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Harley Geffner is a real one.
It’s been a little more than a week now since I got a world-shifting FaceTime call. Olivia rang me around 11:30 in the middle of my workday with tears in her eyes to let me know that my very close friend Jakeil Reynolds, someone with whom I spent everyday and had many plans for the future, had been shot and killed. As soon as I picked up the call and saw the expression on her face, I knew what I was about to hear. It’s an expression I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to see, but we all either have seen it before or will see it. I’m sure I’ll see it many more times in my life, but this is the first.
I have been having a really difficult time even thinking about it, processing what emotions I’ve been feeling at any given moment since that call. It’s been a whirling blur of Lagunitas, Cazadores, Fronto leaf, and friends. Usually I use writing as a way to process what I’m feeling, but this one is just incomprehensible, and grasping for reason in such a random occurrence will drive anyone insane. I’m trying to derive meaning and I might in time, but for now I can only seem to eek out some platitudes about his spirit living on in his loved ones. That seems to be the most comforting one to his family and friends anyways.
I still don’t know how I feel about it. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it. I don’t even know if this keyboard I’m typing on is real. Just total disorientation from all sides, and there’s no solid ground to stand on anywhere. Maybe I’ll share more about him in time when I start to piece my emotions together with a more level head, but for now, here’s a short playlist of some of his favorite songs. I owe this Rap Up to him because so much of the music in my previous Rap Ups has been from his YouTube playlists, and so many of the experiences I wrote about in listening to the music in this column were with him by my side. May he rest peacefully.
