Free What a Fool Believes by Carmen Green Page A

what you’re talking about.”
    The dissenters grew louder.
    â€œIf you’re not going to change that person’s mind, why get yourself all worked up?” Fred asked the class.
    â€œBecause sometimes, you have to say it again to make yourself feel better.” Ginger, the redhead, spoke to the unseen husband who’d taken up with several wives in Utah. “Like you’re not talking just to hear yourself speak.”
    For a scared little man, Fred moved quickly to block the doorway. “You have to write in the journals and copy down today’s rule, o-or you can’t take a break.”
    â€œDo you know what we could do to you?” Pebbles mashed her girth into Fred until he was barely visible above her mammoth breasts. He looked like an eraser.
    â€œI’ll tell on you,” Fred said, as he slowly turned crimson.
    He’d suffocate if she didn’t get off of him soon.
    â€œI don’t mind writing in mine.” Tia scrawled her name inside the front cover of her journal and laid it on the table at her seat.
    Byron contained his surprise. He’d expected Tia to be the first person to line up behind Pebbles. From all he’d seen of her, especially at court, she was a straight hell-raiser. A rebel with a minor cause.
    â€œI know I’ve got anger issues, especially against the cop that arrested me, my ex, and my boss,” Tia said.
    Damn. She did have issues, but Tia spoke a truth few wanted to acknowledge. Even him.
    Reluctantly, slowly, a few women agreed.
    Pebbles considered the words of her fellow women friends. “We’ll think about it.”
    Fred was quick to agree. “I think it’s time to take a break.”
    â€œGreat idea.” Pebbles marched through the door.
    With his back against the wall, Fred guarded the square below his belt with a three-ring notebook.
    â€œWhy are you letting her run all over you?” Byron asked him.
    â€œI’m taking a course on becoming more assertive, and they suggested teaching. I have the credentials, the degrees.” Fred sighed and flopped into his chair behind the desk. “I suck, don’t I?”
    Byron didn’t want the man to have a nervous breakdown. He gave Fred’s shoulder a whack of encouragement. “You’ll get better.” I hope. “You want something to drink?”
    â€œNo, I think I’ll put my head down for a few minutes. Women make me tired.”
    Byron blanched at the confession but left Fred to his rest period. At least the man knew when he was in over his head.
    The murmurs of women getting to know one another caught up to Byron, and he entered the commons area and saw them huddled around two small tables, flashing wallet photos, lockets, and mothers’ rings.
    Women had an uncanny ability of getting to know one another. They only needed a single common thread, and the next thing you knew, they were thanking God for bringing them a lifelong friend, and next, talking about the fun they had on a cruise.
    He shoved four quarters into the soda machine, got his soda, popped the lid, and swallowed the liquid in gulps.
    Men were less complex.
    Men didn’t talk to men they didn’t know.
    Men didn’t vacation together.
    And men never, ever flashed pictures.
    If they found themselves in a discussion with another man, the topic was always sex and included the expressions “hittin’ it” and “waxin’ that ass.”
    Men were streamlined thinkers, and Byron appreciated that about his compatriots.
    The rules shifted if men and women were in the same room.
    Everything a man said from the moment he met a woman was designed with one purpose in mind: Was he going to get laid?
    Am I going to get laid?
    Byron adjusted his waistband but let go. He applied the theory of deductive reasoning and got an immediate answer.
    No woman, no nooky.
    Damn.
    â€œI didn’t know you had dimples,” Tia said.
    Caught unaware, Byron