Kumbaya, King
Hitting the bricks.
April 10, 2017
Three 60ish women sitting in the courtyard of a NYCHA house. I just came from my shrink, so the sign’s in Safe Mode and I’m humming instead of singing. One of them calls out, “Let me see your sign!” I stop and present it, they approve.
“The bookies and the gamblers saying he’s gonna be gone by June,” says one. “Those are the odds.”
I look up to heaven. “Oh please, please God.”
We discuss Pence, and how the Russia connection could take him out too. “And Bannon. The whole lot of them need to go.” I tell them about the marches — this Saturday, next Saturday, the Saturday after that…
“We’re going to fight together,” I say. The woman in the grey Puma cap, in her 60s and still fresh to death, gives me a raised fist.
Two blocks later, another NYCHA house, two guys talking by the playground. One summons me for a closer read. “What are you protesting against?” he asks.
“Donald Trump, his cabinet, his policies…”
“Yeah, this isn’t going good.” He strokes his chin. “And now he’s bombing Syria…”
“Syria’s a distraction,” his friend says. “He wants a war.”
Yes, AND. “He made money bombing Syria.” I tell them about Raytheon’s stock.
“I used to work for him,” says the guy who called me over. He gives me a second to absorb that, like maybe I want to walk away now that I know he had proximity to the man. “I have to say, he was always good to us. Even the people without papers, he let them work…”
His friend says, “He’s changed.”
We talk about how bad things are until we depress ourselves, then I chime in with my hopeful spiel. “People are organizing, we’re speaking out. We’re gonna get him.”
About two weeks ago, when it was still freezing cold, there weren’t so many people in the courtyards. One afternoon post-shrink, I’m passing by this very playground when a guy comes out to the sidewalk and asks, “Excuse me, you protesting Trump?”
“I am.”
“Is there gonna be a march coming up?”
“There will be.”
“Well, I want to say, a lot of us have been talking about this, like what we can do, and so if you need security for a protest, myself and my people, you know, we could do that. Anything you need. I’m serious.”
“That’s amazing.” The most prominent tattoo on his neck suggests who he is and who his people might be, and I’m fucking flabbergasted right now. “That’s such an amazing offer.”
“Because we gotta unite. You know, it’s not all about drugs and violence, it’s about community.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
For the past two weeks, I’ve been wishing I’d said to him, “And what can we offer you?” We being the pussy-hat brigade, with our stridence and entitlement. I wish I’d asked him, “What do you need from us?”
Instead, I offer him the flyer with Schumer and Gillibrand’s contact info. “Oh yeah,” he says. “My wife’s already on that. She’s tweeting at them every day.”
As I get ready to move on, he reiterates his offer. “Dead serious. Any thing you need. You stop by, you’ll find me. Take care, Sis.”
This was the encounter that made me say, “I have to start writing this stuff down.”
(To read Kumbaya, Motherfucker in chronological order, click here.)