Soni and I met at Jazzy Summer Nights, this outdoor jazz festival Baltimore had every first Thursday during the spring and summer months. You could catch anyone of any class or any color dancing, buying handmade jewelry, or like me—getting Len-Bias-on-draft-night fucked up. I’d throw some Perks in me, put on a new shirt, and then bang my liver with half a fifth of Belvedere before heading down with Dog Boy playing copilot. Sometimes Nick came down too.
I felt like being out. The split with Hurk had been fucking with me. I really wanted to go and didn’t mind going alone, but some bodies had dropped recently and Dog Boy wasn’t letting me roll anywhere solo since the shootout.
We hit the festival an hour or two after it started. Dog Boy had been drugging harder than me—popping dark green PlayStation epills like Altoids, but I was Mormon sober that night. The Advil bottle that I’d stuffed with Perks in my glove box was empty, and we hadn’t stopped for drinks.
“Dee, no bottle? You ain’t cop no bottle? Shit, Yo,” said Dog Boy, dying of thirst.
I reached into the backseat and grabbed the half bottle of Deer Park off of the seat. “Here, drink this, dummy, we’ll get wet when we get down there.”
“Warda,” he replied with a coiled face.
We hopped out of the car and I tried to hand Dog Boy some cash because we normally split up. He pulled a tennis ball–shaped bundle of twenties out of his sock, placed it in his sweatpants, and said, “I’m good, baby, put your li’l money away.”
Me and Dog Boy combed the crowd—him looking for vodka, me people watching, and us both looking for girls. We bumped into Tank, an old friend from Perkins housing projects. He and Dog Boy instantly dived into conversation about New Balance’s best shoe or some other topic that I didn’t care about so I wandered. I walked past the main stage once or twice and peeked in at each and every concession stand. Everyone in the crowd wore grins; problem-free looking women in flowing dresses twirled while their soulful dudes in linen pants and open-toe sandals danced by their sides. I wondered what they all did for a living. Did they hustle? Was I the only one who cared about fluctuating coke prices? Could they tell that I sold drugs? I noticed Dog Boy from afar and easily would have been able to tell he hustled if I didn’t know him. He looked eleven years old, an eighty-pound teenager with Queen Elizabeth’s diamonds wrapped around his wrist, gleaming from here to wherever. Dog Boy, like me, would mix diamonds with loose Nike sweat suits or Louis Vuitton Damier print belts with Timbs. Only drug dealers mix and match fine European fabrics with apparel you can find in USA Boutique and the Locker Room.
Dog Boy was still rapping to Tank. He positioned himself like he was firing an AR-15 while Tank gyrated with his eyes rolled back in his head—as if he was taking imaginary shots from Dog Boy’s imaginary gun—shit hood kids like us do when we’ve eaten one too many paint chips. Watching them act like that made me laugh while making the more reserved blacks uncomfortable. They always looked down on us and they always will.
Fifteen minutes of strolling aimlessly through the festival and I had yet to get a number or a drink. I passed a few women who had been past my crib before—cute baby-faced brown girls infatuated with niggas that sling dope, baby-mothers of retired gangstas, county girls eager for a project tour, and women old enough to be my mother. Some would speak with that neck twist I loved while others showed me their middle fingers, but either way was cool—I valued my experiences with them.
I grabbed a strawberry piña colada frozen umbrella drink from a stand not too far from the main stage and saw a new face—a woman that I’ve never seen before. She was standing alone, draped in Afrocentric fabrics and had about fifty bracelets on her right arm and none on the left. It was weird but kind of fly. I walked a little closer.
Her Scotch-colored skin was flawless. I bet she never took a drink, tried a drug, told a lie, or had a problem—ever. I was never the guy who cared about skin color, especially inside of my own race. I’m addicted to all black women and twisted every shade from Pepsi-colored to flake-colored and light-skinned women who were bright enough to gain Klan acceptance. She was probably one of those back-to-Africa chicks, I thought, so I couldn’t approach her the same way I would roll up on these hoodrats. I’m literate, I’m kind of smart, I’m clean, I thought—fuck it, I’m going in.
“Hey,” I said as I stood in front of her.
“Hi, ummm,” she replied, looking over my shoulder. “You’re blocking the show. I’m kinda into it.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, quickly moving to her left. Normally I would’ve had a clever response but I froze, and being extra nice was my natural instinct.
“You wanna drink?” I asked, still looking for an in.
“I don’t drink, but thanks. Wait. Are you serious?”
“What?” I replied as I saw her looking at my necklace. I was wearing a diamond-cut Cuban link, with a Jesus-head charm hanging in the center. The crown of thorns had about three hundred diamonds and the eyes were Madeira-colored rubies.
“Why are you wearing so many diamonds? Do you know where they come from?” It was hard for me to focus on what she was saying with those cosmic eyes staring straight through me.
“It was a gift from my older brother. Too much?” I asked.
She went on to tell me about Sierra Leone and conflict diamonds. She said that children lost dreams and limbs so that people like me and rappers could be blinged out in gaudy, pointless jewelry. I listened to every word she said. I never saw a person so passionate about something that they could never profit from. Soni went on to tell me that she was a college student and planned on going into the Peace Corps after graduation.
I lied and said that I was going back to college in the fall. Then I quickly switched the topic to the impacts that Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party had on African American culture, pride, and black awareness, which basically means I told her everything I know, except my drug knowledge. She nodded like her head was on a string, while adding a feminist perspective. I was probably the only young dude in the city that looked like I represented the street but could hold a conversation about awareness and Black Nationalism.
We exchanged numbers. I didn’t want to be too forward. She sparked a sense of negritude in me that I hadn’t felt since Bip died. I heard Dog Boy calling me as we parted ways. I turned around to get another glimpse of her before leaving the festival and caught her looking back too—our eyes met again.
“Yo, who that big head bitch, y’all related?” said Dog Boy.
“Naw, she my new friend,” I replied while looking down at her number in my phone and making sure it was saved into my contacts—I was notorious for not saving numbers.
“Okay, okay, let’s hit Scrawberries, tho. Dat’s where da real hoes at anyway. Fuck these bitches down here.” Strawberries 5000 was a nightclub on Route 40. The loosest of the loose women went there looking for guys like us—brash dealers who would aimlessly throw money at them. We were regular in there. We spent thousands when we came through. In exchange we never paid cover charges, could get kids like Dog Boy in, and were exempt from frisking.
“Fuck is a scraw-berry? Strawberries, my nigga. Strawberries.”