Battle Scars

It has come to my attention, through countless hours discussing the topic with my therapist, that I am a shitty friend. Granted, I will be willing to fight for you, I will never betray you, and I will never fuck your girlfriend, but outside that I am am kind of lacking in the friendship department. Even though people would say that I am a social butterfly, when it comes down to it I am very much a loner, that probably has something to do with me being a shitty friend. Also because of me being hurt in romantic relationships and learning that people tend to let you down, I have found the same type of disappointments in regular friendships, adding to my "miserable friend" status. The last reason, one that is kind of difficult to admit, I can be somewhat inconsiderate if you haven't noticed. I went into that lenghty spiel because after my 32nd birthday I decided to change that and support a friend of mine at a talent show he was performing at.

OK, he is a country singer, it was a country showcase, and I spent the night the entire night desperately trying to find another black person.(The closest I got was an elderly white woman who spent too much time in a tanning booth.) My friend did great, but it was the singer that preceded him that really caught my attention. It wasn't that the guy was talented, he actually sounded like that cat that I accidentally ran over in my driveway, but he had a very interesting song. He sang about how "every scar has a story", detailing the specific events behind each scar on his body. It got me thinking about all of the scars on my body, and boy are there some crazy tales behind them. Here are a few.

Cigar Burn on Hand: Some years back I was invited to a album listening party for some artist who never made it. It was some guy from my area, from my High School to be exact, who was marketing himself to be a "gangsta rapper". For anyone who knows anything about my area, the Kempsville area of Virginia Beach Virginia, the only thing "gangsta" about it is the 2 hours that Snoop Dogg visited because of some girl he had planned to have sex with, that's it. Let me explain further, the rapper in question along with me, were 2 of 9 black seniors in my High School. His parents owned a chain of grocery stores, and to ruin his "gangsta" image even more I once had to pull this guy Keith off of him as he was on the ground in the fetal position. Anyway, I don't think he knew that I'd be there and it made him uncomfortable because I was the only one who knew the real face behind the "mask". All night he gave me dirty looks, had his crew give me dirty looks, the shit was downright ridiculous. It was even more silly because I planned on having a good time, just enjoying my night out, not fucking with him.

After about a thousand stare downs I plan to leave, because I feel an ass whipping coming on. As I am leaving, this "just add water" gangster starts to walk by me and this bitch ass burns me on the hand with his cigar, acting like it was an accident. When I tried to get at him all of his crew quickly showed me that they were packing heat, no they didn't have gonorrhea, they had serious weaponry consisting of every handgun ever made. As I left fuming, all I can see was him laughing with a couple of girls on his arm. His deadly mistake was that he forgot that I knew where his parents lived, who he was still staying with by the way, so a week later I decided to give him a visit. I went to his house 9 am one morning, he opened the door in a wife beater, yawning, not seeing who it was before exposing his jaw. I dragged him out his house and tried to beat that fucker like a bass drum, as his momma was screaming like a woman in church catching the holy ghost. I know I shouldn't have done it, and being handcuffed isn't the best thing in the world, but the fact that I have a cigar burn on my hand makes me want to beat his ass all over again.

Scar on arm: My ex-girlfriend, the one that ripped my heart out and showed it to me while laughing,(she reads my blog and we are cool now. How does it feel to make me never trust a woman again?? Just playing, sort of..) called me a couple of years back saying that this guy she knows claims I was cheating on her with another girl while we were together. I did indeed know that woman, she was a client of mine but nothing went on, so I can't tell if she lied to him or he was flat out lying himself. The funny part about the whole thing is that I wasn't even mad that old boy lied and said that I cheated on my ex, it was the part where he claims that the "other woman" said that I was "stalking her". For anyone who knows me, "stalking" is one of those miserable acts outside of being a black republican, snugging after sex, or paying to see one of those ghetto gospel plays.

I have never stalked anyone, and I was offended that he would lie like that. He's lucky that I don't...wait, OK, I did stalk someone, kind of, but I was 17, let me explain. My senior year of High School I was getting serious in-house pelvic thrust action, but I still had a girlfriend that I was dating at the time. Only an asshole like me would be concerned that my girlfriend was cheating while I got to know, on a daily basis, the insides of a 29 year old woman. Anyway, I went to investigate and see if my High School sweetheart was betraying our relationship bond, so I went to her apartment buildings to play Magnum P.I and shit. I couldn't go through the front entrance, so I had to climb a large ass fence and creep through the back way. I was never great at climbing fences, and my fear of heights didn't help matters, so as I climbed the other side of said fence my leg slipped and the two prongs of the fence scrapped the sit out of my arm. The fall was like 5 feet, I just laid there in the wet grass motionless. Right before I decided to get up I see my girlfriend walking some guy to his car, not too far from me I might add, kissing him and saying goodbye. When the guy asked, "What about your boyfriend?", she responded, "Fuck him, I think he is fucking the lady who is staying there anyway!" I just laid in the wet grass and silently giggled to myself, not because of the ironic position I had found myself in, but that I had a hot 29 year old piece of ass waiting for me who was better in bed than she was. Ahh, the memories.

Fake front tooth: It is amazing that at 32 years old I still ride a skateboard, doing Ollie's, flip trick's, grinding curbs, and skating pools. Of course my surprise comes from my advanced age, but also the fact that I had a lot of skateboarding injuries as a kid. But the one that stands out was when I was 15 years old, when I lost my front tooth in front of some fine ass girls. Back then, as most of you could imagine, a skateboarding black dude who liked everything form "Bad Brains", "Hall and Oates", and Public Enemy" wasn't really a cool thing to other African American females of my age at that time. But there was one, a diamond in the ruff as you will, named Brenda who dug all of my quirky idiosyncrasies. I was right at the point where I planned on asking her out because I was too much of a pussy to do it in the previous months, but better late than never I guess. So her and her friends come to see me and my friends skateboard one Sunday. We were kicking ass, and because I was showing off in front of Brenda I poured on the charisma, arrogance, and aggression with a passion. We then we started to skate a wall and do backside wall rides. That is basically when you approach the wall at an angle, propel yourself and the board against the wall and ride it momentarily, then come down. Well that day I wanted to try it front-side, which means that I would approach the wall and ride it facing the wall this time. When I did, the board hit me square in the mouth, I didn't know that anything was wrong until I spit out a tooth. Even though I was in the presence of females, HumanityCritic, ran home like a horrified bitch clutching my mouth.

The next couple of years were traumatic because the fake front tooth that they would give me wouldn't feel right, fit right, or look right. Let me tell you, you don't realize how many shades of white there are until you lose a tooth, I spent a great deal of time telling my dentist "Motherfucker, can't you see that shit doesn't' match!!" I felt like Whoopi Goldberg's character in "The Color Purple" because of the mass amounts of time I spent shielding my smile with my hand. They finally got it right and it looks like I had it all along, even though I sometimes still unconsciously shield my smile. If I ever meet any of you, just slap my hand away and say, "Stop that shit!", I promise I won't hit you back.