balcony boy.
<p><strong>I LIVE ON</strong> the west wing of the Dulkem Tower, on the twenty-sixth floor, and every day that I walk out to my balcony that costs an extra two hundred dollars in rent, I see on the opposite balcony, on the east wing of the tower, a man who loves to sit out there. He is possibly my age, or younger, and handsome. Sometimes, he sets out his easel and the rest of his painting paraphernalia and paints, but most times, he sits on his beach chair listening to music on his headphones, his head bopping synchronously to a rhythm. I always wonder what he might be listening to. He strikes me as a lover of rock music from the way he bops his head, and I may be mistaken, but that is how I listen to Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ Bad Reputation, or Metallica. However, I listen more to Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, and I customarily point my index finger and spin in uneven circles when I listen to music. I am black and Nigerian, and he — I can’t tell. I can’t tell, not only because of the distance, but also because I don’t want to.</p>
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