Episode 6: Dirty Diana Part 1

Every time I think about this story, Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana" comes to mind.

In 2000, I was focused. All I cared about was doing well in school and excelling in football. I didn't want any distractions or any BS. I had a really good head on my shoulders. I'm still searching for that balance I had back in those days. In high school, my dealings with women were sporadic. I'll blame this on the final stages of puberty, my focus and being really insecure at that time. It was OK though; I didn't feel like I was missing anything. One evening I was talking to my mom while I was doing my homework. She started telling me about some girl at her job that was drooling over my football picture at her job. She told me she thought I was "fine", "sexy", and all that. This hit me pretty hard because I hadn't been called sexy since the 4th grade. I mean, I was a big guy in high school. Most high school girl's taste in men hadn't matured enough to accept a big guy as a mate. So, I was flattered as hell. I wanted to see what this girl looked like. I hoped she was fine and sexy herself, as compliments from unattractive girls don't really score you any points. My mom described her as short, brown skinned with braids. This was not sufficient. I needed to know more details. "Does she have a big booty?" I asked. My mom replied, "I don't know! I don't look at her butt!" I said "Mom, lies make baby Jesus cry". She stood her ground. I guess she really hadn't look at her booty before. Having "some kind of booty" is a non negotiable with me. It didn't have to be all huge, just curvy and cheeky. I'm flexible. I asked her if she could look at her ass for me the next time she went to work. She replied with "I guess” It makes me laugh thinking about asking my mother to look at a girl’s booty for me.

The next day my mom came back with news. "It's cool,” she reported back to me. "It’s cool? Anything else?" I said. She replied, "Well, she does have really big chest” I wasn't a breast man back then. I was on the verge of not giving this girl a chance. Then my mom took out a picture of her. She was all right. She was just a regular looking black girl. I couldn't see her breast in the picture because she had on a flannel. I fought with the thought of giving her a chance for a few days. I carried the picture around with me. I was at a stand still. Then I came up with an Idea. What better way to get help with making a difficult decision, than third party opinion? The first person I asked was my buddy Andre. I had to get a little creative on how I asked him his opinion of her. I took out the picture and asked, "If this girl liked you, would you hit it?" He said yes. Things were looking good for Diana but I needed that one more push. So I asked my home girl Nicole what her thoughts were. When approaching Nicole with the question, I made it seem like I was already dating Diana. Nicole replied, "She got some ashy lips!" One thing you could always count on with Nicole is keeping it real. Having ashy lips is certainly not a good thing. This was a strike against Diana. I came to my own conclusion. Why not give her a chance? She was OK looking. I could deal with ashy lips. I would just carry around Vaseline for whenever she needed it.

So my mom set it up. She brings her phone number back to me a few days later. Our first phone conversion was cool. We talked for maybe a good hour. It wasn't anything serious. Just the basics. She lived in Compton temporarily but was raised in LA. Her house was being fumigated so her whole family had to relocate to her aunt's house. First we would talk every other day. It eventually got to the point where we were talking everyday. All I was doing was having fun. I enjoyed our conversations a lot. Am sure she enjoyed them as well. Maybe a little too much.
First it started with a little harmless flirting, like when I would answer the phone she would say, “Hey sexy” or “Hey boo”. “Boo” was a name that always irritated me. Diana would just over do it. She would call me “boo” after every damn sentence. It honestly made me hate that damn word. Word got back to our parents on how good we were getting along. My parents teased me about how much we liked each other. I let them know that we were just friends. On Diana’s side this was not the case. Her whole family was ecstatic about the fact that we were talking. Diana’s mom was the most excited. I started hearing that Diana was telling her mom what we would talk about. My mom would try to verify the things she would hear. Things like me taking Diana with me when I go to college or how I was planning a getaway for Diana and I during spring break. This was all just a bunch of tall tales but I still played along. Even though she was a nice girl so far, I had no feelings for her and I wasn’t physically attracted to her. I knew our relationship took a turn when my I received a letter from her in the mail. I believe when someone writes you a letter that it’s a very personal thing.

When I opened the envelope, I was surprised when I found a picture made with color pencils. She had drawn two champagne glasses on a clothed table next to a bottle of champagne that read B+D. Above the champagne bottle was a heart with an arrow through it. She had drawn the picture with a lead pencil but traced over the outline of the glasses, heart, and champagne glass with its appropriate color pencil then colored inside each one. Diana was falling in love with me. Things started to get hot and heavy. We had started talking about sex and everything for a while. There were some conversations where she was playing with herself while we were talking. She would either tell me she was doing it or her moans and groans would tip me off.I do recall a few occasions where she'd actually let me hear as she was pulling her finger(s) in and out. That was hot. I won’t lie. She used to tell me that whenever we had our first date, she was going to pull me inside a woman's restroom and give me the blowjob of the century. This didn't sound too bad when she first said it but as it soaked in I had second thoughts. I think this was the time I was further developing my taste in women. Did I really want to be with a girl who would give a guy the blowjob of the century in a public restroom on their first date? No, I didn't but I couldn't tell her that. I wanted the blowjob on a subconscious level. We were weird generation. Oral sex would often come before sex. It wasn’t uncommon for one of the fellas to report back with “oh, we just kissed, I sucked her titties, fingered her, and ate her pussy” after hanging out with a girl.

A blowjob was something I had never experienced before. I was torn. I needed a second opinion and who better to give that opinion than my buddy Eli. Eli was only 17 but had extremely strong moral and ethical values. He was a die hard Christian but was guilty of leading on a few women in his lifetime. I knew he had experience. I called him up and ran the situation by him. He scolded me. I knew what I was doing was wrong but couldn't get passed what my flesh wanted. Eli brought me back to reality. I felt horrible and what was worse is that I had to face the daunting task of telling Diana my true feelings.

I chilled for a minute before calling her. I ate, played the video game for a bit and showered. I turned off all the lights in my room and turned on the radio. I was hoping to fall asleep to the music but I was too nervous. I had never let a girl down before in my life. This was really hard for me because I hate it when people are mad at me for any reason. As I lay there in my bed looking up at the ceiling with a sullen face, "I'm not in love" by 10cc comes on the radio. The universe was toying with me now. I got pissed and turned the radio off halfway through the song.
A surge of testosterone shot through my body. "I can handle this!" I thought to myself. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. "Fuck this shit! Imma just tell her wassup!" I said. The phone was ringing. "Hey!" someone answered. It was she. The way Diana used to say "hey" when she answered the phone always did something to me. It was a weird combination of annoyance and comfort. They canceled each other out which left only the cold feet I got when I heard her say "hey” I talked to her for a few minutes. It was mostly non-sense. I had to come clean. I was tired of stalling. "Diana, we have to talk about something,” I said to her. Unnecessarily prepping her for the bad news. "I really liked the stuff we were talkin' about earlier. I know you liked it too. But you know, after we got off, I sat back and thought about some things. I wanna apologize to you for the things that I said. I shouldn't have done that. I liked the things you were saying but I realized that friends don't do stuff like that. I mean, you shouldn't wanna give anybody a blowjob in a public restroom. That's not what a lady does ya know? I'm sure your future husband wouldn't be OK with that. Friends don't do stuff like that you know? We can still go to the movies like we talked about but as friends."










It was completely silent for a few minutes......






"Diana?" I asked. ".........Yes" she muttered. "Do you have anything to say?" I asked. She said no. I replied "why?" There was silence”……….” “Hello?” I said. “Are you there?” I asked. "I'M FUCKIN' HURT!" she said sadly. She started to cry. Loudly. I did it. For the first time in my life, I made a woman cry. It wasn't a good feeling at all. For about a cool 5 minutes she sobbed. I just listened in silence all the while thinking of what to say to make it all better. I just wanted it to stop. I should have just let her cry and let time heal her wounds. I wish I would have. I gave in. "We can still talk everyday. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't talk to you everyday. When I'm in class I look forward to hearing your beautiful voice." "Really?" she asked. My BS was working unfortunately. "Oh yes, I love your voice" I said. It was getting ridiculous. I was falling deeper and deeper into the abyss of untruth. She had stopped crying but I was still full of guilt. I felt like I needed to put a cherry on top. I said "Yea, you know it's ok if we're friends. I love being your friend. I think friends should actually love each other too” Can you see where this is going? Straight to hell. She asked, "So you love me?" "Yes, I love you Diana" I replied tentatively. I had dug my own grave. I knew good and well I had no feelings for this girl. Eli had told me what to say but he didn't prepare me for her tears.

We talked for a few more minutes then got off the phone. Around this time my brother and sister were in their beds asleep. It was weird, immediately after hanging up with her; I felt a strong sense of embarrassment. What had I gotten myself into? I had just filled this girl's head with poison. Little did I know, what I was about to experience would leave me permanently scared for life. Things were about to get real graphic.

To be continued…..

Hood Pastimes: Snapset Swimmingpools

Let's face it; it's hot in the summertime. Just accept it. So one has to find ways to keep cool. Usually we would just spray each other with the water hose. This was actually the norm. There were people that had in-ground swimming pools in Compton. Unfortunately, we only knew one person who had an in-ground swimming pool in Compton but he stayed on Pearl Ave and we lived on Cliveden. Regardless, his parents were total assholes about their swimming pool. I can't remember the guys name but who cares he was an asshole. We had to make our own summer fun with what we had.

Once or twice a summer, my mom would buy us one of those snapset swimming pools. You know those above ground pools that come in a box you could buy from J.J. Newberry or PIC-N-SAVE. They usually cost around $20. These round shaped pools were usually 8 feet wide and about 2 feet in depth. You could only really wade in it because it was too small to actually swim in. Usually, we brought our action figures in the pool with us to fight with them in a different element. We had a love hate relationship with our snapset pools. You'd like to think that you could go head and fill up the pool, play in it, and then store it for another summer. Not those cheap pieces of shit. Im gonna cover some of the snapset swimming pool rules we used to have and common annoyances. Im already getting pissed just thinking about what I'm about to write!!!

Proper set up

Do not, and i mean DO NOT, set up a snap set pool on unlevel ground. It took us a few times to learn this. Our backyard was always messed up so we could never use it back there. Unfortunately that was the best place for it. Although dirty as hell, the ground was balanced. We were forced to use it in the front yard. Front yards in general are made at a slant. Possibly to support the house? I don't know. So what you would get was a snapset pool with all the water leaning to one side. Over time this will wear on the sides making them unstable and sometimes causing spillage. We would try our best to set the pools up on the most even parts of the front yard. A few times we thought we had it right but the pool has its way of showing you that you fucked up. Somehow the water would end up leaning to one side anyway even though you thought you picked a good place. I used to feel like the pool was laughing at us behind our backs. Did it not want us to have a good time? Did it care about the embarrassment we suffered when we would tell our friends to come over for a swim and only to hear them say "What the fuck is this shit?" when they got there? Probably not.

Holes

Snapset pools and holes are like lips and herpes simplex 1: random, inevitable, and annoying. It seemed like no matter how careful we were, there was always gonna be hole somewhere. We'd notice the water level getting lower and lower. I know you're like, "Hey slapass, just put more water in the pool." Not at a old black person's house. We had a hard enough time maintaining the pool but actually filling it up with water was a challenge too. We lived with my great grandmother back in those days. I guess water was just like $50 a quart because she would complain about her water bill so much when we filled up that pool. Due to that, we could not refill it. So if a hole found our pool, we were out of luck. There is no repairing those holes because the pool itself is made out of cheap material. It was just a $20 piece of blue and white garbage after that. Just face it; if you buy a snapset pool, you might as well call yourself a pimp because you are gonna get holes. Teehee.

Grass and Mud

I can't stress this enough. Wipe your feet very well before putting them inside one of these things. So much effort was put into keeping these things grass and dirt free. Depending on how anal we were and what company we had, we did a decent job of enforcing this. We learned to keep a towel and a piece of card board at the entrance of the pool. This would work well at times. I mean, no one wants to dunk their head in the pool and come back up with grass in the corner of their eyes. It’s not a pleasant experience. The issues would arise when folks would still get in the pool with grassy and muddy feet.

One summer day, we invited our friends Charlie and Derrick over to swim. We cleaned and set up the pool with extra care so we could impress them. Charlie was excited but his brother Derrick was low key about it. I don’t know where Charlie and Derrick were born but they both had accents. Charlie had a weird way of saying the word “pool”. For some reason he would pronounce it as “pua” (poo-uuh). It took me a few minutes to digest this as the first few times he said it, I couldn’t help but laugh. We filled the pool up almost to the point where it overflowed. We had our cardboard and towel out for our feet and everything. Everything was going great. Until other kids in the neighborhood say how much fun we were having.

A few kids that I had seen in the neighborhood came over to ask if they could swim too. I told them it was ok as long as they kept their feet clean and didn’t mess up the pool. Next thing I know, there are 6 other kids in the pool and a few outside chasing each other. My plan was going to hell. Then one of the stupid kids decided to throw dirt at people. Dirt is a ridiculous choice to be used as a projectile. The dirt was flying all over and eventually made its way to the pool. Once they saw the pool already dirty, I guess they said “fuck it”. The pool was a mess now. One kid had his feet and legs completely covered in mud and jumped in the pool to clean himself off. He did this several times. I’m thinking to myself, “Really dude? This is just your bath tub huh?” Those kids were straight up users. I never heard from them again.

Snapset pools were fun. We always enjoyed them. When you think back sometimes, you see things from a different perspective. Even though they were cheap pieces of junk, we would never turn one down. You make do with what you have.