Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Making friends as an adult is SO. HARD.

I've always made friends at work. A few at school, but my good friends come from work. I think it's because where I grew up, there was Metco and it made schooling weird. Instead of adding more money to struggling schools, let's just bus the poor Black kids back and forth to a rich school in the oh so white suburbs. My mom didn't understand Metco and my dad grew up during the initial bussing crisis so both were not keen on the idea. There was the city magnet for artsy kids and the city magnet for STEM kids, but I wasn't that confident with my science and math and I may love writing but that's not an art they focus on. You could just take an advanced English class or something. I deeply regret not going to a technical high school. Going to a technical high school doesn't get rid of the possibility of college, but it does give you a foundation in a trade skill. Of course there isn't a technical high school in our district or any of the surrounding districts. The technical high school in our area was closed while I was in elementary school. Anyways, this lovely trip down academic nostalgia road to say that I've found it incredibly difficult recently to make friends because the last place I interned and worked was not a place that fostered any kind of lasting relationship culture.
This is kinda capitalist bullshit but everyone should have a best friend at work. It makes the days go by faster and you look forward to going to work. Since my current job is a little lonely and on the solo side, I've substituted work friends with dropping in on someone else at work buddies. A few days into my research and Winnie kicked me out of the house. Only for a few hours she said. Go make some friends she said. Get to know the area she said. Winnie lives in a rural area south of New Orleans because she'd heard of Marie Laveau and thought she could learn from her. Winnie did because Queen Laveau was compassionate and wanted to share her knowledge but also Marie was aging and Winnie doesn't want her secret resurrection skillset known and Marie was a devout Catholic with many children.
When Winnie kicked me out I walked around town. There isn't much, but there is a place that is pretty much the greatest combination of two of my most favorite things: books and beer. The Bookshop Bar sells books and booze. And ever since my first foray, I've gone there almost every day. I also go to the library. I've successfully made friends with the librarian. She runs the whole ship with a few volunteers. I got myself on the roster because I need external structure to my day to allow me to get things done and I've never been able to make myself do shit.
Thus far I've also made friends with Flor, the non-practicing neo pagan manager, and Harlan, a tall curvy blonde bartender. I go to the bookshop bar to work a lot. Everyone calls the old man that owns the place Pops, and he's taken a fatherly liking to me. I was worried that my studies would be off putting to him since I've never met older Black people that weren't deeply Christian, but he's been of the utmost help and encouraging to boot. I guess I should have guessed by his choice in staff, the secret Asian who swears fealty to her dear dark Lord and the white Afro-Carribean who looks younger than me but is definitely hands and feet ahead of me in Black conjure knowledge. There are maybe two or three other people that work the shop and bar and I know their faces and like them well enough but I feel a deeper connection with Pops, Flor, and Harlan.
After about a month of near daily visits in the same clothing, the librarian who is named Andalusia but goes by Andi, Harlan, and Flor told me that I need more clothes and they've organized a clothing swap for this upcoming Thursday. Thursday is the sweet spot day because the bar isn't that busy and the library opens later on Friday so it can stay open later. Andi loves Bookshop but as she puts it, "people deserve somewhere to go that isn't serving booze or expecting payment." Though Bookshop's margins must be razor thin because their prices are so low. Maybe they're so low because we are so far out in the sticks we're finally in that mythical place where things are cheaper because supposedly life is cheaper. I know what that's supposed to mean but it sounds like valuing someone's life to be less valuable simply by dint of where geographically they happen to be located. Like a poor Black life doesn't matter because apart from Flor and Harlan, both transplants, everyone I've come across is Black. This whole town seems Blackity Black and I love it. Also I don't fit in. Because I'm too Northern and too suburban and too urban. I didn't grow up growing my own food and I've spent most of my life indoors because allergies hit me like a baseball bat being swung by a minor leaguer (having been accidentally hit by a kid swinging a baseball bat and walked it off like children do I feel the need to qualify) and the allergy meds they put me on at first didn't work well and I haven't tried them since. Supposedly Claritin and Zyrtec are great. Maybe I'll even try them one day.
Winnie has told me that it's important I make connections here in town. That I build lasting relationships with people in the community. So I'm hoping to make friends with the woman who runs the community garden and the woman who runs the town's internet. Technically this is unincorporated territory so we don't get elected officials but that's also how we have the fastest and cheapest internet anywhere. The townspeople decided it is a public utility and built out the infrastructure to support amazing internet.
In the next official town there are also a few women I'm interested in forming lasting relationships with. A couple of abolitionists who run a Bail Fund and a community justice group called the Wild Hunt that makes sure there is a safe alternative to the police to call that aren't trained to shoot first, bullies aren't allowed in, and they don't believe in the military as a solution and therefore aren't militarized. They aren't even militant. They are categorized as a terrorist organization because marginalized communities that are terrorized by the state keeping the state out their business? That can't be allowed. Those are the vigilantes and the terrorists. Despite what data actually shows: the radicalization of cis hetero white men. My theory is that this is because when you are used to more than your fair share, equality and equity feel like a burden and undue suffering.
Regardless, I've been trying to make friends with bomb ass women because that is what I need more of in my life. Also given that my lifespan just dropped a considerable number of decades, i have the freedom to do things I hadn't planned on. Things like civil disobedience and motorcycles and sex. Even though my mother knew better, she and dad raised us in the Baptist church. Even though they both knew better. My dad is not blameless in this. Standing by is its own kind of compliance. Knowing about a crime makes you an accomplice even if all you do is not say anything after the fact, and he did more than just not saying anything. Our family wouldn't have moved if my dad hadn't been onboard. Sidetracked again. Oops.
In order to prove that I own more than three shirts, I used the key to get back into my parents' house. I walked out of my bedroom door at Winnie's and into my bedroom at my parents. I'd left in a bit of a hurry and left the room in a state my mother would have lectured me over if we were talking. I felt bad walking back into this room. It had been immaculately reorganized. Better than when I before we left for California. There was an almost sterile, unlived in quality to the place. I decided to keep it that way. I grabbed my army bag from the closet and filled it with stuff. I don't know why I decided to leave the duffel bag I'd been living out of for two weeks on the road at home, other than the clothes were very dirty and wanted a washing really badly and I didn't know the washer/dryer situation at Winnie's place, but all of those clothes had been washed and folded and put back in the drawers or hung up in the closet as needed. I was careful to not disturb anything being left behind. That being said, a lot came with me and I'd bet that my mom will notice. I have no doubt my mom is the one who set my room right again. I wonder how often she visits. Nightly? Morningly? Weekly?
I decide it's best to head out when I hear a lock jiggling in the front door downstairs. I stall for minute, it could be Sep after all. Then as I pull out my phone to look at a text with his schedule in it, I see the time and hear the humming. It's after school and it's definitely my mom. I sling my bag over my shoulder and closer my room's door. I stick in the key, turn thinking of home and comfort. I open the door and step out into the hallway of my parents home. Mom has just let herself in. I cuss under my breath and fortunately she is preoccupied enough to not hear me. I can hear her walking through the kitchen. I walk back into my room and try to calm down. Deep breath, Lenny. You got this. Get yourself back home.
I walk to a different door in my room and close the door. Stick the key in the lock and empty my brain. I focus on my breathing. The smell of cooking in Winnie's kitchen. I think did I leave the oven on as I turn the key. I open the door and step into my room in Winnie's house. I run back to the bed and grab my armchair pillow. This sudden movement causes noise and creaky floors to betray me. I hear my mom say Who's there‽ and then I close the door.