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There Go Your White Man
I have probably more time in construction crappers (port-a-toilets) than most of my readers and I'm bragging about it.
Things have really gotten better here in the Deep South as regards to hateful racial graffiti in the crappers.
I remember this English teacher I had during my abbreviated student tenure at the University of Texas, she was from England no less, and once I remember she was going on about how far the United States had come in the arena of civil rights and I just shook my head condescendingly, an 18-year-old know-it-all, and she cited all the obvious advancements and I said take away the laws and not a damn thing would be different. Sure the laws have changed but not the hearts of men, I argued. And eventually men will break laws.
But I'm big enough to admit being wrong, in fact I revel in wrongness, so Teach, you were right and I am wrong.
In Metairie to where I go for work and the most hateful racial attitudes (or not, really) I read in this particular crapper a fairly common sentiment which I have seen year after year after year--KKK, kill all blacks. It is etched in the plastic with razor knife. It is most often hard working black men who drive the crapper suction trucks that clean out these toilets. And I know they are as relieved as I am that we have come as far as we have. Love in the21st century. I mean, in the past, it was always the N-word used. We are truly blessed, all of us, in these times.
Then I will drive home, stop by Rocheblave, and head over to Dumaine to try to do a little something at the house that 11 years ago began my insight into a culture I will never do proper justice to, by description or understanding.
I guess I have a mean stare sometimes, or an edginess. I'm not bragging about it because it is a weakness, although except for choosing otherwise I could have been a good little hard-ass fucker of a businessman, with my edgy persona. I could have been somebody, I could have been a contender, ha.
It ain't nothing really, not yet, but the little dudes are starting to hang out, just lightly, around the 2600 block of Dumaine. I didn't even glance at Dumaine the week my back was most troublesome but pulling up to the curb day before yesterday and seeing some youngster I may recognize as 8 or 10 years older than the 10-year-old kid with the black heart or just bad luck of circumstance, and I hard stare him because he is leaning against the fence of the Dumaine house, and I'm tired, and I don't have the patience for this stupid shit all over again. It's too hard to work, period, without doing it to an audience of lazy fucks. I could love the kid if he would make the slightest effort of respect, but he won't, and I won't. He'll hang, deal drugs or not, smoke or not smoke the blunt, not lift a finger, leave his trash on the ground instead of three feet away in a bag hanging on the fence, and make no courteous hello, so you give up and hard stare, and they hard stare back. It's all fear and anger, on both sides. Something better could be easy if it weren't so hard.
I unlock the grate and kill some time inside because I don't want to have a confrontation on account of I am feeling irrational. It's like counting to ten I guess. I hear the kid outside talking to another kid I know, and he sounds all pissy and punk ass bitchy. I can't hear anything but tone and the words "white man.'' White man this and white man that. I just stay inside even though all the work I am trying to complete is outside. I am not going to wait indefinitely. Although my main goals in life are not to be mean to other people (I often fail at this) and to not get killed, I must get to work. I'm still feeling too irrational though so I wait a few more minutes until I can't stand it any longer and then I bring out the ladders and move back and forth from the foyer to the front porch. The kids have moved on and I start doing some scraping but my heart isn't really into it. I'm not sure scraping is something you can really put your heart into.
Later, I'm back in the foyer, with the front door open, and I hear from across the street the kid I know egging on the kid with the black heart, "there go your white man up in there." Something. Something. "There go your white man." I have never in my life referred to a man as nigger or black man, except the first to describe or act out other people speaking it and the latter to describe the popular conception of African American skin color. Give me the same, you little pissants. But really, I do love you guys when I'm not hating you.
Down south in the 21st century.
Letter To Clifford, 8-9-10
Dear Mom, 6/27/05
How are you doing? I am doing fine, waiting on the guests of JF to wake up so I can do a little work up at the bighouse. That's what I call the main house on this property--the bighouse. J and his wife, L, don't come out too often because of busy schedules with their kid's activities, but occasionally let people use the bighouse for a weekend getaway. I have been painting the metal roof of the house but have met one obstacle after another. First, the pollen from the many trees surrounding the house was so coating the roof that I could barely walk on it, much less prep and paint it. So I waited for that stop happening and now it is getting so hot I can't do much on the roof except for early in the morning and maybe a little in the evening. The roof is peeling pretty bad and some of the cleanser I am using makes it peel even more, so I end up having to scrape it twice.
The section of the roof I am working on now has a view through windows into one of the upstairs bathrooms, so I don't want to make their guests nervous, and am just staying down here at my cottage for awhile. This house is not really a cottage but people want to call it that because they can't really call it a guest house on account of I live here all the time, and I ain't much of a guest. And cottages are associated with country property, which this certainly is. I am pretty much considered the caretaker but there seems to be some slightly negative connotation to that word because of the way caretakers have been portrayed in various movies and pieces of literature, over time. Caretakers have been portrayed as tall thin silent loners who are a little grumpy and occasionally unpredictable in their behavior and rude to strangers who happen onto the property. Which I think describes me pretty well.
I am very slowly getting to know more people around here and before you know it I will know everyone, because there aren't that many people out in this part of Virginia. The town I live in, Washington--sometimes called Little Washington so as not to be confused with Washington DC--has a population of only 186 people. There are no stoplights in town. The entire county, Rappahannock County, has only about 7,000 total residents, and likewise, in the entire county, there are no stoplights. Needless to say, if I don't leave this immediate area, I don't get stuck in traffic jams.
I had two extra tickets to a musical concert in Washington DC recently (which is 70 miles away) and I don't know if you know this or not but your oldest son and my oldest brother, D*n, has a son living in DC this summer, the son's name is J*ck, and he is acting as tour guide, before going back to Texas A&M in the fall, to enter his senior year. So I invited Jack and his girlfriend, K*m, who is also in DC this summer (what a coincidence), and they joined my girlfriend, T, and I for the concert and we had pretty good time. J*ck's girlfriend is summer interning with the CIA and will also go back to A&M in the fall to finish her senior year.
Speaking of Washington DC, let me just remind you that your good friend [sarcasm, my mom was to say the least, not a big fan] and president of the United States, George W. Bush, only has three and a half more years on his second term, so clearly, there is a future worth looking forward to. love, Jim.
Dear Mom,
I am having some problems writing you a letter this morning. The computer I am writing on tends to freeze up, which means the keyboard won't respond and then I have to turn the machine off and when I turn it back on the words I have written are gone. So this is attempt number three this morning. You might ask why I don't just use a pencil and paper and if you did ask I would say because I can't find a pencil.
Your oldest son (who lives in Arlington), D*n, is my oldest brother, and his youngest son, J*ck, is in Washington DC for the summer, as is his girlfriend, and they have driven out to visit me this weekend. They are driving around the property in a jeep right now. I asked him to be careful and not tip the jeep because that happened to a guest once and the person tore his knee up pretty bad.
I went hiking yesterday with a friend who knows the trails around here as well as anyone and he knows many private trails that lead through and around rather exclusive private properties with giant homes, and manicured, landscaped ponds, and guest houses. Many of these properties around here are weekend homes for well-to-do Washington DC residents. We are 70 miles from DC.
I've been socializing more than I'm used to, going to parties, throwing parties, and I've met some nice people and some other people I could live without.
My guests, nephew J*ck, and his girlfriend, K*m, have come back from riding around in the jeep and we had a little talk and now they are either going to walk into town to window shop or they are going to stay on this property and play tennis and swim. Later tonight, my girlfriend, T, who plays trumpet in a musical band, is having a concert and we are all going to hear her play.
The owners of this property I take care of are my childhood friend, JF, and his wife, and they have three young boys, 11,8, and 5, and they were out for the July 4th weekend. They had some guests staying with them at their house and I had some guests down here at my house and it was an interesting mix of people and we shot off some fireworks and didn't burn the place down so I guess everything went well.
I am going to lay around and read now. I bought 15 used books for about 4 dollars the other day and I got some nice ones.
You be good. love, Jim
Dear Mom,
Yesterday I saw a movie set in New Orleans. I recognized much of the scenery and the neighborhoods and I felt the effect the movie makers were trying to create and it made me a little lonely for New Orleans, which is where I used to live before moving here to the Virginia countryside. But mostly what I couldn't get over was how they shot the movie without really showing a lot of black people and I thought how could you film such and such a neighborhood in New Orleans without showing more of the people who actually live there. I wonder sometimes, in general, if there is a story to be told that hasn't been told yet, and when I think about that I always think about New Orleans and how so much of the story I know from there doesn't seem to be tell-able or if it is tell-able how to my knowledge it hasn't been told yet. Sometimes I think about trying to tell it but except for a few hundred pages written about it while I actually lived there, sort of a journal I kept, I haven't really begun to work on the New Orleans story as I know it.
Its Sunday and I went hiking again this morning, this time up in the Shenandoah Park proper. I got up there about 9 a.m. and there was a large group of people having a get together at one of the picnic sites. I walked an easy, not overly-inspiring section of the Appalachian Trail and then I turned around and walked back. When I got near the lot I could hear people singing and it turned out that that large group at the picnic site was some sort of gospel, bluegrass, Christian musical group, and, they were pretty good. When I got to my truck though they had finished the song and some guy was just talking the talk, which turned out to be a whole lot less interesting than the music. So, I drove home and went for a swim.
One of your grandsons, J*ck Louis, who is the youngest son of your oldest son, D*n Louis, has been visiting me for a couple of days here in Virginia. J*ck and his girlfriend both attend Texas A&M University but are working in Washington DC (which is about 70 miles from where I live) for the summer and so I have seen them a couple of times.
I learned a secret handshake this weekend. Next time I see you I will let you in on the secret. love, Jim