Read about day 4 → “My god….it’s full of stars!”
I’m returning to writing about a person on this one. Read about how my high school bully turned into my brother.
“You think I’m you’re friend?” he barked at me, pretty much exactly like M’baku from Black Panther. That imposing upperclassman terrorized me, a freshman, on that day in the high school corridor, in public too!, just because I had barely ‘scratched’ his ATLiens Outkast CD. Let’s just call him ‘M’baku’ for the rest of this article, it’s not his real name but go with it ok?
In parallel I struck another friendship with another good friend, also an upperclassman — let’s call him Craig David due to the celebrity resemblance (when I was younger I had older friends, and now when I’m older I have mostly younger friends). Craig D’s parents knew my parents, my parents knew M’Baku’s parents through professional networks. Unknown to me, Craig D and M’Baku had also become boys. So it took a year of all these separate friendships and networks to converge. Craig D, M’Baku and I, the shy quiet “Freshman” became inseparable.
I’m sad to say that Craig D is no longer with us, he lost his life far too young in his early 20s while he was temporarily relocated overseas, but he’s an integral part of those early formative years in the USA, and he and M’Baku are how I got socialized in this country. The first time I was at a high school party that got busted by the cops, he was the one that spoke to my dad. There’s still a group of about ten out of that friendship of high school where we’re still in touch.
We went to undergrad together, we’d even commute like three times a week, bumping French hip-hop and rap-rock in the car (remember Limp Bizkit? Korn? Rage against the Machine?). We’d pass out on pool tables in house parties in huge mansions in Howard County. He would alway’s be the one to get me out of my shell — in my 20s I was even more reserved than I still am, and he was the party guy, who would go clubbing when I didn’t want to.
A gentle soul who never has any hint of a malicious thought (since the high school CD incident I guess 😒), he has a charismatic personality that draws people. He is unpredictable, in the sense that you don’t know what outlandish but silly thing he’ll blurt out or idea he’ll come up with. He is not particularly politically correct, but not in a “I’m direct, I say it like it is”, but more in a he’s having fun with life. I’ve never met anyone that doesn’t like M’Baku, and not sure there’s anyone else I can say that about. He is a super extrovert, complete opposite of me the super introvert; however, he has an inclusive type of extrovert energy rather than a dominating or competitive type of presence (which is something I find problematic with many extroverts) where he wants you to be part of the fun.
He now has a beautiful family and three kids or as he would put it, two little rascal boys and one angel of a baby girl. Yet he’s somehow managed to develop into a responsible father and still remain the goofy, innocent people’s person from the high school days.
On a related anecdote: I was there when he met his wife, it was a small house get together and he had some silly pickup line about double-dipping strawberries in a chocolate fountain. Then there was the time we first went to hang out with her folks, he was nervous so made me walk in with her since we were the only two black people so that it could seem like I was her guy 🤦♂️. That’s the type of silliness we’re dealing with here!
So yes, I don’t see him as often because he is a family man, but he has never used his kids as an excuse to stop enjoying life, and “settle down” — he’s taken them to places like the comic-con, to world cup soccer watch parties, etc. Listen to me now — if I ever have kids, I would want to be a dad like M’Baku.
He is family not just figuratively, but literally. I moved out when I was 17, and as a diplomat’s kid, I came up in the country on my own not out of any neglect, or discord in my family — if anything my parents had that much confidence in me — , but just that they were diplomats and it made sense for me to stay here for college when their next country assignment came. So locally, M’Baku’s folks became my adopted family. I used to throw his nephews over my shoulder, and give them tombstones and and stone cold stunners (WWE wrestling moves ), but now they’re young adults with whom I have substantive conversations about society and culture.
I’ve done every single Thanksgiving with their family for two decades, as well as all Christmas Eve’s where I’m in town — they’ve welcomed me to their thanksgiving table as one of their own, a plate always set for me on the table. I really have to give a shout out to the entire bigger family, including his parent’s close friends who are now like my aunts and uncles, and his brothers and sisters, who are essentially my cousins.
One last thing, so we both had our childhood in France, but of course we didn’t know each other at the time. But M’Baku is not only from Wakanda, he is also French. He has the funniest Frenchisms, and will always find a way to tell you how he is connected to the whole French national soccer team 😉. I say this in jest, but jokes aside, Mbak’u wears his emotions on his sleeve, he does the same for his heritage. It’s all part of what makes him endearing.
My brother 👊.
Artwork of the Day — “French Flag” (Paris, France)
