PUSH NEVAHDA
The
Legendary, Infamous, and
Colorful
*Vicious Circle*
(Yes, the actual people as portrayed in the book)
".....Seated at the table are the typical eclectic looking group of educated, bourgeoisie wannabe, brothas and sistas who are arguing and debating about whether or not Maya Angelou’s poem, Phenomenal Woman, has any merit or not. As they argue back and forth, Jimmy looks at me and shakes his head and whispers, “Man, they been talking that shit all night.” It wasn’t that Jimmy didn’t appreciate the discussion, but that the argument always got loud and drowned out the DJ, and made the other patrons stare and grim the cats for talking too loud. Everybody didn’t wanna hear that shit, and most folks weren’t even up on interesting intellectual debates such as this one. Their attention spans couldn’t move beyond Beyonce and Jay Z or who 50 Cent was screwing, or the new Kanye West track that was about to drop. They could give a rat’s ass about Cornel West though. That was cool and all good but Jimmy wanted all his customers to be comfortable and respected, and I could dig that. He tells me that these cats—a bunch of cantankerous college students, wannabe-poets, and “spoken word artists” that know Gypsy—have been at it all night, arguing about Phenomenal Woman. I overhear Jimmy telling the young sexy waitress to send over a round of drinks to the table and to put it on my tab. “Who? What table you talking ’bout, Jimmy?” Jimmy, busy pouring drinks for a deuce-top that just walked in and sat at the bar, turns to the young new waitress and agitatedly remarks, “Over there, Keisha. Take it to Push Nevahda and the Vicious Circle.” He glances over at me and winks with a smile. I nod my head and return the grin. I knew what Jimmy meant and he knew that I knew what he meant. He was really referring to me, BJ, Gypsy and Carmen, and whenever I sat with anybody he would refer to my table as the ‘Vicious Circle’ because I always brought the drama.........."
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Peaches
"......Peaches was trying to impress BJ because she was sweet on him, and, likewise, BJ didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his standing with Peaches. .... So, I knew that ... I had to convince BJ to talk to her and let her know that it would please him if she got down with the plan. I pulled Boogie into the restroom to run down that plot to him....."
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Sparkle
".....While everybody talked shit, bullshitted, and drank more Hennessey, Hpnotiq, and cheap gin, Peaches was beginning to piss me off .... I wanted her to unwind and get her drink on so she could be more easily persuaded for the the activities that I had planned for later. So, I kept offering her more to drink. She kept on declining at first, but, as time went on, and the more she got comfortable, she acquiesced... B-boogie was good and Spark was already becoming the life of the party.
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Baltimore Pussy
".....My cell phone vibrated with a call from a ‘Baltimore Pussy’. Oh! That’s Debbie! She had received the IM note that I’d just sent to her and called to confirm my trip to Baltimore. I’d met her on Black Planet and we’d planned to meet in Baltimore where she lived just on the outskirts of DC...."
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Push Nevahda
"....I knew that I could get a good plate of chicken wings and do some soulsearching and see some fat asses, dance off some stress, and make new friends. Folks be eatin’ wings and fish sandwiches, trash-talkin’, dancing to loud ass music, and lying to each other about their marital statuses, jobs, and the number of children they got. I fit right in...."
click on pics to go to Gypsy's MySpace Page
...Carmen, BJ, and I wrapped our ears around the discussion eager to hear how Gypsy would present her always brilliant and insightful perspective..... On the other hand, Gypsy likes smokin’ blunts, philosophizing and theorizing on just about anything from Plato to South Africa. She is definitely the brains of the Vicious Circle, and she loves black people, the Artists Village, intellectual conversations, Africa, African men, and.… smokin’ blunts. I attribute her talkativeness to her blunt smokin’ and often times her vociferous ruminations can lead to heated arguments. I thought that I could run my mouth, but Gypsy out does me to a voluminous degree. Yet, she is very smart, and her friends love to be around her. Yet, the bud, I believe, heightens and propels her already highlyignited sense of intellectuality, and, she never allows for even the most remote crack through which you might possibly get a word in, edgewise. On the downside, I think her excessive blunt-usage potentially creates an intellectual crisis where she gets too high and starts rambling and pontificating ......
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White Bitches....
"...At another table near the center of the bar, but closer to the front door, I spotted a table of women I had not seen at Willie’s Place before. I slowed my pace as I walked by them so as to make eye contact, check out cleavages, and see who would be the first one I would chose to dance with. Two of them were sistas, and the third one was a white girl. Not the typical Appalachian white trash, though. She was different. I could tell that she was educated, had a good job, and, perhaps, a modicum of class. The white-trash type never do anything for me. ... I stopped the passing waitress and told her to give the three women whatever they were drinking...."
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Grace
".....Grace, a 56 year old college professor, mother of my best friend, Fish, and the woman that I’d started fucking right after my break-up with Duchess, awoke at the sound of my nervous body movement, slipped on her night-gown and slowly moved around to the edge of the bed to stand her small, curvaceous, and aged frame in front of me. She looked both puzzled and spooked but, like most nosy women, she asked me what the matter was about, but I shrugged her away and took a deep breath while silently asking myself why I continued to bother myself with fucking her. But now was not the time to waste on such an ultimately frivolous question (partly because it was the best sex I’d ever had, and partly because, through all of the darkness that had been my life up to the point I’d started dating her, she had managed to pull me up from the filth and gutter of Detroit’s tragicomic culture and the nefarious eastside streets and introduce me to James Baldwin as well as other authors whose works would eventually change my life)."
click on pic to go to BJ's BlackPlanet page
BJ
".....When I returned to the hotel in the early hours of the next morning, after a wild night of partying with BJ and Carmen and whatever woman I could always persuade to “join us for drinks,” I headed downtown with BJ sitting in the passenger seat unusually drunk and bent on how “fine that bitch Carmen is, man. Ooooo, I wanna eat her pussy.” I laughed at him as I glanced over at him to watch him seething and writhing in the seat now mad at himself for yet again refusing to make a move on Carmen. It was funny to me because BJ always froze up with women that I would introduce him to no matter the context, place, time, or whatever. And I never understood his bashfulness because he is a handsome brotha and has a lot to offer any woman, yet, he rarely has the guts to be as outgoing and gregarious as a single guy ought to be. I think that he has always kind of envied me—in a good way—for being gregarious, funny, witty, and flamboyant. (I am so flamboyant that one of BJ’s female friends from Willie’s Place asked him if I was gay.) It frustrated me too that BJ never got the girl because I’d always worked diligently to put BJ in the position to present Carmen or any other girl with his best presentation, but, with Carmen, he always folded under the pressure of her fairly good looks, somewhat pleasing personality, and her great ass that she’d always treat us to a glimpse of whenever she deliberately excused herself from the bar to go to the ladies room. She always walked away from us in what seemed to be slow motion with a walk that accentuated the thick and ample curvatures of her meticulously supple and sculpted ass. And, like always, BJ would melt and bury his head in his arms and grab his crotch before taking another sip of his cranberry and gin while shaking his head..."
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Carmen
Carmen is a Carmen's a bit of a snob. She used to be that way towards me in the beginning of our relationship but once she got to know me she lessened her insidious insults to a simmer. She’s high-yellow, sexy, pretty, stylistically aesthetic, smart, corporate and quite the daring girl given her elite corporate status (which she covets like a Tiffany ring). I don’t think that Carmen is a snob towards me anymore, but she certainly limits the kind of relationship that the both of us could have. For instance, our conversations are always limited to the frivolous, scandalous, and mediocre social stuff rather than anything of real substance, importance, and meaning. I think that she refuses to engage me on such a level because she really does not consider me her intellectual equal. And it’s ok! Like a good petit bourgeoisie woman....she likes and appreciates those close encounters with the absurd and the primitive—that would be me! In my world, she can experiment, experience, and expunge. That is, experiment with new forms of communication, dress codes, social style, and romance; experience new ways of acting, perceiving and being; expunge the old Carmen for the new. In my world she is comfortable trying out new hairstyles, fashions, etc., and she does it in a totally uninhibited manner. With me she doesn’t have to be snobby, pretentious, or presumptuous. In fact, she can be everything and anything that her corporate lifestyle won’t necessarily allow.
