A Cheerful African American Equestrian
I met on the street yesterday morning a gay black cowboy named Steven. It was Thursday. I was attending to my vehicle for the hour and a half required. The street sweeper had already passed. I was musing on the lives of others, looking behind me at all the empty spaces which would undoubtedly be filled within the hour, and wondering what those future parkers were now doing, what adventures were they engaged in, feeling a little diminished by the fact that I was doing little else than playing Oh Hell on my cellphone.
It was wet and foggy out but not raining. The school crossing guard had recently retired for the day. The people-watching was sub par. The regular dog walkers were about, the woman who cradles her aging overweight Pug for all of its walk excepting that necessary time it must be on the ground to do dog business, and the guy with the German Shepard, the teenage black lab guy, the muzzled mutt guy and the man with the Pug whose hind legs are supported by wheels.
People from my building walked by but ignored me. Karen Ireland, lost not in the actual fog but in that of her morning ruminations, being pulled slightly by her inter-specie loving lesbian rat terrier, passed diagonally through the crosswalk in front of me and while I gave a perfunctory wave I did not see enough to be gained by tapping on the horn. People in their morning fog do not want to be honked at. There can be as a result of it ensuing madness like that befalling the awakened sleepwalker. I don't want to be the one responsible for that. Oh yeah? Karen Ireland? She was a lovely lovely woman until that thumb twiddling dipshit honked at her. Now look at her. Has to wear a bib. And the worst of it is that poor dog of hers, was always so proud and lively, but now, well, she's taken up with one of those long haired Himalayans and just lays about all day with it in one of those cardboard scratching "sofas," a shame really, all of it.
And then the Restauranteur, Bernadette's sister, my sister-in-law for all intents and purposes, she just walks right by me, close enough if I was a pile of excrement encased in flies the flies would have, alarmed by her proximity, momentarily taken flight from the excrement that was me before settling back down again deliciously.
But that's okay. I was not out there to make friends or acquaint myself with others. I was out there doing my duty. Attending to my vehicle parked at the corner of psyche and psyche so that twice a week the sweeper trucks can pass, helping to make this city the glistening jewel that it is.
After a bit, after the initial reattaching of my negative battery cable so the short in my electrical system doesn't drain the battery between tours of duty, and the people watching and the pondering and the shame of coming to grips with my status as an outcaste among my own people, I noticed a car pull up and park behind me. I then went back to playing Oh Hell, either winning or coming in third in the six player version set for hard. I could almost always beat that chump Farqhuar but you do not want to take that Doris lightly. I am aware of a shape exiting the vehicle parked behind me and a progressing of that shape towards me sitting in the Jeep with the windows rolled up. I am pretty much aware now that a person is standing outside waiting for my acknowledgement. I like chance encounters to a certain degree, assuming the encounter is to my advantage in some way. Instead of rolling the window down I gently opened the door and remaining seated encountered this tall middle-aged black man, who as it happens is named Steven, wearing a brown fringed leather cowboy vest, matching fringed chaps over blue jeans held up with a black too-long belt ornamented with a large, oval, engraved sterling silver buckle. I could not see his shoes but I am going to assume they were well worn but shining cowboy boots.
Now be assured this anachronistic outfit did not seem at all out of place or time on this man. But rather so confidently was it worn that I felt transported to whatever or wherever is that time where two men, one a middle-aged long hair in black jeans and faded grey t-shirt covered with a somewhat yuppy-looking LL Bean hooded rain jacket talks to a Buffalo soldier on the streets of New York. About what did we talk? Oh parking mostly. He then retired back to his vehicle to read a book. At 10:29 I stepped out of the Jeep, opened the hood and unattached the negative side of my battery cable and then let the hood slam shut. I sauntered past my vehicle, hoping to wish the cowboy a good day but he was hunched over sideways, his back to the sidewalk, a thick paper-backed book held open somewhere about middle with his left thumb, and with his right hand he was marking passages with a yellow highlighter. There were a fair amount of interesting looking objects littered about the front seat of his car but I could not make out what any of them were. I did not even think about knocking on his window.