Leftover Life (1999)

Should I feel, should I let them drain me more

Do I want to be lost on this iceberg filled with useless souls?

I stroll down the straight and narrow in a dream state

Why should I care what happens to the world

Nobody else seem to care, unless the situation directly affects them

 We are like beings without a purpose

Mere decoration in Mother Nature’s print

If that’s why I am here then why am I still walking?

Why do I stride with the emotionless?

There is no heaven to go to, no hell to suffer in

I am already there, stuck in neutral

My life a mere image of the scene around me

Wake me up before this illusion destroys my reality

Make me human once more, let me feel

Someday, I will shut out the souls that linger in my dreams

Be gone you selfish egotistical spirits

From this day on I will not be drained

I have one life with many moments

Attempted Robbery From the novel I am a Dirty Immigrant

By the end of the summer she was so homesick she started singing country music and no she was not singing the song “Coal Miner’s Daughter” either. Keep in mind that this is that woman who hated country music. Ironic since I was the one who grew up listening to my mom sing country songs all the time. The one incident that pushed us out of The Melting Pot City was the day one of the stores was almost robbed. Both stores were on the same block, one an everyday retail store, and the other a Victoria’s Secret-like store: expensive as hell. Why they would put such a store in the ghetto baffled me. These people could not afford a bloody nightie for one hundred dollars. I was working in the retail store one day when the Colombian worker at the pantry store called me.

“The cat is having its kittens – come over here right away.”  I was confused. Hell, I had not seen one bloody cat in this city since I moved there; just rats as big as cats. She finally broke down and told me to get over there, so I hurried and went.

As soon as I got to the door I realized what was going on. I stuck my hand in my shirt like I was packing a pistol.  My heart was pounding hard, my head spinning. Hell, I thought I was going to faint for sure. I heard about the crime in The Melting Pot City, but damn, the thought of guns took me back to a place in my head that I thought I left on the island. There were three teenagers in the store. One stood at the cash register: bloody kid did not look more than seventeen. A girl was in the middle of the store, her handbag open and her hand in it. Another boy stood at the door to the storeroom, peeping in.

I walked behind the counter and stood there, my skin tingling with fear. I had no gun, no knife, nothing to defend myself.  That same helpless feeling as when the fighter jets were bombing the island engulfed me. After about ten minutes, they came up to the counter and bought some items. As they were leaving, the kid that stood at the door to the storeroom stopped and looked at me and opened a small sack revealing a pearl handled pistol. I looked at him; his eyes looked dead. “They lucky you came in bro or we would have jacked this bitch up.”

After they left I half expected a volley of gunfire to erupt around me. There was no marijuana to calm my fears here. I guess it was time for me to go back to good old Blue Grass city. Great; I can give the bible bangers another chance to convert me.

There was one statement that solidified my decision to leave The Melting Pot City. One of the ladies informed me that I should wait until the new semester for the high school started. She said the students had no regard for life. I thought, hell no. I did not survive all that I had just to end up dead in some rat infested store. Despite this, let me add this tidbit: some of the shoplifters did not steal from the store as they said they could not in good conscience rob from another brother. It seems they thought I owned the stores so they felt it was their civic duty not to rob from one of the only black-owned businesses on the block. Funny thing; I used to stand at the door and watch them steal from the stores owned by Koreans, Jews and other ethnicities.

Hell or Fast Food From the novel I am a Dirty Immigrant

I had picked up two jobs before he was born. Yes, my friends, I once was a victim of fast food employment. The day my ex-wife went into labor I did not call in to work. Hell, I was so bloody scared I did not know what to do with myself, much less remember to call in. When I did, the manager screamed at me, complaining that I did not call in two hours before not showing up. I told her the next time I felt that my wife was going into labor, she was the first one I would call. The day after my son was born, I walked into the restaurant when it was the busiest and threw my uniform at them.

Blured

Ahhhh, I close my eyes and savour the moments 
Your voice echoes in my mind like steel drums on a quiet Sunday 
afternoon 
It is the words that keeps my soul locked between heaven and hell 
It is the early morning sun over powering the night sky 
And here I sit, my body numb, my soul alert 
I take in every moment like its my last 
Today is forgotten, tomorrow is already my past 

Where the Heart come to rest

Here I am again in my sleepless slumber

My conscious death inducing fantasies of you

As you sit among the living souls

And the souls that have passed on

You bring a feast of merriment

That all the souls wanted to possess

Not me, I look past your hazel eyes and into your spirit

And I ask myself, what can I give this innocent soul?

Then as if hit by the scolding dust from a passing meteoroid, I knew

And I reached out and touched you

My soul explodes in the air around me

Reassembles on my shoulder and sits there

You reach out and took it close to you

And you are drenched with the light from within it

And I stir in my conscious death

Laying in a place where heaven and hell were the same

And God and the Devil smiles at each other

It was then I knew that my soul was my gift to you

The attack (From the novel Obeah)

Henry was still asleep under the mango tree when suddenly his body became hot, like he was floating above the pits of hell. Out of the darkness he saw someone standing in front of him.  Henry blinked and rubbed his eyes. The man’s face looked like it was made of iron; his green jacket had black stripes on it that made him look tall. He leaned down towards Henry, his hand hidden behind his back. Henry squinted to see if he recognized the man, but his dark face blended with the starless sky behind him. Lightening blasted, turning the night into a sheet of white. Thunder exploded and the ground shook like a violent earthquake rumbled across the island. Henry’s heart raced up as the blinding lightening flash again, followed by the ground shaking thunder. Henry tried to stand up, but he stumbled and fell hitting his back against the trunk of the mango tree. The man turned to Henry, his iron face blended in with the dark sky. He took another step towards Henry his right hand still hidden behind him. Henry cowered away, his vision blurred from the moving earth. Suddenly the man lifted his arm above his head; he was holding a machete,

“Gren mwe fret” he screamed in a nasal voice. The machete’s sharp edge glittered in the lightening flash. Henry screamed, as the man brought the machete down. Henry grabbed his arm, his skin felt like iron and he heard the pops and cracks as his fingers began to give out under the weight of the man. Suddenly he was sitting up looking up at the star filled sky.

Mama Melody

Sometimes at night we could hear she, crying, crying crying. At times others would join she, and man, they could make some real noise, wailing like de wind through de Bambo on de hill behind de prison. She walk by me window, I could hear she deep angry breaths, de ‘oman was real sad,. Me granny came into de room with that mischevious smile on she face. “You hear dat,” she said, That is de Mama Melody, she did dead while she still pregnant, dats why she out dey crying all de damn time,” The old ‘oman din say nutton else, she just got up and left de room. I laid there listening to the crying. When I was older and breave enouff to go outside when I heard the Mama Melody crying. I snuck round de house, me heart beating for so. The some animal ran cross me foot, I almost jump out me skin. I heard de crying in the bushes ahead of me. I crept up to the bushes and shook it, five cats jumped out at me. Damn ole ‘oman, she had me fraid all dem years.

Wash the Black Off

Now something that seems to rear its ugly head in dating around here is racism. I have heard some of the most asinine statements ever. I was talking to a friend of mine. She was white, of course. I was not interested in her although she was pretty. Well, who am I fooling? She was stunning. I was having a conversation with her when she stated that she would never date a black man. I asked her why. She stated that she was raised to believe that interracial dating was wrong.  I told her that was not a good enough response. Hell, she was not making any sense. She then told me that her parents would not approve of it. She further said that she would never disgrace her family by dating a black man. Now here is a woman who was married three times, each to white men. All three treated her less than human and here she was telling me that even if a black man treated her with respect, she still would not date him. One day this same woman confessed to me that she’d had an intimate relationship with a black man a couple of months earlier. She said that after she was done, she went home, ran a really hot bath and stayed in there for five hours. Just to point out, she was not from the Wild and Wonderful City. No, this was someone from the City of The Useless Nut. Whatever that brother did must have had a profound effect on her, because she seemed to get overly excited when a brother walked by. She even tried to seduce me by taking a picture of herself and showing me. She was surprised I had no reaction at all.