It is, and has always been care that attracts me to a woman. Without it the first hello did not happen. A heart song would not have developed between the friends, and the women who've become my sisters. I would not have the doctors I have now, and the women close to me would not be close had it not been the care they embodied, and exuded. There are other things, but the care in a woman's hands wafts over me the way wings dance above where the bird intends to land. As slow as hands can move they can vibrate from the speed of a hush to the speed of the Hummingbird's wings. It has always fascinated me how care manifests. Women's care has saved the health and well-being of many a person I was aiming to hurt for good, and I thought, a just cause.
Early in my first marriage Renee and I knew very little about money, taxes, credit and creditors. It was daunting for me forging my way as a 'new' head of household. I frequently woke up in terror envisioning my failure and what it would feel like to be homeless with a wife and children. I didn't have the skill set that attracted large salaries to me. It seemed I was out of place for the times and the area I lived in so I stuck to what provided me with the essentials in life.
I got intangible gifts at my bachelor party. To this day men never associate me, or invite me to party with strippers so I don't get invited to bachelor parties. At my party I received a Bible and sage advise. Larry Fitzgerald, our saxophonist, showed me his pay check. I was stunned at the amount. $40,000! He showed me his bills, and I shuddered. He was paying more out than was coming into his household. He looked in my eyes in his way of speaking, which was always tinged with humor to say, "Don't ever get a credit card. Buy with cash."
A few years of wise spending, and cash transactions we were renting a nice townhouse. We'd never missed a meal, and no one went naked. Our furniture was bought from Budget Furniture, which was owned by Chief Billy Tayac of the Piscataway nation on Suitland Road in Suitland, Maryland across from the US Census building. His family had built rapport with the surrounding communities and many struggling Blacks, poor whites, and later Hispanic families got their first credit starts, and their house furniture from Chief Billy Tayac and his son, Mark.
Eventually, we got an American Express card. I used it sparingly paying up in full within the first 30 days. We got the card when a financial adviser commended us on our monetary discipline pointing out how little of our income was in the red. But, he chided us, no he ridiculed our insistence to not get caught trapped in the credit game. He was a harsh man, and the name creditors gave to people like Renee, and I stung. This system holds in disdain anyone who disciplines themselves financially without going into the credit game. There was non-complimentary name for us. That hurt, and then it angered me.
Certain weekends we'd rent a car and purchase whatever we needed, and afterwards I'd gas up my rental, and lose myself in the back roads of Maryland. With the windows wide open and the wind blowing through I'd speed and explore until sunset. It was exhilarating. One day I miscalculated and found myself in credit card debit. Then the devil came.
I hated every moment of that ordeal. It came to a head when I came home one afternoon, and my wife was devastated and in tears because the man calling us about our debt had said things to her that crushed and humiliated her. Over money? I didn't fight for or over money. I still don't, but that was the last straw. I told her to put me on the phone when he called again and that call came quickly. The brother was enjoying his role. We had words, and I filled with dark rage. I told him I was coming after him. He scoffed at the notion and said more of the wrong words.
When I hung up I put my right fist through the glass of my bookcase. I didn't bother to dress the wounds. I set out walking the distance through the woods to the subway station, rode the train to Silver Spring, Maryland, got out and walked a short distance to an anonymous building, took an elevator to their secret location, walked in the office, and a woman asked, "How can I help you."
"I am looking for Mr._ !"
The Black man behind her with a handful of papers turned from the copier and started to extend a greeting, but froze in terror and surprise when I said, "I am Mr. Woods."
He glanced at my bloody hand. I went over the counter for him. He ran with a high pitched sound of terror in his voice. Right behind him I was silent, relentless and full of dark menace. I was hunting and had found my prey. Nothing was going to save him until a woman stepped between me and the fleeing man.
"How can I help you, sir?"
I looked up the length of an unbelievably fine Black woman's body and into the landscape of her eyes, and the beast within me shivered, and began to snort a bit, and rest itself. I couldn't believe her presence and how calm and beautiful she was. Her composure did not shed at the sound of my angry voice. Instead she looked at my right hand and said, "Oh, you hurt yourself. You're bleeding." She held my hand gently and led me into the men's bathroom, and washed my hand
carefully in a studied silence. The blood, now dried, moistened in the water and left trails of blood and dirt down the slope of the bowl as she carefully picked glass out of my hand. Her soft voice got my story out. My voice had lost its menace so gentle was her touch, and so aroused I was by her command, her sensuous nature, her touch that the danger within her halted the danger within me.
Back in her office she sat at her desk and crossed her legs my direction. I lost my breath, and almost fainted looking at her legs. They were smooth, brown, and suggested an impeccability I'd not noticed until seated facing her. I was done.
"I was no more good." as Black Southerners often say.
There was no more fight left in me. I became compliant and agreed with everything she suggested. I believed then, and I do understood she knew exactly what she was doing to me. How to distract and tame the savage beast was her art. Her form was the compelling
assemblage point for me that aroused, caressed understood, held me, and made me safe from the dangerous and fierce beast within me.
An amicable arrangement was made that simplified paying American Express off, and she encouraged me not to continue with the company. She had bought our debt, she revealed. She gave me a brief tutorial on the insidious nature of the credit system, and assured me she'd take care of her employee.
"You will never hear from him again." she said.
She, as was my wife, and the others who heard this story at the time didn't understand how I knew the location of that office. I never told how I did it because the moment the words
hunter came into my mouth people's faces blanked out. Not everything is for everybody. The prey has a scent and leaves an impression.
- Gregory E. Woods,
Keeper of Stories 9.3.13
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