Chapter One : Choices
Five months ago
Have you ever noticed that you come to certain points in your life, when it is no longer your own. When you hit that fork in the road and realize the car won’t make that right turn and goes left instead. Well that’s what it was like the day my grandfather died, but not for the reasons you might think. Don’t get me wrong I loved my granddad, but some familial obligations are more demanding than others are.
“So you’re coming back to New York right?” My cousin Ebony’s voice was teary and unsteady over the phone. “Mom and I have to sort out the estate and such.”
“Yeah I know I’ll be there.” My sigh was louder than I meant it to be.
“There’s also the other stuff, in the ‘will’ that needs to be discussed.”
This sigh made my last one seem like a whisper, there is always that one thing that a family has. Skeletons in the closet, that illegitimate child, the gay uncle the demented great aunt, things that back in the day no one would speak of lest they come to the fore. This wasn’t any of those things although nowadays none of them would be looked down upon, my problem was in its nature larger than I was and in some cases my surviving family entirely.
“What’s the matter baby?” Téa sat up in the bed, cover to her bare chest, remote in hand.
I turned and looked at her, I felt that she was so much more than my girlfriend but my partner in a new life, my new life. Free from being duty bound to ancient patron Gods who happen to be long lost ancestors, or whatever it was my grandparents called the Celestial Arcana. I was living in Chicago, Rogers park to be exact, and had just finished my last year of college; no one from my family came to my graduation. The only congratulations I got were from a familiar looking kid in his teens named Blake and of course Téa. She was always behind me always beside, my rock in the shifting desert and I was determined to be the same for her. When we’d first met at a concert for some local rap acts at ISU, it was odd. I’d never been one to hit on girls in such crowded venues; the chance for a public rejection was too high. However, that night, in that place, something told me to say something and that if I didn’t it would affect the rest of my life. She stood at the bar casually sipping something and I ordered my favorite cranberry and ginger ale. I never drank alcohol; I didn’t like the idea of losing self-control.
I noticed that her hair was wrapped up and asked if she was cultivating locks, like I was. She smiled looked up at me and said “Don’t you know it’s not nice to ask a black woman about her hair.” Of course, I knew and in an attempt to cover my mistake I remarked, “We could talk about other things.” This set her laughing, and she replied “Ok why are you the only guy at the bar drinking, a cranberry and ginger ale, don’t you think that’s soft?” She looked at me with a smirk, she was waiting for me to defend my masculinity, I suppose if I did It’d prove I was insecure, so I answered honestly. “I don’t like the lack of control alcohol breeds.” She looked at me for a second and then smiled, “Nice answer.”
“It’s the truth.” I sipped my drink. From then on; we spent the whole night talking I learned that she was cultivating dreadlocks and we were both from New York, but her parents moved her to Chicago when she was 13 to do work. After several hours more of standard questioning, I finally got her number. The very next day we were an item, it was almost too good to be true. She was perfect, she was strong willed, and ambitious, she loved to read not to mention she was built with a frame praised by the Commodores. What we really connected on was the desire to help the Black community, she thought that by building them up, and teaching them their real history, they’d be able to progress. I thought that they could be more acclimated to it by creating fiction based on it. We’d talk about her plan to open up a restaurant to promote healthy eating among the people. Upon asking her why she was journalism major she remarked that her parents were both Journalists and pushed her to pursue it although her heart wasn’t really in it. We would then discuss my novel about an old legend in my family that I thought I’d write. The story started in Harlem, New York and was based on some old black occultists; it seemed to hit a nerve with her. She told me her estranged uncle had told her about a similar event when she was young, but she was convinced it was just a fairytale. I wish at the time that it was, because all those fairytales, those storybook fantasies, that dream stuff was about to affect my life in a very large, irreversible way. I dropped my phone, lay down next to Téa, and held her tightly, like a baby to its mother.
“What’s the matter baby?” She stroked my hair. “Who was that on the phone?”
I looked up at her with all the moroseness my eyes could muster and I felt tears well up, tears for my grand father, tears for my family and tears for my own life as I knew it, which would very soon end. Lost to something that took away so many of the Ripley line, a life that made us exceptional and at the same time so very outcast. I thought about what this would mean for the future Téa and I planned to build and I wept, they said that fate was a cruel mistress, but magic was even crueler and she had decided my time had come…to lay down my life for a cause so old it didn’t have a singular name. “My grandfather died…uh…. the funeral is next week… in New York.” I must’ve sounded like a kid who skinned his knee for the first time.
Five months ago
Have you ever noticed that you come to certain points in your life, when it is no longer your own. When you hit that fork in the road and realize the car won’t make that right turn and goes left instead. Well that’s what it was like the day my grandfather died, but not for the reasons you might think. Don’t get me wrong I loved my granddad, but some familial obligations are more demanding than others are.
“So you’re coming back to New York right?” My cousin Ebony’s voice was teary and unsteady over the phone. “Mom and I have to sort out the estate and such.”
“Yeah I know I’ll be there.” My sigh was louder than I meant it to be.
“There’s also the other stuff, in the ‘will’ that needs to be discussed.”
This sigh made my last one seem like a whisper, there is always that one thing that a family has. Skeletons in the closet, that illegitimate child, the gay uncle the demented great aunt, things that back in the day no one would speak of lest they come to the fore. This wasn’t any of those things although nowadays none of them would be looked down upon, my problem was in its nature larger than I was and in some cases my surviving family entirely.
“What’s the matter baby?” Téa sat up in the bed, cover to her bare chest, remote in hand.
I turned and looked at her, I felt that she was so much more than my girlfriend but my partner in a new life, my new life. Free from being duty bound to ancient patron Gods who happen to be long lost ancestors, or whatever it was my grandparents called the Celestial Arcana. I was living in Chicago, Rogers park to be exact, and had just finished my last year of college; no one from my family came to my graduation. The only congratulations I got were from a familiar looking kid in his teens named Blake and of course Téa. She was always behind me always beside, my rock in the shifting desert and I was determined to be the same for her. When we’d first met at a concert for some local rap acts at ISU, it was odd. I’d never been one to hit on girls in such crowded venues; the chance for a public rejection was too high. However, that night, in that place, something told me to say something and that if I didn’t it would affect the rest of my life. She stood at the bar casually sipping something and I ordered my favorite cranberry and ginger ale. I never drank alcohol; I didn’t like the idea of losing self-control.
I noticed that her hair was wrapped up and asked if she was cultivating locks, like I was. She smiled looked up at me and said “Don’t you know it’s not nice to ask a black woman about her hair.” Of course, I knew and in an attempt to cover my mistake I remarked, “We could talk about other things.” This set her laughing, and she replied “Ok why are you the only guy at the bar drinking, a cranberry and ginger ale, don’t you think that’s soft?” She looked at me with a smirk, she was waiting for me to defend my masculinity, I suppose if I did It’d prove I was insecure, so I answered honestly. “I don’t like the lack of control alcohol breeds.” She looked at me for a second and then smiled, “Nice answer.”
“It’s the truth.” I sipped my drink. From then on; we spent the whole night talking I learned that she was cultivating dreadlocks and we were both from New York, but her parents moved her to Chicago when she was 13 to do work. After several hours more of standard questioning, I finally got her number. The very next day we were an item, it was almost too good to be true. She was perfect, she was strong willed, and ambitious, she loved to read not to mention she was built with a frame praised by the Commodores. What we really connected on was the desire to help the Black community, she thought that by building them up, and teaching them their real history, they’d be able to progress. I thought that they could be more acclimated to it by creating fiction based on it. We’d talk about her plan to open up a restaurant to promote healthy eating among the people. Upon asking her why she was journalism major she remarked that her parents were both Journalists and pushed her to pursue it although her heart wasn’t really in it. We would then discuss my novel about an old legend in my family that I thought I’d write. The story started in Harlem, New York and was based on some old black occultists; it seemed to hit a nerve with her. She told me her estranged uncle had told her about a similar event when she was young, but she was convinced it was just a fairytale. I wish at the time that it was, because all those fairytales, those storybook fantasies, that dream stuff was about to affect my life in a very large, irreversible way. I dropped my phone, lay down next to Téa, and held her tightly, like a baby to its mother.
“What’s the matter baby?” She stroked my hair. “Who was that on the phone?”
I looked up at her with all the moroseness my eyes could muster and I felt tears well up, tears for my grand father, tears for my family and tears for my own life as I knew it, which would very soon end. Lost to something that took away so many of the Ripley line, a life that made us exceptional and at the same time so very outcast. I thought about what this would mean for the future Téa and I planned to build and I wept, they said that fate was a cruel mistress, but magic was even crueler and she had decided my time had come…to lay down my life for a cause so old it didn’t have a singular name. “My grandfather died…uh…. the funeral is next week… in New York.” I must’ve sounded like a kid who skinned his knee for the first time.
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