Micah Maisonet is GSU's big shot on campus. He's not just the star quarterback, he's a young man with confidence as big as the world on his shoulders. However that confidence is quickly challenged, when Micah is hurt in the middle of his senior year...
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"Twenty five, twenty six, and twenty seven. It's all there, twenty seven hundred. Now, when can you get started?"
The opening of my poetry bar had been put off for long enough, and now that I had tracked down the right contractors that I hoped could bring my vision to life - I was ready to get to work.
The slender, olive skinned man bit down on his tooth pick, "Aiight now baby doll, this covers the deposit. That's understood?" "Yup. When can you start?" "I'll get my men on it this coming monday, how does that sound?"
I was thinking more like the following day, bright and early, but I guess I could take the ladder. SLAM was up to this point, my life's work - I didn't have a degree, or a steady traditional job, instead deciding that what life had in store for me had to be way more than just the average 9-5. My mind wasn't wired that way. I was too busy soaking up the world, and spitting it back out on paper - and every weekend, I got the honor of speaking my work over a sea of people that loved the art of poetry just as much as I did.
I often performed at The Dove, a spot in Germantown that was home to some of my favorite Philly poets - Asha George, SunShine, and Ms.Wisdown - and to grace the same stage that they had was still mind blowing. SLAM would be my legacy. A home for young poets to hone their skills and set the scene on fire, or so I hoped.
Mr. Maloney, the contractor, slid the paper he had been writing on in his shirt pocket and gave it two firm taps, "I'll be in touch, call me if you have any questions or requests. Have a good one."
I nodded, thanking him for his time before the next thing I knew I was left alone in the drafty, dark building. It was old. As hell. Smelled like it too. If I hadn't been mistaken, I had also saw a few spiders scurry away the morning I came in. So yeah, it needed a lot of work done to it - but, I believed in myself, even if no one else did.
Speaking of one of those people, I was due to arrive to a lunch date with my older sister, Jalisa, who had just landed back in town. Don't get me wrong, I loved her by default, but I prefered to do so from a distance. The two of us barely saw eye to eye on anything, and ever since my mother died - things just became worst.
Twenty minutes later I was pulling up to Spike's, a sports bar not too far from my building. I spotted Jalisa's car parked not too far from mine, telling me that she had already arrived.
"You ordered without me?" Typical Jalisa. I wouldn't have been surprised if she hadn't even thought about waiting. She smacked on her onion rings, "Uhh yeah, you knew the time to be here. I was hungry as hell on that flight." I smirked a tiny bit, "Yeah, we all know you can't be hungry for long." "You're hilarious." "I try." "So how's that trap house you're trying to turn into a hookah lounge?" She said, snarkingly. And there it was.
I let laugher roll of my tongue as I picked up the menu. I was hungry, but didn't have an appetite for anything specific. I hated that.
"You mean the old church that's going to my poetry venue?" I finally replied.
