She Is Everywhere

1989, Summer

I knew little of my cousin Evan, except that he was 7 days older than me and reveled in being a rambunctious boy of a single digit age as much as I. He was from a distant land my mom called Canada and would visit Minnesota infrequently with his brother Hugh.

This particular summer, Evan visited Minnesota… for good. His father passed away in a work related accident, so his mother moved back to Minnesota to be with the family. I remember being elated to hear that they were moving back to Minnesota for good, and that I’d have a friend to romp around our grandmother’s back yard with.

My younger mind couldn’t grasp tragedy. Although Evan, his brother and mother were undergoing the woes of a vicious, untimely death- I simply understood it as “Yay, a new friend in town”. My relationship with my father, at the time, was stewed in absence and somewhat of a mystique. I took his circumstance to be the same as mine: Living with a sibling, mother, and no father. My understanding couldn’t have been further from the truth.

1993, September

Evan and I sit on a dark couch in a room full of weeping family members. Our grandfather, Doc Van Deusen, had passed away and we were now attending the funeral home for the viewing of the body.

Everything in the room seemed dark. I swear it was night out, but it was most likely in the throws of daylight, nothing held color in the room. The walls ran muddy, the lamps conveyed as cryptic antiquities, the window curtains hung like last minute buys at Dracula’s garage sale. I hated this place. Evan and I were forced to dress in tandem with the room- our Sunday best, as one would perhaps have it. Little boys, we were, dressed in slacks, dress shirts and little dress shoes.

The ceremony of it all made no damn sense to me. At the ripe age of 11, I took these people for madness. “Who, in their right mind, would want to view the dead body of a family member?!?!?” I continuously thought. My mother, emphatic in her sobbing, asked me to stand up and attend the room. “It’s that last time you’ll get to see him. Don’t you want to say goodbye?”

I entered the room… for her. I didn’t want anything to do with the display of my grandfather’s dead body, but I knew my mother would never forgive me if I didn’t go to see him. I’d rather sit on the dark couch with Evan than enter the room.

Upon entrance, I looked down and away. Perhaps my mere presence would suffice my mother’s heart… but I was curious. What would he look like? How would he seem? Would their be a strange smell? What if he jumped up and yelled “Surprise!”?  My mind reeled. I must look at him, otherwise I’ll never live it down.

Averting my gaze… I first saw the right side of his face. I approached slowly to a view revealing the entirety of his horizontal posture, fully laid out in a casket. My mother reminded me he was on a cot, but I distinctly remember him wearing a suit in a casket. I don’t know why, but memory might serve me differently than the reality of it. That moment- I will never forget.

The room filled with tears and inconclusive sentences. He looked like him, but not. Something was off. He looked smaller than before. Of course, suffering from ALS will literally atrophy the body to something quite smaller, but his face… there was something in his face that looked off. It was him and not him at the same time. My younger mind fumbled with this paradox of viewing my grandfather’s lifeless body… as a stranger.

He meant the world to me, but at 11 years of age, I just didn’t have the tragic swell to cry or be upset. I’d known some of him, but by no means all of him. Doc was a complex man with a litany of layers and walls. All for good reason, but none of which I could understand at the time. I remember, at the age of 18, writing to my father that I no longer wanted to see or speak to him. However, running into him a year later, we broke bread, chatted… I referenced the “break-up” letter I sent him to which he conjured a glint in his eye, grinned criminally, and shortly said “You’ll understand when you get older”. I get it now.

Doc’s body was saying something. There was a statement there muddled in the reality of his death and physical departure. Something was there, and it would take a lifetime to understand it.

2015, February

My mother texts “Do you still want to view grandmother’s body at the funeral home?” Inversely to 22 years ago, I have the choice. No one is mandating I sit in an antiquated church-smelling room to take a gander at a lifeless body in relation to me. I reply “Yes”.

“This will be easy as it was before”, I think to myself. “I have the wherewithal of an adult mind, I can come and go as I please, and I can control my emotions as a grown man”, I expound.

I arrive early. The building is empty. Silent.

The acoustics of main entrance room swallow any sound made between the walls. Nothing can be heard. It feels to be a liminal space trapped between reality and the stars. Something is off here.

A man comes out to greet me. His tone is soft, his posture is perfect. “I’m here to see Carol” I tell him. Most assuredly the last time I will be able to say it. “Yes” he replies, “We’ll wait for your mother”.

I figured I could maybe go it alone since my mother wasn’t already there, and I could possibly get “this” over with. “I had visited grandma just a week ago, I remember what the woman looks like.” My mind reeling again. I grab a pamphlet from a kiosk and sit with it. “How To Cope With The Loss Of A Loved One” reads the pamphlet. The literature drags me through a roster of pitfalls in dealing with death. I get it. I’m ready.

My mother arrives, the soft spoken man leads us to the basement, and it hits me: This is the same funeral home Evan and I impatiently waited in our Sunday best outfits for our grandfather’s viewing of the body. The same church-scented air wafting through open space, I can’t help but scowl in its presence like revisiting an old enemy. I immediately regret coming back to this place. My veins course with fear stricken intimidation, I almost freeze in place and resist the march to the basement.

Descending onto the room, that same couch standing there, I feel everything- the air, the absence of sound, the dark walls, the vampiric curtains, my mother’s ease with the entirety of it all, and my own heart… beating slower and slower. This is it, this will be my mind’s undoing. All the anxiety, sadness, and deflation of the past 24 hours will come to a complete epoch in this next moment. 

Everything will rage, and I can feel it already stirring.

Standing in the room, every cell of me wants to run. The soft-spoken man opens a door to another room. “You can take time to process in here. Through that door, there is a hallway, she is there.” Respectfully, he exits.

My mother goes in first, I follow close after. And here it is.

The crying is uncontrolled at first, as my eyes fill, release and repeat. I look up and away, but the reality of her is inescapably chasing me down. Her body demands my eyes. I acquiesce.

I have loved no one more than this woman. I have loved no one as uniquely as I have loved this woman.

To me, she was and will always be the truth.

For her life, I would give my own. And bearing all of this in a hallway next to her lifeless body is a pressure my soul is crumbling beneath.

The ground shakes.

The walls move.

I recall my mother, not asking, but telling me to reach out and touch my grandfather’s arm or hand during his viewing of the body. I thought her to be a mad woman. I reached out to touch his arm, as my uncles and aunt, one by one kissed him gently on the forehead. I wanted nothing more than to get “it” over with.

But here. There is no evading the circumstance through innocence, youth or naivety. Everything in me and around me is shaking violently, and I cannot make it stop.

My vision blurs. The tears continue to pour.

Whatever my mother is saying goes mute beneath how loudly my grandmother’s body is filling the hallway. Against every fiber, cell and ounce of blood in me, I take a step toward her… and another… and another, until I am standing next to her. I reach my left hand out, and touch her forehead. And it disappears.

Time stops. The walls pause. My tears hault. Everything ceases.

In this is the purest moment I have ever felt in my life. She is with me, she is everywhere, and she is in me. Carol wanted nothing of the pageantry of drama or over doing anything. She had mastered the simplicity of joy. Her daily practice was compassion and not holding concern for which she could not control. She was peace… and in this moment, she is giving me that. The tears would run again while entering my car in the parking lot outside of the funeral home, but in this pristine moment as I am touching her forehead on this final day before she is cremated, there is pure and simple peace… and she continues to giving it to the world.

The scene mirrored that of Doc’s where she didn’t look to be herself. Something foreign about her face- something that wasn’t her.

My mother dialogued for a few seconds. The tears subsided for the moment. I kissed my hand and placed it on her forehead once more. “Ok” I said. “It’s time”.

We exited the hallway.

Once caught in the folds of the hallway, the undulating walls and thick air, I thought I’d never want to leave my grandmother’s side. But now, the peace swimming through me… it spoke too clearly. It was time.

I returned to my car, and wept for what felt like an eternity.

I called Evan later that day. We talked about the passing. There was a calmness in the tone of his voice. He had visited her hours just after she passed away at the intensive care unit. Seeming unwavered in his posture, a part of me presumes it to be his experience of losing his father, and parts of me believe it’s because he has to be. Each of us plays a role in our family, and everyday I’m finding the connections between us are infinite.

Carol meant life to me. Now, she means that and more.

It was just a week ago she was playing with her great grand-daughter cracking jokes and telling stories of Doc’s uncles and aunts.  But now…

Departing with Carol wasn’t the same as departing Doc’s viewing of the body. With Doc, even my younger mind was able to grasp that something was entirely unfinished with him, like the adventure had several more chapters to it. Again, it’ll take a lifetime for me to understand what that all means. However, with Carol, she knew- She was aware when death was upon her, and what it meant. She left everything behind.

Before her passing, and now after it, she means the world to me. And as sad, loud and heavily it weighs upon my heart, we must carry her legacy to the best of our ability and potential as a family.

To Carol. I’ll see you again someday.

With love, and nothing less than my heart,

Always your grandson, Toussaint Morrison

Sociology At Night

The Kitty Cat Klub perches with deep velvet colored décor and vampiric lighting. It had been some time since I’d performed a show there, however it felt like home. The placement of lights in the dark- always the true mark of a well versed venue. It reminded me of the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, MI. Regardless of the time of day, it always felt like night. I feel that way about the Kitty Cat Klub.

Brock and I had texted a few times earlier that night to meet at a house party yonder. Collecting my cash, and gathering the merch, I hit the door for my car. Already wounded, leaking coolant from a tube near the manifold, Honda was running on 70 to 60%. The single-digit temperature saw to it the engine didn’t immediately overheat until 10 minutes into the drive. I hopped in and made my way to the house party Brock was already in attendance.

Stepping in, the apartment delivered a similar ambiance to the Kitty Cat Klub. Wax candles melted to their placeholders, tie dye patterned cloth draped along the wall, the look of a domain of holistic healing.

We sat and watched the television for what felt like 10 minutes, but in real-time clocked over an hour. Brock leaned back in a vintage cream-colored chair across the room, while Hannah and her friends lounged the couch producing multi-colored clouds hovering eye-level.

Time blurred to what felt like a slow crawl, but was creeping on 4am at this point. The ambiance and conversation (or lack thereof) almost put me to a slumber. Bordering on half-asleep, I recognized a sound persisting from the television. An annoying bright whine from its speakers beat into the air like an injured car alarm. Turning to the television set, I realized it was now the 3^rd Iggy Azalea music video Hannah had playlisted.

“Ahh, she’s so bad”, I said without filter. “She’s a musical genius” crooned Brock.

Hannah quickly pointed out the “genius” in Iggy reproducing the movie Clueless into one music video, and that this particular work of hers was brilliant.

I nearly gagged. I don’t smoke. I don’t smoke anything, not cigarettes, not weed, not crack, not anything. And I never have. But if there were ever a high I was experiencing, it had been at the moment, and was currently being ruined. Yes, my high was getting ruined, and I was going to defend myself to the highest degree.

“Are you serious, right now?” I asked Hannah. I continued, “Iggy is appropriation in a bottle. That’s not even the way she talks- it ain’t her voice. She has a song where she says “when the relay starts, I’m a runaway slave master”. The woman is ridiculous!”

Hannah retorted, “ She is the best white female rapper out there, right now”.

This portion of the debate could have been perceived as civil, and most definitely would have if I hadn’t held Ms. Azalea so near and dear to my heart. However, Brock began declaring that her business model is flawless.

“Her manager is T.I.! He’s a minstrel on a VH1 reality tv show where they exploit the fact that his wife can’t read. He’s on record saying people need to get over race!?!?” I slammed.

The tie dye’s on the walls began spinning counter clockwise, while the music from the television speakers seemed to climb in treble- daring my ears to bleed, whilst the resin in the carpet started swimming with the rest of the inanimate objects on the ground. This is what it must feel like to think you’re going crazy. Looking up, I’d realized what I just said and that no one was going to empathize with the term “minstrel” or “appropriation”. I was screwed, and I just did it to myself. The discussion could end there and we could go on speaking of our Top 5 rappers of all time and make a civil love-in of it… But hell no. Once a brown guy in a room full of white people brings up appropriation… he’s solidified his place as “that guy” and will be given no such leniency to be anyone else.

Hannah held a calm face just as Brock and I hit a pause in our exchange. “Toussaint, it doesn’t have to be about race” she soothed. Ok, maybe she has a point. Maybe it can be the fact that our opinions just differ on the talent-level of Iggy Azalea and we can agree to disagree. “I just treat human beings as human beings. I don’t see a black person or a white person, I just treat people like people”.

If you stood close enough, you might’ve been able to see several atom bombs mushroom cloud in the reflection of my eyes. About my tired and sedated brain, a committed voice took over. There would be no helping anyone in this room to learn more about me, sociology, appropriation or hip-hop for that matter. It would be only one way, and that is mine. It was at this succinct moment in time that I knew I was going to say exactly what little to no people have told Hannah throughout her lifetime… and although it might mar her future for dialogue regarding race, I simple gave nil fucks at this juncture. I would be selfish, I would be fed up, and I would have none of what she just said.

“Oooohhh, I live in a post-racial world! I’m Jerry Garcia’s daughter, and I don’t have to see race because everything is fine and Disney” I sarcastically played about, and continued “Are you kidding me? Racial disparity in this city alone is top 3 in the country, and you’re going to sit here and refute a fact of socio-economics with me?”

… “You can leave” Hannah pierced with slight head jerk.

“Gladly” I responded immediately.

Once she claimed that she doesn’t see race (skin tone), I knew my response was going to be followed with an exit.

I grabbed my gloves and hit the road, carried the merch from the car to my house, and hit the bed.

… then it could have ended there, but for me it would not.

My stubborn, die hard, brick thoughted, (insert more here if you’d like), incredulous self, insisted on making a facebook post about the incident- because that’s what you do when you can’t have the moment any more, you look to the internet to revive the already dead corpse of the conversation. I thought nothing of it, until waking at the crack of noon, several hours later.

Checking my phone, I was notified there had been 15+ comments on said post. To my chagrin, I feared the commentary were to be barbs calling for my head, or worse yet, my social credibility. Alas, the comments referenced my use of the phrase “white privilege”… however after the 3^rd contribution, the commentary turned in on itself like a self-loathing Cerberus. A litany of verbal shots and slashes marked the post to a literary clash of clans. People were now calling each other out, passively exercising low-blows and cuts that strayed further and further away from the post’s initial intent.

I had created a monster.

I zoomed out from the facebook page, scrolled to my newly acquired Boom Beach app game and began to liberate islander slaves held captive by the Hammerman army. It was easy. I could turn away from the facebook commentary collision just like that and pretend it didn’t exist. I wouldn’t think about the commentary for the rest of the day... or until I had to deal with human beings again. Surely someone would stop me later to ask "Just what the hell was going on with that post you made yesterday/today?"

Regardless of the post, the discussion or experience of race is a life long dialogue for me. I once heard a man of color quoted "asking me not to deal with race is like asking me not to swim while I'm drowning."

Going back to Hannah’s apartment, Brock sitting across the room, the white women perched on the couch sedated and subject to a non-white guy clamoring of appropriation & white privilege… it must feel nice to tell him to leave the room soon as his words got under your skin- soon as he struck a personal nerve ending that wouldn’t be satisfied until he got the hell outta sight. The room could go back to its peace and not have to discuss a single article of race, let alone think of it. I wondered if it felt anything like zooming out of an online commentary and switching to the next app…

Paul & I Are Going To Arm This Laser Cannon, And Then I'll Tell You "I Love You"

It was the alien invasion one again.

It starts at night- it always starts at night- and it never turns to daylight no matter how much time spans throughout the dream. Daylight is not welcome. Christ, if only once there were sunlight during these things, there’d be the off chance I’d wake up knowing immediately that the pending death resting overhead like a mothership wasn’t actually real. I’d be able to differ the lucid and reality even before I woke up. Alas, the alien invasion dream has never operated on such terms.

It begins at what seems to be an outside bon fire in a cabin district. My family and I sit outside of our home log cabin, where seemingly the dozen of us all live- The damn thing is tiny and barely looks to fit a honeymoon, but apparently dreams make space for the incomprehensible. My friend and old co-worker from the Old Spaghetti Factory, Paul, is there for what seems to be perfectly natural in him joining my family. Ok, first indication this is not reality- Paul joining my extended family for a bon fire in the cabin district. But no, I’m still suspended in belief that this is real.

The aliens never show themselves. It’s never a “boo” or a hop out from behind the bush with a laser cannon- it’s a known. Our dinner round the campfire dissipates under the general understanding that “Oh shit, it’s about that time. The aliens are coming.”

A television lights up in the cabin with news reports of what we already know… because we’re psychic like that. The first to leave are my uncle Dave and his house members. His wife and kids somehow scurry into the bushes like snipers blurring with the background. Myself, Paul and my mother have no such skills. My sister and her husband go ninja vanish into the night air, while Paul and I remember the giant DIY laser cannon, the aliens left behind from the last invasion, is in the cabin.

I should remind you that I’ve only had this dream one other time, and I distinctly remember this device being left behind from the last invasion. Poor suckers, Paul and I were going to set this bitch off and give these bastards a taste of their own medicine.

Dragging the device near the fire, it looks to be an oversized propane tank. The liquid inside is yellow from the tint of the see-through shell, while the bottom half is pure metal with a vent outlying. Of course Paul muscles the thing to what he believes is the this-side-up way of setting it. “No, look at the directions, dammit Paul!” I yell. I look at the device closely. Broken English written backwards appears on the shell of it. One of two things is happening now- I can read alien, or the alien’s written language is that of backwards broken English.

Mind you at our moment of deciding which half is the bottom of the device, motherships are floating 400m overhead. Their lights bursting at the sight of earth’s surface dwellers, ready to colonize our cabin district, I fumble with the alien device and bump the top (or what I believe is the top) nozzle and it turns out of its own volition. It speaks to me where only I can hear it, Paul stands by. “Device now on, get ready for detonation” it murmurs. I hated the device now. We stored the damn thing from the last invasion, held onto it like a gun bestowed from Jesus in case the 2^nd coming were to arrive, and this is how it repays me- in a miscommunicative nozzle nudge that’s now going to take me along with it in its detonation. Born for one thing: to shoot a lazer skyward. For a moment, Paul and I stand next to the device, now pointing up at the motherships hovering above, and feel a sense of union.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said patients on their death bed have the profound ability to say “I love you” unfiltered with 100% compassion and presence. Living under the presumption you’ll live another day, confuses the words and intent. If it all went down tomorrow- fuck it, if it were to all go down in a few seconds I’d be able to look a few folks in the eye with undoubted contrition and say “I love you”.

Knowing we were about to go down with an alien laser cannon detonation, Paul and I didn’t say “I love you”, we just stared at the oversized-propane-tank looking device like it were a newly attached limb to our body- a necessary heart or artery soon to explode. We needed it, but it would be our undoing.

A yellow hue glows from the rim of the cannon. “You have 5 minutes” it murmurs in a female robotic tone of synthetic voice. The kumbaya moment shatters, Paul and I make a fucking break for it. He, one way; I, the other with my mother who was apparently somewhere nearby the entire time.

I run alongside my mom, who hobbles in stride with me. She’s keeping up amazingly well for the age of 60-something. Others, from the cabin district, scurry in our direction, passing us up, bumping into my mother.

Long jumping down a staircase, my mother and I are sprinting atop a portion of the cabin district made from wood bridges, pathways and steps. I easily adopted the underground Goblin Village from The Hobbit movie as the backdrop for this in the recess of my mind. Her leg goes through a faulty board while running down a staircase. People are in full sprint, now. The swarm of humans coast around us like flooding waters would a tree trunk. We’re stuck- well my mother is stuck.

It’s at this moment I realize the world is going to end.

Nothing is going to matter.

That damn device is going to fire off and take out at least one of the alien ships… but not enough to stop the rest of them from colonizing our planet.

The interstellar foreigners will whitewash our history from the galaxy, and not a single fucking thing will be remembered of the silly humans that thought they had a grasp on this thing called life and imperialism. We’ll be forgotten.

And that’s ok.

What isn’t ok, is if I leave my mother stuck in a floorboard before it all goes down. We’ll be forgotten, but I won’t forget this moment. I can make a break for it and suffer the world’s end for a few seconds more… alone, or I can suffer it a few seconds less  and help my mom up and try to keep up with the crowd.

I choose the latter. She springs up, almost damn near twice as fast than before, and we find shelter in a cabin on the edge of the district near a body of water.

…

I peer my eyes open to a room. My room. Sunlight bleeds through broken shades onto unopened boxes and comic books. The alien invasion is a dream. Possibly a reoccurring mind-fuck to remind me that nothing is promised, and someday you might have to tell someone you truly love them when the time isn’t called for.

When the apocalypse strikes, bless it, nothing is going to matter after it goes down.

However, for now, a few things matter to me.

Deal Breaker: When Talking About Race With Your Significant Other Leads To Resentment

I recently wrote a song titled “Kolvoord Startburst”. In it, there is a short story I rap over a single verse. A few friends asked me about it, so I’d like to put it in prose. It’s been awhile… for me and prose, but I’m going to give it my best. And furthermore, hopefully bring you stories as frequently as I once did.

There was a time one of us would have said we were in love. And then there was a time where the other would’ve said we were in love. Our timing was often so off that it played like a game of love only while the other hates… now change roles.

It was a Minnesota Saturday, just like any other, we strolled about the Walker Sculpture Garden speaking of the future and places we’d love to visit. I’d always admired her for the stretch of her imagination beyond the small town-demeanor of the Midwest. Chicago is nice, but what about Ibiza- Segovia- Tokyo? Nothing was out of grasp, everything was attainable… it felt like sometimes, when you were with her.

As couples do during talks of the future, they get the talking about themselves. The dialogue can go one of several thousand ways- civil, resentful, futile, simple, basic, etc. How the conversation turned into what it was- well, I’ll never quite remember how it got there, but I can tell you about the surge of blood and serotonin that occurred as a result. I can tell you about the realizations that color your brain as the words pierce deeper into your pride & principles as a man. And sadly, I can tell you about the denial that you’ll blanket over the wound as the quickest means to healing- healing in the sense of duct tape over a severe laceration. It covers the injury now, but gives no means for long term rehabilitation.

I believe one should ask themselves everyday “How did we get here?”… as well as couples. The question is fair, and therefore the answer will be fair as well. “Fair” does not mean kind or nice, it simply means it will balance what there is that needs balancing, and if there is something completely out of whack, the answer will bring about some clarity.

After discussing visitable cities across the globe, we turned to our jobs. She had previously visited my job as a youth worker at the West 7^Th Community Center in St. Paul. And after watching a litany of bi-racial youth, from a low income neighborhood, jump about the outdoor festival we had thrown, we- obviously- began talking about ourselves. Her curiosity and intrigue from the West 7^Th visit spun her to monologue a streamline of consciousness...

“I mean, it must be so confusing for them [bi-racial children]. Who do they ascribe to? Are they white- are they black? Do black children accept them or do the white kids?”

I interrupted briefly, “Well, my sister wrote a paper about this when she was in high school, because her and I are-"

“I mean, I can’t imagine how tough that must be, and the picture of a family like that”, her consciousness continued vocally.

The tone turned from intrigue to pity for bi-racial youth. Unto this day, I can’t say verbatim how the conversation went from there, but I can tell you standing in the eye of someone you love while they question your existence as a person of color- there is no better way to break a heart.  

I held my breath… because holding your breath isn’t half as painful as biting your tongue.

She continued on as if I wasn’t there. Although she knew I was there, she didn’t know she was speaking to a bi-racial man that came from the exact family picture she held in question.

Yes, it’s now appropriate to ask yourself, “How the fuck did we get here?”

I was, in every sense of the word, defeated. I shamed myself felt most of all because I couldn’t find the words or timing to explain to her that what she said had hurt more than any deliberate attack of racially charged chutzpah. So, there we were. A blonde gal and a brown guy slowly disintegrating amidst the fertilizer in Walker Sculpture Garden.

Later on, I’d try to drive home all the sociological points I knew to be true, but she would have none of them. The simple nature of speaking against her misinformation was insulting for her… And it was then, I realized I could not have children with this woman. As awesome and kind hearted she could be, there was no way in this universe that I’d allow it. Because if it happened to happen, I might one day have to sit a bi-racial kid down and explain to her (or him) why mommy just said some over the top racially charged phrasing. If you can avoid that conversation, do it.

Then came the shame. Questions of “You’ve been with her over a year, how did I not know she felt like this about people of color?”, “How have we not had this conversation yet?”, and “Was the West 7^th Community Center relative to Fear Of A Black Planet?!?!?!” My psychi tumbled until I made it stop. I told myself it was a fluke. We went on for 6 more months and then broke up. I resented everything from that point on, and will say not a shred of it was worth it beyond the sculpture garden. Sometimes you have to find out, to understand what’s at stake for you in the future… that’s my hope.

 

Furthermore, beyond her and I, much of the city- much of hip-hop in Minneapolis withheld the same misinformation as her. And so, I was to continue into a community of artists and people that I’d have to manage to have the same conversation with. Some hold it better than others- some are willing to remove personal insult from it and take the reality for what it is (that we don’t live in a post-racial society), and some have been able to sit down, have a beer, and hold a civil exchange. What I learned that day in the Walker Sculpture Garden, is that she might never have to have the conversation again, and lord willing I hope not. But, that conversation- whether with friends, cops, significant others, or even family- will be inescapable for me for the rest of my life… and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Missing Patrick

Upon a weekday morning somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday, the three of us walked from the showers to the Richfield Middle School pool. Patrick, Bryce and I begrudgingly made a slow strut to the damn cold pool for a morning swim practice at an ungodly hour only stock brokers, coffee shop openers, and swimmers were privy to suffer.

It was my first morning practice in months, so I didn’t mind the extreme circumstances. However, for Patrick and Bryce, they had been attending morning practices the entire season. How they managed to fit school and a social life into a season full of two-a-days was beyond me. I didn’t have the threshold to love the sport and endure 6am practices at the same time.

The sun still rising, the city still asleep, Patrick stood at the edge of the pool- a tall, lanky sophomore with a gift to gab and a butterfly stroke to merit a state top-10 ranking, he made the toughest practice look easy. “Hey, Bryce. Know why swimming sucks more than every other sport?” he said while snapping his goggles into place. Bryce slugged at the edge of the pool, stretching/stalling before jumping in. “No, I don’t know why” Bryce returned. “Because you don’t have to jump into a cold pool at 6 in the morning” Patrick punchlined, sprung up from the edge of the pool and cannonballed into the deep end.

Whatever pain and patience the pool asked of us, we gave it. We swam for the city of Minneapolis that year, representing South High School. We were the last great swimmers the city would ever see, and a year removed from the greatest swim team (1998 – 1999 Minneapolis South H.S.) to ever compete for Minneapolis. It was the final year before all the public high schools would be collectively mashed closer and closer to one another until it was one swim team amongst all the schools. This was large in part due to the school board’s lack of funding, ability to recognize athletics as a prominent aspect of education, and overall inability to perform their job... but I digress.

Pushing and pulling through a 3000yd+ practice, Patrick may have joked on the deck, but his actions spoke differently in the pool. He and Bryce seemed to be somewhat of training partners throughout that final swim season. The monotony of staring at a straight, tiled line on the bottom of a pool can make a modern man go insane. We leaned and fell upon each other for the inspiration to keep competing, more than we would admit then. Without Bryce or Patrick for my senior season, I don’t believe I would’ve ever qualified for the state meet that year. They set a bar and example beyond words or school pride.

Almost a decade later, 2010, Patrick passed away for circumstances unknown to me. I can’t say I was close friends or even a strong acquaintance to him, but there was a time we were teammates… and that was all it took to reduce me to a puddle of salty tears and uncontrollable weeping when I received the news of his death.

It’s 2014, and I still miss him… as much I miss the comradery and foundation of swimming with your best friends and teammates for seasons at a time.

Unleashed The Dragon

A team of young gents decided to take on the costumes of super heroes for Hamline University’s International Dodgeball competition. They were down to two competitors in the 2^nd round of their game versus the Rag Tags. I wouldn’t assume their team name was the Rag Tags, but due to the amount of tattoos, lean muscle, and gray hairs, they had the look of an aging gang from The Warriors.

I had the time, as I waited with my team to compete in the championship round. The Rag Tags were down to one player against the two costumed super heroes. A lone 40-something year-old woman with a dark shirt and yoga pants steadied herself on the short side of the court ready for the heroes to unleash, what they hoped would be, the final throws to out her from the game. When a team is down to one member, the rules state that the opposing team can cross the middle line to a red line that marks ¾ of the court. Least to say, the 40-something was in dire straits.

Her dexterity maneuvered her through the first onslaught of three dodge balls from the teen-boys. They were all high- the woman literally matrix’d back, leaning to her tailbone, bending both knees in an awkward position and then rolling over back to balance. The teen titans regathered slower than molasses. They reloaded for what felt like the length of a Will & Grace episode, and returned to the red line.

You see, the Rag Tags were up a round on the costume crusaders, so if this 40-something woman were to oust the young gents, she’d have won the game for her team of tattooed dodge ballers.

The teen-boys, lethargic in their pursuit, made a game-ending mistake. The kid dressed in superman tights, dawning superman underwear over them, took his sweet-ass time to wind up his throw. Just as he prepped back, he hesitated. Poor sucker, I couldn’t feel bad for him by the time he’d realized he’d been moving too slow for the game. She’d already unleashed a small ball high enough to dodge, but superboy was already caught in his own fear of missing. He’d dismissed the fact that she’d had a cannon on her, and as the small ball pegged him in the elbow, he stood there for a moment. It looked that his brain was lagging behind the actual real-time event.

Super-teen dropped his head, looked off to the upper-right, shamed himself with a small murmuring from his lips, the crowd cheered… and before we (the audience) even knew it, the woman had unloaded the final blow.

It’s important to take note, here, that these people didn’t just mosey into a dodgeball tournament on a Sunday in the middle of St. Paul for absolutely no reason. They’d entered with intent and the deliberate goal to end every other team against them. So, there would be no reason to throw a middle-aged woman to the wolves unless she was able to wipe the smirk off your presumptuous face with a foam ball across the jaw.

Wearing an X-Men t-shirt, super-boy’s compatriot was the last one standing on his team. His prep was even slower, he’d reacted so poorly that the woman had enough time to grab another ball, wind up and release. By the time he realized what the hell was going on… he was out. She struck him with the same blow that had taken out super-teen beforehand.

The crowd erupted in absolute hysteria.

I felt compelled to run out and do cartwheels until my arms gave out, grown men jumped up and down as if the Vikings had just surprisingly won the super bowl (or anything), the other festively dressed teams fist pumped and gathered round the woman. Her team began cheering a chant that seemed pre-scripted before the game. And as the super-teens pathetically lowered their heads in a state of disbelief, and other teams hoisted her into the air cheering her, you could think nothing outside of how much that could make someone’s month, let alone year. Any of us would be privileged to blast two super-hero dressed 19-year olds out of a dodgeball competition… at any point of our lives.

A Missing Element To The Rhyme Scheme

Cast deep into the back of the Spyhouse on Hennepin Ave, across the street from Fifth Element, we sat at the room’s center table. His girlfriend checked in and out on her phone while he and I wrote the final 4-bar exchanges for a song. In what felt like two hours, but was only a half, we finished the final verse of our song.

Wrapping up, he asks “So… why are you letting me… even be on this?” This, meaning the mixtape.

It was an obvious question, and should have been a given before we sat down to go to work. I stand absolutely nothing to gain by letting some kid from the burbs feature on a project of mine. I could’ve easily reached out to collaborate with a more staple name and brand, but it might’ve gone redundant in the features already amassed on the past mixtapes.

What it comes down to is the kid's brimming with potential talent. and if I throw my name in the hat of assholes who have limited his opportunities, then I’m no better than the whitewashed hip-hop elitism coursing through Minneapolis already.

“Good question…” I watched my words carefully. This isn’t a question I wanted to answer, because I knew if asked, I’d be cornered into a brutally honest response which I wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear. “After I taught the workshop you participated in, you reached out to me to feature on your song. I turned it down. So, figured to put the offer out there to collaborate on this, because when I was in your position, I emailed, called and reached out to artists in town as well- to maybe open up for them at a show, feature on a track, or something, anything. I’d reach out to a lot of artists for help and support, when I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing… and hardly any of them ever got back to me. Begrudgingly, every single one of them that didn’t get back to me… I never forgot. This city is the exact opposite in regards to what I’ve experienced in other artist communities. In Brooklyn, we’d collaborate, exchange numbers, commiserate, give each other guidance. In Milwaukee, everyone is seemingly down to offer help, or willing to book you for something at the drop of a hat. But here…  it’s this.”

Detail wasn’t necessary at this point. We had an understanding of the “this”. I forwent the racial connotations, did delve into the politics, and left it at a point of “it’s up to you”.

Regardless of another community’s proactivity toward assisting artists, Minneapolis might damn near break your spirit to take another stage. 

If this kid has any sense he’ll either remain in town to make the scene a better place than it already is… or run. If he wasn’t white, I’d advise him to take up the latter.