Yesterday

In case you haven't heard, there was another celebrity sighting last night at the Copelands in Buckhead. You must not watch the news. JayBee was in the place last night! The media frenzy was unreal. No one was taking photos of me walking into the spot, but once I got on the inside the camera flashes didn't stop. Damned paparazzi! I was famished because I went to work and then drove to the area without eating or drinking anything. If any of the ATL area bloggers were in the area don't feel cheated. You wouldn't have been able to get in. The crowd swelled after I got there. Maybe some other time.

Here's where a part of the celebrity treatment falls apart. They took forever and a day to come and take my order. I was seated in the bar area but not at the counter facing away from the bar. The dude behind the bar straight acted like he was super busy. Finally I had to pull someone and tell them my I-just-drove-300+-miles-story so that someone would come over and hopefully expedite this whole thing. After all, I didn't want to have to keep taking pictures or sign any more damned autographs.

It so happens that this guy named Antwan hosts a networking event at this spot every Thursday for black professionals. Before I found out what was going on, I couldn't figure it out. I was observant. I noticed people carrying gift bags. I noticed women and men approaching the dude in charge and exchanging greetings. I saw a woman with upholstery swatches or maybe they were curtain fabric or something. I was thinking that maybe someone was getting married and buying a home and they called together some vendors to help them make their selections. I was way off.Anyway when curiosity got the best of me I asked a lady who was seated a couple of chairs down from me. She filled me in on all the details and introduced me to the dude in charge. I didn't even ask for all that, but there's nothing like that southern hospitality.

At some point after I finally began to replenish my strength with some sustenance, I was joined at the bar by this dark skinned cutie. Definitely fit the profile, with long hair to boot. We talked about why she was in town and why I was in town, about her irresponsible behavior son and a host of other things. We probably chatted for about two hours in between she and I both taking calls on our phones. I enjoyed the conversation but wasn't pressed so as I was preparing to leave I casually mentioned that maybe she and I would run into each other again at this event, since we're both planning a move in the summer. She didn't seem receptive to that. I guess because she felt like it was too risky to leave it to chance, so she asked me for my number. Is this standard practice? I'm still not 100% over the way things went down with her, so I'm not really "on the scene", but I didn't know women were asking dudes for their number--especially an attractive woman who I'm positive could have a slew of dudes.

Fib

Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. This is about whether something is a lie. I wrote fib. Remember when you couldn't say lie as a youngster?

Is there such a thing as a lie of omission? A colleague and I disagreed on the point. I said if you choose to leave something out, that’s not a lie. It is an omission but not a lie. To me telling a lie is an active thing. Failing to mention something is more passive. I concede that it might be deceitful, but it, in my opinion is not the same thing as willfully telling a lie. Basically, I had to do an interview about my supervisor. I said some things in the interview that could be considered a stretch. I didn’t tell any lies, but I certainly didn’t show my principal in a bad light either. Although there are things that I don’t agree with sometimes, I chose not to let that be the focus of the dialogue between the interviewer and I.

The interviewer is working on an advanced degree and needed to interview people on the qualities of an effective principal. Anyway, like I said I just chose to focus on the positives. Think of it as journalistic spin. However, my colleague maintained that in not telling about the negatives, which I really don’t have a whole lot of problems with my supervisor, that I was lying. What upset me most is that I absolutely do not like anyone attacking my character. Your good name is all that you have. Plus another one of my mantras is, “If I can’t believe everything you say, then I can’t believe nothing you say.” I truly believe that. What bothered me most is in knowing that I believe the aforementioned, then that gives her cause to disbelieve anything else that comes out of my mouth. It’s not so much that I need her validation. As a matter of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that for many people perception becomes reality, hence the phrase perception is reality. I don’t want her or anyone else’s perception of me to change. I absolutely cannot be associated with lying. I’m a lot of things; a liar is not one of them.

Merriam-Webster defines a lie as: a: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive b: an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker

Based on the definition, failing to include information is not a lie. It is, as I have admitted deceitful. Merriam-Webster defines deceit as: to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid.

Some people may argue that this is semantics. There is however, I think, a difference between a not revealing everything or holding something back and telling an out and out lie. Plus I had a vested interest in doing what I did. It is not appropriate to tell bad stuff about your supervisor. I’m the type of person that I like to handle things in house. So, if I have a problem with you, I’ll step to you and let you know so that we can work it out. More likely than not, I would never put you on blast in front of “company.”

Thoughts?

Untitled

Only three others share this secret, our friends the Sorceress, Man-At-Arms and Orko. Together we defend Castle Grayskull from the evil forces of---oh wait, I just had a HeMan flashback. Seriously though not a lot of people know what I'm about to share. It is our life experiences, environment and level of exposure to sundry things that shape who we are, influence how we behave, and provide a framework from which to draw expressions used in common vernacular. One of my expressions is "I don't hook for free." Let's examine where that came from.

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Lisa was my skinny aunt who was maybe fifteen or sixteen at the time. I was roughly five or six. I wish I had some baby pictures on hand from that age. I was so cute! Anyway, not the point of the story. Actually Lisa wasn't really my blood aunt. She was my grandfather's adopted daughter. Rumor had it that she was actually another man's child but he adopted her anyway. My grandfather and Lisa's mother had three other daughters together, but Lisa was always rumored to the illegitimate child of Deloris, Lisa's and my other aunts' mom. Everybody engaged her like they did everyone else because for sure the four girls were sisters even if her paternity was in question.

We stayed in a small town in southeast Georgia. The population was 702 at the 2000 U.S. Census. That small. There was a set of railroad tracks that separated the "sides" of town. My granddaddy's property was about 2.5 acres and had two houses on it. We lived in one house and he lived in the other one. Since the houses were only yards apart sometimes we ate dinner at either house. It was not uncommon for my mom to cook at our house and then walk down and cook at my grandfather's house. Mind you, he had four daughters living with him, but my mom would still cook over there sometimes. He was particularly fond of her potato salad and pig feet. Yeah, that kinda country.

I don't remember exactly when it happened, but it happened over a period of time. When I would come inside from being outside playing or when Lisa would come outside to get me from playing we'd go "make up granddaddy's bed." That was the name assigned to the deed. What it really meant was we were going to go in granddaddy's bedroom and hunch, at first. Then it progressed to me having to take off my clothes and attempt to penetrate her. She guided me though the process of how to "make a woman feel good." What a foolish proposition to think that a 5-6 year old boy could make a teenager, much less a woman, feel anything.

I knew absolutely nothing about any of the other mechanics necessary to engage in copulation. I can remember her becoming annoyed when it would slip out and she'd have to put it back in. The realism is that you can see how that could happen at 5-6 years old. If I didn't seem into it she also become annoyed. I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I was young.

It didn't always just happen when we were home alone. Sometimes my grandfather would be in the front room asleep. He slept so hard because he worked at a factory and did hard labor. She would usually put the night stand in front of the door to prevent anyone from barging in on us. After a while I began to tell her that I didn't want to do that anymore. Each subsequent time she would tell me that it would be the last time and that she was going to buy me some Ruffles Sour Cream and Cheddar potato chips and a Sprite. These happen to be some of my favorite junk food snacks even now. She even told me that my younger brothers didn't mind making up granddaddy's bed with her and that she had already bought them their chips and soda. In my ignorance I reluctantly agreed to continue with hopes of securing my prize for my obedience.

Like Chinua Achebe entitled one of his books, "Things Fall Apart." We had no reasons to expect anything to go wrong because we had gotten away with it for so long. Notice the pronoun shift. Even though I was young, I knew this was wrong. I did not try to stop it. I could have told my parents, yet I let it persist. The last time it happened my mother came down the hall pushed the door slightly, felt the resistance of the night stand, but was able to peer into the room and see what was going on. I know she got a full eye view because I would see her eyes through the crack. I was scared and nervous as hell, because I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. I'll skip the details on the fall out but I'll say it included a belt, a knife, some blisters and closer monitoring.

To top it all off I still didn't get my chips and soda. When people ask me to do something and I remark, "I don't hook for free," this is where that saying came from. I don't like to be taken advantage of. I like to know what you're going to be able to do for me before I put myself out. Some people might think this extremely crude that I would make light of this situation. To the contrary, I just can't profit anything from dwelling on the past. I allowed myself to be abused for the promise of some goods in return. That's pretty much was hooking/prostitution is. I remember the first time I said it to my supervisor when I agreed to be chair of the leadership team. She was looking at me like she had no clue what I was talking about. For a brief moment I thought I had gone too far, but after I asked her if I was going to get an extended contract, she came back (she looked out of it for a second) and told me yes. I mean, the situation is different because I was a child, but it's pretty much the same. I don't have any hard feelings toward her and I think I'm pretty well adjusted. Prior to reading this, would you have ever guessed?

The subject of child molestation, especially among black families is taboo, but happens so much more often that most care to think about or admit.

Off the subject, but what is it about saying, "This shouldn't leave this room," or "Don't tell anybody," that makes people just run and tell whatever you asked them to not tell? I know that usually when people say that to me, I interpret it as only tell the one person who you always tell stuff. Sometimes though depending on the seriousness of the issue it really means don't tell anyone at all. A situation happened this past week on the job when we were in a meeting and asked to not divulge what had been discussed. It got out and I had people coming up to me on Friday asking about what was said at the meeting--including the building principal. Why can't people keep their mouths closed?

Adolecent Ignorance--Actually, We Were In College

We were bored so we decided to get off campus and see what we could get into. Although we were all 20+ we decided to go (word we buried)-knocking. In case you’re not familiar with this, you just run up to people’s homes, knock on the door or beat on the window really hard, run off somewhere where you can see them and they can’t see you and laugh when they come to the door looking for whomever they thought was at the door. Sounds right foolish when you put it on paper, but for us it was amusing. So that was the plan this particular Thursday night, which is college night at one of the local haunts, but we decided we weren’t in the mood for that.

We headed to Teon’s house since he was a native and parked. We chose to walk a few streets over from where he lived so we’d be somewhere we people in the neighborhood might not know who he was and tell his mom. We began knocking on doors and running. It was all good until this one dude didn’t think it was funny and he fired a gun in the air. It was just a warning shot, but it scared the hell out of me. The sight of the spark that the gun made in the still of that crisp autumn night is forever indelibly etched in my mind. Think I didn’t show Carl Lewis up that night? I ran like it was no tomorrow. All three of us did. When we stopped running we huddled on a street near a wooded area to catch our breath and to each express how frightening it was to hear and see the flicker of that gun. This is not the first time we had engaged in behavior like this, but this was the first time someone fired a shot. The most someone had ever done up until this day was throw something through their window. That particular night when we walked off, we were laughing like, that’s their dumb azz cause they gotta fix that window.

Anyway, that night after we caught our breath we still hadn’t had enough, but we decided to table the (word we buried)-knocking for the night. At the time not too far from the wooded area where we huddled the land was being prepared for construction. You know how they push that dirt around for like 2 months before you actually see any pipes in the ground or concrete blocks? Yeah, that’s what it looked like. Behind that was an old folks home that had already been built. There was one of those big dump trucksout there. Antwan decided to get in the truck (at me and Teon’s behest) and start it up and run it into the old folks’ home. Someone had left the keys in the truck so that’s how he was gonna be able to start it. He tried to turn the engine over like three times but he couldn’t get it to come on. It would make the sound like it was going to crank, but it wouldn’t completely fire. Apparently, the people in the old folks home were watching us because we saw the blinds flutter and soon heard sirens.

We ran like hell across the dirt that was there for the grocery store and into the wooded area that we huddled at earlier. There were like three cop cars because we saw the blue lights as we were dipping off in the woods. Of course I think I’m smarter than the police so I was like we need to run in the water so in case they have dogs they will lose our scent. Let a joker watch one episode of Matlock. Anyway, we heard footsteps that were not our own. We figured the police were on foot trying to scare us. There weren’t probably really gonna traipse through the woods to find us but they were definitely gonna try to rattle us. But me, I’m not gonna be rattled—even when I’m in the wrong. To a fault I can be wrong and strong and think nothing of it. We were navigating the woods but being ever so careful as not to make too much noise. We were signally each other and all trying to make sure that we all made it out of this thing safely. Eventually we no longer heard the additional footsteps so we figured the coast was clear. We ran up out of the woods and got back on the main street. (Ladynaynay this happened on the corner of Rock Quary and Raleigh Blvd just as a point of reference.)

Me still over analyzing things and thinking that I was “on the run” suggested that we all switch shirts and try to make ourselves look different in case the po-po rolled past looking for three black guys who fit our description. The realism is that if they did roll past they still would have known that it was us, but in my mind I thought I was one-upping the man. We just needed take our azzes home and do some studying.

Once we got back to T’s house we did ride back up to the scene of the crime and the police were still there. There was only one car now, but we really felt like we had beaten the man. We rolled on the Waffle House, (by the way if you don’t know bout the Waffle House shame one you) got a bite to eat and tripped about the events of the day.

Are You Serious?

So I'm on my way to see a friend of mine in Durham. We hadn't seen each other in about three months which is rather unusual for us. I was supposed to arrive at 3:30 at the meet up spot but I didn't end up leaving my house til after three and the drive is about forty minutes. It was a little rainy but the drive was going well. A state trooper appeared from out of nowhere and everybody slowed down in homage to the blue lights. Me, as long as I'm not doing anything crazy I'm pretty much gonna maintain my flow. The trooper was in the passing lane and I was behind him. He tapped his brakes and I slowed up and got in the right lane. I was doing about 70 and my car slightly inched ahead of his. Here go the dang lights.

I rode for a minute making faces at him in my rear view mirror, indicative of my shock that he would pull me over. When I came to a stop he started shouting something at me over the loudspeaker. I couldn't understand what he was saying and he just kept shouting the same inaudible command. I thought he was telling me to get off my cell phone but I wasn't talking on it. Finally I was able to make out "bridge" so I figured that he wanted me to pull a little more forward so that we could both be off the bridge. Once I stopped again, he got out and started with the police 101 talk.

Him: Is there any reason why you're going so fast?
Me: I'm only going 70.
Him: Well the speed limit is 65. I'm a state trooper and you were going to pass me.
Me: (indignant-thinking to myself who gives a phuck; you got a car just like i do. cars are meant to go)Who does that?
Him: (frown on his face because he didn't understand)Huh?
Me: Who gives people tickets for going 5 miles over the speed limit?
Him: The speed limit is 65. And why were you on my bumper. Is there any reason why you were following so closely?
Me: I didn't think I was that close.
Him: You were too close. When I tapped my brakes you slowed down.
Me: I slowed down because I thought someone in front of you was slowing down.
Him: License and registration.
Me: (I pause and act like I don't know where my information is and reach in the glove box and hand it to him, but not before I add this)I'm late getting somewhere. Can you expedite this?
Him: (no response just looks and walks to his car)

I whip out the cell phone to tell Tonya that I'm going to be late because I got pulled over. Of course Captain Redneck takes his time writing my ticket. He was probably trying to run my name through all 50 states to see if there was anything he could get me on. If this had been a year ago, he would have been successful. I'm completely legit now. Gots all my papers. When Captain Redneck has returned he gives me the ticket for $155 and tells me my court date, yada yada yada. As he turns to leave we dialogue again.

Me: Let me say this to you.
Him: (He pauses and puts his head back down to the passenger side window)
Me: When you were shouting at me through the loud speaker I couldn't understand what you were saying. I thought you were trying to tell me to get off my phone but I wasn't on the phone. I was very nervous because I don't know if you watch t.v. where you live but I do. I know what white men with guns do to black men when they get stopped and I didn't want you to shoot me.
Him: I wouldn't shoot you unless you shot at me.
Me: (ignoring that b.s. and annoyed at being interrupted)Your tone was very aggressive and I didn't like it. The way you got out of your vehicle was too aggressive as well. I thought you were gonna take out your billy stick and hit me with it. You need to understand in the context of you being a white man with a gun and me being an unarmed black man how I must've felt when you were shouting at me. I didn't want to make any sudden moves. That's why I put my hands up and opened the door when you were shouting because I didn't want to give you any reason to think you needed to shoot me. I still don't see why you stopped me because I was only doing 5 miles over the speed limit.
Him: (sensing where I was going with this)You getting stopped has nothing to do with you being black. You just need to slow down.
Me: Well, I didn't get stopped by officers before I purchased this car.
Him: Just slow down.
Me: (put my car in gear and told him I was leaving. He was still bent over inside my window.)
Him:Be careful when you merge back onto the highway.
Me: **crickets**and an attitude for him making me even later

I really don't think I overreacted and tried to make it something that it wasn't. It angered me that he would be so dismissive because he's never had to walk one mile in my shoes. I do not like the police. (Except for one_man) I have not had good experiences with them. I truly believe that his major reason for stopping me is that he thought I was disrespecting him by passing him when he's a state trooper. Who cares? I had somewhere to go and as a law abiding citizen I don't feel like I have to stop driving because a state trooper is on the road with me. That would be like if I was have an observation and I wasn't teaching hopping up and trying to act like I was doing something. I don't even roll like that. FTDS.

A Stranger In My House

Everything was going as well as it could until I turned 15. The summer before freshman year of high school I tried everything that your parents tell you to stay away from. Smoking, drinking and sex. I enjoyed two of the three, hated one and didn’t get serious about one of the two until I got to college and the other one of the two I got more serious about toward the middle of college. That’s a bootleg riddle. First person to get it right gets—let me see…..the assurance of knowing they were right. Meanwhile, not the point of the story, but yeah, I was as the old people say “smellin’ myself.” I became more contentious at home, argumentative with my parents at times, especially him*.

Although a lot had happened and my parents had numerous reasons to be sick of me, there was an incident that prompted the séance. I was home chillin’ cause it was the summer time. I didn’t attend any enrichment camps or anything like that. That’s why some people have an advantage over others. They expose their children to things that are going to expand their minds. Maybe if I had been at a camp or something, then the incident wouldn’t have happened. Old people say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. There was a neighborhood girl in whom I was interested. Not like I was in love or anything remotely close to that—I was 15 years old. You know what I was thinking about. So we began hanging out. Hanging out led to sexual talk. One day I remember on the playground (we were just up there talkin’) I pretended that I had to use the bathroom. I was ready to see how she would react to seeing it. I whipped it out and just held it for a while. Of course nothing came out cause I really didn’t have to use the bathroom. I was like oh well I guess I didn’t have to go all the while I was getting an erection because here I was with this girl I liked with my piece in my hand kinda just sitting in this awkward silence as she looked at me and I looked at her. As I was about to put it away, she said that I didn’t have to. We exchanged a little back and forth and then ended up at my house in my bedroom. T.I. You know what it is.

Of course we had sex on my brother’s bed—not mine. I guess that was kinda triflin’. We had been going for maybe about seven or eight minutes before we heard a car door slam. Actually I didn’t hear the car door. She did. When she told me she heard something I was telling her she didn’t hear anything cause I wanted to finish what I had started. Thinking back on it now, there was no condom involved either. So stupid. Honestly, condoms didn’t become involved in sex for me until I was like 22. It’s just God’s grace that I don’t have a kid or anything grandma’s washing powder can’t get off. Anyway, she kinda pushed me off her while urging me to look out the window. I did. It was him* carrying grocery bags. I had about 7 seconds to get her out of the house, get up front, spray something just in case and act like nothing had happened. Needless to say I couldn’t pull that off.

We both ran up to the den in the front of the house. Our den had a door on it so she closed and locked the door just before he* entered the house. He started bamming on the door telling us to open the door. I was seated across the room farthest away from the door. She was sitting right next to the door in a chair but was frozen with fear. I kept telling her to open the door but she just kept shaking her head no. Finally I got up, did the flip up in my shorts (I think the fellas will know what I’m sayin’) and opened the door. He* started with the 20 questions. What was all that noise? What’s going on? I heard ya’ll running. He’s* asking and answer his* own questions. Nesha decided to say that we were in the back playing my keyboard. I’m thinking to myself this broad is sooooo stupid. My adapter had been broken for like three months so there was no way in hell we were playing the keyboard. He went to the back to test the keyboard and surveyed the room. Somewhere in the middle of this Nesha was dismissed and he told me that he didn’t want her back in our house ever again. When he came back he said that the adapter was still broken and the bed was messed up. My clever story was that we were wrestling. (We were, kinda). He* didn’t buy it and he made me do manual labor. Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate pulling weeds and shit like that. I had to wash all the cars too and cut the grass. I hate that kinda shit. Hire someone ma phucka.

Later that evening he* called my mom who was in Tacoma, WA, at the time to tell her what happened. I was so pissed off about him calling her. I could give a phuck less about what he thought, but I highly respect my mother and want her to have a good opinion of me. I had already been in a lot of trouble because of my mouthiness. Basically I was just acting grown. I had something to say about everything. When she got back, they came up with this bright idea to have an intervention to “save me” from what I’m not sure—maybe the devil.

Like I said, getting caught in the house was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Truthfully I never would have gotten caught if he* wasn’t stealing company time by grocery shopping and bringing food home. It’s really his* fault. Ma phucka. So at the intervention they called the whole family together. There were six of us. Four siblings and my mom and him*. These people are ultra religious so of course we go to the Bible to start the lashing. I remember them having some prepared notes to make sure they covered all my list of offenses and whatnot. They read off all the infractions, which were numerous. After the reading of the charges against me they read some verses from the Bible. The one that sticks out the most was “Why do the heathen rage?” He* even had a book by the same title and pulled some stuff from there to tell me why I was such a heathen and why I was raging (acting out). Basically they said it was a demonic spirit that had me bound and that’s why I was being so bad and that every time I did something else I was feeding the demon and making it stronger. They had had enough and were going to try to pray it out of me. My mom said her piece, which was much softer but she was very concerned about the person I was turning into. I knew that this was not my mom’s idea, but she went along with it I guess to appease him*. Ma phucka.

They even sung some church songs. I don’t remember what they sang but it was almost like a mini church service minus the offering. As they were talking I remember having something like an out-of-body experience. I kinda looked around at the five faces staring at me and the two faces doing the talking/preaching/teaching/seancing/casting-out-demoning and I was like these ma phuckas are really crazy. Like I knew before that they had some idiosyncrasies, but now I felt like these people were CERTIFIABLE. Don’t get me wrong. I’m crazy ‘bout my mama, but I thought her going along with this was not a good idea as this “intervention” or whatever was a bit extreme. The whole thing was absolutely surreal. I was just sitting in the room like this cannot be happening. I wondered what my real family was like and if I had been switched at birth. I mean, okay I was wildin’ out a little bit, but seriously, all this was unnecessary. At certain times while they were talking they would ask me questions. I wouldn’t answer. Of course this made them mad and they were saying the demon won’t let him talk. I was thinking how crazy they had to be to think that something was keeping me from talking. I wasn’t speaking because I couldn’t believe what was happening. I just felt so out of place. There was a stranger in my house. It took a while to figure out, but the realism was that the stranger was me.

Ever since that day things were a little different. We’ve never discussed it from that day to this one, and until now I had not relieved it again. It was one of the defining moments of my youth because I realized how people would use the Bible as a weapon against you and believe that they are justified. To this day I’m awfully leery of someone who always references the Bible. Don’t get me wrong. I go to church most Sundays and I enjoy it. It’s just I think of people who do this kinda stuff as fanatics. Just like when I ask someone how they are doing and they tell me blessed and highly favored. BREAKING NEWS: This just in. You can be saved and answer “fine” when someone asks how you’re doing. You won’t lose your salvation.

I kinda stopped giving them so much trouble after that but only because I didn’t want to sit through another cast out demons/bring down the strongholds ceremony.

Just a thought

You cannot choose your parents. Here's a question for parents everywhere.

• If you had to prepare a "resume" of your accomplishments, everything you have to offer a child, would your child/children choose you to be their parent?

If the answer is no, then you need to do something differently.

I think I want to tell the story of a seance that my parents had for me when I was 15. It wasn't really a seance, rather it was more like an intervention. I just like to say the word seance. I might post it tomorrow. Gotta get some zzs.