Invincible Summer

The girls I miss the most are the ones that remind me of home…

100’s of billboards and advertisements fly by on the highway as the 8 passenger van carrying a range of physics students and math professors stumbled down the cracked and troubled Philadelphia roadway toward it’s international airport.

…You ever listen to the same track list so many times in a row that you accidentally memorize the words and get lost in a deep trance that is a little less like sleep and more like an understanding?  You ever wish you had all the answers? You ever wish that your parents weren't addicted to drugs for the first 15 years of your life, but deep down you know that everything happens for a reason? Me neither.

I sat in the very last row of this van and played So Far Gone so many times that all of my text message conversations turned rap lyrics.

"What are you doing tonight?" - 
      Every weekend for 4 years one of you reading this sent me this text and the conversation usually went like this...

Me - "I don't know yet. Wyd?"

"Me and my friends wanna go out but there's nothing good tonight.  Do you know of anything?"

Me - "Yeah. [random address}. Y'all should come through."

But tonight, it was different...

"I'm on my way to the airport."

And at the time I had probably chilled with 90% of my City’s population of beautiful women at some point during the miraculous run.  Hundreds of them managed to make it to one of our house parties during the summer.  About 50 of those chose to spend the night; at least once.  And the one thing that never failed: 10 or so girls every year would make it their mission to come back every single weekend, and stay every single night.  This was the team.

(s/o Corey Crawford btw...)

[I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life.  I was 17 years old the last time I was in a relationship, it lasted 74 days and we broke up because I went to the music studio instead of hanging out with her on my birthday. Tough.  Then something changed…, which brings me to this...]

Light seeped through the backseat window and started to fill the van’s empty crevices.  It rocked back and forth as everyone buzzed about how exciting Michigan would be. I wasn't feelin' it at all.  I guess Ann Arbor didn’t seem that far away.  I guess we really wouldn't be gone that long.  And maybe everything would be back to normal when I got home.  Still, I just sat in silence listening to Days in the East until I decided to text one of the few girls I hadn't lost faith in yet.

I could tell when I was losing her trust.  And she was about as gone as white girls at CR parties and Ken Griffey homeruns.

_

“Oh really? Is that what you say to all of these chics?” she texted back seconds after she read whatever line I dropped to make it all better.

“I don’t be havin’ chics mannnn..” is what I usually reply. 

“Well why do you have bitches all over your Instagram then?”

…..

“The same reason you have your boyfriend all over yours.”

"Ok, well why's that?"

"Because that's what you want people to think you're doing.  Anyone who only knows you through Instagram probably thinks you were with your boyfriend last night.  Real niggas know where you really were..."

"Lmao omg, shut up."

---"Isn't he in the military anyway?"

They don’t belong to me.  I’m not the guy they argue with.  We don’t go on dates.  I’m not the one they post on social networks. I’m here for a different reason.

_

Everything I love is at the beach now.  But I hope everyone I care about back home are still just as beautiful as when I first met them.  I hope they all still drink Carlo Rossi.  All of those girls still play Dom Kennedy and Mikey Rocks at the pre game and go to Rooney's on Thursdays.  I know they do.  Deep down I know they still stay away from bars and drink wine at the house parties like ladies.   But most of all; I know one day I can come back with a Cypher Clique t-shirt, new music, a customized bag, and a 40 page story and we can pick up right where we left off,

This is the new regime,

Fuck what you heard baby, this is the new gospel.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The van pulls into an empty gas station and its passengers hop out eager to stretch and refresh.  I stayed glued to my seat and kept my concentration solely on Bria's Interlude that flowed through my earphone speakers before I looked down at the phone vibrating in my lap.

_

"You didn't tell him anything about last night did you?"

"Tell who..." I replied.

"My boyfriend."

"Nah. Why, what happened?

"Nothing really. I mean - he's just acting weird."

"Oh." ... "I didn't even know you had a boyfriend."

 _

These Boyfriend characters are fallin’ off harder than Michael Sam jersey sales. And if I could get them all in a room; all at the same time; I would tell them this: 

-   I've loved every girl I've been with more than you love your girlfriend.

-   I've seen someone get cheated on every weekend since I graduated from high school.

-   If I ever messed with someone you were in a relationship with-- I’m sorry, but she chose.

-   And last but not least; Dewey Beach is a place for dreamers...

I’ve seen my niggas threaten to kill themselves over women.  I’ve seen my brothers taken to jail because of women.  I’ve seen everyone in my community grow up, give up on their dreams, and join the military… all for women.  And I don’t want that for myself.  I don’t want that for anyone.  We’ve gotta rewrite the rules.  Something went missing in our generation, but we've got to change how we think about relationships.  We’ve gotta take care of our own happiness..  Sometimes, you’ve gotta sing Drake songs with your best friend at 4 o’clock in the morning with 4 women who all belonged to someone else just to figure it out.

That day. On that van. I figured out that all I ever really wanted to do was save the world…

……

…

A quick message pops up on my phone seconds before we started to board the plane:

“I miss you too.”