The Parable of the Wordsearch

Everyday, the first grader entered the classroom on the brink of crying frustrated tears.  He knew what grave peril awaited him on the worn desk in the broad, eastern facing room.  The sun’s jubilant rays could not lift his spirits, and with anticipatory defeat, he sat down heavily, clutching his dull pencil grimly.  He stared at the large block of letters in front of him and knew that this morning, like every other morning, he would not be able to finish.

Yes, this was the daily wordsearch.  Ten words were hidden among what seemed like a vast sea of letters, and they were impossible to find.  In two months of school, Chris had never found all of the words in the 30 minutes allowed to complete the exercise, and this devastated him. When he woke up in the morning, he knew it was coming and nothing could shake the bleakness of his mood. While his fellow first graders would walk in with light hearted ease, and do their morning work with good natured chatter, Chris could only stare at his paper somberly.  It wasn’t that Chris couldn’t read. His skill in that area was above-average, and his spelling was decent. The problem, Chris came to feel, was that the word puzzle was intensely stupid and bad and mean. He could not understand why he had to submit to it daily.

One day, in early November, the sun’s rays illuminating his little corner seat, Chris’s teacher approached him. She whispered a few words in his ear. What she said caused him to gasp, and he picked up his pencil in a rush. In the end of 30 minutes, he had completed his first wordsearch.  As the weeks wore on, he no longer moped to school, and he became one of the best wordsearchers in the first grade.

As an adult, Chris sometimes remembered his teacher’s words when frustration paralyzed him and indecision blighted him.  She had said:

“There is no order.”

She had meant that while the words one had to find were listed in a particular sequence in the wordbank, one could locate the words in the actual puzzle in any order one saw fit.  He had spent months agonizingly trying to find each word, one by one where he could have scanned the puzzle for any of the words, circling them as they caught his eye.

He learned that even in the most rigid of situations, he always had agency. In this way became one of the life’s best wordsearchers. 

Corona and Pringles

The friends sipped on beers and were watching a sporting event on ESPN. It was the Fourth of the July, and both happened to be in town, where they'd grown up. It was the summer after they had graduated college, and the two hadn't caught up in some time.

"You know how the Ivy League is," Andrew was drawling, taking an unassuming swig of his beer, "the pomp and circumstance of graduation takes forEVER. After awhile I was like 'let's be DONE with this already.'"

He had laughed unctuously, in quick nasal spurts.

Marcus rolled his eyes. He had long forgiven Andrew for his narcissism. It had been awhile since he had hung out with his childhood friend, though, and this sudden burst  of prepossession caught him slightly off guard.

Digging into the Pringles can, Marcus took a moment to watch some pointless play in the baseball game they were watching.

"When does work start for you," he asked politely.

Andrew screwed up his eyes in mock concentration, and then threw back his shoulders in complete resignation, as though the effort of remembering was utterly draining. 

"It's at the end of the summer, or something, I really don't know. Sometimes I wonder why I even bothered applying to a job in finance, because it is all so marvelously quotidian. Last year when I was a summer associate, I think I stared at spread sheets for like 15 hours a day everyday. I didn't do jack shit. It was really stupid. Dumb Dumb Dumb."

Marcus knew that his friend was trying to sound exasperated about the prospect of making nearly 6 figures  a year in his first job out of college, but he wasn't buying it. This was thinly veiled bragging. 

Suddenly, Andrew got up and walked across the room. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out another Corona, popped it open with a bottle opener built into the wall, and and resumed his seat on his couch. He stared at the television, and yawned. 

Marcus looked at his empty bottle. He supposed that he would refresh his own drink. 

"Hey," Andrew called in his pretentious manner while Marcus was at the refrigerator, "would you get me a lime? They're in the lower bin." Before Marcus could even respond, his friend said "Thanks so much." 

Cradling his beer and the sliced limes in his hand, Marcus gingerly returned to his seat. 

"Say," called Andrew, "what was it that you were doing again? teaching?"  

Marcus smiled. He could see that Yale had made his friend more of a douchebag than he had ever been, but it had not completely wiped out his manners. Asking your company what he or she did was what propriety dictated. 

"Well, not quite. I'm going to be working for an organization in Newark that works with at-risk teens, trying to help them get their GED. The goal is to eventually expand and help send people to college."

Andrew sighed. He knew everything, and could be surprised by nothing. 

"That's really nice," he said vacantly, though his tone said that he found everything Marcus was doing to be beyond meaningless. 

"I don't think I could ever do that," he added, having changed the channel to a stupid show on FX that featured a man eating piles of the spiciest wings on the planet. 

"You don't think you could do what?" Marcus inquired, hopeful that they might have a conversation. He  remembered that they used to talk deeply about things. 

Andrew stretched phlegmatically, his scrawny arms thrown high above his head.

 "I don't know, serve as an educator for the underprivileged. I find it hard enough to ACKNOWLEDGE their complete destitution. How the fuck could I presume to FIX it?"  He stroked his obnoxiously large forehead, "It's too much work." 

Marcus, could not contain himself. He began laughing. 

"You're such a dick!" he cried. 

Andrew shrugged and took a long drink of his beer. 

"I think I'm just more honest than most. People are just too afraid to call things what they are. I don't think crazy activism is going to solve the education problem that we have in America.  And frankly, there are some people who are just not meant to go to school at all.  Let's be honest Marcus, there are people in this country who just aren't cut out for THINKING."

Marcus snapped back. 

"So, people who were born with less, in communities with terrible schools, should just sorta stay there, huh? They're inability to perform well on state and national tests is a function of their own ineptitude, not the severely biased system they were inculcated in? Andrew, are you HEARING yourself?" 

"I didn't SAY that-" 

"You DID! By your thinking, black folk and latinos in poor places everywhere are just plain DUMB."

Marcus stopped abruptly and stared at his friend. Andrew's eyes were glued to the tv. Finally, with a sigh, he turned to face his friend. 

"Marcus, you're getting emotional and twisting all my words. And anyway, I obviously don't think YOU'RE dumb."

With that, he had wiped his hands clean of the conversation. 

Marcus brooded over his beer, and kept silent.  The charge of being "too emotional" had been one that had constantly been launched at him in high school. Whenever he ventured his opinion, particularly when it came to race or socio-economics, he was told that he was being irrational. Even at Hamilton College, where he had had many enlightening classes and conversations, that line had once or twice been hurled at him.

Marcus understood what he was being accused of. He was being told that he was appealing to the animalistic nature that his people were naturally prone to. He was being reminded that he was regressing to the ape mentality he was born of,  and he was being warned that if he wanted to speak to civilized (read: white) folk, he'd have to be "objective" and "unbiased."

The hypocrisy of this way of thinking made Marcus want to shout in rage. Indeed, one would have to be utterly inhuman to be "unbiased."

 Andrew was lording his whiteness over him now, and Marcus knew it. He was, in a few stinging words, reminding him that the country still found the thoughts and ambitions, motivations and challenges of black America to be "foreign" and distinctly "other."  Andrew was forcing him to remember that despite having a black man in the White House, power still rested in white hands. The mere narrative of conventional American life still regarded black and brown brothers and sisters as animals. 

Marcus chugged down his beer, and stood up. He was going to drink this house dry, and become the beast he was already presumed to be. 

  

TFA

A bird flew full speed into the large glass panel windows of his classroom window. With an obnoxious "THUMP" it tumbled downward, drops of blood trailing after it. 

Mr. Perry's 5th graders did not blink. They were immediately out of their seats, clamoring over one another to see the bird  plummet the 5 stories and hit the ground.

"UGHHH!" shouted LaTia Andre, "lookit all da BLOOOOD!" 

Damien Moore pushed her out of the way and gave a whistle. "Yo, how funny would it be if it HIT somebody!"

Justin Washington and Gary Williams began laughing hysterically and acted out the the scene, imagining themselves as unsuspecting pedestrians being hit by a falling avian missile.

Trina Malpie and Amara Beliez briefly peeked out the window, and resumed a hand game they claimed to have invented called “1-2-3 snap."

“1-2-3 snap
clap, snap, clap, snap, snap
1-2-3 snap
snap, clap, snap snap”

Jason and Joey Milton (no relation to one another) debated how the bird resembled a character from "Mario Cart" that they played on the hand held Nintendo ds game systems that the after school program let them borrow. As always, their conversation devolved in an argument about who was the better player. 

Mania Spalding was comforting Chris Hendrick as he cried uncontrollably. He was an extremely nervous child, and the bird's falling had set him over the edge.

Chris  was fortunate to have a friend like Mania, who he'd known since birth. Without her, he would have been mercilessly made fun of. Indeed, Mania had a sharp tongue and a strong punch and she wasn't afraid to deploy either in Chris' defense. 

T.J. Bindle and and Ray Robinson spotted the bird on the ground and opened the window to point.

"Yo, man, its brains is EVERYWHERE," T.J. explaimed.  Ray walloped his friend on the back and said "Man, you can't see his brains! You LYIN'!"   

Suddenly, Leanne Blanco  shrieked and pointed toward the cubbies on the opposite side of the room from the windows.  Others of the students turned just in time to see Paula Pope and Kayla Stephens drop two sets of backpacks that they had extricated from the in-class lockers.

Instantly, Riley Ruiz was upon the two thieves. He was the biggest boy in the class, but the two girls did not shrink from him. They knew he was harmless.

"What you doin' touchin' my shit," he called aggressively. His command of the expletive was impressive.

"Ain't nobody wanna touch your dirty ass bag," Paula said, snapping her neck here and there in a manner that she had surely learned from her mother.

"YEA!" Kayla added in support. She never did have much to say.

It was clear that Riley hadn't really thought beyond the initial exchange. He knew there was nothing in his bag worth stealing anyway. Like most of the class,  he didn't have a ds or a cell phone. He got breakfast and lunch for free and he carried his school issued bus pass on his person.

To save face, he flinched at them as though he would physically attack them. Both girls rolled their eyes, and went to sit down next to Walter Jones. They loved messing with Walter.

“ Hey," called Paula, “ HEY!"

Walter knew the game that was being played and utterly ignored them. He was in the midst of the 2nd book of the Eragon trilogy, and he had the massive 600 page library text open on his lap.

“ BOY! ” Paula said, as her friend Kayla purposely hit the book, knocking it to the ground.

“ YO!" Walter called indignantly. As he bent to pick up his book, Kayla kicked it away and giggled.

“ How come you don't answer when I call you? You got somethin wrong with ur ears?"

LaTia Andre swung around to see what she was sure was the beginning of a fight. Damien Moore, Justin Washington, and Gary Williams halted their reenactment and swivelled to get a better view of the brewing altercation. The Miltons ceased their argument and Chris Hendrick suddenly stopped crying in Mania's arms and alternated his stare between the mean girls and the book worm. Trina and Amara suspended their hand game while T.J. and Ray, noting that all had gone silent behind them, paused their analysis of the bird remains to see what was up. Leanne Blanco smiled in anticipation while Riley Ruiz stared at Walter. He wondered if the little brain had enough anger in him to stomp these girls.

Paula picked up the behemoth book. She smiled sweetly.

“ You want this? Huh? You want this?"

Walter said nothing. He did, however begin advancing on the girl.

“ Answer me nigga! If you say somethin' I might give it to you."

Kayla laughed at her friend's wit.

Walter stepped closer as Paula she retreated toward the window.

“ You want bird blood and guts all over your book? Huh? How you gonna take this back to the libary if it got brain on it? Ain't you gonna answer me? "

She made to dangle the book as Walter suddenly lunged. In an instant, she tossed the book out of the window, causing the entire classroom to gasp.

Walter grabbed Paula and began punching as hard as he could, and wild chanting erupted from the other students.

He was hitting her hard and twisting her hair, as she tried to bite him. When she fell to the ground, he gave her a merciless kick in the stomach, and stood over her, shouting expletives.

“ Mr. Perry," cried Kayla, breaking her customary monosyllabic posturing out of fear for the well-being for her friend, “ ain't you gonna DO nothin'?!!"

The teacher stood aghast at his desk where he had been pinned since the class had utterly and completely abandoned his lesson. He had been yelling at them to return to their seats, to stop playing and arguing and had completely lost his voice. When the fight between Paula and Walter had begun he had resigned himself to the fact that he was a mere spectator at this zoo.

Now he was horrified at the scene in front of him. Dimly, he wondered what had made him so confident that, as a black man he'd he'd be able to handle these east Harlem children of color. As though by virtue of their shared skin color they would just love him, respect him, listen to him.

They had told him that is class would be small, and it was, by Harlem standards, only 17 students. He'd been informed that he'd have the utmost support, and that we he would have immeasurable resources.   He felt as though he were on a desert island. 

From day one, his students had smelled the Exeter on his breath, and the Williams College in his blood. They seemed to sense the three generations of doctors he came from and his family's summer home in the Hamptons. They knew he wasn't one of them, and they had no interest in engaging in any charade to the contrary. His first semester as a Teach For America core member was going abysmally.

Just as Mr. Perry began to step forward to address the situation, the door swung open, and Dr. Saunders, the assistant principal stepped in. In an instant, every student was in his seat.

Mr. Perry was shocked that even Paula and Walter had peeled themselves off the ground in record speed, and were at their seats, though Paula  tried to gently clutch her stomach and Walter very slowly massaged the bite on his arm.  They knew that being inconspicuous was crucial to dealing with the school's AP.

“ Mr. Perry?" The Assistant Principal accused.

“ Dr. Saunders?" The teacher squeaked.

They eyed each other. Then the woman departed, deliberately closing the door in slow motion, her eyes surveying the classroom. 

When she was gone, the entire class, teacher and students sighed in relief.

Mr. Perry looked at his class, unsure just how to proceed. Somehow, he'd need to get that book outside before any administrator saw it. He couldn't send a child out by him or herself. And yet he couldn't go out there himself. He was in quite a dilemma. 

The teacher was shocked at how quiet the class was at the moment.  He knew that he ought to seize the moment to actually teach them something. He turned to the board and tried to remember where he had left off.

He looked at the clock. Monday, 10:30am. Dear Lord, had time ever moved so slowly?

Love Thy Neighbor

The storm raged aggressively outside of Kevin’s window. The lights in his small apartment flickered not for the first time, and outside he could see that the young trees lining the city streets were severely bowed.  The frozen precipitation that was falling made the world a slick glossy surface and few cars braved the hill past the University.

Kevin liked looking out the window and people-watching. It was a great distraction from the papers he was supposed to be writing for his graduate courses. Sometimes, he’d observe an elderly couple struggle up the hill, arm in arm, the man chivalrously leading the woman. From his vantage point on the second floor, he could always see the lust in this gentleman’s inconspicuous glance as the gorgeous Latina in a power suit that that somehow perfectly accented her womanhood left the building immediately adjacent to his.  He’d chuckle as this curvy young lady flinched backwards from the tiny barking dogs that were being pushed in a twin baby stroller by a gentleman who seemed to perpetually wear slippers and a bathroom, irrespective to the time of day or outdoor temperature. He’d watch in awe as the young children shrieked by the bizarre man and his dogs, seemingly oblivious to the strange and fascinating world around them.

Tonight though, it was too stormy for any of these characters to be out and about.  There was no one on the street.  Staring in front of his computer, he wished desperately that the power would go out so he could further procrastinate the completion of his assignment. He needed to post his 5-page analysis of some abstruse text or another by midnight, and it was only 8pm.  For some reason, he just couldn't concentrate.   

Yawning, Kevin scanned his tiny dorm apartment. Apart from his desk, the “living room” was quite bare. A dust ball, powered by the draft coming from the window he sat by, tumbled across the floor, and he could hear the persistent hum of his tiny dorm refrigerator. The futon that he used as a bed was untidily made, and his books were scattered half-hazardly beneath it. He sighed as he regarded his overflowing laundry bag, and admitted to himself that he’d have to go to the laundry mat down the way fairly soon. He had once paid for a service to pick up his clothes and wash them for him, but after a few semesters, it had seemed rather extravagant.

He was getting up to stretch his legs and take a “break” from his paper when he heard the shriek. It was a single blast with penetrating force, and shocking amplitude. As though on cue, the lights in the apartment went out and for a moment, there was eerie silence as though the storm had decided to take a breath. Then, from the distance, Kevin could hear what sounded like a low rumble of thunder, a rare thing in January.

Where had that scream come from? Was his next-door neighbor in danger? Should he grab his flashlight and see what was the matter?

Kevin thought about her. Her long beautiful legs. Her perfect shoulder length flowing auburn hair. The slightly bemused expression that always seemed to line her face. The scent of peaches that always wafted after her when she left the elevator they often rode together up and down, down and up.

  She had been frostily polite to Kevin since she moved in that September. She brusquely refused him when he tried to carry her groceries for her. She curtly nodded “good-morning” when they passed each other on the way to the showers in the middle of the hallway.  She barely returned his small talk on the elevator, and seemed reticent to even tell him that she was a Masters student in the

University’s School of Social Work.

Like a fool, he had asked her out to “drinks some time,” one Friday evening when they both came in late. He’d been out with friends, and was feeling the confidence of several drinks.  Standing outside her room, with that same bemused expression, she told him that he was “sweet” and gently closed the door on his face.

There was something that was clawing at his memory now, that he could not quite put a finger to. He shook his head and recalled that he had heard a desperate scream. The walls of the graduate dorm/apartments were quite flimsy, and he stood with his ear pressed up against the wall, the dark of the room consuming him, he could hear nothing.

Suddenly, his mind raced wildly. He had just read a story about a killer who preyed on students at one of the City Universities. The man had gone after young women who he’d been watching for weeks, as he had posed as a panhandler just outside of the college campus.

He thought about all the people had observed on the street. What if that old couple wasn’t old at all.  Couldn’t they be some sort of criminal duo that used elaborate makeup to spy on the University’s graduate housing?

And what about that curvy Latina in the power suit? It occurred to him that attractive woman usually befriended women who were as attractive as themselves. Perhaps this Latina was actually a killer looking to befriend University females as beautiful as she, and then subsequently kill them. This was quite plausible!

 Kevin considered the man with the dogs in the stroller. He realized with a start that any number of weapons could be postured underneath the barking animals! And those children running by made so much sense now! Perhaps they were lookouts, sending messages about who came in and out of the building  to the stroller man.

Kevin had to take seat on the bed, as his anxiety notched another level.  He realized that it was possible that everyone he had been watching on the street for all this time could be part of an intricate scheme to murder woman at the Graduate school. They were out to get his neighbor, he just knew it.

Kevin grabbed his flashlight from its place beneath its bed, and a large wooden stick that he always kept with him. It had fallen from a Torrey Pine tree that had been struck by an errant tee shot of Tiger Woods’ during the 2008 U.S. Open, and was extremely lucky. Well, that’s what the ebay ad had claimed.  He was a sucker for all things Tiger Woods.

Now, he placed his hands in the interlocking grip that he had learned fromTiger Woods’ 2000 book How I Play Golf, and ventured out into the emergency lit hallway. He lightly tapped his neighbor’s door with the stick, and waited with bated breath. No one answered.

He knocked again, and called softly.  Still, dead silence. He checked the door, and was surprised to find that it was open. Should he enter? Well…she could be dying in there. He had to save her.

He stepped into the darkness, and the smell of peaches nearly overpowered him. The space eerily echoed, as though it were a much larger chamber, and his eyes struggled to adjust to the over powering darkness. 

“Kate?” he called tremulously, his voice bouncing of the walls. He had taken several steps into the room when he began to remember.

Thunder sounded a little bit closer, and the wind howled restlessly. Kevin’s flashlight rested on her face.  It had begun to erode, but her bemused, twisted smile was still visible. He went to her and stroked what was left of her auburn hair.

Yes….yes…. he remembered. Friday night. The elevator rejection. The rage. The forced entry. The blows to the head.  The single scream. The peach cream to combat the rotting smell.  The silence.

Jubilation filled him. With a delighted stride, he went back to the door and shut it. Then, he removed his clothes, and climbed into bed with the girl of his dreams. He had never been so happy. 

Saturday Nite Live

"Sam used to come in with these crazy shorts that were like strung up past his thighs, like IN-FUCKING-SANE," screamed the curly haired Jew. She had entered the party without introduction and the whole group stood aghast at her obvious insanity.

"Like, he'd stand there,  like clearly trying to get a hard on in front of us like we'd ACTUALLY be impressed.  Like 4 inches, whoop-D-fucking-do, lets write a fucking letter home,  oh my fucking GOD!!!"

She threw her head back in a bawdy unattractive laugh that had even fellow chosen ones flinching  in disgust. No one could remember who had invited her but she had been SOMEONE'S friend from college. She always seemed to turn up at these events.

Xavier was in the corner huddled with his buddy Juan. They weren't really friends but their common ability to chug red wine had made them  bosom brothers.

"I dunno bud," Xavier was saying, "I don't honestly know if any man is designed to have sex with the the same singular  woman for a long period of time. "

Juan teetered back in bibulous agreement and clapped his hands.

"It's TRUE," he exclaimed in an excited whisper,  "man was never meant to be monagomous."

Xavier picked up his empty wine glass smashed it with emphasis upon the dresser in front of him. He could not feel the blood trickle down his hand.

"Right! RIGHT!  The idea that there is 'one true love' is absolutely farcical. It's a Judeo-Christian construction born out of a convention that has, for the most part, been proven  ineffectual. Like honestly,  I try to have at least four to five biddies around just to keep MY fire roaring."

The two cackled indiscriminately and  grabbed the tequila shots that had been sitting next to them.

Thae curley headed Jew was loudly expostulating with a WASP about the importance of running on a treadmill  as a large Negro entered the room. His deep bass voice halted the room.

"Hey," he cooned, "any of y'all got chicken?"

The Secret

“ Tell me a secret," the tall brown skinned girl said in a lazy voice. She was huddled up against her boyfriend, as the two waited for the 4 train at Yankee Stadium to arrive. It was frigid outside, almost dangerously so. The weather forecast has called for an inch of snow, but the driving precipitation suggested that much more was set to fall.

“The fuck is this train at " wondered the young man under his breath.

“Baby? You hear what I said?" The young woman peered up at him beyond the scarf that she wore. She was so beautiful.

“Huh?" Asked the man, craning his neck in the direction the train was supposed to arrive from as though doing so would magically make it get there sooner. 

“I just need this damn train to come." he called absently.

A sudden gust of wind blasted them and, the young man could feel his anxiety reach a fever pitch. They had to get downtown by 8, they just had to.

“Tell me a secret, " the girl whined, playfully punching him in the stomach. She seemed inured to the obscene cold.

“ Tell me tell me tell me."

She had taken on a 4 year old's tone and manner that she thought was really cute. He found it plain annoying.

“ Stop it," the man said in a distant voice, taking out his phone and checking the time for  the umpteenth time. The train needed to GET here.

Suddenly, without warning, his girlfriend was striding away at a great speed.

“ Woah! Monica! HEY!"

She was already halfway down the stairs, moving with a swiftness that caught him off guard.

“ WAIT!" he cried. He groaned when he saw the lights of the incoming five train.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he sprinted after his girl. She was already stomping down grand concourse toward her apartment at 154th street. Soon he caught up with her.

“ Monica, we're gonna miss the reservation," he huffed angrily.

“ Don't care," she said laconically, pressing onward through the driving snow.

“ But it's your favorite spot, I thought.... Hey, WAIT!"

He sputtered as she broke into a run. After a few steps though, she slowed, and when he caught her, she stopped altogether. She was bawling.

He embraced her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He didn't know what to make of this crying. His toes throbbed in the numbing cold.

“ You don't listen to me," she said, “ What I have to say is never important to you."

“ That's not true," the man said through gritted teeth. The howling wind was overwhelming.

“ You won't tell me a secret," she sobbed.

He had wanted for it to be perfect. At that seafood place she loved downtown. With the ambience and the jazz trio he had hired.  With the bottle of champagne to follow. He saw all of that was meaningless.

He kneeled down on one knee on the frozen ground, and removed his glove. Trembling, he reached into his pocket and produced a box with the most glorious secret she could have ever desired.

PWW (Pushy White Woman)

Chance squinted at the note on his door:

"Hey, I left the silverware and the plates in the sink. There's some dishwashing soap on the counter."

In a brisk motion, he snatched the note from his door, and entered his tiny room inside the 4 bedroom apartment. He wasn't about to deal with this bullshit right now.

 He tossed his computer bag on top of a heap of dirty clothes and nonchalantly eyed his disheveled unmade bed. Remembering that he was still waiting for his producer to call and let him know if Rixi would be doing the morning show, he switched his phone onto its highest ringer setting, and placed it in the wall charger. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly 11:30pm and remembered that he hadn't eaten since the lunch spread at Rixi's AOL sessions video shoot, which had only ended an hour ago downtown. He was hungry.

He departed his room and walked along the long corridor. He passed two of his roommates' bedrooms and noted that their lights were out. Perhaps they were already asleep.  He could hear that the television in the living room was on, and he went to see who was there.

He was vaguely annoyed to find that someone had carelessly left the large consol on,  and he saw that "The Bionic Woman" was blaring on one of the oldies cable channels. His roommates loved that sort of ancient cheap television. 

Chance went to the kitchen, and flicked on the light.  In the corner of his eye, he saw a  three tiny roaches scamper out of sight on the counter, behind the blender and the toaster.  Opening the refrigerator, he looked for the steak he'd bought the week before. He needed to cook it before it expired anyway.

 It took him several blinks to realize that everything had been entirely rearranged. 

His designated shelf had been scoured, and there was nothing left except a peach that he'd bought, and a single yogurt carton.  He looked at the other shelves, and opened the bins at the bottom of the unit. His steak was nowhere to be found.

Chance was beginning to feel annoyed. To sooth his nerves, he took a deep breath, and decided that someone must have made a mistake and eaten it. These things happened. He'd have to order something. 

He stood up, closed the refrigerator, and sighed in resignation. As he turned to retreat to his room and call for a pizza, he froze. 

There on the counter were 9 bottles.   Lysol Spray, Pamolive, All Purpose Scrubbing Bubbles, Generic Brand Amonia, Cascade Ultra wipes, Dawn Concentrated Dish Cleanser, Greenworks DishCare, WindexDish, and Finish Soap wash. By these cleaning products stood a mountain of new sponges and rags, all still in their plastic wraps. 

Above the sink was a sign in the same handwriting as that which had been on his door. This one read:

"Chance: Wash me," with an arrow pointing down into the sink which had the dishes that he had used from that morning.

Chance was pissed. Who the hell did Mandy think she was, anyway? So what she'd been in the apartment the longest, did that mean that she had to be such a bitch? 

Mandy had for some time made opaque references to the fact that "people" needed to clean better to combat the roach siege they were under. "People" also needed to clean because it was unfair for "other people" to have to clean after them. "People" just needed to do better.

 He contemplated how it was that his name had become the face "people" in the apartment. He was almost certain, however, that he was never "other people." 

God Dammit. This Pushy White Woman (PWW) was RACIST. Yes, that was it. She clearly had no regard for his negritude and was singling him out. How could it be that HE was the one responsible for the roach issue? 

What really stoked Chance's ire was that he had SCRUBBED the dishes that morning! ALL of them, including those left by his other roommates!

Suddenly a thought hit him, and he became positively irate. Had she thrown out his steak?  Was that the meaning of her announcement last night that "people" needed to make sure not to leave around food that might go bad because it could cause "other people" to get sick? Had she been WARNING him in a roundabout way?!

That passive aggressive bitch! That steak had at LEAST one more day before it was going to go bad! Why, he was going to tell Mandy exactly what he felt about her.  He didn't care if she was asleep, he had to get this off his chest.

He stormed out of the kitchen and began marching toward her room down the hall. Suddenly, he heard his phone ring in his room. He raced to get it.

"Oh, hey Cam.  Naw, I'm still up, no worries. Fox 5? alright. Yes, of course. See you then, bye"

 Chance hung up the phone and massaged the beginnings of an unkempt beard on his face. Rixi was going to do the morning show after all, so he'd have to be on set by 4am. 

He closed his eyes for a moment. What was it he was about to do? Ah, right. Wake up Mandy and curse her out. He stood up for a moment, and then sat back down. He realized that he wasn't hungry anymore. He was just tired. 

Wearily , Chance looked about his room and a laugh, unbidden, came forth from him.  The place was an absolute pig sty.  Dirty clothes, filthy old dishes, and papers strewn everywhere. The very air in the small space had the musk of sweaty unwashed gym clothes.

Chance lay down on his bed, fully clothed. He'd have to be up soon enough anyway.  As he drifted to sleep, he resolved to buy a steak for tomorrow night. Yes. Yes, and he would eat it right away.   

Mott Haven

I live in the Bronx. Well, I live in Mott Haven. Somehow saying “Mott Haven” makes me feel as though that I have class; like where I live actually isn’t the southernmost part of the South Bronx, but somewhere fancy and exclusive, and superior. I live in a neighborhood, not a borough.  Perhaps it’s the Princeton in me that makes me an uppity Negro when it comes to things like this. The overwhelming desire to make yourself appear something greater than you are is an Ivy League trope that I think permeates my being in ways that I’m not even fully cognizant of sometimes. Well, truth be told, I’m pretty aware of it, but to SAY so would mean that you’re somehow not quite playing the game right. Guess I suck at this.

New York snobbery became real for me in my first moments in New York, 3 years ago. I was starting as a graduate student at Columbia, and didn’t know too many people in the city yet.  My buddy, who had graduated a year before me at Princeton and somehow managed to hold onto his finance job a Barclays despite the financial crash, texted me:

Friend: Hey, welcome to the city! Let’s get drinks!

Me: Awesome! Any place in mind?

Friend: Shit, man, lets go to village man. There are a couple of hot bars down there.

Me: Oh, ok…wait, so, what train do I take to get there?

Friend: Where do you live again?

Me: Oh, I live right near Columbia. In Harlem.   

Friend: Oh wow…good for you, good for you…that’s FAR!

It was a 15-minute trip, which isn’t bad at all. But the dripping judgment that seeped through his written words was enough for me to understand that I was going to need to get creative about saying where I resided. By the time we had sipped through our beers that evening, the word “Harlem” had altogether been erased from my vocabulary. Oh no, I lived and went to school in Morningside.  (Not Morningside Heights, mind you.  That would suggest that I lived even further uptown in the 140s, gasp.)

But that was then. As I said, I now live in Mott Haven. The industrial area is pretty cleaned up, and is slowly but surely yuppifying (shit, I’M here, right?). If you’ve never been out here, you’re missing something…well…very unique. We live adjacent to the Third Avenue Bridge that goes into East Harlem. If you look south on a clear day, you can see the Freedom Tower stretching to the sky.  The building we live in is owned by an Israeli man who lives with a harem of women 5 to 15 years his junior (his girlfriends? daughters? both?), and the building certainly isn’t zoned for apartments. It means that we don’t have a lease and could technically disappear at any time (though my brother and other roommate assure me that he DID collect a security deposit). 

There’s quite an eclectic group that traffics in and out of this building.   In fact, upstairs from us, I’m told there is a vibrant cocaine racket going on, and the whistles and shouts that happen here at all times of day and night belie the heavy business that goes on as people come to get their product.  

But Mott Haven enterprise isn’t just about the drugs. There are also a lot of auto shops. “Tire Zone,”  “Break Avenue,” “Torch of the Road” are just a few, and I can’t help but wonder how any of these businesses stay in business. Surely demand isn’t so great that all 205250285 of them need to exist. Then again, there ARE an awful lot of drivers around here.

One business I find particularly peculiar is the doughnut store down the street from my building. Now, let’s be clear. There are some housing projects not too far from here, on 138^th street. And, of course there’s my building and a building perpendicular to us.  Nonetheless, this area feels very isolated, and almost remote. 

Sooo…who is this doughnut shop selling to?  There are rarely more than 2 or three people in there at a time.  AND, they’re practically GIVING away that stuff, too, at outrageously low prices ($.30 per item, what?!). How do they make money?

It’s a drug front.  It’s just too ridiculous NOT to be. Tire shop. Tire shop. Tire shop Tire shop. Doughnut shop. I should say that there is also a beer distributor and liquor store down the street but somehow, in the Bronx, that sounds about right. A store whose main commodity is doughnuts though? Here? Mmhm.  It would be like having a store that exclusively sells 40s of malt liquor open on 72^nd street and Lexington; ABSURD!  I imagine a “Breaking Bad” type scenario where underneath the doughnut place, there is a high tech multi-million dollar meth lab or something.  

I cannot lie though…the doughnuts are pretty good, and the store makes a mean breakfast sandwich. For $2.50, you get egg and cheese on a roll, and a (watered down) free coffee.

Note: The shop is operated by Dominicans, and if they feel like they can, they WILL cheat you.  I saw them charge a white guy $4 for the sandwich and coffee combo, and they’ve definitely tried to jack up the price to $3.50 on me once. Of course there is no written menu.

You getting this? Mott Haven. Budding Yuppification.  Israeli property owners with dark curly haired groupies (yes, they’re very attractive). Cocaine upstairs. Tire shops.  Doughnut Drug fronts. Scheming Dominicans. Bridge(s). Cars. And…artists. .

Two men live above us (I guess NEXT to the cocaine dealers?). They’ve been together for more than 20 years, and we affectionately call them “the bears”. Mike used to be a break-dancer but now, in his 50s, he’s become a bit arthritic (and beer bellied). He dyes his hair blue, and has some of the coolest sneakers I’ve ever seen.  His partner Aaron walks with a cane and, with his long beard, he seems like some sort of Confucius sage…he’s a painter. They moved in shortly before I got to the building and have taken a vested interest in my brother and me, (maybe they think we’re cute, our other roommate suggests). One cool late summer night, when they were barbequing on the communal pit outside the building, they caught my brother and I as we were coming home from a music recording session we’d had downtown.

Mike is a white Puerto Rican and this we learned is a cause of some unease for him. He tells us that he had been on the bus earlier that day when some black youths had openly made fun of him because of his ostentatiously colored hair.  Mike is a pacifist who, through art, is looking to “end the artificial differences that divide us” (Hmm, written down it sounds very Obama, but in person it was somehow much more cloying than presidential.) On the bus, Mike became so upset that he found himself wanting to shout racial slurs, and was ashamed that he even considered it. He told us that, as a Puerto Rican, he feels that he IS a person of color, so the feelings he was having were even more problematic for him. 

With tears in his eyes, he told us that we had the agency to change things through our art, and that we had to work hard to ignore petty differences. He said that we had the power to discourse about what really mattered and change things for the better. In fact, he took it a step further.

“We are GODS!” he blurted passionately. As artists we had seraphic powers that could somehow truly move heaven and earth. As my brother and I stared at him, made uneasy by the sheer magnitude of his passion, I noted that his schema had not included his partner, who silently tended the grill and intermittently stroked his beard. “We”, my brother, Mike and me, were gods, but not Aaron?

Ahhh, Mott Haven. Neighborhood of Gods.  There are other musicians in my building. People assiduously practicing the alto saxophone and the piano and the bass and whatever else. My brother diligently mixes music on huge stereo monitors that can be heard from across the universe, and I add lyrics and vocal melody down. More bass. Less auto tune. Side chain. Louder guitar. Different synth. Try the reverb. How about echo? Eh, that lyric sucks. Start over. Less bass. More auto tune…

 I’m a writer too, but I haven’t met too many other writers here…I guess they’re just quieter than the rest. These apartments, this neighborhood…it’s my muse. It’s my place, it’s my New York. Yea, I guess its home. 

  

Fig of Hell

In the old village in the tropics lived an old woman and her granddaughter, Maria. Everyday, while Grandmother washed clothes at the well near the bay, Maria would go for a swim and explore the deep wide ocean.

While she was underwater she saw all sorts of creatures. 

She swam with the group of warrior porpoises with rounded snouts and huge dorsal fins that moved tremendous swaths of water with their tails.

She lept with the dolphins, and did tricks with the seals. She smoothly slothed with the sea lions.

All the animals loved her.  All except a guppy named Fig.

Fig loathed the fact that Maria could swim so carefree. He hated that she had such a gentle manner that even the surly crabs blushed and cooed around her. He especially could not stand the girl's speedy swimming.

"What right does this earth walker have to be faster than I," the little fish cried, every time the girl zoomed by him, laughing mirthfully with a giant squid, or an ugly octopus.

“How dare she do as she likes," Fig often muttered to himself, envying the fact that even the sharks let her hang with them. The guppy never socialized with the sharks; one wrong word could mean death.

One day, Maria approached the guppy.

“Hello Mr. Guppy," Maria said with a brilliant smile, "Would you like to play?"

Fig was transfixed. He had never been asked by the girl to play.

Before he knew it, he was rifling through the ocean faster than he ever had, with the girl at his side, laughing, singing and having more fun than he had ever had before.

He had never felt to free, so open, so fresh... so young. When they heard Grandmother call for young Maria, Guppy suddenly knew that he had to have her to himself. He had never been so alive.

“Maria," said the fish, “won't you play with me tomorrow? We can swim and laugh and carry on as we did today."

The girl tossed her head back and laughed.

“I haven't a clue who I'll hang out with tomorrow, but it will certainly be someone new. I'm sorry, dear fish, today was fun, but there are so many more creatures to meet!"

Fig could feel the rage of rejection build in his heart and his jealousy knew no bound. He hid it, though, behind a sad smile.

“Maria, I didn't want you to know but I must be frank with you. I saw jellyfish laughing at you yesterday. The whales think it's weird that you have no fins, and the coral find you dull. The sea horses believe you move too fast and the dolphins think you slow. Now there are many many things out in the sea, this is true enough. But there are few things that you'll find that love you as I do. "

He had expected her to embrace him. Thank him for illuminating the deep ocean for her. Promise that she would always be by his side. Pledge her undying adoration for him.

He was surprised when tears filled Maria's eyes. Without a word, she turned from him and swam away. She did not wave at the porpoises that blew kisses at her. She avoided the sea urchin's lopsided grin. She seemed not to hear the plankton's  excited chants. 

She did not come back the next day, nor the next day after that, nor the day after that and the sea creatures were crestfallen  and devastated for awhile. As with all things though, time marched on and on, erasing the angels and demons of yesteryear. 

Shortly, the old village was supplanted by an enormous resort, and many of the things that Maria had loved were fished and overfished, snuffed out by man's overreaching arm. Those creatures that could leave did. 

The Guppy remained though. He waited and waited.  And waited and waited.  He ate little, slept less, and hung on to life by a thread. Hope sustained him.

Then one night he had a dream. In it he chased the young Maria. He swam as hard has he could as she glided  past the porpoises and the sharks. He struggled mightily to keep up with her impossible speed as she  bulleted by  the coral and the sea horses and the manatees.   His tail and fins burned in exhaustion as he trailed her past the stingrays and the jellyfish and the swordfish and the lobsters and the crabs and the seals and the squid and octopi, and onward and and onward and onward. Finally, he found himself in a vast and brilliant part of the sea he had never before traversed. It was resplendent and full of life. It was majestic.  

Hell never looked grander to Fig. Maria was nowhere to be found. 

Devon's Nanny

The snow fell with a slow deliberation upon the city sidewalks. The world willed itself onward but it was clear that the steady buildup amassing on the sidewalks and streets would eventually grind things to a halt. 

Tami exited the private day school at 110th with a smile on her face. Snowflakes settled evenly in her French braids, and condensation came from her nostrils. She extended her tongue and tasted the precipitation that was determinedly falling and she nodded to herself in approval. Yes, this was going to be a good little storm.

She decided that she would walk to her apartment on Central Park West, rather than ride the subway. She pulled on a beautiful black scarf and gloves, and began her march south and east.

She saw a young man walking several dogs. He was tall, and handsome, and completely out of his element. She gave him a sympathetic look as he drifted by her.

Later, she saw a Hispanic man, furiously pedaling on a bike half his size. He carried a plastic bag that Tami assumed was someone's late lunch or early dinner. She marveled how he kept upright as the snow became more driving.

As she walked along the park, she observed a black youth about her age. He lit a cigarette moodily and stared defiantly as she passed, the smoke forming a seraphic haze about his face.

The cars on Central Park west flicked on their lights as late afternoon turned over to evening, and Tami began sing under her breath a tune her grandmother used to sing to her as a child.

Jesus keep my mortal soul
Deliver me from sin and woe
You who died upon the cross
To save me from all moral dross

She approached her apartment on 94th street when she heard a shriek. Turning her head, she saw a small figure waddle out of the park's entrance a block in front of her. Squinting, Tami could see that it was a young child. The toddler giggled incoherently as it raced by her, dragging a 2 foot child leash.

In an instant, Tami looked up the street for the little tyke's mother. She saw that the mother must have had a physical disability for she moved very slowly as she barked at her young son. Suddenly, the woman's shouts became deafening roars of terror.

Tami let out a scream of her own when she heard a loud screech of a car's brakes. She whipped around just in time to see the little boy struck by a cab in the middle of the street with a deafening crunch. There was no doubt, the boy was dead.

The mother of the boy stumbled by,  hysterically babbling. She passed by Tami unseeingly,  walking with an unseemly limp. Sirens broke out across the night. Snow began to pelt the city, as the world came to an absolute halt...

Tami's body shuddered in terror. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she threw off her blanket, and dragged her bad leg across the floor of her Morningside apartment to grab her jeans and a jacket. She whispered to her boyfriend and kissed baby Devon on the cheek. Then, she sent a text to Carmelita to arrive at the apartment at 10am, and assured her that everything would be resolved by then.

She shivered in the freezing darkness outside. A lonely cab honked haphazardly at her. It was nearly 4am on Saturday morning, and she knew she wouldn't be able to get her dad on the phone. She prayed that he was at his studio on Central Park West and not at the house in Darien. Either way, she needed to see him as soon as possible.

She would convince him to give her the money, even if she had to grovel. Who knows, maybe she'd even promise to go back to school. 

She thought about Mark, sound asleep at the apartment. Wasn't it he who had begged that she keep the baby? Hadn't he insisted that they preserve the sanctity of life? He had sounded just like her grandmother.

Yet he was at work all day and Grams died years ago. He didn't know what it was to listen to Devon to cry for hours on end? His body wasn't oddly distended from the pregnancy.  His nerves weren't unutterably shattered. 

In his opinion, Tami should, as a mother, have a natural aptitude for raising a son.  He was baffled when, a week after Devon had arrived from the hospital,  she had hired a nanny.

In fact she hadn't hired one at all. Her father had simply sent one over.

It had been a strange thing, for he had practically disowned her. He detested Mark. He had consciously had little to do with his daughter after she had run to live with Mark in her second semester of high school. He was appalled that she, at 19, was involved with a 30 year old. And yet there was Carmelita.

In the terse phone message he left on her phone, he explained that he would pay for Carmelita's services for the foreseeable future under the following condition: if by the time the baby was six months old,  she did not obtain a GED, he would immediately sever all ties with her. They would have to pay for Carmelita out of pocket.

Time had raced by, and Tami of course hadn't earned her GED. She hadn't felt up to it. She'd been exhausted. And now, on the day before Devon was six months old, she was about to be cut off. When she asked Carmelita if she would work for half her salary, which was well more than she knew she and Mark could afford,  the nanny had sadly shaken her head "no."

As she waited on the subway platform, she remembered that she had not meant to be a mother in the first place. She had known it would be too much. That she wasn't cut out for it. That she would lose the baby. Or worse, he would die on her watch. Her nightmares were vivid.

As the C train arrived she gritted her teeth and gathered what little maternal instinct she knew she possessed.  Her boy deserved the best, and she was going to make sure he got it. She was going to keep her nanny.

The Anthropology of (white) MAN

White people don't notice when they bump into me.
Case and point: On the Amtrak train to DC, white man number 1 accidently rammed his knee against mine .  Then he stepped on my toe. The big toe. The one that hurts.
As he adjusted his seat,he elbowed me. Now as he begins to nap, his head is coming perilously close to coming to a final resting destination on my shoulder.
He says nothing. No "pardon me." No "sorry."  Nada.
I have a friend who believes all white people to be physically awkward. His theory is that they don't say "excuse me" because they can't help their physical ineptitude.
My friend has clearly never watched hockey.  Or skied. Or run a Marathon.  Or observed gymnastics. When they want to be, white people can be quite agile.
No, it's not that they can't move. It's more complicated. Maybe they don't open their mouths to excuse themselves because logically it doesn't make sense for them to.
Logic is really important to white folk. They are masters of imperical impartiality. Where possible, they strive to root all things in the objective and concrete.
Take racism for example. Can you see it?  Hear it?  Taste it? Well then,  how do you KNOW exists? That's right nigger boy, you don't. Please stop whining.
I digress. Lets get back to the issue at hand : the logic the white man has for stepping all over me. Hm. Perhaps he does this because he is a master of space and place. If he  OWNS everything and everyone, why should  he say anything when he  begins to drool on my shoulder as the man next to me is now. He's beginning to snore.
Think about it this way: when you fart in your own bedroom, do you excuse yourself? Well then,  that's what I thought.  When White Man tramples all over me,  he is merely stretching himself over an area that's intrinsically his.
Which leads to the crux of my hypothesis: white man cannot see me. Indeed, it could be that I am an invisible man of an invisible people. Perhaps, unbeknownst to me, I was born of some strange legerdemain that allows me to be brushed aside at will.
Yes, the phantasmagoria that  defines me and my people explains so much. It's why white people assume immediately that I have no father or mother. That by the grace of God and white benevolence (redundant?), I speak standard English and went to college and graduate school. It's how they exude such confidence when they pat me on the head and call my experiences "emotional,"not based on reality. I'm a magic negro!
Now hold on. I'm not COMPLETELY invisible. When physical labor is needed or sex is exoticized I can be sure to get a nod. Rape? Murder? Well, I get a shout out there too! Intellectual ineptitude. Yes, thattttsssss me!
I suppose I should get a napkin for my seatmate whose ass has somehow blubbered its way to being partially in my seat, despite his gaunt stature . Mucus is spilling from his nose and onto my cardigan as he enjoys what looks to be the most pleasant of sleeps. I wonder if he's going down to see the inauguration tomorrow as I am.

2007

My feet are glued the floor, by a paste of semi-dried watered down Coor Light. Justin Timberlake’s "Sexy Back" is pounding over the oversized speakers for the 9th time tonight, but I’m hardly aware of it. The air is stuffy with the scent of stale beer and vomit,  body odor and piss, wanton farts and shit. From across the room, someone is shouting about some bitch that he will fuck sideways tonight. The wood paneled rooms reek of immense wealth, and the huge  Beer Pong tables themselves bear the insignia for Prestige itself: The Immaculate Frat.

My best friend stands nearly as stoic as I do, staring at the cup across the table. We have been here many times before; in fact this is how the last 4 games have gone. Our opponents have sunk the final cup on the table and have given us the customary rebuttal shots. We are, hands down, the best closers of the game, and we have owned these tables since we joined the frat as sophomores. We rarely lose, and are never intimidated. We think highly of ourselves, and know everyone else to be shit. With 10 games and many more beers under our belt for the evening, we are invincible.

I’ve missed my shot, badly. From the moment it left my hand, I knew it was wrong. I approach my shot in Beruit as a golfer approaches his putting...Calm, steady, consistent, fluid motion. I’ve made a mess of this one though. It’s down to my buddy.

“I’m bringing sexy back. I’m bringing sexy back” pulses on and and on and on, and our opponents, two boys who are looking to rush  in a few weeks hold their breath.

“Gentleman,” my partner suddenly says, in a quiet voice that forces our opponents to lean in to hear him, “I wish. You had. More time.”  

This is my buddy’s sign off line. It comes from the movie “Man on Fire,” just before a maniacal Denzel Washington blows an enemy of his to smithereens.

“JUST SHOOT IT,” demands one of the sophomores, hardly able to stand the tension. A win against us would mean oh so much for him and his partner’s reputation.

My friend’s motion is pure. It is clean, and it never changes. It has a clear arc, and a beautiful follow through. As the ball drops into the cup, it hardly even makes a sound.

I am beside myself. Even though we haven’t won outright (we have merely forced a playoff), I fist pump and am shouting as though I am Tiger Woods winning the Masters for the 5th time. My buddy is on the ground doing his customary celebratory pushups, which he always begins around 2 or 3am  after we’ve been playing for hours. We are drunk. We are happy. We are young.