it was the day after

it was the day after

In the morning
I walked to school like a fish
remembering to do all the right things, 
not running across the street
but looking both ways and walking,
if we didn’t
Mister Page
a dark man with white gloves
navy blue suit
brass button like tiny cymbals
would twist our ears
when we went home for lunch.

I cut across the baseball diamond
sat at a bench
used as the dugout,
I sat next to John Welsh and waited for the bell,
I noticed that no one from my neighborhood
sat next to us
but starred at me
and I didn’t know until Darryl Perry’s brother came
and said,
reminded me,
that Martin Luther King was killed yesterday
and I said I knew,
but then he asked me how I could sit next to John Welsh
and I said, “whadd’ya mean?”
and he said, “he’s white,”
and I said I knew,
but didn’t we just play football yesterday
against those kids from upper montclair
and didn’t John Welsh own the only helmet out of any of us
and didn’t he let us use his helmet like always,
anyone that carried the ball wore John’s football helmet,
and even though the kids from upper montclair
figured out that whoever wore the helmet was going to get the ball
no one got hurt because at least John Welsh had a helmet,
and didn’t Martin Luther King die in Memphis
and even though John could take a bus to Newark airport,
or JFK, or his mother could drive him there
sure, he could’ve left for Memphis right after school
and not gone home but left for the airport
(I didn’t think John Welsh had a gun
I don’t know if John even knew how to use a gun
maybe his father had a gun, but that’s getting so complicated).

Besides, didn’t we play football yesterday
against those kids from upper montclair,
and even though they figured out our offensive plays didn’t we win anyway,
didn’t David Zanoni catch the winning touchdown
        and he’s white
and didn’t he cry when he got hit
but held on anyway
landed on his back
David seemed not to be able to breathe
and then his face mashed up
he began to whimper
and even though you could hardly hear him
or see his body shudder
he sneaked out sobs
and didn’t you feel sorry for him and rub his chest
and say he was alright
and take off the helmet so he could breathe
and didn’t you help him up and tell him he won the game?
so why wouldn’t we be friends with John?
sure white people are the only ones
crazy enough to try to assassinate anyone,
white people are the only ones’
that could possibly get away with it
still, I knew it wasn’t John Welsh.

You should listen to this song while reading the piece below.

Stuck In A Tunnel

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Stuck in the Tunnel

As a kid I thought going thru the Lincoln Tunnel was so mind-blowing.  Quietly we’d sit in the traffic and I’d look at the tear-stained tiles; then a feeling of nostalgic longing would seep in my consciousness.  I only say nostalgic now—I was so young how could I possibly be nostalgic beyond the previous day?  Occasionally, there’d be that transit officer sitting in one of those woeful booths.  Perhaps my sadness was associated with fear.  Wouldn’t even a little pin prick cause the entire tunnel to collapse and cave in on itself?  As a kid (and for a long time as an adult) I thought the tunnel was not underneath the water not in the ground—but went right thru the Hudson—that there was water on all sides of the tunnel, except the bottom.  I figured either Charlton Heston—or some other macho biblical figure parted the Hudson just long enough to erect the structure.  A scary thought for a child of the 1960’s.  After all there was no Sly Stallone to save us all to get us to the daylight. Well, that’s not entirely true; there was Sly Stone.  He saved me in the late 1960’s.  I loved that he had a band with both black and white musicians.  His 1^st Lp was so great—Stand/You’ve been sitting much too long/There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong. Sly Stone, aside from every day people where he articulated how prejudice was ridiculous, demonstrated open-mindedness and progressive thinking by the very way his band was structured.  It’s like one of the basic rules of writing poetry, or perhaps any kind of writing—Show, Don’t Tell.  That rule applies to how one should raise kids too.  You can tell them something until you’re blue in the face, but if you show them something different they’re either going to be confused, or they’re going to follow the example that the parents illustrate by their own behavior.  It’s like my stone-faced, anesthetized, apocryphal father, Abraham Lincoln.  You enter the tunnel into his tube of darkness.  You may become stuck in this darkness--a labyrinth of theoretical emancipation.  But, sooner or later you’ll emerge from being stuck in the tunnel and realize there’s light on the other side—Mitt Romney.  After all, his dad metaphorically walked with Dr. King (Mitt said that for over a year that his dad marched with King).  What a Dick!  I mean what a Mitt, along with his close-minded, non-inclusive religion; so unlike Sly and the Family Stone.

I’m not one post the minutiae of my life on FB.  Who cares when I left work, was having a bad day, running out of toilet paper, etc.    Some of you know what the euphemistic term books means, which could give and immediate insight to this story.  Many of you have other euphemisms.  Suffice to say if you hung out in the girl’s room at Mountstock ya know what I’m talking about.   Friday night I decided to bake a pie.  I haven’t made a homemade by in 13 years easily, possibly longer.  Buying the crust is actually making a homemade pie.  You’re cheating by avoiding the most difficult part, the crust.   A friend was coming over and I was gonna cook dinner.    Well once or twice a year I’ll cook dinner for my mom on mother’s day or her birthday, but other than that no.  Last Christmas she criticized the size of the yam pieces I cut.  In any event I use the recipe in the Joy of Cooking recipe for making the crust.  One should never read books or go into the girl’s room at Montclair High (oh, that word’s ironic) before cooking, especially if you’re cooking something you’re not used to.  Even though I hadn’t used that recipe in years as I started mixing the ingredients it all came back to me. The dough was looking mealy like it was supposed to it was wonderful.  The last ingredient is 5 tablespoons of water.  I know the water should be cold, that works better.  Unfortunately I read 5 cups not 5 tablespoons.  When I originally premeasured the water I did think, “Wow that’s a lot of water.”  And, later when I started adding the water and I was getting this stuff that was like the consistency of paper mache, I thought, “Hmmm something’s wrong.”  Needless to say it was like a Lucy episode.