Zoe bounced into the living room like she didn’t have a care in the world. Watching her enthusiasm for life, I yearned for the follies of my youth. “Hey, mom, what’s happenin’?”
“Honey, it’s been one of those days. I need a hot bath.”
She plopped down on the slumber chair next to the living room window. “You’re not going to the game tonight?”
“Believe it or not, I actually gave my ticket to Natalie.”
Zoe’s jaw dropped and her mouth was held wide open.
“What? Mom, you must be tired.”
“She’s going to take her squeeze.”
“Her squeeze?”
“Yep, Walter.”
“Walter?” She shrugged and peered out the window into the chilling waters of Lake Michigan. “Well anyway, that’s nice of you to let her have the ticket.” Zoe turned back to me. “You feelin’ ok?”
I sat down on the oversized couch next to the chair. “Just a little tired, that’s all. So, you’ve got homework?”
“Me and Jessica goin’ to the tennis courts in a minute. I just came home to grab a sandwich or som’in.”
I gave her my usual adage, “Watch, look and listen, okay!”
She smiled and said, “I always do.”
I dragged into the bathroom, ran a tub of hot water, and zoned out in front of my miniature Sony TV sitting on a wall mount in the corner opposite of the bathroom door. “Let’s see who’s on tonight.” I rested in the warm bubble bath and flipped the remote between Martin and Seinfeld re-runs.
After a few episodes of soaking, a burst of energy surged through my body, and I leaped out of the tub, toweled off and tiptoed into the office. I keyed into the Internet, then to the chat room.
Online Host: “QueenB has entered the Room.”
Honeysuckle: “Yeah, well we all got to watch our backs.”
Williamtell: “Sho you right. You always need an extra pair of eyes.” Bigben: “I always pack my shit.”
Prettypink1: “I’m goin down to the local redneck pistol shop and buy me a new gatt.” Koltrane: “I’m staying close to home.”
Suddensam: “Why you goin’ to go and do that?”
Koltrane: “Because I don’t wanna die, and don’t wanna kill nobody.”
Queenb: “What’s all this talk about death?”
Koltrane: “You don’t know?”
Queenb: “Know about what?”
Honeysuckle: “We just got a message in the chat room that Shaft67 was murdered.”
Queenb: How did you find out?”
Suddensam: “Blackrose.”
Queenb: “When did it happen?”
Koltrane: “A couple of days ago.”
Queenb: “Does anyone know what part of the country Shaft67 was from?”
Honeydutoo: “He lived close to me. New Jersey, around South Orange.”
Twisletoe: “East Coast. No wonder he always bragged about the Yankees.”
Honeydutoo: “He was a nice man. We started instant messaging about six months ago. He started sending me pictures of himself, and I would send him pictures. Then we found out we stayed about thirty minutes from each other and decided to meet. Shaft67’s real name was Frank Bowles. He was a Mason and a Kappa. He worked at Chemical Bank. Frank was 35, single with two boys from a prior marriage. He was a handsome and strong Black man that wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’ll miss him.”
SidneyX: “Another good brother lost to the system.”
Prettypink1: “What system? We don’t know how he was killed.”
Honeydutoo: “Are you sure you wanna know?”
Twisletoe: “Hell, yeah.”
Blackrose: “Not me.”
Koltrane: “Me, either.”
Bigben: “I want to know.”
Crowsnest: “Me, too.”
Honeydutoo: “What I heard is that there was a home invasion, and the intruder strangled him with the phone cord. He dialed 911 and the emergency operator heard him being murdered. It was caught and recorded. He tried to fight off the attacker, but it was too late. They played it on all the TV stations, in New Jersey and New York. They edited a lot of it out but the report was that it was about two minutes before the sounds stopped. It was terrible.”
Twisletoe: “Damnnnnn!”
Queenb: “Did they catch him?”
Honeydutoo: “Not yet.”
Prettypink1: “I hope they cut his nuts off.”
Suddensam: “You always thinkin’ bout getting’ buzy.”
Prettypink1: “And…”
Bigben: “I heard you, Prettypink. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little bump and grind.”
Here we go again. Even in the middle of meaningful conversation, it always reverts back to bullshit and sex. Well, what should I expect? I guess people come into the chat room to get away from their real lives in the first place.
Zoe broke into the conversation and bellowed from the hallway, “What’s up, Mom?”
“You back already?” I asked.
She continued yelling from the hallway, “It’s been three hours. That’s enough time at the tennis courts.”
“Come in the office, honey.”
Zoe bounced into the room and stood at the door. “What’s up, Mom?”
“When’s the last time I told you that I love you?” I asked.
“Mommmm…you tell me all the time,” Zoe smiled.
“Well, I’m going to say it again. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“Come give me a hug.”
“Awww, Mom.”
“Girl, you better get ova’ here. You know you’re not too old to get a hug.” I squeezed Zoe hard. “Now you can go on your merry way.”
I turned back to my computer, saw the instant message icon flashing and double clicked it.
“What’s Up QB?: Some raw stuff tonight. I better get busy living cause you know dying on the chat room maybe waiting around every corner. But then there’s this thing that happened and we then find out that Shaft67 and Honeydutoo got to meet. I was glad to learn that someone in the chat room actually got a chance to hook up. One day I’d like to meet YOU. What do you think?
Koltrane”
I stared at the screen in conjecture about Koltrane’s message which had hypnotized me. The chat room was a casual getaway because there was nobody of consequence to hold me accountable for things I’d said or the guilty pleasures of reading the nonsense spewing from the screen. I could let my feelings flow or just dive into the feelings of others without the fear of an incorrect response, if I responded at all. I could cut the conversation on or off at my whim.
Like most Internet chatters, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to meet somebody, drop a line, kick it around the local bar or see Earth, Wind and Fire in concert together. Most of the time, it was just my imagination trying to conjure up somebody’s appearance by the way their voice trembled. Like most people, Facebook and those types of social networks weren’t my cup of tea, because I didn’t want people that I knew to judge my conversations. In the chat room, I questioned if their hair was long with dark skin or short with bad complexion, were they fat or skinny, tall or diminutive.
When it came to envisioning people in the chat room, my imagination was always on the negative side. As opposed to body builders and rugged construction workers and movie star physical attributes, my thoughts of them were seen as obese with balding hairlines or wire-rimmed glasses, holding a two-pound cheeseburger in one hand and a super-sized chocolate milkshake in the other. In my mind the keyboard was covered with grease stains from the food wrappers littered on the desk, and the one in question did telemarketing for a vacation home company from the comfort of his home. Consequently, I’d never entertained the idea of meeting anybody from the chat room. I thought of these people as faceless entities to converse with through a special timeless fold in the universe, like aliens communicating to earth from another galaxy that could only transmit through computer chips in our own private world.
Koltrane had
been my closest chat room buddy, but to actually meet him was a different situation. He probably lived in South Dakota or in the Kentucky mountains somewhere, and I wasn’t goin’ there.
“Hi Koltrane:
Thanks for the invite. My job is so demanding that it rarely gives me leisure time. But let me give it some thought and I’ll get back to you on it.
See ya, Your friend Queenb”
CHAPTER 10