The Bad Poet

by Michael Paul Fuller

“Girl, they interrogated me for what seemed like days,” I huffed.

  Natalie’s eyes were glued to my every word, “What?” She picked up a handful of Jay’s Potato Chips, slid a few in the salsa, then into her mouth.

  “It was scary and embarrassing; strangers asking me questions about my family and friends, where I had traveled, my love life, what color panties I wore, my bra size and even my love life with Cutino.”

  “Stop it,” she said through a mouth of chips and salsa.

  “I had to include your name, too,” cringing after I said it.

  “Uh huh…no…what?” was Natalie’s quick response until she had a second to think about it. “No you didn’t.” The line of her mouth tightened.

  I shook my head in shame, “I had to, girl.”

  The pitch in Natalie’s voice changed from amusement to severe concern, “You had to? Why?”

  “They made me go through my history with Cutino, and I met Cutino through Walter, and you were dating him.”

  She hunched her shoulders. “So?” was Natalie’s perturbed response.

  “You and I were together at that club. Remember?” It was the beginning of this eventual turmoil.

  She flung her arms upward and repeated, “Where, where?

  What club? What club?”

  “You know, the one with all the blood red décor and big hat men laying against the bar.”

  Irritated, her memory kicked in. “You mean Fandango?”

  Snapping my fingers then pointed at her, “Right. That’s where Walter introduced Cutino to me.”

  She snapped her fingers and said, “Damn. Yeah, that’s right.”

  I reached over the kitchen table and touched her shoulder and met her eyes, “Don’t worry, they didn’t ask me much about you.”

  I heard Natalie’s voice tremble. “Oh no.” She stood up and circled the kitchen table, then stopped at the window positioned above the sink and stared east onto Lake Michigan. “Oh my Jesus, I’m under investigation?” She raised her hands in the air like she was giving God the glory. “You know they tryin’ to take my house and everything.”

  I walked over to her, “Natalie! Who’s your favorite poet?” “You,” she said with some hesitation.

  I massaged her shoulder for comfort and said, “No you’re not under any investigation.”

  She started to whimper, “I know, girl. It’s just my financial situation that’s got me all messed up. And now this.”

  I hugged her and said, “It’s gonna be alright.”

  She squeezed me tight. “Ain’t no jobs around. And you know I’m getting old.”

  “You are not old. So stop that.”

  “Damn bank ain’t working with me. You know them white folks be working against you. It seems like they want to take my home,” she said.

  “I know, President Obama will straighten this mess out.” I said.

  “But they tryin’ to take my house and I’ve been working way too hard at trying to keep it for them to just take it.” “Something will turn up, I know it will,” I protested. But deep inside of me, I had real doubts about her situation. Not because of Natalie’s personal dilemma, but because of the nation’s circumstances. The election of a new President, and if that new President happened to be the first Black man in that office at one of the worst economic times ever, times would be most difficult. With everything that comes with being the President, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with an economy that’s as bad as any, even during my mother’s lifetime, he would have his work cut out for him. What a mess.

  “Anyway, when I was waiting for my paperwork to be processed, Hicks broke down the history of the “Black Dragon”.

  “Who?”

  “The Black Dragon. He told me that when China was developing around 300 or 500 BC or something like that, there was this man named Black Dragon or Master Sun. He is known in Chinese history as the best military expert of his time. There’s a real popular book called Black Dragon: The Art of Warfare which came to be associated with his name and is still being studied today by military professionals all over the world.”

  Natalie continued to gaze out of the window. “Yeah. I’ve heard of that book.”

  “It describes things like the yin and yang, strategies of war, rise and fall of dynasties, honor and dishonor and stuff like that.”

  “And he explained all this to you?” Natalie said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Yes.”

  Natalie spun around from the window and said, “And this is Cutino, our Cutino? Cutino, who works for the City of Chicago in the Forestry Department?”

  I laughed, “Honey that man didn’t work at the Forestry Department. He sold guns.”

  “No he didn’t,” she insisted.

  “Natalie, yes he did.”

  Natalie folded her arms, leaned back and said, “So, where did he work?”

  “I guess…just like the FBI said, he made money selling guns and other things that hurt people.”

  Natalie cracked a smile, “Shit, he could’ve just got a job at Guns R Us here on 43rd Street or something and made plenty of money.”

  “Yeah, well the way they told me, Cutino sold serious guns to serious people.”

  “I knew he was up to something.” I gave her the low brow, “Oh yeah, right.”

  “I did,” she assuredly said.

  “How so? Hell, he conned all of us. Me, you, Walter, everybody.”

  Natalie rolled her neck. “I always wondered how y’all would travel to all those high class fancy places, staying at fivestar hotels, eatin’ lobster and filet, and you didn’t have to pay for nothing. Shoot, ain’t no city employee taking trips and buying jewelry and stereos then giving it to his part-time lady and not have a side hustle.”

  It appeared that Natalie had more than a little resentment in her heart. But she did have a point. “I guess that’s why the government looked at me crazy when they didn’t get the answers they were looking for,” I said.

  “Shoot, I’d be lookin’ at you with crazy eyes, too. Heck, I’m lookin’ slanty-eyed at you now,” she curled one eyebrow and peered at me with that silly scrunched up face, and then took another sip of her Folgers coffee.

  “Hey, I’m not sure about myself either,” I said.

  “He was a smooth brother, that’s fo’ sho’. He snookered all of us. Even Walter didn’t have a clue, and he claims to know everything,” Natalie said.

  “The cops alleged that Cutino or Archer or Charles or whatever he called himself, sold stolen rockets, automatic rifles, hand grenades, and explosives like he was an extension of the Army. He sold guns to everybody from Southside street gangs to Mexican and Colombian drug lords, Philippine Guerillas, Libyans, and even Palestinian freedom fighters and Muslim extremist groups. They had connected him to shootings in Turkey and Israel.”

  Natalie frowned, “Say what?”

  “Honey, the list continues. He messed around in Africa in places like Liberia, Somalia, Congo, Kenya, and South America as well as murders in America.”

  “No shit,” Natalie folded her face in a twisted mash that displayed confusion and suspicion. “Damn, we were in the company of a real criminal mastermind.”

  “Just like Lex Luther.”

  “Lex Luther?” Natalie questioned with wanting eyes.

  “You know, Superman’s nemesis.”

  “Oh yeah, right.”

  “And all along, I thought that he worked for the Forestry Department. Damn, was I fooled or what? From his attire to the car he drove, his demeanor was inconspicuous and unassuming. The police had been taping his cell and home phone conversations, and I was one of the people he contacted with regularity. They thought I was his partner!”

  Natalie wobbled her head, “His partner!?”

  “Yeah girl, but I guess when they checked my financial state and work routine; they probably figured that my lifestyle didn’t match their formula for that type of criminal activity.”

  Natalie stared at me, listening to every word,
“Damn.” “Then Cutino became interested in the Chat Room,” I said.

  She wagged her finger at me. “I told you ‘bout that Chat Room shit.”

  “When I first introduced him to the Chat Room, he was computer illiterate. At least I thought he was. But he was quick and his grasp of the computer was phenomenal. We’d spend hours chatting to various people from who knows where. Cutino got to be really good in chat room etiquette and actually became a chat room regular. After a while, I thought they had their own language. He practically put me out of the room whenever he’d go to chatting with some of his new friends.”

  “Too smart for his own britches,” Natalie said.

  “Right.”

  “Look at that,” Natalie pointed to the television where CNN was broadcasting a special on the tragedy of Katrina and the aftermath.

  “Terrible, just terrible.” It was around the fourth year after Hurricane Katrina had hit the Gulf Coast and the pain and frustration of it all still festered like a nagging lower back. For the rest of the evening, we watched CNN’s documentary of the devastation. Even now, you think your life is out of control until you see people surviving in the wickedest conditions imaginable, black folks put out by the storm and swept out by the government. The most powerful nation in the world wouldn’t help its own people, but continued to finance and meddle in the affairs of independent nations with the nerve to direct their lives. What astonished me most and at its most critical hours during Katrina was black people’s lack of economic and political power, our inability to effectively control our destiny and make it happen for ourselves. As a whole, we are so economically destitute that in some situations it’s comparable to third world countries.”

  “I still feel for them Carla. I really do. But…” Natalie hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Look at all the overweight sisters carrying arm loads of babies. Our diet is atrocious. And where are the men?”

  “Jail,” I deadpanned.

  “Yeah, prison, but even more than that is we have no power. Skip being poor. Heck they’re mo’ white folks on government aid then Blacks and Hispanics put together.”

  “But they’re poor, Natalie.”

  “So, I live right next door to poor. Hell, I have so many bills, I now call them Mr. Williams.”

  “I heard that sister.”

  “Look at that,” she said pointing to the screen. “Finally, we’re getting out of Iraq. Thank you, President Obama!”

  “Amen,” I said.

  Natalie shook her head in disgust then said, “President Bush sure messed things up. Like Hurricane Katrina. All I saw was a multitude of single black women with babies and black men without means wading through polluted and toxic waters unable to take control of their situation, trapped like animals on an island that’s about to sink. Then the President flies over New Orleans and never steps foot in to take charge of the mess. Then when he finally pays attention to the matter, he chooses Senator Trent Lott whom he gives sympathy to by talking about rebuilding that racist honky’s house. Trent Lott! Out of all the people who had been affected by Katrina, President Bush in all his wisdom is seen with Lott as a symbol of re-birth to thousands and thousands of homeless po’ people. We as black people need to take control of our lives and responsibilities. Whatever you want to call it, we’re losing in this thing called life.”

  I could see tears well up in her eyes. The usually tough as nails flame thrower was genuinely touched. “We will stay strong,” I said.

  “Yeah, well it’s a mess; that’s all I’m sayin’.” Then she wiped her eyes. “Have you written anything new?”

  I couldn’t help but to smile. “Actually I do. You want to read it?”

  “You know I do.”

  I hopped into my bedroom and brought out a piece of crumpled paper. “Here.”

  She gave me her favorite cheesy smile. Then tugged the paper from the clutches of my hand then straightened out the edges.

  “You still haven’t told anybody about me writing poetry have you?” I said.

  “Mums the word,” she said without looking up. “Anyway what’s the big deal? When are you going to start showing people your poetry?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just something I do for me. It gives me pleasure just to create and not worry about what others think.

  Anyway, I’m not a writer.”

  Natalie began reading out loud.

  “Sit down to stand up.

  Stand up to be put down

  Move to the rear

  Says the man as he puts it in gear

  Get up says another like he owned you

  Sit down to stand up

  But she sat

  Alone, stubborn and righteous, she sat

  Fearless in the valley

  Faithful in God to break every chain

  Sit down to stand up

  Stand up to sit down

  The sound of a small pebble that precedes a wave of movement

  There will be an army rising up

  Sit down to stand up

  Stand up to sit down.”

  After reading, Natalie peered up at me and gave me that same cheesy smile and said, “Damn girl that’s pretty good. You know that you’re my favorite poet!”

  CHAPTER 7