Also, my grandma said to me as a child:
“Every man is going to think of you as property. That’s why they want to put they last name on your name. Then you’re their property. So you want to make sure whoever you end up with knows how to maintain their property. See yourself as a house. You have to view yourself as the house on the highest part of the hill. You can’t let everybody come into your house. They can’t catch no bus to your house. They can’t ride no bike to your house. They got to have a nice car with four-wheel drive to get up to your house.”
Ain’t that some fucked up shit to say to a little girl? Especially a poor girl, who was in and out of foster care?
The reality is, for all of my twenties, I thought of myself as an apartment in the projects. Right in front of the bus stop. “Who wants some? Who wants to come in the apartment, hey! Let’s have a party. Who wants to be in here?”
I just wanted anyone in. I would let anyone in who wanted to guard this property. To protect me. If you understand that about me, you understand why I was with the wrong men so long.
I know I’ve got to stop it, though. I’m single now. I am just going to kick back and see what comes to me. I’m not going to keep repeating these patterns with men. They are not working.
The Ex-Husband
I just got to warn you straight up: this story is bad.
And not bad in a funny way, like the Roscoe story, or the Titus story. Like, this is just flat-out bad. This story is probably going to frustrate you. It might even get you angry.
I almost did not put this in the book. I mean, there isn’t much here that’s funny, to be honest. But I ended up putting it in, because of three reasons:
1. It’s the hard truth about my life. I will always tell the truth, even when it’s not fun.
2. I hope some young girls can learn from my mistakes and avoid what I went through.
3. I believe everything happens for a reason, and as bad as this was, I believe it’s made me better and helped me get where I am.
With that in mind, lemme tell you about my experience with marriage, domestic violence, and self-delusion.
It all started when I went on that cruise with Titus. The one where he brought $50 for the whole cruise? That one.
On the plane, I met this guy who was a cop. I ain’t even going to say his real name, it don’t matter. I’ll just call him Ex-Husband. Me and Ex-Husband talked for a while, and he seemed nice. It turned out he was going to the same cruise I was, and he wanted to take a cab with me there.
But I had Titus, and I wasn’t all that into this guy. But he was a policeman, and I thought, This will be a good friend to have. It’s always good to have police friends, especially black police, because there aren’t a lot of them.
You already read about all the nonsense that went on with Titus. Well, I left some details out of that story, because I knew I was going to tell them here. Part of the reason Titus was so upset was because of Ex-Husband.
This dude was straight following me around the cruise the whole time. Like everywhere I was at, he was there. And he always had a video camera filming everything. Like I was singing karaoke, he was filming that. I would be in like a shuffleboard contest, he’s filming that. Ping-Pong, he was filming that. We was swimming in the pool, me and my boyfriend, like hugging on each other, he’s filming that.
Titus got in an argument with me, started yelling and cursing at me, because this man was following me around with a camera.
Titus: “Are you fucking this guy? Why is this guy following you everywhere with the goddam camera? Who the fuck is this?”
I think Ex-Husband even got that on camera. He filmed the argument!
Now, obviously he wasn’t standing there filming us like a camera crew would do. That would have been really weird. I wasn’t even positive he was filming us, he was sneaky about it. He was always around with his boy and their camera, but I thought maybe he was just filming his vacation. This was back when people did that shit. Everybody was walking around with cameras. Everybody was filming everything. In 2001, that shit was normal.
It all came to a head when I was in the cruise talent show. I was singing James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” and man, I was into it. I was kinda drunk, so I was gettin’ sexy, yelling into the mic, all of that. The crowd loved it.
Titus was in the crowd, and I guess he was getting all anxious about me being sexy, so he runs up to me and throws a jacket around my shoulders, like James Brown.
Then Ex-Husband runs up and throws his boxers and a key to his cabin on the stage. I am serious, the dude took his boxers off somehow, and then threw them onstage.
Well, that changed the whole dynamic.
Titus was hella mad. But he wasn’t even man enough to yell at Ex-Husband. He just yelled at me!
Titus: “You fucking him?”
Tiffany: “I didn’t even ask that man to do any of that, he just did it himself!”
Titus: “You fucking him, ain’t you? Where you fucking him at?”
Tiffany: “Why don’t you go ask him?”
Now mind you, Titus came on the boat with $50, so he’s highly intimidated. Basically, he’s intimidated by Ex-Husband because the dude has a job. And like, money from that job.
Then everywhere we went, Ex-Husband was always trying to do stuff for me. Trying to buy me a drink in the casino. Trying to buy me stuff at the port.
Then Ex-Husband came up to me at the end of the cruise, with Titus standing right there:
Ex-Husband: “Maybe we can exchange numbers or something. I live in Georgia, but you know, I’ll call you.”
Then Titus be over here talking shit. TO ME! He pulled me aside, yelling at me.
Tiffany: “Why you bitching at me? You don’t even say, ‘Hey man, that’s my girl.’ Or whatever, and you want to cuss me out, like yelling at me?”
Titus: “No, you talk to this motherfucker. I’ve been avoiding them, you tell them. That’s your job.”
Tiffany: “Fuck you. You acting like a bitch.”
I pulled away and gave the dude my number. Titus was pissed off, but you know what, I was pretty much done with him.
Besides, he lived in Georgia. I wasn’t never going to see this dude, anyway. I gave him my number mainly because Titus was being such a pussy. We ended up talking on the phone maybe once a month or so. One day I was just like, “Man, you’re old.” He was like thirty-two. I was like, “You’re too old for me,” and I hung up.
I ended up changing my number, and I moved and all this stuff, and I didn’t even think about him enough to update him. So then he couldn’t find me, and I forgot about him mostly.
Five years later, he calls me up out of nowhere. I remembered who he was immediately. We talked for a second, but I was curious how he found me.
Ex-Husband: “Tiffany, I been looking for you for five years. I’m so excited to talk to you again.”
Tiffany: “Well if you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you look me up sooner?”