Mr. Midnight

Tip: always share your location

We were in the coffee shop, the lot of us, as I warred with a three-day hangover – my mouth was like a mothball sanctuary. I felt rung out and couldn’t stop yawning. My right eye was doing that thing that happens at night when I’m weary and can’t stand being conscious a moment longer, the thing my man and I call “juicing.”

My makeup girlies also know juicing well. It sneaks up to ruin a perfectly good cut crease. Juicing makes fake eyelashes slough like afterthoughts. The eye summons luscious, otherworldly tears that slice through layers of primer, concealer and foundation – then the droplet takes its wobbly trail from the inner eye along the nose, stopping on the ledge of the lip. Once your eye gets to leaking, it rarely stops. You have to give up.

On that fine Monday evening, I cursed my eye and other hangover sensations (cruel signs of being thirty instead of forever young). To make matters worse, this group was meeting for the first time—or at least, me, them. I could sense the unspoken questions: Is she crying? Is she okay? Is she sad? No. No. Yes, ladies. 

After introductions, we settled into a 45-minute writing exercise. Given that I was barely amongst the living after a weekend of party favors – I had floated to the meeting ghostlike and distracted. This shimmery, liquid quality of my thoughts caused me to forget my laptop. And a pen. Or anything to use said pen on. I just showed up. The definition of “there and square.”

Luckily, the group had backups. Each person lovingly passed a necessary clue: a writing utensil, a writing surface, a pointed finger in the direction of the bar-back who was hosing water into clear, squat Dixie cups. I gratefully accepted the items, tried to laugh it off, then prepared for a stretch of plain ole’, regular-degular writing like I was in the 90s or something.

I tried to tap into my thoughts and dig deeper than what surfaced: How am I still hungover? I'd like to die. You’re acting weird; stop it. I tried to conjure better, cleaner, more brilliant things: channel my inner J.R.R. 

While attempting, my ears had other ideas. They honed in on the sounds around me: normal people at a coffee shop, leading normal lives, having normal conversations, thinking normal thoughts full of balance and self-love. No visions of death and how delicious a Route 44 strawberry limeade would be (filled to the brim with that crunchy-ass Sonic ice). 

Eventually, I got bored, so I tuned the radio to a new station: a man to my left, behind me. I could tell he was Black by the boom in his voice. It had that midnight purple quality where it crawled and devoured like syrup, demanding more and more landmass. A gift, really, but my raised haunches thought otherwise.

This man didn’t know the meaning of an “inside” voice. Everything about his volume said this is my coffee shop; y'all only sit in it. You will listen to my conversation and like it. He was on the phone or Zoom. I didn't dare iron out that detail. I didn’t want to risk eye contact (a unique tightrope as a black woman – yeah I tend to nod whenever a black person is in my vicinity, but when it’s a man, the stakes mutate. I could end up in a situation I deeply, deeply don’t want to be a part of). 

His monologing was confident and measured like a spiritual guru before a crowd of mesmerized teenage girls, but in this quiet environment, it made him seem arrogant. I’m guessing he was talking to a woman because he was explaining. Mr. Midnight told her it’s important to take control and that he never likes to show weakness. He revealed that he had friends he didn’t like and tried to avoid, but they didn’t know that. He laughed at this in such a sickly amused way, mocking their ignorance of his true feelings. I shivered — scared for those who knew this man, trusted him, and invited him in. 

Experiencing the ick to the max, I decided to regroup, return to Mars and resume my writing exercise. In doing so, I missed a large part of his rant but started spying again just in time for a Kanye quote. He went on to do it not once but four times. Kanye quotes? You gotta be kidding me. Kanye West is not tethered to reality. “Kanye is like a masterclass on identifying weak people. He always says…” his voice was pumped with falseness, laden with the same wily drip of an internet grifter selling scrawny-armed men horse pills for #gains. 

My reptilian brain harkened back to a fucked up experience I had with a man with a similar voice and the same menacing aura as this guy. 

I’ll tell you about it. Let’s set the scene.

It was 2015, and I was a youngster doing my darndest to ignore issues that jangled for my attention, like being a plaything for my boyfriend (30 years my senior), graduating college and securing gainful employment shortly thereafter. As a distraction, I crawled the local art scene, attending sloppy, off-beat fashion shows (think bad graphic design, Shein-looking clothes, and models with ashy knees – the kind of bizarro shit only seen in Arizona). 

At one of these events, I met this weirdo we’ll call Soul Brother (I need something as corny as the man himself) – who insisted he could help jumpstart my photography career and, if I wanted, coach me on modeling free of charge. I took the bait although my stomach was fucking drumming the adverb, “no”. One of my talents was ignoring my intuition – I wouldn't listen in case it kept me from what I wanted: revenge for being bullied in high school in the form of Instagram followers. So I opted to ignore his crunchy, dry-ass lips and darting dodgy eyes, and we set up a photoshoot.

Day of, he drove us miles into the city to a remote stretch of land flanked by a lake. Only upon exiting the vehicle did I realize he was stranger danger as he pointed out the loaded guns in his backseat. I quickly realized this outing was not a networking opportunity but a date – and that his divorce stories on the ride-up were meant to conjure lust within me. Comedically, I had no reception, and I hadn’t told anyone where I was, thinking he was an innocent local photographer as if I hadn't learned rule one of being female. 

Anyway, you guys, nothing happened – thank literal God up in the sky, the one who created the heavens and earth. Soul Brother drove me back to my car, but during my agonizing return, he preached and sermonized. I had no choice but to endure his self-aggrandizing red-pill drivel, “I’ll tell you what, if you’re not making money as a photographer, you’re a hobbyist. Only photographers make money. It’s all about who you know.” I’ll never forget his inflection: the thinly veiled Hotep stylings meant to lure me into bed.

So as we return back to the coffee shop – you can understand why I was so disgusted, so unnerved. That’s what I get for eavesdropping.

And, of course, my eye was still juicing. I swatted my lash as if that would make it better. Although worn out, I’d magically finished writing (two pages, front-to-back, all the margins spent). I allowed myself a silent, lengthy yawn. I texted my man, “I'm falling asleep for real. I yawned and almost drooled.”

He totally understood my plight. How embarrassing – melting slowly in front of the group, the lot of us – a few days into a hangover, totally dried out, with a mouth lined with mothballs.

— M