Kelvin Jackson - It Was All A Dream

Mattie stepped back away from the platform as the eastbound Long Island Rail Road train pulled into Jamaica Station in Queens on Track 8. Her long thick black hair was pulled into a ponytail and held in place by a white scrunchie. Mattie was a looker standing 5 feet 6 inches tall, on a slim 135 pound frame with her weight distributed proportionately in all the right places. Being of Puerto Rican and Haitian descent, her complexion was light but island exotic.

She wore a black bodysuit, baggy guess jeans and black Timberland boots. Dark sunglasses covered her slightly slanted eyes and her demeanor gave off the impression she was not to be fucked with. She was on her way to work in Commack, Long Island following an afternoon of stress relieving shopping. If there was one thing that was guaranteed to help her deal with life’s tensions, it was her love for shoe shopping.

As the door to the train slid open, she took one last long drag off her Newport and tossed it to the platform. Mattie received various looks of disapproval due to the loud volume of her headphones as she made her way onto the train and down the aisle searching for a seat. She could care less. Life’s harsh realities had made her a rebel at a young age and played largely in her outward emanation of arrogance.

She knew she had the potential to be the sweetest woman walking the face of the earth as well as the power to break a man or a woman through mental manipulation. She found an empty seat midway through one of the emptier cars and slid in next to the window. As the train pulled out of the station Mattie looked out the window and reflected on how life had changed so drastically for her over the past six months.

Six months earlier she had been living happily and content in a small country town in Martinsville, Virginia with her man. A man that she’d known without the shadow of a doubt loved her unconditionally. K had shown her on numerous occasions that he would go to any lengths to assure her happiness. At first she’d had intentions of fucking him and moving on with no strings attached like she’d done with so many others, but once she got to know him better things began to change. She realized that some of the same goals and dreams that she wasn’t able to open up about in other relationships, she could actually discuss with him and he encouraged and supported her to achieve them.

Not to mention that big black muthafucka ate pussy like no other! She shuddered at the thought and actually felt her panties get wet between her legs. K had taken her away from the fast life New York and showed her something different. The wide open areas of quiet country living and peacefulness were a welcome change and exactly what she had needed at the time. But just when she thought her life had permanently taken a turn for the better, he was arrested on I-95 for probation violation. To add insult to injury the Maryland State Trooper named officer Appleby stole the re-up money stashed in their luggage and someone had broken into the house in VA and cleaned out the safe once word of the arrest made it back to the streets.

At that point once again she had been left out in the cold cruel world alone and broke. The first two months she’d wrote three and four letters a day to let him know that she was his ride or die chick. She would wait by the phone for him to call every day at his parents’ house until the long distance collect calls became outrageous. But without K’s physical presence and reassurance that shit got old quick.

Being no stranger to struggle or hustle Mattie returned to what she knew was always her ticket to fast money; her beauty and her body. It didn’t take long before she reverted back to her view of how she perceived men before her relationship with K. She’d been through so much in her life that she looked at a man as a chess game in which she was the Queen and the King. She replaced men’s faces with those of dead presidents; such as franklin, Hamilton, and Jackson. She told herself she would never let herself become emotionally involved with a drug dealer again.

“All tickets please, all tickets!” yelled the train conductor as he made his way down the aisle punching passenger’s tickets.

Mattie removed her ticket from the side pocket of her small black leather backpack/pocketbook and handed it to the conductor. After that, she scanned the albums on her I-Pod. She was a fan of all kinds of music. From rock and hip hop, to alternative, to old school funk and disco. She’d been listening to cuts from Nas’s Illmatic album, but now her mood had changed and she pulled up the playlist for The Best of Prince. As the melodic voice of Prince flowed through the headphones she laid her head back and started to reflect on the past and living in Virginia.

Those long relaxing rides in the Acura Legend on sunny days through the open county and scenic landscapes that she’d never experienced before, was something she would always miss. Mattie had thought that after the way her last relationship ended that she would forever feel out of place in this world.

She had heard from her sister Reebie that K had come home from jail. As much as she fought with her mind and emotions trying to tell herself that she didn’t want to see him, her heart knew that she did. Then she thought to herself, fuck that. I didn’t leave him he left me just like Sam did. It doesn’t matter because I don’t fuck with drug dealers anymore anyway.

Forty-Five minutes later the train pulled into Deer Park train station which was her stop. She exited the train and began to scan the parking lot for a taxi. Mattie checked her watch and saw that it was almost eight-o-clock. She also saw that the platform was fairly crowed with young white partygoers waiting on the next train headed into the city to start their weekend. Most of them had vehicles in the parking lot, but were planning to be either too fucked up on liquor, cocaine, or some kind of pills to attempt to drive into the city.

Mattie had become accustomed to this scene over the past couple of months. She remembered back when Friday’s were party days for her too. But now they had turned into being a day that her boss said was mandatory for her to be at work. She didn’t mind much though, it meant more money in her pocket.

She spotted a familiar cab driver in the parking lot and made her way over to the taxi. She continued to get the familiar stares from men and woman alike because her presence demanded attention. Mattie opened the back door and slid in across the leather seats.

“Hi Paul. How’s business?” she asked removing her sun glasses.

“Hey lady, I’m good. You know how Fridays are. Busy- busy- busy. I see you’ve been out doing some shopping,” Paul responded after observing all of her bags.

“Yeah, I bounced around midtown most of the day and ended up on Jamaica Avenue. I actually found some really good deals.”

“So I guess it’s to your house and then to work?”

“Well, I’m already late. I think I’d better go straight to work. I was supposed to be there at 7:30,” she said starting to worry a little bit about how her boss might react.

“We’ll, I’ll get ya there as quick as possible.”

As he put the cab in drive and pulled out of the train station parking lot, Mattie removed a half smoked blunt from her Newport box. Lifting the blunt so Paul could see it in the rear view mirror, she asked, “Do you mind?”

“Aw hell nah! Just roll down the window,“Paul responded.

She knew he wouldn’t mind because he never had before. Paul was a young white kid, Italian Mattie assumed, and she figured that by the way he acted sometimes his drug of choice was something a lot more potent than weed. She knew the mannerisms of someone who smoked crack and was almost positive that Paul did. She had been in his cab on numerous occasions and he had never objected when she’d asked before.