“But after awhile they got tired of wrestling with Big Bertha,” I continued after catching my breath. “And the deacons complained at their monthly meeting that Big Bertha was getting too much for them to handle. They were afraid that one Sunday she would overpower them and head down that hill out of control and hurt herself. The deacons were at wits’ end to come up with a solution. My grandfather suggested that the next time Big Bertha headed for the door and shouted, ‘Hold me back,’ nobody should budge. There were protests of concern, but Grandpa was head of the deacon board, and he promised to take responsibility for the outcome. So, Grandpa prevailed.” I stopped pedaling altogether.

  “What happened?”

  “That next Sunday as usual, Big Bertha got happy and headed straight for the door. When she got there, she flung her arms forward like she was fixin’ to run a race and shouted, ‘Hold me back! Hold me back!’ as usual. But this time, nobody got up, not the deacons, not the ushers, not even the nurses. Everybody just sat and looked. Even the Amen Corner was calm as a can of lard. Big Bertha repeated, twice more, ‘Hold me back,’ but still nobody budged.”

  “What did she do then?”

  “She straightened her floppy hat and went on back to her pew and sat down, she and the Holy Ghost.”

  “Did she ever get the Spirit again?”

  “Oh yeah, but from then on, the Spirit had a better sense of direction.”

  Phil ducked his head into the basement stairwell.

  “Y’all sure y’all don’t want to go to the ball game?”

  “Lord knows I shouldn’t be working this hard on a Sunday. But after I get this wash in, I just wanna be a good girlfriend this afternoon. I’m not interested in sitting out in the ballpark. I need a break from being an overworked mother and a regimented wife.”

  “Oh, please.” Phil groaned.

  “Besides, you and Jason need some father-son time,” Sarita continued.

  “Yeah, plus I get bored right after the seventh inning stretch,” I admitted.

  Phil joined us in the basement. “I’m glad to see somebody making use of that bike,” he said. “It usually just collects dust. And Sarita just had to have it.”

  “So what? Sarita paid for it with Sarita’s money,” she retorted.

  “You hear that, Dee Dee? Her money is her money, but my money is our money. Now, I ask you, is that fair?”

  “Life isn’t fair,” I answered, continuing to pedal. “That’s why I’m on this bike.”

  Sarita walked to the foot of the stairs and shouted, “Jason, stop running over people’s heads!”

  “Are you going to see the White Sox or the Cubs?” I asked Phil.

  “What a question,” Phil said, reaching for a Sox baseball cap on the table. “We’re Southsiders, what do you think?”

  “I guess I wasn’t thinking. I’m so used to being closer to Wrigley Field. I forgot where I was.”

  “You mean you forgot where you came from,” Sarita said, going back to her clothes.

  I rolled my eyes at her.

  “Baby, did you tell Dee Dee that the house across the street is on the market? Maybe she wants to rent out her condo and move back down here with her people,” Phil teased.

  “You need to get out more,” I answered. “Times have changed. My neighborhood is integrated with all kinds of people.”

  “It still ain’t home,” Phil replied. “Home is the ’hood.”

  Sarita shook her head as she loaded laundry into the washing machine.

  “It would take a crowbar to pry Dee Dee off the North Side.”

  “I need to be able to come in and out at night and feel relatively safe,” I explained for the hundredth time.

  “I don’t know why you don’t just get a gun and move back home. Most of the people around here are packing,” Phil said matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah,” Sarita agreed. “The only reason we don’t own a piece is because I’m wary, having a child around, especially a boy.”

  “There’s nothing happening down here,” I protested. “The South Side is dead, except for Hyde Park. All you can do down here is buy a house, raise a family and go to church and …”

  “And pray you don’t get killed, huh?” Sarita frowned.

  “You said it, I didn’t. I just said the South Side was dead, no pun intended.”

  “So, what they giving away on the North Side?” Phil asked sarcastically.

  “Nothing, but there are all kinds of restaurants, different cultures, nightspots, art galleries, recreational facilities. I’m not far from most of the blues clubs.”

  “We don’t need to sit up in a club to experience the blues,” Phil said. “We got all kinda blues around here. Mama across the street is on the pipe. There’s a grandmother trying to raise her daughter and her son’s kids. The daughter is sprung and the son is locked up. Several folks have got cancer. We got a boy across the alley who got shot six times and he’s in a wheelchair. We got plenty of blues around here. We ain’t no strangers to the blues.”

  “None of us are,” I answered. “But what you described is really sad.” I sighed and stopped pedaling.

  “It’s maddening!” Phil said, pulling off his baseball cap. “That’s why I’m in Mad Dads. We walk these streets. We try to turn people around. But despite our best efforts, some of them fall through the cracks. I’m taking a couple of boys to the ball game with us today who don’t know what a father is. That’s the norm now. Maybe I can make a little bit of difference.”

  “The truth comes out.” Sarita winked. “Phil wanted us to be chaperones. Tried to stick us with Bay Bay’s kids.”

  Bay Bay’s kids was a black expression for bad-ass ghetto kids. There was a low-budget movie with a single mother named Bay Bay who had kids who were outta control. And even though most people hadn’t actually seen the movie, the expression “Bay Bay’s kids” had spread across Black America.

  “You always got to be negative.” Phil groaned. “Did you give Dee Dee her surprise?”

  “What surprise?” I asked.

  “I forgot,” Sarita said apologetically. “Let me get it.”

  Sarita returned and held up a T-shirt. “It’s a belated birthday present from Phil. Don’t laugh.”

  “‘I LOVE BLACK MEN’? You all expect me to walk around with a T-shirt proclaiming in big bold letters I LOVE BLACK MEN?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Phil asked.

  “I’m a little shy, believe it or not.”

  “Show your love for the brothas.”

  “People have to earn love,” Sarita insisted.

  “There you go again, being negative. That’s why we in the shape we are today, cause y’all don’t know how to support nobody.”

  “We’re in the shape we’re in today because the white man gave y’all the load to tote and y’all turned around and put it all on your women,” Sarita snapped. “Too many brothas out here only care about their dicks and their bellies, excuse my language on a Sunday, but I’m just telling it the way it is. Being a faithful husband and a responsible father doesn’t even cross some of their minds.”

  “Preach, sista, preach,” I said.

  “That’s not me, though,” Phil said. “I’m a strong black man. And I’m a strong family man. I don’t run from my responsiblities. And there are plenty like me, but we just don’t get the spotlight. You can’t tell me I don’t do my part.”

  “You do a part, I will grant you that,” Sarita said, cutting her eyes. “But you could do more around the house.”

  “I try and help out. We just have different standards when it comes to cleanliness, that’s all.”

  “Okay, I believe in giving the devil his due,” Sarita conceded. “You’re a good husband and a good father and a good man.”

  Phil clapped his hands. “Congratulations. You were able to say all that without choking. Baby, you’re on a roll. Now, repeat after me: ‘Phil, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me! You’re the cream in my coffee. You’re the sugar in my tea.’”

  Sarita cut her eyes again. “Don’t make me curse on a Sunday.” She threw the I LOVE BLACK MEN T-shirt at Phil.

  Phil caught it and said, “Dee Dee, you wear this shirt, and I guarantee you’ll get results. Remember, you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to attract flies.”

  “Negative, negative, negative.” Phil draped the T-shirt over the bike’s handlebars.

  “Maybe I’ll sleep in it,” I said.

  “If you sleep in it, nobody’ll see it but your cat.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked defensively.

  “Sarita woulda told me if you were dancing in the sheets.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I said, glaring at Sarita.

  “I don’t tell him your business,” she cut in quickly.

  “You didn’t tell him about Skylar, did you?”

  “Is that the mediator?” Phil asked.

  “Sarita, you have a big mouth!”

  Sarita bit back her bottom lip and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, girl, me and Phil were gettting along for a change and it just sorta slipped out.”

  Phil gave me a puppy dog look and patted my shoulder. “Dee Dee, you should understand. After all, there’s nothing exciting for us to do down here on the South Side. So sometimes we just have to resort to gossip.”

  eight

  I know that diets don’t work. I’m not going to pretend to myself that I can stick to a low-fat diet based on willpower alone. That’s just not realistic. It doesn’t take into account why I eat and what’s eating me. Letting go of weight is one of the most complex things you can do. First off, you don’t want to lose weight. Because then you’ll go looking for it. Instead, you want to release weight. Scales don’t work, because people become obsessed with weighing themselves. When they gain a little weight, they eat to comfort themselves, and when they lose a little weight, they eat to celebrate. I learned all that from reading Thin Within by Judy Wardell.

  What I’m mainly doing is eating the foods I love, but cutting down on portion sizes and eating only when I’m hungry. I’m also saying no to sugary and high-fat foods most of the time, but not always, because then I’d feel deprived like a person in jail, and I’d want to bust out. I don’t eat or drink diet stuff because I don’t like substitutes and besides, the only people who eat and drink diet stuff are overweight. The trick to releasing weight is to think and act like a thin person, according to Thin Within. My goal is to cut way down on eating for emotional reasons. When I find myself heading for the fridge, especially at night, I will ask myself, “What do you really want?” Oftentimes, it isn’t food. Sometimes, I’ll call a friend or light candles and meditate or listen to music or take an aromatherapy bath or read or spend quality time with my cat. Sometimes I know I’m really hungry for love and none of that stuff totally works. That’s when I masturbate, and sometimes it’s really beautiful, but often, its just ends with a few intense jolts. That’s cool, because I just needed to release some tension. And it’s a lot healthier than binging and purging. Of course, I’d rather be hugged up with a man. That goes without saying.

  I still hadn’t heard from Skylar, and I was trying hard not to call him. I’d dialed his number a few times and hung up before the phone rang. I was seriously tempted to eat for emotional reasons. I was fighting loneliness and the memories of my stepfather that at times threatened to overwhelm me.

  I jumped at the chance to go swimming with Sharon at her downtown health club, high atop the Swiss Hotel. It was a healthy diversion and we needed to catch up. But swimming made me hungry. And it felt good to satisfy my hunger, I thought, biting into one of the green apples they gave away at the health club. Only an apple wasn’t quite getting it.

  “It’s funny, but I’m glad that I’m not in your position anymore,” Sharon said as we stood in the hotel hallway.

  “What position?” I asked, pausing to look at the view while we waited for the talking elevator. The window faced Navy Pier, and I automatically picked out the building that housed my radio station.

  “Waiting for some man to call,” Sharon said pointedly.

  I sighed as the elevator arrived and the mechanical female voice said, “Going down.”

  Sharon was practically a card-carrying lesbian now. She’d subscribed to the local lesbian rag and had attended a black lesbian conference at Malcolm X College. She was talking regularly to a sista she’d met there named Michelle. They’d gone out for coffee, but hadn’t kissed yet.

  “I don’t have to follow the damn rules,” Sharon crowed as we entered the empty elevator. “Why should someone have the power to initiate just because he has a penis?” I was glad that the door didn’t open at that moment.

  “I mean, what are you, chopped liver?” Sharon continued. “Why can’t you call Skylar your damn self?”

  The elevator stopped and a couple got on, then people got on every few floors. So I didn’t respond until after we each pocketed a few of the sample Swiss chocolate bars in the big goblets in the lobby.

  “You know why,” I said finally, as we exited.

  “Because if he’s really interested, he’ll call you,” Sharon answered in a singsong voice.

  “It’s true,” I insisted.

  “It’s sad but true.”

  “Give me credit, though. I’m not sitting by the phone, moping. I’ve been active, walking, taking belly dance classes, and we just swam. I’ve been seeing friends and having fun.” I savored the warm breeze blowing off the Lake.

  “You do have a life, thank goodness. But it’s just nice to be able to be yourself, romantically. When I was with men, I always had to calculate and premeditate. It was like I was playing a role. I’m so happy to be able to put down my damn script. Men and women play too many games.”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “What would happen if you were just yourself with Skylar? Just called him because you wanted to. What would happen if you felt just as free to suggest a date as he did? What would happen?”

  “The sample would be ample and he’d move on to a real challenge, that’s what would happen,” I answered quietly, as the doorman offered to hail us a taxi.

  “If you can’t risk being yourself, what’s the point?” Sharon asked.

  “That’s so retro.” I groaned. “We women haven’t been able to be ourselves since the seventies. I mean, you could live in T-shirts and jeans and still get a man back then. You could have sex on the first date and he still called you again. So long as you were willing to continue to have sex.” I chuckled.

  “You could even make all the moves,” Sharon agreed.

  “Then the eighties came and men were men again and girls were girls.” I sighed.

  “In the fifties, women weren’t allowed to say ‘yes’ and in the sixties and seventies, we weren’t allowed to say ‘no,’” I added. “Now, we’re caught somewhere in the middle. But we’re still not liberated. How can you be liberated if there aren’t enough good men to go around?”

  “Provided that’s what you’re looking for.” Sharon raised her eyebrows.

  “Unfortunately, it is,” I said. “In some ways I envy you,” I added wistfully.

  “Has it come to that? A straight woman, envying a lesbian,” Sharon whispered as the doorman deposited us into a cab. “Wonders never cease,” she chortled.

  “I have no desire to be a lesbian,” I whispered back. “It’s just that a good man is so damn hard to find.”

  “Dearborn Park,” Sharon told the taxi driver.

  “Don’t look at that spot on the carpet,” Sharon ordered as we entered her townhouse.

  “Now I have to look,” I said, staring at the dark spot on the turquoise rug.

  “I’m so pissed. My sublettors spilled red wine and I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I guess it could’ve been a lot worse. Aside from that damn spot and using the wall for a dartboard, I got off light. I kept most of their security deposit.”

  “They didn’t really use it for a dartboard, did they?”

  “No, but they hung so much shit on the wall, they may as well have.”

  “Where’s T?” I asked, following Sharon into her living room.

  “If you don’t hear any loud music, that means she’s not home. Enjoy the peace.” Sharon turned the stereo on to V103, a popular soul station with a nice mix of hits and dusties.

  “It seems like yesterday, when our parents were yelling at us to turn down that daggone music,” I reminisced as I settled into a stuffed denim chair.

  “Yeah, but at least we listened to real music. You can’t compare Motown to the mess they call music today. I could make a rap CD myself. You don’t even have to be able to carry a tune now,” Sharon said, walking toward the open kitchen area.

  “Remember, they said that we couldn’t compare Motown to Billie Holliday and Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald?”

  “Yeah, but nobody could’ve predicted this,” Sharon called from the kitchen.

  “Some of it’s not bad.”

  “You’re not subjected to it as much as I am.”

  “Well, what’s up with your youth?”

  “We got into it.” Sharon returned with glasses containing a sparkling fruit drink.

  “About what?” I sipped my drink.

  “Curfew. She thinks she’s all of a sudden grown. Comes in and out when she gets ready.” Sharon headed back toward the kitchen.

  “How late did she come in?”

  “It was after eleven,” she said over her shoulder. “And I’m not going to have it. If she makes her bed hard, she’s gonna have to lie in it.”

  “Where have I heard that before?”