Jinx (1) Entry: JINX June 14th 2001 I tasted southern sin with a girl who was just perfection Had a two room condo back in a wealthy section Of the Florida flatlands where she had me kept in A wicked trance for a day Well I kind of sort of knew what was going to happen When she and a friend came and met me in Atlanta I professed my love in an animalistic manner Like an endless foreign flick my subtitles were sick Like Jessica Rabbit she collects bad habits gets her drinks for free Animated vixen stole Cupid's arrow and came to rescue me In the blink of an eyelid my lid opened up and I could see That she'd come to rescue me Well I kind of sort of saw the sirens coming She was running toward me wearing almost nothing And my heart beat skipped when she bent down at the hip And her lips pressed against mine Here she comes to rescue me I'm not gonna blink cause I wanna see I wanna see her come Here she comes --Rescue, Eve6 “Don’t do anything stupid.” My father, Langston Robert Morgan, had his hand on my shoulder, and he was looking me in the eye. I was scared shitless. Not that my dad himself had me quaking in my boots, although he IS and imposing figure being large 6’2 black man. I’d seen many a sales person come over to try and sell my father something. All he had to do was look at them funny and they’d piss their pants, apologize, and walk away in search of other customers and another pair of unsoiled pants. No, it was the advice he’d just given me two seconds ago, the same 4 words he’d been saying to me for most of my life. Those four little fucking words were about to ruin my whole damn vacation. “Jesus dad, I wish you hadn’t said that.” My mother, Zora, slapped me on the back of the head. “Watch your mouth, Mackenzie! Jesus, I’ve told you a hundred times, to watch that.” Somehow the message just wasn’t getting through. Imagine that. The two parental units, Langston Morgan (age 50), Zora Neale-Morgan (age 42) and I were standing on porch of our modest, tan cookie-cutter house in Highland. (And yes tan is a horrible color for a house) The sun was setting here in the suburbs (it being about 8:00 at night) and I had my last bag in hand to put in the trunk. But now--now I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to Ocean City. Mr. Morgan had ruined my whole vacation, I just friggin knew it. “I’m sorry ma, it’s just that…dad, you know I hate it when you say that, it’s like a jinx.” I said. “Look boy,” my dad started, “If it was your sister I wouldn’t have to say that, but since it’s you, I have to. I know you, I raised you, that’s the best advice I can give you.” It was the worst advice he could have given me. My father had been saying those same four words to me for years. It was like a sign of bad things to come. * * * 1. The First Day of School: “Don’t do anything stupid, son.” I was suspended the same day for getting into a fight with some kid stole my chocolate milk and poured it in my little Afro. 1. The First Day I Rode My Bike to School 5th Grade: “Be careful, son. Don’t do anything stupid.” I got hit by a station wagon trying to cross the street; the car sped off. I walked the rest of the way to school with my new birthday bike ruined on a broken foot. The school nurse refused to believe my story. 1. My First Date 8th Grade: “Women are sensitive creatures, son. Don’t do anything stupid. It spoils ‘the mood’.” Like I knew what the hell he meant. I went on my first typical movie/dinner date with Jessica Sams; her mom drove us to the mall. Everything was going fine till afterwards she decided to go shopping for shoes in Nordstrom’s. Like any eighth grade girl though, she had to make a brief stop at the perfume counter. In a bout of playfulness, she sprayed me with some Calvin Klein perfume, when I reciprocated; she promptly slapped the hell out of me and dumped my ass on the spot. I swore off dating for two years after that. 1. My First Shave, Age 14: “It’s a razor son. Be careful, and don’t do anything stupid.” We were vacationing in Williamsburg, Virginia, staying at The Embassy Suites hotel. My concentration on not slicing open my jugular kept me from noticing that I’d thrown my towel on my mother’s incense candle that she’d left burning. The resulting fire, and activation of the sprinkler system caused the need for a full hotel evacuation. We’re still banned from the premises. 1. My First Time Driving, Age 15: “Cars are very delicate, very large and very EXPENSIVE machines, son. Don’t do anything stupid.” While driving around in the (seemingly) empty parking lot at the mall, I managed to smash my dad’s Jeep Cherokee into the only other car in the lot, way on the other side from where we’d started. Luckily there was no one inside. My dad never took me driving again. Somehow he’d managed to avoid the big events for the last couple years, like getting my license (age 16), and proms (junior prom, age 17 and senior prom, age 18) but he was back with those four lovely words for graduation. A half an hour later I tripped on the stairs to the stage and fell headfirst into the poor alumni bastard handing out diplomas. My mother (and half of the parents in the audience) caught it on film; she played it at my celebration BBQ. Jesus Christ. I never should have left the house that evening. I was cursed…marked…doomed from the get-go, yet I still hugged my parents and said goodbye, popped the last bag in the trunk and headed off to Ocean City. With two minor stops on the way, of course. * * * Senior week, however, is a seven-day period, eighteen years in the making. EVERYTHING that you have ever done since the doctor slapped you on the ass in the delivery room is training for this event. From the cradle to the sandbox, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school and high school, saying your first word, learning to talk, learning to walk, watch TV, your first day of school, your first date, first kiss, and finally losing your virginity (if you were lucky); it’s all preparation for what are truly the first days of the rest of your life. Their scope is so vast and monumental that I believe that should you develop amnesia (or something like that), any and all flashbacks from your life should be from Senior Week. And why not?! I ask you. Think about it. You’re at the beach after all. Miles and miles from authority for a good 7 solid days (if you don’t count the cops). That’s 168 hours or 10,080 minutes, or 604,800 seconds (depending on how you look at it) where you don’t have to hear: “Do the dishes!” or “Clean your room!” or “Stop trying to kill your sister!” You don’t even have to see your ‘rents or worry about whether you picked up the gallon milk they asked you to pick up on the way home. You don’t have to worry about your crappy minimum wage paying job, and can finally enjoy the money that the government didn’t steal from you. Peace of mind. FREE AT LAST! It all follows y’see? Not only that, but the beach is one of the best places in the world. A sacred place. A tranquil place. A place of fun and arcades. A place of much scantily clad booty. Oh. My. God. Things being as they are at Senior Week, I have been told (from very reliable sources) that even the most timid of guys like Randy and me finally have good to great chances of getting laid, thanks to the wonders of alcohol, may they never cease. (Even though neither of us drinks) Finally I don’t have to be as good looking and cool as Aurora James, or as popular and cool as Tom Jenkins to see some action. I can be the largely unpopular, shy, guitar playing black guy I truly am and girls will finally give me the time of day. Finally, there is a God, and he’s on my friggin side for once. And I was not going to let my father or those four stupid little words ruin it for me goddammit! * * * Angel’s house was the first stop in my journey to land of equal opportunity booty, though that was not the kind of mindset I had on the way to my destination. And that, in itself is because of whom I was meeting. Jesus, I hate to say this, but it’s the only way it makes sense. Angel is my platonic girlfriend. And fuck you for laughing at my pain. It’s true though. In this—in my, P.C., Dawson’s Creek, Friends, MTV, AOL instant messenger-influenced existence, it is the only term I can think of to describe my real life Joey Potter or Rachel Green. Actually for me, Aurora would be Joey and Rosey would be Rachel if I want to be accurate. But what I’m trying to say is that besides Aurora and Rosey, she was the girl who I spent the most of my time with, and who I’d known the longest out of the three. By the way, I find it extremely disturbing that in my entire pop-culture repertoire, I have no black shows that I can relate this to. I don’t get into racial stuff that often, but that really friggin pisses me off. Saved by the Bell comes the closest I guess (which is just sad), and if I were Zack Morris, Angel would be Kelly Kapowski. But with my luck, I’d end up as Screech, in which case Angel would be Lisa Turtle, although that only works because both girls are black. Not that I’m white. Cause I’m not. Anyway… It was that particular fact that caused me to bond with her when we initially met in 3rd grade all those years ago. Suddenly finding myself in a land of predominately white folk (Columbia, Maryland) at the age of 8, after moving from Baltimore City (predominately black) when my dad got a new job out here, made me seek out people of familiar color…initially. Angel had been born in Columbia however, and knew the ropes and all the ins and outs. And that was good, cause I barely understood what the hell people were saying. So we clicked, and she was pretty, even then. Definitely mixed (dad being black, mom being white) she had a very light cinnamon brown skin color, or what we black folk would call “High yellow.” Whatever. Her hair was her most exotic feature though; it was a mixture of jet black with red highlights (or strands or patches or whatever) that I assume she got from her mother (who was auburn-haired). She was always a very thin girl, but all of a sudden high school rolled around and the gods smiled upon her, giving her luscious, child bearin’ hips, generous breasts, and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of. Hell, you could bounce a fountain full of quarters off that ass. It was round, tight, full and firm. Oh. My. God. If I had a dime for every time she caught me staring at her ass… You get the picture. I got hit…a lot. She wasn’t very tall, bout 5’5”, with short (but powerful) legs, and her cute little feet looked really sexy in a pair of Sketcher tennis shoes. I dunno why, but that was a big turn on for me. (I swear, one day I’m going to have to get a shrink to deal with all my issues) Anyway, we were friends since 3rd grade and all, and we rode the same bus to school all the way up through High School, when I started walking to Aurora’s house instead of riding the bus home. Up till then, we’d been “school friends” (i.e. someone you are only really friends with for the duration of the school day) and I’d been in groups with her on field trips (how I met her mom), and I had a little crush on her, but so what? Then one day in 9th grade she changed the nature of our relationship. I was shoving some books, binders and other assorted crap into my already full locker, when she crept up behind me and poked me in the side, causing me to drop all my crap on the floor. She laughed; I blamed God. “Thanks, Angel,” I was sarcastic. (A phase I was going through at the time and never quite grew out of) She grinned innocently, then punched me on the shoulder. “Why don’t you ride the bus anymore?” she asked in a pout. “I miss you making me laugh and telling jokes and stuff. Now I don’t have anyone to talk to.” “Welcome to my world.” I bent down and started picking books up. She laughed. “See! I miss that! You should start riding the bus again.” “I can’t. I have band practice.” “So do you get a ride everyday?” “No, I walk to Aurora’s house. She lives like five minutes away.” “Aurora James? The new girl?” I nodded, and for a brief microsecond, what looked like jealousy made a brief trip across Angel’s pretty round face. She looked at me with her puppy-dog brown eyes. Jesus Christ. “Well what am I supposed to do? I miss your jokes, Mack.” “Be that as it may, I can’t help ya. I have to go otherwise Randy will bitch, moan and holler about me missing practice.” She frowned, and then smiled as an idea formed in her head. “We have the same lunch shift.” She stated. “That we do.” I agreed. “So eat at my table today.” I cringed at the idea. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Angel.” See, Angel ran with the prep crowd at school. Or at least the major preppy girls in our class, seeing that she was a cheerleader in the spring and they shopped at the same store, Abercrombie and Fitch. Ugh. But I didn’t hold that against her…too much anyway. In fact, it was one of the things that attracted me to her. She ran with such a regal crowd, yet she herself wasn’t so regal. She wasn’t a sell-out, and she wasn’t a thug-girl stereotype in that she spoke in (mostly) proper English, and that made her unique, and a kindred spirit. Though she did have a thing for country music that I couldn’t fathom, she redeemed herself by also being a fan of the greats like Ella Fitzgerald, and Louie Armstrong. Country music, R&B, and old time (big band and jazz) music, and classical to top it all off. Totally unique, she was the cheerleader that volunteered at an old folks home a few blocks from her house. Always wanting to be spontaneous, but she was too wound up and ended up planning everything (which is why I tried to make her laugh). At least, she understood why I didn’t want to hang out at her table with her preparatory field hockey, cheerleading, and tennis playing girlfriends. She pouted again, then said, “At least walk with me to class.” And so it began. Walking to class became talking over the Internet (damn digital age), and then hanging out at her house (she only lived a few blocks from me anyway), and then hanging out at the movies and such. It got to be more frequent when I started driving, and let’s not forget school dances. We went to all of them together of course (including Prom), as I was her “best guy friend” as she put it. Translation: she pretended I had neither the raging hormones of a teenage boy or the natural penis that is standard issue for all males. Still, if she needed a date, or someone to hang out with on a random Saturday night (because she never “officially” dated anyone), I was her platonically neutered pal. And she, my platonic girlfriend. I mean really, who needed to date other chicks when I was not-really dating this beautiful girl (sure felt like it cause I usually paid for everything). I figured she’d give herself a mental head slap and come around eventually, though I often got into heated debates with my penis over our lack of physical intimacy. Four years later, I was still hoping for that head slap. You might wonder why Aurora was my best friend instead of Angel. Well to be honest, Aurora is the only girl I can safely go to with problems over and over and not fall for. It’s impossible for me to be that intimate with any other girl but Aurora and not start to feel some sort of cosmic connection (which gets me into a lot of trouble). Eventually I realized I wasn’t bullshitting myself when I would say to Randy “No, I’m *not* attracted to Aurora.” That bridge had been crossed, like I said. Whereas, with Angel I must have just missed the bridge, but she assumed I crossed it anyway. Maybe it was because she was kinda shallow (she always described me as ‘so deep’), but I really don’t know myself, so don’t try to figure it out. Not even I know how my twisted mind works sometimes. Besides, who could be (or wanted to be) “just friends” with a girl with a rack and an ass like that? Sweet God above. “Are you looking at my ass?” she asked, her head in the trunk of her car as she bent over from the waist. “No.” “Liar.” “You know it.” I grinned. Angel turned and smiled at me and stuck out her tongue, then closed the trunk of her 00’ (forest) green Jeep Cherokee and fully turned to block my view. She was on her way to Ocean City too. Well, close, she was going to Assateague Island (yes, the place with all the wild horses, Angel has a thing for them), which was a stone throw away from my Senior Week destination. She and her best (female) friend, Mary Christine, had rented a moderate camper to pull along with them, so they could stay out there a few days. The day had been a scorcher, following the pattern of the summer, so far. I hadn’t been affected by it too much, I guess, as I was wearing one of my many DRAGONBALL Z t-shirts and a light blue pair of (overly) baggy Tommy Jeans. Angel however, was dressed for the day’s previous heat with a white, form-fitting, A&F tank top and light khaki shorts that barely covered her delicious derrière. I ogled all her curves openly as the setting sun made them all kinds of pretty colors. Indigo, man. “Why do you do that?” Angel asked. “Why Miss Withers, whatever are you referring to?” I asked innocently. “God, I give up.” She said, rolling her eyes. “You’re hopeless.” “You’re right. I can’t help myself.” I told her. “Down boy!” Mary Christine called from the porch as she came through the screen door. Damn. Unlike, most of Angel’s friends, Mary was someone I could actually stand—hell, even liked, as a person. She had this very feminine voice that made her sound like a radio personality; she’d make a great Tele-marketer. Miss Christine was also a rarity: a down-to-earth cheerleader who was pretty to boot. Go figure. Being a little taller than Angel at 5’6”, Mary had kinda pale skin, long brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and a very athletic, curvy figure. She didn’t have all of Angel’s ‘natural assets’, but she could certainly charm the trouser snake if you know what I mean. “Mary did you get the camera from my mom?” Angel asked as Mary approached with a cat-that-ate-the-canary look. I feigned innocence. “Uh-huh. But she said if it gets dropped or broken, don’t bother coming home without a replacement.” Mary reported. “Overly dramatic.” Angel sighed. “Hey! I like your mom.” I countered. “You like her because she makes you sandwiches when you come over.” Angel shot at me. She put her hands on her hips. Oh yeah. “You know me too well.” “I know not to turn my back on you.” She smiled.
Copyright © 2001 MacKenzie Morgan |