Chapter 6
RIP to the Queen
Eli
“I’m telling you, man, I’m good for tonight,” I say, steering the truck one-handed while the other holds the phone to my ear.
“Here we go again,” Drake laughs, the sound rich with a frustration he’s been nursing for as long as I can remember.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I let out a slow sigh. “Just say it, Drake. You’re already halfway there.”
“Okay, I’ll say it. You know it’s actually legal to hang out with women outside of your little ‘arrangements,’ right? Normal people go to clubs, meet nice women, and ask them on dates without a set of terms and conditions.”
“What are you getting at, D?”
I know exactly what he’s getting at. I just really don’t feel like having this conversation, and part of me is hoping he’ll surprise me. That he’ll say something other than the fact that I’m ‘different.’ That my way of meeting and entertaining women is more than a little unorthodox.
“I’m getting at the fact that you treat intimate connections like a business alliance,” Drake counters.
“Just because I like to set and manage expectations with women doesn’t make it an alliance,” I argue, checking my mirrors as the highway opens up.
“It ensures things stay clean. I don’t like leaving people guessing about where they stand.
That’s how you end up with a stalker who shows up at our offices wearing nothing but a trench coat during our Monday morning staff meetings. ”
Drake sucks his teeth.
And before you ask, no—I’m not some heartbroken brute holed up in the woods, coping with "the one who got away" by remaining void of real connection. I am a formerly heartbroken Black man—though my heartbreak didn’t come in the usual form—who moved to a remote part of Canada to reconnect with what matters most.
With who matters most.
Me.
If I just so happen to invite a woman into my space from time to time, it’s for a very specific reason and a very specific amount of time. It’s how I like things: compartmentalized and comfortably quiet.
The bonus? This is Canada, not America. So I’m not actively being scouted for target practice every time I leave the house.
Here, I’ve got peace. Solitude. No drama. No BS. Just clean air, solid ground under my boots, and my best friend, Drake.
“Why do you insist on throwing my mistakes in my face when we were talking about you?” Drake groans. “It was one time, Eli.”
I let out a short, dry laugh. “I’m not throwing your mistakes in your face.
But you’re constantly criticizing my lack of relationships, yet you can’t seem to stay out of the drama in the ones you scramble into.
My way keeps the peace. Your way has us calling the police when women show up at the office wondering why you haven’t called. ”
“Like I said. It was one time and Amber has learned from her mistakes.”
I shake my head. “Whatever, Drake.”
“I’m serious. Come out. Be messy. Meet someone who doesn’t come with a pre-negotiated exit strategy.”
Drake and I haven’t known each other that long, only about five years, but we met at a sustainable housing summit here in Canada and clicked fast. One conversation turned into three, then suddenly we were grabbing beers and arguing about policy like we’d known each other forever.
I’m driven by affordable housing. Real solutions to homelessness. Drake’s passion runs parallel. He’s obsessed with sustainable materials, building furniture that’s meant to last instead of mass-produced junk that falls apart and ends up rotting in a landfill.
Once we started talking shop, that was it. Instant friends. Eventually, business partners. From the jump, we realized we were building different things for the same reason. Purpose first. Everything else second.
Well…almost everything.
Drake will always put a good time near the top of the list. Probably above most things. And honestly, that’s exactly why I like him. He’s the built-in reminder that life isn’t meant to be all work and solitude. He makes sure I don’t turn into a full-blown recluse, even when I’m tempted to.
“Come on,” he pushes. “What do you even have going on tonight?”
“It’s a school night,” I say, even though it’s a Friday. “I have zero interest in spending my evening shoulder-to-shoulder with all the other old men at the club. And I really need to work on that pitch.”
“Thirty-eight is not that old, E. And for the love of lemon pepper wings, please don’t work on that pitch on a Friday night.”
“Hush. And thirty-eight is still too old to be out chasing women and whiskey. I’ve got better things to do with my time than compete with dudes barely out of undergrad.”
“Oh, you mean like Carl?”
I laugh. “Yes. Carl, with the taco meat on his chest.”
Drake loses it. “Gold chain tangled in it, and a head so shiny it looks like he bathes in baby oil.”
We both crack up. That’s Carl to a T. Also the head deacon at my mom’s church.
“I’ll let Carl know you’re not coming,” Drake says.
“Great. You can keep him company. I’ll be over here not smelling like regret and Rémy Martin.”
“Man, please. Like any of us have a choice, since your big ass never leaves the house.”
“Not true,” I say, straight-faced. “I’m outside the house right now.”
“Driving your mom to choir practice doesn’t count.”
My brother and I were born in Canada, but we lived in California for most of our teenage years. My dad’s job pulled us south of the border and my mother always felt like it was the right thing to do to follow him.
But once I got old enough to really see how Black men were treated in America, I knew I couldn’t stay. The tension, the weight, the constant undercurrent of fear…it wears you down.
So I came back. Back to the cold, the quiet, the calm. Back to where I could breathe and the only thing pressing on my neck was the scarf my mother knitted me.
After my father passed, I tried to convince my mom to move in with me, but her feisty-ass shut that down quickly.
Said she’d shrivel up and die being alone in the woods with me.
So she lives closer to the city now, surrounded by a vibrant, nosy, wine-loving crew of friends who somehow keep her calendar fuller than mine.
She’s come alive in the city. Started a whole new chapter, like grief pressed restart on her social life. And I’m grateful. Grateful the weight and noise of the U.S. didn’t follow her across here. She’s safe. Settled.
Here, the food is cleaner, the meds are free, and the air doesn’t smell like stress. Moving back to Canada was the best thing for her. For all of us.
Even if I do spend most of my time alone or tucked away in my workshop.
But in classic Mom fashion, she found a way to flip that into a problem I apparently need saving from.
Now she makes me take her to church every Sunday, Bible study on Wednesdays and choir practice on Fridays, claiming it’s to “free my spirit.” I know better.
It’s her way of making sure I leave the house and speak to people who aren’t delivery drivers or Drake.
“If I have to put clothes on and actually engage with people, it counts,” I say to Drake. I’m laughing, but I’m serious.
My friends have always given me hell about my lack of interest in going out and chasing women. But the whole thing has just never appealed to me.
What’s the appeal, really? You throw on a nice shirt, maybe cologne if your mother raised you right, and then head out to compete like it’s the dating Olympics for the attention of someone who’s usually more into free drinks and shallow conversation than anything real.
It’s not me. Never has been.
I’m the guy in the corner of the VIP section, sipping whiskey and watching it all play out—men and women alike pretending they’re not insecure, not terrified of dying alone with nobody but their French Bulldog to find the body.
Shit. That got dark fast.
Drake curses. “Shit!” He snaps.
“What’s up?”
“Check the center console of your truck. Is my wallet in there?”
I pop it open and glance inside. “Yep. Right here. How the hell did your dumb-ass leave your wallet in my truck?”
“That last meeting, remember? Old boy’s secretary had me distracted when I was hopping in. I must’ve dropped it.”
I shake my head. Of course. If there’s one thing Drake’s gonna do, it’s flirt his way through any professional setting. The man turns business cards into love notes. All the women he talks to are of age, though.
His name is Thaddeus Drake. He’s more of an ethically-sourced Drake. He’s also light-skinned but we won’t hold that against him since he does so much for the planet.
“Can you bring it by the spot tonight?”
“You did this shit on purpose,” I say flatly.
“What?” he says, feigning innocence so poorly I want to hang up on principle.
“You left your wallet in my truck to force me out the house. Admit it.”
“That, or I run up a tab in your name. Either way, you’re coming out.”
“Whatever, dick. I’m not staying. I’ll drop your wallet off and then I’m going home.”
“Famous last words,” he laughs. “I’ll tell Carl to save you a seat in the VIP lounge. You good on baby oil, bro?”
I want to fire something smart off at him when I spot something up ahead.
I slow the truck. “Fuuuuck.”
“You good?”
“Yeah, just a damn elk in the middle of the road,” I mutter, easing my foot onto the brake.
Correction: not just an elk. It’s a family reunion. A whole elk congregation crossing the street like they own it. The big one at the front gives me a look, like I better wait. And I do. Because I respect nature.
I respect the hell out these big mother fuckers, too.
As they disappear into the trees, something catches my eye.
There’s a car in the ditch off to the right. Nose down, hazard lights off. Are they trying not to be rescued?
“Hey, let me call you back,” I say, cutting off whatever Drake’s still mumbling.
I hang up, throw the truck into park, and grab the axe from behind the seat. Not because I’m planning to use it, but because if someone sketchy’s inside that car, I’m not about to walk up unarmed. This Black man will never be the first to die.
The ground crunches under my boots as I make my way down the slope. The car’s dark, except for the interior light blinking on and off like it’s doing Morse code. I see movement. Arms are flailing, like someone’s either panicking or fighting off an attacker.
Then, the light shuts off completely.
Oh hell no.
I pick up the pace. Either someone’s in trouble or I just walked into the cold open of a Netflix true crime special.
As I get closer, the movement stops.
Dead still.
I knock on the window, gentle at first.
Nothing.
I knock again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
I lean down to the window, trying to get a better look, and then it hits me—I probably look terrifying. Big Black dude, long hair, beard, middle of the woods. The full Blair Witch, horror movie package.
The person inside must be thinking the same thing because they let out a scream so loud and piercing, it could raise Whitney Houston from the dead.
RIP to the Queen.
The woman in the car is still screaming and I stumble back, hands up. “Whoa! Hey!”
She’s flailing again, yelling something completely incoherent. Is that…is she speaking in tongues?
I lean closer, trying to catch her words.
“Mama say, mama sah, mama koosa!”
Is that...Michael Jackson?
Her eyes snap open and land on me. Then my hands.
She freezes.
Then she screams again, like a whole second wave of panic just hit.
“I am totally gonna get murdered!” she cries.
“Ma’am,” I say calmly, biting back the laugh climbing up my throat, “I swear to God, I’m not here to murder you.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
I sigh and hold up the axe like an idiot. “Also, this is just for protection. Mine. I didn’t bring it for you. I mean—not to use on you. You know what? Just hold on. I’m gonna put it down.”
I set the axe down gently like I’m defusing a bomb. Then I walk back, hands raised in a silent “please don’t mace me,” gesture.
Her eyes are wide behind oversized glasses, and despite the situation and the chaos she’s clearly wrapped in, I can’t help but notice how cute she looks.
Stop it, Eli.
She’s vulnerable, clearly not from around here, and just shouted the—albeit incorrect—lyrics to a Michael Jackson song like a spell. She’s also probably certifiable.
This is not the time to be checking out the crazy lady in the stranded car.
She’s still visibly shaken, practically vibrating in her seat. Then I see her mouth the words—Is this how I die?
Awesome.