I have a recipe. Northern beans boiled in vegetable broth for hours. I add diced tomatoes, about a ½ cup of oregano, two tablespoons of basil, red pepper flakes to taste, kosher salt to taste, and fresh crushed pepper until I can clearly see black specks throughout. About four hours into the simmer, I add some variety of a flakey white fish. About 30-minutes after that, I turn off the stove’s eye and add a pound of peeled and deveined shrimp. I serve this over whole wheat spaghetti, with a side-salad that features cherry tomatoes. I warm rolls in the oven, but I don’t partake of those anymore due to a lifestyle change in my diet. My family knows this as my white bean dish.

I, myself, am a recipe. A boyhood of imagination mixed with sporadic violence, two notable Black novels, a caring mother, want but not poverty, and a key on a shoestring around my neck. After skirting jail, death, or murder (I got just that angry sometimes), adolescent heartbreaks, a hallucination of friendships, and a Gumpy-like haircut, I went to college and left, after a year with a Mrs. instead of a B.A. Once the heat turned up on my life, I hustled, produced plays, helped raise two daughters, lost a beloved dog, opened a theatre, and cut my dreadlocks.

We all have our ingredients. This section – THE MAN – are journal entries of those that make me who I am. While I’m a public figure, some of these stories contain memories not meant for an interview – they are personal and relevant to me. I ask that, if you take the time to read them, do so with care, for it sometimes takes a lifetime for bruised memories to heal.