Detroit « Blackhumouristpress's Blog

April 6, 2012

Every Girl is a Princess

Filed under: Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,Short Story — blackhumouristpress @ 4:43 am
Tags: abandon homes, beauty shops, crack addicts, Detroit, princesses, school plays, Short Story

Ms. Jones led Stephanie into the beauty shop that was buzzing with sounds of music and talking. Ms. Jones had her arm around the thin figure that struggled to look up at the women who were greeting them.

“Ladies, this is Princess Stephanie… Princess Stephanie is going to be in the school play tonight and I need to have her look like royalty.”

Alice Jones had escaped inner city Detroit only to return to be an elementary school teacher at Holmes Elementary in the city of Detroit. Despite fractured family lives of her young students, Ms. Jones got her fifth grade class to appreciate Romeo and Juliet and read stories by James Thurber.

Ms. Jones wrote a play that she was hoping to get published about a young, poor girl who grows up in Detroit that meets and marries a real prince from a make believe country in Africa. The students of her class were putting on the play for the entire school. The only wrench in the gears of the story was that Stephanie was a little white girl with blond hair. While Stephanie was getting her hair washed in the back by the shampoo girl, Tisma, the owner of the beauty shop pulled Alice aside to understand what it was that she was doing exactly. The older and larger woman stood close to Alice with one hand on her hip while gesturing with the other hand.

“You got one little white girl in a class full of black girls who now can buy themselves a Tiana doll and visualize themselves as Tiana and you choose the pretty white girl to be the princess who marries an African prince and moves to Africa?! This ain’t 1960 when little colored, negro girls had no choice but to hold a little white doll and wish they wasn’t so damn black… Watchu doin, girl? Every damn mother in that auditorium gone think bout they man taking up with a blonde white woman. What message you sending to all them other little black girls? Little girls as black as you…”

Alice listened to Tisma with pursed lips and her arms folded, as she politely and patiently waited for her moment to speak.

“Before you question and chastise me, you should hear the story.”

Alice explained Stephanie’s story as Stephanie watched cartoons while her hair was being blown dried. After several minutes, Tisma emerged with her large presence and larger voice.

“Trina! Go git Rouchelle and tell her to bring her some fabric. I need her to make a gown quickly. Ain’t no way I’m sending a princess out this place looking like a pauper. When Princess Stephanie step outta here, everyone gone know the princess come to tea here today.”

Over the course of three hours, the rail thin ten year old girl was transformed into a regal figure. Stephanie’s hair was curled and had blonde extensions added. She had eyeliner, lipstick and pearls around her neck that matched the pearl colored dress that went along with pearl colored pumps. Stephanie looked old enough to attend a junior prom. She stood marveling at her self in the mirror as the women who created her commented to her and one another about how beautiful she looked. Alice put her arm around Stephanie’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.

“Remember how you look today and always remember you are beautiful on the inside and on the outside. You are a princess and this is your day to feel like one. You’re gonna do a good job tonight and so many people are gonna be there to see you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you make it on the news tonight. You are a pretty young lady, Stephanie and I believe you will one day make a beautiful queen.”

Stephanie stepped out on the stage and saw over a hundred parents and siblings sitting in seats. She shined like a star. Stephanie was articulate and vibrant. When the performance ended, Stephanie was given flowers and adulation. Alice then took Stephanie to Greektown to eat dinner and a dessert of Baklava. Everyone noticed the pretty looking young debutante and some commented on how lovely she looked. Stephanie really felt special. There was no thought about living in an abandoned home with no heat with her crack addict grandmother and her boyfriend that was having sex with Stephanie and inviting others to do the same in exchange for a few dollars to buy drugs. Alice had sensed something distressing in the eyes of the young girl and upon learning how she lived, removed her from the home without any opposition from Stephanie’s grandmother. With the exception of a few neighbors who lived in the high rise condominium overlooking the Detroit River, nobody knew that Stephanie was living with her school teacher.

Stephanie changed into her Hello Kitty nightgown and hopped into the twin bed that had a smiling Felix the Cat clock on the wall where the eyes moved from left to right with each tick. A television was on the wall with a shelf full of books and everything was safe, orderly and clean. Nights were often difficult for Stephanie and Alice understood. Thoughts of unspeakable acts often filled Stephanie’s mind as she lay in bed. That night as Alice brushed Stephanie’s hair away from her eyes, Stephanie looked at Alice and thanked her and then calmly fell asleep. That night Stephanie didn’t have dreams of toothless, drugged out men violating her or huddling on a piss stained mattress, trying to stay warm. She dreamed she was walking down a red carpet and everyone respected and revered her for being a real princess. All girls really are princesses.

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December 19, 2011

Occupy Detroit

Filed under: Auto Industry,Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,Short Story — blackhumouristpress @ 3:20 am
Tags: china, Detroit, detroit lions, detroit red wings, GM, humor, Humour, michael moore, occupy wall street, protesters

It sounded silly at first as if someone was trying to be funny but it wasn’t a joke when a protestor by the name of Billy amassed people from all over North America and the world to occupy public space within the city of Detroit.

900,000 vacant lots within the city limits of Detroit and to occupy a blighted big city sounded almost charitable. Bill was feeling anything but compassion for the city of Detroit and the United States in general. Bill started off watching crowds of people on television in the Middle East fell leaders like Mubarak and Gaddafi. It was en vogue to drop heads of state like at no time since the fall of the Soviet empire. Billy joined people in occupying parks in places like Oakland and New York Cityonly to be returned home by Billy’s father’s deep pockets when it came time to bail him out. Soon the idea came to Billy to amass as many dissatisfied, disenchanted, and downtrodden; serfs and petty bourgeoisie and set up camp around the General Motor’sRenaissance Center in the heart of downtown Detroit ironically enough called Hart Plaza.

At first, Bill didn’t have many takers as most of his Detroit buddies who lived in metropolitan Detroit, knew that at night, late night, there were not a whole lot of people around downtown Detroit. Sewer covers blew off steam like English tea kettles every few feet around desolate streets and sidewalks. Every now and then you’d see a Chrysler 300 at a red light, waiting for no other cars to pass as the lights quietly turned from green to yellow and red. Most police officers patrolled several blocks away in the more vibrant Greektown where middle class Detroiters could take a stay-cation at one of the casino hotels, eat at a fairly upscale restaurant and try to win their house out of foreclosure inside the casinos. Those that stayed at the Hilton at the top of the GM Renaissance Center drove in by taxi or limousine and never had to venture out into the streets of Detroit. The people the protesters were trying to harass were largely unreachable. From up high, executives staying for a night or two could see the tents set up in the plaza. Most thought it was some sort of Hooverville in a town with nearly 20% unemployment.

The first Occupy Detroit gatherings were sort of pathetic as those who wanted to yell and scream at passersby took note of congregation of homeless men who actually danced to the sounds of a drummer who was leading a chant, “Bring out the 1%, bring out the 1%”. The black homeless men wondered if somehow the population of white people had actually dropped to 1%. The thought of white people being only 1% of the city of Detroit lead a few homeless people to wonder if they should pick up and move to other big cities where there was a larger pool of financially stable and generous white folk. The native Detroiters felt sort of silly when nobody noticed them except a few Red Wing fans that cut through HartPlaza on their way to Joe Louis Arena to catch a game. The hockey fans thought it was sort of dumb to camp outside in inner city Detroit but they politely ignored the small group. Within a few days, the Detroit protestors packed up and went home without any fanfare. No beatings, television crews, cops with night sticks or tear gas. Billy had to retool. Billy read up on other charismatic leaders like Hitler, Jim Jones, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro and H. Ross Perot to see how it was that they were able to draw people to them. Billy would never admit to reading Perot’s biography since he was in the top 1% of the top 1% but he read it nonetheless.

Billy remembered Michael Moore’s movie called Roger and me and how Moore had hounded a GM executive named Roger Smith everywhere in order to get an explanation why it was that he closed GM plants in Flint, Michigan and so Billy wrote a letter to Moore in hopes that he might be willing to help a fellow antiestablishment native of Michigan. Mooreliked the idea quite a bit. Michael Moore then used his larger base of fans and followers who hated the government, rich people and the mainstream in general and before long, Billy had close to a 1000 people who had descended upon Jefferson Avenue in front of the GM Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Moorehad chosen a rare time when there were throngs of sports fans out to see the Detroit Lions on a Sunday afternoon and the Detroit Red Wings in the evening. Moore told Billy to get the people together at about five in the evening and think of something that would bring traffic to a screeching halt. Billy had a great idea.

Hundreds of football fans on their way to see a hockey game and hockey fans that had just seen a football game, were stopped by a large group of mostly young white people who were throwing metal spoons onto Jefferson Avenue in front of the General Motors building. Bill felt like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro rolled up into one big Hugo Chavez. Bill climbed up a statue that symbolized the city of Detroit onWoodward Avenue and spoke through a megaphone. A few news trucks were out in front of the melee and filmed the action. Bill was in heaven.

The crowd quit banging drums and throwing metal spoons onto Jeffersonwhile Bill stood with his ratty looking red dread locks that hung like dirty rope over a Jamaican flag hoodie as he shouted into the amplification device.

“I’ve been to Seattle and New York and Oakland to help the people of those cities get people to understand that we are being taken for a ride by our government, by the fat cats who own 85% of everything worth owning. Look at that giant symbol of what the government involved itself in… General Motors. General Motors made a shit product and made the people at the top wealthy while working people on assembly lines lost their jobs. What happened? Your government gave your tax dollars to save a company that should have never failed. General Motors was once the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world and they became in danger of going under. How does that happen? Your government bailed out companies that have fucked us all in the ass… How many people are out of jobs? How many people have been foreclosed on? Who has swooped up and bought up all these homes that once belonged to working people? The very banks that have caused this fucking mess. You starve and they eat cake with silver spoons in their mouths. Well if they are in search of a spoon tonight, my friends let them come down to the streets ofDetroitto find one. Millions of spoons for millionaires. When are you going to wake up people? When are you going to get up out of your chair and go to the window and yell that you’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?”

It was at that moment that a man by the name of Bob who owned a gun shop and riffle range in Northern Michigan, had decided that since the Lions were in danger of making the playoffs for the first time in years and that the Detroit Red Wings were in danger of making the playoffs for the 21^st year in a row, that he would make the pilgrimage to the city of Detroit that epitomized everything that Bob disliked about America; Crime, racial tension, traffic, shopping malls, unemployment and rich white kids with nothing better to do than take up a liberal cause. Bob decided to rip through Jefferson over the spoons in his large truck, sending protestors flying to the left and right of him. A dozen or more people had leaned on a sign near the tunnel to Canada that read, Welcome to the United States of America. The sign snapped off and flew into the windshield of Bob’s brand new GMC truck that had a hand painted sign on both sides and the back window that read, “Bob’s Emporium of armaments- The playground for those believe in the Bill of Rights.

The windshield looked like a kaleidoscope after the heavy sign hit the windshield. Bob exited the vehicle as his wife rolled down the passenger side window and calmly lit a cigarette and gazed at the mob that had filled the street. Bob walked towards the sound of the voice and saw the slight figure yelling passionately into the megaphone. Bill seemed like the ring leader of the band of misfits and so he pulled Billy down off of the symbol ofDetroitand gave him and ass beating like he had never had before. The local news caught the whole the incident. A large man in a Detroit Lions hat and a Red Wings Gordie Howe jersey beat the young man with the megaphone senseless. Protestors through bottles and rocks at the Bob and before long, large groups of drunken football and hockey fans came to the rescue of Gordie Howe or at least a man wearing his jersey. When the dust settled,Detroit had made the national and international news. Possibly a million spoons littered Jefferson Avenue in front of the GM Renaissance Center and brought traffic to a stand still. Red Wing and Lions fans and protestors alike were taken into custody by the Detroit Police. Billy was given his proverbial one call. Billy called his father as he always did and expected to be bailed out without question once again. Billy hated his father for being a rich and successful owner of a flatware company that had moved operations from the United States to China. The spoons that were scattered all over the streets of Detroit came from a warehouse belonging to Billy’s father. Billy, well known to everyone who worked for his father, loaded crate after crate of spoons into trucks from his father’s factory for the sole purpose of letting people know that the rich were born, living and dying with silver spoons in their mouths. Billy’s father attitude had changed towards his son. He was very firm and to the point with Billy who had cost him a lot of money by stealing his spoons. Several millions.

“I’m going to speak plainly to you, son. The fake Rasta hair, no deodorant, Reggae listening, Haile Salassie is god bullshit was cute. You thought you’d rebel against having life the easy way and I would just sit back and shrug my shoulders because I should have some sort of guilt for having money. I have no guilt, son. I don’t know a man alive who ever claimed to have enough money and today, you cost me a whole lot of money. Your father is part of the 1% and you thought you might try to punish me at a tremendous expense by taking my spoons. You’ve dubbed yourself the new voice for the poor and people of color, right? A modern day Lenin waiting for the revolution to take hold in the streets of Detroit. It isn’t coming, Billy. Well I want you to know that you are going to work to pay off your debt. You want to ally yourself with the poor and ordinary man. You’re going to be right there with them now. Reading Marx and hating me while I put you through college and this is what I get… A big bill for all your pseudo communist bullshit. Here’s the deal, son; you will learn what it is like to truly work for one solid year or I will see to it that you spend your time in jail for what you’ve done. This is America, son. A free country and one where you have choices and so I give you the choice, if I bail you out this time, you go to work for one year, no days off or you can say no and know that I will do all I can with my pull and connections to see that you do at least a year for your brash stupidity. When some lifer is lining your ass up in the shower like a Penn State date, you’ll wish you had joined the proletariat… The choice is yours to make.”

In a factory in a remote part of China, where people wear medical masks over their faces at all times and are forced to breathe the air that has a strange tint to it when the light of day illuminates the sky, works Billy. Behind him wearing a suit is a young black man, whose only job is to watch and live with Billy 24 hours a day for a year. The day after Billy’s father bailed him out of jail; Billy’s father ordered a shake at a fast food restaurant and offered a job to a young man that was mopping a floor who was roughly the same age as Billy. The young man went from making minimum wage to a half million dollars in a year and his only job was to make sure Billy worked every day, twelve hours a day, loading silverware into boxes to be shipped to the head quarters in Detroit,Michigan. Hundreds of sullen Chinese stood in front of an assembly line, collecting spoons, knives and forks with one young white American. Jefferson, who just the week before had to take two buses to make just over $200.00 a week, was dressed in nice clothes, had a chauffeur and a nice apartment that he shared with Billy. Billy’s father sent Jefferson a text, thanking him for taking the $500,000.00 dollar job that came with a bonus of a new car and a condo if Billy could complete the year without fail. Jefferson replied to Billy’s father.

NO THANK YOU, SIR. AND THANK YOU FOR KEEPING THE AMERICAN DREAM ALIVE AND WELL. GOD BLESS YOU, SIR.

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December 6, 2011

Inheritance Day

Filed under: Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,Short Story,Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 8:33 pm
Tags: death metal, Detroit, dog breeders, humor, Humour, inheritance, reading of wills

“Before we get started, I just wanted to give each of you a calendar for 2012 from our law firm as a token of our sincere condolences regarding the death of your loved one. It has our web address, email addresses and phone numbers in the event that any of you would require our services going forward… Now then I will need a check made out to our firm in the amount of $375.00 for the consultation that occurred between our office and your mother prior to her death back at the beginning of the month. We generally bill on the last day of the month and with your mother’s passage on the 28^th^of November, it would have been impossible to bill and collect prior to her passing. I just want to explain our billing process so that everyone here is aware of the charges prior to the time today…”

Maricella DiMaria Woechichowski passed on Wednesday in her sleep in her modest frame house in Hamtramck, Michigan, just north of the city of Detroit. Mary, as she was called, arrived on Ellis Island at the age of two and eventually migrated with her family to Detroit. Around the time of World War II was when married Maricella married Wochek. Wochek was a hard working weekend alcoholic who ignored his Italian beauty for the most part. They had a daughter by the name of Cynthia in 1945 and then James in 1960. Both children of Maricella were present at the attorney’s office on Monday morning following the wake Friday night and the funeral on Saturday.

Jimmy sat slouched, chewing his thumb nail in a pair of faded and torn blue jeans with a pair of black high top gym shoes. He wore a black leather coat and a black t shirt with the name of his band emblazoned in white. Jimmy slipped off his jacket to be comfortable, showing off an array of skulls, grim reaper tattoos as well as winged angels. Everyone studied the name of the band, Death March written in gothic, Nazi Germany script. Jimmy and his girlfriend Zanna never figured out why Cindy, her husband and the attorney, stared at the two of them.

Zanna looked like Jimmy from behind in that she wore similar jeans and had an identically black dye job on shoulder length feathered hair. Zanna wore a brightly colored roach clip from her hair and suede boots that came up to her knees. She was Albanian with a thick New York City/Brooklyn accent and had been with Jimmy for three years after seeing one of his concerts and buying a skull necklace off of him from his crafts display that accompanied band t-shirts and CDs. Zanna glared back at Cynthia and her husband as she chewed strawberry bubble gum, careful never to smear the lip gloss from her lips. Cynthia’s husband Tom stealthily admired Zanna’s firm fake tits that filled out her baby doll T-shirt quite well.

Cindy looked old enough to be her brother’s mother. She looked matronly even though she never gave birth to a child. Cindy had always been in love with Dachshunds so Tom bought her a ranch so that Cindy could breed Dachshunds on the gulf side of Florida. Cindy’s husband worked as a personal assistant to a televangelist and motivational speaker. They had two homes in Florida, six cars, a boat and forty Dachshunds. They had a team of undocumented Mexican helpers watching over the brood of dogs as they made the pilgrimage to Detroit on interstate 75 in their RV from Tampa Bay.

Jimmy loved skulls and singing about death and Satan and Cindy was part of the Evangelical women’s group at Church that helped raise money for born-again single mothers in Senegal. Jimmy screamed incoherent lyrics through an octave divider that lowered his voice and distorted it so that nobody could detect that he had no pitch while banging distorted chords on a Flying V guitar. His fans were angry suburban boys in their teens. Cindy sang in the women’s choir at church while playing an organ. Most of the songs she sang were two hundred years old. Jimmy never moved out of his parent’s home and Cindy moved out at the age of twenty-three. After three failed marriages, Cindy found god and a wealthy man. Jimmy never married but had a slew of fragile relationships that one might experience in junior high. Jimmy believes that Zanna is a keeper.

“Ok… So James will be given title to the home in Hamtramck and everything in it as well as the 1987 Lincoln Continental and Cindy will receive $352,000.00 that are in certificates of deposit. The following messages are to be read to each of you prior to signing any documentation… Jimmy, you were always such a good boy but so dumb in many ways. You graduated high school in 1978 and never grew up. The music you play hurts people’s ears. You wear clothes that nobody wears anymore and have a haircut that makes you look like an ugly woman. You got this dog walking thing that you started in Gross Pointe and I think it shows that you are worried a little bit for your future. Don’t waste all your money on Marijuana. I know you still sit up in your room and smoke Marijuana. It is no secret. After thirty five years of smelling it in my house, I have become accustomed to the distinct odor. You’re 51 years old and still go to those shows with high school kids, play video games and do drugs. It is time to grow up. This New York girl you got now is nothing but a user. You want some companionship and like your poppa used to say; a piece of ass is nothing but a drain on your life. You get her pregnant and you are going to regret it. I’m guessing in her early forties that she could still have a few. You were always good to me and took care of me despite the fact that you had no ambition. Never any back talk. You were a good boy. You get the house. I paid the taxes for the next two years. You have to make enough money and put away for utilities and taxes. You got to cut the lawn and take out the trash. Nobody will tell you to do that no more… Now then, Cindy… You were an angry child who blamed me for not leaving your father years ago but then went on to marry three men who were angry drunks. You hated life for not being able to have children. You hated Detroit so much that you could never come to see me. I would call you and you would never answer. I would get blanket Christmas cards addressed to everyone you knew with all those Dachshunds dressed up like reindeer every year with some kind of a re-cap of your life with Carl and all those dogs. You could never just write me a personal card, it always had to be some long winded thing about you and dogs and your women’s group and about some people you don’t even know in Africa. Did you really dislike me that much? You traveled to Alaska in an RV but could never make it to see your mother in Michigan. You use religion as a crutch for your great unhappiness. You were a good looking girl with a scowl on her face and have become a lumpy senior citizen with a permanent frown. I want to thank you for coming to my funeral if you in fact made it and hope that your dogs all cry at your funeral along with the people you’ve never met in Africa. I suspect you’ll die and a few people at that Protestant Church will sing a few songs and say a few nice things for you and then they’ll have coffee cake and punch and they will need to try and figure out who will play the organ at the services going forward. Sadly, we are all replaceable. My only goal in life was to be a good wife and a good mother. Once you two grew up, I realized I missed the boat on the most important thing in life which was to make myself happy.

So you sat in a foreign Catholic Church in Detroit and listened to some young fellow say some nice things about an old lady he never knew. Something about god calling his flock home and so on. While this was all going on, you were probably taking a head count and were wondering what it was going to cost to feed all those people you didn’t know. For this reason, I want you to have all my money that was really saved by your father who saved every extra cent and never did anything with that money. We never went anywhere or saw anything. Money should make you happy, Cynthia. The only home you’ve ever known should be a comfort to you, Jimmy. Alright. I did my job as a wife and as a mother. You kids were not easy and your father was a bastard but I made it through. Getting a job seating people at a restaurant in Greektown was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I sat trapped in the house my whole life and then when your father passed, I got a job seating people. They asked if I was Greek and I told them that as a Sicilian. I looked Greek. That was good enough for them. I met so many people over the last twenty five years. I met some really nice people and some not so nice. I met old and young, rich and poor. People of all kinds of colors and shades. If I had to do it all over, I would do it differently as would most people. There is still time on the clock for you both. Figure out what makes you happy and just be happy. Happiness is all there really is. You should not die unhappy because that would truly be sad. Alright then, enjoy the gifts and don’t squander them. I had a good life. Momma loves you.

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November 29, 2011

Etienne’s Etouffe

Filed under: Detroit,humor,Short Story — blackhumouristpress @ 2:57 am
Tags: building problems, cadillac, cajuns, Detroit, humor, Humour, Louisiana, mossad, orthodox jews

“It comes with a heavy heart and my hat in hand that I must unequivocally declare that I will need to abrogate and hereby retract the covenant previous agreed upon by all parties. I am savvy to the verifiable fact that the brick and mortar which have most likely been derived during the reign of Napoleon are in need of a formidable amount of preservation but at this time it behooves me to choose the plumbing over the mortar as it is eminently more important and hygienic to dispose of waste in the most proper of ways possible… Please accept this mea culpa and know that within a reasonable amount of time, all deficiencies will be addressed. As you know my father and I are on the very brink of pauperism due to his severe maladies that appear to have the upper hand at this point. You being a fair-minded woman should be able to comprehend our quandary. Getting blood from a stone will not be possible.”

Rachel played the message for Steve as they sat outside eating a beignet at Café du Monde in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Rachel immediately got on the phone and called her Uncle Chaim who had been contracted to come down from Brooklyn, New York with his crew of day laborers and change the dilapidated storefront into classy restaurant called Etienne’s Etouffe. Steve learned cooking as a trade while serving time in the Wayne County Prison in Detroit, Michigan. Steve was unemployed and took to small time stickups in and around Detroit. While in prison, an old black man from the Deep South in Louisiana took Steve under his wing. Steve liked Sir Leopold’s manner of speaking and ability to cook tasty stuff that hardly anyone had ever heard of in Detroit. Sir Leopold claimed to a descendant of a man by the name of Cadillac.

“Dee people of Day-twah want to drive dem a Cadillac. I am hare to tell you mon vieux, that Sir Leopold right chair before your eyes eeze a di-rect descendant of a man by the name of Antoine Laument de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac. The city and the car have my great grandpere ten times back to thank for the name of the city and auto. You must know dat dere dat at a young age, pussy will make you do things you should not do. Dare I was, a man from deep down whare eet would take a journey jus to git you to Nawlins. Dem Cajuns knowd dat I was a true Cajun from Acadie, Acadia from my great grandpere and dat when eet was time to eat, they come to see Sir Leopold. Leopold ain’t gone live for all days and I must pass on dem secrets to one who gone carry on dem technique of making true food de Louisianne. First you gotchu a great nom en Francais. Dem name Steven est Etienne in the French. Use Etienne, learn dem ways of Sir Leopold and go to vieux carre and open up a restaurant. People gone to flock to eat down home food wid out making dem pauvre for wanting dem food.”

So it was that Steven became Etienne and masterfully learned how to cook deep down Cajun cuisine from a relative of a French explorer who might have been one of the original Cajuns and gave his namesake to a luxury automobile and named the city of Detroit what it is still called to this day.

Rachel met Steven who was a Barista at a Starbucks near Wayne State University in Detroit. Rachel was a defector from an orthodox Jewish family who decided that she was going to live like everyone else lived and fuck Christian boys if she wanted to and she did want to. Rachel tasted Steven’s concoctions and decided that they needed to relocate from Detroit to the French Quarter where mostly northern tourists could come in and get a good meal at a reasonable price and believe that they were getting the food from authentic Cajuns. Rachel had family from Montreal that spoke French and so she learned during her extended summer visits how to speak enough French for common, English only speakers to believe that she was the real deal.

Rachel and Etienne had found a great little place on Dauphine Street that was owned by an elderly former Lawyer and his son who was a substitute English teacher in the New Orleans School District. The elder Clement Dupuis was supposedly dying of cancer for over ten years but never really saw a physician for his maladies. The elder Dupuis declared that he had bone cancer when all he really had was gout. The gout was both hereditary but fueled by heavy drinking of Bourbon and eating shrimp. Elder Dupuis’ red, throbbing big toes caused him to hobble when he did attempt to walk. The younger Dupuis wore a droopy moustache and tried to speak in ways that he felt would impress people with a limited vocabulary. More than anything, it was pretentious and annoying.

After Rachel let Etienne hear the message from the younger Dupuis, she called her Uncle Chaim to relay the news that the Dupuis were trying to renege on the contract to fix the broken bricks on the building that was initially constructed in 1800, three years before the Louisiana Purchase. Uncle Chaim was a nervous little man with a potbelly that claimed to be tied to elite Israeli intelligence and was wary of everyone and anyone who did not see the world in the exact same way he did. Uncle Chaim got on the phone and called the younger Dupuis to explain to him that if he wanted to void the contract, he would have difficulties.

“The problem with the fucking south is that they are always about thirty years behind the fucking times. I know you people don’t consider yourselves like the rest of the south because you watch people fuck in bars and listen to Jazz on Bourbon Street. Well I’m here to tell you that all you fucks could have never won the Civil War cause you’re so fucking stupid. You think you can just call my niece and tell her that your old man is deathly ill and you ain’t got any money and so the deal is off, right? Wrong! The fucking Mossad will come down to New Orleans and take you and your lame father and drop you off on the streets of Baghdad with a sign around your fucking necks that reads, “Infidels” in fucking Arabic. You have no idea who are fucking with. At a minimum, I will send your fucking asses to work at Mc Donald’s to pay me my money… Is this getting into your backwoods, livestock fucking head? I do the work or you will regret ever fucking with me, got it?”

The younger Dupuis paraphrased all that Uncle Chaim threatened to a group of building inspectors that were still sifting through condemned homes from Hurricane Katrina some five years later. A large man by the name of Marcel, who had sideburns and a nearly third trimester gut on him, listened to the younger Dupuis. Marcel believed with all of his being that Jews killed Christ. What Marcel never stopped to think about was the fact that Jesus was Jewish. Marcel spit tobacco into a cup and shook his head in anger as the younger Dupuis shared the conversation with the men he knew as friends and fellow card players.

“He said what?! Sommabitch Jewboy got some goddamn nerve comin down here thinking he gone run things. Put his ass on the phone. Sommabitch ruined my suppah. I ain’t even the appetite no mo to eat now dat I’m so hoppin mad.”

Marcel leaned forward in his seat and spit once in his cup before asking Chaim Saul if he was the person he was speaking to on the phone. Chaim acknowledged that he was indeed that person.

“Son, imma tell you now, man to man dat if that money ain’t re-turned in the manner in which you received it, we gone send our own people up north to bring yo fat ass down hare an feed you to dem gators. You thank I’m jus talking, test me, boy. In this day of GPS, you cain’t hide. Let me break it down for you- money tomorrow, no money, kidnap yo fat ass, gator buffet, comprenez vous?”

Within twenty-four hours, the FBI was interviewing all parties on what was agreed upon and discussed, what was threatened and promised. The city building inspectors were worried about things like pensions and jobs in a town that had extraordinarily high unemployment. Marcel thought that maybe an apology and a handshake could begin to sort out the misunderstanding. It took an inordinate amount of ass kissing to keep Chaim from pressing the issue legally. How was it that the contract was honored and Chaim wound up making twenty percent more than initially agreed upon?

“Listen to me, Eliot… Send me two fucking guys who look the part and I can get them some bogus ID… I know the job I took is only worth $20,000.00 but now it is a matter of principle. I can’t let these backward fucks back me into a corner. You send me the guys. I fly them in an out of New Orleans in a day to put the fear of Jesus into them and then this is done… Come on, you owe me.”

And so they lived happily ever after…

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November 12, 2011

The Beat Your Ass Cafe

Filed under: Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,poem,Short Story,Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 11:49 pm
Tags: beatniks, coltrane, Detroit, detroit red wings, ginsberg, goons, hamtramck, herbie hancock, hockey fighters, humor, Humour, kerouac, Monk, poetry, starbucks

Patrice Fort was born and raised in a really small town that most people never heard of in Alberta. For those of you in the states, Alberta is a province, which is sort of like a state except that it is not a state. The Fort family slowly moved from the Plaines of Abraham near Quebec City and over the years kept moving west like the Mormons in search of a new town called Springfield. The Forts wound up in no place Alberta.

Fort, if you know the French language, means strong and Patrice was the epitome of a Cro-Magnon man of the modern age. Patrice was a hair over six feet tall and weighed 250 lbs. Patrice was a solid mass of muscle like a human pit-bull. At a young age, Patrice learned that his ice hockey skills were mediocre at best. Patrice was not fast and did not make the best decisions on the ice nor did he have the best shot. Patrice was able to fight and from the age of thirteen, Patrice never lost a fight.

The thing that scared people most about Patrice when they were faced with fighting him was that there was no anger or malice. It was just something he was born and bred to do and so he would pummel opponents who messed with the premier players on whatever team he happened to be playing on. It was during juniors that life suddenly changed for Patrice.

Patrice’s Quebec junior team had gone south to New York City to play in a tournament sponsored by some bank that no longer exists in the states. Patrice had never been to a city as large as New York and had never imagined so much humanity crammed into such a small space in a place like Manhattan. Patrice went into a Starbucks and ordered a tall hot chocolate and watched the unique people that walked down the sidewalk near Times Square. From the Starbucks window, for Patrice it was like watching a freak show at the circus. There were so many different types of people, in varying sizes and shapes. An older woman of about sixty years of age came up and spoke to Patrice in a way he had never heard before. Even though the woman was older, she was shapely and confident.

“Many years have come and gone man and you’re one of the last relics of the Neanderthal period, man. All swelled up with muscles and I suppose you never took one supplement… Man, dig that crazy tune.”

Herbie Hancock was playing Cantaloupe Island over the speakers in the Starbucks. The woman put her hand on Patrice’s large forearm and closed her eyes as the song played. Patrice looked at the strange woman and sort of dug the tune that softly played.

“People are always saying that this or that is the shit. I’m here to tell you that this is the true shit, man. You weren’t around when this shit was devised. People were swinging to Benny Goodman and then cats like Herbie came round and opened people’s eyes to music that could speak without words. 1964, we all thought the world would end, man. Kennedy killed and a cowboy with his hands on the nuclear button, man. Beatles came and what did they say? They said too much but listen to this here, man. I know you can feel it, cave man, baby… I bet you’re hung like a horse.”

It was the first time that Patrice had ever had sex with a woman and the woman was older than his own mother and twice as shapely. There were very few sags and lumps on the old Beatnik woman. They made love, if you want to call it that, several time over the course of an afternoon while listening to cool Jazz and hearing the woman read Beat Poetry by Ginsberg and Kerouac. Patrice left the small basement apartment in Manhattan and was never the same.

As the years went on, teammates came to understand that Patrice was a bit out there but they respected the difference. And wouldn’t respect a man who could kill them with his bare hands. On planes and trains, Patrice listened to Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk through earphones and wrote poetry.

What colour is blue when the sky is gray. Walk down the streets of Detroit like I came from Mars, come to visit bars full of coulorful coloured folk and they think they know me because the press wants to own me, ride me, pride me like a pony and it’s phony. Won’t eat gluten. I’m free like Putin who wants to keep Russia from anarchy after the fall of The Wall and Soviet dynamo. The Red Army Team came to town when I was young. Ate biscuits and drank coffee in a vast land. I followed the road from Alberta to everywhere, man. Everywhere is nowhere and yet I’m somewhere between where I should be and where I am. Sit in the shade sipping wine no words to this Monk tune that rolls through my mind. If the colour blue is true, I hold out hope for me and you… Coltrane, last train try in vain… Gonna sit outside in Portugal or Spain and write a few words on the balcony in the rain… Rinse and repeat that, Cat.

Now to you and I, words strung together such as this meant little or nothing. A long stream of unconsciousness. Patrice was traded from Phoenix, to San Jose to Boston and then went to Nashville and landed in Detroit at minimum wage for the NHL. The Detroit Red Wings were a finesse team that really did not need a lug or a goon to go out and fight to protect the true hockey players of the team. The fighters were an outdated necessity from days gone by of clutch and grab hockey a la Philadelphia in the 1970’s. Detroit grabbed Patrice and never really played him until one day against Chicago, a heated rival who happened to be winning the game and taunted the Detroit team. The Detroit coach, Mike Babcock, nodded to Patrice, who on his first shift, beat up two Chicago players and mistakenly punched a referee. From that point on, Patrice had a home in the hearts of Detroit Red Wing fans.

Most people don’t know the story behind the finger snapping when Patrice takes the ice. To those from out of town or watching on Versus, it may sound like the theme from the Adams Family is being played. Before long, large groups of Beatnik poetry types who frequented Patrice’s café in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, began going to Detroit Red Wing games, wearing jerseys that had the name FORT on the back. Scruffy faced young men who appeared to be anti-sports, showed up wearing Red Wing jerseys, snapping their fingers violently whenever Patrice got on the ice or fought. Before long, everyone got in on the act. It was like throwing octopus on the ice.

After home games in Hamtramck on Jos Campau there is a Beatnik café where people drink and read poetry to Jazz. It is called, Beat Your Ass Café. It is nothing more than an old Polish watering hole that Patrice bought to host poetry readings and feature live Jazz. On the walls are pictures of some of Patrice’s best fights with the dates and names of opponents. Patrice usually appears after games and reads his latest poetry while young Jazz musicians play behind him and others. It is standing room only after Red Wing games. Dig that.

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September 19, 2011

The Young Americans… In Canada

Filed under: Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,Mixed Race,Short Story,Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 6:15 am
Tags: asian strippers, border crossings to canada, canada, cannabis, Detroit, detroit tunnel, full cavity check, humor, Humour, Ontario, Romanians, Windsor

Dion had decided at the age of twenty six that it was time to throw in the towel, lower the flag and wave the white drapeau that signifies giving in or giving up. For women the announcement of marriage to other women sends voices up octaves, accompanied by hand holding, discussions about dresses and registries. For men, especially young men, the news is received, processed and then there is a two second delay where the stone faces of other male comrades, brothers and friends appear to ask why with their eyes. Once Dion’s friends and cousins accepted the news the first important question among men was asked.

“When and where are we having the bachelor party?”

Dion was born inRomania with his other Romanian friends and cousins and wound up of all places in Detroit. Dion grew up to love all things Detroit; American cars, Lions, Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons. Dion loved University of Michigan even though he never attended the school. Trumpet playing of all things lead him towards his destiny of finding and falling in love with the minister’s daughter at a Romanian Pentecostal Church in Detroit. It actually was a Missionary Baptist Churchfor the most part with a black congregation but atnoonwhen the black Baptists were having coffee in the gym, the Romanians would come in and have their service in Romanian and then when the Romanians took the gym, the Koreans took the sanctuary. By the time the Koreans took the gym for their post church fellowship, the church janitor had well earned his day of rest which would have to come on a Monday.

Dion was a band geek in junior high and high school and offered to play trumpet after his mother had prodded him to go back to church and play his trumpet with the organ player during the hymnal periods of the service. It all worked out for Dion. Dion met Dianna, the daughter of the minister of their church who was beautiful and detached at the time Dion met her. Dion gave up drinking, swear, chewing tobacco, visits to casinos, and strip clubs. Dion went to rough parts of Detroit with his girlfriend as inner city missionaries to try and work with teens. Dion liked that idea a lot better than packing up and moving to Angola and so he willingly got together with his girlfriend to spend Friday and Saturday nights playing basketball and talking about the word of god with poor children that cared more about getting a nice car, a nice piece of ass and money in their pockets by any means necessary. Speaking English in a Portuguese speaking country like Angola might have been easier than trying to convince poor inner city black teens in Detroit that leading a clean life, will lead to positive things. Some bought into it and other showed up to the church gym to play basketball and eat coffee cake. After a year or more of this sort of stuff, Dion decided that being with Dianna on a full time basis was his destiny in life and so be posed the question, Dianna cried and accepted. A life of marital bliss was immanent if not terminal for the young couple.

Theo, Dion’s cousin and life long friend, got their inner circle of friends together to do Dion’s last night as a single man the right way. Theo knew that his cousin had played along with the no sex, no drinking, no dancing and no swearing rules of devout Romanian born again types but also knew that his cousin Dion was once quite the partier and cocksman.

“Troy, Tommy, you and me are going to Windsor tonight. I got the Fong Sisters coming to a private suite that I rented on the top floor of Caesar’sWindsor. The Fong Sisters are lesbian and sisters. Totally out of control, dude… Where you can find sisters who are lesbian and would do each other in front of people? That is extra special. I met them at the casino last month inWindsor. I’m telling you, they are smoking hot and will do anything. They originally came from China but live in Ontario now. Beautiful fucking faces, tight asses and huge fake tits on skinny frames. They got a website where you can see them 69ing each other covered in chocolate syrup.” Said Theo.

“I would have been fine going to a strip club around here, getting a few beers and calling it a night,” said Dion.

“Whaddya you like fifty now? Fuck that shit… You are going down but you’re going down in a grand style, bro. Don’t sweat it, it will be mayhem. Fully stocked bar in the limo, fully stocked bar in the suite, room service and the lesbian show… Oh and I paid for the happy ending shower with them both for you.” Said Theo as he high fived Dion.

The foursome drank in the back of the stretch limo and blared music. They opened up the moon roof, stood and yelled like little boys in the tunnel that went under theDetroitRiverfrom downtown Detroit to Windsor,Ontario in the country of Canada. Once on the Canadian side of the river, cameras picked up the sight of four young men hanging out of the moon roof up to the waist, singing, yelling and hoisting drinks which spilled onto each other. Constable Williams caught sight of this on his desk monitor while he ate a sandwich he had just purchased on Huron-Church Road at the Tim Horton’s which was on the south side of the street, not to be confused with the Tim Horton’s on Huron-Church on the north side of the street, less than a kilometer away from the Tim Horton’s on the south side of Huron-Church Road.

Yes. Well then, Constable Williams was eating his sandwich and studying the monitor of unruly Americans in a limousine. Pieces of the bread stuck to his bushy moustache. Constable Williams lifted the cup to his tea and doused the tea bag several times before taking a sip. He put the quartet on full screen and followed them all the way up to line three at customs. Constable Williams got on the phone and called for the sniffer dogs to meet him at line three.

The limousine queued up behind several cars. The driver was an older black man that was listening to the Detroit Tigers game in his compartment, not paying attention at all to the frat boy activity going on the other side of his contained area. The boys were mixing drinks and singing when the doors were thrown open. Two German Sheppards accompanied four uniformed men who had just asked the four young men to step out of the vehicle.

“Smart people you are in America, eh?” Asked Constable Williams.

Theo giggled and said, “yes, sir”.

“You young Americans… Just like in the David Bowie song. You boys know that song, eh? So smart in America that they spent millions to send men to the moon just so that they could say that they sent men to the moon and give em a ticker tape parade in New York City… Yes, you Americans are so smart. Only smart men would ride in the tunnel that have hanging signs that could decapitate them as they stick their heads out of an opening in the roof. Smart, young Americans… You smart men have anything you want to declare before we set the dogs to find contraband?”

The four young men all sobered up enough to take Constable Williams seriously. Three out of the four men had nothing worse than chewing tobacco on them. Theo though thought that buying two joints from a guy at work would be the icing on the cake as the Chinese born sisters and lesbians did their thing in front of them. Of course they were going to purchase Cohiba Cigars at the duty free store and take them up to their suite also. Theo had forgotten about the two joints packed in a plastic bag that was in a small pocket on the sleeve of his Hollister sweat shirt. The first German Sheppard found the joints in a matter of three seconds. The dog put its front paws up on Theo’s shoulders as if they were going to slow dance together. Constable Williams held up the discovered bag with two hand rolled joints and smiled.

“We are about to get to know each other very intimately tonight, boys.”

Dion stood up and day dreamed as his soon to be father-in-law conducted the wedding ceremony. To Dianna’s eye, Dion looked to have been crying. She had no idea that her betrothed had been drinking, smoking, detained by Canadian border guards and forced to do a full cavity check, naked in a bare room with a lot of lights. Dion could only think about touching his toes and the Canadian guard flashing a light up his ass as the guard probed around with a gloved index finger in search of further illegal contraband. They boys never made it to the hotel. They were detained at the border until the early hours of the morning and then sent back to the United States without their joints or really good stories to share with their friends. During the ceremony, Dion turned and looked at his best man, Theo with squinty eyes and could only shake his head as he recalled the indignity of his night in Canada. Call it bad luck of the draw or that God truly does work in mysterious ways.

David Bowie- Young American
I got a suite and you got defeat
Ain’t there a man you can say no more?

Ain’t there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain’t you proud that you’ve still got faces?
Ain’t there one damn song that can make me
break down and cry?
All night
I want the young American
Young American, young American, I want the young American

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September 7, 2011

The Road From Iraq to Detroit

Filed under: Apartheid,Detroit,Ethnicity,Short Story,Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 4:10 am
Tags: afghanistan, Detroit, Detroit TIgers, IED, Iraq, school bus drivers, Verlander

Bill had finished two years in Iraq before being shipped out for four more in Afghanistan. After six years of driving around in a light armored vehicle, he was fortunate to be alive and whole. Bill had served one more year than his grandfather had in World War II and nearly five more than his father had inVietnam. At the age of twenty five, Bill was hoping to become a police officer somewhere in the state of Michigan. On Labor Day, Bertram volunteered to drive the school bus route that had been his since 1973, one more time to ensure Bill would be ready to go come Tuesday.

Bertram had a late model Cadillac STS that he had saved up to buy for a number of years when his 1990 Pontiac had too many problems to throw money at. Bertram sadly knew that the new Cadillac was probably going to be the last car he would ever purchase in his life. At the age of sixty six, it just didn’t make too much sense to make a lot of long term plans like a thirty year mortgage on a house. To buy a car out right in cash made more sense than to make payments into his seventies.

On a bright, sunny and cool Labor Day Monday, Bertram met Bill at aConey Island off of Grand River in Detroit. Bertram was finishing some eggs while reading about the Detroit Tigers huge win over the Chicago White Sox the night before. Bertram, a tall and thin black man, clean shaven, wore a thin black tie on top of a long sleeved with shirt and dark tan slacks with shiny black shoes. On the table next to the coffee and paper was a black pork pie hat.

Bill, a muscular young white man with four day old stubble on his head and face, walked in with a faded black sleeveless Detroit Red Wings T shirt from his high school days that proudly displayed a tattoo of a gothic D on his right shoulder. He had a stud earring in his left ear, a furrowed brow and torn blue jeans as we walked into theConey Islandto meet Bertram. Bill plopped himself down across from Bill as the waitress poured a cup of coffee for Bill. Bill was tired and a bit hung over from being at the Tiger’s game the night before. After the game, Bill and his friends hung out in the patio area of The Elwood, a bar down the street from Comerica Park.

Bill thought it was a bit overkill to go through the bus route one more time but didn’t want to insult an old guy that gave a low level job, more respect than it deserved. As they walked out to the parking lot, there was a huge boat of a car with the top down. It was a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado painted light blue.

“You evah driven one these old cars, young man?”

“Can’t say I have…”

Bertram tossed the keys across the car to Bill and got in on the passenger side of his own car. The white seats were like new and the dashboard did not have a speck of dust. Bill turned the car on. Immediately the 8 track player began to play Summer Breeze by the Isley Brothers. Bill still thought that the trip was pointless but looked forward to cruising around with the top down in a beautiful old car. Bertram did most the talking.

“So you gonna pick up the bus off Seven Mile… My advice is to get there early so you ain’t lined up to get out there by the last minute. You got you some fellas there with a chip on they shoulder, they gone try to cut and squeeze you outta place. You gone want to bust them in the jaw. My feeling is why go through that hassle the first day. Get up early and take yo time and avoid all that mess…”

Bertram spoke slow and in a deep rich voice. Bill felt like he was driving in a time warp as he looked over at Bertram who was wearing a Pork Pie Hat and squared off Ray-Ban sunglasses. Bill followed where Bertram directed him to go.

“Make a right here onGrand River… This is where you gone begin. Now you gone find and make yer own way and I ain’t about to start telling you how you gone get things done. That would be wrong of me. I am gone to tell you how Bertram done things and you listen and decide whatchu want to do… I started this here bus route afta losing my job at the Fisher Body 21 plant. That’s that skeleton looking building you see off of 75 when you trying to git ovah to the 94. I lost that job onna count I couldn’t keep mah self from drinking afta work. You see… I waddn’t married and I was young and had a few bones and so I would go out and have one and then one lead to anothah one and then a few moh and then before you knew what was going on, the sun be coming up. So afta I missed work a few dozen times, they decided to drop me and they wasn’t nothing I could do even though I was in the union. They only so much the union can do to help you when you off drunk every othah day… Okay, here is where you gone make the first stop. Lemme jus say this; the kids gone test you and the mo you try to act as bad as them, they gone try to git to you mo. When I first started, there was a young guy with a large Afro and a pick stuck all up in his hair. He came on the bus with a box blarin music loud. I toll him to turn off the music and he toll me to do something to m’self. My first thought was that not more than a year earlier, I was trying hard to stay alive in Nam and here some young punk who ain’t even got his feet wet yet in life gone step up to me? I took his box and threw it out the bus and him with it. The othah kids wasn’t scared. They didn’t respect me no mo foh dat. I didn’t git fired but I had to go and buy the punk a new box and aftah he looked like he did nothing wrong. I ain’t gone throw religion in yo face cause we all got to find our way. I started getting my life right and all the othah things in life fell in. I began to think how I was gone to git the kids on my side and still git them to be respectful. They gone swear and let they pants hang off they ass. They gone git worked up ovah a pretty girl and act a fool. How to let em know to act like young men and ladies and have respect foh each othah and they selves? It wasn’t easy but I managed it, young man.”

Bill had applied and accepted the job of being a school bus driver in inner city Detroit where most students were poor and all were black. Bill looked to be a formidable looking young white guy with anger issues. As they drove slowly downGrand River, the boarded up buildings and weeds growing in cracks in the side walk reminded him of driving in parts of Baghdad and Afghanistan. Bill believed there were predators hiding behind windows of abandon buildings, ready to kill him and Bertram for the classic car not unlike what he had lived through in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bill’s head was on a swivel. He surveyed things from left to right and constantly used his peripheral vision as he drove an even thirty miles and hour. Bertram wasn’t as cautious.

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. The obvious difference between you and I is the color of our skin. Them kids are gonna see me tomorrow and automatically are gonna hate me for what they think I am,” said Bill.

“And you already decided that they gone look at you a certain way. Imma tell you right now… Some dem girls gone be workin you like a stick shift. You a good lookin young man with a good smile and strong build. Them girls look like women an probably they lookin as good as they evah gone look in they lives but you got to remember that they children trapped in an adult body. Anyway… All yo preconceived ideas and thoughts about young, poor black children gone ooze from yo eyes when they step on dat bus. They already gone think that you some rich kid from Southfield or Royal Oak. They ain’t gone think you jus some regular working class kid who jus live above 8 Mile all up in Warren. They ain’t gone know you served. They gone to think all the things they learned bout white people they whole lives. How you gone to show dem they wrong? I tell you what… If enough white people and black people would put aside what they think and what they learned, we could bring this city back to what it was. Black people blame whites and whites blame blacks. How bout people who are black and white get together and say we Detroiters and we gone bring back this town. I need you and you need me to do it. I look at Nelson Mandela and the whole dang country of South Africa. Them black people went from being nothing to running the country and they did not go aftah white people to punish them foh the past. Why? Cause a smart man like Mandela understood dat you need the whites to keep the country going. Detroitneed the whites to be in Detroit and if dat evah happens, things gone change. Prejudice keep things where they at. You ain’t gotta go to Mississippi, boy. You got more racism in this state and city than you gone find in the south. You and I both know cause we served in active combat that when you think might die, it don’t matter much the color of the skin of the dude next to you. Somebody you know jus die and you not sure if you the next to git picked off and you lookin at the dude next to you and he from Hicksville, Alabama where they hated people from the north and they didn’t much like niggahs but he crying and just wants to be held like a baby and be told dat he gone make it, dat he ain’t gone die but if he does, he want you there wid him so that he don’t die alone… Make a right up here.”

Bill thought back to a day in Baghdad when a young boy had tripped a mine on the side of the road. Bill had gotten out of his tank and tried to comfort a young boy that was missing a leg. The boy, who was not more than ten years of age, died from a loss of blood. Bill held the boy until fellow soldiers pried the boy away from him. Despite all the gore and death Bill had witnessed, seeing a young boy die in a matter of minutes, hit Bill the hardest and had the greatest impact on him. Tears began to stream down Bill’s cheeks. Bertram asked no questions. He just put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and rubbed it.

“If I can give you one mo piece of advice, young man, I would like you to know dat you got you a finite number of days and yes when you young like you is, you can throw way years and still come out okay. But them years gone roll like a Sherman Tank and take down evrah thang in it way. Thirty, forty, fifty and then you git to sixty or mo like me and you wonder whatchu did with your life. You ask yo-self if you lived or you jus existed? What is the purpose of all this really? I could have kept working foh a few more years but then it hit me in the spring when I had mah sixty sixth birthday; I ain’t gone be round much longer. My wife dead, my son dead, two mah brothers dead and mah parents dead so long ago I sometimes think I jus made them up in mah mind. If it weren’t foh pictures, Idda believe they was nevah here. So I got to thinking bout what might make me happy and I decided that I will take this here car all the way toLos Angeles. Imma go to California aftah living mah whole life in Dee-troit. If you don’t count the two years I lived inVietnam, I ain’t nevah been nowhere else. I got me an apartment picked out on computer where I can see the sun set ovah the Pacific Ocean. Imma stay there all winter. And so I tell you, young man, find now what gone make you happy. Don’t keep saying someday cause that someday gone end up at the end of a road that you cain’t turn round on… Speak of which, this here yo last stop. Aftah here, you take dem right to school or you finished foh the day… You gone be fine.”

Bill drove back to the Coney Island and shook hands with an old man who had done more for him in an hour than most people had done for him in years. After shaking hands with Bertram, Bill leaned forward and hugged Bertram. Bill quietly spoke near Bertram’s ear before ending the embrace.

“Not many people can begin to understand where I came from and where I’m going. What I went through and where I could wind up… I hope the west coast is exactly what you want and need. Thank you for your time, sir.”

At the second stop of the first day, a young black man with sleep still in his eyes stepped onto the bus with a straight brim Detroit Tigers hat and a white Tiger’s Jersey. In the rear view mirror, Bill could see that the name on the back of the jersey was Verlander. The young man sleepily stared out of the window while checking for messages on his cell phone that weren’t there. His eyes met Bill’s several times in the mirror. They both looked away. Finally Bill engaged the young man in conversation.

“Everyone thinks it’s going to be Boston, The Yankees or Phily. We got Verlander, Valverde, Cabrera and Jackson. Verlander might win the Cy Young but it takes a whole team and the Tigers are tough as hell this year,” said Bill.

“If I could pitch like Verlander, I’d quit school today,” said the young man.

“Most of us will never be a Verlander. If we all just try to be as good as we can be everything will be alright.” Said Bill.

The young man nodded as he thought about what Bill said.

“True dat…”

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July 19, 2011

Ali/Babar and the Wife Thief

Filed under: Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,Oprah,Short Story,walmart — blackhumouristpress @ 5:15 pm
Tags: Chicago, Detroit, Ford, humor, Humour, Oprah, pakistan, Terrorism, walmart

Ali was born a full six minutes ahead of his twin brother Babar. Mother decided that her boys would be A and B and so it was. A and B’s father decided when they were young that there was a land of great opportunity and diversity where immigrants were accepted and could find work, this land was Canada of course.

Ali and Babar were as identical as identical could be. Their parents could only tell them apart as infants and toddlers by a small birthmark on Ali’s left butt cheek. As time went on, Ali was the quiet, thoughtful and a methodical young boy that would construct buildings with Lego’s and Babar was the loud, busy child that would deconstruct things his brother created. As time went on, Babar suspected that his parents favored his twin brother at every turn in the road. When it came to time to find them each a wife, Babar was convinced his parents held Ali in higher esteem. Babar was matched up with a woman nearly the same height as him who carried more than a few extra pounds who had to shave the hair on her rotund stomach. She wheezed, chortled and drooled in her sleep and always smelled like salami. His wife’s mother had accompanied her only child to Canada fromPakistan and so Babar had a package deal that he did not care for on top of all the quirks.

Ali went to Queen’s University in Kingston,Ontario and landed a job with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Babar often joked with his brother that he wanted to come toOttawato see his brother on a strong black horse, dressed in a red suit. Ali was not offended. Ali’s wife had been a runner-up in the Miss Pakistani World contest in Mississauga,Ontario and was beautiful among beautiful women. Babar was upset that his brother had a good government job and a hot wife who maintained her shapely physique despite having two children, while his wife appeared to have swallowed furniture after having just one child.

Babar actually loved the freedom of being a cab driver. Like most Canadian boys, Babar was hockey crazy. Babar loved watching the sport and playing it. Babar kept his goalie equipment in the trunk of his cab and would not take customers who needed the trunk for suitcases. Babar played shinny and league games all overTorontoand in nice weather, he could be found playing cricket at a park here or there. Having a smaller home and less prestigious job was the trade off for Babar who loved the freedom to do what he wanted at anytime. Babar could live with all that. Having a less desirable wife than his brother was something that was hard to absorb and after close to seven years of marriage, the reality that his wife was plain and heavy and his brother’s wife was stunningly pretty and fit, still was something that overtly bothered Babar.

Babar was more Canadian than he was Muslim or Pakistani and so it came as a surprise to Babar’s extended family when he had made the announcement that he was going back toPakistanto become a better Muslim than he had been up to that point. Babar made friends inPakistanand grew to hate the Americans like the rest of the world. A persuasive older man had convinced Babar that he was the best candidate to go to Afghanistan to train to be a terrorist. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Train to do god’s work of stopping infidels who occupy the land of Allah and his messenger Mohammed.

Babar got into the best shape of his life running around in a part of the world that looked more like the moon. Babar was sent back toPakistan and ordered to wait in a hotel room. Three men picked up Babar and covered his head, whisked him away in a hot van to a room without windows where an intense older man with a beard, instructed Babar in English what it was that he had to do.

“Have you been to Chicago in the United States, my brother?”

“No sir, but it has an attractive lake front with a food festival in the summer that would be worth checking out if I had a week or so to spend away from home…”

“Yes… Well that can be arranged. You will be picking up a Ford Flex at Pearson Airport that will be registered to you with Ontario plates. We will need you to drive to Chicago and put the vehicle through the basement of what they now call the Willis Tower. Most still refer to it as theSearsTower. Same difference. It is on a South Wacker Drive. You have to navigate your way to the lower Wacker in order to get to the parking structure that supports the entire building”

“Am I to leave this car in the parking lot of the building?”

“You are to drive this automobile at top speed into one of the supports of the building…”

“And when do I bail out of the automobile?”

“There is no bailing. Thus shall it be. You shall be paired with companions pure, most beautiful of eye. In the gardens will be mates of the modest gaze that have never been touched…In other words, you get the virgins when you’ve completed the mission.”

It was sort of a tough sell for Babar. He undoubtedly felt that the talent in the afterlife had to be better than what he had at home. One in seventy two had to be hot or at least beautiful to the eye. Babar convincingly accepted the task of picking up a new Ford Flex stuffed with explosives and caesium-137 that had been purchased by a Russian cab driver who was actually Ukrainian but spoke only Russian because back in the old days, that is what everyone spoke. This Russian cab driver used to be a scientist in the formerSoviet Unionand was able to steal enough of the radioactive material stored in lead cases to sell to crackpots for a good price.

While Babar was on a long flight from Pakistan to Toronto, he thought about how he could get out of committing suicide. After all, Babar didn’t hate Americans anymore than other Canadian citizens. Americans were loud and fat and felt that they were the standard bearers of freedom and had won the Cold War through their brand of democracy and capitalism tinged with strategic economic imperialism. Babar really wasn’t passionate about felling the largest building in the world that represented American greatness and strength. Babar was just not that passionate about donating his life to the cause. The wheels began to turn in Babar’s head and before long, Babar had devised a way to complete his mission and get his brother’s beautiful wife all at the same time. All he would have to do is convince his twin to drive the Ford toChicago. And rig the automobile to detonate from Toronto with his brother in the vehicle in Chicago. Technology is wonderful.

“I have never asked anything of you in my whole life. All I am asking is that you drive this automobile for me toChicago. Someone will meet you in downtown Chicago who is interested in buying this vehicle that I won in a hockey raffle. I don’t need the car, I need the money. I cannot afford to make this trip right now. You have the vacation time to do this for me. You park it in a parking structure and wait for my instructions.”

Ali opted to do this for his brother. Besides, he really wanted to visit Chicago to hear some Blues and eat some really good pizza.

Ali had crossed the border at Windsor without much questioning just as the skies grew dark and angry. Before Ali could change his Canadian currency into American greenbacks, it had begun to storm. The wind was hurricane force and the sky was as dark as night. Ali pulled off the highway in Detroit as the windshield wipers could not keep pace with the rain that came down as if he were in a car wash. The streets in Detroit resembled rivers. Ali had decided to pull off the highway until the rain let up when he hit a hole in the road that was caused by a Detroiter who had stolen the sewer cap to sell as scrap metal. The scrap yard accepted the sewer cap even though it had stamped on it in clear letters, CITY OF DETROIT. The new vehicle had extensive damage and made a wheezing sound like Babar’s wife as it chugged along at about 10 miles an hour or 6.2 kilometers per hour.

Ali drove past many abandon homes and streets that had no homes as the sky began to clear up. Off in the distance was a Walmart unlike any he had ever read about in the middle of nowhere Detroit. This Walmart was the Disneyland of Walmarts. There was daycare, eye care, auto care and a petting zoo within the building that stretched over a length of a city block. Ali passed thousands of parked cars as the Ford Flex limped up to the auto center. Upon lifting the auto up in the air, it was discovered that the shocks were shot and the frame was twisted.

Ali walked to a motel that rented by the hour or night. The beds took quarters and the ceilings had mirrors. Ali watched the BBC news on public television and drifted asleep. It was early in the morning when he returned to the Walmart. Ali drank coffee in the waiting room of the Walmart auto service center watching re-runs of the Oprah Show when the explosion occurred.

One of the mechanics took a torch to the shock and a frame support that had gotten crushed when the front wheel on the driver side fell inside a large hole. Ali had been speaking on the phone when he hit hole at thirty miles an hour. Ali nearly bit off his own tongue as his head hit the roof of the vehicle.

The explosion was the loudest thing that anyone had ever heard before except for those that had served for their nation in places like Afghanistan or Iraq. The sound was familiar to them and they knew that it wasn’t a gun shot or a back firing truck. It was a homemade bomb.

Babar took a train up to Ottawa and hung around a coffee shop until the news broke that there was terrorist act against the world’s largest Walmart. The CBC showed pictures of stunned people crying and consoling each other while fire fighters tried to extinguish the smoldering mess that was once the grandest department store ever erected. Babar wondered what had happened and what had gone wrong. It made no difference to Babar either way. A few Detroiters were interviewed near the scene. One was a man who went by the name of Yates.

“Itta damn shame actually… You know how hard it was in the first place to get any kinda grocery stoh, dee-partment stoh and automotive stoh and what have you right here in inna city Dee-troit? Shhh damn… Come on, now. Who gonna wanna come back now aftah this? Terrorist don’t like no success. Dee-troit was coming back. People was working again and buying cars and now this. We all gone hafta go north of 8 Mile again or buy all important stuff at liquor stores… Ain’t right. It like roaches, you think you got them all an then some somehow git into yo box of cereal. Bin Laden waddent the end. He die and someone else grab the wheel and drive. I’m saddened by this today. Damn shame…. Ain’t nothin else but a damn shame.”

Now Babar had gotten a tattoo of a mole on his left ass cheek and purchased clothes that he knew his brother would wear. He walked into his brother’s house with out Ali’s wife or kids batting an eye. The dog knew his master by scent and snarled at the imposter. Babar had to give the dog some treats just to calm him. The wife clung to who she thought was her husband and tried to console him over the possible loss of his brother.

“It is a shame really. To think your brother, playing hockey, drinking and watching porn and he turns around in a short period of time to become a fundamentalist. They say he is in intensive care and has no hearing and cannot remember who he is… So sad.”

Babar was hopeful that his brother might die or remain incapable of knowing who he was. Babar rolled with it. He made love to his sister-in-law five times the first day and four the next. She had to leave home to shop just to keep who she thought was her husband off of her. Everything was working out as planned until Monday morning came around and Babar arrived at work and showed his name tag and had to hold his hand over a scanner.

“This crazy thing has been acting up lately, Ali… Just go ahead, we’ll have this checked, eh?” Said the guard.

Ali worked in forensics for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In fact Ali or Babar was studying finger prints and did not have a clue what he was supposed to be looking for or what he had was supposed to have been working on the Friday prior. Ali’s co-workers thought he was a bit out of it but understood since his brother had been part of a terrorist plot to destroy an American institution like Walmart.

When Babar returned home that Monday evening, the land line rang. His wife or sister-in-law answered the phone and had a look of relief and happiness as she listened to a doctor report’s that Babar or Ali actually, would live. They suggested his twin come to Detroit to spend time with him in hopes of getting his memory back. Ali’s heart sank but really it was Babar’s heart. He wondered if he would wind up in a Canadian prison or an American prison or if the terror cell that paid him and trained him, would catch up with him and kill him. Ali/Babar looked at his beautiful wife/sister-in-law and told her what he thought would be best given the situation; more sex.

“I will go to Detroit to help my brother… It is the best thing I could do now. I think before I go though that we should probably… Well you know… One last, I mean more time before I go.”

The beautiful woman became suspicious. The unquenchable appetite for sex, the politeness, the indifferent attitude towards their children and the dog who constantly growled and snarled at Ali/Babar all indicated that Ali was not Ali actually. An idea came to the beautiful woman.

“It has been quite a long time since I’ve allowed you to have anal sex with me… I think since we may be apart for some time, anal sex would be best for both of us. Would you enjoy that, my love?”

The real Ali had confided in his wife about his brother Babar’s fascination with having anal sex. Ali on the other hand was never interested in engaging in that sort thing. Ali/Babar’s eagerness revealed who he really was.

“Okay my love… I’m going to freshen up. Why don’t you hop into bed and I will be there momentarily…”

Within minutes, the RCMP had surrounded the house and came through the bedroom door and windows where Babar anxiously waited with an erect penis that pitched a tent under the sheet while he clasped his hands behind his head. It became a very interesting story to all that heard, watched or read the details. A man trained to be a terrorist sends his twin brother to bomb the largest building inNorth Americawith a vehicle packed with explosives and nuclear material, while moving in and assuming his brother’s life.

The two Mounties and FBI agents burst out in laughter when Babar told the story of laying in bed waiting to have anal sex with his wife or the woman who was supposed to be his wife. One of the FBI agents, a large African-American man, shook his head and put his hand on Babar’s shoulder.

“You should have gotten up and ran at that invitation…”

“Why do you say that?”

“What beautiful woman asks her husband to perform anal on her…? Shh damn… Come on, now.”

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August 14, 2009

Preying on the Poor

Filed under: Auto Industry,Detroit,Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 7:09 am
Tags: Cash4Clunkers, Detroit, Motor City Casino, Suburu, SVX

Blackhumourist Press

August 12 at 2:17am

Filmed in Detroit about late night local car sales on Television in Chicago.

http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=lFs8t4S0cQo

SuburuSVX

Source: www.youtube.com

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August 10, 2009

Detroit Vacation

Filed under: Auto Industry,Detroit,This Actually Happened,Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 5:28 am
Tags: Berkley, Chicago, Denny's, Detroit, Insomnia, Road Trip, Skapone, Superdot

This one is not fiction. I left Chicago Friday at 11:00 am. My day actually began or ended depending on how you look at things, when I finished writing a blog entry/short story entitled, “Menage a Trois” at 12:30am Friday morning. I took a sleeping pill, watched highlights of baseball on ESPN and turned in at roughly 2:00am and rose bright eyed at 5:30. I grabbed my hockey equipment and headed to Johnny’s Ice House on Madison Avenue in the west loop of Chicago. Twenty two men rose before the rooster to get some exercise in at 6:30 in the morning. I finished playing, cleaned up and headed north on the 94 to where I live up in Evanston. It may be that everyone is on vacation in August or that everyone is losing their jobs. At 8:00am in downtown Chicago, I was able to take the expressway through the city without applying the breaks once during the twelve mile trip north of the city. I gathered up my clothes and musical equipment and readied myself for the five hour trip to Detroit.

Jason, the baritone saxophone player in the Chicago group I play in called Skapone, showed up in his Cadillac STS. He stood out in front of the house as the dogs howled. He smoked his cigarette and looked past the trees as if he was looking for something. Jason walked in with his Doc Marten Boots, black military pants and black long sleeve shirt. He wore round granny glasses a la John Lennon but with black lenses. Jason stands at five feet seven inches with brown hair on his head that goes where it wants to. Jason has a perpetual smirk on his face that tells one that he is not only sceptical but expects proof at all times that whoever he is talking to, should prove that they are worthy of being heard. We loaded our stuff into my 2006 Dodge Magnum and headed east (actually south in the City of Chicago) towards the Irving Park exit.

Standing on the curb five feet from the homeless guy wearing $100.00 gym shoes and a Cubs hat, was Chris. Chris is one of two guitarists in the band Skapone that is headquartered in Chicago. Chris was wearing a military issue pair of shorts that he bought for $10.00 at Sears. Nobody I know is still buying anything at Sears and in fact the largest icon in the United States once named the Sears Tower, is now named Willis. I have heard from people in and around Chicago that Willis is the name of a British company that owns a majority of the space within the building. I won’t ever call it Willis. I still call it Peking duck, Burma and the dictator Khadaffi. I’m just an old creature of Habit.

Chris jumped in and we were on our way. This trip would not have the same quaintness of Sal Paradise in On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I had a debit card full of money and five one hundred dollar bills in my pocket. There would be no picking up Ed Dunkle in New Orleans to make a stop in Denver and then onto to San Francisco. We were going to play music for the weekend in Detroit and then return to our lives in Chicago.

Jason’s job is to create circuit boards that go into the making of automobiles for General Motors. When he’s not playing music he is working for a company in suburban Chicago that is trying to find a way to make his job obsolete and put him out on the street. Problem is that they need him right now. Jason tells GM that there is a problem with this or that on conference calls with a committee of six or seven on the phone of people that cannot make a decision quickly or at all, in the city of Detroit. Jason has a soft spot for them and drives a Cadillac. Despite what you may hear, a Cadillac is still a Cadillac.

Chris is a door man at a small drinking establishment on the north side of Chicago. He is six feet two inches and resembles an Irish lad. Without hearing his Midwest accent, you could imagine an Irish brogue flowing like water from his lips. Chris is in the running for under achiever of the year and does not even care that he may win. He holds a masters degree in philosophy and checks identifications of young urban professionals who flock to the cutting edge club where there are no buckets of Bud, five dollar wings or Cub games on thirty televisions strapped the walls. Living hand to mouth is more favorable than being a cog in the wheel and so it is for Chris.

We meet our other band member who made the trip in Detroit. Lincoln is an African American or black as most people say when they don’t feel compelled to say something as wordy as African American. Lincoln drove himself separately from the south side of Chicago in his Subaru SWV from 1994 that he loves as much as one could love a non breathing object. Lincoln lives on the south side of Chicago and works as a bailiff during the day at a county courthouse on the south side. Lincoln sings at his Catholic church on the south side, visits strip clubs and lives alone in a condo. Lincoln’s parents both died within the last ten years and his sister married a man from Spain and moved to Seville. Band members of Skapone are his family even though he may not actually like any of us.

Lastly there is me. I can’t fairly and objectively, describe myself. Let’s just say I play bass guitar, sing and am the narrator of this thing. I not only play bass for Skapone but also for Superdot, a similar Ska/Reggae outfit that hales from Detroit. I was going to be the Detroit tour guide for my Chicago compadres for the weekend. I’m in Detroit at least once a month or more. I have to return in just two weeks for a wedding.

I chose to make our stay at the Motor City Casino in downtown Detroit, one mile from the Ambassador Bridge that leads to Canada. The neighborhood surrounding the Motor City Casino has beat up homes that are still occupied but mostly abandoned. The nicest buildings in the neighborhood are the ones that belong to the Teamsters. A banner one block from the casino reads, “Casino workers… Your credit union is right here”.

For me, the sites of factories covered with graffiti without a window left in the structure is no big deal. As we rolled up on Grand River towards the casino, there is very little between the Chrysler Freeway and the Las Vegas style casino that had a dancing light display on the sides of the building. It looked like a mirage in the desert across the blocks and blocks of vacant space that had crab grass and other weeds growing through the cracks of foundations that used to house homes. The boys were in awe. Jason commented first.

“People actually still live here… This is great. I feel safer in this desolate bombed out part of Detroit than back home in my own suburban neighborhood.”

There was nobody on the side streets where there were maybe a half dozen homes to a block and many wide open spaces. We gathered up our things and checked into the casino hotel. The first thing that strikes you is the smell of cigarettes everywhere. Smoking in public places, at restaurants, clubs and hospitals, is all still legal. Everyone but me smokes in Detroit or so it seems. Most people are black but a smattering is white. People are overweight to grossly obese. Lumbering black women with their daughters and their daughter’s children, spending a night at the casino in lieu of a formal vacation, wore sleeveless shirts and tight pants over their enormous posteriors and arms that looked liked thighs that jiggled whenever they moved. For me it’s sad to think that the fractured family spends its family vacation in town at a Disneyland set up for adults to drink and gamble. There is no pool for the children or any play area to speak of. The children stay in their hotel rooms and play video games and watch pay per view movies as they do at home. The only difference is the clean rooms with piped in cool air and a view of Detroit that makes the city look not that scary at night.

The whites at the casino are not unlike the blacks. They are segregated for the most part without problem or incident. They too are overweight and most like spending their vacations or weekend get away at the casino in town. They all queue up in line at the buffet stocked full of a variety of good and bad food alike called the Assembly Line. Four in the morning or four in the afternoon is no different, there are people, smoke, Motown music playing through speakers, cocktail waitresses and mostly working class people risking their earnings and savings at the casino; The mirage in inner city Detroit.

I proceeded to lose forty dollar before taking off for the northern suburb of Berkley which is north and west of downtown Detroit. In Berkley, homes were neat and orderly and there were no pawn shops, barber shops, MB Churches with hand painted signs on the building, staggering drunks, junkies and prostitutes. It is white and affluent and insulated from the inner city. The suburbs are insulated from Detroit but cannot exist without the city. People enter The Berkley Front and sit at the downstairs bar to watch the Tigers play the Minnesota Twins, drink beer and eat fried food. There was one waitress who looked as though she hated life. She never smiled, rolled her eyes over our need to see a menu before eating and wore a tank top t shirt without a bra. Her sagging boobs, frayed jeans and messy hair went well with her demeanour; she did not give fuck, welcome to Detroit, what do you need?

I played two sets in front of a fairly full establishment with the band Superdot and Skapone without event. We earned our duckets and headed back to the Motor City Casino after eating Taco Bell at three in the morning on a park bench, under a waxing moon. Crickets went well with a warm humid night where everyone seemed to be sleeping in the suburbs. When we returned to the casino, there was hardly a parking spot to be found. Heavy bass pumped from old Caprices with shiny rims, jacked up with tinted windows. People filed in and out of the casino at three in the morning. The night was electric. I went up and got into bed and flipped channels as I waited for sleep to come. On three hours of sleep, I played ice hockey, drove five hours, played two sets of music and lay in bed wide awake. Sleep came nearly 24 hours later with the help of a sleeping pill. That and Shark Week, helped me to finally slip down stream.

Saturday was a rainy dreary day. We filed into the car and headed south to suburban Taylor to find a Denny’s since the boys did not want to pay $18.00 a head to eat at the Assembly Line. I was tempted to pay for them for the luxury of not having to travel fifteen miles to find a Denny’s where I ate the exact same breakfast in Seattle, Washington just the weekend before. There was absolutely nothing different in the omelette, dry potatoes or grits. Two thousand miles between restaurants and it may as well have been the same place. I returned the hotel and used their state of the art exercise equipment to try and offset as best as possible all the calories I took in between drinking and eating since leaving home. I spent three hours at the health club between lifting and running. I got my money’s worth there. The boys were antsy and wanted to see something worth seeing in Detroit. The only thing that came to mind in inner city/downtown Detroit was Greek town, a two block area near the baseball and football stadiums, houses Greek restaurants, bars and shops. It’s a great place to people watch and just walk around and not feel too apprehensive. The boys loved Greek town. They loved the flaming cheese, shots of Ouzo and lamb with rice. We got back in the car and headed over to our second show of the weekend which would be an outside block party under a tent in Warren, Michigan.

I took 75 north to eight mile road. Marshall Mathers made eight mile road popular in his movie and rap tunes. Eight mile road is the northern border of Detroit and is eight miles north of a particular point where Woodward Road begins in the heart of downtown Detroit. I stopped for gas at a Sunoco and noticed a sign for a three bedroom brick ranch for sale for $17,500.00 cash. A fucking house could be purchased for less than a new car, a good new car. The party was off of Nine Mile. It was a party of mostly young people that would have rather heard rap than white reggae. Be that as it may, we played our sets and sat around and socialized for a while. Me being a student of human nature, I marvelled at the young women who showed up all dressed up as if going to a night club to just drink cheap beer and shots of Captain Morgan outside. When dance music blared on the sound system after we finished playing, young women under twenty took turns dancing seductively while holding one of the two poles that supported the tent. Young white men with cocked baseball hats and cheap tattoos, bobbed their hands and heads to the music while holding forty ounce beers or full bottles of hard alcohol. I got the feeling that the night was nothing more than a diversion from the mundane routine day to day life of an area that was not much more affluent than the depressed areas of inner city Detroit. It was a front yard with a tent and booze. It may as well have been a night club though.

We made a stop at liquor store on eight mile where you can pay all your bills too. There were no grocery stores around and so the liquor store that looked like an emporium was actually the catch all store for the neighborhood. An Arab man behind the bullet proof glass smiled as he accepted money through the lazy Susan, bullet proof spinner. There were five different magazines devoted to cars, weed and black women with extremely large asses on the counter next to colored condoms on a spinner rack. We were not approached or hassled or robbed. I went in apprehensive but nothing happened. Chris even pissed on the wall that separated the emporium from a vacant lot. A football field away were several young black men who noticed the parked Magnum and large white dude pissing on the wall. Yet nothing happened.

I returned to the casino and slipped a hundred dollar bill into a slot machine and proceeded to lose almost all of it when I hit it. I won $597.00 and cashed out. I then got greedy and lost $200.00 after that. I still came out ahead for a change. We woke, got our things together and headed out on the highway on a hot sunny day. The ramp that takes you from the 75 to the 94 going west has a large factory that is riddled with graffiti and sits without one window still in place. It is the same structure that was covered with a gigantic tarp several years back when the city of Detroit hosted the Super bowl. The tarp helped to keep the eyes of the rest of the nation off of the dismal reality of what Detroit has become and what it looks to be for years to come. The recovery may just skip over Detroit. It has not been a city most would consider inhabiting since before the first men walked on the moon, since Vietnam and since Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. walked the earth. Jason posed an obvious question as we made our way towards Ann Arbor. It is a question that anyone who may live in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago may ask; what is the appeal for you in this city?

The answer is that there is nothing fake in Detroit. Everything in Detroit is really real. If it’s bad where you live it is probably worse in Detroit and yet the people for the most part are no worse for the wear. If I had $17,500.00 cash, I’d by a three bedroom brick ranch there and make it my summer palace. But that’s just how I am.

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Blackhumouristpress's Blog

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The Road From Iraq to Detroit

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Ali/Babar and the Wife Thief

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Preying on the Poor

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Detroit Vacation

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