The Old Man in the Club (20 page)

“How do they make that work?” Lucy asked. “I couldn't do it.”

“Well, they trust, first of all,” Elliott explained. “But one guy, the guy who lives in Chicago, he comes home almost every weekend. He's spending a lot of money on flights. But they don't have any kids and both are career people and so they have the money to do it.

“The others, I don't know how often they actually see each other. But here's the thing: They all say it's tough, but all say not being together every day keeps their marriage fresh. They miss each other, so when they get together there's no time or interest in the bullshit other marriages might go through. They are just about each other.”

“Yeah, but what about the time when they aren't together?” Lucy asked.

“An idle mind, huh?” Elliott said.

“I don't want to even get into having too much freedom to see other people,” she said. “I'm talking about plain missing them so much, doing something spontaneous during the week. Not being able to do that, having to plan everything, would eat me up.”

“I'm sure they are conditioned to it to some degree,” Elliot said. “You can get used to anything. After so many years, I got used to being in prison. And I got used to being sick with cancer. I got used to being hurt by our marriage breaking up.”

Lucy did not respond. “Are you here?” Elliott said.

“Can I be totally honest with you?” she asked.

“No,” he answered.

“Anyway,” she said, dismissing his response, “I said all that I said—and I know it was a lot—to say that I miss you,” Lucy revealed. She waited for Elliott to say something. When he didn't, she continued.

“I have to be honest with myself and say that, admit that. I'm alone because anyone I meet I compare to you, and they fall short.
Or I fall short of feeling about them as I do you. I know you've moved on. But I wanted you to know that I love you. I still love you and always will.”

Elliott disbelieved what he heard. He and Lucy had not seen each other in more than a year and hardly spoke to each other. Their breakup was unique in that there were not the ugly fights that came with it. In fact, Elliott wanted to stay in the house and at least attempt to get beyond the deal-breaking issue. Lucy insisted he move out.

Moving on was another issue altogether. It was hard to do because he loved Lucy. He believed in the idea that an affair did not have to indicate a love interest, just something extra to do. Lucy believed in that notion as well, but she was unable to resolve it in her mind as an excuse to betray the marriage.

So, at her direction, Elliott moved from their home in Southwest Atlanta, stayed at the W hotel for a week and decided to purchase a place there.

“Lucy, I told you I loved you the day I moved out and I haven't stopped loving you,” he said. “And I don't want to not love you. You're in my blood. But we've been through a lot, unfortunately. I would never had expected this for us, to be honest… But, anyway, I'm glad we're talking. We should talk more.”

“Well, how about lunch one day?” she said.

“That can't hurt, can it?”

“I don't bite,” Lucy said.

“I remember,” Elliott answered.

E
lliott spent much of Sunday at home alone, watching television, preparing a speech for an Innocence Project event and pondering his conversation with Lucy. Her interest in seeing him stunned Elliott. He had long since dismissed any hope of reconciling.

For three months he aggressively pursued Lucy, pleading with her to give their marriage another chance. She refused, even though every instinct in her told her to give in.

Finally, he told her, “You win. You're making a big mistake. And one day you will realize it.”

That day, apparently, was Sunday morning. And it messed with his head. For all his dismissing of Lucy, she stayed in his heart. He was amazed that one phone call from her after three years shook his foundation.

Losing her was one of the low points of his life. Prison time as an innocent man was at the top, followed by his bout with cancer. But his failed marriage to the one woman that struck his chord beat him up. Lucy expressing an interest in seeing him conjured up all those emotions. The last time he saw her, a year or so earlier, she barely made eye contact at a mutual friend's wedding.

He was so disappointed that he did not attend the wedding reception. He could not bear enduring her dismissive nature toward him.
He recalled leaving with an empty feeling, as if it would have been better to not see her at all.

They had a few brief phone conversations since that day, but they all centered around their children and money. Emotionless. And yet, one call from her a year later moved him.

He was still in love with her.

He had planned to attend a Remy Martin tasting event near the King Plow Arts Center, but instead stayed home. He had leftovers from Saturday's dinner with Daniel and Danielle and was so overwhelmed by Lucy's conversation that he forgot to give Tamara the obligatory day-after-sex call.

So, she called him.

“See, this is what I'm talking about,” she said when he answered the phone. “Niggas start taking you for granted when they know you really like them.”

“Who? Nigga? That's what you called me?” he said. “What if I said, ‘Bitches start making assumptions before they know what's going on?' How would you like that?”

“Oh, so I'm a bitch now?” she said.

“I'm a nigga now?” he asked. “Listen, there's a big age gap and, apparently, a communication gap, too. But I want to be clear about something so this isn't an issue again: Don't call me names, especially that one. I treat you with the utmost respect. That's how you talk to your homeboys, fine—but not to me. You show your age when you jump to conclusions. You don't know what the hell is going on with me. First thing you do is ask a question before you start running off at the mouth. Make sense to you?”

Tamara was angry, but mostly humiliated. He made her feel like a chastised kid, which she really hated because of the age difference. She wanted to bridge the gap by being mature. That was important
to her in dealing with Elliott and other older men of her past.

The way to make amends was to handle the situation maturely, she thought. And so she did. “I'm sorry, Elliott,” Tamara began. “I was out of line. I hope everything is okay with you. I was expecting a call from you because I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed being with you last night. And I wanted to invite you to an event next weekend. Oh, and I'm sorry I called you a…called you that name.”

Elliott smiled. “Thank you for that, you little sexy bitch.”

Tamara laughed and he laughed with her. “I'm sorry I didn't call you before now. A couple things had my attention. But the day isn't over and I don't want you to turn into this over-the-top, crazy woman when you think I have wronged you.”

“Okay, okay. I get it,” she said. “I just can't take no…no man disrespecting me.”

“I wouldn't disrespect you,” he said. “Long before you were born I learned the value of making that call the day after sex. That's the easiest thing to do, although many guys don't have the sense to make the call. But I got you.”

They chatted for a few minutes before Tamara had to go. He was glad to hear her say that, and even laughed when she ended the call by saying, “I'll call you tomorrow…nigga.”

Elliott contemplated calling Lucy, but thought better of it. If her attitude varied from earlier, he would be disappointed. He, in fact, was mad at himself for being hopeful of a chance to get her back. He had become an expert at giving up hope.

When he was locked up in Lorton and watched, however briefly, a man get raped, any hope for being free disintegrated in that moment. He became an inmate that morning. All his posturing and all his talk of not succumbing to being a criminal dissipated. The
only way for him to survive was to let go of hope and accept his plight.

Although he had not committed a crime, he lived in prison among real-life criminals. The only way to make it was to adopt the same principles by which they lived, which was to be a savage when necessary. But to be that way required he give up all hope of ever being free.

He tried not to think about it, but when he looked at where he was in relation to where he had been, Elliott was proud of himself. The inhumanity of prison breaks men, whether they are criminals or not. In nearly twelve years, he was transformed into something different, someone different. He almost killed one man with a prison-made knife out of a toothbrush. Sent the guy to the infirmary for three weeks with multiple stab wounds. Why? Because the guy claimed Elliott had stolen a pack of cigarettes and challenged him in a gym full of inmates.

Elliott had to make the guy pay or he would have been considered weak and made a target by anyone looking for a patsy. So he did what he had to do. That was required. That was the culture.

That time in prison rotted a huge part of his soul, and he spent many nights crying silently in his prison cell. When the Innocence Project took his case and provided DNA test results that proved he was not a criminal, Elliott showed the kind of fortitude many men could not muster.

He overcame the lost twelve years, and Lucy was a major part of that gradual transformation back to solid citizen. She accepted him for the man she saw, not the perceived person who was wrongly accused and convicted. The women he encountered before Lucy were leery of Elliott, even as they read many accounts in
The Washington Post
and other credible news outlets not only about
his innocence, but also about the apprehension of the confessed killer/rapist.

One woman told him, “You seem like a nice guy and I'm sorry about what happened to you. But I'm not comfortable dealing with someone who has spent that much time in prison. I'm not being insensitive. But I know how disease is transferred in prisons and how awful the environment is. I wish you the best, though.”

Elliott could not be mad at her, but she and others deflated his spirit. He was a free man, exonerated of the ghastly crimes, and yet he remained a villain in some women's eyes. That hurt. He had to move from the D.C. area because his face had become familiar and the connotation was not all good.

He relocated to Atlanta and met Lucy, and his world changed. She was not judgmental. She empathized with what happened to him. She asked questions no else did, like “What did you take from your prison experience? How has it changed you? Do you dream of prison? Have you been institutionalized?”

The questions were asked with sensitivity and genuine curiosity and care, not prying, nosey inquiries. And with each answer, Lucy detected strength in Elliott that was almost overwhelming and increasingly attractive.

His interest in her heightened. She was a woman who did not predetermine who he was and did not judge him when he shared his story. His comfort level with her was high, allowing him to open up to her, and she, in turned, opened up to him.

Elliott knew in three conversations that his dating days—at least at that point—were over. He had found the one woman placed on earth for him. That's what he felt about Lucy.

And he said as much during the reciting of his vows during their wedding:

“I know God is good because He sent you to me, Lucy. The power of love is amazing. Your love validates that I am free. I know you were meant for me…”

Recalling his wedding day increased his desire to call Lucy. But he learned in prison to be patient, and so he instead worked on his Innocence Project presentation until he dozed off after watching
The Newsroom
on HBO. When he woke up to shower and go to bed, he had three text messages.

One was from Tamara, giving him details of the event she wanted him to accompany her to over the weekend. The second one was from Henry that read: “Listen, let's do lunch this week. I'm open.” And the other was from Lucy: “I picked a day for lunch. How is Wednesday?”

Elliott froze. He knew Lucy as well as anyone. She would not reach out about lunch if she did not have an interest in trying to rekindle something with him. The text arrived six minutes before he read it. He waited another ten minutes before responding, an attempt to not seem anxious.

“Wednesday should work,” he texted back. “Can I confirm tomorrow?”

Wednesday was open and he asked a question to get her to send him another message in an attempt to start an electronic dialogue. It worked.

“Sure, that's fine,” Lucy texted back. “If that's not good, I understand. No pressure.”

“I didn't even know you knew how to text,” Elliott responded.

“I don't have any limitations,” she fired back.

“Really? Since when? I recall your cooking skills being a little lacking.”

“That was then, this is now,” she answered.

“Gotta love progress,” Elliott typed.

“And technology,” she responded.

“And everlasting connections,” he wrote. He hesitated before pushing
Send
. But he was nothing if not bold.

“We do have that, don't we?” Lucy wrote back. “No denying.”

Elliott's heartbeat increased. He was as much excited as he was stunned to have substantive, pleasant communications with his former wife.

“I have not been the same without you,” he wrote. Then he erased it before sending. He decided it was too strong of a declaration.

“You remain close to me over these last there years, even though we didn't see each other or talk much,” he sent.

On the other end, Lucy sat in a yoga position, anticipating Elliott's responses. It took her two years to understand why infidelity ruined their marriage and another year to summon the courage to let Elliott know she wanted it back, wanted him back.

She deduced that the cheating was a cry for attention, not a declaration of misplaced love. It was meaningless, and not enough to detonate a family that was close and loving and thriving.