Page 21 of Smoke N' Stroke

“It’s a bit unorthodox, I know, and many of you are professionals that would never consider this as a treatment method for your patients or consumers, what some of you call those you treat in outpatient settings but consider this. Rarely are we able to understand what those vulnerable people who come to see us day to day are experiencing firsthand, and yet we’ve all been through something. Something that harmed us, whether it’s buried, or sitting right here on the surface. We’re going to allow ourselves to see how cannabis can help us open up to the possibilities our treatment offers.” Dr. Redmond spoke with such eloquence about the benefits of utilizing cannabis to treat some of the conditions our patients were inflicted with, particularlyemotional issues due to its calming properties. “By utilizing the substance in various forms, it allows the body and mind to become more receptive to healing thus allowing breakthroughs to occur more readily.”

There was no lack of volunteers who went to the stage when the session ended to sign up while the rest of us were free to break for lunch. But instead of catching up to Zaire as I’d planned, I saw him occupied near the side of the room near the doors where I would have to exit. It would have been uncomfortable to walk past him especially when I was a bit hurt by the attention, he continued to give her when he had me waiting. But that didn’t matter at the moment so I went over to the table holding the materials from the facilitator hoping I could avoid looking his way for a while. However, my curiosity won out as their conversation dragged on and I found my feet moving closer to where they stood but still near a table, I could continue with my ruse.

Okay, maybe curiosity and a bit of jealousy.

Why was this woman so interesting to him? I wondered. I already knew why she was interested in him. She wanted a souvenir from her time in Denver.

“It was nice talking to you, Dr. Booker.”

“Call me Zaire.” I rolled my eyes.

“Zaire it is,” she murmured while sliding him her business card. “I’m Alicia. I hope to run into you again.”

“That’ll be nice,” he said smoothly while I gagged and pretended to be looking over the materials sprawled across one of the reception tables.

“You done spying on me yet, Dr. Jackson?”

Somehow while I pretended to be reading a pamphlet on different cannabis varieties and how each helps with different diagnoses, he had finished grinning at Ms. Alicia and was now standing over me with a knowing smile.

“Now why would I spy on you?”

“Only you can answer that. You were the one doing it.”

“I could care less about whatever woman you were talking to and whatever plans you were making with her.”

“Nala.”

“Dr. Jackson.”

“Nala… like I said, why were you spying?”

I felt my nose go up in the air and knew the moment I lost it. Boy good dick did a number, didn’t it?

“Well for one, I wondered if I would need to vacate the few belongings, I brought over to yourroom so I could give you and Ms. Whatever her name is, some space to get to know each other better.”

Anger filled his eyes, and he gently but firmly grabbed me by my elbow and practically carried me out of the room to the elevators. I was angry and it only got worse on the ride up to our floor. Without knowing who saw his handling of me, I felt like he treated me as if I was some child in need of a whooping which didn’t sound bad under different circumstances if I were being honest.

Just when I was about to let him have it, he snatched a kiss from my lips before pulling away angrily.

15

ZAIRE

There are some fundamental truths about women that I’ve learned through my interaction with them professionally but mostly personally. Women required reassurance. Even if they knew they were loved, they also needed to hear it and experience it. I also knew that in the early stages of anything, it was almost impossible to know a damn thing so reassurance was even more important. There are also some fundamental truths about men. They knew when they were in love with a woman because there were only two states of being. We either were or we weren’t and it felt different than a muthafucka. There was no conflict in that. Denial is par for the course for some, but men knew. I knew.

I knew I was in love with Nala, and I knew she was in love with me too. Maybe it was too soon to be caught up so deep. Maybe we weren’t ready yet. But there is no way to undo where we are now. I accepted the responsibility of being her man that day in the garage though I knew I was destined to be it, before then. I remember something my mom told me the day before she took her last breath.

“Baby, know love. Know how it looks and feels so that when it comes to you later in this lifetime, you’ll accept it as the gift God has given you to replace the love you feel like you are losing, right now. I am always with you and that is in love.”

At the time she spoke her words, I was filled with anger over losing the only woman who had ever loved me unconditionally. My mother sought out ways to make the lives of me, my brother, and my sister, better than the hard life she had been given by being born into a poor family and to parents who didn’t show many expressions of love. Despite some bad choices with men who used her body, my mother saw me and my siblings as gifts from God, and dedicated herself to making sure our “outcome was better than our income”. That was what she always said to us but by me being the oldest, I had to be the one to continue to instill that in Omar and Katara and see to it that they made it somewhere in life.

My mother’s words on love stayed with me butonly as a means of remembrance, not something I hoped for. I said to myself if I had forgotten them, I would be forgetting her, so I tried to collect all the experiences I had with her that had any meaning. But when Nala came to Higher Pathways after having seen her years before and admired her poise and beauty, I started to think of my mother’s words and wonder. What if?

I wasn’t a fan of second chances and repeats because most people struggled to shift too far from past versions of themselves but that wasn’t our story. We just had a connection that re-emerged and opened an opportunity. It was for that reason that I truly cared for her. Because she didn’t deserve the old me. So the woman in my face was a nuisance but my politeness kept winning out. However, when she slipped me her business card that I didn’t even look at, I declined making the personal connection being fronted by a professional one, and handed it back to her. She needed to understand that she couldn’t have this dick and she definitely couldn’t have me. Nala was not only in my line of sight wearing a tight chin and hurt eyes while pretending to be reading brochures. She was in my heart, and I would protect her there.

The funny thing was, she wouldn’t be tripping ifshe knew the talk I had with my boy MJ while she took a long ass shower earlier.

MJ was leaving Atlanta and headed back to Las Vegas when he hit me up. He was supplying multiple 420 Smoke Day events around the country and had been busy traveling for that. Even though I wasn’t a heavy hitter when it came to ganja, I took a puff a time or two during vacations. Dr. Patton didn’t drug test unless there were concerns and besides that, I had a “script” to help with the insomnia I would get from time to time due to my caseload.

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