STREET WRITER

Michael Whitley and the Beanstalk: The Anniversary Issue

It’s gong to be nice when I'm realized: Michael Whitley and the Beanstalk. The Anniversary Issue.

This is the ghetto “E true Hollywood” story behind Jackass and the Beanstalk as told by his cousin Pimp Cadillac the Third.

“Playa, there weren’t never no beanstalk, that was just code for bean-pies like them Muslims sell on the highways or as what we call in the hood “heroin cakes.” And you have to realize that Jackass was a trifling motherfucker. “A captain save a ho.” And he wasn’t living with his poor widow mother. He was living with this hoodrat bitch named Tanika. Every day, she served him his nutts on a platter like Alvin and the Chipmunks. Tanika would say, “Jackass you ain’t no man. You can’t keep no job. I’m up here pregnant with your throwaway. You betta get out there and sell milky-cow.” And when she said milky-cow, she meant the “new” crack rock because they had a Meth lab in their basement. But Jackass was no drug dealer. He didn’t like the hours. He didn’t like the crackhead zombies at 4 in the morning. He preferred watching the history channel and failing at jeopardy. Jackass in his pathetic heart was a thief. He dreamed of bank robberies and intellectual shit like Bill Cassidy and the Sundance kid. He dreamed of his closeted homosexual Bonny. So when he went into town this woman was just standing in the street like she was asleep. And when he tried to creep by her, that bitch screamed like the one tooth she had left in her mouth was being pulled out by a pair of pliers. And it wasn’t five magicak beans. It was five magical keys. She told him each key could open any door he desired but only once. So Jackass being the lazy ass bastard he was, for a second, decided to tell his annoying hoodrat at home that he got robbed. But he could never lie to Tanika. He loved that ho. So Jackass got home and of course when he told Tanika that he sold the stash for magical keys to a vodoo woman, she slapped his bitchass to the floor. "What the fuck!" Being spiteful, she told him she was leaving him for his cousin Pookie. In her devious smile, she said she was going to tell him on the Maury Povich show the next week that the baby wasn’t his. But she figured since he was a no good nigga, she might as well be Jerry Springer about it and get out while the ratings were good. So Jackass went to bed alone. He smoked the rest of their stash and threw the keys out the window. The next morning he woke up the keys were pressed against his face. And because he was still a little high from hardly any sleep, he decided to steal the neighbor’s car and leave town before Tanika sent the cops. And when he tried his first magical key, it opened the door and started the car. And Jackass was like “Oh snap!” that voodoo bitch wasn’t lying. So Jackass started plotting. He waited until the sun fell into the sea of night. He decided to see if the key would work on an ATM machine. He wore a ski mask. When he got to the ATM machine, it seemed the key was too big when he stuck it in its virginity. But the key slithered between the small slot like a snake and opened it legs. Jackass did his gangster dance. All those old westerns and gangster movies he watched growing up weren't for nothing anymore. So Jackass had three keys. The idiot misused the third one because he locked himself out the first car he stole. The old lady with the one tooth warned, the key only worked once. And the forth key he used to unlock the safe at the DC National Zoo. He made a quick million bucks. Most people didn’t know that government business kept their money inside their buildings. Jackass only knew because he had gotten fired from that job dressing up like Kinky the friendly lion. He knew they delivered money there every day. Even if he made a quick million bucks, he wanted something bigger. He wanted to rob the biggest Ogre: The Department of National Treasury. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy to just walk in and take money. But he had the last magic key. And Jack was greedy. So he knew he could just walk in and walk out. And he did. And because I’m too lazy and drunk to finish this story, let’s just say, he got his teeth fixed and he lived happily ever once he married Beyonce. That’s the end motherfuckers, now take yow asses to sleep” Like religion, fairy tales weren't written for children. It was a warning. In spite of their name, the popular fairy tales usually have very little to do with fairies. We took the name from the French "contes des fee." My favorite tale of course is Jack and the Beanstalk. It’s suppose to be a simple story about a boy selling his cow for some magic beans that turn to a beanstalk and after he climbed it, stole, he supposedly lived happily ever after. But if you read between the rhyming of words is a different and darker story.

But let's begin, how does one praise God?

When I was ten years old, the Holy Ghost church was located in the middle of nowhere. It was two hours from Houston, Texas, on the curb of the swaps of Louisiana and a mile walk to the back of the woods. It was a simple wooden building, built on a concrete foundation. Its body was meant to be hollow so the breeze that once shook the earth had open space to cool heated bodies. It was before air-conditioning.

“Go down to the river” was the message. And you first heard it when you got out of the car. It was as if the fireflies and mosquitoes themselves were singing the praise. And we would walk, singing as we made our way through the woods. We would carry lit candles or kerosene lanterns. Everyone wore white. My grandmother took us once a month after our regular Baptist church sermons. We changed clothes in the car. I hated the commute. But as we walked through the mud you could hear the music. You could feel the beat of the drums. You could feel the slap of the tambourines. Those people were crazy but they made you feel the insanity. It felt violent. It felt primitive. I had no idea why we had to wear white. It just got dirty. And you would see the other people following the music like ghosts trying to get home humming “speak Lord, speak to me.” And the music. The choir sanging. Once you got to the church they would be turning and falling down. The old women spinning like miniature hurricanes and speaking in tongues. Their eyes would be rolled into the back of their heads. They worshipped to the point of exhaustion. And it looked so out of control. There were no boundaries. There was nothing you couldn’t do. I once saw a man peeing on himself as he danced. I think he had a bottle of moonshine before the worship. But that what was beautiful thing, liqour made it more intense. And the preacher would be screaming. Nobody ever sat down. You either dance, played guitar, drums or the tambourine. I being just ten years old would feel embarrassed. And I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe in the Sunday school lessons. But none of it made any sense. It wasn’t until I was in that church and hearing those black fat girls singing the sweat off their faces that I didn’t have to intellectually believe, but feel. God wasn’t in text, some stories but my soul. And I would try to fight it. And they would sang so free. Come on and get happy. I could feel it rising in the pit of my stomach. And they would conjure the dirt of the church floor to rise with their dancing feet. Sweet Lord. I could feel the little hairs on my arms stand up. I could feel the faith crawling up my back. And then my neck would start twitching. And my hips would thrust. And then my feet would tap the floor. I’d open my arms. Speak lord. speak to me. I’d open my eyes and I’d see the old woman dancing with the snakes. I'd see the preacher slamming his hands together. I see the choir swaggering back and forth in perfect unison. And then I would surrender. And suddenly, I couldn’t fight the music anymore. I would start fanatically beating my tambourine. I would dance my ten year old heart silly. I would cry. It felt like some voodoo shit. I would give in. It was as if I was being called to testify. It was the voice in my heart screaming “why are we here if we aren’t meant to believe.” Why are we here if we aren’t meant to love? “Don’t fake it. Don’t let them bury you a fraud the preacher would scream.” I am soldier.

And when i'm realized it's going to be nice! Like religion, fairy tales weren't written for children. It was a warning.

mama there’s a beanstalk in the backyard

didn’t you sell that cow for some magic beans

yes mama

you betta get your ass out there and climb it

but mama it’s all the way to the heavens

don’t make me slap the black off you boy

but mama, I’m scared

I love you right

yes mama

then climb black boy

Let me explain my struggle

The hunger – So the story begins with a strong desire to eat. The need to be more. Times were hard. Jack mother was a widow. They had no money and their only meal ticket, the cow milky-white, was dried up. Life was quickly becoming desperate. Have you ever wondered, how is it that we know to want more? I grew up in the poorest of ghettos. I remember watching Aaron Spelling programs like Dynasty and 90210 and wanting to be a vindictive rich white bitch. The only problem: I was a nappy headed black kid from the south. And then there were the rap videos with the expensive cars, jewelry, big booty women and mansions. The only problem: I had no desire to get shot for a record deal. My obstacles didn’t deter my strong desire to be more. I wanted to eat. I was hungry.

The hustle – Why was Jack selling the most prize procession? Why was he selling their last hope? Even if he had sold Milky White for twenty pounds, how long would it had been before the money and food ran out again? How long would it have been before he and his mother were starving again? The most prize procession, hope, that which is supposely will save our lives or condemn us to a slow agonizing death wasn’t the cow, but the hustle. Poor people have to take chances. They made it very clear in the story that Jack was no fool. The old man first tried to figure out if he could count. And when he discovered Jack was a smartass, he was intrigued. By the way, who was that old man? And why was he cheating young boys for their most prize procession? And why are all fairytales are about poor people? That old was the poor man's dream. He was the hustle. He had his own wicked intentions. And evil always try to make it seem easy. But Jack was no fool.

The rejection –Isn’t it when you finally believe in something so outrageous people try calm your ass down? You can’t have too much of a good time, because they will soon call you an addict. You can’t laugh too much because soon they will say you’re insane. You can’t believe too much because they will warn -- you’re going to die alone and broke. At first they told me I was stupid to quit my job to become a writer. They said I was a fool. And I was a fool. They said I was ghetto. But honestly, I never felt as if I could dream because I was born poor. I was supposed to play it safe my entire life. And then I think of Jack that he actually had the audacity to sell the family most prize procession for five magical beans. What the hell? Didn’t he not know he was coming home to an ass whooping? Of course they would sit around and talk about him the next day. But he was a dreamer. He was a romantic. He needed to believe that there was more to life than the struggle. He was hungry. When I first started my comic, the rejection was every where. I had poor grammar. I needed to be more like E. Lynn Harris. It wasn’t enough I was constantly getting rejected by agents because I wasn’t anybody. I didn’t have a name. I was told to give up. I felt I was too old to start over. And I didn’t look the part of a writer. I wasn't fat or homely. I didn’t look like what the dream was suppose to look like. But I had to believe. I had to keep motivated. I had to learn to endure the humiliation. I got kicked out of clubs. I was called a common hustler, a prostitute. I walked home many nights crying. Why wouldn’t I just go get a job? Why did I have to give everything to it? Why did I sell that cow for five magic beans? It’s because the dream isn’t for the weak or those willing to compromise. You either believe like you breathing, or you don’t believe at all. I was fanatical like Jihad. I was either going to be tragically broke or intransigently rich.

The dream – Imagine a damn beanstalk that reached the sky in your backyard. That the vodooo bitch was right --those beans were were magical. Only a crazy person would decide to climb it. Only a romantic needed to figure out where it led. It seemed so crazy that after a year I’m still selling my comic at the bar and club. And I had so many flaws. But i was hungry. And when you're hungry you just want to eat. You will learn how to hunt better. Of course it looked pathetic in the beginning. I took a chance. I wanted to be a writer by any means necessary. But it was all about building a name. It was all about building a foundation. It was about demystifying the process. I now have a name. I now have an identity.

The reality – The truth was always unkind. I’m still broke. I’m still struggling. The truth was very ugly. I don’t make nearly enough money to survive. Did anyone notice that in the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk that the giant ogre was always eating little boys? He could smell them coming a mile away trying to quench their desires. I believe the giant ogre made a deal with the old man. The old man was tricking young boys. How did he know Jack’s name? The truth, he wasn’t a dream maker but a death dealer. Jack wasn’t the first. He took their most prize possession, and they always arrived home to an ass beating and the beans would be thrown out the window. And each and every time the damn beanstalk grew to the sky. It was like the giant ogre was having his food delivered. So many people have dreams. So many of us are climbing that beanstalk to our death. But why was Jack different? Why did the wife take pity on Jack? Maybe she took pity on all the young boys. Maybe faith always give us a fighting chance to either turn back or be clever. Jack was greedy. He saw the money-bags and he had to take it. He just didn’t want to eat for one more day, he wanted to eat for life.

The business – I remember the possibility of my first book deal. The guy called me because he said he had been a fan of mine for awhile. He had a popular magazine and wanted to publish and advertise my book. I felt elated. I felt finally that I was redeemed. So we spoke back and forth on the phone. He wanted me to sign over my rights. I wanted a contract. He promised me a book signing but no money. I was going to have to pay for my own hotel and airline ticket. I was to sign books for my fans and all the money would go into his pocket. I wasn’t a fucking fool. I was still hungry. I was still broke. I was selling my most prize procession to eat, not starve. And that’s the business. I had to thicken my skin. I climbed the beanstalk and when I got to the top, there were hungry giants looking to feed on romantic souls. And at first that pissed me off, and like Jack I thought of that old man and I knew he had set me up. He played me. But I wasn’t leaving my beanstalk empty handed. Jack first took the money-bags, and then he played his luck again and went back for the golden goose. But he still wasn’t satisfied until he got that golden harp. Some like to argue that Jack was greedy or was it payback? The business feeds on romantic souls everyday. It gobbles them up, spits them out and uses their bones to clean their teeth. It’s a system of killing dreams. If you aren’t clever, the business will make you its fool. But I’m no fool.

And maybe happily ever? In the end, after he stole the Harp, they said Jack ran down the beanstalk like the house was on fire. He got to his house and chopped the beanstalk down, in which the giant fell and broke his crown. Maybe as artists we are nothing but the real hustlers. Maybe we are the real thieves. So what is happily ever after? Jack and his mother became very rich and he married a princess. Not bad for a kid who once nobody would hire and almost starved to death. Maybe I’d get my book deal. Maybe my life would get turned into a television show or movie one day. Maybe I’d marry the King. And maybe one day I would look back on all the craziness, after I finally cut down the beanstalk and laugh. But I'm no fool. I know it's a lot of climbing and once you think you've gotten comfortable, you have to re-climb that damn beanstalk like Sisyphus. And then I’m back at the Holy Ghost church. And I ask myself, how does one praise god? You don’t hold back. You don’t let them tell you how to believe or how your story will end. You don’t let them bury you a fraud. Happy Birthday to me. It's my one year anniversary. Maybe I should listen to Toni Tony Tone.

Upgrade?

My freshman year in college I bought myself a Word Processor. It was a hippo of a machine. It almost weighed fifty pounds and printed one page every 2 minutes. But it was mine, and it gave me autonomy from the scandalous student computer lab that never seemed opened or functioning. The beast dictated all my adolescent self loathing poems about unrequited love and belligerent ungrateful relatives. It published my first short stories and my many plagiarized class papers. And each time I had to print, my hungry hippo word processor filled the room with its thundering stampede. That damn thing was so loud I often thought it was drunk. Each thrusting of a word on paper felt like the police banging on the door at 3 o’clock in the morning. Lord forbade if I needed more than ten pages to print because that took at least a day. And my dorm neighbors always complained. They called me cheap and my word processor a common thug. They usually turned up their music full blast to compete with my word processor’s terror. I always felt embarrassed like a struggling parent who couldn’t afford a babysitter trying to keep their screaming baby quiet in crowded movie theater. I tried sitting it in the corner. I placed it in my closet. I even put a cardboard box over its body hoping to at least muffle the madness. But nothing worked. So my beast stayed with me through my college years. But one unassuming evening, I visited a friend’s room to use his computer. I had a large paper to print and I didn’t want to go through the hassles of my word processor. A thirty page paper on his computer and printer only took 3 minutes to print. I was amazed like a caveman whose discovered fire. It was like seeing the future. But there was more. He had access to the internet. He could surf for the dirtiest porn any 20-year-old college boy could ever image. We stayed up all that night in his room, sipping bourbon, and finding pictures with midgets doing it with trees, lesbians doing it with horses, gay men fisting each other, and amputees doing it with the elderly or whatever nasty freaky shit that was out there. The internet was like Jerry Springer on crack. My lazy word processor could barely print a page every two minutes. My lazy word processor couldn't access the internet. My lazy word processor only had a 3 inch screen. I decided to upgrade. That summer I worked two jobs to get my first computer. It wasn’t that anything was wrong with my word processor, it was still functional, and I just thought I could do better. I decided to abandon my screaming baby in the Student Common area for a freshman with no money. I hoped someone would find it a good home. It stayed in the student common area for over a month. It seemed useless. Then one day, it just disappeared.

How do you know when to upgrade your life? Every year I get new sheets and white socks. Every two years I get new hair-clippers. Every seven years I get a new television. I’ve had three computers and two laptops. I exchanged my c.d. player for a MP3 and paid to download all my music instead of dealing with cds. I signed up with Netflix to have my movies sent to my home instead of going to blockbuster. I moved to a larger city to get rid of my car, so I wouldn’t have to worry about drinking and driving. Every single unsuspicious aspect of my life had seemed to be upgraded. I even stopped using bar soap and now only used body wash. But the last five years my personal life seemed to have stayed exactly the same.

I always thought it was about predictability. Love. That’s why we don’t trust strangers with candy. I always thought it was about neutralizing the struggle. It was about getting to the point where you don’t live paycheck to paycheck-- that the rent is automatically taken from your bank account and all the bills are paid on time. I guess I aimed too low. Grandpa would say an honest man just needed a good woman, a good job, a good house and a good church. I guess I aimed too low. I figured if I avoided jail, didn’t get myself shot on the streets before 25 or didn’t become a crack addict I was a ghetto success story. Most of us, after the teenage rebelling years, want to be just like our parents. Or we end up unintentionally like our parents. I thought I could get fat after I got into a stable relationship. I thought just like the males in my family, I come home from work, grab a beer, watch television until dinner was ready, eat, go to bed and get up go back to work. I thought life was taming the unpredictability.

Tom and I hadn’t always been so boring. We’d just been together for ten years. The fact that we were gay made us somewhat kinky. He was from a devoted religious Baptist family. His father was a deacon and his mother a Sunday school teacher. I was from the ghetto. My father got himself killed when I was five years old and my mother was just irresponsible. I guess I was looking for a stable life. I was looking for the boredom.

When I met him, he used to dance with his shirt off in the middle of the dance floor. I used to wear my jeans tight with no underwear. I met him at a foam party. We stayed up all night kissing. I thought he was going to lick the skin from my lips. It was love at first sight. We didn’t leave each other’s arm for two years. That was before our reality check. And then they were the fights because two different personalities tried to make the other give in. And then there was the cheating because of insecurity and youth. The screaming. The taming. And soon we were silent again. But no more kissing all night. No more fighting or screaming either. Ten years had calmed our asses down.

Our lives had become scheduled. On weekdays, we both got up and went to work. He always got up before me and reset the alarm clock. When he was leaving out the door, I was getting out of bed. In the beginning, we used to kiss each other good-bye. After almost ten years we decided a hand wave in the air would suffice. We come home from work. He usually got to the house before I did. He washed the dishes. He started preparing dinner. I’d get home from work an hour later and we asked the same question every day: “How was your day?” We’d give the same answer. I’d get undress and turn on the television. It was always the Simpsons at 6:30, Wheel of Fortune at 7 and Jeopardy at 8. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays we sat in front of the television until we fell asleep. We knew our shows by heart. We never broke the schedule. Not in the fall, spring, summer or winter. On Wednesdays, I’d get dressed around 9 to head to the local bar for drinks. I saw the same people week after week for five years. On Saturday mornings, he’d always tried to climb on top at me and I pretended to be sleep. I let him do his business or just molest my body until I heard the bed shake and then silence. It was how I knew he was finished. I usually jacked off in the shower or after he had left for work. In three years, neither one of us had seen each other physically get off. But every night we went to bed at the same time. I’d crawl into his arms in the fetal position and he’d wrap his right arm around my full belly. Sleep never felt so gorgeous. We split the bills. We split the chores. We decided who bought groceries. We’d never really talked. I thought we were comfortable with the silence.

I was little bit hesitative when he said he was getting a new job. I liked his old job. I liked his boss. But he said he was feeling overwhelmed. I wasn’t supportive. He got a new job and loved it. A year later he came home talking about this new person. His name was Bryant. He said Bryant and his boyfriend were the better looking version of us. I didn’t think that was funny. Bryant was my height, but thinner because he went to the gym five days a week. He was my dark complexion and had the same smile but whiter. He was a year or two older than me. He had a master’s degree. He drove a convertible BMW. He and his lover were buying a million dollar house. His lover was a former dancer. He was tall like Tom. His figure was lean and dexterous. He wanted to be an actor. They looked perfect in their picture. The only picture Tom and I had of each other was when we first met. We took it in one of those generic photo booths. It was us looking at the camera, then kissing, and kissing and kissing. Those were the days. After seeing Bryant beach pictures, him and his lover in exotic locations wearing nothing but the skimpiest of bikinis, I promised myself I was going to renew my gym membership. I never did.

I was never worried because Bryant had a lover. And Tom was too settled to cheat. Bryant and his lover had been together for three years. They seemed happy. Tom would come home from work and every once in awhile he tell me something about Bryant. We were watching Law and Order and I think he said Bryant was looking to sell his house. We were watching Desperate Housewives and I think he said Bryant sold his house and bought a condo. I think I told him not to talk during Desperate Housewives. We were eating what we ate every Tuesday, Spaghetti with garlic bread when he said Bryant’s lover moved to New York. He said they broke up. I really didn’t care. And then he came home one day and said Bryant recommended him for a Manager position. I immediately remembered how the last management position stressed him out, that’s why he wanted a job with less responsibility. Tom wasn’t the ambitious type. I asked him if that’s what he really wanted. He said I wasn’t being supportive. He said he would forget about it. I agreed he should. The next month, he got the job. One weekend, after I got back from work I asked him if it was going to be hotdogs, burgers or pizza for the weekend. He said he wanted to prepare something new. I looked at the counter and he had bought bags of groceries. That night we ate salmon fettuccini with loads of vegetables and some exquisite sauce. The next day we had a southwestern salad. He mixed the ranch sauce with the bar-b-que sauce and it was fantastic. That Sunday we had Calamari on Pasta. It was fantastic. I asked him were he had gotten such exotic recipes. He said Bryant gave them to him. He said he wanted to start eating better. He said he had joined a gym. I told him I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I started getting home and he wasn’t there. He and Bryant were at the gym. I didn’t pay it much attention. I was sure it was just a phase. So I didn’t disturb my routine. I watched television until I went to sleep. When he got home I would tell him about the TV shows he missed. He and Bryant after the gym would head to a bar for a drink or two. He would come home and tell me all about how all the guys wanted Bryant. I sniped back that he was a little old to be bar hopping on a weekday. He started coming home drunk and wanting to mess around. He started waking up on the weekday mornings with his hard dick sticking in my back. When I was in the shower, he would try to get in with me. Of course, I wasn’t having it. I liked our Saturday morning routines. I liked our life. One morning he went to kiss me goodbye and I put the covers over my head. I felt so guilty. One morning I noticed when he was getting dressed for work he had on leopard bikini underwear. I had been trying to get him to get rid of those dingy white fruit of looms for years. I looked in his underwear drawer and he had all designer underwear. He didn’t use to be so reckless with his money. I hoped he had gotten them on sale.

It was so obvious. Anyone with a brain could’ve seen it happening. But I trusted in the routine. I trusted in the predictability. He came home one day and said that he was leaving me for Bryant. They were in love. They were buying a house together. That Bryant had adopted a kid and he was going to be a father. I immediately thought of my old word processor. I wonder what had happened to it. Did someone rescue it? Was it thrown in the trash? Did it get smashed into a thousand pieces? I looked at him. It was the first time I really saw him in three years. He had changed his gold hoop earring for a diamond. He had whitened his teeth. He was wearing new clothes. He was thinner. He skinned looked healthier. And he looked happy. I haven’t seen him look that happy since we first met. So I watch him pack up his stuff. I didn’t beg. I didn’t plead. It was a Wednesday night. It was salad night. It was American Top Models and Project Runway night. It was the night I was to head to the local bar to see the same people I had seen for the last five years. I couldn’t cry because I still had my routine.

When I got to the bar I was surprised they were charging three dollars to get in. They said it covered the free drink hour. It was the first time they charged in five years. And when I got inside the bar, they had changed the DJ and the old bartender retired. They replaced him with some young new queen who had his shirt off boasting his perfect abs but made the weakest drinks. I felt like I was at Disneyland and not a dark cruising gay bar. In one week since I’ve been there, they even upgraded their television to the plasma flat screens. They used to play music videos but that had been upgraded to gay soft porn. I felt out of place. I thought maybe the changes had been happening gradually and I didn’t notice. They new DJ played hip hop and crunk music, not that techno bathhouse music I had grown accustomed. I looked up from my rum and coke and noticed that the clientele had gotten younger or maybe it was I who had gotten older. And then I thought about the last five years. I thought about the queens who had died or gotten arrested. I thought about how the drag queens disappeared from the nightlife? Everything around me was rapidly changing and I was still the same person. For the past five years, I had the same job. I wore the same shoes and jeans. I had the same clothes in my closet. I had the same haircut. I lived in the same neighborhood. And then I realized Tom had upgraded me. He had gotten a better version. I had become the old and clunky word processor. He saw his life better than me.

As I walked home I realized the world was alive--that what refused to grow, died. The hotel I walked by for five years had been bought and changed into a new hotel. The neighborhood now had a Starbucks. When I first moved to my apartment, it was a transitioning gentrified neighborhood and now it was an upscale neighborhood. The transition happened. I got back to my apartment and I was alone again. I figured we either upgrade, or the world upgrades around us. I thought I was happy. I thought I had settled. I thought he was happy. But I only missed him when I went to sleep. We weren’t each other dreams anymore. We had gotten bored. But the truth was, there’s always something better. There’s always a better car. There’s always a better apartment. There’s always better. But I thought life was getting to the point of settling for what you got. And then there is lost. Maybe god keeps us searching so that we can deal with the lost. Maybe god keeps us bored so that we can always start over. But why the broken heart? And then I thought about that old word processor. Did it end up in the trash? Did someone rescue it? Was it still be used. Or was it smashed into a thousands pieces. I guess I needed to upgrade again.

Next week: Starting Over.

Street Writer: Episodes 1-7

Episodes 1-7

If you would like to read this in parts, go to www.thestreetwriter.com and click on The Episodes.

Runaway Slave

If my life was a movie, it would begin something like this. It was two o’clock in the evening. And I awoke to the loudest sound I’d ever heard in my life. Something was banging on the bathroom door, as if it was shaking it like a hysterical person. The door breath in and out so heavily I thought it was going to break from it hinges. It was the cops. Charles had called the cops. I awoke and first there was the smell. I was lying in my own vomit. And then I saw the blood. But it was the stale humid air prickling at my body that made me realized I was naked. I was naked on the bathroom floor lying in my own vomit and blood. I tried to think. I had to put it all together. I knew the vomit was from the abuse of alcohol. I had been drinking for days. I remember throwing up in to the toilet and passing out in the middle of it. That explained the vomit. And then I remembered the broken wine glass. I looked at my right hand and saw that it had little pieces of glass still stuck in it. The night before, I had squeezed the wine glass so hard in my hand that I burst its head liked they did in the movies. So I took the little pieces of glass and carved messages into my body. I looked at my thigh and there was the word “Help.” I looked at my other thigh and I had carved “Slave.” On my right arm I had carved in my name and “Hurt.” On my left arm I was going to write something but didn’t finish. So that explained the blood. But why was I naked. And then I remembered I wanted to go swimming. I remember climbing the gate. So I must’ve left my clothes. I must’ve somehow staggered back to the apartment without getting arrested. But the cops were at the door. I couldn’t remember everything. What did I do?

My arrival to DC was as much unwanted as the runaway or abandoned slaves who began flooding the District once the Civil War began. By the time it ended in 1865, as many as 40,000 African Americans had arrived in Washington. They were known as "contrabands." And they weren’t exactly welcomed. Many residents thought the new arrivals should be returned to their owners, but an 1862 law abolishing slavery in the District and providing compensation for city slave owners made that issue moot.

I came to DC to live with my ex after being kicked out of Texas. The last time I saw Thomas, he flipped me off as I boarded the airplane to head back home to Texas. We had been together for four years then. It’s needless to say that our relationship didn’t end on a good note. I was used to burning bridges, so the ending was devastating. We lost our apartment. I lost most of my belongings. It was one of those breakups that seemed too had ended the world. I never got over it. He started over. I was drifting. The last time I saw Thomas, I was so sure I’d never see that insensitive bastard again in my life. I was sure he felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to listen to anymore of my sobb stories about my mother abandoning me when I was eight and how much I hated my family. We were finally free of each other, so he gave me the finger as I boarded the plane. I’m sure he prayed for it crash. I’m sure he wanted to be free of me and that only meant death.

Going back to Texas was a mistake. Going back to live with Charles was a mistake. It was like I was a kid who parents divorced and each of my ex lovers shared me for a couple of years. Charles was in a way my first love. I loved him for all the wrong reasons. I loved him because he was a freak. I loved him because he brought in a stable paycheck. I loved him because he enabled my irresponsibility. He loved me because I was young. But I was no longer the smell of spoiled milk from my mama’s tit, but the rotting stench of cum and simmering rum. I was no longer the fantasy. I was the nightmare.

I arrived to DC on a Greyhound bus, it took 46 hours. It wasn’t that bad since I was drunk and high for all of it. I lit up at every rest stop. I tried to reflect on my life during my 46 hour trip. I was not only looking for a better life, but also revenge. Everyone in my life had given up on me. My older sister called me a “common nigga” that would probably end up found dead in an alley or dying in the hospital from AIDS.

But everyone was right, I had become a loser. I ruined everything in my life: credit, checking account, job references and friends. Nobody invited me to parties anymore. All my friends when they would see me out at the club either snubbed me or pitied me. I was no longer the designer label, American express card carrying, Volkswagen driving, gym obsessed punk I had been since I was twenty two years old. Life had broken my heart, so I became the cheap box wine drinking, Wal-Mart shopping, unemployed hustler, bus card carrying, sex addict with a don’t give a damn attitude. I didn’t care about those materialistic bastards who didn’t want me in their plastic friendship circle anymore. I was better off without them. But that didn’t mean I was free.

Before the cops. Before the mutilation of my body. Before waking up in my own vomit. I had been trapped in Texas for two years with no job, no future, and hoping that I would die somehow. I was twenty seven years old and drowning at the deepest and darkest part of the ocean.

The night before I left Texas for good, Charles was screaming at me. He was tired. He wanted me out of his apartment. I remember I was sipping cheap box wine from a supersized McDonald’s plastic cup and he was yelling at me. We were supposed to be going to a pool party. He hated me. I had been staying with him for two years, using his car, spending his money, but never giving him sex. He wanted me out of his life. I couldn’t blame him. He was yelling at me that I was wasting my life; that I was stupid, lazy, and a drunk. He was yelling at me that I needed to get my shit together and I couldn’t continue sleeping on his floor. He was yelling at me that I was trifling, disgusting, and sad. I remember feeling powerless. I remember feeling not like a man. All my club friends thought my life was so fucking perfect--because when you’re fabulous they don’t ask too many questions. They all thought I had some fucking perfect situation, because when you’re good looking and thin, you don’t have problems. But my life was a nightmare. I was trying to kill myself every other day. I was trying to kill the boredom. I was trying to kill the hopelessness with the liquor, sex, drugs, glass bottles, sleeping pills or anything that would distract the reality I was a fucking loser. That I had fucked up my life. I was trying to kill that voice in my head constantly nagging, “Why are you here!!!!!!”

I hated Charles that night. I hated that I needed him. I wanted to believe because he was old he didn’t understand his soul anymore. But the truth, I didn’t understand my soul anymore. I hated him because he was ruining my seven year high. I didn’t want to come down. I wanted to crash.

Shit hit the fan. I knew Charles had been dating some young new queen and he just happen to be at the pool party. The young queen was about nineteen years old. His body was waif, size twenty seven jeans, his skin was flawless. Before that night, I honestly never felt jealous of anyone or threatened, but I panicked when I turned twenty seven years old. I didn’t have a plan B. I had invested all my energy and importance in my youth. I put all my eggs in one basket, and suddenly I wasn’t young anymore and broke. After the pool party, Charles said that we were going to take his new young thing home. I’d never hated anyone so much in my life. I remember getting in the car, and I sat in the front seat, and his new toy sat in the back. I remember watching him from my vanity mirror. I wanted to kill that young bitch. I wanted to feel my hands around his neck. I wanted to kill reality. I felt he was stealing my world. He was stealing my crown. And suddenly, an intense heat took over my body. I saw Charles look at him in the rearview mirror and smiled. I immediately made Charles stop the car. I told him, we weren’t taking that bitch home. We were on the highway but I didn’t care. Charles was going to pull over the car and that young bitch was going to have to walk. Of course everyone thought I was crazy or drunk. I was both. I just felt betrayed. I was once that young bitch and now I was nothing. I was fucking nothing. I was just old and used and suddenly a nobody. Youth made me somebody without me even doing anything. Charles tried to calm me down, but I decided to attack the young bitch. I jumped in the backseat. I grabbed him by his throat, hit him in the face, opened the back door and commence to pushing him out of the car. I was seriously insane. He was trying to fight back but I was bigger and stronger and older. It was like an older dog attacking a young pup, the poor thing never had a chance. My teeth were sharper. He didn’t understand. Charles came to his rescue. He stopped the car. He flung opened the backdoor. He grabbed me out. He pushed me down on the ground. The boy got in the front seat and they drove off. They left me. They left me on the side of the highway. I had been with that old bastard on and off for eight years. I had known him since I was nineteen years old. He left me. He had found something better. I felt stupid. I couldn’t imagine that I ever thought it was really about me. I couldn’t believe I fell for all the lies. Or was it that being pretty and young made me lazy? Or was it that I stopped believing. Or was it that I was so damn arrogant I couldn’t see that old man was just using me? That I actually thought it was about me? It wasn’t all Charles fault. I was mostly to blame. Did I not think I was going to get old? I walked home. I got to the house and I drank some more. And I drank some more. I smoked a joint. I did some Tina. And I drank some more.

As the cops escorted me out of the bathroom, I couldn’t help but hear the voice “What are you going to do with your life?” I didn’t understand the question. “What would be your legacy?” The voice sounded so serious. I was being put out on the streets and I didn’t have a plan. I used to have so much potential. I didn’t used to be so weak.

The night before when Charles was yelling at me, I told him I was going to be a writer. That life wasn’t always going to be so fucking depressing for me. That I was going to be somebody one day. He laughed. The truth, I’d been writing since I was eight years old, but never took it serious. I thought I was too poor to be an artist. I needed to get a real job like in an office with medical benefits. I was too poor to chase some dream with no real future. I wanted to be a writer. I liked how it sounded. It felt free. It didn’t matter that I had notorious grammar. I was going to be a writer. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t published anything. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know anyone. I was going to be a writer. I just knew I liked how the sound felt on my tongue and lips. It felt like a future, something that would save me. And he laughed. Charles laughed in my face. Who could blame him? I was a fucking loser. I was a fucking liar. I was lazy. I had been sleeping on his floor for two years with no job. I hadn’t been sober in almost a year. I was just another nappy headed kid from the ghetto. I was the quintessential imperfect dreamer because I lived in my head. So of course it seemed impossible. And when I sobered up the next day with the cops banging on the bathroom door, it seemed ridiculous. But I knew one thing, I was leaving Texas.

Actually I was being put out of Texas. I picked myself up off the floor. I went to the sink and I washed off the vomit and blood. I cleaned up the bathroom floor. I brushed my teeth. I combed my hair. I wrapped a towel around my starved waistline. I opened the door. And there were the cops. They looked just like I thought they would. They looked pissed. And there were all of my belongings. Charles had packed all of my clothes, which was just one suitcase and black garbage bag full of books and cds. He handed me five hundred dollars. I asked if I could get dressed. I snatched the money from his hands. I got dressed as the cops watched. I grabbed my suitcase and black garbage bag. Charles tried not to look at me. I tried not to cry. I didn’t want to have one of those please don’t put me out scenes. I wanted to be a grown up about it. The first time in my miserable life I wanted to be a grown up. The cops took me to the bus station. They said I couldn’t go within five hundred feet of Charles or I would be arrested. They suggested I get out of town. It was so surreal, like a western movie. I first found a liquor store. I knew once I had rum in my system I would be able to think. I decided to call my ex-lover who moved to D.C. I decided to call Tom. He wasn’t happy to hear from me. I basically had to beg him. I told him about my dream to become a writer. He figured it was just another scheme of mine, that I was a no good nigga, the type that didn’t want to work. I promised him I would get a job because the world hated lazy black men. He promised himself that he wouldn’t fall back in love with me.

On the bus to DC, I imagined those runway and abandoned slaves who escaped up north during the Civil War. And the promise land didn’t exactly welcome with open arms. I was going to have to prove myself. Up north the work was still grueling and exhausting. Up north didn’t exactly mean freedom but I wouldn’t be in chains anymore. I knew I was now a second class citizen looking for his second chance. Charles Dickens said DC should be termed “the city of magnificent intentions.” I guess for me it was not about being free, but what I was going to do with my freedom. That’s the dream, to be able to own your life even if I knew that 90 percent of people born in poverty return to poverty. When I got to DC, got off the greyhound bus, stretched my arms and legs, I knew I had a dream. I wanted to be a writer. But nobody said it was going to be easy.

Episode 2

I was scared. I admit it. I doubted myself. But I wanted more to prove those bastards I left behind in Texas, wrong. And I kept asking myself, will I make it? I thought making it meant will I get sober and be one of those Oprah Winfrey redemption stories. I thought would I write that novel and become rich and famous. But more importantly, would I be able to rub my success in their faces. Yet, I didn’t want revenge, I wanted them to return. I didn’t really want to get sober or free. I just wanted to pretend better. I wanted to become a better criminal and not get caught the second time. So that’s why I struggled the first two years in DC. I struggled emotionally. I was turning my life around but it wasn’t giving me what I thought I wanted. I did everything I promised I would do. I got a job. I kept my job. I got new clothes. I got a cellphone and a laptop. I enrolled in writing classes. I got a couple of stories published in a real newspaper. But none of it was making me happy. When I called home to say “I told you so,” it didn’t really matter. So I struggled. Because I couldn’t understand how I could look the part, and not be happy. I went from classy to ashy back to classy and still wasn’t happy.

But the truth, I weighed my happiness on them. On proving them wrong. On getting back my respect. On being evil and vindictive. I plotted redemption but what I really wanted was self-realization. And then I bought some book called “Writing down the bone” by Natalie Wood. And in it she said an artist must never be an artist for love. She said I couldn’t write to bring my lover back or make my family respect me. I had to write for my soul. I had to marry writing. But I still had cold feet. Did I really want to be a writer or was it just another one of my schemes?

I was still an addict. I was still a loser. My life was still broken. I just played the part better than I did when I got kicked out of Texas. When I drank and got high, I went to hotels so that I wouldn’t bother Thomas. I came apart every weekend. My writing suffered. I was still an addict.

On the streets of DC when one is trying to score their high, he or she can never tell if it’s going to be the “good shit.” Professional addicts sometimes smell for a potent stench; others look at the form in the light searching for texture or any impurities; others just trust their connection knowing the real test would be when they lit up, sniffed or injected the intoxicant. In 1990, as I watched the television like so many Americans that night and saw the once adored mayor of DC, Marion Barry, set ablaze his crack pipe, let grey smoke collect and then inhaled its soulful dance until his lungs, I knew for a second he thought to himself “this is some good shit.” And in that moment, even before the FBI busted into the room, if you could’ve frozen the frame you would’ve seen the fear in his eyes because he knew something was up. “Goddamn bitch set me up.” Every addict knows that only the FBI and police have the really good pure shit. The type of shit busted off the drug smugglers from Mexico and Columbia before it hits the streets and diluted. The “good shit.” Because if it’s too good, something must be wrong.

A drunken friend at a bar told me to understand the DC, one must understand Marion Barry. As a four-term mayor; civil rights activist; hero to the District's poor, black communities; tireless battler for District rights; his legacy was almost lost when he was convicted in the winter of 1990 for crack cocaine use and procession and sentenced to six months in prison. But the story wasn’t over, in 1994 after serving his prison term, Marion Barry ran for Mayor once again and won under the slogan “A city healed and on the move.” DC had to be the city of “hope” and “second chances” or incredibly stupid. How could anyone trust a crack addict? How did he convince them of a second chance?

I knew when I arrived to DC, I desperately needed a second chance but I didn’t really know if I was serious about it. My friend Sha said that she felt in her soul that DC would be good for me. That if I had stayed in Texas it would’ve been my downfall. Yet, I wondered if I could change my parti-boy ways.

One of the first people I met at a bar was a drag queen named “Bing.” She told me that if I wanted to, because I was so good looking, I could rule DC. I didn’t want to rule DC. I no longer cared about being the hot boy or center of attention. I no longer cared if men wanted to sleep with me. I was over the “nightlife.” I had spent my entire youth chasing something that was never there, my ego. I wanted a life I felt I owned.

But I struggled the first two years. Two years later my life would be that like Marion Barry but not as public. I would quickly climb so high and then of my own doing, fall so low. I got my second chance but I didn’t own it. I was still weak. At first DC accepted me with open arms, trusted me, and loved me as if I was one of their own. With DC, I began seeing myself, my potential. DC told me that I was sexy, intelligent and magnetic. Being from the South, nobody every told me I was anything but a potential problem. I started to believe all the sweet nothings DC was whispering in my ear. I started to believe I had real power, that I might have something to say and people would listen. With DC, I couldn’t easily blame it on the man, the system, or that it was a white man’s world, because DC was more than sixty percent Black. I’m not saying racism was dead in DC but it wasn’t as hostile and inconveniencing as it was in the South.

It was very easy to get a good job and I got one with a black company. My boss loved me. I started making a lot of money. I was working a lot of long hours. I felt like I looked the part. I wore the business suit and tie. I smiled with my pearly whites. I paid Tom rent. I was taking care of myself. But it all still felt so fragile. I worked for a great company with prominent black intellectuals but I was always afraid of being found out a fraud. Sometimes I felt as if I was still a “field nigga” who somehow snuck in the house. I would see black gay men in DC hanging in their pretty circles, and I was on the inside. I had become one of the beautiful people like I’d seen with white people on television. Of course, I immediately rejected it. They told me I belonged, but I didn’t believe it. I decided to go back to what I knew. I was tired of trying to uphold an image in which I didn’t feel secure. I went back into my darkness, back with the drug addicts, alcoholics, aging drag queens and barflys. I was so damn insecure. I already failed.

And that was it; that was the struggle for two years, trying to feel as if I belonged. Trying not to feel like a fraud. It was because I was insecure. I had failed once and felt as if they world could smell the stench. And I was still an addict. One morning I woke up and decided to give in to my demons again. The struggle to keep my head above the angry sea was too strong. I didn’t think I was strong enough to fight anymore, so I quit my two year job. I didn’t give a notice. I just laid in bed. I quit everything. I couldn’t find a reason to fight. I had had my comeback, but I still wasn’t happy. I had had my revenge but I felt no different. I still felt weak. I still felt as if I didn’t own my life. I still felt trapped.

I’d lived a lot of places in my life. And with each of those places, they seemed to have their own essence that was easily accessible, but with DC, I immediately found it elusive and a very complicated city. It could be ghetto, bourgeois, gentrified and unapologetically gay all in the same breath. I remember when I first got to DC; I noticed there was a liquor store and church on almost every corner. It was as if the sinners and saints were never too far from each other—that sinners could just as easily become saints and vice versa. And that was DC. If Marion Barry after such national humiliation and assassination of his character could come back and reclaim his legacy, I knew anything was possible. I guess to understand DC was to understand Marion Barry. It was a city that I had no excuse not to do better with my life. If I was to fail in DC, it would be my failure. It would be something lacking in my soul that didn’t want happiness.

So after I quit everything when The City gave me a second chance, I knew I had to write for myself. It was more than redemption. It was reinvention. I didn’t want to make a comeback, I wanted to be new. I didn’t want to play a part or look successful, I wanted to be real. I wanted to be a writer and however that looked. I didn’t care about the illusion. I wanted my soul. I didn’t care about proving them wrong. I wasn’t doing it for love. I was doing it for truth.

Episode 3

Just because I had a dream, didn’t mean anyone cared. Just because I had a dream, didn’t mean I was going to eat.

I knew what I wanted. I wanted identity. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and be mistaken that I wasn’t a writer. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t famous or published, I knew what I was and it was important for me that everyone saw it. I was a writer when I decided it, not when someone else decided it. So I had to change how I saw myself and how others saw me. I had to reinvent the world.

Even in the ghetto where everyone was poor and struggling, there was pride. I remember having to hide our poverty. We got foodstamps like everybody else, but we could never let anyone see us spending them. In the ghetto it was only cool to have foodstamps if you didn’t need them. Our basic diet consisted of fried government cheese sandwiches but the brown wooden boxes would be destroyed immediately if we had company. We were what Chris Rock had termed “Ghetto Snobs.” The only time we got new clothes was for family functions, so that the other relatives wouldn’t think they we were charitable cases. And we were dirt poor: electricity got cut off every other month, where I grew up eating just rice most days because it was the cheapest meal. There were a lot of people in the world who had better lives than we did. If we wanted to wash, we had to walk two miles pushing a grocery cart full of our stank clothes to the local washing-mart. If we couldn’t afford that, we often washed our clothes in the bathtub with the left over soap that got to small to hold with our fingers or clean the body properly. Those little soaps would be reused, put in a jar and collected like pennies until the jar was full. It kept us honest.

After the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation, blacks went from slaves to second class citizens and were segregated into what would be known as the "ghetto." In the face of segregation, DC 's African Americans created a cohesive, self- sufficient community, one that helped insulate them from some of the system's worst rigors and insults. With its mix of black-owned businesses, newspapers, churches, and educational and civic institutions, many of them concentrated in the Shaw area around Howard University, DC was known among African Americans throughout the country for its rich intellectual and cultural life. The sumptuous Howard Theater, at the corner of 7th and T Streets, NW, the first legitimate theater for blacks in the nation, opened in 1910 and featured top musicians including Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstein and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as famous white big bands, such as Stan Kenton's. White audiences, attracted by these stars, came to the Howard, making it the only integrated theater in the city. But according to evidence recently discovered in the attic of an old school for African Americans on Capitol Hill, there had been African American theatrical performances in the city long before the advent of the Howard and the other commercial theaters and movie palaces of Shaw. But still, the black neighborhoods were considered the “ghetto.” It was because blacks were the poorest in the city. And if a black traveled outside his domain, he would be cheated like a second class citizen. Even the big stars who did crossover acts at white establishments were subjected to using backdoors, drinking from separate water fountains, and not being able to stay at the same in which they performed.

When you’re poor, you really don’t know you’re that poor until you travel outside you circle. When you’re black, you only black when you’re around non-black people.

The idea came to me to sell my “life comic” was at a bar when I tried to figure how I was not going to have to get another 9-5. As I sipped my last rum and coke for the night, I scribbled on a paper napkin with a miniature pencil all the “legal” things I could do for money. I knew there was no way I could become a stripper, not just because I graduated college with three degrees or didn’t have the best body, but mostly because I didn’t have a freakishly large penis which was the requirement for all black male strippers. I figured the only thing I was good at was telling a story. I decided I would tell people my stories for money. It really didn’t seem so crazy. I figured people gave away their money all the time. They gave it away to bartenders who made weak drinks. They gave it away to overpriced clubs. They gave it away to strippers. They gave it away to aging alcoholic drag queens. I figured why not me. At the time, mostly because I was drunk I thought my idea was genius. When I sobered up the next day, I found the napkin in my pocket and remembered the ridiculous idea and immediately threw it in the trash. I had forgotten how incredibly insecure I was, but then I remembered the 2005 black gay pride in DC.

I just self-published my first book “Who is Sean” and I brought 20 copies, along with a hundred flyers to pass out at the host hotel lobby. Instead, I kept my eager dream a prisoner in my head and book bag. I chickened out. I was terrified of the rejection. I didn’t feel like a writer. I still felt like a parti-boy loser who was playing the role of a writer. I decided what didn’t sell, didn’t exist. And then I remembered Maya Angelou, she said if you are what you think you are, when someone says sing, you sing. If you are a dancer, when someone asked you to dance, you dance. So I said I was a writer, so I knew I needed to prove it. I went to the trashcan and retrieved the balled up napkin with the insane idea. I was going to do it. I figured I had nothing to lose.

I decided to become a writer at my favorite place, the bar. I took the fun out of it. It’s only after I figure myself drunk which meant I could no longer hear that voice in my head that constantly told me I was a loser, I would start going up to as many strangers as possible hoping for the change in their pocket.

A large emotional part of me hated it. It made me feel like a hustler, or a common beggar. It made me feel like the lowest of life like telemarketing. But I knew I needed to do it. I needed the humiliation. I needed to test my faith. I was at the bar talking to a friend who was reading my latest edition when this girl who seemed interested in the laughs asked him what he was reading, so naturally I decided she might be a potential customer. I gave my usual sale pitch, “Do you have a dollar.” She gave me a dollar and I handed her my comic. She gave me the most disgusting look, like I just pulled down my pants, squatted, shitted in my right hand a diarrhea mess and then tried to sell it to her. “That’s not romantic, that’s ghetto,” was what the bitch said. She was now a bitch. I just smiled and walked away. But I really wanted to attack her. It was part of the job. I was going to have to learn that the humiliation was part of the job. The first guy I tried to sell my comic called me a “lowlife” and walked away.

I decided to go downstairs and found a group of black men, mostly interested in the fact I didn’t wear underwear. I knew I was really selling sex, but part of me liked to believe somebody like the damn comic. This fat queen told me he would only purchase my “hobby,” if I danced sexy for him. I explained to him that I wasn’t a stripper, but a writer, but he promised to give me twenty dollars, so I found myself bending over and shaking my ass to Cyndi Lauper‘s “Girls just want to have fun.” As I walked home, counting all the crumbled dollar bills, I felt cheated. It took too much damn work to make forty three dollars. At my last job, that would’ve been two hours of work. But the truth, I really needed the money. But the truth, I finally felt alive.

Sha was my best girl friend on the planet and was coming into town. I was to meet her at the Union Station for lunch before she headed back to the Midwest. I met Sha in Chicago when she was in art school. She was a very sexy and gorgeous girl.

Sha graduated from art school with a degree in Merchandise. I thought she was going to become a buyer for a big department store; instead she did a 180 and became a stripper. I knew she had gotten into modeling, did some nude modeling, did some escorting, and some underground underground ghetto rap videos, but I thought that was until she graduated college. With her college degree, she decided she would make more money as a stripper. Within a year, she bought a Benz and three years later, she bought a house. Sha was the traveling type of stripper, and I didn’t even know there was such a thing. She did mostly upscale strip clubs in high profile cities or private parties for rich athletes. Sha had a thing for aggressive, very dark skinned, sometimes violent linebackers like Terrell Owens. Of course he had to be married. She didn’t like unmarried men, said that unmarried men were always on a “save a ho” mission.

After a rough night, I had no desire to meet Sha for lunch at noon, but I made myself get up because since we’d become adults with our own problems we saw less of each other. I was happy that she was in DC, hadn’t seen her in a year. I was also becoming concerned about her. She was drinking more, started doing ecstasy and other heavy drugs. She said she was in control, but I knew her life was full of emptiness which could mean danger. I didn’t mind the drugs and promiscuous sex, but only if she was a functional addict. She wouldn’t admit it, but for most of us after we turn twenty seven years old, we begin thinking about our happily ever after.

I met Sha at the American Restaurant at the Union Station. I immediately ordered a rum and coke to settle my stomach. It was so good to see her. It was the middle of fall, the temperature was just beginning to drop, the leaves had already fallen and thanksgiving was just a week away so that meant snow was coming soon. When I saw Sha she looked like a high class stripper more than ever. She wore a caramel waist length mink, but it was her long fake jet black fingernails decorated with diamonds that I noticed first, and then her long flowing honey blonde weaved hair. She wore a blouse so tight that her tits looked like they were suffocating. Of course everything was FEndi and Louis Vuitton. For some reason strippers and “video hoes” really do love Fendi and Louis Vuitton. I told her she was paying for lunch.

As we sat down at the table, not much had changed since the last time we talked. She was still dating some football player, but this one she was trying to figure out if he was gay. Sha was always trying to figure out if one of her men were gay.

Before Sha could get too much into her life and make our two hour lunch date all about her, I quickly interrupted her and ask for fifteen minutes of my own time. I think that’s why some straight women get gay friends, so they can talk.
I told Sha about my new job, selling my “life comic” at the club, and how I hated it. I told her about that bitch that rejected me so rudely, and how some men think just because they gave a dollar, they own you. I only told her about my night because I wanted to know how she being a professional stripper dealt with the hustle. I hated it. I hated asking people for money.

“It’s because you’re a ghetto snob” she said so matter of fact as she sipped her dirty gin martini. What the hell did that mean, I wanted to know. “You can’t accept that you’re poor. You quit you’re job. You lost your credit cards and checking account. Your back is against the wall and you can’t help it. And also, for the first time in your spoiled existence you have to work. And don’t tell me you’ve worked, because those jobs you got paid just to show up. Hustling is the hardest job.”

I knew she was right, my other jobs didn’t require me to do much, and it was mostly me pretending to do work. And my existence had been a little spoiled. I lived with men who took care of the rent and groceries and all my money went on my entertainment. But how would that make me a ghetto snob. “It’s your pride. You don’t want anybody thinking that they’re better or you still want to think you’re better than other people.” She was right. I did at one time like to think that I was better than other people. It gave me joy. When you’ve been poor and hungry you’re entire life, and you finally get some money and move up, it feels really good to finally be able to look down on somebody instead of constantly being looked down on. Now I was back at the bottom.

“I can see it in your eyes, you’ve gotten desperate.” She was right, I wanted so bad to succeed as a writer. I feared I was going about it all wrong. I didn’t want people to look at me like a hustler, but more importantly, I didn’t want for me to start looking at people like tricks. I hated money. I hated what people would do for money and I had to become one of those people if I was to survive.

“When I’m at work, I’m working. Everybody who comes into the club is a target, that’s why they are there. I go out with some of the guys who come into the club, mostly because it’s easier than explaining to strangers you meet at a bar what you do. The guys at the club know I’m a stripper. But when I’m at work, I’m there to make money. I have my quota in my head and I aim to fill it. That’s why I have a stripper name. When I’m at work I’m Almond, not Sha. It’s just a game. You want to win or lose? Fuck that hating bitch, she’s ghetto.” I knew if Sha had been there, she would’ve tried to fight her. Sha was always trying to fight somebody.

“And when you’re poor, you have to be creative, you can’t be indecisive when it comes to being hungry. You eat or you starve. You’re a good person. But you have a dream and you’re spoiled which don’t help a black ghetto kid. Being spoiled or proud means failure because you will never ask for help. Don’t live in your head. And you’ve seen too many white sitcoms and you think you’re that character. Always remember you’re a black kid from the ghetto who by any means necessary is going to have to figure out how not to return. I’m glad you’re doing what you doing because it welcomes you to the real world. And what’s wrong with being a hustler.” I asked her if she cared what people thought about her. She asked me why I cared what people thought about me. She said she didn’t care because she knew her real friends. She grabbed my hand. “You betta bash mister head in now, and worry bout heaven lata.” she finally said with a huge explosion of laughter. I laughed too. I really loved that girl.

But I knew it was going to take me a long time before I felt comfortable selling myself as a writer. Before I felt comfortable with the hustle.

Episode 4

They say be very careful what you ask for. I felt like quitting so many times. I felt like my dream had become a joke. I felt I cheapened it. I kept with my original idea, that is completing a comic about the city every week and then tried to sell it at the club or bar or whatever I could. I accomplished my original idea which was reinvention, to get the world to see me as a writer. But it didn’t always go over so well. Some started just seeing me as a hustler. They would avoid. Some didn’t understand. I was warned several times to not solicit the patrons by the security and the bartenders. Before, the security and bartenders spoke to me, tried to flirt with me, saw me as a new fresh piece of ass. But when I started asking for money, I suddenly became enemy number one. I became a whore. I found those who I hit up, some felt tricked. They had given me the money for my comic and then felt tricked when I walked away to the next potential reader.

“Please feed the writer, no donation will be refused.”

Every Wednesday, I printed out my weekly comic then cut, stapled and “Martha Stewart” it into sort of a readable booklet to entertain those on the toilet or be used as a distraction device for the early morning commute. That’s the one great thing about the city: people are always looking for a reason not to speak to each other. I like Wednesday nights because it was free drink night at the local bar for an hour, and considering I’m often unemployed and broke, I liked to kill two deadbeat birds with one stone. I’d get drunk and make a little money. I figured a writer’s mind was a terrible thing to waste, and since no magazines, newspapers, or publishers were sending me a check anytime soon, I did what any starving artist would do, I whored myself on the streets.

“Give me a dollar” was my only selling pitch, because I found it was easier to ask strangers up front for money than try to sell them anything. It diverts my true intentions, and if they said they didn’t have a dollar, I wouldn’t have to waste my time with a pathetic rehearsed pitch. It did help if I didn’t have on a shirt and my green contacts sparkled in the light. I must’ve been the cheapest hooker in the business. Crackheads made more money than I did. But then again I was selling my dream, so to whore for attention was part of the deal.

“I so want you to succeed.” His name was Mike. He was more than a little overweight. He and Jabba the Hutt probably wore the same pants size. I liked Mike because he was a Negrophile, a barfly and every week he had a ten dollar bill to stuff down my pants. I knew he was in lust with me, had been saying he was trying to lose weight so that he could be with me. I was also sure he said that to all the young black boys with flat stomachs and a nice dick print. I was always happy to see Mike, mostly because he gave me money with few complications. Hearing him say that he wanted me to succeed made me feel so good, because it was hard trying to hold on to a slippery dream at twenty-nine years old. It was hard hustling the bar with my little comic that I put together at home. And it was hard wearing my heart on my sleeves for every pervert just to try and look down my pants. I only did it because I got to be a writer every week. I got to live my dream, and until I was discovered by the “powers that be” that write checks, it was all I had to look forward to in life. So I hugged Mike, put my skinny toned arms around his fat waist, and that’s when he whisper it in my ear again, “I so want you to succeed” but it didn’t sound so supportive anymore. It was more suggestive and nasty. He whispered it again to make sure I heard him, “I so want you to pee on me.” Needless to say, I let go of Mike’s fat nasty ass.

That night walking home I decided I was going to quit. That I was going to go back to just being another person at the bar. That I was going to give up my comic and get a real job. I was tired of the humiliation. I was tired of the cheapening. I was tired of trying to live outside the box. I changed my mind. I wanted the blue pill. I wanted to go back into the Matrix. I didn’t care if it was all an illusion and evil robots were using my soul to wipe their asses. The last job I quit or got fired, I vowed to never return. I hated the politics of the 9-5. I hated having a boss. I hated the “good mornings” and fake smiles, and boredom of sitting in a cubicle with nothing to do but pretend like I had something to do. I hated it all, but I was broke and tired of trying to live outside the box. I decided to call one of the few Temp agencies I hadn’t fucked over. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy getting a job with my “Temp Karma.” I was very surprised when I was scheduled for an interview the next day.

With my Temp Karma, I knew the job wouldn’t be what I wanted or convenient, actually it was a hour away from the city. I had to take the metro and a bus to get to it, but I was desperate. I was desperate for money. I followed the agency directions exactly, that’s why I found it odd that I ended up in the middle of a “Wisteria Lane” suburb. I was dealing with a hangover, so I told the bus driver to wake me up when I got to my stop, and when he yelled at me, I just grabbed my stuff and jumped off the bus. I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings, so before I could focus, the bus had driven off and disappeared. I was left standing in the middle of nowhere. I was about to have an existential breakdown.

The last time I found myself trying to explain Existentialism, I was in jail having been arrested for public intoxication and trespassing after getting into a fight with some Queen at a bar when I was twenty two years old. In jail, we had to strip of our clothes for the shower. The guy standing next to me kept staring at me. He whispered in my ear that I had a great body. I decided to ignore him. He asked me if I was a personal trainer or dancer, I figured he meant stripper. I was not the least bit interested in discussing my diet secrets in jail, so I changed the subject. For some reason I was having an Albert Camus “Le Stranger” moment. I hadn’t read the book since high school, but in that exact moment, I remember the last chapter of the book. I turned to my new friend of circumstance, so that he could be with me in my moment about existentialism and explained that it was a philosophy that emphasized the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe. That it regarded the human existence as unexplainable, and stressed that freedom of choice and responsibility was the consequences of one's acts. He of course noticing I was dodging his sexual innuendo, mumbled under his breath “fucking faggot.” I just smiled, knowing that he just confirmed how “lost” I really felt.

The whole world knows Washington, DC as the capital of the United States, but the city did not exist when the US became a nation in 1789. It was never chartered, won in battle, stolen or admitted to the union like most states, because it wasn’t a state, more a federal district that hosted the city named after the first president. The District of Columbia and the city of Washington were coextensive which meant it had no say so its administration, no elected Senator or Representative in Congress, so for most practical purposes the federal government and city was to be considered the same entity. In other words, it was some very complicated and emotionally charged mess that pissed off a lot of people. It was a “lost” city that barely existed to itself. Kind of like myself.

The agency had sent me into the woods. I looked at the address on the paper and the street, and according to my scribbling, I was at the right place, but I couldn’t imagine why the Temp agency would send me to a house in the middle of the suburbs where it was obvious I was the only black person for at least twenty miles in any direction. I thought to myself if I should walk up to the “Leave it to Beaver” house and knocked on the door, who knew what might happen. I could've been arrested. Shit, I could've been shot. It was at that moment standing in the middle of the street, in the middle of nowhere, with only a transfer to get back home, with no cellphone, no friendly faces, that I realized how screwed up was my life. And it was so damn quiet. I couldn’t’ understand why the suburbs had to be so damn quiet. I could hear myself breath. I was not only lost because I was unfamiliar with my surroundings. I was lost in my life. I was truly directionless and had very little to get out of it. I had no credit, checking account, job, cell phone, good name, friends, nothing. All I had left in the world was my hustle, my ability to think on my feet and not starve. I had no connections, no god, no religion, and no organizations, just me. I was honestly and every since of the meaning of the word “fucking lost.” I had become a stranger in my own strange land. I decided to just stand still and wait. Someone or something had to show up. I knew if a bus dropped me off, another would have to come and pick me up. I waited for two hours and then it started to rain.

I got the job. I stopped writing the comic. I would still go out and people would ask about it. Some really liked it. Some were really supportive. I forgot about those people. And for a month, I just worked my job, but I felt something was missing from my life again. It was the comic. It was my passion. It was the hustle. I missed the rejection. And when I went to the club or bar I felt miserable just being another patron. I liked it when they treated me like a struggling writer. I liked it when they treated me like a common whore because it meant they were afraid. It meant that I wasn’t invisible.

But I figured one thing. Yes, the rejection was unforgiving. The insults were unforgivable. But I knew that even whores if they endure long enough, stay in the business long enough, get respected in the end. I was just going to have to endure. But I wasn’t quitting my day job again.

Episode 6

Now you know everything, well at least as much as I’m willing to share. And everyday it’s a new discovery. And I still have my addiction. I still have my demons that threat to destroy anything I build. But I know who I am. I know what it is that I want, but it’s mostly patience, persistence and perseverance. I get kicked down every week but I get back up. I lose another job just to find another one. Doors and windows close all the time so I had to buy a sledgehammer. But when I get really down, I remember the conversation I had with my sister. We aren’t a close as we were when we were kids. We got too many family issues. But every time I do get the chance to speak to her it’s always enlightening. One night feeling really bad about my life and ready to give up on my dream again, I called her at 3 o’clock in the morning. I knew she would be up because she was a night person. She had just had her baby and was living with some guy in Atlanta. She, like me, had her demons. We were both constantly struggling.

Hey Lisa, Do you believe in second chances?

What the fuck does that mean?

I mean, you and the baby. Aren’t you afraid of becoming Mama?

What the fuck does that mean?

I mean fucking up your life. Losing or abandoning your kid. Finally giving into the pain that causes the addiction.

You always want to talk about mess. Can’t we talk about the weather or something like normal people?

We aren’t normal people.

Yes, I guess you can say I believe in second chances. But that man who keeps a roof over my head is only here because I suck a good dick, and the baby just wants the tittie. I’m just flesh to them, something that feeds, cleans and gets fucked

You don’t believe that. You’re trying to be happy. You’re trying to be a good mother

I am good mother. And I’m never going to be happy. This is a close as I’m going to get to it?

Well, I keep asking myself why I should dream. Why haven’t I given up and face the reality that nothing good is ever going to come of my life. I’m too damn old. I should just get a good job and be done with it. I should just buy a gun and be done with it.

Don’t start that shit.

I’m tired of feeling like a broke nigga. I’m tired of feeling like a nigga. That’s what it feels like me trying to sell my comic. That’s what it feels like me trying to become this writer with few compromises.

You were always a writer. You were always my favorite writer even when we were kids and you used to tell those stories. You’re good.

Thank you. You hardly compliment me.

But you are a writer. So what if it aint pretty. Having kids aren’t pretty. It isn’t perfect most days. I just do the best I can. Shit, look what my child was born into. She’s going to be another ghetto black girl like her mama.

I guess I just wanted it to be easier.

Why?

Because I already had a difficult life. I just wanted to catch a break. I thought god owed me

I think there are kids in third world countries that God owes more than you. People lives have been worse than yours, Michael.

But still.

You think second chances are easy. The first time is easy because you don’t know what to expect. You think you’re special. You think that you’re the one. But you aren’t. Only Jesus Christ was the one and look what happened to him.

I just feel like I don’t know what it is that I’m doing.

But you’re doing it. You’re getting up everyday and doing it. You’re doing a lot more than people who say they want something but don’t do shit. You’re doing it.

It just makes me so miserable some days. All the fucking rejection. I got five letters of rejection for my book last week. They all came in at the same time.

But you love writing.

I do.

So love is miserable, that’s what you are finding out. Grow the fuck up. I never feel as if I know what I am doing. I feel sorry for that child of mine because I am her mother. But I am her mother. I do the best I know how. Every time I look at that child, I know I can’t fuck up again. I needed that second chance. And maybe I needed a third, fourth and fifth, but any chance to prove myself, my heart, no matter how miserable, I will take it.

Wow, he knew you were a Maya Angelou in disguise.

Fuck Maya Angelou. I’m Lisa, your sister. And I’ve been a stripper, a crack head, a prostitute, and done shit you will never know and I’ve tried to forget. I’m just telling you my truth, my reality, and I know love makes you miserable. It feels good at first and then it makes you miserable. People think love is just supposed to feel good all the time. The alcohol and hit of weed makes you feel good all the time. But that bitch they call love, you have to learn to tame her. I say if this dream of yours is to become a writer is making you miserable, you’re probably doing something right.

I’m doing something right?

It’s when you start feeling too good about yourself that you should be afraid. Remember God kicked you out of the Garden of Eden. Remember you’ve bitten into that damn apple. You’re never going to be happy again until you die. God has said you’re a miserable sinning bastard and have to earn your way into heaven. Maybe this suffering with the writing thing is your way of earning your way to heaven.

So the fact that it makes me miserable, scared, angry and happy all at the same time. The fact that I constantly struggle and miserable, means I’m doing something right? That’s fucked up.

You asked for it.

That I did.

The last Episode

Growing up, my cousin Tweedy was the coolest motherfucker. He was twenty one years old. He was so damn good looking. So many girls chased after him. He was light brown and tall. I remember that he reminded me of LL. Cool J when he was young and thin. But he had a Snoop Doggy Dog gangster chill personality. To my twelve year old eyes, I thought Tweedy was God. He was a leader of a gang. He drove a midnight blue Cadillac. He sold drugs and always had money. He wore so many gold necklaces around his neck. He kept his converse shoes immaculate. Nobody messed with Tweedy. He got shot five times once and didn’t die. I thought he was indestructible.

I remember when he used to come home from a night of pimping and debauchery around 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. He’d stagger to his twin size bed. He’d light a cigarette for balance. He was so damn cool. He would try not to wake up my grandmother. She constantly threatened to put his trifling ass out. She would say “that boy Tweedy don’t want to work no honest job.” But every time he bought her something with his drug money, it shut her up for a couple of days. But every night, it was always the same with Tweedy. He fumbled into the house smelling like malt liquor, weed and some girl’s pussy. He'd try to balance himself on the bed as he tempted to take off his clothes. He always slept in his boxers. He had the best body. A basketball player body: ripped abs, defined arms and bullet wound scars. I could see why the girls loved him. He was so dangerously beautiful and hopeless. And every night when he came home, he’d wake me up. Or sometimes I would stay up to see him come home. And every night, I would ask him the same question. I would ask him, “Tweedy, what’s out there in those streets.” And he would always frown. And every night, he would give me the same answer. He would say, “ain’t nothing out there in those streets but crazy women, hating niggas, cops and a lot of trouble.” He would tell me that I shouldn’t be in a rush to grow up.

I knew he was lying. Something kept him out all night. I couldn’t wait to grow up to find out.

I used to think I wanted to be just like Tweedy, but all that changed as I got older. I found out his life wasn’t so romantic. He ended up getting killed. He had a lot of enemies. Somebody shot up his midnight blue Cadillac. I didn’t go to his funeral. I didn’t want to see him dead.

I did grow up chasing his ghost. I found the streets. Rather the streets found me. I found the drug dealers, the hustlers, the tricks, the party, the nightlife. I found the desperation, the escaping and the struggle for survival. I found those who only come out at night. I found the unseen. I found my story.

I really didn’t understand the streets until I was homeless. What I had in my childlike mind was romantic, but the streets were desperate. Desperate to hope. Desperate to eat. Desperate to not be forgotten. When I became homeless, the city was no longer floors, walls, or ceilings. It was no longer houses and building. The city became a long dangerous road that led to nowhere but death. Living on the streets was a humbling experience. I had to sleep in my car. I had to beg for change. I had to rummage through the garage cans for food. I had to learn to trust strangers. But it made me a better writer. I no longer had restrictions. On the streets there weren’t people, just attitudes and untold stores. It was untold love. But the sad truth, you don’t live on the streets. You can only survive the streets. The winters are cruel. Nobody cares. It’s so easy to give up. And many do.

When I wanted to become a writer, I had to return to the streets. I had to return to the night. It was my obsession. I couldn’t begin with the day walkers. I couldn’t begin with the 9-5. I couldn’t begin with the establishment. I had lived most of my entire life outside the establishment. I’m the only male in my family, both sides, that hasn’t gone to prison. I’ve been to jail a few times, but nothing has stuck. But I knew if I was to become the writer I wanted to be, I had to return to the streets. I had to return to the clubs. I had to return to the night.

The one question that bothered me was will I make it? But it wasn’t about fame or money. It was about will I convinced those who need the establishment that I am worth listening. That I am worth buying. Because when you are from the streets, people just see you as prey or a predator. They don’t respect you. They think you’re too raw, real. How can a person be to real?

I found my answer from a friend.

It was a little after midnight, and a homeless guy approached me. He wasn’t begging. He just wanted to see if I was interested in purchasing the homeless newspaper. I immediately shook my head no. I lived in the city, so I was used to saying no before I even knew what he was selling. But as I walked away, he told me god will bless me and have a good night. He seemed so sincere. It wasn’t about the money. It was about how he was trying to hold on as tight as possible to his second chance. It wasn’t about attitude or entitlement. He knew I didn’t owe him anything nor did he really expect anything from me. He was content.

Second chances aren’t easy, but failure is just the beginning. Second chances, nobody really trust you anymore. Second chances is ruined credit. And as I walked away from the homeless guy, I knew he was probably in for another rough night. But he was content. He had accepted the struggle and refused to complain. Second chances is asking yourself do you really believe. And that’s the hardest thing. I walked a block from my friend, and then I walked back. I gave him a dollar for his paper. He told me thank you and we both disappeared into the night. He made me believe again. He made me believe in hope again. He had patience, dignity and a sense of humor. He was the richest man I’d ever met. I knew I could be a writer because of him. And that was the streets. And that was the story I wanted to tell. It was hope.

It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

I was ready to become STREET WRITER

Episode 1: Rock Star!

You want to hear a joke. How does a born loser, win? He cheats.

I always wanted to go crazy. He is my alter ego and they love him. They worship him. He only worships himself. The truth, his is either a genius or loser who fooled the world. He’s always barely conscious and in a sexual rage. He always on his stage. He’s the devil and he’s knows it. He’s often shirtless because he lost it somewhere in the crowd. Or maybe it was torn off him. He can’t remember. He never wears underwear. His lean starved body sweats profusely from his own heat and trickles down into his low riding jeans, clinging to his sex. He is walking sex. He’s always grabs the nearest bottle of booze and forces it down his weak throat. The empty souls swarm around him like a stupid deer to headlights in the night. They want his heat. He wants their money. He grabs the nearest flesh and forces his slimy wet tongue down his or her throat. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t give a fuck. The world owes him. He is a Rock Star. He could never keep a real job. He could never become middle class. For him, it was always tragically broke or filthy rich, no in between. He was always too damn raw. He was always too damn impulsive and arrogant. For him, it was to become a Rock Star or jail. And they love him for it. Those who scream his name. Those of whom he takes to his shallow bed. They love his wolf eyes. He is dangerous. He is like a gun and when he fires, he reminds them they’re still alive. They think he cares, but he doesn’t. He is my alter-ego. He is Diesel and he’s trying to ruin my fucking life. I didn’t think I would grow up to be a Rock Star. I was too damn quiet as a child. And then I discovered liquor in college and a ROCK STAR was born. I guess my alter ego was always there, slithering beneath the boredom.

When I think of a Rock Star, I think of John Lyndon from the Sex Pistols. They were once said to be dangerous to the very fabric of British society. They were a threat. A bunch of fucking anarchist rebelling without a cause. When I think of Rock Star, I think of “I’m Rick James, bitch.” I think of Jimmie Hendrix setting his guitar on fire. I think of Woody Allen marrying his adopted daughter. I think of Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway. I think of bold souls rearranging the world to their liking. I think of Vincent Van Gogh. I think of Frank Lloyd Wright. I think of myself. Yea I said it. I didn’t ask for permission to become a writer. I just did.

I loved the play “Cat on a hot tin Roof.” In High School I played the beautiful alcoholic and closeted Brick. My favorite scene was when Brick had to explain to Big Daddy why he drank so much. He said he was looking for that “click.” At the time, I knew nothing about addiction, but I knew what he meant by the “click.” He was looking for that switch in his soul when the light came on and there was no more inhibition. He was looking for that artificial happiness that allowed him to be the hero. That allowed him not give a fuck.

Many years later, I am Brick. And I’m constantly searching for my own “click.” I usually arrive to the bar sober. I’m quiet. I don’t make eye contact. I am painfully shy. I feel small amongst the crowd of people. I am clumsy. I trip on my own feet. It usually takes three drinks before I find my freedom. The first drink just calms my nerves. The second drink I begin to feel the music. The third drink is when my eyes change. I stop looking at the floor. I start staring into souls. The third drink is my click. I shed my mild manner ego. After the third drink, my shirt comes off. I stalk the bar looking for prey. After the third drink I don’t give a fuck. I just want sex. I just want what I want. After the third drink, I’m capable of anything. I just might go to jail.

There’s comes a time in life when you demand, what is it all for? Why the humiliation? Why can’t I get my shit together? Why can’t I keep a job? Why can’t I have the life like those people who live in good neighborhoods? Why am I such a fuck up? Why am I not rebelling?

In the beginning, I hated my mild mannered ego. I was tired of digesting my mild mannered life. And I used to get the worse temp jobs. One time I was supposed to be a receptionist but the damn phone never rung. I was there for a month, and the phone only rung once and it was the wrong number. It was so damn quiet that I could hear the blood rushing through my veins. I could hear the furniture expanding. I could hear but not feel the air-conditioning. I couldn’t write. All I could do was think about quitting. And I was alone. They put me at the end of the hall. Not even the mail boy delivered at the end of the hall. So I kept calling in sick after the second month. I told them I broke my foot. I told them my roommate got shot and had a heart attack. I told them my apartment burned down. I told them my grandmother died. I told them my dog died. I told them my cat died. Shit, I think I even called in deceased. So finally, after I was robbed and shot and found out I had Hep C, I was told I had too many excuses. I was fired. And she was a bitch about it. The temp agency knew I was miserable. Every person they sent to that position was miserable. She said I had too many excuses and that I should become a writer because I was full of imagination. I told her to suck my dick.

After I hung up the phone, fired from yet another job I hated, but I still felt like a loser. Fucking retarded kids can keep a job. Why was I so intransigent? I fixed myself a cocktail at eight o’clock in the morning. I laid back in bed and wondered how I was going to pay the rent. But mostly I was offended that the temp agency didn’t pity me. I was offended that she thought I was lying. I was offended that she didn’t think that anyone in the world could have as much bad luck as I lied about. I was offended that if I had been robbed she wouldn’t have cared. It was possible that my apartment could’ve burned down, and that my grandmother could’ve died, and I could’ve gotten shot and then diagnosed with a terminal illness in the same week. It could happen.

After the rum soothed my stomach, I came to the conclusion that I was a Rock Star. It made no fucking sense. That’s why it made perfect sense. I imagined myself on one of those asinine Talk Shows entertaining the masses with my witty sad former lives stories. I’ve gotten fired from a lot of jobs. I would tell them about that time I got fired for drinking at work. I got so drunk during the day that I stopped hiding the rum and just placed in on my desk. My boss at the time, some paper pusher middle man, stomped over to my desk, grabbed the bottle, and smelled the air and demanded, “Are you drunk?” I thought they couldn’t fire alcoholics. I’m sure I’d seen that episode on Melrose Place when Allison became a drunk. I tried to explain to my boss that addiction was a disease. That it was no different than the other employees taking a smoke break. I was just taking a cocktail break. What’s the fucking difference?

I was afraid to tell my roommate I got fired, again. I owed him money. I figured when he got home and found me naked and passed out on the living room floor, he’d figured it out. And that was my sad and often pathetic Rock Star life. My roommate would just pick me up. He’d carry me to my bed. He’d put pants on me. He’d turn on the air conditioning. He’d pull the covers over my head. He was like my road manager. He was use to picking up the pieces.

Why do rock stars become so undone? Why did Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear? Why did Mike Tyson bite off Hollyfield’s ear?

And then I think of the silence. I think of sitting at a job getting paid by the hour to not be seen. To pretend. I get so tired of pretending. I get so tired of trying to make myself like something I hate. I get tired of keeping it all in. I want to scream. I don’t want some cookie shape house in some cookie shaped neighborhood with manicured lawns. I want the streets. I don’t want the assembly line where everything is the same. I want to be buried buck naked with a dildo up my ass. I want to overdose.

And then I think, you don’t become a Rock Star. Clark Kent didn’t become Superman. He was always Superman. He just needed to find a way to let him out. I was always the Street Writer. I just needed to find a way to let him out. Apparently, it only takes three cocktails.

This is me: My story

Born: sometime in the late 70s or early 80s depending on the light or lie.

Live:

Washington

,

D.C.

Email: streetwriter30@yahoo.com

This is me

Some days, I’m just another nappy headed kid from the ghetto. Some days I’m the nerd who stole his intelligence. Some days, I’m just that kid whose crack addicted mother abandoned him. Some days, I’m still that kicked dog, the one every picked on, always fighting those demons. Most days I’m a freak in bed. Most days I’m silly.

I have huge heart, and I’m loyal. I’m a good kid with devious intentions.

I’ve been thinking a lot. Thinking about changing the direction of my life. There was a time I was searching for me. Some people go on that journey and come back with more questions. I went looking for myself, and I found me. I found what it was that I was trying to say. And I said it. I said it as loud as I possibly could. And I’m going to keep saying it. We’re never free from our wounds. I AM SOMEBODY. But what the fuck does that mean? I wanted to say when my mother abandoned me, I was just a kid. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t want me anymore. Now I know she chose drugs over responsibility. I was just eight years old! I’ve taken my heart back.

I wanted to say when I was molested by the babysitter, I was just a kid. I couldn’t understand what she wanted from me. Now I know she was a predator. I was just four years old. I’ve taken my body back.

I wanted to say all those years of abuse with the Whitleys, I was just a kid. Now I know they were just jealous. All those years of being the kicked dog. All those busted lips, and black eyes, and fighting every day and whippings and harassment. All that damn crying. All those suicide attempts. Now I know it wasn’t my fault. Now I know I was just easy prey. Now I know it’s made me strong. I can take a punch to the face. I know how to bleed. And I’ve taken my soul back. You can’t have my soul.

Bad shit kept happening to me. I was homeless at 19 years old. I kept getting pulled over by the police and going to jail. I kept getting into fights. Now I know it was because I had a chip on my shoulder. I’ve taken my anger back. The world can’t break me. I’m already broke.

I was listening to that Indie Arie song, I choose, and it got me to thinking about my life.

I was all wrong. I thought I never wanted to live forever. I thought I wanted to die young and beautiful. But I was wrong. I want to die old and exhausted. I was wrong about love. I thought the emotion was just enough. I thought love owed me. I was wrong. It’s the action.

So I choose to keep my waistline small and my abs flat. I choose, just because I’m sexy, doesn’t mean I’m having sex with you. I choose to be the best I can be. Not somebody else’s best. My best. I choose to work with what god give me. I choose to believe in god, not because the bullshit I was fed when I was kid. Not because I want to be reborn again. I choose because I believe in the bigger picture. I believe the sun rises for a reason. I believe the moon pulls the tide in for a reason. I believe I am here for a reason.

I choose that I am not my past. I choose to stand on my own two feet. And I know that’s difficult for me because I’m so damn co-dependent. I’m obsessed with that eight year old kid abandoned by his mother. I wanted to be rescued. I don’t need to be rescued anymore. I was all wrong. I trust myself. I trust that I will be alright. I trust god.

And wasn’t that the issue all alone. Bad shit kept happening to me, so I stopped believing in God. It was all meaningless. But god isn’t good. God isn’t a promise. God is want. When you’re a kid, god is the wind. Sometimes it’s a cool breeze on a summer day. Sometimes god is a destructive tornado. But as my grandmother would say, you must not be afraid of the wind. You must not be afraid of god. You must never ask why, god is for a reason even when he is unreasonable. My grandmother used to say; when you get older you must learn to control the wind. You must learn to control god. I’m not afraid of rain. I’m not afraid of thunder. I choose not to be afraid of god.

I choose to be a man. Not because of what I got in between my legs. Not because I know the weight of my fists. Not because I’m trying to be masculine. I choose the responsibility. I choose my decisions.

I choose, me. I AM SOMEBODY. It’s because I refused not to be compromised anymore.

I choose to make it on my own. I choose to be a writer. I choose to be a great lover. I choose to be a good friend. I choose the truth. I choose to be Black. I choose my sexuality. I choose to die with no regrets. I was waiting to believe, and now I believe.

STREET WRITER: The Premise

Street Writer

Growing up, my cousin Tweedy was the coolest motherfucker. He was twenty one years old. He was so damn good looking. So many girls chased after him. He was light brown and tall. I remember that he reminded me of LL. Cool J when he was young and thin. But he had a Snoop Doggy Dog gangster chill personality. To my twelve year old eyes, I thought Tweedy was God. He was a leader of a gang. He drove a midnight blue Cadillac. He sold drugs and always had money. He wore so many gold necklaces around his neck. He kept his converse shoes immaculate. Nobody messed with Tweedy. He got shot five times once and didn’t die. I thought he was indestructible.

I remember when he used to come home from a night of pimping and debauchery around 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. He’d stagger to his twin size bed. He’d light a cigarette for balance. He was so damn cool. He would try not to wake up my grandmother. She constantly threatened to put his trifling ass out. She would say “that boy Tweedy don’t want to work no honest job.” But every time he bought her something with his drug money, it shut her up for a couple of days. But every night, it was always the same with Tweedy. He fumbled into the house smelling like malt liquor, weed and some girl’s pussy. He'd try to balance himself on the bed as he tempted to take off his clothes. He always slept in his boxers. He had the best body. A basketball player body: ripped abs, defined arms and bullet wound scars. I could see why the girls loved him.  He was so dangerously beautiful and hopeless. And every night when he came home, he’d wake me up. Or sometimes I would stay up to see him come home. And every night, I would ask him the same question. I would ask him, “Tweedy, what’s out there in those streets.” And he would always frown. And every night, he would give me the same answer. He would say, “ain’t nothing out there in those streets but crazy women, hating niggas, cops and a lot of trouble.” He would tell me that I shouldn’t be in a rush to grow up.

I knew he was lying. Something kept him out all night. I couldn’t wait to grow up to find out.

I used to think I wanted to be just like Tweedy, but all that changed as I got older. I found out his life wasn’t so romantic. He ended up getting killed. He had a lot of enemies. Somebody shot up his midnight blue Cadillac. I didn’t go to his funeral. I didn’t want to see him dead.

I did grow up chasing his ghost. I found the streets. Rather the streets found me. I found the drug dealers, the hustlers, the tricks, the party, the nightlife. I found the desperation, the escaping and the struggle for survival. I found those who only come out at night. I found the unseen. I found my story.

I really didn’t understand the streets until I was homeless. What I had in my childlike mind was romantic, but the streets were desperate. Desperate to hope. Desperate to eat. Desperate to not be forgotten. When I became homeless, the city was no longer floors, walls, or ceilings. It was no longer houses and building. The city became a long dangerous road that led to nowhere but death. Living on the streets was a humbling experience. I had to sleep in my car. I had to beg for change. I had to rummage through the garage cans for food. I had to learn to trust strangers. But it made me a better writer. I no longer had restrictions. On the streets there weren’t people, just attitudes and untold stores. It was untold love. But the sad truth, you don’t live on the streets. You can only survive the streets. The winters are cruel. Nobody cares. It’s so easy to give up. And many do.

When I wanted to become a writer, I had to return to the streets. I had to return to the night. It was my obsession. I couldn’t begin with the day walkers. I couldn’t begin with the 9-5. I couldn’t begin with the establishment. I had lived most of my entire life outside the establishment. I’m the only male in my family, both sides, that hasn’t gone to prison. I’ve been to jail a few times, but nothing has stuck. But I knew if I was to become the writer I wanted to be, I had to return to the streets. I had to return to the clubs. I had to return to the night.

The one question that bothered me was will I make it? But it wasn’t about fame or money. It was about will I convinced those who need the establishment that I am worth listening. That I am worth buying. Because when you are from the streets, people just see you as prey or a predator. They don’t respect you. They think you’re too raw, real. How can a person be to real?

I found my answer from a friend.

It was a little after midnight, and a homeless guy approached me. He wasn’t begging. He just wanted to see if I was interested in purchasing the homeless newspaper. I immediately shook my head no. I lived in the city, so I was used to saying no before I even knew what he was selling. But as I walked away, he told me god will bless me and have a good night. He seemed so sincere. It wasn’t about the money. It was about how he was trying to hold on as tight as possible to his second chance. It wasn’t about attitude or entitlement. He knew I didn’t owe him anything nor did he really expect anything from me. He was content.

Second chances aren’t easy, but failure is just the beginning. Second chances, nobody really trust you anymore. Second chances is ruined credit. And as I walked away from the homeless guy, I knew he was probably in for another rough night. But he was content. He had accepted the struggle and refused to complain. Second chances is asking yourself do you really believe. And that’s the hardest thing. I walked a block from my friend, and then I walked back. I gave him a dollar for his paper. He told me thank you and we both disappeared into the night. He made me believe again. He made me believe in hope again. He had patience, dignity and a sense of humor. He was the richest man I’d ever met. I knew I could be a writer because of him. And that was the streets. And that was the story I wanted to tell. It was hope.

It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

I was ready to become STREET WRITER