I was measuring Adam's SUV yesterday evening after tennis to see if I could fit a piece of furniture in there and I accidentally put my keys down back there like a doofus. Then he drove off. Which I discovered when I walked back to my car and stood next to my door. Usually the magic of modern technology just opens the door. This time it did not. By the time I figured out what had happened, the best option was to get a Lyft to take me to get the keys and back to my car.
I was picked up by a Black guy whom we'll call Theo to respect his anonymity. Turns out Theo had lived most recently in Orlando before moving back maybe a decade ago, but much of his early life had been in Chapel Hill and like me he had gone to both Seawell and Phillips. He had also spent a year in East Orange, NJ and also had spent time in Germany as well as places like Fort Bragg because his mom had been in the armed forces.
The striking thing was how much of his life story was about fights and getting his ass kicked or not. In East Orange when he was 10 these three girls were really mean to him and were kicking his ass. In Germany many years later he recounted this long drawn-out tale of how there was a conflict with someone and he was really ripped and he was saying to the other guy this and that about how he was gonna whump him than the other guy clocked him in the back of his head as he was walking away and he got a contusion then his mom shipped him home. About 60% of the ride was about fights he had been in.
Really nice guy. But it was striking how literally incidents of fisticuffs punctuated his life.
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