I need real advice on a fairly important issue, and I need it soon. Please call me on my cell (no time is too late for this issue) or email me by 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, October 19th. TIA.

So my car got broken into for the second time in as many months early Monday morning. The last time it happened, it was the triangle window, back passenger door. Nothing taken, no witnesses, etc. Kind of annoying but USAA covers glass sans deductible so screw it; I get to leave the office for an afternoon while Safelite plops in a new window.

Monday I stroll out to my car and the entire large back passenger window has been knocked in. Again, nothing taken. Except this time, there was a witness, and this time, the cops caught the kids who did it. (Hammer, and a black cotton sock stuffed with rocks.) I received a court appearance request document in my door this morning as I headed out to work with the names of the two kids. Kwendelle and Jamauri.

Now it’s real, not some anonymous punks who have no follow-through and don’t even know how to break into a car right. (What?! They’re too good for my practically new Adidas kicks?!?!)

While sitting at Safelite again this afternoon (bill of $243 to USAA) I just assumed that I would have to show up tomorrow morning. But I get a voice mail from a parole officer later in the day letting me know that while Jamauri has been in trouble before and will be prosecuted by the State no matter what, I do have the option of arranging ‘restitution’ with Kwendelle.

I overheard at the precinct on Monday that Kwendelle is a kid. 15, 16. Something like that. A baby. And then I got thinking.

About Quavis. I took Quavis to see jazz drummer Jeff Tain Watts during the New Haven summer jazz series. Years ago. Summer of ‘97 to be exact. Quavis was a student in the U.S. Grant program that I was involved with my whole time in undergrad. Every summer I lived in Helen Hadley Hall, drinkin’ Boones and swimmin’ nekkid and teachin’ chillins. Getting to know my fellow teachers, these great kids, and most importantly, myself. (It all comes back to me, do we see a theme?)

So Quavis. Quavis had the greatest hair of all time. He had these deep luscious dark locks on his head, his skin was a deep caramel. I’m guessing he was half Latino half black. I remember taking him and dreadlocked Brandon (whose stepdad was a five percenter who thought that all white people were like, the devil) out in a canoe when we took the kids camping. Sadly, I was a rower — starboard. Not a sculler. And I could not for the life of me figure out how to row the damn thing. So we’re out in the middle of this placid lake, I’m rowing these poor kids around in circles, when Quavis and Brandon ask, “ANP, are we gonna die out here?” They were teasing me, but their delivery was so deadpan. I just knew those fuckers were bright.

Alright, so Quavis and Jeff Tain Watts and he’s got his bike and I’ve got my hatchback Geo Storm (which, for the record, held 8 Grant teachers for late night reservoir swims). After the show I drive him (with, it should be said, the fatty ex “boyfriend” mentioned in my last post) home.

Except he doesn’t let me take him all the way home. Cuz boy lived in the bad part of town. I mean, bad as in, looks-like-bad-parts-of-Bed-Stuy-with-no-kinda-civic-services-part-of-town. Metal New Haven trash cans rolling around in the middle of the unkempt street; urban blight in all directions. And it was dark out, and he was worried about our safety, or embarrassed about his living situation, or something. Chubs and I were concerned. I mean, you’ve got a 14 year old kid on a dirtbike roaming around in the dark to his home, and we could easily drive him to his door. But he said no.

Now let’s take it back to the dilemma at hand. Kwendelle may very well be a straight up thug, terrorizin’ kids and a real menace II society. But he also may be a kid trying to figure out who the fuck he is (does that process ever stop??), and Jamauri may be the popular kid in his Section 8 housing block, or his high school, or whatever. And maybe this knucklehead Jamauri talked Kwendelle into doing this crazy ass shit and he’s in a place in his life where he can be talked into stuff like that.

I mean, I don’t know what happened to Quavis after U.S. Grant. I don’t know what other forces were present in his life. And I don’t know what’s going on with this Kwendelle kid either. Maybe he, like Quavis, has a shady family situation, lives in a place so bad he’s embarrassed to have people know what it looks like. Maybe he, like most of us, is just trying to figure out who the fuck he his.

I mean, do I really want to be prosecuting? Can’t I just force him to hang out with me every other Sunday for a few hours in the afternoon? Make him play basketball with me, make him do his fucking math homework with me, make him realize that it’s not just a window, it’s someone’s property? Make it real?

Maybe that’s just me being martyr again, wanting to save the world, wanting to get back to that time and place in my life where I had Quavises and Kiras and Charzettes and Chizzies in my life. Maybe I am just too much of an idealist, thinking that I can actually look at this as an opportunity to try and make a difference on just one person’s life. Maybe The System won’t even allow me to talk to this kid directly.

I don’t know. I do not know. And so I turn to you, my 99 bottles of friends on the web, and ask for your advice. What Would ANP’s Friendsters Do?

Do I prosecute Kwendelle Wiggins? Or do we practice our outside shots and work on the FOIL method?

God, I miss those kids.

I just happened upon the profile of a college “boyfriend” (does it count when it’s in college?) and all I can say is … BOY GOT FAT! I mean, we are talkin’, tore up from the floor up. Covering my laugh with one hand, pointing with the other kind of thing.

You know, it wouldn’t bring me such delicious joy if he hadn’t have been such a friggin’ prick, but he was, and so I am delighting in that special joy that I think the Germans called, what was it, ah yes, Schadenfreude.

I am sure that he is having a wonderful life pursuing a PhD in something involving the Frankfurt School. No doubt everything is quite PHAT for him (*snicker*).

I’m really not like this, but oh my word, he was an arrogant slimeball. Maybe all that slime now helps his fat ass squeeze through door frames.

Ok, I’ll stop being such a twat now. And could someone remind me to not have chai at 7 p.m.? I haven’t slept a god damned wink and I gotta meet my girl for lunch tomorrow. I mean today. Crikey.

BTW, peeps in NYC: send me your email if you want to join in on the guaranteed lunacy that is my birthday & have not yet received the evite.

xoxoANP!