Part I: The Veneer #His

Rahsaan and Tevin had stacked up a slew of memories together in the last fifteen years, having been roommates in college, and shared a house together for five years after graduation.  Though they kept each others' secrets, Rahsaan knew so little about the scars Tevin bore on his soul.  Tevin weaved through traffic on Georgia Avenue, en route to scoop up their boy Mike, from over his girl's house in Brightwood.

"Man, that's still my shit.  Turn that shit up, nigga."

Tevin lip-synced to P. Diddy's rhyme in Biggie's collab with Too Short,

"see we date 'em like we hate em /

see em like we don't need em / 

treat em / like we meet em / 

and never give em freedom."

He extended his right arm to the backseat as he weaved through traffic, searching for his Christian Lacroix shades which he affectionately called, "The Terminators."  

"Man, do you see my shades back there?  I don't feel em."

Tevin called them "The Terminators" because of the number of women he'd bedded and "hit," when he wore them.  They'd become both a good luck charm and symbol of his conquests.

Rahsaan swiveled his head and scanned the backseat looking for Tevin's infamous shades.

"They're not back there.  Didn't you stay with Mek last night?  Maybe you left them over there."

"Nigga, I assassinated that pussy last night.  Why da hell you think I'm so pressed to find my shades?"

BZZZZZZZ.  

Tevin's phone vibrated, signaling his incoming call from Tameka.  Tevin picked up, answering, 

"Baib, I was just talking to Ra about you.  Did I leave my shades over there?"

"Girl, I was just frontin/
I'm ready to stop when you are"

Chimed Jay-Z's cool voice from the radio.

Though Rahsaan and Tevin's friendship had spanned nearly 20 years, Rahsaan was entirely unaware of how Tevin's prized Terminators shielded the pain imbedded in his mind's eye, and how he fronted and created a cool veneer, poising for his friends, his woman, yet could not hide from himself.

Tevin's mind's eye beheld the shades his mother wore to cover black eyes she suffered at the hands of her lover.  Puzzled as a young boy, he asked her why she wore shade indoors.  

"Mommy, I thought shades were for outside.  Why do you always wear them in the house?"

Tevin's shades hid the memory of his mother's addiction to prescription drugs as she tried coping with the pain of loving an abusive man.  Her eyes were constantly strained and bloodshot from the use of Abnoxiol, a highly addictive prescription drug that resonated with the potency of morphine, which dulled her sensibilities and limited her mobility.  She spent most of her days seated in the armchair, alternating between staring blankly into space, and hiding from the light behind her shades.  The nurturing and care Tevin so desperately needed from her was unavailable.  He resented the man she loved whose attention and affection she gave so willing and freely left him unbearably cold.