Episode One | Full | Exclusive

“You like funny stories?”

Picture a brown box, unassuming and unpretentious in its presentation, but massive and statuesque on the corner of V and 9^th streets northwest. You would never know what goes on inside unless you already know what’s going on inside.

That’s what you get from this DC landmark. It’s a building: no signage, no windows, no impression that it even wants anything to do with you… Until it opens up and lets you in.

Now on the inside… well, that’s another story. Because inside is a story, decades in the making. It’s history, romance, drama and action all packed into a big brown box. Today, it’s a Washington monument, right up there with Ben’s Chili Bowl and The White House.

It’s the place Alanis Morissette would rock when she was testing songs that ended up becoming Jagged Little Pill. Where Dave Grohl wasn’t the Dave Grohl when he first blessed the stage, but just another kid from down the street, who eventually got his shot with Dain Bramage, which was before Foo Fighters, before Nirvana, hell even before his Scream days. The place where Public Enemy gave a sneak preview of their eventual hit, “9-1-1 Is A Joke” (because, you know, only in 1989 was that the case).

So there I was, standing in front of the general manager of this epic place, putting forth my best effort to try and become a part of this history. What better way to get on a person’s good side than to tell them a story, especially one that contained something in it for them at the end. People in power always like it when there’s something in it for them.

And so that’s why I asked: “You like funny stories?”

I didn’t wait for her to reply before I went on: “I don't mean funny ha ha. I mean funny like serendipitous, meant-to-be type funny. The kind of funny that makes you believe that someone somewhere is looking out for you.”

She gave me her attention through squinted eyes that actually kind of made me a bit nervous. She might’ve been older than 50, but looked active. She was tall, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out she’d been a decent basketball player at one point in her life. The music geek in me naturally thought of Sue Sylvester from Glee, which didn’t help the intimidation factor. But I took a quick breath and refocused on my story. It was a good story--one with the kind of ending that might earn me a lifelong friend in this woman!

I proceeded with confidence, head up, shoulders back: “So last night, a car was driving along Lime Kiln Road in Leesburg, Virginia when suddenly it smashed into a deer. Or a deer smashed into it. Either way, there was an accident. The driver wasn’t hurt. Thank goodness. In fact, he got out of the car when he realized it wasn’t going to move because of the carcass trapped underneath it...”

I felt her impatience looming as she started to take a deep sigh.

“Wait, it gets better,” I interrupted. “So apparently someone called the cops. They got there and immediately caught the stench of alcohol emanating from him with every breath. He was less than a mile away from his house and they arrested him for driving under the influence. Can you believe that? By the way, the deer didn’t die from the hit, but the cop had to put it out of its misery--”

“Got about 90 seconds,” she cut in.

“The driver... was 23-year-old Jim Nightengale,” I revealed, fighting the urge to smile as she stared at me for a moment before dropping her head with a deep breath.

She obviously already knew what I was telling her, but now she knew that I knew. But I finished anyway, you know, for good measure:

“Oh, yeah, he was also driving on a suspended license. So. Can’t leave the state of Virginia anytime soon. Now here’s the funny part. Not ha ha, but the other funny. Gavin Degraw is going to be here this weekend--”

Without warning, she started walking away from me. But I felt like I had her on the ropes now! I was this close to getting what I came for, so I followed, walking closely behind her, still talking.

“And since Jim Nightengale is obviously going to be unavailable--”

“How the hell do you know all that about Jim?” she barked as she stopped and turned back to look at me.

Her gaze caused me to miss a breath, but I quickly recovered and came back with a body blow, dealt with a smile that showed absolutely no signs of weakness: “I know a lot of things. Like, I also know that Gavin Degraw is going to be in Chicago the same day for another event, and according to my sources, the earliest he can get to DC would be 6 pm. Reagan, Dulles or BWI--no matter which airport he’s flying into, there’s no way he can get off a plane, get here and be on that stage by 7 o’clock.”

And for a split second--she probably didn’t even notice it, but I did--she looked down, and that’s when I knew I had her. All I had to do was go in for the knockout:

“And that’s with perfect traffic,” I said. “You need an opener and Nightengale is out. But someone somewhere is looking out for you...”

I couldn’t read the look on her face, but I chose to think it was one of admiration. She was a woman of power. I was on my way to being her coeval someday. I had played this whole thing flawlessly, so I stood there refusing to break eye contact as I waited for something like an old, “Atta girl,” given my approach to solving a problem for her that she didn’t even know I knew she had.

Now, I’m not usually this smug, so let me provide you with a bit of context so you know how I got here…

Sometime during one of the golden ages in music... an aspiring music mogul--who we’ll just call “Tom”--fresh out of grad school at Berklee, planted his feet firmly onto the Yellow Brick Road. Or better, the gum-stained asphalts we call the sidewalks of New York.

It wasn’t long before Tom was embracing life in a quaint, overpriced Manhattan apartment. More nights out than in with the city that never sleeps. And embracing his new gig as an A&R rep at... let’s just call it, “Big Music Company.”

Those nights out on the town were part of the job as an A&R guy: go to a few clubs, listen to a few voices... He was on the lookout for something with what he simply called, “it.”

“It” could come in any form: boy, girl, tall, round… Any form, of course, except old. He never worked with anyone over the age of 26.

So let’s say he found your typical cute, white, guitar-playing 19-year-old Joe Schmoe on the stage in some dive bar getting panties thrown at him--literally and figuratively, doesn’t matter. If Tom liked him and thought he had “it,” then he figured you’d like him.

So he’d invite him to his office, introduce him to a few other “Toms” like himself. Then he would offer him coffee or water along with a recording contract.

He may or may not say the exact words: “Sign this. It’s the only way anybody’ll care about your music,” but that’d surely be what he meant.

So, Joe Schmoe, smitten by the idea of being a star, now has Big Music Company working for him with all its money, its power, its respect. Their job? To make sure you not only know Joe Schmoe, but that you BUY Joe Schmoe.

For ages, this was just the way business was done--the proverbial blueprint to music success.

That is, until technology changed everything. Making music no longer required millions of dollars, thousands of hours and hundreds of people. In fact, folks no longer even needed stores to sell or get a-hold of it.

So, after one album that achieved the sales equivalent of plastic rather than platinum, Big Music Company would see no reason to continue working with Joe Schmoe.

Because here’s the thing: by the turn of the century, with just a few hundred bucks, a few hours, and the help of a few friends, the same thing Joe signed his life over to Big Music Company to do? Could be done out of an apartment.

In fact, with so much of the business being done in apartments, dorm rooms, and coffee shops... Big Music Company eventually saw no reason to keep their offices staffed with so many “Toms.”

Welcome to the age of digital supremacy--where vinyl records are more popular than ever, yet record stores are mere folkloric myth.

And with that proverbial blueprint to doing business in music having long since crashed and burned, independent musicians continue to find ways to exploit their talent all by themselves. But to be successful, amateurs do need something--some kind of business or people, or team of business people--that can take care of all that other stuff while they’re out rapping and singing and playing all over the place.

If only there were such an infrastructure specifically for this kind of thing...

Enter… me! Equipped with a 3-year-old laptop I just finished paying off three months ago, 400 square feet of my father’s basement that I hijacked four years ago, which doubles as my home and my headquarters, armed with not much more than sheer will and a go-getter mentality. Believe it not, I am Tom’s dream.

Now, back in the day, being signed to a record label would’ve meant that an artist had to sign their lives over to a big company. But today, this--the 3-year-old laptop, the 400-square-foot room, the girl with nothing but hustle--is the new “Big Music Company.”

What Tom had--the money, the power, the team of other Toms imposing their will? Yeah, I don’t have all that.

No big office building, either. And I also don’t have the luxury of being in the Music City. And around here, the lights are out and doors are locked by 2 a.m., so we can’t proclaim to never sleep. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Washington DC.

The White House, monuments, museums, memorials, politics… I know: not exactly what comes to mind when you think of music. In fact... I really don’t have any of the things I need to make my job easy.

Then again... whoever said it was supposed to be?

I have big dreams for my little company to be great someday. And not just dreams, but plans to get it there.

I know what you’re thinking: another typical millennial, all career and no love life. And, well… you’re right. Shut up!

But it’s not my fault! Seriously, I have the perfect explanation for why unfortunately my plans for success in business don’t apply to dating. Here’s the thing that most people don’t know: the Nation’s Capitol has the lowest marriage rate in the country but the highest number of same-sex couples.

DC literally is the gayest place in America! So, in order to find love, a single girl might have better luck finding--well--a single girl.

So those of us who prefer our mates be from Mars, might actually have to start going there to find them. ’Cause when it comes to the game of love? The most powerful city on earth... is a forlorn underdog.

All of this makes great fodder for my often self-indulgent social media rants where I chronicle my life’s two greatest hurdles: music and men.

It makes for even better lunch conversation, especially when the players are my closest friends.

I must warn you before I introduce them that I have never met two more contrasting figures before in all my life. Even my divorced parents weren’t as opposing in personality as these two, although somehow, Ty and J manage to remain very close and relatively civil. Perhaps it’s because they’ve never had to live together.

Today’s lunch takes place at our favorite mutually agreeable place to both eat and take in the view of DC’s array of similar hipster, artsy Black folk: Bus Boys and Poets. It’s a restaurant/coffee shop/bookstore aptly named after Langston Hughes, who before his acclaim as one of the great American poets, worked as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel. It’s the kind of place you find people who care whether their coffee is fair trade and their food is organic, sustainable, hormone free, and local. So I will neither confirm nor deny whether it had anything to do with the gentrification of the U Street corridor on which it’s located.

“Really, I haven’t completely given up. I’ve just, I don’t know,” Ty tried to explain, searching for the words as if they were somewhere on the plate of salad on the table in front of her. “I’ve just changed my perspective a bit, I guess.”

The subject was the non-date dinner she’d had last night with a guy from the building where she worked. Things had gone… nicely. Not bad. Not great. Just… nice. But not nice enough to do it again.

Like I explained: DC is a difficult place when it comes to finding love, and like the very liberal town that it is, said difficulty does not discriminate based on race, religion, or creed.

There are “Victims,” a category under which I’d file Ty.

Full name: Tylia Elise Aldridge

Age: 30

Birthplace: Lagos, Nigeria (but calls Naples, Florida her US home, since she grew up there)

Ty has one of those faces that make you feel special when you’re around her. It’s her natural attentiveness coupled with her bright, cheerful eyes that appear as if they’re smiling at you even when she’s not. They sit on a face that’s covered by brown sugar-colored brown skin--the kind of brown that’s golden in the right kind of light.

Neither tall nor short, neither slim nor obese, she’s the epitome of an American girl, down to her origins being in another country.

She’s the youngest of her parents’ three children, and the only girl. And I’ve joked with her on many occasions about whether she’s an actual princess. Yes, it is her father’s nickname for her, but I have reason to believe he means it literally when he refers to her that way. And, perhaps in jest, she has never formally denied my allegations, only acknowledged my inquiry with a snicker that makes me feel silly for even asking.

Nevertheless, she gives off an aristocratic vibe that could come across intimidatingly if she wasn’t so southernly gleeful. Despite her very traditional and conservative upbringing, she’s the most loving person I know, which makes it easy to talk to her about anything because she tries her best not to judge, but rather to understand. Armed with an Ivy League education from Princeton, she was now a postdoctoral fellow, so her chosen profession as a psychologist was a perfect fit for this natural skillset.

So, what made her a victim? Well, she met a guy just out of undergrad, dated him for a few years, said, “Yes,” to his proposal while in med school; I was a bridesmaid at their beautiful midsummer night ceremony in Rock Creek Park. Now, nearly 3 years to the day, she was reclaiming her maiden name before she was able to add the title of “Doctor,” having just signed next to the ‘X’ at the bottom of the divorce papers.

“Even with all that’s going on,” she continued, “I can’t bring myself to give up on— Jesus, would you stop staring at my head?”

I’d been caught. I had just seen her the day before when her hair was normal. At least, normal to how I was used to seeing her. But now? Gone. All of it, except for about a half inch or so. I couldn’t help but stare.

So I said: “But it’s gone. All of it—”

My observation went ignored. “My point is,” she went on, “the statistics just aren’t in our favor. And there’s only so much space in this city. After while, we’re going to find ourselves dating guys we ruled out just to have something to do on the weekend.”

“I beg to differ,” said J, of course, sitting behind a burger and fries (concentrating on those fries though).

Now, J was one who never had a problem finding something new to do on a weekend. In fact, she routinely met good-looking, successful, available men with whom she shared common interests. The most common of interests almost always being sex.

J would be in the category: “Perpetrators.”

Full name: Jesenia Lorena Llaureano

Age: 28

Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois

I can admit--some women just have it. And J, well, she is one of those women. She isn’t just pretty, she’s actually striking. And she’s the kind of girl who walks into every room as if she owns it and everyone in it—head up, shoulders back and a strut to rivals Naomi Campbell’s. Whether it’s true or not, she knows that every man wants her, and that every woman… Well, this is DC, so the women might want her too!

She’s slightly taller than the average woman by about an inch. She has soft, curly hair, which always varied in style—lately she kept it on the shorter side--and skin almost the color of roasted peanuts. She’s a slightly darker version of her mother, an El Salvadorian immigrant who found love in a hopeless place when she fell for a married, Black dentist, whose office she managed in Chicago.

Fashion and style comes effortlessly to her, and she always looks “put together” even during her down time—even without a drop of makeup, which she rarely dons anyway.

Although Ty is a more of a textbook “big sister” type, I actually looked up to J a little more. I’ve always admired Ty, but—though I have never said this aloud—I’ve always been enamored by J. Perhaps part of me wishes that I were more like J in some ways.

“Perfect example,” J explained, “this guy I met the other day—”

“At Trader Joe’s!” Ty exclaimed, cutting her off to explain this apparent absurdity to me. “She doesn’t even cook. She uses the grocery store as her own personal meat market.”

J carried on without a hitch: “32-year-old single professor from St. Louis. Georgetown University brought in him and five more just like him to fill a void in their liberal arts department. We’re hooking up tomorrow night-”

“Seriously? Is that all it’s about?” Ty asked, although I had a sneaking suspicion she already knew the answer.

“My point is that men are coming and going all the time.” And perhaps to amuse her, J continued with: “I just like to meet the ones coming so I can cum with them.”

Ty snuck in an eye roll, sigh, and headshake all in one gesture before: “I can literally still feel your eyes on my head,” she said to me.

“I’ll be honest,” J said as she finished chewing. “I’ve been checking for a motherfuckin’ dragon tattoo for the last 10 minutes myself.”

With another roll of the eyes, Ty said, “It’s just hair! It’s not like I cut off an arm.”

Which started a back and forth between them: “Yeah, but it was your hair,” J said.

“But I am not my hair.”

“No, but it was kinda you—”

“Well, it’s gone now, okay?” Ty said with a laugh that kept her position in the debate light and playful rather than defensive.

“Hey, is it weird that I don’t even think about dating?” I asked out of nowhere.

And this was perhaps the one thing they both could agree on: “Yes!” they replied in unison.

Now, I had no clear-cut category in which to place myself. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t a perpetrator. In fact, I was too green to have any role in the game at this point.

Full name: Kenya Shaw

Age: 27

Birthplace: Washington, DC

I was just… me—the girl who hadn’t been on consecutive dates since diving head first into my dream of owning a record company... four years ago.

Time is the key to knowing me—a commodity very few are willing to invest. The ladies sitting across from me were two of only a few to ever earn my dividends, while the world is left trying to describe the details of a book that it may never take the time to fully open; the cover is all that’s used to go on.

But still, you go on, telling your friends what you know, which usually starts with the obviously—my hair—‘cause it’s big, and it’s curly, and it’s not like hair you always see, so you stop and you look, and you want to ask if you can touch it, but you probably won’t. That’d be rude or just weird. Because even though it’s hair in its purest state, you deeply want to believe that there is a “process” to getting it natural like it is.

So then you’d tell your friends about the sienna earth tone that covers me from head to toe, and how it seems like a mismatch to my eyes, which lack much visible sclera—eyes that are more “common” on people from the Far East. Like you, your friend will wonder and maybe even have the nerve to ask if I have anything “in” me that brings about this contrast in expected appearance.

My answer—maybe or maybe not so politely—would be Yes!

I am all kinds of Black, with blood that was boiled on the land of Mother, then smeared across this green ball, east to west, up and down, in and then through. Blood that made hair, skin and eyes all textures, shades and shapes—that made me harder, bigger, faster, stronger. So if you think something else is in me that makes my eyes narrower than others you’ve seen that are my shade of brown, I’d tell you, you got it backward. Nothing is in me. Rather, me is in every damn thing!

A girl uninterested in the interests of the world, but obsessive about her own interests, which are not the typical interests of a “girl,”—and expresses this interest with an unmoved, undeterred passion—is usually called a nerd.

If her interest goes a step further by moving into competitive, male-driven industries, she is then referred to aptly as a Tomboy.

And to take it even further, if this interest of hers is then pursued passionately in the competitive, male-driven domain with a level of assertiveness that says to everyone that she’s in it to win it, she is then thought of as “probably a lesbian.”

I’ve been called it all—nerd, Tomboy, “lesbo”—and I accept this compliment. I might actually be a nerd. What the fuck is a “tomboy,” really? And some of the most powerful, most interesting, most successful women I know are, in fact, lesbians, so if I’m mistaken as part of their group… Thank you.

That, I suppose, is the plight of the modern woman—she’s got to be “figured out” by the world or risk being labeled.

What you need to know about me, though, is simple: I love music, I have a penchant for creative and administrative details, and I like to win.

My approach to this life as a future music mogul is like that of an athlete on the road to greatness—I show up early; I stay up late; I study “game film,” which is to say, I study my opponents, and I research my potential partners, as I like to always know my position in the game.

So, I ask you now: is it weird that I don’t even think about dating?

Ty and J both thought, “Yes.” And as they laughed—not at me, but at their first agreed upon opinion ever—I refused to join them as I dropped my head in playful shame.

And then I attempted to explain something to the two people who knew me best in this world, which meant they already knew this: “Look, it’s not that I don’t think about men. I do. It’s just... I don’t know what to say to the ones I want to meet, and it’s never the ones you want who approach—”

“So true!” Ty agreed.

“Which is why I go after what I want,” J said, not revealing anything new. “Don’t leave it to them. Shit. This is two thousand and-”

“That requires way too much... transparency,” I said. I used the word “transparency” instead of the word I should’ve used, which was “confidence.” J had the confidence. “Plus I don’t even know where to start-”

“Well, you can’t start in your father’s basement, that’s for sure,” Ty said.

“Aye, why don’t you come with us?” J asked. “I’m taking Ty with me to this networking thing…”

J proceeded to describe this upcoming event that she thought I should attend, even though I already knew I wouldn’t be joining them.

As a writer, J’s main outlet was FACE, one of the country’s top female-focused lifestyle magazines—often referred to as the lady GQ—so if there was a place with even the slightest hint of eligible bachelors, J was sure to be on top of it… pun very much intended.

Ty said with a sigh, “Yeah, I don’t know why I let her talk me into going to this thing—”

“She needs to get her mind off this divorce paper signing shit and have some goddamn fun. You should come too.”

“Yes! You should,” Ty said. Misery sure does love company. Before I could respond, she said, “And don’t say—”

“I can’t,” I said anyway. “Look, I have artists that have dreams, and they look to me to make plans for those dreams to come true. That means I got work to do. Which reminds me: Cleveland...”

I had forgotten to put this upcoming meeting in my phone calendar, so I was doing so now.

“Fuck is in Cleveland?” J asked, with seemingly half that burger in her mouth.

“Not the city. Cleveland Avenue in Arlington,” I explained. “I have to meet a guy there about getting Lucas on this club card.”

“Jesus. You’re still trying to get Lucas on that stage?” Ty asked.

She had heard my war stories about this. Three times previously, I had met managers or booking agents whose artists were doing shows there and asked if we could join. All three times, the answer was, “NO!” Of course, they didn’t know me, so with one in every two people calling themselves a musician, if there were an opening, they’d likely just give that opportunity to someone they knew.

But then there was that time a few months ago when I got a “yes” from the manager of a supposed boy band (something that almost never works on an indie level because it requires too much money). However, the show got cancelled the day before because, of course, they broke up.

And now, the perfect opportunity--the perfect person for my artist to open for--was coming to town in two and half days. I had information that would make my plea a slam dunk to get on the card, but I still had no clue who to even talk to.

So when Ty asked if I was still trying, I replied, “Yes. And preferably with a check. When my artists get paid, I get paid. And I need to get paid.”

“You need to get laid.”

And for the second time at my expense, they shared a laugh. Yeah, J was probably right, but… she didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing that.

+ + +

The truth was that my line of work put me in direct contact with men all the time. Granted, they were mostly rappers, singers, and wanna-be rockers; hence, the reason why I almost never had second dates.

And then there were guys like him--the reason for my lack of first dates. The “him” I’m referring to was the owner of the two most beautiful brown eyes I’d ever seen in my life, which I found myself staring into as he helped me to retrieve the mess that had fallen out of my bag and onto the floor of the Apple showroom.

After lunch with the girls, I hopped on the Metro and headed across town in the direction of my afternoon meeting. Instead, I found myself loitering inside the electronic superstore before I suddenly and mindlessly collided with a “Genius” running by, spilling my entire bag onto the floor. The smarty-pants didn’t even stop to help gather my things.

The aforementioned “Him” with the deep brown eyes, the skin like Godiva, the beard (and I have a thing for beards), and the curly hair was a customer waiting to be waited on. I hadn’t even noticed him until he was already down on the floor in front of me, helping to collect the CDs and other junk that had fallen out of my bag.

This could’ve been it--my chance to be “transparent.” But it was as if all the possible words I could’ve said had also fallen onto the floor too, and I was having trouble picking them up. It felt like an eternity down there with him on the floor, blanketed by silence. I kept wanting to find those beautiful brown eyes of his again and again, but I forced them to focus on the floor in front of me.

After the five seconds or so that it took, I stood up first and then he followed, handing me one last disc. I realized right then that I must’ve also spilt my breath out onto the floor when I dropped my things, because my lungs were empty.

I somehow managed to graciously mumble, “Thanks. Thank you.”

And as usual in situations like this, I had no idea what to do. What to say. Or what to do with my hands. I clumsily leaned onto an iPad or something, causing it to make a noise, which then caused even more anxiety as he smiled and gave a quiet, “You’re welcome,” just as a saleswoman approached, saying that she could help him.

I watched him walk away, wanting to still say something and wishing that I already had. I even started to come up with little scenarios in my head, like, what if I waited until he was finished and accidentally-but-not-accidentally bumped into him again outside, only this time I would—

“I’m all done. You ready?” interrupted Soloman, my good friend (who I didn’t think was so good at the moment) as he stepped right in front of me, blocking my view of the guy who I will—from this point on—refer to as “Dream Guy.”

Reluctantly, I nodded yes, that I was ready to go, because I now had no real reason for being in that store. But as we walked toward the exit, I certainly wasn’t going to leave without getting one last look at him before I left.

“Needing a new motherboard and fan, economically made more sense to...”

Soloman went on and on, justifying why he had just purchased the new laptop he was carrying as we strolled down a bustling, rush hour street in Arlington, just across the bridge from DC in Virginia. When I told him that I’d be in his part of town that evening, he insisted I meet him for tapas or coffee. Or both.

“The last thing I wanted to do was spend money on a new laptop, but they couldn’t save my old lady, so I had to pull the plug. Sales guy was happy to introduce me to something new.”

He glances down at the bag he’s holding.

“She’s much thinner, and she’s fast and easy. Just like I like ’em,” he said with a smile.

At first glance it’s hard to tell whether he’s nerdy or just nice. But in fact, he’s both.

Soloman Dyal was actually one of DC’s genuinely nice single guys--a successful non-profit tech entrepreneur, whose company just secured its second round of financing, but whose unsuccessful love life perpetually kept him caught between a rock and a bunch of women used to making bad choices. Yeah, a very hard place.

Women immediately noticed how attractive he was as soon as they met him; the thing is… he didn’t know it. He didn’t dress like he knew it--wearing khakis, Chuck Taylors and flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up all the time, like it’s his uniform. And he didn’t carry himself like knew it--standing with a slight hunch, probably from slouching in front of a computer all the time.

He’s of a respectable height and healthy weight. His smooth brown skin, jet-black hair and almond-shaped eyes were what attracted women to him though. He’s of Indian descent, but was born in the states--Aberdeen, Maryland to be exact--to parents of very modest means. Needless to say, they were quite proud of their little owner of a successful non-profit start-up in DC, but that hadn’t stopped them from questioning him about grandchildren or the opportunity to introduce him to, and I quote, “A nice Indian girl.”

“By the way, how’re things going with... what’s-her-name? That yoga instructor you were so excited about a few weeks ago?”

He took one of those deep breaths filled with his obvious feelings, and then answered, “Let’s just say, I’ll be spending tonight trying to hit the right buttons on this little beauty. It’s so easy to figure out what a computer’s doing. And when you can’t, all you have to do is ‘force quit’ and start over.”

I reminded him, “Computers are man-made, my friend.”

“Yeah. If only—”

“Dude,” I said without even looking at him. “You know what? I swear to God, if I find out Siri is more than a friend... I’m disowning you.”

And this drew a real, hearty laugh from him. I could tell he probably hadn’t laughed like that all day.

My attention, though, was immediately taken by the music coming from across the street. It was a familiar jazz meets funk sound I had discovered online one day while listening to an indie music station as I worked. I bought the vinyl.

“You know them?” Soloman asked.

“KC Roberts & the Live Revolution. Indie funk band from Canada,” I replied. “I was just listening to one of their albums the other day.”

Now, he decided to watch too, as the growing crowd outside the place where they were playing started to get up and dance more than I think they were expecting too. At this hour, the cheaper food and drinks were the initial draw for the after work bunch this evening; they probably hadn’t planned on having a two-step to go along with it.

“Look at all these people stopping to listen. Funny how half the audience aren’t even customers at the bar,” he commented, as pedestrians were being drawn in.

“Kenya?”

It was an unfamiliar and unexpected voice calling my name. I turned to see a scruffy white guy, who could’ve been 19 or 39, walking toward me.

“I spotted you... the hair,” he said, as he stopped right in front of me.

I had met him only once before, and it was a few months ago, but immediately realized who he was when he got closer, extending his hand out for a shake.

I obliged and wasted no time getting right down to business: “Dante. I was just on my way over to Cleveland Avenue to meet up with you. Please tell me you can get us on that stage this weekend—”

“Well, I can get you the person that can get you to the one in charge...” he said as he took a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to me as he finished, “...who should be able to help you—”

“This is it?” I asked, looking at a couple of names and a couple of numbers. “You could’ve texted me this-”

“I don’t text things that might come back to bite me in the ass.”

“Ain’t nothing here but names-”

“Of the guy across the street,” he explained. “He’s your eyes. And the guy with the keys. He lets you in. Simple.”

I just kept staring at the paper as if I was expecting something else to appear there that made more sense to me.

Dante cleared his throat and I quickly looked up at him. He rubbed his thumb and his first two fingers together, an apparent indication that he desired some money for this.

“You know what? Stax got you,” I said, implicating the mutual friend who’d introduced us.

But he wasn’t having it. I guess it was like going to a store and telling them that your friend would pay for the stuff later. And after I realized how silly I looked, and that he wasn’t buying it anyway, I began searching around my pockets.

“Five bucks,” I said, unfolding the balled up one dollar bills. “It’s all I have.

He looked at Soloman, perhaps hoping he would cosign for me, but he confirmed his non-involvement by just sipping his coffee and continuing to watch the band.

Dante decided to take my crumpled five, but as he left, he made one last request: “Tell Brandon he fucking owes me.”

Soloman and I watched him walk off.

“Why the hell is everything in your business so damn sketchy? Is it supposed to be this difficult?”

“I been asking myself that for the last four years,” I admitted with exasperation. “You wanna know the downfall of running an indie label?”

“There’s only one downfall?” he quipped.

“The best indie artists can do what I do, so they really don’t need me,” I admitted.

I absolutely loved what I did, but sometimes it could feel like I was doing it in vain. This was one of those times.

Soloman responded like the good friend that he is: “Yeah, but… couldn’t I make the argument that there are some pretty great artists out there who couldn’t do anything without you?”

We found that tapas spot he was telling me about and he treated me to what could’ve been a late lunch or an early dinner had it actually been more than hors d'oeuvre-sized portions.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said as I made my way back to the Blue Line. He had a point.

Take Taj Kamal, for instance. She’s the reason I started this business of mine in the first place. She had music and no idea what to do with it; I was unemployed with time to figure it out.

So stepping into the warehouse-looking spot somewhere east of the river, which acted as a rehearsal space because of its unassumingly great acoustics, my eyes were instantly stapled to Tk, seemingly skating around the stage in figurative concert with her band—playing to no audience—as these memories of our less than humble beginnings danced through my head.

I stood there analyzing this entire skeleton-performance—how she moved, how they played off her direction with improv, how her take on Hip Hop perspired with the heart and grit of the 90s, but breathed with the energetic social existentialism of today.

It had been four years now since she and I had become a tandem. A couple albums and a couple mixtapes later, and here we were—finishing LP number three and trying to figure out how, exactly, we were going to make some money with this one.

“That’s it. Alright, take five,” she said to the four others behind her, all wearing or holding different instruments.

She hopped off the stage and started toward me, looking taller than her usual five feet and four inches. At 28, she still hadn’t lost hope in the idea of getting taller, so she sometimes attempted to make herself appear more grandiose, wearing shoes that sat atop extra thick platforms or heels. Today, however, must’ve been one of those days when the effort was overlooked, or perhaps just underappreciated. Barefoot now, I figured it was safe to assume she’d decided that today was the day to just work with what she had.

If she had any insecurities at all, the desire to be an inch or two taller might’ve been one, although she would never outright admit to that. Her mother was the incarnation of Nefertiti—a Baltimore-bred Egyptian, who at one time modeled for a living—and her father was Don Cheadle’s doppelgänger. With those genes, Tk could quite literally have been 50 and you wouldn’t know it. And with her flawless, butterscotch complexion and girlishly innocent eyes, which sat under a field of ombré locs that finished in aubergine these days, the unexpected appearance of makeup that afternoon didn’t add a single year to her appearance. It did, though, ever so slightly enhance her natural beauty—a quality, unlike her height, she actually preferred to play down rather than up.

Despite the often-changing color of her hair, you would notice its natural style before you did any eccentricities. Without her ever saying a word to you, you would certainly guess correctly just by looking at her that as an African American, Tk was much prouder about the former part in her race rather than the latter.

Western culture and lifestyle was not appealing to her, but over the years, we’d worked together to shape her message lyrically to be quite palatable to the “gentrifiers,” while maintaining its true intention for those who needed it.

So yeah, Lauryn and Latifah would be very proud. We just needed to get to a point where they would actually care.

“Hey,” she said, without a smile, as she stepped closer to me, stopping short of any type of physical greeting. No hug. No handshake. Not even a fist bump.

When we first met—while working at a now-defunct social media start-up geared toward music fans about eight years ago—I’d thought that maybe this kind of sudden, dry, non-greeting was because she was Muslim. I knew that innocent contact under American circumstances between opposite sexes was prohibited, so I figured maybe it was across the board. It’s not.

Had we met more recently, I might’ve considered it a personal preference not to be too friendly, since she did have a wife. In fact, her three-year-old marriage had already produced a two-year-old kid. But the stoicism in our meetings had nothing to do with that either.

I realized early on that Tk just had her quirks, and things she deemed unnecessary, like small talk, appetizers, and touching for no reason, were among the top three.

Needless to say, our initial encounters always felt very… abrupt.

“So wassup?” she asked.

To which I replied, “Cardio.”

Oh yeah, and not quickly getting to the point was another one.

“Mid-way through the fourth bar you take this unusually uncomfortable breath, almost like a gasp for air, and it’s because the sequence of metaphors before don’t allow for you to breathe naturally in order to give the delivery you’re going for. Yes, cosmetically, you’re in decent shape, although you could stand to gain a pound or two, but cardio-vascularly (or is it cardio vascular-wise?)... you’re unable to effectively give the performance you desire, so… cardio. Run. Swim. Bike. Half hour, four to five times a week—”

“I’m surprised you’re here and not getting cardio yourself—running around, jumping through hoops for Bieber,” she said with a crooked smile.

I got what she was implying, but offered the rebuttal: “Hey, Lucas is far more James Bay than he is Justin Bieber.”

“And you’re so proud of yourself ‘cause you know the difference, aren’t you?

I was ready to move on, so I let her have that last one.

“You ever listen to that show, On Blast?” I asked. “Comes on at 8 o’clock on—”

“The radio,” she finished, “which you know I don’t listen to. Too much Bieber for my taste.”

“Well guess who they’re interviewing this Friday. And it ain’t Biebs, baby.”

She gave me a double-take: the first glance was dismissive because obviously I couldn’t have been referring to her being the one on DC’s top radio station for Hip Hop music; the second look, however, was a realization that, yes, I was seriously saying that she was the one who was going to be on DC’s number one station for Hip Hop!

So, I posed the question before she could ask it: “How did I pull off getting you on the highest rated Hip Hop radio show in the city?”

The answer? Well… I just asked nicely.

But, here’s how it actually happened: The radio station was located atop an eight-story tall building that required a scanning key or combination code in order to get in before even reaching a secured entrance with a guard, and another locked door, which I wouldn’t doubt requested a secret word before opening. Yeah, Fort Knox, sans the gold.

     All of that is a moot point, however, when the broadcasters operate outside of the building, which they do sometimes in an effort to connect with their listeners in person.

     But this was a commercial radio station. So even though On Blastfeatured a segment spotlighting up-and-coming artists by interviewing them and playing some of their music, there was a catch. The “spotlight” was usually focused on new or un-heard-of major label artists that needed the promotion—or who could afford to pay for said promotion.

There’s a system set up within the music industry to keep the little guys little, and big radio stations play a part. So someone like me with my little record label—despite anything I’d deem “success”—wouldn’t exactly fit the criteria for this show.

Amelia Cruz had been on the radio in DC for just 11 months. She was originally from New York but took a promotion that brought her here. Hosting On Blastwas her first opportunity to lead a show of her own, and so far, the ratings said that she was doing a great job.

Amelia was Puerto Rican, had two dogs, loved motorcycles, and although she had relapsed twice before, I was certain that she was still an aspiring vegan. This is the kind of stuff you had to really want to know in order to know it. Scrolling through social media accounts wouldn’t cut it. Finding it required digging much deeper.

But why did I know all this, you ask?

Well, despite all I know about the radio business and how it works, on multiple occasions, I had thoughts about if and how I might get Tk’s music played on that station. I can admit, it was a very trivial thing in the grand scheme, but every artist wants to feel the joy that comes with hearing themselves on a major radio station, especially one in their hometown.

I wanted to do that for Tk.

Oh, who am I kidding? I wanted it for me too!

So, as serendipity might have it, I was wandering the streets one evening after a meeting trying to decide what was for dinner when I spotted the station truck, table, and banners setting up for a live broadcast. This also happened to be not far from one of the best bakeries in town… which also happened to be a vegan bakery… a vegan bakery that I, as an aspiring, slowly transitioning vegan myself with a monster sweet tooth happened to frequent on at least a weekly basis… which means I knew the people there kind of well.

It was exactly 5:58 p.m. The bakery closed at 6. The girl’s hand was just about to turn the lock on the door when I appeared out of thin air (actually, I was running) and pushed through before she could twist the key.

I saw that look on her face that comes when you find out there’s more work to do as soon as it’s time to go home. But I didn’t care. I’d made it!

But it was still a roll of the dice. People are either salty snackers or sweet snackers. Of all the research I had compiled, this one small bit of information—whether Amelia was a salty or a sweet—was not something I had learned about her. So, I had my fingers crossed, hoping that at least one of her teeth were sweet.

I was standing at the radio station popup table with a half dozen various flavors of moderately freshly made vegan cupcakes, and as she stood in front of me nearly salivating looking down into the box, Amelia, I found, was in fact a sweets lover!

“Six flavors. All 100% vegan,” I said.

She grimaced, surprised that I knew this.

I just smiled.

She said, “And the best place to get these is—”

I closed the box revealing the name of the bakery she was about to say.

“They’re all yours,” I said. “I just have one small favor to ask.”

She looked at me.

“My artist, Taj Kamal… I’d like for you to feature her as the spotlight artist on your show.”

“That’s it?” she said as if my request was minuscule, while already taking the box from my hand. “Done. Just give your info to my intern.” She was eating a cupcake before I could thank her.

Tk stood there, waiting for me to give her the answer for how I’d gotten her on the radio. But I figured… artists don’t need to know how the sausage is made. So I didn’t bother going into all that with her.

To answer the question, I simply told her: “I have my ways.”

“But commercial radio, though?” she said. It wasn’t so much a question as it was an expression of obvious uncertainty toward the idea.

We were independent. The plan was to keep it that way—to keep everything independent of big corporation persuasion. Pursuing commercial radio was obviously not a part of the plan. But sometimes, I figured, if you see a way in, you go for it.

“I know: not part of the plan,” I admitted. “It was a shot in the dark. I took it.”

She sucked in all of the air around us, trying to reconcile the idea. But this was how our relationship always went. She trusted me. She believed in me just like I believed in her. The bottom line was, she just wanted to make music, not business decisions, which is why we worked so well together. She never gave me any pushback, so I felt free to take chances like this, even when it fell outside of my original plan.

“Will you at least be there with me?” she asked.

Before I could answer, my phone began to sing—muffled as it was buried deep down in the messenger bag that was draped across my chest.

As I began my frantic search for the phone with Tk watching and waiting, it hit me again. I didn’t realize until after I began working with Lucas just how much Tk preferred me to be monogamous with my attention. With Lucas now, my polyamory bothered her.

“Yes, I’ll be there,” I responded. “I gotta take this. It’s someone with some information I need about something somewhere I need to be,” I said with the phone in my hand now.

She laughed as she walked back toward the band, and said over her shoulder, “You better answer before you end up saying too much or not enough.”

“Cardio! Is that enough?!” I said back to her, as I took the phone call, which turned out to be the one I’d been waiting for all day.

* * *

So here’s how this convoluted mess of a scenario I had gotten myself into was set to go: The guy, Dante (from Cleveland Avenue) apparently knew the guy doing renovation work on the club's general manager’s house. The handyman would text Mr. Chan when she left for work. Mr. Chan, who was also a patron of this handyman’s services, ran a small tax business across the street from the club. Mr. Chan would then text Pruitt, a building manager, who not only had the keys to the club, but was also scheduled for a visit that day. Pruitt would be the one to let me in.

The call I’d received while I was with Tk was from Dante telling me to be at the club in 20 minutes. She usually only had a 10-15 minute “down time” window at the club on show days, which was most days, so I had to be precise in arrival and my pitch.

Hey, I know it sounds ridiculous, but with of all my lack of luck with getting my guy on that stage, I was willing to give just about anything the old college try at this point.

Now… Picture that brown box again--like the ones an Amazon.com order might arrive on your doorstep in--unassuming and unpretentious in its presentation, however massive, as it stands statuesque on the corner of V and 9^th streets. You would never know what goes on inside unless you already knew what was going on inside.

That’s what you get from the 9:30 Club. At least, that’s what I got as I stood on the corner looking up at it from the outside.

I had been inside before to see shows—RDGLDGN, who was from DC, made a stop on one of their first major tours, Brother Ali and Homeboy Sandman, and I even got to see Adele here, as she released 21 and kicked off her tour in the States!

So I have a relationship with this place. But not like the one I hoped to forge that day.

As I stood outside going over the pitch I was about to give, the door crept open behind me, and quickly getting my attention was a guy who looked similar to the one who connected us. I assumed this was Pruitt, but he never formally introduced himself. Only asked, “Kenya?”

To which I nodded in confirmation. He then motioned his head, signaling for me to follow him inside.

I walked in behind him, keeping my eyes on each step I took, because the corridor was quite dark and counting steps was my way calming my nerves.

“Aye,” he whispered after looking over and noticing where my focus was. “Head up. Can’t let her think you insecure. She hate weak people.”

I didn’t bother to explain why my head was down, I just took his advice and pulled it up. And just this simple act, along with rolling my shoulders back, which inevitably pushed my chest out a bit, somehow made me feel like Superwoman.

He stopped at an opening and let me know nonverbally that this was where I needed to be before walking off without so much as a “good luck.”

Feeling alone inside the box now, I took a deep breath and stepped into the main room. The place was only partially lit given that it was about two hours before doors were set to open and four hours before the headliner would take the stage, which tonight, was a punk band out of Philly.

The first thing I noticed was that stage and all that history…

Wow!

But I couldn’t allow myself to remain in awe for more than a second, because to the left stood the reason I had come here--a woman in a white Ramones t-shirt, standing behind the bar, already prepared to dismiss me before she even heard my spiel, before even looking up from her paperwork (or whatever) to at least act like she cared about the gift I was there to give her.

“Whatever it is you’re selling, I don’t need it,” she said, with her head still down.

As the competitive type, I like to figure out my opponent. But this time, the only information I had on the person in front of me was her name: Bonni. No last name, and as of only ten seconds ago, I’d also learned that she didn’t like the appearance of weakness, so I kept my head up and my shoulders back.

I made sure I was right across from her--opposite the bar--before I said, “You sure are a hard woman to track down.”

And again, with no eye contact: “Time is spent but can’t be bought. I prefer mine not to be wasted. So whatever you’re selling—”

“I’m not selling anything, I just want five minutes of your—”

“I’m outta here in four,” she offered with a deep breath.

And the clock on the wall just above her head became apparent right at that moment. It read 5:56. “Fine,” I said, “because I only need three.”

With no other argument coming from her, I took this to mean that I was on the clock. So, I started: “My name is Kenya Shaw. I run an independent record label here in DC. 16:9 Recordings.”

I had my business card ready in hand. I slid it onto the paper where her eyes were focused, so that she had no other choice but to see it.

“I have two artists. Taj Kamal is one. You might’ve heard of her. And Lucas, a singer/songwriter. He’s who I want to talk to you about.”

From under my arm, I pulled out the newspaper that had recently written a favorable article and said, “City Paper calls him DC’s best kept secret...”

And lastly, I had my cell phone ready to play one of our best videos: an acoustic rearranged cover of “Same Old Love”--a simple, one-shot video of Lucas and his guitar displaying a pure, untouched vocal.

“That Selena Gomez cover got over 60 thousand views… In one week.”

Bonni appeared to be a bit intrigued at this point. She watched the video for a moment (maybe two) before looking back to the paper at a picture of the same cute, skinny white boy with a guitar. It was making an impression, I thought.

“Congratulations,” she said, apathetically.

And that was it.

I knew that I would need something else, so I came equipped with a trump card, although hoping that I didn’t have to use it. And as contemplation set in at that moment, I subconsciously looked down. It always feels like I can find my words down on the ground when I need them. But that, of course, was the very moment she decided to look over at me, almost catching me looking weak.

I quickly looked up and right into her eyes. And that’s when I asked her, “You like funny stories?”

She didn’t give me an answer, but she did give me squinted eyes, perhaps wondering where I was going with this line of questioning. My question was rhetorical, so, I went on. “I don’t mean funny ha ha. I mean funny like serendipitous, meant-to-be type funny. The kind of funny that makes you believe that someone somewhere is looking out for you...”

Well, you know how this goes—I tell her about the car accident, that poor deer (aww), and the fact that her headliner is without an opener for the show here this Sunday.

“How the hell do you know all that about Jim?” she said, turning back to me after having begun to walk away once she realized why I was there.

Her gaze caused me to miss a breath, but I quickly recovered and came back with a body blow. Starting with a smile that showed absolutely no signs of weakness, I finally said: “I know a lot of things. Like, I also know that Gavin Degraw is going to be in Chicago the same day for another event, and according to my sources, the earliest he can get to DC would be 6 pm. Reagan, Dulles or BWI--no matter which airport he’s flying into, there’s no way he can get off a plane, get here, and be on that stage by 7 o’clock.”

And for a split second--she probably didn’t even notice it, but I did--she looked down… and that’s when I knew I had her! All I had to do was close:

“And that’s with perfect traffic. You need an opener and Nightengale is out. But someone somewhere is looking out for you, Ms. Bonni.”

Still looking at me--rather, looking through me--she turns her attention to that same clock on the wall, which now reads 6:00 on the nose.

“When you walked in here, I made it clear as crystal that I do not like my time being wasted. So as fascinating and captivating an argument as that is, you just wasted not only your time, but more importantly, mine. I’m not the person you talk to about this—”

“You’re GM—”

“So I don’t organize shows, sweetie.”

“But you can tell me who does.”

And for the first time in our brief relationship, she offered me a smile. It was a pleasant smile. I even thought that she had a very nice smile and that she should actually smile more often.

But with that smile plastered on her face, she secured her papers and things right next to her ribs as she said ever so politely: “You know so much, you figure it out.

I didn’t have anything left. And even if I had, I would’ve been giving it to the back of her head because that was all I could see as she walked out.

+ + +

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+ + +

Half an hour later, I was sitting at a window seat in Sankofa’s, a café with an African diaspora-centered theme, sipping a smoothie. Brandon Stacovski, who I’ve called “Stax” ever since we were 12 because he always knew how to make money, was sitting across from me, wearing a well-tailored suit in that end-of-the-day kind of way, also sipping a smoothie.

“0 for five,” I said, defeated. “The fifth show I’ve failed to get Lucas on at that place.”

“Well,” he said, and looked over at me, “the answer wasn’t exactly ‘No’ this time. You just... didn’t get the right person.” And I actually think that he believed that this made it all better, because he smiled.

“Didn’t get the right person to tell me no,” I said, full of cynicism at this point.

Stax didn’t respond, just continued to focus on his drink because he wasn’t bothered by the reality that the show was just a couple days away and that I was no closer to getting Lucas on that stage than I was a year ago. All that mattered to him was that there were still a couple more days until the show.

Stax is cool in that Brad Pitt-Tyler Durden Fight Club kind of way. We’ve known each other since we were kids, so he was used to not always looking like everyone else whenever he went places with me that specifically catered to my culture. But with his devil-may-care attitude and the sheer comfort he had in his own skin, he actually embraced such rare experiences of feeling like a minority.

“Oh,” I remembered, “your boy Dante is expecting payment from you too. You know, for all the work he put in to get me into that club today.” That was sarcasm.

“I’m not giving him shit. He owes me! How the fuck you borrow money to give out at a strip club?” he said, remembering something that had nothing to do with this. “His intel wasn’t even worth it,” he added, back on track.

And then it hit him: “Fuck! I bet it’s a promoter we need. We just need to figure out who. Good thing is: tomorrow’s only Friday. A whole new set of 24 hours to try something else. I’m going to get the Spike Lee sandwich,” he exclaimed out of nowhere, having finally decided on what he wanted to order.

Stax was an investment consultant for a firm downtown, and my oldest friend--the only friend who has known me almost my entire life. We grew up as neighbors (just doors apart), so even to this day he invested in many of my problems as if he had some personal stake in the outcome. I’ve become used to his use of the term “we” when referring to solving them.

At that moment, a Somali girl, who I assumed was probably a Howard University student given that we were directly across the street from the school, approached the table with a smile and offered to take our order.

The smoothie was enough for me at the moment, but I watched as the girl, who wasn't just a waitress, but a cashier pulling double duty, smiled and blushed, perhaps taken aback by the forwardness of the only non-black guy in the place at the time, or the fact that he was sitting there with me while still hitting on her.

Even though we’d only ever been (and only ever would be) friends, we always debated about whether it was rude of him to leave me hanging during his pursuits, which happened every single time we were out.

As the waitress walked away, his eyes followed her, all while concurrently saying, “I think I should quit my job.”

And only then did he look at me, waiting for a reaction.

All I could do is raise my eyebrows, shocked by this admission. He was good at his job, and as far I knew, he loved it—or at least he loved the money that it brought him. Either way, I wasn’t expecting to hear these thoughts.

He went on: “That girl I told you I started seeing a few weeks ago? She’s opening a dance school. She fucking loves dance. She’s been dancing her entire life. She can’t live without dance. She has all this shit laid out. She’s got a vision and a plan. Like you! You have your shit togeth—”

“Yet, I’m sitting here with you,” I reminded him, “Contemplating my next move.”

“All I have is a job. No move.”

He had a point. And who was I to talk somebody into staying somewhere they obviously didn’t want to be? I hate to say “I dropped out” because it makes me feel like a quitter, but I left college after just one year because I just didn’t feel like it was offering me anything that I needed to pay for.

But also, knowing my friend almost his entire life meant that I knew how much thought he put into each move he made. Since life was a game to him, he always thought two steps ahead. His fearless careless attitude had boundaries, so he’d only quit the job if his next moves were lined up.

So I said, “Quit the job. There’s your move.”

Stax stared into his drink, silent, probably thinking about the subsequent things that would happen if he took my advice.

I don’t know whether he liked what he saw during this daydream or not, but after about 10 seconds, he was back!

“Night’s still fucking young. What’s on your agenda?”

“Well, The Hours is on Netflix. You know, the one with Meryl Streep?” I said, watching his eyes glaze over with no recollection of that film. “Maybe I’ll make some popcorn. I ever tell you I’m a huge Meryl Streep fan?”

With a grimace, he replied, “Knit a fucking blanket too while you’re at it. Jeez. I’m just saying, it’s early. Why don’t we go to a bar or something?”

“What about your dancer friend?” I reminded.

Knowing he didn’t need to, he looked at me and said anyway, “Come on, K, you know what that is.”

And I smiled because he was right. I did know. The extent of his relationship with the dancer would likely not develop past the confines of physical intimacy.

So as I always did, I tossed out another question just to give him something else to think about.    “Well,” I said, “what about your future wife? You’re not going to meet her in some bar, my friend.”

I watched his eyes move to something or someone behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know that it was probably that waitress again. I also didn’t have to turn around to see that she was likely smiling back at him, given the naiveté that consumed her when she took his order.

“I’m not looking for a wife tonight.”

Stax is what I would call a fair weather bachelor: Monday through Thursday, he’d go on and on about his plan to someday have a wife. But in the heat of the weekend? No recollection of that sentiment whatsoever.

“No point in exhausting yourself over something you may never have,” he said as his eyes went back down into the smoothie as he aimlessly circled his straw around in it.

And just like that, even a challenge-seeking optimist could begin to lose hope under the bleak overcast that is DC’s love scene.

For others, giving up isn’t quite as easy.

That night, J’s magazine was hosting a networking event at The Hamilton, and although she had talked Ty into coming with her, she herself didn’t actually believe it would happen. But to her surprise, at 8:33 p.m. Ty was right beside her—both head-turning in their evening attire—as they entered the room filled with other equally nicely dressed professionals.

J noticed from the moment she met her at the front door, Ty was very uncomfortable—fidgeting and looking down, and had already asked twice (though they hadn’t even gotten their first drink yet), “Do I look okay?”

To which J replied twice, “You look great.” But the third time, she added, “Just calm the fuck down. It’s not that serious.”

Ty tried to take her advice by first avoiding looking down at her dress, and second, asking something that had nothing to do with the way she looked: “What is this again?”

“It’s a professional social,” J replied. “Just... You network. Or flirt. Or whatever.”

Ty noticed J’s eyes scanning the place, and she remembered that J was looking for someone in particular. So she asked, “What does this guy look like again?”

“He’s cute. He’s tall, lean... kinda looks like a young Chris Rock.”

Ty grimaced. “Chris Rock? You think Chris Rock is good looking? Really?”

“I mean, yeah, when he’s not acting so goddamn goofy, he’s kinda sexy,” J said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t think he’s acting,” Ty mumbled.

J heard her anyway and added, “Next time you see him on TV, mute it. If you don’t hear his goofy ass mouth, you might see him differently.”

Ty made up in her mind that they’d just have to agree to disagree on this.

Just then, Ty spotted two men approaching. The tall, lean one was Carl. She could tell that he was the guy J was just talking about because he did look just as he was described.

Carl smiled as he wrapped one arm around J and brought her in for a quick kiss on the cheek. “Wow. You look amazing,” he said to J, who instantly turned into a girly-girl as she giggled and blushed with the compliment.

And then he wasted no time introducing the guy with him, who was much shorter, a little lighter in complexion, and to Ty’s surprise, incredibly attractive to her.

But this wasn’t exactly a good thing. Perhaps, had she not been so attracted to him, maybe she wouldn’t have immediately become so hot and shaky and sweaty.

“This is Amaad, my good friend from back home in St. Louis. He followed me here after college. Calls himself an African Studies professor-”

“How about that?” J chimed in. “Ty was born in Nigeria.”

“Oh yeah?” Amaad said, intrigued. “I just came back from there a couple months ago. Where exactly?”

Now, Ty was nervous for another reason. She knew that this was a perfect conversation starter and that she should feel comfortable beginning here with him. But where exactly she was from wasn’t a talking point that she preferred to hit this early in an acquaintance. The reason was because it usually drew one of two reactions: either they were unfamiliar, which then was a pointless use of conversation, or it caused eyebrows to raise because they were, in fact, familiar with the affluent reputation of her part of her hometown, which then triggered a change in behavior, whether conscious or unconscious.

“Ah… Lagos,” she answered, hoping he didn’t want to get any more specific than that, even though if he did, she’d understand. Lagos was the largest city in the country. It would be like telling someone that you were from New York. Naturally, they might want to know which borough specifically.

“Okay,” he said, sounding inexplicably impressed by this. “Yeah, I visited Lagos, but only briefly since I was touring a few countries.” He smiled and added, “I look forward to talking to you some more about this.”

She attempted a smile, but knew that she’d failed.

Carl was talking closely into J’s ear, probably something about how good she looked, because she was giving that laugh again. Ty found herself becoming a bit annoyed now by how comfortable J was, especially in contrast to her own discomfort level at this point.

“You look really nice,” Amaad offered, in an attempt to cut the quiet between the two of them. “And I absolutely love your hair cut. It really… it brings out your face. Looks good on you.”

Ty simply looked at him right in the eyes, which made him uncomfortable. Now, he was the one getting all warm and fidgety.

“I think we should get ourselves some drinks,” Carl suggested.

“Yes!” Amaad quickly agreed. “Drinks.”

Just as J was set to follow them to the bar, Ty took her arm, stopping her.

“Listen. I can’t do this,” Ty said. “I’m so sorry.”

J exhaled. She wasn’t angry. She got it. In fact, she might’ve even been expecting this.

Ty went on explaining anyway: “It’s just… this whole thing. The talking to people... The men and... I just, I can’t be here.”

To that, J replied, “You want me to come with you?”

Ty was taken aback by that gesture. She knew J loved her, but she had never, not once in the 10 or so years that they had known each other, ever known J to chose another entree if there was the slightest chance that sex would be on the menu. Ty had seen the way she and this Carl guy were already all over each other, so the offer to leave and accompany her back to an empty old apartment was not only nice, it was admirable.

Or maybe she was just being nice and admirable because she knew that Ty would say exactly what she said, which was: “No. No. You stay. It’s me. I’m sorry, okay? You have a good time. I’ll just… I’ll catch a ride home.”

J nodded and that was that. She watched as Ty took off and out the door they had just come in.

Meanwhile, my evening was being spent very much like I’d thought--with popcorn and Meryl Streep, though I opted for The Iron Lady over The Hours—when the phone rang midway through the second act of the film. It was Ty.

“Hey,” I answered.

I could tell she was pacing. She probably called me no sooner than she got in and closed the door behind her. She hated talking on the phone while in public.

“Kenya, I couldn’t do it,” she revealed. “I left. And I feel so bad leaving J there.”

I didn’t know what to say. My friend had been trying for weeks now to get back to normal, but I could tell that this was going to be a familiar conversation. Ty had not found a way to return to normal yet. She had been in one relationship for the better part of her adult life. She had given this one person everything, every part of her—all of her time, all of her attention, all of her. She was building a life and it was going to be with him, forever.

But now, all of that had changed. The betrayal, the deceit, the pain--it all felt like it was her fault for either allowing it or choosing this guy as her “forever” in the first place.

“She’ll be fine,” I said, regarding J. “And... you’re just not ready yet, sweetie. It’s okay.”

There was silence.

“Since I was five, my hair was always the first thing anybody noticed about me. It was the source of every compliment I ever got—from men and women. It was the thing, he even told me, that initially attracted him to me. So.”

I could tell that she was holding back tears as she thought about her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

“Guess now that it’s gone, all that’s left is me. That has to be enough—pretty enough, attractive enough... good enough. Enough, you know?”

Her question was rhetorical. I even let the silence enter so that she could think about the answer to it herself.

And then I offered: “If it means anything, I personally think the Lupita-look is working for you. But gorgeous either way.”

I smiled. And I could tell that this made her smile too.

“Thank you,” she said before taking a deep breath. “Kenya. I didn’t plan for this. You think I’ll ever recover?”

And that’s another thing about love in a place like DC: when it’s gone, it’ll make you feel like it took everything you had with it.

But if it was never there... Well then you never have to feel the violation of being robbed.

This was the advantage had by those like J, who by the way, did go home with the Chris Rock-looking dude, and did have incredible, meaningless sex. And other than the pleasure felt that night (on multiple occasions, as she later informed me), she would not feel anything—no pain, no betrayal, no deceit. No regrets.

So I thought about Ty’s question to me: if I thought she would ever recover? And I responded, “Of course you’ll recover. You’ll be even better than the you with the good hair.”

She caught the Beyonce reference and found humor in it, as well as relief. For some reason, she believed me, even though I had no experience or reference whatsoever that would validate my wise words to her.

“You just need time,” I went on, like I knew what I was talking about. “Tomorrow’s a new day. Start over,” I advised. “You get a fresh set of 24 to maybe try something new.”

+ + +

Unfortunately, my new set of 24 was a bust. Three hours left in the day and not an inch closer to finding out who was running that 9:30 Club show.

But that night, my focus was back on Tk. When I got to the radio station, she was already there, armed and ready for her 15 minutes of locally broadcasted fame. She was even going over some questions she had pulled from listening to previous interviews that the show’s host had done with other upcoming acts, so that she would have some properly crafted answers when asked.

I was impressed.

Without even acknowledging me as I sat down beside her in the lobby, she went right into probing me for the best approach.

“Hey, when they ask me who was my biggest influence in music growing up, you think I should stick to just rappers or talk about some of the other genres? Because I listened to a lot of Jazz and a lot of, like, Rock and stuff, and I—”

“What time did you get here?” I asked, realizing that it was two minutes to 9.

“Ah… I don’t know. 8:15,” she said. “Someone let me in. I think it was a intern.”

Because I had worked in radio—in fact, I had interned at this very station years ago—I knew that a 9:00 clock interview would have started prep before this point.

She saw the wrinkled-brow look of deep contemplation on my face and became nervous right away.

“What?” she asked.

I quickly straightened my face and lied, “Nothing.” I stood up and started looking around for someone. Anyone.

Just then, a young woman quickly came through the door that separated the lobby from the important part of the station and breezed by us toward the entry door.

“She’s the one who let me in and told me to sit here,” Tk informed.

“‘Scuse me,” I said, trying to get her attention.

But she was already opening the entry door, and the noise coming from the people she was letting in drowned out my voice.

I counted seven guys and one girl. And then I recognized the guy in the middle of the pack—Wale, a major label artist from DC who had sold millions of records, sold out countless shows, and had obviously been here a number of times before because he led the group right past us and through the double doors to the studios. I didn’t manage more than an “excuse me” before the intern and the group was out of sight.

But before pessimism could set it, I was in luck! Amelia, the vegan host who I’d made the agreement with, came through the doors headed in another direction. She didn’t even see us.

“Hey!” I yelled, and then went to track her down.

Off guard, she turned and said, “Oh hey… It’s… you.”

“We’re supposed to have an interview on your show at 9.”

I hadn’t realized that Tk was standing right beside me.

“Oh… Ah. Right. Taj Kamal. The local thing,” she said, avoiding looking over at Tk. “Look, Wale dropped in, wanted to debut his new shit. I don’t even think we’re doing the 15 Minutes of Fame segment this week. My hands are tied. I mean… it’s Wale.”

“Well, what about next week?” Tk asked.

And Amelia just looked at her now, almost like she hated to say this, but, “We have set scheduled guests for all of our shows and—”

“Unbelievable,” I said. “You know, when I go out on a limb and give a girl my cupcakes… I expect it to mean something.”

Realizing how that sounded, I turned to Tk and clarified, “It’s not what it sounds like—”

“No, it’s exactly what it sounds like,” Amelia said.

Tk’s eyes widened and her brows went up revealing all kinds of judgment on her face.

So I tried to better clarify: “See, what happened was, I gave her—”

“She brought me vegan cupcakes,” Amelia said, biting her bottom lip as she considered her next statement. “Tell you what: stick around. I’ll keep you on standby. Time opens up in the show, I’ll put you on.”

Tk and I look at each other and agreed without saying a word—we’d stay.

We sat there for two and a half hours. Apparently, time never did open up. Which got me thinking: Is there a master plan to all of this? Or are we writing our stories as we go?

If so, I’m curious how much say we actually have in how the story goes.

Before I knew it, Sunday was here. And according to all the pointless research I had done, Gavin Degraw was likely in the air, on his way to DC, and would never know about my efforts.

Lucas had made himself comfortable in my chair behind the desk in my office/basement that he seemed to think was the most comfortable chair he’d ever been in--it was a plain old Ikea swivel chair--strumming his guitar to the tune of something he’d written early that day.

When I entered the room with two mugs of tea and motioned to hand him one, he stopped playing and put the guitar across his lap to retrieve it. But before taking a sip, he continued the complaints he’d started when he first came in 20 minutes earlier.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Do they know how many views I get online? And subscribers, and followers and stuff?” He stopped to sip his tea. “This is good. But man, I deserve that spot. I should be up on that stage tonight.”

I half listened as he went on and on about how this latest failed attempt to get him on the stage at 9:30 Club was a mistake on the club’s part and perhaps a lack of effort on my part… Listening to him, you would think that this was an overall tragedy in the world of music.

Lucas was still a few months away from turning 21, so I took everything he said about almost everything with a grain a salt. I’m not discounting the struggles he’d had in his young life so far--and they are numerous--but as an artist, he was expecting a fairytale that almost never happens, which was to be discovered and become a star simply because he was naturally good at what he did.

Forget about paying dues. Forget about honing his craft. Forget about putting in those proverbial 10,000 hours that Gladwell talked about. Lucas wanted to be--as Tk jokingly called him--Justin Bieber.

When I helped him put his first video up online and it got 4,000 views in one week? That was it! Scooter Braun should’ve been calling! He should’ve been making money doing this! The whole world should’ve stopped to listen to him because he was just that good!

Right?

Wrong. And for the last two years since we started working together, I’ve had to find creative, gentle and/or clever ways to show or tell him that he still had work to do. Lots and lots of work to do.

Lucas was young, cute and white. And although he was not savvy enough yet to know that in America this could usually be enough, I knew that innately--as a part of this privileged group--something inside was telling him that it should be. And that’s what I was up against!

So, this wasn’t the first time that I’d watched him pout and slouch and complain about what he wasn’t getting, and even question my efforts of getting it for him.

He picked up an empty album cover that was sitting on my desk and began toying with it as he went on with his spiel.

“Did you talk to everybody that you could? I mean, did you go to the top? I’m sure if the person at the top heard my music, they would be like, ‘Yeah, we should put him on that stage!’ Right?! Because really, Kenya, think about it: all those videos I’ve done have all gotten, like…” He stops and thinks, trying to do the math. “Like a few million views. And I perform at all those schools…”

He shook his head and sipped his tea. And I just watched and listened.

“I feel like crap. You’re supposed to build me up,” he said. “Make me feel better about all this.”

I took my time considering this: To this end, we’d had some success, but only by indie music standards, which meant we still had a very long way to go. Getting on that stage was something both Lucas and I wanted badly. For Lucas, it was the bragging rights--to be able to say that he conquered the same stage that many of his musical heroes had.

For me, it was a DC thing. I knew what the stage and venue symbolized. I had gotten Lucas in front of nearly every possible crowd in DC--the schools, the hole-in-the-wall music venues, the festivals, not to mention the blogs and papers had done great write-ups on him.

The love outside of the city was insane. Ohio, West Virginia, and Delaware alone were the reasons I could pay off my laptop a month early! I wanted to solidify his presence--our presence--in DC. That stage, to me, would do that.

And honestly, I thought we were ready. I thought I had done enough to warrant getting one of my guys on that stage now.

“Well,” I said with a calculated approach, “My job is to steer you in the right direction creatively, get you recorded, distributed, and onto the finger tips, into the ears and before the eyes of people who’ll buy you. I’m sorry if that doesn’t build you up. Or make you feel good enough.”

He stares at his guitar, perhaps taking this all to heart.

I went on: “Your name will be enough to get you on that stage one day, I promise you. But today… is just not that day.”

Still focusing on twirling that empty album case he’d picked up from my desk, he took a deep breath. Took a sip of his tea. And took five seconds before he said, “Well. I’m sitting here. With you. Not in front of people who’ll buy my music. So... what’s your plan?”

And there was that word again: PLAN.

I was the planner. I was always planning for us because that was my job; it’s what I was supposed to do. They do the artist stuff, I do the other stuff, which included planning business success. But maybe I should’ve conceded, said I was beat--that I just didn’t have anymore plans left in me at the moment.

However… I couldn’t. I was the one steering the ship. I was supposed to know where we were going. But the only thing I knew for sure was that nothing was going according to my plans.

Finally, he stopped with the album cover and placed it back where he’d found it. And that was when I saw what had been in his hand all this time: the KC Robert & the Live Revolution disk that I’d been listening to the week before. The same band Soloman and I had come across, playing outside that restaurant the day before.

And that was it!

“Pack up your guitar,” I said to him. “Let’s go.”

+ + +

The line to get in 9:30 Club that night was wrapped around the block. With Lucas following me, I managed to squeeze by and into the front door to get to the ticket booth, immediately spotting a girl wearing all black with black hair, black nails and black lipstick. I quickly noted the name “Grace” on a “Hi, my name is” sticker on her chest.

Before I could say Hi back and introduce myself, she said very routinely, “We’re not letting people in yet.”

I didn’t know exactly where I should begin, so I just began: “Ah… Hi. Grace. I’m not here to… I need to talk to the organizer—”

“Look, all hook-ups are written here on this list.” She pointed at a clipboard without even looking at it. “Now if I look down at this list, will your name be on it?”

“Well, not exact... No. See—”

But before I could explain, she had already categorized me. “Miss, I’m gonna have to ask you to step to the back of the line.”

Lucas gave a loud exhale behind me and whispered, “This? This was your plan?” before turning and sliding back out the door we came in, frustrated.

Before I could respond or catch him to maybe explain, I saw Bonni was approaching, perhaps to say something to Grace. But she spotted me just as she stopped.

She gave one of those half-smiles as she asked, “You here for the show? Or to convince us that after 30-plus years, we now need you in order to pull one off?”

I deserved that.

In this business, I’ve learned that your reputation sometimes is all you have. And in an effort to come across as some brilliant, savvy mastermind, I had in fact made one of the most powerful people in my industry and in my city believe that I was just another arrogant, incompetent, entitled punk.

I wanted to apologize. I wanted to explain. I wanted to cry, but I certainly couldn’t do that.

In a last ditch effort to get somewhere, I just said, “Listen. My guy is really, really good. I mean—”

And mid-sentence, disregarding everything I was saying, she leaned over and whispered to Grace, “We’re going to start letting people in in about 10 minutes.”

“At least... here,” I said. “Take a CD.” And I was pointing one of Lucas’ discs at her, hoping that she’d take it. If not to reconsider my botched proposal, to at the very least not hold it against Lucas in the future.

She sighed while looking at the disc in my hand and then at me.

She said, “Keep your CD—”

“But-”

“I don’t need a CD,” she added, before I could insist. “I have the internet. I listened.”

She nodded as I hung onto every word coming out of her mouth.

“It’s good. Your guy is… he’s good.”

And I wanted to smile, but I kept that tucked away for later. I’d already planned to smile when I got outside.

She turned as if she was done, but doubled back and threw in, “Janet Fuller. That’s who you need. She books the big shows around here. She’ll give you a listen.”

Before I could thank her, she was already gone.

Lucas was sitting outside on the curb a few feet away from the line, watching people as they walked up and then realized how far back they actually needed to go to get in line.

“That wasn’t the plan,” I informed.

He looked back and up at me, confused.

“That... was a last ditch effort to get you on that stage.”

“But you’re out here with me,” he said. “So…”

“Nope. Didn’t work,” I revealed. “Get your guitar out.”

He didn’t get it.

“Look, you may not be sharing the stage with Gavin Degraw tonight but you will play for his audience. This is your stage. Your album? These are the people who’ll buy it.”

I looked around at all the people walking around, biding time before the doors opened for them to be let in to hear one of their favorite artists perform... Not much different from the people at that happy hour, waiting for their food and drinks, they were given music as somewhat of an appetizer. I felt like this was the perfect opportunity to emulate that, and to prove my point, I got more specific with Lucas.

“Her. She’d buy it,” I said about college-aged girl. “And her,” I said about another young woman. “And those girls,” as a group tried to find the end of the line. “And him right there. He’ll buy it,” I said about a hipster. “And that guy. And—”

And then I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t believe it. There he was again…

“Alright, alright. I get it,” Lucas said, finally getting up from the ground.

I’d heard Lucas, but as this point I didn’t care. Because standing at the door talking--all chummy and buddy-like with Bonni--was him! Yes, that him, from the Apple store! Dream Guy. The chocolatey one with those eyes and that beard. My God!

He and two other guys were chatting it up with Bonni like they were old friends. And I just stood there, not able or willing to look away. But looking was all I could do. I couldn’t remember a single word of that imaginary conversation I’d had with him in the store that day--the simulated encounter where I was all confident and “transparent” and whatnot.

Here I was, given a second chance and I had no idea what to do with it.

I just stood there watching as he checked out of the conversation with the group and began scanning the area like he might’ve been new or unfamiliar with the neighborhood and was taking it all in.

Maybe it was irony or just plain happenstance, but Lucas began singing a cover of Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name,” right on cue. No better lyrics to suit my current situation.

I watched as Dream Guy nonchalantly scanned the crowd, giving every single person a second or two, until his eyes eventually landed right on mine.

And that moment… felt like forever. And for that moment--those two, maybe even four seconds--I could not look away.

Until I did.

I looked down (of all the places to look). I admit to the chink in my armor.

Here’s the thing: I’m a 27-year-old kid from DC with no siblings, who dropped out of a local college, so not exactly the subject of bragging by my parents. I don’t have a degree. I don’t have any money. I don’t have a lot of connections. I don’t have a team of people working with me in order to make my company or me successful. And depending on who you ask, I’m dealing with the wrong artists if I expect to see success in the music business. Not to even mention, I’m probably in the wrong town for this kind of thing anyway.

So… I don’t have a whole lot going for me. But what I do have is exactly what it takes to be great--the willingness to be wrong, or embarrassed, or misunderstood, or disliked. The willingness to flat out fail, and then turn over and get back up for more.

I am going to make a lot of mistakes. I am going to be bad at my job sometimes. I may not always be the ideal friend, the perfect daughter, or even the best girlfriend. I’m going to hurt people sometimes (perhaps with negligence, but never with malice). I am going to give good advice, and bad advice, and I’m going to suck at taking advice.

But when it’s all said and done, I am going to have a hand in helping some of the most talented musicians reach the world with their music, and become one of the most influential figures in the entertainment industry of my generation.

But like I said: today, I’m just a girl from DC selling CDs and MP3s. Little Miss Nobody.

But someday, I am going to be great. And this… this is the story of how I’ll do it.

So… When I looked back up, all I saw was Dream Guy’s back as he disappeared into the club--leaving the ironic smell of chocolate in the air. And that night, I missed the opportunity to perhaps meet someone that I desperately wanted to get to know because of fear--false expectations appearing real. I promise you though, this will not paralyze my love life forever.

But I couldn’t dwell on what-ifs, especially when Lucas was drawing quite the crowd at the moment. Some were even putting money into his guitar case without me even asking, so I took the opportunity to trade CDs for cash.

Because that’s the thing: with life... I just roll with the punches.

With music? Well, with music I have a plan. I always have a plan.

But with men? I have no idea what I’m doing.

END of ONE

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