C U WHEN YOU GET THERE

He'd only just got back home after working at the Pacific Wheel for the night when he learned that his hero, Coolio, had died at 59 years of age.

Hoping it was one of those fake twitter death rumours that trend for an hour or two before being disproven by the artists's agent or press office, sadly he found out this was one of those times it proved not to be the case.

"Damn, man. Another legend gone."

Terence was only a few years younger than Coolio and he felt the rapper's passing was yet another painful reminder that he, too, was getting older.

"Tomorrow's never promised," he whispered under his breath as he found a pearl like tear lodged in his eye, stubbornly refusing to budge.

Pouring himself a shot of Hennessy into a chipped tumbler he'd kept from his wedding day, Terence sat on the porch outside his house in Nevin, Los Angeles and toasted Coolio.

"Here's to you, bruh ..."

But his moment of paying respect was ruined by the sound of a car speeding past with a broken muffler, blasting some nervous sounding pill head rappers out of its windows.

Shaking his head, Terence toasted a second time, without any interruption now.

"Here's to you bruh. C U when I get there, I guess."

Feeling the Henessey do its thing, Terence sat back and sighed, looking up at the bright September moon hanging like a big ball in the sky.

"Everything always circles, man. Life is a circle. Circles and clocks."

Being a ferris wheel operator, he often saw its steel structure as like that of a giant clock keeping time with each rotation, as fleeting moments came and went with each person's turn on it. Sometimes he almost found himself zoning out and meditating on it like some kind of crazy ass buddhist or something. What also brought this abstract thought home would be when he would play songs on his air pods whilst watching the wheel turning, especially at night when it was all lit up like a christmas tree set against the orange and red sun on the horizon beyond, which he often thought could be like its big (circle) brother.

How many times had he played Coolio's C U When You Get There all those summer nights at work while teenage kids screamed in equal fear and delight (just like he did once) as they remained strapped into the ride. Their squeals strangely kept Terence young, reminding him to not become too desensitized to the simple joys in life.

"The day you stop feeling that joy in your heart, you already dead man," his late brother Justin had warned him after Terence had gotten into a bad place after a messy divorce from his now ex-wife Theresa. Those words he now felt honour bound to uphold in tribute to his brother who got shot in a bar brawl ten summers ago trying to make peace between two young hoods.

It wasn't always easy keeping a hold of that little light when life, with all of its multitude of storms, was always threatening to blow it out.

Remembering his brother and now Coolio, he felt like he had to keep the flame going. Maybe not so much Guardians Of The Galaxy. More Guardians Of The Culture, the culture that tried to lift up its brothers, not beat them down.

Dipping into his jacket pocket, he found a lighter he picked up on the pier earlier that night at work. He rolled the wheel of the striker a couple of times before eventually he got a light.

As another tear arrived in the corner of his eye, this time it fell and landed close to the flickering flame.

"Damn, man. That was too close."

Terence laughed to himself, grabbed his bottle of Henessey and headed back into his house.

Rest In Peace Coolio (1963-2022)