Jessie

Most of all I will miss Jessie, my amicable apartment building doorman that has gotten a few mentions on this blog because he looks like a cross between Herbie Hancock and Flava Flav. The other day he stopped me before I could push my way out of the lobby doors and told me he heard I was moving out at the end of the month. He sighed and said it was a damn shame.

I smiled. "I'm gonna miss our talks too, Jessie. But I'll drop by and say hello whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I promise."

"Naw man," Jessie replied, giving me the who farted? look. "I ain't even talkin' 'bout you. I'm sayin' it's a damn shame I ain't gon' get ta see dem girly friends of yours again!"

Jessie was referring to my friends Angie and Marci who came to visit me a couple weekends ago. At my urging, they flirted with him for a bit in my apartment lobby before we left for the bars. Angie made sure to hang some cleavage over Jessie's desk, and Marci spoke softly with her epiglottis open the whole time, the way Marilyn Monroe did when she sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to JFK. It made his entire night.

I thought it was a good idea at the time, but then he wouldn't stop bugging me about them. "When they gon' be back, Mr. Pete?" he'd yearningly ask days later, and: "I think the shorter one was feelin' me, whatchu think?" and: "You think they aight wit' an old black man?"

So I gave him Marci's phone number and told him to quit asking me if he had a chance and to just go do something about it. Jessie got very nervous at the idea.

"What I'mma say? What kinda man she like?"

I decided not to tell Jessie about Marci's fetish for indifferent sleepy-eyed jerks. "Make her laugh. She likes a man that can make her laugh."

Then I coached him for a good ten minutes on what kind of jokes he could say over the phone to her. "She's a nurse, right, so I think it's a good idea to execute a joke related to her profession. Like: 'What do you do when your patient has an epileptic seizure in the bathtub? Throw your laundry in quick!' Dude, Jessie, say this to her and it will pretty much lead to phone sex!"

...

A day later, after a creeped-out Marci threatened me with a few angry messages over Facebook, I checked in with Jessie to see how he thought the phone call went.

"Shhhiiiiieeeettt...." Jessie said, giggling with a sly look on his face. When Jessie says "shiiiet" like that, it only means something good.

"I think she likes me. I think I done made her fall in love wit' me."

I was so proud of him.

"Perfect," I said, pulling out my iPhone, "now smile for the camera." By now I had already decided that I needed to blog about him.

"You gon' show this to Marci?" Jessie asked, putting on a fedora he had kept hidden under his desk.

I nodded and took the picture, then waved goodbye and walked towards the elevator.

"Aiyyo Mr. Pete!" Jessie yelled a few seconds later. I stopped in my tracks and spun around. "Take another one, this time without muh glasses."

"You look sharp, dude."

"Aw hell naw, f'real? Better than Ursher?"

"Better than Usher. Now don't forget to call her again tomorrow. She's waiting for you to holler back."

"Shhhiiieeettt...." Jessie said, smiling ear to ear.