Deracination

The word for today shall be Deracination. Got that? Deracination. We’re going to be talking about this word because of how it applies to a very close friend to me. Now I know you are asking yourself “What the hell does Deracination mean?” “Is this one of those wacky Johnisms that this guy made up?” “Do I want to put my genitals anywhere near a deracination?” Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines Deracinate as follows: Deracinate v. 1. To pull out by the roots; uproot. 2. To displace from one’s native or accustomed environment

My good friend Malik, was deracinated in an entirely different and much longer way. For four years Malik lived with a very large and very mean woman, unbeknownst to his girlfriend. Yes, the very large and very mean woman and his girlfriend were two different people. They were two people who had not a clue that the other existed or the fact that they shared a lover. Malik would hang out all day with one then go home to the other…for four years. No, the one he hung out with all day never saw where he laid his head at night…for four years. No, the one he came home to never knew where he was going once he left the house…for four years. No, neither woman ever (ahem) smelled the other on him…for four years. Some of the women in our circle of friends suspect Malik got away with it because he has a penis the size of a mailbox. Personally, I don’t think he’s smart enough to have a penis the size of a mailbox.

Naturally, the day came when Malik was to leave the woman he lived with and move in with his beloved girlfriend. This is where his deracination comes in. You see, the last time Maliki tried the leave the woman he lived with, she tried to kill him. I don’t mean she went all woman on him and started crying and flailing about. The woman grabbed a kitchen knife and chased him around the house stabbing him in his arms like something out of a bad Wayan’s Brothers movie. Now, he was scared. He hid in my apartment the day before he was supposed to have his shit at his new place. The ploy he’d cooked up to get his live-in out of the house had failed. His only hope of escape was to wait for her to leave later that evening to go clubbing with her girls. I’d just gotten my car and wasn’t going to help him move shit after eleven-my-ass-thirty that evening as I was going to a party. His bottom lip started quivering. His eyes welled up with water and I knew that the adult-looking human being sitting on my couch was about to become a man-esque object. But first, he’d had to be deracinated properly.

Firm in my stance of not getting involved I decide the fasted way to get this lump off of my couch was to motivate it. He knew I was serious when I demanded that he put the pot down and handle this. It was his moment of truth. He was about to go through the largest change in his life. He was going from boy…to…a boy-ish…man creature. And that’s mostly a man in anyone’s book. We hopped in my car and sped off to the hood. I kept the music off for the entire trip so he could have time to simmer in his juices. The closer we came to his stomping groups the louder I hummed Rocky. I’d also turned on the heat in the car so by the time we arrived he was a sweaty and angry black man. We screeched to a halt in the parking lot of his complex and I turned on the Cd player which happened to pump out that old R&B classic "Git Out My Life Woman". He jumped out of the car, slammed the door and marched up that apartment for the last time.

It seemed like it took him an eternity to come out of there. The sun was blazing outside that day and the neighbors were starting to look at me funny for staring so intently at my side-view mirror. I’d begun to think that she was inside killing him. So, I waited some more. Then I began to wonder how long it takes for a human being to lose consciousness for loss of blood. Then I began to wonder how long I’d been waiting. I looked at my watch and sunk back into my seat with a sigh. I’d almost fallen asleep when I heard a “slam” coming from the complex. There it was again but this time it was a big, BIG slam. I jumped up and looked to the apartment building where I found Malik, arms full of his shit, sweat streaking down his face and a fresh urine stain on his shorts, front and center. That woman scared the piss out of him but somehow he’d gotten out of the house. He was walking taller than he’d ever walked before! He was more proud and stronger than he’d ever been in life. He was deracinating himself like the man-like kind of human being that we all knew he could be. He threw his shit in the trunk, hopped in and we peeled off. We couldn’t help but laugh as we drove away and we could almost hear the Benny Hill theme playing in our heads while his ex chased us away waving a knife.

Deracination.