In case you forgot, p.12
In Case You Forgot, page 12
Stay away from Brandon-Malik, Zaire, and Preston. This includes avoiding going anywhere that I know I’ll have a high probability of running into any of them. Which is like everywhere, duh. But nah, I know that if I wanted to see any of them, I could do it. But I won’t. Includes staring out my upstairs front window to stare across the street into Zaire’s window. Includes Friday nights at Trunks, where Brandon-Malik loves to congregate with all his other IG-popular friends. Includes deliberately going running through the neighborhood at times when I know Zaire, Alberto, and Preston are leaving for the day or coming home from their respective jobs. I try to tell Thea the therapist that West Hollywood is small—barely two square miles—and that I can’t not live, that I can’t not leave the house, and she goes, “Kenny, you’re smart. You know that you know how to run into people—you’re not doing that!”
Detox and decolonize my diet. In other words, get back to vegan eating. Reduce or eliminate sugar, processed foods, and anything not from the ground. Water. Vitamins. Smoothies made from scratch. From there, keep running, add meditation, hire a trainer to come by a few times a week to train me in the gym at the condo’s fitness center—shouldn’t be hard, seems everyone is a trainer in this part of L.A. anyway. I’m definitely not doing the natural deodorant, soap, toothpaste thing, though. I’m not going “patchouli.”
Focus on goals other than men. “You’re a doctor fucking around in a sea of barnacles and leeches,” Thea the therapist says, and reminds me of the visions for my life that I shared with her—university in the community, helping people live their best lives, and commitment to a socially just world. “You’re magic, Kenny, and I want you to see that. I mean, there’s a reason why spirit led you to see CUELA wasn’t for you anymore. Stay still and listen to spirit.”
This, in itself, is worth the few dollars I’m paying out-of-pocket for today’s session. Of course, less if I still had insurance through CUELA, but not going there now.
“Think you can agree to these?” Thea the therapist asks, and offers me her hands. “Let’s give it thirty days, though ninety days is optimal. That’ll get us to and through the winter holidays. And we’ll do next steps with your grief after that. Sooner, if you feel ready.”
“Ninety days. All this?” I look at the list of the “entire breakup plan” and feel overwhelmed, but then it pops in my head that I completed a doctoral degree and a dissertation this year, all while working a full-time job. I’m kinda resilient, definitely capable, and in most circles the shit.
“We’ll check in every week to track your progress, or less, depending on what works for you.”
“I will do my best.”
“I think you can,” she says. “I know you can. You know you can.”
“I’ve got no other choice. I’ve got to get back to the me I’ve forgotten.”
“You’ve got to discover the you you’ve never truly known before.”
“You’ve confused me with that one, Thea.”
“You’ll understand when you understand,” she says. “Now, excuse yourself out. Our time here today is whole.”
Zaire
ICYF: Little Things Are Big
Elijah sent me an address and asked me to meet him at 11:30 a.m.
It happens to be two miles away from where I live, so I decide to walk. On good days, like today when it’s not too hot or too cold for fall, I enjoy walking. I’ve become more comfortable with enjoying the outside, noticing and finding new things about the place I’ve called home for nearly half a year. The other day I stumbled upon a Black-owned barbershop off LaBrea. Now I do not have to visit the southside for my weekly fade.
I’m a few minutes early and I think he may have given me the wrong address because the navigation has taken me to an empty building across from a park. Nerves start to settle in because I’m anxious to finally meet Elijah. This date is the only thing I have scheduled to do this Saturday. I hope we are able to hold a conversation and have a good time at least for an hour. I’m not the best at in-person conversation with strangers, although it appears I’m an expert at it, especially because I’ve been known to be a sly flirt. Only a few people actually know the preparation it takes ahead of time for me to craft conversations and comebacks. I’ve never been on a first date that I didn’t plan. I haven’t been on a first date since Mario, to be honest, and Kenny and the app hookups—I’m not counting. This shit is new and makes me too damn nervous. Do I like this? I mean, will I like this, is the question.
“Is it hung and plumped?” a voice says from behind my left shoulder.
I turn around and it’s Elijah in the flesh, live in color. It’s a bonus he looks even better in person than he does on FaceTime. He’s wearing a simple black T-shirt with “RESIST” written in white font, a fanny pack across his chest, gray jeans, and what used to be white Chuck Taylor shoes, now a smog gray color. I love his in-person look and style. Despite his nice clothes, the best part of his outfit is his smile. Those teeth and full lips. My God.
“Good one,” I say and laugh. “Good morning, Elijah, nice to meet you IRL!”
He smiles and leans in for a hug.
“You haven’t answered my question,” he says in my ear.
This excites me, and I feel a thump in my pants.
“One thing about me that you may come to find out, Elijah, is I do not lie…often.”
We release each other from a hug that’s gone a few seconds too long.
Elijah stares me up and down. He’s checking me out from the front. Hopefully he doesn’t notice I have a chubby. He smirks when his eyes meet my zipper. Damn, he notices. If my nose wasn’t the only thing that could get red easily, he’d notice I’m blushing.
“Time may tell if that is true or not,” Elijah says. “Here, I come bearing gifts. Some breakfast.”
Elijah hands me a KIND blueberry breakfast bar and a reused jam jar with some green juice inside it.
I want to say, “It’s almost noon, I ate breakfast a while ago. I’m damn near hungry for lunch. I actually thought we’d be meeting at a place to eat and talk. You know, a typical first date.” But instead I say, “Thanks. What’s in the jar and where are we?”
“Oh!” Elijah says in a high pitch; he’s excited for some reason. “I thought I told you what I have for breakfast most days. In case you forgot, the juice is actually kombucha with a little kale and ginger. I like to be active, so the juice helps in keeping my energy and health up.”
“That’s right. You did tell me. I didn’t forget,” I say.
I do remember chatting early on during our Jack’d phase about some of our personal daily routines. I told him some of my routines include stretching every morning and talking to plants in the morning. He told me about kombucha. I do not tell him I still do not know what kombucha really is. I will drink it and find out.
“Good,” he says. “Don’t forget the little things. Those are what really matter.”
He has a familiar sparkle in his eyes. I already know I can stare into those warm brown eyes for hours and still find beauty. I need to watch myself.
“To answer your second question,” Elijah continues, “we are at my favorite underground pop-up thrift store—PopShop. We have to hurry and go to the back because it looks like no one is waiting around outside so we can go inside now!”
Elijah grabs my hand and pulls me to the back of the building. No one is outside. It’s a warehouse with a freshly painted green door.
From the outside, the building appears empty as fuck, but when you enter it is quite active. It’s like Goodwill and Melrose Blvd. joined forces and birthed PopShop.
Elijah gives me the rundown of the this wardrobe cult. You follow them online to be one of their over 500k followers. Put your notifications on. Four days before they pop up in either New York, Los Angeles, DC, Miami, or Barstow, CA—apparently one of the creators of PopShop is from Barstow and people make a weekend trip out to the desert location—they start to post clues about where they’ll be for the weekend. Then the day before the pop-up, they post a picture of the street sign intersection, and then it’s the followers’ job to find the warehouse / building with a freshly painted green door. Once you’re there you cannot linger around or make a line outside the door. You’re only allowed beyond the inside line if you follow PopShop social media.
“I’ve never been to anything like this,” I say, looking around at all the local trendsetters and modern art.
“I’m glad your first time is with me. Let’s try to get Halloween things! Do you like Halloween?”
Elijah is walking down an aisle of clothes touching most things he passes. My stomach is responding to the kombucha.
“Yeah, I like Halloween,” I say. “It’s cool. I guess I’ll celebrate this year because I live in West Hollywood now. It’s practically a city holiday.”
“I love Halloween! It should be a national holiday. It’s the one time in the year where many people dare to allow their imagination to run wild.” Elijah stops walking and turns to face me. “People lessen their rigid ideas of body, of gender, of expression. I wish we could be like that always.”
My stomach feels like someone is jumping inside it, not in a painful way, but in a I-may-have-to-go-to-the-restroom kind of way, and Elijah can notice something is off.
“You okay?”
“I think so,” I say, scanning the venue for a restroom. “My stomach feels kind of weird.”
“Yeahhhh. It’s the kombucha. It’s cleaning your insides. You probably have to have a bowel movement. The restroom is over there. I’ll walk you.”
Elijah points his finger to the corner of the room. I laugh at his bluntness and his choice of words.
“What’s funny, Zaire?”
“I guess you are. For starters, it’s our first date and you tell me I have to shit and you use bowel movement. Who uses that?” I laugh.
“Well, do you not have to…shit?”
“I suppose I do.”
“Well, then,” he pauses and continues, “this whole first date thing, it’s so overrated. We are meeting in real life for the first time, but we’ve talked for weeks online already. Which, by the way, I honestly thought we were going to be online associates, because we hadn’t met yet and we talked often enough.”
We make it to the restroom, finally, and I whisper to myself, “Whew, child, the ghetto.”
“I know you’re fully human so you have other bodily functions besides cumming, Mr. Hung and Plumped.”
He laughs.
“Touché, cutie. Are you going to come inside the restroom with me and smell my aroma since we’re already so close?”
“Nope, I’ll pass for now. I’ll wait for you out here.”
PopShop is low-key fancy. The decorations in the restroom are nice as hell. And to top it off, the toilet paper isn’t that thin-ass paper shit you get in most public places. PopShop said if our cult is willing to find us with three clues and pay $25 for a pair of socks, we will give them high-quality toilet paper. Come’on Quill! The little things.
* * *
PopShop is a cute experience. The only thing we buy are graphic socks. Elijah notices them in a bin and throws me a black pair with red roses. Says I look like the rose type—thorny and beautiful. He chooses a gray pair with a dolphin on each sock. I remember he said once dolphins are one of his favorites. I do not know why I remember this random fact about Elijah.
After about an hour of PopShop browsing, we’re both open to eat—food. Real food. Elijah suggests we go to Smorgsasburg in DTLA, where we’d be able to eat from a variety of food trucks, have adult drinks if we want, and continue browsing for clothes if we choose. I’m having such a good time just being with Elijah it doesn’t matter what we do. We call a Lyft and split the cost to downtown.
The ride is musical. Mohammad, our driver, gives us full radio control. Elijah says the game we are playing is Carpool Karaoke. We have to sing the song the other person chooses, and it doesn’t matter if we don’t know the choice, we have to make up something.
“Bet,” I tell him.
Although we are technically eight miles away from our next location, downtown L.A., traffic guarantees us a good twenty-five or more minutes of songs. I play Beyoncé’s “Signs” first. A quarter into the song, Elijah is doing so well, hitting every note, every word, I have to change it. I tell him I’m able to make up a rule because it’s almost my birthday. I make him smile with that one. I find myself attempting to make him smile and laugh often. He has the best grin.
Next, I play the Roots’ “You Got Me.” He doesn’t know all of the words, but he slays most of it. I’m shook. This Black-ecoconsious-fashionista-mathematician-actor is vibing out to a classic by the Roots?
Mohammad the driver is jammin out, too.
“You know Jilly from Philly was the original singer?” Mohammad fades in as the song fades out. “I’m from Philly.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say. “That’s dope!”
“I sure did know that.” Elijah smiles and looks me in the eyes.
On Elijah’s turn, he’s determined to make sure I struggle. He asks Mohammed to choose the decade. I do not know what in the hell possesses Mohammed to choose the 70s. As Elijah scans the TIDAL selection of 70s music, he remembers I mentioned my birthday is coming—the week after Halloween, November fourth.
“Scorpio,” he says and looks up from the phone and into my face with a smirk.
“Correct, and it’s true what they say,” I reply, not really knowing what people say about Scorpios besides they like sex. But, if that’s all that’s said about us, then that’s fine.
We laugh. He says I must sing for my life because this is one of his favorite songs to karaoke. When he presses play, I immediately know it.
Who knew the ninth-grade choir selection of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” would pay off and make me cool in the back seat of a Lyft one day?
Elijah joins in singing he’s just a poor boy and stops singing, then continues at all the backgrounds. We eventually sing the song together. Full out belting. I sound terrible, but that isn’t the point. I know that isn’t the point because I stop singing once and say I sound awful. Elijah tells me it’s not about how we sound singing together, he says the magic is in the creating and being together; being young, Black, and free in all the ways that we can. Not only is he talented and gorgeous, this guy is…brilliant.
So much for being uninterested.
* * *
Earlier, this morning, when Alberto and I rotated our tandem parked cars, I knew I would possibly be gone for most of the day. I wanted to share with him that I was nervous about this date. But, because he and I aren’t really talking like that anymore, since Palm Springs—I’m still in my feels about his current boo Preston fucking Kenny, I just said, “Wish me luck,” to which he replied, “Luck! But, for what?” and I walked off.
Had I told him I was finally meeting up with someone I’ve been talking to for a few weeks, he would have told me to go with the vibe. So because I didn’t actually have the conversation with him, I’ve been holding on to my own advice that I’m sure Alberto would have told me, too—just go with it. And going with it is what I’ve done all day. That’s how I’ve ended up here at the Ace Hotel with Elijah.
It’s a great date. Things happen.
I mean, we were having such a good time at PopShop, then at the food trucks, that neither one of us wanted to end our first date. We ate tacos and had a couple drinks. When the time came for him to head to Ace Hotel to help set up for his production, he asked if I wanted to join.
“You have plans after this?” he asked.
For a second I thought about lying and saying I did, just to seem as if I was busy. You know, L.A. sometimes makes me feel like I have to be, or appear to be, booked and busy all the time to impress people. Everyone’s favorite response is let me check my calendar, or let me get back to you, or my personal favorite, I think I have something, I’ll hit you. Rarely is it an automatic definite—Yes, I’m free.
“I do not have plans,” I say and take a breath. I continue, with hesitation. “And you have that play to go to, right?”
“Sure do. But I have an extra ticket if you want to join.”
So here I am in the ninth hour of our first official date.
However, when I agreed to join him here, I didn’t know he was actually going to be acting in the play. Well, technically, this is an improv theater show. He’s one of the actors improvising tonight. This is exciting. The theater is small, seats for sixty-five people, but there is a bar, and Elijah is backstage, so the bar is about to be my friend while I wait for the show to start. Turn up—but not too much.
I order a whiskey ginger. Whiskey is my drink of autumn. Been this way since I started drinking legally at twenty-one. I scan the dim room and it’s mostly Black and Brown folks here, and a sprinkle of people who happen to be white. I’m assuming they happen to be white people because all six of the ones I’ve counted are wearing some sort of shirt or pen with some social justice script or saying on it. One of them has a shirt saying “Dismantle Whiteness.” I sometimes can vibe with people who happen to be white versus white people. I grew up with white people, but in college I met and became friends with three people who happen to be white. They understand their whiteness and use that knowledge to challenge it.
In my scanning, I notice someone who looks like Mario—my ex. Looks just like him, except this person has facial hair, a nice mustache and beard gracing his face. Mario was always smooth-faced and clean-cut. He’s walking toward me. I look away and turn to face the bar because I don’t want to look like a creeper.
