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Death Defying Acrobats 8.7.98
The pigmentation and emaciation give me no advantage that I can see, walking
up Orleans towards Broad from the Claiborne bridge. It was a starting place
for my walk home that offered Bossman the least contact with the scary black
people. I find it neither offensive nor funny that Bossman finds this place
scary, as most right minded people would.
The three story brick buildings which make up the Lafitte Projects will
backdrop the left side, across the four divided lanes of Orleans, for about
eight blocks, until I get to Rocheblave. On the right side, where I'm at, the
sidewalk is fronted with stores and houses. It is not necessarily a
threatening experience, even with the walking knowledge that a lot of blood
has been spilled on these corners: at Johnson, at Galvez, at Miro, at Tonti,
at Rocheblave, and Dorgenois, and Broad. Mostly it is knowing that you are
being checked out, and sized up. Tall, skinny, long haired white boy equals
crackhead.
At Johnson, "Whereyat red?"
"Not looking," I say.
At Galvez, "What'sup slim?"
"Not looking."
And I could turn right at Rocheblave, or Dorgenois, and walk the two blocks
into Dumaine but instead I stay to the outskirts, right on Broad, past St.
Ann, and then home sweet Dumaine. As I turn the corner the boys are in front
of Yolanda's trying to stack three mattresses so that they can perform death
defying acrobatic tricks...
...Which is where they are today as I pull up with Kevin (I'm not afraid to
drive you to your home), and Jacque says, "Who is that, your brother."
"A friend from work," I say.
Lance says, "Watch this Mr. Jim," and he takes off running, catapulting high
off the mattresses to perform a beautifully executed front flip, and when his
feet (instead of his head) hit the sidewalk I am impressed and relieved.
"Wow, cool," I say, and so they all line up--Shelton, Glynn, Fermin, Jacque,
and Lance, and do flips for their new audience.
Later, waking up from a nap cluthching my pillow lover, I am aware that M
is being followed into the house by two very quiet pint-sized desperados.
I told him awhile back, "you just have to be patient Shelton, you'll see M
again, it's all about waiting sometimes."
And when I enter M's room Shelton is playing Venus, Goddess from Mars on
the computer, and Jacque is on the couch trying to hide behind a small green
flexible Gumby figure so that I won't see him and throw him out.
"Boy, you kint hide behine sumthin it ain't bigger 'n yur haid," and I cuff
him a few times upside his natural, and throw in a body blow or two, while he
trys to figure out why one day things are this way, and the next day they
ain't.
Nine Inch Brains And Packin' 8.8.98
"Its not that bad around where you live," Kevin said. No single
assessment of this area says it all, not the rap lyrics--"Man this world we
livin in ain't nothin but drama, everyone wanna harm ya," nor me saying--"The
corner of Dumaine and Broad has a long history of criminal drama, some days
it seems like a post-apocalyptic nightmare out there, and then we might go for two or three weeks running where there is no visible activity at all."
Last night sitting on the porch listening to Van go on about Isaac (aka. BB),
who is the latest in a long line of tenants over at the hitman's house. BB
is no longer an official resident of the house as his mama threw him out
for stealing twenty dollars from her purse. Some days BB and J Nixon run
around together and other days BB and Van are best pals.
"He don't come back with my money or that inner tube for my bike and I'm gonna
hurt the motherfucker, and J too if he wanna stand behind it."
"Oh, J's talking like that?"
"Yeah man."
"That would hardly be an afternoon's work do you think?"
"Nah man, waste of my time and energy, but this the third time BB run this
game on me."
"Hard to be friends with someone always taking you for a fool."
"That's it, slim."
BB's a pretty likeable drunk and he goofs with the neighborhood kids, which is
nice, but we had a long talk the other night and I quickly put him in that
category called--Trust him as far as I can throw him.
"Like sometime maybe you come home from work and I see you and I buy you a
beer, and we be chillin' out here, and then sometime when I need a beer or
somethin' you would be there for me."
"It may work that way BB, or it may not."
"Okay, okay," BB laughs, realizing I may be a chump of a different order.
But last night is pretty quiet, very little traffic. And the teenage girls
across the street are probably bemoaning this, but when Van goes around
the corner for a beer, the scene changes abruptly, and there is in front of me
five or six shiny new cars driven by young men, and the girls, perhaps over
eager, jump to it, and are out in the street performing flirtation services.
Now the first two cars, the Maxima, and the 4Runner, seem pretty happy about
this turn of events as they are surrounded by teenage girls, eager to please
or tease. The third car in line, however, a gold Saturn occuppied by two
handsome, yet surly and ignored youths, quickly go from interested to
impatient.
"Niggers be rolling around here," I hear the driver say, and watch him as he
surveys the street. But as the girls do not seem to know these boys (which
makes me a little nervous), and surly angst seems to be their only stock in
the charisma trade, the boys, not knowing what else to do, get angry and start
honking their horn. The first two cars join in thinking this is all good fun,
and the girls are laughing and screaming and the Dumaine Symphony is short
lived as the passenger in the gold Saturn steps from the car and...the Maxima
and the 4Runner take off for the corner, where, with super revved engines and
squealing tires, they fishtail onto Broad and into the night. The other five
or six cars follow suit and quick as that Dumaine all sleepy again.
Cinematic Misbehavior 8.13.98
So how come if you take those boys out every Sunday we don't get a boy story
every Monday?
Often I am disappointed or appalled by their behavior and do not wish to spend
Sunday night recalling it.
I am waiting for Fermin, Hunter, Shelton, Jacque, and Glynn after the movies
let out. I saw Horse Whisperer and bought them tickets for Titanic knowing
that they would be roaming between all the theaters. Fermin and Glynn with
the more shy Hunter backing them up tell me that Shelton got into a mild
altercation with a woman in the theatre and called her "a white B." Racial
and gender intolerance are two qualities I have really been trying to instill
in the boys over the last two years so you can imagine my pride.
I don't say a word and neither does Shelton, which does in a way make me
proud--to know that at least he has that much sense.
"And Fermin peed on the seats," Jacque said.
That's some sort of euphemism I'm thinking. And then they all join in and it
seems that maybe all of them are guilty of "peeing" on the seats. Were they
jacking off in the theatre?
"You could hear it when it hit the seat, Fermin," Shelton said.
Maybe they were really peeing, or jacking off, good god. Help.
I'm very quiet as they go on about all of this, fully detached, floating high
on a cloud above the Aleutian Islands.
King Of Scream 8.15.98
On the porch last night and someone in a passing car is yelling at me. It's
Billy, Mama D's youngest son, and father to Lance the Acrobat, and he wants to
apologize for his behavior at the Night Out Against Crime block party a couple
of weeks back. He says he called and left a message on the answering machine
a few days ago but I have to plead ignorance because I don't ever check the
messages.
"That was nothing," I said.
"But ya'll part of that Neighborhood Watch thing and I just wanted to say I'm
sorry for the way I acted."
"Okay Billy, it's good," I said, as he drove away.
That night in question Billy's older brother Joe Nixon and I were sitting next to each
other and Billy was standing in front of us. Billy was making fun of the
macaroni salad with prunes that I was eating. The woman who made it had
suggested I try some, and why not? I had just risked getting a hernia by
pulling this woman to an upright position after her chair had collapsed
backwards onto the sidewalk. Joe had then come over and bent the iron legs in
such a way as to prevent that happening again, and then seated himself. Joe
is trying to nod off and Billy is pestering him by suggesting that he may
stick his penis in Joe's mouth while he sleeps. Joe is very tired and says,
"come on brah, stop all that," but Billy can't stop so Joe pushes him in the
chest and Billy pushes Joe so hard that the chair is now falling backwards
again onto the car of the people that Phylis rents the other side of her house
to, and people are screaming and jumping up to stop this embarrassing night
out against crime incident, but other than the reflex action of grabbing for
Joe's arm as he flew backward, I just sit there and sip some of Mama D's
Canadian Club, and chase it with a Budweiser.
Evelyn comes over and says, "Jim, I want you to meet my little nephew, my
oldest brother's son, the one that got killed over across the street, they
ain't been back over here in all those years since it happened." And we are
introduced, his name is Glynn, and he ain't little, and he attends St.
Augustine, the all boys Catholic school and basketball powerhouse. I ask him
if he knows Eddie Green as I point across the street to Van's house. "Oh
yeah, he knows him, same school," Evelyn says and then she goes on for a good
while telling Glynn how he is family and even though his mama never brought
him over here all these years, they still family and we been loving ya'll all
this time. Kizzy comes over and Glynn seems interested and then Glynn's
sister is introduced to me and Evelyn says, "show
him your tattoo," and the sister lifts the short sleeve of her blouse to show
me on her upper arm one of those RIP tattoos which have become pretty popular
in this area as the number of murdered fathers continues to grow.