The first school year I was in New Orleans, I had a roommate named Jack. We found each other from Tulane's housing office, and rented a shotgun house a block from the Mississippi near Audubon Park. Jack was a senior undergraduate in engineering; I was a first year grad student in Urban Studies. Jack was from a prominent South Alabama family, and a good student, but tried to be rough. He bathed infrequently, rode a motorcycle and liked to sky dive as a hobby. He had a disturbed girlfriend from a decaying Chattanooga family. Jack was crazy handsome when he cleaned up, not that I noticed.
We moved in together fifty years ago this coming fall. We only stayed together that one school year. He wanted to keep the house, so I took an apartment alone the next year, and we rarely saw each other after that. I left New Orleans a year later.
I still think about Jack, mostly what he said to me when we split up our household. He said " I think you're gonna make it big one day, Wendell, but I ain't sayin' how old you'll be." I didn't sleep well tonight, maybe because I had my second booster shot against COVID-19 on Friday, maybe because of what I ate ( I cooked tonight), or because I walked in Core Arboretum for nearly ninety minutes this afternoon and overdid it.
So as I lay awake, I thought about what Jack said to me in May of 1973. Maybe he was right. I've been with the same man for more than sixteen years now. We're married, we own a home and two cars, and we have an old cat, who is on "home hospice" with us. And I'm running for United States Congress. Others are shocked that I could run for Congress, and maybe I'm surprised, too. I know enough now, and while I am not likely to win, it's not because I can't do the job or lack qualifications. It's taken me the fifty years since Tulane to become that person who is stable, confident and capable.
Maybe some other night when I can't sleep, I'll write more about what I've gone through.
