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HOW DO I GO ON?
by Lonnie Spry
Title
Specifications:
ISBN-10: 0-9792500-3-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9792500-3-3
Publication Date:
March 5, 2007
Trade
Paperback
Trim: 5.5 x 8.5
Qty/Case: TBD
Retail $15.00
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Prologue
The
day is starting off beautifully, Elbee thought. The sun was shining
bright, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the smell of freshly cut grass
was in the air. For a Friday morning in August, it wasn’t too hot and the
breeze was just perfect. In the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, it was
either too hot or too cold. Very rarely was the weather just right but today
was one of those days.
Elbee was headed to work. It was 7:15 a.m. when
he hopped into his most prized possession: a black 1999 customized Yukon
Denali with twenty-inch chrome rims, Coach leather seats, TVs in the head
rest, a DVD player and top of the line Bose stereo system. He was feeling
quite light on his feet this morning as he left Tasha’s house after making
love all night to the woman of his dreams.
He had been kicking it with Tasha since he met
her at his Mother’s birthday cookout. She had come to the cookout with one
of his mother’s co-workers and she was looking rather fine. Tasha stood five
foot, three inches tall with a luscious brown complexion and short hairdo
like Anita Baker’s. Elbee was not a fan of short haircuts, but at a first
glance she resembled Wendy Raquel Robinson, the babe who played Regina Grier
on the Steve Harvey Show; so he was willing to make an exception.
After the problems he had with his last girlfriend, Aisha, he wouldn’t have
asked her out if it wasn’t for DB pressing him.
Deante’ Barnes was Elbee’s best friend and had
been since they were in the seventh grade. They met when Elbee moved to
Maryland from Georgia when he was twelve years old. DB, which he preferred
to be called, was six feet one, two hundred pounds and bowlegged. He was
brown-skinned with a head full of curly hair. During his football playing
days, he starred at Suitland High School in Forestville, Maryland and the
University of Maryland before he blew his knee out. After receiving his
degree in telecommunications, he married his high school sweetheart and
though he was happily married, he liked living the single life vicariously
through Elbee.
Elbee was on the 95/495 Beltway headed towards
Rockville, Maryland, where both he and DB worked at Telecom Technologies.
After six months with the company, he was promoted to Outside Plant (OSP)
Engineering Manager, while DB was the Inside Plant Engineering Manager.
Every weekday morning on his drive to work,
Elbee listened to the Russ Parr morning show with Olivia Foxx. He was
laughing so hard at the show, he almost had an accident. Russ and Olivia
were doing one of their skits where they talked to a character named
Incomplete. He was called incomplete because he never finished his
sentences. Elbee was so into the show he didn’t even notice he was almost at
the office. There was very little traffic on the beltway, which was unusual
because there was always bumper to bumper traffic going into Montgomery
County. Traffic was so light that Elbee started wondering whether it was a
holiday he had forgotten about.
Elbee walked into the office to find everyone
laughing. He knew he was the butt of the joke when everyone saw him and they
laughed even harder. He asked what was so funny when he noticed his boy, DB,
in the middle of everything. Elbee walked up to DB and gave him a pound and
asked what was up.
DB said, “I was just telling them about the
bushes incident that you had about eight months ago.”
Elbee started to laugh as he thought about the
incident.
It was the middle of January and very cold. The
weatherman said it was 15 degrees and 10 degrees below 0 with the wind chill
factor. For it to be so cold it was still a gorgeous night. The moon was
full and the stars were shining brightly. Elbee was on a date with a young
lady named Monique. Monique was five feet four and black as the midnight sky
with extremely smooth skin. She had long straight jet-black hair, which
Elbee loved. She had a body that would make a brother scream. They met when
Elbee was at the grocery store with his mother. Elbee had talked to her on
the phone for about two weeks and she constantly tried to get him to come
over, but he didn’t want to see her unless it was guaranteed that he was
going to smash. On this particular Friday night, Elbee was bored and decided
to take Monique out to eat.
To ensure he would not be seen by any of his
other women, he took her to the Outback Steak House in Waldorf, Maryland.
Elbee asked to be seated in a booth in the back of the restaurant. He liked
the lights dimmed and they could talk without any interruptions. Elbee knew
he was in and had hit a home run when Monique said how much she liked the
restaurant and that she had never been there before. To him and his boys,
going there was some short shit they did for Happy Hour on a regular basis.
Elbee noticed Monique’s cell phone kept ringing,
so he told her it was okay to answer it. Monique became quite agitated once
she realized it was her son’s father trying to find out where she was and
whom she was with. Elbee didn’t think anything of the conversation. He
figured the guy was like a lot of guys who didn’t want to be with their
child’s mother, but didn’t want them to be with anyone else. The evening
progressed without any other incidents. Elbee was sure everything was cool.
Elbee was walking Monique to her door and the
two of them were doing a lot of kissing and touching. As Monique went to
unlock the door, her son’s father jumped out of the bushes and scared the
hell out of Elbee. The baby daddy’s high yellow complexion was now beet red,
because he had been hiding in the bushes waiting for her for hours. Monique
and the baby daddy started arguing and fussing, but Elbee was so shocked,
all he could do was tell Monique to unlock the door. When Monique finally
opened the door and went inside, Elbee turned and quickly headed for his
car. The only thing Elbee could think on the way home was what if that fool
was really crazy. He could have stabbed or shot him. At that moment, Elbee
told himself he would take his 9mm with him on all first dates. Monique
called a couple of days later but Elbee was not interested in anything she
had to offer.
Before everyone left the
office for the day, Steve the Engineering Director came into the office and
asked everyone not to leave. Elbee was in a hurry to get uptown to Mazza
Gallery. He wanted to hit Saks Fifth Avenue to get the Gucci loafers he had
the sexy little sales lady hold for him. He wanted to have a slick pair of
shoes to wear to Tyler Perry’s play, “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” But his
Gucci loafers had to wait. Elbee shook his head as he sat in his car. How
could a day that started so beautifully, end so badly? Steve saw to that—he
informed Elbee he had been laid off and now faced unemployment. As he rode
home and started dialing his Mother on his cell, he just wondered, “How do I
go on?”
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Lonnie
Spry