Mixed Nuts

As I lost my favorite winter hat about two weeks ago, I've been on the hunt for what's next. It was terrible loss, particularly following my leaving my favorite baseball cap in a cab in DC just a few months before. I guess the whole thing was to start over. But God to I miss my Kangol. So I went on the hunt for a replacement yesterday. But of course the men's hat store in the neighborhood that's always open happened to be closed for inventory. Then I went into the city to Paragon and they didn't have any colors that I'd be caught dead wearing. And the ones they did weren't in my size. Recently (Though I can't remember where. Maybe I was dreaming) I saw this charcoal gray one with a green Kangaroo on the back. It was in a store window somewhere in the hood but when I checked all the usual windows there was no sign of it. How frustrating.

But on my way back from my fruitless excursion I found myself heading West on 14th, taking in the microcosm of personalities and socioeconomic disparities along the way. On every block there was a different Black or Hispanic man talking to himself, yelling to the world about Madonna and Blondie, about how all how the American Dream is a fantasy, about high-pitched mumblings that I couldn't make out. I know that these brothers are all sick, or at least somewhat out of phase with this world. But I've never seen that many in a row.

Men such as these have always served as a reminder of both how fragile the human mind can be and how easily it can be broken. And so rarely is it White Boys. It always seems to be some guy who could have been the father one of my friends never knew, or some old homeboy of Slim or Ifaniyi. And it often makes me wonder about myself. With all that I've been through in the course of my life I have always managed to endure while so many others threw in towel so easily. I always wondered why it was that I weathered the many storms while others shattered into a million little pieces. Even when I wanted to break, even when I wanted the waters to rise and swallow me whole they did not. There were others, however, who did break when they tried to slam against me, those whom I thought were at least worthy opponents as they had managed to inflict more than enough injury upon me along the way. One of my greatest fear in the world is that I'll go crazy, that what I see and hear is not real and that all of this is some sick fantasy I'm having while strapped down in some padded room. It's a good thing that I'm sane enough to know that this is definitely not the case.

But on the same token I have these reminders every day that brothers are losing. Most of us in this city are at the public library in the middle of the day or peddling bootlegs and loosies while our women go to work, bearing the entire load for themselves. We're looking for needles in haystacks of record deals and sports contracts while sistas are getting doctorates and gaining footholds whereever they can. As this was once a tender subject on the board, I'll only say that I can't blame ya'll out there who have written us off, as our performance in the last 30 years has been less than exemplary. Sure, some of it isn't our fault but you can only point fingers for so long before it gets real tired real fast.

So I as a cleared "Crazy Row" and descended into the train I was thankful that for whatever reason I've gotten through all of these trials and tribulations, that unlike my homeboy who I ran into on the train yesterday, I'm not attached to a bag as part of a cancer treatment. It's many of us who can endure who wish the most that we couldn't. Out.