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Commonality 4.18.99
"I like to take something that's known and add a little to it," Shelton said, after stepping out of the car at the Wendy's drive through where I had just ordered four medium frosties.
"Do that thing with your head," I said, wondering if the police car in front of us was paying attention to us behind him. "What do you call that? Rock the cradle with your head? How about cradlehead?"
"Cradlehead," Hunter laughed.
"And what do you call that?" A horizontal loop pinched off with the remaining string acting as a shortened yo-yo.
Shelton shrugged.
Hunter said, "that's the fishing pole."
"And that rock the cradle you do with that little flip out at the end, what's that?"
Shelton shrugged.
Hunter said, "that's a remix."
The police car pulled out onto Carrollton Street and Shelton got back in the car. "Mr. Jim, when we get near the river or a pond or something I'll show you walk the dog across the water," Shelton bragged.
The lady handed me four frosties all stuck in a gray recycled tray with four spoons individually wrapped in plastic and a bunch of yellow napkins. "I'll give these napkins to Erica because I'm sure she'll need them," Shelton said.
Erica did not pick up a lick of trash today and girls don't go on Sunday trips but she made her appeal anyway. From across the street she yelled, "Mr. Jim, I can come?" I just shook my head as I always do and she went into a pout as she always does and I assumed that was that. But a few minutes later Tesa, Shelton's sister and Erica's birth mother, just out of her teenage years, and only recently giving another stab at being the caregiver of five-year-old Erica, comes marching purposefully across the street and asks me will I take Erica "because she inside crying." I'm not
especially moved by that fact but more by Tesa's presence and this rare acknowledgement that Erica is in fact--her daughter. And I said, "yes of course I'll take her," at which point Tesa said, "thank you," and marched back across the street.
We had already been to City Park, where Shelton and Hunter played one on one basketball while I explained to Erica the functions of all the buttons and knobs in the car. "...and that one makes the dashboard light dimmer or brighter, and that one operates the ice cream maker, you push that panel and
then turn this knob over here on the radio and then slide this vent lever back and forth and the ice cream will usually come out through this hole right here." Erica's response was to stare at me blankly with raised eyebrows, which seems
vaguely, or overwhelmingly, familiar to me.
Cruising up Carrollton to its awkward beginning and then making that frightening left turn onto St. Charles where you don't have to stop for anybody but feel like you should, and I'm thinking--what a fine day this is--bright sun, clean air, the trees lining the streets around town are spring green, the spanish moss looks blue, not gray, the temp is right at
seventy, and the humidity is so gone chapstick is required. And a parking space long enough for a stretch limo right in front of Audubon Park. I brought the dented, battered, leaky Ford Festiva to a fluidly sudden stop. "Everyone out," I demanded. "Let's not be shy."
"You know that ain't my problem," Shelton said.
As we entered the park the distractions became instantly obvious. "All right fellas, now it's your God given duty to look but don't stare and don't make a lot of goofy comments," I said referring to the two sets of full and barely concealed breasts which were practically slapping us in our faces.
At the high-tech jungle-gym in the upscale Audubon Park, Hunter sat and ate the rest of his frosty, Erica did the slide, and Shelton discovered he could do a pretty nice Jackie Chan-like maneuver.
Taking the shortcut through the golf course I said, "Ya'll get off the green, some guys are waiting to tee-off over there."
After we crossed the bridge, looked at the fishies, noticed mutiple haloes around our reflections in the water, spit, threw rocks, and intimidated passersby, Shelton climbed a tree, Hunter studied flora by the creek bank, and Erica made known her need to pee. As she crab-walked at a leisurely pace with her fist down between her legs I explained the inappropriateness of her behavior.
By the bathrooms some people were having a crawfish boil and Erica and I stared at a large collander full of live ones awaiting their boiling fate. A five-year-old white kid wanting to act in charge was laying down multiple lines of crap. But for a fleeting glance Erica was not aware of his superfulously vociferous existence. Her eyes were glued to the hundreds of squirming, animated, crawfish claws.
We left Audubon and headed for the Riverwalk park by the zoo, appropriately located by the Mississippi River.
Hunter lamented his lack of fishing pole, Erica and I sat under a big tent and played this game where you toss a coin, close one eye, say the first word that comes to mind, and then sing a song about it, and Shelton stood along the edge of the tent watching a group of thirty-something black professionals
who apparently all owned mustangs--play football, drink beer, and barbeque sausage. Although not shy, I noticed him mustering up the courage to ask one of the guys if he could join in the tossing around of the football. A man said "sure" and Shelton came over grinning ear to ear and gave me his yo-yo to hold. He then went back and stood at the edge of the tent waiting for someone to acknowledge him by tossing him the ball, but no one did that, so after a while he came over and I tossed him his yo-yo.
On the way home, at every stoplight, Shelton would open his door and walk that dog down Magazine. He would make disparaging remarks about every Ford Mustang we would see, finally coming to the conclusion, "there's just to many
of them."