I went over to my friend’s house yesterday. The television was turned off. The radio was blaring Latin music. No one in the apartment spoke Latin. I sat down. My friend came close to me, almost in my face.

He told me that my cousin had brought his girlfriend over to his place. I laughed out loud. I don’t think he thought it was that funny. I wondered why he was telling me this. What was I supposed to do? It was his place.

So, I just let him talk and I drifted off. When he began to tire me, I left.

Several hours passed. I was at home. My friend called me. He just wanted to see if his phone worked. I really didn’t want to talk to him, so I responded mostly with yes’s and no’s. I think he got the message, and hung up after a couple of minutes.

I went back to my bed. I was trying to watch six hours of taped television. I was in the middle of “Star Trek.” A commercial was playing. I thought I might have missed something, so I rewound the tape.

I eventually laid back, and cut off the television.

I thought about my cousin for some reason. I wondered if I was going to visit him like I said I would. I wanted to reconnect, but I also knew myself. Did I really believe that I would spend a whole day with him? I ultimately thought of better things I could do with my time, like sleeping, or digging in my ear, or better yet, cleaning the brown rings out of the toilet bowl.

I honestly had to admit that I didn’t like my cousin, or at least, I didn’t respect him. I didn’t like the fact that he was living in his old-ass girlfriend’s home, rent free. I didn’t like that he had money for beer and cigarettes. He didn’t have a job. I especially didn’t like the fact that his girlfriend had come running back to him, and they were both living in her mother’s house, having unabashed rent-free sex.

The problem that arose was that my cousin hadn’t changed. He was still living off the land, living life as he pleased, constantly on other people’s time. It bothered me because I had spent so much time with him. I preached to him everyday we met. I told him all those new age, super militant, social-scientific, spiritualized philosophies of mine. I told him about the ills of street life. I tried my best to do right by him, hoping that he’d be right in the world.

And he hadn’t risen. In fact he had sunken lower, if only because he was older.

What we’re supposed to be at five is totally different than what we’re supposed to be at twenty-five.

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