Like a secret refugee from the former Soviet bloc, or a highly sensitive nuclear technician from North Korea's nuclear program, I'm secretly immersed now within the opulent splendor of a Chappaqua, NY living/ learning unit, replete with the largest fully integrated plasma screen television you've never seen (connected to wireless computer components like the keyboard I'm typing on right now), a kitchen and dining room straight out of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, perfectly plotted, planned, and positioned, and a baby grand piano, expertly tickled by my good friend Rei Anayami, whose impromptu house--sitting arrangement leaves me with the most comfortable typing situation I've ever had.

It's beautiful here. Serene, thoughtful, with a classical soundtrack thanks to Rei's exquisite piano skills. It's just perfect.... almost. Someday, I hope to have a place like this that Angel and I can enjoy together. Someday...

Happy pictures in utilitarian frames sparsely dot the internal landscape. Bright eyed cherubs smile with unblemished innocence from the photos. Rei does her best to inform me of who's who, but I'm clueless. Right now all I hear is music. Insistent, throbbing, pounding music. I want to lose myself in the melodic tones and harmonized precision of this moment. Never the greatest fan of classical, I suddenly realize why countless generations have focused so much passion and ego into the genre. It can move you -- if you let it. I wish I could.

One can tell from a cursory examination of the stark white walls and the bright, open windows that love flows easily in this place. Still, I cannot help to characterize the love as outside my comprehension. I know how to love with fiery passion and steely resolve, with unbreakable determination and total clarity. I never considered love as art. I watch Rei at the piano from afar, on the couch. Her lithe body sways with her tactile sonics, enraptured by decibels so divine I can barely perceive their holy grace, her angelic poise. I'm like a lesser known Centurion in Marcus Longinus' troop -- I may have the good sense to know that something profound is taking place, but I can't tell what it is, nor what it means. I'm struck dumb.

That's my problem with Chappaqua -- I very rarely feel outside of my element, or my station in life, but here, I can't help but notice my plebian proletariat perspective. I am a writer who pens hate as volunteer work, who delivers opinion as hydrochloric acid balloons dropped from the 36th floor of whatever office building you work in on your unsuspecting, vulnerable head. I'm ... unworthy.

My first visit to Chappaqua was to spend Thanksgiving with Angel's family. Warm loving people -- to each other. Outcast, unwanted, refused, I sat in the basement of their large, expansive, roomy upper-class abode, mad with a world that teaches distrust where blackness emerges. Angel alone wanted my presence. I'll never forget how much she trusted me.

That Thanksgiving didn't turn out well for either of us, and set much of the tone for our relationship's family interaction for the next four years. Now, I'm back in Chappaqua, again marveling at the rich man's life, liberty and happiness, and find myself oddly pleased. Before, I was anarchist, saturated with palpable wet hate, pregnant with a demonic desire to destroy all that rejected me. Age has yet to bring me wisdom, but the unabashed nigger rage that once alienated me from all of Chappaqua's New England natural woodland beauty and whitewashed suburban calm has now transformed into sheer ambition. I need a career. I want to provide Angel with all of this affluent bliss, and more. I want our children to have the benefit of their amazing private schools and voluminous libraries. I want a daughter of mine to play Chopin... and Davis. She will read Baldwin and Didion, Douglass and Anthony, Arendt and Morrison. She will be perfect, heavenly -- divine, just like her mother.

Yes, I feel envy. I never said I was a good person. But I realize still more that the job hunt is the most important aspect of this trip. If a plasma television larger than Montana can motivate me, why not? Given the sudden loss of Johnnie Cochran today, this country needs more young Black men to study law. Sure, you may remember him for the O.J. acquittal, but fighting police brutality was his legacy, and he proves that one can train himself to become a essential professional, indispensable and necessary, loved and feared, famous and infamous, a community icon, a role model, a Black superhero. Johnnie Cochran displayed for all concerned that the professional Black man was more dangerous than any lesser stereotype. Chappaqua's moneyed residents and their Cornell student progeny despised him more than every hip hop thug in low-slung, loose fitting, homosexual-inviting Sean John jeans. Here was a brother with a brain. A nation of millions couldn't hold him back; America must fail in its instinctive inhibition of my progress as well.

So, I'll get the job first, then pursue the juris doctor. Wow. Chappaqua does wonders for my ambition. I should visit more often.