Jersey City is near enough to New York City that we occasionally got the opportunity to have little residual opportunities to meet unexpected people while walking through the decay that is/was the little town across from Manhattan. Since I’m of the adventurous sorts I have always been down for an interesting people meeting opportunity and so on one evening a group of dudes pulled over to try to talk to me and my home girls.

Any group of teen girls roaming the city streets in the summer evening are well aware that it doesn’t take much effort to get a car full of dudes to holla and it was no different twenty years ago. We were wandering around about a block away from the Boys and Girls Club downtown on Grand Avenue. There had been some type of Hip Hop concert and although I love music, I wasn’t too keen on being locked in a sweaty auditorium waiting for an act who may or may not perform with these rowdy ass uncivilized folks that populate Jersey City. Besides the fact that we were from across town and rowdy our dam selves, truth of the matter is that we were all way too young to have had ticket money even if we did want to see the show we were probably too young to get in.

Although, quiet as it’s kept, the parking lot to events such as these hold their own promises. I found something to do on a side street when an SUV pulled over and one of the inhabitants jumped out and began to walk behind us. The other girls responded while I ignored him and kept walking. He finally made it clear he was looking for some attention from ‘the mean light skinned girl whose ignoring him’.

The stocky, brown skinned dude with puppy dog eyes refused to let me walk away. He wasn’t my type since I loved me a pretty boy at that time but I did dig his sense of humor and I’m a sucker for persistence. He finally convinced me to walk back over to the truck so that he could get a pen when I agreed to give him my number. In the front seat was a light skinned dude who looked me over before asking my name.

He told me his name was Keith. He and I went back and forth for a few seconds while Jeru fished a pen that worked out of the glove compartment. I noticed their vehicle plates were from New York so I asked what they were doing in this part of town. Keith motioned down the street and asked if I knew about the show at the Boys Club.

“Yeah, I did”, I said. 

“We were in the show tonight”, I notice his voice is kind of nasal.

“No, you weren’t”, I say, “If you were in the show you’d have something better to do than chase girls in a truck like you’re doing right now”. 

He laughs as Jeru hands me a pen.

“You’re a trip. I like you. I like a person that say what’s on their mind”, was the last that I got before Keith turned away so Jeru and I could conduct our personal business.

“I’m gonna call you”…and Jeru did.

He called often and we had great conversations, so much so that on one sleep depraved early morning late night phone marathon I admitted to him that secretly I was a writer and that I also wrote rhymes. I’d been writing since forever but no one knew about my notebooks filled up with lines and lines of words. Though I never took anything I wrote seriously and I was much too shy to do anything with it before now. He asked me to make something up and so I recited things off the top of my head to him on this night. I also read him verses scribbled in my notebook by the light of the moon but whatever I did that night got me an invitation to the studio the following weekend.

“I want to see you again and I want Keith to hear what you just said to me”, I didn’t take him seriously though I did meet him that following weekend at the World Trade Center.

Jeru picked me up in a black livery car and took me to Brooklyn. We would need to make a few stops before going to the studio. I found it amazingly convenient and terribly scandalous that New Yorkers were able to take cabs to places that sold weed. When I asked about the system of marijuana retrieval in Brooklyn I was told that all I had to do was ‘ask the cabbie. He’ll know where to take me’. I never did try that out but I saw him to do it and that was good enough for my sixteen year old self.

The studio actually ended up being the attic of a house owned by a disconcerting white guy named Shlomo whom I met once I was settled on a love seat in the corner of the room. I asked him to repeat his name because it sounded like he said ‘Slo-Mo’ as in slow motion. I thought it was an odd name to have but once he repeated it I was convinced he knew better than me.

My eyes were big as saucers at the site of the mixing boards and the wires everywhere. A closet had been made into a booth, a large microphone jutting out so far it nearly took up the entire space. I only stuck my head in momentarily as I didn’t want to be in their way. I took a seat next to Jeru and just watched the room.

Jeru was extremely attentive and so he had provided me with all the Honey Buns, BBQ Bon-Ton chips, Pepsi, bubble gum, Newports and penny candy I wanted which I had stashed in my little brown paper bag on the floor by my sneakered feet to keep me occupied.

The light skinned guy, Keith, from the other night walks into the room. Jeru starts to reintroduce me but before he can finish, Keith smiles and correctly guesses my name. He remembers me being the “slick talking girl they met that night in Jersey City’; he shakes my hand and thanks me for coming through to visit.

Since I’m the guest and happy to be there I’m confused by his graciousness but all I could think to myself at the time is how nice Keith is….and oddly such a slight built guy to have such a big booming speaking voice.

Jeru was busy rolling blunts of weed of which I was presented with the first one to light and so I did….

(to be continued)

excerpt from the upcoming memoir book Keeping Up With the Jones’