Category: Original

Out

We hadn’t been there long, in the house my wife and I bought on the Southside of Chicago with our two little girls and big dreams. A couple of years, while I struggled to get a steady job to supplement my wife’s income while still chasing my dream of being a minister and having a church of my own.

Next door was a Ghanaian family. A house full of boys shepherded by a kind mother and a dad who I only saw going to work, never coming home while I was outside in our meager backyard after my daily travails or even going and coming while running errands. The boys were full of energy and yelled and screamed and sang their boy song, but I never heard her yell. It seemed like a house full of love, even though I couldn’t imagine the dad being at home much.

On the opposite side, there was a huge vacant lot, where wild grasses grew and feral cats stalked birds and other small critters. On the other side of that lot was a couple who we happened to meet in our first couple of weeks in the house, after we’d moved our stuff in and was still figuring out where things went. He was tall, she was short, and they seemed nice enough. My wife listened closely as they talked to us about the neighborhood; the school in the next block that wasn’t very good, the apartment building across the street who had comings and goings at all hours.

But me and the husband started talking music, and everything I shared about my love for jazz, he’d mention a name or an album that I was motivated to find, or listen to. I loved Miles and Crane, and when I said so, he looked at his wife in a gesture I later took to mean as permission, a “can I?” She smiled at him and nodded, and despite my wife’s subtle nods, I was pulled into a conversation about music in heneral, and jazz specifically, that had me reaching for a piece of paper to write down the names and titles he had mentioned. He laughed ant my looking around, and said that he’d give me his number so he could just text me the stuff he was talking about.

Anyway, we didn’t hang out after that; just texts inviting me to go record shopping or something he thought I’d like. Once, apparently, they went somewhere, and the wife dropped her phone on the street while getting into the Uber. He texted me to ask me to pick it up and to keep it when they got home. Hours later, we answered the doorbell to a visibly relieved wife, thanking us over and over again for finding her phone and keeping it.

Truth is, Chicago wasn’t working out at all, job-wise or church-wise, and a friend ours advised s to look at Florida. The tax situation was great, and there was a small church, just built a few miles away that needed a pastor. God surely was speaking to us!

So we moved. I had my head down with the details of moving; furniture, moving trucks, utilities accounts, and I didn’t tell anyone that we were going. The Ghanian mom saw me one day amidst boxes and packing tape, and asked, and told us to go with God and all the blessings and all of that goodness.

I didn’t see the other couple at all. DIdn’t really think about them, really. In the summer, they would sit outside on their back porch and drink brown liquor and smoke cigars, and I would wave and yell hello, and they’d wave and say hi back. This was winter though, or fake spring, and they were nowhere to be seen. I had bigger things to do, like shepherding my family to a future that was warmer and with bigger upside.

He did text me once when we were gone, to ask what was up with the For Sale sign. I told him that we had moved, and while we had no issue with Chicago (we actually did) we found a better situation in Florida. He texted me back that he was sorry to see us go, that he wished us all the best of luck.I thought that was it.

A bit after this, my real estate person told me that we had a buyer. In our haste to get south and to make it so the agent could show an empty house, we moved a lot of stuff into the unattached garage. We had to go get it, so we told the girls that we were going to put them at their gram’s house for a few days while we took care of things without them underfoot.

We got back to Chicago in an empty uHaul truck amidst a heatwave. We stayed in the hotel during the day while the sun beat down, enjoying adult time and rest, then as the sun started to dip with the temperature, we headed to the old house. Only a couple days, we told ourself. We had forgotten what all we’d stashed in the tiny, one-and-a-half car garage.

I don’t know why I was surprised, and I don’t know how else to react, but I look up while hauling a rug to the trash and I see the couple sitting out back, sipping and smoking. I said nothing. No hailing, no “hey, just cleaning things out”, no nothing. And they didn’t try to get my attention, say anything at all to mark our return or point out the inevitability of us leaving again.

A friend of mine who plays a lot of online video games told me of a thing he finds funny and so awkward. Every now and again, he pairs with one or more players who seem to get along well, who experience a good run of success or memorable play, and inevitably comes the time where it gets late and someone begs off. “I have work in the morning.” “My girl’s been calling me for a while, I should go deal with that.” “I’m hungry, and them chips and Mountain Dew ain’t cutting it no more.” Everyone will say their goodbyes, languishing in a session that was successful. They’ll go offline, their indicator going from green to dark.

Ten minutes.

*bloop*

They’re back online again.

And here I was, back “online” after leaving, albeit without the good-natured farewells.

I never caught their eye as I toted things back and forth to the uHaul, but I know they saw me. They decided to remain silent as I had, smoking and sipping while faint snippets of their music reached me as I climbed into the cab of the truck to get to the hotel; we would hit the road early in the morning.

I heard Miles’ trumpet and Trane’s sax serenade me as I pulled away.

Posted on by ~tbg~

More bookstore ruminations.

I’m a sucker for all things South. I admit that, and can do so in print or in pixels. A cover of some barn or plantation house or cotton field piques my interest. A location referenced, whether it be Jackson or Vicksburg or Nashville or Charleston makes me reach. “Y’all” is a soothing tang of a sweet glass of Kool-Aid that welcomes me to flip to the back cover.

I am interested, nay, vested, in stories about my adopted homeland. The unique people, places, and things. The coming to terms with a region that has, from its beginnings, have signaled low intellect, great food, thoughtful and kind people, and mosquitoes the size of small birds. A region replete with its risks and joys, consequences and politics, sauces and crops.

I am hungry for stories of all kinds. The coming of age story. The retirement story. The big city story, of Memphis and N’Awlins and Little Rock and Richmond. The small town, with red dirt and unpaved lanes and the general store run by an affable old guy or the city girl come back to run it after a time being the black sheep of the family. I need that in my eyeballs.

And, eventually, maybe I’ll write my own story. Of the city boy who visited a small corner of his mother’s Mississippi, and all of the family and Walmart’s and Jitney Jungles and Piggly Wigglys that were involved.

Posted on by ~tbg~

HELLO FREN

I like to think of myself as a good judge of character. I don’t surround myself with bad people, or people who need to be convinced that morality, openness, honesty, and empathy are good things to have in their package of humanity. I don’t have people in my circle who stress me out, or make me question their intelligence, or cause me to make decisions that impugn my own morals and what I believe is right and important.

While I am thankful for all that, for having these people being comfortable parts of my life in the abstract, I am also very happy when it’s not so abstract.

In the past month alone:

-I bought two tickets to the Kendrick/SZA tour stop in Chicago, and my wife couldn’t go, and I knew who to call. A good friend of mine, as deep in the music as I am, was my first call. We had an absolute great time, and there’s a special kind of circumstance to have someone in mind when things happen.

-I was invited to dinner with another friend, and we ended up eating at a tapas spot. While we sat and talked and drank and people watched, she came up with a thought that became an essay that she sent to the New York Times and, well, it got published. In it, I am mentioned, so I can say that, in a small way, I made the New York Times.

-I’ve mentioned that I enjoy my back porch, and sit there whenever I can. What is amazing to me, and wholly appreciated, is when friends come by and share that space with us. Easy conversation, loud laughs, drinks and cigars and music. It is the kind of thing that makes great memories, and to have a roster of people who’ve come over and who wants to come over is a blessing.

-Some time ago, I went down a rabbit hole and found the existence of Carolina Gold rice, a historic foodstuff that was said to be a foundation of the antebellum era. I talked in mixed company about such, and, unbidden, someone sent me some! I cooked it the old way and loved it; you can do it like a risotto or bake it with salt and pepper. Just me going off on a tangent was enough to inspire this friend to investigate it for herself and decide that I should have some.

Friends are blessings.

Posted on by ~tbg~

When there’s nothing there.

I remember visiting my old block.

I hadn’t been back in more than 20 years, but I was back in LA for a high school reunion, and I begged my then-girlfriend to drive me to my old house. I had planned this trip out meticulously; who I’d see, what I’d eat, things I needed to reconnect with after a long time away from the place I was born and raised.

We parked across the street from my old house, in front of a neighbor’s house which had housed a lot of the kids I played with from ages 6-16. Their house was up for sale, I could see, but the lawn I used to roll down was still evident. I resisted the urge to roll down said hill at my age and looked across at my old place.

I took pictures to send to my mother, so she could see that they cut our cypress trees. Had taken down our basketball rim. That our lawn now had a bunch of kids toys on it. I crossed the street, wondering how I could play football on it. This wasn’t the wide avenue of my childhood, it couldn’t be.

We left there, and I was…sad. Sad not for what was, but for what wasn’t. My childhood home now had a family in t I didn’t know making their own memories, and any hint or trace that we were even there was gone.

Evanston, Illinois, has a special place in my heart. Besides going to college there, a lot of my formative memories as a young adult were made there. I met some great people, did a lot of things in an environ that was a great incubator for me.

It’s also where my wife was born and raised, and after we got together, she shared with me a lot of Evanston I had previously been unaware of. The history of its interracial marriages. The mixing made possible by their high school. The places she’d go I had never heard of or couldn’t make it to because I had no car.

And in Evanston were her parents, still living in the same house that she and her two sisters were raised in. It was tiny by any standard, but we’d go once a month to visit her mom and dad and eat and talk and laugh with them, and small or not, I could see that house for its charm and the love contained within its walls.

A lot has happened since then; that may be an understatement.

The house was sold to another family making their own memory. The parents’ bodies are committed to the earth, memory still aflame in the personage of those they lived by and worked with.

We were talking the other day, my wife and I, and she mentioned that she had to go get an emissions test, and she was going to go the Evanston one, since it was off the beaten track, not many people know of it, and it takes less than 20 minutes.

She sighed, and said “There’s no one left to visit up there anymore.” And we got incredibly sad.

Trips to do stuff on the north side of Chicago or on the North shore was an excuse to drop by and see her parents. Even as they endured their last physical days, were still in the area making hospital visits and runs to their senior living apartment.

Now, no more. Her folks weren’t there any more. Her house was someone else’s house.

We’re not one to visit their graves often, and all the business that we had to take care of is long settled. What now? What is there besides memories, the old joyful ones drowned out by newer, rawer, sadder ones?

What is there?

Posted on by ~tbg~

The Art of War

Explosions rocked the grassy terrain, kicking up huge clods of dirt and plant bits and critter offal into the air. Jeremiah’s tanks rolled on unaffected, taking up a flanking position to infantry on the ground advancing in the west. Behind them, artillery boomed, huge things that belched smoke and fire.

Jeremiah watched from his perch high above the fighting. He was curious as to the nature of war and, for all the books he had read about it, it seemed easy. He remembered Jonah, the bully in his third grade class, who had told him something totally meaningful. “It don’t matter how much heart you got, or whatever it is grown ups say,” he spat through three missing teeth. “It’s how hard you punch the other kid in the face. Heart don’t have shit to do with that.”

As Jeremiah looked upon his army, he noticed that he indeed had the capability to punch the other kid in the face pretty damned hard. He had read about flanking, and feints, and shock and awe. He listened as his dad, a veteran of what he called “The Keyboard Wars” wax poetic about psychological warfare, and of being right all of the time, and all of the wars he had participated in and won.

But here before him was war. Bombs and bullets and some lasers too. He imagined the drone jockeys in some far off bunker remotely controlling instruments of death from the comfort of their own work-from-home chairs.

He remembered a time where he had scrimmaged against his older brother Dion, who had moved on to greener pastures to civilian life. It was only once, but it had left a huge mark. Dion had left his army in shambles after only a few tactical maneuvers, putting his younger brother on the defensive quickly and tragically. Jeremiah remembered being angry in the moment, then wondrous, then accepting that he had much to learn.

But those lessons had a indelible effect. And now, while pitched battle raged below, he sat satisfied as divisions of man and machine plowed their way forward. 

So intent was he on the battle unfolding below that he didn’t hear the person coming up on him. Finally sensing someone else, he jumped and whirled around.

“My, you’re really into that,” his mother said, hugging him and getting down on the floor with him. “You playing war again?” She took care not to sit on any of the green plastic army men, the plushies, and assorted Legos. She did notice, however, a few of her hair rollers and a rubber ducky that had gone missing some time before had second lives as members of Jeremiah’s army and air force.

“Yeah!” Jeremiah exclaimed, eager to show his mother of plans well laid and battle well met.

rev2 – 3.12.25

Posted on by ~tbg~

After.

In my planner, I called it “After”.

That’s it.

I’ve written about the stuff we’ve been going through, and I am constantly amazed and grateful for the kind words and extra-squeezy hugs that have come my way. Over the past year, I’ve lost my father- and mother-in-law and two uncles, so Death and I are quite familiar.

But now, is the After.

Now we’re trying to see what is normal, what will not trigger those memories which make us pause and tear up. All of those home projects we had on the docket, which were on hold while we watched this all play out, have to be done.

Or do they?

The normal winter urge to nest, to make the house as comfy as possible, is starting to recede as spring and summer approach, even in the Upper Midwest. Change is happening.

We’ve had too much change here lately.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Weary.

One thing about death is the thoughts that happen after it has touched your life. Memories, wishes, hopes, can all be hyper-analyzed and second-guessed til the cows come home or your blood pressure spikes, whichever comes first.

Over the past year, I’ve had to talk about death a lot. I’ve lost a lot of people in the past 8 months, and I’m still not right, but I noticed something that, well, isn’t the most socially acceptable thing to say out loud.

Death is a release in many ways. Not only from the mortal coil, but, amongst the living, the..relief? And that’s hard to say and admit, but it’s true.

For the past two months, I’ve been in a holding pattern while my mother-in-law declined. Watching that was painful, and to see someone I had so much respect and love for come closer and closer to death ate away at me. My wife, watching her mother encounter one medical hurdle after another, made a habit of driving an hour each way to be there for her, being her advocate in the hospital and in her hospice bed. Many a time I came home to an empty house, watching my phone for text updates.

With her gone, things are drastically different. No more hospital runs. No more light sleep, dreading the 3am phone call from a medical professional. The house projects could be scheduled again, knowing we’d be home for the AC man or the cleaners or the plumber. Possibilities opened back up, and that feels weird to say.

Of course, given my druthers, I’d rather have my mother-in-law still here. But quality of life is really important, and she decided she wanted no more parts of hospital beds and intubation, and I think to be able to go out on your own terms is a blessing we all won’t get to have.

But the collective exhale…she’s in a better place, free from pain…and the world, for the living, can start spinning again.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Tis the season.

My mind is consumed with depressive thoughts. It doesn’t help that the post-holiday endorphin rush is over. That we are into our annual sunshine-less period in Chicago. That the return to work after having time off does not make me more energetic to go to work, but realize again that so many people are without in a country of plenty.

In addition to all that, people I love are in pain, and the empathy in me is having a hard time maintaining some sort of even keel. If I could absorb the hurt, the pain, the uncertainty…I would. That’s a superpower no one really wants, but the nature of these relationships I’m in are super in their own way, and I don’t do half-ass relationships.

But the investment in people leads to obvious issues; there’s no hurt like those you can’t do anything about. What do you say to someone facing financial ruin? What do you say to someone going through emotional turmoil? Even more to the point, what do you DO for those people? What do you do that makes a difference to the people you love, to society at large? To compete strangers, to your siblings, your parents, to everyone?

That’s where I’m at right now. And even though I know my reach is limited, and I can’t siphon energy like a Jean Grey, the wish is still there. I want my people happy, comfy, safe, and all of that. And while I draw breath, and have energy, I’m going to try to help that happen.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Not quite helpless, but.

She’s gone inside, mentally exhausted. He sits outside, smoking the last of his cigar.

The taste of the Nicaraguan leaf swirls around the inside of his mouth as he stares up into the sky. He exhales, and the smoke hangs in the still night air, illuminated for a while by the porch light. If he squints, he can make out a star, shining dimly, but still shining. He closes his eyes tightly, then opens them, but things aren’t any clearer.

Across the world, at that very moment, there are people hurting, but he can only think of one person and her hurt. A hurt that he cannot fathom, but he has a front row seat to. He can only do so much, but there is so much he can’t do. And that is the worst feeling.

To want to help, but not being able to; is there no sadder circumstance?

He leans forward, puts out his cigar, takes the last sip of his bourbon, and heads inside.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Rabbit holes.

One of the things so great/wondrous about social media is the ability to go in and out of rabbit holes, to have your attention for a few seconds before you think of something related and go of on that tangent. You learn the darnedest things that way, and often can’t wait to tell others about that time where you went looking for videos on how to paint a room and came out knowing the chord progression in a Kendrick Lamar song makes it sound extra melodic.

Anyway, I was appraised of these guys who do some very nice paint colors. I went from that, to a recollection; hadn’t I heard of a particular interior design style that uses color like this? A quick search led me to “Dark Academia” and this good video on that. That led to a discussion about what room we could do in this style, and cost and possible color and accessories. Then into looking for interior design classes offered by my local art schools.

Very excited. And all because of a fleeting question about dark walls in rooms.

Posted on by ~tbg~