Chapter 14 - The Fight - Part V

“You want to get the word out on what you’re doing, no?”

Damn reporters. How did they know what was going on all the time? I guess they are born with that sense of always being right - of having to tell everyone the business of the block - regardless of how far it stretches. It is something in their blood. For me, I could never just look at people and tell what they are doing. Telling the news. But this kid, he loved it. You could tell. He has since bought himself a hat and developed a disgusting habit of smoking.

“Gives you a reason to talk to people,” he said if as he lit up and offered me one.
“Cancer isn’t my style,” I said.

He laughed, coughed, then put the pack back in his shirt pocket and took out what looked to be a rolled up table matt from his back pocket, and unrolled it, revealing it be a computer keyboard. He plugged it into to his mobile.
“Yeah man, this is the new breed. I don’t try sending stuff into the papers anymore. I’ve got a blog that gets a decent amount of traffic and that’s getting my news exposure. Those old ways are dying down. Soon as this next generation comes to be, come to have total buying power, those old institutions aren’t going to have the brand recognition among their demographic. Dinosaurs never knew when they’re going to become extinct, you know? I mean, they just wake up one day and they’ll be gone.”

The light in his earpiece went off and his looked at his phone. A picture of this young girl wearing her hair in pigtails and blowing a kiss came up. He smiled.
“My Girl, hold on - Hey beautiful - No. Not till late tonight. Working all night. What? Oh, you are something. I’ll let you know when I’m outside. See ya.”

The little picture went away and then a message came over which I saw briefly, of her spreading her legs and showing that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. I tried to look away before he caught me and liked the fact that he did.

“Let’s get down to business. You’ve been calling the Times and asking them to run stories about what’s ‘Going On’ in the neighborhood but you can’t them to do anything, right? You know Macon has more juice than you and he’s stopping your stories. He just throwing money right now, but if you want to fight him more, you’re going to need to throw more than that at him. Are you prepared to sacrifice everything?”

This kid was coming at me fast. I didn’t like him from the moment I first say him and now, now he was telling me what to do.

“What the hell do you know,” I blurted out, getting up to leave.
“I know that I’m right. Can you say the same? I mean about how you’re going about everything.”

I couldn’t.

He pulled on the cigarette and as he did, the tones of the neighborhood seemed to turn to sepia and I could hear the music coming from the pub. The cars started to fade away and those old school 1950s machines took up the block. The reporter smiled at me.

“You want to know about what you’re seeing?”
“I thought it happened when I wrote.”
“Nah - I mean, it does, but the world around you can change when you want it to. When you open yourself up to the probability of a miracle. It goes beyond rational thinking.”
“Maybe I just drank too much at the Pub.”
“Maybe you did.”

And just like that, the sepia faded away and the street was back as it was before. There was no music coming out of the pub.

“How - “
“You can’t ask that now,” he said. “Let’s get down to business. You need to get around Macon right? I’ll start putting these stories out, but that guy is going to come after you. Do you know who he is? What he does?”
“I don’t,” I told him. “Just thought he was another politician out there looking to make a name for himself. Used me and the kids in the neighborhood to boost his image. I’m fighting him with everything I have.”

He put the cigarette out and threw it in one of the trash cans that the kids had helped to put on the block.
“See, I’m part of it. I like you, what you’re doing. I want you to win.”
“What about you. How do you win?” I asked.

We started walking slowly up the block - the soundtrack was now Hell Rell and some of the newer Diplomats coming from the plugged in radio. The chess games went on in the background.

“Me? I win no matter what. I report the news. As long as the sun comes up over the Hudson each morning, I win because there are always things happening. See, for most people, it doesn’t really matter what name appears under the winner and what name goes under the loser. People just want to know who did what. As long as there is a good guy and a villain, people are content to read about them. It’s enough. No need for them to be active. For me, I seek out those who are active and get with them so that when the shit goes down, I’m there.”

“So you want me to let you know when something’s going down?”
“Well, you’re arranging everything anyway right? Just have them put a bandana over a good part of their faces so the cops don’t know who to look for when they come, and be assured, they are going to come.”

“You think it will save the block?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, the people that live here. They’re moving out and going nowhere. This woman who lived next to me was forced to leave her home - I have no idea where she is now.”
“You mean Sukal? Yeah, I know her. Know where she is, too.”
“How?”
“It’s what I do.”

He typed in a URL onto his Mobile and showed me a video of Sukal living on the streets clutching a framed photograph of her husband.

“Where is she!” I asked, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. “Where the hell is she?”
“Now that is the kind of response I’m looking for and thinking I’m going to get when I release this video with the proper story behind it. Thing is, she can’t really talk to much now. Living on the streets is going to do that to you. Now, if someone were to tell me her story, perhaps . . . “

I saw what he was after. The story.

“When are you going to run it?”
“I’m going to wait. Wait until the pieces start coming out about the violence in the neighborhood. This is going to run as the reason why piece. It’s going to switch opinion of those who they think are the criminals. It’s going to turn you into heros. But, we’ll have to wait.”
“We?”
“Yes. See, I want to join up with you. I could have gone the paper route. Signed up with one of the Networks or at least put myself on that path - I know how to talk about people. But I’m not about that. I’m not about giving myself to someone. I’m going to create my own and I’d like to do that within your organization.”

“We are not an organization yet.”

“That’s where I come in.”

We continued in silence down the block I had walked down a hundred times.

Chapter 14 - The Fight Part IV

Now I didn’t want any of this to turn violent. Never. The plan was to organize and show people, people who looked at history books, just how it can be done in this country. That American, with all of its flaw, had the ability to produce movements based on peace.

My first mistake was thinking about how people viewed it in history books. It goes back to that I think, the need to be watched while I do something. That may be why I kept the curtains open when I made love to my wife or walked a little slower down the block where the stoops were full with summer.

When we started the program, this organization process, everything was meticulous. I’ve tried to put that word into my stories because I wish the world was a little more like that. I guess that’s why I initially started with the clean up program.

We saw the broker standing in front of the pre-war building that had, until now, remained unspectacular in the New York Real Estate market. However, after the pieces on Namuna came out, with her sitting on the fire escape, the people who wanted to be more genuine started to flock to our neighborhood in droves.

The broker was smoking with glasses on and held a brief case to give him a more professional look that his real lot in life - not doubt an inspiring Broadway this or that. We had our positions ready. The people - you could tell who they were as people who weren’t from the neighborhood usually walked slow and tried to avoid the smell of fried fish. Still, as they walked, seeing St. Nicks’, The Barnum House, the magnificent arches, they started to understand that this neighborhood was amazing. We needed to change that.

They met the broker in front of the building. We started then. Two kids riding dirt bikes with no breaks sped by the young couple. One of them snatched the purse of the young girl.

“Shit is going to happen each day you walk down this block. Best stay away from here.”

He tossed the purse in the middle of the road and took off down the street. The young woman ran after her purse, and her boyfriend after her. They wouldn’t be back.

The broker looked more than upset. These calls were big times for them - they only worked on commission and had made much money during these summer months. An agent had to make most of their money before the weather turned too cold to be thinking about moving. Also, spring romances always made singles into couples in New York, so those small one room apartments had to go and now, because of Me and Macon, everyone knew about this neighborhood.

I was going to make them know about something else now.

The same scene was repeated in different ways throughout the week. Sometimes we’d have people meeting them above the subway station, right when the doors opened, we’d have people “welcoming” new comers to the neighborhood. They rarely got off the train.

Things were going well. The newspapers were all ready to spill the story of a recent spring off attacks in the neighborhood. After all, I’d call in with reports every night. I had kids with cameras on the scenes of all the attacks, which we would then send in to all the newspapers, but they refuses to publish any of them because they were already getting paid off by Macon to write stories about how the place to live was not just up in Harlem, but on the border between Sugar Hill and Washington Heights. The mainstream press had been bought out.

Late at night, I was at St. Nicks. Namuna had stayed home - she never made it on that last flight out of New York. Told me that she wanted to be there to witness my moments of greatness - that these were the most valuable of times. There was no need to expand any further right now - Plenty of work for her in the city without having to go overseas yet again. It sounds fantastic and marvelous and all of that, but when you are living like that, you realize that all you want to do is hang around at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon with the person you love. She realized that early. I wish I had.

St. Nicks was jumping as usual. I saw the broker sitting up at the bar - unshaven and not looking too happy. He searched his pockets for enough change to buy another beer.

“Let me help you out with that,” I said, suddenly realizing that I was responsible for his present state.
“Thanks, I’ll get you back at some point,” he said with his head down. “Business has been really bad lately. Usually, this time of year, I’m making G’s. Not now though. Seems like someone is just out to get me. This neighborhood was turning. I mean, we were about to turn it.”

The bartender brought him a beer.

“Maybe you’re associating with the wrong people,” I told him. “The universe has a way of delivering Karma.”
“How’s that,” he replied, stopping the beer from pushing his lips and putting it back on the bar with force enough to raise an eyebrow from the Trombone player who was in with me. NOTE: ON EDITING ROUND I HAVE TO START GIVING NAMES TO EVERYONE. MAKE SURE THAT THE DIAGRAMS YOU DRAW SHOW THE RELATIONSHIPS FOR EVERYONE.


“I’m just saying, I see all of those moving trucks moving out of the buildings at just about the same rate as the people you’re moving in are arriving. You know what I mean?”
“How the hell do you know me? Know what I do? You watching me?”

He was drunk, angry and poor - a combination that had ruined so many men, and, at this moment, was making this one agitated early. A woman walked by in the arms of a man laughing. He grabbed her arm.

I looked up and saw it was the boxer. The Real Estate broker at the bar just looked up and recognized the woman, who was not in the mood to recognize anything other than the Saturday Night that was taking place.

“Where you been,” growled the broker. “Haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“Well, you haven’t called me either. Just dropped away.”

She held on to her boxer even tighter. The boxer, fighting most of his life, did nothing that looked like a move, probably because he was ready no matter what.

“I haven’t had a dime to take you anywhere. Things have been rough. I thought - I thought we had something going. That you’d at least come by to check on me. Just cause I’m down now doesn’t mean I’ll be like this forever. You with THIS guy?”

The boxer smiled and tried to step between the two of them. The band stopped to watch how the scene would unfold. I’d never heard it that quiet in St. Nick’s Pub.

“No need to get in the middle of this baby, I got it. Besides, me an him weren’t much of anything anyway. I could never be with a man who lived just to live. I need someone who is after the world. Someone who wants that title to himself. Like you. Even if you don’t become a champion, you still went after what you wanted.

She turned to the broker slumped over on his barstool.
“What the hell did you ever go after?”
“I went after you,” he responded.
“You don’t know shit boy,” she said. “Don’t you know it’s the woman who choses her man? A good man is usually too on his way to greatness to stop for a woman. He let’s her take him. You weren’t on your way anywhere and I knew that - looks like I was right about that.”

The broker had nothing even though she waited for a response. You could tell the boxer felt something inside of him. I knew it too, because I had seen him as well when he was on the road to nothing. All men have been there. We sit on benches or outside of office buildings on breaks looking at young girls going buy showing off themselves, drooling and imagining what they would look like if only that thin cover of clothing would come off. Those thoughts consume the mind, and when they are floating around in there, there is time for nothing else.

That is the pain of wanting. This is what causes addiction. Why the boxer, not too long ago, was begging for change and somehow he got that chance, whether it was through my typewriter or somebody believing in him. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe she saw him shadow boxing in the heat of the day, even though he was cracked out of his mind, lost in a world of addiction and decay, yet still, inside him, he still did what he loved. He never gave up. His soul was still fighting. Yes, it was her who saved him. Usually it was a woman who did such things.

The broker said nothing. He put his head down on the bar, after looking at me, and closed his eyes. I would say that part of him died right there. The boxer knew the feeling and came over to him, bent down, and whispered in his ear. I was too far away to hear but I knew that whatever those words were, they were golden.

The boxer grabbed his woman and they walked out of St. Nicks as the band started up again.

I had enough. The trumpet player was going, into his own world of escape. I need my fire escape at that point. I turned to leave, walked up the steps, and stepped out into the night, which was broiling, but better than the air trap of St. Nick’s.

I saw a match strike in the night and turned around.

It was that kid reporter, now a little older, a little smarter, but still with the same eyes.

“You should give me your side of everything just so you might be heard.”

It is always the unaccounted for that you must take care of.

Damn it.

Chapter 14 - The Fight Part III

Trying to figure out the ending now - which way to turn. Let the characters take control. Keep eyes inside the window..

Revolutions are never acted out like they are depicted in history books. The deals in place would take away the glory if they were brought to light. We promised too much perhaps. What did I have to promise anything? It is tough getting back into the flow of writing this thing, stopping each morning to go to work. I have to keep it going though. It is near the end. That at least, I can feel. Yes.
We had given out pictures of the real estate agents around the block. These were the people who we targeted first. I would have liked to go after Macon myself, but he was too big and had the protection of the city. Besides, you can’t just go in and cut the head off the Monster. There are levels to walk through. There is always a process. A system.

The people who he controlled, who were on his pay roll, had to be for sale. Their commitment was only money. Each time an apartment was shown in the are - no - what his happening here I have to be able to finish the story - to tell what is going on - what is happening with all of the people and the characters. The block has to stay alive but what can I produce in these early hours of the mourning. My head is pounding and eyes are blurry from just looking at that damn screen and wishing it would turn into something. I can’t get it.

She left again? No. She shouldn’t be leaving.

Perhaps I can have them all organize around a vote. Around something else. Something to talk about. Something to finish. Where is everybody and where did they go? How are they able to get back here. What is happening in the story. I should not be talking about it. The light was bright from the sun. To bright to think about anything. The heat made it possible only to survive that day. Impossible to organize. Who was I to organize anything at all. The pills? No. The woman? No. Now that I know people are watching me here, it is harder to complete the story. Where can these characters go. I didn’t want violence. Not at all. It wasn’t needed now. Had I exploded into that, how could I live with myself. A piece of block isn’t worth fighting for. I was looking for something else in these characters. In hopes I guess of them being able to help me. They were my way of looking into the past and fixing something. To write them something else. But you can’t do that. You can only document what is happening. You can only tell the story that was meant to be told. If it was meant to be told we have something else. They had sapped everything from me at work - my energy and my ability to put things down. I had sold out so much that I had nothing left for myself. What is a human life worth if it is not spent doing something? I could not look at all the humans today. That was not going to help me at all. No. I had to look inside myself and within those walls, inside that time I spent looking at that person, perhaps I would find the characters I needed - without the pressure of having to produce something. It was all on me of course, because if I did not write it, it could not happen. My plans were those of fiction - they were those of men and women who were fragments of myself. The man who came back as a horse to watch his life unfold before him chained to wagon he pulled - who was that but my fear - my fear of looking at other women and desiring them at the same time as loving my wife. That was my future? What about the man on the train trying to move back in time and take back an abortion - there - I said it. He was trying to take it back because the memories of that were so haunting that even though this day is being lived right now, that moment in the past goes on over and over again so much that there is dirt on it. There is dirt covering the coffin of my soul because in there, everything exists. In reality, in reality there is no revolution organized. But I must create it to be. There must be a struggle somehow. Someone has to take a stand to rally against. Aha. She took a stand. And that’s where it begins. This part of the story begins with that.

It was not a eviction. She had decided to go. Most of her family had helped her move everything into the UHAUL truck that was parked in front of the same building she had lived in, sat in front of, and walked tired home form work to, for the past 30 years. The neighborhood had changed so much for her. She, she was the woman I spoke to at the laundry mat so long ago. She was just sitting there in the passengers seat - No. Not her. It wasn’t here.

Sukal sat in the passenger’s seat of the Uhaul truck parked in front of the building she had …OK. I had helped her move the boxes down the stairs. She was somewhere else. Somewhere with her husband that she wished would come back more often. No. He was already back. He was driving the truck. Knight had been missing for days.

We video taped the entire thing and put it out on as many of the viral networks as we could, trying to drum up interest around the city through the internet. Had we waited for the network news, had we done that, perhaps nothing would have happened.

Soon, the people started to arrive with signs. A crowd gathered. The networks followed. The news stories starting pouring in. We named Macon and his people as the ones responsible - the ones who had used the neighborhood clean up program to sell out this part of Harlem to developers who had no intention of building up the neighborhood. That would stop him for awhile. He was sweating in front of the camera when they were posted in front of his office. I knew we had him then. It was only a matter of time before a deal was made. I made the appointment to meet him. The protests in his neighborhood were now so much that I had the power over him. He would never be elected without the support of his people. And then what would he do. But handing over power was never an option. He wouldn’t. People like that just don’t hand over power. No. They can’t. They owe too much.

We met at El Conde, a steak joint up near his office on 183rd street. It was a family spot with the best steaks in town that was a sure thing.

“You fucked it all up,” was the first thing he said to me. Never did say hello.
“Well now, that’s a little different tone than you originally used. Let’s just get started.”

We ordered a churasco and some plantines and got started. When you are in the middle of such political discussions, it’s hard to imagine, but the sense of power that runs through you is tremendous. I mean, you are discussing how people lives will be shaped. Determining futures.

Chapter 14 - The Fight Part II

Before I start this, I’m going to take a sentence to say that for a writer, the early morning hours have the most clarity. There is not the movement, the total movement of a city. Right now - the characters from this novel are all getting up. One of them is having a cup of coffee across the street on her own fire escape. Planes are moving overhead. The sun is not fully up but up enough. It is a time of pleasure to write this. We are coming near the end. So then, let’s jump back in. We’ll take everyone out of the meeting, and pick it up from there. It will be interesting to see how the editing process works from here.

We let out from the church front to the sounds of the minister going off. We made plans. The kids from the vestibule leaned up against the lamp post and stopped me with his look.

“You really think you can change what you’ve done? That doesn’t happen all that often.”
“You just get your crew organized, ” I told him. “The rest will fall into place. Make sure the listings are all accurate as well. We need to be on this.”

With a handshake we said goodbye.

I looked up to my building and saw Namuna up on our fire escape. She had set up a few candles and was waiting for me. Until you don’t have someone waiting for you when you get home, you don’t know how amazing it is. For years I lived along, chasing women who wanted nothing more than to be chased and, on the off chance you were able to catch them, they just picked your pocket and sent you on your way.

When I got to her, I could hear the woman next store playing on her piano. I stepped out and sat down next to Namuna, who was looking at the sky for me.

“How’s the Chinatown treatments going?”
“Painful, but good. I like not having those pills swimming around my head anymore.”

I could tell by her breath and the half empty bottle of wine that she’s been out there for awhile. We told each other that she shouldn’t know too much about the meeting and what was going on. We made that information known because, after all, I was upsetting people with much money, and those people, when faced with the possibility of loosing that money, will usually turn to violence when so provoked.

“This neighborhood is calm tonight. Notice how quiet it is,” she said, pouring me a glass of wine, then emptying the bottle into hers.
“Everyone is planing for their part. Let’s not talk about any of that tonight. You’re leaving so early in the morning. I wish you didn’t have to go. Isn’t there enough work in New York for you?”
“I have to go to these places now. You know that. New York is the launching pad that everyone wants to say you landed from once you’re doing their place.”

**I’m a bit stuck here in these two. I need a scene with them before she leaves and before the revolution starts to take place. It should be a dramatic goodbye but one that has undertones of sadness but not a complete sadness. For her, she still loves him, but it is not that deep love from before because of what he did. Though he wasn’t conscious, it was still him. Perhaps it could be told with a kiss - let me try it that way.

I leaned in to kiss her. Our lips touched but I could feel her pulling away, though she kept the motions up. Her body was there but her soul, some percentage of it, was somewhere else. I opened my eyes slightly to watch her, only to find that her eyes were fixated on the window across the street. More importantly on what was inside that window.

“What are you looking at?” I asked. “There’s nothing over there. Nothing.”
“I’d like to feel that. That there is nothing over there. That your body had never been deep inside that window. That I don’t know what is behind those curtains. That I have to imagine the floor plan to that place so I can tell what it might look like. That there is a mysterious part of you that I will never know. That some piece of your history belongs to someone else.”

“We both had histories before each other,” I told her over my glass.
“Yes, but when we got married, our paths were to be as one. That’s what you said to me, right. ‘We will create our own road to travel down, so that when live throws the unexpected at us, we can change up directions and map the world as we see it. As wee know it to be.’ That’s what you said. But that woman, and I see her from time to time, had no business being on what we created. I don’t have room for that.”

“Does that mean you can’t kiss me anymore?”

“I don’t feel it in the same way. Perhaps - perhaps this little time apart, with me working so much, I’ll be able to create a space for loving you by missing you. But for now, no, I can only kiss you like this. With want but not with conviction.”

The planes from above drowned out the music just a little bit. I wished for a volume control. How long had it been since I’s written anything on that typewriter? Everything I did aside from that was turning to either war or a separation of love. The typewriter allowed me to control everything and make each thought something to wrap myself around, and, if I chose, either squeeze the life out of or expand enough to see growth. I could go back and forth in time and create soundtracks for whatever I wanted. It was a luxury and one that I could live in.

This, this was something different. I was involved in a movement now and more than that, I was trying to clean up a mess that spilled over because of what I did. Because I thought - Because I THOUGHT that there might be another role out there for me other than being a writer - because those moments for the most part were lonely and did not hold in them the satisfaction of reality. Because when you try to cross them over, they do not match up. Sure, for the reader, they are able to experience all of it, but what have you done other than to create expectations? That, I know now, and I wish I had known then, was enough.

The reality of that moment on the fire escape was that there was a clock ticking down that would take her away again. No A trains this time to the airport. A car was coming for her and would wait downstairs to pick her up. For now, we held each other as best we could under the Harlem moonlight, which was high enough this night to reach over the tall brick buildings and shine on us.

We had both come here to escape and get what we wanted. We had done that. Now, in this moment of nothing but us, we tried to fall back in love.

Chapter 14 - The Fight

I wasn’t sure who was going to show up. Because of the favors I had done for the store front minister, he allowed me to use his place. So many people have helped along the way with everything. This time, it was perfect. Nobody who wasn’t tipped off would know what was happening.

Outside we had set up a Bar B Q for people in the neighborhood so all the kids and fat mothers who hung out on the sidewalks chalking up their diabetes points were serving as a front to us, even if they didn’t know about it. Who would really be interested in going to church on a Saturday? We had a few people in the storefront church and the preacher booming with his microphone in front, but we were - well, let me take a step back to tell you how everything on the block way laid out so you can see how we did it. After all, if you ever want to plan your own one of these, you’re going to need to know how to do it. How to put it all into action.

I’ll tell you about the 4 spots at the end of the block first.

Though there is a liquor store on the ground level, above it is the upstairs extension of Bud’s Sports Bar. Now this place is always closed. That is, if you go in through the front entrance around the corner. Nobody goes that way. There is a door next to the liquor store that leads up to the top floor - the private room. You’ll see people coming in and out of there for private parties.

Next to that is the Chicken and Pizza spot, which I’ve told you about a few times - That’s where Chicken Bob usually hangs, and then, next that, it is the storefront church. Got it?

Now in back of that church there was a room, which was a waiting room, that once you were cleared to moved through, had a back staircase that lead up to the top room above Buds Sports Bar. This was kept like this so that if anyone ever came to break up a meeting, we’d have an escape route. You need to have those with all plans, because those who figure on never getting caught are always the ones who spend their remaining time on this planet locked up. For me, the time I had wasted working in offices and eating scraps so I could help someone else live their dream was time being locked up enough.

People came in through the church. Each time the door opened, you could hear the preacher yelling in Spanish into the microphone. A few kids in the back row adjusted their ties while the luck ones got to practice on the drums and piano - all religion needs a soundtrack. It does.

The room filled quickly, and as it did, we started letting people upstairs. We had The first Bran Nubian album playing softly in the background so people would feel like they were marching out to a title fight as they ascended the stairs. I noticed the kid from the bridge standing there with his crew - each of them looked slightly different from the other - one with a straight brimmed bucket lid that went over his ears, one with it bent hard like a taco, the other with it tilted on a diagonal and the last with the brim completely cut off. That one was nice.

The Boxer, still with his sweats on (he never stopped training) and the old couple who took nightly strolls, were there as well. Even the kid from the vestibule. He was the last to come in. Told me he was representing everyone else who was part of the Block Clean-Up program and that if he liked what was spoken tonight, he’d do his part in recruiting. Would be a tough sell.

I got a text from Namuna to come home as soon as possible after the meeting. She was leaving for some upstate house early in the morning and she wanted some time together.

“Meet me on the fire escape” the text read.

It was time to go. A moment in which futures were going to be decided.

I stepped up to the mic.

I felt like Sirus standing up at the start of The Warriors.

My friends. I’m not much of a speaker. Usually I write everything down. I edit my words. I craft how I come across. But today, today I come raw to you. I come here because this section of our world, one of the few left in the city, is under attack. There are no bombs dropping. There is no gas being seeped in. No. The death they are trying to make happen is a slow march. One that you are used to. The smells from the block. The people dying of cancer from the cigarettes. The Diabetes rate in the neighborhood for the lack of quality food. No. You are victims of thinking that this is the way to live. To die. They want you to melt away. If you melt, the neighborhoods will be deemed unsafe, the buildings torn down, and the ones put back up will not have you living in them.

‘Worse than any of that, they will have you think that this is a black vs. white issue. That this is a PR vs. DR issue. That this is the fault of Mexicans moving in. No. They are distracting you. They are having you talk about issues that do not exist. They are created because it is easy for you to justify them. That is why you step over the glass on the streets and toss your plastic wrappers on the ground. They want you to do this. You are selling yourself out. 

“What I am ashamed of is that, at one point, I thought I was part of this solution. I thought that the clean-up program on the block would bring some pride to the neighborhood, but no. No I tell you. I too was a puppet at the hands of the faceless they. I was the final piece of their puzzle. The first face in the long list of final faces. But now, NOW i see that there can be no outside help. It is us. WE need to stop things from going to far. The rest of Harlem is already under siege. There are marches of protest but there is no plan of action. I have one here my friends. It does not call for black and white separation. It calls for economic unity among the working class people of this block, the last block in Harlem, to come together and make sure that when we walk out that door, we can still say hello to our neighbor. That we, WE will control our own means of change. 

“We can create it, but it starts here. It starts now. We are all part of this movement!”

<br>

The crowd did not erupt. Those times were over. They hyped though. You can tell there was a rumble in the air. People were figuring out how they could be a part of things. The people we invited to the meeting were not followers - they were the leaders of the community. We tool the WEB Debois model and combined it with the Booker T. Washington plan - the way it should have been done in the first place.

We were ready. The ideas were starting to come about. Now all we needed was to put it down in a formal constitution and we’d be on our way.

Anything can happen when you will it. Remember that when you are about to give up.

Chapter 13 - Voices Part V

Now I was Ok. I had to get out of Chinatown though. Back through the subways again. Now there was no time between the stops for me. Everything moved at the same pace. Once you’ve lived here for awhile, and that time is different for everyone, but once you have been here like that, lived here and not walked around dreaming of living here, but lived here and the real priority in life is making a train on time, you know how to think. You learn how to think quicker. More active. It is haunting because everyone is moving at the pace of the trains below. Sure, once in awhile people would fall down, but they usually got stepped over. This place is for the living. I kept telling myself that - that this place was only for the living.

A mother and her child were sharing a moment of independence from each other on the train. I looked at the kid. Can I tell this part of the story? Should I let you in on the haunting? I haven’t been able to until now. Then the character appeared before me to let me tell the story. I cannot remove the narrator at this moment.

The doors opened at 59th street and in walked the man with sad eyes and an undone tie that he needed to take off further. His suit was perfect thought - immaculate. He looked like he made decent cash but gave up a decent part of his life to do so.

“Attention. Attention,” the voice came loud over the speakers. “Due to a stalled train on the express tracks, all Uptown A Trains will be making all local stops. All local stops.”

The few people on the train sat back, knowing that their normal bullet ride Uptown was going to be a slow crawl up those stops. The man next to me started looking at the little girl across from him. There was love in his eyes for her, but not a sexual love. He was not a sicko. No. He looked like he had so much to give to someone - someone like here. I noticed him. The things about riding the trains in this city is that, if you make eye contact with someone, they are likely to think you are interested enough to hear there story. For me, I was always looking to hear people’s stories. I guess listening to them always helped me to understand myself.

The man made funny faces at the little girls and she made them back, kicking the air in excitement underneath her while her feet dangled off the subway bench.

“Mommy, the next stop is the Museum. Can we go in for a little bit and say hello to the Dinos?”

The mother was exhausted but she got lost in the look of her child.

“I supposed that’s why the train is making local stops, so you could see your Dinos?”
“I wish for it everyday Mommy, and now it came true. Can we? Wishes don’t come true everyday day you know.”

The mother looked at the man in the suit and then at me, both of who were listening to the conversations.

“I guess they don’t”

The train stopped at the 81st street station and the two of them got off together. The doors closed and the man in the suit looked at his mobile to check if there was anything worthwhile and then check with me.

“I could have had that you know. I chose not too.”
“Could have had what,” I asked.
“A family like that. But I was too young. I had my career ahead of me. She knew I didn’t want it, that’s why she did it. I was more for me than for anything else. I can’t change what I did though. Still, it’s hard.”

“He started in the middle of his story, so it was hard to follow. Thing is that if you let people continue on with what they’re feeling, usually you can have a clue as to what they meant by it all. He continued.

“Whenever I see a child, I usually remember that day at the clinic. I was just starting to do well - the kind of work I really wanted. Some financial firms were recruiting me. I was building a decent fund. They liked me, you know. Only, I couldn’t get any reception in that damn waiting room. It was before Blackberry’s or anything like that. I had a laptop I kept stepping outside with. They were very late calling us into the waiting room. It was for hours. Couples going through the same thing as we were all sat around us. The men had the same look on their faces.

“I kept going outside to get the reception, a connection. The last time I came back into the waiting room, she was gone. She had gone in.

“I asked the nurse at the desk and she told me to sit down. She was nice, trying to be calm, but she had seen hundreds of men like me before. We all had that same look on our face, like we weren’t doing the right thing. Because it was then, then that you realize that you are not the one going through with the procedure, it is your woman in there, facing it alone. About to destroy something inside of her. To get rid of it.

“The time moved slow. I had already gotten my work done and approved. They were happy with me and leaning towards hiring me on full time. With the money they were offering, I could have afforded a family right there. Maybe I should have rushed in and stopped everything, but it was not a movie. There wasn’t the ability to make a decision. Maybe their was, but I couldn’t make it. I’m still haunted by that moment, among others.

“The door finally opened and the nurse told me I could go in and see her. She was wrapped in a blanket and asleep from them knocking her out. She turned over to look at me and had a tear rolling down her cheek.

“That image I cannot do away with. We got up slowly and I walked her back to the car. She was exhausted and it was hot. Hot in the Los Angeles sun. It was beating down all around the car. Even in usual traffic, everything was ablaze. Out here - out here you can hide from the sun with these buildings. There is alway shade to go into. Not there.

“We walked up the steps slowly and I laid her to bed.

“Myself, I just sat at the kitchen table and looked out over those palm trees and open sky. I knew that I would have to leave it all behind.

The train stopped at 12th and he stood up to leave.

“Thank you for listening.”

With that, he vanished onto his block and the train went up towards mine, now running express again. My heart was fixed, open again and everybody knew it. There stories were driving to my center.

The train was empty and felt like it had been that way for some time. The mother, daughter and man who all shared their history with me for just a bit, had all vanished towards their paths. I would never see any of them again. Probably not - but they were with me now.

They were.

Chapter 13 - Voices Part IV

Before I could start working on anything, I needed to get healthy. Without the pills and visits to the doctor, I needed an alternative. The old man at the bar gave me the address to a doctor down in Chinatown to go and see.

“Guys have been doing this for thousands of years. They’ll set you straight. Go on and see my man Dr. He. Pronounces it Hu. You wont even need to tell him what’s wrong with you. The man’s just going to look at your feet. You better be ready for some pain though. Whooa son, you are going to scream.”

So I took the A train down to Canal Street and walked east. The two guys, and I say guys because theye 

 

Things were different downtown. Loud. Everyone was moving so fast. Everyone with somewhere to go but nobody was talking to each other. Just easing in and out of the traffic. You could tell the tourists because they were the ones who were always looking up. The people who live here have no time for the architecture, except when they are showing folks around from out of town.

Chinatown was mid day. The girls had all just gotten off of school and a got lost more than a few times following them around. I guess the little boy in all of us never really dies. If you go awhile without speaking to anyone - the voices in your head start to determine the roads you take. Mine had taken me to the backstreets of Chinatown - I line the way that sounds - The Backstreets of Chinatown - seeking a cure for my dizziness and heart problems. I was going off pills and into the real world.

I saw Dr. He’s sign hanging from an old walk up. Underneath it, three men smoked heavily in the hot New York almost dusk. They looked at me for a moment and all inhaled in succession.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Is there where Dr. He is located?”

One of them wearing an old Mets cap with an insurance advertisement on the side of it stepped forward and looked at me. As he tipped his cap, I noticed that his knuckle had a giant callas on it, almost big enough to make a knuckle on top of his original knuckle. I panned across all of them and saw that each of them all had the same thing.

“We are the doctors,” Dr. He, the man in the giveaway Mets cap said. “Go on inside and I’ll be with you soon.”

“You all smoke?” I asked. “Doctors who smoke?’
“Smoking is not what kills you. No. You can smoke too. Want to smoke?”

The hall started laughing at me and speaking to each other in Chinese. Dr. He’s laughter stopped slowly, taking one last drag of his cigarette before flicking it into the dirty streets, and turning slowly to go back to work, a motion that he looked as if he had done many, many times before.

When a man gets old, going back to a job is a tough turn to make, but the fact is that most of the world makes that turn everyday, for each day of their lives. Smoking a cigarette for them is a chance to be away from what binds them.

Inside, the place looked much more modern. A pretty woman behind the counter and her daughter behind her took down my information and showed me where I should put my shoes. The daughter was texting back and forth on her sidekick while the mother made sure I put everything in the right place.

A video played of waterfalls and remix versions of 80’s R and B tracks. On the wall was a picture of a foot divided into hundreds of sections that corresponded to all parts of the body. I was guided into the next room, which was lowly lit and made comfortable with a humidifier and more of the same music that was in the front room, only this time on a hugs flat screen TV. 4 large Lazy Boy black leather chairs were in a row. At the feet of each of these chairs were small buckets. I was told to put my feet in the bucket. They then brought a small dinning table chair for me to sit in. The doctor started in on my back.

Now with most treatments, there is a release right way. Something to feel good about. But here, the pain started right away. This wasn’t even the treatment. He was checking to see what areas were giving me problems. Judging from the pain, there were many. However, when he started on my lower back, I felt relief.

Years of sitting at a desk had destroy my ability to stand up straight.

After he was done prepping, he directed me to the chair to sit back in. He grabbed my foot. Extending the callus knuckle on his hand, he started in.

“Knee, no good,” he said, rubbing his knuckle on the arch under my toes. The pain shot through my body.
“Back no good!” Another Knuckle swipe.
“Neck no good!” Another.
“Wrist no good!” Another. The pain was unreal. He was working through where blood was clogged up. Everything is connected to the foot, believe that.

He paused.

“This will hurt, ok?”

Before I answered be moved three knuckle swipes on the bridge of my foot. I let out a scream of pain so loud the woman and her daughter came in to check. The daughter started laughing and took a picture of me with her phone and sent a text to all of her friends with the image attached. She was saying something in Chinese.

“What’s she saying?” I asked through me screams.

One of the other doctors who was outside smoking had been watching the whole thing go down was laughing.
“Baby Foot! She called you Baby Foot!”

The whole place busted up laughing, myself including. I felt my muscles relax and the pain go away for just a moment, until he started in on my feet again, and I continued to scream

Had you been walking down that street in China town and decided to duck into that doorway at that very moment, you would have hear that sounds of laughter, screaming and chants of Baby Foot.

New York Fucking City.

To Be Continued . . .

 

 

Chapter 13 - Voices Part III

There are moments before action takes place where you search for silence but cannot find it. Usually, for me at least, the search ends me up at a bar. St. Nick’s Pub had become that place for me. The low ceilings kept my head from falling off. At the end of the bar, the only other person there, was an old man, his cray hair neatly cut and sticking out of his hat.

His shirt was one of those old Cuban type of shirts, and although I had never been to Cuba myself, i figured that’s what people wore over there. He wasn’t looking right at me, but I could tell he was watching me. He motioned for the bartender to bring me a drink. Vodka tonic. No lime. 

“We don’t cut no limes here,” the bartender once said to me. For a little while, I had brought in my own limes, but he didn’t like that very much, so I stopped.

“You thinking about doing something,” the old man said to me. His lips didn’t move much. Perhaps that was only the lighting.

“How can you tell?”

“You have that look of a man determined to change the road he is taking. For the most part, that’s a pretty lonely undertaking. You look pretty alone.”

“I’m married though”

“Doesn’t matter much who’s with you, when you are looking to do what you’re about to do, what you’re thinking of doing, ain’t nobody can stand next to you. It’s a hard time for a man because whatever he decides, there’s always the road to look back on for what he didn’t do. You can never do both things. Never.”

“What if I can stop and go back in time. What then?”

“That’ just not possible my friend. Ain’t a man alive who’d be spending time in a bar alone in the middle of the day if it was possible to travel back in time. I promise you that.”

“But, I’ve seen it happen. I’ve witnessed - “

“You’ve witnessed what you wanted to see. What your reality told you was happening. And don’t be fooled by the fact that this block hasn’t changed much in the past 15 years. Time never went backwards for nobody and it’s not happening for you. Now then, what is it that you’re having trouble with?”

He drank half his beer then looked at it intently when he placed it back on the bar while waiting for me to answer. 

“I want to change a mistake I’ve made. I need to do something that might put my family at risk. But I’ve done something wrong. Something - I was tricked but I wanted to be tricked. Only this time, I can’t have anyone knowing that it was me. I need - I need an army.”

At that he perked up.

“Armies get destroyed. We tried back in the day with the Panthers around here. Now they are just another symbol to put on a t shirt or in a song lyric. What do you know about Army? You ever in the service? Me, I was on the -”

“On the boat, on the way to invade Japan before the dropped the bomb. Right? You were going to be part of that force.”

He took his glasses off, exposing his drooping bottom eyelids and hollowed out face, one that had too much death and destruction in his life to take anyone else who had not experienced that same feeling seriously.

“How did you know that? Have we met?”

“We have, only it wasn’t you and I. You grew up on 155th and Broadway, right?”

“The hell I did. I’m from Texas son. Hook ‘em Horns! Who the hell is from 155th and Broadway?”

“I met someone who was on that boat on the subways not to far back. Well, I don’t know how far back it was, really,” I said rubbing my head. I moved closer to the man and he let me, now intrigued because I knew something that he did that not to many other people knew.

“Not many folks on that boat are still alive. It’s a miracle we didn’t die right there, and now a miracle that you are meeting me telling me someone else on that boat was sitting next to you on a subway. That’s two miracles my friend, and most people live their lives without ever seeing one. Now tell me something. Tell me what you’re planning.”

“I’d like to take the neighborhood back. Those people coming in buying up the buildings and trying to do to this neighborhood what they did around 125th Street, I can’t see that happening here. There is a chance to save this piece of land. This block at least. I know how to do it. I know my plans work. Just that, well, I’m going to make some enemies along the way.”

“Enemies are always around you son, you just aren’t ever sure where they’re hiding. Best to do something to bring them out in the open.”

The door moved open and the light of day flooded the pub, having nowhere to go without a window for escape. It was that kid from the vestibule carrying his trombone and bent over slightly from a backpack full of books. He put the trombone down first. 

“How you feeling there youngster? School all you want it to be?”

The young man went behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of seltzer water and poured himself a glass. He looked at me and smiled when he saw what I was drinking, then turned his attention to the old man.

“Things are good at school. We’ll see about that internship over the summer. Not a chance to be with my lady though. All booked up man. All booked up.”

He finished the last drink of his glass and put his backpack under the bar.

“This young man right here might be able to help you out,” he said to me. “Though there’s a chance I’m a little biased seeing as how he’s kin.”

The young man looked at me. His eyes were pure and without bloodshot. Focussed. He was on track to be sure. He wanted no part of me. None. Then he recognized me.  It took him awhile.

“Yeah, I know you. You started this whole mess on the block. Started out sweeping up and then got it all funded and done right. Pictures in the papers. You were Macon’s right hand man. What you want me to finish the job for you or pat you on the back to let you know that it wasn’t that bad of a thing you did.”

“I don’t even know you,” I said. “You father is the one’s been getting all the information from me. I’m just putting together a plan, that’s all. That’s all.”

“A plan is just a piece of paper without any action. You got anything written down?”

That was one thing I did have. Pages of it. Sure, it was all disguised in story form - to look like a book, but I had a blueprint. I did. I was sure of that. I took it out of my briefcase and handed it to him. Without looking at it, he took it up on stage with him and put it on the musical sheet holder while he warmed up his trombone.  I could see him become interested in my pages.

For everything to work, I needed to trust again. 

From the first time I met Ryan Granderson, I knew I’d be able to because deep down, I wished I was more like him.

 

To Be Continued . . . 

 

Chapter 13 - Voices Part II

I had gone upstairs and slept all through the day.Namuna stayed away glaring out the window across the street. What she must have been thinking. I needed some air when I woke up, so we went for a walk up to the park at the top of the block. I guess you can call it a park. It was a grass area surrounded by a fence that you weren’t supposed to go over.

There were little flashes of light popping up from the grass. Children, a few of them, though none that I recognized from the neighborhood. I didn’t know kids still caught fireflies in jars. I guess up here they do. It was relaxing. The little girls walked slowly over the grass and selected the ones they wanted in the jars, while the boys tossed sticks and lurched out, more attacking than trying to gather.

Everything starts slower at that age.

Namuna and I hung over the railing like we were at some ranch watching horses being broke. I was calm.

“We need to talk. I’m not sure you know what happened last night,” Namuna said to me. Her eyes were surrounded by the blackness of not sleeping.
“I was out,” I said. “Best I’ve slept since the accident.”

While the children chased the fireflies, Namuna had told me what happened. Though I shook my head no, she kept going with every detail she saw and then some that she must have imagined. I was destroyed because I knew that she felt the pain of a man cheating on her - and for me - for me it was not my choice, but because I opened the door - and at some point I opened the door, that woman eventually came into my life.

The little lights were popping up even faster now. The sounds of little girl laughter went perfectly with them. How could any of them know what was happening just outside the railing. The fence. The reality of adulthood.

“Are you going to leave me,” I asked. “I wasn’t conscious at all. I promise you that. Whatever happened wasn’t me.”
“I - I don’t want to leave you. You’re my life. My love. It’s because of you I’m doing what I want to be doing. How long did you work those bullshit jobs so I could work my way up and become who I am? Now it’s your turn to live your dreams. It’s just that -” She looked at over the kids playing and rubbed the bottom of her stomach. Her eyes winced in pain at a distant memory that crept it’s way back into the moment. “it’s just that before when i looked at you I saw only you, never anyone else. Now what? When I think or look at you, I’m going to see you and some other woman walking into a building together. Even if it wasn’t your mind, it was still your body. You’re not only mine anymore. How can I know that it’s not going to happen again?”

One tear that I didn’t notice at first was moving down her cheek.

“I’ll stop taking the medication. I hate what that shit is doing to be anyways. Fuck it, I’ll take the pain I need to get back to my world anyway. The one I know. The one where I fight with you on my side. That’s all I need. All I ever needed.”

“It’s going to be painful without that. What about your heart?” She said, moving the tear away and trying to focus on the playing kids.
“You’re my heart. Those doctors have no idea. None. I’ll go down to Chinatown or something and get on some natural treatments. Those guys have been doing it for years. I’ll turn back the clocks on this one Boo. I can do it. I’d stopped, but I will take this one last memory from you so you don’t have to wake with it. You’ll see, it’ll be perfect.”

She put her head on my chest and we sat there watching children catch fireflies in the Harlem night. The words must have gotten out, because by now, the park was full of kids and laughter, the lights of the bugs hinting at the stars in the hot night.

I was back and ready to fight for everything.

Everything.

Chapter 13 - Voices

The first thing you have to realize before you truly step back into reality is that what you are looking at, the people and buildings that surround you, exist now. All of the history that may have gone into them, the stories that are told by the ghosts that hang around them, mean little to you. I mean, it might affect your appreciation for something, but nostalgia, in any form, is dangerous because it keeps you from knowing who you are. That is, for Americans, one of the most important pieces of knowledge.

Bank that.

Now for me, when I used to work in advertising, when I used to spend hours trying to write just two lines of copy, I had no idea who I was. I knew that the money going into the bank was enough to build something for the family I wanted to build, but I wasn’t me. No. I wasn’t the little kid who I had been. The one who knew he wanted to write stories to tell people for a living. No. I had become someone who I just felt - well, when I told people what I did, there was a tail off in my explanation. My bank account meant nothing looking back in the mirror at me. Happiness it bought, but being content, no.

Then, when I started up the Clean Up the Block program, even before it was a program, I felt whole. I felt like I was giving back to the planet. But now that had been taken away from me. What I did was now created in stories people read in manufactured articles. I was a footnote to the whole movement. A piece of trivia to be discussed at tables where food could only be afforded by a few. No. This was not what I was after.

The pills lead to a terrible incident. Sleepwalking makes for disturbing nights - nights when you believe that you are dreaming and then come to and pray that you were, but you know, after you’ve been told, that it was you all along. I had taken too much of my dosage and walked out the door and down the stairs. Out on St. Nicholas Place for the millionth time. I’d like to say I was walking without any knowledge - That I was totally in my sleep and that my actions could not be helped, but that would be a lie.

I mean, sure, I was asleep, I has not consciously acting on anything, but in my mind - well who knows what happens inside there.

I was under the lamp post looking up at the glare thinking it was the moon. It was late out - or early, whichever way you like to see the world. Around that hour, 3:00 A.M. when nothing should be moving and the people or beings that are don’t want to be, they have to be. Maybe I had to be. I was sweeping up the streets as I had done so many months ago - talking to myself over and over again. There were very few lights on in the windows above. No sounds of children at all. That’s pretty much the way you can tell how dead of night it is out. Those pills were messing with my sleeping patterns, making me sleepwalk all over the house. For the most part, Namuna could control it. She could stop and guide me back to bed, but that night, I guess she didn’t notice right away. Someone else did.

There was a touch on my shoulder. She was standing there. The girl from across the street. She looked younger there - in the moonlight and without make up on. With her hair tied back. With nothing but a wife beater and a pair of pajama bottoms on. Her nipples hinting out at the night. The conversation, best as I could remember, went like this:

“What are you doing out here so late. So alone?” That was her. She always talked in movie lines.

“I’m not sure. I just needed to clean.”

“You should come up for a little while then. I can clean you up. Make you something warm to drink. Would you like that? We could sit on the fire escape.”

She looked up at what I thought was the moon, but was really the lamp post. She wasn’t looking at that though. Turns out Namuna had woken up and was leaning out the window looking at us. A gypsy cab slowed down but the girl waved it away.

“Am I supposed to come up there with you? I - can’t tell right from wrong now. I’ve been taking too many of these pills. For the pain. For the pain.”

“Let me take care of you for a bit. It’s my turn. It is.”

She didn’t wait for me to make a decision. She just grabbed my hand and led me into her apartment building. A voice in my head screamed “No. No!” but I had stopped listening, as best I could, to the voices in my head, because I never knew where they were coming from. Had I looked up, past what I thought to be the moon, I would have seen my wife leaning out the window screaming at me to stop. I couldn’t hear her.

It was that moment, for me, that memory became nostalgia.

To Be Continued . . .