Sugar Topped

My sister Margaret is rude.

It's because of this that I look up to her. I love her bravado- her audacity to say what's on her mind in a loud and offensive way that hits you full in the face like icy wind off of Lake Erie is refreshing. It's exactly the sort of thing that makes hanging out with her  so heart thumping like something terrible or awesome might go down. Maybe something fun.

I felt up for an adventure that evening as she and I  sped through the lightly falling snow. We were a ways from downtown, right where Chagrin turns into Pepper Pike. Margaret had insisted that I meet her grad school friends, and I had  acquiesced though I still hadn't recovered from the all nighters I had pulled just days before. When I asked her if we were going to a pub that she frequented often, she cackled in her rasping obnoxious way, and said nothing.

The place was  noisy and dingy, and the heat was turned way up. 
A group of red faced guys, probably around my age, took up most of the space of the bar. They were a generic bunch: brownish somewhat unkept hair, darkish bleary eyes, slightly over weight, and loud.  They wore all manner of Browns gear, and I remembered suddenly that the Thursday Night game would be on a little later.

The most conspicuous of the group, near the bar itself, was an enormous fellow with bovine jowls. He was belligerently talking to the bartender, demanding that he get a refund because his drinks had been "like waddderrr" and that he was "fuuuucking sober"

The conversation proved to be exceedingly amusing for the men surrounding him, as they egged him on with "you tell'em Johnny," and "atta, boy! Don't lettem Jew you like that!"

In the corner of the establishment, as far as away from the group of Browns fans the space would allow,  sat two intellectuals. The young man wore glasses and a red beard that seemed to consume his face. He reminded me of a vodka ad I had once seen while studying abroad in St. Petersburg.

 The woman next to him sported a bobbed haircut not quite unlike my sister's shortly cropped blond hair. She clutched a bottle of Stella as though it were the most precious thing she had ever held.

"Fuck you guys," my sister said by way of salutation. She sat heavily in one of the open seats next to the red beard. "Where's MY drink?"

The bobbed hairdo sucked her teeth.
"Why the hell are we out here," she called in a nasal whine, "Couldn't we have just gone down to Coventry?"

She and my sister glared at each other , and I wondered how often this conversation had been played out before.

At the bar,  the main attraction began a fresh round of declamations, snorting that the quality of the beers he had had had actually been "dihrty waaader."

"Atta boy Johnny, atta boy," the others jeered, "You SHOW'em!"

I remained standing, caught awkwardly between the two scenes.

"Are you offended," Margaret finally hissed, leaning across the table, "Is this place too proletariat for your liking?"

Sarah's face colored in rage, and her grip on her bottle became so tight that I could see her fingers blanching.

"That's ridiculous and you know it," she huffed indignantly, "I just...I just don't think that we have to go LOOKING to rock the boat all the time."

"We're just having some BEERS," my sister returned a little too forcefully.
"There's nothing revolutionary in THAT is there? And anyway, you didn't HAVE to come, now did you?"

Sarah rolled her eyes, and sat back in her seat, defeated. Redbeard, who to this point had been gazing intently at his empty glass, seemed to awaken.  With an academic cough, he came to his feet.

"Tom," he said, extending his hand over the table, "I'm Marcus. Margaret's told us a lot about you."

I nodded.

"Let's go get a drink. Maggie, you want Blue Moon right??"

My sister shook her head, "Guinness."

As we approached the bar, I began to acutely feel the heat of the place as beads of sweat ran down my neck . Though the place was dimly lit, I felt as though some unknown beam was piercing through me, microwaving my insides.

"Atta boy Johnny," the men whistled as the scarlet faced man in the center began to take back shots that had been laid before him, 2 at a time, "Atta boy!"

I blinked.

 Somehow, I had burst through the men standing next to me, and was leaning against Johnny,  the enormous jowly man. My shoulder dug against his back, and my entire frame strained in the effort to keep him off the floor. 

For a moment the entire place stood frozen in place as though God himself had pressed the pause button. In the corner I could see Sarah and Margaret's ashen faces, both on their feet.

"Oh!" the drunk man wheezed, stabilizing  his falling body mass against my already faltering knees. He looked questioningly at the bar stool perch from which he had begun to fall and then unsteadily pulled himself to his feet. With the slow air of royalty, he placed his heavy arms on my shoulder.

 "You ...."  he began  solemnly, with a magisterial air, "you..."  He took a moment to collect himself.

Finally, he arrived at his triumphant conclusion:
"My NIGGAH! U my NIGGAH"

Marcus, a fit of intellectual phlegm seeming to possess him, hacked his way back to the corner table, leaving me at the bar.   Sarah sat down at the table and covered her face with her hands. My sister took a step forward and began firing streams of curses into to the swarm of red faces. Johnny shouted about his "boyz from East Cleveland" who were actually the best friends he'd ever had. The men around me laughed hysterically.

"Buy'em a DRINK Johnny, Get'em a drink!"

It began to snow in earnest as my sister and I headed west toward the city lights. A carpet of unadulterated white heralded our journey and the hush of freshly fallen snow was all around us. I opened my window a crack to let in the crisp frigid air, and the pungent scent of wood burning filled my nostrils.  Onward  we flew, along the flat suburban streets, the street lights illuminating one sugar topped cookie cutter lawn after another.

"Beautiful, huh?" I said to no one in particular.

Chapter 1: Mona Lisa Smile

As I lean in to take her order, the gentle curl of her raven hair brushes innocently against my face, shooting shivers of sinful delight down my spine. Her scent, a subtle sweetness not unlike that of a perfectly ripe apricot, intoxicates my already stimulated senses, and I can feel the roar of ratchet heat and carnal thirst stretch it's way from my armpits to my loins, crescendoing with the  indomitable force of a sprawling, unbidden yawn. Her contralto voice is the musical murmur of the undiscovered natural spring, unadulterated by the mundane and unintimidated by the mighty Adirondacks that surround her mossy shores.

“Coffee, black please" she hums, with an enigmatic smile. It's as though she's daring me to contemplate the world's mystical secrets, casually unlocking the most Byzantine of conundrums in quietly announcing her morning beverage of choice.  I'm mildly disgusted. I'm mesmerized.

She's a college kid, maybe 20 or 21,  off for the summer probably. Maybe she's here on vacation with her family with the rest of them.

With their yachts and they're kayaks, and their upper crust accents. With their toy dogs, and spoiled children. With their demands for chichi lattes that they swear they were able to order LASSSTT summer while on holiday. With their gracious shaking of the head when we fail to deliver service at the break neck speed their used.  "Really," their condescending faces seem to say, "what can one honestly expect from a country establishment such as this?"

I guess I used to be one of them. One of the rich kids whose parents, too entrenched in professional success, send their children away to be raised by nannies and boarding school and the like.  I'm not bitter, it's just a fact. When I was really young, I, along with my younger brother, was sent most weekends up to the country, to stay at the family cabin. Our Swedish au pair, Vika, would take us. 

Vika. With her brazen blond hair, and her muscular Nordic build. Her clipped almost-British accent, and her sometimes severe admonishments. One thing I'll never forget is the tremendous size of her hands. She possessed a vice grip that was startling and good and reassuring. When I was with her, I always got the sense that she could withstand any disaster, natural or otherwise. 

But it was her creative spirt that I really loved.  We could spend hours sitting in front of the fire, spinning the flickering images of flaming fantasies into fanciful fairytales that were frighteningly vivid. Vika would start the stories, always in the same way, her husky voice and pointed accent seeming to be one with the crackling fire:

“There were three heroes in the land that was quickly falling into the hands of penetrating  darkness..."

The heroes' names and powers changed, along with their adversaries and and challenges, but there was always darkness.

When we came up for winter break,  we'd go iceskating on a nearby pond, and my brother and I would rough house out out in the cold open air.  One year, when Vika was feeling particularly adventurous, we even ventured across frozen Lake Champlain, walking half the distance from New York to Vermont. 

Summers were equally idyllic.  I'd run out in bare feet and chase my little brother through the long wild grasses that seemed to stretch indefinitely to the mountains that were topped off with clouds that resembled drizzled of whipped cream on a ponderous Ice-Cream Sundae.  We would construct our own forts in the nearby woods, and live in an expansive fantasy world where zombie savages were coming to invade our territory. We were the teenage mutant ninja turtles and Batman and Robin. We were the Power Rangers and the Autobots. We were the the heroes of our own stories, saving the world from the ever encroaching darkness. Darkness threatening to snuff us out.

But that was all so long ago.  Before Vika was abruptly sent away  for making untoward advances at my father. Before my parent's real-estate firm collapsed along with their marriage. Before my brother was killed in a car crash while on a New Year's joyride, a few miles away from where he and I used to explore the expansive north country. Before I started my meandering...

“2.26," says this beautiful dark girl whose mystery radiates in her Mona Lisa Smile.

“huh?" I sputter.

“My change," she laughs, shaking her gentle curls, “I gave you a ‘5' "

"Oh...Sorry," I  mumble, feeling my heart flutter in embarrassment as I  fumble with the cash register. I've always been a space cadet, soaring in the nether regions of my own mind. 

“Hey, let me ask you a question,"  she says, casually oblivious to my awkward manner. 

“Where do you, like, chill out around here,?"

On most days, her tone would have aggravated me. It was a manner of speech that endowed every word with innuendo and sexual suggestion that a lot of rich girls think is sophisticated. It reminds me a lot of my adolescence in Scarsdale. 

But as she's leaned in close, tantalizingly close, my reservations are muted,  arrested by  dimples that dent her delicate cheeks.  

Butterflies seize my stomach. I curse the thin line of lecherous sweat making it's way down my crotch, and the corresponding fire stirring there.  I want to say something to her, but I can't trust that my voice won't be choked with wild desperation that cannot be contained, shouting against all semblance of propriety  "FEED, ME I'M STARVING FOR LOVE! I HAVEN'T GOTTEN ANY IN ALMOST A YEAR!"

I shrug.

“Ah," says this attractive girl with a sigh that was much greater than the occasion warrants, “so, after work, you don't ever... go out? Get a drink? Let loose?"

Her pretension manner is nauseating but hell, dignity is overrated. Somehow, I find my voice. 

"I-Sometimes-Hang-Out-At-Champ-bar-Around-The-Corner," I spew, in a burst. Idiotic.

An awkward silence spawns millennia as she stares at me quizzically. 

Finally, she smiles, that cryptic, cynical smile.

"Champ bar," she chortles as though delivering the punchline of some well known joke, "Nice." And then she was gone. 

It's only until she's out the door that I notice that she's left a dollar bill on the counter. 

Arianna---914-588-2858. 

Beirut Politics

He's a young man. His dark eyes are squished together like two marbles that have carelessly been cast adjacent to one another in a game of Mancala. He's got vaguely wavy hair and a stooped stilted gait that suggests that, despite the“bros" and “ dudes"that escape his mouth, irrespective of the douchey orange and blue stripped tie he continues to wear at 10pm, in conflict with the the several blond women (and men) who seem to be in his group, and regardless of the arrogant smirk that seems to permanently line his face, he is not white. I mean he's not REALLY white. He's Jewish, or Greek, or Spanish or something. He's no WASP. His family had probably been treated like shit sometime recently because of this non-whiteness. Fortunately though, this man's almost-whiteness  will allow him to, in a few short generations, be white. Hell, he may already be there. 

Tonight my friend and I are playing Beirut (beer pong) against this nearly-Blanco individual.We were supposed to have played the game in before, but this man with the wavy hair invented a lame excuse, saying these one of the members of his vast party called the next game “like, a long fucking time before you did."  He and I both know that he had verbally acknowledged that my partner and I would have next, but that's a moot point. White men, I've learned, are allowed to change the rules or terms of any agreement, at any moment that's convenient for them. Even faux white folk can do this.

Eventually, my partner and I are allowed to play. We set up our cups, and my partner, who had vehemently opposed the rule swap they had pulled on us, even apologizes for the fuss he made earlier.

We're all ready to play when our Jewish/Greek/Spanish/almost white opponent decides that he and his partner will take a cigarette and bathroom break. They disappear. 5 mins. 10 mins. 15 mins.

They emerge. No apologies. No acknowledgement of the elapsed time where we were made to stand and wait. Nothing.

Smirk in tact, he thrusts up his middle fingers at us after making the first shot, and I feel my adrenaline rush. My face must have let on that I was displeased as he assured me that his“fuck you" was meant for his friends sitting behind us, not us. ah. 

In the end, my partner and I get beaten. We leave the table. But I kept thinking. Would I have, with a bold face told someone one thing, and then said another as this man had done in offering us the next game and then claiming anther had it? Would I have called a cigarette break that left my opponent standing for minutes on end, and then offered no apology? Would I have had the audacity to openly curse ,“in jest" people I did not know?

No. The constant guard against appearing too ostentatiously "other," particularly in white company,  would not have allowed it. As a black man, part of assuring the (white) world I am safe is emoting an amiability that bridges on docility. Being uber respectful is paramount to bolstering this image.

And so, I did not protest the treatment. I did not demand respect. The stakes, I reasoned, were so low that starting a conflict would be a waste of time. It was after all only a beer game. Yet the strong racial component that informed my actions left me with intense heartburn, like I had swallowed several raw cloves of garlic whole. My desire not to be seen as a problem and consequent silence in the face of blatant disrespect, not racially motivated, but disrespect nonetheless, made me nauseous.

I felt powerless.

I. Am. Awesome.

I don't know how to achieve the success that I want. There is a cognitive disconnect between where I am and where I want to be. I haven't taken the appropriate steps one may say, and I'm still very young. But where do I go from here is a very real question.

 I sent an email to someone who claimed to be a friend of mine once. It was the the summer time and I was feeling gregarious. This friend and I hadn't seen each other in some time and I thought it would be nice to meet up, share a drink and just talk. Our text exchange went something like this:

 Me: it's been too long, you wanna meet up?
Him: yea dude, let's do it.
Me: I'll BBQ and we'll crack some brews...cool?
Him: sure dude, sounds great

 On the day of the actual event, chicken smoked, beer bought, and outside area prepared, here was our exchange:

Me: you headed over?
Him: dude, I got shit to take care of. My company is actually opening a branch in the Bronx next year, so I will totally see you all the time!
Me: oh. Wow. Well, hopefully I'll see you before next year then.... 

That kind of shit happens a lot. White people are terrified of the Bronx and , as a sensitive soul, I read into their refusal to come. As a Leo, sometimes it's hard for me to accept that on some people's list, I am last, and I always will be, irrespective if what I do. (I guess that means we're not friends...)

 I digress, but not entirely. I want to matter. personally, and professionally.  It's hard to talk about, because it is, on some level, I want people to know that I'm WORTH something. A Lot. A Lot Lot.

 It's why I get so pissed off when, at restaurants I get mediocre service. It's the reason behind my annoyance when my ID gets the extra glace over at bars, and it's why I bristle at the extra questions asked of me at my own alma mater's reunions. "I'm GREAT," I want to shout, "HOW COME NO ONE ELSE CAN SEE IT?!"

My craving is insatiable to the point of obnoxious. So hungry am I that I feed off of the sheer awesome of Greatness personified. Every Tiger Woods fist pump, I feel like I too have conquered.  With each extraordinary Serena Williams serve, I feel like I too have silenced the naysayers. I feel like I too have triumphed

 But when it comes to my own work...well...maybe I should live out my own fantasy. I should live like every word I agonize over, and every story I tell is the coronation to the throne of some mythical realm called “Awesome." Every song I pen with my brother is gold, and the musicals we're working on is manna from heaven.

Masturbatory? Delusional? Maybe.  But I don't know there's any other way of being an artist. Afterall, I. Am. Awesome.

The Family Business

“Wow," Brandon whispered. He had never seen so much cash in one spot before and his yellow-brown complexion was flushed in excitement.

Shane smiled condescendingly, and adjusted the five twenty-dollar bills in his hands.

“ Where'd u git that," breathed Brandon, his eyes flashing. “We could git like a million ice creams," he squeaked hyperbolically, already picturing his chubby arms laden with creamsicle pops.

“No," Shane said softly as he returned the cash to his pocket, furtively glancing at the lunch ladies at the other end of the small gym that doubled as the schools lunch room. “This is mines."

Brandon could feel tears welling up in his eyes, and he hated himself for it. As a first grader, he still hadn't mastered his tear ducts and would begin at the slightest agitation.

“But why u show me it if u ain't gonna spend it?" Brandon whined piteously.  “It prolly aint even urs," he pouted, wiping his eyes.

Shane smiled at his little brother's misery. He had in fact been counting on it. As a fourth grader, he was a master manipulator.

“You really want ice cream bad, huh," he asked in unctuous tones, placing a consoling arm around the sniffling little boy.

Brandon only nodded, feeling a fresh wave of tears accost him.

“Listen," Shane said, removing a large paper bag from his bag, “I'll git  you a popsicle if you do somethin for me."

“I'll do anything," piped the little boy, a little to loudly. The lunch lady turned to look at the brothers and frowned.

Smiling and waving at the supervision, Shane kicked his brother under the table. “Ur gonna fuck everything up," he said through clinched teeth.

This proved to be too much for the little boy's delicate disposition. He began a slow wail that reached such a violent screech, that the entire room turned to stare at the balling first grader.

Shane wasted no time. Before his brother had reached the peak of his crescendo, Shane had already collected his paper bag and stuffed it deep in his backpack.  In a smooth inconspicuous motion, he buried his cash in his shoe.

He had made a huge blunder in involving Brandon at all in this operation, but the game hadn't been completely lost. 

Calmly, the older boy got to his feet, approached his brother, and began punching him as hard as he could, over and over again. Yes. This would be a good cover. Shane's just being bad again. Shane's just acting out again. Yes.

No one would look through his stuff. No one would find the money. And Brandon would be too scared to remember shit.

Token Negro

I remember standing outside a bar, way downtown in alphabet city. It's around Christmas time and I'm on my way home after a long day of drinking.

I'm exhausted. Not so much from the whiskey I pounded all day. Oh no, it was the exercise of staying patient with folks who tacitly, yet insistently, kept telling me “you don't belong."

I'll give you and example. In the afternoon session of the holiday party, a young man whom I hadn't seen in some years approached me. The holiday party serves as a sort of reunion of sorts, and we are genuinely happy to see one another. A few moments of smalltalk reveals that he was in finance, like so many of the alumna of this group of people, and he ruefully adds that on this Saturday, two days before Christmas Eve, he actually has return to work. I give him the appropriate condolences, and yuk it up, saying that his bonus would more than make up for the inconvenience.

After a few laughs, and swigs of our respective drinks, we're out of things to say. As I go to excuse myself to get some of the fried food across the room (and ditch what was becoming and awkward exchange), my old friend launches himself into a joke.

My addled brain really isn't listening to the set up. Something about Helen Keller somehow gaining the ability to see. It's cumbersomely told, and by the end of it, a few other alumna of the organization have joined our “discussion."

The joke ended with Helen Keller saying something like “ I'm black, the world's black, everything's black, I HATE BLACK!"

Some folks laughed, believing the joke to be genuinely funny. Others laughed because of the terrible way that the joke was delivered. Oh Billy.

“That's fucking racist," I hear myself say, as the guffaws around me hit as nervous pitch. They can't tell if I'm joking or if I'm truly outraged.

My old friend smiles in his aloof manner and begins telling the joke again, as though in the second telling, I'll more clearly see that the joke is alright.

He misses the point. The setup is immaterial. Its his conclusion that is a kick to the stomach.  Somehow, the joke equates being blind to seeing everything in black, which we're given to understand, would be TERRIBLE.

The takeaway: even individuals who have never seen color know that black is ugly or somehow awful. “I HATE black!"

Somehow I untangled myself from that conversation, that afternoon. I knew that they believed that, as usual, I had taken a perfectly reasonable conversation and distorted it into a racial “thing." My reputation as a racial rabble rouser preceded me.

These sorts of incidents peppered the afternoon and evening. As I begin to walk away from the bar, I'm called back my wirey fellow.

“Hey man," says that the kid, smoking a cigarette and unabashedly drinking a beer outside. I knew this man when he was a little boy. Though I haven't seen him in years,  I know he's gained a reputation for partying hard.

“Leaving kinda early, huh?"

I was drunk and annoyed. I wanted him to be absolutely clear that I  wasn't leaving because I lacked the capacity to have fun. I wanted him to understand that for hours that I HAD been at the party, I had endured the weight of tokenism, and that I had stayed well longer than I should.

“I hate white people," I say descriptively.

At that moment, I did.

Maybe Tomorrow

All I can think of is the woman's delicate features. Her petite little body with a hint of birthday cake caboose. With her striking auburn hair, that curls gently to her shoulders. That porcelain face that looks as though its been carved out of tinted ivory. Her soft golden eyes that stare ever vacantly into the soft netherlands of space and place and race.

She's a teenager, or maybe she's just barely 20, and she's got the whole world in front of her and the whole world behind. She stares out the window of the bx1 bus winding its way slowly along the Grand Concourse, her expression as dead as the lifeless trees that line the street on this morning in late fall.

Why does she look so empty, I wonder to myself. Why is she so sad? Does she have a grandmother sick? The one who took her in when her mother sent her to live here in the United States when she was only 14? 

Grandma. The person who had coached her through those difficult high school days when she had struggled with English, and dreaded the humiliation of getting made fun on account of her accent.

Grandma. Abuela. Who reminded her that she had come to the country alone, with no one to cry to. Working 13 hours shifts in the hospital laundry, making pennies. Who had lived a roach infested apartment building, in a 2 room apartment with 7 exhausted bodies.

Grandma. Abuela. Tata. Who had left her family in the DR when her children were still in grade school, to forge her own path in the United States. Who didn't care about what the parents of her dead husband said, when they screamed that she was abandoning her children just at the time when they had lost their father. Who did what she had to do in partly to support the whole family, and partly for her own sanity.

She would never call herself a feminist, but she was fiercely independent. She did only what she wanted. She visited the DR often, but never enough, and knew that her children were growing up, supported by her dollars, but without her guidance. She owned this fact, but never questioned her decision. When she'd gotten a chance to raise the child of one of her children, she did not blink, for she knew that the had neglected her own. 

Maybe this girl on the bus seems dead because her Tata has cancer. Perhaps she's smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes her whole life, and, at 65, the effects are finally making themselves known. Maybe the vacancy registering on the young girl's face is bewildered shock. 

Yes. Yes. Or. 

It could be the boyfriend that's making her grim.

 He's probably a massive guy, with an authoritative swagger. Maybe he was a football player in high school, or something. That's probably where they met, right after a game she'd come to with her friends. Maybe she had been a senior then, and he only a bold sophomore. Perhaps she was still self conscious about her English, but she had an idea of her beauty because she can feel the eyes that constantly stare at her. The truth is, she probably knew for awhile that men looked at her. Maybe this boy was the first one to make a move. After the game? Near the bleachers? After Dark? Cool fall breeze, and the smell of distant halal food from a cart wafting towards them?   I can see them, her and him, exploring each other's every nook and cranny, in a fit of jagged ecstasy. 

 Maybe she was happy when the first started off all those months or years ago. Maybe she'd even laughed when she was with him. Perhaps, though, the same thing that happened there that probably happened to her everywhere: she got bored. 

Boredom. Dull, drab, nothing-going-on-dom. Ugh, gray, everything-the-same-dom.

 Is that why her delicately rouged lips are always pursed in a lifeless expression. She probably works.  That's where she's going this morning on this bus. Or, maybe she's off to the community college. It strikes me that Tata probably wants her in school. She has always been a stickler on education, and also thinks that school is a great place to meet people. She likely encourages her grand-daughter to be more social.

  I can't imagine this little woman partying, but she probably does, sometimes.  She drinks a little, and she doesn't mind smoking weed. She never overdoes it though, ever. She probably goes with her hulking boyfriend, and turns the other way when he cheats on her right in front of her. She knows, as she's always known, perhaps, but it just doesn't matter. 

 Well, here she is, standing up to depart the bus, staring ahead with those priceless eyes, those eyes that say there's nothing inside. 

When she walks by me, I want to scream. 

"CAN YOU SEE  ALL THE FACES THAT PASS YOU BY?  DID YOU EVER KNOW THE PLEASURE OF DAWN'S FIRST LIGHT?   WHEN YOU WERE A GIRL, DID YOU DREAM OF PRINCESS? OF CASTLES AND KNIGHTS, AND DASHING PRINCES? SMILE, CHICA, SMILE PLEASE, LIFE'S TOO SHORT, TO LOOK SO MEAN!"

In my mind, everything rhymes but I know that what I have to say is too nuanced for all that. Maybe tomorrow I'll find the words that will matter. Maybe then I'll let her know.  

HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER

There is no substitute for patient, diligent, good old fashioned hard work. Watching Marlene twist my hair back and forth, spending countless hours at her art, the entire time on her feet, I marvel how often this lesson is lost on me. Twisting and retwisting, constantly readjusting, heedless of the time, she's obviously working for the sake of quality, not for the convenience of efficiency.

Her snail's pace got me thinking about the premium I've placed on efficiency in my life:

In third grade, I was proud that I had mastered my times tables and would beam when it was announced that I was among the speediest multipliers in the entire grade. There were others who had gotten the problems right, but none had done it with such blazing accuracy.

In high school and college, I routinely finished essay based exams with time to spare, and I pompously left the test sites with a smug grin.

Of course, where I was slow in execution, I assumed I lacked aptitude. I remember doing calculus problems at the beginning of senior of high school and realizing that I was always the last person to complete assignments. My confidence plummeted, not because I got wrong answers, but because, I was slower than my classmates, and therefore a weak math student."

Life in the real would has not been different from my school days. As a 24 year old intern at Sony, the name of the game was handling and prioritizing tasks from a list of 300,000 things that had to be completed, and then, like a sniper, shooting them down with pin point accuracy and acuity. I remember that I would often arrive to the job a full 45 minutes early to do battle with the copy machines, and have the 600 pages printed well before any executive walked in (the 600 page figure is not an exaggeration. They ate up massive quantities of paper over on Madison Ave.). I wanted to give the appearance that I could fly through anything, and do so with superior accuracy.

Even in quotidian matters I demand speedy execution. I want faster internet, cell service, and Wi-Fi. I insist that the subway arrive sooner than its made to arrive, and when I finally get on, I insist that it get to where I need to go with dizzying speed. FASTER, I frantically mutter to myself as the east side trains inch along during rush hour, FASTER!!!!!!!

And yet there was Marlene, and her slow, meticulous fingers. Committed to craft. Invested in style. Pulling my hair with gentle firmness that makes my scalp sing in pain. Her attention to detail, immaculate. By the fifth hour that I had been in the chair, I wanted to scream. But when she finally released me to the care of a hair dryer I knew the magic she had worked. Another stylist would have had me out an hour before. But I surely wouldn't have been so beautiful.

Twisted Locks

"You look sick, " said Marlo, with  perfect West Indian bluntness.

"Why you look like that?"

As she looked up and down the haggard face of her twenty-something son, she clucked her tongue in disapproval.

The whole time she spoke, her fingers flew, dexterously pulling strands from her client's stubbornly nappy  hair, retwisting the new strands of growth into beautiful locks.

"I'm fine Ma," Justice said wearily,  stifling a massive yawn.

Normally, he went directly from his job as a writing assistant at Hunter college, to the apartment he shared with his college buddies, down near 14th street. This morning, though, his mother had whined at him in a phone message that, saying that he absolutely  had to  come see her, and that she would be off work at 5.

The truth was, Justice hadn't visited his mother since he had been obligated to go to the apartment he'd grown up in way out in Flatbush for Christmas.

Then, she had ranted and raved that he hadn't brought home his girlfriend, and chastised him for dating a white girl.

He had protested that his girlfriend had had to go home to Puerto Rico (and that she was not white but Latina) , and he complained that she needed to stop stalking him on Facebook.

He had left immediately after Christmas dinner, and ignored the numerous messages his mother had left on his phone. He'd been fed up.

It wasn't until February that he even brought himself to listening to messages she left thrice a day, and he ruefully observed that she had started coughing violently in long drawn out messages. She never explicitly stated that she was dying but used a worn, frayed voice to complain about "grandchildren whom she would surely never know." Eventually, her histrionics had winnowed down his resolve to avoid her.

Now, as he saw his mother looking fresh as an ox, he could barely contain his annoyance.

He WAS exhausted,  having graded 82 written midterms over the course of the week, and his patience was very low.  He had been told she would be done at 5, but he could see that is mother had just started on someone's hair and wouldn't be done for another several hours. 

"I'm gonna go Ma," Justice said, already turning to leave.

"That's my son" Marlo cooed sweetly,  the young man in the chair, "he don't have no time for his mother."

"Ma,-" Justice began,  but he was immediately cut off by older woman talking to her client.

"Noooo time for his little ole mama. A shame shame shame!"

She aggressively yanked the client's hair at every "shame," causing him to wince in pain.  The scene in front of him was immensely more uncomfortable, however, he made sure not to cry out so as to remain inconspicuous.

Justice was half way out the door, when she barked at him, with a combination of venom and despair.

"WILL I AT LEAST BE INVITED TO THE WEDDING?!!!!"

The door slammed with a thud.

Justice took a deep breath as he stepped into the bright late spring sun  and he could feel that summer wasn't far off. He could feel his whole body relax.

He silently cursed his buddy for posting the video of his proposal to Rosa, and cursed himself for not having unfriended is mother on Facebook.  He'd wanted tell his Ma that he was getting married delicately, in a manner that wouldn't send her perpetual anger  spiking.

He knew that she expected to be consulted on the matter. However, he also knew that whatever his choice was, she'd never be happy with it and had long ago stopped trying to please her.

While he could not articulate it, Justice intrinsically understood that his mother took out the woes she'd had with men on her him. She'd been abandoned by Justice's father and step father alike because they too knew that her bitterness was boundless.

The young man chuckled sadly to himself as he descended the stairs to the 6 train. She had unwittingly pushed away the only man who she had left in her life, he thought. She was so alone.

Sage and the Collared Shirt

It was an average day outside. Sixty-three degrees and partly cloudy, with light variable winds out of the southwest, and a 30 percent chance of rain after 3pm. Sage knew these things about the weather because his grandma always kept the news on at the apartment. He liked the weather.

Yes, it was an average day outside. Sage waited for the the BX 1 to arrive to take him from 185th street, where he went to Central Middle School, back over to his grandmama's house in Mott Haven.

The bus arrived in average fashion, about 10 minutes behind schedule. He climbed on, slid his student metro card through the slot, and picked a seat in the area that he usually sat, in the middle part of the bus, on the driver's side.

In terms of distance, he wasn't traveling very far, but the bus always took it's sweet time. Always there was someone racing after the hulking mass of public transportation, and the stories folks had for why they lacked the fare or metrocard to pay their way were always long winded and entertaining.

Today, Sage spent most of his time on the bus, staring at the sky over the small office and apartment buildings that dotted either side of the Bronx thoroughfare. He wondered if the 30 percent chance of showers had been a bit of an underestimate, as he could see thick storm clouds way off to South. A storm was brewing for sure.

At 149th street, the boy got off the bus and headed east toward Lincoln Hospital. Manny, the who ran the food cart outside of the hospital entrance, was always kind to him, and sometimes gave him a quarter off the hot pretzels he sold. The man seemed to have an unusual knack for telling the weather too, and Sage was interested to see what he thought of today's forecast.  He was almost certain that his suspicion about the impending storm would be confirmed.

As he made his way down the the slope that that exists between Grand Concourse and Lincoln Avenue, he passed an average sort of folk. Hospital technicians and staff smoking cigarettes on break. Men with missing teeth, teetering the side of serious drunkenness  calling out for anything so that they could buy a cup of "coffee."  Young men and women heading up and down the avenue, going to and coming from the local community college.

To Sage, the 4pm hour in the Bronx was never more alive than it was on days like this. He whistled a tune that he liked from the radio, and made his way eagerly down the hill, anxious for his salty, doughy snack.

At the cart,  the average nature of his average day was shaken. Instead of Manny, a tall white gentleman stood behind the cart. He wore a tuxedo, and his face looked pinched from years of screwing up his face at mediocrity. As Sage approached, he could feel the man's eyes move up and down, appraisingly. From the outset, the boy could tell that the man didn't like what he saw.

"Excuse me," Sage said in his shy manner, "can I git the pretzel?"

The man coughed condescendingly, and shook his head from side to side. He did not even so much as glance at the hot pretzels next to him.

Sage felt himself blushing, and he wasn't sure if the man could hear him.

"Can I git the pretzel?" he said again, more loudly.

This time, the man in the tuxedo seemed to wince, and his pinched face became wracked in obvious displeasure.

"Young man," said he in the cart, "in order to patronize this cart, you must wear a collared shirt. And besides, sneakers and sweatpants certainly won't due."

Sage was confused. For one thing, he did not know what  the word  "patronize" meant, but he was certain that whatever it was, he was being insulted. And what was so wrong about his outfit? He'd never been told about his clothes before.

He knew that he would look foolish to ask again for his snack, and he felt even more embarrassed as the man behind the cart now looked passed him as though he were invisible. With a last uneasy look at the cart, he trudged away back toward his Grandma's apartment, his gait noticeably more labored.  In the distance, he could hear a low rumble of thunder, and a single rain drop struck his head.  Story gentrification had begun.

NIKE

The shoes that had been gifted to him had quite obviously seen better days. They were vaguely orange, with dark splotches here and there from years of exposure to the elements.  Nike swoshes appeared on either side of each sneaker, as though even deterioration could not thwart the power of branding.

He wasn't enthusiastic about the donation  he'd received on the corner of 96th and Lexington. No, he hadn't really been happy it all. His blackened bare feet had longed developed calluses that could withstand subarctic temperatures with relative ease.

In fact, he was proud of his lower extremities.  It was on them that  he had walked from Philly to New York in three days, when his brother had expelled him from the house.

"You can't stay here no more " Robert had said to him somberly, one morning in early January, some years ago. "My wife has had enough of your carrying on and such. "

He hadn't said anything. Without putting on a jacket or grabbing any of his personal articles, he'd simply walked out of the house, barefoot, and and walked northeast.

He wasn't sure why he'd picked that direction. Maybe it was because the Amtrak train tracks ran adjacent to his brother's place in Germatown and he'd been sure that he could travel a good ways without being seen.

That had been two years ago,  and he enjoyed telling the story to anybody on the street who would listen. In his retelling he always left out the part about how as he walked out of the house, he HAD in fact made sure to grab two  things: his flask of Jamieson and his flask of Bacardi.  He also neglected to discuss how he had somehow abandoned the tracks just north of Levitown, PA,  and hitched a ride all the way to New York. Ah... these details he kept to himself; depending on the day these particularities were lost even to himself.

As he stared at the shoes he'd been given, he began to become a little angry. He hadn't been holding doors open at the Associated Grocery Store so as to gain shoes; what he needed was money for his essentials! A small handle of Jack Daniels would do just fine.

"NOOOOOOO" he shouted to the next customer as she walked in and disregarded the open door that he dutifully held open. He could not remember who had given him the old sneakers, or when during the day he had even received them. It could have been an hour ago...it could have been days.

Whatever the time,  he felt his rage converge on this petite shopper who just passed by him by. With a guteral scream, he flung the shoes at her head with all his might.

The woman, who could not have weighed more than 110 pounds, fell heavily to the ground and several shoppers nearby screamed. Someone called out for ambulance as blood began to tricke from the back of her head.

The man felt a little sorry as he raced away toward nowhere in particular on his feet of the earth. He supposed it didn't matter where he went next.  He'd asserted his agency and that felt pretty fucking good.

Golden Slippers

That night he had the same old dream.  Of the thick brunette girl with pursed lips sitting up, waiting for him to come home from his first job in the afternoon.  In this instalment she wore a huge State U t-shirt and golden slippers.  They were actually solid metal through and through he knew because in the dream she had barely been able to lift her legs.

Beneath the T-shirt she was quite obviously naked. Her hard nipples pressed up against the thin fabric of her shirt,  inviting him to touch them. With effort, she spread her legs wide and, began to begin a kinky gyration on his bed. She licked her lips suggestively and her hazel eyes bore through him.

He didn't remember having taken off his clothes but in an instant he too was naked. His insecurity about his tiny stature and puny equipment was off his mind for once, and his olfactory sense was overwhelmed with the smell of sex. He was particularly turned on by the fact that she was essentially chained by her golden slippers, though somewhere in his mind he was vaguely repulsed by himself.

Needless to say he ravished her, this way and that,  over and over and over again. She didn't seem to have the capacity to make noise but he could tell from her expression that she orgasimed at least thrice. He was a sexual God.

When his phone rang that morning to signify the beginning of another meaningless day on his shift at the  University bookstore and then class, he found that his boxers were utterly soiled. Grunting,  he pulled himself out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. He had to piss, badly.

As he showered that morning, he felt himself get hard as he contemplated the dream. He found it somewhat ironic that even though he was a gender studies master's student,  his  fantasies trended toward the chauvinist. Technically,  his research focused on womanism, that African American brand of feminism, and yet his subconscious was so deviant.

 In principle,  he preferred black woman to white woman (and golden Latinas above everybody) but his wet dreams were stubbornly fixated on this singular white girl.

Who was she? What did she mean to him? Was he a complete hypocrite? 

He rolled out of the shower, and dressed himself quickly, grabbing his massive backback. He would have to read some serious bel hooks today to atone for his sinful thoughts. 

That's What Friends Are For

Sam, a young man in his early 30s sits alone at a bar that is mostly empty. He is in a suit and has clearly come from a corporate job. He sips a gin and tonic and stares at the television screen behind the bar. Suddenly, Malik, a rail thin, immaculately dressed man in a fabulous pea coat and boots walks into the bar. He signals to the bartender who stands at the far end of the bar. As he sits at a stool directly to the left of Sam, his  drink (a long island iced tea) is brought forth; clearly it had been prepared in advance.

SAM: You owe me.

MALIK: For what?

SAM: The game last week. You and ur friend said the Knicks were gonna      get crushed.

MALIK: Aww--

SAM: Aww nothin.

MALIK: You the one making all that lawyer money, shit! Plus, you're drinking one already!

SAM: Well then get my next one.

MALIK: (not convincingly) Oook, fine.

Sam laughs

SAM: Cheers!

MALIK: Salud!

The two clink glasses and drink. This after work drink is  something of a ritual for them.

MALIK: (haltingly) Hey... speaking of my buddy...  what happened that night after I went home ?  I mean he won't call me back, and he won't answer my texts.

SAM: I dunno. He was cool when he left.

MALIK: Yea?

SAM: Yea man.

MALIK: You didn't get him fucked up or nothin.

SAM: Oh come on-

MALIK: Seriously. I mean he wasn't crazy drunk was he?

SAM: Malik, he's a grown ass man.

MALIK: He's 22.

SAM: Which is plenty grown!

MALIK: He's a baby.

SAM: He's old enough to know his limits.

MALIK: And young enough to be pushed into ANYTHING. I know how you can talk people into drinking more than they should.

SAM: Excuse you?

Malik lets it drop for a moment and sips his cocktail, readying himself for his next offensive.

MALIK: How bad was he?

SAM: He was FINE!

MALIK: Fine like 'fine fine', or fine like 'oh shit' fine.

SAM: (chucking) Man, when you're done with the whole starving artist/ teacher bit, you should consider law school. You're better than most prosecutors, trust me.

MALIK: Please, just answer the question.

SAM: He had a few drinks and and left!  I don't know what he did after that.

The two sit in silence for a moment; Malik eyes his friend suspiciously.

MALIK: Him mom called me that night.

SAM: His MOM?!

MALIK: Well, I WAS once his tutor.

SAM: I thought that was when he was in middle school.

MALIK: Yea, well, I helped him out a few times after that too.

SAM: (sarcastic) The gift that keeps on giving, huh.

MALIK:(accusingly) At 2am he still wasn't home.

SAM: (finally peeved) Look, imma tell you this one good time. YOU were the one who brought the him that night.  Before then,  I obviously had never met him before! If you were trying to babysit him to make sure he got home to mommy, maybe you shoulda PERSONALLY seen to it that he made it there.

MALIK: Woah woah, chill.

SAM: I'm just saying,  I don't understand why we're pretending this ADULT is 5 years old.

MALIK: Well it's...he's just someone I care about OK?

SAM: (mimicking Malik from earlier with sexual emphasis) Someone you care about care about,  or someone you just care about?

MALIK: You're disgusting.

SAM: Am I?

MALIK: He's a former student.

SAM: So?

MALIK: You're joking.

SAM:(exasperated by the game). I didn't do nothin with him, if that's what  you're fishing for. I'm not into white guys anyway.

MALIK: Hey, no I wasn't suggesting-I just want to see how he is!

SAM: Mmhm.

MALIK: Seriously! I just think its weird that he disappeared so crazily that night,  just totally off the radar.

Beat.

SAM: (syrupy) So...you wanna know...if something HAPPENED that night.

MALIK: (wary) Uh. Yea.

SAM: (overly cheery) Well, why didn't you just SAY that!

MALIK: I did...

SAM: No you didn't.

MALIK: What are we talking about?

SAM: The kid you tutored.

MALIK: Sam-

SAM: There was a girl.

MALIK: That night?

SAM: Yea man. At the bar. After you left.

MALIK: I see.

SAM: Do you?

MALIK: I...yea....was she cute?

SAM: He thought so, he bought her a drink.

MALIK: (noticeably deflated) Oh.

SAM: Yup.

MALIK: Did he seem...I dunno ...excited?

SAM: (sly) Excited, how?

MALIK: No, not like that, Ugh. Never mind.

SAM: OK.

MALIK: OK.

Long beat

SAM: You gonna ask it?

MALIK: Ask what?

SAM: They left together.

MALIK: (almost shouting) You're making it up.

SAM: I swear to God.

MALIK: Then why didn't you say so before?!

SAM: Damn man, you really WERE looking to score!

MALIK: It ain't like that!

SAM: It is!

MALIK: You're trying to piss me off.

SAM: Would it piss you off if he got some pussy?

MALIK: Of course not!

SAM: (mimicking with feigned) Of course not!

MALIK: You're a dick sometimes, you know that?

SAM: Just doin' my job. Are we done talking about your potential boy toy?

MALIK: I'm leaving.

SAM: You owe me a drink!

MALIK: Fuck you!

SAM: Come on don't be like that.

MALIK: I'm tired.

SAM: You're horny.

MALIK: (resigned) Just...just shut up OK? For once would you not say the thing that's at the top of your head? Thanks.

SAM: (laughing kindly) OK Malik, OK. But what kinda friend would I be then?

The Devil In Me

It I is said that I was born on a Sunday in September where it rained so hard that some car windshields were smashed, but I think that that's probably a bit of inebriated hyperbole, perpetrated by one Ms. Rolands.

By all accounts, it had indeed been a Sunday, and my mother had been where she normally was on a Sunday afternoon, singing with the Christ Redeemer AME Church, our little store front church at 140th and Cordlandt Avenue. The before mentioned Ms. Rolands had been slurring out her alto part in the hymn “Were you there" when my mother apparently broke forth screaming that she was convulsing with the holy spirit, eventually accosting the terrified Ms. Rolands with balled fists.  (Again, this hyperbole was egregious on all counts as it is said that  my mother quietly and inconspicuously tapped Mrs. Rolands on the shoulder and asked  to get by her.

No one disputes that the Reverend Candies (yes, that's ACTUALLY his name) had been railing about eternal damnation,  and the pit of fire that was sure to consume "so ah,  so, ah ah, so many of this here congregation, yassah."

Let me take a moment to address Rev. Candies' speech, as it is something that Ms. Rolands was fixated on. At one time, his particular vocal tic in saying "ah" had been one that he had intentionally invested in for the purpose of sounding what he believed to be scholarly. Eventually, however,  the ism had turned into something of a real stutter,  of which he was immensely proud. When he was saying something of particular merit,  he could "ah" for minutes at a time before concluding his point.

That morning, as my mother ambled by Ms. Rolands, Reverend Candies' sermon had been littered with "ahs" and his sermon had been rather directed  In fact, one might say that his message had been somewhat pointed during the entire season of my mother's pregnancy. The store front church being what it was, it was no secret that the Reverend had a, how shall we say, insatiable thirst for those of the (ah) "weaker sex" with a (ah ah ah ah ah ah ) pious disposition. That is to say, when young, quiet Jesus-seeking women entered into his flock, he could not help but tend to them--- personally.

I can only imagine my shy, petite mama, joining up the church having just come from Tortola,  British Virgin Islands.  Her manners were perfectly British, and I can almost see her big brown eyes taking in the Bronx.

I've often asked myself why my mother chose the Bronx.  She worked as a bank teller was all the way downtown, near the world trade center, and she must have had quite a commute. In the 80s, when she'd arrived,  I imagine that there were parts of Harlem that would have been safer than Mott Haven,  the southernmost part of the Bronx. Most of her other relatives who lived in the states either lived in Brooklyn or East Harlem. Perhaps she moved to the converted warehouse building in the South Bronx because there was no lease and she didn't need proof of employment.  She had somehow found two roommates, and made do.

Whatever it was, she'd made the church the center of her life,  going to all services. (Sunday, Monday,  Wednesday,  Friday, and Saturday). Ms. Rolands says that it's precisely this fact that caused a misunderstanding between the Rev and my mother.  Reverend Candies thought my mother came for the powerful and (ah) undeniable SPIRITUAL magnitude that (ah) young women were often fond of (ah ah) receiving from him. On numerous occasions, he had entreated her to join him for one-on-one bible study at his home, only a few blocks from the church, and she had quietly refused. When he became desperate that she wasn't understanding his meaning, he'd  asked her on a date directly, apparently to dinner at some pizza joint on 149th street. She'd hemmed and hawwed the way my mother was wont to do, but in the end it was clear: the answer was no.

According to Ms. Rolands, "God is a jealous God, but wasn't nobody more jealous than Rev. Candies." You must imagine, therefore,  that it was with great agitation that Reverend Candies received news that his most prized sheep was pregnant. For one thing, the young woman spent so much time in church, that he could not fathom when she would have had time for such "Satanic absurdities." Moreover, he had assumed that he had been making inroads with this little lamb, as she had almost smiled at him at the Wednesday Friday services.  

 When she later rebuffed his extraordinarily magnanimous gesture of taking her as a wife so that she could avoid utter shame, his incredulity cemented into bitterness. His sermons took on a glistening edge, and all he could preach about, for several months straight, was the evil and snake-like trickery of woman.  Ms. Rolands says that it was hard to stand the man during that time, but hell, it was their church, and they weren't about to abandon it. 

  I should take a moment to a apologize, for I do ramble so. It was the my BIRTH we were discussing, and it is the birth we have finally come to. My mother inched her way by Ms. Peterson, and began to trudge toward the back of the church.  Several watchful eyes noticed that she seemed unstable, and Elder Dinkins (possibly one of the only members of the church who was ever openly critical of Rev. Candies, but that's another tale) immediately bolted forward, as my mother sank to her knees.

"REPENT THY SINFUL EVIL WOMAN! RENOUNCE THE SIN OF TEMPTATION YOU HAVE INDELIBLY REVELED IN! REPEND THY PRIDE IN REJECTING THE LORD'S CARING AND TRUSTING HANDS" shouted a delighted Reverend Candies, who, according to Ms. Peterson, didn't seem to have a clue that the young woman had hit her time. He assumed that she was actually submitting to his withering torment. 

The choir had ominously swollen to a fever pitch in their hymn, the 8 sopranos screeching 

"WERE YOU THERE WHEN THEY STRUNG HIM FROM THE TREE?

WERE YOU THERE WHEN THEY STRUNG HIM FROM THE TREE?

OOOH, OOH OH OH! SOMETIMES IT CAUSES ME TO TREMBLE. TREMBLE, TREMBLE.

WHERE YOU THERE WHEN THE STRUNG HIM FROM THE TREE?" 

When my mother began to call out, several members of the choir raced to Elder Dinkins' side.

Suddenly, the lights of the church began to flicker on and off, and the very ground trembled. Rain thrashed the little edifice, and rolling thunder shook the place to its core.

After a moment, though, the earth stood still, and the wind calmed. The lights steadied, and the choir silenced. 

"It's a BOY!" Elder Dinkins cried, and the woman began cooing. 

Almost concurrently, however, a shriek went out from the choir.  The Reverend toppled over the front end of his rostrum, and fell to the ground. 

He was dead.

My first victim claimed and I was not yet a minute old. 

Who is John Galt?

“ And I was like 'you don't know who John Galt is' and he was like 'I'm so drunk dude, like I have no idea but I feel like I've heard of him,' and I was like 'dude, how have you NOT heard of John Galt, you fuping idiot?' " "Wow, dude, that's crazy."

 It was very late on a Tuesday night at the NYU bar, and they were desperately trying to show the world they were thoroughbred hipsters. They made sure that their fake glasses were extra fake to show their commitment to irony, and they each wore the style's centerpiece, extra skinny skinny jeans.

 It was winter time, so each young man had flannel on, and their stylized-messy hairdo had a little too much gel. This evening, they drank vodka, straight. They'd both recently tapped into the queer handbook which dictated that in order to stay skinny, one needed drink low calorie clear liquors, though neither one was ACTUALLY queer of course. As they got drunker, their exaggerated hand gestures became absurd, and they began cackling about how they could use a line or seven of coke.

 On their 3rd drink, one of the students had decided to start pronouncing the word "fucking" with a consonant sound that reassembled a hard "p" such that "fucked" sounded rather like "fuped." The other man, thinking that this syllable change was a new idiom of hipstersville rather than a breezy whim of an alcohol addled mind, seized upon it unquestioningly, and soon the fuping asshole professor who'd given them 1000 of pages of reading that week was so fuping annoying that he probably didn't even fuping notice that he'd fuping assigned the fuping exact same reading the week fuping before. As always happens in get togethers of this sort, the two expounded upon their knowledge of musical acts that exactly no one had heard of.

Presently, one man pretended that he had indeed heard of John Galt, a transgendered banjo yoddler from a suburb of Stockholm Sweden who had undergone a sex change to become a woman, but who still retained her birth name----a salvific form of irony.

 Suddenly, Ashton Bilard, their African-American friend, walked in.

 "Hey Ashton, dude, I was just saying that the fuping guys at the show last night didn't even know who John Galt is."

 Ashton smiled ironically, and adjusted his own fake glasses. "Who is John Galt?" he asked prophetically.

The Reunion

She scoots along in a walker that supports her heavy frame , and her ankles are swollen from scars she later tells me resulted from her diabetes. Everywhere she walks, she is tailed by a young teenager, whose expression is rather dour. We are at a place where there are very few people of color so the fact that the teen is black is noteworthy.  It's the Camp Hadley reunion.

“Hey," calls the big woman, “HEY! Was that you whistling over there?" I had indeed been whistling and so I respond in the affirmative . My response is the opening of Pandora's box.

“My name is Sara and this here is my niece Stacy." Stacy has conspicuously turned away from me (and from her aunt).

“Stacy,"commands the older woman, “come meet the young man. He won't bite." Turning back to me , Sara adds “her mother don't make her meet enough people, so she's real shy, but I won't just let her slink around. I tell it like it is see, but her mama don't do that." Before I can respond, Sara launches into a story.
“I came to camp in 1978 for the first time. My sister was the camp nurse at the time so I was visiting her. Fell in love with the place right then and there."

“Oh, how wonderful," I say, not quite sure what to make of this bizarre encounter.

"STACY," shouts the big woman, heedless to my meaningless platitudes, “stand in FRONT of me. You know I don't like it when I can't see you."

As the teenager grudgingly trudges in front of her aunt, Sara adds this nonsequetor “my whole family is big, all of us except my nephew. He's six feet tall and 130 pounds"

“Wow,"I chirp aimlessly.
"He's a stick," she continues, whimsically, and stares out onto the field in front of us.

“Well," thunders Sara, breaking out of her pensive moment, “this place is just so spiritual. I keep telling Stacy that she ought to be more talkative here. Everybody here is one big community."

“People are nice..." I lamely offer.

“So so so much spirit," she adds sitting heavily in her walker. “There are spirits right now. Indians right here."

"Indians?" I ask beginning to feel the hair on the back of my neck raise up. I look at Stacy who is still working hard to ignore me.

“Oh yes honey. Dancing on the field as we speak. They're celebrating ."

My crazy meter is going off , but I cannot help myself as I ask “So....are there MALEVOLENT spirits here as well?"

She nods her head very slowly and for once is silent. Stacy shifts her weight to her other foot and stares wordlessly at her aunt. She's interested. So am I.

“Down at the boathouse. When I first got here in '78, I was doing a tour of the place. As I got close to the docks, I froze and told my sister I wouldn't go any closer. Intense pain went up and down my spine. When I got back to the cabin, I took off my shirt and I had huge scratches up and down my back, mmhmm yes I did. Do you know what it was?"

I shake  my head, enraptured.
“It was the claws of Satan that got me. Straight outta hell. Oh yes. Let me tell you something.  Before camp was camp, the Indians used to live here. Well, one day, a white  man came while the men were hunting.  He raped all the woman and girls of the tribe and strung up all the boys. When the men came home and saw what had happened they found the white man, dragged him to where the current boathouse is, and did the Indian equivalent of ‘drawing and quartering.’ So now, that spirit lives in the boathouse, and for what he did, he became a conspirator of Satan's. Now, I'm not sure that spirit is still there. But I ain't never been over there since, no way."

She was nuts, I realized. But I was nervous all the same. I wondered how she had come to know the back story of the boathouse ghost but I decided to avoid this question. What did she want me to DO with this information? When, a few moments later she offered to tell me who my guardian angel was, I declined vehemently. 

"Your loss," she said casually, slowly scooting away.

I stared after her with the paradoxical urge to beg her to tell me more and to flee from her as fast as I could.