You’re welcome I bailed you out of jail the 1st two times and you’re welcomed for me spending my last getting you the best lawyer that I could possibly afford this time around. I thought you would have learned you’re lesson the 1st time you got caught trying to drink your pain away and then call yourself driving to the club cause you was tired of arguing. I told you to come lay yo ass down, but you were so determined and hell bent on making me suffer for all the shit I did to you in the past. When the police called, I was just happy that you were ok. So yeah, you’re welcomed for me coming to bail you out, sitting with you through 52 weeks of your anger management classes and through all of your AA meetings. You’re welcomed I didn’t blow up the spot when my cousin tried to play BIG WILLY at Tangie’s baby shower by telling everybody he bailed you out the 2nd time you got arrested. Sharay, I know that you asked him to send bail money to your sister and AFTER I bailed you out, you went over there, picked up the money and went shopping. You’re welcomed for not even spending a DIME of that money on your 3 kids.
You’re welcomed for being a shitty mother. It’s like after all the shit I put you through, I killed the woman you once were cause you just seem to not give a fuck about them. You haven’t even asked about them since you’ve been locked up, but you can ask for some money can’t you? You’re welcome again Sharay. It’s all good though. I’ve worked out a shared custody arrangement with your parents and their going to be fine. I can’t go back in time and undo the shit I’ve done, but I will say that I am a better man because of it, because I’ve learned from all my mistakes. I should have treated you better and maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have turned into this bitter, angry, drug addict, fucking any man that’ll have you and driving home drunk. Maybe you would have been at home that night with me and the kids instead of letting some dudes run a train on you for some blow and $500. Maybe you would have been at home having a drink with me instead of getting sloppy drunk at some hotel and then driving in that car. And maybe the life you took in that accident would still be here to enjoy life.
I don’t know Sharay. I don’t have all the answers, nor am I perfect. In fact, I can admit that I’m a fucked up individual, but I’m trying to be a better man, for my self and for my kids. I’ve started this management biz and it’s been doing really well. I’m on the straight and narrow now, no more street hustling. I got to be a better father than I was before, a better man than I was before, and a better person than I was before. Again, I will always love you and I appreciate you forgiving me. I’ve prayed and stayed up many of nights asking God to forgive me for hurting you and for changing you to this vengeful shell of a woman that used to be my Girl. Perhaps I can forgive you too and we’ll both be able to get past these tribulations and make a better life for the kids. See you when you touch down.
Love Always,
J-Mac
CHAPTER 17 – DON’T BE JEALOUS (ODE TO WHITE WOMEN)
Don’t Be Jealous…
(Ode to White Women)
because I have big feet and you couldn’t possibly fill my shoes
because I have big lips that can take away any mans blues
because my wide nose makes it easier for me to stop and smell the roses
because my wide hips and dimpled booty could easily tempt Moses
because my thick legs and long stride will take me as far as I want to go
because my thick waist and big breasts are designed for seeds to grow
because my loud mouth and country grammar is music to your ears
because I’m a black woman not easily intimidated or brought to tears
because my kinky hair holds millions of thoughts inside my head
because my ancestors refused to roll over and play dead
because my tattoos tell a story that you don’t want to understand
because I too believe that this is my home and this is my land
CHAPTER 18 – THE TRAIN RIDE
The Train Ride
The crisp air of daybreak breezed though her long, blond, locks as she walked quickly up the platform of the Wardlow station of the Metro Blue Line. Hermes Birkin bag and leather briefcase in tow, she was dressed in her favorite “power suit”, a DKNY pin striped black and white pant suit, with a silk white blouse to match. Her shoes? Of course, that were none other than Jimmy Choo’s black leather sandal heels they she got at a bargain price from Nordstrom’s for a measly $595.00, which was more than 50% off the regular price. She couldn't refuse a deal like that so she maxed out her last credit card just to get them.
As the sun began shining brightly, validating that morning had officially begun, her baby blue eyes started fluttering in agitation and she reached in her purse and pulled out her Prada sunglasses, which were well equipped to fight those nasty UV rays. She stood erectly next to a post, careful not to lean, head held and poised up high. She checked the dials on her Anne Klein diamond studded watch as she could hear the train blowing its horn in the near distance.
“Please remain standing beyond the yellow safety line as the train approaches the platform. Be sure to wait until the doors open completely before boarding. Thank you for traveling MTA Metro Blue Line and have a safe day.”
As all the passengers lined up along the yellow safety line in anticipation of the train, she took distinct notice to those who were standing on both sides of her. To her right, there were two white men, nicely dressed, both in button down shirts, the tall one in Kenneth Cole, the other, Calvin Klein. She could always tell the difference. They both wore nice slacks and beautiful silk ties. They were discussing the soaring stock prices of crude oil, due to the ongoing U.S. occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The taller one smiled and the other stopped mid-conversation and made eye contact with her. “Good morning”, he said with a nod. She smiled and replied, “Yes it is a good morning, isn’t it?” The man smiled at her looking at her from head to toe and then smiling again. “He’s cute,” she thought. “I wouldn’t mind getting to know him better.”
She felt herself staring as the man continued his earlier conversation and she quickly looked to her right startled at her discovery. There was a young, tall, slender honey colored black man dressed head to toe in Hip- Hop attire. He had on a pair of black Sean Jean straight leg jeans, with a grey and black Sean Jean polo shirt to match and with a pair of black Air Jordan 9 Retros. He wore his hair in neatly braided cornrows, with an enormous diamond studded earring in his ear. “Sup?” he asked as she began clutching her purse and briefcase tightly. “Excuse me?” she asked. He frowned at her while chewing his gum non-stop and said, “Hello, what’s up, how you doing? Sup? It’s a greeting.” She stared at him and rolled her blues eyes in pure and utter disgust.
The train approached and she boarded and took a seat next to the window. The “Hip-Hopper” walked past her with his I-Pod blaring and shook his head and she prayed silently that he would not take the seat next to her. He walked past her laughing. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I ain’t gon sit there. I’m going to the back where the niggas belong, right?” She didn’t respond, instead, she turned and looked out of the window.
“Damn I really hate niggers,” she thought. “They’re always walking around dressed in clothes that they can’t afford, in basketball shoes, with flamboyant fake jewelry. That earring couldn’t have possibly been real, not that big. They’re always using slang bullshit ass pickup lines to start a conversation with you, so they can get close to you and snatch your purse after you’ve let your guard down. Asshole. And how the hell can “Sup” mean hello? Sounds short for “supper”. Why would I want supper and its breakfast time? Ignorant, just plain ignorant.”
As the train came to a stop, so did her thoughts. She watched as some of the passengers exited the train, and made keen observation to those boarding. “All Mexicans” she thought. “Why the hell can’t they just stay in their own damn country?” As the train left the Del Amo station, she turned her nose up at every passenger walking past her. A young, beautiful, Hispanic girl,
with long, curly, jet, black hair, dressed casually in tight, blue, Skinny jeans and a red fitted shirt approached the open seat next to her. As the young beauty began taking off her backpack to sit down, she removed her Prada shades and sternly said, “I’m sorry, but this seat is taken.” The young girl smiled as she plopped into the seat and said, “Well I don't see anyone sitting here.” She rolled her baby blues at the girl and glared with hatred so strong that one could see the lightening bolts shooting from her eyelids. “No you don’t understand. I said this seat is taken and I was not saving it for you, stupid Mexican. Don’t you understand English?” The young girl looked at her in disbelief.
“Artesia station. Coming up next is the Artesia station,” the PA announcer shouted.
The lovely young lady stood as the train came to a stop. She turned to the woman and said, “You better be lucky this is my stop and I’m on my way to school, pinche puta. And by the way, I’m not from Mexico and I’m not a Mexican, I’m El Salvadorian.”
“El Salvadorian, Mexican, Taco, Burrito, whatever,” she thought as the girl exited. She placed her briefcase and purse down in the seat next to her as to prevent anyone else from sitting there. “She’s just jealous because she thinks she looks better than me”, she thought. “What a piece of trash she was. I don't care how pretty she was, she's still not white. Had the audacity to call me a “puta”, like I don’t know that it means “bitch.” Well this bitch went to a real school, a real college, USC, not that piece of shit establishment that’s pretending to be a place of education called Compton College.” She laughed, “That tramp thinks she’s high class because she’s going to Compton College. I guess it’s better than the rest of the loser ass Mexicans that come to this country.”
“Compton Station, Compton Station”, the announcer repeated.
“Oh shit”, she thought. “Compton. Maybe I would have been better off just taking the day off, but there was no way I could miss a meeting with Tim. Besides this train ride is a one-time thing, the Benz will be ready for me this afternoon, and as soon as I get paid, I'm going to pay off one of those cards so that if this ever happens again, I will be able to get a rental. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up my car during my lunch break. Thank God I won't have to take this horrid ride home.”
As the train came to a stop, she closed her eyes as not to see the passengers boarding, for there were all sorts of people. "Look at them”, she thought. “There’s an old black nurse who looks like a witch with those decrepit hands. I’d rather die than have her touch me. Then over there, the young black prostitutes on their way to school scantily clad showing the whole world all of their asses and more than half of their busty cleavages. And look at those musty ass painters, dumb Mexicans, can’t read so all they can do is paint. They wouldn’t be so bad if they just bathed for Christ’s sake. Their constant undeterminable chatter will be the death of me. English! English! If you want to live and work in this country, you must know English. Same for those fish eating Chinks over there. They come here and set up their little stores and swap meets and can’t even communicate in proper English. Stupid niggers, look at them. Posing as students but they’re nothing more than useless thugs, drive by assailants, dope dealers and graffiti taggers. All of them, every one of them, just look at them. Talking and cursing and laughing out loud as if they were at some kind of gang convention or something. Joking about each other’s parents and what not, using broken English and the word “nigga” freely as if it’s an acceptable part of the English language. I hate them, I hate them all and I feel like I’m about to throw up.”
She held her head down and covered her face in the palms of her hands. Then someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, miss. May I please seat here?” she heard as she slowly lifted her head. It was a young black girl, with long synthetic braids, dressed pretty shabby yet neatly. The girl couldn’t have been more than 15-years-old. Maybe 16. She was pregnant and she was pushing a stroller with a small infant that was chewing on a single Cheeto.
As she moved her things to allow the young mother to sit next to her, she turned and looked out of the window thinking, “This is exactly what’s wrong with black people. They never learn from their mistakes. This child has a baby that she obviously can’t take care of, feeding it Cheetos for breakfast and yet she’s pregnant again. How stupid is that?”
The young mother playing with her young infant, stopped to answer her ringing cell phone. “Yeah, I should be there in another 30 minutes or so if my connecting bus isn’t late. We are almost at the Imperial station now. Okay, I’ll see you in a few, bye-bye.”
“Imperial station. Up next, Imperial station” the announcer said.
The young girl got up and gathered her things. When the train came to a stop, she got up and pushed the stroller through the train’s double doors as a tall, skinny, black man with a briefcase boarded the train. Just as she was trying to forget the fact that the young mother was feeding her baby Cheetos yet owned a cell phone, he came and sat next to her. “You look like a successful woman who needs to keep track of all of her business. So for you sweetie, and you only, I’ve got a deal. I’ve got this leather organizer. They sell them in the stores for about $35 bucks, but for you, I’ll let you have it for ten.”
“No thank you sir. I’m not interested in anything you have to sell”,
she said nonchalantly.
“Well how ‘bout this watch, everybody needs a watch.”
“Didn’t I just tell you that I was not interested?”
“Well, you have a nice day, OK? And here, take my card, just in case you change your mind.”
The man got up and walked to the next train car and she heard him pour out his spiel to someone else. She looked down at his card, crumpled it up in her hand, and laughed. “He’s got all this energy for selling his little knick-knacks, how come he just can’t go out and get a real job? Because he’s a lazy black man that’s why with no education and he can’t play sports, so he hustles people out of their money peddling things that he has stolen. Sickening, just sickening.”
As the train stopped at the Slauson station, she realized that the previous three stations were a blur. So she counted the number of stops left until she was to reach hers. “Vernon, Washington, San Pedro, and then Grand”, she said silently. The further into Los Angeles the train went, the further her thoughts went into how she hated the city. She really wanted to ask for a transfer, back to Utah, where she started right after graduating USC. The only reason she transferred to LA was for the money. Now that she had established her position, she could move back to Salt Lake City and be among more white people, instead of this diversified, melting pot of a mess she deemed Los Angeles.
At the Washington station, a young couple boarded the train. She stared at them repugnantly, looked them up and down, and turned to look out of the window. The couple was interracial, the man white, and the woman, of Asian decent. They were both in the medical field, as they both wore scrubs, and stethoscopes around they’re necks. They were holding hands and kissing while discussing the free clinic that they were going to on Pico, when the Asian woman noticed she was being stared at. The man turned and asked very boldly, “Is there a problem miss?” Continuing to match his stare with her cold blue eyes she answered, “No. There isn’t.”
The couple laughed at her and continued their discussion. “What imbeciles!” she thought. “How could that fine white man be attracted to that hideous little strumpet? What a sell-out. Any white woman would be better for him than that “thing” he is with. If everybody were white, we wouldn’t have these types of problems, the world would simply just be better off.”
“Up next Grand station, Grand station up next”, she heard the announcer say as she went in her purse to get her compact. She pulled it out and looked in the mirror and teased her blond locks a bit, and put it away quickly. She gathered her things and as the train approached Grand station, she rose and walked to the front of the closing doors. When the train stopped, she
exited quickly onto the platform thrilled to be off of that moving assortment of weirdos.
As she began the short walk to her office building, she passed by an alley where she saw a black couple getting high. When they noticed that she was staring at them, the short, filthy, toothless, woman went into a rage and began cursing at her. "Bitch what are you looking at? You want to get high too? Or do you want my man? That's it, this high-class heifer wants you Leroy and you want her too, don't you? Don't you? Fuck that, I'm going to beat her ass." The woman began screaming and lunging forward just as her boyfriend, matted hair, torn army jacket, and sweating profusely, grabbed her and swung her around on the ground. "May-lee calm down! Lady, please forgive her, she don't mean no harm. She just needs her medicine that's all." Her blue eyes were attached with fear to the couple as he grabbed MayLee’s arm and wrapped the small piece of rubber around it real tight, popped her for a vein and stuck the syringe in her arm as her body pulled long and hard until her eyes rolled back into relaxation. She had never actually seen someone get high and just as she began to run away, a homeless man in a shopping cart filled with everything he owned blocked her path. He was drowned in filth, his clothes tattered all over and he wore a dirty scarf tied around his head smelling like old garbage and sewage. “Mam, can you buy me a cup of coffee please?”
Urban Diaries Page 11
