“Early Morning Roasts & Wing Men”

📸: via @lizcambage on IG

The old lady and I work out of the same office, but now, we’re a team; just separate for the most part. Ever since I came on board she’s been beaming with pride. Like a proud parent on the day that their son decides that he wants to get in on the family business, to one day become the face of it. Except that this was a business that was best to be faceless, but popular. Operating smoothly across parquet made for ballroom dancing and high-society schmoozing. Night caps that ran into day-starters; fine suits, cars meant to be driven by chauffeurs, with the curtains drawn. A bottle of champagne on chill; a fine cigar — the breakfast of the real champion.

I brought along my ace, Emmitt, for the ride. He was there when we moved into that affluent suburb where everything became great; crashed and burned, then was repaired — ten-fold, before it got to that cliché point in a marriage where the child hears constant arguing about who’s paying the bills, and who’s not giving up the pussy enough. Emmitt was my brother when a boy needed one the most. By the time my parents split, I was a teenager and my mother was on weekend trips where she never came out of the sky. Often, she would have some of her girls come over and tend to my needs while she was away. Those basic boy needs, coupled with the desire to experience what my mother always told me was out there, led to…