Strange encounters

If I see a single sequinned glove I think of Michael Jackson. There is that image of a man flying though the air with a ball in his hand that connotes Michael Jordan. I'm saying this to say that someone can hold a place in our minds without being present. Yeah its even simpler than that because we may not even need those objects to conjure thoughts of them.

There are two individuals I have met whom have held a place in my mind, a strange place. The encounters with them happened years ago in New York and were brief, however, it's like they live with me every day. I wish I could say that these were encounters that I cherish and I that i recall lovingly and warmly. Its almost to the contrary.

I met Brett at Sound Factory, a club me and my friends went to on Saturday nights. I won't get into unnecessary detail if only in the interest of space. The club was geographically stratified with different sub-sects inhabiting different parts of the dance floor as if by rule: the voguing kids were just as you entered on the left, my friends and I, call us the cool kids, would be just in front of the indoor bleacher like seating, the kids that danced Runway were just on the other side of us and so on. Then you had a section that was almost ostensibly white men who worked out, held corporate jobs and partied in Jeans and no shirts, it was from that section that Brett emerged.

Brett was different. I was first taken by how handsome he was, in a classic American way, like a Kennedy. He was of lean frame and light hair. He didn't party shirtless and was not a gym bunny as we called the muscled set.

At one point after seeing him he sat next to me. I was sitting on the stairs where many sat to watch the dance floor and take a rest from the pumping action fuelled by the music of Junior Vasquez. It was still legal to smoke indoors and in a moment of chivalry I had my lighter out and ready to light Brett's cigarette before he could find his. We struck up a conversation. One of the things he said to me that still haunts me to this day was that he is/was a Yankee. To this day the New York Yankee's logo makes me think of Brett and oddly enough sometimes before I see the logo he would cross my mind and sometimes soon after thinking of him the logo appears.

There have been other little things like that that keep me connected at least in my mind to this man who I had drinks with one night at a SoHo Hotel.  I can't say if its for better or worse but all these years later i still feel that Yankee's hand in my life at times.

Sometime later I would meet Pete Mac Namara. This was even stranger an encounter. I had gone to hear my "cousin" DJ at what was then called Global 33, an East Village restaurant owned in part by a fellah named Miguel. It was the home for many years to a pumping Monday night party called Sugar Babies. The party started when the space was called Sugar Reef and attracted an eclectic downtown set who attended religiously.

This night in particular it was just Emjay, my cousin, and the bar staff at Global 33. In walks Pete a towering man of burly frame. Emjay whispered "Coke is it" as Pete entered and for me that had many connotations.

We sat and spoke in that sparring way that conversations sometimes go. I remember challenging him but not emerging victorious as I would for years after believe this man to be a supreme being: somewhere between a super hero and a god. It was easy for that to happen as then the concept of man as god was popular, I just wasn't sure and still grapple with it especially given the First Commandment. It was this encounter that led me back to Christianity.

I was into numerology and one of the things that came out in this meeting was that there was an 11 year age difference between us, thats when the domination started as in Numerology, 11 is a Supreme Number, like 22. When in a reading these numbers appear they don't get reduced to single digits as is the case for all other numbers. It was my vulnerability at the time given other circumstances like my unemployment and other personal battles that triggered a series of events that would lead to me being sick and hospitalised.

Both these men have represented things that may lead some to question my faith in God. They both seem to have power that I may have but not recognise, I have to be reminded sometimes of what is termed my agency. I woke up this morning said the Rosary and thought what else can I do? I have a family crisis that seems without solution and right now even magic would be a welcomed option. I say magic because we are all connected by Spirit and while I can't change anyone else's behaviour I can trust my instinct that tells me that things change.

I have to let go of the things inside of me that control me and I have to say that which i fear most saying and in doing that I hope there is magic and in doing that I hope there is a solution.