The Last of the Villagers

I had a dream the night before last, one of the poignant ones that made all too much sense. No metaphors. No symbolism. Just a truth. As I may have alluded to it, I plan on making my directorial debut sometime before the end of the year. I'll be working on a documentary project based on my memoir, The House on Childress Street. A part of that project was for me to connect with my childhood best friend Butchie, who did a pretty long bid (at least ten years) and from what I'd heard was back on the streets. My father had run into his father a few years back. So I at least knew that part of his family was in the area. I was looking forward to tracking him down, putting my journalistic and detecting skills to wok on a personal quest. Butchie would be one of the few boys who survived our neighborhood, Fairfax Village, without moving away. Most of the others I know are either dead or in jail. I, by way of Morehouse, got out when I was 17.

Rich and Kris came by for a visit Saturday night and I found myself talking about Butchie, knowing that I'd be seeing him again. I wondered how much of our freidnship he would even remember. But when my guests left I remembered feeling tired, more tired than I should have been for that time of night. So I went to bed early.

Somewhere behind my eyes I found myself standing at close range with Butchie's father, a man who I had known for most of my life to have perm and to drive a classic Corvette, a man whose band used to practice in his living while we played upstairs. So we're standing there at the M6 bus stop. He's wearing a hoodie, something more fitting of his son. I tell him I'm doing a documentary abotut he neighborhood and he says that he's doing one too. I tell him I want to interview his son. He tells me that Butchie became a crackhead afterhe got out of jail. Now he's dead.

I came awake in the middle of the night. Sure the images could have been merely the result of my subsconscious fears. But my record for precognition is getting a little better with time. I have seen pregnancies before their announcement. I have seen and heard meetings before they went down. I dreamt my Grandad dying the night before he did. So I don't know. But now I have to find out.

It will be easy enough to look into the fate of my former best friend. But if what I feel is right, I'm not sure of how I'll react to it. It will make me the keeper of so many memories that have been lost in death and traumatic time, and myself one of the few survivors of an era that took so many.

Sometimes I feel like I've been doing more hiding in Brooklyn than anything else, choosing a locale that was the closest thing to home that I could find that might suit me. As the crew is gone and as nuptuals and diapers and day care take precedence I'm wondering if I have a reason to be here much longer. Sure there's training I have to complete. Sure there will always be world to explore. But my sisters are in high school now. My parents are in middle age. My cousin will finish college soon and most likely seek me out for guidance in his life as a man. Maybe it's time for me to finally go home.

I know I waffle back and forth about this here. And even if I were to make a decision it wouldn't be for at least a year. But right now there's something attractive about being a short drive away from my parents, or seeing Bassey and E or having lunch with my grandmothers or whatever. For a good while I thought I might end up here forever, a prince in someone else's kingdom. But now I don't think so anymore. Only time will tell.

I hope my friend isn't gone. I hope my gut isn't right. I hope I won't end up as the one left to tell the tale. But then again I've been telling the tales of the forgotten since I was nine. We'll see I guess. We'll see. Out.