View current page
...more recent posts
Profanity And The Missing Daddies 11.3.98
M didn't even see the sidewalk poetry, she was put out with S before that, the capper being his cackling laughter as he tortured a neighborhood boy.
"Fuck the police, fuck the bitches, fuck the hores, Dumaine Thugs," and then the listing of several neighborhood names.
On Sunday, "No you can't go with us."
"Why not?"
"Because you misspelled 'whore...'"
"Thats the way M told me to spell it..."
"And you wrote all kinds of stupid shit on the sidewalk, and you made it sound like there's a gang called the Dumaine Thugs, which is like advertising--I'm a gangster, I'm an idiot, come arrest me, my name is S, and these are the names of my accomplices. Big C and Big S ought to whip your ass for including their names."
"Okay."
Later on Sunday in the middle bedroom through the open window I hear this chanting and this crying, and more chanting and more crying. It doesn't stop so I get up and look out the front door and F is hunched over the hood on one side of Beulah's car, chanting, and T is on the other side, crying.
F: (singsongy) You a crybaby and you daddy kiss booty, you a crybaby and you daddy kiss booty, you a crybaby and you daddy kiss booty.
T: (loudly)--(Cries.)
F: (singsongy) You a crybaby and you daddy kiss booty, you a crybaby and you daddy kiss booty.
T: (loudly)--(Cries.)
That's just part of being low man on the totem pole at Mama D's. T will have to learn to take some of that.
Today after the big boys kicked the little kids off the basketball court, Preston runs off down the sidewalk as Erica watches him go, and when he's about twenty feet away two things happened at exactly the same moment. Erica
pointed her finger and said "flip," and young Preston executed a front somersault/cartwheel looking flip, then kept on running, without looking back.
Kids are weird.
Coming back from the movies yesterday with L riding shotgun. A second line parade, just passed, is causing havoc with the traffic, so I turn right on Ursulines, and shortly come to a stop at Broad.
L said, "There go your daddy, F."
F ignores him.
"That's your daddy though, ain't it, F?"
F mumbles and slumps down in the back seat.
Never seen F's daddy. All the same, I did not rubberneck.
I'm Sorry, Its Empty 10.28.98
A year ago I was talking to this friend of mine. We were on the sidewalk of a shopping center on the east coast talking about the meaning of life, procreation, survival, and greater purposes in general, and I remember now, or actually last night after yelling at Shelton, that I said--and not hurting
people's feelings. I did not know why I said that, it seemed awkward, and still does, but teenage disappointment sure brought it back last night as Shelton lumbered past me with homework which would go undone after I told him, curtly, to reverse direction and get back in the front room with all the other kids. He was on his way to his "office" (the bathroom) to start his homework, but I'm against that tonite. Shelton is fourteen, not a kid, still a kid, and wants to be given special privileges in this house. I feel strongly against special privilege but my attentions to Erica, Shelton's neice, belie that attitude, and it is clear to everyone involved that truth be known, I like what I like, when I like it, and that my belief system is subject to an inconsistent moodiness (I wouldn't say manic depression), that reminds me of Fathers in general--Shut Up I'm Trying To Watch The Television. Followed by--Hey Son Wanna Play Catch.
A US Mail eighteen wheeler broke down in front of 2654 Dumaine last night, and has been there all day. A bunch of white guys are checking out the situation at sunset. A basketball rolls under this one guy's foot and someone from the parking lot/basketball court comes to retrieve it. But the white guy is like Beaver Cleaver and can't seem to get out of the way, and he and the young shirtless man do this little dance before everyone achieves their short term destiny.
School is in session. Poochie's daughter, Shentrell, is out on the porch with HP and a blond barbie puzzle. Mandy says not to give Shentrell anything until she apologizes to Terrioues. Woops, I was just trying to get her to stop ringing the bell. Lance (the former acrobat) is at the kid's computer playing
a game while he waits for Mandy to give him one on one in Algebra. Erica has finished copying the letter "J" and the numbers eight and nine. Terrioues is at the table writing something and waiting (in vain I predict) for an apology
from Shentrell, who earlier hit him and tore his paper. Mandy asks me do I remember anything about quadratic equations and parabolas. The vacant stare is my best answer. Glynn did his work and is gone. Bryan is still working on it. Lance comes over and asks me how good am I at math. Not as good as Mandy. Lance and I agree that Language Arts is more to our liking. "What do you want me to read?" says Lance, and I am caught off guard so I say, "I will think of some real fine stuff...before you turn twenty." This seems logical to Lance, he nods, and goes back to his computer.
The trailer is opened, flashlights shine, Glynn peeks, its empty. The tractor disconnects and pulls away from the empty trailer. If it stays too long here on Dumaine it will become part of the scenery, and eventually morph into a
thing it never knew it could be.