Miss
Sheryl, Dontay, Bucket-Head and I compiled our loose change for a fifth
of vodka. I’m the only driver, so I went to get it. On the way back I
laughed at the local radio stations going on and on and on, still
buzzing about Obama taking a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Who
cares?
No really, who? Especially since the funeral was weeks ago.
* * *
I
arrived, fifth of Black Watch clenched close to me like a newborn with
three red cold-cups covering the top. We play spades over at Miss
Sheryl’s place in Douglass Housing Projects every few weeks. (Actually,
Miss Sheryl’s name isn’t really Miss Sheryl. But I changed some names
here, because I’m not into embarrassing my friends.) Her court is
semi-boarded up, third world and looks like an ad for “The Wire.” Even
though her complex is disgustingly unfit, it’s still overpopulated with
tilting dope fiends, barefoot children, pregnant smokers, grandmas with
diabetes, tattoo-faced tenants and a diverse collection of Zimmermans
made up of street dudes and housing police, looking itchy to shoot
anyone young and black and in Nike.
Two taps on the
door, it opened and the gang was all there — four disenfranchised
African-Americans posted up in a 9 x 11 prison-size tenement, one of
those spots where you enter the front door, take a half-step and land in
the yard. I call us disenfranchised, because Obama’s selfie with some
random lady or the whole selfie movement in general is more important
than us and the conditions where we dwell.
Surprisingly,
as tight as Miss Sheryl’s unit may be, it’s still more than enough
space for us to receive affordable joy from a box of 50-cent cards and a
rail bottle.
“A yo, Michelle was gonna beat on Barack
for taking dat selfie with dat chick at the Mandela wake! Whateva da fuk
a selfie is! What’s a selfie, some type of bailout?” yelled Dontay from
the kitchen, dumping Utz chips into a cracked flowery bowl. I was
placing cubes into all of our cups and equally distributing the vodka
like, “Some for you and some for you …”
“What the fuck is a selfie?” said Miss Sheryl.
“When
a stupid person with a smartphone flicks themselves and looks at it,” I
said to the room. She replied with a raised eyebrow, “Oh?”
It’s
amazing how the news seems so instant to most from my generation with
our iPhones, Wi-Fi, tablets and iPads, but actually it isn’t. The idea
of information being class-based as well became evident to me when I
watched my friends talk about a weeks-old story as if it happened
yesterday.
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* * *
Miss
Sheryl doesn’t have a computer and definitely wouldn’t know what a
selfie is. Her cell runs on minutes and doesn’t have a camera. Like many
of us, she’s too poor to participate in pop culture. She’s on public
assistance living in public housing and scrambles for odd jobs to
survive.
Sheryl lost her job as a cook moments after she
lost her daughter to heroin, her son Meaty to crack and her kidneys to
soul food. It took 15 to 20 unanswered applications a week for over a
year for her to realize that no company wants to employ a woman on
dialysis. Sometimes Bucket-Head and I chip in and buy groceries for her
and her grandson Lil Kevin who has severe lead-paint poisoning, but was
diagnosed late and is too old to receive a check.
Bucket-Head
is a convicted felon but not really. He was charged with a crime that
he didn’t commit. I know this because my late cousin did the shooting
and our whole neighborhood watched. Bucket was in the wrong place at the
wrong time and as many know, we are products of a “No Snitching”
culture.
As a result, the only work Bucket can find
after 10 years of false imprisonment is that of laborer with the
Mexicans who post up in front of 7-Eleven, or as a freelance dishwasher.
Bucket’s no angel, but he’s also not a felon and doesn’t deserve to be
excluded from pop culture no more than Miss Sheryl or Dontay, who
represents the definition of redemption to me.
* * *
I
placed our cups at the table and the bottle in the center. “Me and Miss
Sheryl are gonna whip ass tonight, hurry up, Dontay!” I yelled.
Dontay
cleans nonstop. Roaches sleeping in the fridge, roaches relay racing
out of the cabinets carrying cereal boxes, purchasing homes, building
families, slipping through cracks for fun and weaving in and out of
death — Dontay bleaches them all. Dontay doesn’t take handouts from us
and won’t go on government assistance. He couldn’t contribute to the
chips and vodka that week so he’s cleaned for Miss Sheryl and would
clean for Miss Sheryl even if there were no chips and vodka.
“Boy
we ready to play the cards. Stop acting selfie and sit yo ass at the
table!” yelled Miss Sheryl from another room. We all laugh. Miss
Sheryl’s rooms are separated by white sheets; they look like a soiled
ghost at night when the wind blows. Her son Meaty stole and sold her
doors years ago and housing never replaced them.
Dontay
joined us at the table. “Takin forever, boy, wit dem big ass feet!”
yelled a happy Bucket. Dontay was wearing my old shoes. They are 13’s
and busting at the seams but Dontay’s a size 8 and his foot is digging
through the side. His arms are chunked and wrapped in healed sores from
years of drug abuse. He’s eight years clean off of the hard stuff now,
but I met him way back when I was 13, in his wild days.
He
was huddled over his girlfriend in the alley behind my house. I watched
moments before as she performed an abortion on herself with a twisted
coat hanger. She screamed like the sirens we hear all day. I couldn’t
stop looking at her. He gazed too, in and out of a nod and then signaled
me for help. I joined them. Together we dragged her to Johns Hopkins
Hospital, which was under a mile away. Blood scabbed and dried on my
hands, Nikes and hooping shorts; she lived until she OD’d months later.
I’ve been cool with Dontay ever since.
“Tryin get dem
roach eggs, tee-he, tee-he he he, gotta get the bleach on da roach eggs!
Den dey won’t come back!” Dontay replied as he sat at the table.
* * *
I
dealt the first hand. Miss Sheryl reminded me to deal to the left.
“Always deal to the left, boy, the rule don’t change!” she said. She has
the widest jaws in the history of wide and jaws, thicker than both of
her bloated caramel arms, which are thigh-size. I collected the cards,
reshuffled and dealt to the left. And there we were — my job-hungry
unemployed old heads and me the overworked college professor.
College professor?
Not
the kind of professor that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for
teaching one class a year but a broke-ass adjunct who makes hundreds of
dollars for teaching thousands of classes a year. The other day I read
an article about an adjunct who died in a homeless shelter and I wasn’t
surprised; panhandlers make triple, and trust me, I’ve done the
research, I should be looking for a corner to set up shop.
I
have a little more than my friends but still feel their pain. My
equation for survival is teaching at three colleges, substituting,
freelance Web designing, freelance graphic designing, rap video
director, wedding photographer and tutor — the proceeds from all of
these are swallowed by my mortgage, cigarettes, rail vodka and Ramen
noodles. I used to eat only free-range organic shit, I used to live in
Whole Foods, I used to drink top shelf — I used to be able to afford pop
culture.
But long gone are the days when I pumped crack
into the very neighborhood where we hold our card game. Eons since I
had to stay up all night counting money until my fingers cramped. Since I
had to lie on my back to kick my safe closed and I wore and treated
Gucci like Hanes and drove Mercedes CL’s and gave X5 beamers to my
girlfriends — my good ole days.
Eventually the mass
death of my close friends caused me to leave the drug game in search of a
better life. Ten-plus years and three college degrees later, I’m back
where I started, just like my card-playing friends: too poor to
participate in pop culture. Too poor to give a fuck about a selfie or
what Kanye said or BeyoncĂ©’s new album and the 17 videos it came with.
“Put
me on that Obamacare when you can, college boy!” Sheryl says to me as I
contemplate the number of books I can make out of my shitty hand. We
all laugh. I am the only one in the room with the skill set to figure it
out, but we all really see Obamacare as another bill and from what I
hear, the website is as broke as we are. We love Barack, Michelle, their
lovely daughters and his dog Bo as much as any African-American family,
but not like in 2008.
The Obama feeling in 2008 isn’t
the same as the Obama feeling in 2014. Obama had us dream chasing in
2008. My friends and I wanted him to be our dad and best friend and
mentor and favorite uncle. Shit, I wanted to take selfies with him. He
was a biracial swirl of black and white Jesus sent to deliver us. To
bless people stuck under the slums like Sheryl, Bucket, Dontay and I
with jobs, access to the definition of words like selfie and hope — REAL
HOPE.
But in 2014 it feels the same as Bush, or
Clinton, or any other president. The rich are copping new boats and we
still are using the oven to heat up our houses in the winter, while
eating our cereal with forks to preserve milk. America still feels like
America, a place where you have to pay to play, any and everywhere even
here at our broke-ass card game.
* * *
1
a.m. rolls around and we’re faded, everyone but Miss Sheryl, that is,
because dialysis prohibits her from drinking. My kidney pounds, her 2008
Obama for Pres T-shirt stares back at me all stretched out of shape,
making Barack look like Sinbad. No one knows who won because really, we
all lost. Dontay is asleep because I saw the roaches creeping back and
Bucket staggered out.
I looked at Miss Sheryl, “We could take a late night selfie now but I swapped my iPhone for a boost mobile, $30 payment!”
She laughed and said, “Baby, what’s a selfie again?”
D. Watkins is an author, filmmaker and native Baltimorean
who graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins University. He teaches at
Coppin State University and runs a writing workshop on Creative
Nonfiction at the Baltimore Freedom School. Watkins also conducts artist
interviews for
.
Watkins work also be seen on Niche Literary Magazine, Welter, Artichoke
Haircut, The Baltimore Fishbowl, Hippocampus Magazine and a host of
other literary publications. Connect with him on Instagram and Twitter
@dWatkinsWorld and read more at
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