Friends

Bookie. Its Ya Birthday.

My son said his own name today. Full name, loud, in the kitchen, for no reason. Just testing it out. And I had to turn around and face the stove for a minute cause it wasnt him I heard.

Thats the thing nobody tell you about naming a baby after somebody you lost. You think you doing it for the one who gone. You not. You doing it for you. So the name stay in ya mouth. So you gotta say it at breakfast, say it in the car, holler it down the hallway when he done something he had no business doing. Bookie been dead too long for how young he was, and his name been alive in my house every single day since my son got here. Thats on purpose. I made sure.

Keenan Cochran. Bookie. Taken way too soon and ion care how many years it been, that phrase still fit.

Yall look at this picture and tell me that aint the whole man right there. Head cocked. Fro out. Jacket open. Chain on. Smiling like he already know what you finna say and he got something slicker to say back. He be having that face. Everybody who knew him know that face.

Today we celebrating. Not mourning, celebrating. Plates, music too loud, somebody’s kid running through the house, somebody’s auntie telling the same Bookie story she tell every year and everybody hollering like it new. Thats what you get. Thats what you deserve.

Keep watching over us Bookie. Watch the lil one extra. He got ya name and I can already tell he got ya mouth.

Love you forever. Happy birthday.

Who said you gotta get in the water at a water park? Show me where it say that. Ill wait.

Hurricane Bay. Kentucky Kingdom. Ninety something degrees. The rest of the gang somewhere in that wave pool screaming and I could not tell you which screams is ours. And the three of us? Chairs. Sun. Not moving.

Roll call. Jimmy Damu in the back in the tank top and the red shorts, on his phone, looking at me like I interrupted something. I did. Baby girl next to me with the beads in her hair and a slushie bigger than her head, in her pink, matching me, cause I dress her and thats my right. And me. Pink two piece, glasses on, sunscreen bottle laying on my chest cause I aint finna reach for it.

Somebody gone say I wasted the ticket. Aht aht. I paid to be at the park. I am at the park. Nobody said nothing about swimming. Ion do wave pools, ion do the lazy river with all them strangers’ feet, and I especially dont do a slide that drop you straight down in the dark. Thats a no on God.

This right here is the ride. Chair, sun, a sip of her slushie when she not looking. Jimmy pretending he not sleep. Everybody else come back wet and tired and we look brand new.

Rest of the gang can keep the water. We got the pictures.