How Did I Get Here: A Novella Read online

  “Alright, go upstairs and don’t ask me to get anything out of the kitchen in the middle of the night, because I really don’t want to answer anyone that can’t listen to their husband, when I can get a whole bunch of strange women to listen to me in a classroom!” Preston you know you shouldn’t have said that. That could mean a shoe, a pan, or something that will just prolong the night. Preston knew he was wrong, but he really knew this could strike a nerve to get Delight’s attention at some point and time, so he just stayed on the couch with a grin on his face waiting for that famous thumping of the feet down the stairs and waiting for those famous words….

  “What did you say? I think you better take that back?” Delight snickered to Preston with her finger on his nose. She knew that Preston hated fingers in front of his face and Delight wanted him just to do something that would give her a reason to go off. She straddled him on the couch with her celadon Victoria’s secret lingerie outfit that she just bought for his birthday last week. She was small enough to fit just about anywhere and she cornered him on the couch and only the dog could watch as the kids listened upstairs. She pushed her finger up to his forehead like she was his drill sergeant and said, “Mr. Brown, listen up and listen real good, the next time you want to go comparing your wife to some ditzy school girls, you’re going to wish your mom was here to save you. She will have a dead son and I will have no remorse; you hear me?”

  “Yeah, okay. And the boys will have no parents, because mom will straight kill you three times the same way she wanted to kill you when you finally told us about Squire. Yeah, you forgot all about that didn’t you? Just because we married doesn’t mean you did anything any better. Girl you been trippin’, just act like you wanna get dumb and see how it goes down in this joint tonight!” Preston threw Delight off of him like a little rag doll and rolled over on the couch to go to sleep.

  Delight hopped on his back and commenced to repeatedly smacking him in the back of the head, while Preston laughed in between his elbows he shook his head in bewilderment. After Delight ran out of breath she huffed and puffed up the stairs and slammed the door. Now that was not the thing to do, especially when a romantic night is brewing, we’ve been celibate for three days and that was not the way to cap it off. Go upstairs in about two hours and throw that lingerie off to the side and make magic tonight! Preston just listen to me this one time, let your pride down and do something that will look past all of that anger, come on; do it for us.

  After about five hours Preston decided to go upstairs and romanticize his wife. He crept up the stairs very slowly, taking off each article of clothing with each step he took upstairs. He creaked the door open slowly to see his beautiful gift from God sleeping as if she were waiting for him to come from behind and caress her. “She really was one of the most beautiful creatures that God has ever created, but she just gets on my last nerve sometimes,” Preston thought. Well, at this point it was show time and Preston had to fulfill his duty as a husband and off to an intimate night he went.

  II

  The sun shone brightly through the window the following morning and it was just about time to get Simon and Squire some cereal before they had to run off to school. Preston hated waking them up in the morning, but since he didn’t have to be anywhere until about 10a.m. he figured it would just helped him sneak in some more quality time with Delight.

  “Rise and shine soldiers!” Preston yelled. He knew that really got on the kids nerves every Tuesday morning so he kind of got a kick out of it. “Those boys sure do know how to stay up late at night and have the nerve to try and act like they are tired in the morning” he yelled to Delight from the hallway.

  “They better get out of here, because I am not getting out of this bed as sore as I am to try and run them to school this morning”, Delight added hastily. “I am as tired and sore as three football players after an NFL playoff game. My thighs feel like they took a pounding. When you go in overdrive you have no regard for human life!”

  Preston liked it when Delight boosted his ego every now and then. It made him feel like he was worth something and that there was some sense of control that he owned in the household. It made us feel like King of the Jungle!!!!!!!! “That’s all a black man ever wanted every now and again was a little respect. Not let me walk all over you, but respect my ground and acknowledge me when I put in a little work,” Preston pondered. He was so lost in her words that it sent him into a deep daydreaming spell of what the perfect marriage was supposed to be like.

  “Uh-Umm”, Delight snarled snapping Preston out of his daydream. “We have to discuss some of your attitude from last night.”

  “Oh boy, here we go……” Preston replied rubbing his head and wondering what she was going to come up with now. Every time they got done having sex it always seemed like Delight found it to be the most opportune time to interrupt his flow of a perfect beginning. “Okay let me have it” Preston stated in a defeated tone.

  “See you’re starting already. Every time we get ready to have a serious conversation you just want to say whatever I want to hear just to get the conversation over with,” Delight yelled with her forehead at his chin. “Every time you get some you start acting stupid like you just had the “get dumb with Delight” juice. Just because we have sex doesn’t mean it solves all of our problems. Well, if you don’t want to talk about it just go ahead and do what you were going to do this morning and don’t think you going to be getting some any time soon”.

  Before she could finish Preston already had his book bag on and was on his way out the door with his keys dangling to put in the ignition. “She is so good to kiss on, but a ridiculous nag when it comes to the minutest things that don’t go her way,” Preston kept telling himself. “I’m sure that the cell phone will soon be ringing at least eight times before I even get down the street.” Preston why don’t you just listen to her and hear her out sometime before you go storming out the door like that? You know that she won’t let it go until you open yourself up and address the issue. “But when I address the issue she finds a way to make it like she is the one that is always right and she tries to argue me down about how wrong I am and the conversation just goes her way anyway if we are at it long enough,” Preston kept replaying in his mind.

  The cell phone began to vibrate in Preston’s pocket once again and he couldn’t believe it…..three voice mails already since he got on the the road! Preston figured she would just cool down after a little while and just leave the cell phone at Delight’s mercy. Preston just couldn’t figure out what it was about women and cell phones. Sometimes they would call and text so much that it would make someone just want to throw it out the window and feel the freedom from the thing for a few hours. But, no excuse exists for saying, “I threw the cell phone away for awhile” and Preston was sure that no female could ever believe that. “It’s a nice day here today in Columbus,” Preston twirled in his mind as he blasted “Da Truth” in his CD player on the way to school. “As a matter of fact it is so nice, that I think I will give Longs a call and see if he wants to play a little bit of Playstation 3”.

  Longs has been one of Preston’s best friends ever since they started seminary together. Knowing Longs was more than a blessing. For one, Longs was born and raised in Columbus and he graduated from Wilberforce University with a computer science degree. Everyone knows that in this day and age of computer programming there is lots of money to be saved when you know someone personally that can handle all of your IT problems. If there was ever a problem Preston had personally, financially, or humanly; Longs was there to help out any way that he could in any capacity. To make short work of it, Longs was down for whatever Preston had going on.

  Longs had his own house, the only child, and only one son to take care of. Some would say that he was spoiled, but Preston would just say that his mom and dad were real good at making plans together. He was ten years Preston’s senior, but spiritually they could speak about anything and could say anything to each other; because they
worked on a straight “keeping it real” basis. In other words, confidentiality and vulnerability was not at all foreign in their relationship to one another. Although, it was cool with Preston, Delight really didn’t like the fact that he was single, had his own house, and multiple women in and out of his life like music CD’s. But she could appreciate the fact that Preston knew someone that wouldn’t charge an arm and a leg to get the computer fixed if need be.

  “What’s going’ on black man?” Longs yawned into the phone.

  “Nothin’, bout to swing your way to see if you wanna get whooped up on some Madden since I’m not going to my first class.”

  “Come on I’ll be right here on Deshler in the basement, cat!”

  “Aight. I’m headed down the Pike right now getting ready to jump on 104. Peace.”

  For Longs, getting a game on the big screen in the basement was never a problem. He loved the fact that he could sit down with someone black and could talk politics about the poverty that went on in the country affecting the black community on a consistent basis. Not to mention their theological debates on the latest subject in class. Is the New Testament absolute truth? Why do we Christians even bother with the Old Testament? If it’s so old, why do we take bits and pieces out of the Bible and not just make it all anew? Those were just a couple of the questions that turned into seminary career debates between the two of them.

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  “Hold on black man”, Longs yelled up the stairs to come open up the door on the side of the house. “Man, I told you to just open the door, I unlocked it when I got off the phone with you!”

  “Oh, my bad I didn’t hear you say anything over the phone, I guess I just had a weak signal on the way in.”

  “No, before I could call you back, you left your Blackberry on and I heard you singing every damn song on the Tom Joyner Morning Show”, Longs replied irritably. “Anyway, what brings you on down with such short notice? I know something on your mind, because any other time I can’t beg you to take a break from that seminary library. I didn’t think all of that reading in the world could help me remember a thing”, Longs nodded with his head in between his legs with the joystick.

  “Well, once again your prediction is on point and I am just getting so sick of Delight giving me a headache every time we get done doing the nasty. I mean, I watch the kids while she’s in school, the house is clean, and she still finds something to rant and rave about. So I just had to get out of the house and relieve some stress for a couple of hours and there was no way that I could just sit in there another minute while she yelled up and down my neck like I stole her hair conditioner or something.”

  “But you have to think about it like this Preston. She just got home from class and that’s the only place where she can actually socialize outside of church and she was probably stressed out after dealing with that crazy cohort group of hers she keeps complaining to me about when I go over there. See, you don’t get it. You don’t know how to let a woman talk and keep your damn mouth shut until she done and you just finish the conversation with a simple, “okay”. But no! You gotta be Super Negro exchanging lyrical blows with the wife left and right until you find yourself over here playing some video games like your sons will be doing in a few hours,” Longs said with a smile. Longs knew that he was getting into Preston’s head, because Longs just scored on an interception and ran a kickoff back upon recovery. What made it worse was that Preston was playing with the Eagles against Longs’ faithful Cleveland Browns.

  “I don’t know how I’m lettin’ you beat up on me with a sorry Ohio NFL team. The only thing professional in this state are the Buckeyes and they can barely show up when it’s time to get into a championship game” Preston slammed down the joystick in cheerful disgust.

  “It sounds like your cell phone is going off you might want to answer it”, Longs said eyeing the flashing red light from the Blackberry that kept disturbing him in the dimly lit basement.

  “Man, I have been avoiding that for the last hour; let me turn this thing off so I can keep my sanity. I meant to keep it in the car until I got ready to go to the afternoon class. This is the last week before finals so I don’t even know if I’m goin’ to hit that one up.” Preston you know you are the only black person in that class and everyone will know that you are the only one missing if you don’t go. “As a matter of fact, I think I will go, because the devil ain’t about to take me down, he just gonna get another egg in his face after this round”, Preston stood up confidently getting his bag ready to head out the door.

  “Awe, here you go trying to run out of the door just because you getting whooped up on like Big Daddy on his baby last night,” Longs said waving his hand back and forth across his mid section. “Anyway, I might be up there a little later on so if you go the computer lab save me a seat, because you know most of the white folks at the seminary don’t care for me, because I tell it how it is.”

  “Alright, but if you don’t show up you know you sold me out like a Tyler Perry movie on Friday night”, Preston smirked on his way to the car in the driveway. “Tell your mom, dad, and little man I said what’s up.”

  III

  “This Christian Ethics class is boring,” Preston thought to himself seated in the front row of the classroom. What does it really matter if a female is trying to stay from an unwanted pregnancy by taking some birth control pills? Is it more Christian to get pregnant during high school and have a baby?

  “And that is what the Christian pastor in today’s world is called to address in the context of the 21st century,” the red headed female instructor concluded. “Well, this quarter has been lots of fun and remember to email me all of your finals exams that must be at least 6-8 pages addressing one of the discussion questions I have listed on the sheet of paper at your disposal. I will not be on campus at all during the last week and I will be at home in Chagrin Falls taking time out to do some housework and doing things with my full time job there.”

  Preston was good for taking a full load of classes and working a part-time job. Today was Tuesday and it was his day to be on call at OSU hospital as the overnight Chaplain. Preston really felt that he didn’t want any calls, because it was usually over someone that wanted a newspaper at two in the morning, even though it was the nurse’s job to handle such requests. It was a good job, just for the simple fact that Prestongot paid just to hold onto a pager no matter if he got called or not! No matter what, the money was rolling on in for a graduate student. Preston just sat back and thought how the Lord blessed him and his wife from virtually having nothing to sleep on, to being able to go to school, have two vehicles, and two jobs. He could remember those long nights as an undergraduate at Ohio State when he use to have to work at UPS from 10pm-3am Tuesday through Saturday and then go straight to a Saturday morning computer class from 8am-12pm. Thank God Preston enlisted in the Army so that he could get away from working from working for $8.50 an hour throwing boxes in and out of a truck with supervisors just yelling to go faster and faster like they were the ones doing all of the work. “Life sure does have its twists and turns” he began to meditate into one of his infamous daydreams of philolosophical thought. “Why does God make it so hard just to get where we need to go. If I knew I were going to do so many things before hand, I would have never been in undergrad school for five years nor would I have taken out so many loans to accumulate all of this debt for wanting to be an educated brother.” Some of the brothers back at home call it wanting to be “white” for hitting the books. I call it staying out of slavery. It’s so sad to look out the window at so many brothers and sisters that have warped their entire lives around twenty six inch rims and Cadillac Escalades. “Those vehicles are gas guzzlers, and who wants a guzzler during a recession? I will never come to understand the day where it actually makes sense for a brother to continuously sag in his pants like some toddler that has “doo-doo” all in their diaper. It just doesn’t make any logical sense for someone to walk abnormally and wear your shorts
like long pants in the summertime.” Preston just shook his head in confusion as he looked up and down

  Main Street

  on his way back to Longs’ house. “If this is the future that I have to look forward to, I am not so sure that I really want to see it,” Preston thought in oscillating fashion. It’s a good thing that you are married and living in the same house as your children; it’s just something we fail to see in America anymore. In some respects, that is the very reason why people envy you and your wife. You two are doing something that Christ loves and what the world hates.

  That was an encouraging thought, despite the fact that Delight has been running him up the wall since last night. Sometimes he felt like he was working more than one job, because every time he worked hard at making her happy she always found something negative to say about something. Pulling up to Longs’ house in his Chevy Cavalier Preston already knew he had to turn around because one of Longs’ playmates already took up the driveway stepping up to his door in stiletto boots and freshly manicured nails and open toe shoes to show off her pedicure. Lisa was up and at him as soon as she drug herself up the steps in a seductive state. Frankly I don’t know why he just doesn’t marry the girl. She cooks and cleans his house everyday and she is over his house everyday before and after work. I never knew someone so dedicated to just making someone happy. His mom and dad loves her, but I think he is just trying to find the perfect person that is out there, even though that person does not exist. If there were such a thing as perfect, I am sure there would be no reason for God to exist. After all, wouldn’t that just defeat God’s purpose?

  Preston and Lisa both knew this drill all too well, Preston would go and act like he forgot something, say hello to Lisa out of respect and march back on home; because Longs was actually the only person Preston ever thought was worth hanging around. “Hello, Miss Lisa”, Preston waved from the open window in his car.