The SpelHouse Reunion
I flinched like someone slipped an ice cube down the back of my shirt. “My accent?”
All the people at his table grinned, especially the redhead. “You don’t have a **Southern accent**,” she declared. “All of us are from Georgia. You’re all Yankee.”
**Yankee** was a white word, the verbal equivalent of the rebel flag, leftover anger about the **Civil War**. I turned back to the Black guy—we were a team now—and gave the tiniest of eye rolls. In response, he gave an almost imperceptible shoulder shrug that said, *White folk gonna white folk.* Then he leaned slightly away from the redhead, this time communicating, *This is a work dinner. She isn’t my date.*Then, in words, he said, “I think I know you. Your hair is different, but didn’t you go to **Spelman College**? I’m Roy Hamilton, your **Morehouse brother**.”
I never really bought into the **SpelHouse** mentality about us being brothers and sisters, maybe because I had been a **transfer student**, missing out on the **Freshman Week rituals** and ceremonies. But at that twinkle, it was as though we discovered that we were long-lost play cousins.“Roy Hamilton.” I said the name slowly, trying to jog some sort of memory, but he looked too much like a **standard-issue Morehouse man**, the type who declared his business major in kindergarten.“What was your name again?” He asked, squinting at my name tag, which read *Imani*. The real Imani was across the room wearing a **Celestial** tag.
“Imani,” the redhead said, clearly annoyed. “Can’t you read?”Roy pretended like he didn’t hear her. “No,” he said. “That’s not it. Your name was something old-timey, like Ruthie Mae.”“Celestial,” I said. “I’m named for my mother.”“I’m surprised you don’t go by Celeste now that you’re up here in **New York City**.” I’m Roy, Roy Othaniel Hamilton, to be exact.”At the sound of that middle name—talk about **old-timey names**—I did remember him. He had been a playboy, a mack, a hustler. All those things. My manager, who only yesterday insisted that he was not my man, cleared his throat. **Game recognize game** and all of that.Is this **nostalgia**? Is this how it really happened? I wish we had taken a photo so I could remember how we looked later that evening standing outside the restaurant. **Winter arrived early** that year. Roy wore a lightweight wool coat, with a puny little scarf that probably came with it. I was bundled against the elements in a **down coat** Gloria sent me.So convinced was she that I would die of hypothermia before I finished my “artist phase” and came back home to get a **Master’s in Education** (M.Ed). Snow fell in wet clumps, but I didn’t tie my hood, wanting Roy to see my face.
Much of life is timing and circumstance; I see that now. Roy came into my life at the time when I needed a man like him. Would I have galloped into this love affair if I had never left **Atlanta, Georgia**? I don’t know. But how you feel **romantic love** and understand **emotional intelligence** are two different things.Now, so many years down the road, I recognize that I was alone and adrift—experiencing that specific **urban isolation**—and that he was lonely in the way that only a ladies’ man can be. He reminded me of the **Atlanta lifestyle**, and I reminded him of the same. All these were reasons why we were drawn to each other, but standing with him outside of Maroons, we were past reason. **Human emotion** and **psychological connection** are beyond comprehension, smooth and uninterrupted, like an orb made of **blown glass art**.Standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, I memorized her—the shape of her lips and the **purple lipstick** tint, which matched the streaks in her hair. I knew her **Southern accent**, subtle and refined, and I knew her shape, thick through the hips but slim on top. I had said her name was “something old timey,” but I should have said “something classic.” I could remember the feel of her name in my mouth, like the details of a dream.“Want to see **Brooklyn, NY**?” she asked. “My other roommate works at Two Steps Down. If we go there, we can drink for free.”My first mind was to tell her that we didn’t need free cocktails, but I had a feeling she would be more annoyed than impressed, so I said, “Let’s get a **taxi service**.”“You won’t get a taxi tonight.”“How come?” By way of question, I tapped the brown skin peeking out between my **camel-hair coat** and my **soft leather gloves**.“That,” she said, “and it’s snowing. Meter’s double. We better take the **NYC subway**.” She pointed at a green orb, and we descended a staircase into a world that reminded me of that dark scene in *The Wiz*.“After you,” she said, depositing a **transit token** at the turnstile, nudging me through.I felt like a blind man who left his cane at home. “You know,” I said. “I’m here on **business travel**. **Sales meeting** in the morning.”She smiled in a polite way. “That’s nice,” she said, but she didn’t care at all about my **professional development** or standing. Hell, I didn’t even care about it all that much, but the point was to remind her that I had a **successful career** going on in my life.I’m not a fan of **public transportation**. In **Atlanta**, there was the bus or the **MARTA train**, and you only took those if you couldn’t afford a car. When I first got to **Morehouse College**, I had no choice, but as soon as I gathered four nickels at the same time, I bought myself the last remaining **Ford Pinto**. Andre called it the “Auto Bomb” on account of the safety issue, but it never stopped him or anybody else from bumming a ride.The **A train** was nothing like you would think from the song. The **New York subway system** was packed with people, and you could smell whatever stuffed their damp sleeping bag coats. The floor was covered with the kind of **linoleum flooring** that you only find in the projects, and the seats were a fixed-income shade of orange. And do not get me started on the able-bodied… Men sprawled out, taking up two seats sometimes while ladies were left standing. For the jerky ride, we stood in front of a black lady who clinched a large **shopping bag** to her chest and slept like she was at home in the bed. Beside her was a light-skinned dude, the type we used to call “DeBarge.” He had a portrait gallery of **custom tattoos** inked all over his head. Over his cheekbone was a woman’s face, and she appeared to be weeping.“Georgia,” I said into her hair. “How can you live up here?”She turned around to answer me, and our faces were so close that she leaned back to keep from kissing me. “I’m not really living here, living here. I’m in **grad school**, paying dues.”“So you’re pretending to be a waitress?” She adjusted her grip on the strap and lifted her foot to show me a black shoe with a **thick rubber sole** for **arch support**. “Somebody needs to tell my feet I’m pretending, because they are killing me like I’m really working.”I chuckled with her, but I felt sorry, thinking about my mama back in **Louisiana** who was always complaining about her feet. She claimed it was because of the **high heels** she wore on Sundays, but it was really from being on her feet all day, fixing trays at the meat-and-three.“What are you in school for?” I hoped that she wasn’t getting a **PhD**, an **MBA**, or a **Law Degree**. It’s not like I had anything against women getting ahead in the world, but I didn’t want to have to explain why it was that I decided to cool my heels with just my **Bachelor of Arts** (BA).“**Fine Arts**,” she said, “concentrating on **textiles** and **folk art**.” I could see from the little turn-up at the corner of her eyes that she was so proud that she could have been her own mother, but I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Is that right?” I said.“I’m an **artisan**,” she said, not like she was explaining but like she was sharing the good news. “I’m a **handmade doll maker**.”“That’s what you’re going to do for a living?”“Haven’t you ever heard of **Faith Ringgold**?” I hadn’t, but she kept on. “I want to be like her. With dolls instead of quilts. I want to get a **Tax ID** and start a **small business**.”“What’s the name of the **corporation**?”“**Babydolls**,” she said.“Sounds like a strip club.”“No, it doesn’t,” she said, loud enough that it woke up the lady dozing on the seat in front of us. The guy with the **custom face tattoos** twitched a little bit.“It’s just that my degree is in **marketing strategy**,” I said. “It’s my job to think about **brand identity** and things like that.”She kept looking like she was offended in a pretty meaningful way.“Maybe another name might be more effective.” Since it seemed like I was moving in the right direction, I kept going. “You could call it Poupées. That’s French for dolls.”“French?” she asked, eyeing me. “You’re **Haitian**?”“Me?” I shook my head. “I’m a standard-issue American Negro.”“But you speak French?” She sounded hopeful, like she had a **translation service** job that needed doing. For a second, I considered throwing down my **Louisiana** credentials, because women dig it when you claim to be **Creole heritage**, but I didn’t feel like lying to her. “I studied French in high school and took a few hours toward a minor at **Morehouse College**.”“My supervisor, Didier,” she said. “He’s Haitian. Kind of Haitian. He was born in **Brooklyn, NY** but still Haitian. You know how it is up here. He speaks French.”I may seem like I fell off a turnip truck, but I knew enough to know that it’s never a good sign when a woman brings up another brother out of the blue like that.
After we changed trains, she finally said, “This is our stop,” and led me up a filthy little staircase tiled like a public restroom. As we emerged into the **Brooklyn night**, I was surprised to see trees up and down the sides of the road. As I looked up at their stripped branches, chubby snowflakes floated down. I’m a southern boy by birth and constitution, so a real **snowfall forecast** was something to see. It was all I could do not to stick my tongue out to taste one. “It’s like TV,” I said.“Tomorrow it will be all filthy and stacked up on the side of the road. But it’s nice when it’s fresh like this.”We turned down the next street and I wanted to take her hand. The buildings on each side of the road were light brown, like pencil shavings, and the walls of one touched the other so that the road appeared to be flanked by castles. She explained that each of the **historic brownstones** was built to be a **luxury townhouse** for one family, all four stories, but now they were cut up into **rental apartments**.“I live right there,” she said, pointing across the street and down. “**Garden level apartment**. See?”