Not So Fast

 I See The Dark

After doing the juice fast on apple juice all day, I was beset with the usual hankering for a bottle of wine as soon as the sun had gone down, so I left to go get one.

Since I have a mile ride to the grocery store, I stopped at the corner Shell to get a beer to steel myself and calm my nerves before going to the racist Rouses Market, where I am treated much the same as "Negroes" probably were around these parts, before they started calling themselves "Black Men" (circa. 1966). Going to that store often tries my patience and, more than once, after entering there in a good mood, I came out, not in one.

Once in the Shell station store, though, I got another idea. They have an impressive assortment of different brands of tequila. I'm pretty sure that this is to attract Latinx customers, whom they seem to favor. It follows the same logic of putting sunflower seeds in your bird feeder if you want to attract cardinals (like the one that sings twice a day at nine o' clock from my singing bird clock) or millet, if you prefer sparrows, type of thing.

I looked at all the tequilas, and wound up grabbing a bottle of limeade and then spiking it with Jose Cuervo gold, which put the song "Hey Nineteen," by Steely Dan in my head for the rest of the night, and then made the mile ride to Rouses Market, or Reverse Racism Central, if you will.

I could go to the Winn Dixie across the street from there, where the white security guy works, having quit his job at Rouses Market and gotten himself hired there. But it is always a challenging experience going to Rouses, because the staff are openly hostile towards white people. I believe the 90% black staff there are trying to sabotage that white owned business from within.

Great Deals On Pork

Donny Rouse was at the capital building, peacefully protesting on January 6th, and someone from New Orleans who was also there had recognized him, photographed him, and then posted the picture to social media. 

Immediately, there began a push to boycott that store because of that. What the person who took the picture was doing there, never came to light.

Donny claimed, publicly, that he never went near the capital, but was only there to hear the president for another hour or so give his speech.

The boycott didn't seem to gain momentum, except for a few days after that shocking news was made public, when I noticed an almost empty parking lot, and had to check my phone, to make sure I hadn't lost track track of time, and they were closed.

The failed boycott notwithstanding, the Rouses were still saddled with the problem of having a 90% black staff, who would start to try to sabotage the business from within, becoming openly hostile towards white customers, so they wouldn't want to shop there, and I think, facilitating shoplifting, by their own race.

I was in there shortly after the "violent insurrection" and a black man in line behind me had placed what looked like a 10 pound pork tenderloin on the conveyor belt that had a price of something like $4.27 on it.

He caught me looking at the sticker, probably a little wide eyed with astonishment and gave me an icy look, as if it were none of my business what the price was that was on it.

"Good deals on pork this week, I guess."

That was about the time I started to have trouble with the black security guard with the "B.L.M." mask on his face, following me around, waiting for my improvised bandana mask to slip an inch off my nose, so he could threaten to kick me out, and with getting cash back at the register, with the cashiers more than once hitting some button on it to close out the sale before I could press the "cash" option on the card swiping machine, even after I had told them I was trying to get cash back. On one such occasion the same guard was right there in my face after I complained: "That's why I told you I was trying to get cash back, because I was..."

I See The Dark

I got back to Sacred Heart, where there were three or four other residents hanging around out front; one of them was Pops, in his electric wheelchair. They were waiting for a certain crack dealer to show up.

I decided to continue in my campaign of trying to befriend these other black residents, rather than just passing them by, while they stared at the bags on my handlebars, as if trying to see through them. I was still sipping on the bottle of limeade, spiked with tequila.

It wasn't long into our small talk, when Pops asked: "You got another cold drink? I know you got some more cold drinks in there..."

"No, I just bought this one so I could spike it with tequila. I didn't have the stomach for straight tequila (I had been on the ill fated juice fast all day)."

Well, this led to one guy mumbling something to Pops, to which that worthy answered: "Oh, he keeps him some tequila," implying that I had more somewhere in my bags.

No, I only bought a half pint and dumped it all in the 32 ounce bottle of limeade.

Pops wanted a sip off my home made margarita (what pandemic..?).

I passed the bottle to Pops, who took a sip.

"Oh, that's good. That's real good," said Pops, complementing my skill as a mixologist, and apparently signaling somehow to the next guy, a large, kind of effeminate other black guy whom I have seen around, and had a few encounters with. He had invited me to his apartment one time, which tripped my gay-o-meter, so I declined (this isn't my first rodeo, type of thing). I remember resenting him for even trying me that way.

And, another time, after Bobby had given me an Epiphone acoustic guitar, which was a cheap instrument and played like one, but was brand new, polished and shiny, so Bobby saw it as an upgrade over my Takamine that has a little bit of body damage, I stopped in a stairwell on the way back to my apartment with it, to play it a bit, to see how it sounded, with the benefit of the reverberation from the stair well.

This same guy came lumbering along and, giving me a little smile, had plopped himself down a few stairs below me. I could smell alcohol on him.

"Give me some smooth jazz," he said.

Still holding a bit of a grudge from the overture he had made in inviting me to his apartment, I had said something like: "Dude, I get 20 bucks a song on Bourbon Street taking requests, I'm just trying to see how this thing sounds, I just got it; I'm not up to playing songs on it yet..." I just hadn't appreciated how he'd insinuated himself.

But, there he was again, waiting for the dope man along with Pops. And, he wanted a sip of my margarita, of course he did, Pops had said "Oh, this is good!"

Big effeminate guy had given me a fist bump when I first rode up, but after I had said: "Sorry, man, this is all I have left," at first seemed to take that news OK, but then started to mumble, and then started to cuss a bit under his breath, and I just wished everyone a good night and pushed my bike up the ramp and into the building.

"He just thinks the whole world revolves around him; thinks everyone else is on earth to serve him," I thought. "Give me some smooth jazz, something soft; come on up to my apartment for some overt homosexual advances, hand me your bottle," type of thing. Then he gets mad when others don't comply...  

So, that was a tiny setback in my attempt to befriend the reverse racist blacks that I live with. Give me something soft; like some little white boy that I can take advantage of...