Disabled Children & Abortion (After Working In Nursing Homes & With The Severely Disabled)

I just watched Louie Theroux's new documentary on children with Autism and it bought back memories of the children and the parents I met while working in a Nursing Home in Cape Town, South Africa and a Holiday Camp in America, Ohio. I tried to write about this a few times but it's difficult.

People who live with these conditions are shielded away from public view, they're the freaks that show up in horror films like Deliverance and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The day I walked into a ward where 18 children with cerebral palsy moaned loudly, waved their arms around, screamed, cried and salivated on themselves I couldn't help but think of zombies. This is why it's difficult to write this...

The only preparation I was given before walking into that ward was "not to feel sorry for the children, pity will not benefit them, make friends and be fun". After I spoon fed porridge to a few children in wheelchairs, after I wheeled them to their bed sides, after I walked through a ward with babies born with cerebral palsy, after I saw a little girl screaming and pounding her head into the floor, after I tried to make friends with a child who wanted to hold my hand just because I told him I was 25, after I sat in a room with two children, one of them watching a Football game on the TV and the other looking out the window and both of them competing to see what was more exciting - the window (that looked out onto swings in the middle of a green grass field) or the football game... after all that I walked outside to the car park and cried uncontrollably, the kind of cry where you squeal and dribble and look really pathetic. I then wiped my tears looked at my hands, looked down at my feet and then looked at my face in the reflection of a window before walking back to the ward.

"They're ok" I'd say to myself "they don't know any better" then I began to wonder what it is these children see, in what colour, in what intensity, they must have a very different internal life to those of us that are functioning "normally".

There was a girl there who was 19 years old, she was wheelchair bound, her neck twisted to the side so her chin rested on her shoulder, her mouth hung open but she only seemed capable of two emotions - ecstatic joy - where her mouth opened up a smile that was so wide her cheeks balled up as she giggled whooped and hollered - but in an instant her face would distort, the smile gone but the cheeks, still balled up but with sudden sadness and distress as she wailed and dribbled. You are given no time to anticipate either emotion, it just seems to slide back and forth inside her.

I did not feel sorry for her, I've heard it said that joy is sorrow turned upside down, so the further you fall into either state the more you're able to experience within them. I agree with this little beautiful and tragic sentiment.

Gareth is 25 years old, we're the same age, he was put in the Nursing Home when he was 10. Every day Gareth wants to tell you what day it is, "It's Tuesday!"and you'd have to say "That's right Gareth" then he'd say "Tomorrow is Wednesday" and you'd say "Yeah, Gareth it is". Gareth always had something to look forward to and he only needed a few things a week. He'd say "I'm going to get candles on Thursday!" or "I'm going to dress up on Saturday!". Gareth is the only patient who acknowledges you in a way you don't need to prepare for. He takes pride in the few things he can do for himself - like eat and wheel himself to his own bedside.

One of the nurses told me why Gareth talks about the days -


one day I told Gareth, I don't want to hear any more sad stories in this ward, please no more sad stories, then Gareth asked what day it was and I smiled and said "it's Monday Gareth"and he said "Yes! and tomorrow is Tuesday" and I just hugged him and he never shut up about the days since.


I met many of the parents of these children and I praise and admire them but its hard not to find yourself asking the question "If I knew my child would end up this way, having to be nursed 24/7 in a home would I keep the child?

This is not an exaggeration but every parent I came across kept their child believing it was a message/lesson God was giving them. They felt blessed to have children who only need one thing to survive and that's the love and care of their family. This was the same response I got from the parents of children with Autism and Epilepsy in America.

There were however cases where the parents of some children deserted them in the home, ashamed and unable to cope.

Obviously most parents don't know they're carrying a disabled child until the birth but some parents are told by doctors of the high chances and some can be diagnosed in the womb. Again, I know my mum was told there was a moderate possibility I'd be born with down syndrome but she still had me.

Some of the parents felt you shouldn't be allowed to have sex if you can't take responsibility for whatever you produce.

I spent a week with two physiotherapists who's job it was to massage the children who spend all their time on their wheelchair without proper exercise or physical stimulation. Watching them go from ward to ward having to strap down some of the children to stretch out their limbs as they scream and fight, DON'T TOUCH DON'T TOUCH!" for some of the children this is the only situation they show any animation about their lives "

That was it for me, that was the moment I said to myself "no I wouldn't keep my child if it was to end up this way". I remember my own mother kicking me out the house when I was 16 and saying "I was not born to have you!" I hated her for a long time after that but she's right, she has her own life, she was not born to have me, no one is born to have children. I believe we are here for one conscious life only. I already feel myself to be a good, tolerant, empathetic and caring person so bringing up a profoundly disabled child won't be seen by me as a lesson or a gift from God.

On the other hand, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen is a mother, tired from work, run into the ward, straight over to her son, lift him out of his wheelchair, hold him tightly in her arms and whisper in his ears "I will always love you... no matter what".

Conversation With A South African Township Community Worker

When more churches start popping up in your community it’s a sign your area is getting poorer. All these new Christian and Catholic churches, you see them in the townships? Big fancy buildings towering over all the houses and township shacks, they are funded by the Americans my brew.  You see, the Americans are clinging desperately to their Christian and Catholic followers because it's their way of preserving their influence on the world. These churches always recruit from poorer, more vulnerable and uneducated people around the world. They pay the landowners, build the church and the church generates money by promising local people better lives and good fortunes for their contributions... it’s all part of the business. Have you ever met these travelling American's brew? How shocked they be when they realise how hated they are? – In America they thought themselves as the envy of the world, haha, America is just the name of a major corporation, a corporation that is only in business if they are in war. You could say that all countries have been primarily built on war or some kind of conflict - I mean, you're European right!? but I don't think right now there is a country in the world more dependent on war, death and famine than America... Now let's go get a Coke.

The Coloured Experience

Disclaimer: This is a recording of my own personal experience. I know the issues are so much more complicated than I have expressed here (no tribal, religious, sexuality, gender conflicts, employment issues mentioned) but I didn't want to read other theories or essays on South African politics and write a historically accurate thesis - This is more of a report. The writing here came from being present in South Africa between November 2011 - January 2012 and talking to the people living there.

On my first day in South Africa I got into a conversation with a Taxi Driver (not the one I’ve already written about) – this taxi driver would be seen as a black Arab/Asian in the UK.

Me – So, what do you think of South Africa?

Taxi Driver – It’s great but the blacks are fucking it up!

I didn’t know how to respond to this. I’d just arrived. I wondered how he’s labelled me and how he expects me to react. I didn't get offended I just felt confusion and it prepared me for much confusion to come.

I know Londoners aren’t comfortable referring to race. We like to think we’re too educated and civilised to let race define anyone's status or situation but South Africa is a country built on racial politics (i.e. how much Vitamin D your skin can absorb).

Talk Radio is popular in Cape Town and it seems all the discussions centred around race.

"GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Good Hope Radio! A teacher was fired today because she's coloured, a man was arrested today because he's black, a woman was rewarded because she's white"

It's 2012 and white South Africans (Afrikaans/British descended South Africans) make up 12% of the country and own 90% of the countries businesses. 

The gap between rich and poor is striking. 

I walked past speed boats, hummer trucks, quad bikes etc all parked in driveways and garages behind (mostly white owned) gated mansions. After working in a primary school with children (all black or coloured) some of whom couldn't afford school dinner, it's hard not to feel repulsed by this display of excessive wealth.

Apartheid is still a wound that needs tending. The white families that benefited from, well... being white are of course still going to be rich. They aren’t going to turn around and give reparations to Africans any time soon. Whites feel they've worked for all they have. Being white you got top education and top assistance from a government who wanted to help its own and exclude the rest but still, success wasn't handed to them, it was just made easier for them. The whites worked and feel entitled to their privileges. 

I heard there is one white township. I was told about it by a guy from Zimbabwe who lives in Cape Town. 

“The media like to talk about this white township but come on, to get by (during apartheid) all you had to be was white and they fucked it up! They’re the lowest of the low for sure!”

There is also this white guilt; history knows what colonial warmongering history we Europeans have and we inherit that and apologise for it but I don’t really know how useful that guilt is to anyone. Maybe it has created a sensitivity that has geared many young middle class white people towards human rights campaigning and activism which of course is cute.

I did speak to a young white British/South African who said "the blacks were oppressed for a long time by whites in South Africa and now they're getting their own back"

Here's a 15 minute documentary about "Poor Whites" in South Africa from 2006.

There is so much anger in South Africa about its history. You'll often hear people still complain about the white government as if they are still there and then complain about the black government in the same breath.

I went on a tour of the caves in the Devils Peak. The group was made up of mostly Brazilian, Dutch & American students. The tour itself was led by a English/Xhosa speaking guide. After two hours of a guided walk and talk about how the Dutch came and discovered all the caves  I managed to speak to him one on one afterwards. He went into this rant about how he has to give all the credit to the Dutch settlers and promote white supremacy to all the people that come here to visit but it's his job and he's got a family to feed. 

Much of the conversations I had with “coloured people” (political name for people of Mixed-Race, Asian, Cape Malayan, Khoisan) were about this quest for their own identity. I spoke to a coloured guy from the Eastern Cape about this. 

“Black Africans know about their tribes and their ancient traditions, whites know about their European roots but we (coloured people) are caught up between the two - We are lost in having a whole identity”.

A lot of mixed race people go through this “who am I and where do I belong?” crises. I also came though this tunnel but I think I had an easier time going through it in London and being British. In London we’re not wholly defined by our skin colour like it’s our passport, also our multiculturalism is celebrated (because it’s politically correct to celebrate it).

I met a Kiwi guy in a backpacker hostel and we went to a bar together. The people there were all white Afrikaans. He got talking to some of them but they completely ignored me. It was a strange experience and I wanted to humour it. I thought about my Dad’s stories about being Jamaican in London in the 50’s. Ultimately though, I got angrier the longer I was there. Somehow I got talking to a young white woman, after only five minutes three white guys came over and escorted her away from me saying “no, no, no”. It was a strange experience.

There were places where my colour blended me in. I went to a few coloured townships and wasn't looked at twice. I was welcomed into people’s family homes, introduced to their children and grandparents. They cooked for me and showed me around their neighbourhoods.

There was one coloured guy I met who was an ex-ambulance driver who told me things were better during apartheid.

"I had a great team of paramedics but they fired all the white ones and replaced them with these under-qualified black ones. I'll never forget showing up at the scene of a road accident and the new black guy I was with had no idea how to handle any of the equipment. He couldn't even operate the radio. I quit my job after that, I wouldn't be able to save any more lives. Things weren't that bad during apartheid - it just meant we had to live with segregation. We couldn't go in some areas because they were white - whatever! I didn't want to go there anyway! My house has been robbed three times since Apartheid ended and more people from other parts of Africa came in - The last guy to rob my house was a man from Kenya posing as a TV repairman. Came in and ran off with the DVD Player and TV set... stole some plates and cutlery that were in the kitchen too!" 

I spent New Years Eve at a party in Cape Town. It was about five minutes into the New Year and a black woman chose to have an intense conversation with me about "how white Cape Town is" and how racist the Afrikaans people are, how the black government are corrupt because they're trying to live like white people etc. The fact she couldn't let it go for one night as we went into a New Year made a sad statement. 

Apartheid isn't just a political fight, it's a psychological one.

Sometimes Conversation Is A Hard Act To Follow

Lots of things can get lost when hiking up a mountain. 


As you probably know I wear hearing aids and when wind blows into them you can't hear anything but whooshing.


Here’s an extract from a conversation as I heard it while climbing South Africa's Table Top Mountain with a friend called Irfaan.

Irfaan – Did I tell you about what happened?-------------------------------------------grabbed his arm------------------------punched in the face---------------I said HEY! DON’T YOU DO THAT! --------------------------------- and then I said I’d put my fist through his face and that was it-------------------------------amazing story eh? ----------------------------------- Christmas.

Me – Christmas?

Irfaan - Yeah. Well, what?

Me – What what?

Irfaan – Christmas.

Me – I’m guessing you are asking what I’m doing for Christmas?

Irfaan – Erm, ok. What are you doing for Christmas?

Me –I don’t know.

Irfaan – Well, do you eat kittens?

Me – Kittens? ... Like cats?

Irfaan – What?

Ray – I don’t eat kittens’ man.

Irfaan – No Ray, CHICKEN!

 Ray – Oh’. Haha, yeah I do. I’m kind of hungry actually.

Irfaan – I got a sandwich you can have some if you want?

Ray – Sure what’s in it?

Irfaan – Feta cheese, honey and feet.

Ray – Erm... what?

Irfaan – You know what figs are? Those little...

Ray – OH’! FIGS! FIGS! Haha, yes... Not feet.

Irfaan – What the fuck is wrong with you man?  

Ray – Yeah, a lot of wind is blowing in my ears.

Irfaan – OK.. So, you been into town yet?

Ray – Yeah.

Irfaan – Was it fertile?

Ray – I know you’re not asking me if the town was fertile.

Irfaan – WORTHWHILE RAY! WAS IT WORTHWHILE!?

We didn’t say anything to each other for a while after that.

Later I was at Irfaan’s house sitting at a table with his little cousins when a man walks into the room wearing black overalls and a Muslim prayer hat.

Irfaan – Ray meet fuck me.

Ray – What’s his name?

Irfaan – Fuck me.

Ray – Erm...

Fuck Me – Hi, I’m Fuck me.

Ray – Hello Fuck me.

Fuck me - ...

Irfaan – There are children here man!

Ray – erm... what’s his name again?

Irfaan – FUCK ME!

Ray – Oh'...OK.

I never did find out his name... probably Funky or Totsi or Cutney or Chucky or something...

It takes a while to adjust to new accents when you travel aboard. I was asking South African people often to repeat themselves (more the first month than the second). I always considered myself as someone articulate in speech but I often had to repeat myself too. I was often thought to be a "coloured guy from Cape Town" until I opened my mouth. The look of confusion when a South African greeted me in Afrikaans or "howzit me'brew?" and I responded without flattening the vowels in my speech - "hey, I'm good thanks, how are you?".

No One Does Skies Like Africa

South Africa has been amazing. I've had such an incredible time getting to know the country. 

Upon returning home I expect to have to answer a lot of questions about my trip but sometimes after a long and eventful time away you don't want to talk about it too much. It's fresh, its sitting in you as you slowly adjust back to life as you know it. 

When asked about my trip I'll say "yeah, South Africa was great, amazing, stunning", I'll smile and look off into the distance until I'm asked if I'm alright, then I might cry and let it all out... 

I'll talk about how I stayed at the Valley Of A Thousand Hills in a Zulu Village and the Xhosa family I met along the coastal Eastern Cape. I'll talk about the Muslim family I stayed with and the wedding I went to in their local Mosque. I'll think back to the christmas I spent in a township with a Christian family eating seafood after attending sunday morning service. How I stayed with a white gay couple who adopted and are raising a black South African daughter. I'll mention the white lesbian couple I stayed with who are raising a mixed race son. I'll talk about the work I did with orphaned children, severely disabled (wheelchair bound) children, the mountains I climbed, the lone travelling across the wild coast via public transport (something I was advised not to do because of common road accidents & muggings) I'll  get animated as I recall the smells in the mini buses, trains and taxis, how I was crammed next to chickens and big boned African women with babies and baskets of fruits and veg. I'll talk about what it's like to sky dive, to go kayaking by waterfalls, to drive an old school Piaggio scooter across Cape Town in the city heat.  Where I was when I spotted my first whale and how I lost count of all the seals and penguins I saw. I'll say I survived a shark cage dive, how I walked with elephants and baboons, ate crocodiles and ostriches, raved at underground hip-hop spots, watched b-boys break, graffiti artists paint and skaters skate. The writers, poets, teachers and activists I met, how I felt their hunger, their anger, their idealistic visions of the future, how tormented they are by their own history and how intensely I listened to their struggle with African identity. I had conversations about apartheid, African politics, European-ism, Pan-African-ism. I had the kind of conversations you walk away from feeling enriched and uplifted. I met people who made me laugh until I cried, people who annoyed the fuck out of me, people with stories, incredible stories. I'll look very serious as I talk about how I almost got robbed on a mini bus and had to fight my way out. I'll tell about the morning someone broke into my flat while I was asleep and stole my watch and cash - how I had to go to the police station and confront the guy in his jail cell. I'll hold eye contact as I talk about the people I met going through grief, divorces, people who just got married, just had babies, just bought their first house, just lost their job. I'll go on to talk excitedly about how I crawled through caves, swam in the Indian and Atlantic Ocean, sat on a grassy hill watching a sunset surrounded by cows and smoked weed grown in the gardens next to pumpkins and strawberries. I'll grin as I talk about all the colours I sank into during a mushroom trip sitting next to a river and the laughing fits, bless the laughing fits! I'll recall the candle lit jazz bars and poetry readings and the books I finished and how I wrote at least five love poems about the sky. I'll recommend a range of new African authors, poets and musicians (currently reading Half A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), I'll say how I realized I like eating olives, I like hiking, I like Milk Stout beer and South African wine and cheese. I like dancing, I really like dancing... I danced more than I have in my entire life. I'll look at my feet as I tell you I realised how hard I am on myself, how much my relationship with my mother and sister has matured these past few years - I missed them in a way I never have. I thought about past relationships and best friends I've moved away from. I thought about my compatibility with my city, other cities, ambitions, dreams, business. 


I am growing and I have grown through all of this, I can feel it already... I'll wipe my eyes and say I am in love, in love with everything... all the beautiful things and their shadows.

Conversation With An 8 Year Old/ What A Cave Can Teach You

Girl - Do you have a wife?

Me – No

Girl – So you sleep on your own?

Me – Yes.

Girl – I don’t like to sleep on my own, it makes me think of snakes.

Me – Why?

Girl – Because I’m scared of them.

Me – … So are you scared of snakes or loneliness?

Girl – Snakes because loneliness doesn’t have a head with those big teeth in it.

Me – hmm… I’m going to write that down.

Girl – Why?

Me – Because I like what you said.

Girl – Why?

Me – (Ignores question and gets notebook out of bag)

Girl – You know what I like?

Me – What?

Girl – Balloons.

Me – OK, what else do you like?

Girl – Dogs, dogs that can dance. I want Balloons, a dog that can dance and a gun.

Me – What? Why a gun?

Her – in case I see snakes... snakes that can dance.

What A Cave Can Teach You

It’s a one hour hike up the mountain at Kalk Bay. I went with an international hiking group (mainly Germans). I’d made new friends and got invited along, not quite knowing what I’d agreed to. The mountains got steep near the top so we were literally rock climbing. 

Looking outward from the mountain you see all the ocean beyond you, all the yellow, the green and earth, its an incredibly overwhelming display of beauty.

When I got near the top there was a cave. I’m told the cave was discovered by the Dutch when they arrived in the 1600’s. We took out torches and crawled on our stomachs through the black miniature corridors. They get narrower the further you go in. 

After an hour of worming through the tunnels, my shoulders were too wide to fit into the holes ahead of me. There were five of us that made it this far, a Dutch guy, an American and two German girls. I turned back alone as they tried to push deeper into the caves.

Now is when my mind turned against me...

It was so beautiful outside, why are you doing this? Why would anyone do this? You’ve buried yourself alive. You’re an idiot. Didn’t you hear something about Scorpions on the way here? Big shiny black scorpions, fuckers with venom shots loaded in their tail? You’ll be dead, killed, alone in this cave. Why? Why? Why?

My knees got sore and I’d cut my elbow on some sharp rocks. I started to feel a slight panic. It started in my intestines, I thought of them as electric eels, voltage increasing by the minute, opening sparks and then fire trails though the central wires of my nervous system.

Its ok, its ok, I’m fine I’m fine I’m going to get out, yes. Oh’ why? Don’t black stand up comedians joke about stupid situations white people put themselves in? This is one of them right? Suffocating to death in a cave I willingly crawled into? No its fine, Mustafa and Trevor are black… no wait, they didn’t come this far! Fuck! 

When I saw my hope, the streaming light through a tiny crack, my stomach turned on a different kind of electricity – one that heats Jacuzzis.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh’ the light, the relief.. yes.

There were ten other hikers outside. One man was sitting on a rock smiling to himself. I caught his eye as I stumbled towards him. “howzit?” (He’s South African) he waves me over, “sit here and watch the faces as they come out the cave”. I sit with him and after a few minutes one of the German girls appears from the cave, her face installing new colour, her head in the sky, her heavy breath winding down. The man I was next to turns to me and says “That’s exactly what relief looks like”

I then made sense of this cave crawling insanity as a kind of 'appreciation for life' exercise.

 
Last week I took a Grade six class (11-12 year olds) at the Primary School. I asked the class (thirty five boys and girls) to write about their nightmares, I wanted to see how ugly their minds can get. I asked for details, the breathing under the bed, the blood on the walls, the funeral in the rain. 

I noticed after ten minutes there was a boy (let’s call him Nathan) who hadn’t written anything. I approached him and tried to help but he sat there silent. Suddenly he scrunched up the paper on his desk and threw it on the floor, storming out the classroom. I was stunned, unsure if I should leave the rest of the class to go after him. Later I told the Principal about Nathan, I could tell by the pause before she spoke she was about to tell me something heavy.

“Nathan lives in a home” she said “his parents drank themselves to death. You’ve asked a twelve year old to write about a nightmare he is essentially living"

See, I can crawl into some cave and be lost and full of panic, I can think about my intestines as electric eels, I can cut my elbows on rocks and bleed a little but what do I really know about caves and how to survive in them?

Some Things Are Just Beautiful

Extract from the Travel Journal.

It’s hot, very hot. It’s called South Africa in December. I’m walking down the street, past houses that look like giant shoe boxes. They are painted colours that glow in the sun – cream white, peach yellow, red toffee. I am on my own, imagining how she would look beside me, what she’d wear on a day like this, how we would look to the rest of the world. (Brazilian supermodels maybe? You know, nudist beach material). I would be walking closer to the road, I would sound like royalty as I tell her “the gentleman always walks closer to the road”, she would laugh but I would laugh harder (yes, I’m one of those laugh at your own joke types). She would point out my farmers tan; she would tell me my body has nothing to hide. It is a beautiful body, it belongs in the sun. I would not pretend I’m not thinking about sex, she is not telling me her father has Alzheimer’s and she has a younger brother who is afraid of loneliness. No, we would not talk, would not need to as our mouths open on each other… now I don’t know why I’m thinking this… why I feel so happy right now but feel the happiness enhanced by the imaginary presence of her. Isn’t this freedom? Complete freedom? Walking alone, down the street under an African summer? I could be thinking about swimming with penguins, hiking into caves, diving into the sky but here I am, holding strings and trying to attach them to things that have already disappeared.

Some Things Are Just Beautiful.

 

 

PiP Poets In New York pt 2

When you go aboard to a place you’ve never been you tend to walk around it with the naivety of new couples that have not yet met the sinister bones of their partners. On a particular Sunday night Josh and me had our honeymoon bubble popped when we were knifed by the realization that we are more vulnerable as outsiders.

Josh had read about a club in ‘NYC Time Out’ and suggested we check it out; it was a few blocks away from where we stayed so we walked there. When we got to the club they tried to charge us more than the club was advertised for, we showed we were wise and they folded, letting us in for the correct price. We strolled in, walking through the dance floor to stand next to the bar; this was to be the only space we’d occupy for the night.

A tall black guy with muscles as tight as his pouting lips danced in front of us like dust in a whirlwind, he was gay, no straight man points his toes, flicks his wrist and vibrates his hips like Beyonce’ on a power plate. His moves were slick, combining Salsa and Body Popping Street dance with progressive Drum and Bass/house music. The kind of sound you’d hear in Herbal in Shoreditch, just instead of fitness fanatic, toned bellied dancers you find teenage dirt bags in their late twenties zoning out on drug-fuelled cocktails. Josh turned to me and said he preferred watching druggies dance to this kind of music, I laughed.

As the place gathered we then noticed everyone there was some kind of street dancer, lots of annoying dance moves that involve elbows and not drumbeats were flying around the room, busy as epileptic fits. We wanted to dance, but we couldn’t share the floor, not just because we wanted to two-step but because these guys were floor hogs, if we stepped two meters forward we’d been in ‘elbow to face’ impact zone, then we would have had to sport sunglasses like the clowns in the Hip-Hop, R&B night clubs.

So we shifted, I was hungry and Josh was tired, the plan – get money out the ATM, find good pizza, go home.


Josh finds an ATM outside a deli, the card, clamped in his hand moved in slow motion towards the slot when we heard a man shout “STOP!” everything in the world froze, even our hearts. “BEFORE YOU DO THAT! I AM NOT GOING TO ROB YOU!” a black guy, about 5’9 and wearing a bomber jacket that made him look like a turtle in a hard-shell stood before us, holding out a piece of paper “I HAVE JUST COME OUT THE STATE PENETENTARY, THE BUS DROPPED ME OFF AND I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE” our eyes were wide, any tiredness we may have felt vanished as we anticipated any sudden movement “ALL I NEED IS $2.75 TO GET OUTTA HERE! ARE YOU GOING TO HELP ME!?” … silence, the heavy hands of time fought against us, Josh moved the marbles of his eyes without blinking, they swung back and forth like a restless lunatic. We were straight jacketed in 10 seconds of awkward silence, procrastinating… “errrrrrrrrrrr…. Errrrrrrrrr…. Errrrrrrr…. Nooooo …” now I half expected the worse “muthafucka!” he mumbled to himself and quickly walked off, fading into night.

Josh and me looked at each other, relieved. Josh then realized his arm was still extended with his credit card still frozen in his hand. It never made it to the slot of the machine. Josh said “ok. Won’t be getting out any money, you can buy my pizza” and put the card in his pocket, it took me about thirty seconds to laugh at his cheeky comment.

We then saw a pizza place across the street, we jay walked across it and I noticed five hooded up black guys walk in just before us. We took one look at the flat and plastic appearance of the pizza and walked back out, but as we did one of the guys says “what’s good black!?” to Josh, he ignores them “HEY!” he shouts and then we hear another voice this time aimed at me “HEY WHITE BOY, WHITE BOY, COME HERE MAN!” we power walked out the shop and up the road before Joshua says “ohh’ kaay .. This is getting a bit strange.. lets go home!” we found a Pizza joint by a busier road that we were familiar with, we sat hidden at the back, nibbling our pizza in nervous silence like mice under thin floorboards.


On another night Josh and me separated, I went to Brooklyn with Maria, the lovely lady who we stayed with for the first few days. She told us about a poetry night uptown and we went. During that journey we ignited conversation, the type of talks you can only have with a handful of people. It was mainly about love and loss until we got into politics. I should know to sway from any political conversation from any American citizen; it nearly got my head served when I was in Ohio three years ago when I referred to George Bush as “the worlds biggest terrorist”. Maria and me were sitting on the train when 9/11 came up in our conversation. I shared my views about it being a dirty inside job…Maria was appalled, I defended myself until she explained she was there on that day. “No one person could do that, I saw it, you weren’t there, trust me no one would do that to their own country” “Hitler did” I said hastily “but I guess that’s another story”, she got upset with me again, I thought fast, quickly springing our friendship to the rescue … “well I love OBAMA!” a smile then swam to the surface of her face and we shared our favorite Obama facts.

To Be Continued ...