Another Man's Treasure (Joey Bada$$ Story)

Part Dieci

So I woke up.

All around me, ever since I got off the bus, I saw home. Landmarks and restaurants and gas stations that I normally didn’t care about but today, after travelling somewhere away from home after so long, stand out to me dramatically. It was almost like visiting a place you’ve only been once before, when you were really young, and walking around saying ‘I remember that!’. It’s raw. It’s an ugly nostalgia.

I didn’t know where to go. Instinct told me to walk home, but I remembered soon that I didn't have a home here. I didn’t have a home anywhere. I could perhaps make on of my own, though. The plan was to make a home out of Abigail’s house, but now that that wasn’t an option, I only had one other choice: my workplace.

I walked to the restaurant.

The clock in front of a local public school read 9:30 PM. The shop closed at ten, but the drunk couples liked to stay and take long to eat, so he’d probably be closing doors at 10:30. Then he’d have to stay back and clean up with the other employees. That gave me more than enough time to talk to him.

When I walked into the restaurant, some of the customers actually recognized me and waved to me - a lot of them did, actually. I didn’t recognize most of them and I felt bad for it. They made me feel welcome. If only they know what I was going through, they’d understand why I couldn’t put a name or scenario to their faces. To anyone’s.

“Where’s Darren?” I asked Yolanda, the girl who was on cashier shift tonight. She pointed to the back. I put down my bag and walked into the kitchen, where Darren was gently criticizing a chef for over-spicing the food. (“They’re not Jamaican, they’re Caucasian. They can’t handle it.)

“Hey, D.” I waved to him.

“Hey, babe! It’s Jamie-Lee, everybody!” He dramatically yelled and engulfed me in a bear hug. The others in the kitchen greeted me warmly.

“How’re you? Where have you been?” Darren asked me.

“I’m fine, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You want to talk to me about where you’ve been? Come outside.”

We walked through the kitchen and to the alley, which wasn’t too dark due to the fact that all the other diners and restaurants on the strip had enough light to illuminate our little area. The wooden chairs with their backs were still there, in a couple disarrayed rows, as usual. As they were that day when Abigail brought one for T’nah. There, in the alley, I decided that I can dub that day as one that changed my life. It wasn’t the one that changed it, but it was definitely up there on the list.

“I’ve been all over the place,” I told Darren. “I haven’t been at my house just lying down coming to work. I understand if that’s what you thought. I’ve been trying to get my life together, and it has been very stressful. I haven’t had enough time to call you, but I’m here today to apologize. I also wanted to ask that, if you accept my apology, you allow me to stay in the restaurant. I’ll work double shifts if I have to. At night, I can sleep in the basement. It won’t even be for a long time. I’ll open up and close the shop, I’ll clean. But I can’t pay you right now.”

Darren looked at me in a very confused manner, as if everything I’d just said didn’t make much sense to me. “Well, I did think that you were at your house and not coming to work. But I didn’t think you were just lying down, I figured you were just working things at with your marriage. I can’t interrupt the mending of love,” He said.

“Huh? What do you mean by ‘mending my marriage’? I wasn’t even in my house. I wasn’t in DC.” I said.

“Oh, really?” Darren scratched his head. “Then maybe I interrupted a cute little love surprise. Damnit! He was probably trying to surprise you.”