A scene from Hyde Park

It's Valentine’s day in the cold, cold world. Yep. Having a sad day. I am underrating massively, of course. My Sad like having a black train rolling though my spine and crushing all goodness and hope. Im a bit of a depressive, but I’m fighting it and I win most of the time.

After two cups coffee, the first line of defense against depression, I went outside to go to work and immediately felt better. I had expected to be bitch-slapped by the cold, but the seeming mildness of the 30 degrees made me feel pretty manly and butch! I was acclimating! ?Quien es mas macho?

Walking to work and past my neighbors I scored no points. One point is when they look at me when I pass. Two points is a nod or a smile. Three points is an actual word or two. From 47th to 55th, I ran in Love. The tennis kind of love. The zero points kind of love. I have been getting a little bitter about my frequent low scoring , which admittedly, is easy for a man burdened by the black dog of depression. And I can understand why folks would be suspicious about the only white face in the neighborhood. My people have had a shitty past, after all. And if our
places were reversed, if I saw a person walking about looking all singular. . .well shit, actually I couldn’t say.

Where I come from, most of the city is pretty mixed. Even in the most polarized of ‘hoods, there is not the absolute white-out like you find in Chicago, so the concept of one face in a sea of it’s opposites is completely alien. If it did happen to me, I would go out of my way to include that ‘other’. Which is partly motivated by white guilt and also by being an experienced outsider and the child of one. After being walked by and left, it’s hard to just walk by. I can’t stand to see a person be ostracized, until absolutely necessary.

I guess that’s true of all who have felt the ostrakon’s stony sting upon our face and bodies. Playing my own devil’s advocate brings me back to my reality, which is not the reality for any of my neighbors. Of course these folks are suspicious. They should be. I picture the conversation between black women on the bus, after I leave the bus smiling and saying hi to them.

BETTY
Who the hell is that white guy to be walking all around and shit.
BERNICE
Has to be a mistake.
BETTY
That gotts be true. And if he’s here on purpose that’s worse.Why is he here? What’s he wanting from us? Prolly some offay egghead doing some kind of sociological experiment. Well this ain’t no Tuskegee. I ain’t going to give up my DNA or any other letters I can tell you that right now. Just look at him, walking around and smiling all the damn time. Like that’s gonna make me say Oh! Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood! Come into my house and breathe my air and eat my damn food. I work too hard the put bread on my table to just give it all away to some white dude.
BERNICE
MMm Hm. A smile will let the devil in.
BETTY
That’s so true it ought to be tattoo’d on Barack Obama’s face.
BERNICE
Man, he fine.
BETTY
I don’t know what you see in him
BERNICE
If you don’t know I can’t tell you
BETTY
‘side, he’s practically white himself.
BERNICE
Practically still ain’t.
BETTY
Mm hhmm.
BERNICE
I know he is black enough to be sad about Whitney.
BETTY
Oh, girl, don’t, I barely got to stop crying about that this morning.
BERNICE
Well you know white folks don’t get it. I don’t get it how they don’t get it, but they don’t.
BETTY
Oh, girl, Whitney!
BERNICE
How can a person be so damn different like that?
BETTY
She sang like she was just breathing, like it was just leaking out. So beautiful.
BERNICE
I mean I understand not liking Michael Jackson. . .
BETTY
Oh, Michael made it hard to like him.
BERNICE
He did. . .but Whitney? Ain’t no comparison? Makes me mad.
BETTY
Mad?
BERNICE
Yeah, Betty,I said mad. I’m having trouble forgiving white folk about it too.
BETTY
What!?
BERNICE
What?
BETTY
Girl, you work with Buddhists.
BERNICE
Yeah.
BETTY
You work with republicans.
BERNICE
Yeah.
BETTY
You work with lawyers.
BERNICE
Yeah.
BETTY
Girl, you even work with that pale bitch that calls herself a witch.
BERNICE
Oh, Rhiannon just playin’ , she don’t mean it.
BETTY
But I’m sayin’ that all that you got no problems with. Those people got different morals, different politics, different Gods and one of them even got a different color sky I don’t care what you
say about Rhia-whatever, and it’s Whitney that gets your goat?
BERNICE
Yeah. I guess that’ s what I saying.
BETTY
That’s kinda messed up. And I agree with you completely. What up with that.
BERNICE
She real.
BETTY
Mhm?
BERNICE
Whitney was real. All that other shit people like or don’t, politics and what-all, that shit just window dressing; curtains to make the messed up world look a little less messed up.
BETTY
That’s some deep shit.
BERNICE
Is it? Didn’t mean it to be.
BETTY
That’s prolly why it came out right. Whenever people try to be deep it comes out like buullshit.
BERNICE
Well, I don’t know about that, I just don’t mind disagreeing about the little stuff. But Whitney, girl, don’t nobody better dis-remember her.
BETTY
Makes sense to me.
BERNICE
I know it does.
BETTY
I bet that white boy don’t get it.
BERNICE
Girl, I know he don’t.
BETTY
And it would be weird if it did.

The dialogue in my head faded away after that. I hope it’s close to real. That’s all a combo of what I saw with my head and heart, and then squeezed through the funnel of my pen. Let me know how this all plays in the theater of your mind. I did actually hear the phrase ‘a smile lets the devil in’ in a conversation between two so-called African American women on a bus.
I’m gonna keep smiling though, and hope they don’t see my devil in it.

Lighten up Poole!!!

Damn!

That last blog was a massive downer! Let’s liven things up with a blast from the recent past! Here is the transcript of the guy who had the bottom bunk of which I was the top the third night I was in Chicago. The gentleman, peaceful and polite when awake, was a sleeptalker, sleep singer , sleep moaner and sleep groaner. His sleep diction was perfect, in fact he spoke clearer when asleep! The following is an accurate script form several hours one late February night in a Hostel in Chicago. When reading his lines unless directed, always read them with a bright loud tone.


One last note: though impossible to sleep through, it was all still pretty damn funny, especially as I had come back late into the room, but had figured out a way to change in the closet and thereby not wake up my companions! And with the adroitness of a Boy Scout I changed to my night-togs, lept soundlessly into the top bunk and laid back dreaming of Lady Russian academics
with mysterious smiles. Two second later:

BOTTOM: Well Mr.Martin? Were those curbs big enough?

TOP(Me):Oh! Dude, sorry I thought I was being quiet. . .

BOTTOM:Certainly we’ll find the coat rack. Keep those curbs drifting Mr. Martin!

TOP: (eyes suddenly wide).. . Uh. . .

(silence falls for twenty seconds)

BOTTOM: ( there are notes, but the actual song is indiscernible) mmmmmmmmmnnuh. Mmmmmmmmmnuh nuh nuh nuh nuh mmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMm YEAH! Num num num num YEAH ahahahahahaha ahah ha!

TOP: (eyes extremely wide, all sleepiness is gone, I am wide awake)

(Silence for 45 seconds. I am lulled into thinking it’s over)

BOTTOM: Oooh yes we can! Yep! Yes! Find it the way you left it! Johnson, you and Fairly get the rutabaga. Get it! Yes I said get it! If you don’t then it go wrong. Very wrong. Mattresses?
Yep!

BOTTOM: (violently tosses in bed, kicking at the mattress) If you don’t take care of it someone else will! I know where the frying pan is, Margaret! Ha! Yeah?
What? Sure? Where? Yes. Yes. Yes. NO! If you think best.

(SIlencefalls for about three minutes, again lulled into a false sense of peace)

BOTTOM: (softly at first) nnnnnn . . . . . .hhhnnnn. . . . .hnnnnnn. . . . . .hnnnnn . . .
.(volume picks up) NNNNNNN HUHN huuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnh MAAAAAHHHH!
MAAAH! (hard kick on bunk) mah mah!!

TOP: You gotta be shittin’ me.

BOTTOM:Yeah?! Yeah! Yeah! I’m gonna get some. A lot? You know it! Let’s all get some
of that sweet honey bear! Heh, heh. Heheheheheheh. MMMMMmmmmn nnnnnnlal lala. lalalloo laaaoooooo

(Silence falls, I am not fooled.)

BOTTOM: Hitler HitlerHitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler HitlerHitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler
Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler!

TOP: (eyes could not be more wide)

BOTTOM:WHoooooooooo. Tummy mummm uumm hum hum mmmananna.




This all continued for the entire night.


He’s a nice guy. He just says Hitler a lot when he sleeps.