Memories
An odd concoction. Sometimes I knock back a couple of shots. Sometimes it's the other way around. It says something about me that most of my good memories are tinged with sharp edges or that if I stay too long it begins to taste bitter. Not necessarily something pleasant or a proud picture of myself but there you have it, a piece. Of the short term variety I have none. The rest that stick around I use for entertainment, to create and forge my identity.
They usually don't come empty-handed. For an example, there is a particular smell that comes upon me and I will always stop what I am doing to let it linger. I wonder in those moments if it is an actual smell that I came across that was the same or the memory of the original. She brings a smile with her, but of the sharp or bitter variety, she is the latter.
I am going to present to you two memories of a similar nature. With them I will demonstrate something. It's just that I don't know what it is yet. So bear with me and come along, perhaps you will find it first.
I am not a violent man. Though for years my life was violent as was my nature. It has since been tempered by consequence. If pressed though I will still reach for the lead pipe.
There was a girl once, who broke my heart gently in tiny installments, whom I had just finished having dinner with when the first of these two memories occurred. She left without me and I went my own way. As I turned the corner I was nearly run over by a large pick-up with tires as tall as I. A voice blared at me to watch where I was going and questioned where I learned to drive. It occurred to me that I was not in the wrong in our near accident. In fact when I stopped my car to think about it I was parked directly in front of him and could clearly see, by looking down, the large painted arrow pointing directly at the grill of his truck. It seemed to me that he was going in the wrong direction. I pointed this out to him but I used the wrong finger and some not so colorful cursing spilled from his mouth. Reaching behind me I grabbed a crowbar and stepped out of my car to help him see a clearer picture. Now, here in my life I had been going on ten years without a fight. And so truthfully, I was soft. I became aware of it as both he and his friend began stepping out of his truck. Several thoughts came to me, starting with, How soft am I? ending with, Can I justify this to anyone, including myself, later on if I'm the one who starts this? I waited and neither of them were going to take a pause in the slander to step up so I got back in my car and drove away. As I pulled out I heard him say, "Yeah, that's right motherfucker, get back in your car." and I did stop to reconsider. In the end I left.
This one sticks in my craw. I don't know why. It bothers me so much. Perhaps it's idea that they think I backed down. Perhaps it's because I think I backed down. Perhaps it's because I know they never understood that I was actually never in the wrong. I don't know for certain.
The second memory involves a racist. Now I've lived with several different variety's of racist. There was the Sicilian guy who hated Blacks and Jews. We tried to tell him that there's Moorish blood integrated in his Sicilian background and he would have none of it. How did I come to live with him unscathed? Simple, the Bell Curve. He was brilliant, got a doctorate in law and medicine from what I hear. He was an interesting guy. But this is not about him.
There was the lady I rented a room from who offered me her bed the first week I lived there. She declared that she was very open-minded and was "the least racist" person that ever lived. And I think she believed it. But her constant off handed comments about my teaching her Kung-fu and how I should have been good at math coupled by her fear of the guy sleeping in his car (she called the police because he was black) amongst other things led me to believe that she was in actuality the Most racist person I have ever met. She was not so interesting. But this is also not about her.
The one person that I did come at odds with was a black guy who hated white people. And as long as I wasn't black, I was white. In fact the other black roommate I had (he was half black, half native american and about 8 feet tall) was also not black. Many were the nights I would hear the two of them go on. "How you dissin' a brotha like that?" "You ain't a brotha! You talk to these guys!" These guys would be the other nine people who lived there. Now how did this come about? How did he end up moving in to a house full of college students? The rest of us got along great. Somehow he finagled his way in through the landlord. None of us ok'd it but the landlord assumed somehow that we all did and signed an agreement with him. So he moved in with his girlfriend. He set up a barbershop outside my bedroom door where he gave cuts to ganstas. Many things walked out of the house with them. Fortunately for most of us we were broke college kids and didn't own much. Not all of us though. One night he threatened to cut me with a knife. And I just about had it. I tried to cool off by going for a walk but ended up storming into his room ready to break his chicken legs off for him. It was more than obvious that he deserved the beating he was about to get. Everyone waited calmly for me to trounce him, even his friend barely stepped in to stop me. And to be perfectly honest, at this point in my life, I was not soft and there was no doubt in anyone's mind what the outcome of this would be. I watched as he put up his dukes, and was about paste him when he sort of whimpered in that 'I gotta save face' kind of way and said "let's see what your kung fu can do!". In that moment a wave of disgust washed over me and I turned my back on him and slowly walked out of his room.
I still firmly believe that this man deserved and needed a beating to straighten him out. When I think about it, I know that this one ended the right way. I should have and could have beaten him silly, but I feel that I left a better person for not having done it.
So why don't I feel that way about the other one? Why does that one feel like that sharp angled dorito that I tried to swallow before chewing it?
there was fairly little thought put into this post, but then again it's been a while.
They usually don't come empty-handed. For an example, there is a particular smell that comes upon me and I will always stop what I am doing to let it linger. I wonder in those moments if it is an actual smell that I came across that was the same or the memory of the original. She brings a smile with her, but of the sharp or bitter variety, she is the latter.
I am going to present to you two memories of a similar nature. With them I will demonstrate something. It's just that I don't know what it is yet. So bear with me and come along, perhaps you will find it first.
I am not a violent man. Though for years my life was violent as was my nature. It has since been tempered by consequence. If pressed though I will still reach for the lead pipe.
There was a girl once, who broke my heart gently in tiny installments, whom I had just finished having dinner with when the first of these two memories occurred. She left without me and I went my own way. As I turned the corner I was nearly run over by a large pick-up with tires as tall as I. A voice blared at me to watch where I was going and questioned where I learned to drive. It occurred to me that I was not in the wrong in our near accident. In fact when I stopped my car to think about it I was parked directly in front of him and could clearly see, by looking down, the large painted arrow pointing directly at the grill of his truck. It seemed to me that he was going in the wrong direction. I pointed this out to him but I used the wrong finger and some not so colorful cursing spilled from his mouth. Reaching behind me I grabbed a crowbar and stepped out of my car to help him see a clearer picture. Now, here in my life I had been going on ten years without a fight. And so truthfully, I was soft. I became aware of it as both he and his friend began stepping out of his truck. Several thoughts came to me, starting with, How soft am I? ending with, Can I justify this to anyone, including myself, later on if I'm the one who starts this? I waited and neither of them were going to take a pause in the slander to step up so I got back in my car and drove away. As I pulled out I heard him say, "Yeah, that's right motherfucker, get back in your car." and I did stop to reconsider. In the end I left.
This one sticks in my craw. I don't know why. It bothers me so much. Perhaps it's idea that they think I backed down. Perhaps it's because I think I backed down. Perhaps it's because I know they never understood that I was actually never in the wrong. I don't know for certain.
The second memory involves a racist. Now I've lived with several different variety's of racist. There was the Sicilian guy who hated Blacks and Jews. We tried to tell him that there's Moorish blood integrated in his Sicilian background and he would have none of it. How did I come to live with him unscathed? Simple, the Bell Curve. He was brilliant, got a doctorate in law and medicine from what I hear. He was an interesting guy. But this is not about him.
There was the lady I rented a room from who offered me her bed the first week I lived there. She declared that she was very open-minded and was "the least racist" person that ever lived. And I think she believed it. But her constant off handed comments about my teaching her Kung-fu and how I should have been good at math coupled by her fear of the guy sleeping in his car (she called the police because he was black) amongst other things led me to believe that she was in actuality the Most racist person I have ever met. She was not so interesting. But this is also not about her.
The one person that I did come at odds with was a black guy who hated white people. And as long as I wasn't black, I was white. In fact the other black roommate I had (he was half black, half native american and about 8 feet tall) was also not black. Many were the nights I would hear the two of them go on. "How you dissin' a brotha like that?" "You ain't a brotha! You talk to these guys!" These guys would be the other nine people who lived there. Now how did this come about? How did he end up moving in to a house full of college students? The rest of us got along great. Somehow he finagled his way in through the landlord. None of us ok'd it but the landlord assumed somehow that we all did and signed an agreement with him. So he moved in with his girlfriend. He set up a barbershop outside my bedroom door where he gave cuts to ganstas. Many things walked out of the house with them. Fortunately for most of us we were broke college kids and didn't own much. Not all of us though. One night he threatened to cut me with a knife. And I just about had it. I tried to cool off by going for a walk but ended up storming into his room ready to break his chicken legs off for him. It was more than obvious that he deserved the beating he was about to get. Everyone waited calmly for me to trounce him, even his friend barely stepped in to stop me. And to be perfectly honest, at this point in my life, I was not soft and there was no doubt in anyone's mind what the outcome of this would be. I watched as he put up his dukes, and was about paste him when he sort of whimpered in that 'I gotta save face' kind of way and said "let's see what your kung fu can do!". In that moment a wave of disgust washed over me and I turned my back on him and slowly walked out of his room.
I still firmly believe that this man deserved and needed a beating to straighten him out. When I think about it, I know that this one ended the right way. I should have and could have beaten him silly, but I feel that I left a better person for not having done it.
So why don't I feel that way about the other one? Why does that one feel like that sharp angled dorito that I tried to swallow before chewing it?
there was fairly little thought put into this post, but then again it's been a while.
Comments