You die the first day you live.
Sometimes a person has to go through the storms of life to smile at the rainbow. Life is a lot like a stage; it is a suggestion of a world where it is never quite clear if it’s lived on the verge of dawn or night, peace or conflict.
And it was with that mindset that Tierre began the first day of the New Year of the new millennium. Having gone from halo to hell in zero seconds, he was doing it alone. This to him came as no surprise.
On December 31, 2004, a handwritten list was placed on the bathroom wall facing opposite the commode. The list comprised of things he promised himself that would be changed in the coming year. Like a crab, he was feeling burdened, and he had to take care now not to be knocked over by the intensity of it all. He told himself he would become less restrictive on his points-of-view; take better care of his mental, physical, and spiritual health.
In the year 2005, Tierre decided he needed to branch out onto a new journey of creativity, love, and fulfillment. He visited an Internet horoscope site containing predictions for the year ahead. Tierre read its various snippets of his birth month aloud, studying its prophecies as if cramming for a particularly important exam. His horoscope assured him 2005 would be a transcendent year for him in the romance department. In the New Year, he was to meet a man and have a relationship unlike any other he ever had before, and this relationship was to catapult his heart to meteoric heights.
The song on the radio was It’s Raining Men. Obviously, The Weather Girls were singing about somewhere else besides San Diego, California, where Tierre lived, because, as far as emotionally mature black men were concerned, he’d been through a long drought.
For the previous year, Tierre had been essentially single, except for the mercy missions with a brotha he met at a sex party who was secretly really into white boys. For whatever reason, the clown never returned telephone messages or emails. Maybe it was for the best that the snow queen never called again. It had been such a long time since he found himself in one of those cliché hovering-by-the-phone-longing-for-it-to-ring situations. He’d forgotten just how depressing it was.
He also promised himself he would no longer disrespect his body with one-night-stands, become involved in a loving and nurturing relationship, (beginning with himself). He’d realize his true self-worth and potential continue to be a loving and giving individual, and to seek successes and victories in whatever he set his mind to. And he had to refuse to be deterred from these new goals. No longer would he reach out to hungry hearts or lips to anonymous lovers. He would be really kissing his love to death.
What used to be about love became frequency. What used to be about commitment was now a casual love interest, if that was what he could call it. Every time he gave his love away, not realizing that every seed spilt, a small part of his life died.
The year 2005 was to be a fresh beginning. Tierre would tackle unfinished business with a lion-like ferocity. The been-there, done that, and don’t-wanna-go-back philosophy that had been instilled in him for the last eleven years was about to be retired. Sometimes the truth is only one more step down the crooked road to happiness.
Tierre Thomas Tisdale is African American, articulate, athletic, and above average in the groin area. What more could a black man want or need? The well-kept, well-fit, and well-traveled Tierre considered himself ordinary and complicated, complete with flawed charms that were as inseparable as swirls in marble cake.
The year 2005 would be free of family secrets, career rivalries, and romantic disappointments. The changing of the guard also signaled that Tierre was emerging and recovering from the fissures of the past. The angry and jab sharp elbows into his tender heart had stopped. He wanted to break out of the shell of his shyness that imprisoned him. December 31, 2004 was a day to mark his losses and celebrate the love he had for himself.
But that would only happen once he recovered from his New Year’s Eve hangover. He was a man drunk with his own emotions. Tierre knew he had a soulful sincerity, bedroom physique, deep coco brown skin, and sinful hazel eyes. He stood at a mere five-foot-five and weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. Locs flowed mid-length to his neck, just barely, missing his baby-sized ears. Last night, he lay in bed unable to stop thinking of the intelligent, very logical, yet creative and impulsive discoverer of his secrets.
The last thing he remembered with any clarity was meeting a hip-hop hoodlum who looked like a lion with great power: deceiving boyish looks, genuine smile, and sincere charisma were all shields to mask the animal that was roaring inside. The beautiful black man had been both funny, charming, and an outspoken flirt, which wouldn’t have been so bad had he not done it openly right in front of the other patrons. Ordinarily, such blatant innuendo and compliments would have embarrassed him.
A part of Tierre felt as if he could flirt with the attractive man harmlessly, but the other more sagacious part of his mind knew that the lines between just having fun and becoming serious could be blurred very easily.
Having had more than a few drinks before he left his one bedroom apartment, Tierre’s head was spinning a little, but as he reached his North Park destination, a tall, medium-complexioned black man caught him in his arms. Tierre found himself to be flustered; taking a less than graceful step backwards on the club’s low and partially hidden steps. On the inside, the coffeehouse was large, but every square foot was jam packed with laughing, talking, lively patrons. Surely, the fire marshal would ticket the owners for such an overflow of guests. As he wound his way through several tables, Tierre blinked and tried to get used to the dimness of the popular establishment. His eyes squinting so hard he nearly gave himself a headache. Across from where Tierre stood, on a small stage, a noisy drummer was beating out a wild rhythm.
“You looked like you were going to fall there for a minute black man,” the brother said, his deep voice sending shivers down Tierre’s spine. His words were spoken softly and his eyes smoldered as he assessed Tierre from head to toe.
Tierre’s face and neck burned with embarrassment. “Uh, thanks, but I’m fine. I guess I had a few too many to drink, but for the record, I’m okay. Thanks anyway.” His mouth went into a dry-mouthed spasm of anxiety.
His gorgeous ebony eyes possessed a hypnotic quality and seemed to pull Tierre into their depths. The mysterious lion sized up his prey. “I saw you earlier getting off at the bus stop. Relax kid. I’m not stalking you or anything.” Those eyes were gentle, yet mysterious, and they seemed to penetrate right into the writer’s soul.
“I suppose that’s a good thing to know.” Tierre replied shyly. “I’ve seen you here before at a few open mics, but I never had the courage to approach you.” Instead of the stranger’s gaze falling under Tierre’s stern visage, as so many had done in the past, he dared to meet his stare and smiled tauntingly.
With a voice low and purposefully seductive, he asked in a whisper, “Is that right? So, what’s your name?”
Tierre just admired the handsome black man before him. The lion was a man he might have looked at twice, but he couldn’t imagine him looking at him once. Suddenly, he felt like revealing all of his deepest thoughts and darkest secrets to him. He felt his feet itch as he watched the writhing masses on the makeshift dance floor. Tierre couldn’t help but notice the brotha’s maize-colored, ribbed spandex, short sleeve shirt that hugged his powerful shoulders and chest while his baggy jeans emphasized the narrowness of his hips and lean length of his muscular thighs. His aura was amazing. He felt a hunger inside he’d only felt once before. He wanted this lion, right here and now.
The lion’s face hardened with a rapidity that was as fascinating as it was frightening, and his voice dropped to a whisper only his prey could hear.
“Oh, it must be like that then? So, your name is Silence? What up, Silence? I like that name,” he said laughing and holding out his right hand to be gripped like most brothers greet one another. “Maybe I shouldn’t worry about your name just now. I’ll be sayin’ it on the down stroke. Maybe I’ll be sayin’ it while my joint is bein’ sucked. Or maybe I’ll be hollerin’ it while I’m eatin’ dat ass or getting my balls licked. Whaddya think?”
The unexpectedness of the lion’s words made him laugh inwardly. In that moment, Tierre found himself acutely aware of the rapper’s virile appeal. The sound of his voice called every organ in his body to attention. He was so close that he could almost taste his masculinity as it seeped through his pores.
Every word coming from the brotha’s mouth had Tierre on the edge of his seat. He wanted the stranger to say more as he lifted his chin defiantly. Tierre wanted and needed to hear every word the man had to say for the next hundred years right now, this second, this minute. He wanted to hug his words to him for days, and nights. Tierre knew in his heart that if this stranger left the coffeehouse without touching him, he would lose his damn mind right there on the spot.
The tan as brown leather brotha lifted an inquiring brow, hoping his humor would put the silent Sam at ease. “Say Silence, I think it’s your turn to speak.”
Tierre was shocked. His eyes narrowed on the caramel-colored cutie. He didn’t know what to say to a man he didn’t know from Rashad, Vincent, Alvin, Eric, or Lloyd. His lips couldn’t keep up with introduction because no intelligible sound would come from them. They were locked by the sight of the tall, coffee-bean colored, dred-head knight who stood before him, extending his well-manicured hand in a friendly gesture.
“May I be honest? This is the part where I usually cut off a lot of brothers off.” Tierre’s response came automatically, as if he had rehearsed it a million times. Admittedly, the lion’s persistence and charisma dazed him. He suddenly felt embarrassed by the betrayal of his voice.
“What? You into white boys?” The stranger’s eyes widened, which scared Tierre at first. Then, slowly, a smile crept over the brotha’s lips and he started laughing.
“What’s so funny about that?” Tierre asked, now offended. What had he done to make him laugh? Old feelings of being laughed at returned, and he cringed. “No, it’s just that most bruhs in Deygo I’ve met since I’ve been here can’t handle a conversation with me that lasts more than a couple of minutes.”
He had an impulse to run; he told himself it was because he thought the smooth talker had escaped from a mental institution. But it was really because he was hooked and he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to be.
Suddenly, the brother winked his right eye. “Well, for one nigga, I ain’t most bruhs. In fact, I’m betta than the fuckin’ Energizer Bunny!” Laughter had tinged his voice, as if he had found something amusing.
To Tierre, the mysterious brother was really too much. He was a throwback to the 1970’s days of macks and players if he ever saw one. Every word that came out of his sensuous mouth sounded better than the last. His lips were red and thin, but succulent, and Tierre wanted to kiss them right then and there. Dropping his eyes to below the man’s belt line, Tierre could see the bulge in the pants increase and he knew exactly where he wanted the evening to end. He had to set the brotha right.
“Would you mind not calling me that?” Tierre asked.
The pec-molding XXL, crisp white tee shirt only served to pique the writer’s desire to see what the lion looked like wearing nothing more than the skin God gave him.
“Calling you what, kid?” The mysterious black man responded. He leaned in so close to Tierre’s head that he could detect a manly aura.
“The ‘N’ word. I find it to be offensive and derogatory.”
He laughed at Tierre, his straight white teeth in contrast to his skin. “My bad. It’s just a word though. It's a term of endearment. You know, like we boys and shit.”
For a moment, Tierre Thomas Tisdale forgot how to breathe. Silence surrounded them as Tierre inhaled the lion’s scent that vaguely reminded him of. . . .He should have felt guilty, but all he felt was passion. He closed his eyes briefly to savor the moment.
“But it isn’t a word for me. All right?” Tierre said defiantly. Even if the lion never spoke to him again, the look on his face told him all he wanted to know. He read concern, desire, some anguish, and even love.
Finally, the hottie spoke again and he flashed a sinister smile, “What ever you say playa. Say, do you believe in fate?” his voice low and rough, revealing a frustration that immediately evoked Tierre’s sympathy. He reached out to touch him, but he eluded the bond gracefully. “It’s most definitely my pleasure to meet you,” he crooned. “You’re someone I want to get to know better, if that’s okay with you?”
Martin Powers wanted an ironing board for Christmas. Instead, he got . . . Matthew Kieler, a non-returnable gift, but a gift that kept on giving. A powerful tale of survival, compassion and unapologetic love in the time of AIDS.
You die the first day you live.
