Smooth Narrow Paths

I know my father best as a figure shrouded in mystery. His image is a man retained in my memory as tall, and strong, with arched eyebrows and piercing eyes. He speaks in a heavy, and sincere tone. With well pronounced words that shoot like arrows. He is a cowboy. I remember him sitting in his chair staring at the TV. as if there was something to be angry about. But this is how he always looked. His face was hard and dark and his brow always seemed to be arched in warning. His jaw was strapped by a thick, graying beard. He’s watching Bonanza or some other cowboy show with a sweaty Heineken between his fingers. He gave me a sip and laughed that I cringed my face. When I wanted to play, I climbed him like a tree and he let me down hanging from his arm. I remember from upstate New York, we often drove the countryside up north to Canada to see his brothers and sisters. My father, mother, sister, brother, and I. My dad greeted every toll patron with, “Howdy ma’am”. When we arrived, we would stay for less time than it took for us to get there. The smell of cow-pies in the countryside is nostalgic for my brother and I. In those days everything was alright.

I cannot know what I felt after my sister, brother and I left with my mother. I was too young to understand what it meant and why I was afraid to ask questions. I asked my mother only once, sensing and fearing the oddness of a situation I could not understand. And she answered me, saying there was something Daddy had to do. I assumed that he had some duty to attend to. Like John Wayne, tipping his ten-gallon hat to his lady before riding off into the sunset. I left it at that and never asked again.

I didn’t think a lot about him as I grew up. There was no resentment, I was simply too involved in my own middle school and high school society to think about what was not in front of my eyes. He visited a couple times, not for very long just a couple hours. Probably shorter than it took for him to get here. When the news reached my siblings and I of his visit, there was a certain numbness or absence that seemed to drain the news of its presumed spectacle. Cetainly there was no animosity within the anouncement, but niether was there excitement or anticipation. If anything, I just wanted to avoid the awkward scramble for dialogue. I was 15 and still at the age when I lacked any capacity to hold a conversation about anything. I noticed he was slim, with a shaved face. My sister asked how everything is, how everyone is. I sat searching for that old feeling of security. Like blowing at cold embers and agitating them to burn but I was too detached to allow it for myself. He asked me to walk him to the train station. It was a good walk on a beautiful summer day. The sun peeked through shaking leaves and shaded the sidewalk. I discovered a caterpillar pulling itself up by its thread as we walked pass and I noticed him smile at my curiosity. I told him I wanted to get a job so I can save up to buy a car but he told me I shouldn’t worry about that.

As an adult I think it is important to analyze relationships important in your life. To analyze what you owe to these relationships and how they affect you. In my ever travelling, river of thought, A great boulder was snagged in the current. It is my father. I understand him through the conviction of my personality and the tenderness of my memories. The most important of all, beyond the affection he displayed for my mother, and the charming smile that escaped him, I remember his devotion to god and the powerful will to do good that I recognize in myself. This will is overwhelming at times but I am reminded of its grace through my father. My earliest memory of him comes from Jamaica. He was a successful architect with many employees. He built houses, churches and schools. Sometimes at night, we drove around the orange lit streets of the city. He handed out containers of full dinners and mints from the back of the van to homeless people stop by stop. Some came to know him well and blessed him for his kindness. My brother and I laughed and chewed mints in the backseat, looking up through the back window at the night sky as a great canvas, while amber glowing lamps trailed ribbons of light as we pass them. This memory gives me strength to pursue a greater purpose than myself. I had a dream just recently that reminded me of that moment. I was a child walking barefoot on a smooth and narrow path. The path was hard and light like marble. There was no daylight, or night sky, simply darkness as if there was nothing else. On either sides there was a black swamp that stretched til forever. It was still and mysterious, silently threatening. It was topped with floating lily pads and tangled seaweed. Yellow pollen and algae frothed at its edges hiding whatever lay beneath. But still I continued forward on this narrow path with my father many steps ahead of me and not looking back. I followed it aimlessly until the path arched up like a hill. I used my hands to climb up and grip on the path but I slipped and slid off the side, splashing into the blackness. I could feel the panic in my heart as I sank helplessly. The weeds that anchored from the pits of this swamp turned black and made the shape of arms reaching out for me begging for me to fall into their grasp. I was outside of myself and saw that I was sinking closer to their reach. Inside my adult dream, I was scared like a child. I felt a strong grip clasp my wrist and with one swift pull I was yanked out of the water dripping, hanging like a prize fish. He let me down on the path and continued walking. In this dream I felt what I haven’t felt since I was a child. It was the warm sense of security I once enjoyed being my fathers son.

'NYC' -STILL Not Done-

November 4^th, 2008 and I’m somewhere in New York City looking for East Houston street. New York isn’t New York unless you get lost. My roommate invited me to an election party. I originally planned to hang out at a bar near home in Jersey but a trip to the city seemed more deserving of the occasion. When I left my house, CNN was projecting 1% of Indiana with McCain leading Obama 56% to 44%. The previous week, news stations were careful not to declare Obama the winner though all the polls were in his favor. I didn’t trust polls, I didn’t even trust the system. Al Gore losing in 2000 gave me enough reason to believe Democracy is not perfect. I’d usually be glued to CNN, flipping to MSNBC and Fox News like a junkie for information. I was waiting for the results of Indiana, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. These were the paths that the Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain would have to take if he wanted to win the election. I was quiet and thinking about these states on the train ride to the city. My roommate wouldn’t stop talking about the party, his girlfriend, and his clothes.

I had started following this election fall of 2007. That summer, I stayed with a friend of mine in his basement. His mother was a judge and she had interesting books; The Future of Africa, Edgar Allan Poe, The Audacity of Hope. The Audacity of Hope, I recognize that guys face, I think in a magazine or something. He had a confident grin as if to show that he’s got something important to say. It lay face up on the lower level of an oak coffee table looking up through glass. His name was Barack Obama, I thought he was Muslim. The title seemed interesting so I read a couple pages but there was too much talk of politics. I didn’t understand it at the time. During the Democratic primaries in the fall, an historic election quickly surfaced when the last white male candidate John Edwards dropped off leaving Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. So I researched, and paid attention to Obama. I’ve heard speeches, but none were like his. His message of Hope and change as well as his charisma and eloquence woke something inside me and the rest of my generation. He put into words the same fundamental beliefs and common judgments that I share. I recall most vividly his speech on March 18^th, 2008. We each as Americans in our distinctive communities, race, religion, sexuality, or gender, have experienced different lives as Americans. Some American experiences were never properly mended and are poorer than others and are inherited from our fathers and from a Nation that was and is less perfect than it should be. Despite our union as a nation we tend not to blend, embrace, or even acknowledge those who are different from us. This allows separation and a lack of understand that feeds frustration and animosity toward cultures. Obama addressed this in his speech on March 18^th, delicate, and articulate enough that he challenges us to develop a better understanding from both ends. He is a leader that asks us to transcend these lines so deeply drawn into sand.

We kept wandering around Al’s choppy directions hoping to run into E. Houston. I flagged down a cab and asked him for directions. I would have hopped in the back except I didn’t have a dime other than for the train. We past West Houston by 5 blocks which is the beginning of East so we started down West Houston in the cold and against the wind, block by block hoping it would turn into East. The streets were empty, rare for a New York night. This wasn’t a good sign. It meant that people are where they will be when America’s 44^th President is announced. We passed two women going the opposite direction and we asked them where E. Houston starts. They told us to continue forward and we’ll run into it eventually. They were going to Times Square and invited us to follow them. I thought it was interesting that these two older white women welcomed us young black guys to travel with them and maybe even wanted us with them. I actually wanted to go with them to Times Square but we had to find this party to meet up with a friend. The streets were quiet and reflected the lamp’s orange glow. I felt like everything was set and in place. History was happening without me. I’ve been away from a TV for a couple hours and any minute now the streets would erupt. We reached East Houston and just like that traffic started again. Taxis sped through green lights, honking their horns incessantly. But there was no backed up traffic. People pumped fists out cabs, poked their heads out of moving cars yelling with excitement. We walked fast and past a string of lively Bars, tight with seated stools and standing patrons staring up at a TV screen. I stopped at the last one gawking inside. I debated whether or not to go in or continue moving on. A man inside the bar, closest to the door made room for me and told me to come on in. In the few seconds before I stepped in, I thought, this is it.

10 months prior to this day, I walked into a Borders bookstore. I usually found some interesting book and find some quiet wall and read until they close but one day, I came across Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. Impulsively, I picked it up in paperback and bought it at the front desk. I reading through, and it surprised me how similar I felt to the author. In terms of family, friends, and phases, I could undoubtedly relate with him. I imagined his story is similar to a lot of people of my generation. But even more notable than events is the search that we share. It’s a search for personal identity despite what society or even what friends might label me. The search is to find truly who we are and what we will choose to represent. There is a steel force behind my wills and ambition that weighs heavily on my back ever since I could remember. It is the greatest burden I’ve known and an endless source with which I don’t know what to do with. It is the understanding that my passion and ambition circles my limitations endlessly. I connect with Obama for many reasons, but more than anything, I know that his success is my own.

When Obama won the Democratic Nomination it felt like history had already written this story and we were in it, watching it play out day by day. I watched on a small TV, in a tight bar with countertops dripping spilled beer, CNN project that Barack Obama will be the 44^th President of the United States. “Obamaaa!” some white guy yelled out behind me. “Obamaaa!” I replied. We weren’t far from the party so we stepped outside and continued down the street. The streets were no longer quiet at all but now screaming with energy. Hope and anticipation pent up for months and months. And even some pent up for centuries. We strained our voices replying to any cry of, “Woooh! Obama! Yeah” alternating responses. Reaching and replying to passing cars honking as the cars themselves were celebrating. We reached the club in time to hear McCain’s concession speech. I respected McCain as well but desperation and dirty politics wouldn’t show us truly what a Maverick he is. There is a certain point in his speech that reached me better than any moment of that day. It was a short line that vindicated the success of African Americans in this country and the obstacles we’ve overcome. McCain agreed that we as African-Americans are denied the full blessings the American experience. This was the first time that I’ve heard a white man of power especially in the Republican party acknowledge the struggles of black Americans.

The 26

The 26



I could not help but feel tangled in my thoughts. Unlike other days there was some peculiar awareness that altered my common routine. On that day there was poetry wandering, which could not avoid me.
I ran in long strides with a heavy bounce on my shoulders. I hurried pass pedestrians, leaped broken sidewalks, and dodged fresh links of dog poo. I wore a heavy bag of books strapped to my back, that pulled on my shoulders and strained my neck. I was ambitious enough to have hoped to finish my homework on the bus ride to school. I took the number 26 bus which arrived every fifty minutes at the Irvington Terminal Station and took thirty minutes to reach Kean University where I attend class. That morning like many others was a panicked rush to complete tasks that should’ve already been done and to arrive to class on time. Unfortunately, it is a challenge that I am too familiar with. I always passed an old man on my way, who on most mornings sits on his steps ripping wedges from a peeled orange and chews on them, seed and all. And he watched me on most mornings sprinting passed in a hurry. I ran until the 26 was in sight but it was still too far for anyone to hold. I ran across the busy street while cars passed. The bus slowly pulled off and took its time around the corner, taunting me. I kept pace hoping I would catch it at that immediate red light. I darted pass the bus stop and cut the corner. The light was green and it cruised right through the intersection till I couldn't see it anymore. I was breathing heavy and cursed loud enough so that people would hear me. It's embarrassing missing your bus. The failure is what hurts most and even worse is failing publicly. If you walk casually and then realize that your bus has already left, well that’s unfortunate enough. But to chase it desperately with 40 pounds bouncing on your shoulders and failing despite the best of your efforts, that is more than unfortunate. Cynics would enjoy the humor.

Okay, so I'll be a little late for class. At least I can finish my assignment at the terminal. Even a minor defeat as this is discouraging and evokes a frustrating cycle of perpetual failure. It feels like I often arrive just a little too late to things that I should be on time for, but well early enough for me to catch the next one. I conditioned myself to block out memories of times when there was no next one, when I am left pondering alone with the heavy gravity of pitiful regret. True regret never blunts over time. It cuts sharp and vivid then lingers just out of sight. Even disguised as opportunity, its true face remains.

I walked slowly and thoughtfully back to the Terminal. Pass that old homeless man covered in his torn blanket, sleeping huddled over on a bench. Pass the concrete colored pigeons with red eyes that are unafraid and strut lamely on a stub for a foot. I opened the heavy glass doors to the Terminal and dropped my bag on the round metal bench that centered the room. I sat and rested trying not to look too much at the handful of people that would be waiting with me for their own buses. It was quiet and uncomfortable and filled with the awkward collective tension of simply waiting. Everything in the room felt cold and silver. The circled bench, the counter walls, even the toilet in the bathroom was silver. I can't imagine who could or would ever sit on that. But, I still had to finish my assignment. I pulled out my papers, scattered them on the seat and flipped to Emerson’s, “The American Scholar”. I eased into the essay and a couple paragraphs through, I blocked out everything around me. It takes full focus to think critically on an Emerson address. But as I read I felt something happening. There is poetry here, happening now, that could not avoid me. I felt stretched between two opposing sides. Reading further, I quickly glanced at the room and noticed worn and weary faces, made hard by the weight of their worries. I allowed myself to assume this, wondering truly what they were thinking, where they were going, what they thought of me and my running. There were no smiles, just patience or impatience. During the late morning hours of a weekday which are usually devoted to stability or its pursuit, there is always a single group of people stored in this terminal of middle aged and older, men and women waiting for their bus to arrive, that around the schedule of our transit system is replaced and rotated with new members and a new group as diverse as their destinations. And me, with my papers scattered around me, nudging my glasses from the tip of my nose and hastily scribbling notes every minute. Who was I in comparison to them? It felt safe to assume that they weren’t waiting for the same bus that I was. Thiers arrived at a different location than mine. Despite the brilliant contrast I felt between them and myself, I plunged deeper into Emerson’s Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge in 1837. Emerson one-hundred and seventy-one years ago, made this address to me, the student and the American Scholar. The average working class who make up the majority of our American population might not fully understand the practicality of being a scholar. But the scholar however, does also distinguishes himself in his trade like many others. Like the carpenter who delegates himself to tools, the Mechanic who delegates himself to machines, the Attorney who delegates himself to the statute books of law. The scholar delegates himself to intellect and provides with it his most basic interest to share and explore it with others. This, added to a far reaching measure that dedicates itself to helping people in need, flows particularly from myself naturally and finds a port for every person who has no choice, little hope, and even more despair. But even then I am still here waiting, as patiently as virtue requires for that 26. I looked at the clock and realized that my class will start soon while I was waiting. Buses had come and gone and so were the people who waited for them They were replaced with a new room of people that seem to rotate shifts. A rambling vagrant limped on through in old tattered clothes stepping on the heel of his shoe. A younger man with thick, messy dreadlocks blasted the music on his earphone so that everyone could hear it, and a woman complained about the price of a bag of potato chips to the ticket master who sold snacks and drinks from behind a glass. I was almost through with my paper when the bus that I had waited for came. I gathered my stuff and found a good seat in the back. I took a short time wondering what it was I had felt that scented the Terminal such a curious mood. Maybe it is what I shared with everyone that waited in that room. That there is something about riding the bus out of all modes of public transportation that evokes despair. It’s dirty, it smells, it’s crowded and you don’t get to choose where you go. It just stops and you had better get off when it stops for you. There is no sense of security, not like a car that goes wherever you tell it, stops when you’re ready and waits patiently for you until you decide to leave. We wait for the bus. It is unforgiving and constantly reminds you that you should get a car. No one chooses to ride the bus, they just have to. For me, it doesn’t matter which vehicle takes me to school, because I am always there. Whether I am at the stop or at home I am still there. Or maybe sitting in that Terminal it is that naive ambition of hope that burns hot inside of me, against the glowing embers of fading fires started long ago. Whatever it was, we all waited together patiently or impatiently for our buses to arrive. That takes us to our own selective destinations.

From Jersey to Atlanta. Then back again.

It took a couple weeks for the glamour of living in Atlanta to dissolve into an unguided groove of monotony and bad habits. I was a twenty year-old Liberal Arts student who took a semester off from school and drove from Jersey to Atlanta to move in with two roommates. Bud went to school in Atlanta and he went back for classes every fall. Ace wasn’t the school kind of person but he was street smart. He always had some scheme to make money quick and wanted to exploit the opportunities he saw in Atlanta for young business men. I envied Bud's stability and sense of a direct path. and I envied Ace's motivation and relentless pursuit of opportunities. I’m not sure what my plan was. I guess I just hoped it would present itself as I went along. I didn’t have an exact reason and even now I’m not sure what made me leave. I told people that I wanted a change in scenery; there were new opportunities, a chance for a new experience. I wonder now if that break-up had any influence. My mom had moved to Douglasville, Georgia a few months earlier. That was the anchor which allowed my options. Whatever reason I gave, I didn’t look back. It was enough for me to put school on hold, leave everyone I had known, drive 16 hours through 7 states, and rent a $1300 Budget truck that would later ruin my credit.

I maxed out my credit card on the Van that my friends and I named Betty. I had less than a hundred bucks in my account and a wad of cash in my pocket. That wad deteriorated through the weeks but before I left Jersey, I was able to get a job working at a restaurant in Atlantic Station (This is where all the rich people and celebrities went to be rich). We moved into this cheap three-room townhouse. Our fridge was old and often empty. It was stained yellow in the back and no matter how much we cleaned it we always found a dead roach hidden in some corner. Poor things must’ve starved to death. We only kept sodas, juice, and small meals in the fridge, never any groceries. My roommate stole cups and silverware from his school and to save money we snuck in and ate in his school’s cafeteria, even though none of us had a meal card. We would take food home from like cakes, bags of breads, and jugs of juice. Conservation became important when my wad of cash dwindled down to a couple twenties. My bills and debts stayed the same. Month by month making the rent became more difficult, especially with the unnecessary spending that at the time seemed very much necessary. We couldn’t afford to pay late rent, so at the end of each month there was a chaotic scramble to assemble our cash to get it in on-time.

My roommates and I had one great thing in common, we smoked, a lot. Everyone that came into our house did. We smoked everyday, a couple times a day. A cigarette after work, a blunt already rolled when I got home, a wake and bake in the morning and a personal stash in my drawer. Every house I went to there were blunts in rotation. In our house it got so bad that we had to establish rules and sanctions to keep the house civilized. Everything was an ashtray. There were tobacco guts on the tables, burn marks on window sills, ash and cigarette butts in cups and plates, malt liquor cans and bottle under chairs. The rug was soft cream-colored rug was blackened in some areas, stained with red juice and shed itself in small hairy clots. It was messy and this is how it was every night. We often had guests over that only contributed to the mess. It was chaos, and I didn’t care. For me, there was a part of my soul clouded in smoke that felt comfortable in this mess, and I was proud of it. There was nothing expected or required of me where I was. I had time to live in my own consciousness and ignore whatever was going on around me. It was an emotional high of understanding and desire. It was the desire for life I inhaled that only gave me a greater hunger for fulfillment and cycled itself so much that there became a gap between my consciousness and its manifestation. I decided later to devote myself to closing that gap. My roommates saved the hard liquor bottles and displayed them at the top of our cupboards that rounded the kitchen. Smirnoff, Bacardi, Majorska, Grey Goose, Patron, V.S.O.P., there were so many that we ran out of space. At some point in time you stop being proud. Girls. I’m sure they all knew about each other but we had a house, alcohol, music and weed. As long as that was the case they would keep coming. But I was a little different from my roommates. My morals were still unflustered by the freedoms that our independence allowed. I smoked in my room and read books, wrote essays and bad poetry. I never slept before 3:00 am. One night, I sat in my bathroom room with the door closed. The entire wall above my sink was a mirror. I shredded a small bag of kush into a green leaf. I licked the ends of the blunt and rolled it tight. There were 6 clear glass bulbs above the mirror that burned bright like white hot magnesium. I was sleepy but couldn't sleep. At that time I never wanted to sleep. I let the blunt hang from my lips waiting for my all black cricket lighter that I had bought in North Carolina to spark. It was just about dead but it sparked one last time and the blunt burned. That first pull squeezed thick curvy strands of smoke that got caught at my nose and clinged to my hair. I pulled till my lungs were full. Then I breathed. The smoke circulated in the closed space and gathered a cloud above my head. I had nothing to do but stare into the large mirror at the cloudy room behind me. My lighter was dead and I had a Black n’ Mild ready after the blunt was done. I usurped the embers to the Black. I was dirty but had no intention of showering. It satisfied me enough to blow smoke at my reflection at a face I had recognized less. My hair grew thick and dry and my moustache curled over my lips. The hairs on my chin were knotted like mad and twisted in every direction. I wasn’t looking for any meaning in the moment, I just couldn’t look away. I woke up late every day but early enough to walk next door and get a five dollar bag of cheap mid, a fifty cent dutch to roll it up in and 2 fifty cent hostess cakes for the munchies. Candy lady next door had everything you needed.

I lived in the dirty part of Atlanta, Magnolia Park Apartments off of Martin Luther King Blvd. It’s a short walk from the Atlanta University Center where Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Spelman College meet and where I met a lot of cool people and great friends. Everywhere around these schools however, is littered with poverty. There is a lot of homeless people, prostitutes, con-artists, drug dealers, and young gangs. It’s just a good thing that I never had any money. But everyday some unrest stirred in me. There is imbalance here, and situations should be addressed. There is so much money invested into the wealthy areas of Atlanta and nothing into the poorer areas. Everyday something inside me grew. An existential frustration of the way things are and a logical understanding of how things should be. I studied Emerson and developed my own personal strength through a structure of morals and idealism while still keeping basic a realists perspective of life. I studied Barack Obama and for the first time like many others became excited in a leader that shares to the ‘tee’ the same ideals that I do. I built a strong relationship with myself, asking questions and probing people and factors in my life that made me who I am. I continuously questioned religion and my own religion for answers that I’ve been looking for before I even knew I was looking for them. This brought greater understanding and a strong sense of faith that secures me beyond worldly worries. These things never left me.

I visited my mom every other week for the weekend. Each time I felt like she could smell the guilt on me, or maybe it was just my clothes. She cooked for me and cut my hair and we played dominoes outside on the back porch. I mowed the lawn and raked leaves. This was a world away from where I was. So peaceful that we waved to our neighbors as they drove past and took long walks in the evening. The backyard was like a forest, lush with rustling trees that did not let light touch the floor. There was a large fish pond beyond the woods that ended the quiet stream of the forests sandy creek. Tiny toads hopped away clumsily in the sand and frogs stopped croaking when you walk pass. Once, I passed the trees and looked to the far end of the pond and saw a great white Herring fly from the edge of the pond bending its long legs as it flew. There was a young willow tree at the edge of the water on the east side. I thought, “How cliché, a writer under the willow, envying the lake.”

I would later decide to leave Magnolia and live with my mother for the spring and the summer. I paid her rent for a room upstairs and at night I laid on the roof watching the stars. I still never slept before 3:00 am. I caught a glimpse of a shooting star once. It cut through the night in a flash and fizzled away before I could take it all in. As amazed as I was, I later questioned how amazed I should be. Is it worth remembering? To anyone else would it just be another star? I’m stuck within my own universe of everything I know and everything I believe. I've always questioned my understanding. The things I think are different, therefore I am wrong. I've strenghtened my foundation to that the things that I believe are true as long as I believe them, but I still room for the flexibility of understanding.

At the end of the summer I decided to go back to school in N.J. I'm still in debt but everything that I experienced and learned in the past year applies to everything that I care about. I didn’t know what I had accomplished in Atlanta until my classes started again. And the hunger that sat in my consciousness finally found relief.