Hey ladies! I'm going to need you to liberate your racks before I liberate Iraq.

I went home after last night and took a shower and just kind of chilled. I was tired as hell and wasn't really pressed to do anything. I got a call from this Persian girl I know and she wanted to hang for a bit, I thought about it but, I wasn't in a mood to spend so I told her I was cool on that (In hindsight I probably should have). I hang with this biker club and I get up with T-Money and we head over to this party it was ok. I mean I tell you these bikers keep some nice looking women and this was no different. A pair of Mexican hotties opened the door I think they were cute I really couldn't tell my eyes didn't get past the D cups in their low cut blouses. There were drinks, food, a DJ and typical merriment. For the first time in probably three weeks I didn't drink. Not that I wasn't in the mood to I just didn't I couldn't tell you why. Well anyway the word gets out that I'm heading to Iraq in a week and this is my last day in town. I get more of that brave and hero bullshit then the host comes up to me and says, "Dude, are you going to Iraq for real?"

I nod yes and then he says, "Well dude we need to get you a going away present." He tells this bad ass broad to come over to us and he tells her my story and then she goes off rambling about bravery and honor and all that then he says "Get a few of your friends together and I want you all to take him in the back and show him your tits, is that cool with you dude?"

"Uh, yeah (some questions shouldn't be asked).”

I look at T-Money and he looks at me like, "Damn, you lucky."

Well about 30 minutes later she comes back with two other bad broads and says are you ready. I say, "Yeah, it's cool, whatever." (You have to stay cool in fortuitous situations), "So what about my partner can he come too?"

He says, "Naw man just you."

I look at T-Money like I'm sorry that he can't make it but I'm really not.

So they take me in a back room and of course show me the goods. I have to say this these ladies had six of the most perfect breasts I have seen. You can't be mad at that quality and ladies I must salute you. You ladies are the true patriots you sacrifice won't be forgotten (especially on lonely nights).

Well after that the party got kind of boring for me. While I love to look at biker girls talking to them is a different story. So we head out to a club downtown. The stylist I was trying to kick it with works down there part time and I was going to pick up this talisman she made for me. But, by the time I get there she is already gone. I call her and her she has a buddy that works the door and lets me and my buddies in for free but not before she gives me the you are so noble and brave talk (I love how people quickly craft their own reality). Then I get an overwhelming sense of dread. I’m looking at these assclowns, busters, and hoochies in the club and I’m thinking I’m going overseas to protect their freedom to be assholes and bitches.

I think to myself maybe we would have felt better if Bin Laden would have targeted places with more asshole in them like this club. I get frustrated with the place quickly. My people are ready to dip and then we head over to the stylist’s house so I can pick up this talisman. I get to her house and she is knocked out. She ambles her way in the house and tells give me this pouch with some collection of roots and other magical spells I don’t know how it works. Even though she is sleepy I can still see that worry on her face I mean through all this she is the only one who has consistently voiced her opinion on this, she wears her feelings on her shirt and it’s funny to me so I give her a kiss on the forehead and I tell her I’ll be safe and she tells me hey don’t be a hero and I leave. Then we head back home and I spend the rest of the night at T-Money’s house. I just didn’t feel like being at my house on my last night in town. You would think that I would have some lady to see or someone to want me to be with them on my last night but this is Phoenix. If you are someone like me life isn’t that lucky (or normal).

Today is kinda surreal

Well today we worked on tearing down the system. This was all physical work and not really worth my time. The way I see it the Marines can put up and tear down the system if they need me at all it would only be in a management function. My partner is stressing out on this stuff. I don't know why. At any rate this tech wants us to start making some widgets for the safari cage where they store all the tech. I'm like whatever, that's not in my job description. My partner the eager beaver she is starts whittling away on that crap. I look at her struggle with it and go about my business. Come hell or high water I'm leaving work today at 1:00.

Well, our trainer says he is done for the day and my partner says, "So what do you want us to do?"

He says, "Whatever you want all I know is I'm done for the day."

He cuts out and she looks at me like, "Well he didn't say we could leave and this other guy wants us to finish this."

I reply, "Us?"

I'm thinking, "What are you saying woman? This isn't Simon Says, read between the lines why don't you! It's a Friday we have way more than 40 hours in, we are heading to Iraq in a week and you really think he wants us to stay and build widgets?"

I say, "Well I have some stuff to do today so I'm out. You can stay here if you want to."

She says, "Are you sure it's ok?"

I say, "Yes, it's ok you can leave if you want to and if you feel like someone is going to get on you you can tell them I told you that you can leave."

I go in the office and people are treating me a bit differently. Almost like a superstar with the plague or something. My boss comes out when I get ready to leave and shakes my hand. He says you are a brave man (What's up with this bravery thing), we thank you for your service to the company and your country, go with God and do great things, we are proud of you.

It was just a weird feeling. I feel like I'm looking at all these things for the last time and when I get back things will be so different. I grab my bags and head home on the way out some people shake my hand, or call me brave, or you are a hero, and a true patriot. I smile and thank them and all that but nothing could be further from the truth. I'm greedy.

With that I'm out. I get home I decompress a bit and then get on my bike and head out with my partner T-Money. We ride all over town just hanging and stuff, I didn't drink (I don't while on the bike) and I think we get over to T-Money's around 4:00 in the morning.

Oh yeah, I emailed some of my friends and my brother to carry my casket if I die in Iraq.

I shot that off right when I left work so I didn't have to deal with the replies.

Hey this is the day that I should probably take notes

Damn, I'm late to work again. I have been sloshed everyday this week. And today I actually felt bad because they had a look on their face that looked like they were waiting on me.

At any rate this was a big day. I got some hands on with some system configuration and some of the details you only get with hands on. I did pretty well with that stuff and my confidence on my ability to work with the system increased tenfold. Today I actually feel like I can go to Iraq and do my job.

As usual I'm heading out and getting some more drinks. My body is going to kill me with these early days and late nights.

Well this woman I met a few months back called me after not talking to me for a while. She is a hair stylist we met at a party and she is cool and all and I think if the situation was different we may have hit it off. But, once I told her where I was going she put any interest on full stop. I mean I really can't blame her why invest time in someone who is taking a job that is suicidal. At the same time I'm a hell of a ride so she is only hurting herself.

She is funny to me because she is very emotional not in the girly-girl way but, she is driven by her emotions and she is prone to say what is on her mind. I like that but; at the same time she tries to make everything I say as a reason for us to not talk anymore. Well, I pissed her off about three weeks ago and she told me not to call her back anymore and I was like cool. You can drag a horse to water but. Anyways she called to tell me that she made is making me a protection talisman that I need to take to Iraq with me because her friend who can tell the future said that I was in danger or something like that. I was really touched that she was going through the process of actually making something for me that is some really effort and it shows that she really cared. It also showed even when I'm an ass I'm irresistible.

Still saving the world, still hungover

Like I said we have to be at work at 5:30 I didn't wake up until 5:45. I don't have time to really shower and stuff so I grab my clothes, that have smoke and perfume on them, throw them back on and head to work. Hell, they won't notice anyways. Besides training was the same old same old. My partner is (as usual) writing notes like crazy. I’m shocked her notebook hasn't combusted yet. Again for the third day I ask myself am I missing something. I ask my trainer if we are going to get copies of those PowerPoint slides that he has been going over. He says yes and I'm like cool, then I go back to begging my liver for forgiveness.

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.

Have you ever thought about saving the world while hungover?

Today was another boilerplate day of stuff I had already seen and was clearly not interested in. Trying to hangout and to 12-hour days that start at 5:30 sucks. Again I was asleep during half of the class. At any rate I get a call from today's date and she wants to know if we are still on. We meet up at another of my old watering holes and one of my old bartender was still there so I gave him the story as to why I'm there and being the patriot that he is the started jamming me up with Jack and Coke and her up with Stoli and whatever she was drinking (to be honest I wasn't paying attention). So we start chatting it up she asks me the standard six and we chat about how long it has been since we had seen each other and all that jazz and soon after she is giving me that look I'm giving her that look and then I start thinking man she is only one drink away from impaired judgment. Then her phone rings.

Her: Hello? Yeah, I'm at the Friday's I told you about. Yeah, come on down you can meet him I'll see you in a bit. My friend wants to meet you.

Me (out loud) - Yeah, that's cool.
Me (in my mind) - FUCK! She's pulling out the old friend routine. This can only end poorly for me. I'm no simp I know the deal.

Her buddy comes in and gives me the "You are SOOO brave speech." (NOTE to all: There isn't bravery or heroics in what I'm doing if my job required either of those then I wouldn't do It.). Her buddy has a few drinks and then says I have to go and I have to talk to you about something important so we will talk later. Needless to say her friend has a "life-changing emergency" that of course can only be fixed if they work on it tonight.

Even with the prospect of death in my face I'm not going to chase it. I'm not much of a chaser. Besides, is all about principles if you don't have them then what do you have, ya know? Chalk up another victory to Team CB. Well at least I have a buzz out of the deal, we say out goodbyes and that was that. I'm sure if I put on a full court press I could have made something happen but, I'm old and I don't chase anymore.

Cleaning the Closet

Today is our first day of real training on the system. We are supposed to start working 12-hour days to getting ready for our deployment. We get there at 5:30 and our trainer is nowhere to be found. I send him a page and he tells me he is in traffic. I'm like shit, it's cold as hell and we don't have the clearance to get into the system so we are sitting outside freezing our asses off. Plus I was still purging the punch that was in my system from yesterday. When the trainer got there I couldn't blame him for being late. The guy was in a mini-bike accident. He dropped his bike and the fool had flip-flops on. He almost ripped off half of his toes. All he could wear was flip-flops and we got an inside view of his toes in gory detail.

In the first day of training it was just a series of slides for me it was all throwaway figuring that I had already set up the system and seen it in action. My partner was eating this shit up. I almost felt bad. You know how it is in school when everyone is furiously writing notes and you are like what's the point? Then you have this sense of panic like maybe I'm missing something. But, yet again the challenge, much like college, was keeping my eyes open.

Well about halfway though the class I get a call from an old flame (of sorts) she comes of as a party girl but, I had the displeasure of meeting her right around the time she started thinking of turning a new leaf and growing upShe was into a bit of everything but, I think she sells BMWs in Scottsdale or something like that now. At any rate she apologized for missing my party and wanted to know if we could get together today for dinner on her. I was like I'd love to but, I have other plans so how about tomorrow. She said cool and that was that.

My ex and I had planned on getting back together today so I could talk to her "our" son about where I was going and what I was doing. He isn't my biological child but I raised him from about 8 months to when they left and he was 6 years old. My heart really goes out to those parents that have to leave their family behind. When I met them at the restaurant it was around then I realized what could possibly make me stay. I had been pretty unemotional about this whole situation until this point. I mean here is this kid that I taught to walk, and talk, and read, and count, and potty trained, and all of the things that you have done together just rush through your mind. To him I am a superhero who can do no wrong; to him I am Mr. Goodtime. We used to do everything together. You know in your heart it's hard to live up to a child's image of you but you do what you can. And here I am trying to explain to him what death is and that I may die in a war. I asked him if he knew what Iraq was or where it was?

He said, "no."
I said, "Do you know what war is?"
He said, "When lots of people go to a big battle and some people die."

His explanation shook both his mother and I, just the wisdom of the thing. Kids always have this extra repository of knowledge that as an adult you never realize until they do something that you think is amazing. I could see tears well up in his mom's eyes and I felt them start in mine but when Dad role kicks in you innately learn how to suck it up.

I said to him, "Well I'm going to a war so I can help the soldiers catch the bad guys and that if I don't come back I want you to know that I love you."

He looked at me in a way that only a child can do and said, "Uh, I already know that."

That made me laugh. The confidence from the way he responded to me just let me know that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I have created another pompous asshole. My job here is done. His mom and I talked a bit more and then they left I was glad I talked to him but, sad to see him go. When you get older you always want one more minute.

GAP - Keith, Tommie, Jermaine, & Tremaine

GAP - T-Money and Celeste

GAP - Tommie and Sandy

GAP - Tommie, Angel, and T-Money starting up the love

GAP - Tommie and Bridgette

GAP - Anthony, Tommie, and Jimmy

GAP - Tommie, Sandy, and Angel

GAP - T-Money and Kearya

GAP - Kenley and his Keisha

GAP - Shalonda and J

GAP - Tommie, Angel, and Keisha

GAP - Tommie and Will from California

GAP - T-Money and Sheranda

GAP - Tommie and Sara

GAP - Tommie, Angel, and T-Money

GAP - T-Money and Tanasha

GAP - Tommie and T-Rizzoy from the A-Town!

GAP - Tommie and Angel

GAP - Tommie and Keisha

GAP - Tommie and Monique

GAP - Tommie and Celeste

Going Away Picnic

My partner T-Money is one hell of a guy. You can’t ask for a better friend, I think if everyone had a T-Money in their life then the world would be a lot better place. He along with T-Rizzoy from the A-Town put together a going away picnic for me.



It was really cool a bunch of my friends, acquaintances, and coworkers showed up it was nice to see all those people. What was really nice was that an old bartender of mine showed up and she gave me a Buddha for a good luck charm. It thought that it was really sweet for her to do that (then I thought with all the money I tipped her she came off easy) she said that she wanted to give me something to be safe and that I needed to keep it with me at all times.



However my biggest shock was that my ex-girl showed up. I don’t really think I was ready for it. We chatted for what I thought was a few minutes but, my boy said I was talking to her the entire time the party went on. I know it’s bad that I ignored everyone else but there is energy between the two of us that only we understand. I know this probably sounds stupid but it is what it is. I think you would have to be one of us to understand.



Needless to say it was good to see her and I think my boy knew that short of family she was kind of like the only person I would feel bad about not seeing before I left. I think she felt the same we have a lot of history together. But, really it was nice to see all those people make time out of their day to say bye. So if you were there I have to say thank you. Your giving of your time meant a lot to me.