I want to first discuss the balls of Fox to at this show at all. It premiered November of 2001, not even a full month after the events of September 11. The idea that in that political climate a show, about terrorists could air is something that may not be seen today. While you won’t often get me to give a shout out to anything Fox related, I have to applaud this decision. It’s not because this turned out to be one of the best shows in my television viewing history, its because there are many layers to this show.

I absolutely understand why the first season was a success. Jack Bauer, Director of the Los Angeles bureau of CTU was the impossible yt man that this country needed at the time. Even though the villains weren’t brown, this nation ‘needed’ the ability to fight against the bad guys and win.

The premise of the show was something that we hadn’t quite seen in this version on the screen. 24 one hour episodes telling the story of a day where the best intelligence minds, the baddest characters, with superior acting and guest stars who you don’t get on television…at least back then…was going to be a success.

I tuned in because of Kiefer Sutherland. I’ve had a crush on him for years, since The Lost Boys. He’s also a decent actor. What I didn’t expect was Dennis Haysbert. He wasn’t an actor I felt familiarwith, but from his first lines I was hooked. That voice. *swoon*

I found the concept of a Black man mounting a successful Presidental campaign the type of fiction which could only be thought of in Hollywood, but I was still all in. What I didn’t expect was the show to be as compelling for me as it was. I was hooked after the first hour. What happened along that 24 episode journey was also something unexpected, I found myself drawn to these 2 men in ways I would not have guessed before watching them on screen.

In Palmer, there was this beautiful, if not regal, Black man who was the best the Senate had to offer and had the potential to be the person, the President I wished occupied the office. He was a man of morals. He personified integrity and he was a Democrat. He was married to his childhood sweetheart, who just happened to be a Black woman. I saw in this man the power, the intelligence, the compassion, the vizion I would choose in a partner. He wasn’t a man who beat his chest and proclaimed his presence, he was the type who walked into a room and commanded attention, respect and deference. He reminded me in ways of The Man. That quiet powerful presence which consumes the oxygen in room which makes you ask for permission to breathe. Senator Palmer was attractive, in a very traditional sense to me.

Then there was Jack Bauer.

Even though I have an admitted crush on Sutherland, my attraction is not based on the physical. He’s not my physical type [if I had one]. What was intriguing to me though was the package of Sutherland being the man who was going to save the day. He was just….average. There was nothing physically exceptional about Bauer, in fact he’s like literally millions of other average yt men out here on the streets. Were he not the son of a famous actor, or an actor himself you would not be able to pick him out of a line up.

This also was a connection to my vizion of the man, foolish as it was then.

The mystery of the man’s past combined with my active imagination invented a story which paled in comparison to our reality. In one of our incarnations it became a running joke between us, that I would call him Jack Bauer when one of those mysterious time gaps happened.

Bauer though was the opposite of The Man. He was committed to his family, he had no issues protecting and proclaiming his love for his chosen partner. He chose both his work and his family, and until that 24 hour day, for the most part it worked out. He was also a brutal thug. With the same mouth he used to kiss his daughter with love, his wife with passion, he could tear out the throat of a man who was a threat. The danger of his existence was intoxicating, that until it happened one didn’t know if he would kiss you or kill you.

I sold myself on the lie, that the absences had more to do with the requirements of his life away from me. While that isn’t wholly untrue, the specific condensed version of things is, he never chose me, not really. He wasn’t some secret agent with high level clearance required to exclude me from the evils the world held. He was a man, who would not choose me in the manner I chose him. That was a jagged little pill to swallow, which in part explains how Jack Palmer became the man of my dreams I didn’t know I was having.

Over the first 3-4 seasons I could tune in for 24 episodes and get all of the bang for a buck you expect from network Tv. I could also get what I was missing in my romantic life. The hole I thought existed for me could be filled, and in a glorious fashion. My dream man wasn’t restrained by humanity, he would be limited only by my ability to dream.

I don’t talk about my dreams much because somewhere along the line I stopped doing it. I never forgot how, rather I think life beat my desire out of me. If you never dream, you never experience the pain attached to either losing that dream or having that dream not come true.

I am learning to dream again, in the sense I am giving myself permission to imagine this life as something other than what I’ve lived.

I won’t lie and say an intimate partner is not a part of that dream, but I do find myself amused at the pictures I used to have vs the vizion I am creating now.

Jack Palmer is a pretty big goal to live up to, and even though this dream person will certainly have some elements of ‘him’ I have the freedom to create someone else. I can create this person and bring them into my life for a minute or a lifetime. That’s a lot to digest. This whole other path is a lot to digest.

As I sipped a beer last night though, I gave myself evidence that it can happen, and maybe permission to myself to make it happen. As I sit on the deck as the sun sets on this beautiful spring day, I can have all of the spring days I choose.

HUNH.

Aphrodite Brown