For the rest of the trip, we drove in silence. I didn’t mind the silence. It gave us time to not have to talk about what just happened. I hated that I even brought it up because I might have made things awkward between us. I hoped that I didn’t make Gemini feel as if he did anything wrong because he didn’t.
I think my feeling were getting involved now, and seeing a woman call him, to finding out that there were other women, got me in my head a little bit, but I knew that I was going to be fine.
Pretty soon, we were pulling up to a nice, gated community. Gemini was delivering two cars to a customer here. He had to show his I.D at the gate, give the security guard at the gate the address to the property, along with the customer’s name. Once everything checked out, Gemini was let in. He drove for another minute before we were in front of the customers home. The driveway was long, and there sat four luxury vehicles there. There was a three- car garage, making me wonder if there were other cars in the garage.
As I was examining the house, I could see the owner walking out. White guy. Looked to be in his forties. Two small puppies came running out with him, and I watched as he aggressively yelled for the puppies to go back inside the house. He had an annoyed look on his face. Gemini hadn’t noticed the look on theguys face yet because he was reaching for his tablet, going to take it with him when he stepped off the truck, so that they could go through the checklist together.
“I’m going to get out too. I want to stretch my legs,” I told Gemini, not even waiting for an answer from him because that’s just how eager I was to step out and stand on my feet.
Gemini stepped out at the same time as I did, and the second he made it over to where I was, along with where the customer was standing, which wasn’t too far away, all we heard come from him was…
“Finally! It’s about fuckin time!” when he said that, my eyes immediately shot over to Gemini.
By this point in the trip, I knew Gemini well enough to know that he wasn’t going to just allow someone to say that to him without him saying anything in response. It didn’t matter if this was his business. He wasn’t going for that.
“What you talking about man? I sent you a text this morning, letting you know what time I was going to be here. I told you that I would arrive at 5:00 P.M. It’s 5:00 P.M., so what you mean it’s about fuckin time? I stuck to the schedule!” Gemini shot, raising the trailer, so that he could do what he had to do to get the cars down.
Now, the plan had been for me to just get out of the truck, stretch for a little bit, and then hop back on. Seeing the vibe that this man was giving off and not wanting Gemini to stoop down to his level, having things go left, I think that it would be best if I actually stayed out here, and didn’t get back on the truck.
“Well, it seems like it took forever for 5:00 P.M. to get here,” the guy said.
I looked over at Gemini, and he as fighting the urge to say something, or just let it go. God, I was happy when he allowed the guy to feel like he’d won the battle. Gemini quickly shook his head, let out a sarcastic laugh, and hopped onto the truck.That was the best thing that he could do. It made him the better man that he could have self-control to not feed into this with this man.
I went around, walking to the back of the truck, wanting to watch Gemini as he lowered the cars down. One of the cars was a beautiful Mercedes G- wagon, and the other was a Rolls- Royce Cullinan. I wasn’t a car freak by any means, but I won’t lie, ever since I’ve been on the truck with Gemini, I now have a newfound interest in these cars. Mostly every car that he would pick up and deliver were luxury vehicles. I could ask Gemini a question about one of the cars, and he knew everything about them. He was very knowledgeable when it came to vehicles, so it made so much sense why he was in the career field that he was in.
I watched Gemini as he took all the proper precautions to lower the cars down. It took about ten minutes for him to get both cars down on the ground. As soon as he finished, he tossed the keys to the customer, who didn’t thank Gemini or anything, but he immediately went for the Rolls- Royce, checking it out, walking around it, making sure that it didn’t have any dents or anything. While he was doing that, Gemini was back on the truck. Because I’ve watched him do this quite a few times now, I knew that he was folding the ramps back up, fixing the hydraulic lift components, and everything else that came with resetting the trailer for when he has a new load tomorrow.
The guy moved on from the Rolls- Royce, and he went over to the Mercedes, so that he could check it out. As Gemini was stepping down the trailer, the guy looked up from the Mercedes, sized Gemini up and down before letting out a laugh. I could tell by the laugh he released that he was getting ready to say something ignorant.
“This what you do all day man? Drop cars off to people?” he tried to say it in a way as if he was better than Gemini.
As if he was looking down on Gemini. As if he was better than Gemini. I knew what it was though. It was intimidation. Here Gemini is, this beautiful black man, perfect shape, head full of nice hair that had the most beautiful waves that I’ve ever seen in my life, pushing this beautiful truck that you could tell cost him a pretty penny. On the opposing side, the guy that he was delivering to, he might have had money, but that was it. Just off the few minutes that I’ve been around him, I could tell that he was a terrible person with a shitty attitude. He had terrible skin, that was dry as hell, with a bunch of acne. His big beer belly hung over his belt. Just a hot ass mess, and if he did get any kind of women, you could tell it was because of the money that he had, and not because of his looks or personality.
“Yeah man. You ready to start the checklist? When I got here, you came out here acting like you were pressed for time. If you’re that pressed for time, lets hurry up and knock this out, and not have questions with me, worrying about what I do for a living. You worried about the wrong thing, my man,” even though Gemini was calm in his response to the dude, I know for a fact that he was seething. Hell, I was seething for him.
“I was just trying to get a peek into your career. I didn’t know that this was a thing. When you think about it though, I guess somebody gotta do it, and that somebody just happened to be you,” he shot. It sounded so racist. I don’t know if I was tripping, looking too deep into it, but that’s the way that I was taking it.
“Ay, what you getting at man? This like the third time you done opened your mouth to disrespect me. You walked out here on bullshit. I gave you the time that I would be here, and I stuck to it. I pulled up at the exact time that I gave you this morning. Now you trying to have a ha-ha moment and come at my career. You tried to make it seem as if it was a bad thing that I drive a truck for a living and deliver cars. Talking about some ‘I guess somebody gotta do it’. I know what you getting at, main man.It was shade. I don’t know what kind of truck you think you’re looking at that I’m pushing, but nothing about this shit should give you the impression that I’m struggling!” Gemini spat.
I could tell that he was really pissed off now. At first, he was trying to ignore it, let out sarcastic laughs, but he felt the same rage that I was feeling. It was a white man being prejudice towards him. Gemini clocked it the same way that I did.
“Since you wanted a little peek into my career, I’ll give you one. I own this truck. I own this business. I set my own schedule. I don’t answer to no man. If I got to your house late this evening, I don’t have a boss that I would have had to answer to about my tardiness. That’s the benefit of being self- employed. You think you’re ready to get the fuck out of my business now, so that we can tend to this checklist?” Gemini asked him.
I was standing here, fighting for my life trying not to smile. I don’t know if I was going crazy, or I had reached a point with Gemini where I was just turned on by everything that he did but seeing him stand there and check this dude was sexy as hell. It was attractive. I loved that Gemini was ten toes down in who he was, and how he didn’t play when it came to his respect. He didn’t have to threaten the man, he didn’t have to yell, didn’t have to raise his shirt, and show the gun that I knew he had resting there. I loved to see a man move with confidence and self- respect, and Gemini just so happened to be the epidemy of that.
After Gemini finished checking the dude, of course he didn’t have anything else to say. I mean, he was a total mute after that. No more slick remarks from him. No more anything. They went through the checklist, where Gemini checked off the remaining boxes on the tablet. He had the dude sign over all the documents, and as if that moment never happened, he walked away, going for my side, so he could open the door, and assist me in getting inside.
Usually, when Gemini completed business with someone, he would shake their hands and even ask to take a picture of them standing next to their new car, so he could add it to his profile, but he didn’t do any of those things. He got in the truck, and I watched him as he started logging on the screen, documenting that the delivery was complete.
“I really thought that you were going to beat his ass,” I let him know, reaching in the cupholder, so that I could grab my bottle of water.
When I said that to Gemini, he laughed, while keeping himself busy on the screen.
“Man, I wanted to slam him on his fuckin head. We in country ass Alabama though, and I ain’t trying to get arrested for beating a white boy ass in his own driveway. I felt like he was trying me. Over the years, I’ve met so many people that’s interested in my career. They respect what I’m out here doing. Don’t get me wrong, coming to these parts of town, I’ve been stereotyped before, but I think I got so angry with him because I felt like he was talking to me in a sense of him being better than me,” Gemini went on to tell me, and I nodded my head, agreeing with what he said. I had the same perspective as him on this entire situation.
“You can have more money than me. Shit, someone can even have less money than me. I don’t care about that shit. I care about respect. I give respect to a fuckin dog. I’ll respect a homeless person on the side of the street. I’ll never in my life stand back and let somebody talk to me as if I’m beneath them because of how I make my living. I worked too hard to get to where I’m at. With every humble bone in my body, I can assure you that I make more than his ass anyways,” he finished.
“And you don’t have to be humble for saying that. You worked hard to get to where you are,” I let him know.
