The Stories

Biggie Sessoms
A note here. In rereading this story, I noticed that I've been especially verbose. Not beautifully eloquent, just really wordy. The story takes a minute or two to get going. Just a warning.

So Max, Evan and Joe are in the Cedar Lane Grill one day. To clarify, the Grill is the diner in town and basically the only place open after 9:00 pm in beautiful Teaneck, NJ so it is not unusual to see anyone from Teaneck who wants to be out past 9:00 pm at the Grill. As this is such, sightings of interesting people are not rare at the Grill.

On this particular night Max, Evan and Joe happen upon a gie (guy?) named Maurice Sessoms and some of his friends at the Grill. Maurice is a generally cool guy and at the time he played on the basketball team at Teaneck High School. It's worth mentioning that Mo is about 6'8" tall and generally stands out as a recognizeable person. He was Evan's age.

This outing to the Grill was fairly standard with the exception of two things that make this story possible. The first thing was that Joe happened to have his camera with him on that night at the Grill. At some point after leaving the Grill, Joe realized that he no longer had the camera. Not really relevant, but an interesting side note later. The second thing that happened is really the crux of the story.

Joe mentioned something about hearing that Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious BIG, aka Big Poppa, widely regarded as one of the best rap artists of all time, was currently living in Teaneck. This was at the height of Biggie's popularity and would be pretty cool if confirmed true. Joe also remembered recently driving by a house in Teaneck and seeing what appeared to be lots of affluent African-Americans having a barbecue of some sort in the back yard. There are some towns in America where if you see a bunch of black people in a back yard, then you know who you're looking at, as there is only one black family in town. Teaneck is not one of those towns. As diversity goes, Teaneck is a bit ahead of the curve.

Anyhow, this observation went unacted upon on that particular evening. At some point in the near future (estimates range from about a week, to several months later) Max, Evan and Joe again found themselves together. One of them had the idea to go and see if they could identify Biggie's house and knock on the door to see if he would, in fact, answer. In retrospect, this probably wasn't a very good plan. But as they had nothing else to do (as I mentioned before, there's not much to do in Teaneck) it seemed worth a try.

There is an area of Teaneck that is basically a square surrounded by four streets called Cedar Lane, Queen Anne Road, Palisade Avenue and Degraw Avenue. Joe remembered being in this square when he passed the alleged house of Biggie Smalls. Within this square there are about 10 streets, none of them especially distinct. As this is such, our three heroes drove up and down each of these streets several times for about half an hour before Joe decided that the house they were presently in front of was the presumable Smalls Estate.

So after some hesitation the three get out of the car and go to ring the bell. Tensions are high as the men envision any memeber of the Junior Mafia answering the door. Little Kim, having just baked some cookies, might welcome the three in for dessert. Faith Evans might inform the boys that No, Biggie was not in, but he'll get back to you later. Puff Daddy, having stopped by for a visit, might open the door with a smile and sign Evan to a record contract on the spot. Lil Cease may have been watching the Knicks game and asked them to come in for the fourth quarter. Or Biggie himself might appear, smiling and out of breath from the long trek to the door, welcoming three fans and giving them autographed copies of his as yet unreleased album. The possibilities were endless.

The bell was rung, the short wait seemed like hours and finally the door opened. Was it Kim, Biggie, Puff? No. It was none other than Maurice Sessoms.

"Hey guys. What's up?"

Moments of uncomfortable silence followed. Max tried his best to sound calm and offered a half-hearted "Hey Mo. How's it going?"

Evan took advantage of the confusion and slipped off the porch and went back to the car. Joe and Max were faced with the task of making their visit seem purposeful. After some idle conversation Joe came up with "Hey Mo, do you remember what happened to my camera that night at the Grill?"

Maurice obviously had no idea what joe was talking about and responded "No. What are you talking about?" (good repetition there, for emphasis)

"Oh, ok. Well, I was just wondering. Well, I guess we'll see you later, Mo."
"Ok guys, take it easy."
Max, in a last ditch effort, asked, "Hey Mo, is it true that Biggie Smalls used to live here?"
With a perplexed look, Maurice answered, "No."
"Oh. Well, ok Mo. See you later."

So the adventure turned out to be a bust. With what turned out to be a rather nice ironic twist, Biggie Smalls hard core crib ended up being the home of the Sessoms, just an average Teaneck family. It turns out that Biggie Smalls did in fact live in Teaneck at that time, but in a completely different part of town. I often wonder what would have happened if our three brave explorers had happened upon Biggie's house. Would he answer the door? Would he be congenial? Would there be other members of his crew there with him? There had been sightings of Little Kim before. Biggie had reportedly spent a good amount of time in his wonderful Teaneck home. One can only guess now what took place in that wonderful establishment. Alas, the question still remains. What if?