Ch. 18
It had only been a couple of days since I last spoke to Denise. But just as years past in seconds, so too can days pass like months. Why does happiness run so swiftly while sadness but drag its feet? I was writing something in this regret of mine. It was meant for Z, my brother. I wanted to write him something before we headed off to Connecticut to see him graduate. He was having some troubles that we will discuss later, but his troubles weren’t the focus of my mind at the moment. Denise was. To be honest, the only person I was thinking of was Denise. What I did to her. What I must still be doing to her. She had probably told Franky. I mean she had to of. They both knew now. I’m such a fucking piece of shit. Fucking piece of... I wrote this so that it might help Z, but truly it was nothing more than a self-indictment. A hope that she may one day be able to forgive. Forgive me for all I did and didn’t do.
What can we say to those who hurt us to no avail? What do we do with the pain? Because the thing is with pain is that you can’t just let it go at least not at first. You can misplace it. You can share it. You can hide it. You can even try to numb it, but you can’t just get rid of it. I demands more of us than we are often willing to give and that is ourselves. For in our pain we learn to cope. We learn to dance to the tunes of our own sorrow. And in that dance the steps grab hold. Grabs hold of who we are. The steps and the man who takes them seem to become indistinguishable one from the other. In such our pain becomes ourselves and it is that very self that we must let go of. Though it was who we were it must not always be so. Were more than our tears and frustrations. We are more than the pain though haunt us it may. So when there are those that hurt us dearly where is it that we might turn? Wherever it is, wherever it might be let us hope it is a turn towards Love. For where pain comes from so to does love’s majesty. Our perdition lies in our brother’s hands, but O’ so too does our salvation. To forgo the self begot from hell is rebirth in the grace of those who love us most and the self that loves himself too.
I wrote that for Z, but all I could think of was her. All gravity yearn me towards her. Where else was I to pull?
As Chancey, Clefus, and I pulled into the gas station, the local shell to be exact, I passed a few strangers exiting the premises. I avoided their gaze as best I could. Eye contact with others often frightened me, for I hope so oftenly, so fervently, that those whose gaze I did catch do not hate me. Hate me as I have come to hate myself. Hate me as Denise and Franky most likely did now that I have done what I have done. For it was even in the eyes of a perfect stranger that hate ever lingered. But, this of course was just a delusion of mine and I knew that. For I came to learn that it is not in the eyes of others that this hateful world lay in waiting, but in my eyes alone. My eyes were eyes of a hate turned ever inward. Always looking at me. Staring with disgust. Polar pops boys, Clefus asks. Why the fuck else would we be here at 4 in the morning, Chancey replied. I just kinda laughed, but on the inside all I could think about was the hate in my eyes.
People often forget the power that lies in these eyes that we behold. Eyes that create the world we see. Eyes of mind and body the same. For what they see so comes to be. And right now there still lay a heavy facet of self-hate, but I guess that’s why the big man upstairs gave us lost boys the herb, to make us forget how lost we were for a second. I would soon be high as a mother fucking kite and none of these thoughts would matter. At least not for a little bit. As we got back in the car, polar pops in hand, we began to drive. You alright bud, Chancey says, under the tones of bumping music. Ya man just tired that’s all, I responded slowly. He didn’t buy it, but then again he was never one to push me if I didn’t want to talk about something. I didn’t tell Chancey how bad it was at the moment because I didn’t know what he could do for me. If he could change my sight to something better. I didn’t tell him how much I hated myself for not only what I did and did not do, but just for being me. I didn’t want to tell him because I didn’t want him to worry. I didn’t have to though.
Like I said, Chancey was very perceptive in his silence. He knew when something was wrong with me. Part of me wondered what must be racing through his head while he wasn’t speaking. You could tell his mind always wondered, never as silent as he may seem to be. He may have been stoic in stature, but their was an existential mind abound in side that fucking head of his, I just knew it. People are often so much more than what they let on. So much more than what they feel like they must be. I wish I could tell him that he didn’t have to speak. That I heard him always nonetheless, and I was blessed to have him to call friend. God dammit Clefus. Tell me you didn’t just put on fucking Drake again in my car, I yelled in utter passionate distaste, no less fervent than the prior time he pulled this heresy of hip hop. Haters gunna hate, he chuckles. Its funny cuz that sounded like something Z my younger brother would say. I couldn’t wait to see him at the end of the week for his graduation. But there was much pot to be smoke before then and now. Very much pot in deed.
It had been a long fucking drive but we were finally here. This wasn’t my first time visiting Zebidie. I had come here over my spring break earlier. While all the other kiddies were off getting shit canned and fucked in PCB, I was in Connecticut getting stoned in my brother’s living room for a week. It was a good time though. Met a lot of his friends, his roommates, or should I say ex-roommates. Out of the two of them there was J and Taz. Taz was a pretty crazy ass party girl, but cool as shit and pretty damn attractive. J, on the other hand, was a plain ass bitch. I didn’t know this at fucking first, but a month or so after I left from my spring break extravaganza at Wesleyan, where Z attended college, she kicked my bro out of their house. Kicked him right the fuck out of his own fucking house, well technically it was university property, but still nonetheless WHAT THE FUCK?!?!? She had the university relocate him to another house for fucking stealing from her. In all actuality it was just a big misunderstanding, given that my brother is one of the most amazing individuals this world has ever seen, but she obviously didn’t care too much for him and his amazingness that much.
See Z has this habit of speaking his mind and saying some pretty audacious shit. Amazingly funny, but fucking twisted most of the time. Whether it was about fucking a dude in the bungus or blowing coke (2 things he has addressed in front of our mother, God help the poor woman) he’ll talk about it quite openly. But most of all if a bitch is basic, he’ll fucking tell her to her face. And J was a basic ass bitch. Hey it may seem harsh, but I find a decent amount of respect to it. Z never said anything about a person that he wouldn’t say to their face. The thing was, he just had the fucking habit of saying it to your goddamn face too often. But God love him he was my little brother. But any who, she was fed up with him and finally had her excuse. It was your classic black man accused by a prissy white girl of doing something wrong. Naturally the university didn’t do much to help. Story short, my brother got the boot and was moved to another house of strangers. Great fucking spin on your senior year if you ask me. Like getting ready for the mind rape that is finals wasn’t enough, try adding a wonderful diaspora to the mix.
So after all this he had finally reached graduation, and we had just arrived a couple days before the big day. Like I said, it was a long fucking drive. 12 wonderful hours of claustrophobia in motion. I hate long car drives. I use to love them, but cancer comes with some symptoms beyond just the purely physical. Some fears come along from the physical depredation as well. So much fucking fun right? But we had finally made it, me, my younger brother Dugan, my Mommy and Daddy, and my Nana and Pops (my mom parents/my grandparents). Unfortunately, Bobby wasn’t able to come because of his new job at the The Woods. So while he was home watching the dogs and babysitting the drunk stragglers that had yet to leave Oxford after graduation, we were off to the east coast. Like I said, we had finally arrived! It was 1 in the morning, but there was beer to be drank as far as I was concerned. So off I was as I left the fam at the hotel and embarked out to Wesleyan for tonight’s senior drinking shebackels. I couldn’t wait. I always get excited to see my little brother, well lil by 1 month’s difference, but little nonetheless even though he had a good six inches on me. I was always excited because it’s never not an event, an adventure to say the least, when you’re with Z. He had one of those sassy hilarious personalities that just kinda filled the room. Flamboyancy at its finest. God I fucking loved hanging with my lil brother. If there was one thing I was blessed with it was truly wonderful human beings I got to call family. My brothers were a huge part of that. Z was a big part of that.Though they all couldn’t be more different in their personalities, Bobby in his Stoic John Wayneness, Dugan and his manic brilliance, and Z in his cocky ass (no pun intended) fucking self, they were my best friends.
See, when you move around as much as we all did your brothers become the only consistency in companionship that you ever have. Leaving them worried me. I miss them already, if that is possible. I really do… But anyway, I don’t want to think like that right now. So me and Z were out and about at his school that he loved most dearly. See Wesleyan is the kinda school more fitting for a philosophy major such as I. A place where talks of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche aren’t pushed off to some tiny department above the auditorium like they were at Miami. No this school was as liberal as it fucking gets, and my commi self fucking loved it. The exact polar opposite of Miami’s conservative ass institutional self. Being the person I was now I would like to say that I wished I would have gone to school here with Z, but as amazing as it was here I could never deny my ties to Miami. I wouldn’t be the me I am right now without that school and every contradiction and fuck up thing that it embodied. My friends there loved me and I loved them. I wouldn’t be the me I am without out them. I wouldn’t have made it through alive without them. So, as much as I enjoyed the dream of going to Weslyan with Z I could not deny the reality that is mine. That if it weren’t for Miami, and the people I met and fell in love with there, I wouldn’t be alive right now to have such dreams.
Oh shit, Sunshine!!! I bellowed from some fratty masculine part of my soul, wherever the fuck that is. What up bro, he returned in favor. Sunshine was Ethan’s BFF from high school up in Cleveland, and he just so happen to go to this small ass liberal school with Z. Small world right? Oh shit, that mother fucker is fucking hammered right now. God Dammit he could barely stand. He stumbled towards me with a dumb smile. I’ll see you in like 5 minutes bro, I says to him, watching him sway back and forth. I have to find Z first before I even try to catch up with your drunk ass. Where’s Ethan, he yelled back in a slur, even though I was like two feet passed him now. He’s back in Ohio dude, he couldn’t make it, I says to him. THAT FUCKER, he yelled, as he ripped his shirt off. Why he did that I’ll never know, but as I laughed at his prior actions and general drunkenness I responded, I thought you knew that! I did, he slurred again, but that doesn’t make him any less of a fuck. Ha, alright Sunshine I’ll catch up with you later. He didn’t mean that. He loved Ethan. He came down like 6 times while me and Ethan were at Miami. Ethan was a hell of a guy, but you already know that so it’s no wonder Sunshine loved him so much. But back to the story.
So I said my goodbyes to Sunshine and I made my way down the street to find Z. O’ fuck there’s his roommates. Fuck, I mean his ex-roommates. Fuck where is Z. I called him. He hung up on me. He’s either real close or still pissed I just interrupted him from getting laid by arriving so late, but hell what are brothers for for fucksake. That mother fucker better just be happy I’m here. I got a goddamn speeding ticket on the way over here I was zipping along so fucking fast. Luckily the cop cut me a break, given I was probably wanna the few sober people he would encounter this late on this holiday weekend. Ah fuck there’s that mother fucker. Hey you big black beautiful man, I says to him. You’re so weird, he returned in favor, as he so often does. I gave him the biggest hug and told him I loved him and he called me a faggot. Pretty standard procedure when it comes to the two of us. And off we went.
We were meeting up with his lovely friends Dem and Danny. Gosh were they both just two lovely human beings. We danced. We drank. We drank some more. I threw up my fucking guts off the back porch of Danny’s house, I was trying so hard to catch up, and then we were off again. As we sauntered drunkenly off the front deck little did we know a special lil friend of Z’s was waiting. J to be exact. Now I’d like to say it was a fucking breeze getting by that bitch J, but hell that just wouldn’t be the God’s honest truth now would it. Words were exchanged. Bitches were bitches. Then out of the blue that plain ass bitch swung on Z. Hit him 3 times before Z’s friends started to fuck a plain ass bitch up. Hair grabbing. Face kicking. God Damn it was a fucking brawl. It takes a lot of love for friends to go to war with another and for one another. But a lot of love is what they had, and war is what we got. Bitch didn’t have a clue what she started. And as fiery passions calmed, and plain ass bitches lay alone, we moved on. It wasn’t a walk of victory so much as it was one of confusion and anger. We humans lash out at one another for reasons unknown to us in the moment. Something primal moves in us as the call to defend the ones we love is reckoned. It is only after that bewildered minds return to sanity and justifications begin to rise. Story short, no one ended up getting hurt.
Next thing I know we’re at Z’s pseudo frat something society. Anyway, whatever it was, it was called Eclectic, and it was amazing. The name pretty much said it all. Nothing short of a vast array of men and women from all different walks of life and disciplines. It was a breeding ground for diversity and a brothel of free thought. I fucking loved it, especially considering the dichotomy it set up in comparison to greek life at Miami. After surveying the crowd and partaking in some of the local substances we were off again. This last stop wasn’t exactly up to the glamour of the rest. Of course we ended up spending the last three fucking fuck fuck hours of our night in the campus police office, to report the whole scene that had occurred earlier, in order to safeguard Z’s friend from any potential lies that might surface from misleading sources. But after that was complete we mosied on home. It was a hell of a night for me and Z, and as we finally climbed into bed we assumed our normal positions whenever we have to share a bed. Foot to face, and goddamn did my feet fucking stink. Sorry Z, I says to him as I drift off into distant slumber. Sorry for what… Mother Fucker would you take a shower, he yelled at me, but it was too late. I was of to land far beyond gods and men.
The sleep wasn’t great, but then again it never was. I woke up with Z’s feet in my face. Damn did that boy have some ugly fucking feet. It didn’t help to boot that I was hungover as fuck, my sense of smell heightened to unknown proportions, and with my eyes straining I rolled out of bed. I was all too well aware of the painful 25 minute ride I was about to embark on back to the hotel, to change and get ready for the night ahead of consuming more boos and drugs. As I looked at Z flailed out on his bed I smiled. Did God not bring a blessing into our life when he brought us him. I left him that note I told you about earlier, and a copy of the letter I wrote him like the rest of the fam. I trusted Z to read it and not make too big of a deal about getting my last goodbye pre-mortem. Here’s the letter. I hope he understands.
Dear Z,
I love you Z. I don’t know if I could say that enough to you, nor do I think you have heard it enough in your life. If you are reading this in my passing I hope my love for you will come to no surprise of your own. For no greater pain might beseech me than the thought that my beloved brother might be bereft of the belief and knowledge that he is so deeply cared for and adored by his brother who loves him. Always know and believe that I love you with all of my heart and soul for you are my best friend, you are my brother. To be honest I could have never guested growing up that I would have met a person like you, let alone to come one day to calling you family. Such is a precarious thought in itself; the idea of meeting a brother, especially one not of blood, but made blood. And though I could have never imagined such an encounter growing up, it has now become an ever shall be an encounter that has ripped your absence in my family’s past from me eternally as my family became ours. Though I can remember a time before you came to us, I no longer have an understanding of what that us is without you in it. How did we call ourselves family without you their? How did we laugh in love of one another without your smile? How did we endure through hardship without your joy? Though I can no longer remedy such questions with an answer since you entered upon our lives I care not for the very plain reason that you are now in our lives and that is a blessing beyond any question answered. Z you authenticity know no bounds. Your heart never ceases to reach as wide as possible. And your soul yearns for a truth that touches a justice for all. I can’t tell you how highly I think of you. How much I respect you. How much I love that you challenge me and help me grow as the individual I should hope to be. You have gone through so much pain and strife in your life it is a miracle that you are here let alone striving so far beyond the hopes and aspirations of those less burdened in life’s tragedies. I hope this doesn’t inflate your ego more than the titanic amount it already is, but it is a miracle, you being where you are, because you are a miracle. God has bestowed upon you a creativity, a passion, a sense of purpose, and a mind of digestion that has the means to rock the lives of all those who meet you for you meet all with joy. Never doubt this. Never cease to share it. Never cease to let it reach farther than previously thought possible. But also being the searcher that you are I know doubts are unavoidable. Please know and never cease to believe this though my dear brother: LOVE IS REAL. That Christ beckons towards us a symphony that we may play along and send forth a call of our own for others to join. For whether or not by the time you read this letter. Whether you are mad. Whether you are so angry the tears seem to only hide the pain Christ is still to be found in the present moment whether it be in sadness or in smile. And as the joyful springs come ever more from your heart and my passing to comes to pass from your mind please don’t forget his love dear brother and what he has done for you. If you be muslim or jew, christian or hindu, Christ’s love is forever to be found for all and eternity. If you hold on in tightness of grip to one thing let it be that of 1 Corinthians 13. Let it be Love Z to which you cling. For I but pray that such a love might shape you and cure you and transcend the very limitations of your life till the day we meet again. Be strong my dear brother. Be strong for mom and dad and the Boys for they need you more than you could ever know. Carry our family name with pride Z for it is your name. It is our name and for whatever it may be derivative of, it is a binding grip upon all of us in value, faith, and love to one another in blood made blood and how all others should be treated and viewed. Carry our name so that others might see a glimmer of who I was, who we were across even the darkness of fate’s due cost. But most of all Z never stop searching and fighting for the focuses of your passions and dreams and never ever cease to shine your beautiful soul. I truly love you.
Your brother,
Me
The sun was now setting across the wooded reserves that surrounded and cut off each little town, one from the other, across this pleasant state. though it may be the case that the sun had just began to set under the grasp of the horizon, I was just again to rise. After submerging into coma after returning back to the hotel I had finally awoken from my dreamless sleep. But as soon as I had left so to was I to return. As me and Dugan rode gallantly towards Wesleyan, to spend the last night of graduation extravaganza with our brother Z, I smiled for another night of sinful joy to come. It had taken a little bit of smooshing on my part to get my mom to agree to letting Dugan tag along, but then again she never was quite good at playing the strict mother. I mean how could she deny her youngest son the opportunity to get a taste of college, now that he was soon to be at one himself.
As much as I would love to go into detail about that night’s shenanigans, I find a simple summary will suffice. Given it was more what I experienced at the dawning of the next day that truly captivated my being, rather than just another boosfest of a night conquered, I cut to the chase. Don’t get me wrong it was a hell of a time. We started out at Sunshine’s house while we waited around for Z to finally locate us. Though I was slightly annoyed, it was good that I had a mutual friend to hang out with so Z could spend a little alone time with his friends. After a couple games of beer ball, and some drugs consumed, me and Dugan waltzed over to Dem’s house again with some beers to be drank. Dugan was having a blast and was completely starstruck by the college lifestyle, as most are at first taste. Well we arrived at Dem’s place, to which we were met outside by Z who yelled at us for holding him up. Given that we were there for another hour after our arrival, I will just assume he was being a fucking diva and was mostly likely already drunk. It was a great lil dance party going on inside to pregame for the big tent party the school put on for all students, past and present alike. As we headed over not even I, let alone Dugan, had any clue what a tent party truly meant at this now seemingly crazy ass school. It was massive. Like a giant fucking rave contained to a tent the size of a football field. It was utter youthful madness that we were engulfed in from start to finish. Lasers penetrated through clouds of burning herb and bass shook upon the foundations of our being. We danced. We drank. We consumed every second, not knowing that one had passed to the next. We were there and we were rampant. Wild in the sea of waves we knew to be our own serenity. Tossed joyfully amongst the oceans of life.
As the DJ played his last set, and that magical moment now ended, we all exited the tent and headed back to Eclectic. For from there the dancing and drinking and drugging only continued. Well, that is till Z ditched me and Dugan’s ass to go to pound town with some dude he had met before we had even arrived. What a pal. So from there me and Dugan’s night was for the most part over. Not knowing anyone who lived in the Eclectic house, nor wanting to be over cumbersome to Z’s friend’s, me and Dugan opted to set outside Eclectic and wait for Z’s shady ass to come pick us up and guide us back to his place to pass out. Lil did we know that would take him all of 2 hours to return to us. But hey I’m not hating. It was plenty of time for me and Dugan to sober up and talk with one another for a while. When Z finally returned, with a big ole dumb grin on his face, we both proceeded to curse him out which he equally returned in favor. There we stood outside yelling obscenities at each other like fucking drunkards, even though to my knowledge all of us were quite sober at that point. Ah the joys of brotherhood. Ah the movements of true raunchy unblemished love. As our cursing and yelling quieted down to a dull roar we all decided to call it a night and head back to Z’s. As Dugan and Z curled up on the bed, zonked from a fun filled night, it suddenly dawned on me… I took way too much addy… Yup looks like I’m gunna be alone for a couple hours… Well fuck… Well fuck fuck fuck. Well at least I had some Unamuno to ponder on and my journal to scribble in. I guess I’ll survive. Just got to wait till it gets around to sunrise, when Z said he’d be waking up to do some Wesleyan tradition out in the middle of campus. Something about the whole class watching the sunrise from atop the hill. So I guess I got that to potentially look forward to.
The hours past and the pages of my book and journal flipped. God was I starting to feel beat. I was finally out of addy, so there would be no remedy found there. Fuck what time is it, I asks myself. Ah almost time for this sunrise bullshit. Z wake up, I yell at him. No reply. Z wake up, I try again. No reply. As I get up from his shitty little desk and move closer to his bed I make one last attempt. Z wake up, I yell in his ear. What the fuck, he yells in a startle. Fuck you. I’m not going. Bye, he says. Well fuck that settles it I guess. Normally I would continue to bug him till he was annoyed enough to get up, but I was tired now and didn’t have the energy to waste on something that probably wouldn’t even come into fruition. Fine fucker, I says. I’ll go without you, I says, trying to tempt him into moving. It didn’t work. Fuck. Well I guess I’ll just go for a walk, I thought to myself. Maybe wear myself out till I can pass out with them.
As I left his house and made my way up the street and around the corner, I stumbled through campus and found a nice tree to sit under and write. As pen touched paper, and I began to scribble away, I saw her… I had never met her before… But I had known her… and I knew where she was going. She had wanted to watch the sunrise one last time with her friends before it was over. It was something special for her. Something she could cherish. A rite by which a new beginning in her life could open. There it was. That big ball of light. It was peaking out so gently across the hills of this quiet town. And as it rose so did her smile. So did her heart. She wasn’t alone now, and it had nothing to do with whom she surrounded herself with, though love them she surely did. She wasn’t alone because it was her. Her and her sunrise now. New things were bound to her in the possibilities to come. Bound to her in this new day. And as the sun rose and blossomed so gently, little did the world know that she rose with it. And she was there with that new sunrise. She was there and she wasn’t alone.
As I got up from the little tree I was sitting by, after watching all the students slowly filter out and make their way to graduation I too followed them from a distance. Participating vicariously from afar, I saw happy faces still drunk from the night before and I wondered what it must be like. I might never share their joy. Their sunrise, but fuck if I didn’t have my sunset to look forward to. At least I would have that. Most people may get their sunrises, but not everyone gets a sunset. I hope I would. I knew I would. At least I hoped I would. And as I strolled back down the street to Z’s house I got in my car and started to drive around aimlessly, as the sleep deprivation wore in and the addy wore off. Things began to glow like a dream in the night, but given that it wasn’t night, and I assumed I wasn’t dreaming since a car actually almost hit me at 40 mph, I decided to pull over for a second. I exited off the awakening avenue of this little town to get some breakfast and take some more bugar sugar that somehow miraculously appeared in my pocket. It wasn’t much, but hell it’d do the trick. And as I pulled into the local McDonalds the sunset rose again with a sentimental mood upon me, as Ellington and Coltrane whispered their mysteries. As I rolled down the window and lit another cig the smoke eased along their melodies. The asphalt once stationary began to glide beneath me. I only knew what their music shared with me, for I was no longer myself. I was lost in jazz and what was most likely an acid flashback. I was lost in jazz, too bewitched to even know my own blues. I was lost in jazz. I was gone in the conjuring of a tune.
We were all waiting anxiously for his name to finally be called. Me and Dugan were more exhausted in our anxiety than the rest of the fam, but anxious nonetheless. Z was to be the first of the four brothers to graduate college. He was the first of us to walk across that stage. We were all so proud. So proud of him for achieving this. If only you knew his story before he became part of our family and the things that he had overcome, you’d be pretty fucking amazed too. And then there it was. They called his name and as we screamed in suite as loud as we fucking could we all smiled with joy. My lil brother had done it, and to him the abundance of life and opportunity was his for the taking. Though I was never to walk across a stage such as this I found solace in his crossing. That he had done what I was blocked from was enough of a blessing to me. He had done it. He had done. I love you Z. That I do. As the ceremony ended and we all rushed to find him, my joy did not fade. I was too damn happy. Happy that my family could find joy in the future outside my own tragedy. That there was still a future for them, even though it would be birthed in my dying days.
It was yet another long drive home. After Z’s graduation party with his friends and their families and the swift packing up of all his shit, that was of course done at the last possible minute, we headed back to Ohio. Z was heading back with us. He wanted to be here for me as my days shorten. He wanted the whole fam to be there. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that, because instead of going off to the big apple and starting his new wonderful life as an “affluent black gay” as he always said, he decided to put that on hold. Have a hiatus from his future so he could do all he could for me until my last day. It was lovely of him to do that for me, but in it I knew I could no longer hide. I was really about to die. I was really about to be gone and my family prepared themselves for it, as so did I.
As we pulled into Oxford the anxiety of the nothing set in upon me and I felt my mind slowly slipping away. You’re a dead boy