CHAPTER XVII

17:15

Kingson was on his way out of the office with Delilah when the phone rang. They looked at the phone, then at each other, then both reached for the phone at the same time. Kingson picked it up first.

"Good evening. This is the law off-"

"Kingson, you said you would call me, dearie," a nasally voice spoke.

"Ms. Garfunkel, I apologize. I've been quite occupied. Do you think we can meet at my office tomorrow at around two?"

"No, dearie. But we can meet at my place, same time." She sounded drink, which was par for the course in her case.

"No, problem, Ms. Garfunkel. I'll be there."

"You're a darling, dearie. Smooches." The line went dead and Delilah noted the appointment, promising to remind Kingson the day after. On their way down the stairs, Kingson explained that he had a meeting with a client early the next day and expected to be occupied for some time. If he couldn't make it to the office by one, he would head straight over to Ms. Garfunkel's place on 86th Street and Park Avenue. Delilah nodded in acceptance and comprehension. They exited the staircase and left the building. Bidding each other farewell, Delilah went left towards the train station and Kingson went right, to the parking lot attached directly to the side of the building in which he rented office space.

He paid for monthly parking because the truck was just too big to keep by the sidewalk in front of the building. Cooper Square was a decent neighborhood, but a prevent was usually better than a cure. The ride home seemed to take forever and he got to thinking about Elsie Garfunkel. She had been his classmate in The High School for The Humanities on the West Side, by Chelsea. Elsie came from a dirt poor, so-called "White trash" family. She lived in Chelsea and attended the closest public high school not so that (like Kingson's father had explained to his bewildered sons he wanted), they could be exposed to a different side of life in general (which had, indeed, been crucial to their upbringing and future dealings with the underbelly of the City) - no, this wasn't a social project for Elsie.

It was life.

What the twins could have easily foregone at any time but chose to remain at was what she was stuck with. And, for some reason, the twins had taken to her.

Their housekeeper always made them lunch and they had early on proven to the would be school bullies that they could and would easily hold their own, so eating was never a problem. However, for Elsie it was. They had early on noticed that she would put her school lunch in her bag instead of eating it, so they came up with a plan. Every day, either of them would sneak both of their homemade lunches (which were far better than anything the school had to offer) into Elsie's bag.

From the very first day, she knew who it was and had once tried thanking them but they had quickly become embarrassed at something so rudimentary. To the twins and at that age, compassion was diurnal. Branson was not yet the hardened pessimist he turned out to be and in the life of one little girl, that mattered much. Elsie would actually take the lunches home and split it between her and her siblings. Their father was jobless much of the time due to his struggles with alcoholism but their mother had a cleaning job that just barely got them by. With the meals provided by Kingson and Branson, Elsie and her siblings never went hungry, except on Saturday and Sunday and on holidays.

One Thanksgiving the following year, they had invited her over. She came and was taken such good care of that she wound up crying. Mr. Edward Jackson, the twins' father, had consoled the little girl while Mrs. Colette Jackson, their stepmom, had put together a healthy package of a little bit of everything for Elsie. After the Thanksgiving meal, Mr. Jackson, the elder, had driven all of them to the movies (along with some other children) and dropped each child off home.

Elsie was the only child that received clothes and heavy amounts of food during the holidays - she was always welcome in their house. The twins attended Humanities their sophomore and junior years but left to complete their senior year at Hunter College, which provided a scholarship for both outstandingly intelligent twins. During her last year at Humanities the twins would still see Elsie, but only on holidays or some weekends.

Elsie's family moved to Florida because her father had gotten a job there and was ready to clean up his life. Seeing everything a Black family had done for his family over time had galvanized him into quitting cigarettes and drinking. Since moving to Florida, Elsie's family's life had changed for the better and anytime any of them was in New York, they would do their best to come and visit the twins. It was in her second year of being at Florida State University that Elsie met an older man who convinced her to drop out of school and marry him. He was abusive but he was wealthy, so Elsie forewent with his occasional physical attacks on her. Her life had changed drastically. She became an ingenue overnight, ruining her life but being able to now put all her siblings through school and provide for them in any way monetarily. Lady year, however, Mr. Fulbright's tolerance of his young wife wore thin one and he beat her ruthlessly in an incident that caused Elsie to be hospitalized. Kingson and Branson had gone down to Florida for the day to check on her.

Branson, being the twin he was, offered to break both of Mr. Fulbright's legs, or his arms. Elsie had politely declined, laughing until she almost hurt herself again.

After a few weeks of rehabilitation, she returned to New York and bought a condo on Park Avenue. Following her departure, Mr. Fulbright followed her to New York and began trying to convince his young and beautiful wife to go back to Florida with him. It almost worked, but for the day she went to visit her husband at his temporary residence in Trump Towers. She had caught him with two young girls, one sitting on his face and the other snorting lines of cocaine like a rabid aardvark. The beatings of the year had commenced and, ironically, despite his infidelity, despite the large amount of drugs found on the scene, despite the underage victims Kingson just recently found out about - they had arrested her for a minor assault.

She was incredulous.

Knowing how rich she was, elbows had been calling to be greased. However, that was almost one year before Kingson had managed to get the full police report. Elsie had gotten in touch with Kingson, who had bailed her out on a fifty thousand dollar bail he still had to recover. She was definitely good for it and, at first, Kingson had wanted Elsie to come up with certain amounts of freewill "gifts" for the people involved in her case and he would personally deliver it to them, ensuring dismissal of the said case. But since the revelations that Mr. Fulbright had been sleeping with underage girls, well - that changed everything!

Twelve minutes later, Kingson parked near his West 4th Street apartment. It was still before 18:00 so he crashed on the couch to watch some t.v., helping himself to some of Ma H.'s freshly squeezed fruit juice. He closed his eyes for what seemed like just a few minutes but when he opened his eyes again and glanced at the time on the t.v., he was shocked to see that it was 19:40.

A man never shit and showered so fast as did Kingson in the next ten minutes. Men rarely think what taking a shit in a hurry does to the human body. Burst capillaries in the hemorrhoid gland are the usual catastrophic results, but men will not want to hear such while in a rush to maybe get some _pussy_.

Fuck them hemorrhoids, Kingson thought to himself. I'll take care of those later. He then dressed up casually in a button-down Aeropostale shirt, Old Navy slacks and Armani loafers. A bit of splashed on Old Spice" (one of his dad's favorites) and he was out the door.

He parked illegally in front of Osteria at 20:05, surprised at how fast he had gotten to the restaurant. He jumped out of the truck and hastened to enter the restaurant. Glancing around the well lighted backwards "L" shaped eatery, Kingson pressed the alarm lock on his truck keychain. He walked the length of the "L's" long arm and turned right, down the short arm. Diners were thoroughly enjoying themselves with only a few masked worrywarts. Otherwise, the environment was convivial and lighthearted with cheer and the joie de vivre we experience in social gatherings most of our lives as the generally social and gregarious human beings we are.

And there she was, looking as good as every high school and college crush we never had the nerve to approach. She was in a corner spot looking radiant and voluptuous in a form fitting beige turtleneck and matching short skirt (made shorter because every time she walked, that ass would automatically push the skirt up). Her almost knee-high boots clung to the curvature of her shapely calves in a seductive manner. Kingson observed and felt all these things in the span of a few seconds, finally realizing that someone else was at the table with Kenesha. The man was about middle-aged, dressed in a deep blue suit, and could have been light-skinned Black, Dominican or Italian, for all Kingson knew. The latter took a step backwards, but that seemed to be a gong or some other kind of alert for Kenesha - she looked up and locked eyes with him immediately and her genuinely warm and inviting smile (at least it seemed so to Kingson) beckoned him. He pretended as if he had paused to check for his phone before proceeding to her table.

"Hey, Kingson, she said, rising to give him a hug and a kiss on the very side of the mouth, not really a friendzone kiss but definitely not a chaste kiss, either. "I like a man who's punctual." He shrugged, effecting modesty. "If you consider five minutes late 'punctual,'" she whispered in his ear, sounding and looking like a cat in the cream. His face turned from affected modesty to chagrin. As they sat down, Kenesha introduced the man as an old friend and colleague newly arrived to the City. A sinking feeling came over Kingson when he heard this and the Biz Markie song played in his head:

You, you got what I need,

but you say he's just a friend, and you say he's just a friend...

It was obvious Kenesha and Louis had known each other for some time, as they shared secret sayings and distant memories. Louis Ortega was raised in the Watts housing projects of Los Angeles, California and, after getting caught in a car with some older guys and firearms, the judge, upon questioning the boy, found him to be quite intelligent.

Another chance was given to Louis Ortega.

The judge made him attend school and an after school program that helped at risk youths find their calling in life; Louis's was law; he had an intrinsically analytical mind. The boy grew into a fine young man whose law school fees were paid by the judge and he would always finish in the top fifth percentile of his class. He had met Kenesha in L.A. and they had hit it off. She was with her family and even then training to be a Legal Secretary. One year became two and the young couple got closer. Alas, things never go quite as we plan them.

A relative of Kenesha's who lived in New York passed away. The relative was somewhat well off and had always favored Kenesha. Now Kenesha became heir to a small fortune and a Suffolk County home. The family was living in the Suffolk County home but Kenesha liked the City and took her chances there, ultimately obtaining gainful employment and not eating away at her fortune. Time passed and the calls became fewer between Louis and Kenesha. Then all of a sudden - voila! Kingson wasn't a big fan of magic tricks and dude appearing out of nowhere like this made a nigga uncomfortable, and suspicious.

But, surprisingly, Kenesha also kept touching Kingson's hand, as if to reassure herself of his presence or (as Kingson assumed), to keep him from walking out by making sure he understood they were together. She would often try to enjoin both men to palaver on some mutual topic, but it just wasn't going. The waiter came and asked them if they were ready to order.

"The lady will have the 'Canatelli pasta in lamb ragu with Porsini Mushrooms and Ragusano cheese,'" Louis said, reading off the menu.

"No, the lady will not be having any of that," Kingson assertively interjected. The waiter kept his face still, a young man with professional courtesy skills. He would go far in any business. "What the lady will be having is the 'Pasta with Sicilian Sardines, Pine Nuts, Sultana Raisins (on the side) and Wild Fennel.' I'll take the 'Grilled Octopus in Mediterranean Salad.'" Kingson put the menu down. "Bring a small bowl of those Porsini Mushrooms for me, as well. I enjoy mushrooms. That will be all." The waiter was really a professional. He took his time pretending to finish writing the order and putting away his pen, giving the opportunity for the lady or the other man to again order something else. When he saw that no counteraction was forthcoming, he snapped to attention, bowed a bit and took off. All of that had taken less than five seconds of expert temperature gauging.

"We gotta leave that man a tip; he really knows his work." said Kingson. The table was quiet. Kingson took a sip of water. "My, this is some tasty tap water." Kenesha smiled surreptitiously and even Louis had to smirk. More than half of the restaurants in America served tap water; some even went to the trouble of bottling it up as if it was the real deal. Kingson turned to Kenesha. "I told them to take the raisins out because don't no black people eat no raisins and pasta! GadDAM, that shit sound nasty as fuck!" Kenesha tittered, looking down in her lap wherefrom a certain warmth emanated upwards. She was salaciously impressed by Kingson's take charge attitude. She took his glass and finished the remaining water, never taking her eyes from a now highly surprised Kingson. The heat was rising and growing more fiery; she hurriedly excused herself to the Ladies Room and went into a stall.

*

Wiping the toilet seat with baby wipes tissue, she courtesy flushed the wipe away before lifting her skirt to her waist and taking a leg out of one side of her panties. The heat from he Kenesha's rnether region blossomed and she began rubbing her clitoris, her vaginal fluids already leaking. She pictured Kingson eating her pussy, kissing her pussy, licking her pussy; God, if he simply looked at her pussy she was sure she would explode. She continued rubbing her rubbing her nethers and imagining Kingson penetrating her.

She knew he had a big dick. When they had bumped into one another in the staircase and he had kept her from falling back having to press her body to his, she had felt its print on her thigh. She could imagine that black hammer pounding her pussy into smithereens.

*

Kingson, for his part, was imagining pounding out Louis with the beating of his life. After Louis's initial shock at Kingson's upstaging of his order for Kenesha, after even Kenesha's ostensible support of Kingson by the subsequent drinking of his water, Louis pulled himself together. He called a waiter over and ordered a calamari, squid and mushroom melange.

"So I guess you're her new man now," said Louis, jumpstarting the conversation.

"Something like that," Kingson replied, surer than he felt at that moment.

"You know, I'm a member of the California Bar Association-"

"That's nice."

"-and I'd like to register in New York so I can start practicing here." Kingson looked Louis straight in the eye.

"Why?" Kingson asked, not really looking for an answer (because he knew the answer, he just wanted to see if dude would be honest with him). Louis looked puzzled. "Why New York? Why not Colorado? Maine? Florida? Illinois? Hawaii? New Jersey? Shit, why not even Montana? Why you had to choose New York?" Louis looked around the restaurant a bit.

"We both know the answer to that, Kingson," he replied quietly, even a bit menacingly.

Oh, thought Kingson, this nigga still wanna be a thug? Their immediate surroundings became negatively charged as they now stared at each other heatedly.

*

Meanwhile, Kenesha's pussy was almost as hot with lust as it could get. She lifted her feet and tried to keep down her panting and hissing. Finally, a warm river of vaginal liquid ran down her pussy before ticking the cleft of her anus and starting to drop into the toilet. She gasped for a couple of minutes and slowly lowered her trembling legs.

Cleaning herself up as best as she could, she put her leg back into the lone pantyhose leg, fixed her skirt and flushed the toilet; with all the toilet tissue in there, she hoped it wouldn't clog. It didn't. She left the stall and washed her hands, checking her beautiful face in the mirror. No doubt, she was fine as fuck and she knew it, but had never been uppity about what God had naturally blessed her with. She had never been prideful, which was strange - she just knew, though, that everywhere she would ever go in life, she would be one of the most beautiful women there, oftentimes the most good looking. She rushed out of the Ladies Room.

*

"You see, homie, you're new in Kenesha's life. I've been there since her teenage years. I came to New York for her, and I'm not leaving without her, bro." Louis was sitting with his arm over the back of the chair, completely at ease. "As a matter of fact, I'm not leaving anytime soon." He sat back up and looked at Kingson accusingly. "I know what you're going to do. You're going to have your fun with her and then go your way, leaving her a mess emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I know all this," he stated, emphasizing with hand gestures. "Who do you think will be there to pick up the pieces?"

"Picked up what pieces?" Kenesha asked, catching the tail end of Louis's sentence as she came and sat back down, this time markedly closer to Kingson. He saw the pain in Louis's eyes and took it down a notch, at least in her presence.

"Oh, we were just talking about picking up the pieces of broken relationships."

"Oh?" she inquired, truly intrigued, looking at Louis in a new light, perhaps.

"Wow, you were gone for some time," Louis said, smiling as if he knew something secret.

"Yeah, you know, girl things."

"I bet," Louis said, being cut off from further innuendoes by the arriving food.

The conversation was light but cultrate, both men cannily throwing daggers at one another while debating the finer points of Governor Cuomo's recent decriminalization of marijuana.

"He did that to take the attention off himself and those sexual harassment charges," Kingson opined. "You'll see, as soon as he does something else to piss off the other Democrats, they'll bring up those charges again."

"I kind of agree, but just for the sake of being the devil's advocate (a great movie, by the way), let me disagree and say Cuomo's not going down without a fight, even to impeachment."

"Well, the burden of proof is on the accuser, so..." Kenesha interjected. "And are those women, those his accusers going to come forward with their allegations against the governor? I doubt that. This thing'll be settled with back door payments."

"I'd like to give you some 'back door payments,'" said Kingson, not quite under his breath.

"What was that?" Kenesha asked, surprised.

"I said, um, yeah, he'll see through with them back door payments," Kingson improvised. Kenesha narrowed her eyes and pointed a fork his way. "But how you gonna say that anyway, Kenesha?" She looked confused. "Look at what they did to Cosby-"

"Cosby's Black, and therefore, a type of sacrifice to be made as an example, just like R. Kelly, Michael Jackson and, of course, the godfather himself: Emmitt Till, for whom we still haven't gotten justice, by the way."

"I agree with you on that specific point, because it's been happening to Black people before Blacks were even considered people in this country. But when hashtag 'metoo' and hashtag 'cancelculture' goes against the Caucasian elite, like the White guy, what's his name again, Jewish nigga-"

"Harvey Weinstein?" proposed Kenesha.

"Yeah, him. Weinstein, and a few others. All I'm saying is that, when they start going at each other, what hope do we, as a minority and outnumbered people, have?" Kingson tasted a corner of Kenesha's Sicilian sardines and she had some of his mushrooms. The cheese didn't thrill her, though. A bottle of white wine was served, compliments of the chef, on behalf of Kingson, whom he had watched growing up as a kid around these parts. Louis's face soured when the waiter presented the bottle to Kingson for inspection as a gift from his friend, Chef Castillo. Kingson thanked him and quietly put something in the waiter's hand for him and the chef, a Jackson and a dollar note.

"So let me ask you this, Kingson," Louis began. "Do you believe Jeffrey Epstein is dead?"

"It's entirely possible."

"Do you think he hanged himself?" Louis was peering at him intently and denigratingly.

"No, but I think he got 'Hillaried,' or 'Clintoned'!"

"Why do you believe in such arrant nonsense?"

"It's not arrant, neither is it nonsense for those like me who have been spreading the truth throughout. Did you see Epstein's jail cell? There was no way that man could have hanged himself. There was nothing to which he could affix anything to on the ceiling. You not gonna sell me just anything, bruh."

"And you think Hillary Clinton had something to do with Epstein's death," Louis stated, incredulously.

"Well, Epstein did have an extensive flight log of all types of people that came to 'Epstein Island' to engage in debauchery, licentious and noisome activities, yeah, and with underage children. This is old news - why are you not hip to the game?"

"Brother, you got a few loose screws," Louis concluded with a derisive laugh.

"And your problem is, the scales have yet to fall from your eyes. I hope they do soon... Or not," Kingson finished, shrugging. Their subsequent conversation turned slightly ructious at times again but not boorishly so. As the night wore on, both men developed a healthy respect for the intelligence of each other. The time for dessert came and Kingson ordered Kenesha the "Canoli alla Siciliana: Sicilian Canoli with fresh Ricotta Cheese and Bronte's Pistachio." Louis ordered some creamy confection or other. The time was ticking and Kingson had to meet up with Chulo in the a.m. He waited until Kenesha was almost done with her dessert before giving Louis the Black people act for closing a too long session: he yawned ostentatiously and even stretched.

"Wow, would you look at the time. So what you about to get into?" Kingson asked Louis, pointedly staring at him. And the person being asked rarely got the hint.

"Whatever you getting into," Louis glibly replied, eyes darting furtively to Kenesha to see if she caught the sexual innuendo. Without looking at him she gave Louis the finger to let him know that she had, indeed, caught the innuendo.

"I doubt that very highly," Kingson replied, tongue in cheek.

"Well, my night seems to be over then," Louis pronounced, leaving a bit of dessert in his bowl. "I'll let you two lovebirds make rash decisions you could regret for the rest of your lives. He stood up and shook Kingson's hand in a surprisingly firm grip. He then bent to kiss Kenesha's hand. She politely demurred without hurting his feelings by semi flirting with him. Louis took his leave and Kingson's respect for the man climbed, albeit grudgingly. Kingson turned to Kenesha.

"Yo, what's up with you, Kenesha?"

"What?" She was caught off guard.

"You think it's funny, right?"

"I don't... What?..." Then she understood. She nodded softly and looked down. "I'm sorry about that, Kingson. That's all I can say. I'm so sorry and I promise it won't happen again." Almost instantly, Kingson began calming down. When people owned up to their faults and were honest, admitting to their wrongdoings, it went a long way in Kingson's book. It wasn't like he and Kenesha were even married. Plus, Kingson had quite recently removed his wedding band when his wife told him that she was seeing and sleeping with someone else and didn't want to be with him anymore. He was big on apologies like the one she had just given.

"I never knew, never even figured, you to live around this area," said Kingson, deliberately changing the subject to show there were no hard feelings.

"That's because you never knew me before," she said, playfully grabbing his hand.

True! thought Kingson, cynically scrunching up the side of his mouth.

"You wanna take a walk and get some fresh air?"

"I'd love to," she replied. They got up and he held her small leather jacket for her to wear. As they were leaving he left a Hamilton note tip on the table.