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The Sleeping Clergymen
They were fighting about it last night which is what woke me from a sleep started at 8:30. That's kind of early to be going to sleep, even for me, but sometimes sleep is all there is for it.
I've been wanting not to write this one all week.
I'm still not writing it so there's still hope. Always hope.
I haven't had uninterrupted sleep for three nights now but I'm not going to complain about that because I pretty much get my sleep over the long haul which is now measured in years over forty, and some people, for example procreators, go nearly unbearable amounts of time deprived of the sweet deep sleep.
I had wondered what she would do about vacations, what with the additional responsibility she took on when she for all practical purposes adopted a sixteen-year-old inner-city teenager who is quite a handful, let me tell you, or just say he is basically a good kid, and interesting too, but carrying too much circumstantial weight, which causes him to lash out at the world, or simply--be a bully, and occasionally, when not being a sweet, intelligent, well mannered (ocassionally bullying) kid, behave in ways that appear, simply evil.
Never (or a million times over) has there been a better case for the value of a stable home life, and the importance of a two parent family.
Anyway, she's taking him with her on the trip to Oregon and Canada, and like the last time there was a trip which included him, before he lived here, he made such a thing happen that caused him to be banned ( a punishment? handed down by his now dead guardian) from the trip.
And from what I could tell, that was what the fight was about last night, him not wanting to go on this journey that will take him away from this tiny world of his in which he has--mean and spiteful though much of it is--some power, and into that glorious world of unexplored territory where lies doubt, uncertainty, and he is sure--a package deal of other unpleasantries that will throw him head first into that final spiraling descent towards hell, a place palpable to his being, so why travel geographically to get there.
"My Mama in jail is a crackhead, and my daddy in jail is a crackhead, and my brother in jail is a crackhead, and my one sister is crazy, and the other one is just too nice, I mean like there is something wrong with her she so nice, I can't stand her she so nice."
But since I've been putting off the point of this, days have passed, every one filled with cold, incessant rain, and they're gone, to Oregon, where they will drive the western coast northward, until they reach Canada, and then do it again in reverse, the four of them--two middle aged white women, and two teenage black boys (he was allowed to bring a friend), at least one of which wants to grow up to be a gun-toting gangster.
If you are still here, take my advice and flee, don't look back, for example there is a nice article on Janet Reno in today's Parade Magazine.
There will arise on occasion chinks in the armor of our belief that basically everything is all right, not perfect, no, no, not perfect, but ok. But you caught a glimpse of the machinery one day; the cold, gray, hardened steel gears of it all, and saw it to be a loop, and never ending, and you wondered how will you carry the weight of this knowledge, and knew immediately the answer was also a loop--forget about it.
All this cold and gray is no good so let me tell you a single thing that warms the cockles of my heart: to sit on a porch in the afternoon and watch the young black school children coming home from school with their book backpacks half again as big as they are, and to imagine the turning of their little minds and the learning (if they are so lucky to be in a school that actually teaches), and the hope of it all, that through education they might rise above the station they were born into, on streets littered with crack vials, hypodermic needles, loose cigar tobacco, potato chip and candy wrappers, bottles and cans, dirty diapers, crawfish and shrimp shells, chicken bones, and chickens and cats and pigeons both alive and dead. Or rising above it is not so much the issue as living amongst the pestilence with dignity, and respect, and not adding to it.
This was always going to be about Ruby Bridges, who forty years ago this November 14th, at six-years-old, integrated Frantz Elementary school in New Orleans. US Marshals ushered her to school that first day and the few days after, but for the rest of the year, as the protesting crowds became less and less, she continued to come to that school everyday, and the vitriolic speech of her detractors became less and less meaningful, but my point was going to be that it was always there, and most published reports only refer to the little coffin with the black doll in it someone held up (which scared her, go figure), and someone else who threatened to poison her. She herself said she didn't pay much mind to the language, and for the things they threw at her that first day, she thought it was like Mardi Gras, she did not perceive the hatred (which is the only sign of a g(G)ods intervention in all this I can see). But it was God her mama exhorted her to pray to and being able to imagine that such a thing was of use to the six-year-old Ruby is enough to make me almost regret my status as reprobate.
But the thing is, I know the people who lined the streets outside Frantz, not by name or social security number, but I know who they are, they are too real to me, and so I was gonna go for shock value, you know, replaying for you what they spewed from their wicked mouths, things even worse than "you fuckin' nigger bitch," ( to a six-year-old child), and such, I can hear them, as if there that day, but that's my immaturity, going for shock value, because even the child Ruby didn't get hung up with all that. But with God's help right, and I'm so lucky? Anyway, it's your gain in the long run, that when I "go there" I start losing vision and can't properly see the screen in front of me.
All week I have existed inside this vision and when one of the boys caught me at it and asked, "what's wrong with you?" I didn't have an answer, but was able to obfuscate inside the ever-moody Mr. Jim persona.
David Duke exhorts his followers: Don't Be Ashamed Of Being White, well, I'm not a follower, and I'm not ashamed of being white, I love being white, if the the alternative is being black in a white world, no thank you. So I'm coming out on this one. I agree with David Duke. You followers of his, listen to the man, don't be ashamed of being white, but also listen to me: be ashamed of your small minds you pencil dick freaks of nature. Be ashamed of teaching your children hate. Be ashamed of your fear. Be ashamed of your lineage which is clearly the result of inbreeding. Be ashamed of every breath you take.
I should be done, but I'm not. I haven't addressed those specific clergy who have known what goes on around them: you are falling down on the job, hell awaits you.
Sure it makes you a little uncomfortable to hear me write this way, even embarrassed for me, but sometimes sleep just isn't enough for it. jml