Before I Let Go by Darren Coleman Page A

having a discussion with her again, so long as she was willing to rein in her emotional outbursts. I just wasn’t up to it at that moment, not while I was getting into my official NFL ‘couch potato’ mode. I simply preferred not to be disturbed, at least not with anything as trivial as relationship problems, with someone else’s wife on top of that.
    I picked up the two way from the coffee table and immediately recognized the number. It was Nate. I had called him the previous night, and here he was getting back to me in a stunning seventeen-plus hours.
    I dialed his number as I watched Terry Bradshaw and James Brown taking jabs at Chris Collinsworth, their cohost, about the pitiful Bengals, on the Fox pregame show.
    The phone rang one time before he answered. “What’s up, my nigga?” Nate shouted through the line.
    “That’s how you answer the phone, boy? What if I was your grandmother, fool?” I replied to his greeting.
    “I know it ain’t Nana; I got caller ID. Plus, you know she’s in church till at least two o’clock every Sunday,” he retorted. “So, what’s up witcha?”
    “Oh, thanks for calling back so quickly, black boy. It wasn’t anything major. I got shot in the abdomen while I was grocery shopping at Kroger’s last night, and I wanted to know if you could help me out by donating a kidney. Don’t sweat it, though. I called someone else.”
    “Stop playing, man. You know you simple as shit.” Nate laughed, then continued. “For real, though, wasn’t nothing up?”
    “Well, actually, a lot is up. I got into some real drama last night with Paula.” I began to explain.
    “Come on, Cory. I don’t even know why you stressing over no married chick. How many times have I told you about how to handle them married hoes? You got to straight handle your business with them. If you let them get the upper hand, you in for some shit. I’m telling you, dog, that’s for real. Married broads get crazy when they mess around. They start thinking they own a nigga and whatnot.”
    “Yeah, I know, I know, but this was something different. I shared some news with her that I thought would make her happy for me, at least, but she ended up turning it into some how-it-was-bad-news-for-her type shit.”
    “What, you finally found out that Shelly’s daughter is yours, and not that ’bama ass nigga Eric’s,” Nate joked.
    “That ain’t even funny. Why you gonna even play about something like that?” I replied to his joke about my first love and the child she had by a guy she started dating a month after we broke up. Back when things first went down, rumors flew in our circle of mutual friends. Everyone found it hard to swallow that we had broken up in August and by October she was pregnant by her new boyfriend. My sister, Brenda, swears to this day that Shelly’s daughter, Amani, is mine.
    “Cory, don’t be getting all sensitive, but you know that’s your kid. You know you Shelly’s baby’s daddy. Haaa haaah.” Nate was cracking up laughing at himself.
    I interrupted him. “Yo, you finished being an ass? Do you want to know what Paula flipped out on me for?”
    “Yeah, man,” Nate said, in a now semiserious tone. “What did you tell her that got her tripping?”
    I had kind of wanted to surprise Nate with my news, and not in the context of a story about Paula. But since I needed to unload on somebody, I started in. “Man, do you remember when I told you I was headed up to New York for a few days last week?”
    “Yeah. How was it?” he asked, interrupting again.
    “Well, you know the city ain’t the same since 9–11. The mood is nothing like it usually is.”
    “That’s to be expected, though.”
    “True. But still, I had these power meetings. Man, let me tell you things got heated after that.”
    “What you mean by that?” he asked, finally letting me know he was interested. He probably thought I was going to tell him about some exploits that I had had with a woman up there. He was