If a man has the constant feeling that everyone in the world is trying to kill him then he is probably a paranoid schizophrenic, however, if that man is black then he is merely a realist. A few months ago a childhood friend of mine was shot and killed at 5:00am at a traffic light. He just finished working a double shift at his job and was headed home and someone killed him. As far as facts are concerned that’s the end of the story. People on the streets say there was some kind of verbal altercation or that somehow jealousy was involved but it doesn’t matter. None of the gossip concerns me, what keeps me up at night is that Ronnie Kidd is dead.
“The Kidd” “Kidder” the dude who cried every week when we were playing Peewee Football because the coaches wouldn’t let him play defense is gone. The guy with the jokes, the style, and the always-positive outlook on life was killed over something that no man should ever die over. He had a wife, three boys, and friends everywhere. He wasn’t a dope-boy or a thug of any of any kind but yet and still he was gunned down as if his life meant nothing. And of the person who did it; one can assume that he went on about his business. He ate a good breakfast and kissed his woman on the lips. But a fact even more troubling is that we can definitely assume that his killer was another black man.
I rarely sleep well. I see memories of Ronnie Kidd, I recount deep conversations with Kevin Reese, and I recall cheering for Damion Bouchellion as a JV football player while he led our varsity squad to an undefeated season. I hear Sean Scott’s voice so clearly some nights that I forget that he’s dead. Perhaps I have mental illness or perhaps I have finally become aware that it is perfectly normal for a 30-year-old black man from East Oakland to be far better acquainted with the dead than with the living. I’m not a ghost whisperer and I don’t claim to have super natural abilities but I do talk to spirits. Sometimes they talk back to me and sometimes they don’t. I see them in visions. Sometimes I see them in the form of mischievous boys, sometimes I see them as responsible men, and sometimes I see them lying in pools of blood on the concrete.
I don’t want to be killed. On average I’m sure I think about death a lot more than most educated men. Sometimes it’s hard to leave the bed and sometimes it’s hard to come home. I know that if I were to accrue the resources necessary to lay on a psychiatrists couch then I would be diagnosed with a lot of afflictions and given a lot of pills but no western medicine or drugs can cure me of my mental blackness. Black men are the most hated species on Earth. Hated so much in fact that we actually hate one another to death.
Over the years I’ve learned that crazy is a relative term and although race is only a social construct it’s confinement is very real. Even if I escaped today my soul would still be in the trap. I miss my friend’s so much but it’s rare that I drink enough to cry about it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccx7xYBArBc]
-YB
The other day I was thinking about this young lady who I used to love a few years back. Of course I never told her I loved her and I have yet to tell her I miss her but such is life. Men play a lot of games. When she loved me I never felt the need to reciprocate and when she was gone I convinced myself that I didn’t care. Then I became lonely.
There are few things in this world that I find to be more endearing than a vulnerable woman. Perhaps this is because I have been socialized to ignore all of my weaknesses; therefore I have grown to be easily enticed by a creature that is conditioned to embrace such feelings. I hear a lot of men speak of wanting a strong black woman and I know a lot of women who go out of their way to be viewed as such but I think that’s a problem.
When we become slaves to codes that make no sense life becomes unbearable to the senses and a part of us dies. Why do our passions need to be controlled? Why do so many people try to be gods on earth? Beautiful things will always be just outside of the honest man’s grasp. I could have tasted that fruit but I left it on the tree. How foolish of me. Now I must sit down in the shade and wait for that pear to fall on my head. It will never happen. So would I be wrong if I prayed for the wind to blow? Or would I be immoral if I pushed and shoved on its trunk until all the pears fell to the ground? I’m not greedy. I only want one. I suppose it will ripen soon enough. Its nectar will taste unbelievably sweet.
WG- Hey, hey [waves frantically in the face of black girl who is speed walking across campus]. Don’t I have that literature course with you?
I remember clotheslines. I remember when we had a washing machine but no dryer. We had a basket full of clothespins that used to sit by the back door. My grandmother used to have a clothesline too. I remember her pulling me down the street when I was a little boy. We were rushing back too her duplex so we could hurry and get the clothes off the line because it was beginning to sprinkle.
I am not a perfect gentleman nor do I try to be one. Sometimes when I have dinner or drinks with a young lady I pay the tab and other times I don’t. I always pay for whatever I eat or drink but whether or not I treat her depends. There is a woman who I have chilled out with twice in the two years since I’ve known her. The first time we hung out I invited her to go see The Foreign Exchange with me at a venue called The New Parrish in Oakland, CA.