Why I Left You

Chris

My male inputs were Night, Omar, Bizzy, Dylan, Yea-yo, Texico and Barnibus.

Night was a tall, slick, dark-skinned brother from Harlem. Omar was the youngest of all our inmates at 16 and hailed from Brooklyn. Bizzy was, in a way, a male, masculine version of Angelica. Tall, good looking, always had a nice quiet smile, but never said much. As a matter of fact, it would be a solid week before I heard him say a word.

Dylan was the only white kid in our crew. He immediately fell for Angelica and began damn near stalking her. He was kinda gooney and always bragging about how much money he had. Angelica wasn't buying it, so she pretty much just ignored him.

Yea-yo was another quiet brother, didn't say much, but seemed friendly enough. Texico was Mexican and the oldest in our input group. He was about 23, and seemed mature and serious about wanting to get his G.E.D and a trade now that he knew his girlfriend was pregnant with their daughter.

Now Barnibus... woo! What can I say about this dude here? This dude always had a lot to say, and it was usually very cruel, but unfortunately, very funny!

He was about 19-20 years old, but he looked a lot older. By older, I mean his facial expressions and the way he acted made him look like someone's grumpy, old, grandfather.

He was something else for real. I used to sit in front of him in class, and this dude would just start blowing farts so loud that they would scare the teacher.

I'd be bent over laughing, and he'd look at me with his serious, grouchy, face and say "What's so funny, Kira?" And then explode again right on cue.

Night would crash to the floor as if he was ducking gun shots. Omar would start waving his notebook around and say "Daaaaaaaaaaa-yum nigga! What the f**k did you eat?"

Angelica would try to cover her nose and face with her hair. Barnibus would just look around slowly, acting like he was starting to get pissed.

"What the f**k is ya'll laughing at, huh!?" Even the teacher would smell it and be like "Damn!" And run to open the windows.

The rest of us would be laughing so hard, we would literally fall out of our seats, and then we'd start crawling to the windows and doorway. Barnibus continued to look at us as if we were the dumbest bunch of f***s he'd ever seen. He did an excellent job controlling his laughter, even though he'd pop another monster fart every time the teacher opened her mouth to say something.

"Why ya'll lookin' at me fo’? That's Kira doing that! She musta been eattin’ sewer rats or somethin’." He said, then he pushed out a fart so big and explosive he was lifted an inch off his seat and almost popped out of his chair.

"Oh s**t!" Barnibus said. He shocked himself with that one and couldn't control his laughter anymore. He watched me cover my mouth and nose and run for the door, fighting Mori, Texico and Omar to get out, and the rest of the class ran to the window, about to jump out from the third floor like the class room was on fire or something.

We'd had a good time playing pool and watching Cordette hit on this fine guy that was part of the next input group that came in after us. The fellas liked Cordette a lot too. She was pretty as hell, but was aggressive like a man. It's like she wanted vengeance on black men for how they treat us women, so she treated them the same way.

A guy would pass us, and if he was cute, she'd say loud enough for him to hear "Damn, as big as he is, I know he must have a big d**k!" If a guy was passin' by she didn't think was all that, she'd be like "You know they make a pill and pumps for that, right?"

"A pill for what?" he'd ask.

She'd point right at his crotch. "You need to pump that s**t up a bit. You know that's all you got that matters."

Once we were in class, and this fine ass Puerto Rican boy that Cordette had a serious crush on passed by our window. Cordette ran for the window, opened it up, and shouted "Hey!! Cutie!! Can I stick my finger in yo' ass?" Our team cracked up laughing, the Puerto Rican boy turned to her blushing hard and smiled, saying, "No, but I can do it to you!"

If our input group had a leader, then it was likely Night. He was always smiling and always calm, cool, collected.

His skin was coal black, and his teeth were pearly white. To me, he looked like a sexy black panther, ready to pounce at any time.

ROOOOWWWLLLL!!

Coredette peeped this and would roll her eyes when me and Night would argue with each other. "Can ya'll just f**k already and get it over with?" She'd shout at us, growing bored of our constant bickering. Eventually, we did stop bickering and started to act more like friends. I don't know why we never dated each other. I suppose we were both having too much fun pretending to be brother and sister. Why mess with that if it works?

The area surrounding the school was beautiful. Lots of trees and lakes, and some strange wildlife we don't get to see in the city. Like skunks, big fat waddling badgers, and every now and then even a deer would wander close enough to the campus to give us a good look.

As far as the classes went, well, this is probably the strongest example in my mind of what the phrase "The soft bigotry of low expectations" means. Classes were ridiculously easy. Most of the teachers didn't even pay us any mind. They just shoved work sheets in our faces and had us complete them as they sat behind their desks reading newspapers.

Once, and this is an absolutely true story, one of these teachers didn't actually have much of a lesson to teach us that day, and we just needed to kill a few hours. I sat there dumbfounded as she handed us color crayons, blank papers and coloring books. I was looking at her like "You cannot POSSIBLY be serious", but she was. Just like with the work sheets, she handed them out and then took a seat behind her desk, reading whatever book she possessed at the time. She didn't even bother to look up and see if any of us had colored a particularly nice picture or anything.

I mean, the youngest in our class was about 16, and I personally did a reproduction of Renoir's "Bowl of Fruit" once for a painting class. But hey, we were mostly young minorities. A lot of my classmates didn't have a high school diploma, though a couple of us did. And most of the people who entered Job Corps signed up because we wanted to make changes in our lives, we wanted to learn something. I couldn't forgive the center for not making a better attempt to teach.

Since I wasn't learning much academically, I decided to let my social life get an education.

What else was I gonna do? I felt far too advanced for the bullshit this program was handing me. However, romantically, I hadn't even gotten my feet wet. I was miles and miles from home and everything familiar. I was trapped on a campus with thousands of new faces. At least half of those faces were men, and a few of them looked pretty good.

It's around this time that I met Chris. He was handsome, quiet and peculiar. He was different than any other guy in the "Positivity Center". He was different from any other guy I'd met in Brooklyn. To sum it up, he was very, very...different.

Most of the boys and sometimes men I met on a daily basis were very disrespectful to girls/women. They could be degrading, demanding, and show you all their issues within the first five minutes of meeting them. Then they would get mad at you for not letting yourself fall for the bullshit they use to try to cover it up.

But I met Chris one day when I saw him sitting in the Gazebo smoking a cigarette. When my eyes found him, I definitely thought he was fine. He looked to me like a clean shaven version of Method Man and had pretty, sparkly, green eyes.

I saw him and a friend of his just chillin' in the Gazebo, and I just decided "What the hell?" and slid myself into a seat across from him.

"Hello," I said politely to both of them. They both nodded and said hello back. Chris smiled at me. His smile was ADORABLE! I got all excited and happy on the inside. This brother was fine, cute, and he was smiling at me.

"You're one of the new inputs, right?" Chris spoke.

"Yes" I said all sweetly. I damn near batted my eye lashes like some old school movie starlet. "How did you know?"

"Everyone knows about you guys," his friend said. He had a heavy Spanish accent. "They said all the girls in your

input group look good!"

I shrugged. What could I say to the truth?

"I know you're roommate too," Chris added. "The little funny Dominican girl." He looked at his home boy, and they both laughed as if at some kinda private joke.

"She's a trip son!"

"Mori?" I asked. Damn these dudes seemed to know a lot about me already. Smart brothers study up on chicks they wanna holler at.

Chris and his friend chuckle again. "Yeah, Mori. She always asking me for my cigarettes."

I began to laugh. Yep, that was my roommate. I could just see her now, dragging her feet up and down the halls, looking barely awake, asking everyone and anyone the same question. "Yo, can I get a cigarette?" She'd even ask the teachers, and sometimes the teachers would hand her one. "Yo, can I get a cigarette?" became Mori's catch phrase.

"Son, she be taking mad boogies from me and everything. Everytime I see her, I feel like I have to run and hide."

"Yo, can I get a Cigarreeeeet!" Chris said, mimicking her accent. "She's mad cute though, and she seems like cool people."

"She is," I said. "All my inmates are cool."

"Yeah, she's talented too," Chris said. "She can draw her ass off."

He pulled out Mori's journal. I looked at him surprised and confused.

"What are you doing with that?"

"She showed me some pictures she drew and left the book in class." He said, opening it up and flipping through the pages. He turned to a page and handed me the book. "See? She's a good artist, yo!"

I looked at the pages and saw my own drawings staring me in the face. I began to laugh.

"Yo, my roommates messin' with ya'll! She didn't draw that, I did!"

"You lyin'." Chris said smiling, taking her book back.

"It's true, I drew that picture for her yesterday. She's always asking me to draw in her journal, and sometimes when she writes letters to her boyfriend."

I made sure to mention her boyfriend there, just in case Chris was thinking along those lines.

Chris didn't seem convinced, so I pulled out a piece of paper from my notebook, grabbed a pen from my bag, and began doodling an anime character like the one he'd just shown me. When I was done, I handed it to him.

"Yo, she's nice son!" his friend said.

Chris just shook his head. "First that little girl G's me out of my boogies, and here she goes, trying to make me think she's the 'Next Top Artist'!"

I chuckled. "She's little, but she's crafty."

Ceasar nudges him. "Son, we gotta go to class."

"Yeah, you're right." Chris stands up and puts his hand out. "Nice meeting you Kira."

My smile gets big, and I take his hand and shake it firmly, like we just sealed a major business deal. "Nice meeting you too, Chris. You too, Ceasar."

"Yeah, well talk to you later, alright?" Chris asked, still smiling, walking backwards to look at me.

"Yeah, definitely." I replied, beaming.

When I got to my dorm room, I was so excited about Chris. I didn't even care that Mori had lied about drawing the pictures, and I kept going on and on about how cute and nice he is. Mori watched me talk excitedly and just laughed, trying to take in all I was saying.

I couldn't wait to see Chris again, and we did see each other a few more times during the coming weeks. We had some great conversations. He told me how he used to be kind of a screw up and get in trouble a lot. He even spent a few days in jail, but now he was trying get his life on track and learn a trade. I loved the fact that he seemed so honest with me and talked about something which might have been difficult. He told me about his family and a few of his dreams for the future.

'...Become a carpenter, get married to a wonderful woman, have a whole mess of kids. That's all. That's all I want out of life." He said.

I paused. "What do you mean by 'a whole mess of kids'?" I asked.

He smirked. "I dunno,7 or 8, maybe even 9 or 10. If I find a good woman, why not?"

I looked at him like he was crazy. "These children are all supposed to come out of ONE woman?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, one woman. I ain't like these crazy motherfuckers out here having kids with all these different women. I want a family. One wife I can be loyal to and love and make 7 or 8 kids with. I want all my kids living in the same house." He explained. I still had a look on my face like he was nuts.

"I dunno, maybe 5 or 6?" He completes with a grin.

"Good luck finding a woman willing to have that many kids for you," I said, teasing him. "8 is enough? I think 2 or 3 is enough."

Although we were already talking about how many children we wanted in the future, Chris had yet to ask me to be his girl. At least not officially. I hoped the fact that he was being so open to me about his hopes and dreams meant that he saw me in his future, but I warned myself that that might not be the case at all. Maybe he just wanted a female to bounce some ideas off of. Maybe he just wanted to be friends. Who knows?