From Infinite to Kamikaze: A Novel

FEBRUARY 1999 - LEX (Part 1)

"So were you able to get off on the 2nd?" I asked my mom over the phone.

"I was! So where are we gonna celebrate?" she asked excitedly.

"Not sure yet...but I have some ideas," I smiled.

"Well I don't know what's gonna top that amazing spa day I got last year. But I can't wait to see what you come up with!"

My mom's 7 year sobriety anniversary was coming up and it was always a weird mix of emotions at that time of the year. It was stressful, worrying whether or not she'd make it to that mark; but it was also a relief, knowing how far she'd come. At the end of the day, it was a lifelong endeavor. I was grateful that she had the support of her sponsor, a nice man named Mark who had become a permanent fixture in her life. He was around a lot in the beginning when she needed constant encouragement. Birthdays, holidays, and weepy weekends when she would allow herself to feel the sting of my father leaving her all over again. Those were the times Mark would come around most. But slowly my mom found her inner strength and longer stretches of time would go by without me seeing him. Not to mention he had gotten married a few years after becoming my mom's sponsor and the duties of being a newlywed took up a lot of his attention. 

But lately, over the last couple of months, I'd been seeing him pretty frequently again. I secretly worried that the reason he was coming around more often was because my mom was struggling with her sobriety but didn't want me to know. I tried to make life as stress-free as I could for her so that she wouldn't find herself walking down that dark path again. I did what I could when I was home: cleaning, cooking, running errands. We gardened and baked and watched movies together. Those things relaxed her. But when I was away at school during the week, it was harder to keep an eye on her. So I appreciated Mark and his reliable help. Especially now that I was traveling more. Traveling for this work I was doing with my songwriting and learning about music production, traveling for dance, and a time like today...when I was traveling with Marshall.

We were back in Boston, where it all started for us as a real official couple. He was scheduled to perform at The Middle East Nightclub in Cambridge that weekend. It was only a week before his album was due to come out and he had been a little on edge lately. The video for My Name Is had premiered on MTV a few weeks earlier and it had blown up. Like, BLOWN. UP. I remembered getting the call from him the day it aired...

He had been in New Jersey staying at Paul's after doing a show in NYC. I hadn't been able to go because of school and dance obligations. I got a call a little after 11pm, which freaked me out cuz usually a call at that time of night meant something bad had happened. "Yo, turn on MTV!" Em's beyond excited voice had practically yelled over the phone before I could even say hello. I had put a blank tape in the VCR earlier that day in preparation for this moment. Marshall had told me the video would air sometime that day but didn't know exactly what time. I ran to the TV and fumbled with the buttons before finally starting to record it in the middle of the first verse. We rapped the entire song (uncensored) over the phone together as the clean version played on our respective TV screens. I had to giggle in between bars because I was just so over the moon thrilled for him, plus the video itself was just absolutely hilarious. It was a spot-on depiction of Em's jokester personality. I was so proud of him and wished I could crawl through the phone to show him. In the last week or so, things had gotten a little weird. It seemed like everywhere we went, he'd get stares, fingers pointed at him, and once someone even came up and ask him if he was Slim Shady. I could tell it made him uncomfortable but he was nice about it.

For this particular Boston show, I was able to come along and I was really excited cuz it was the first show I had been to since his single had been released. We got a room together and this one was really nice compared to the last hotel we had stayed at. I was still on the phone with my mom when Em walked through the door.