Free When All Hell Breaks Loose by Camika Spencer

black diamonds. I really don’t like it, either, but I don’t want to make this an all-day event.
    I take my selection back up to the desk and the same store attendant is standing there looking more bitter than ever. I give him the vest, fill out the order form and get the hell out of Gingiss Formal Wear.
    We decide to get a bite to eat, so Jamal follows Tim and me across town. We end up at Jo Mama’s Soul Food Kitchen. We get a booth near the front. A small jazz band is playing and I immediately notice the tune. It’s “Lover Man.” I know because Diana Ross sang it in
Lady Sings the Blues
. I also have a Sarah Vaughan CD where she blows the hell out of the same song. I love me some Sarah. In my opinion, she is the hottest jazz singer ever. Forget what you’ve ever heard about Billie, Ella, Abbey, Nancy, Nina, and all the others. I mean, they’re great in their own right, but they can’t touch Sassy.
    When I first heard Sarah Vaughan sing, I was about four or five. We were living in New Jersey and my parents took me and my sister cross state to New York to a jazz festival where Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, and other legends were performing. I still remember how statuesque she was. Tall, thick, and dark. Lovely! I can still see her holding that cigarette while blasting, “It Never Entered My Mind.”
    I wouldn’t be telling you this story if it weren’t true, but I haveproof that I was there. In my father’s house, hanging on the wall, is a picture of me, my sister Shreese, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, and my mother. I have on these high-water purple denim pants with a Disney World T-shirt, and Shreese has on a yellow Winnie the Pooh jumper with matching ribbons on her two long ponytails. It was the last time I saw a live performance before we moved to Dallas. My sister and I grew up on straight old-school jazz all our lives.
    Anyway, Sarah’s voice was what I heard most of my life after that. I would sit in our study and play her records all the time on my Superfriends record player. The richness in her voice was so warm that it could make you sweat. I was in college when she died in 1990. I got sloppy drunk that night after I found out. Ended up missing classes for two days and my father had to travel down to Commerce, Texas, and beg the school not to throw me out of Hubbell Hall, the all-men’s dorm on campus. Needless to say, there has yet to be another like Sarah.
    This band playing at the restaurant isn’t doing too bad a job. The bass player could use some more skills. He’s actually walking a tired dog. No swing in his play at all. Not pulling the strings enough. He’s young-looking, so I let it rest.
    We all order and have drinks as we wait on our lunch. Tim is sipping on a rum-and-Coke, Jamal has a ginger beer, and I’m gripping a Heineken. As the waitress walks away, Tim stares hard at her ass. When he turns back around, he sees me shaking my head. He shrugs his shoulders in guilt. “What? She has a nice ass,” he says innocently.
    “But did you have to stare at her like that?”
    “Man, her ass had me hypnotized.” He laughs slyly.
    “What if you walked by a table and a group of women stared at you like that?” Jamal asks.
    “I’d fuck ’em all.”
    We all laugh. Tim’s good with comebacks.
    “No, seriously,” Tim responds. “I think women enjoy being stared at. That’s what God put them here for.”
    “To be looked at?” I ask.
    “Yeah. They don’t do nothing else but take your money. I haven’tmet a woman yet who didn’t want something materialistic from me. Either my money, my sex, or my car.”
    I disagree. “Tim, you’ve been going out with too many gold-diggers and women who are a direct reflection of yourself. Sisters who are caught up in looks, status, and fashion. That’s why you think they’re just to be looked at. I can’t believe you said that.”
    “Greg, you know it’s true, man. We could do without the secretaries, waitresses, manicurists,