Blackhumouristpress's Blog

July 19, 2011

Ali/Babar and the Wife Thief

Filed under: Detroit,Ethnicity,humor,Oprah,Short Story,walmart — blackhumouristpress @ 5:15 pm
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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.”

May 10, 2011

Covalent bondage or Schopenhauer’s girlfriend

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 3:09 am
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Covalent chemical bonds involve the sharing of a pair of valence electrons by two atoms, in contrast to the transfer of electrons in ionic bonds. Such bonds lead to stable molecules if they share electrons in such a way as to create a noble gas configuration for each atom.

Hydrogen gas forms the simplest covalent bond in the diatomic hydrogen molecule. The halogens such as chlorine also exist as diatomic gases by forming covalent bonds. The nitrogen and oxygen which makes up the bulk of the atmosphere also exhibits covalent bonding in forming diatomic molecules.

   

 

 

            Phoebe woke up early to go over her chart about Covalent Chemical bonds for her first lesson plan as a student teacher at theJohnElroySanfordHigh Schoolon the north side ofChicago.  John Elroy Sanford, better known as Redd Foxx or Fred Sanford, had donated a large sum of money to the Chicago Public Schools. 

            Phoebe showed up early to class before the students showed.  She wore a sleeveless dress and wore her black horned rimmed glasses which she felt made her look more adult than without them.  Phoebe at best looked to be twenty years of age although she was closer to thirty.  Hall monitors asked her for hall passes and male students tried to talk to her on more than one occasion. 

The Chemistry teacher was a man by the name of Bill who mistook Phoebe’s smile and approachable demeanor to be interest.  Bill showered that morning and doused himself in Chocolate Axe.  He had heard some teenage boys talking in the hallway about how the cologne was loaded with pheromones and how females could not resist a man wearing the said cologne.  Bill died the gray from his hair, flossed his teeth and bleached his breath with mouthwash and gum.  He wore a spandex shirt under his collared shirt that kept his slight gut looking flatter and his man tits from looking too missile like.  Phoebe proudly showed Bill her chart about Covalent bonds.  Bill stood beside Phoebe, careful not to rub up against her even though he was itching to touch her caramel colored skin.  Bill had heard that Filipino girls were wild for white men and so he was oozing confidence. 

            “That is a wonderful chart, Feebs…”

            Phoebe was completely disgusted that a man old enough to be her father, had breached the space between two human beings in western cultures, lowered his voices and whispered near her ear.  Fortunately for Phoebe, the first two students entered the class.  They were loud and obnoxious for8:00amin the morning.  Several more students filed in until all the seats were filled.  Phoebe nervously began to speak to the students that looked to be her age.  The boys were sizing her up; they looked at her arms and legs and studied her pleasant face as she spoke about things that they did not care anything about.  The girls in the class criticized her appearance to make themselves feel better.  Phoebe felt like she was under a microscope.  Her mentor whose eyes never left her form, the boys in the class that thought about sex every four seconds on average and the young women that looked like they wanted to work her over after class.  Phoebe did all she could to conduct the class with clammy, shaking hands and a voice that cracked several times.  All Phoebe wanted to do was go home.

           Phoebe got home to find her roommates boyfriend loading up furniture into a moving van with three other young men.  Three young white men with hair that stuck straight up in the air, all three with tight shirts and white shoes, it almost appeared to be a uniform.   Clinton, the Doberman Pincher that Flavius, had bought for his fiancée, Monica was barking in the back of a racing Honda with fins on the back, lowered and outfitted with neon blue lights around the bottom of the car.

            “Yo man, that fucking dog fucks my fucking shit up, Imma shoot it in the fucking head.  I take pride in my shit, yo.  You should just leave that fucking dog here.  You gave her the fucking dog, let her ass take it.  I would take the fucking X-Box and leave the bitch ass dog.”
            Flavius yelled into the open window at the dog that gnawed on the slightly open glass in an effort to bite Flavius.  Flavius then turned to his friend who was worried about his car and threatened to kick his ass.  The third guy was rapping along with a song as he blasted the music to the point of rattling windows in the apartment complex.

            “Motherfucker…  Turn down the music.  One of these old ass bitches gonna call the po-lice.  Help me get the couch out this place and we gone… Clinton!  Shut the fuck up!”

            Phoebe and Monica arrived at work which was called Ye Olde Skokie Ale House.  Monica’s eyes were bloodshot and mascara had dripped down to her pink tank top.  Rubin, the bar manager who wore a Hawaiian shirt and shorts with calf high white socks and sandals, was visibly upset that Monica looked unfit to work the floor.  The Chicago Bulls were in the playoffs and the entire bar would be filled with overweight patrons looking to eat chicken wings and drink too much beer.

            “I don’t like to ask you girls too much bout your private lives but what the hell happened?  I can’t have you working here tonight looking like a bloodhound.  Go to the washroom, wash your face and put some eye drops in your eyes…  Tonight is gonna be the biggest night since the Superbowl,” said Rubin.

            Phoebe explained that Monica and her fiancé called off the wedding and so all the furniture they bought together was collected and taken to garage belonging to the boyfriend’s parents. Clintonthe Doberman was on a leash barking in the backyard of the former beau’s parent’s house.  Rubin called his friend Calabrese whose six foot Chinese wife was the bartender at The Ale House.  Fu came fromBeijingand was a mail order bride belonging to a 5 ‘5 Italian cop with a thick black moustache and hair all over his body.  Calabrese chewed his gum obnoxiously; thumbs in his belt line while he listened to Monica tell her story.  Calabrese winked at his tall wife who could only really serve beer since she didn’t understand English very well.  Fu was tall and pretty.  Calabrese wrote down a number of things on a pad of paper, took the palm of his hand and rubbed his face before asking Monica if she wanted to press charges.  Monica didn’t understand, Calabrese became impatient.

            “If he stole your stuff, it’s theft.  If it’s theft he goes to jail and his momma posts bond…”

            “Well, all I want isClintonback.  He will be so nervous.  He one time ate all the stuffing to a comforter and I had to take him to the vet to get it removed.  He did this because I left him alone for a day.  I just know he’s freaking right now.”

            Monica and Phoebe pulled it together and served close to a hundred people over the course of eight hours.  People ordered pizza, fries, wings, shots, beer as they watched very large men lope up and down on a basketball court for forty eight minutes.  The poker king came in took his seat at his table and challenged anyone to beat him.  He wore a cowboy hat and aviator glasses.  The poker king had just lost on television at4aminLas Vegastwo weeks earlier.  He was a transitory celebrity for those that deemed card playing a sport.  Joe, the cook from a neighboring bar, ordered a sixteen ounce steak with seasoned fries and fell asleep at the table as his food was served.  Marjorie, who lost her job, was playing pool with a guy named Ted who was married but said he was single.  The more they drank, the more Ted was going to take Marjorie toEuropeandAustralia.  He ordered Marjorie Fosters and spoke in a really bad Australian accent. 

            Phoebe’s final customer every night was a professor of philosophy from Northwestern.  Phil drove a twenty year old Honda Civic with a bumper sticker that said Nixon-Agnew 1972,  which illustrated his dry sense of humor.

            “The usual, Phil?”

            “If I were to change one thing in my daily routine, I may ruin the balance we have on this planet.  This world that spins at 1,450 kilometers an hour might wobble just enough to cause all sorts of issues of gravity.  We naively believe our problems have been solved by the killing of one man who is responsible for us having to face the indignity of being groped and frisked at airports all across this land and yet it isn’t clear who has won Dancing with the Stars, just as it isn’t clear who the stars actually are.  Change at this point in time might be detrimental, dear Phoebe.  Here you are scurrying about like an ant on an ant hill, serving those seeking a momentary diversion from their mundane existence by numbing themselves through legal means so that they can face their drab home life and their unfulfilling occupations and nary a man would guess that the optically pleasing Phoebe tried to teach those that we will one day entrust to carry on our human legacy.  Might I ask how you fared today?”

            Phoebe thought about lying to Phil who looked down at everyone and everything, who hated life and had nothing but disdain for anything seeking order.  Phil was a nihilist, atheist, anarchist and misogynist who constantly over analyzed the simplest things and then ridiculed them.

            “I think I reached them, Phil…  I think the kids have a basic understanding of what a covalent bond might be now and in some small way, I feel as though I may have taught somebody something.  Hopefully one day when the students are old enough to drink at a bar, they can dazzle someone they hope to sleep with, with the knowledge that they learned today from me,” said Phoebe.

            “You can only hope that the electricity leads to a stable bond,” joked Phil, as he swirled his ice cubes in his empty glass.

            “One more Scotch, Phil?”

            “One more Scotch, dear Phoebe, and then I shall sleep like an infant.”

            Phil jotted down some words on a napkin as a heavy set young lady with pig tails sang an ABBA tune in front of the Juke Box while her boyfriend in a Cubs jersey hugged her from behind.  Phil smiled and shook his head.  Phoebe was pettingClintonwith Monica and the Mexican chefs in the kitchen.  Calabrese had proudly delivered the dog to the bar before closing.  Phil left a 100% tip for Phoebe and a message on paper napkin before climbing into his ancient Honda.  This is what it said:

“The very first
Of human life must spring from woman’s breast,
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
Your first tears quench’d by her, and your last sighs
Too often breathed out in a woman’s hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them.”

October 8, 2010

Section 8 or Happy Endings in Paradise

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 4:49 am
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Horace owned an apartment building that housed close to thirty families on a side street just north of Devon Avenue between California Avenue and Kedzie in Chicago.  For most people, these coordinates mean absolutely nothing.  What you need to know is that it was a launching pad into Americana for fresh off the boat European Jews, Indians, Pakistanis, Croatians and Koreans with a smattering of Latinos from various Central American countries. 

            Horace inherited the building from his father who had purchased it upon moving to the United States from England.  Horace’s real name was Armitage Cockfoster III.  There were two other Armitage Cockfosters before him and a string of others going back to the days of feudalism.  In honor of one of Horace’s relatives who was viscount, they named the last stop on The Underground after him.  If you take one of the lines going out towards  nowhere, The Tube train has a sign on the front that reads; Cockfosters.

            All the tenants knew was that they paid there check to A. Cockfoster Management Inc. and their logo was a rooster on a weathervane.  Horace never told his janitor or any of the tenants that he was in fact Armitage Cockfoster III.  This mysterious entity who was supposed to be living in London always scared the janitor into complying with Horace.

            “Dwight…  Mr. Cockfoster received a most inarticulate letter from a Mr. Leviticus Israel regarding a plethora of inadequacies in his unit.  Mr. Cockfoster has dispatched me to determine what is necessary and what is bogus.  I shall be at the building later this afternoon,” said Horace.

            Dwight, who was named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, was actually born and raised in Romania and received the name Dwight after General Eisenhower had traveled through Bucharest after World War II.  General Eisenhower took a picture with Dwight’s father and had a bite of a pastry and a sip of coffee.  Both are still in a sub zero freezer and have been determined to indeed have Dwight D. Eisenhower’s DNA on the pastry and coffee.

 Dwight Iliescu was smoking a cigarette out in front of the building and nervously groomed his bushy moustache with his thumb and index finger.  He flicked the cigarette into the street as Horace pulled up in his Jaguar with a Union Jack sticker on the back.  Dwight thought Horace was a mealy mouthed little yes man for some fat cat sitting in a comfy chair in front of a fireplace somewhere in the English countryside, sipping Scotch and petting one of several bloodhounds.  That kind of stuff only happens in movies.

            “Meester Horace…  Let me say to you something before we go up.  These people are animals.  They are dirty people who cause this problem for themselves.  These guy can’t even talk English.  Everything motherfuck this motherfuck that.  You see for youself.  He’s home now.” Said Dwight.

            “Don’t they work during the day?”  Asked Horace.

            “Boss, nobody works.  You work and I work so that they can stay home and don’t do shit.  That’s how it work, boss.  Come on.” Said Dwight.

            They climbed a staircase that squeaked and flexed.  The hallway smelled of spices from India and urine.  The forty watt refrigerator bulbs helped to set the dismal mood of the run down building.  Horace did what was necessary.  Much of what needed to be done for the sake of humanity was optional in Horace’s opinion.

            The door opened and a smallish black man of possibly forty years of age, opened the door and genuflected as if he were ushering royalty.  Mr. Israel had no idea he was actually in the presence of some sort of periphery royalty and that’s the way Horace liked it.

            “Yeah…  I done sent an email to that Mr. Cock…  Cock…  Whatever his last name is.  Far as I’m concerned it cain be Cocksucker cause he ain’t spend a fucking nickel on this bitch.  Who you now?”  Asked Leviticus.

            “Horace Spencer…  I have been sent by Mr. Cockfoster to see what your complaints are so that we can avert any issues with Section 8,” said Horace.

            “Kay…  Follow me…  You see them motherfucking baseboards?  That there some Tom and Jerry bullshit.  Look at the size them fucking holes!  I got them stuffed up with steel wool but them motherfuckers cain chew threw anything.  I done come out the other day an they looking at me dead in my face.  I done stomped my feet and they just look at me like I’m crazy.  Well I come home the other day an my two boys got one them rats on a goddamn glue board and the pouring bleach on the motherfucking thing in the bathtub and it screaming and then my wife an daughter was screaming and I was ready to just clean out the whole motherfucking place.  I went and got my 22 and shot the thing in the head.  Now I will pay to fix the damage to the wall.  The shell got lodged right here and I done took it out already.  So I know Dwight brought up some Mexicans to put some shit in the corners but them rats are fucking sharp.  They ain’t eating that shit when they cain chew through the cabinets and eat themselves some Captain Crunch…  Okay next,” said Leviticus.

            The three men walked into the living room where Leviticus pointed at the ceiling.  Horace was mystified by the huge Star of David that hung from a thick and expensive gold chain from Leviticus’ neck.  Leviticus wore a long sleeved polyester shirt that was unbuttoned to the middle of his chest.  Horace was familiar with Sammy Davis Jr. but was not aware of any other black Jews.  Truth was that Leviticus married a devout Jewish woman and changed his name so that he and the children and wife, would all be Jewish together.  Israel and Leviticus were adopted names.  His real name was Ronald Smith even though nobody called him that any longer.

            “Look at that ceiling…  Okay…  They students up there, right?  Indians and they do some kind of dance and light up some shit that burn my eyes an my kid’s eyes.  The kids be crying.  I went up there an toll them they breaking my ceiling and to quit lighting that shit up.  They do what they fucking want.  Crazy ass fucking music at all hours … One time I go up there an they got a fucking octopus looking thing on the floor an they all smoking out this thang.  I toll them they gone push me too far.  You best talk to them Indians cause we gone have a problem soon,” said Leviticus.

            “Are we talking about east or west Indies?”  Asked Horace.

            “I don’t know nothing bout which side they come from.  You got the 7-11 Indians and you got yo casino Indians in a fucking tee-pee fighting with John Wayne, okay?  Upstairs they the quickie mart Indians.  They cook some crazy shit and smoke some stuff I ain’t never smelled before.  I smoked weed in my day an this ain’t no fucking weed that I know of.  Anyway, you talk to them and I need this shit fixed cause I don’t need no fucking plaster falling on my family, ya dig?  Okay next…”

            The three men then moved into the bathroom where flies clung to rust colored stains on a bubbled wall.  Horace blinked hard and shook his head.  Horace understood that the damage meant a leaking sanitary pipe in the wall.  The cost to fix was going to be possibly hundreds or a thousand.

            “Them flies love shit and shit coming down the motherfucking walls from the inside.  Now I cain smell the shit an piss.  You cain’t smell that now cause my wife done bleached the shit out the walls but it will come back.  Now y’all cain fix this or I cain call the city an then Section 8 ain’t gone pay shit, y’dig?  Now I know y’all ain’t got rats, dancing Indians and shit rolling down the inside y’ walls at yo place.  I’m tire of Dwight here always telling me he gone fix this an fix that.  I cain tell you his lazy ass don’t do shit round here.  If it weren’t for the fucking Mexicans this place would look worse than it do.  You wanna keep Dwight, that’s Mr. Cocksucker’s bullshit to work out with y’all.”  Said Leviticus.

            “Fuck you, you fucking guy…  Who you think you are?  I work more in one day than you work in you whole life!”  Shouted Dwight.

            Horace stepped between the two men.  It was at that moment that he noticed a hole in the wall behind a poster of The Power Rangers that was twenty years old, torn and curling enough to show a fist sized hole in the wall.  Horace pulled the poster back to discover the hole.  Leviticus quickly explained the damage.

            “Okay now this here a touchy subject cause I done toll my wife you cain’t be hammering on them walls less you know where the studs are.  So she wanted to hang a religious thang there an I toll her to wait til I cain git to it an she tried and made that hole.  I will pay this out my own pocket but I wish not to discuss this in the presence of my wife cause she will git violent an I don’t need that shit.  I got nough problems without having to fight over walls, y’dig?  So I will cover this one but y’all gone hafta roll up y’sleeves and git this shit done lickity motherfucking split cause I done had nough.”  Said Leviticus.

            Horace made a few notes on a note book and told Leviticus that he would get back to him shortly.  Leviticus told them both men; god bless.  As Horace and Dwight walked down the stairs, Horace read an email from his realtor on his Blackberry.  There was a cash offer for the building that was thirty percent lower than what the market value was just a year earlier.  All Horace caught was Dwight’s question about what he thought could and should be done.  Horace massaged his temples and looked across Devon Avenue where there was a neon sign on a Korean restaurant that advertised live barbeque.  The sign flashed the word Paradise. There was a massage parlor behind the restaurant for happy endings. Horace said the word out loud and smiled.  Dwight didn’t understand the comment.  He lit a cigarette and watched as Horace drove off in his late model Jaguar and then spit on the ground.  Dwight said to himself in Romanian inside his own head.

            “If this is paradise, what the hell is hell?”

October 2, 2010

Mixed Marriage

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 2:05 am
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Kevin met Keisha after a hockey game.  It seems unlikely given that Keisha really had an almost disdain for the sport of ice hockey.  Keisha’s boyfriend at the time was the goalie on the opposing team.  Kevin noticed the pretty African-American woman in the stands and made it a point of finding out where the opposing team was going to drink that night.  It was at the bar of a Red Lobster that Kevin met Keisha.  Kevin paid the waiter twenty dollars to check her identification and then give Kevin all the information.  Keisha got up to use the washroom at the Red Lobster and it was in the galley that Kevin intercepted Keisha and professed his undying love for her.

            It could have been Kevin’s boldness that really attracted Keisha to him since Kevin grabbed Keisha and began kissing her in nearly clear view of where her boyfriend was sitting.  That move was the beginning of a love and life everlasting.  The profession of love that needed to be legally bound by a document whereby Kevin and Keisha would belong to one another was where it all headed from that moment on.  It all culminated in marriage at a Baptist Church with a Catholic priest also presiding.  It was a grand affair to see the friends and family of Kevin get together and break bread with the family and friends of Keisha.  Black people trying to dance to rock from the 1980’s and white people just trying to dance.  The whites had to admit that Keisha was stunning in her white gown and the blacks had decided that Kevin looked okay for a pasty dude that really needed to take in a bit more Vitamin D via the sun.

            Time went on and is often the case, Kevin and Keisha got together and eventually had a child.  They both were excited to be parents and really loved their young daughter with all their being.  Kendra was born with curly light brown hair, light skin and blue eyes.  There was a twenty five percent chance that Kendra would come out light skinned and she did.  That in itself meant nothing to either parent other than the child looked more white than black to most but occasionally she looked more black than white to others.  Kevin joked that Kendra was a white zebra with black stripes and everyone always chuckled at the comment.  It was sort of cute to all but Keisha.

            Now for Keisha’s thirty fifth birthday, Kevin had decided that he and his wife would take a grand vacation and travel to South Africa.  A land where white people once ruled over black people and now black people ruled over all.  As the time drew closer, Keisha began to think about the tremendous amount of miles and even more kilometers it would take by airplane to get to Johannesburg and the possibility of the airplane crashing into the sea and then their young daughter would become ward of the state.  It suddenly became imperative that legally custody be granted to one of their friends in the event of their death.  The only issue was who it was going to be.

            “Benita is the sister I never had.  I would do anything for Benita and she would do anything for me.  She is Kendra’s godmother and she loves Kendra as her own.  Benita did a great job with her own children and knows that she would do a fabulous job with Kendra if something were to happen to us.  I would like to legally make Benita Kendra’s legal guardian before we go…  She is the right choice; she is a loving, educated black woman.”

            Kevin happened to be working on his spoken word/poetry reading.  He was matching up a bible verse from the Gideon Bible that he stole from a motel in Fargo, North Dakota to some rhythms that he came up with on his $150.00 Casio that he bought in at a pawn shop under the elevated train on the north side of Chicago.  It was sort of a Bossa Nova beat underneath poetry.  Kevin frequented a coffee house on the north side of Chicago with a clear view of Lake Michigan.  On Tuesday nights, random people would congregate to read indirect words about being indirect.  Kevin chose the Gideon’sBible.  A smooth jazzy beat looped over and over as Kevin softly read Deuteronomy 4: 32.

            “Ask about the former days, long before your time, form the day God man on earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other…”

            Keisha interrupted.  Kevin blinked hard and turned off the Casio.  He could no longer concentrate.

            “Why the bible, baby?  Why don’t you write a poem about something on your mind and rattle that off at the poetry readings?  Asked Keisha.

            “Because the bible moves me.  That’s why.  Why is black so important to you?”  Asked Kevin.

            Keisha was taken aback by the question.  Kevin was aggravated by being interrupted and by Betty’s qualification of being a suitable surrogate parent because she was black.

            “What if I said I wanted to have my brother Peter to be a surrogate in the event of our death?”  Said Kevin.

            “You want you’re under achieving brother to raise our child?  The only white landscaper on the north shore?  Maybe he could put her in a junior college and teach her how to tell the difference between grass and weeds,” said Keisha.

            “Oh and your friend Betty, the one you call your sister, the one you tell our daughter that she is our aunt, the one who chose some man whore to be her husband…  You want her to hook up with some slick bastard who is going to be lining up our daughter when she hits puberty?  Great idea.  Benita chooses a worthless man before and so he will be the next one but meanwhile our daughter winds up being the Korean chick that Woody Allen wound up marrying that was his foster child.  No way.  I’m not game for that.”

            Keisha became indignant at the implication that all black men were womanizers and capable of indiscretions with young girls who may or may not be relations.

            “So all black men will rape our daughter, huh?  Is that what you’re saying?  Its cool to sleep and marry a black woman but still keep your eye on the brother, right?”

            “You get on a goddamn elevator; you’re the first one to hold your purse against your body as soon as some dude with braids, sagging pants and a long white t-shirt comes slooping up towards us.  I already know he views you as an Uncle Tom and a sell out because you stand there staring at the floor display, clutching my hand.  I didn’t make the black man a villain, they made themselves one.  I’m just here to give each individual a fair shake.  When it comes to my daughter and I’m already dead, I have to say that the screening process left up to your friend Betty, scares the hell out of me.  Her judgment sucks in my opinion.  A warm body and a large cock is all that she really needs, right?”

            “Your brother is an under achieving bust out.  He’d be happy watching television all day, drinking a six pack, asking your mom if the mail came so he could see if maybe some credit card company sent him or your mother’s dog a check in the mail.  Loser is what should be tattooed on his forehead and it saddens me to think that you would want your daughter to possibly be raised by someone that has zero ambition that is content watching NHL games in your mother’s basement with other bust outs who live with their mothers.  Why is this?  Because he is white?  You can be a worthless human being as long as you are white?  Is that the case?”

            Two days passed and neither Keisha nor Kevin would talk to one another.  The two had angered each other and dredged up latent racism that dwelled deep within both of them.  It was Kevin that thought long and hard about a compromise that would keep their South African vacation from being a case study in apartheid; suggest the lesbian Asian friend to be the surrogate mother and custodial parent in the event of death.  Keisha was surprised by the suggestion but listened to her husband without interruption.

            “I thought about this whole thing and it is really all pretty silly.  I know that Benita would be a good parent to our daughter despite whatever philandering waste of space that she might hook up with and although my brother is a bit arrested in his development, rest assured he would care for and love our daughter more than if it were his own.  I have a solution.  Your good friend Joyce from Wisconsin would be a great alternative.  Although I hope our daughter does not turn out lesbian, I know that Joyce would take good care of Kendra and being sort of butch, she would try to instill in her the necessity to be proficient at sports.  Hopefully our daughter would never be a Green Bay Packer fan but if it happens… Just like being a lesbo, I won’t be around to witness it…  What do you think?”  Asked Kevin.

            Keisha thought about the whole issue and the potential for ruining their own two week dream vacation to Africa and decided that an Asian lesbian was a great compromise.  Joyce cried upon being asked to be a parent in the event of their death.  Kevin, Keisha and Joyce toasted the agreement.  Disaster was averted.

August 23, 2010

Road Trip of Life

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 6:03 pm
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Now Jack bought a one way ticket to Seattle, landed and took a cab to the suburb of Bellevue.  Down a dead end street on the second floor above a garage was the office of an elderly attorney who attended mass every morning at 9am then walked two miles to his office and began his day at 11am and then broke at noon for lunch.  Luckily for Jack, he showed up at 11:10am.  In the office were awards for racing Alfa Romeo cars back when the octogenarian had a full head of brown hair.

                “God damn computers.  Everything is computers and I hate these damn things…  You know anything about computers?” Asked the attorney.

                “Enough to do my job at home like a trained pony,” responded Jack.

                Jack listened to the man talk about the weather in Seattle and how he once had to visit Chicago for a court case.

                “Honest to god…  I get in the hotel and it stinks to high heaven of cigarettes and I was afraid I was going to catch something on my feet cause the carpet was so disgusting, you know what I mean?  So I’m walking around in my underwear and wingtip shoes.  I says to myself; this is ridiculous.  I went to court, then I sat at a jazz lounge til my flight left and never went back to Chicago.  Place is as flat as a board and is either too hot or too cold…  So let me ask you, what happened to your father-in-law?”

                Jack said very little as he packed up pictures and letters in a box to take back to his wife in Chicago.  Jack was there to pick up the automobile that once belonged to his father-in-law.  All Jack could think about was the little old man lying in a coffin with his eyes and mouth sewn shut.  A minister said some scripted, canned, semi-thought provoking words that he used over and over again about the celebration of life and god’s desire to call us all home at his discretion.  The closing of the casket and dropping into the ground and covering the casket with dirt and then the realization that generations and generations of people were placed in underground tombs for as far as the eye could see.  A little old man whose job meant more to him than his family, died and was remembered by four people on a late summer day and then that was it.

                “I don’t envy you, young man.  That is one helluva drive to make in two days.  Why don’t you take your time?”

                “Because I’m an American and as an American, it is necessary to rush through life so that we can get on with eternity and whatever that is exactly.”

                “Amen to that…”

                Jack was a hyperactive child back before ADD was a term and as a hyperactive adult, he did not relish the idea of sitting in a vehicle for thirty four hours.  Google said that it took thirty four hours at fifty five miles an hour.  Jack thought that if he could just average eighty miles an hour, he could shave the trip down to twenty six hours and twenty five minutes.  Jack wondered what he would think about for the better part of two days while driving east on interstate 90.  Jack had a habit of talking out loud to himself whenever he was alone and so he did.  It gave him something to do.

                “How come it is that whenever you get out of a big city, there’s nothing but Country Music stations?  How is it that I’m less than 100 miles from the Canadian border and everyone sounds like they’re from Alabama… For fuck’s sake.”

                “Two hours into this bitch and my hip hurts on my left side and I need a coffee.  I need a coffee so I can stay awake and then I’ll need to piss and then that will kill my time.  I could try to piss in a bottle but then I gotta worry about truckers or old people in RVs  watching me piss and then they’ll think I’m playing with myself and will wind up calling the highway patrol .  Fuck it, I’ll go to the rest stops but I hate them cause they’re overrun with fat people who picnic under signs of some monument to Sitting Bull or George Custer at an interstate bathroom.  George Custer fought people who once came from people in Asia who crossed an ice bridge and then they stopped looking Asian and migrated all over the hemisphere.  We mark the land were whites and Indians fought by building rest stops off of interstates. Now Indians own casinos where old white people in RVs pull up to eat at the all you can eat buffet and waste their pensions at slot machines with their air tanks, while smoking and drinking.  I would say the Indians win on this battle…  Casinos…  Everyone knows you have to smoke while you drink and drinking makes you feel as though you really can beat the odds.  Then while you’re sitting there quietly listening to the sounds of the slot machine give you double diamonds, a cherry and a seven and then you look over at the old lady you’ve been with since the Korean War and wonder what happened.  How did I get so old?  How did she get so old?  What happened to her face, tits and ass?  How did my life pass so fast and I never really did anything except what I was expected to do?  I had dreams and plans and never really got around to them and now I’m spending my vacation at an Indian casino…”

Jack then thought seriously about death without speaking.  He wondered what would be best when the day came.  Cremation did not sound so nice to him and the idea of being in a box and then the lid closed and then being placed six feet into the ground with no light or air, sounded almost worse than being made into ashes.  These sorts of thoughts never came to Jack until the funeral of his father-in-law and since then it was all he could think about whenever pondering the future.  The future was a highway like an interstate and although it seemed long, somewhere along the highway, there would be an exit with his name on it.

                Jack pulled off the highway at a rest stop and marveled at the variety of people that were hurrying up to rid themselves of matter from their bodies.  The old biker couples who had matching leather outfits made by Harley Davidson, bandanas by Harley Davidson, bikes by Harley Davidson and spiked dog collar made by Harley Davidson while they sat under the shade of a tree fifteen feet from their deluxe touring bike with an air conditioned side car for their pet.  A blond haired Minnesota woman with a modified Swedish accent that became a common American dialect if you happen to be from Duluth wore her hair and clothes much the way women did twenty years ago in places like Chicago, New York or Los Angeles.  A portly trucker with large side burns wore a sweat soaked cowboy hat.  He stood head pointed up towards the sun with his eyes closed as he took drags of a cigarette and sips of the seventy five cent coffee made out of a vending machine.  Children under ten yelled to one another and ran around the grass while older children sent text messages.  Jack sat in a pair of shorts and a t shirt that said, “I’d rather be in Cleveland”.  He opened the box of pictures and letters that were packed into the box by the attorney.  As Jack ate a cheese stick and beef jerky, he looked at pictures of anonymous people from the 1950’s.  They looked so attractive in suits and dresses.  It appeared they were at a picnic and showed up dressed to go dinner and dancing.  In the box were dozens of letters.  Jack opened a few as he ate.

                My Dearest Leon,

                                          I had such a great time today and am enjoying every moment of getting to know you and the essence of who you really are.  Taking a ride on the river with the Dixie Jazz band was a swell idea.  I can’t remember when I had a better evening.  The food, wine and music were perfect for such a humid night.  For late August, you’d never be able to believe that in a few short months, the ground will be covered with decaying leaves and snow.  We must take every moment for what it is and cherish it as a moment in time.  All we can hang on to are memories and as long as I have my mind, I will remember that our relationship took a definitive turn tonight.  Your hinting at what I may or may not want to do with the rest of my life was very sweet.  You caught me off guard actually.  I would like to spend the rest of my life with a man like you.

Yours truly and forever if you so choose- Dorothy

                There were pictures of Leon and Dorothy throughout the box as well as pictures of their friends and relatives and then their children.  Jack recognized the little girl who stood at waist level between her parents at some sort of a carnival.  A smiling toothless grin from the girl who would become his wife one day in between the two people that helped usher her into the world and aided her in becoming the person she grew to become.  Jack thought about the day when all he would be was a photograph in a box.  Then he snapped out of the deep thoughts and looked around and wondered when it was that people really got so fat.  When did people become morbidly obese, bloated characters of what a human is supposed to look like?  He wondered if it wasn’t some sort of population control by a hidden branch of the government by which the FDA approved fat laden foods, stuffed with hormones and chemicals so that people became very stupid, fat and lazy.  They would get heart disease, diabetes and fallen arches from the weight of it all and then pass on to make room for other beings and then possibly when birth rates lowered, the fat, chemical and hormonal levels in food would also level out.  Jack decided that had to be the plan.  Why else would grocery stores like Wholefoods be so expensive?  You would need an advance degree to get a job that would afford you the luxury of purchasing organic foods at extreme prices.  Weed out those that cannot contribute to society.  Poor and average people don’t have the resources to avert personal disaster.  Jack could no longer eat any more of the beef jerky. 

                “Pakistan…  They had biblical type floods in Pakistan.  They are our ally, right?  They have nuclear weapons and are harboring the creatures whose whole life purpose is to defeat the great evil which is America…  We’re going to send millions and millions of dollars to help people who detest us and when it’s all said and done, those at the grass roots level will recruit poor water logged people to do missions for their god against America…  Iran- they are a year away from having nuclear weapons?  What are the Israelis going to do about this?  What if Iran makes these weapons and gives them to terrorists or uses them against Israel?  Some guy under the age of forty just won an award for determining the rate at which the world is deteriorating? Sixty percent is irreversible damage caused by humans…  Like how could the Canadians be extracting oil in northern Alberta from sand and making huge bodies of tainted water that are a byproduct caused by pulling oil from deep in the earth?  Every ten seconds a cannon goes off to keep migratory birds from landing in the useless water and killing themselves.  This is all so I can pick up an eight cylinder vehicle in Seattle and drive it to Chicago without ever thinking about what goes into making this happen…  Well at least it’s a tremendous relief to know that Steven Tyler will be a judge on American Idol this year.  I just wasn’t sure how something so important to American society, was going to turn out…  Chicago 338 miles…  I’m glad we don’t use metrics yet.  Those numbers are always crazy.  1178 kilometers to Kenora…  Who goes to Kenora anyway?”

                Jack walked in after his child had gone to bed and his wife was watching a replay of The View.  The women were discussing a movie.  Jack’s wife turned and smiled for a moment before tuning back in to what was being discussed on the taped program.  Jack was gone for two days but conversed with his wife as if he had only just stepped out of the room for a moment.

                “Lucy…  I’m home.”

                “Well I’m glad you’re back okay…”

                “Yes it was a long journey…  And you never can tell where the road my lead to.  A trip like that will really make one ponder life and death and what it all really means…”

                “I’m sorry dear, I was listening to Whoopie.  Did you say something?”

                “I just said that a road trip will lead your mind to roam…  You know… Being on the road and all… Life, death the future… Stuff like that.”

                “I don’t understand what that means?”

                “And that’s fine…  What’s for dinner?”

June 15, 2010

My Black Wife and Family or I am Cuban

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 3:23 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Lou had met his wife Gwen while they were in high school.  Lou was the high school football star.  You probably expected me to say that he was a leading quarterback, running back, wide receiver, safety or even a tight end.  Lou was none of those things.  After Lou’s father had studied popular American sports for years and years, he came to the conclusion that one of most necessary players on a team that is often over looked is the field goal kicker.  Lou’s father began to train Lou as a field goal kicker at a young age.

            Lou started on the varsity team his freshman year of high school and could damn near kick the football half the distance of the football field, into the wind, with complete accuracy.  His little private school north of Chicago and a mile or so west of Lake Michigan, had been so used to getting clobbered in football, season after season that they just went through the motions for football but really got behind the school basketball team.  After Lou arrived, the coach soon learned that if he could somehow play really good defense, Lou could win the majority of their games by kicking the ball five or six times a game.  In the four years that Lou played, his team only ran or threw four touch downs and one of those was a play where by the holder pitched it to Lou and he ran it into the end zone from fifteen yards away.  Lou had become the first and only athlete to receive a scholarship to play a sport from his tiny fine arts based high school.

            During high school, Lou’s stature was as high as could be.  Nobody laughed that all Lou did was kick a ball.  Lou had nerves of steel and three out of four years, his school had winning records due to Lou’s foot.  Lou’s face will forever be on the hallway of the main entrance to his alma mater.

            Gwen saw Lou as a winner and an achiever on top of being good looking and just a really nice guy.  Gwen was a type A personality who always had pursed lips, a wide eyed surprised look on her face, and quick way of speaking in a high pitched voice.  Lou liked that Gwen really liked to have sex.  Lou was amazed how much that his Gwen wanted to have sex.  As teenagers, Gwen came off as the do-gooder, the-girl-your-mom-approves-of type.  She was on student council and a cheerleader.  Gwen raised money at bake sales for poor children that she had heard about somewhere in those areas of Chicago that most white people never venture through.  When Gwen wasn’t doing all those really positive things that all parents hope that their daughter might do between the ages of 14-18, Gwen was devising a way to have sex.  Lou thought it was great because just about anything that Lou could come up with, Gwen was willing to try.  One day though Gwen drew the line as Lou became more and more risqué each day.

            “Louie…  No animals or feces…” said Gwen, with a perky smile as she lay naked on her family’s couch.

            “Um urine is okay though?”  Asked Lou innocently.

            “As long you don’t ask me to drink it and you don’t mind cleaning it up when we’re done,” said Gwen.

            For Lou it was the greatest thing in the whole world.  There he was a seventeen year old boy that was having sex with the prettiest girl in the school daily and sometimes several times daily, was the school athletic stud and was poised to play division III football on the east coast.  When you factor in that his parents were really rich and that he would one day inherit all their earthly possession since he was an only child, Lou had a great life.

            As time went on, both Lou and Gwen matured and their hormones evened out.  Lou found a job in a bank being a teller than a manager and then a vice president of the bank while Gwen played tennis, jogged, lifted weights, and raised money for poor children and so on.  Lou and Gwen must have had sex tens of thousands of times and Lou had to admit that his Gwen may not have been as tight as a drum like when she was sixteen but at thirty four, she sure looked good and although he had the same meal from the same menu all the time, the food was always good.

            Lou came home one day to find his wife crying and crying about the fact that after doing everything imaginable, there was no way that Lou could ever plant his seed in Gwen and hope to bear fruit.  It would be impossible for her to replicate her kind.  Gwen grew despondent and went through depression.  Gwen stopped exercising; she laid around in bed in the dark, got heavier but not fat and began to smell bad.  Lou had always marveled at his Gwen’s ability to smell as fresh as could be.  Gwen’s armpits, hair, vagina and ass came unflavored even on the hottest and most humid days that Chicago could ever offer in the summers.  Lou would joke that she should be that woman in a flowing white gown with the wind blowing against her with her eyes closed on those cliffs that they have somewhere in Great Britain.

            “You could be that woman to a T.  All you’d need to do is just stand there and smile with your eyes closed because you would know that there is never an occasion to question your freshness…  White gown and all.”

            That all disappeared and suddenly hygiene went out the window with just about everything that used to interest Gwen including sex.  Finally one day, Lou posed an idea that he was not fond of but was willing to go along with just to help her out of the dumps and be the bright, shiny, perky, sexy human being that she had always been since he met her.

            “You know…  We could always adopt,” said Lou.

            It was as if someone had opened the curtains.  Gwen’s face lit up and she jumped into Lou’s arms and kissed his neck.  She got on the internet and began to do her homework on adoption.  Gwen grew despondent once again but not totally.  Gwen was amazed to discover just how difficult it was to adopt a white child in the United States.  She thought about news reports of people locking children in cages for years or forcing them into prostitution or making them drink Budweiser while watching hockey games and not to mention those that were abandon at hospitals, truck stops, churches and police stations and dumpsters.  The truth was that there were millions of Americans who wanted children and could not have them and they all wanted white children first.  If not white then they wanted Asian babies or Hispanic babies and if none of those were possible within a reasonable amount of time, then black would be fine.  I suppose.

            Gwen was many things in life but she was not patient.  After reading up on adoption and networking with dozens and dozens of couples who had adopted, Gwen decided to take the advice of another wealthy woman from the woman’s club that she belonged to and go to Senegal in Africa to adopt unwanted black girls.  Not one but two.

            “Two…  I always wanted two and if I go all the way to Africa to get a child, I want two and I sure as hell don’t want to be going back to Africa twice for this…  There’s all kind of problems in Africa,” said Gwen.

            Truth to be told, there are all kinds of problems all over the world but in Senegal, many infant children were abandon due to rape of women in tribal and religious battles that were taking place across several countries in the region.  A few other women on the north shore had adopted children from a Belgian orphanage run by nuns.  Upon corresponding with the nuns for a period of one week, Gwen received photos of twin girls who were age five.  After discovering that the whole adoption process could happen rather swiftly, Lou and Gwen were on an Air France flight from Paris to Dakar within a week.

            Lou didn’t know how he felt about being a father and a father to not one but two girls who only spoke French and were black.  His first thought was of going to get coffee on Saturday or Sunday mornings and having all the patrons stare at them as they waited for their extra shot, one pump vanilla, skimmed latte.  The immersion happened suddenly and before he knew it, they were back home and his wife was speaking all the French she learned in two months, to her two new daughters.  Gwen spoke loudly and slowly to the girls as if they were deaf.

            “BON JOUR MES PETITES FILLES…  JE SUIS VOTRE MERE… JE M’APPELLE MOMMY. »

            The girls didn’t smile and didn’t respond.  They had a secret unspoken language between them and never left each others side.  They were trying to get used to the fact that all the children that they knew in Senegal, were gone as were the nuns and now they couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying.  Gwen had a plan.

            Gwen saw a sign on a building that said African hair braiding.  Gwen parked her car and locked her doors and scanned around herself in all directions before scurrying into the beauty shop for black women.  Once inside, there were several women getting their hair done by several women while a radio played in combat with a television.  Everyone stopped and looked at the pale, thin, blonde, smiling figure that stood inside the front door with clasped hands.  A heavy set black woman asked her if she could help her.  It was a polite way of asking, “What in the fuck could you possibly need all up in this place?”

            I’m so glad I found your shop…  I have two adopted daughters from Senegal who I would like to get their hair braided…  Now, I was thinking braiding through out and then have it come up into a bun… Now, they don’t speak any English yet as they are from a French speaking nation,” said Gwen.

            “You don’t need to worry bout that…  Monique here works on weekends washing hair.  You bring the girls round on Saturday and Monique will talk to them… You from Jamaica, right Monique?” Asked the owner.

            “Haiti…”

            “That’s right… Why I say Jamaica?  Anyway, you bring the girls round Saturdays when Monique work here.  She cain speak to them no problem.  We gone take care them,” said the owner.

            “I’m so happy I came this way.  I usually never come to Evanston but needed to meet one of my girlfriends for tennis by the lake and well… Gosh, I’m sure glad I came down this way,” said a gleeful Gwen.

            It was a damn good thing that Gwen found the black women’s hair salon.  The two young girls were beginning to look like Buckwheat.  Gwen threw headbands over their hair that went everywhere and anywhere.  No matter what Gwen did to their hair, they cried and it just looked crazy.

            In time, Monique was hired to take care of the girls on a full time basis.  Her job was to speak to them in French and try to teach them English.  She also took them to ballet class, fed them, and washed their clothes and so on while Gwen ran, lifted weights, took spin classes and played tennis.  The girls really took to Monique and slowly warmed up to Gwen and Lou.  Lou understood that taking them to the park and to get fast food, was what they seemed to like most.  The girls liked Lou because he seemed indifferent and not at all frantic about having a relationship with them.

            All of Lou’s life, he had never really had any sort of relationship with anyone black.  His small school in Vermont had one guy from Africa that went to the school but Lou never interacted with him.  Lou had seen blacks in downtown Chicago who panhandled and played music in the subway but none worked in his office.  Other than the blacks he saw on television, in movies and on various athletic teams, Lou had no interaction with black people.  Monique was his first.

            Lou was struck by how polite and calm Monique was in general and with the twin girls; she was like a black Julie Andrews.  Those twins learned to sing all sorts of songs in French with Monique.  Gwen eventually grew despondent again over the fact that her adopted girls had taken more to Monique than her.  As time went on, Gwen grew more and more resentful of the girls and their relationship to Monique.  Gwen grew combative with Lou for the first time in her life and just about completely withdrew as a member of their family.  Gwen began taking trips for weeks at a time, leaving Monique to be with Lou and the girls fulltime.  Lou would take the girls and Monique out to dinner, to amusement parks, ice skating, the zoo and so on.  Lou began to notice that people would look at the four of them and smile.  There was the pretty young black woman with braided hair and the two young black girls with braids and the handsome young white man.  They were a handsome looking family albeit not what most people expected.

 Lou found himself becoming more and more attracted to Monique as time went on.  It was like playing house.  Lou would go shopping with Monique and the girls and eat with them and so on while Gwen traveled around the country trying to find herself.  Gwen had told Lou that she was going through a crisis and needed to find herself.  Lou never questioned it as he understood to be lost was not a fun thing and if Gwen needed to find herself, he wanted her to be found or discovered or whatever would bring peace to her soul and his life ultimately. 

As time went on, the sexual tension between Lou and Monique grew stronger and stronger.  They would sit on the couch after the girls went to bed and watch a movie together and came dangerously close to making contact physically.  Monique would get up to get a drink of water or something and would put her hand on Lou’s hand or leg before asking him if there was anything he may want.

“Is there anything you want?” Monique would ask while looking into his eyes.

“Um… Not right now.  But thank you for that…” Lou would respond.

Now the question and the answer had more than one meaning and they both knew it.  Lou was fighting the immense itch inside him that begged to be scratched with vigor.  Monique was completely drawn to the man who was fifteen years her senior who was as nice, calm and attractive.  She never had a thing for white men because most of them seemed really dorky to her.  They were stiff in their approach and seemed oblivious and selfish.  Lou was none of those things and she suspected that Lou was a hot bed of passion and could not wait to find out.

Monique was respectful of her role and did not cross the line while Gwen was still apart of their lives.  That was until one day that Lou shared an email that he received from Gwen.

Dearest Lou,

                     I had always believed you were my soul mate and life partner and as I grow older, I am realizing that this is not the case.  I thought adopting the girls would make us closer as a family and I see now that they have driven a wedge between us at best.  It’s my fault as I know that you never wanted children in the first place.  I see now how attached they have become to both you and Monique and I believe with Monique’s help, you will provide for them.  I have found what it is that I really want and need and as much as this may hurt you to hear, I have found a man that I met in San Diego who is a widower with two young girls.  I have fallen in love with this man and his girls and feel that fate brought me to them.  You may hate me for a while but ultimately understand that what I’m doing is the best for all of us.  I wish you all the best.

With love, Gwen

            Lou thought about being the one left holding the bag as the saying goes.  When he showed the letter to Monique who studied the words with a furrowed brow, Lou sat at the kitchen table looking out at his finely manicured backyard while the girls watched a video of Madeline in French in the family room.  Lou wondered what would be next.  Lou wondered to himself, “What in the fuck am I going to do?”

            Lou decided if he was going to change his life, he was really going to change his life.  He packed up his twin girls with Monique and moved to Miami.  In Miami Lou understood that nobody would look at him crazy like a circus sideshow when he drank a latte.  In fact in Miami, Lou told people that he was Cuban but that his parents only spoke to him in English and the Cubans accepted it even though they thought it was a damn shame to be Cuban and not speak Spanish. 

            For Lou’s fortieth birthday, Monique surprised Lou by inviting all of Lou’s new friends in their new city in the backyard of their new home on a hot humid night.  A Cuban Salsa band played in the backyard while a hired bartender crushed mint leaves for Mojitos.  Nobody at that party knew that only five years earlier, Lou was an average white guy, living in an all white suburb with no children and an overactive lily white wife.  One of Lou’s good friends, a Haitian man who owned several car washes and did very well for himself, lifted his glass to Lou as Lou watched his ten year old adopted daughters dancing with their adopted mother in their adopted city in their adopted state.  In a strong English accent, his Haitian friend said to Lou while lifting his glass and putting his arm around him; Life doesn’t get any better than this…

May 11, 2010

Welcome Home, Soldier or It’s a Thag’s Life

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 9:22 pm
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Kilbourn came back from two tours of duty in Afghanistan without much psychological damage and his whole body intact.  Being an Army Ranger, Kilbourn had been really gung-ho about finding and defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan.  After seeing the situation and living it, Kilbourn understood that it was not going to be easy to flush out the enemy as it was all to easy to cross the border into Pakistan and disappear for a while.  Kilbourn suspected that if the Soviets, who were ruthless and not too concerned with human rights and polls at home, could not defeat the Taliban or the former Mujahedeen, it was going to be damn near impossible for the United States to win both the hearts and minds and whatever else needed to be won in order to feel good about having gone there in the first place.

                Kilbourn landed at O’Hare in Chicago and had his sister take him to Superdawg so that he could have a really good Chicago hot dog, fries and a shake.  A group of friends gathered at Kilbourn’s apartment on the north side of Chicago to celebrate the fact that he was home and had not been killed or blown apart into nonfunctioning pieces.

                 The next day, Kilbourn stood out on the patio that faced the street and had a cigarette in the warm spring sun.  It was nearly noon and it felt good to sleep the whole night without interruption, in a bed, with sheets and a pillow and not have to worry about dying… So much.

                A man, who looked to be a solid mélange of several different races and ethnicities, drove up on a bicycle made to resemble a low rider vehicle.  It had long forks and little wheels and a banana seat.  For a boy of twelve, it would have fantastic ride.  For an unemployed, felon on drugs, the bicycle was a bit ridiculous. 

                Avery had been out of Cook County Jail for almost two weeks and had just been piss tested the day before and so he thought it was safe to indulge in some recreational drugs.  The black Jeep Wrangler that was jacked up and full of military type stickers on the back caught Avery’s attention.  He noticed that the driver side window was down enough to put a hand through.  Avery got off his bike and reached in through the window to grab a smart looking ball cap with pins and patches on it from the Army.  It belonged to Kilbourn and had the staff sergeant patch on it and pins.  Avery grabbed a handful of toll money from the cup holder and stuffed it into his pocket and drove off with Kilbourn’s smelly military hat cocked to the left.  Kilbourn ran down the stairs, barefoot with no shirt on and a pair of jeans.  Kilbourn never yelled.  He decided he would tackle the thief off of the bicycle and then beat him to show him his displeasure with the fact that he had to go fight for people like him.  Kilbourn thought that a better punishment for a man who would steal a hat and pocket change out of a vehicle, should be to have the hands removed by the Taliban.  The Taliban would be able to dissuade the drug addicted thief from stealing again at least with his hands.

                Avery tried to make a call on his cell phone while riding the bicycle  towards a mechanic’s garage.  Avery was within the fence when Kilbourn caught up with him.  Several men walked out wondering what it was that Kilbourn wanted, half naked and out of breath.  Two of the four men had wrenches in they’re hands.  It had been a few weeks since they were robbed by a white guy with no shirt on and they were all curious as to what it was that Kilbourn wanted.  Kilbourn sensed the situation was going to deteriorate and so he defused the situation the best he could.

                “Did you guys see a dog come by here?’

                The men shook their heads as Avery got off of the bike and staggered inside the shop.  Kilbourn went back to his house and called the police and within thirty minutes, a squad car showed up.  The officers were more annoyed than anything else to be dealing with the theft of a ball cap.

                “So it was a baseball hat?”

                “No not a Cubs or a Sox, hat…  It was my staff sergeant’s hat that made it all through two tours of fucking duty in Afghanistan.  Dudes with fucking bathrobes and towels on their heads were trying their level best to fucking annihilate me and I make it all the way home and some fucking crack head reaches into my car and steals my shit.  It’s the principle of the whole thing, man.  How would you feel if you just got home after fighting for fuckheads like that and then you get robbed?”

                Officer Timms thought about it.  He had served in the Desert Storm and had been in Kuwait and remembered what it was like to trudge through the desert while the sky rained oil.  Officer Timms remembered thinking that not one damn person except his mother seemed to know or care about what he had to go through in the Middle East.  Officer Timms offered to drive over with Kilbourn to try and retrieve the hat.  The two officers were about to get into the squad car when Avery drove towards them on the bicycle, wearing the Army hat cocked to the side while talking on his cell phone.  Avery soon figured out that the officers were chasing him and picked up his speed on the bike.  Avery couldn’t have peddled fast enough to elude Kilbourn.  Kilbourn sprinted like a lion on the Serengeti towards a wildebeest.  Kilbourn tackled Avery and removed the hat from his head.  The two officers caught up and slapped the cuffs on Avery.  Avery’s eyes were glazed on his forehead were the words, “Thag Life” in gothic blue letters.

                “Thag Life?”

                “Shh-damn… I wad fucked up when I got the tattoo.  It’s sposta say T-H-U-G…” said Avery.

                “Doesn’t say much for our education system when a thug can’t even spell out what he represents,” said Timms.

                “True dat…” said Avery, while shaking his up and down in agreement.

March 31, 2010

Eviction Day

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 5:16 pm
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Mario Caldrone pulled the Cook County Sheriff’s late model Ford Crown Victoria to the front of a house that looked to have seen much better days.  The screen door was missing the top hinge and had no glass.  There were wrappers and cups strewn around the over grown front lawn of mostly crab grass and weeds.  In the back yard were two Pit bulls that barked their husky bark.  Mario pounded hard on the front door with the palm of his hand that caused an echo against the homes across the street.

            “Sheriff’s department, open up…  This is your…last warning, we’re coming in,” said Mario.

            Mario took his fifty pound lead pipe with two handles attached and hit the door once, splintering the door and ripping it from the frame.  Once inside with guns drawn, he and Officer Leon Jones walked through ankle deep garbage looking for occupants.  Newspapers, magazines, hangers, clothes, shoes, fast food wrappers, DVDs and shoes were strewn though out the house.  The occupants deserted and left two of their dogs in the backyard without food and water.

            “So you gone tell me watchu think, Mario?” Asked Leon.

            “Okay Jonesy…  A black man and maybe a white chick with really poor self esteem.  Bleached blonde hair with black roots, smokers, both overweight, pill takers, and pot smokers, children with other mothers and fathers, no job and in collections for everything under the sun.  They both eat a lot of fast food and have nice cars and  many pairs of sneakers and probably left here and went and shacked up at the elderly grandmother’s home somewhere not far from here.  Her house is immaculate and she has World War II pictures of her husband on top of doilies in the pristine living room.  She was watching soap operas, dozing and reading her bible when her bust-out grandson showed up with a pillowcase full of important belongings and the train wreck of a girlfriend with him,” said Mario while kicking around abandon junk.

            While Mario gave his profile based on the housekeeping and belongings, Leon found pictures of an over weight white woman and a black man with both white and black children in the picture.  Leon just shook his head.  He knew that nearly every time, Mario was absolutely dead on.  It amazed and amused Leon.  Leon hated Mario when they first started working together but grew to admire and respect the wisdom of a man who had been working for the sheriff’s department for thirty years.

            “You know what today is, Jonesy?”  Asked Mario, as they drove to their next case.

            “It’s Friday and I’m taking mah woman out foh some dinner and some dancing and then Imma make love to her like ain’t never done befoh because she was on her cycle last week and whenever that happens, I get crazy.  I wanna throw a damn party when it’s over,” said Leon, while looking out of the passenger window through dark sunglasses.

            “It’s the anniversary of the death of Jesus.  He was killed on a Friday.  I can’t figure out why it is Good Friday.  I went to church this morning and we’re having all our family over on Sunday.  It’s supposed to be warm.  I’d like to sit outside…  You like to sit outside, Jonesy?”

            “I love the summer, dude.  I cain’t wait for summer days,” said Leon.

            “Yeah…  The spring…  When anything and everything seems possible.  If you’re a Cub fan, you start out in April believing that this is the year.  Then with the fall of the leaves comes the stark realization that you may never live to see them win a World Series.  Nobody alive remembers the last time they won a World Series…  Well spring is a great time and Easter is a chance to see your family again since Christmas and sort of reconnect,” said Mario.

            A thin man with no hair up the middle of his head took heavy drags from a cigarette as he paced in front of the building.  He stopped pacing when the Sheriff’s car pulled up.

            “My attorney said you would be here between 9am and noon time.  It’s after 12:30…  You people don’t value anything but your own damn time,” said the man who couldn’t look either of the officers in the eye.

            “You know something, man?  We cain git right back in the car and take the fuck off and let the sheriff’s department know that there was no representative at the building to meet us.  It costs you $30.00 fucking dollars and then yo ass waits til we git back around here again… You dig me?”  Said Leon.

            Mario interrupted before the man could respond.  His smooth demeanor and smile put the anxious man at ease.

            “I’m sorry… It’s just these animals have trashed my place and the court just gave me possession and I just know they’ve ruined my place.  I’m gonna have to spend thousands to restore the place and I’ll send them to collections and they’ll file bankruptcy and I won’t get dick,” said the nervous man.

            Mario knocked three times.  He could hear a television playing in the background.  A commercial was on.  Ironically it was Peter Francis Geraci.

            “Worried about losing your house, automobile or problems with the IRS?  We can help you to become free of debt.  With offices through out Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, we have operators standing by to assist you…”

            A skinny white male with dishwater colored hair in his late twenties with a moustache was lying on a mattress on the floor of a bedroom in the back when Mario and Leon walked in wearing all black with guns drawn.  The occupant had been smoking crack the night before and had let the better part of a day pass before waking up to his wake up call.  Leon posted a no trespass notice on the door and loudly ordered the white male to get what he needed and clear out.  For Leon, the man was the epitome of what he hated in white people.  He was a an uneducated, drug dealing, bigoted poor white trash that felt he was superior to blacks just because he was white.  Leon showed little mercy.

            “You have five minutes to get what you fucking need and git yo ass outta here.  You fucked this place up, dude…  Look at this shit.  You fucking livestock in this mutha fuckah, huh?  Who the fuck lives like this?  If it were up to me, I’d tie your ass up to your rusted out fucking truck with the confederate flag and drag your ass to the south side…  Watchu you got tattooed on yo arm?  Is that a swastika?  Shit it is, boy,” said Leon.

            Mario stepped in again and spoke with a smile and cool tone in his voice while pointing his side arm at the hold over tenant.

            “Sir…  You were delinquent on your rent and it went to court and the court determined that the owner should have possession of his unit.  This means that you must vacate forthwith.  Forthwith means that you have to grab what you can hold in your hands and get out fast.  Think of it as sort of a fire.  There is a fire and you need to get out really fast and if you have the chance to grab something, grab it or just get out while you can…  I think you should put on a shirt though.  It’s warm now but you know how it gets in Chicago and we’re not far from the lake.  The wind could change and then you’d wish you had a shirt on…” said Mario.

            The young man blurry eyed, found a dirty Harley Davidson shirt and put it on.  He stuffed some items into a pillow case and walked out.  The owner complained about the system that seemed to favor the tenant and not the owner.  Mario blinked heavy and nodded as if to agree with the man.  He calmly listened and then spoke.

            “I personally would turn this building condo and get the hell out of here.  Who you gonna get that’s worth a damn in this day in age?  Nobody has a job, everyone has debt, and everyone is filing for bankruptcy.  The day of the little old lady in apartment buildings is gone.  Turn it condo and go live in Florida…  Have a nice day,” said Mario as they walked down the stairs.

            Leon asked his take on the latest case to be evicted.  He always liked hearing Mario’s spin on what he thought.  As much as Leon detested most white people, Mario was his hero.  Leon hoped that one day he could do the job day in and out and just smile.  Most days Leon went home hating people and not trusting anyone, while Mario left it in his locker like his black clothes and bullet proof vest.

            “Broken family… Mom left dad and went it alone.  Dad went on with his life and tried to forget that he ever had a kid and a wife.  The boy grew up not respecting his mom due to a slew of one night stands and worthless boyfriends. He grew up breaking rules and had no boundaries.  Rather than seeing what was possible and making the best of things, he probably spent his whole life blaming his dad for taking off.  The drugs, lack of discipline and so on he attributes to his dad who probably started over with another woman and got it right the second time around…”  Said Mario.

            Leon shook his head and looked out of the window at young black males that were hanging around on street corners, no doubt look outs for drug dealers.  Mario sensed so much anger in his partner and disdain for humanity.  Mario surprised Leon.

            “I would like you and your lady to come to my place in Elmwood Park for Easter and don’t tell me no either.  We get together about three in the afternoon.  Don’t bring nothing… My wife will make more food than we could eat in a week with desserts and the whole shot…  Hang out with the I-talians for a day.  Then on Monday you can ask me what I think about my kids, my wife, my cousins, my brother, his wife and their kids.  I can tell you what I think about everything and then I think it’s your turn to tell me what you think about many things in life…  Before you explode.”

February 9, 2010

The Crime of Life

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 6:21 pm
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Susan Hall had her first plastic surgery at age thirty seven, a face lift of sorts.  Susan had spent so much of her time in the sun down in Miami that her skin had a leathery feel to it.  The back of her hands looked like lizard skin and when she smiled, she had lines all over her face.  It was at a party that Susan caught a glimpse of herself in a decorative mirror on a wall and wondered who the old lady was.  How could she have gotten so old so fast, is what she thought as she drank her fifth glass of red wine of party of friends that she met through a social club that met on Wednesday nights to Salsa Dance.  The social group was mostly made of single white women and Latino men.  It all worked out well, the white women fancied Hispanic men and the Hispanic men loved the sport of bagging mentally fragile white women who really liked to dance.  And fuck.

            The forty year old birthday really hit Susan hard.  It was while she was under a man from Columbia whose name escapes me and Susan that the thought hit her that she could hit menopause and that she would be less attractive and then there would really be nothing left except old age and death.  Susan fought the effects of aging well.  Aside from the Salsa dancing, she took spin classes and used the stepper at home while watching Oprah and the View everyday.  Susan’s job was to not squander the ten thousand dollars a month that her father put in a trust fund for her.  Aside from her father taking care of her car payments, insurance on the condo and car, electricity, heating gas and condo assessment, Susan had to make due with ten thousand a month.  Around the 21st of every month, Susan had to start watching her checking account.  Her father hated overdrafts.

            So it was while under the short Columbian man that it hit Susan that she might only have forty five to fifty summers left and maybe only ten in really good health and waning sex appeal.  She began to cry and was inconsolable.  What’s-his-face from Columbia got dressed and left.  Susan stood in front of the mirror crying and crying.   Susan took her anxiety medicine and some sleep medicine but nothing really worked.  Her father couldn’t be reached; he was on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with three Filipino girls under the age of seventeen.  He was deep sea fishing and taking Viagra intermittently.  Ever since Susan’s mother left them all and moved to Italy, her father was never the same.  Susan turned to her psychiatrist, Ira who lived in and worked in a huge house along the shores of Lake Michigan in the City of Evanston. 

            Ira looked strikingly like Sigmund Freud and had sharp features and beady eyes that made him look marsupial in nature.  He crossed his legs in a comfortable chair in his office and dunked his tea bag over and over in a mug that had picture of himself and his partner Tom, arm and arm while on the beach in Aruba.  Ira mostly listened for the $100.00 and hour that he received from Susan’s father.  Ira himself had phobias about leaving the house at night, flying in airplanes, driving on two lane highways, groups of large black men and illness.  Ira was forever using hand sanitizers after touching anything. 

            Ira’s partner Tom was a pilot and a fitness fanatic.  Ira was usually at home cooking for Tom while he ran, swam and biked in his free time.  Ira took to speaking French to his parakeet that he name “je t’aime”.  That name eventually became “Tammy”.  It was at Susan’s lowest point that Ira had reached a crisis.  It was like two frantic women consoling each other on the day that Susan arrived at Ira’s home/office.  Ira was putting the finishing touches on a two foot sailboat that he had made while sniffling and crying when Susan walked in.  Ira tried to put a brave face on his distress.

            “Susan…  We are going to do something different today.  Instead of meeting in my office, we are going to go to the backyard and have… A funeral.”

            Nobody had ever died in Susan’s life before.  She had known and heard of people dying but had never been to a funeral.  Ira said a few words in French that sounded like nonsense to Susan, kissed his parakeet as he sobbed and pushed the sailboat out towards Michigan City, Indiana which would have directly across the lake.  Luckily the lake was like a giant bath tub that day instead of an angry writhing sea as it can often be. 

            Ira’s body heaved as he cried.  Susan put her arm around Ira and held his head to her chest.  Susan found Ira to be unbelievably frail and devoid of muscle tone.  Ira was having a nervous break down.  The shelf was coming down and all the China was crashing to the ground.  Luckily Susan was there.  Ira felt comfortable with Susan because she was fraught with anxieties and phobias too.  Surely Susan would understand.

            “I can’t take it any longer.  Losing Je t’aime is the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Toms become more and more distant ever since he has been on this health kick.  I’m home rinsing his goddamn ground beef of any fat, making scallops and salmon and that damn steel cut oat meal while he runs and bikes and swims.  I mean he looks absolutely like an Adonis right now, honest to god.  We go out and I’m afraid to walk away for a second.  It’s like having a Ferrari in mall parking lot.  You just want to run into Crate and Barrel and you can’t be sure it’ll be there when you come back… Anyway, he meets this man from the gym, another Jew who claims he has found Jesus.  A Jew has found Jesus Christ for fuck’s sake!  He couldn’t find Bin Laden and solve our lifetime quandary of making it from day to day…  No, he finds a good looking Jew who is part of a group called Jews for Jesus.  I shit you not…  At this moment, my man is in Haiti helping this Jew for Jesus build something or other.  I taught him French and he runs off with a latent, closet homosexual who doesn’t know he’s gay or Jewish, to rebuild homes for French speaking Africans in Haiti.  I begged him to go with and he told me flat out no.  I was so crushed…  I’m so crushed.  Je t’aime felt my sorrow and died out of empathy for me…  Mon oiseau…  Je suis tres triste ma petite Tammy…”

            Susan was stunned by the hair that Ira let down seeing as he was losing it quickly from his forehead to his neck.  Ira had always been all business and devoid of much emotion in the past.  Susan had decided that Ira was truly in worse shape than her and felt that she must help Ira out.  They went to movies, plays, museums and shopped together nearly everyday.  While sitting at a café together in the middle of the day, Ira read US Magazine and Susan thumbed through the Chicago Sun Times that was left by the previous patron who had sat at their table.  Susan checked out the weather for the coming week and then turned the page to the obituaries.  Susan could never remember ever really looking at them before.  She looked at pictures of the various old people who were really nameless and faceless and thought that within fifty years, she may make the obituaries and that 99% of the people looking at the paper, won’t know or care who she was.  Susan was going to die as anonymously as all those she was looking at in the paper.  The idea came to her suddenly to attend a funeral of one of those in the paper.  She would read up on them and then conjure up a story as to how it was that her life was tied to some dead person.  Susan was excited about the idea and Ira was in no frame of mind to fight her morbid interest.  Ira went along with not one visit but dozens until it got so that they were attending three to four a week.

            “Ira…  Here’s a good one Alvin “Bebop” Taylor, age ninety of the Pullman District.  Born March 6, 1920 in Mississippi.  Fought in World War II and was a local Jazz musician.  I think this will be a worth while visit,” said Susan.

            “What story are you coming up with this time?”

            “Golly…  I’m not sure but I think going to a black funeral is going to be a great experience.”

            Now with Google and all, Susan was able to find out things about those whose funeral she was about to attend.  She struggled to find anything on Bebop.  The twenty or so others never blinked an eye when Susan came up to console the families.  She always had a touching story about her mother or father who was quite close in some way to the dearly departed.  Her father had been a longshoreman, a soldier, an ambassador, a missionary and now a Jazz musician.

            Susan drove her late model Mercedes with Ira in tow into a section of Chicago that she had only seen on the news.  Crying grandmothers barely able to say that their grandchild was good and a good student and was minding their own business when a stray bullet killed them. Then there were fires, robberies, rapes and carjacking all stemmed from this poor area of Chicago’s south east side.  Every other business was boarded up and the ones that weren’t were barbershops, fried chicken fast food depots and churches.  The order that she and Ira were accustomed to, seemed to have vanished slowly as they traveled further and further from their enclave that really was tolerant or other ethnicities, races and social stratus beneath theirs, even though they did not live among them.  The realization was sinking in to both of them independently that it would not matter to anyone in that neighborhood that Susan had three bumper stickers alluding to her political and social leanings; Obama 08, Change and Hope.  Hope and Change hadn’t hit that section of Chicago that was not more than five miles from where Obama had lived when he was living in Chicago.  The residents of that area still held George W. responsible for the despair and difficulty in achieving change and rich white people in expensive cars too.

            It was like a carnival inside compared to the white services.  The crowded rooms were packed full of well dressed black people that laughed and spoke loudly in the hallways outside of the rooms where services were being held.  It seemed more like the lobby of a movie theater to Susan and Ira than anything else.  They asked around and found the room belonging to Bebop.

            All the other rooms were overflowing with those wishing to pay their last respects to a loved one, a relative or someone who was friends or related to someone who knew someone that was going to put out a really nice spread once they laid the deceased in the ground.  The tiny room belonging to Bebop had four people total in it.  When Susan and Ira walked in, there was a heavy set man singing a song about coming home while a minister stood behind a podium.  The organist never stopped playing when the odd white couple entered, walked up and took a seat behind the family.  The family consisted of an old black woman, her brother, her daughter and a nephew.  The family stoically listened to the canned and scripted words of peace meant to give the family some solace by the minister who couldn’t remember that his name was Alvin.  When it came time for someone to come up and say a few words, nobody budged, batted an eye or even looked up at the minister.  Susan was all hopped up on pills and red wine.  Had it not been for the three glasses of red wine, Ira would have been a basket case, which is funny when you take into account that he was a doctor of psychiatry.  Ira was free falling with Susan and he really didn’t stop to reason what idiocy was taking place in the name of recreation.  Susan should have thought better to have gone ahead with taking a seat in such a small and intimate gathering and she should have thought better that to get up and speak about a man that she did not know but was certain she could get all in attendance to buy her story.

            “You don’t know me or my brother … Robert and why should you?  We are here today because our father, a hidden gem of local Jazz in this town, had played music with Bebop in the fifties and sixties.  My father played where few white men have ever visited.  He was always in search of Dr. Kurtz somewhere in the heart of darkness…  Music spoke to his soul.  It’s a language that transcends so much and is something that brings us together.  My brother William and I want you to know that daddy thought the world of Bebop and thought of him as his own brother…  He had always said that one day we would meet Uncle Bebop…  We never did.  So much of life is made up of things we intend on doing but never get to and that is truly the crime of life…  May god bless Uncle Bebop and all of you…”

            With that Susan began to cry and rushed herself off the stage, clutching a handkerchief to her face.  Ira sat motionless for he was able to read the look of disbelief on the family member’s faces and was worried how this might all end.  Ira whispered to Susan that they should leave due to the intimacy of the gathering.  Susan pressed on.  When the funeral was over, she approached the daughter of Alvin Taylor.  The young woman was set on putting a stop to the façade.

            “I don’t know who you two are or what you’re up to…  My father spent thirty years in jail and died making love to a woman young enough to almost be my daughter.  He was a drunk, a wife beater and he couldn’t find a C note on a piano.  The paper assumed that since his nickname was Bebop, that he was the one that was the Jazz musician.  They mixed it up with dead person listed next to him on the next column who actually did play Jazz.  We posted this obituary so that if any of his other children that he sired out of wedlock, wanted to come forward to pay their respects, that they could.  Now what game you two sick bastards are playing, I’m not certain.  There is no pot of gold or kingdom if that’s what you’re after.  I’m going to give you the chance to leave now before I call security.”

            Susan’s face tightened and she couldn’t move.  It was pulling a flashlight out at night unexpectedly on an opossum.  She went into a catatonic state.  Eventually an ambulance came for her and she was hospitalized.  A doctor, who was less marginal than Ira, was able to determine that Susan had several personalities on top of the schizophrenia.  It might seem at this point that her life was headed for the craper with Ira but as luck would have it, things suddenly were looking up.  A young movie producer read about them wanted to make a movie about their escapades.  Susan was envisioning Meryl Streep and Larry David portraying her and Ira.  The producer was thinking more like Kathleen Bates and Woody Allen. 

            Susan asked very sanely since she was properly medicated sans booze why anyone would want to see a movie about her and Ira.  The smiling young man with money signs in his eyes answered the question with a question.

            “Who doesn’t stop to see what happens when two cars crash?”

            Susan thought about the comment a moment and then asked the young producer a very important question.

            “Okay…  Where do I sign?”

=

February 1, 2010

Chicago’s Finest: To Serve and Protect

Filed under: Uncategorized — blackhumouristpress @ 10:09 pm
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  Matt was a musician that was mostly supported by his parents who resided in the suburbs of Detroit while he chased his dream to be a musician in Chicago.     Matt was an uncommonly good looking young man that also had the body structure where by he looked as though he spent hours a day in the gym when actually he did nothing.  No weights, no running or biking.  Sex was his only form of physical activity.  Mathew was having a lot of sex with multiple women.  Mathew was trying to make it playing his own music which was what everyone called alternative.  It was really just popular music geared towards white suburban kids who did not really care for dance music.  To make the lion’s share of his money, he played with three other guys at a place called the Cubby Bear Lounge which was across the street from the infamous, Wrigley Field.  It was on Wednesday nights that he played covers of famous songs with three other guys so that drunken patrons could come up on stage and sing live Karaoke. 

            Mathew had just played the night before and had woken up to a chubby blond girl who had a Chicago Cubs tattoo on her right butt cheek.  Her name escaped Matt.  He was really bad with names.  She will forever be known as the chubby girl who played rugby at a small college on the Illinois and Iowa border.  She was dear to him.  Matt left her

 apartment on Addison and drove home.

Matt was on his way to his apartment when two of Chicago’s finest happened to be behind Matt at a red light.  Officer Ciccone happened to notice the Michigan plates with an expired sticker.  They ran the plates and found out that Matt had an outstanding warrant for his arrest.  A few years earlier, Matt had taken money his father gave to him and bought a small house in Detroit.  It was not in the suburbs but actually in the city of Detroit.  The house was in the northwest portion of Detroit near Grand River and Seven Mile Road.  It was the anthesis of where he grew up in suburban Detroit in a 25,000 square foot house in Farmington Hills.

The house had been purchased for cash.  The old guy who sold it was a widower who had worked for AC Delco his whole adult life after returning from fighting in the Pacific during World War II.  His two children moved to Boston and San Francisco and had not seen their parents in years.  Of course they flew in for a few days at the time of the funeral.  Both of them spent most of their time continuing to do business on their Blackberry phones/computers when they weren’t consoling their father. 

            The old guy had purchased land with his wife and had always planned on retiring to the upper peninsula of Michigan.  They never got around to it before she died.  She was gardening and had pain in her shoulder for a few days that radiated across her chest.  She took a few painkillers.  The old lady and the old man ate their breakfast at the Radford Coney Island and read about the mayor of Detroit sending text messages on the city provided cell phone to his mistress.  Neither one of them knew what a text message was.  They still had a rotary phone. 

            After breakfast, the old woman put on her sun hat and weeded their backyard garden while the old man cut the front lawn.  The pain grew sharper even though it had been an hour since she took two strong painkillers.  She stood and before she could hit the ground she was dead.  The old man found their Golden Retriever sitting at her side.  She lay peacefully in the grass as if she were only asleep.  The old man thought about the day he met her at the USO and vowed to not get killed in the war, so that they could get married, have a house and raise a family.  As routine and mundane life was, as old and unattractive as his wife had become in fifty years of marriage, he cried as he approached her corpse.  As stiff as his back was, he sat on the grass on a cloudless day and stroked her straw like gray hair and cried alone.  It was soon after that day that the old man put his home on the market.  Matt offered cash and got all the old man’s belongings except pictures.  The pictures went to the Upper Peninsula with the old man, the dog and their Ford Truck.

            In little time at all, Matt’s girlfriend Amber had moved in as did several other people who crashed on floors and couches.  The house smelled of cat urine and spilled alcohol.  The grass was long and highly neglected.  It caught nobody’s attention.  Many homes in the area were sold for under market value or were abandon all together prior to being foreclosed on.  Many abandon places were used to house pit bulls that were used to fight for money.  A popular sport in Detroit. Young men trolled good areas looking for smaller domestic dogs that they could feed to the pit bulls.  In order to eat, the starving pit bulls would kill the smaller house pets.  This kept the dogs primed to continue fighting and killing.  Nobody had jobs to speak of and dog fights brought income to poor people.  Even though they no longer had jobs with GM, Ford or Chrysler, the under employed of Detroit still drove domestic vehicles. 

    Matt’s girlfriend Amber had him hooked on opiates of various kinds.  Matt’s girlfriend had a small business of dealing drugs from their home.  Matt pulled in to the drive way one evening and a dozen or more men in black uniforms surrounded his car.  Matt’s girlfriend escaped with her pimp who actually made her sell drugs and her body on the side.  Matt was arrested and was out on bail when he moved all of the sudden to Chicago.

Details were just that to Matt.  Little things like registering the vehicle were on his list of things to do that would never actually get done unless he was forced to do it.  It had been three years and Matt assumed that the State of Illinois would have no record of his arrest warrant.  The tag that was six months expired on a Michigan plate caught the police officer’s attention.  Speaking on the cell phone while driving within the city limits of Chicago was also a violation worthy of a citation.  Officer Ciccone once had a girlfriend who left him for a guy who owned a black BMW like the one that Matt was driving.  Everything lined up perfectly for Matt to be caught.

Officer Ciccone had once been in his twenties with a full head of hair and had raced around the northwest part of Chicago in his Trans-Am.  Officer Ciccone had his share of moving violations, parking ticket, driving under the influence tickets that caused him to lose his license and spend a short period of time in the infamous Cook County Jail.  The whole city of Chicago and most of the suburbs, fall into the jurisdiction of Cook County. 

Officer Ciccone had an uncle who was able to get him into the police force.  Two thousand applicants applied back in 1987.  The city of Chicago was looking for a minority female and instead they got a 100% Italian male… With an attitude.

Officer Ciccone prided himself on never losing a street fight despite the fact that he was five feet seven inches and one hundred fifty five pounds.  He was bald up the middle with bushy hair on the sides and a thick moustache.  The hair may have left his head but it grew strong in his ears, buttocks and back.  Officer Ciccone always chewed gum on the left side of his mouth and chewed in a slow circular motion clockwise.  Officer Ciccone hated every ethnic group available except Italians but hated young cocky,

good looking guys that reminded him of himself when he was young and vibrant.

“Look at this fucking guy…  Expired tags on an outta state plate, talking on the goddamn cell phone…  Run the fucking plates.”

Fearing that his car would be taken from him in the state of Michigan, Matt had the car registered to a fleeting friend by the name of Xavier Garcia.  Xavier Garcia was a national of Mexico who had also had brushes with the law.  His crime was that he carjacked a car in Indiana and took it across state lines to Illinois.  The police department in the suburb of Golf, sought to stop him for travelling fifty miles an hour in a forty mile an hour zone on a road called Golf Road.  Xavier stopped the car, climbed a fence and ran through the golf course.  The golf course led to a bike path in what they call a forest preserve.  A forest preserve is a large park like swath of land set aside to look like a forest.  Usually youngsters drink and fuck in the forest preserves.  Homosexuals and Heroin meet in the public bathrooms.  Heroin addicts are not necessarily homosexual but willing to perform homosexual acts for money.  Families and corporations also have picnics and people do jog and ride bicycles through them.  There is some positive activity.

As is usually the case, Xavier left behind an envelope with his name on it.  The police came looking for him at his previous apartment and were never able to find him.  They had new trails to pursue.  A warrant was put out for Xavier’s arrest.

“If you’re not Xavier Garcia, I need to see something really fast proving to me that you are not him, Mr. Garcia or we will be going for a ride in my vehicle…” said Officer Ciccone smugly while popping his gum.

I forgot to mention that Officer Ciccone had a first name which was Guido.  Guido grew tired of such an Italian sounding name and was given the nickname of Horse

one day in junior high.  The boys had to start taking showers after gym class and it was duly noted by all the boys that Guido’s penis hung down to the middle of his thigh.  Guido was embarrassed by this as a youngster but as time went on, it was a source of pride.  After a few cocktails or being spurned by a woman in a club, Horse would unleash his member to show women and men alike and spin it around like a windmill.  Horse’s penis was really one of his few attributes.  As a human being, he lacked empathy and was quite jealous of most men that he felt had one up on him.  Matt was just too young, fit and attractive.

“I… Think I left it at home.  If you guys could just follow me to my apartment, I could run up and get it”… Said Matt, while still looking through his glove compartment for something with his name on it.

“Oh that will be fine…  Are you hungry?  We could get a bite to eat along the way too…  Do you have any fucking idea how much bullshit we gotta deal with in a day?  That was a question to not be answered but one that should cause you to wonder.

  “Now Mr. Garcia, I am going to have to ask you to step out of that vehicle and place both your hands on the hood…  Am I fucking clear?  If you do anything stupid, stupid things will happen.”

With that, Matt rode in the back seat of squad car 2948 of the Chicago Police Department.  It smelled of stale alcohol, body odor and urine.  Matt had the handcuffs placed on his wrists, behind his back.  The two officers argued over which Chicago baseball teams were better.  Horse was born and raised off of Harlem Avenue near Grand Avenue in an area of the northwest side of Chicago called Montclair.  Horse had been a life long Cubs fan.

Officer Sean Reilly, being Irish from the Bridgeport neighborhood, home to both mayors by the last name of Daley.  Sean still lived in Bridgeport and loved the Southside.  He hated working on the north side but such is life.  They both went back to arguing about the Cubs-Sox series that was taking place at U.S. Cellular field, the home of the Chicago White Sox.

“The series is at Cellular because of the Gay Pride Parade on North Halsted.  You know that right?  The gay parade is more important to the north siders than the god damn Cubs.  The Cubs are fucking losers and always will be.  There won’t never be no World Series champions on the north side.  No fucking way.  In 2005 the Sox won 11 out of 12 games, and swept the World Series.  What have the Cubs done?  Not a fucking thing…” said Officer Reilly, with a toothpick dangling from his mouth.

“Get the fuck outta here with that south side bullshit.  Nobody gives a rat’s ass about the Sox.  They win the World Series and its on page fucking two.  The president meets with the girl’s Lacrosse team from Northwestern University but sends that black broad to shake hands with the Sox…Besides what the fuck you know bout baseball?  If

 they used a goddamn hockey puck, you’d know how to play the game.”

            “Alright, bitch…  You know what?  We’re going to the cages right now and settle this.  I could have gone to college on a division III scholarship for baseball.  You messed with the wrong Mick… Twenty dollars says I will get more hits on the fast pitch than you…” said Reilly.

“I’ll take your damn money and that still won’t prove that the White Sox don’t suck my big cock…”

The two officers drove squad car number 2948 with Matt in the back seat, to a miniature golf place that had batting cages.  They parked the squad car next to the cages in full view of Matt and asked him to critique them.  They both put in five dollars worth of quarters.  A foul ball did not count, there had to be contact.

Sean stripped down to his, if you’ll pardon the expression, Dago T.  He had a tattoo on his right shoulder that said in Gaelic, “Erin Go Bragh” with a harp under the words.  His left shoulder had a tattoo of the Chicago White Sox logo which is Sox in gothic letters.  Sean was tall and wiry.  He smacked just about each ball that came at him at a speed of 85 to 90 miles an hour.  Out of the one hundred balls, Sean had 78 solid hits.

Horse had forty eight.  When Horse was done, he took the bat and threw it at the mechanical arm.  The owner saw this and came out of his office.  He was an older bald man with glasses on.  He tried to curtail his anger since he knew the two men were police officers and their job was to serve and protect.

            “Are you goofy?  Whaddya doing?  You trying to break my machine?”  Said Sol, as he jogged out to retrieve his aluminium bat.

            “Your goddamn machine throws curve balls.  It says fucking fast balls.  I had more than one of them nearly bean me.  If I got hit by one of them, I’d sue you so fucking hard you’d think you got my whole shoe stuck in your ass…  You should be refunding me a fin for all them curve balls.”

            Solomon went back into the office where his wife was stripping the paint from her nails.  Her eye brows were removed and painted on with a black crayon like device.  Her dress looked like a night gown.  Eloise, the wife of Solomon, was talking to her sister who lived in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Eloise still had a New Jersey accent.  Aside from talking and stripping the nail polish from her nails, she was chewing gum, smoking and watching Jerry Springer.  Solomon yelled at Eloise.  He often yelled at her and she often yelled at him.

            “I told you the smell of that turpentine makes my eyes tear and my throat close up.  I told you not to smoke in here either.  If someone from the city comes, we’re going to get a $500.00 fine.  Tell your sister you’ll call her back, I need you to get off your fat ass.”

            Eloise took a drag of her cigarette, leaving bright red lipstick around the base of the filter.  She smiled and winked at Solomon.

            “No, no…  It’s just Sol crying about something once again…  The doctor told him that his heart is strong enough for Viagra.  He just has no interest in sex anymore…  He’s as useful as tits on a bull.”

            Solomon took two five dollar bills and handed them back to Sean and Horse.  Many officers shook down shop owners for free food and coffee.  Free swings at the batting cages were a new one for Sol.  The two officers got back into the car.  Sean

 proceeded to rub it in that he hit nearly thirty more balls than Horse.  Sean asked Matt who looked better.  Matt should have thought better to answer truthfully.  Horse got infuriated.

            “You think so, Garcia?  Let’s see what you think when some big fucking nigger has got a cock in your ass…  That’ll be a good going away present before they deport your fucking ass back to Mexico, you fucking beaner.”

            Now keep in mind while this is all going on, it is a warm sunny summer day in Chicago.  There are a few scattered clouds looking wispy against a blue sky.  Barometric pressure was at a hair over 29.62.  There was a chance of rain.  It was raining in

Davenport, Iowa but the wind was changing and it appeared as though all the rain would head north and east towards Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

            The president of the United States was on a farewell tour of the world.  He was having tea in Pakistan with a man named Musharif.  The general was about to step down.  Most Americans did not worry about this.  Some did.  The people of Pakistan were upset over this.  Coincidentally, within the same borders of Pakistan, in caves near the Afghanistan frontier was a man by the name of Osama bin Laden.  Two sworn enemies sharing the same country if for only a short day, it would have been like Churchill and Hitler separated in a public bathroom by a piece of metal between stalls.  Both men urinating and reflecting on the progress of defeating the other the man in war.  Hitler may have finished quickly and not bothered with washing his hands and never met Churchill.  This never did happen but as the saying goes, stranger things in life have happened.  You’ll have to excuse me, I do this a lot and not just when I write.

            And so the president was in Pakistan, a man named Obama was in North Dakota discussing how he would remove American troops from Iraq within sixteen months.

  Oddly enough, the people of the state of North Dakota were almost entirely white except for the reserves left for the former indigenous people of the region.  Custard may have lost but ultimately the natives lost the war.  Be all that as it may, a man African on his father’s side and some sort of a European melange on his mother’s side was holding a press conference in a state where few black men have bothered to tarry.  Across the country in Anaheim, California, was an older white man by the name of Mc Cain who had been held in a prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam War.  He too was trying to convince the nation that he was the right man to replace the man who was visiting Pakistan.

            Now keep in mind while these things are happening, the price of a gallon of gas is at $4.10 nationally for unleaded, $4.55 if you need Diesel.  A million homes are in foreclosure, large banking institutions are failing or being bought out by foreign investors.  The United States Dollar is worth less than the Canadian Dollar and yet the book you’re

 reading cost forty percent more to purchase within Canada.  Storms are flooding the Mississippi region from Minnesota to Louisiana and wild fires were burning from Sacramento, California to Reno, Nevada.  A tropical storm was just taking shape off the coast of Cape Verde near the continent of Africa that would bowl over small Caribbean Islands within a week.  People were being ignored in the Darfor region, China was getting ready for the Olympics, polar bears were dying in even larger numbers across the arctic region and the national debt of the United States was at 93,000,000,000 at that moment or 36,000.00 for all those living within the United States, legally and illegally. 

National league teams were playing American league teams in Major League Baseball and for many that was the most important thing happening that day, unless one was headed to jail.  None of the above had anything to do with anything.  I just thought you should know that other than this human interest story, there were much bigger things at play that nobody really cared enough about.

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