I'm still in NYC. And after several days looking for an apartment, hanging out with my people, seeing a Broadway play featuring a friend and amazing-actress Saidah Ekulona and an interesting film that blasted one of my favorite music groups, Blonde Redhead, at the ending credits, I'm fitting in some time to blog.

On Sunday evening I was having steamed soy with Amaretto flavor with my boy Said. We were nestled tight at this outdoor cafe called Cafe Orlin on 2nd Avenue and 9th Streets. I don't know how I began talking about this. I'm not sure if it was Said's recounting of how his 15 year old nephew asked his father "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't smoke marijuana." His father, Said's brother, replied, "You're not gonna get any out of me." Or maybe when I ordered my steamed soy with Amaretto flavor, the waitress brought me steamed soy with real Amaretto and I got a bit tipsy... whatever is was, I told Said about my experience with Lola.

Lola Tilson was a novelist and a woman and 43 years old when I was around 25. Lola was invited to the University of Wyoming in Laramie as a writer-in-residence for one full semester, to sort of fill in the void that Terry McMillan left after spending a few years there. No, I never met Terry, but her reputation preceded her from the halls of the English Department to the night clubs of Denver [75 miles south]. And when I say reputation, I don't mean she was restructuring a latent-racist English Department so its students are fed not only the likes of Faulkner and Joyce but also Rudulfo Anaya, Henry Dumas, and of course Lola Tilson.

Lola Tilson wasn't actually her REAL NAME. I'm withholding that. A brother's got to protect himself.

Lola and I's connection happened after a semester in her creative writing class at San Francisco State University. Lola took a liking to my uncombed hair and crystal-rubbed underarms, [and my young maleness] and invited me to the University of Wyoming as her assistant with a promise of graduate status in the English Department. I accepted. [A young brother was all about adventure.]

Lola was an artist. An eccentric artist. Being an artist, too, I tend to be eccentric-friendly. Although I'm not a believer in artist equals Crazy. In other words, the cutting off of ears, and temper tantrums when your water ain't room temp is not how I roll.

Lola was demanding. Not only did I buy the groceries, gas her Volvo, do research for her new novel, co-teach a Literature course [which meant I was teaching it. She never showed for class], I also answered the phone, booked interviews, checked her numerology chart, scouted for possible Nazi racist in the Wyoming landscape [and for Black cowboys], and occasionally would read her daily erotica [that was her way of trying to mack].

But it was her Short Story Writing course where the shit hit the fan.

Toward the end of the semester, all eleven students [including me] were to hand over their short stories for assessment. Lola graded each and every one, thoroughly [she had a gift for creative assessment]. After she completed my assessment, she called me into her office [which she always kept locked, with a stone set behind the door, in case a stranger, LIKE ME, would get the impulse to go in there and steal her newest novel and make it my own. NOT!]

Anyway, Lola showed me my story which earned an A+ with red comments of praise everywhere. Her instructions were clear: since you're gonna make copies of each story so we can discuss them in class, I don't want the other students to see that I've given you such high marks so I need you to go through your story and white out 80 percent of my comments and give yourself an A-, then make copies, that way the other students won't think I'm given you favoritism.

And like a good assistant, I did it.

Then it happened: while I was handing out my story for the class to read and discuss a student noticed that some comments were whited out AND that "somebody" had erased my plus from my "A" and inserted a minus. I was busted. Lola never looked up from the desk. And when a few other students joined in and started expressing the "oddness" of the white outs, Lola walked out of the room, leaving me to discuss my story alone.

After the other students were dispersed, I found Lola sitting in her Volvo. I opened the passenger door. We drove five minutes in silence and THEN she spoke: "You deliberately made me look bad in front of my students! I told you to be careful with the white out. Now I could lose my job at this white motherfuckin school! Why would you do that, Keith?! I've been tolerating you for a while now. You're incompetent and negligent. Get out. " [Trust me, I was apologizing and defending throughout her tirade] "Get out of my car." Now I explained we were 10 minutes away from the house and that it was FIVE BELOW ZERO, but she didn't care. My instructions were clear: Get out of my Volvo!

I got out. And froze my ass off.

By the time I arrived home, Lola had vacated and left a note that she was driving to Denver for some time alone. And if any of the students called and inquired about her sudden exit from class earlier, tell them she was feeling nauseous.

The following morning she returned and didn't speak to me for THREE days.

I seldom think about that incident in Wyoming. I usually reminisce about the Rocky Mountains and the Aspens and the trip to Boulder, Colorado to hear Ivan Van Sertima speak. But Lola... I seldom think of.

I guess I'll have to continue my Wyoming Chronicles.

Let's see, maybe the one where I set the kitchen on fire... or no, the one where we got caught in a killer blizzard.

Until next time,

Keith