“A Long Day’s Journey.”
What’s it like?
3:00pm and the day has already been long.
I made a new friend the other day;
an African guy that opened a new junk store,
just blocks away from my house.
He lets me pick through the broken stuff that the crack heads bring in.
So after wolfing down three large glasses of iced coffee with no sugar and a touch of ginger ale,
I took off for the Junk store.
I should say for the sidewalk sale.
He has that stuff laid out Helter Skelter like some type of Market in Monrovia.
Anyway,
I am working on a new piece; a new series of pieces.
I call them the Pumpkin Pieces, and they deal with the pumpkin in both a historical and religious format.
Dealing with it as a symbol of Colonialism Oppression and Religious Redemption and Observation.
Hell,
The pumpkin is a sort of symbol of thanksgiving and all of the misery that that the brought to Native Americans. Hell!
Too many folks.
The pumpkin is eaten in Haiti on Independence Day in soup form.
Jewish folks eat it on holidays and so on. Indians use it in religious ceremonies.
Then there is the great pumpkin and so on.
OK!
Where was I?
I went to the store and found these wonderful French Horns.
They were all broken, but my African brother, who looks like Adibesi from the Home Box Show “Oz”, gave me a bag of them for free.
He loves to talk politics and is both bright and warm.
His wife is quite frankly one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her skin being so black as to swallow you up whole.
Looking at her sometimes makes the taint of slavery running through my veins apparent.
I was getting ready to return home with my prizes, when this brother dropped his parting bomb at me.
He said that the face of America has changed and there were all us black skinned folks, here now.
Who will be the true African Americans?
He said my people… What will your people do?
You will be absorbed.
I laughed and laughed as we argued, and I finally told him that it was about time we were welcomed back into the fold of Mother Africa.
He was shocked for a moment and then gave me the most beautiful smile. I left still laughing.
Of course, in my mind’s eye,
I was guiltily thanking the white man for getting me away from the heat, lizards, and a swollen stomach.
Come one you know what I mean.
In my mind’s eye, he got me thinking of life after Harriet Tubman and Freddy D.
Shit what else can we hold over the new kids on the block to retain our hard earned and cherished place as the most viable living symbol of America’s oppression.
Hell,
I have to think hard on this one.
There is so much competition now.
Anyway, I stopped in the video store just a block away to return a movie and thought of the movie “black hawk down”, were the soldiers had referred to the African Natives as “the skinneys”.
I laughed to myself.
That was one of the best lines ever made and comes right after the line in “clockers” were one of the cops looks at the other cop,
while standing over the body of a dead youth
shot I a drug deal gone crazy.
He says, “Hell! Black folks are a self cleaning oven.”
I silently chastised myself and recited lines from James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison:
“The fire next time”,
“I, Too, sing America”,
fill those holes.
With confidence restored
, I marched on.
My sanity and racial pride redeemed.
The old Negro has skill and tools.
This is the way I put everything into context.
Still thinking of my pumpkin project,
I moved on.
I discovered Albert, the owner of the video store in tears.
Albert is one of the brightest and funniest people in the neighborhood, and he has become a good friend.
My kids love him, and he treats us like family.
Albert is a gem and about 55 years old.
He is one of the first and last living queens of the old school of Gaydom.
He was crying because he and his lover of ten years had broken up yesterday after his lover had walked into the store and found him in the embrace of another man.
Albert was devastated and wanted my advice,
which I proceeded to dispense.
He went on to describe his flight from Cuba in the 1960’s after realizing that if he remained in Cuba that he would be killed because Castro hated gays.
He always does this.
He went on to rant and rave about Castro.
I baited him of course.
I went on about the good things Castro had done:
health care,
education,
America and its failed policies toward Cuba.
This got him yelling and screaming and bringing up examples of Castro’s cruelty and inhumanity.
He went on to describe Castro as having only one testicle and standing before his altar,
he crossed himself and cursed Castro in Spanish.
I laughed at him,
and he also laughed
and said that I always made him feel better.
He gave me a candy for my daughter and asked me to stop in later and check in on him.
On my way,
a major’s duty is never done.
I walked seven blocks to my friend David’s liquor store to get cheap two cigarettes,
two for the price of one,
as I do every day.
David, Yvette, and Mabel
were behind the counter, and as soon as I walked in, they immediately began their laughing attack.
The Puerto Rican sisterhood as I refer to them as.
I asked Evette, my common refrain what’s for dinner tonight?
Hummmm!
I heard the newest food to sweep the Latino ghetto is iguana. It costs like 25 dollars a pound.
Yvette how do you fix it?
You skin it right?
I can see the platter now fried Iguana garnished with Koki’s.
They all began laughing hysterically.
Yvette chased me out of the store and into the street telling me that she was going to make my voice much higher while laughing all the while.
A short run later,
we returned to the store arm in arm,
just as a local black wino came in.
He started bitching about how slow David was.
I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “you know these Latinos don’t like us black folks here.
If you spoke Brazilian they would love you.”
He laughed and everyone joined in.
Ethnic remarks,
I found could break down all kinds of stuff around here.
Anyway, he goes on to describe the difference between white folks and black folks.
All you have to do is go to a picnic with a black and white family.
When a bee comes around, the white folks will tell their kids don’t move and it will go away.
If they get stung, they go ouch or damn and then spray something on, and although it may hurt,
they move on.
When black people see the bee,
the whole family starts yelling and screaming and swinging at the bee.
They will knock the table over either running from the bee
or trying to kill it.
When they finally get stung,
they scream
and swear.
They curse “bitch!”
When they sit down, they realize they never felt the pain of the sting.
I found that out in Jamaica.
Black guys don’t particularly like the beach.
When we go into the water, it is to cool off and because it’s simply there.
My father loves to fish, and like me, loves the ocean above almost anything else.
He hates the sand,
and I can count,
on one hand,
the number of times I have seen him swim.
The wino got me thinking
. Do you know why black guys don’t go into the ocean?
It’s because Life has hipped us.
Taught us.
These days, something is always after us:
cops,
bosses,
crime
and so on.
In many cases one of the above mentioned will get us or annoy us.
We know if we go into the ocean, that there is something in there that will get us.
The difference between white and black folks is that the white folks looked shocked when something gets you.
We have the “I knew it” look.
OK!
I am off base,
but I couldn’t help it.
The wino got me thinking.
The pumpkin pieces are about slavery and injustice, and this is just a small out growth of all of it.
I have to do a piece on black guys and the ocean.
The wino left. I just looked at him and smiled and gave him a Lucy.
That bastard always hits me up for a cigarette and reminds me of how nothing is free in this world even wisdom.
He got on his bike, whose tires were almost flat.
My friends are trying to teach me both Spanish and Portuguese.
I have the language aptitude of someone who is brain damaged, but they keep trying.
So I am.
Of course,
Mabel tells me to repeat today’s lesson, which after I foolishly mutter,
I find out, after the whole place is howling,
that it means, “my ass is itching.
Can you scratch it for me.”
Mabel retreats with satisfaction to the front of the store.
I went on to do my imitation of Brazilian talking.
You know that sing song whine that they do.
Taigo, the Brazilian behind the counter loves it, and then yells at me, “what is black food?”
I buy a bag of barbecue potato chips and look at him and smile as he laughs. Then I was onto a Puerto Rican imitation, and that horse cackle that the old ones use.
“Mirra Popi!”
Come on, you all know it.
I got my cigarettes and after promising to be back later,
I started walking home.
My feet are killing me.
I can still feel a piece of glass stuck in my toe from working on my sculpture last night barefoot.
I am simply not up to the challenge of bending over to remove it this early in the day.
On the way, I had an encounter with an Irish exchange student that is living in the neighborhood.
He is working in a group of about ten or so young folks with Lufansa airlines for six months.
We talked, and I mentioned for the twentieth time that every time I talk to him and his girlfriend,
I could feel my Scottish,
Irish blood trying to do a jig.
He loves that and laughs his head off.
I tell him to go down to Savannah Georgia and see the effect his people had on mine.
We are brothers.
Then I am off again.
I get home and notice that Mike, the Portuguese guy that owns the pet store is waving at me to come over.
He says that two white, crack heads just jumped a fence that belongs to the house on the corner that is habituated by ekkies.
As it turns out,
These two have been robbing numerous houses in the neighborhood.
Now there is about ten guys standing in front of the key shop across the street.
It is a neighborhood hangout.
John, who is an old school Italian guy about my age, owns the key shop.
He is so dark that I thought he was an Arab,
but you know what they say, “Africa starts at Rome.”
So I tell Mike to get John and Vigaro,
a Puerto Rican friend of mine, who is a nice guy from across the street. Vigaro doesn’t take any shit.
He is standing their with four other Puerto Rican friends as well as his three other white guys, who all play on his baseball team.
They all look to me.
I take john’s cell phone and call the police.
I tell Vigaro and the others to position themselves at each corner of the house.
They love it.
While I am on the phone with the police, who tell me to stay on the phone after I tell them I am an ex-cop.
I tell them to come in around the corner and to walk to in with no lights or sirens.
They complied and showed up with like 15 cops.
My boys moved back, and they entered the house through the front.
They take into custody the two crack heads, who can’t be any older than 25. As this is happening,
the scene fills up.
I mean, like everyone came out of their houses.
What a diverse neighborhood:
ekkies,
Pork Chops,
Ginnies,
Coons
, PR’s,
sing song Brazilians,
shit, every country of South America,
as well as Mexico.
As it turns, these guys had done many more houses than the cops had thought.
Many of these people are scared of police and had not even bothered reporting the crimes.
Now, they were yelling and screaming and looking into the windows of the police cars at the perps.
It was like a movie.
I sat on the steps of the corner store with the key shop boys and we patted each other on the back and laughed and joked and felt like home.
A lot of times, I hate this place,
It is simply so fucking foreign.
At other times, like now,
I wouldn’t live in any other place. Besides, they need me here.
I am the mayor after all.
I go into the house and glue the broken horns together and place them on the sculptor, which is topped by a broken pumpkin.
My cup is full now and I can work all day.
Make my day.
The fat man sings.
Technorati Tags: kevin blythe sampson,stuff kevin wrote
No comments:
Post a Comment