To take a break from driving in the rain at high speeds and minimize safety hazards, I decided to cut my day of driving short and stay in a hotel in Harrisburg early in the evening. In the days that followed, tracking the tropical storm’s path, I would learn that it would continue east past me and begin to head back south, then change directions a fourth time and head west along the gulf states. If I felt targeted by the storm before, I felt even more so after seeing the storm’s course in its entirety. That was the exact path I was going to take to my final destination, New Mexico. Whether or not the direction of the storm was the result of some form of intelligence is speculative and unknowable as things are right now, but it's a cold hard fact that it went the exact same way that I had planned to go when I had never done a trip like this before in my life. Perhaps it’s a delusion of the ego that made me feel singled-out by the storm, but then there are entire earthquakes that occur which only take a single person’s life, so it would seem that the forces of nature do target a single individual in rare instances, unless of course it’s all just a coincidence.

After waking up the next day in Harrisburg, I continued my journey to New York City, which would be a relatively short drive of only a few hours given there were no other types of interference along the way. The closer I got to New York City, the more the anticipation grew in the pit of my stomach. I had driven past New York City years earlier and had seen the Manhattan skyline; ironically, with Khalidwe, his mother, and his sister, on the way to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. At that time I was a little middle school kid pressed up against the window looking out from afar at a marvelous city traveling in a car across a bridge, wishing we would suspend our original plans and stop there instead. It was as if the city was calling my name and I wanted to, but was unable to answer the call. Now, here in 2004, I was finally able to answer the call.

After flying through the Holland tunnel after several minutes, I began to approach the light at the end of the tunnel. The view transformed from literal and dark tunnel vision instantly into a broad, awe-inspiring panorama of skyscrapers illuminated by bright and intense sunlight. It was almost shocking and overwhelming to go through such a transition so quickly. I was now one of millions trying to make his way through The City of Dreams.

Aside from visiting Khalidwe, I had a couple of other items on my agenda. I spent the afternoon attempting to meet up with an old coworker from Pasqual’s in Madison who just started attending university in New York this semester and doing my laundry at a local laundromat.

The connection failed because she didn’t appear to be at her dorm that day, but I was able to get a load of laundry done with a little bit of assistance. I have always heard the people of New York were cold and unfriendly, but I hadn’t seen that side, at least not so far. One of the laundromat attendants was very kind to me and helpful, probably sensing I was a new arrival and didn’t know where my place was. I didn’t know what a New Yorker was supposed to look like, just that I knew I didn’t. Most people on the streets were a bit indifferent to my presence, but not in a way that made me feel shunned. Since I didn’t dress in order to attract attention, it would make sense that no one was paying particular attention to me.

In a city that big, you see a lot of different kinds of people in a short time, so it would take something extraordinary to stand out. I didn’t feel unwelcome, but being in a place with so many people did challenge my need to feel like a unique individual somewhat. It’s easy to feel unique within the confines of a relatively conformist social setting, but in a place where everyone seems to be unique, how to feel unique then?? At this point, the old saying, “Go big or go home,” comes to mind. Perhaps to find my place, I felt that I had to go big in some way.

Late afternoon, I made my way to Harlem, where Khalidwe lived in an apartment with his roommate. When we saw each other, we shook hands, but there was a slight awkward feeling between us, probably due to having met under much different circumstances the previous time, and possibly because my arrival had been unexpected until a day earlier. It’s not every day that your mom calls you and tells you that the first friend you ever made in life who you haven’t seen in years is heading your way full speed. The last time we saw each other we were still teens back in Wisconsin. Now we were full-grown adults in the big city, about a thousand miles away from where we grew up.

Khalidwe and I had many childhood memories together. We watched all the old 80’s cartoons together every morning, as we would often meet at his house before going to school. We would also spend the afternoon in after school together. One particular time that comes to my memory was when Khalidwe, another boy named Nathan, and I were sitting at the table together in after school. Nathan said something funny, but at the wrong time for Khalidwe. Khalidwe had just taken a big mouthful of milk. You could see him struggle to hold himself together, but he ended up spraying all over the table. That situation ended with the three of us taking a timeout sitting against the wall, back when they still did that. The reason I got in trouble was for laughing. To me, making someone laugh when they had a mouthful of food or drink was the funniest thing to me, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m pretty sure in elementary school I got in trouble for laughing more than anything else.

Khalidwe was also with me one Halloween night when a few kids from the old Sommerset neighborhood decided to rob my candy. My father had been shadowing us the entire evening in his car, and it didn’t take him long to mobilize when we came running down the street to where he was parked and told him about what happened. We caught up to the kids and had a confrontation with them. One of their uncles happened to be walking by and defended his nephew and the others without even knowing or trying to figure out what happened. He asked us what evidence we had, but we didn’t have any. My bag was clean snatched out of my hands before I knew what was going on. My father decided to drive back to the street and look for evidence. The car’s headlights illuminated something lying in the middle of the street that we got out to investigate, a Halloween bag with one of the handles ripped, as though it had been snatched out of someone’s hands. That set my father off.

We quickly got back in the car and drove back in the direction the kids were walking. They all turned around and saw us coming, and immediately took off running. My father wasn’t having any of that, though. He jumped out of the car and ran far faster than I had ever seen him run before in my life. Even though they had a large head start, he caught up to one of them in about ten seconds. The others began to circle back around, noticing one of their friends had been caught. One of them picked up a brick and started walking towards the car, and Khalidwe and I started crying, fearing that he was going to throw it through the window. That didn’t happen, fortunately. After a forever 15 minutes or so, my father managed to divide up all of their Halloween candy portions into another bag, the amount that he thought they had stolen from me. When my father came back to the car, he realized he was missing something.

“My keys!” he said.

“They’re on top of your car,” one of the Sommerset kids I recognized named Michael said.

I couldn’t believe that after all that, Michael helped my father like that. I guess there is honor among thieves after all.

Khalidwe’s mother called us brothers, because in many ways we were. We grew up together from nearly the beginning, we were both multiracial, and there was a thread that existed between us that was not easily broken.

Khalidwe said it was alright if I stayed on his couch for a couple of days. That was very convenient for me, because if it wasn’t for that, I might’ve had to cut my stay in New York by more than 90 percent. After dropping off my luggage in the apartment and catching up for a bit, we went out onto the front porch and chatted with his neighbors before making sure I was parked legally. I had often heard people reference Harlem in terms of being a dangerous place to be. I didn’t see or sense any danger in the air at all. There’s nothing quite like getting out somewhere and seeing something for oneself to dispel any myths. We even walked around the neighborhood around 2:00 in the morning looking around for my vehicle for almost an hour because I forgot where I parked, and there were still zero signs of trouble. I slept easily that night in Harlem.

On the next day, Khalidwe gave me some advice about places to visit, including the Statue of Liberty. He had to work, so he couldn’t join me on any of my side quests. As he was about to head out for the day, he paused and turned around.

“Make sure you visit 14th Street before you go,” he said without elaborating why.

I wasn’t sure why he mentioned 14th Street, but the way he said it stirred something within my soul, as though there was an important reason behind it.

I set off on my adventures through Manhattan by taking the subway for the first time. I was amazed by how efficient a form of transportation it was, having never experienced it before. I was also surprised by how unconcerned people were on the subway. I would’ve thought people would be more wary of their surroundings. Even high school age girls sat down on the seat next to me without thinking twice, when back home, they would probably go out of their way to avoid sitting next to me on the bus. So far, New York seemed nothing like what I anticipated it would be like based on everything I ever heard about it.

I made my way to the ferry port that sent groups to the island where the Statue of Liberty was located. The line was extremely long, so I admired her from a distance and vowed to make the trip the next time, whenever that would be.

I eventually exhausted myself of all of my ideas about what an interesting day would look like and then remembered what Khalidwe said about 14th Street. I got off the subway and headed to 14th Street by foot. After walking down the street for several minutes, I started to wonder why Khalidwe told me to come here. There didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary at all about it, just a regular street with businesses, apartments, and people moving through leisurely. I decided I was going to walk to the end of the block I was currently on and turn around and head back to Khalidwe’s apartment, since I saw nothing of interest. Just as I hit the last few buildings on the right side, I saw one with an advertisement for a psychic with a woman standing out front with her arms folded looking around with a very stoic and unconcerned look on her face.

“What’s this place?” I approached her and asked.

She invited me to come inside to find out more. She introduced herself as Tammy and appeared to be of Middle-Eastern descent. She had an aura of mystery surrounding her and had penetrating eyes that weren’t threatening. She was also beautiful and attractive, not dressed like what I would imagine a fortune teller would dress like, but mentioned that she had a family. She offered to give me a general reading, and I was very surprised by some of the things she said. She would sit there and stare at my face for a long time before speaking. The thing I was most surprised by was when I told her to describe what I was thinking about at that moment.

“You’re thinking about a vision of death,” she replied.

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about at first, but then as we began to talk about the experience, I began to understand that was exactly what it was. I have previously mentioned an experience I had in brief when I was in high school that permanently and dramatically changed the course of my life forever. Some who have read that may have noticed that I danced around this subject without explaining what exactly happened. This was done intentionally. There are some subjects that are difficult to speak about in public settings, though some people do try. They are often mocked, ridiculed, and labeled as crazy, delusional, or a liar. When the experience first happened to me, I talked about it to almost everyone because I wanted to know more about it and to know if there were any others who had experienced the same thing. Most people didn’t know what I was talking about, and I learned after a while to keep my mouth shut about it because no one understood, that was until I met my friend Richard less than a year later, who had nearly an identical experience.