| august
17
|
While waiting for the Q66 bus today to take
me from Home Depot to Main Street in Flushing, I was standing in a small
rectangle of shade underneath the bus stop overhang. I was reading one
of the world's most plodding books, Shardik, by Richard Adams. I
was hot. Man, was I hot.
"Excuse me, may I stand here?" I looked up and this tall, graying black man was standing next to me. He was clutching a black bag against his chest. "Yeah, sure," I said, standing aside. Figuring I was eating up all the (nonexistent) shade and he meant he wanted some shade. "Used to be, I wasn't even allowed to stand on this side of the street." He had a big, commanding voice. The bus wasn't coming. The book was boring. I remained attentive and asked what he meant by that, kind of knowing, but not understanding if Northern Blvd. had been segregated down the center or something bizarre back in the Jim Crow days. As in, you can go West if you want, but there's hell to pay if you go East! That wasn't quite what he meant. But he just wanted to talk. Sometimes you can sense that about people; there's no need to jump in with your side of the conversation. They just want to talk. Turns out he grew up in the Queens area in the late 1940s and 50s -- 1947 he was born in -- and said if you were black or Puerto Rican and wanted to live in the Woodside area, forget it. If you wanted to take the bus, you had to ask permission first of any white folks who happened to be standing there. And he said you'd be stuck staring at the ground and mewling and acting all subservient and still the cops would wheel around and harrass you. His mother was going to church one day when a cop drove up. "Who are you? Where do you live? Where are you going?" "I'm going to church," she told him. "No, you're not," he said. "Where are you going?" Now, really, where could he have been thinking she was going with two kids (the man I was with, age about 13 and his sibling) on a Sunday morning? "I am going to church to serve the Lawd!" she told him. "And you're the devil that's keeping me from getting there!" Well, it didn't get better from there; the cop got out and ended up punching the guy's mom and cuffing the guy and mom ended up in jail briefly. She ended up telling the one black cop on the local force, but he was powerless. The bus came and we got on and he was still talking. He took a front seat; I was a little further back. His voice still carried and the driver, a younger black man, listened in. We were the only three on the bus for a while. He moved on, talking about how out in Long Island -- Garden City? -- it was even more racist. "The cops would pick up the kids and sling them over their shoulder and drop them on their heads!" he said. "Crack their skulls open!" And apparently the cops used to fight amongst themselves, too. "In Queens," the guy said. "Not Manhattan. It was different there. And Suffolk County is the most racist county in the entire United States," he declared. I wanted to ask, "Worse than Mississippi?" but didn't. He got off about 10 blocks after getting on and we continued riding.
Well, I have a doggie now! And she's very sweet and loves having her tummy rubbed and will eat anything anywhere and is generally a lovebug. It's a responsibility having one, though, I tell you. I have to take her out in the morning and the evening, and now have an 11 year old neighbor girl from down the street (who advertised for the gig) who walks her midday for about $7 a week. That's pretty good. But. There are always buts! She's terrified of going outside/loud noises/being outside/being walked. We're working on getting all of that fixed -- rather, I am with help from the rescue people -- so part of our "walking" time is spent sitting outside and patting her and getting her used to the surroundings. She shivers and quakes constantly and has her head cocked to the front lobby door the whole time. Loud noises (and I never thought how loud my neighborhood was until I was listening for her) make her stop and stare briefly -- and the shaking goes away -- but then she starts up again. After a lot of happy talk and some brushing I carry her down the block a piece (because if you try to walk with her out the front door she backs up and wants to go inside) where she does her business and then all but drags me inside. Well, it gets done. But so much for enjoying a healthy evening walk. Maybe in the future. For now, at least, the walks are certainly brief. She doesn't get along with other dogs. I took her to one of these "daycare" places in the city for a day of boarding to get her used to it (and them used to her) so when I go away for a weekend I know she's in a good place. It's called "The Ritzy Canine" and is a really swank place -- set up in an old NYC carriage house. They even have a rooftop area for the dogs to play in. Apparently she did fine until about 10 minutes before I picked her up -- and then she initiated a fight with a larger terrier. No major injuries, but apparently she was the victor, too. The little bully. Oh! And I've renamed her. Kahlua was not going to fly. Instead, I've gone back to the breed's Scottish roots and picked a Gaelic name: Ciara. "Ciaran" means "little black one" -- and so, feminized, there you are. And I have such great friends -- I've already gotten two separate "welcome" gifts for her! She's loving all of it ... except when we go out.
Home improvements continue apace.... painted bedroom a sky blue/darker blue combo. I'd separated both colors with a big piece of painters tape, figuring I'd have to re-tape and then paint to get the colors to match, but when it was done (pre-tape removal), I thought the place looked a little too much like a public school classroom. With the tape down, there's a big white stripe around the room that kind of looks cool. So that's where we are. Hence my trip to Home Depot: Why wouldn't a place like Pottery Barn sell switchplate covers? I ask you?
And XXX finally came out! Have I gone? No way. Naturally, I plan to ... but things get so busy around here. I can't imagine why.... |
