The List Lives On...

Not even 3 months into my 30th year on earth, and I’ve managed to accomplish a few of the things on my NOW THAT I’M 30 list.

The latest was the one I thought would be most elusive…I had to whup a chick’s azz.

Backstory…
(Dateline – Bawtuhmore, Murrland. The Corner)


This my corner right here. I done seen and heard it all happen right at this crossroad. [Do I sound like Charles.S.Dutt0n yet?]



Well, one night last week, at around, oh, 3 am, I heard trouble coming down the block. Within minutes it had reached the door of my building, and climbed the stairs.

“I told you not to have that last drink, yo. I TOLD you. But you didn’t listen.”

That’s Barnyard, my downstairs neighbor. He’s a dead ringer for Shawn Mar.ion with (pre-last-album-release haircut promo stunt) Busta dreads. Cool, cheerful guy, with no discernable career. (that’s not to say he’s not gainfully and legally employed. I just don’t know what it is. When we first met he told me he travels a lot for work, so I’m guessing something in either music or unemployment). He’s always smiling and always laughing and always surrounded by friends.

Dude also has a penchant for little white women. And weed, but that’s a whole other story. And he ends at least every other sentence with, “YO”. So on this night he and his girl come stumbling in and wake up the block. It’s not usually a big deal, but it’s 3 am on a weeknight, yo.

“Barnyard, why you lying on me?! Why!!” She’s crying hysterically, and by hysterically, I mean slobbering drunk.

“I told you, yo, but you don’t never listen to me! I told you you’re a different person when you drink. Get the fcuk out!” He’s mad calm, and by calm, I mean probably high as fcuk.

They’re nothing if not entertaining. The best part is that he’s usually so impatiently patient. He always calmly takes the time to explain to his girls their ills. Show her a better way. This night it sounded like he was intent on teaching her a lesson.

“You pushing me? Who the fcuk you think you are, little girl? You crazy? Don’t you EVER put your hands on me!”

Then a pause. Almost like the argument was taking a deep breath. Actually, he was choking the chick out.

“Why you choke me?!” (she’s throwing shit around now). “I didn’t do nothing, Barnyard!”

“You didn’t do nothing? You put your effing hands on me and you drunk as shit, yo!”

I always wondered how deep fights in interracial relationships go down. Like, does the chick call him a trifling Nuh, right off the top?

“I’m calling the cops if you don’t get the eff out my house!”

“Barnyard, I’m a white girl and you’re a black man. Who you think they gonna believe?”

I bet she would have had him at, nig.

Anywoo…if you’re just joining us, it’s now 3:30am on a weeknight and they are Ike and Tina’ing it from indoors to out, slamming doors and shouting. Next thing I know, I hear the chick sitting at the bus stop out front, boo hooing.

She’s not outside long. She comes back into the building and starts pounding on Barnyard’s apt. door (which is one flight down from mine).

So I creep over to my door to get a better listen…



He’s not answering and she’s not done pounding. She’s also not keeping in mind that there are two other people who live in the building. And as I looked at the clock, staring down the barrel of 4am, I had had enough.

I open my door and look down the stairs at this pathetic heap of a stringy haired drunken mess. She’s out of her mind… I realize this. And I realize that my presence will only exacerbate the situation. But if I don’t say shit now, this will happen again, at 3am, on a weeknight.

WISE: “Excuse me, Princess. You gotta take all that outside.”

WHITE: “What?! WHAT?! I’m a white girl and you’re black. Who you think they gonna believe?”

WISE: “Believe about what? About you acting like Barnyard lives here alone?” I ask.

WHITE: “Barnyard pays rent up in here. He can do anything he wants!”

WISE: “And how you think I get to stay here? Barnyard isn’t paying MY rent! And it is very late and you are very loud, and I am asking you politely to please bring down the volume.”

WHITE: “Bitch, you don’t tell me ---.”

I was on the steps before she could finish. Clearly, she had me at 'bitch'. And before she could commit a full gasp I calmly lifted this chick off her feet, my fingers rapped securely around her throat. Bitch couldn’t even swallow, yo.

WISE: “The trash is out back.”

And with that, I casually tossed her drunk azz toward the outside door then made my way back up the steps to my crib.

I’m gully and all, but the portion in grey never happened. I’m 30, and well, I know how to choose my battles WISEly. That one woulda been too easy. And too unavoidable. Had I opened my door the girl woulda fcuking flipped and came out of her mouth all wrong, and I woulda HAD to slap her up. And my neighbor woulda HAD to laugh, or help, or be mad, yo. I don’t need no turf war where I live. That’s what work is for.

For now, the list lives on…