Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Cold



An old black man sits beneath a small grocery store awning, watching as we pass, knowing I must be a distant acquaintance to the city by the way I pause at every building entrance to look again at my handwritten notecard.


"We're on the wrong side of Manhattan."
I tell my mother and sisters, whose feet bitch and throb from our unexpectedly long walk. "We were supposed to go west on 44th Street, not east." We turn around.

As we pass the old man and the small grocery store for the second time, he says something to us. I look over. One of his boots has been pulled off. Must be shaking a pebble out, I figure. But then I see the real reason why. It is to show me his tragedy, his dark stump cracked with dry white lines. Diabetes took his toes, he tells me. Can he have some money? I look away and walk faster as my mind meshes: teach a man to fish so he doesn't buy drugs because if you give him money, you should give her and her and him and him a little money as well. And let's face it, you're pretty broke yourself.

I do not acknowledge this desperate man with anything. He took his boot off for me. He took his boot off in hopes that I would have pity and give him money. He troubled himself because he doesn't know me. He doesn't know that I shy from panhandlers, petitioners and salesmen. That I have crossed dangerous streets and even walked through a CVS Pharmacy just to avoid saying, no I'm sorry I can't. He doesn't know that I am afraid to give and equally afraid not to give and therefore I usually pretend I haven't been asked to give. Because if he did know me, he would have kept his boot on and saved himself the hassle and embarrassment of exposing his diseased, naked foot to a cold stranger on East 44th street.





Saturday, February 13, 2010

I Talk




Sitting sheepishly silent, minding myself, I wait for the buses to line up outside to take me home.


"Hey, Girl, you talk?" The boy behind me in homeroom asks. 


"Yeah." I talk.



Now thirteen years later, I balance a flour baby on my hip. I carry it everywhere I go, coating each acquaintance I bump into with a painfully thin layer of white powdered awkwardness. It settles into the cracks and crinkles of me, clogging my nose and curbing my ability to communicate intelligibly. I choke and cough on dry, shy mumblings. I nibble nervously on my chalky, flaky cuticles. I jerk my eyes from contact with other eyes to slap the dust from my shoulder; sneeze onto my shirt sleeve or to pound the powder from my pants.

However, this is not about wanting a carriage with a baby in it. This is about wanting courage with a couple of balls in it. I have problems. Yes, I know. Problems I should address with a padded envelope and an entire book of stamps.

Do I talk? Yes, I talk. And I don't spend every single day secretly and hurriedly looking onto mirrors and the backs of metal spoons. Some days I look nice, pretty even, and I say funny things to laughing listeners.



A Wise Friend

A wise friend is akin to a book of old wisdom.  A book of bone and soul and skin. A book that breathes and speaks and eats. A book with a so...