Late one night the my brain started itching in my skull.I was in the mood not to be at the apartment I shared with my mother for a Saturday night of the usual bullshit. I was ready to get some air, ready to be in the life, anything but here. So I accepted that my friends were either broke, not willing to do anything or just did not exist. I put on some clothes decent enough to get in somewhere for a drink or two. At least there would be possibility, and with possibility there could come change. Maybe I would find some new friend tonight. Someone just cool to be around. Or maybe get luck and run into an old friend that I had not seen and me taking this leap of faith made us see each other at the perfect time.

So I got in the car and drove to bucktown, where I knew it should be jumpin off for nice summer night. At first I was just aimlessly walking. I had to think up shit to say if someone asked "who are you here with?" Damn sure wouldn't feel comfortable saying I was just hangin solo. What is more creepy than that as a pick-up line? Yes I was solo as a Han in frozen carbonite. I refused to let that stop me though. I reasoned with myself that even the embarrassment of the one man show I was doin was better than sitting at home on Xbox. So then I found myself in front of a bar called the Crocodile. It was kind of inconspicuous in the bustling neighborhood but had a following I could tell. People were either trying to get in or just hangin outside smoking cigarettes. In a small group I noticed this young lady with the prettiest dreads. She had on her ripped jeans, a white top draped with a teal blazer. She looked up and brandished a smile at me that would fuck my head up for a long time. I grinned and acted like I was waiting for someone outside. Out of nowhere she says, "Hey you ok?" I responded with a head nod as if to say why wouldn't I be? At that moment she really had me because I wondered if she could hear me thinkin. Could she see how truly alone I was and felt pity? Or was she looking for someone new at the same time I was and this was my opportunity?

Well I somehow walked over and started small talking her and then noticed how pretty her eyes were. Oh god could it really be this easy? We ended up in the basement of the Crocodile dancing to some good music. I enjoyed that night more than I had many of the ones I shared with my homeboys. I did exactly what I set out to do that night and it felt great. We exchanged email addresses, that at the time did seem a little different but why trip? We actually had emails going back and forth for weeks as we shared pictures and love for hip-hop and just being cool in general. She was from Ghanaian descent and you could see she was different then most girls. Her style was all hers and I was eating it up, to a point that I had worked up nerve to have her meet me at a nice restaurant. She tried her best to eat with chopsticks but it was a struggle. Yet she smiled through it all and I was smitten. Her voice, her skin tone, the big Africa earrings that dangled from her earlobes, it was all perfect to me. Then she laid it on me....."Well I stay with this guy and it really is over but he has no where to go.." That dagger is still in my chest. All I could see was the curtain being closed on this fantasy of us.

After a few more dates each with no promise for another and all having just the proper amount of distance between us so I would never go away with the feeling this was going to happen, I caved. I just began to get upset and started to realize she may have feelings for this squatter that she now had in "her" home. I started to feel as though maybe she was not feeling me on the same level. Then one day after I had not seen or heard from her in a while, i was sitting in a Chick Fil-a and who walks in? Yup, side by side with her ex the live-in that won't leave. I was angered more than anything because I had wrapped my feelings around her in a way that I just don't do. The fact that that meant absolutely nothing as far as she was concerned, pretty much stabbed me in the heart.It almost mirrored a similar situation with someone who also took a chunk out my shit too. I gave up then and tried not to look back. Yet I had it really bad and she was what I thought I needed.

I gave up and as much as it hurt I tried to move on forget that happened. I told her that she left me with a feeling of going on a vacation and having the time of your life and then returning home to discover you had not taken the trash out. Of course she focused on the trash portion of that analogy. Then became upset with me and I thought we would never see each other again. Yet I had an addiction, I still wanted to know how she was. I still wanted to see her smile. I still needed to feel like we had a connection. I reached out to her and she gave me a chance to take her to dinner for sushi which she began to like each time we went out more and more. She just wouldn't let the trash statement go though I explained in detail that the trash never symbolized her but rather my life without her.

She got up and cried on me and I really didn't see that coming. She never ever seemed vulnerable to me, until then. So needless to say it was not a happily ever after. My life rarely has those type of storylines. I remember i reached out to her one day as my jones kicked in from not seeing her in almost a year. She was in the hospital as she was suffering from what sounded like an auto-immune disease. I took a long bus ride after work just to see her. She seemed happy yet preoccupied which for her was par for the course. We ate some of her grub hub delivery talked about this and that then I left.That was the last saw her face to face. She taught me that no matter what you see in someone it can't be until they see it themselves. I wanted to be a part of her world badly but she didn't really care for being a part of mine.

Sept. 1989...

I was waiting in the vestibule excited as these types of days did not come too often. My Pop, whom I had not seen in about a month was on his way to pick me up. Usually this was going to either be a drop of to my grandparents or if I was hanging with my father there was going to be a woman involved. A strange woman, not in the sense like I didn't know her but a strange woman period. Pop was kind of a collector so to speak. Nope not this time, or so I beleived. He had told me to be ready days ago as we had tickets to see Todd's play. Todd was an older kid who lived by my father's house and when I would go to visit he's always be doing odd jobs for case like cutting grass etc. Pop was one of his best clients and Todd's brother Taji was my running buddy whenever I would stay there. So I looked up to Todd like a big bro and since I had interests in writing and story-tellin in general I definitely wanted to see a kid from the southside of Chicago that I actually knew playing the lead in "Raisin in the Sun".

I was geeked up as this was something I would have wanted to go to if it was just a dumb school field trip but it wasnt. It was me and my ol man doing something together which I should've loved.