Heartbreak Yoga

“Cheer up, brother. You’re making everyone sick with all that worrying.”

“I can’t help it, Spidey. All my abusers are dead. My mother is dead…” Rook explained.

“I thought you hated that bitch.”

“I didn’t hate her. I just wanted her dead.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you’re so anxious. It’s making my skin crawl.”

“Spiderbabe, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never said to anyone. Today is the day. This is day I’m going to die.”

Spider put her palm to her face in front of her eyes and let out a deep sigh. 

“I’m not going to untie you,” she said.

“I’ve known about it for four years,” Rook said. “Death told me himself.”

Spider held two prisoners in a motel room on the west side. She was a black-haired street level sex worker with arachnid tattoos all over her hands and face.

Melvin, who she knew as Rook, was zip-tied to the bed. Bambi was fastened to a plastic chair in the corner. Spider paced the room towering above them. She was holding a pistol, jonesing for a fix, visibly upset. 

It was a small room, a single. There was barely enough space for a full sized bed, a tiny desk, a plastic cuck chair, a lamp without a bulb and a night table without a bible. There was no need for a map.

“We all gotta go sometime,” she said. “Would it make you feel any better if I told you I was doing it for love?” 

“No,” Bambi interjected sharply. 

“I was talking to Rook,” she screamed back at her. “Whatever you’re doing over there, Bambi girl, I need you to do it quietly. You are a witness,” she said emphatically. She turned back to the bed. “You feel things too fucking loud, my man,” she said to her guest of honor. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Everyone.”

“Well it’ll be the last fucking words they ever say to you, if you don’t stop worrying. You’re making me nervous and shit.”

“That ain’t just me, babe,” he said. “When’s the last time you used?”

“Nah. you ain’t turning it around on me. You’re powerful. I heard about you. All those cop suicides. Abusers getting murdered. The riots. People die around you…”

“That ain’t just me.”

“Because you can’t control your fucking emotions!”

“C’mon, Spider. Just let us go.” Rook said calmly but Spider turned to Bambi and yelled at her instead.

“I told you to shut up.” She continued. “Practically every cop in this city, hates his own guts because of you. Every junkie. You had to know they would figure it out. That they’d be coming for you.”

“How long has it been, Spider?”

“Did you do this to me? Did you infect me? Make me a junkie like you.”

“How long since your last fix?”

“It’s none of your fucking business,” Spider yelled at Bambi, who hadn’t said anything and then she suddenly began to laugh. “They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die.” She said while licking her lips excessively. “So how about you give us a preview mutant man. Tell us a story. Make us feel what it feels like when you fall in love. Manny says that’s how it works.”

When she heard the name, Bambi spoke out of turn. “Is this about Manny and his obsession with Mel Rook?”

Spider spun around and made an angry ooh sound with her mouth and Bambi understood that meant she was on thin ice.

“Tell us a story, mutant boy. Something sweet. And don’t lie. I’ll know if you lie.”

“Fine.”

“You’ve already told us about your first crush, Beverly, and you told us about your first love, Shine. What about your first boner?”

“That’s bullshit.” 

“Then what, smart guy?”

“Heartbreak,” Melvin said. 

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“No seriously. I’ve always been addicted to heartbreak. It has nothing to do with you or Manny. I’m good at sharing my heartbreak.”

“Ooh that’s interesting,” Bambi said sarcastically from her chair.

Spider bent down to put her face as close to Bambi‘s face as she could. “I liked you better when you were using.”

“…and I liked you better when you weren’t holding my gun to my face.”

Spider lifted the gun up. “This gun?” She said. “Why does the little church girl carry a gun?”

“Because I live in America,” Bambi replied.

“I’ll allow it. There’s a lot of dangerous people out here.”

“Leave her alone.” Rook pleaded.

“Then break our hearts, mutant man. That’s what we need. Consider us both a captive audience. I’m not going anywhere. And neither is the nun.” She said mockingly. “It’s going to be a while before Manny gets here, so you get to decide whether I’m presenting him one body or two.”

“Manny is not some kind of undercover spy assassin. He’s just a junkie like the rest of us.” Bambi said.

Spider held a forefinger against her own lips in the international sign for shut the fuck up and Bambi stopped talking.

Melvin began his story of heartbreak while lying on a bed with his hands tied to the bedpost, awaiting a man he had been warned about, fully aware that it was his last day on Earth.

“I was five when I first knew that I liked girls,” he said.

Bambi sucked her teeth quietly. 

“How old were you when you knew that you liked boys as well, Mr. Rook?” Spider asked.

“I was eight,” Rook said without giving it another thought. He’d told that story before as well. 

“Did you know your hero was a bisexual like you?” She asked Bambi.

“I did know that he was A bisexual, yes,” she replied, using the same awkward phrasing. “And he’s not my hero.”

“Ooh. Drama.” Spider countered. “Go ahead, Rook. How old were you when you first got your heartbroken?”

“I was five, I was already curious and impressionable and I got my heart broken for the first time by a whore.”

“Was she a whore because she broke your heart?” Spider asked.

“Yes. But also no. She was actually a dirty street whore. I don’t think I ever knew her name. I was five and she was one of the girls who worked behind my grandma Josephine’s bar, The Strawberry Wine. She sold heroin, women and watered whiskey.”

“So you come from a long line of pimps, dirtbags, drug dealers and whores. Don’t you homeboy? Now that’s America.” 

“I do. I come from a long line of born hustlers. I too sing America. It’s in my DNA. But I was five, so I hadn’t learned the first rule of pimping…”

The girls spoke in unison. “Don’t fall in love,” they said together, both knowing the rules well.

“And the first rule of whoring…”

“Don’t fall in love,” they said again.

“And the first rule of tricking…”

“Don’t fall in love,” the girls said.

“I was five. I didn’t know. She smiled at me. I thought we had something.”

“She was trying to get into that piggy bank, nigger.” Spider offered.

“Don’t do that,” Bambi said to her. 

“Don’t call him a nigger?”

“No. Don’t belittle his heartbreak.”

“What can I say, ladies, I have always had a soft spot for the back alley whores, the kind you find behind a pub in the daytime. They were always so beautifully tragic.”

“Obviously, you don’t mean me, brother man.” Spider said

“Obviously.” Rook replied.

“I don’t remember much about her, but I do remember she was a dirty nasty whore with a pretty smile.”

Over the years, Melvin was anxious and bitter. The world felt cruel to him but it was hard to tell if it was him or the world. Which made him even more anxious. 

Death had gifted him four years and in that time he had grown cold, cruel and bitter and the world followed suit. There were other emotions besides the darker ones, but Melvin didn’t have those to share. He was living amongst the fallen. He was angry and so were they.

“This is good,” Spider said. “I’m feeling better already. Keep talking, magic man. Your dirty whore is getting me wet. Even this bitch can’t ruin it.”

Spider listened from the edge. She had no plans on shooting her old friend Bambi but impulse control was never her strong suit.

“No one has to die today,” Bambi said.

“You fucked him,” Spider replied somberly. “You fucked him and you didn’t even like him.”

Spider moved to the bed and straddled Melvin’s waist as he lay there prone.

“How would you like it if I fucked your hero?”

“What did Manny do to you?” Bambi wondered aloud.

The motel was close enough to the highway to hear the cars zip by on their way to Westchester or New Jersey or wherever. White noise to cover the crimes. They pulled at least one body out of there every week. It was a place for Melvin to hide from good people. Or just get off the streets.

“Poor Brother Rook.” Spider teased him from atop his chest. “You’re lucky I don’t do black guys or else I’d make you fall in love with me.”

They were mean streets when he was made angry. Angry streets when he was done dirty. Dirty streets when he was feeling lonely. And lonely streets when he was just plain sad. 

Melvin Hawthorne unknowingly forced others to feel what he was feeling, because he couldn’t quite control it and the older he got the stronger he became.

“There is no such thing as a hooker who likes her job,” Bambi told him. “That’s a myth. Just something men like to tell themselves.”

“You would know, Bambi. You gave it all up for Black Jesus over here. When I remember a slut who would give the deli man head for an extra block of cheese.”

“Praise be to Block Cheeses.” Rook said facetiously.

“Praise be,” Bambi answered.

She was a tough skinny girl, she looked white but she may have been Latina.

She had a history of drug use but she also had a conscience. Addicts weren’t all killers, liars, and thieves. Bambi was a good girl with a habit. She had allowed her tragic backstory to cloud her judgement but then she found Jesus. 

“I’m not wrong. A lot of people find elaborate ways to destroy themselves and they mistake the rush it gives for happiness.”

“Way to bring the room down, Bam Bam.” Spider muttered.

Spider had no moral compass. She had a heroin addiction and a great ass. The ass supported the addiction. The heroin did not reciprocate. She was losing it. 

“This is the best part,” Rook said. “The waiting.”

“When he gets here, don’t try to manipulate him. Don’t do your emotional thing and make him cry or anything. He’s not like you. He’s a real man.” Spider told him.

“It doesn’t really work that fast, I have to feel it strongly for them to even feel it at all. At least I used to. It’s been getting worse.” 

“We know.”

Rook was well aware of what his power was doing to others. It mostly affected people who were around him for a long time. His most volatile emotional states could make an already unhappy police officer eat his gun. An already violent man beat his wife. And an unsatisfied woman seek the arms of the UPS driver even though her is a cop.

“Keep talking, Brother Rook. I like your stories. Please tell us more about how much you are attracted to women in our profession.” 

Spider teased his exposed skin with the barrel of Bambi’s gun and it made him squirm against the hard plastic that held his wrists to the bed.

“I don’t date hookers,” he said.

“You mean you don’t pay for it,” Bambi corrected him

“Right.” Spider agreed, tracing lines of chrome and steel along Melvin’s brown skin with the weapon. “Brother Rook has a way with words and he doesn’t have to pay for sex because of his superpower.”

“That’s true. I have never paid for sex. But I swear I don’t never use my empathic abilities before sex, only during.”

“He means he’s good at sex,” Bambi explained.

“Do you know what a feedback loop is?” He said.

Spider described it. “She feels good because you feel good because she feels good because you feel good. Etcetera etcetera.”

“It’s turtles all the way down.”

“Back in high school,” Melvin told them. “I had a crush on one of my teachers. It was Mrs. Kayley in the ninth grade. She had a big, beautiful round bottom that defied gravity. I was her assistant after school. And any time she left the office, I would sit at her desk in the warmth that that big booty left behind.”

“Ew,” Bambi said.

“I’m not proud. Puberty was hard for me but it made everyone around me act strange. Even the adults.” He continued. “Mrs. Kayley caught me rubbing it on more than one occasion but she kept me around. She was a bit of a tease herself. She could barely fit that ass through her office doorway as it was, but she waited until I was coming in, and we went through the doorway at the same time but in opposite directions. And as she crossed in front of me she turned around and crushed my little body with that big fine ass right across my chest.”

“A blessing from the goddess.” Spider mused.

“I almost passed out.” Melvin answered.

“She couldn’t help but be a little switched on. You were contagious.” Bambi told him.

“I’ve always been a sex addict.” Melvin told them, “I dated a stripper we called Jimi, after Jimi Hendrix. She was a cute little Norwegian with Italian roots. She had dark hair and a great body. 

“Jimi was a talented dancer and didn’t have a sad, sordid tale like strippers in the movies. She was born wealthy with a rebellious streak and an undiagnosed sexual addiction. We were perfect together 

“I met her at a party. She was turning me on and I was turning on the neighbors,” he said. “Fun fact. I have never been to a house party that didn’t turn into a block party or an orgy. When I have fun, everyone else does.”

“And when you’re angry,” Bambi corrected him. “Your neighbor beats his wife.”

“That’s true too.”

“Damn it, Bambi. We’re trying to cheer him up. Tell us some more about Jimi. She sounds like a character in a movie.”

“She finally left me. We escalated our sexcapades until we were basically fucking in public places, trying to get caught.”

“So what happened?”

“She got deported.”

“Good for her,” Bambi said sarcastically.

“Good for her.” Spider mimicked, ripping Melvin’s t-shirt from the neck, exposing his bare chest. 

Melvin would have to continue his stories of heartbreak shirtless as well as bound. 

“Good for her,” Spider said again absentmindedly. 

“Some whores have deep emotional scars and some do not,” Bambi reminded them.

Melvin struggled gently. Spider giggled uncomfortably.   

“Keep going, Brother Rook,” she said. “I want to hear about all the times you’ve had your heart broken.” 

Spider straddled him on the bed. As he lay bound she settled in to hear his last words  before his death, while Bambi watched and quietly judged.

“Don’t fall in love with him, Spider.”

“I’m not.”

Melvin really knew how to tell a story. Everyone loved hearing him talk. He was intelligent and funny, had a great voice and a way with words. He could talk his way out of anything but death. And it wasn’t going to be a thrilling climax, just an abrupt ending. 

Melvin squirmed against his binds and the soft tickling of cold steel as he obeyed Spider’s every command.

“My only problem with Jimi’s job was that on the nights she worked, she couldn’t turn it off.”

“Aw,” Bambi mocked him. “Pobrecito.” 

“We’d meet up at a bar. She’d walk in like she was walking on stage.”

“she was like you,” Spider added. “She was irresistible.”

“Jimi was irresistible,” he agreed. “Her attraction was like a superpower of her own. Not like mine. She was totally in control of but didn’t want to turn it off. I’d have to wade through crowds of horny men to get to my girlfriend if I showed up late. Then, I’d have to throw her over my shoulder and take her to a different bar or there was going to be a fight.”

“That’s boring.” Spider said. “Bar hopping is so 1993. You should have fought them.”

“The only reason I didn’t get into more fights back then was because I was…”

“Afro-American?” 

“Yes, Bambi… and a badass.

“I thought it was African American.” Spider wondered. “Or did you people ever figure out what to call yourselves.”

“It’s Afro-American, like Afro-Cuban, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-centric.”

“Afro sheen.” Spider laughed.

“You guys are missing the point.”

“You’re not that badass,” Spider told him and then teased him some more. “And you’re not that black either. Sorry. Afro American.”

“Ouch,” Melvin said. “One of those hurts and I’m not going to tell you which one.”

“I like it better when you’re in a good mood,” Bambi said.

“Yeah,” Melvin said soberly. “You and everyone else.”

“Every act of violence isn’t your fault just because you live nearby,” Bambi said. 

“But it could be.”

“You can’t control it.” she said.

“You be quiet,” Spider said to her. “Keep going,” she said softly, resting the gun against his chest. “Tell me about your other whores.”

“Yes,” Bambi agreed. “More whore stories. Do Pretty Woman next.”

“It was not all whores. I’ve had crushes on  teachers too.”

“Yeah, man she nearly crushed you with her ass. Should’ve gotten canned.”

“You’re dangerous to be around when you’re horny.” Bambi said sarcastically.

“I am. But not in a violent way.”

“No. Much worse.”

Spider listened intently to Melvin talk about himself. His last words, so to speak. She wanted to put off shooting him until the last moment. Manny’s superiors wanted him dead, but there was no way she would let them have him. He may have been a nigger but he was also her friend. She’d grown quite fond of him over the last few minutes of holding him hostage.

“I tried my hand at prostitution but it wasn’t for me. The girl who managed me worked with a service. It was classy.”

“You had a lady pimp?”

“Yeah. And she was scary too.” But I was turned off by how many violent fantasies old white women had about black guys. First it was light choking and then it was choke me until I pass out. More than one trick called me the n-word.”

“Not the n-word?!” Spider joked waving the gun comically and not threateningly. 

“… while she came on my face with my hands around her neck,” Melvin said. “It was not for me.”

“The story of your life,” Spider said. 

“A still life in gutter with guitar.” Bambi added.

“You’ve read my book.”

“You’d be a great boyfriend if you weren’t a nigger.” Spider smiled and kissed him on the center of his chest, just above his heart. It was a sweet kiss, like a mother kissing her child’s scraped knee to make it all better. It left a red impression like a bullseye center mass.

“It’s ironic, too,” Melvin added. “Because the next girl I dated was a hooker, so…”

“You definitely have a type,” Bambi said.

“I do,” he said wistfully. “I really do.”

Spider smiled. “So let me see if I got this straight,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve dated a stripper, a hooker, an adult film actress who was also a drug dealer, and then you dated a drug dealer who was also a hooker.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear but I do have a type.”

Spider used a pocket knife to cut his zip ties.

“You date sex addicts, drug addicts and hookers because that way your empathetic influence is lessened by there own addiction. And you don’t have to think that you’re raping them.” 

A tear ran down Melvin‘s cheek to the bedsheet below.

“Because you’re a good person.”

“I just wanted to be sure they were with me for me and not because of my disease.” His tears flowed freely.

“It’s more ethical than even that, considering both your conditions.” 

Melvin noticed his hands were free. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

“No, Rook. Not at all. I just…” Spider looked at her watch and sounded like a mental health professional when she said, “That’s all the time we have for today.” She dismounted him. “In your next life, I hope you find a real therapist. Also you should run away from here and take her with you.”

Melvin sounded disappointed. “What did I do?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Spider said. “Brother Rook, you have to go.”

“Right!” He suddenly said soberly. “Death is coming. But I already knew that. I have one more story. It’s about a guy who brought his sister to an orgy.”

“Ooh. We gotta hear this one.” Bambi implored from her seat. “What happened? At the orgy?”

“Right? Who brings their sister to an orgy?”

Spider checked her imaginary watch again. “It’s probably too late anyway.”

Melvin told another story but this time he could use his hands to make points. “So we’re at this girl’s house. Her parents aren’t home. She had invited me and this other guy to come over to have sex with her. And she tells this other guy that he can bring a plus one as long as it’s another girl. This guy brings his sister.”

“Is that the whole story?” Spider asked.

“No,” he said abruptly. “So when we pair off, they tell me I have to fuck the sister and this fucking guy gets to bang the girl I like in front of me.”

“It sounds like you got your heart broken, kiddo.” Bambi said. 

“It was the worst one. I watched it happen,” Melvin said. “It broke my heart into a million little pieces. I was supposed to be with her and not this guy’s sister, who was like a year younger than me, i might add. And she was ready. She was very ready. But she was not the girl I wanted.”

Melvin looked around the room while both women listened intently.

“They were on the next landing, on the water bed, and this guy was bouncing up and down on her, and I was dying inside. I tried kissing the sister a little, but I couldn’t stop looking over at them. The sister kept pulling my head back to focus on her. She’d lifted her skirt and was showing me the way to the land of Oz, but I was too heartbroken to even fuck.”

“How old were you?” Bambi asked.

“It doesn’t matter. I was heartbroken. And as it turned out, the sister really liked me, and that’s why she was there. So, I was also breaking her heart, which I tend to do. And it spread. I had ruined the orgy. It was a mess all around.”

Spider’s eyes were wet with tears. “What happened next?” she asked, realizing that The Brother had no plans to leave before Manny arrived. He wasn’t going to leave them alone without knowing they were safe. He was being brave, and that made her sad.

“The older brother, who was fucking my girl, got up and punched me in the chest for not having sex with his sister, and they grabbed their things and left,” he continued. “Then the girl I liked told me I had to leave as well. She said, ‘It was fucked up.’ she said, ‘I know you like me, but we could have hooked up later.’ She was very disappointed in me. I was too attached. ‘We couldn’t leave that guy with his sister.’ She kept saying it over and over. I wasn’t a team player. She never talked to me again.”

Spider began to weep.

“I’m not a good person,” he announced suddenly. “I’m the villain,” he said. “I’m the fucking villain.”

Spider exhaled sharply in disbelief. The story was more disturbing than it was sexy, but she realized the heartbreak was real, and that was what she’d asked for.

Bambi was incredulous. “Who brings their sister to an orgy?” she asked.

“I feel like I’m about to die, and I don’t even know if I’m a good person or not.” Bambi was close to tears but held them at bay. Then there’d be three crying adults

“You’re an addict, a sex worker, a drug dealer, and a pimp,” Spider told him.

“I‘m a hustler,” he said in his defense.

“Good people don’t lie and steal every day,” Spider said without hesitation or self-awareness.

“Everyone has to lie and steal,” Melvin countered. “From the shop owner to the beggar on the street. There’s a certain amount of subterfuge in any money-making endeavor.”

“What’s subterfuge?” Spider asked.

“It’s a fancy way of saying cheating,” Melvin told her.

Spider wasn’t accepting his explanation. “You can’t pretend to be good if you profit from someone else’s psychological or biological need,” she said. 

“Some people work for a living,” Bambi added.

“And some people beg,” Melvin said. “And some people steal. The name of the game is to take from the lame. But that doesn’t mean we should try to rob the disabled or the dying or people desperate and hungry enough to work for table scraps or to do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“Like eat ass for money.” Bambi offered.

“Have you eaten ass for money?” Spider asked her quickly.

“No comment.” Bambi was smiling.

“I never have,” Spider added. “You?”

“I pay other people to eat ass on my behalf,” Melvin replied.

“So being a pimp is like eating ass by proxy?” Bambi concluded.

“It’s an ass eating pyramid scheme with me at the top getting fucked by the pyramid.”

“See, when you say stuff like that,” Spider told him. “It makes me fall in love with you all over again.”

“Then I’ll stop.” Melvin teased her. “I know what you’re like when you’re horny. I’d run out of shirts.”

“Concupiscent.” Bambi offered. “It’s a better word than horny. It’s all fancy. It’s like someone in need of a concubine. It was Rachel’s favorite word.”

“Careful with her memory. I don’t think I can hold your hair while you cry vomit all night again. Spider told her. “You’re too smart and cute to be sad.” She turned to Melvin. “And you’re the worst pimp ever,” Spider told him angrily.

“That’s harsh,” Bambi added stuffing down her emotions. Rachel would have hated this moment. She was bad with anticipation and anxiety.

“How am I a bad pimp?” Melvin asked.

“Your problem is that you don’t know anything about women,” Spider explained. “I was going to shoot you. I was going to get you all horned up and shoot you in the heart.”

“And then you would have died concupiscent.” Bambi offered again but immediately regretted it as soon as she said the words.

Then Melvin said, “I know I don’t deserve any better.”

“Based on what?” Spider shouted. 

“Based on karma, woman,” Melvin answered. “You get what you get.”

“Don’t talk to me about karma. I am karma.” Spider insisted. “I am what you get when you don’t do the right thing.”

“Please, mom and dad.” Bambi pleaded with them. “If this is our last time together, let’s not end it on an argument.”

“I’m beginning to think you don’t like me very much,” Melvin said. “I thought we were friends.”

“We were never friends,” Spider said. “This is a professional relationship. We were colleagues.” She pointed the gun at Melvin’s chest. “At least we used to be,” she said again.

“Is this because I’m black?” Melvin asked facetiously.

Spider smiled as she pulled back the trigger, expecting an explosion of sound, and the spraying of guts everywhere but there was no sound, not even the crisp, soft click of a firing pin. There was nothing.

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to a lot of guys,” Melvin joked in the face of death. 

Spider was confused. Why didn’t the gun work.

“I took the bullets out a long time ago,” Bambi told her. “A trick I learned from Rachel. Guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.”

“You knew there were no bullets?” Spider asked, facing a betrayal of her own. 

“I don’t trust myself with a gun,” Bambi said. “Guns give a megaphone to the tiniest voices in our subconscious. They are the final test of impulse control in a world full of addicts.”

Spider shook. She tossed the gun to the side. It fell to the floor with a thud just as a knock at the hotel room door made all three of their hearts jump. It was a bang bang louder than a .45. 

“That’s him,” Spider said. “I told him you’d be tied up and ready to go. He will not be happy.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Brother Rook said. “I got this,” he added without fear, opening the door and accepting his fate.

White women and black men in America share the same basic fear: a well-armed white man with hate in his heart and drunk friends.

It was four years to the day, he thought. And Death had promised to return for him. Death was nothing if not prompt. ||