Same Street The Band

Mike was white. His family had moved to Ghana because his dad had been transferred here for military training. We were the best of friends in junior high school, living across the street from each other in the same neighborhood. We went to school together and, most of the time, rode back together when I didn’t have extra classes. We connected mainly through our love for books. We’d spend hours talking about stories we enjoyed and vowed to become authors one day.

Mike was absent from school that day. When I got home, I went to his house to find out why. His mum answered the door and invited me in. She asked if I wanted waffles, which I declined, and I asked where her son was. That’s when she told me the unfortunate news. Mike had been sent away that morning and wouldn’t be back for forty days. He’d gone to visit his dad at the military camp. His father was going to be deployed to Iraq and wanted to spend time with Mike before he left, she explained.

That was strange of Mike not to tell me the night before, but I figured it was impromptu. Two weeks earlier, I’d come up with an idea for us to write a book together. He would write a chapter one week, and the next week I’d continue the story from where he left off. We’d alternate until we reached fourteen chapters, seven each, and then publish it under the name Michael Midichi, a blend of his first name and my last name. We thought it was genius. The book itself was a coming-of-age story about two best friends who land a record deal and become huge international superstars in a band called Same Street The Band. I was excited to read what Mike had written this week, but here I was with news of his absence. Did he take the book along?

“Mrs. Matthews, can I check Mike’s room to see if he left a book I lent him?”
“Sure, go ahead,” she replied.

When I got to his room, it was a mess. It looked like he hadn’t had time to pack. I scanned the room and there it was, the notebook, sandwiched between three books on his study desk. I grabbed it eagerly and flipped it open, ready to dive into Mike’s latest chapter. But as I read, my excitement faded. It felt rushed, with no love in the way he put the words together. It reeked of laziness, like he had just slapped something down to meet our deadline. I forced myself to finish, sighing deeply as I closed it.

I started to leave, but habit kicked in. I couldn’t just leave his desk messy. As I rearranged the pile of books to slide our notebook back in, my fingers brushed against the last one in the stack. It felt different, heavier somehow, like it held more than just printed pages. Curiosity tugged at me. What if it was another story idea he had jotted down? I hesitated for a second, glancing toward the door, then opened it anyway.

Inside were Mike’s writings, fragments of thoughts, raw and unguarded. “What’s the point of telling anyone when I know they won’t have a cure for it?” and other vulnerable lines filled the pages.

Intrigued, I flipped through. Six pages from the end, the writing shifted to stories about his dad, mum, baby sister, grandparents, and a few other relatives. Each had a short, detailed note about the good and bad in them. He always started with the good, then ended with the bad.

I began reading about his dad, but then I felt I was intruding, so I stopped. I skimmed through names as I flipped the book. It seemed to be all family. Then, at the bottom of the last page, I saw my name.

I froze, surprised and curious.

What? Is this how I’m being described? Who does Mike think I am?

He called me inspirational. A superstar. A go-getter. A charmer. The cool dude. Good at making people see things from different perspectives. Best dressed. Compliment after compliment, and I couldn’t stop smiling and blushing. It’s an unbelievable feeling when you realize your friend admires you that much. I felt honored.

Then I reached the end, where a new subheading appeared:
“He’s Black.”

That’s where it stopped. My heart, broken. It was a gut punch I never saw coming.

Before I could fully process it, tears, soaked with pain, streamed down my cheeks. What a way to find out that all those compliments, all that admiration, evaporated to this one thing: the color of my skin.

The truth has a way of showing up when you least expect it.
It can be blindsiding. It can be painful.
Sometimes it’s almost too unreal to believe..