Ok, I want to catch up the story quickly because there’s so much going on now but I don’t want to take away from the essence of it so I guess I will take my time and just enjoy writing it all out.
I was just two days away from being evicted from my apartment in Dallas. At the time I had absolutely no direction on where I would go next. I had told God that if I was to leave the city, please let me be going somewhere in particular toward something greater but nothing had materialized. No direction. No leads. No money. Nothing but a CD case full of CD’s that my friend Mike had sent me to aid me in my journey to wherever I was headed.
I remember distinctly being seated on the ground of my back porch with my laptop on my lap when my phone rang.
“Hey Tee,” the familiar male voice greeted me.
“Hey Curt,” I replied softly. I hadn’t heard from him in a while and since I had stopped blogging, I’m sure he was wondering what was going on.
“So what’s going on with you?” He asked.
“I’m good. I’m excellent!” I replied.
“Tee. This is me. You don’t have to be like that. What do you need?”
I gulped. “I need 2 months rent.”
“How much is that?”
“Like 2 grand with all the late fees.”
“I don’t have that on me right now, what are your other options?”
“Choose another city and just go.”
“Ok. If you choose another city, I will make sure you have money to get there and I’ll make sure your cell phone stays on. I’ll put some money in your account tomorrow. Then I’ll put more next week if you need me to.”
“Thanks Curt.”
“You know I care about you.”
Curt is really my angel. He never comes BEFORE things get rough but whenever they do, he magically appears and swoops me up in the nick of time. And to think, I have only met this man one time in my entire life. He tells me all the time, “You are a succes story in the making, Tee. It’s only a matter of time. Any minute now. Everybody who knows you knows it.”
He makes it all sound so….definite. Even on those days when my reality seems to be the exact opposite of what he envisions for me, he still sees the promise.
So the next day I put all of my furniture on freecyle and started giving it away, including my baby, my darling, my 32 inch TV that I carried all the way from Miami, through to ATL, to Houston and then to Dallas. I gave that TV to my neighbor. I don’t think she had one and she was a single mom so…I just wanted to do something nice for her because she had been nice to me.
I went to get my car checked and emptied out my apartment, loading everything into my car..again. I decided that I would spend one night in Houston before heading on to Miami.
I decided to go home to Miami simply because if I was waiting on God to show me where I should be next, I decided that I would rather wait and be able to be around my kids. At this point I had to stop listening to so many opinions because they were all across the board and everyone claimed to be hearing from God for me.
“Miami’s job market is ridiculous why would you go back there?”
“Try another city, Tee.”
“I believe you are supposed to stay in Dallas, Tee.”
I was focused on seeing my sons. Simply put.
At the time it was nearly 5 months since I had seen them.
The night before I left I took a drive around the city. I went back to where I first lived at the hostel. I drove by Bachman Lake. I went to the little park in Addison where I used to sun bathe and I drove up and down Preston Road, saying Goodbye.
I stopped by my old office building, parked my car and just stared up at the huge glass building.
Another goodbye.
Another journey into the unknown.
I slept easily that night and the next afternoon I turned in my keys and drove away.
It was storming pretty badly but I wasn’t worried. I had done the drive back and forth from Houston a few times so I was pretty comfortable, even through the rain.
I hit I75 South and there I was again, heading back through my past. Back to the Houston hostel to spend the night.
The trip was non eventful and I was grateful for that. By the time I got to 45 I was smiling, eager to see the place that I shared with countless strangers for more than a month back when I was homeless.
Everything was the same. The people who worked there were happy to see me and asked how things went in Dallas. I told them that I had a great experience but I was trying my luck elsewhere and they didn’t ask anymore questions. How could they? I’m sure they have seen plenty of people who shared my story over the years that they have owned the boarding house.
After I got my bunk assignment, I went outside to call Tamara and ask for her advice.
“Dawg,” I told her. “I have the world’s biggest headache and all I want to do is go to sleep. But if I go to sleep this early I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and then I won’t be well rested for the next leg of my trip to New Orleans where I had arranged to stay with a blogger friend of mine for one night.”
“Well, just let your body tell you what to do,” she advised. “Go ahead and get some rest and if you wake up early, then head out to New Orleans, if you don’t then just leave when you get up.”
“One more thing,” I told her as I sighed. “I lost my ATM card in Dallas before I left. All the money I have on me will get me to N.O. but not much further than that and I haven’t been able to reach Curt. I have a little more money in the bank, but I don’t have access to it.”
“Ok, go online and see if there are branches of your bank on the I10. If there are, you can just stop along the way and get more money.”
“Tamara. If I wake up early and get on the road, there’s a chance that I may have to drive straight through to Florida because my friend won’t be back in NO until the evening and I can’t hang around that city all day waiting. If I don’t wake up early then I’ll have time to go to the bank here but I will have to hang around all day here and I don’t want to do that.”
“So you don’t just want to wait there in Houston for another night then?”
“Naw. I think it’s a waste of time plus these misquitoes are deadly!” I told her. “But the trip straight through from Houston to Gainesville is 12 hours long. Do you think I can do that straight through?”
“Hmm,” she paused. “If you wake up early enough you can drive through the day and get there before nightfall. You may have to pull over and take a nap but I think you can do it. I did that drive from Houston to Tallahassee before. It was 10 hours.”
“Ok, let me go check online for the bank branches then. Prince. I see one near Baton Rouge. I guess I can stop there, get gas and get more money.”
By the time we finished my navigation plan it was already 10pm. So much for going to bed early. My head was still throbbing as I showered and climbed into my bunk. I couldn’t sleep through the pain so i searched my overnight and found a packet of nyquil caplets. I took them and my headache went away and I finally slept.
The breeze blowing through the window caressed my warm body and I smiled and rolled over. Damn this bed feels so good to me. I could stay here all day. I feel great!
Uh oh! I can’t though. I have to get on the road. I took out my phone and looked at the time. 4:30am. Not bad. If I got on the road by 5 I could be in Gainesville by 6 0r 7. I jumped up and grabbed my bags. I raced out of the hostel and dumped everything in my front seat. I texted Tamara to let her know that I was getting on the road and I sped off to hop on the interstate.
I watched the sun rise quietly as I reflected on all that had happened in Dallas. I didn’t know why Dallas felt like home to me and I allowed myself to miss those quiet, clean streets.
Five hours later I was entering Louisiana and almost out of gas. I called Tamara so that she could direct me to the nearest bank location and my eyes grew wide as she paused and said, “Uhh. Tee. Last night when you were looking at the bank locations, well, those were only ATMS. There aren’t any banking centers on your route. There isn’t even a bank in Gainesville.”
“Let me call the bank and see if they have any ideas,” I told her.
“There’s a banking center in Arizona,” the lady on the phone said.
“Arizona? I don’t have enough gas to get there. What am I supposed to do?”
“I’m sorry Ma’am. We will mail another card to you but there’s nothing we can do.”
So I called Tamara and relayed the news. I was now stuck in Baton Rouge with no gas and no money.
“Ok Tee, we’ll have to find you a Western Union,” she said and I could hear the key on her keyboard clicking swiftly through the phone. I’ll wire you enough money to get you to Gainesville and we’ll figure it out from there.”
I found the western union and Tamara and I chatted while we waited for the money to come through. Surprisingly I got a text message from my old director at the website asking me if I had purchased the new Kanye CD yet. “I’m sure you were the first in line,” she joked. She knew how much I loved Kanye. Before I left I sent her a farewell email letting her know that I was leaving the city and I wanted to wish her well.
“Someone sent me the MP3 files for the CD last week. My baby is brilliant!” I texted back. “As for the actual CD…soon as I get my money right.”
Once the wire arrived I gassed up and hit the road again.
This next leg of the trip would take 7 hours so I relaxed into my thoughts and thought about how wonderful it was going to be to see my boys again. They had no idea I was coming. I even kept my briefings to my Mama very short because she freaks out when I’m driving long distances.
I drove and I drove and I drove. I was pulled over twice and I got a speeding ticket while drivng through Alabama. Oh well…
By the time I reached Pensacola, Florida I was dead tired.
I pulled over at Wendy’s, grabbed a burger and texted my friends. “Pensacola.Burger.Nap.Bye.”
And I fell fast asleep.