Page 41 of Play Hard
“I been waiting for this day. Knew you wasn’t shit!”
The sound of the door clinking, locks engaging as I—a sixteen-year-old, one hundred-and-thirty-seven-pound, Black boy—sat in a cell, rushed through me with every ounce ofintensity it had at the time. Now, I was glad for the truck right behind me, else my knees would’ve surely buckled, taking me to the ground.
Instead, I leaned all my weight onto the vehicle, willing the tears not to fall and the pain that I harnessed deep inside to calm.
“Noah,” she called softly, and I shook my head, hoping that one movement would keep her still. I didn’t want her touching me right now, didn’t know if I could survive her pity in the moment I needed to tell her—this woman that I loved from the deepest depths of my soul—yet another horrible thing about me.
“No.” I spoke so softly I wasn’t sure if she heard me. But when I opened my eyes it was to see that she was still standing in that spot, tears ready to spill. I clenched my teeth because there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep this woman from ever having to cry over or about me.
She said she’d cried after our break-up, even though she was the one who orchestrated it. The fact that after being angry as fuck the rest of that day, I shed a few of those same heartbroken tears myself would remain a secret.
“I told you about that night, about my arrest and ending up at the House instead of in juvenile detention.” I forced my gaze to lock in on hers. “I told you how I went to college with the plan to prove everyone in this town wrong.”
“Yes.” She nodded. A tear streamed down her cheek. “And I told you that you were a child forced into an adult position of taking care of your mother. It wasn’t a leap that you would also protect her like a man.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “That’s what you said.” And her words had melted my heart…then and now. “After I graduated from Cheyney, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew that it was gonna take more than a college degree to prove all those naysayers wrong. Last I’d heard from Rock, hewas finding success in the wrestling ring out west, so I packed my bags and headed in that direction. As usual, trouble found me before I could find success. Got into a bar fight protecting a woman from her bitch ass boyfriend who thought she’d look better with a black eye than the short ass skirt she was wearing.” But it had felt good as hell breaking that bastard’s jaw. “Landed my ass in jail again. I didn’t have any money to make bail, and I wasn’t calling any of the guys. They were all running from their own demons, I wasn’t about to add to their shit.
“The next morning the woman from the bar showed up with her daddy, Osiris Cumberland, a bigtime movie producer. He bailed me out, and later that night, his daughter, Alexis, thanked me with her body. So, I got a new girlfriend and a job coordinating fight scenes and being a stunt double. I got into some heavy steroid use in those early years, but after a while I wised up, got me a real trainer, and stopped using.”
“Smart move,” she said, her voice steadier than it had been before. She had also clasped her hands in front of her now.
“Yeah, strange thing is I don’t make those too often.” I know I sounded weak with that admission and my ego bristled mightily at the thought. But it was one of the most honest things I’d ever said. I could admit that I was born into a bad situation, dealt a hand of cards that were hard as fuck to play when I was too young to really know what was happening. Beating my mother’s boyfriend until I knocked his funky ass out and he fell, hitting his head on the edge of the entertainment center so that he was lying right next to my mother when the police came, wasn’t a decision I coherently made. It was a reaction, one of a boy who’d grown tired of watching his mother be abused and who, in the instance of this particular bastard, had been verbally abused himself. The thirty-three-year-old man understood that, just as I understood that everything I did after that was a conscious decision.
I knew right from wrong, and after sitting in that jail cell alongside real criminals, I had an up-close and personal look at the consequences. So each time I decided to beat somebody’s ass instead of walking away and protecting my own damn peace, I was making a choice. I chose to punch that guy in the bar in L.A., chose to break his jaw and give him a matching black eye to the one he put on his girl. I chose to take those steroids, knowing the side effects and addiction possibilities.
There was another word I could do without hearing in my life again.
I cleared my throat. “I was twenty-eight, working on location in India on the next installation in the Denolta Syndicate action franchise.”
“Oh, wow,” she said, eyes wide. “I know that franchise. Loved all five movies, and that’s saying something since I don’t normally like sequels.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s one of the better ones. Donovan Media produced it and they don’t play about the quality of their films.” I cleared my throat again because this next part was more of what she didn’t already know. “It was a routine fall from a plane. I’d done it in half a dozen other movies, but on this day…” I shook my head.
She gasped. “Wait, what exactly is a ‘routine’ fall from a fuckin’ plane?”
I finally released my clenched fists, bringing one hand up to scrub the back of my neck. “It was during a touch-and-go landing when my safety belt broke, and instead of remaining suspended in air until the dramatic, but planned, fall into the tarp, I was released too soon, missed the drop point by a hundred stupid ass feet, and landed in a heavily forested area.”
“Noah,” she cried.
“Multiple lacerations, a concussion and a fractured spine.” I said that part fast and before she could move or say anotherword, I blurted out the rest, “The Donovans were great. They paid for all my medical bills, flew me back to L.A. for surgery and physical rehabilitation, and continued to pay me a disability rate until I was cleared. I spent the next year on my couch popping pain pills because every time I breathed, I hurt.”
Tears streamed down her face, and I hated every moment of this confession that was both necessary and annoying as fuck. I wasn’t supposed to tell this story again. Wasn’t supposed to revisit yet another disappointing time in my life. Yet, here we were.
“I’m not proud of it,” I continued. “Not the addiction, and definitely not being so wrapped up in my own misery that I didn’t see my roommate was also doing drugs… until he OD’d and I found him naked in a puddle of vomit on our bathroom floor.” Now, my eyes stung and I scrubbed both hands down my face. “I packed my shit at the same time I packed up all of his to ship to his father. Then I checked myself into rehab. The day I got out, Rock called to wish me a happy birthday. I hung up with him and came…home.”
She was sobbing now. Not a loud, toss yourself on the top of the casket sob, but that irritatingly quiet one where you only heard the slight hitches in breathing, saw the jerking of the shoulders, and hated every fuckin’ tear that fell.
“Noah.” Her lip quivered as she said my name. “You can’t blame yourself for his death. Or for any of the things that have happened. You…”
“Don’t do that.” I shook my head.
She frowned. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t stand there and say it’s okay. That everything I just told you didn’t make you think less of me.”
“I—”
“Because I know that’s bullshit. I know I fucked up. I knew better. Had been through this shit before with the steroids that Ithought I needed to keep the career that was supposed to prove I wasn’t the piece of shit everybody thought I was.” My temples throbbed with frustration.
