Persistent thoughts of Lesli got scary for Keith

May. 22 |     Lola’s pad truly was tripped out. Not surprising, since she, herself, was a trip without luggage. In a warehouse district, tiny joint, studio-like apartment decked out in retro-activist aesthetic — posters of Angela Davis, H....

Thoughts of Leslie kept Keith out of jail

May. 15 |     Lesli. Maybe the best thing, beyond her good looks and bangin’ body, was that she had a wonderful sense of humor. He would call her up, mad enough to chew nails and spit thumbtacks, and wind up laughing his hind parts off. He sure...

Lesli grew under Keith’s skin and into his brain

May. 8 |     A long week. Spent in good spirits, but it was long. After leaving Lesli off at the airport, Keith had ridden back to the hotel and gotten his regular routine in gear — looking over the sheets, running fingering scales. Then he’d...

Black & Single Blues — Lesli flew back to L.A. but never left his thoughts

May. 1 |       Love. Just like that. Well, he’d wondered, is there really any other way for it to happen except all of a sudden? He’d stepped out of the cab. “Luis,” he said, “since you got so much mouth about other folk bidniz, you...

A phone call interrupts Keith’s lonely night in Vegas

Apr. 10 |     Keith was resigned to a lonely Sunday night in his Vegas hotel room without time to hook up with Lesli. He rang room service, placed a breakfast order — surprise, no grits — and turned on the stereo, looking for a station that played...

Black and Single Blues — A Vegas gig brought Keith and Lesli together again

Mar. 27 |     How could Keith figure out a way to not break Lesli’s heart? A knife began twisting in his gut. Why? He’d walked away from women with barely more than a second thought. Who was she to be somebody so special? Back when they’d first...

Black & Single Blues: Keith worries he might — god forbid! — have found his soul mate

Mar. 21 |   Lesli threatened to — hell, had done it — make a lie of Keith’s conviction that soul mates do not come along in real life. For one, she understood his concerns about identity in relation to her own. That night of their first “date”...

Keith had given up on the long-term relationship thing — ‘til Lesli came along

Mar. 13 |     Fear is a funny thing. Not that he was anywhere near laughing. It was just queer. Lesli was the best woman to have happened to him — and scared him to within an inch of his life. Someone, somewhere, might’ve been his mother or...

Their inauspicious start ended well enough…until now

Mar. 6 |     Keith recalled how Lesli had thoroughly cussed him out for stepping on her foot the very first time they’d ever set eyes on each other at an L.A. party. Midway through a loud exclamation about what he did with mothers in general, she...

Keith recalls how he and Lesli met — and the foul names she’d called him

Feb. 27 |     Making her way from the bed to the bathroom, Lesli called, “Honey, you there?” Keith blew cigarette smoke out. “Yeah, baby, I’m here,” he lied in what he hoped was a strong, assuring voice. Fact is, he was, as the saying goes,...