"Can I help you, bud? You've been staring at me and following me for a while," Jamal Stephens said, and the big and tall young black man glared angrily at his latest stalker. Just another creep who became fascinated with Jamal and started following him around. This wasn't an act of cruising but straight-up stalking, the one thing which Jamal doesn't tolerate...
Where in Hell were they coming from all of a sudden? Jamal wondered, pissed off at this latest incident. The City of Ottawa was becoming stalker central, seriously. The stalker in question happened to be a skinny, pale, tight-clothes-wearing, finger-snapping creep whose eyes widened like saucers when Jamal confronted him. Got you now, Jamal thought, irate.
The two of them stood in front of Nordstrom, one of the Rideau Shopping Center's busiest stores. Folks walking by stared at the confrontation between the big and tall, dark-skinned African American man and his pale, slender opponent. They might assume they knew who was the aggressor and who was the wronged party, and they'd be dead wrong. Refusing to back down, Jamal was determined to get some answers out of the Pale Bozo, who just stared awkwardly, as though at a loss for words.
Jamal noticed the Bozo following him ever since he got off the number twelve bus which he'd been riding since Blair Station. The dude had a staring problem, to say the least. He gawked at Jamal the way a hungry man looks at fast food. When Jamal hurried into the mall, the bozo followed suit. Escalator after escalator, step by step, the dude followed Jamal.
"Um, sorry," the Bozo replied, looking clearly uncomfortable, and Jamal, seriously pissed, got in the fucker's face. The dude flinched, even though Jamal didn't touch him. The City of Ottawa, Ontario, is full of stalkers and weirdoes, and most of the time, the locals have a passive aggressive way of dealing with one another. Jamal doesn't subscribe to that doctrine. Nope, he believed in confronting a motherfucker...
"Quit following me if you know what's good for you, fucking weirdo," Jamal said to the quivering Bozo, and then he walked away. As Jamal exited the mall, a 95 double-decker OC Transpo bus heading toward Nepean, Ontario, arrived. Jamal boarded the semi-full bus and swiped his red and white bus pass against the mechanical reader while the bus driver nodded. Looking over his shoulder, Jamal was relieved that the Bozo didn't try to board the bus...
The 95 bus continued to barrel down the streets of downtown Ottawa. Jamal pulled a comic book out of his backpack and allowed himself to relax. Taking out his Alcatel cell phone, Jamal went on YouTube and looked for something to listen to. It would be a while before the bus reached Nepean. Jamal went to check out a video tribute to Megan, a tall, Amazonian MMA fighter of Australian descent whose work he admired.
Megan the MMA fighter reminded Jamal Stephens of Brigida, a young Italian-American woman whom he met in Mobile, Alabama, a long time ago. Brigida, hailing from Quincy, Massachusetts, was a newcomer to the Yellowhammer State and Jamal was quite taken with the tall, freckle-faced, dark-haired young woman. They dated for a while, but split after graduation. Brigida returned to Massachusetts, and Jamal moved to Ontario, Canada.
"Now that's more like it," Jamal said to himself, listening to epic music as Megan beat the living hell out of other female fighters in the Octagon. Jamal, who used to wrestle back in his halcyon days at the University of Alabama, had become obsessed with all things MMA and UFC in recent years. The UFC might eclipse professional boxing someday...
Putting down the comic, Jamal watched the video of Megan's highlights. He felt a stir down below as the Amazon's world-famous ass cheeks jiggled as she headed to the weigh-in before one of the many fights which she won. Dammit, if all Australian gals are shaped like Megan the MMA hottie, I might move down there, Jamal thought, smiling.
When the bus reached Baseline Station, a lot of people got on, and some got off. A couple of passengers caught Jamal's attention. A curvy, dark-skinned young African woman in a pink tank top and Yoga pants was laughing at something her white male friend said. The gentleman in question was tall, skinny, and although he was nice-looking, he sounded more than a tad bit effeminate.
"Can I help you?" said the young African woman in a haughty tone of voice upon noticing that Jamal was looking in her direction. She stood there, one hand on her hip, the other possessively gripping the waist of Mr. Effeminate. Jamal rolled his eyes, wishing that black women would stop trying to show off their white male friends and/or significant others to whatever brother happened to be nearby. It was a tired and boring game...
"Hello there," said Mr. Effeminate, and he stared at Jamal, who felt an unpleasant shiver down his spine. Jamal, a proud son of Tuskegee, Alabama's most liberal town, was by no means homophobic or intolerant, but he found men who acted and sounded like women to be...annoying as fuck. He was polite but distant when he had to deal with them in the context of work and whatnot.
"Not interested in effeminate guys or their female shopping buddies, I find both to be equally boring," Jamal replied loudly, taking off his headphones for emphasis. He looked at Miss Haughty and Mr. Effeminate and smiled as they gawked at him, as though they couldn't believe their damn ears. The sister looked pissed and started to cuss Jamal out, but her friend or whatever he was to her took her arm and shook his head.
"Whatever, let's go sit upstairs," Mr. Effeminate told Miss Haughty, and they walked away. When they went upstairs and disappeared from view, Jamal breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close one, Jamal thought. He was about to go back to watching YouTube videos when he felt someone looking at him. Looking up, Jamal's eyes met those of a most unexpected fellow...
"You handled that well," said the man, and he smiled at Jamal and nodded understandingly. Jamal looked at the stranger, who was possibly mixed-race, Black plus something else, forty-something and well-dressed. He had the look of a government worker heading home after a long day of toiling away at an office downtown. The man's voice was deep and his mannerisms were...normal. Jamal nodded in approval and returned his smile.
"Thank you, brother," Jamal said, and he was about to get up and go to sit closer to the handsome stranger when he noticed that he wasn't alone. There was an attractive black woman seated next to him, and she wore a stylish red and white summer dress that showed off her curves and spectacular legs. The lady's eyes met those of a stunned Jamal, whose smile froze.
"Come on over, handsome," said the stranger, and Jamal looked at the man, whose hand held that of his female friend, or companion, or wife, and hesitated. Jamal knew that there were lots of masculine bisexual black men out there. He couldn't stand the effeminate bozos, the stalkers or the cruisers. Jamal likes women, sexually speaking, but when he does get that urge for some manly fun, he likes other bisexual guys. Well, Jamal like the ones who look normal, sound normal and act normal. Effeminate bozos need not apply.
"Good afternoon, folks, I'm Jamal," he told the stranger as he shook hands with him and his female companion. Seated across from the attractive but decidedly odd couple, Jamal felt a pleasant frisson down his spine. Whoever this man was, he was handsome, evidently successful, and swung both ways. It's like looking into a mirror, Jamal thought.
"Nice to meet you, Jamal, I'm Mr. Diallo and this is my wife Ramatoulaye," the stranger said, smiling. Jamal looked at the lovely black couple and nodded. They were African immigrants for sure, and definitely Muslims, from their names. Jamal, who'd been living in Ottawa for the past three years, had become fascinated with Africans lately. A myriad cultures to explore and connect with...
"You two seem amazing, blessings to you both," Jamal said evenly, like the church-going brother that his parents, Franklin Stephens and Annabelle Leander-Stephens of Tuskegee, Alabama, raised him to be. Mr. Diallo and his wife Ramatoulaye exchanged a smile, and then looked at Jamal, quietly assessing him. Jamal, being a fairly handsome son of the south, is used to having both women and men check him out. Still, he'd never been checked out by a couple, that's for damn sure...
"So, Jamal, where are you from?" Ramatoulaye said, smiling at him in a way that no woman should smile at another man while her husband is around. Jamal pushed down the slight discomfort that he felt in this socially awkward but thrilling situation. He looked at Mr. Diallo, puzzled. The African Muslim gentleman definitely saw the way his wife looked at Jamal, and kept on smiling. What was going on here?
"I'm from Alabama, ma'am, I came to Ottawa after getting a job offer from Ericsson Canada Inc. and here I am," Jamal said proudly, and the couple smiled at him, looking suitably impressed. Jamal, who'd earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Alabama and an MBA from Tuskegee University, was used to having Canadians impressed by his credentials and accomplishments. They weren't used to seeing foreign black businessmen succeed this far up North...
"Nice, I teach African Studies at Carleton University, and my husband and I came from Benin," Ramatoulaye said, licking her full lips and Jamal nodded. He smiled at the lovely African couple, even more impressed than before. Jamal had visited several colleges and universities in the Ottawa area when he first moved there from Alabama and the dearth of black teachers was something which he found appalling. Even in the Deep South, black teachers were far from scarce...
"Jamal, if you don't mind, I'll address the elephant in the room, I am bisexual, and my wife Ramatoulaye knows and supports me, we typically try to befriend kindred spirits, are you such a spirit?" Mr. Diallo said, grinning at the younger man. Jamal shifted in his seat, and looked from the lovely Ramatoulaye, a curvy West African goddess, to her handsome, free-spirited husband. Smiling, Jamal nodded firmly.
