by Curtis Bunn
“Yes. You heard?”
“Heard what?”
“About Walter. He killed himself.”
“What? You’re bullshitting me. Why?”
“Turns out, he was troubled. Bipolar. I found him hanging in his garage.”
“Oh, shit. Man, that’s crazy. You found him? Damn. I’d be having nightmares about that shit forever.”
If only he knew. As awful and haunting as that was, that was not the biggest worry in my life. I did not consider sharing that with Jerry. We were cool, but I hadn’t seen him in a few years and I was not telling most people, anyway.
“Yeah, an ugly scene. I’m just sad I couldn’t do anything to help my boy. That’s what haunts me.”
“Man, life is short. You never know what’s going on in someone’s life,” Jerry said.
He did not realize how on point he was.
I left Jerry to go to the bathroom. I passed one attractive woman after the other on the way, and they all seemed to make eye contact. I loved women in D.C., but these women seemed more relaxed, more open to conversation, just by their body language alone.
When I returned from the bathroom, Jerry was talking to two women, both of whom looked younger, in their thirties. But super-attractive and friendly.
“This is my boy, Calvin. He’s visiting from D.C.”
I shook the hands of Venus, who was dark and radiant, and Natalie, who was tall and poised. If I had a choice, I would have taken both of them. They were equally beautiful and engaging. But I got “chose,” as we said back at home. Venus started a conversation with me.
“After I left Louisville, I moved to D.C. for three years,” she said, moving over to me and away from Natalie and Jerry. “I liked it up there, but it’s expensive. And I’m from Atlanta, so this is home for me.”
“I’m almost ashamed to say this is my first visit to Atlanta; just got here about two hours ago,” I said. “But I’m feeling it so far.”
“What are you going to do while you’re here?”
“Whatever you’d like.”
That would never come out of my mouth in the past. But the nothing-to-lose me just let it fly.
“Really? How do you know you want to do something with me? We just met.”
“That’s true. Well, I’ll rescind the statement if you turn out to be crazy.”
She laughed. “Oh, it’s like that? OK, well, I have the right to decide if I want to do anything with you after we talk.”
We both laughed. “What’s there fun to do here? And don’t ask me what I like to do. What’s fun to you?”
“If you want to hang out and be around people, there’s Magnum Mondays at STK, late night at the Red Martini on Tuesdays, Wednesdays at Boogalou’s, Thursdays Do, Fridays the Gold Room. Is that enough for you?”
“I see who the party animal is,” I cracked.
“No, don’t think that. I’m just in-the-know.”
We laughed again and talked about so much over the next thirty minutes. I even found myself sipping on a rum and Coke. Venus was beautiful, smart, charming and she drank bourbon. Total turn on that a woman could be totally feminine but still sip on what’s considered a man’s drink—and maintain her softness.
Jerry and Natalie had disappeared by the time Venus and I stopped talking. We went upstairs to the deck that provided an stunning view of the skyline. My drink went down smoothly, without complications. We had some appetizers. There I was with a pretty woman feeling like the world was mine to be had.
It was just then that I came back to my sad reality. Venus was so lovely and funny and likeable that she took me away from my troubles. And then all that good feeling I had blew away like the Atlanta pollen in a breeze.
She noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I almost wish I hadn’t met you.”
She was taken aback. “Why? What is it? You’re married?”
“Married? No, never been married. I wish that were it. That would be easier to deal with.”
“Wait. Are you telling me you’re gay?”
“No, I’m not gay. I have heard you all have a large gay community here. Not me… No, I’m sick. Really sick.”
“What’s wrong?”
I could barely believe I was going to tell this stranger my most intimate secret.
“Cancer,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Terminal.”
“What? Oh, my God. Calvin, are you serious?”
“Too serious.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to get too personal. I’m just shocked. You look healthy.”
“You know, for the most part, I feel healthy. It’s some kind of cancer in my stomach. It’s rare. Nothing they can do to stop it from spreading. So, I’m just trying to live, you know? Do some things that I probably wouldn’t have ordinarily done.”
“I am so sorry. I hope it’s OK to ask, but how do you do it? How do you not let it keep you down?”
“Well, this is one of the good days. Not every day is like this. I spend most days trying to, as they say, get my affairs in order. Some days I’m too confused to do much of anything. Some days I’m productive. But lately I’ve been kind of just going with the flow. I was diagnosed around two months ago. I’m getting better at handling it.”
“I admire you. I don’t think most people would be at day party, looking good and acting like nothing is wrong.”
“That may be true, but I’ve learned that you never can tell. I’ve also learned that if you decide to live your life, all kinds of things start to happen. I had a good life, just not that exciting. I was content doing very little. Once my attitude changed, it’s been a different world for me.”
“You mean in a good way?”
“In a way that’s more exciting and more interesting. Crazy stuff has happened. I found a friend who had committed suicide. I helped save a man’s life. I found a stray dog and took him in. I saved my new dog from being devoured by a big German Shepherd. Oh, and I met this lovely young lady named Venus.”
She smiled. “All that really happened?”
“In the last week or so. It’s been that crazy. And now I’m here to get some holistic treatments. Probably three weeks of treatments. Maybe they can stop the attacks of pain I get every so often. After that, I have no idea.”
“You said you found a dog?”
“Yeah, Moses. He’s at the hotel. Found him yesterday. But here’s the thing, Venus—I don’t like dogs. At all. And now, in a day, I love this dog. He just popped up out of nowhere. I was in a hotel parking lot in Charlotte. He was just standing there, looking scared and beaten. It’s like God placed him there. It was an industrial area. There were no homes around. No reason for a little dog to be there. No leash. No nametag. He was there for me. I felt that. I never felt that way about a dog before. So I took him in. And in one day I have grown close to this little puppy—a dark brown Labrador Retriever.”
Then I did something a parent would. I pull out my cell phone to show photos of Moses to Venus.
“He’s so cute. And it’s cute that you’re showing him off.”
“I guess this is part of the new me.”
“Well, I didn’t know the old you, but I’m glad to know this version of you,” Venus said.
“You know, I haven’t told many people about my situation. I didn’t even tell Jerry. It’s not something you tell everybody, I don’t think. But I don’t know…I felt comfortable with sharing it with you. I think my senses have gotten keener since I learned about…about this. And I’m feeling good vibes from you.”
“I’m glad you said that. I was enjoying our conversation before you told me about what you’re dealing with.”
“But sense then?”
“Sense you told me, it’s been probably the most interesting conversation I’ve had in a long time, maybe ever. You really amaze me that you could be here, talking to me and acting like you have no cares in the world. I just couldn’t do it.”
“Yes, you could. I think we j
ust do what we have to do. That’s what it comes down to. The first two weeks after I learned that there was nothing they could do, I could hardly move. I was so scared—I’m still scared. I just don’t think about it as much as I used to. Things are happening—like meeting you—that help me take my mind off of it. That’s what I need.”
Just then, Jerry and Natalie came over. “So y’all up here enjoying the view. That’s what’s up,” Jerry said. “Man, you’re gonna love Atlanta. Dude just got here and already met a dime.”
“Two dimes I said,” acknowledging Natalie. “I’m glad I came out.”
“Me, too,” Venus said. “I’m really glad we met.”
“I’m going to head out,” I said.
“What? You only been here an hour,” Jerry said.
“I have my dog at the hotel. It’s like a kid—can’t leave him but for so long.”
Jerry and I shared a manly handshake. I extended my hand to Natalie, and she placed hers in mind and we shook. Then I turned to Venus. Without hesitation, she hugged me. Tightly.
“Damn, dog,” Jerry chimed in. “What were y’all talking about up here?”
Neither of us said anything. “Put my number in your phone,” Venus said. She recited it and I programmed it. “Now call me, so I can have your number.”
I did. “I will see you later. Soon,” she said. The way she looked at me, I couldn’t tell if she liked me or if she felt sorry for me—or some mixture of both.
And I did not feel the need to tell her to keep my situation to herself. I took from her character that she would not share it with Natalie or anyone else. She had a sincere spirit.
I smiled and walked away, feeling revived having met Venus but sad that the meeting, in the long run, did not mean much because there was no long run.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BLACK LIVES MATTER
On my way back to the hotel, I listened to talk radio about the protests around the country over young black men being killed by police. It was a disturbing conversation because here I was trying to build a life before a disease ended it, and consistently there were black men shot and killed by the people designated to protect them.
On the program, they brought up Anthony Hill, the former Army veteran who was naked and obviously disturbed—and unarmed—and yet was shot and killed about twenty minutes from where I was driving, in Decatur. He suffered from a post-war trauma syndrome that apparently made him hallucinate. He fought for his country in the Middle East and died ignobly in Georgia because a cop decided to kill him instead of apprehending him and getting him help.
I thought about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley and Kajieme Powell, Ezell Ford and Tyree Wilson and Freddie Gray on and on. They had their lives taken from them unnecessarily, violently, by white men. I was never big on pulling the race card or conspiracy theories. But for so many black people to die so violently by whites who are supposed to protect during President Obama’s terms didn’t seem like a coincidence anymore.
I didn’t believe that theory, but hadn’t thought that way until I listened to talk radio. My eyes and mind were open to new possibilities, and some of that was not comforting. The police, by and large, were the enemy, and there was a bullet with my name on it if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time or said the wrong thing or dressed the wrong way.
It could have happened in Charlotte. That cop could have shot me, planted evidence, said he felt I was a threat to his life and likely never see a day in prison.
It was a place I didn’t want to be. I had so much life to live, and I felt that way even more after taking the attitude that I needed to actually live life instead of riding the wave of life. That passive approach did not serve me well. It was safe but uninspiring. Unfulfilled.
It made me sad that I had to learn I was losing my life to begin living my life. With that I knew that I had to do as Pastor Henson said: Help others.
I was not going to try to save the world, but I had a responsibility to be a positive influence when I could, and in different ways. That approach opened me up to an entirely new life.
Here I was leaving a party and Venus, a woman of substance, because I had a dog cooped up in a hotel room. It very well could have been a luxury resort to Moses. What did he know? But my affection for him could not allow me to have fun believing he was tortured. I got that from my momma.
When I finally made it through Atlanta’s traffic downtown, I hurried to the room. I was excited to see my dog. And there was Moses, sitting in the area I had laid out for him. He either understood what I conveyed to him or he was the best dog ever. Either way, I was so happy with him, partly because he seemed happy to see me and partly because he was comforting company. He represented life to me.
So I rubbed him as he wiggled in my arms, tail wagging. I had to calm him down. I grabbed his leash and we went for a walk and stayed outside on the property almost until sunset. I wanted to tire him out a little because I was tired.
The lack of rest the night before, the ride to Atlanta and then hanging out had gotten to me. And it was like Moses knew it.
When we got back into the room, he went right to his area and looked over at me, as if to say, I’m good. You get your rest. At least, that’s how I took it.
So, I got dressed for bed, although it was just a little before nine at night. I pulled out my laptop and tried to catch up on what was going on in the world, knowing reading would make me sleepy.
But I ran across a story that almost gave me chills. It was about a kid in Virginia who had told his parents when he was six that he had been on earth before as a man. More than that, he gave his profession (a Hollywood agent) and the year—in the 1940s. The parents, scared and curious, did the research and found the man their son described. His life story fit every description their son had told them, from his name, age, profession, where he lived and how he died.
The child said the man was seventy-one when he died. The newspaper from that time published that he was sixty-nine. But further research found that he had given an inaccurate year of birth—by two years, making him seventy-one as the child had said.
Experts said there were thousands of cases where reincarnation was a viable explanation for someone—usually a child—being able to give details about events long before they were born. There was no other explanation.
I looked at Moses and wondered if he was so smart and well-mannered because he had been here before. Did he really understand me? My mind ran amok. I wondered if I were to come back, to be reincarnated, would I remember all this. The newspaper story said the boy’s memory began to fade as he got older.
I believed the article wholeheartedly. Something changes in you when you know you’re going to die. This kind of knowing is different from knowing that we all eventually will die. When your ticket has been stamped, you become the keenest person on earth. You notice everything and everyone.
Funny thing was, that was just called living. The people who get the most out of life are the keenest and the ones who decide to live it. You do that, and you will notice more than the next person and experience more than the average person. You’ll consume everything and retain a lot of it—and become stronger, smarter and more well-rounded because of it.
I loved being a teacher because I love knowing things and sharing them with kids. But it became my world when the world should have been my world. I finally got that.
My friend Kevin got it. And he got that I was not doing enough, that I needed to do more than teach and golf. That’s why he wrote me that letter. That’s why he gave me his kidney. I didn’t have that much time to live—I reluctantly accepted that. But I believed my past few weeks have made Kevin proud.
I got out my own way. I still was not sure what that exactly looked like, but I knew what it didn’t look like. It didn’t look like me staying in D.C., reading and waiting for school to start again. That was a slightly exaggerated portrait of my unfulfilled, uninteresting life. But the point was I co
uld have and should have done more.
I was different from the black men who were slain by cops. They did not get the chance to realize that life could be better and to do something about it. Their lives were abruptly taken from them. That was the other part that was sad about cops killing unarmed black men: They were young and the world was in front of them.
I wanted to go to one of those cities—Ferguson or New York or Cleveland or Baltimore—and march with the protesters. As much as they understood the value of life and as angry as they were about the killings, I was probably more understanding of the value of life while also angry. We should all get to live out our lives, make our mistakes, correct them, grow from them and take a place in the world that was ours to mold and shape.
Having it stripped from you—by a bullet or by a disease—just wasn’t right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE MAN ON THE STREET
Those were my last thoughts before I dozed off, which likely accounted for the dream I had of being hunted by Atlanta police. They wanted me for driving in an HOV lane with no passengers in the car. I pulled over and the cops immediately had their guns drawn.
In the dream, I pulled out my gun and pointed it at them.
“You don’t get it; I’m dying. You think I’m worried about you shooting me? So pull the trigger. You can’t kill a man who’s already dead—not even with a bullet.”
And so the officer pointed the gun right at me and said, “Have it your way.” And pulled the trigger. I stuck out my chest and took the bullet. It was so vivid that I could feel the pain—or at least I thought I could. I didn’t go down. I laughed at the officers and they riddled me with shots. I had taken away their power because I wasn’t scared.
Without a gun, many police officers had all the power of a limp noodle. In the dream, I shouted, “Black Lives Matter,” and they stopped firing. And I felt so empowered.
Of course, I was disappointed when I woke up and I saw a dog sitting there watching TV. I was in bed with my laptop having fallen off to the side.