Eddie
This pain is unbearable. I can’t sleep most nights—my mind races. I miss him. I miss what we had, or what I thought we had. I think I loved him. Why can’t I move on? After all, he didn’t give me much to hold on to anyway. Yet, I’m here, waiting under the Brooklyn Bridge, lost in my thoughts about him.
The activity around me breaks my concentration. The sounds from honking horns, foreign languages, and ambient music temporarily distract me from my rumination, but not for long. I sip the hot cup of coffee in my hands, letting the black bitterness roll along my tongue to cool it, the flavor and smell penetrating both my taste buds and nostrils, before bringing the cup back down and placing it along my side on the bench. I allow myself to enjoy this momentary distraction. I sink into being off work, at midday, and a tourist myself. However, I only stay in this illusion for a short time. Today, March 20, 2023, marks the natural transition between winter and spring; ironically, I’m struggling to accept the recent change in my life.
For this reason, I’m hoping to speak to a psychic. Maybe she can give me insight into my future—for I need reassurance. I thought the grass was greener on the other side, but my imagination betrayed me. Will I see Jacob, my boyfriend, again? Is this breakup temporary, or is it over? I need something, dear God, something to help ease the pain, the pain of loss. Palm Springs undid six years spent cultivating a relationship with Jacob, now withered away in only three days. I need to know that it wasn’t in vain. I need the universe to show me a sign that this is just an anomaly, a wrinkle in time. In the end, everything will be ironed out and returned to the way it was: perfect.
My name is Edward Adenjj, but growing up, schoolkids called me Eddie. My cousins called me Red due to my rust-toned skin, which set me apart from the variation of beige I encountered at school—well, that and my hair. I have kinky hair, the characteristic zig-zag curl pattern typical of members within my race. I’ve gotten the hang of managing it, allowing its texture to stand and spread, hovering like a cloud.
Two months ago, I turned thirty. I am old enough to know better. Old enough not to put all my eggs into someone else’s basket—especially someone that doesn’t appreciate them, but I’m naïve. I deceived myself into believing that I was in love. I chose to blind myself to love’s complexity and instead settle for the shell of its promise; I gave Alan everything, hoping he would validate me. Instead, I was given the pain of rejection. Oddly enough, that comforts me now—the pain. For the pain is all I have that feels real. It gives me strange comfort—a sense of peace. The pain grants me something to hold on to, to process and stew in as I wait. The funny thing is that I’ve never been good at waiting, although I managed to as it relates to this hologram of a relationship I had with this man for over three years. He gave me ample practice, and I accepted it. It took almost a year before my first kiss with Alan. We were at a coworker’s going away party. With his hands still grasping my arms, Alan pulled me away from prying eyes, kissed me on the neck, grabbed my drink, finished it, and led me toward the exit. I waited a goddamn year for that moment, but when it actualized, it was easy for me to release control—to let go and allow his will to guide mine. I guess it’s a force of habit. Allowing others to lead has always been a space I’m most comfortable occupying—that and doing my best to be respectable, “likable.” I’ve always wanted to please, blend in—to be the perfect wallflower. Never too pushy or aggressive, but always accommodating.
***
From a young age, I learned the wisdom of lying low to avoid the impact of being hammered down by others. I think this philosophy was embedded early in life. I attended primarily white schools and stood out. How could I not? I am a gay black Nigerian boy with a funny last name. To compensate for this unasked-for exposure, I sought to be small, invisible to the eye. Physically, this manifested in my voice; I spoke in whispers. Symbolically, this showed up in how I expressed myself, or the lack of self-expression. My opinions were secret; I became an expert at mirroring others. My superpower was empathy; I morphed into the feelings of others, shapeshifting until I didn’t recognize myself. I was comfortable there, used to this guiding blueprint that provided safety. I did not want to feel the force of someone else’s hammer, so I complied, working in tandem with the expectations of others to remain flush and surface.
I was born January 24, 1993, in New Orleans but grew up in a small town in Iowa, located on the western side of the state, which had no more than ten thousand people. Most of the residents were of German descent. It was a typical small Midwestern town—American flags hung waving on residential porches and on poles outside local businesses. The courthouse anchored downtown, which was centered in the middle of the city; from it sprung Main Street, flanked by an assortment of shops and restaurants on both sides. It was an idealistic setting. I appreciated the variety of offerings, from the local diners to specialty stores, my favorite comic bookstore, and the old theater—where you could watch a movie for a buck fifty.
My family and I adjusted to life in a small town by following strict moral codes of conduct. We were a black family in a majority-white town. My parents were African immigrants, both having migrated from Nigeria to build a better life in the States. They were highly skilled immigrants, too, engineers who worked in local manufacturing plants. My father led the engineering team at his plant, and my mother was the only woman at hers. They carried the weight of being exceptional because of their circumstances and the burden living in the United States brought them as blacks.
I have a sister and a brother. They’re fraternal twins, ten years younger than me. Unlike me, they’ve only known Iowa. They were born after we moved. For them, quiet suburban blocks and grand upper-middle-class homes were the norm. They knew what pop was (soda) and gleefully participated in the Fourth of July parades and cliquey neighborhood rituals of setting up lemonade stands.
After two years of living in Iowa, my parents built a pool in our backyard. It was an accomplishment, considering they were foreigners, ethnically and culturally, but somehow, they managed to achieve the American dream, which was validated by our neighborhood cosigning to their success. My siblings didn’t bat an eye when entire families came to swim in our pool. White bodies walking to and from the gates of our home didn’t instill fear; no, they experienced comradery. This setting defined my siblings’ childhood—for a time, they couldn’t see how we were different.
However, unlike my siblings, I was painfully aware of my differences. We lived in Kenner, Louisiana, before moving to Iowa—a suburb of New Orleans located in Jefferson Parish. I have many fond memories of Kenner—some fantastical. One of them involved a pack of stray dogs. Yes, I encountered a group of wild dogs while running away from home. I was upset with my parents because they wouldn’t buy me a PlayStation for my birthday, so I decided to run away to punish them. In my escape, I found myself in a concrete canal with grass growing sporadically through a series of cracks due to the lack of maintenance. Looking up from its pit, I saw two or maybe three dogs. Our eyes caught, locked in stillness for no more than ten seconds, and from there, the chase began. I escaped, leaving the canal, jumping on top of the first car I saw, and waiting them out before leaving the roof. When the coast was clear, I went home to my parents, thankful for them and the safety of our home despite their perceived unfair treatment.
Kenner was full of adventure. It was where I made my first best friend Kenji, a Japanese boy who had newly immigrated from Japan. We played Super Mario Brothers together, and he proudly displayed his Japanese Manga collection. We tried po’ boys, ate pig’s feet, and attended mardi gras celebrations together, sharing the spoils of beads and toys thrown by partygoers on the floats. We’d sneak into places together, too, like when we went to our neighbor’s backyard party and helped ourselves to their traditional crawfish boil.
Living in New Orleans, we weren’t strangers to extreme storms. The streets and canals would often flood. Sometimes, we’d meet up and swim in the streets—laughing, unaware of the dangers and hardships these floods brought to the city. We were children, blissfully engaged in each other’s world; he was my best friend, and I loved him.
We left New Orleans when I was ten. It was immediately after my mom gave birth to my siblings. My father received a job offer to lead a mechanical engineering team at a car plant near the town we moved to. After a year in Iowa, my mom found a position as an engineer at a manufacturing plant adjacent to my father’s that created car parts. I mourned the loss of my Kenji and New Orleans. It took me the entire summer after arriving in Iowa to adjust to our new community and even more time to acclimate to my new school. Unfortunately for me, I could have made a better first impression.
I was a terrible reader. Once, while reading aloud in my now all-white school, I came across the word “Niger.” I know it’s a country in West Africa that neighbors Nigeria, but at the time, I was clueless. I couldn’t distinguish it from “nigger.” So, when asked to read aloud, I confidently said “nigger” instead of “Niger.” Of course, the other kids, even the teacher, uproariously laughed. It was a humiliating experience that sparked my now lifelong struggle with shame. I had revealed my ignorance, felt less than, and since that moment, I tried my best to hide my failings and measure up. After that mishap, I committed to reading a book a month to improve my reading and comprehension.
At my new school, I searched for allies, friends, but found none. I tried earnestly to play with the kids during recess but couldn’t connect. We didn’t have the same experiences—I was different. This difference is perfectly seared into the memory of forgetting my lunch. My mother left work to bring me some food to eat. She’d made Jollof rice the night before and brought me some in a container. She’d made the dish with love, flavoring the long white grains with freshly chopped tomatoes, red peppers, onions, and other veggies and mixing in curry powder and red palm tomato paste, which enhanced the flavor and emitted the most delicious aromas. But, amongst my new companions, it embarrassed me. They joked about the strange smells emerging from the containers my mom had brought. I watched them, envying their perfectly cut sandwiches and packaged sweets. It was another indicator that my classmates keenly recognized that I didn’t belong.
Despite my setbacks, I was determined to make a space for myself in my new environment. Hence, I devised a two-step approach to making friends. Step one was winning over my classmates, and step two was blending in, somehow making them forget my differences—fooling them into believing I was one of them. At ten, my only understanding of winning people over was through bribery. For a month, every day, I would bring bags of candy to the playground and hand them out. Chocolate was the favorite treat but the most expensive, so that happened four times and only on Fridays. The suckers with the gum inside (Blow Pops) were a close second. The third-tier candies were Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Rolls. They were acceptable but not as prized.
To purchase the candy, I would use my weekly allowance. Ten dollars a week was given to me to allocate on activities or to save. I’d often consume the money on movies. I loved going to the movies. Or I’d buy comics. However, the mission to win over my classmates was critical. I disciplined myself and saved a portion of my allowance to invest in my bribery bounty for the entire spring of my first year. Midway through my confectionery-giving strategy, a classmate told me I didn’t have to bring the treats in for people to like me, but I ignored her advice. She had friends; I thought she couldn’t understand what it felt like to be me. I felt alone. I wanted to belong. She was right, though, and deep down, I knew it. Despite being presented with and knowing the truth, I put it aside. I effectively commenced developing and maintaining one-sided relationships where I identified a “need” and worked to fill it.
Pleasing others became my core; it inadvertently shaped my worldview, becoming the foundation of how I interacted with and felt comfortable around others. By age twelve, I started developing an awareness that my difference reached into my sexuality. Clarity came one day after gym class when my school conducted a scoliosis screening. We were asked to strip down to our underwear, line up in two rows on opposite sides of the room, and wait for the doctor to examine us. As we waited, I noticed the bodies of the other boys. At the time, I didn’t understand why the feeling of seeing them exposed enticed me. I knew enough that this desire was different, unique only to me. So I pushed those feelings aside. I knew instinctively that if I explored them, they would lead to further isolation and rejection from not only my classmates but possibly my family.
The importance of blending in, being vigilant, and maintaining a respectable image was reinforced by my parents. This way of being was our shield, a way to ensure safety. But we had to do more than blend in. We needed to find areas of overlap where there was common ground between us and the community to build a foundation, a home. We discovered that commonality in our faith.
We were Catholic. We attended mass without fail every Sunday and regularly volunteered, donating both time and money. Every Saturday, twice a month, we would attend confession. Our parents valued this time with us because it reinforced their desire to bring us closer to God. We’d arrive at church shortly after noon, line up in a pew with the kneeler down, our eyes closed, and our hands clapped together, touching our noses in prayer, waiting to be seen by the priest. After the last of us received the sacrament, we’d bring out our rosaries and begin to say the Hail Mary chaplet together. My parents also wanted to ensure that we completed our penance, which usually consisted of five Hail Marys and an Our Father.
When I transitioned into high school, I did my best to stay ahead of the curve to conceal my sexuality. I didn’t date. Luckily, most thought I wasn’t interested in dating outside my race, and there was no option to date another black person. However, there was one curious white girl. She attended the other Catholic feeder school. Her friends attempted to get us together multiple times, but I managed to evade them each time. I explained that I had strict parents and wasn’t allowed to date, or that I was too busy because of all the sports and extracurricular activities I participated in. Somehow it worked. I was left alone and allowed to exist outside the dating rituals baked into the prevalent high school ethos.
When the time came for me to leave high school and transition to college, the decision—driven by my parents—was that I would attend Iowa State’s School of Engineering. It’s almost compulsory for black children of African or Caribbean descent to attend college in a STEM field. After all, it usually requires sacrifices for the parents from these communities to get to the United States. They want their children to fully embrace the American Dream, which means being in careers that guarantee their success and place in life. I understood this contract; my parents didn’t want me to be far from home. They wanted the ability to check on me and their investment to ensure that I stayed on track.
They visited me every other weekend, bringing Jollof rice and stories of my cousins and other children’s successes amongst their Nigerian networks. These accounts were meant to motivate me to do and be better, but they only made me resent them. Inadvertently, they cast a constant cloud over me, saturated with feelings of inadequacy. I never felt good enough.
Halfway through my sophomore year, I decided to change to public policy and urban studies. It was just a better fit. I was competent in math and science, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was merely going through the motions and following in the path of my parents. But public policy thrilled me. I’d always wondered why we had to drive an hour and a half from our home to get our haircuts; the same was true for my mother and sister to get their hair braided.
There were apparent differences between the community I lived in and the one we visited when we saw our barbers or beauticians. There was less diversity of shops and restaurants; it appeared that fast food places dominated along with liquor stores and churches. I asked my dad why on one of our many drives, and he shrugged. I always wanted to know the “why,” to understand it and change it—to make a difference.
I told my parents I wanted to change my major over winter break. I broke the news to them after dinner during the second night of being home for a two-week vacation. While my brother and sister cleaned the kitchen, I pulled my parents aside to share my decision. It didn’t go well. They couldn’t see the point. A career outside the pre-approved and certified field of medicine, law, or engineering seemed outside the realm of reason. It wasn’t a choice, but I dared to be different. I dared to be the nail that stood up above the rest, refusing to be hammered down.
My parents only came around after a discussion with my “uncle,” a close family friend who had established his career working for the government in Iowa. He immigrated to the States before my parents and had a long stable job with the state that helped put his two kids through college. Now, newly retired, my uncle was enjoying his pension from his years of service. In retirement, he spent his time traveling back and forth between the U.S. and Nigeria, advising others who dreamed of immigrating to the States like my parents. His example and explanation of the benefits and security of working a government job set my parents’ minds at ease. Two years later, I graduated with a major in public policy and a minor in urban studies.
After graduation, I had a government job lined up through one of my uncle’s connections. It was with the Iowa State Department of Development, which administered programs that provided federal and state funding to local communities to address various economic development needs. I was tasked to work as a program manager for the Community Development Finance Program—a program designed to encourage entrepreneurship in underserved neighborhoods throughout the state, particularly among communities of color.
For a year, I focused on managing CBOs that provided economic development services in the region where I grew up. It was fulfilling work to uncover the networks of black and brown businesses scattered throughout the surrounding communities. I discovered their stories and the organizations that sought to help them. I felt like I was making a difference but missing out at the same time. You see, I’d never left hometown. I was staying in Des Moines and visited my parents every other weekend, who were an hour and fifteen minutes away, and I’d also never been in a relationship. I repressed my feelings towards men and, at the same time, avoided being in relationships with women. I was lonely. I wanted to be in a relationship but needed a push to force me outside the closet.
A month after my first anniversary at this job, I left and moved to New York City. My parents were confused by the decision. They’d hoped I’d start focusing on finding a girlfriend and getting married. I was the firstborn son. I had a responsibility to set an example for my siblings. Besides, this was the next stage in my life that they’d help me get to. Why was I leaving a stable job and starting again in a new city? Especially New York City! What was the draw? I gave little explanation other than I wanted to be challenged and continue my professional development in the largest city in the nation, where economic growth was occurring at world-class institutions. They never fully accepted my explanation, but after seeing my commitment they provided their support.
A conversation with a coworker sparked the inspiration to leave Iowa and head to New York. While grabbing coffee, he’d asked me, “What do you want for yourself in life? Where do you see yourself in the next ten years—with work and personally?” Initially, it seemed to me a peculiar line of questioning. I didn’t know him well, so I gave him a generic response. “I see myself married with kids and in an executive director role with the agency.”
I’d never processed my career or being in a relationship. I’d figured it would happen eventually. But with who? After all, I was gay. I knew this much. I knew I wouldn’t have a traditional family with a wife and three kids like my father. The reality was that I couldn’t avoid being the nail that stood out, and this terrified me. I would eventually have to accept my difference or live an unfulfilled life. I decided to choose the former. I moved to New York the following year.
***
The ringing sound of an ambulance breaks my reflection, bringing me back to the present under the Brooklyn Bridge. My coffee is now lukewarm. I grab the cup, raise it towards my mouth, and drink the remaining contents. Satisfied, I check my phone to see the time. It’s 1:50 p.m., and my appointment with the psychic is at 2:00 p.m. Slowly, I stand, stretching my arms, allowing the blood to fill my extremities. I speed up the process with several deep breaths in and out; each time, I notice the condensed air push out, fading into the sky. Standing, I throw away the coffee cup and tighten my scarf. I look down on the bench one last time to ensure I grabbed everything and walk five minutes to my appointment.
