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The sounds of the staticky TVs, blaring radios, and laughter ricocheted off the thin walls as we creaked up the stairs. When we approached his mother’s door on the third floor, we both began adjusting ourselves to be more presentable. He knocked on a door with a small metal latch attached to the peephole and we heard a little girl with a raspy voice ask who it was.
“That’s my niece.” Randy grinned.
When she opened the door I almost fainted. She was the ugliest little thing I ever saw. No more than seven years old, she had mounds of fat that caused her eyes to chink up from the pressure. Her cheeks hung down like the jowls on a bulldog. A ruffly, flower print dress didn’t help and the ghetto hairdo wouldn’t have been complete if her mother hadn’t put the whole pack of barrettes on her two inches of hair.
“Uncle Randy!” she said, opening her arms for a hug.
“How’s uncle’s princess?” he exclaimed.
Princess? I wondered as I looked at the blob.
I quickly scanned the room and it was nice and clean for where his mother lived. Pictures in vintage wooden frames aligned the walls and her aged dining room table sat proudly in the center of the room. A centerpiece was attempted with a tacky arrangement of discount store plastic flowers.
“Hi. My name is Alize,” she said, smiling, extending her chubby little hand.
“I’m Asha, and how are you doing?”
“Fine. Happy Thanksgiving.”
The whole time we were standing there, Randy stared at this kid as if she was a jewel. I struggled to hold back my disgust. Simply looking at that child should be enough reason for condom usage.
“Where’s Mommy and Nana?” he asked.
“They’re in the kitchen,” she said, skipping into one of the back rooms.
“Asha, you want something while I’m in the kitchen?”
“No, thanks.”
When he passed through the long amber-colored beads that led into the kitchen, I heard an uproar of joyous greeting from his mother. I took off my coat and laid it down on a stray chair next to the antique grandfather clock. As I began looking at family pictures, a thin, gray-haired woman with a warm smile approached me.
“Asha, I’m junior’s mother. It’s so wonderful to finally see your face,” she said, giving me a hug.
“Nice to meet you too, Ms. Thompson,” I said, flashing my brightest smile.
“You’re so pretty, now I know why junior’s been so crazy about you.”
I smiled uneasily at the sound of the man I sleep with being referred to as “junior.”
“Make yourself at home. I’m putting the finishing touches on dinner right now.” She beamed and went back into the kitchen. I heard heavy footsteps behind me and I turned around. What I met was a three-hundred-pound, high-yellow woman wearing a bright orange spandex and a Little Kim T-shirt.
“You must be Velma,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah, who are you?” she said, beating the flour off her humongous thighs, sizing me up.
“I’m Asha, your brother’s friend.”
“Never heard of you, but hi,” she said, waddling into the kitchen.
I stared sorrowfully at her blonde finger-waved head, which looked minuscule in comparison with her enormous bulk. She also had a mug on her, not as bad as her daughter, Alize, but she was definitely a runner-up.
It amused me to see pictures of Randy’s evolution from infancy to adulthood but one in particular interested me. It was a photo of Randy and a pretty, light-skinned girl with long black hair. It said “Forever” on the bottom in pink bubble letters with a thin paper frame like it was taken at a fair. They were obviously in love because he was gazing at her the same way he looks at me now. I was curious to find out why they broke up, to see if there was a way I could repeat whatever went wrong.
Velma thundered back into the room and stood there eyeballing me again. It was now obvious that she’s one of those fat chicks who can’t stand thin women, so I had to flatter her to get the information I wanted. I quickly remembered seeing an awful picture of her at a prom with her pitifully scrawny-looking date. They looked like the simp and the blimp, but I could tell by her facial expression in the shot that she thought they had it going on.
“You looked really nice at your prom, what year was that?”
“Thank you, I think it was ’81, when the Sugarhill Gang was big.”
