I don’t know where I want to be any more. There have been times when I had a crystal clear picture of exactly where I want to be. A lot of the time it involved some beach in Hawaii. Other times a nightclub in Manhattan.
I remember when Charles moved back to New York he stayed with his mom for a little while until he got his own place. He mused, “Don’t you ever just want to go back home and just sleep in the house you grew up in? Just to see everything and hug your mom and sit on those same chairs?” I actually wanted to cry a little; mainly because, honestly, I have never thought about it. But for a second there, I did. For a second there I thought of the possibility of going back to the Ida B. Wells projects or to our house in Park Forest South and just… walking around, hugging Breeze or our other dog… Dice. I remembered Momma’s Mickey Mouse pancakes and tying up the Christmas tree against the bars on the windows to make sure it didn’t tip over. I remember there was never a question about it; momma always let me make the angel on top of the tree. I remember Breeze drinking the water from the tree stand. When that stuff left, I never really looked back. I never really imagined a reunion or the possibility of going back.
I remember that last day at Ida B. Wells. I remember my last image being of our cat, Kenny, and her babies, sitting in a bright beam of sunlight on top of this standalone cabinet thing that had paint splatters on it from the last time I decided to paint the walls. She was just glowing, sitting there, looking at me. She seemed happy and content. I wasn’t. I was more worried and remorseful... for her, for me. And I had to leave her there. Everything was packed up. We couldn’t take her with us. My brother said he would “take care of it.” I never did ask what that meant. I never wanted to know. When Charles asked, “Have you ever just wanted to go home” for a second there… I mourned the home I can never go back to. And even now, so thirsty for a “home”, someplace familiar, warm and all compromising… the thought of it doesn’t bring me a lot of… peace. If anything I just get angry that it’s gone and it’s no way I can get it back. Ida B Wells has since been demolished. And whoever is living in our old house in Park Forest South I'm sure are light years away from thinking it’s remotely cute that some strange fat middle aged Black man is sleeping on their front porch for “nostalgia”. I get jumpy at wanting that “home” feeling. I even want that feeling in people that I meet. I think that definitely had something to do with my obsession with/addiction to Dean all those years. I think my drinking has something to do with it too. I am most comfortable when I’m drinking. I’m also most comfortable those seconds/minutes after a really good orgasm. Not necessarily during the sex part, but most certainly after it’s over. I got to remember to mention that to a therapist one day.
I’m watching the movie “Crooklyn” and crying like a faucet… like I always do. I think the first time I saw it I was with my husband in his hospice room a decade or so ago. I kept thinking about when momma was in the hospital and almost died. And I was thinking about Daddy and how much I missed him. I remember my husband seeing me leak uncontrollably like a little faucet and he kept asking me again and again what was wrong and I just couldn’t tell him. He got so pissed off at me.
For the most part I don’t like talking about my family or my past. Every once in a while I’ll run down the “Story of Breeze” to people and it feels so odd. I never thought my story or my family’s story was ever that dramatic or... noteworthy really. Not in the big scheme of things I guess. I think I have always prided myself on the fact that we ride the middle, we don’t have any Olympic champions, but we don’t have any mass murders either. We’re just a bunch of remotely upwardly mobile Negroes trying to make it like everybody else. But every time I retell our story, or watch a movie like “Crooklyn” that allows me to silently reminisce over it, something in me just begins to ring like a huge bell, right from my core. I miss my momma. I really miss my grandma. And I would give anything to be with my great grandmother.
My family, my story, my life, was never simple, not really. I naturally want to downplay it and say that it wasn’t noteworthy or something as dramatic as say… Tina Turner having the crap beaten out of her or a friend of mine whose father plunged a knife in his neck or another friend who almost drowned in a capsized passenger train… but our stories, my story, what I felt, what I went through… there’s some weight to it, some validity. The love I have for my family, as well as the pain they have caused me is palatable, it’s real. I miss them something awful... ALL of them. I really do. It’s definitely one of those cards that I hold close to my chest. No one needs to know about my family. You can toss around stories of me and my ménage a twenty at bathhouses, drunkenly kissing strangers at some bear bar, riding the bus home from said bear bar on underwear night and completely forgetting to put my pants back on… just don’t fuck with my family. Don’t ever fuck with my family.
My family, my story, my life, was never simple, not really. I naturally want to downplay it and say that it wasn’t noteworthy or something as dramatic as say… Tina Turner having the crap beaten out of her or a friend of mine whose father plunged a knife in his neck or another friend who almost drowned in a capsized passenger train… but our stories, my story, what I felt, what I went through… there’s some weight to it, some validity. The love I have for my family, as well as the pain they have caused me is palatable, it’s real. I miss them something awful... ALL of them. I really do. It’s definitely one of those cards that I hold close to my chest. No one needs to know about my family. You can toss around stories of me and my ménage a twenty at bathhouses, drunkenly kissing strangers at some bear bar, riding the bus home from said bear bar on underwear night and completely forgetting to put my pants back on… just don’t fuck with my family. Don’t ever fuck with my family.
Fast forward a couple of hours (after finding street parking to avoid the $20 parking at the Los Angeles Forum) and I was sitting an amazing SEVEN ROWS from PRINCE himself. I just couldn’t believe it! Everybody in my section, however, were “Los Angeles” cool;, they didn’t stand, they didn’t really sing along, they just kind of... sat there and just… looked. They wore pretty clothes and had pretty hair and pretty much treated the whole thing as if the Forum was a fancy museum and Prince was an elaborate kaleidoscope… they were slightly amused by the little lights and colors flickering in front of them; nevermind the little guy singing and dancing his ass off in between ripping through one of the best song catalogs ever created this century with random celebrities popping out of the audience like rabid gophers in a newly planted carrot field... they just… sat there. Not me. This has happened before at concerts here in Los Angeles, the performer is really giving energy and is really trying to make the show as interactive as possible… and the Los Angeleans are tightly bound to their role of distant, fashion forward critic/voyeur. They don’t really come out to have a “good time” or be a “part of an experience”, they really come out to impress their dates, impress their friends… make some sly and fierce comment about the performer and unfortunately, these are the fuckers who usually score the best seats. 
I should say Amel was awesome too. It took her awhile to warm up. Soon as she hit the stage it occurred to me that she is probably used to smaller, intimate venues… not the mammoth 18,000 seat Los Angeles Forum. Her first song I think she was just trying to get her bearing, performing in the wind tunnel that is the Forum, opening up for the legend that is Prince. But after that, she kicked up her heels and just let it flow and sang her ass off.
Near the end, when just about the entire stadium had given up trying to be “cool” and was actually up dancing and singing and in the midst of one of the most orgasmic parties ever given, he went into multi-orgasmic mode and opened the flood gates to his stage and laypeople and celebrities a like filled it to boogey into the night. Somebody more in the know could name off more “Names” but from what I could recognize, I saw Craig Robinson of “The Office” fame completely having a good time and dancing with every available woman on the stage including Prince’s back up dancers and a woman I assumed to be Chelsea Handler but I could be totally wrong on that one. I clearly spotted Susan Sarandon of all people up on the stage getting her boogey on which just tickled me so. I don’t know, any day you get to see either Thelma or Louise dance a two-step is a good day. Chante Moore popped up out of nowhere and began improvising some scat notes while Sheila E pounded on the drums and the entire stadium was covered in purple confetti. 
I remember at one point, at one encore or another, he asked the crowd if we wanted more and everyone just screamed, “YES!” His reply, “Ok. But you know, I’ve been known to wear out many a person.” Which was the perfect response… because he did. By the time the concert was finished, hours later, I was sweaty, and tired, and sore and hoarse.. and wanted more. I settled for a steak and shrimp dinner at Norm’s with a friend of mine then went home and fell into a coma-like sleep… where I dreamt about.. what silence looks like. Yeah, I imagined what silence looks like. Yeah, I imagined what silence
