Falling
by Angelia Vernon Menchan

“Why are you here Lance?” Pia finally asked. “I had a reaction to you when I met you at the fresh market and then when I discovered my brother had showed out in your classroom, I knew it was fate. I needed to meet you.” “Why me?” Pia asked. “I know you are fishing for compliments but I’m going to give it to you straight.” “You look good, damn good. I have seen you around and you aren’t haughty though you could be. I like what you are about in your business and I think your ass and waist together is art. After talking to you and hearing you talk to Jalil I knew you were more than that even. I like you, though I don’t know you, yet. I also liked how you just flowed with I had six lovers… nobody says honest shit like that. Pia, I’m a thirty-six-year-old black man who has gotten lots of ass in my life but now I’m grown and tired of all that. I want a woman, my own woman.” His words filled Pia all the way up. “I’m not proposing to your ass or nothing but I like you.” Pia howled with laughter at his words. “You are so funny and you know what I like about you, you are clearly smart as hell but you so damn hood… and hood is good.” “Hood is good… lots of successful women don’t agree or they think hood means some knucklehead not living up to his potential. My idea of hood is being about where I’m from, giving back and doing black shit for and with black people. I am cool with all people but this black life is me, what I’m about.”