Epilogue: Breakfast in Borneo

I awake to the sound of movement in the kitchen. At first, this startles me. I cook; both by trade and for personal enjoyment. The kitchen is my domain, and I can be rather possessive about it. Then, I remember who it is, and I relax, a smile forming across my face knowing the responsibility of breakfast has been taken from me.

It would be laziness to stay in bed, so I sit up, pushing the mosquito netting aside. I grab my glasses and a pair of shorts. It’s already hot, so I can’t fathom even pretending to look for a shirt or tank top. I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, and remember what I look like these days; I’ve cut my hair shorter, the humidity makes my blond curls that much more wild. A thin mustache and beard frames my face. I joke it makes me look older and smarter, but I’m the only one who laughs about it.

“Our wild man of Borneo,” Rio said teasingly when she first saw me with facial hair. “Somehow I never imagined a wild man of Borneo having blond hair, blue eyes, and a southern accent.”

“You know Stormy excels at contradiction,” Hobbs put in.

“I do not!” I protested. “Go drink some Molson, and put something else in your mouth besides words!”

“I think it suits him,” Kisshandra said with her serine smile as she stroked my bearded chin. I thanked her with a kiss.

Were I the type to be given to jealousy, I would’ve been quite upset that Kisshandra and Rio slept together that night, but it didn’t bother me. It’d been almost a year since we’d seen Rio, the Jazz-Cat, Johnny Hobbs, Carmen Jordan, Rollins, or Jules. We were all at Juke and Morgan Zayne was playing. Kisshandra and I got to dance to Rattlesnake Waltz and, on that night, that was good enough. After all, Kisshandra doesn’t belong to me. She never has and she never will, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I almost took her with me to Tammy’s wedding. After all, I’d asked Kisshandra to come with me to Borneo. We decided against it. Not because of Tucker’s family; after all, Tyrone Brinkley, his wife, two young daughters, and mother were there as friends of the groom. Kisshandra and I mutually decided a heavily tattooed Afro-Himalayan girl in a Pentecostal church in a small town in Alabama might cause a certain kind of trouble no one wanted to deal with.

“Tuck and I will come and meet her some day,” Tammy told me on her wedding day. “We promise. Paul promises.”

“Reckon that’s a good thing, Tam-Tam” I mused.

“Reckon so.”

 I step out onto the deck. The sky looks blue, but with the humidity, there is haze. Fog swirls around the highest points of canopy like serpents coiling across the treetops. I draw a sharp breath despite myself. It’s been two years, and sometimes it’s still surreal that I’m actually in Borneo.

The treehouse is at the edge of the resort. There’s only a handful of full-time residents. Mostly, it’s tourists. Some scrimp and save for years, and others pay the fee like it’s buying a quart of milk at the corner store. Regardless, they need to eat, and someone needs to cook those meals.

It was more by default than qualifications I became the head cook. I had enough left over from my inheritance and subsequent investments that working for money wasn’t a priority. One night, I was sharing cocktails and conversation with the resort’s restaurant manager. He was bemoaning the fact he’d just lost his head cook and the challenge of finding someone who’d be willing to work at a resort in the middle of a rainforest in Borneo.

“Y’know, I cooked at this place back in the States called Wildflowers for a few years,” I said.

“Do you need a job?”

“It’d be something to do,” I replied flippantly. It was a quickest interview I ever had. A year and a half in shows my employers are satisfied with my performance.

Coming back inside, I catch the scent of freshly ground coffee. Wonderful. On the entryway table, I my eye catches the postcard that showed up a week ago. It’s from Rio. She tells of Hobbs and Carmen getting engaged, which didn’t surprise anyone. Once they got involved, the chemistry they discovered between each other was positively magnetic. According to Rio’s postcard, they’ll be sending wedding announcements which, will hopefully coincide with what has become the once a year visit back to the States.

I come into the kitchen and see Kisshandra, her back turned to me as she starts to work over the stove. She’s wearing only a pair of cutoffs, which gives me an unobstructed view of one of my favorite tattoos of hers; in black and gray, a bat wing drapes down the left side of her back and there’s a dove wing on the right. A yin-yang sits perfectly between her shoulder blades. Twin aspects; her mixed heritage, my lover and dearest friend, something I think fits her perfectly.

The scent of breakfast fills my nose. Apparently, Kisshandra’s parents created it in the early days of their marriage, mixing both African and Asian spices. It’s one of my favorite dishes, and in the nine years we’ve now known each other, I’ve asked her countless times for the recipe.

“I’ll give it to you on our wedding day,” Kisshandra will always say with a sly smile.

I have no plans to propose to her, which works out, since she’d never say yes. I content myself with the mystery. Perhaps it’s those little mysteries that keep things interesting.

My mind flashes back to that morning, two years ago, right after I got back from Grandma’s funeral. I opened my eyes to see Kisshandra looking right at me. Her gaze was quite intense. I focused my attention on the tattoos along her collar bones and where everything met just under the neck, because I knew looking at her breasts at that time would’ve been impolite, to say the least.

“I’ve thought about it, you know,” she started. “I’ve agonized over it and slept on it and I’ve made up my mind.”

“And?” I think I was trying to be cool and cavalier, but, in fact, I was nervous and excited.   

“I refuse to lose you to Borneo, Joshua Storm,” Kisshandra said, stroking my cheek. I could say she was smiling, but beaming might be a better description.

The breakfast she was originally staying for ended up happening far later in the day. She would later tell me she almost said she might not belong to me, but maybe she belonged with me. Semantics. We both had a good laugh over it.

“I’d have called you such a girl if you did,” I teased.

“Fuck you!” She shot back, almost blushing.

“Maybe a little later, honeychild?”

It takes no time at all to close the distance between us. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close. She smiles serenely at me as her lips brush against mine and then my cheek.

“Good morning,” she whispers. Her breath is hot and seductive in my ear, as always.

“Hey, baby,” I say. “Thank you for staying for breakfast.”

Revelations, Repercussions, and Other Aftershocks

Saying what happened over the next few weeks was like a dream would be cliché. I want to say it was more like a bad acid trip, but that also might just be a lie. My only experience with acid has only been from the over embellished stories of gutter punks at late-night coffee houses and after school specials.

Tammy and I went back to the home. There we cried and held each other over Grandma’s body. Tucker would later tell us Grandma was not the first victim of Joseph’s temper or the rest of the home’s staff denial, but she was the one that was easiest to confirm. There had been an ongoing investigation.

“It’s terrible that it took your grandma getting beat to shit and dying for something to finally get done,” he would say to me later. It was terrible, and nothing, not even justice being served, would bring Grandma back, but sometimes, something, like justice being served, is the best you can hope for.

Paul Tucker and I had a long talk about what’d happened with him over the last seven years. The best he could figure as to not being as much of a bigot was working with another former schoolmate named Tyrone Brinkley. Somehow, working together, Tucker began to understand not all dark-skinned people were ignorant criminals. They even hung out a few times, although Tucker kept that little fact from the rest of his family.

“I could never date or marry one of them,” he said. “But they ain’t all bad, I reckon.”

When I would later tell this story to my friends, it would be greeted with eye rolls, disgusted sighs, and the term redneck being used in a less than flattering manner. I understood why; where we lived, compared to where I came from, the only thing that really changed was Tucker wasn’t going to one day dress up in a bed sheet and burn a cross. Still, in a place like Blacksnake, maybe that was just the best you could hope for.

The incident at the home did make the news. The brutality of some of the staff, and the willingness of other staff members, including administration, to cover it up. There were additional resignations and arrests. Tucker said about half of which was done for show as damage control. Along with the rest of the force, he made sure the cameramen and pushy journalists didn’t bother us much as we put Grandma in the ground.

For spending ten years in a home, I was amazed to find out she had anything left over. Being sick in America is never cheap after all. From way back when Papa was still alive, she’d made investments. Those investments were for the grandbabies, no matter what. Tammy had been named the executer of the estate.

“Grandma told me the one of the last times you two spoke, you wanted to travel to Borneo,” she said after the funeral. “Reckon I’ll be getting you the ways and means.”

“Reckon so,” I was too amazed to say much else.

“But you gotta come back for my wedding, Joshie. I want you to be the one to give me away,” Tammy said and I gave her a shocked look. “You think even if my daddy wasn’t in jail he’d walk me down the aisle? You think I’d let him?”

I was staying in Blacksnake for a few more days after the funeral, to help get things sorted. Carmen called me one night, which was kind of nice since, like most my friends I told, she’d already expressed her condolences. Kisshandra sent a brief sorry text, but we’d not spoken since that day at my place when I offered to take her to Borneo. I meant to try and talk to her when I got back.

Carmen basically wanted us to stop trying to go on dates. Considering how our dynamic changed after the morning at Café Nairobi, I was neither terribly surprised or hurt. She still wanted to hang out and everything, mentioning how she did really like everyone I was friends with.

“I guess I’d like to discuss it more when you get back, if that’s okay,” she said.

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “I’m thinking about having everyone over for dinner. You can bring wine.”

Jazz-Cat Johnny Hobbs called a half hour later helped clarified things. One night, at Juke, he was talking with Carmen and histories got brought up; his with Kisshandra’s as well as mine. The question of whether either of us could or would belong to someone. There was what was described as my obsession with Borneo. Carmen and Hobbs started to notice a chemistry between them.

“Are you asking my permission, Jazz-Cat?” I was trying not to laugh.

“I knew Carmen wanted to tell you, Stormy,” he said. “And we’ve been friends for awhile now and I wanted you to know.”

“Hey, if she wants to sleep with someone who can’t even pronounce ‘out’ or ‘about’ instead of someone who sometimes says ‘ya’ll’ and ‘reckon’, that’s her thing,” I said. “I’m cool with it.”    

He laughed, and almost told me to go fuck myself over the out or about remark. We discussed the others and jazz records. I extended my budding dinner invitation, which he accepted graciously. He promised he’d get Kisshandra to show up, and told me not to worry too awful much about her not calling me lately.

Finally, I left Blacksnake. It’s been a few days and it feels good to be back at what I call home these days. Good to my word, I arrange a night to have everyone over for dinner. Between Hobbs and Carmen, drinks are covered. Rio had cleaned my place once when I was away, but gave it a polish the day after I got back. Rollins mentioned a few records he found out of Mozambique he thought might trip my trigger and Jules said something about bringing a cake.

I’m in the middle of prepping when I hear my door open. At first, I wonder if it’s the landlord, but then remember I’d loaned out my spare key. I needed someone to come by every so often to look after my bonsai trees. She’s standing in to doorway, almost nervously. It’s strange to see her looking so unsure. She’s never unsure.

“Hey, baby,” I say, looking up from what I’m doing.

“I saw your hometown finally made the news.”

“Ain’t nothing to be proud of,” I say. “I was getting worried. You weren’t calling. Figured you were gonna ditch my number and forget I ever existed.”

“That’s the second craziest thing you’ve ever said to me, Joshua.”

“And what was the first?” I already know the answer. Kisshandra sighs heavily and folds her arms across her chest, trying to regain some kind of composure.

“How serious were you?” Despite her stance, her voice seems so small. I want to ask her about what, but decide against it.

“Reckon it depends on your answer,” I say flippantly. “You tell me yes, and I’m as serious as a heart attack. Tell me no…” I shrug, going back to prepping. “…ain’t nothing to worry about, I was just picking with you.”

“Joshua Storm…”

“You still thinking about it?” I ask her, not even bothering to look up.

“You asked me to come with you to Borneo,” her voice cracks a little.

“Yes, I did,” I say. “It’s ain’t like I asked you to marry me and have my babies.”

“I guess I should thank god for that,” Kisshandra says with a weak giggle. She’s walking tentatively toward my kitchen area. “It’s just I never imagined you’d even think of asking me to go.”

“Fuck it, why not?” I shrug. “But I understand if you’re still making up your mind and all. I got some time before I have the ways and means to go.” I look up at her briefly and smile. “Maybe go ask Rio or the Jazz-Cat what they think if it’ll help you at all.”

“I have.”

“And what did they have to say?” I ask.

“Rio says I’d be a fool not to go with you,” Kisshandra replies. Despite all attempts, she’s trembling. “John says if either of us belong to anyone, it’s to one another.”

“My bonsais and music collection ‘belong’ to me, Kisshandra,” I say, looking her dead in the eyes. “You don’t and you never will. If you wanna come with me, then come along, but it’s your choice.”

She smiles and then reaches over to give me a hug and deep kiss. I enjoy the moment, but that’s about the length of it. I have dinner I have to get ready, after all.

“I missed you, Joshua,” she says.

“I missed you back, Kiss,” I say. “I’m happy to see you’re coming for dinner.”

“How could I not? Actually, I was hoping to stay for breakfast,” She winks at me and I smile right back at her.

“I think that could be arranged.” 

Put Hands

The first time Tammy ever wore make up was in forth grade. Naturally, I was curious. When I asked her, she said she was trying something new. She wanted to look like a grown-up. I believed her. After all, I was trying to convince my parents to let me get contacts because I thought it would get me to look more adult.

After lunch and recess, I found out the real reason for the make up. It was Mister Jensen who discovered it; a bruise on the right side of her face being concealed by fading layers of base make up. Tammy looked ashamed when she was asked about it.

“I fell off the swing at home,” she said, and I knew it was a lie. There wasn’t a swing set at Tammy’s house.

First, I told my daddy. Then, I told Grandma. That was when I found out my Uncle Joseph might not be such a nice person. It was then I found out how he and my daddy, who always seemed to get along so well in front of me, in fact, often argued like Cain and Able. Grandma got after Joseph. Threatening to, and maybe actually, slapping Aunt Shelly around was one thing.

“But you do not put hands on your daughter like that,” she said. “You ever do that again, and I’ll give you a beating like back when you were a boy.”

And Joseph disappeared for a few years afterward. If the rest of the family knew where he went, they never told me or Tammy. Shelly certainly seemed happier. He didn’t come to my parents’ funeral, but Grandma said that was okay. She said he needed to be gone for a while.

When Shelly got cancer so bad the doctors had to cut her tits off, Joseph came back. He said he was changed man. But there was a rumor he beat the holy living out Shelly the night before she died. Tammy wanted the law to get involved, but that was when Paul Tucker first got on the force.

Back in school, Tucker ran with the supremacist boys. I got into more than one fight with him simply because I like the blues and that made me a race traitor in his eyes. When he first got on the force, if he couldn't find a way to put every crime in Blacksnake on those people than he wasn’t interested. If Joseph Storm was putting hands on his wife it wasn’t a big deal. At least he was white.

The door to Joseph’s house is wide open. It’s a hot day and there was never air conditioning there. Out of habit and courtesy, I knock on the doorframe as I let myself in.

He’s sitting on the couch in front of the television. There’s an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the coffee table that’s about half gone. I’ve never liked Jack Daniel’s. It makes me mean. Part of me wants to ask him if he just started that bottle today. I dismiss the question quickly, remembering the message I sent to Tammy as I left the home;

Your daddy and I are gonna have a come to Jesus…

“When did you get into town?” Joseph asks me. The slur in his voice lets me know he’s been drinking. His tone is dismissive. He’s never really liked me since I told my daddy and Grandma about the time Tammy had the bruise on her face.

“A few hours back,” I say. “Tam-Tam told me Grandma’s fading.”

“That old bat ain’t never gonna die,” Joseph says as he takes a drink of Jack straight from the bottle.

“She seemed pretty convinced of it at the home,” I say.

“She’s been ‘pretty convinced’ the last couple years,” Joseph snorts. He holds up the bottle. “Wanna drink?”

“I’ll think about it,” I say, taking the bottle. I’ve never liked Jack Daniel’s. It makes me mean. “Y’know, Grandma looked pretty…rough.”

Joseph is suddenly standing. He’s trying to tower over me, like he was able to when I was growing up. The thing is, I’m taller than him now. He’s swaying slightly. I can smell the whiskey on him.

“That old bitch shits herself and expects me to clean it up!” He snaps. “And she’s laughing at me! All telling me how she used to change my diapers and now we’re even…”

I take a good long pull from the bottle, as if to steel myself from what I’m hearing. It feels like I’m drinking kerosene. When I drink whiskey, it’s good scotch with Jazz-Cat Hobbs or fine Irish with Rollins, when he doesn’t want tequila. I’ve never liked Jack Daniel’s. It makes me mean.

“You gonna have another drink there, boy? Or are you gonna give me back the bottle?”

And I smash the bottle across his face. There’s the musical sound of breaking glass and the spray of sour mash whiskey and blood. I’d feel bad about the waste of liquor, but it’s only Jack Daniel’s. Joseph is screaming indecipherable obscenities as he falls backward. Before he can start to get back up, the toe of my right boot catches him in the ribs, sending him rolling across the floor.

“My daddy taught me you do not put hands on a woman!” I yell, kicking him again. “Especially not your own mother!”

He tries to get up, but my left fist slamming into his nose solves that problem. A rational man might feel bad for beating up his drunk uncle. Right now, I’m pretty far from rational. I find I’m almost enjoying myself.

“You better kill me, boy!” Joseph roars. “’Cause otherwise I’m gonna kill you!”

I kick him in the ribs again. There’s a wet snapping sound that tells me I’ve broken bones. I realize I still have the pointed remnants of the Jack Daniel’s bottle in my right hand. Something between a smile and a snarl forms on my face as I realize I’m not going to have a problem cutting his throat.

Someone’s grabbing my right wrist, forcing the jagged glass from my hand. I’m being pushed to the floor. My left arm is being grabbed too. There’s a metallic click as handcuffs are fastened behind my back. I look up to see Paul Tucker. There are other men in uniform with him; another Blacksnake pig and what looks like an EMT.

“You’re confused, Tucker,” I growl. “Ain’t no colored folk here to nightstick. Just a friendly family discussion.”

“Keep your mouth shut!” He orders and then turns his attention to the EMT. “Check him.”

The EMT goes over to help Joseph sit up. There are cuts and bruises. It looks like his nose is broken. I’m simultaneously impressed and sickened by what I’ve done to him.

“Looks like he’ll live,” the EMT says.

“Too bad,” Tucker mutters. He gestures to the other officer. “Cuff him and put him in the car.”

“What the hell?!?” Joseph exclaims. “I’m the one who got assaulted!”

“Shut up, Joe!” Tucker snaps. “I done saw what you did to my fiancée’s grandma.”

“’Fiancée’?!?” Things have now taken a turn for the surreal. “What’d you do, Tuck? Put a gun to her head and tell her she was gonna marry you?”

“Now ain’t the time to talk about this, Josh,” he says with remarkable clam. “And unless you wanna share a cell with your uncle you’re gonna stay quiet now.” 

I watch the other officer handcuff Joseph, whose glaring daggers at me. He’s getting his rights read as he’s ushered out the door. Tammy’s walking in, her eyes swollen and bloodshot from crying. Once the EMT walks out, Tucker unlocks the cuffs. Even as they’re removed, I can still feel the cold metal biting into me.

“This is a helluva way to find out you went Eva Bram, Tam,” I say, rubbing my wrists.

“Mind your mouth, Joshua!” She snaps. “Now ain’t the time.”

“That’s just what the Gestapo here was saying,” I shoot back. At any other time, I might’ve found it strange how Tucker visibly shudders at my remark.

“Joshua Allen!” She starts crying again. I expect her to lay into me for what I did to her daddy. But instead; “Grandma…she’s…gone..”

All fall down…   

The Darkened Room

It smells like shit, literally. I want to light up a cigarette just to put some other smell in my nose. I want to smoke because I’m stressed and I can’t exactly go and get a drink.

The room is almost completely dark. The nurse, who stands watchfully at the open door, ready to spring like a cat on a mouse at any moment, told me Grandma gets agitated if there’s too much light in the room. I can somewhat make out her form on the bed by the tightly shut window blinds.

What I can make out only bares a passing resemblance to my grandmother. She’s skinnier, apparently from hardly eating anymore. They say her gray eyes are clouded over with cataracts now. Although she’s looking in my direction, it seems like she’s looking through me. Perhaps she’s not seeing me or the predatory-eyed nurse, or the darkened room she’s in at all.

“Grandma?” I start. “It’s me. It’s Joshua.”

“Joshie?” There’s genuine surprise in her gravely, thin voice. “Oh, Joshie!”

“Tammy told me to come see you,” I say.

“Such a sweet girl,” Grandma says. “I’d wondered about you.”

I can’t help but notice how lucid she sounds, despite the quality of her voice and the smell of the room. Almost as if her mind’s back in one piece. Perhaps the nurse realizes this.    

“She’s rallying. We see that in sometimes in patients right before the end.”

“Well, ain’t you about positive?” I mutter toward the nurse before shifting my attention once more. “How you been, Grandma?”

Then it gets quiet. Maybe she’s gotten lost again. I step a little closer, and notice how she starts, as though frightened. The nurse takes a tentative step after me, as if to stop me from reaching my own grandmother. The glare I shoot has a stopping affect.

“I’m gonna be going a long trip soon, Joshie,” Grandma says. “But it’s okay. I’m not scared.” I can see a frail hand reaching out to me. “I’m so glad you made it before I went away.”

“You’ve still got some life left in you,” I say, taking her hand. It looks discolored.

“I’m never gonna see the sun again,” the lucidity seems to be fading.

“Don’t be silly, Grandma,” I say and I reach over to open the blinds. The nurse is drawing a sharp breath, as though to tell me to stop.

Grandma is covered in bruises. Her right eye is swollen shut and there’s blood on her lips from where it looks like a few teeth were knocked out. The sheets on her bed are so terribly soiled that I almost vomit. 

Immediately, I turn toward the nurse. I’m across the room before there can be any reaction. My hand is around the nurse’s throat slamming her into the doorframe. I’m sure someone else is going to see and try to interfere, but in the heat of the moment such a reality hardly registers.

“Who in the fuck did this to her?!?” I’m snarling and my grip is tightening.

“Joshua Allen!” Grandma sounds coherent once more. “Let her go right now, boy!”

“Grandma…”

“She didn’t do it!” Grandma snaps. “And I said let her go right now!”

I do as I’m told. The nurse all but collapses to the floor coughing and sputtering. I might feel bad about it later, but right now I’m too angry to care.

“Who did this?” I ask as calmly as I can.

“I was bad, I messed myself,” Grandma says. “It’s funny, I used to change his diapers. I figured this made us even.” Then she stars to sob. “He said I used to beat him, so he was gonna do the same to me. I never hit any of my boys like this. Not once. Patrick…your daddy, he was always so even tempered. But Joseph, I don’t know why, but he always had that mean streak…”

I’m shaking. Part of it is from the chills running down my spine, but most of it is from building anger. My uncle, her son, a nurse at this facility, is the one who beat her so savagely. Everyone in the family has always known about Joseph’s temper and his willingness to solve problems with his fists, but it’s obviously been my delusion that Grandma was safe from it.

“Grandma, I’ll take care of it,” I say. “And then I’ll come back and see you.”

“What you wanna do ain’t gonna make these bruises go away,” she says. Sound advice, the type she’s given me before that got me out of more fights than I got into growing up. “They’ll never go away. Not as long as I’m alive…”

“Be that as it may, he needs to learn you can’t go ‘round brutalizing folks,” I say. “Especially you, Grandma.” I turn to leave. “I’ll come back.”

“I’m not gonna be here, Joshie,” she says. “Say your goodbyes now, because I’m gonna be gone soon.”

“Goodbye, Grandma,” I say, hoping she’s wrong. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Joshie,” she’s smiling. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. Tammy and I have seen to that.”

I turn to walk out. This might be the last time I ever see my grandmother. At least she was lucid for it, miracle that was. There are tears in my eyes. I cast a look at the nurse who is cowering at my feet.

“You better have the decency to clean her up. End of chat,” I say as I walk out of the room.

The Road to Blacksnake

Bright, bright, almost emerald green, underscored by the sprawling tendrils of relentless kudzu and the sensation of perpetual rot. Humidity, the kind that gives the air weight, the type, which would make you suggest it lay off the late-night Twinkies. Even on a clear day, the sky seems murky. The brilliant blue I got used to where I’ve been living the last seven years seems like a myth here, where a thin cobweb of mist seems to cover everything always.

These are the things the road to Blacksnake are made of. I try to reconcile the change in climate from where I’m coming from to where I’m going as a reminder of what I lived with until I moved away, right after my twenty-fourth birthday and this being training wheels for when I finally make it to Borneo. These reconciliations are probably nothing more than lies. Rationalizations to keep me from turning around and heading back to what I’ve been calling home. Back to my life as a cook and used bookstore clerk and my friends and all those other things I do that have made my memories of Blacksnake into my Boogieman that hides in my closet and jumps out of shadows late at night to scare the ever living shit out of me.

I remember once Rio, when more than a little intoxicated, tried to explain to me how she saw time as river, full of strange currents and eddies and branching off streams and springs. It kind of made sense, but I’d been drinking a little too. It was after midnight, after all. However, I’ve often found music to much more river-like. This flowing thing carving out pathways through my thoughts and moods, often affecting my understanding of time. The Paul Simon song playing takes me back to driving away seven years ago;

“I am following the river
down the highway,
Through the cradle of the civil war…”

The river that occasionally appears near the road I follow is not the mighty Mississippi, nor am I going anywhere near Graceland, but I know the Blue and the Gray had at least a skirmish or two along the road to Blacksnake. At least that’s what the old-timers would have you believe, and they all still thought Jefferson Davis was the President. As old as they were, you could almost forgive them for the delusion.

A bittersweet smile crosses my face as near the railroad tracks. Along the roadside is the memorial to accident that killed my parents. Ironically, as the Paul Simon song ends, the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour starts up. How fitting. The god I stopped believing in a long time ago must be laughing his sick ass off. I catch myself chuckling softly to unintentional joke as light up a hand-rolled. I’ve been smoking far more than usual since I hit the road, but I’m only scarcely aware of it or willing to make any effort to curtail it.

My memory’s still back at Café Nairobi, that day Tammy woke me up. Kisshandra was good to her word in showing up within a half hour of me getting hold of her. What shocked me was how within a half hour of her appearance Rio and Jazz-Cat Johnny Hobbs showed up. Neither of them is given to being up so early unless they’ve not gone to sleep yet. Apparently, Kisshandra texted the both of them to let them know something was up.

“You might be a Lynyrd Skynyrd redneck, Stormy, but you’re our friend,” Hobbs quipped when I expressed amazement that he could be bothered to roll out of bed so early to be at Café Nairobi.

“I reckon I didn’t expect you to take time out of masturbating to Rush to come down,” I shot back.

“After that remark, I’m beginning to reconsider, you know, eh?”

And we had a nice time over large mugs of coffee. Well, the best time we could have given how early it was and the circumstances that had brought us all together. Carmen, who I’d left sleeping at my place with a quickly scribbled note, showed up a little later. Although her presence added to the nice time we were having, the walk back to my place was a little tense.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” She asked.

“It wasn’t even six yet and we were up rather late,” I said. “I didn’t wanna be rude.”

“But it was perfectly okay to ring up Kisshandra?” There was an edge in her voice I hadn’t heard before. It got me to shoot her a glare.

“Yes, it was, honeychild,” I snarled. “There are only two other people who know me as well as Kisshandra Norbu. One I barely talk to, except for maybe Christmas, and her calling me got us all up so fucking early, and the other’s brain is so like wormwood she can barely remember her own name, let alone what year it is, or who anyone around her is.”

“It just seems kind of unfair,” Carmen protested.

“Look! You keep this up about who and why I contact first when I have a family crisis I’m gonna forget what my daddy used to say about hitting girls,” I snapped. She started to say something. “Just close your mouth and save your teeth.”

The look I was given straddled the line between fear and resentment. Maybe we were having our first fight, but I didn’t really care. Any more than I really cared whether she was right or if I was. Nobody, especially not some splittail, was going to get after me about Kisshandra. Period.

It was within a few days I was able to get everything in line to leave for Blacksnake. Maybe I thought the sooner I left, the better. I hoped not to be gone long. Carmen and I managed to regain a modicum of civility toward each other, although there was this new sense of tension that had not been there before. Apparently, it was obvious to everyone.

“I just hope you guys can work past it,” Kisshandra said on the day I left. I was having her look after my bonsai trees. “I like her hanging around with us. It would be a shame if she disappeared.”

“I reckon we’ll see,” I said. “I just didn’t like the way she suddenly got about you.”

“At least it’s about me and not about Borneo,” Kisshandra mused. She got that sad look in her eyes again. It was the first time Borneo between us had been brought up since that night at Juke.

“What if I asked you to come with me?”

“Down south?” Kisshandra seemed confused. “I thought you told me with my Afro-Himalayan heritage it would be a bad idea.”

“I mean to Borneo,” I said.

“Joshua…?” It wasn’t surprising to see her looking gobsmacked.

“I’d take you in a cold minute, Kiss,” I said. “Swear on a stack of Bibles.”

And she just stared at me. I guess I couldn’t blame her. What I was asking her was pretty serious. Although she once told me the thought was heartbreaking, it seemed a given that figured we’d be done and over forever, amen, once I finally achieved my goal of Borneo.

“Tell you what,” I said with a wink. “You think about it and let me know.”

It’s almost a full day I’ve been on the road to Blacksnake, and I haven’t heard a peep for her. This is unusual. Most often we call or text something at least once. Her answer will dictate how serious my question was. I think it’s the best thing I can do. As I think about Kisshandra and Carmen and all that, another musical irony occurs; Sex and Violence from the Exploited.

And then I come upon the sign;

Welcome to Blacksnake, Alabama, Pop 668

I’ve been alive for thirty-one years and that sign’s never, ever changed. In high school, some of the metal kids I hung out with, the ones who said they worshiped Satan to frighten and anger their families, would joke we were the neighbors of the Beast, two doors down. We all knew there had been births and deaths, but that population number remained static. God and Pastor Abraham Toft and the elders of the Pentecostal church that pretty well runs town, forbid the population number on the town sign gets anywhere closer to triple six. That would be sinful.

Driving through town is simultaneously a trip down memory lane and a nightmare. Rebel flags still hang proudly outside same old houses. I imagine, if all those old-timers who thought Jefferson Davis was still the President and that the Stars and Bars would ultimately triumph were finally dead, they indoctrinated their kin with the same mindset. My daddy would say that was as sure as the day was long.

I pick up a bomber of beer and pull off at the field by the water tower, on the other end of town, just a half-mile from the home. I already sent a message to Tammy telling me where I was and what I was about to do. She told me we’d catch up tonight. I can’t really say I’m looking forward to any of this.

As I drink my beer and smoke a hand-rolled, my eyes follow the layers of generational graffiti along the water tower. I never put anything up there myself, but I knew some who did. The song Gnawba Blues from Hoba Hoba Spirit is playing, something I got into once I moved away. Three miles away is the state line. Back when I was younger, we used to say the state line was the end of the world.

And here I am, back in Blacksnake after seven years in outer space. Back to see a dying woman who probably won’t even know who I am. I finish my hand-rolled and get ready to drive the final half-mile to finish this, but not before I hold up my last swig of beer in a one-man toast.

“To my grandma,” I whisper. “And to getting to Borneo once she’s gone.”   

Phone Call Complication

The phone rings with a sense of urgency that can only come from getting a call shortly after dawn. I all but jump out of bed, disoriented and terrified. Carmen, lying naked next to me, barely stirs, of which I am grateful as I grab my phone to see who’d be calling me at this hour. The screen is blurry, and I fumble for my glasses.

Out of the molasses of waking I see a name and number that sends a chill down my spine and illicits a sound similar to a growl. I grab a pair of shorts and head for my bathroom. A studio is not a conducive place to have these early conversations from a primordial time before seven years ago. Once my shorts are on, I’ll be out on my building’s communal balcony.

“Hey,” I say as I accept the call. My voice is scratchy, a few beers and the equivalent of a bottle of wine might just do that. I sound tired, being jerked awake after being up rather late enjoying the naked woman in my bed will do that.

“Hi, Joshie,” the twang of her accent tells me how much mine has faded over the last seven years. “I’m sorry to call so early. Did I wake you?”

“Technically, it was my phone ringing that woke me up, Tam” I say, fastening my shorts and stumbling from the bathroom to my coffee table to grab my tobacco, rolling papers, and lighter. “What’s up?”

“It’s about Grandma.”

“What about Grandma?” By this time I’m out on the balcony, scarcely aware of how quickly my hand-rolled is being assembled.

“She’s fading,” Tammy says, and I almost catch what sounds like a sob.

“Tam-Tam,” I say as gently as I can in my exhausted state. “Grandma’s been ‘fading’ for the past ten years. She was starting to go back before my mamma and daddy got killed.”

“Joshua Allen Storm, you asshole!” Tammy snaps, her voice on edge of tears. “Do think I’d call you up this early about Grandma just to hear my head rattle? When I say she’s fading, I fucking mean it!”

“I’m sorry, Tammy,” I say sheepishly. I light my hand-rolled and take the first drag. “What’d they say at the home?”

“Just that she’s getting worse,” Tammy replies. I hear the pause, the deeply held breath. What comes next is harder for her to say than telling me our grandmother is closer to death’s door than she has been. “You should get back here.”

“Shit,” I mutter. “You reckon she’ll even know who I am?”

“She’s been asking about you. That’s why you should come back.”

I consider this. Grandma’s mind has more holes than swiss cheese. It seemed to get worse after my parents getting killed in that train accident. We hadn’t talked in a couple years because half the time Grandma didn’t recognize me. How she’s managed to live ten years is nothing short of miraculous. Tammy and Uncle Joseph, who works at the home she was put in, promised to take care of her. Truthfully, I’ve always had more faith in Tammy than in her father.

“I’m gonna have to make some arrangements,” I say finally.

“I know,” Tammy says. “Just keep me posted.”

“I will, Tam,” I say. “You’ll hear from me soon. Bye.”

“Bye.”

The line goes dead. I finish my hand-rolled and have another. It’s bright, clear, and cool out. Under another set of circumstances, I might’ve brewed some coffee and continued to sit outside with a book. Maybe I’d have thrown on some clothes and gone for a walk. Under another set of circumstances I’d most likely still be asleep next to Carmen because my cousin wouldn’t have called me so early with news about our grandmother.

I activate my phone again and scroll through my contacts. There are arrangements to make. Arrangements I am not looking forward to. With another drag, I make my first call. Kisshandra’s sleepy voice answers. Instinctively, she knows to be concerned.

“Hey, Kiss,” I say softly. “I got a problem and I need to talk. Can you meet me for coffee down at Cafe Nairobi?”

“Give me a half hour,” she says, and that alone makes me feel a lot better.

Four O'Clock on Friday Afternoon

It’s four o’clock on Friday afternoon. Hazy warm sunlight graces the open doorway of the used bookstore. A lingering kiss from mid-June. It’s hard to believe that the longest day of the year is not even a week off. Days like this are the foreplay of summer.

I have a cousin back home who dreads the longest day of the year. For her, the first day of summer heralds the days getting shorter. Those times when everything is dull and gray and brown and the rain is no longer warm and the damp cold soaks clear through past the marrow. She comes out of it on the shortest day of the year, because it means, day by day, the sun’s going to stay out just a little longer.

My seasonal clock isn’t attuned like that. It doesn’t occur to me that summer’s ending until the leaves start to change color and fall from the trees. Even then, there needs to be at least one hard frost for me to fully understand. For me, winter ends on the first really warm day, and nothing can convince me otherwise. The place I’m trying to get to is right on the equator, and it’s always summer there. Maybe I’m just naïve.

It’s four o’clock on Friday afternoon, and I catch myself amazed it’s so near the first official day of summer. The last almost two months seem like a blur. The only reason I know Morgan Zayne last played at Juke on April twenty-third is because someone told me the date. I’d have just remembered it’d been back in the spring.

I guess Carmen Jordan and I are kind of seeing each other. Or at least the fact we sometimes go out, and the vibe is that of more than just trying to be friends, and the fact we’ve slept together a few times, would certainly indicate something to that effect. It’s been light and fun. We’ve been too busy enjoying this for what it is to worry about what it might become.

If Carmen knows that Kisshandra spent the next three days after that fateful Thursday Night Blues at Juke in bed, or if she knows of that level of my relationship with Kisshandra, she’s never let on. I’ve never felt obliged to bring it up. That’s Kisshandra and I, not Carmen. Besides, Kisshandra and I got our mutual wanting to fuck out of our systems for the next while at least, and we do have an understanding, after all.

Rio knew about it. But Rio always knows when Kisshandra and I have our times. She even went as far as to snark about it, when she cleaned my place after the three days.

“Ai! You two certainly were…athletic,” she said.

Another man, Jazz-Cat Johnny Hobbs, I imagine, would’ve taken that remark as a chance to brag about his prowess, but I felt a little embarrassed. Maybe because I know Rio’s Kisshandra’s other part-time lover. I wondered if those two ever had such sessions, and then felt dirty for ever thinking that.

“It was because of Borneo,” I said.

“Has she ever told you about how she’s felt about you and Borneo?” Rio asked.

“Why do you think my place was such a mess?”

“Say no more,” Rio said. “Although, I wish she never had to tell you that.”

It’s four o’clock on Friday afternoon and I have one hour of work left at Archives Rare and Used Bookstore. I can’t even call this my second job from Wildflowers, because I enjoy both so much, neither seems like work. Although my schedules between the two fluctuates constantly.

The day has been blissfully calm. Just enough customers to help the day go, but not enough draw me away from my daydreams. Sometimes, when sitting behind the counter, I read something literary and important, whether it’s out of sincere interest or social expectation depends on the book, and whether or not I read another word of it after the shift is done. Sometimes, I just grab stack of old comics and flip through those.

It’s four o’clock on Friday afternoon, and I have stack of newly acquired records by my satchel behind the counter. Most are vintage reggae, but there’s one or two calypso records as well. A gift from Rollins, who works at one of the music stores we all frequent. I had made and delivered a nice meal for a dinner date for Jules and him. If he wants to pay me in vintage reggae and calypso records, I really have no problem with it.

Not like for a second Jules didn’t know I had a hand in the meal for their dinner date. At thirty-four years old, Tomas Rollins has yet to master boiling water, let alone making a dinner of anything other than frozen pre-packaged convenience food. Me being seen as the cook-Kisshandra refers to me as the gourmet chef-of our little circle of friends, not withstanding, Jules would later tell me she simply knew.

“You do have a style after all,” she said.

“Well, everybody knows that, honeychild,” I said with a wink. “But I can cook too.”

Jules went on to tell me I was being cocky. I argued the point, like a self-righteous idiot. What I was displaying was a healthy self-esteem. We’ve been at this discussion for two weeks and I still haven’t brought Jules around to my way of thinking, and that’s just plumb annoying.

It’s four o’clock on Friday afternoon. The fates, which govern schedules, have been kind. I have nowhere I need to be tomorrow. No jobs, no parties or shows my friends have obligated me to. I have a day for just me, if I want it.

At home, I have two whole chickens, ready to be slathered in my variation of Jamaican jerk seasoning. I have five bottles of wine sitting on one of my racks and a six-pack of beer in the refrigerator. Rio cleaned my place so well two days ago, she borrowed my keys again to show it to a potential client. I have a stack of new acquired records and an itch to play them. As in cooking, I have the ingredients of an interesting evening.

I grab my phone and start tapping away at the keys. With having the potential of an interesting evening, it seems a shame to keep it all to myself. I decide to start with Carmen. If she doesn’t take an interest in my message, I can think of a few others who might.

I just got some old reggae records and I’m making jerk chicken. You wanna?

I haven’t even set my phone down when it buzzes with a response;

Should I bring some ganja?

It’s four o’clock on Friday afternoon and I’m snickering to myself. I begin to type my response to Carmen with a smile on my face. Light and fun, just as our acquaintance has been so far. It looks like I might have my own dinner date.            

Toasting Borneo

Away from the curious and leering gazes of my friends, that awkward feeling begins to evaporate. It’s not totally different from interacting at the Co-Op. Although, without the wall of professionalism to scale, there is the feeling that something has changed. The formalities of customer and clerk begin to blur, and then fade altogether. A casual pretty face at place has been replaced by someone who might just start hanging around in some other form or fashion.

There are the moments of flirtation, but also moments of getting to know one another a little more than our brief interactions. It’s light. It’s fun. I’m enjoying myself, and I like to think she is too, but I know better than to ask. At least not yet. Asking would ruin it.

It seems almost too soon when Kisshandra, Rio, and Jazz-Cat Hobbs reappear with the shots. I check my watch and it’s eleven-thirty. Close enough to midnight, I suppose. Besides, with the addition of Carmen to the evening, it seems the rules have changed.

“Toast time!” Kisshandra announces, handing out the drinks. “And, Joshua, I’m going to put you on the spot.”

“Oh, Christ! Why?”

“To watch you squirm, hillbilly,” Rio teases with a wink.

“To one of my best friends,” Kisshandra begins. I try not look as uncomfortable as I feel. “To your dreams of Borneo. I pray you one day make it.”

“To Borneo!” Hobbs and Rio both say.

“To Borneo,” I repeat, taking a sip with a smile on my face. It’s not a night out without a toast to Borneo.

“Borneo?” Carmen asks.

“I’m going to move to Borneo,” I say. “My goal is to be there by the time I’m thirty-five.”

“How long does that leave you?” She seems genuinely curious.

“Four years.”

“Why Borneo?”

And I chuckle. It’s been three or four years since it all happened. I no longer remember where or the exact date, but it was that magazine. It was one of those glossy rags that advertised travel to all parts of the globe. Nowhere was too far-flung. It was there I happened upon the article about Borneo.

I read of tree houses, high up in the rain forest canopy. Structures, which could only be accessed by zip-lines. I was entranced. After all, what boy didn’t want to live in a tree fort at one time or another? I decided I would do it as a grown man, even setting the deadline of being in Borneo by the time I was thirty-five. When I first told the others, I remember Rio saying my fate was sealed. Kisshandra just got a sad and faraway look in her eyes.

“Girls never lose boys like you to other girls,” she said when I asked her about it. For three or four years, I’ve never been exactly sure what she meant.

“So, what do you know about Borneo?” Carmen asks after I recount the magazine.

“What’s there to know? There’s jungle and orangutans. I’ll figure out the rest when I get there,” I reply and she has an almost horrified expression on her face, to which I smile. “That’s what got me here.”

“It’s true,” Rio interjects. “He’s lived here for seven years and the three of us have known him almost since the day he got here, and he’s just always kind of flown by the seat of his pants.”

“Making it up as he goes along,” Hobbs adds, toasting me with his empty shot glass. “That’s our Stormy boy.”

“The spontaneous type…”  Carmen muses, moving a little closer to me, when I cast my glance toward Kisshandra, she looks almost impassive, except for that sad and faraway look she gets when Borneo comes up. “Interesting.”

“Well, kids, can we continue this inside?” There’s a sudden urgency in Hobbs' voice. “Zayne’s about to go back on, and Jules told me she and Rollins have a table we can sit at if we get our asses back in.”

“Say no more, Jazz-Cat,” I say, tossing the burned out remains of my hand-rolled away.

So, we continued our evening inside with a blues soundtrack of Morgan Zayne and Tia Williams. It is simply divine. Jules and Tomas Rollins had secured us a big table near the stage, which is why Hobbs was so insistent on us getting back inside. Those kind of tables can be a rare commodity on Thursday Night Blues at Juke. Especially when Morgan Zayne is playing and even moreso when Tia Williams joins him for a second set. There’s a round of drinks waiting for us upon arrival, Kisshandra’s treat. This means the next round will most likely be mine.

I catch up with Jules and Rollins, neither of which I’ve seen in a few weeks. The girls dance. Aside from talking to me, Carmen engages in conversations with the others, which I find to be a good thing. Every so often, I look toward Kisshandra. She seems serene as always, but I occasionally notice that sad and faraway look in her eyes, and at one point, it looks like she might cry. This worries me.

As much as I want to talk to her about it, it’s a little hard. There are other conversations we all catch ourselves having. The righteous blues being performed before our very eyes is not something that can be easily ignored. There’s dancing and getting a fresh round of drinks and shots. Priorities or distractions, depending on how it’s looked at.

I finally do catch up with Kisshandra outside of the bathrooms. She beams at me and gives me a warm hug. I catch a slight grinding motion within her hips in time to the music, which is more than a little arousing. I pull her closer for a moment before meeting her gaze.

“I like Carmen,” she says. “I hope she starts coming around more.”

“I’m glad,” I say. “There’s been a way you’ve been acting that got me to wondering.”

“Don’t be silly, Joshua!” Kisshandra laughs. “Carmen’s not the first girl I’ve seen you go home with, and she won’t be the last. Besides, we have our way of being. John once made that mistake with me.” I raise an eyebrow to her as a piece of the puzzle of her history with Hobbs slides into place. “That’s another reason he loves you; because you can deal with me the way I am and not bat an eye. He couldn’t.”

“Wow,” I say. “I never knew.”

“You’ve always been too much of a southern gentleman to ask.”

“I guess I was worried because when we were toasting out on the patio, and I was telling Carmen about Borneo, you got a weird look,” I say. “You’ve looked like you wanted to break down a couple of times.”

Kisshandra’s expression becomes deathly serious. Suddenly, she’s pressing her lips to mine. There’s a small part of me that wonders if Carmen sees this what she’ll think. That part is drowned out in the moment. I’m too intoxicated with the sensation of our kiss, the urgency of it, the strength of Kisshandra’s embrace. The last time we kissed so savagely, we were thrown out of a Latino discotheque for getting a little too frisky in a stairwell.

Then she’s pulling away. Almost pushing herself from my arms. I want to hold tighter, but I know better. This is Kisshandra. As Rio once observed, she doesn’t really belong to anyone. Apparently, Hobbs made that mistake once.

“Joshua, I love you. I really do,” Kisshandra says, her eyes are wet. “You’re one of my best friends. Don’t ever worry about another girl when it comes to me. If you decided you wanted to get married or something, I’d miss you…I’d miss us like that, but I love you too much to even dream of stopping you. You’re not the type to be stopped.”

“Okay?” I’m a little confused. “Then what’s wrong?”

“When you told Carmen about Borneo, it just reminded me of something,” Kisshandra replies. “The fact you set your mind to something and you end up doing it. I have never worried about losing you to a girl, because boys like you don’t get taken away by girls.” She stops a moment to wipe away a single tear rolling down her cheek, I want to do something to comfort her, but her body language keeps me at arm’s length. “I know I’m going to lose you someday, and it breaks my heart. It’s not a girl I’m going to lose you to, I’m going to lose you to Borneo.”

In the Hour before Midnight

After the shots and the beginnings of a fresh beer I find myself in that happy warm place right before the buzz kicks in and things can get either interesting or pear-shaped. A few other mutual acquaintances have happened by, and Hobbs has been more than happy to snatch them away to the bar for shots, all in the name of catching up, leaving me to nurse my second beer. That’s fine. It’s only eleven.

I have a personal rule, even when Hobbs is-no pun intended-calling the shots; I try to keep my wits about me until midnight. The witching hour. After the witching hour, all bets are off. I have an hour to go.

Morgan Zayne has been wailing away, pulling out old songs from back when we all first started coming to Thursday Night Blues at Juke. Rio was the one who heard him before the rest of us and demanded we come and check him out. It goes without saying that we were not disappointed. I think of him being like good wine, getting better and better with age.

No matter the nature of my acquaintance with Kisshandra, we always dance to the song Rattlesnake Waltz. Tonight was no different. Even if we don’t end up in bed tonight, I know I’ll fall asleep comforted in the knowledge that we got our moment on the dance floor that one tune.

Morgan Zayne announces he’s taking a break, but when comes back, another local talent, Tia Williams, will be joining him. We all cheer. Tia Williams is this mere slip of a woman who has never smoked anything in her life, but sings with the voice of someone three times her size who has smoked two packs a day for twenty years. I once had a chance to meet her and told her I wanted her to take me home and read me bedtime stories in that husky voice of hers.

So, I roll myself a cigarette and motion to the others that I’m stepping out on the patio. It’s muggy inside and the lines to the bar and bathrooms will be impossible for at least the next five minutes. Kisshandra and Rio each grab an arm and I shoot Hobbs a wink as we head toward the door. I don’t bother to check to see if he’s following because I know the answer.

Outside is cooler. Perfect. I light up, drawing the smoke slowly in, allowing its ghostly fingers to tickle and claw at my innards. Hobbs motions for me to roll him a cigarette and I indulge him. That’s fair. After all, he’s buying my shots.

It’s a beautiful night out, clear and clean. A good night for blues and standing out on patios with hand-rolled cigarettes. I contemplate a walk along the canal later, depending on how the night goes. Right now, as Rio observed, the night is still young.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” her voice is familiar, and, for some reason, I find myself blushing at the sound of it as I turn to see her.

Carmen Jordan always wears a straw cowboy hat. The difference between seeing her at the Twelfth Street Co-Op and out is the fact her thick red hair is not tied into tight pigtails. She’s not the type of girl to wear make-up, so seeing the tease of lipstick on her kiss-me-please mouth is a little shocking. I almost want to ask her if this means she shaved her legs and armpits. Despite the incongruence of lipstick, the playful dusting of freckles across her creamy-colored skin and intense hazel eyes stand out the most.

“No wonder you want to fuck her,” Kisshandra said the one time she was with me at the Co-Op and saw Carmen. “She looks like some kind of down-home tomboy. In fact, I think I wouldn’t mind a shot.”

“I saw her first!” I argued. “Find your own Co-Op hippie to crush on.”

Carmen is the type who avoids cellular telephones and microwave ovens for health concerns, of which she’s more than happy to share the research on. She works at the Co-Op because she likes the idea helping out her community through foodstuffs and the knowledge of where that food came from and how it was produced. The fact I cook at Wildflowers, and is often in charge of getting the restaurant’s order, is one of the reasons we talk.

“It never came up in conversation,” I say finally, taking a drag from my cigarette.

“Even with where you shop and work…” Carmen starts and I feel like I’m being scolded.

 “A man’s gotta have his vices, I reckon,” I say uncomfortably, before regaining my conversational footing. “Besides, why are you wearing lipstick?”

Carmen giggles, childlike in its shyness. I think I catch a faint hint of blushing. The others are watching. Hobbs is actually smirking, which is making me nervous.

“Call it a slight casual dressing up, Southern boy,” she says finally. I realize, dressed in a green and black soccer jersey, jeans, and cowboy boots, I have no room to really preach.

“The ‘Southern boy’s’ name is Joshua,” Hobbs interjects. “But we call him Stormy.”

“Thank you, Jonathan,” I all but sneer. “Now, don’t you have some Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot you should be listening to while watching hockey and eating Canadian bacon?”

“That’s ham, you dick!” He shoots back, and I chuckle.

“It’s funnier to harass him about that when he’s drunker,” I say to Carmen. “But forgive the Jazz-Cat. After all, he’s…Canadian.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” she says, lightly touching his arm. “Is there anything you can take for that?”

“Nobody likes you, Stormy, you hillbilly,” Hobbs grumbles. “We just hang out with you because we feel sorry for you.”

“So you’re name is Joshua?” Carmen inquires in a bashful tone.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I say, hoping to dissolve some of the awkwardness, I take another drag from my cigarette and point toward my friends. “I don’t know if I introduced to my friend, Kisshandra Norbu, when she was with me at the Co-Op that one time. Next to her is Rio Santiago. The sourpuss with the funny nasally accent is the phenomena that is the Jazz-Cat, Johnny Hobbs.”

“You keep making fun of me and you’re buying your own shots,” he warns in a playful tone.

“Speaking of which,” Kisshandra interjects, “why don’t we leave Joshua alone for a few and go get some shots? Miss…?”

“Jordan. Carmen Jordan.”

“Carmen, would you like a shot as well?” Kisshandra asks. “John is buying. His way of making up for being an ass.”

“What?!?” Hobbs looks a little confused, but shrugs when the girls both shoot him a look.

“I’d love one,” Carmen says. “Thank you.”

“We’ll be back in a few,” Kisshandra says.

I want to thank her, but also ask her if this is okay, me talking to the cute girl from the Co-Op. Especially given the way we started our evening together. There’s a look in Kisshandra’s dark eyes that stops me. One that promises me we’ll be talking about this later. Just what exactly we’ll be talking about has yet to be decided. After all, the night is young. With that in mind, I take another slow drag from my hand-rolled, and turn to face Carmen.

“So,” I begin, hoping I don’t sound half as awkward as I suddenly catch myself feeling. “Alone at last.”

Thursday Night Blues at Juke

I just get past the door girl at Juke when there was scream from an electric slide guitar that sends a chill down my spine and ignites a sensation of excitement in belly, of which would cause the Evangelicals back home to wave their Bibles and preach fire and brimstone of the evil inherent in the Devil’s Music. Those doomsday voices in my head are drowned out by another kind of preaching; a dark and smoky voice of a man who has been to Hell and back and maybe has a party bungalow along the river Styx. Morgan Zayne. Thankfully, I made it just in time to catch his first set. Hobbs isn’t so lucky.

My eyes scan the crowds for a familiar face. I half wonder if Carmen Jordan, that cute redhead over at the Twelfth Street Co-Op is here. When I was picking up supplies for work and my own groceries, I’d mentioned Thursday Night Blues at Juke and how fun it was, even saying she should check it out. Especially if Morgan Zayne was playing, like he is tonight.

I quickly dismiss the thought. The Co-Op, where I get my own food and the order for work at the restaurant, is not the type of place I go looking for a date, no matter how attractive some of the staff is or how much we sometimes flirt. I was starting to let my imagination run away with me. After all, I might know Carmen’s full name, but she only knows me as Southern boy.

Then I see Kisshandra. She’s dancing up by the stage, and looking quite flattering in her tank top and jeans. Suddenly my silly little crush on Carmen, if it could be called that, is out of my mind. I work my way through the crowd, coming up behind Kisshandra. My arms wrap around her waist and I pull her close to me. She smiles as my lips brush against her ear.

“Hey, baby,” I say. She leans back further, the grin on her face is serene.

“It’s getting to be that time of year already?” She asks, her breath is hot and seductive in my ear.

“Quite possibly,” I reply. “Unless you have some prior commitments.”

“We’ll discuss it later,” she says flippantly, looking at her watch. Then, she pulls away. “Now, go find Rio. She’s at the bar getting our first round.”

“That girl is too kind.”

“And, oh! John just texted.”

“What did the Jazz-Cat say?”

“That when he gets here it’s shot-thirty.”

“Oh, mercy me. One those kind of nights?”

“Maybe,” Kisshandra says, starting to sway again. “Now, go find Rio. I want to dance.”

And so I work my way through the crowds in the direction of the bar. Rio might be one tough little chick, but trying to manage three drinks on Thursday Night Blues at Juke, especially when Morgan Zayne is playing, could be problematic. Although, grabbing my beer from her will hardly count as a gallant rescue, she’ll at least appreciate the effort.

Rio has just finished procuring our drinks when I get to her. At five foot three-and a half! she’d add-there is something doll-like about her. Well, if there was a doll in existence that would kick your ass for calling her short, cursing in Spanish, Portuguese, and whatever indigenous dialect her family’s people speaks, while doing it. She was the first generation of her family to be born in the States, but she still has many relatives somewhere in South America that nobody has ever heard of unless someone with money is kidnapped by members of a drug cartel.

When we first met, she had already had a few involvements with Kisshandra. I worried about there being jealousy or some sort of weird competition. Rio seemed to find this funny. She explained her relationship with Kisshandra was much like mine, and, in fact, Kisshandra was not the type to belong to anyone, as it were. It made sense and Rio and I agreed to not sleep with Kisshandra at the same time, literally or figuratively.

“Thanks for the drink, dearheart,” I begin, grabbing a bottle of beer. “Reckon I owe you a round.”

“That’s usually how it works,” Rio says with a smile. “Has anyone heard from Hobbs yet?”

“Kisshandra got a text,” I reply. “Shot-thirty.”

“Ai!” Rio exclaims, but then shrugs and toasts my beer with her own. “I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have any plans for tomorrow. You?”

“It looks like my plan might include recovering from tonight, but no work, thankfully. Do you need help with the drinks?”

“I’ve got Kisshandra’s,” Rio replies before shooting me a sly smile. “Unless you were trying to be romantic.”

“Well, if you already had your own plans…”

“Joshua, it’s okay,” Rio says, bumping me with her hip playfully, which reminds me of what a great friendship I have with her. “The night’s young. After all, Hobbs isn’t even here yet.”

We make our way back to Kisshandra through a writhing mass of humanity, bumping and grinding to the dirtiest of blues. Out of my peripheries, I occasionally think I see someone I recognize. I never bothered to ask Rio or Kisshandra if anyone else was meeting us other than Hobbs. The four of us made up something of a nucleus of evolving and revolving characters. Thursday Night Blues at Juke was one of our main focal points.

The Jazz-Cat is dancing with Kisshandra as we walk up. Hobbs is tall and skinny with frizzy light brown hair. His glasses are tinted square things, as opposed to my John Lennon’s, as he often calls them, and he’s always smartly dressed.

Kisshandra twists around him like a serpent, and he moves in kind. Once more, I find myself curious about the history those two may have had. Even Rio raises an eyebrow, which further intrigues me, seeing as she’s known them longer.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d be a little jealous,” she says. “I haven’t seen them dance like that since right before you started coming around.”

Hobbs sees us first, and all but shoves Kisshandra away from him. The two of them walk up, Kisshandra taking her beer from Rio with a kiss on the cheek and calling us both her loves, which is nothing new. Hobbs gives Rio a hug and shakes my hand.

“I’m glad you made it, Stormy,” he says.

“It’s Thursday and Morgan Zayne’s playing,” I shoot back. “You think I was gonna stay home and read and miss this?”

“My man!” Hobbs declares, grabbing a sip from my beer. He’s pulling me away from the girls, who have gone back to dancing like we were never even there. “I’ll help you finish this on the way back to the bar and get you another. Kiss might’ve told you what time it is.”

“Shot-thirty,” I say, having a drink of beer. “Reckon it’s a good thing I don’t have no plans for tomorrow.”

“God would laugh at you if did,” Hobbs chuckles, taking my bottle, and having a swig.

Prelude; The Getting Ready Thoughts

Jazz, fast and punchy, plays from my stereo. Mood music for the night. It’s from the community AM station, so it sounds like it’s tuned in from Borneo through a tin can, but I listen anyway. Hi-fidelity is for when I’m listening to my private music collection or I’m at a show, not for when I listen to the radio, and hardly anyone listens to the radio anymore. I’m just as guilty of that as anyone else.

But the jazz is on and I’m going out tonight. Also, I know the DJ who is playing this righteous music. I count him amongst my closest friends. It’s the man, the legend, the phenomena that is the Jazz-Cat, Johnny Hobbs. During the course of his show, although he’s made no mention of our plans for the night, he’s dedicated songs to those of us he expects to see; Rio and Kisshandra. He hasn’t gotten to me. Not yet. I don’t take this as an insult. Jazz-Cat Hobbs gives his shout-outs to the ladies first. That’s just how it is.

I actually catch myself thinking of Kisshandra, more than Hobbs, as I’m getting ready. She’s the reason I know everyone. Back when I first moved here, I was wanting to do the whole reset; new place, new life, new everything. I’d grown my curly blond hair to that perfect length before it became an unruly mess and got back in habit of wearing my glasses again, because I always felt fake with contacts.

There was the matter of the African show. Thinking back, that’s how it all really started. When moving, I had been listening to my daddy’s copy of Paul Simon’s Graceland almost non-stop. I remember something in the liner notes about the producer working with a group called Juluka and thanking an artist named Johnny Clegg. I got curious. Where I came from, there wasn’t a lot of acceptance of music from other parts of the world, let alone access to it. But I came from a small town in the rural south nobody would ever hear of unless there was a murder there that somehow earned national attention.

So, I got into Johnny Clegg and Juluka by way of an old Paul Simon record. The African stuff sure was cool, but there was so much more I discovered during trips to late-night record shops, stuff from Israel to Cuba, from Hungary to Indonesia, and just about anywhere else between. I found this to be a great layer on top of the classical and gospel training I’d received growing up against, which I’d rebelled with the raunchiest of blues and blackest of metal.

It was through one of my trips to the late-night record shops I found out about the African show and decided to check it out. The audience was an interesting mix; curios, like me, those who were either out for some cultural slumming or wanted to be another type of person than what they already were, native supporters, and those who just sincerely liked what was being played. It was my goal to one day be more like the last bit of demographic.

I was getting a beer when I met Kisshandra. Her mother was daughter of someone important in some African country nobody would ever hear of unless the Big Man was savagely murdered in a bloody coup or the genocide stories were ever proven to be more than myth, and her father was Sherpa who could walk up the grand Himalayan peaks backward while blindfolded and carrying a couple hundred pounds of gear. Somehow, out of this union, Kisshandra had spent some formative years in England, giving her the kind of clipped and clean accent of which Americans imagine being spoken in Buckingham Palace. There was also the fact she was covered almost completely with rather intricate and expensive tattoos, giving one the impression of worldly punk rock.

And really, what could’ve been more punk rock than being at an African show drinking beer with a blond-haired, blue-eyed southern boy? Instantly, I was in love. Well, probably just lust. In the heat of the moment it’s hard to tell and even harder to figure if it really matters.

Instantly, we got along. Clicked, on some primal level. Perhaps having the commonality of obscure places in our backgrounds at some point made us kindred spirits. Maybe it was luck. It’s only rarely we try to find a reason and then decide to forget about it until the next debate.

We did try to be a couple at one point, but that wasn’t us. It would play out we were incredibly close friends, who would just happen to fuck once or twice year. Given I find myself thinking of the ink-work running along Kisshandra’s perfectly sculpted stomach and getting a little excited in other-than-platonic-ways tells me we’re getting close to one of those times of year.

It was through her I met Rio, Kisshandra’s other on-again, off-again. Rio runs a housekeeping business and does my place for no money, but the price of advertising pictures to potential customers. It’s a fair deal, I think. I keep her, and a few of the others in free food, from my cook’s gig, and books, from my other gig at the used bookstore a block from my place.

And, of course, Kisshandra introduced me to the phenomena that is the Jazz-Cat, Johnny Hobbs. He would make fun of my southern twang, but I’d fuck with him from being from Toronto. Despite our own north/south dichotomy, we get along famously. I know he’s had a history with Kisshandra, but he’s never gone into much detail about it. My love and respect of both of them has prevented me from asking.

“Well, now, it’s Johnny Hobbs, the Jazz-Cat, getting ready to sign off” his voice tells me what time it is. I begin to roll a cigarette. “This last song goes out to my Stormy boy! Joshua Storm! I know you’re listening before you go out on the town! And for a cool, hep-cat, I want to give you something really cool…”

Miles Davis. Off of Birth of the Cool, no less. I light my hand-rolled and, after the first drag, toast the empty air between myself and the radio, thinking how Hobbs certainly knows what I like. I’m smiling as I finish getting ready. Life is good. We’re going out tonight.