There is something intoxicating about a person that moves through space and time unencumbered by whatever yoke we mere mortals wear around our neck. Truly, I find myself drunk with awe at how these select few manage to exist in a place that regularly turns human beings into dust; gliding over the fresh ice of the ‘every day’ upon blades sharp enough to sever an arm. It’s often said that these people have a gravity about them, a gravity that us smaller, less dense heavenly bodies can’t seem to escape. I don’t like this analogy because it doesn’t give us meteorites any say in the matter when we fly too close to the sun.
I prefer to think that around these heavenly bodies gravity disappears. Around these beings we all feel weightless and for just a moment we get a small taste of what it’s like to move through life without friction. We cling to this feeling and the people who bring it to those around them.
“I like your hat!” the racially ambiguous woman at the Blaze Pizza register, with several piercings on her face, shouts. Steven Jaye Davis (Jaye Mac) is gracious in his response “Oh, thank you.” This is the fourth time I’ve personally heard someone compliment this particular hat. What stands out to me isn’t the number of times he’s received this compliment but that every time someone says this he starts his response with “Oh.” This ‘Oh’ is the truest evidence that Jaye floats, completely dry, above the waters the rest of us swim in. The ‘Oh’ is Jaye caught off guard. It’s not a feigned humbleness; he’s truly surprised that the dopeness of this hat would be of any note to anyone because in Jaye’s world the decision to be dope isn’t a decision at all. He wakes up, he’s dope then he gets dressed and he’s even more dope. He didn’t wear the hat because he thought people would say something about it or even that his outfit was more complete with it, he wore it because he liked it. It was only after he put on the hat that the rest of us decided it was dope.
The pizza is delicious but that’s because if I don’t eat every four hours I will eat a hand-written description of a slice of pizza that has been photocopied several times then faxed to me from out of state. It’s been three hours since my last meal. No offense, Blaze, but really, is there anything in the world that can’t shut up for a slice of pizza?
Me thinks not.
Even in a restaurant full of hungry strangers, each concerned with his or her own meal, Jaye demands attention in the quietest of ways. No matter the flow of the room or the temperature of the moment, he moves at his own speed. The meteorites hear the clock ticking in their ears, sounding the approaching moment when their surface will give way and everything will fall apart. This sun, however, has trillions of years but what’s most impressive is once again, he seems to be unaware or unconcerned with this notion. He doesn’t move at his own pace because it’s fashionable to swim against the grain, he moves at his own pace because that’s Jaye.
In between mouthfuls of pizza we talk about the heaviness of all things: work, relationships, dreams, pursuits, fitness, fashion, white peoples, black peoples, Asian peoples, cookies, shoes, we even fit in an alligator. I, of course, realize I’m all over the place; settling on a state of mind only long enough to say that I stopped there but not long enough to learn anything from the moment. The room and I buzz around Jaye with a kinetic energy that almost seems juvenile if not blind entirely. But there is a stillness about Jaye, the stillness of a man who sees and hears everything, measures it, considers its value, then decides what to do with it.
Imagine a room full of people living at the speed necessary to make the right decisions. Imagine forty or more people measuring and weighing and gauging situations. Imagine a Blaze restaurant that specializes in serving those that take the time to consider the minutia of existence.
That would be some good fucking pizza.
As Jaye and I walk back to the car I am reminded of just how imposing he is at 6’5”. Sitting gracefully at a table eating pizza betrays the truth about Jaye: he will dunk on anybody dumb enough to jump with him. In high school we used to say he would “Beast” dudes before Beast Mode was even a thing. It’s also at this very moment that the gold ring on his left index finger catches my eye and I can’t help but smile. Most things about Jaye are done because, independent of what the meteorites think, they make sense for him…but that ring though…that might be for the meteorites. Although, if any of us tried to wear anything like that we would most certainly burn for flying too close to the sun.
