Dear Chad,

Everything about whatever I’m writing is completely impulsive, Chad. I only know you through your body of work, which is why I’m having a hard time understanding why your passing is so heavy for me. I didn’t know you personally, but your passing broke whatever spirit I had left in me to fight for a better anything. I found out as I was driving to Zion. My friend Ricarlo interrupted me, while we were in the middle of a discussion about making a hip-hop playlist, to tell me you had passed away. He told me while I was driving, Chad. I don’t know why people think telling someone bad news while they are driving is a good idea. I don’t know what’s worse, someone texting you that someone died, or someone telling you someone has died while you’re driving. When he said it, it took me a moment before it registered with me that he had said your name. At first, I really thought he was telling me about some young white actor who was popular, but I didn’t know of him well enough for the name to ring a bell or a face to pop up. It took another moment after I realized what he had said before I found myself unable to drive. 

I was fighting to accept what he had told me. There was no way you were gone. Kobe’s birthday was just this past Monday, and here it is Friday. Is God trying to kill me? I followed that thought up with the information Ricarlo had just shared with me earlier about a church raising ninety-seven dollars for the seventeen-year-old kid that shot two men at the Jacob Blake protest.

 Chad, I’m trying to wrap my mind around how we live in a world where people can justify and applaud a cop for shooting a black man in his back while holding his arm. I’m also trying to understand why that same group of people can call a seventeen-year-old child that murdered two men, a hero. But I’m also grappling with understanding why footage of a man almost being executed was so available. The execution of black men in the media and in America has been running longer than any show I can think of. 

What kind of world am I living in, Chad, where the Creator would take you, the face of the most impactful superhero in black and pop culture, and Kobe Bryant in the same year? When Kobe passed earlier this year, someone texted me, “Don’t look at social media; Kobe Bryant is dead.” What the fuck is it with people texting you that someone died? I believe that’s the laziest, most inconsiderate thing you could do to another human being. Death deserves a phone call.

I drove as long as I could before I had to pull off to the side of the road. I needed to get out of the car. The compactness of the car was too smothering. The seat belt was keeping me from breathing. I didn’t know what to do. I just walked around in the desert unable to lift my hands to cover my face as I struggled to cry. I say struggled because I was overcome with emotion, I was wailing out loud, and I even had the ugly cry face; however, no tears came out. I wanted the tears to come, but I’m so exhausted with this life that I didn’t have it in me. I fucking hate it here, Chad. I hate how shitty people are. I hate how shitty this country is. I hate the racism in the world. I hate the hypocrisy of this world. I hate the greediness. The greed in this world is an illness itself. I still can’t fucking believe there are landlords trying to collect rent from people who haven’t worked since March 13, 2020. 

I’m tired, Chad. Fuck, am I tired! I feel so ungrateful telling you I’m tired when I know you were battling something that you carried quietly and didn’t make a peep about while going through it, but what I’m living through right now has made me tired of people, Chad. People are honestly the worst idea since the creation of roaches. I’m sure if we ran a poll, we would all agree that roaches are the worst living creatures ever created. I think this statement would even hold up in the countries that consider roaches a delicacy. Outside of asking God why Black people are so hated, I need to know why God thought roaches needed to exist. Besides existing to remind you that you have to work a little harder if you want to get rid of the poverty pets, I can’t see what their purpose might be. 

I’ve purposely stayed off of social media. I don’t want to see people fake mourn you. I definitely don’t have the stomach to watch Hollywood disingenuously pay their respects to you. I fucking hate how phony celebrities come off when they are trying to show they care. I’m thinking to myself, “Celebrities can act halfway decent enough to make me believe they’re the character they’re portraying on screen but drop the ball when they have to act human.” You’ve seen the bullshit of fake Hollywood up close just as I have. You probably saw a lot worse than I did. 

I’ve been soul searching the entire time I’ve been in my home during this pandemic, asking myself, “Do I want to fight to be a part of this industry, even though I truly hate how fake it looks from the outside and personally know how shitty it is from my own experiences?” I know so many shitty people that have fake “good guy” images, and it would make me look like a hater if I came out and said “THIS DUDE IS A SACK OF IMMORAL SHIT!” I know so many sacks of immoral shit. If sacks of shit were ever to become a stock and someone came to me and asked what stocks they should invest in, I would tell them, “You should invest in sacks of shit. They’re about to become the new thing.”

I haven’t seen any of my family since January. I’ve been trapped in California since March. Chad, we both have Southern relatives. They want to see us, and nothing is a good enough excuse not to come home. I’m sure you would much rather be here to fight what killed you, but you’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with the mask or no mask war that’s going on in the world. I’m telling you, Chad, this human being experiment is the dumbest interpretation of intelligent life that the Creator has ever allowed to exist.

I’m debating if I want to release this letter to you. I don’t want to be lumped in with the people that will mourn you for the “likes.” In fact, I think I’ve found a good use for roaches. I want every human being that does anything with disingenuous intentions, just to get likes, to have an infestation of roaches follow them in this life and the ones after. I need hordes of roaches crawling into the noses of the people who cheat their way into getting others to care about what they think and feel. I also would like those same roaches to harass the sacks of shit people I know. This would be the only time I’d be in favor of anything that involves using roaches. 

Chad, I rooted for you because we are both Carolina boys, you being from South Carolina and me being from North. Seeing you make it gave me hope for myself. When I saw you emerge, I said to myself, “If Chad can make it out of South Carolina, then I should be able to make something out of myself coming from North Carolina.” I know that’s not how things work, but I used that method of thinking as motivation and inspiration for myself. You know just as I do that finding inspiration in Los Angeles can be hard.

Some may say I’m crazy or don’t know what I’m talking about, or may go as far as to say I’m disrespecting you by saying this, but I could see it in your eyes that you were carrying something. The tiredness of being strong for others as you went through what you were going through was all I could see. I wasn’t aware of the severity of your struggle, but there was something about your energy that made me think, “There’s something going on with Chad.”

I don’t have anyone in my life I feel I can comfortably talk to about these sorts of things. If I say things like, “I think something’s wrong with Chad” to the wrong person, mostly likely they’ll say something like, “And I bet you knew Bruce Willis was dead the entire time in The Sixth Sense.” I didn’t know Bruce Willis was dead the entire time, but I could see that you were going through something. I also didn’t want to say anything to someone who would take my ability to be able to see a little deeper as an opportunity to call me depressing. I fucking hate the people here, Chad. I know someone will read this and still call me crazy for saying I could see you in pain. 

I remember watching an interview with you one day and I said to myself, “This guy is bigger than the hero he portrays on screen.” You became an idea, the way Bruce Wayne wanted Batman to be an incorruptible symbol. You were the symbol that things are changing and will continue to change. You were the re-grand opening of Black representation to the world. Your movie broke records. Some of those records are man-made, so they don’t mean as much as the records you set by bringing people closer together. You made being a superhero from Africa acceptable and admirable. 

I would joke with people about how I felt that you were probably sick of crossing your arms and saying, “Wakanda forever!” every time a fan met you. I know I was tired of seeing you do it all the time. That’s probably a “me thing” as well. I can’t promise I would even come outside if I had the responsibilities you had. I would most likely take all the money I earned from the movie and search for a real Wakanda to hide in.

I’ve spent the last few days looking at all the interviews I can find of yours. You knew what your outcome was going to be all along. Fuck, you were strong. You were stronger than the powers the suit gave your Black Panther character. Black Panther could have replaced Santa Claus in a black household. I may leave letters out for you on your birthday the way I would leave cookies out for Santa when I was a kid. All I ask is that you leave some of your strengthen underneath my pillow.  Chad, please leave me the ability to be vulnerable enough to allow myself to release this cry I’m holding on to.

 Chad, I will do my best to never bitch or complain ever again about anything, even if I’m in pain. I don’t know about Wakanda, but you are forever.

-EAT

 I write as a form of healing for myself and others. If you enjoyed what you read, “tip the writer” by donating to Venmo or zelle @maronziovance or Cashapp $Gift2MaronzioVance