Tired Of Talent

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Latinos, I know a lot of you might feel that you are kind of on the fence...en la cerca... but, come on board.

I have always like Latina Senoritas. One of the first girls I ever had a crush on was in 4th grade, and I wouldn't learn until later that the reason she looked so appealing in her tawny brown skin was that she was Puerto Rican.

My hometown was, in retrospect a pretty segregated one.

There were parts of the city with nicknames like "Greek Town," "French Hill," etc. And so, the first girl I encountered at the elementary school which, now that I think of it, only had a handful of kids darker than the CGS.

Billy Brown was one of them. Talk about an allegorical name. Billy was the most brown kid in our class. And, he was about the worst student, getting marks just above the single digits on tests, I recall.

I somehow assumed that it was because he was poor, showing up for school in a very limited wardrobe. We all knew all 5 of Billy Brown's shirts by the end of that year.

I pictured him having a brown-ish father, who had been marginalized and relegated to "the lowest paying jobs" because, even at the age of 10, I was noticing that a lot of brown skinned people had the most menial jobs. At that age, I would have posited that they must like those kind of jobs. I just figured that people picked the jobs that they wanted to do. That must have been instilled in me at home, because there and school and church encompassed about 93 percent of my whereabouts, with 2 weeks spent on Cape Cod each summer, and riding my bike around the neighborhood filling in the gaps. I would say it was an insulated existence.

So much so that, after I found myself attracted to the first Puerto Rican girl to penetrate that insulation and come into my life, I was horrified over the fact that the girl was near the bottom of every other boy's "the nicest girls" lists. She was rated as "a dog" by the other boys and I would have exposed myself to ridicule and maybe become diminished in the eyes of my classmates, to confess that I liked the Puerto Rican girl. 

I was afraid that my true feelings would give me away and they would figure out that I liked her, anyways. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from looking over at her a lot during class, and making a beeline for her, trying to talk to her, as soon as we took a break for anything. And, spending entire recess periods around her, trying to make her laugh (so I could see her smile) would have been a giveaway.

I really vexed over that. I didn't want to find out what kind of treatment a kid might receive from his mob of classmates, if that kid were going out with a dog, walking that dog home after school to her doghouse,

This reminds me once again to dig that story about Angela, a black girl whom I lived with for probably close to a year, off and on, off that hard drive that it's on.

The tie-in would be that, 30 years later, I would have a black girlfriend who would demand that I stand up to my redneck boss in defense of. To look him proudly in the eye and declare my love for Angela, come what may.

Spoiler: Clawsen, as that was his name, fired me, that time. He said he couldn't "use me" on any jobs anymore because his good friend and state trooper had told him that Angela's apartment was under investigation; and that there was soon to be a raid, and subsequent busts, and that I was going to get caught up in it; and that would drag the name of C&L Landscaping through the dirt (excuse the pun) in a way that would be unacceptable.

Not so much for the Droouugs, as Clawsen had drawled it to me when giving me the ultimatum, but because it might come out that one of Clawsen's guy's was shacking up with a n***!

The sad thing was that after I had chosen love over a job that I liked, our relationship deteriorated. Going from almost 400 a week in cash, to the paltry checks I began cashing from the "it's a little slow today, we're going to send you home to your bitching about money girlfriend" Jiffy Lube.

And, I had a perfectly good Russian wife in the very next apartment complex over, whose open door I could sit at, at 5 a.m.. when Clawsen's truck could pull up.

Nina would have happily sent me off with an overt kiss, to help the ruse. One of the traits of my Russian friends that I became aware of, over the one year approximately that I lived with my wife at the time, Nina, is their apparent relish of being active in some kind of subterfuge involving the authorities, usually.

I always use the example of the time I was in jail in downtown Jacksonville, after not having been in town for a while and having lost track of most friends, along with their numbers. I could get out of jail on bond only if I had a place lined up, where I could be found.

One of the only phone numbers I could remember was that of my Russian friend, Alex. I had delivered pizza alongside him at Dominos. We had hung out at his place a few times, smoked a "kazbek" in the garage, then shot some darts there, watched Monday Night Football, and the movie "The Game" (Michael Douglass) and he was the closest thing I had to a friend that I could think of, under the circumstances.

My only hope was to list him on the paperwork and then hope they wouldn't call the party listed. 

But, of course they called. Right in front of me, as I squirmed in a chair, ready to be exposed as someone who had lied about having made arrangements to stay with a host who resides in the county. Falsifying jail documents.

It was Lillian who answered.

The bond lady, or whatever her title was, gave whatever that title was to Lillian and then basically said something like: "And, so it is our understanding that you have made arrangements with Daniel to have him stay with you for the next few months...etc." 

I thought the best I could hope for was maybe a down to earth "Well, we haven't really discussed it," but he can stay here, type of thing.

Without missing a beat, and in a convincing tone of voice, Lillian chimed "Yes, ma'am, of course; all the arrangements have been made" Her tone of voice didn't betray any sentiments of "Why is the Sheriff's Office calling me out of the blue about a guy that's been over maybe 4 times, and talking about him staying with us (and our two adult kids) for a few months?" if she even was having them.

She got me out of jail, in impressive fashion.

I, of course, went to the Karakov house, to thank Lillian personally and to assure them that, no, I didn't really need to stay there for the next few months, I had just needed to say that to the bond people.

So, all the above is to make the point that Nina would have enthusiastically participated in such a thing as pulling the wool over the eyes of one Clawsen Smith. 

She would chuckle over the tie-in to it being a way for me to live with a black lady,

Nina would have been my "actual" girlfriend, had love blossomed between us, over the year that I lived with her, and my new 23 year old stepson, Michael.

It was not to be. I had left for a few months and then come back.

Nina was happy that I was happy living with Angela and knew where to find me in the event of needing me for any immigration type proceedings pursuant to her getting her green card, or something. 

But, we really could have gotten away with deceiving Clawson, having the pieces already in place, and all. But Angela had insisted that it would be a sign that I was ashamed of her; and that's why I was hiding her from Clawsen. 

But, Clawsen, who had been promoting me right along up the ladder in his landscaping and irrigation business, which he ran according to some code that might go back to the plantation days, whereby the blacks had to ride in the bed of the pickup while Clawsen's white partner (me, before I defended my love for Angela) rode in the air-conditioned front.

There would be a cooler with iced down Budweiser, and it would be my job to stick my hand into the frigid water to retrieve one, every so often, and then to crack it open; and hand it to Clawsen. And for this job I got paid more than the colored help in the bed of the truck.

It was just one of those deep south codes that groups live by. Clawsen would often invite some of those lesser paid laborers to his house for maybe grilled sausages and beer. But it would seem to me to be ceremonially a way to have Clausen and his wife seated at the kitchen table, and then myself and maybe a couple other of the white guys in the company, many of whom were related to Clausen, seated right outside the kitchen just a step down, and then the black guys would be served their sausages and beer at a more flimsy table which was in a screened porch area which was physically set about 4 feet lower in elevation than the room where, say, myself and Mark (one of his sons in law) would be munching down.

So, the point is, there were other reasons, besides being ashamed of Angela to want to hide her from Clawsen. He wasn't likely to stop believing that I might be bringing African germs into his truck each morning, from that apartment, nor ready to give up stored volumes of lecturing material on the subject of The Negro.

Heck of a lot easier to just change the spot where I wait for him every morning, that way I can keep the almost $400 (tax free) flowing from a job riding shotgun in a truck, looking over the "jobs" and occasionally grabbing a shovel or pick ax and working vigorously, alongside the crew, most of whom had been sitting down before Clawsen't truck was spotted, approaching. 

"I wanted to show them that you ain't afraid of hard work, and that you can work just has hard as them. You done good, buddy..." Clawsen said after one such forray. 

I even tried to sell Angela on the hilarity of us carrying on right behind the guy's back; with the ol' redneck sausage eating plantation master none the wiser. I wasn't ashamed of Angela and I was no longer employed by C&L

Today, I can't help but wonder if it isn't like some artifact from the time in fourth grade I was ashamed to admit that I liked the Puerto Rican girl; something that has followed me my whole life, like some great unresolved chord, in a crescendo that I had to balance the karma off for by not being ashamed, but having that backfire..

If I had admitted my love of the Puerto Rican girl, whom others considered a dog, would I have slain the dragon and been spared having to live with Angela Washington for a year?

I think it would have made me an instant hero at C&L Landscape L.L.C. had Nina played the part of my girlfriend.

Clawsen would have promoted me. This would be because he would derive more satisfaction out of screwing a manager's girlfriend than just a loborer's. That's just me playing shrink on the guy, based upon the time I knew the guy...

The Point

I guess the point is that    

I Crawl Into The Shell
 When I was in the Shell getting a couple Red Stripe beers, hoping to get back home with them before Jeopardy started, the guy in front of me, a medium sized black man in his forties who was wearing sunglasses and had his mask pulled down under his chin, was telling the cashier how he himself just wanted to get home with the liquor he was buying and watch "America's Got Talent."

"I just love 'America's Got Talent," he said.

So, when it was my turn, I reported to the cashier that I, in turn, just wanted to get back home in time to watch Jeopardy.

That cashier is a Latina girl of probably about 22 years old, petite, and with the kind of exaggerated features that some might pronounce ugly, but which only makes her look interesting to me. Her mouth isn't any less attractive for being kind of too big for her nose; to me, type of thing.

The Detached Stare; an "in the moment" attitude

The detached stare, showing eyeballs not synchronized, as she is not paying attention to what she is seeing but is using the "third eye" to glimpse into a timeless void; it could seem like any length of time to her, what one would tally as "one second" of observing the girl thus inclined...

As I entered the store, I noticed her in the attitude of the detached stare, having a dissociative fugue, as it were. She had just expelled a large breath, out of her ample mouth. 

To me, this is an indication that this particular Latina, is privy to the art of present moment living; for The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (I wonder what being hit by lightning in that frame of mind would be like, but I digress).

She was probably taught by a sufficiently spiritual, probably Catholic mother, in a loving home with a father and mother and 3.1 siblings; to tap into that particular reservoir of being in the present. And she was probably given the freedom to dwell in that particular bliss through being in a safe environment, in a neat and clean house redolent of Spanish rice, and resounding with the laughter of a family that has a father, who goes out and makes an honest living, type of thing.

Since this is typically my own mindset, I was hoping that it was the sight of me that triggered her detached stare. Perhaps she picked up on my vibrations and they brought her back to the here and now.

Or she could have been taking a deep breath to steel herself against her impending encounter with one of the more spaced out customers that go in there...

I was feeling better about myself than the last time I had been in there, on a lot less sleep and to get beer that was going to stop another 24 hour streak of sobriety. It's been a bit challenging; getting over that "24 hours sober" hump, lately. It seems more like a brick wall.

But, I am trying to just let it pass; to plant the seeds of progress in my subconscious and then, perhaps be more like I was today, when I opted to hit GNC for energy type stuff and then come back and do this post, rather than to return to the Latina cashier for more beer. 

My bike finally has air in its tires, after having sat through about 88 days of me procrastinating on fixing it. That sounds like a really debilitating thing, to me, and a matter that Bobby has recommended that I take to a psychiatrist of the ilk that are available to me through whatever the "medicaide" is that I received in my mailbox. Bobby argues that this type of procrastination is not normal and that I could either get professional help in dealing with it; or could ultimately hit the psychiatrist up for some kind of note to pass to the Social Security "disability" lawyer that Bobby also recommends that I consult with.

Not lost on me is the fact that Bobby looks at me in astonishment, not understanding at all why I don't just take the tried and true steps along the path to getting a "crazy check" every month. He thinks that that proves that I'm crazy...

It's almost as if, by having been vetted for residency at Sacred Heart, there should be an association with: if he's messed up enough to have gotten into Sacred Heart, then he's messed up enough to get a crazy check. If A=B and B=C, type of thing...

But, to me, that is just a move in the direction of atrophy. Getting a battery powered amp to plug into at the Lilly Pad, and magically adding about the same amount as a crazy check each month to my income; that is a move towards (entropy?) whatever the opposite of atrophy is, anyways...

And, Bobby the magician, sees a way that I could balance the two; to get an extra $505 a month in a crazy check and then to not let that stop me from going out and playing 3 hours on Bourbon.

I just don't know, and so I procrastinate.  

Before leaving the Shell, I added the unsolicited information that I didn't really like America's Got Talent.

"I believe I have gotten sick of talent, from watching it too much," I told the girl.