Mourning Star

Rule number one of singing the blues...

You must hurt in a soulful way. The way that binds you to another. I was into the blues far before I knew what it meant. Far before you taught me how to listen.

Your blues were mine and so I did all I could to control it, to tame the way in which your dusk colored eyes peered into mine.

"Home is where all the people go to cry," You said. "It's where tears are shed."

You'd tell me those kinds of things, and every now and again it made an impact. I can't say you were my first choice, not even my second.

But you were persistent, and what I had so, I made the most out of it. Out of you, out of us.

I met her out of pure coincidence. We were 16 and bored in Calculus. Her last name started with an O, and mine with a P.

Mr. Voyer was an old, traditional man and liked to keep our seats permanent for the whole year, done alphabetically.

Hadiza always smelt of spices, all kinds: Silantro, cumin, garlic, and paprika.

It would be no stretch at all to say she bathed in her mother's food.

I, an all American boy had no interest. Not in the way she dressed, with a baggy cardigan and down to heel skirt.

I assumed much of what her life was like, way before I got to know her. For example, all the other girls wore their uniforms with tucked in shirt and rolled up skirt, was is wrong to believe her parents played a part in that?

She was always hidden, her clothes being draped on her like blankets.

I could have none of that. I was a guy with dreams of love, and passion.

Hadiza was known amongst my peers as extremely religious. Not that it was some big shock to me. I heard the way she'd talk, how she debated any loud mouth in the class if they uttered the word, "Christ."

Point was, I didn't get her. I didn't get her willingness to learn, the way in which she shushed me if I ever decided to chat with a friend.

She was more a nuisance than anything.

But, in Junior year finally I was faced with actually talking to her. No. This was not some cliche meeting, where we are partnered up and suddenly start finding interest in another.

Sorry to say, but this is not some faiytail.

We had been partnered with eachother, but Hadiza took it in her own hands to silently finish a series of questions on our shared worksheet.

I asked her, "Do you want any help?"

"No," She shot back in full confidence, not giving me another second of attention.

Hadiza had a hint of an accent, and on top of the scarves she'd wear, and the way her thick, short curls protruded out of the side, people found her to be quite the view.

The smell of coconut on her hair, and the dryness of her scalp made most my classmates judge with glares and scrunched faces.

Even I, actually, mostly I found her to be a bore and I can remember all the conversations I had with my friends, all the ranting I did evertime Mr. Voyer paired us up.

I told my friend Michael, "She's a dick."

He'd respond back everytime with, "Dude, we all know."

We all did know. I had her in English too, God she was even worse there.

I sat in the back with my baseball buddies, but I still found a way to make an effort in that class.

I'd finish my work before the rest of my classmates, mostly due to the fact that I liked to read the daily syllabus a period prior to try and get some work done.

I did it SO I could talk to my friends, so I could have a good 15 minutes to just blab or zone out for the last half of class.

Ms. Dolan had no problem with that. Every now and then she would catch me drifting away but there was not much to say. I had a 90, maybe if I tried harder it could have been a 95 but, I had a 90. I had a 90, and was fine without perfection, unlike another classmate that liked to send me dirty looks from the front.

Hadiza had an air about her, the kind that was alarmingly brave. Any chance she had to answer, to show up a fellow classmate she took it. She took it, and she ran with it.

There was a time actually, where our whole Calculus class decided to skip, obviously not inviting the part pooper.

I felt a bit of pity. I wanted to tell her, wanted to let her know she was missing out on all the fun.

So, the day before I gave some small hints.

I "slipped out" and told her how "Great" it was going to be to do something spontaneous for once.

All I got in return, eye rolls and glares as she did our work.

I tried making her smile, laugh even, anything to make her bearable to the general public. At last, Hadiza had other plans.

So you see, I did not get her. I assumed things, and even those assumptions did not answer my biggest question.

Hadiza seemed to be a loner. On occasion when I drove myself home I'd see her walking down town with all her books stacked in hand, gazing with a blank expression.

I noticed her stride was slow and steady, in no hurry of getting to the home that awaited her.

In those moments, I wondered if there was something larger than her, larger than me that binded our separate paths.

I wondered, if someone like me ever decided to get to know someone like her, if it'd warp our paths into something completely unfamiliar.

What would it be like to understand Hadiza Brown?