When is tthe best time to give a lecture? In the middle of the night and when you are buzzin' like a cousin of course.

Well after my denial I was on my way home when I realized I was near my ex's parent's house. I told them that I was going to stop by and have lunch with them or something before I left but I had been so busy I hadn't had a chance to do it. I had talked to my ex's Mom earlier that week and asked about the family and she told me that my ex's little brother had gotten in trouble in school. Stop me if you have hear this one before; he had a joint in his CD case but, it wasn't his it was his friend's joint. Well needless to say they are working on expelling him from school (In his senior year) and want to press charges. Excessive? Maybe that is true but when you are a black boy that's how it goes. But, you can't complain about the system just do what you can to stay out of the system.

That hurt me. When his sister and I we were together I had a much closer relationship (obviously) with her little brother he was like my little brother and I looked after him as much as I could because he reminded me of myself when I was younger. He was often the only black in his class, he was smarter than he realized (well at least smarter than the clowns he hung with), and he like every kid just wanted to fit in. I was really his only positive black male influence in his life. And I took that seriously. I think it worked both ways. I tried to impart my knowledge into him without lecturing and sounding too much like an adult. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't but we had a good relationship where things worked out well. He would come and talk me when he couldn't talk to anyone else. His sisters had attitudes that would switch from hurricanes to typhoons to tornados to dust storms so depending on the day they weren't the best place to go to.

Tell you a story one day I think I was 26 or 27 and his parents had gone to Europe for two weeks and of course just like any 15 year old he is doing something he shouldn't be doing. I'm at home and I get a call on the cell phone.

He says panicked but fast as hell to make it not seem SO bad, "Tommie, I gotta tell you something but first I want to tell you it's not that bad. I just shot Steven in the eye."

I say blurt out, "What!" I feel my heart move into my throat and my palms start sweating and I'm like God why did he pick me for this?

He says, "Dude with a bb gun. We were shooting at bottles at the wall and one of the bb's ricocheted back at him. I mean he's bleeding a little bit but he says he can see. What should I do?"

I'm thinking, "The fuck do I know what you are supposed to do?"

I say, "I'll be over in a second."

I call T-Money and tell him the story because I know whatever we do at this point I know that calling his sisters is out of the question. I need to think and he needs to think I get those two harpies on him and he'll get to telling half-truths and get in to more trouble than he already will be in. T-Money is like, "The fuck do I know what you are supposed to do."

Thanks.

So I get over there and I check this kid out thankfully it was a flesh would maybe a 1mm or so north of his eye, his eyelid caught for him. Now that I know the kid's eye isn't hanging out his face I feel much better.

I'm like, "Where is the gun?"

He says, "I'm the back yard."

I go out there and these numb nuts were shooting a bb gun at bottles on a brick wall at a distance of about 2 meters. I shake my head and wonder how they didn't shoot the shit out of each other earlier. It was the kind of thing that develops Darwin award candidates. At any rate danger was avoided I called his sisters and they railed on him but, by that time it was a done deal. Our unholy covenant was forged.

That story was just told just to put into context the ends I would go to in order to protect him from himself and anything else out there.

So call him and see if he is up because I wanted to talk to him before I left. He opened the door and I just went in his room and just talked to him. While I talked to him I just saw him as the little boy that I met so long ago. He is a strapping young man now, 17 yeas old taller than I and full of that energy that comes with being 17 that sense that tells you that you what’s the point because you are going to live forever. I talked to him about the choices we make and friends that we think are friends aren’t our friends and people love to see you fail and hate when you succeed. I told him in short order that he need to ask himself where he wants to be and realize what he needs to work for that.

I told him there are so many people that will help you to fail and your "friend" was one of them but there are so few people that will help you to succeed. I just hope he sees the potential that I see in him and doesn’t fuck it off with some lamebrain scheme to be cool. You can never properly relate it to young people that if you are lucky enough to live a few more years you won’t even remember half the names of the people you went to high school with.

Holy shit, I sound like my Dad.