My mother is legally blind and she didn't have a car, so I couldn't get home that way.
She did everyone's taxes. If you went to college from my neighborhood, my mom probably filled out your financial aid forms.
She was basically a hood version of Olivia Pope.She was really TOO kind, so she rarely asked for payment. Of course, in a poor black neighborhood, there wasn't a lot of money in this. Instead, she got a lot of "favors"
The plan was for me to meet him in Atlanta, where he was attending a Janet Jackson concert, and we'd ride home the next day.
He was...let's call him an "entrepreneur" from South Florida who had opened a "franchise" in my neighborhood.
So I meet him in Atlanta, he picks me up and we head downtown. He was on a mission.
EVERYONE was excited and tickets were impossible to get
No, I didn't go.
So I'm literally riding around Atlanta looking everywhere and asking everyone if they knew where he could get one
The pimp gave him vague directions but after searching all day, we never found it.
I said yes.
The bouncers told me that I was underdressed and couldn't get in.
But the bouncer wouldn't do it.
I told my friend to go inside and I would wait for him. I told him not to worry because I didn't want to be a burden. Remember, this guy didn't know me and he was doing MY MOM a favor by giving me a ride.
The guy goes to VIP with his entourage.
I specifically remember that I had $23 to my name. So I'm in this club in a t-shirt, jeans and broke. But LOOK at Gawd!
The club is too packed to find my friend so I head for the bar
A Long Island Iced Tea.
But there's a catch:
You have to pay attention.
A lot of places have Long Island Iced Tea mix and just add vodka. Not only is it cheaper, but it's easier and faster to mix.
But a REAL Long Island Iced tea has vodka, gin, tequila, rum, triple sec, sweet & sour and cola.
Again, the club was packed and everyone is clamoring for the bar. The waitress is fixing my drink and at the back of the crowd, I see the guy in the hat again.
Then I hear him yell:
"Aye Que Dog! Order me a Hennessey!"
Now I have $23, half of which will go to this Long Island Iced Tea! DO I order this guy a Hennessey and be broke or do I pretend I didn't hear him?
I say "Fuck it," and order the Henn. It was literally 21.50
I tell the bartender to keep the change. She sighs again.
So I do.
We walk upstairs, me behind him, and yall, I'm telling you, the club was packed with people from EVERYWHERE and this dude knew EVERYONE!
I start talking to him while the people who work at the club are setting up a makeshift bar in the VIP section. When they finish, he asks me if I wanted something to drink. When I hesitate, he says:
It was the first time I'd ever seen someone actually "buy the bar." This motherfucker had paid the club to set up a bar in VIP!
Again, business must have been good!
There was also an ALL WHITE pool table in the VIP section and they were gambling.
It still exists and it is still a juke joint. When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to go
So she had a key.
I cannot confirm or deny.
But I played pool A LOT when I was a teenager.
"I'mma bet this hundred on you. If you beat him, you can have it."
"Plus," he says, "it'll be a dope story."
But the dude in the hat gets the shot on the eight ball and wins
I really wanted that $100. Plus, the dude in the hat is talking shit and everybody's laughing (even though he wasn't that funny.) I'm hoping my friend isn't mad about the buck he just lost, and I tell him that I could've beat the dude in the hat.
The dude in the hat, was like: For another hundred?
And my friend says: "No, for the hat."
He says "You can't be me, Que Dog!" and his voice even seemed slightly familiar to me.
But I'm focused.
I know this is gonna sound like a fairy tale where I make myself the hero but I have since made friends with some of the guys who were in the VIP section of the club that night who remember this story and they will tell you:
I kicked that dude's motherfucking ass.
Now, I'm not talking shit because I was focused (and, if I'm telling the truth, kinda nervous). I'm at the 8 ball and he still has 3 on the table. As the 8 ball rolls into the pocket, I actually bark out loud and everyone laughs.
He puts out his hand to shake mine, that's when I recognize the face without the hat, the voice and why everyone seemed to know him.
But I was mad as hell at him for the rest of the night. Because when I looked inside the hat we had searched for all day in the hot Georgia sun...
It was a Bossalina
Plus, Pac never gave me my money back for that Hennessey
But right after that article was published, a friend of mine sent me a text.
Now I have never mentioned the hat so I was puzzled.
It turns out that it wasn't Tupac's hat. He had borrowed the hat from a friend so he wouldn't be recognized
Yep. I'm that "country nigga from Georgia."
If there's any consolation, the hat worked.
Tupac had gotten this hat when he visited his friend earlier that evening.
If you can find pictures from Janet Jackson's 1994 tour, you might see one with her onstage performing in a Borsalino hat.
And merry Christmas