"A lot of people in America hate you for what you did Grandpa." I knew that wasn't the truth, but those that did know of his actions, raged.
"I know." His head hung low.
"You shot a sleeping man through a wall."
He squared up. "That man was armed on the other side of that wall."
"And asleep! And weren't you and how many cops armed as well?"
He looked at his daughter, my mother. "No one knows for sure if he was asleep -"
"Or what?! Just laying in bed in his underwear while cops raided his house?!"
I never should've watched the documentary on the Panthers. I never should've asked my Grandpa about his time on the force [sic]. Now I was one of the offspring of one of the murderers that only Howard Zinn ever cares to write about when it comes to the history of the USA. I'm a recent proponent of ignorance especially when it comes to family.
He broke our silence with a renewed vigor. "Who knows to what end his violent message could have reached?"
"Don't Grandpa, your dead fucking wrong: the violent message was the assassination of a sleeping man and believe me, Grandpa, those that struggle for justice in America heard your message perfectly."
His vigor was short lived and his demeanor shriveled. "We were just following orders - "
"Just fucking don't! Don't ever fucking say that again. Don't."
"Don't talk to you Grandpa that way!" My mom had had enough.
"Don't mom." The time for decency has vacated this family; this is just the beginning of reconciliation.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Sharing Walls
Outside of the North wall of my apartment sits the air conditioning unit. I know as much about air conditioning units as I do about cars as I do about bums, or the Homeless, or 'Neighbors' as some charitable people would rather call them as they gentrify the areas that the former previously inhabited.
Today I finished exorcising the past from my bedroom - new coat of paint, new bed, new layout simplified from all that past which needed purging, but outside that aforementioned North wall - under one of the three windows into my bedroom - sat two plastic bags. One bag contained to go containers that needed no further investigation, the other contained library books.
If you want to know what sort of literature bums check out from the library and then leave behind an air conditioning unit in one of those black plastic bags that corner stores stuff with consumer vices then here is a sampling:
1. Diseases and Disorders Handbook. Ed. Regina D. Ford
2. The Prince. Niccolo Machiavelli
3. Witchcraft: It's Power in the World Today. William Seabrook
Or as I subjectively interpreted the titles as I gingerly pulled back the black plastic to reveal the moldy titles:
1. (What's going on with this ailment and is this behavior really my fault?)
2. (How to control my peers.)
3. (Are all those utterances actually bewitching curses?)
The strangeness began August 12th, 2016 when I asked a man to leave who was leaning up again my apartment building in between my bedroom window and my new roommates window. His face revealed no ill-will towards me but sort of haunts me in it's lack of understanding towards my request - if you don't have a home, why would someone ask you not to rest upon the wall of their own?
Soon after I came upon the trash left by my air conditioning unit and decided to rid it of my sight. Now a month later, the presence of some odd library titles has me pondering again the daily existence of the marginalized and the proximity in which those with and those without lay their heads down at night. I have no doubts I shared a wall with an unseen fellow man in the past year - the books, the takeout, the Ice Mountain gallon jug, but mainly the appropriate space for a sleeping human to lie guarded by air conditioning units, forest green electrical boxes and pine trees on the North exterior wall of my bedroom. It's an alien intimacy, an unknowing solidarity, a closeness to the far out.
Forgive me for I threw out the moldy library books, and I'll forgive, but not forget, my complacency in this culture for allowing all of this shit to exist.
Today I finished exorcising the past from my bedroom - new coat of paint, new bed, new layout simplified from all that past which needed purging, but outside that aforementioned North wall - under one of the three windows into my bedroom - sat two plastic bags. One bag contained to go containers that needed no further investigation, the other contained library books.
If you want to know what sort of literature bums check out from the library and then leave behind an air conditioning unit in one of those black plastic bags that corner stores stuff with consumer vices then here is a sampling:
1. Diseases and Disorders Handbook. Ed. Regina D. Ford
2. The Prince. Niccolo Machiavelli
3. Witchcraft: It's Power in the World Today. William Seabrook
Or as I subjectively interpreted the titles as I gingerly pulled back the black plastic to reveal the moldy titles:
1. (What's going on with this ailment and is this behavior really my fault?)
2. (How to control my peers.)
3. (Are all those utterances actually bewitching curses?)
The strangeness began August 12th, 2016 when I asked a man to leave who was leaning up again my apartment building in between my bedroom window and my new roommates window. His face revealed no ill-will towards me but sort of haunts me in it's lack of understanding towards my request - if you don't have a home, why would someone ask you not to rest upon the wall of their own?
Soon after I came upon the trash left by my air conditioning unit and decided to rid it of my sight. Now a month later, the presence of some odd library titles has me pondering again the daily existence of the marginalized and the proximity in which those with and those without lay their heads down at night. I have no doubts I shared a wall with an unseen fellow man in the past year - the books, the takeout, the Ice Mountain gallon jug, but mainly the appropriate space for a sleeping human to lie guarded by air conditioning units, forest green electrical boxes and pine trees on the North exterior wall of my bedroom. It's an alien intimacy, an unknowing solidarity, a closeness to the far out.
Forgive me for I threw out the moldy library books, and I'll forgive, but not forget, my complacency in this culture for allowing all of this shit to exist.
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