Urban Diaries

by Jackson, Sexcee

  Number 2, Mekka and I broke up and surprisingly, I’m okay. I mean I still love her and I still want to marry her, but she decided that neither of us is emotionally ready to make a serious commitment. She may be right. It’s only been 12 weeks and maybe I was rushing things. It’s cool though because I’m not going to stop seeing her. We’re gonna remain friends and in fact, I’m going to see her next week at her art gallery opening. I’m looking forward to seeing her work that she’s so passionate about.

  9/17/2009

  Mekka canceled on me today. She said she wasn’t feeling well and when I offered to come to her place and take care of her, she refused. Something is up with my girl. I just wish she would tell me what’s going on.

  10/14/2009

  I pulled out my rock last night and slept with it balled up in my hand. Mekka won’t talk to me. She won’t answer my phone calls, or respond to any of my emails or text. It’s like she doesn’t even exist anymore and I don’t know what to do. I usually can attest to why my relationships always end up going south, but I can’t pinpoint anything that I did wrong this time. All I did was love her and I’ll be damned If I didn’t mess that up too. Did she fall off the face of the Earth or what? I really don’t know what to do. When she asked to take things slow, maybe I should have backed off completely. I don’t know. That’s all I can say is “I don’t know.” Well, what I do know is that I hate being lonely and Thank God I had my rock last night. I don’t know how I would have made it through the night without it. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  10/19/2009

  I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  10/21/2009

  Three things happened today. First, I started back carrying my rock. I took it with me to work this morning without even realizing that it was in my pocket. I know I probably should have scheduled a session with my therapist, but to be honest, none of his psychobabble was going to bring Mekka back, so I decided against it.

  The second thing that happened was I saw Mekka today. When I got off work, I went grocery shopping because ever since I lost Mekka, I haven’t did much of anything except go to work and mope around my place depressed. Oddly enough, I saw that same lady that I saw last time and this time, she was indeed staring at me too. When she realized that she was staring, she tried to turn her face and hurry down the aisle, but this time I ran after her. When I caught up with her to get close enough to get a good look, I was saddened to realize that it was not her. She was not my mother.

  After I finished shopping, I had a thought while loading the groceries. As I sat in my car, I realized that I had to see Mekka, if nothing more than to have her reject me outright to my face, just like that lady who I thought was my mother had just done.

  I drove to her apartment and my heart dropped when the door opened. The person that answered and invited me in did not look like Mekka although I could see glimpses of her. This woman was frail and colorless and every time she blinked, it looked like her whole body was in pain. That permanent smile was gone and replaced by a half-assed fraudulent one. She could hardly hold her head up without leaning as if she was going to fall. What happened to my girl? When I asked, she whispered the answer to me. Cancer.

  The third thing that happened was that she not only finally divulged her illness to me and the reason she stopped seeing me, but she allowed me to take care of her. She said that days like today is why she broke things off. She never wanted me to find out or see her like this. Most of the time, she’s her usual, vibrant, artsy, fartsy self, but then there were days like today. The days after chemo (that she tried to refuse) that made her feel like death was just a cough away.

  While I was there, I ran her a hot bath, gave her the prescribed meds, and bathed her while she played with her dreads and told me that she didn’t want to get married and be left a widower. She explained that she loves me and wants me to be here for her until the end. I was floored because I didn’t want to believe that this fragile, lifeless, imposter was the same person who I fell head over heels for just a few months ago. She looked healthy but when I thought about it, and concluded she was sick then. That’s what I couldn’t put my finger on. Cancer.

  I got a chance to speak to her doctor, who told me that she was shortly approaching Stage 4 and she would probably not make it to Christmas. He explained that at Stage 4, chemo is useless, it’ll just make her even more nauseated and she’ll feel even sicker. Immediately, I thought about how I loved my mother and how she left me and now Mekka was going to leave me too. It’s just not fair. Wow God! Is this a pattern?

  10/23/2009

  3 Letters: W-O-W! Mekka spent the night at my place last night and she woke up this morning telling me about her dream. She said that she had a vision (not a dream to her, but to me, she had a dream) that by this date next year, Kanye West is going to come out with a video that’s going to change Hip-Hop forever. Of course I looked at her like she was crazy, but I let her continue explaining because when she gets going, it’s hard to stop her, plus she looks cute when she’s excited. She said that he’s going to produce an artistic piece that would have all these beautiful colors and double entendres and a lot of people will think he’s a crazy, racist, devil worshipper, and will miss the point completely.

  Of course, I started laughing at her, but then she began explaining that Yeezy will use a beautiful love story as a metaphor for his career and for life in general. She said a Phoenix will be used to represent Kanye, the rapper, or man and he, West, will represent Hip-Hop or Life. Wow! Only my baby could think of some way out shit like that, but Kanye is a weirdo too so it can happen. I asked her to write her vision down so we can see if it comes true next year. Here’s what she wrote:

  “Kanye came into the game hot on FIRE, and we will see the Phoenix falling to the Earth in a FIRE BALL, different than anything out there, surrounded by a bunch of folks that were all CARBON COPIES OF EACH OTHER.

  He’s gonna have the Phoenix standout in a cluster of all of these like minded things and people, like a crazy parade with a bunch of red hooded uniformed people, some beautiful ballerinas dancing together, and a bunch of people at a dinner table. The Phoenix (which will represent West) will be told not to watch or not to believe anything she sees on TV cause it's not a true representation of real life. There will be a scene that includes a dinner table full of dark skin black people, which will represent the dark, dismal, and dying state of hip-hop, and she will be the only fair skinned one, with her beautiful wings, and sharp claws.

  The people at the table will be scared of her and quick to judge because she’s not going to be like them. They will treat her like an OUTCAST cause she will be different, and everybody will get all paranoid, exactly like what happened with Hip-Hop and Kanye’s music. All the servers for the evening will be white people and they will represent the WHITE OWNED record labels that serves the contracts and makes the decisions about what to put out there. When a turkey is brought to the table, and the Phoenix freaks out at the thought of being a cannibal and she’ll have a "Kanye" moment. See the turkey, will be powerful as hell. It’s like LIFE is a big ass competition and all we do is eat each other.

  She’ll then tell him (West, playing Hip-Hop) that she needs to go back to her home...that his world wasn't the place for her, and that she would turn in to stone if they knock off her wings.

  See, this will be nothing more than him saying that he needs to stop making BULLSHIT music and return home, or to what he knows makes him happy cause if he allows doubters to instill fear in him (knock off his wings), then he'll be dead, like stone, unable to create...And in the end? He’ll be running, running hard, running to save Hip-Hop from leaving, from dying. He’ll run to save creative expression…He’ll title it, “Runawa
y”. People everywhere are going to flip the fuck out cause it’s gonna be BRILLIANT and ARTISTIC and they won’t understand it, but it’s gonna change his career forever. Watch!

  Now exactly what was I supposed to say to this? Again, 3 letters: W-O-W!

  10/31/2009

  Today, Mekka and I laughed. This morning, I went to Mekka’s place to pick her up to take her for chemo and on the way there, she turned the car radio to Power 106. I laughed at her because she’s always giving me crap about the music I listen to. Can you believe she listens to Big Boy’s Neighborhood Phone Taps? She said that her all time favorite one was coming on at 8:10 am, the one where Luther Luffeigh called that crazy lady and told her he was going to make a haunted house out of her high-rise apartment. When the lady refused Luther’s attempt to come set up the haunted house and started getting upset, Mekka laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed and she was beautiful. She looked like her old self. When I told her that my all time favorite was the one when Luther Luffeigh’s horn was stuck, she laughed so hard tears came to her eyes. It was infectious because I joined her and as we walked into the clinic to check in for her treatment, we were still laughing and laughing and laughing…probably the happiest two people there.

  11/13/2009

  I finally had a chance to visit Mekka’s gallery today and I must say, that I was none too pleased with what I saw, nor what she revealed to me today.

  When I first met Mekka, she was this lovely carefree spirit who marched to the beat of her own drum. Today I found out that a huge part of that is because she’s an atheist. I still don’t know how I feel about this. I may not be a very, religious brother but I do believe in Jesus Christ. Some of her paintings and sculptures were very upsetting to me. One of her featured pieces was a picture of man kneeling down in a beautiful garden setting and in the sky was a teddy bear. She explained to me that the man was praying to something that wasn’t real or couldn’t help him. She had created sculptures of women and children kneeling and praying with missing breast or missing eyes with some of them actually flipping the bird to God. As I walked around, another piece that caught my attention was a painting of God on his knees having sex with Eve doggy-style while sucking on Adam’s penis. This blasphemous mess made me upset and I was actually ready to go.

  That picture caused a MAJOR argument today and I mean it was a DOOZY. The reason she was so carefree is because she didn’t believe in God. That’s why she lived her life with no concern about society’s rule. It’s why she’s always quoting Nietzsche, why she never wanted to talk about religion and ultimately why she gave me her Grandmother’s poem; it meant nothing to her, but she pretended that it did. It would have killed her Grandmother to know she was a non-believer. She said, “Seriously, Honey, that line that says something about ‘Only adapting to God’s plan’ is the biggest joke ever. How can you believe in a plan made by a fictional entity that doesn’t exist?”

  I looked at her with a blank stare and flew from that art gallery like a bat out of hell. I couldn’t wait to get home and hold my rock. Even now, it still brings me comfort.

  Where do we go from here? How do you love someone who doesn’t believe in God? How does someone who is dying not seek comfort in God? What about her Grandmother’s poem? How could that not mean anything to her when it meant so much to me? Why was she like this? Was she really a sacrilegious zealot or was her illness making her this way? I had a million and one questions for her, but right now, I’m too pissed off to even think about any of this drama. What if I had married her only to find all of this out now? She can sit up there and believe whatever she wants but I KNOW the power of God.

  11/26/2009

  Mekka called me and we talked yesterday for the first time since I left the art gallery that I wanted to blow off the map. She tried to equate me seeking comfort in my rock as being just as silly as her seeking comfort in a God that doesn’t walk, talk, live, or breathe and has just as much power as my rock, zero. I explained to her that I know good and hell well that her Grandmother taught her better than that. I argued that for me, religion is meant to be a spiritual experience and if she’s trying to put a value on God’s importance based on what man hears and sees, she’ll never understand it.

  It’s more than obvious that we will NEVER see eye to eye about her thoughts on God and Christianity and as much as I wanted to continue being mad and upset with her, I couldn’t. She invited me over to spend Thanksgiving with her and because I still love her, I accepted. Is this a part of what Love is, learning to accept the other person as they are, flaws and all, even things about a person that you hate? I don’t know but I do know that despite my anger and disappointment, I can’t turn my feelings off like a light switch or a running faucet. I just can’t stop loving her.

  She said she didn’t want to celebrate Thanksgiving with a big dinner and explaining her illness to a whole bunch of people, so we made homemade sub sandwiches and watched movies all day today.

  Cancer may have her body but nothing can take away her intellect. Only my sweet Mekka could analyze the gay Asian guy jumping out of the trunk on “The Hang-Over”, Derek’s wife’s singing in the car on “Step Brothers” and the reason Robert De Niro really went after Waingro at the end of “Heat”. And when we started watching Season 4 of “The Wire”, I had to turn it off because she went into this whole existentialism theory about the brilliance of Omar Little.

  So I decided to pop in something that she had never seen before, “The Life of David Gale”. For the 1st time all day or night, Mekka was quiet and when the movie ended, she cried, not because of how David Gale ended up deciding his own misfortune, or how Bitsey was just a few minutes too late, but how brave Constance was for swallowing the keys to the very handcuffs that could change her fate. Today was the first time Mekka admitted that she was afraid to die.

  12/04/2009

  Today I made Mekka help decorate my Christmas tree. She had a little attitude about it at first, but she came around eventually. If I had to go look at profane, offensive, and disrespectful artwork of Jesus, then she had to help celebrate his birth.

  12/18/2009

  I really love this time of year but it also makes me sad because I spent many Christmas’ hoping that my mom would come back and she never did. Mekka and I went to the mall to buy some of those black cherry candles from Yankee Candles and we stopped to watch the kids take pictures with Santa.

  This one kid just had to prove that Santa was fake to his little sister and right before the photographer snapped the picture, the little boy, pulled Santa’s beard off. Mekka laughed hard at the sight of the little boy running with the fake beard in his hand while Santa, the photographer, and the child’s mother chased after him. She laughed until she made herself tired and wanted to sit down and have an iced tea. She was still so beautiful and today was a good day for her. She was out of the house, feeling strong, and still looking good even though her prognosis was supposed to end in a few days.

  We talked about the dumbest things we did as kids and I told her that I was a firebug and I actually set my auntie’s cat on fire. That laugh, that infectious laugh and her smile just brings me to my knees. She actually topped me though. She said she was playing with matches and when she struck one and it lit, she got scared, threw it in her closet, and shut the door burning up all her brand new school clothes. Again, that laugh, that laugh, that laugh.

  12/26/2009

  The doctors were wrong. She lived past Christmas. She’s here with me now, enjoying a glass of red wine and talking about the Black Boolay Society, you know that mess on the internet about all of these entertainers and celebrities that are apart of a secret cult that supposedly engage in all kinds of weird and bizarre things including homosexual acts and worshipping the Devil. God bless her heart and all the crazy thoughts in her head too.

  2/16/2010

  It’s been a while but I’ve been real busy taking care of Mekka. After the New Year, her body started deteriorating. She’s stage 4 now, it’s
really hard to watch somebody who was so full of love and life, disintegrate into almost nothing. I wanted to take her out to dinner a few days ago for Valentine’s Day but she wasn’t up to it. Instead, we played Monopoly, listened to some John Coltrane, and cuddled all night. Imagine me cuddling. I KNOW I’ve come a long way now.

  3/05/2010

  Today Mekka cut off her dreadlocks. She was really upset about it. I was upset for her and I miss them already too.

  3/17/2010

  This afternoon I took off work early to spend some time with Mekka. She really has taken a turn for the worse. She can barely walk a few steps without being out of breath. On my way home, I saw some kids having a car wash to raise money for a funeral. What is wrong with my people?

  After watching Mekka slowly but surely practically deteriorate over the last few months, I made sure that she has her policy and her affairs in order so that I won’t be at my job with a Folgers can asking for burial donations. Two words: LIFE INSURANCE! If you can afford a Gucci, Louis Vuitton purse, or even a Blackberry you can afford life insurance. It’s so sad when families have to fund raise to bury their loved ones; especially when the death was a tragic accident or the person was young. If we all had Stage 4 Cancer and were given a time frame, I bet some folks still wouldn’t buy life insurance. Just Tragic.