I thought you hated me because you were always short with me. Aggressive.

Sometimes friendly, but mostly you barked like I was the enemy.

Those “playfights” weren’t play at all. You hurt me a few times, and you knew it. You were taking something out on me. I couldn’t tell what or why.

I thought you hated me, or you must have thought muthfucka or nigga was my name. I should have told you what I really thought the first time you acted up, but I didn’t. I should have acted a fool when you called my house at the wee hours, but instead I just stopped answering.

I thought you hated me, but in a way, I wanted to figure you out. Why is someone so beautiful, smart and talented, barely getting by?

I thought you hated me so I spent time over the years trying to figure out how to be comfortable around you. Maybe it was something I said, something I did, or just something about me that made you angry and hostile.

What triggered the “good” moods. You know, those times when you seemed to want to know about my mother, my brother and my life. What about those times we just talked on the phone like old friends?

I thought you hated me so I wondered who would be on the other line when you called. Would it be the Mr or the Dr? Then I thought you were crazy, but you’re not crazy.

Why would a simple call for some casual affection be so injurious? Why did it go on so long? Did you treat all your “friends” that way?

I thought you hated me, but what was that “animal attraction” I felt? I know what it was. It was the ringing between my ears every time I saw you for the first time again. It was the way those moments in the throws would replay themselves in my mind for days, or even weeks after we met. It was your hands, your lips, your arms, your back….your voice, but it wasn’t you.

I’ve said it was the end with you before. Time passed. You called. I picked up the phone. Repeat.

 I mean yeah, you fine…fine as hell, but with the social skills of a pit bull, you’re impossible. Abusive, argumentative, arrogant, cantankerous, confrontational, domineering…and sometimes plain vicious.

You don’t have any real friends. Somebody is always out to get you right? You have to watch your back and you don’t trust anybody right? You hard, and you’ll hurt a nigga right? You aint for all that fly talk right?

You don’t really care about anybody. Your life is so empty and meaningless you have to hurt other people just to feel anything at all.

I didn’t need that. I only thought I did. I finally figured it out!

So I have this friend and we’ve been cool for a long time. Ok, the truth is I can’t get rid of him. He’s had my phone number since like 1998 and I guess you could say he’s in love with me. It’s crazy to even say that because this guy is not even close to someone I could consider dating seriously. But nonetheless he has mailed me tons of sweet letters from jail, never had a problem taking me out to eat and relentlessly insists that I should be his woman. But I wont.

Let’s call my friend C. First of all, C is a native Houstonian complete with that dirty Texas accent and two baby mammas to boot. You know, “mane, it’s going diiiown (down)”, and “who was at the fruneral”, and “ya feel me dawg?”  C is about a year younger than me but he’s been on his own in “the game” since he dropped out of high school at 16. Since that time C either stayed in the streets, or in jail. Even today he’s facing 180 days for violation of probation. C was set up by a crackhead a few months back but he says he’s not spending one extra day in jail. Tsk tsk. Nothing worse than a criminal who can’t face that he’s bad at his chosen career, evident by the fact that he keeps getting caught…

So C hasn’t learned his lesson about dealing drugs, but he has matured in other ways. Usually when C and I get together I’m annoyingly quiet. I don’t have much to say because I can’t relate to the topics he’s interested in. C likes to talk about his “people” or crackheads, his kids and his friends who have returned to jail after being freed for less than 3 months. Of these, I have none.

But last night C impressed me with a rant about those “people from New Orleans” and their mentality. You see, C is one with “da hood”. Last night we visited the same apartment complex where the po-po’s took him down the first time back in 1998. Later I learned that the man I met there was a murderer. I asked C if he thinks the hood has gotten worse, and that sent him into the aforementioned rant about our neighbors (or maybe unwanted guests) from New Orleans.

I’ve always wondered why C is such a slave to ignorance, but hearing him talk about folks that are even more ignorant than he was amusing to say the least. C explained that the spike in violence was a result of turf wars between Houston and New Orleans. At first I had heard it was the battle of the Wodies against the Dawgs but last night I learned that it’s actually just bloods (Houston) versus cryps (NO).

C sat there shaking his head with pure disgust. He explained to me that those people from NO ended up right smack dab in the middle of the hood in Houston because their housing vouchers from FEMA go farther when the rent is cheaper. In short, all the ghetto apartment complexes are full to capacity thanks to Katrina. C says that the wodies have a mentality that relegates them to nothing but spending, partying and making fast money and pot bellies. He scoffed at how they don’t think about the long term, how they don’t care about what people think of them and most of all how they think they have something to prove.

For a moment C sounded like someone with a bit of common sense. It was amazing to see someone who most of my peers would consider low class discussed people who have even less class. He spoke with regret seeing how some of the “boyz” he grew up with were pretending to be gangstas’ to protect their hoods. “Mane them boyz aint like that! I know them boyz from way back..it’s just sad.”

I’m so fascinated with the cultural and social impact that the migration of New Orleans residents to Houston has had. Everywhere I go I see evidence that life in Houston is changing as a residual effect of Katrina. Kids are fighting in school, residents are complaining about evacuees getting preference in the job market, low income Houstonians are finding it hard to find apartments and clubs are becoming segregated. I just wish there was some way we could have prepared for all of this. You know it’s bad when a hustla’ takes time out to weigh in with meaningful observations.

Mandana