chapter 04: lovesick

glossary:
•bog: pronounced bold with out the 'd'. Detroit slang short for bogus; meaning not fair, not right, messed up.

<lonnie>

Thursday
June 9
10AM

𝕱𝖆𝖈𝖎𝖓𝖌 the hot lights from the vanity with music lightly playing from the phone on the other end of the table, Cole sat in hair and makeup chatting with the hairstylist he'd been working with for years. He found Kalis on YouTube and invited her on his last tour to braid his hair and she's been with him ever since. He was getting ready for a photo shoot promoting his upcoming album. The two of them laughed and cried as they sat in the makeshift salon for hours talking about any and everything that came to them. Naturally, the topic came to Cole's overdose as it was widespread across the internet and social media when it happened. Kalis has been respectful about it, paying extreme focus to the comb parting it's way through Cole's thick hair. She held her breath before asking, "Is it okay if we talk about what happened?"

Her eyes raised from the scalp to the mirror where their eyes met for a few seconds. Cole chuckled nervously, almost lost for words.

"Never mind, it's too fresh."

"Nah, it's alright." He sighed, "I haven't talked about it with nobody actually." He furrowed his brows at the realization. "Nobody has asked. Except Dame, but, it was only cuz he felt bad. He just felt guilty. I told him it was an accident so he would just shut up about it."

"It wasn't?" She asked, disturbed by his bluntness.

He watched himself in the mirror, thinking about that night just as he has everyday since it happened. "You know I had this friend. We was childhood friends. He passed away few years ago."

"He was murdered." He said slowly as the last word escaped his mouth for the very first time. "It shook me up real bad when I found out. I ain't been right since." He confessed. She put her hand on his shoulder. "I think about him all the time. We spent so many years attached at the hip, it was like there was never a time when we didn't know each other. It was like, our lives didn't really matter before then."

"How old were you when you met?"

He shrugged, smiling, "shit, ion even remember. I just feel like he was always there. I can't even imagine a time when he wasn't in my life. I try to imagine it all the time, and I just can't. I lay at night thinking, Nigga, you been alone before. You did it without him before, you can handle this shit now." He laughed, "straight lying to myself. I can't do shit without him."

"If he was here and I tried some like that, he would've known before I even did it. He woulda seen the signs and cussed my ass out for even thinking about it. Nobody else know me like that." He sniffed, "nobody ever knew me like that. Not even Dame and I known him longer. Like, I had to call his ass before he even thought, oh shit, lemme go check on my brother. Maybe Cole is having a hard time with this grieving shit." He shook his head, "oh my bad." He apologized for moving while she was working.

"I don't good with that type'a thing, you know? I lost so many people in the last ten years and Cobe was there with me every single time. He's the reason— the only reason I ain't ever lose myself in my thoughts. He the reason I was able to ride the wave so long,  But when it was him that I lost, fuck." He wiped away the tear that had fallen down the side of his face. "Nobody was fucking there with me. Nobody."

"I hate that." She said, sitting down beside him on the stool. She put her hand on his knee while he cleaned his face with a towel she gave him.

"You would think, being born alone with nobody I would be accustomed to this shit by now. But, once you feel that love shit one time, you can't ever get used to that lonely shit again."

"How are you doing now though? After recovery."

"I'm sitting here crying Kalis, I ain't recovered yet." He tried to joke, but his laugh was stunted by a heaving of his chest, making him take a deep breath.

She nodded her head, leaning down to wrap her arms around his neck in a hug, they looked at themselves in the mirror as they embraced. "You gone be good, Cole." She kissed his forehead and picked her comb up off of the table, putting her hands back into his head.

She changed the subject by talking about the song that was playing, but Cole's mind was lost in life passed, suddenly drifting to a sensation that had settled at the edge of his memory. A touch he'd recalled and longed for but was hesitant about. A voice that cracked and strained pleaded with him for forgiveness and big brown eyes stared into his, waiting for an answer. "Cole!" He heard the voice beg, "Cole, you alright?" The voice changed and mixed between a males and a woman's voice until he only heard the woman's voice, "Cole your phone ringing." Kalis said, tapping him on the shoulder. He looked up at her through the mirror then down at his lap where the ringing phone sat, it was an unsaved number.

He pressed the power button, silencing the call.

"You okay?" Kalis asked him. He nodded. The phone rang again just moments after the other call ended, it was the same number. And again, he pressed the power button, silencing the call.

"Maybe it's somebody you know if they calling back to back." Kalis offered, he disagreed though. That is until he received a text message from the same unsaved number. All it said was, "I gotta talk to you." Cole squinted his eyes at the cryptic message and ignored it.

The two of them got to talking again; topics of the new album and ideas for looks for the tour. Cole played her a few snippets from some new songs and got her opinion on them. At least thirty more minutes had passed and by this time, they were done with his hair and getting ready to go to wardrobe when his phone rang again with the same unsaved number rolling across the screen. His curiosity was peaked now, but he still ignored the call hoping maybe they'd leave a message or a less cryptic text because in the back of his mind, he was hoping it was Lonnie.

Unsaved number

At first, his heart raced at the sight of Lonnie's name typed on his screen, but then he felt something else. Cole's face slowly twisted and he only wanted to know, "who gave his ass my number?"

On the other end of town, Makaveli was wearing out the right arrow button on the remote, searching for something that looked good on Netflix. He was sitting in the small living room of Jah's one story brick house that was barely the size of an apartment. The couch cushion had sunk in under the weight of his body laying across it. He looked over to his right where his brother, Lonnie, was laying on the floor in the center of the shaggy area rug that covered nearly the entire room. "Nigga, whoever you harassing don't wanna talk to you."

"I just need to apologize for last night. He probably just busy."

"Well if he busy, he'll call back when he can. Hang it up, king."

He checked the one sided text thread again before setting the phone down at his side.

"Who you calling anyway?"

"Cole."

"Cole? Ion know no Cole. Do I?" He shook his head, then remembered that he did meet Cole, "The nigga from the cook out. The singing dude that Sam is obsessed with? Oh, that's yo thang thang?"

"Was."

"Gaaahdam, I can smell that sickness all over you."

Lonnie scrunched his face up, "what I ain't sick, nigga."

"I'm talking about that love sickness, my boy."

Lonnie rolled his eyes, "You think you clever? What you know about love sickness any way?" Lonnie asked, only to be ignored by Maki who instead told him he needed a ride to take care of some business. "What business you got?"

"I need to go take this test so I can go ahead and build my bank back up. Imagine me living off Jah ugly ass for the rest of my life. Hell no."

"Why would you even consider that? Nobody was thinking you would do some shit like that."

"Did you not hear me say HELL NAWL? I'm just saying, I gotta get my shit in line so I can be on my feet and be independent. First things first, gotsta get my L's. Got my written test and driving test back to back in an hour."

"You already got a license though."

"Nigga, that shit expired! You forgot I was locked up that fast?" He laughed. "Gotta get this paper so I can get this fucking paper."

Lonnie just stared at his brother in judgement. He'd never been to jail, but he knew it was dumb as fuck to start trappin' soon as he got released. Makaveli knew he what he was thinking and let out an annoyed sigh, "you act like you too good for street shit. You be selling too."

"Not no more."

He pursed his lips in disbelief.

"I'm serious. I ain't been in the game for a couple years now, nigga."

"So you got a job? Working for the white man?"

"Nah, I'm retired." He stressed the last word as if he'd already told his brother many times before.

"The fuck that mean?"

"I'm set. For a good long time, actually. I ain't gotta do shit ever again if I don't want to. That's what I mean. And that should be your goal. Don't end up like pops and Jah doing it forever and shit. Save and have a plan to get out. A cap or a minimum at least."

"But, what if I just like being in the streets?"

"How would you know what you like, you been in prison for almost ten years for being in the streets. You grew up in prison, Makaveli. That shit ain't cool."

"A nigga ain't tryna be cool. I'm just tryna survive, you been in the same position; now you turning thirty soon and you able to fix your mind and your pockets to cruise, just give me until I'm 30 and if I'm still saying the same shit, then call me dusty. But right now, I'm just doing me. So, Can you take me to Secretary of State now?"

Makaveli came out of the SOS building with a big smile on his face and papers in hand. He got in the driver seat because Lonnie was in the passenger like he already knew bro was going to pass and they were headed to the driving test place. Once the car was started, Makaveli wasted no time sparking up a new and out of the blue conversation starting with, "You know it's a lot of gay dudes in prison." watching the road as he turned right out of the parking lot into traffic.

"You telling me this because..."

"Because you're gay." He nodded and didn't say anything else until the silence became so awkward that he had to break it with a laugh, "I had this cellie. We shared a cell for about six or seven months the first time." He nodded, "he would seem so out of it when I first met him. I didn't know if it was his personality or if something was wrong and you know me, I'm not tryna start shit by asking too many questions." He looked at Lonnie for a response. All he got was a head nod. "We got cool though, even though he was quiet and I just got to know him a little bit."

"He was gay?"

"Let me tell the story." Maki shook his head, "yes he was. But I ain't know. And he ain't ever say it to me even after I knew."

"Then how do you know he's gay?"

"Nigga, let me tell the story. He got a phone call one day. He came back to the cell and he was a lil bit happy, you know? I could just tell by how he was walking, had his chin up and shit, laughed at my lil jokie jokes. So I asked him what happened. He like, 'I got a phone call I been waiting for. Ta'bout his friend coming to visit him soon and whatnot. Long story short, friend never came. He start getting sad again and shit and I'm tryna cheer him up— let him know time is different for us in the jailhouse than it is out in the world. Like out here shit's happening time's moving and in there we're stuck. I told him life's probably happening to his friend too quick out there. Then it hit me that I basically told the nigga that everybody done forgot about him. You know, Niggas don't visit when they say they will. I did feel bad once he never got any visitors. But, one day, we was out on the yard and we standing together over on the end to ourselves and he looking real real down, right? So I dap him or whatever and ask him what's up and his face get all twisted and my heart kinda felt a way seeing him like this. I saw he was about to cry and I told him to turn around, you know, away from everybody else. You ain't supposed to cry in jail. Not out there in the yard. Make you look soft, a target. He tell me he heard from somebody that his friend was dead. It was that day that I learned this was more than just his friend."

"Damn, that's bog."

Makaveli nodded his head. "Later on somebody told him the nigga wasn't dead, he just didn't wanna see him no more. My guess is that he met somebody new while dude was incarcerated. Anyway, me and him became good friends in there, even after our bunk assignments changed."

"And let me guess, y'all fucked." Lonnie said stoically. "See that's that shit I do not like. Straight dudes falling for us, like, the fuck is wrong with y'all?"

Makaveli furrowed his brows. "The fuck is you ta'bout?"

"Nothing, dawg. Keep on with the story."

Makaveli shook his head, shaking off the permission to go off the topic saying, "nah. Cause what you mean by that?"

"Nothing."

"No, you meant something." He said, but Lonnie was ready to dead the conversation and Maki let him.

A few minutes had gone by and they were sitting in the parking lot of the driving test place waiting for the time of the appointment. Makaveli leaned his seat back. "I get what you saying," he said, resuming the conversation right where they left off. Lonnie huffed,  "but, it ain't always like that." Maki defended himself in the situation not wanting to be grouped in the with toxic straight niggas Lonnie was referring to earlier. "Sometimes feelings just come out'a nowhere. I just. I just been thinking about him lately and I wonder if we had met outside of jail, would we still became friends. Like, under different circumstances... would things had happened the same between us."

"No." Lonnie said sternly. "You already know that's the answer. So, why are you putting energy into it?"

"Because, nigga."

"Because what?" He stared at him, "exactly. Ain't it a rule what happened in jail supposed to stay in jail? Get over it. Y'all was desperate and fucking sad and shit. If it wasn't him it woulda been some other sad ass nigga or some lame who dropped the soap. It's jail, nigga."

"I hope that nigga call you back soon cause you need some dick. You doing too much, bro."

"Shut up talking to me." Lonnie said, deading the
conversation again. But Maki wasn't done. He watched his brother with a half smile mischievously sitting on his face.

"So this nigga straight, huh?" He laughed.

Lonnie smacked him in the head, making him sit up, "yo, chill out." Makaveli yelled, getting his lick back. "Yo mad ass."

"I ain't mad. But don't take me there, you being annoying as hell."

"What's annoying is you moping around 'bout this nigga who don't give a fuck. Get over it."

Lonnie looked away, offended,"You don't even know the situation."

"Don't look like there is one to me. It's just you staring at your phone, waiting like a lil teenage girl. I'm just saying."

"You ain't saying shit actually nigga. I'm telling you what it is and you saying something irrelevant. I actually miss him, ok? Is that dumb? That make me a bitch? So fucking be it then."

"Woah, Woah Woah. This sound serious, King? My bad, I ain't mean to do you like that. So you in love."

He was quiet for a second, playing with the cigarette he had sitting behind his ear waiting for a moment such as this one like he did; taking it rolling it between his fingers before he lit it. Sucking in the air that drew from the bottom of the cancer stick, he held his breath before he opened his mouth, releasing smoke into the car that quickly expelled through the open windows that tried their best to cool the brothers down in the hot June Detroit heat. He looked out the window, holding the cigarette up to his lips readying to take another pull but paused, "yeah." He said nostalgically.

Once Makaveli went in for his appointment, Lonnie drove down to the Starbucks for some AC. It was one of the nicer ones in the city where people liked to sit and work in. He waited for his brother at a table in the back.

"It's so cliche to call a familiar place home." He heard a man on the other end of the group of tables begin as if he were having a discussion with someone. "You feel safe somewhere you once were and you think about it often; you go there in your head when you're stressed or scared and you wish you wish with all your might to go back home before daylight." The person chuckled. Then stopped talking. He must be in the phone Lonnie concluded but continued to listen.

"Yeah, but what if it isn't a place. A physical place?" He added, "Sometimes it's a person. A person can be your home. It can be a feeling of and object too. But the thing about finding safety in a person is that people change. That's the thing." He paused, "People change. People are always changing. And when you think about it, it really isn't a safe place to hide or to reside. Homes with unsteady foundation crumble when the earth shakes and it floods when it rains— no different from an actual physical house. So how can instability be a safe thing? And think about it this way. Sometimes it's been a long time since you've been home. When you come back it feels different, right? But, not only has the house changed, but even you are not the same."

Lonnie stopped listening to the man after that and decided to call Cole again. He answered this time.

"Lonnie."

"Cole"

They spoke over each other. It was quiet after that. Lonnie rubbed his palm down the Jean fabric covered thigh. "What's um.." he started, not sure what to say because he didn't expect Cole to answer.

"I'll be done working in a couple of hours." Cole said simply, awaiting a reply.

"It's good to hear your voice again." Lonnie said.

"So you don't wanna see me?"

"I wanna see you and hear your voice and feel your presence all at once. But, I'd understand if you didn't want me to. I'd understand."

Cole chuckled, "No you wouldn't." He laughed, "You couldn't ever understand."

"Try me."

"I won't have to because I'll see you at 6 at my house and you're bringing dinner." He said, his smile radiating through his voice. He hung up without giving Lonnie the chance to accept or decline the plans. Lonnie smiled to himself and looked behind him for the man who he was listening to earlier but no one was there.

p:07.29.2022
rp: may052024