In the close of 1992, two children were searching for one place to call home and I took it upon myself to help them find it. And home is not always just a place. Since he was necessarily numbed in order to protect his emotions and his sanity, not much could catch David’s attention. He was nineteen, so I knew the right girl just might. Just like I knew the right boy was what she needed. David had finally found a name he could insist on being called, noticed on the birth certificate he refused to lose and perfect because Africa had come back into style: Rasul. It was the name he finally shared with the rude, feisty chocolate Black girl he kept running into around the building, although she wouldn’t reciprocate and tell him hers until he suggested a trip to the movies.

So before they knew it, I had started them on the journey to love. For me, it was a matter of simply waiting for the night he would hold her in his arms and convince her that everything was going to be alright. Their relatively quick, innocent journey to closeness was started by me, but I needed them to want to close the deal. So as the Midwest winter became official, I took advantage of the passing time to think ahead, to see where I wanted them to be, which was lying in each other’s arms in a dark motel room along the Indiana Interstate near Christmas, and hear them speak the promises I knew it was just a matter of time before they made:

“I been through a lot of shit in my life,” she would say. “I been through nights, weeks, months where I didn’t have nobody to talk to at night. No friends, no money.”

“Shit, me too,” he would confess.

“Not bad as me.”

“How you know?”

“Well, guess I don’t. I mean, we really don’t know each other that well yet.”

“Yeah, but we gettin’ there.”

“You sure you wanna go?”

“With your loud ass, I don’t know …”

“Go then. I don’t care. I don’t need anybody. I can make it by myself.”

“You really want me to go?”

“Ummmm … yeah.”

“Too bad. I’m here to stay.”

“Yeah, right. That’s what you say now.”

“What I gotta do to make you believe me?”

“A hell of a lot more than this.”

“I’m listening …”