It was 1997.
Before everyone could have a cell phone, we had beepers. Before text messaging there were fax machines. He used to write silly love notes: LOONEY -n- LEXIE. Smiley faces and other shit that I can't recall and fax it to my office. He worked at Virgin Atlantic Airways in Norwalk CT, where he also lived with his girl and her kid. I was a ticket broker, and lived in Riverside in the suburban projects I grew up in. The fax messages were really my favorite memory of him. Beepers were drama and caused trouble. I would scroll through his on occasion looking for codes hidden in the guise of numbers and letters. Faxing was safe and untraceable, our preferred method of contact at the time.
I watched him all night...
“Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See” was the backdrop. He was so fly, so tall, baggy jeans and a sweater. I wanted him but he was unwilling. My game must have been so sloppy. His game was so transparent. He did come home with me though. We played the hand game all night, sometimes we still do. He held his hand to mine and our fingertips touched and danced all night against each other. I have never assumed that was a first for him, although till this day he claims it was. I saw through it but played the game anyway. At that point in both of our lives we were drunks. Drinking more than any one person should!!! With that in mind, apparently he knew who I was. One of his boys, boys baby moms (although he claims he would never talk like that). Tasiya was 3 years old at the time. He was insistent he would not fuck with me. Some boundary he had was not going to be crossed. I am persistent and would not let him go back to his life that night, he was coming into mine.
The space between here and there.
The next few months were ours. I sized up who my competition was and when I realized it was not his girl, it was her son, she no longer mattered to me. I wanted him and I would have him. Drunken car rides down the west side highway or the FDR were the norm, we chased the party downtown. Spending lots of nights in 205 or 2I’s, a random place on Varrick St, down some stairs. We would get entirely too inebriated and the occasional chick would get slapped up. We never Hung out together with our crews. The friends who had pushed us together a few months prior were not part of our lives now, when we were together. We were two separate entities. Nothing else ever seemed to matter. The few months we partied were coming to an end. I wanted more than he could give me. He could not get past my daughter, for that is the reason why he stuck with his old life as long as he did- because of her kid who he really loved. Not for nothing, he was nowhere near ready to settle down and neither was I. What should have been our last night together, he left me crying on the floor of my living room. The venue was changing. I was not invited to the next party. Todd left, and all l had was his
Wu-Tang Is Forever double cd, a sweater and a seed that was planted in my heart that would take years to grow.
I was heartbroken for about 15 minutes.
The space between here and there is getting smaller.
Years pass and a view of him on ESPN at the Yankees playoff game, a drive down his moms street, the thoughts of him less and less. He has moved on, to the Bronx, had a kid, dipped out of that. Then to Brooklyn and finally to Jersey City. I still hadn't left the attached buildings I grew up in, the apartment where he left me crying years before. Our drinking was the only thing that stayed consistent with us in the time we were apart. I was drinking Guinness and rum and he had taken a preference to Remy. My time with the bottle was starting to wind down. The days of the Terrace Club when my drinking had no consequence were coming to a screeching halt.
It's still a little unclear the years we were apart. The bar life took hold of me and the after hour vampires sucked the life out of him. We had no idea that simultaneously our worlds were imploding. A bottle of Appelton rum had beat me senseless. It took losing everything to realize there were some things I actually wanted. I had lived my life with reckless abandon and on one afternoon in February it all caught up with me. Within a few breaths I permanently lost custody of my daughter and quit drinking. He had not hit his bottom yet but was well on his way.... A couple of years latter on a sunny Saturday morning in august his journey minus the bottle began too.
The space got really short thanks to the internet.
It was 2006 and my life was slowly being rebuilt from almost nothing. I was unrecognizable. I did all I could to leave that girl from AG, the projects I grew up in behind. I covered my arms and chest with tattoos. I had a brief moment where I stopped listening to hip hop. There was no one on my roster from childhood for the first time in my life. I was heavily involved with my new crew, and they were nothing like the old one. They were sober. 1 new message is what the screen on my, MySpace showed from TLooney. Todd something, that dude from Port Chester I used to fuck with back in the day. I was 30 years old, 2 years without a drink and was baffled. Without much hesitation I met him at Johnny Cakes for coffee the same day and our lives have not been the same since.
Almost no space between us.
It unraveled at the speed of a Das Efx song. He called, I answered, we kissed, we reminisced, we were foggy on details of the past. I was sober, he had no intent on sobriety yet has not had a drink since. The universe decided we would spend the rest of our lives together that afternoon and we had no clue.
There is no space.
We are together. It's exactly 6 years later from our second encounter,and 15 from our first. We live in Bed stuy. My daughter is at VSU. His daughter is with her mother and temporarily not in our lives. We have a life beyond our wildest dreams. It's been shaken a few times and once almost completely shattered but I will never let go. He will never let go. We are one. Neither of us could ever be replaced by another, too much has happened, we are too connected. There is no more space between here and there. We have the same name. The same family. We are each others protectors. It has never been nor ever will be without work. The amount we put into us is bigger than the borough of Brooklyn.
.JPG)
