When I was 5 years old, I fell in love with my big brother’s best friend. As one of the most frequent guests in my parents’ home, he had always been around. But I never really noticed him until the Saturday morning I was cleaning my room.
While picking up random toys and shoes to shove underneath my bed, I heard his muffled voice coming through my bedroom wall.
“When… alone in my… stare at the wall and… back… mind… my… call,” he said.
Not exactly sure of what I was hearing, I decided I needed a better eavesdropping perch. So I crept down the hall to my brother’s bedroom door.
“…telling me I need a girl who’s as sweet as a dove,” he continued to tell my older sibling. “For the first time in my life, I see I need love.’
Eww, I thought to myself, not the “l-word.” This was definitely a foul committed against kindergarten’s unspoken rules of etiquette on public display of affection. Just what kind of pubescent sap had my brother befriended? And why was he finishing all of his homeboy’s sentences? I gave up.
After all, this was his ace boon coon, so maybe they just understood each other like that.
But it wasn’t until this banter about amore’ switched to chitchat on passion that I knew there was something special about him.
“I came in the door, I said it before,” he said. “I never let the mic magnetize me no more, but it’s biting me, fighting me, inviting me to rhyme.”
I fell that moment into puppy love’s booby trap for the first time.
As the years passed, he started to hang around the house more often. Fairly older, I was now catching on to the heart of their discussions. My crush on my brother’s friend grew, and he started noticing me more, too.
Unfortunately, so did my parents. They were determined not to have my mind corrupted by this hooligan whom they still weren’t comfortable with having in their home. But what could they possibly know?
Meanwhile, big brother was split. Being protective, like all older siblings, he told me his boy had a side I didn’t know about. However, he did admire my good taste. So I began to see his buddy.
All of my friends liked him and the guys at school looked at me differently after they found out we were together… so typical. Our love was like none other. His pictures were taped not only the to inside of my locker but the outside, too. You can’t knock me for wanting to show off how handsome he was.
But then one day, he went nuts.
No sooner had I turned my back, his arms were wrapped around some chick named Bling. And her bad habits had his nose wide open. When we first got together, he told me his nickname was “MC,” short for move the crowd. Now he’s everywhere pushing crippling lifestyles to strung-out material fiends like crack while calling himself a “P.I.M.P.” What kind of misogynistic, locker room yak is that?
We eventually broke up, and I haven’t heard from him since.
It’s obvious he needs to get a grip and become conscious of the fact that Ms. Bling turned him out. But for now, it looks as if he will continue to be oblivious to those truths given that so many people stroke his ego.
So if you see him in the streets, tell Hip Hop I said, “Holla back.”
Monica Harden is a senior magazine production student from Hockley, Texas. She is the deputy opinions editor for The Famuan. Contact her at mharden82@aol.com.