christian name all wrong. Coming from him it was very grassroots, very Uh-leinah.

  Way before I even got Miles, I’d tried to cut Cleveland Keith off—changed my number, moved apartments, and never answered his e-mails with more than two sentences. Probably shouldn’t’ve answered them at all. Genius. Also, he didn’t know what sushi was, which didn’t stop him from buying me restaurant roses on my birthday. Made me feel like an ungrateful tramp who preferred loose change to a ham sandwich, but that didn’t stop me from sending all his calls straight to voice mail. Watching another Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? marathon seemed more promising and surprisingly nonpathetic than another phone conversation about his flag football team. Tired of scrolling through my contacts list, imagining all the calls I didn’t feel like making, I broke down one horny night and pressed send when his name got highlighted.

  “I got a dog,” I said with more pep than planned, nudging a sleeping Miles in the butt with my big toe. Not amused. Cleveland Keith would be right over. I figured meeting him outside on the lawn with a drowsy dog would nonverbally suggest two things: (1) I don’t really want you in my house, and (2) this visit will be noncommittal.

  Post-sexicles (whatever), I told Cleveland Keith that I wasn’t ready for a relationship. He should find a nice girl, I said. A good girl. Someone who’d appreciate his being ordinary and not resent him for it. Someone who didn’t love Japanese food. But instead of yanking his cuffed jeans back on and storming out in a “whatever, bitch” huff, he spooned the shit out of me, trapping my arms down to my sides and threatening my neck with his lips. Who sleeps like that? The next morning I gave Miles his second bath in as many days, yelling good-bye to Cleveland Keith through the closed bathroom door. After he left, I got a text: “It was good seeing you again, cutie .”

  Speaking of texts, Tall Thomas has a problem. Another “contact” I normally try to avoid, instead of calling he sends messages, which wouldn’t be so annoying if they weren’t so annoying. Thom in text:

  (10/25 10:36 p.m.): Helena, u out 2nite, there’s sposed 2 b sumthin @ Posh

  (10/25 10:50 p.m.): Yea, I’m on U Street with some folks. Karaoke! Come thru

  (10/25 11:31 p.m.): How long u gon b owt.

  (10/25 11:55 p.m.): I dunno call me.

  (10/25 11:56 p.m.): How much is it? Fun? Who’s there?

  (10/26 12:45 a.m.): OMG. You don’t know them. Either come or not. Jesus.<
br />
  (10/26 1:00 a.m.): Okay so Jesus is there, who else?

  If it weren’t for unlimited texts, the whole thing would fall apart. I mean, he’s six-foot-forever, lives three blocks away, and is especially prompt. After I told Tall Thomas about Miles during an unnecessarily long Gmail convo, his name started popping up in my “available friends” like a banner ad for hemorrhoid cream that suspiciously shows up above your inbox right after you’ve e-mailed somebody about “up the butt” and “puffy eyes.” Google—God spelled in wingding—had spoken.

  We walked the dog around the block together one night—very couple-y and so not my idea. Miles chose ignorance as a means of coping. Never acknowledging Thom’s existence, he kept crashing into his ankles and peeing even closer. The next morning, Thom sent me an e-mail, the body of which consisted solely of a giant pug’s face grooving in front of a psychedelic backdrop of primary colors spinning like a beach ball. This was probably supposed to be funny on drugs. “Are you sure you want to delete this message?” Yes, please.

  I was this close to writing Miles into my will when I met a new guy, Cooper, in New York at a Columbia alumni thingy. So he’d been fully vetted. He also had an Elizabethan (or maybe Jacobian?) notch in his chin. Very civilized. An Iraq War vet getting his master’s in international spy stuff. I found the link to a “Veterans for Obama” ad he was in and immediately started debating how loud my fake yelp should be at the end of our Marine Corps wedding, you know, after we’d walked down the aisle under a canopy of swords and the last guy takes his, slaps me on the ass with it, and says, “Welcome to the Marines, Mrs. ______.” So, when Cooper wanted to come for a visit I was…rehearsed. But who knew what the dog might do. Okay, fine, who knew what I might do. Probably jump him too early and then get bored of him. Gina’s opinion? “It’s 2008, dude.” He would come down Friday morning and leave Saturday. Cool, see you then. Dial tone. Wait, what? Does he think he’s staying here?

  “Dude, where the hell else would he be staying?” Gina was all for it.

  “But then he’ll be all in my house and stuff. Looking at things and touching things,” I whined.

  “I can’t deal with you right now.” Despite having no patience for me that day, Gina still approved the following phone script, you know, like how the telemarketers have:

  ME (uncharacteristically nervous): So it’s supposed to be really nice on Friday.

  COOPER (totally unaware): Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.

  ME: So where do you usually stay when you come down to D.C.?

  COOPER: Hmmmm.

  I told anybody who’d listen that I didn’t want him in my house in order to (1) convince these people that I was virtuous on occasion and (2) make sure I couldn’t backslide at the risk of being a humping hypocrite. Visiting me, sure. But being all up in my stuff, seeing all my secret single things—like how I tend to watch TV in a towel straight from the dryer with my hair in a topknot while going to work on my heels with the incredible PedEgg. But it was 2008. And he hadn’t called in forever. Convinced that an almost-relationship with a live-action G.I. Joe had been blown as a result of me being too non-whorey, for once, for two whole days I settled into a life lived vicariously through the We Channel. So when he did finally call, slipping in the possibility of invading my personal space, my resolve was greatly diluted.

  “Sooooo, lemme ask you a question?”

  “Shoot!”

  “Is it cool if I just crash on your couch, you know, as long as I promise to behave myself?”

  Crap. I mean, he’d been to Iraq. Saying no would’ve been un-American, and since I had no clue where my voter registration stuff was, this might be my one shot at patriotism this year. Now I had to clean my floors, change my sheets, and buy some Bikini Zone.

  Coulda saved myself ten bucks because behave himself he did—to the ten-zillionth power. First off, he showed up in his kickables—Timbaland boots and baggy sweats. I’m sorry, aren’t you in grad school? Like, is there some reason you’re dressed for an Ivy League shootout? Then he had this ginormous duffel bag, which could only have housed one of two things: wardrobe changes well over the heterosexual limit or all the tools better to kill you with, my dear. And he was so much skinnier than the guy I eyed from the bar a few weeks earlier. Guess the cocktail adds ten pounds. And as predicted, he’s all…looking at my stuff—fingering my books and dropping his rucksack on my fancy “just for show” entryway bench. Also, his head was reminiscent of a Nerf ball and his phalanges were very Ancient Chinese Emperor-y. I was sufficiently creeped.

  Miles, already not a fan of the black man, especially ones wearing Timbs, was actually wagging his tail. Perhaps he was giving this guy the shake of approval or waving himself into surrender, or maybe he just wanted to take a dump. Either way, I was intrigued. (This dog was steadily becoming the gatekeeper to whatever love life I hoped to have. And if socializing was the key to his happiness, it was becoming the bane of mine. Using him as an excuse to meet up with men was one thing, a normal thing, but using him to excuse myself from uncomfortable meetings was another.) Anyway, Miles’s tail is going a mile a minute when Cooper, eager to impress me and my spawnal equivalent, reaches down to execute some kind of petting slash poking slash prodding move that succeeds only in pissing Miles off. He twists his head back to meet his butt and snaps at Cooper like a plastic board-game hippo. Then this six-foot war hero yanks his freakishly long fingers up to his chest so fast you woulda thought my dog was the Taliban—toy division. What man yanks? There is no masculine conjugation of the verb yank. Remember that scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts the Prostitute yanks her hand from the jewelry box right when Richard Gere the John claps it shut on her white-gloved hand, then she starts laughing like a maniac and everyone feels all fuzzy about sexual exploitation? It was like that.

  “Yeah, you know he can’t hurt you, right?”

  “Ha…ha…yeah,” Cooper says, hiding his fingers underneath his now-pervy-looking chin. Then, in an attempt to preserve his honor, he picks up Miles’s leash off the floor as if it were his face. I tell him it’s okay, I’ll handle it from here.

  At this point, we’re about five minutes in. The remaining nineteen hours, excruciating in the details, are easiest to catalog in list form:

  After making it clear that we could eat anything I wanted and then summarily shooting down every “ethnic food” suggestion, including Italian, which so doesn’t count, he decided he’d like “American contemporary.”

  When dinner was over, he sincerely asked, “Did you get enough to eat?”

  His PJs, which he changed into at 11:00 p.m., consisted of waist-high black military-issue shorts that hit above the knee, a tucked-in military-issue T-shirt, and white ankle socks.

  A tucked. In. T-shirt.

  White people lips.

  After smashing his face into mine in what I can only assume was a kiss, he prodded my left boob like an oncologist and then did the same to my left lip. The one your gyno deals with, not your dentist.

  His Facebook status: “Cooper is wondering if there will be a Midwestern Whitehouse—Obama—Axelrod—Emanuel?”

  Inappropriate singing of Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody.”

  Incongruous usage of the interjection “Yo.”

  First thing in the morning, after a long night spent listening to his future CNN sound bites, he said “historic quantity” three times before putting a period on it.

  I could go on, but there’s no point in further proving what a picky bitch I am. The evidence against me is overwhelming—insurmountable even. Blame it on the dog. No, seriously. See, Miles’s unwavering adoration is both unnerving and wholly necessary. He’s never more than three doggy steps behind, tracking my every move like a midget voyeur. Making the tiny insignificances of my life momentous. He watches me pee with the intensity of a peeping Tom. If I ever kick him out, he waits outside the bathroom door until I’m done, putting his life on hold for my bowel movements. When I get out of the shower, Miles he
lps dry my calves with his tongue, then waits patiently to see what lotion I’ll choose. Closing my door to go to bed is the apocalypse. My waking up is like the second coming. And I think I deserve all of it, therefore making Cooper’s stubborn imperfection all the more unacceptable.

  It was like I liked not liking Cooper, or couldn’t like him because my emotional reciprocity quotient had been reached via this dog. I got high off the hateration, running through the aforementioned list with anyone who asked, which was everyone, since everybody knew he spent the night in my stuff—well, not in my stuff, but you get the picture. All the next day I answered the phone, “Lemme tell you how this cat…” But before I could start bitching, I had to get him to leave.

  As soon as Cooper’s eyes pop open, his mouth does the same. He wants to discuss the “historical quantity” of Barack Obama’s presidency some more and then maybe play Guess Who? with his cabinet picks. This has got to be some kind of combat technique—talking me into surrender or possibly another mammogram. No, thank you, sir, I don’t want another!

  “Yeah, weren’t you getting up?” I say from my new side of the bed while Cooper lies on my other side.

  “Yep, yep. Gotta hit the road and see my old commander…” Before he could finish, there was a scratch at the door, then a sniff, and then a scratch, and then a sniff, and then a…