Kumbaya, Class Consciousness
Me and the great George Boyd, RIP.
January 2017
With the sign, I am visible in a new and unexpected way.
There are two cities in New York City: Have City and Ass Busting Town. I’m from Have City, where the women walk around in yoga pants all day and the men “pull down” big incomes. But every day I walk through Ass Busting Town.
There’s the Haves, and those who serve the ones who Have. These include: municipal workers, delivery workers, mail carriers, contractors, movers, drivers, busboys, food delivery people. They are the ones that do the physical labor in the city. On my way to see a doctor near Lenox Hill Hospital, I see a woman exit her building. A doorman holds the door for her and they exchange pleasantries. A Fresh Direct delivery guy waits for her to exit before he enters. Outside, there are men working on the cable. ConEd, plumbers, electricians. All for this one lady.
She looks like me, but better dressed. I could be better dressed, if I wanted to be, but I don’t know how.
Delivery guys say things as I walk by. Impeach, that’s right. Good sign. Hell yeah. A guy holding one end of a couch, Damn straight racist. Bus drivers, as I pass the stop on the corner, You tell ‘em. People who may or may not read English, who don’t know what the sign says but they get the gist somehow. The porters in my shrink’s building wave at me. Dishwashers smoking outside of the diner elbow each other. They see me. I meet their eyes and nod respectfully their way.
The indigent and addicted people see me too. “Spare change, spare change…hey, you tell ‘em, Sis!” I am exempt from their pitches.
When I don’t have the sign, they don’t see me. Even as I seek out people’s gaze. I am one of Them again. It’s lonely.
People with mental illness panhandling on the subway. When I get down to the platform, I feel the tension. Someone in shouting down at the far end, and everybody else is pretending it’s not happening, but they’re waiting for trouble to break out. I get on a car and two minutes later he comes through to my car, loudly asking for change. Everyone keeps their heads down. He sees my sign and stops.
“Is that about Trump?”
I smile and meet his eyes. “Yes, sir, it is.”
“I don’t have no problem with Trump.”
Calm. Normal. Smiling. “I’m glad to hear that. If Trump is good for you, that’s good.”
“Trump ain’t the problem. He’s trying to fix things. Everything broken, nothing, nobody works.”
He’s younger than I would have thought. “We do have some problems,” I agree.
“They gave me this.” He holds up the plastic bag. It’s the thick kind with the cotton drawstring. “What I’m supposed to do. And then they disrespecting my mother, that’s my mother! You don’t disrespect my mother, that’s my mother!”
I am nodding in agreement, maintaining my calm. “Never disrespect someone’s mother. Never.” He is confused. He wants help.
I continue to nod and look at him, though he’s not looking at me anymore. His voice is getting louder, and everyone is tense again. “I’m from 93rd Street. I’m not no Harlem n-, I stay with my mother on 93rd Street. Asking me, ‘What you do here?’ I live here. I stay here. That’s my mother, don’t disrespect my mother.”
We both get off at 96th Street.
Another one catches me as I’m exiting the station. “Miss, I see your sign, you got a sign.”
I can tell something’s a little off. Young guy, clothes a little shabby but not like he’s been sleeping on the street. Intense energy. “You telling the people.”
“I am trying.”
“You gotta tell them. They gotta know. They think they can LAUGH AT ME.” He yells the last part to the passersby, who tense up and hurry past. “They need to know what’s going on.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Because they’ve been clocking me for years now. They know me, everybody knows me where I’m from. My family…I can’t tell you my name, but it’s the top family who runs things, you know what I mean?”
He is confused, upset, frustrated. “They have the earpieces, see? They have the earpiece, and then one of them, the chief, he says in their ear, okay, now, laugh at that guy.”
Not a single person has laughed or even looked happily at him. “Nobody should be laughing at you.”
He’s telling me more about the plot against him. A young woman, probably under 23, a wisp of a girl, stops as though she wants to ask me directions. The guy and I both look at her. “Hi,” I say.
“You’re in my yoga class, right?” she asks. She has taken the Bystander Intervention Training. This little girl is stopping to see if I need help. The fucking beauty and the bravery.
“I’m good,” I tell her. I want to say how much I love and admire her. I want to embrace her with golden light. I want to give her my wallet. “Thank you, thank you so much.”