Prologue 003 - One of One

Identity is a slippery little bugger. Especially when you’re out of your cultural safe space.

Back home I know my lane. I’m a misunderstood Black man who hand-polishes Bontoni shoes while watching emotionally compelling arias on Youtube. 

It’s hard for my people to understand me. Too weird for neighborhood cookouts. Too soulful for marketing board meetings.

I’m a puzzle with irregular edges. In America, that puzzle comes labeled. In Romania, I’m a question mark with chicken legs. On public transport I get eye squints. Double-takes. Polite curiosity marinated in sweet-n-sour suspicion. Maybe a lil’ trepidation. 

Nothing alarming. Just… “WHAT ARE YOU?”

What is that? What is this feeling gurgling in my gut? Hunger or nerves? How will strangers - people who don’t look like me - speak like me - act like me. How will they receive this open-hearted hungry stranger in their residential restaurant?

I haven’t felt this giddy since high school.

Grilled meat is the best antibiotic.

I knew this. Micu knew also. He moved the Dacia like a pot of gold awaiting our tummies at the finish line.

We arrived quick. Our host’s neighborhood had nothing in common with mine.

Shape “What is this place?”

Micu Gyspsy Ghetto

I blink.

Shape “Are our hosts Gyspsy?”

Let the Misunderstandings Begin!!!

He nearly drives the Dacia into a ditch.

“No. No. NO, ALEC.” (He forgot my name, like it fell out of his head.) 

“PLEASE. DON’T SAY THAT.” 

PLEASE

PLEASE

Hands up. I surrendered, like if Will actually smacked Suge Knight.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry”

OkKKKKKKK “Let’s eat Mici,” Micu said. 

Micu and I graduated past my verbal faux pas arriving at a rusted gate that sings like an old church hymn when you push it open.

Inside?

Smoke. Char. Salt. Fat. Glory.

Mountain of potatoes. Idaho-looking, Martian-sized. Enough to feed a Klingon invasion fleet. 

Firewood, crates of Coke, and one unnecessarily aggressive cat, harden like a death row lifer. I met him dead with eye contact. He didn’t flinch, nod or back away. He stared, sizing me up like “you gotta a problem?” I restrained myself

This isn’t a prison yard. It’s a moment in frozen time.

I’m standing in place, 5000 miles from Tampa - comfort, my curated life and phony masculinity. I feel stirrings I haven’t felt in years.

Unscripted

This wasn’t just a yard. It was a pause. I… I thought of home. Living back in Tampa, feeling soulless and imprisoned by hyper-aggressive algorithms. But here, stepping deeper into that courtyard, I could finally feel it… what Tanizaki wrote about In Praise of Shadows, what my soul has been starving for:

The beauty of restraint.
The elegance of almost-seeing.
The quiet thrill of not knowing everything.

Twenty paces past mountains of supplies and 50 cent’s feline cousin we encountered double doors.

We stepped in.

NOT A RESTAURANT

Let me remind you. Not a restaurant. A house. Bottom floor converted into what could only be described as… no-frills Jamaican jerk chicken spot in Fort Lauderdale.

• Fly tape hanging like Piñatas

• Combustible tablecloths over plastic tables

• Mismatched chairs—two stolen from a church

• Futbol on the TV

• Humming / Knocking fridge packed with Coke. Red Bull, and cloudy purple drinks of unknown origin.

Sure the atmosphere was both surreal and familiar but I felt ok. More comfortable here than in highfalutin San Francisco coffee shops where higherfalutin hipsters climb off their highfalutin high horse to complain about my knock off Apple AirPods.

We sit.

Across from us… Romanian Mafioso cosplaying as Gen Z’ers. Gold chains. Track suits. One dude reppin the Raiders. Looked like the Soprano kids if they’d studied abroad.

We took the corner table near the door.

Across from us? Grandma waddled over cutely and enthusiastically. Micu ordered. All in Romanian.

The chubbiest young mafioso leaned in.

Chubby mafioso - “Where u from?”

Shape - “California I volleyed back”

Cue record scratch

I braced for the inevitable storm… 

• Will they ask about gangs? 
• Trump?
• Cray Cray Kanye? 
• George Floyd?
• Wakanda?

None of the above

Chubby mafioso - “California! Yes, yes. Golden State Warriors! Steph Curry!”
Chubby mafioso - “Steph Curry better than Michael Jordan!”

Oh yeah. Steph’s way better. Jordan’s a punk. A wimp.” (I said with Oscar worthy toxic masculinity bravado)

Laughter. Real laughter. Table slaps.
One dude flashed a single gold tooth.
Grandma smiled like she might wear stilettos again. Micu beamed. Like a proud papa he was so proud of me.
Then said the thing. At this point you know the thing???

“This Alex. My Black man.”

CUE RECORD SCRATCH 2

This 😡😡😡 really said that !! 

Out loud. 

To a group of track-suited strangers presumably armed with fire power.

I looked at him like one of those “bruh”memes in human form.

Back home, I’d have a protocol.

A - Flip over table in ignorant fashion

B - Politely Correct

C - Educate

D - Draw boundaries

But here? 5000 miles from the comfort of Black Israelites, Panthers, HBLC Marching Bands, Crips and Bloods and afro Tren de Agua members or Robert Downy Jr’s character in Tropic Thunder. I had no backup.

Chubby mafioso - Don’t say ‘my black Man.’ THAT RACIST. Romanian man - NOT RACIST

YALL

I nearly kissed him. I take off my black Goorin Bros. Lone Wolf trucker hat and hand it to him. He removes his sweat-soaked Raiders cap and gives it to me. Hat swap. Treaty signed.

WE feast

Wooden board arrives stacked with mici, lamb, fries, and wine that tastes like spiked probiotic soda.

Best meal I’ve had in Romania. Maybe best meal, period. After lunch our hosts took us to the cellar. The butcher room. The place where the lamb becomes meaty-deliciousness. We hug. Swap phones for photos. The mafiosos wave displaying palm tats. I wave back. And walking out through that creaking gate, something clicks.

WHAT LEAVING DOES TO A MAN

You start to see what parts of your identity are soulful, and what parts are just armor. In America, I’m constantly fighting to be seen as more than “The Black Guy.” In Romania? I’m still “The Black Guy,” sure. But somehow it feels… less loaded? Like curiosity instead of categorization. Like wonder instead of weaponization.

On the way back to the car, Micu leaned in: “You my Black Man forever.” I didn’t correct him. I was too full. My stomach was full. My heart was full. My cup runneth over.

ONE OF ONE

For years, I tried to be recognizable. Not unique. Legible. Categorizable. Easy to understand. I filed down my edges so I’d fit into boxes: “Black Professional.” “Marketing Guy.” “Lifestyle Bro.” I bought the right stuff. Dated the right person. Built the right life. And I became same. Jessica didn’t understand me because there was nothing to understand. I’d erased myself trying to be what everyone expected.

But in Romania? In that courtyard with Micu and the mafiosos and Grandma and the aggressive cat? I was One of One. Not because I tried to be unique. But because I stopped trying to be same. I ate mici with strangers who barely spoke my language. I swapped hats with a track-suited mafioso who thought Steph Curry was better than Jordan. I let Micu call me “his Black Man” because correcting him felt less important than the moment we were sharing. I was messy. Complicated. Unpolished. I was me. Not the Instagram version. Not the optimized-for-algorithms version. The version that ugly cries to opera and hand-polishes Italian shoes and travels 5,000 miles to eat illegal sausage in a stranger’s living room.

Back in Tampa, I was one of many. One of many “successful” American males with nice cars and nice apartments and nice lives. Interchangeable. In Romania, I became one of one. Not because Romania is magic. But because I finally stopped performing.

AI is coming for the performers. For everyone who’s optimized themselves to fit a category. For everyone who’s filed down their edges to be legible, predictable, same. The algorithm can replicate “Black Professional.” It can replicate “Marketing Guy.” It can replicate “Lifestyle Bro.” But it can’t replicate me.

AI threatens sameness. It can’t touch One of One. Shapeshyfters. Resisters of sameness.

Shape