The Old Man in the Club

  Dear Reader:

  Curtis Bunn has once again captured the mindsets of characters that will not be easy to forget. Elliott Thomas is sixty-one and feeling cheated out of time, having been unable to enjoy many of his younger years for various reasons. He is battling age and does not want to go quietly into a senior citizen home. So he does what makes him feel good: hanging out in nightclubs and dating women the same age as his adult children. Of course, everyone is not understanding and in agreement with his choices, which brings on the drama, conflict, and ultimately, redemption.

  Bunn has proven himself to be a master of words, and his imagination is always on overdrive. Yet, his books pull at the heartstrings of readers since everything is so relatable—if not to them directly, to someone that they know. As always, thanks for supporting the authors of Strebor Books. We strive to bring you the most prolific authors who think outside of the norm. We appreciate the love and support.

  Blessings,

  Publisher

  Strebor Books

  www.simonandschuster.com

  To Trevor Nigel Lawrence, my childhood friend and “brother,” who gave up clubs years ago, but is not too old to go to them if he wanted.

  Acknowledgments

  It all starts with God, and so I thank Him for all the blessings He showers upon me year after year.

  My late father, Edward Earl Bunn, Sr; remains a source of strength in my life. I miss him. My mother, Julia Bunn, is amazing; that’s the only way I can put it. I’m so proud of my brothers, Billy and Eddie, and my sister, Tammy. My grandmother, Nettie Royster, remains our spiritual foundation.

  Curtis Jr. and Gwendolyn (Bunny) are my children, my lifeblood, my heartbeats. My nephew, Gordon, is like a second son. And my niece, Tamayah (Bink Bink) and nephew, Eddie Jr. are blessings that I love so much. My cousins, Greg Agnew and Warren Eggleston, are like my brothers, as well as my brother-in-law, Deryk. And I am grateful for cousin Carolyn Keener and uncle Al and aunts Thelma and Barbara and Ms. Brenda Brown.

  Additionally and significantly, Felita Sisco Rascoe, my wife-to-be, is the love of my life and closest friend and confidante.

  Again, Zane, Charmaine Roberts Parker and the entire Strebor Books/Atria/Simon & Schuster family have been great, and I am eternally grateful for you.

  I enjoy listing by name the supporters because you all mean so much to me: My ace, Trevor Nigel Lawrence, Keith (Blind) and Delores Gibson, Kerry and Loretta Muldrow, Randy and Flecia Brown, Sam and Maureen Myers, Ronnie and Tarita Bagley, Tony and Raye Starks, Darryl Washington, Darryl (DJ) and Wanda Johnson, Lyle Harris, Monya M. Battle, Tony (Kilroy) and Amanda Hall, Marc Davenport, Tami Rice-Mitchell, Brad Corbin, William Mitchell, J.B. Hill, Bob & La Detra White, Kent Davis, Wayne Ferguson, Tony & Erika Sisco, Betty Roby, Leslie Leland, Kathy Brown, Venus Chapman, Monica Harris Wade, Tara Ford, Christine Beatty, Greg Willis, Al Whitney, Brian White, Ronnie Akers, Jacques Walden, Dennis Wade, Julian Jackson, Mark Webb, Kelvin Lloyd, Frank Nelson, Hayward Horton, Mark Bartlett, Marvin Burch, Derrick (Nick Lambert), Gerald Mason, Charles E. Johnson, Harry Sykes, Kim Mosley, Angela Davis, Ed (Bat) Lewis, Shelia Harrison, David A. Brown, Leslie LeGrande, Rev. Hank Davis, Susan Davis-Wigenton, Donna Richardson, Sheila Wilson, Curtis West, Bruce Lee, Val Guilford, Derek T. Dingle, Ramona Palmer, Warren Jones, Deberah (Sparkle) Williams, Leon H. Carter, Zack Withers, Kevin Davis, Sybil & Leroy Savage, Avis Easley, Demetress Graves, Anna Burch, Najah Aziz, Kevin & Hope Jones, George Hughes, Yetta Gipson, Mary Knatt, Serena Knight, Joi Edwards, Sonya Perry, Denise Taylor, Diana Joseph, Derrick (Tinee) Muldrow, Rick Eley, Marty McNeal, D.L. Cummings, Rob Parker, Cliff Brown, D. Orlando Ledbetter, Garry Howard, Stephen A. Smith, Clifford Benton, Len Burnett, Lesley Hanesworth, Sherline Tavenier, Jeri Byrom, E. Franklin Dudley, Skip Grimes, Jeff Stevenson, Stacy Gill, Lateefah Aziz, Billy Robinson, Jay Nichols, Ralph Howard, Paul Spencer, Jai Wilson, Garry Raines, Glen Robinson, Dwayne Gray, Jessica Ferguson, Carolyn Glover, David R. Squires, Kim Royster, Keela Starr, Mike Dean, Dexter Santos, John Hughes, Mark Lassiter, Tony Carter, Kimberly Frelow, Michele Ship, Michelle Lemon, Zain, Tammy Thompson, Karen Shepherd, Carmen Carter, Erin Sherrod, Tawana Turner-Green, Marilyn Bibby, Sheryl Williams-Jones, Vonda Henderson, Danny Anderson, Keisha Hutchinson, Olivia Alston, John Hollis, Dorothy (Dot) Harrell, Aggie Nteta, Ursula Renee, Carrie Haley, Anita Wilson, Tim Lewis, Sandra Velazquez, Patricia Hale, Pam Cooper, Regina Troy, Denise Thomas, Andre Aldridge, Brenda O’Bryant, Ron Thomas, Pargeet Wright, Mike Christian, Sid Tutani, Tracie Andrews, Toni Tyrell, Tanecia Raphael, Tammy Grier, Roland Louis, April Tarver, Penny Payne, Cynthia Fields, Patricia Hale, LaToya Tokley, Dr. Yvonne Sanders-Butler, Alicia Guice, Clara LeRoy, Denise Bethea, Hadjii Hand, Petey Franklin and The Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, King of Akyem Abuakwa Eastern Region of Ghana, West Africa.

  Special thanks and love to my great alma mater, Norfolk State University (Class of 1983); the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha (especially the Notorious E Pi of Norfolk State); Ballou High School (Class of ’79), ALL of Washington, D.C., especially Southeast and the team at www.atlantablackstar.com.

  I am also grateful to all the readers and wonderful book clubs that have supported my work over the years and to my literary many friends Nathan McCall, Carol Mackey, Linda Duggins, Terrie Williams, Kimberla Lawson Roby, Walter Mosley and Monica Michelle.

  I’m sure I left off some names; I ask your forgiveness. If you know me you know I’m getting old. :-) I appreciate and I am grateful for you.

  Peace and blessings,

  CURTIS

  CHAPTER 1

  Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number

  Elliott Thomas was stuck in the bathroom. Not stuck like he could not get out, but stuck because he had to wait for his pants to dry.

  He had peed on himself.

  At sixty-one, Elliott’s bladder wasn’t what it used to be. In fact, with his prostate the size of a ripe pear, the reservoir that stored his urine was overworked. In this case, he could feel the need for a bathroom run coming on, but he was on the dance floor with a cute young prospect and could not break away in the middle of the song.

  She looked even younger than her age, which made their pairing that much more noticeable. And strange. She liked to dance, and so one song became two, and three, to where Elliott began sweating. He was fighting so hard to not pee on himself right there on the dance floor.

  But that was the only indicator of his distress. He smiled at the young lady, Tamara Worthington, and kept up with her moves and drew her into him. Finally, though, the urge became too strong, so he grabbed her hand and led her off the small makeshift dance area at Vanquish Lounge in midtown Atlanta.

  Elliott walked her to a roped, reserved area where he had arranged bottle service for Tamara and her three friends, all of whom were in their early-to-mid-twenties with dresses so short he could see they had discarded the idea of wearing panties. It was Tamara’s birthday. She turned twenty-five.

  “Going to the bathroom.” He leaned into Tamara’s ear. His legs were pressed together as if they would serve as a levee to hold back his water. “Be back in a few. But drink up.”

  She looked up at him with a smile and a wink. “Don’t be long.”

  Elliott winked back and headed to the bathroom; a man and his bladder racing against the clock. The men’s room was on the other side of the space, and he maneuvered through the crowd hurriedly, trying to appear calm when inside he was panicked. The urge to go increased by the step, and so did his anxiety.

  By the time he burst through the bathroom door and into a stall, the leakage had begun. The front right side of his gray trousers was soaked before he could free himself and drain his bladder into the urinal.

  He looked down at the considerable wet spot and
his anxiety advanced to panic. It was obvious what happened and he could not go back into the lounge, or to Tamara, looking like he’d wet himself. This was a problem he dealt with on a daily basis by keeping a foam cup in his car. He would pee into it as he drove if the urge became overwhelming, to avoid frequent stops.

  In this case, he waited too late to head to the bathroom. With no other recourse and to avoid mass embarrassment, Elliott took off his pants and pressed the button on the heated hand dryer and placed the wet spot under the burst of hot air. Men entering the bathroom did double-takes, the sight of him standing there in polka dot boxers startling them.

  But Elliott was unfazed. He was a determined man, and not merely when it came to pursuing young women. He learned to function with a purpose and focus, so he addressed his wet pants as he would anything else: head-on.

  “Woman spilled a drink in my lap,” he told a guy who asked the inevitable question. Elliott’s voice was deeper than you might expect from a moderately sized man. When he wanted to, he could sound like Lou Rawls. “I would be pissed off if she wasn’t so fine,” he added, trying hard to be amusing.

  “I got a table full of women waiting on me,” he went on. “Can’t go back over there with a river on my pants.”

  The man laughed. “I hear you, pops.”

  Elliott stood there for almost ten minutes in his wet drawers with his pants under the hand dryer. He could not take off his underwear, so he had to deal with that wetness up against his body. As long as the pants did not look wet, he did not care.

  It was one of those moments that made him wonder why he was not at home watching old episodes of The Honeymooners and sipping on tea. But it was a fleeting moment. He was where he wanted to be.

  The pants dried finally, Elliott put them back on, and steadied himself in front of a mirror. He tucked in his shirt and tightened his belt, and a sense of calm came over him. He was back to himself, albeit pissy.

  The bathroom attendant standing at the sinks supplied soap and Elliott washed his hands as he gazed into the mirror. The image that came back was one of a handsome man whose wrinkles around his eyes and neck hardly told his story, but did indicate his advanced age.

  He offset that by coloring his hair, wearing trendy clothes and keeping his body right with exercise and conscientious food choices. But what really minimized his age was his attitude and energy, which made some younger women not look at him as a father figure, but as a man who could expose them and help them to grow.

  Some women could not take Elliott seriously. Others were flattered but not interested. A few laughed in his face. Enough embraced his moxie.

  He was older than most at Vanquish by more than twenty years. And yet, there was a draw to the nightlife for him, a lure that was far more than about the tantalizing young girls that he kept in his world.

  Being out in the night made him feel free, and for all he had experienced in his life, feeling free and alive meant a lot to him. There were many versions of the old men in the club; most of them overgrown children whose insecurities dictated that they pursue younger women. They were the proverbial “sugar daddies” that drove nice cars, flashed their credit cards and presented gifts to entice vulnerable and opportunistic young women.

  It was legal prostitution, without a pimp. Essentially, they were dirty old men that could not handle an experienced woman who would challenge them or require them to make an effort. So they lured young girls with things.

  That was not Elliott’s modus operandi. He was a different kind of old man in the club. It wasn’t so much that he liked it. He needed it.

  It was hard to not notice the generation gap between Elliott and others at the lounge. Although Elliott was an attractive man, right around six feet with a lean body, the gray edges that shaped his chiseled face and the wrinkles around his eyes and neck were undeniable. They at least told he was older than everyone else. He was proud that he was sixty-one but kept himself together to where he was able to attract younger ladies; well, younger ladies with varying issues.

  He noticed that the man in the bathroom called him “Pops,” and he heard the whispers when he showed up at clubs or bars frequented by adults half his age.

  And he did not care.

  Women his age called him a “dirty old man” and his buddies laughed at him and wondered about his lifestyle. He did not care.

  Elliott Thomas decided to live his life in a way that pleased him, which was not what could be said by most. A lot happened for him to come to this place—dark, sad, regrettable experiences that shaped the man’s adult life.

  He was the old man in the club, and had no qualms with it. It was a blessing to be anywhere. And he liked it.

  What was peeing on himself to a man who, when considering the totality of his life, very well could be dead? But there he was, alive and well, and refusing to live any way other than the way he wanted.

  “What’s happening?” he inquired of Tamara upon his return to their reserved section.

  She handed him a glass of champagne. “What took you so long?”

  “Ran into a few friends,” he lied. He squirmed in his seat because while his pants were dry, his polka dot underwear was wet—and uncomfortable.

  “Here,” he said to Tamara, pulling a gift out of the bag that rested on the table in front of them. The box was flat and wrapped in purple paper. That was her favorite color. Elliott paid attention to details like that. It was necessary as he tried to connect with much younger women. It was one of his ways of standing out among his youthful competition—young men who were not nearly as skilled in the art of dating. Or just being a gentleman. Or thoughtful. That had to be his edge in gaining younger women’s affections.

  “It’s so light? What is it?” Tamara asked.

  Elliott did not answer. He did not think an answer was necessary. And she got his point: Open the box and see. And so she did, and was surprised by its contents.

  “What’s this?” she asked with confusion in her voice and on her face.

  Again, Elliott did not respond. So, Tamara moved the paper closer and adjusted it so light could shine on it.

  “A passport application?” she asked. “You got me a passport application?”

  “What’s that?” one of her friends, Bianca, asked, from the other side of Elliott.

  Tamara passed it across Elliott and to Bianca, who used the flashlight on her cell phone to read it.

  “Oh, wow,” she said. “This is a great gift, girl.”

  “An application? How?” Tamara asked.

  Elliott sat between the young ladies and turned his head toward each as they spoke.

  “Why?” Bianca asked. “You don’t get it?”

  “Get what?” Tamara said, sounding a bit frustrated.

  “You need a passport to travel out of the country,” Bianca said. “So he must be taking you on a trip. Duh.”

  Tamara looked up at Elliott. “Really?”

  “Well,” he said, “we can’t go where I want to go until you have a passport. So, get that taken care of and you’ll get the second part of your gift.”

  “At least tell me where we’re going.”

  “I’d rather surprise you when you show me your passport.”

  “That’s not right,” Tamara whined. Her cute face that did not require much makeup was scrunched, her forehead dented. She poked out her lips and, for a second or two, Elliott thought he was looking at an adolescent.

  “You have about a month to coax me into telling you. That’s how long it should take for you to get your passport after you submit it.”

  “Oh, well, I can get that news out of you before then.” She placed her hand on his leg.

  Elliott grinned. “I like your confidence.”

  They had met about six weeks before, at CineBistro, an upscale movie theater in the Buckhead section of Atlanta that had a full bar and restaurant-quality menu. Elliott noticed Tamara sitting at the bar, waiting on her date to return from the bathroom.

  “I’m
going to take care of that drink for you,” were Elliott’s first words to Tamara, who had accepted a Blue Moon beer from the bartender.

  “Why would you do that?” she asked.

  “Just paying it forward. Someone paid for my lunch one day when I was at Flip Burger on Howell Mill Road. Sitting at the bar like you are now. Had lunch. When it was time to go, I asked for my check. Bartender told me the woman sitting a few seats down had paid for it and gone.”

  “What? Really?” Tamara said.

  “Yes, really.” He reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a business card, then handed it to her. “So, it’s my turn to return that good deed.”

  Tamara looked him up and down. He reminded her of a teacher she had a crush on when she was in high school. She pulled a business card out of her purse. “Well, thank you very much,” she said, handing over her card.

  “I’m sure you’re on a date, so I’ll leave you,” Elliott said. “But I will call you or shoot you an e-mail to see if you have paid it forward… Enjoy your drink.”

  They smiled at each other and Elliott walked toward the theaters, right past Tamara’s date as he made his way back from the bathroom. He turned around and saw that Tamara was looking back at him as she hugged the man.

  That meeting led to an exchange of e-mails, a lunch date that Tamara did not consider a date a week later, and drinks at F&B restaurant a few days later that had the feel of a date.

  By the time they arrived at Vanquish, Elliott and Tamara had seen each other seven times. Before they met that night for her birthday celebration, he made it clear his intentions, telling her, “This is a date. I like you and I have grown attracted to you. So please don’t take it like I’m coming out just to support my friend. I’m trying to romance you, no matter our age difference.”

  He had to put it out there. Elliott did not want there to be any misconceptions.

  “You don’t think I’m too young for you?” she said.

  “Too young to do what?” he replied.