Chapter Thirteen: Wake Up Alone

It's been six months since Shirley broke up with Dallas. Six months, 15 days, 3 hours, 36 minutes and 15 seconds. As much as Dallas hates to admit it, he misses her. Every time the clock ticked by, his apartment felt colder, lonelier. She'd came back two weeks ago to retrieve her things; Dallas purposely started an argument, trying to look for that spark, that fire in her that wanted them back together. But to his disappointment, she didn't even put up a fight; she grabbed what she could and crammed it into her car. And when he became a little too much, she sent what appeared to be her brother up to his apartment, hand on the pistol tucked in his pants as a warning.

He'd let him take what he could grab, pocketed little trinkets of Shirley into the seats of his couch to remember her by. He stood out on the porch when the brother was finished, watching that car pull off down the street, his memories and half of their shit leaving with it. After that, despite what his friends insisted he didn't do, he went looking for her all over town, but always wound up empty-handed. It's like she disappeared into thin air; the closest thing he had was some gossip among the black girls at the hair salon down 65th that said she'd moved to Atlanta to be with family.

He was crushed, but not as bad as when he came home to see a package with no return address and when he opened it, it was all the love letters they'd sent each other during their relationship. The note, in Shirley's handwriting, saying, 'I decided to send these back. Too many memories. Please stop looking for me. I'm not trying to be found.'

It took everything he had not to slip into a fit of rage and angst.

He has to self-preserve. He did it with Johnny. He'll do it with Shirley.

"We need to talk, man."

Dallas is nursing a hangover while Miguel wrings out the dish rag he used to mop up his friend's vomit. Miguel drapes the freshly cleaned dish rag over the counter and walks over to Dallas with ginger ale.

"I think you have a drinking problem."

"Mind your fucking business. I ain't got no drinking problem." Dallas snaps, snatching the glass of ginger ale and downing it in seconds.

"Better watch your tone, man. I'd hate to kick you while you're down but you keep pushing it. Look, I know it's hard to accept, but it's not normal or healthy to run through your entire liquor cabinet in less than a week."

"It's none of your business."

"It becomes my business when I have to take time away from my pregnant girlfriend to play nurse." Miguel holds out the bucket for Dallas to vomit. "You're going down a downward spiral, man. I'm telling you, if you keep drinking the way you're drinking, it's only going to get worse." He averts his eyes.

"You stopped going to the meetings. Brother Zulu was asking about you today. I think you attending some of the meetings could do you some good…"

"I don't want to go to the fucking meetings." Dallas groans out.

"You need to go! You owe them; you think they liked patrolling your neighborhood to find the culprits who lit a cross in front of your apartment? You attending the meetings is just a token of gratitude. It's the least you could do." Miguel retorts.

"I can't. I'm hungover." Dallas says, massaging his temples.

"That's fine. The meeting's tomorrow at 8 AM. I'd better see your ass bright and early when I pick you up."

"You got to be fucking kidding me…"

"No, I'm not. I will pick you up and you'd better be ready to go. You hear me? No. Fucking. Excuses." Miguel spits. He slides the bucket at him. He makes his way to the door.

"No excuses, Dal. I mean it." Miguel says, before closing the door in a soft click. Dallas slides even further against the couch, sighing.

He might as well go.

Brother Thomas owes him four dollars, anyway.

True to his word, Miguel picks him up bright and early. He was tying the last shoe when he heard that obnoxious horn coming down his driveway.

The meeting went pretty smoothly; he helped serve kids their breakfasts, listened to many of the Panthers' correspondence with the headquarters in Oakland, and he finally gotten that four dollars Brother Thomas owed him. He was about to consider leaving when he feels a hand on my shoulder.

"Dallas, right?"

He turns. It's an elderly black man, with thick glasses and a beret perched on his wild gray curls.

"Brother Miguel has told me about your…affliction. My name is Prophet Gray." The man smiles a soft smile, holding out his hand. Dallas shakes it.

"Miguel told you about me?" Dallas asks, slightly annoyed.

"He most certainly did. He was worried about you. It's no judgment. I've been in your shoes many times, Brother. I'm not perfect."

"I don't have a problem—"

"—we always tell ourselves that. 'I don't have a problem, I just like the way it tastes'. 'I don't have a problem, I can stop whenever I feel like it'. Now, don't give me that look. I'm telling you I've heard it all before and I've said it all before."

Dallas grinds his teeth in annoyance.

"I don't have time for this…"

"When you do have time," Prophet Gray hands him a sheet of paper.

"I'll be waiting."

Prophet Gray walks off, leaving Dallas with the piece of paper. He reads it.

It's his number.

Dallas crams it in his pocket.

"So, what you think about my man? He good, right?" Miguel asks. Dallas drums his fingers on the dashboard.

"The fuck you tell him I had a drinking problem for?" Dallas snarled.

"Well excuse the fuck out of me. But he's a good man. Trust me on this. He helped Amara with her heroin addiction. Turned her whole life around and then she met me." Miguel replies.

"Well, what does he do?" Dallas asks.

"Some Witch Doctor shit. He from Haiti. Started chanting some mumbo jumbo, gave Amara a potion and boom! She couldn't even think about smack without getting sick. He's a Magic Man, Dal."

"I smell horse shit. If he's so good, how come he was an alcoholic and got cured? He did the spells on himself?" Dallas fires back. His lips pull in a smug smile.

"There's no telling with him. I think he did, or his wife put it on him and taught him everything she knows. Them Creole women, boy," Miguel twirls his finger.

"Dated one for the first time. Couldn't eat spaghetti and always checked my underwear drawer for anything missing."

"Why?"

"Date a Creole, or any woman from Louisiana. You'll see." Miguel says with a knowing laugh. They pull up to Dallas' apartment.

"You coming to the meeting, right?" Miguel asks, "Same time next week?"

"Yeah." Dallas answers. When Miguel's car peels off, he turns to get inside his apartment.

"Look, Pony, Can I…crash over at y'all place? It's kinda…lonely, over here."

Dallas clutches the phone. The empty bottle of whiskey stares back at him, mocking his slurred speech. The radio plays a love song, wrenching memories of his broken relationship with Shirley. He can't be in this apartment anymore. It's too many memories, too many reminders of what he had, what once was.

"Are you…do you want me to pick you up, Dal? Darry let me drive the car…"

"N…No. I'll come to you."

"Dal, you're three sheets to the wind. I'll come get you. Hold on…"

"Forget it, Pony. Fuck." Dallas hangs up. He tries to stand, but the blood rushes to his head too fast and he buckles. He collapses on the couch. He can't move; his body won't cooperate. He has to sit in this hell, suffer for his sins in this apartment that feels like it's smothering him.

The eviction notice is stamped on his bedroom door, a reminder of his failure as a man, as a provider, as a lover. Those angry red letters hurt his eyes; he shuts them.

His nose picks up on a sweet smell. Like someone is baking Snickerdoodles. Those things were Shirley's favorite…

Dallas swore he smelled cinnamon and sugar. He could smell her. Digging into the couch, he plucks a garment of Shirley's. It's her pen, the one that started their relationship. He wants to let go of it, throw it in the trash, but he can't. he thumbs the engraved letters of her name, trying to find comfort.

It stopped giving him comfort when he learned she wouldn't come back for her pen, no matter how much she loved it. Guess she didn't love it as much as she thought she did.

He needs a touch, a kiss, a feeling to fill the numbness.

Shirley isn't coming back.

He needs a replacement, even if it's just for one night.

A girl giggles behind him when he opens the door to his apartment. It's a dark-skinned black girl with long hair and go-go boots that smells like cigarette smoke and got a beauty mark on her thigh. Her miniskirt is hiked up to high heaven with a blouse that displayed her hard breasts.

"You sure you're good to have fun, sugar?" she asks, planting kisses on his neck.

"Get inside." Dallas bites out. The girl's smile fades slightly, but obeys. Dallas guides her into his bedroom and turns on the lamp.

"So, for a wham-bam, thank you ma'am that'll be $150, suck costs $80, butt stuff will cost you—"

"Can we…sleep together?"

"Yes, I'm explaining..."

"No, not fuck." Dallas lies on his side, patting the bed.

"I just want to have someone in my arms tonight."

The girl purses her lips.

"No sex?"

"No sex."

The girl relaxes. She slides into Dallas' arms quietly, her tiny frame almost swallowed up in Dallas'. He tucks her hair away to kiss at the back of her neck. She gasps, but lets out a soft hum of approval. Dallas listens to the girl's breathing before falling asleep.

He wakes up, to find his bed empty and the cash that was supposed to go to groceries gone.

He'd never even got her name.