So he got a new job working in a cosmetics factory, boxing makeup.
But he became real distant. We weren’t hanging out all the time like we used to. For example, I would drop him off at work, and then I was supposed to pick him up. Then he wouldn’t call me to pick him up, and I didn’t know what he was getting up to.
And he would ask to use my car, which was fine. But then I wouldn’t see him for two days.
Yeah, I know, I know. In retrospect, the signs were obvious. What’s funny is that it took a child to point them out to me. I mean literally an eight-year-old child.
One day, I was hanging out with Titus’s mom and his sisters, and this one sister—who was, I repeat, EIGHT YEARS OLD AT THE TIME—spoke up.
Sister: “You know he cheating on you, girl. He cheating on you with this girl he met at the strip club. He pimping her in pornos.”
Tiffany: “What? Titus ain’t pimping nobody.”
Sister: “Yes he is.”
Tiffany: “You making this up.”
Sister: “No I’m not!”
Tiffany: “Would you say that in front of your brother?”
Sister: “Yeah!”
So we got with Titus:
Tiffany: “What did you tell me about Titus?”
Sister: “That he cheating on you, girl. He cheating on you with this girl that he tried to get to be a stripper. Her name is Bertha.”
Tiffany: “Bertha? How you gonna be a stripper with the name Bertha?”
Titus: “She lyin’! She don’t know what she’s talking about! She lyin’!”
I believed him. I didn’t believe the little girl. I don’t know why I didn’t believe her, because she had nothing to lose by telling the truth. I was thinking maybe she was watching too much TV or something. Like I said, I was twenty-one and stupid.
Three months go by, and slowly things got worse. To the point where we were basically broken up, except not completely. You know how with some relationships, the breakup takes months to really get momentum and be real, but you know it’s there long before? That’s how it was.
It just so happened that I was scheduled to go on a cruise with my auntie. Titus had zero interest in that, until we were ready to break up, and I told him I wouldn’t be seeing him for a week.
And now Titus wants to go on the cruise, too.
Titus: “Oh, you not going on a cruise, hell no.”
Tiffany: “Oh I paid, I’m going on a cruise.”
Titus: “No, y’all finna be on there hoeing.”
Tiffany: “Are you crazy? I’m not hoeing with my auntie, she’s twice my age.”
He was really passionate about this idea that I was going on this cruise to get wild and hook up with a bunch of men. Yeah I know, he’s projecting shit on me that he is doing behind my back. I can see that now, but I did not see it then.
The problem was that he didn’t have any money to pay for the cruise. So, he got his mama to give him the money to get a ticket.
And get this: motherfucker comes on the boat with $50 in his wallet. For the whole weeklong cruise. The whole week with fifty bucks? Like, really?
The whole trip, he was just awful. Everywhere I went, if a man talked to me, Titus was all up in my business.
Titus: “Oh, you tryna holler at that dude? That man tryna get with you?”
It didn’t matter if I was talking a ninety-year-old in a wheelchair with oxygen tubes, Titus would be trippin’.
Titus: “Oh you want some old ass now? That it? My dick is too hard for you now?”
Every few minutes, it was something. If I was dancing or having a good time, he’d come over.
Titus: “What you dancing for?”
Tiffany: “Because I like it, it makes me happy.”
Titus: “Why you gotta be all happy?”
Tiffany: “It’s a damn party, motherfucker! On a cruise! Why you think we’re here, this ain’t a fishing boat!”
Titus: “Oh, I see how it is, you lookin’ to ride the Ho Boat to Ho Island!”
What’s funny is that on that cruise I met the man who I would eventually marry, and then who would end up becoming my ex-husband. I had no idea at the time that any of this would happen. We just met a normal way. He said “Hi” or whatever, and we talked for a while. I wasn’t even into him, but when he told me he was a policeman, I was like, Oh, it’s always good to have police friends.
And then my future ex-husband starting acting weird, following me around the boat, filming me from a distance. And of course, Titus hated that, and he would yell at me about it, as the dude was lurking around, filming us.
What can I say? It was just all fucked up. But it gets worse.
The cruise was the week of September 11.
Of 2001. Uh-huh. THAT 9/11.
We were in Jamaica, and the Jamaicans started freaking out, talking about “Your Twin Towers are down!” Titus was all mad about that, too.
? ? ?
Once we got back to the boat, they were saying that all the airports were shut down. We were supposed to be back in the States the next day, but they were saying that nobody would be able to fly home. They let us stay on the cruise an extra four days, for $300.
Me and my auntie decided we would pay it and stay on the cruise. Titus couldn’t afford to stay. Why not? Because he and his $50 was broke as hell, that’s why!
I was not about to pay for him. He was so upset, so mad about that. He ended up having to sleep in the airport for a night, and the next day, he got to fly back to LA.
When we got back to LA, we were still together, but not really. On the one hand, we were breaking up, but just couldn’t seem to actually do it. On the other hand, I still thought I was going to marry him, and I thought I could trust him. I felt this way even though he would take my car and say, “Oh, I’m just going to go to the store and I’ll be right back.” And he would be gone for, like, twenty-four hours.
I just figured he was with his friends or whatever. I didn’t need the car, because I was at work, anyway. You know?
It didn’t really dawn on me that he would be with somebody else, because I thought he loved me.
Then I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do.
So I freaked the fuck out.
This whole pregnancy thing made me feel like such a loser. I felt so stupid. I still had all these dreams and goals for myself that I wanted to accomplish, and here I was knocked up by this broke-ass loser.
It made me really look at the big picture. I was just barely living in this little studio apartment. Titus was living with his mama. Titus didn’t even have a car or a job. He just came on a cruise with $50 on him. How are we going to raise a kid? I only make $400 a week at my job, and then with the Bar Mitzvahs, I’m clearing $2500 a month. That’s not enough to raise a kid.
I can’t have no baby by this man. I can’t even be with him. I don’t even like him anymore.
When I first told him, he wanted the baby.
Titus: “Yeah, that’s right. That’s mine.”
Tiffany: “What the fuck are you talking about? How we gonna pay for this? You ain’t got no job!”
Titus: “It’s all right, baby, that’s why they got welfare. We be aight.”