Perspective in the Time of COVID.

I am squatting in a corner with my hands over my ears.

Noise. It is too much noise.

About us. About me.
Because us is me.

It is inescapable.
So much noise.

Make it stop.

“Your people are dying.”

They are dying from a virus.
No, not that virus.
Oh wait. That virus, too.
I mean. . . yeah.

They are dying from:

Heart disease
Cancer
Violence

And this.

More. Most.
Just fill in the blank.

We win.
But really, we lose.

We lose.

The baggage was left on front lawns in piles.
Centuries worth.
Maybe push it to the back yard?

Not yours, though.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Wrong.

Get A’s. Become a doctor. Right?
Wrong.

The same baggage spills out front.
Blocks the entrance and exit.

We lose.

The words. They are so awful. So hurtful.

A reference to a whale.
Another so bad I can’t find a metaphor.

Those words weren’t directed at me.
But they were, really.
Because us is me.
So they hit my jaw like a fist. Hard.

And that was just THIS week.

Yeah.

Running.
Chased.
Pursued.
Shot.

Which reminds me:

The other day our neighbors told us that, before we moved in, they came into our home.
Looked around.
Checked it out.
Furniture, photos, and all.

No human was shot. No character assassinated.
Not that time, at least.

A woman frantically calls 911.

“. . .an African-American man is threatening my life.”
A birdwatching one, no less.

When my dad had a heart attack, I said:
“Say you have chest pressure.”
To create urgency. And not get him overlooked.

I guess people say what they know will work.

A beloved elder in my family got hospitalized.
My dad calls me worried.

Dad: “He’s trying to leave the hospital, Kimberly.”
Me: “Why?”
Dad: “He’s scared he might die there. He doesn't trust them. And doesn’t want to be alone.”

What do you say to that?

I try to call. Straight to VM.
Sigh.

More noise.
Heated exchanges.
It’s all too much.
Especially now.

All of it is so loud. I try to press my hands tighter to my ears to drown it out.

I can’t.

I slowly peel my fingers away.
I stand up.

The noise is still there.
It's always there.

I drag in a breath of air and lean my head against the wall.
Swallowing hard.

Then I wait.
For my ears to acclimate.
Like always.
And they do.

But I don’t unhear.
I do not.

This.
This is what it was like to be black this week.

At least for me.

A cacophony of noises clattering all around me.
In a pitch that I hear in Dolby stereo.

All.
Day.
Long.

Plus an expectation for me to hold my head up
Do my job
Represent

And not startle.

Yeah.

But I thank God for the other sounds.

The clapping hands and snapping fingers.
The throaty laughs.
And that special interdental fricative in our vernacular that I recognize even by phone.

We are connected.
We have handled louder, worse noises.

And kept on singing

Do I want to be someone else?

Not for one day.

But still. Sometimes I do wish that I could--if only for a minute--turn down the noise.
Or turn it up so loud that everyone hears it the same.

Or will at least startle sometimes.
Yeah. That.

My sons are upstairs laughing and yelling at their video game.
My husband has the TV up way too loud watching the news. He calls out to me.

Him: "Babe? Did you see this? In Minneapolis?"
Me: *silence*

He shows me.

More. Most.

I can't unsee.
Or unhear.

We lose.
Again.

My loved one was discharged against medical advice--but is home now and okay.
Dad is less worried.

Good.

And with all of this noise, life is still happening.

What will our kids do this summer?
Son, why'd you get a B?
Text me as soon as you get there.

and

Sorry for the delay in replying to your emails.

This is what goes on.

Between revising rejected manuscripts, thinking about my patients, and clearing my inbox.
Between figuring out summer plans, washing dishes, folding laundry, and wondering what will happen with school next year.

For me. For us.

So right now? I’m just sitting at my kitchen table
listening to some Earth, Wind, & Fire

being black
writing down my feelings

and doing my best to just keep on singing.

________________________________________________

Complexities.

image credit

I was sitting at the nurses' station typing my notes and minding my own business. It was smack in the middle of the afternoon so there were scattered residents, students and ward teams around the area. Some were rounding. Some were teaching. A few others were just hanging around tying up loose ends from the morning.

And me? I was just in my own world typing my notes into the computer. My own team was on call so I was left to do my work while they stamped out disease in other parts of the hospital. I looked at my ratty checklist and methodically marked off my boxes with each note.  I was completely in that getter-done mode; I was in that zone that others automatically know to not disturb.

"You need to go be with her ass then!"

This was what jolted me out of my note-writing groove. My head whipped up and I saw her standing there. A young woman with a hand on her hip and an elbow resting on the counter. In that hand she had a bedazzled cellphone pressed up against her ear tightly. Almost as tight as the expression on her face.

When I looked at her we locked eyes. It was my way of telling her that she was not speaking in an "inside voice" at all. And that, seeing that this was a hospital and all, she needed to.

She rolled her eyes away from me and dug back into that conversation.

"See now you 'bout to piss me off. That b---ch called your phone and I saw it. You think I'm stupid. I ain't stupid."

Her voice was loud. Too loud to be standing where she was standing and saying what she was saying. I looked up at her again. Trying my hardest to communicate with her through my searing eye contact.

Another eye roll.

"I tell you what! Tell that b---ch to come within two feet of me so she can see what I got for her. Naw. . y'all both got me f--d up!"

That f-bomb grabbed the attention of everyone within earshot. She ignored the glares and snickers and kept on going. More f-bombs and even the n-word. Repetitive. Loud. Unfiltered.

And embarrassing.

There were easily twenty people who heard her. And of those twenty people, I was the only one there who looked like her.

Here I was sitting there in my white coat and professional attire trying my best. After walking around and seeing patients who smiled so deeply and with such pride to see me, their doctor, standing before them. Touching the hands of Grady elders and pulling my shoulders back a little more because I know that I am representing many of them, too. By doing things that were never even options for them to do.

Yes. This is something I have strapped to my back while working at Grady. This responsibility to provide a different kind of insight into black people. Through my actions and the things that I at least try to do. And on many days? I feel like it's working. I feel like somebody is looking and listening and thinking, "Hmm, this was not my impression of black people, but now perhaps it is." Or instead of that,  just some kind of realization that we are far more alike than we are different.

And then this. This young woman with a frighteningly unnatural hair color stomping her feet and hollering into a cell phone. And as if it couldn't get any worse, when I got up from the nurses' station and walked around the counter I saw that she was gripping the hand of a very confused-looking toddler.

Yes.

I thought about approaching her and saying something. But initially decided against it since the last thing I wanted was to let those twenty people witness two black women arguing in the hallway at Grady. So I walked by and cast my eyes in her direction once more. She kept on with tearing that person on the other end of the phone a new you-know-what--despite me or anyone else hearing.

I walked down the hall and then paused. Before I could talk myself out of it, I did an about face, forward marched right up to her and then stopped. I softly touched her shoulder and also softened my voice.

"Would you be okay with stepping into the family waiting area? Some of the patients can hear you and your conversation sounds pretty personal."

I braced myself for her to say something back but she didn't. Instead she huffed away and into the corridor toward the family area. Still swearing. Still loud. And still with that baby in tow.

And everyone just sort of stood there watching but instinctively not saying anything because I think they knew not to. Perhaps they knew me well enough to know how I was feeling. Or maybe her behavior was so inappropriate that the moment was far too awkward to even comment upon.

I don't know.

I do know that this is one of the things that makes being black so complicated. There is sometimes this self hatred that creeps up if you aren't careful. This thing where folks who have been given opportunities and guidance and parenting grow further and further away from those who don't. Chris Rock once built an entire stand-up routine on this notion. Which in some ways was very funny, but in the deepest ways was not. At all.

Especially since the whole world was laughing, too.

Over time I have learned that there a lot of folks that don't like black people. Regrettably, more of those folks than many realize happen to be black, too. Just ask Chris Rock.

So I thought about that moment a lot after it happened. I reflected on that toddler standing next to her as those expletives flew off of her tongue with out the tiniest concern for those pre-school ears or any other ears. Then I wondered whose hand she had held as a toddler and what she had heard.

Probably something identical.

It sucks that history tries so hard to repeat itself. And it sucks exponentially more that without a whole bunch of fight, that it almost always wins.

So we have to fight. But fight for all of us. Not just our own kids in our own houses.

After writing my notes, I headed to the elevators. I pushed the button to go down and sighed. It startled me when I looked over to my right and saw her still sitting in the family waiting area. Off the phone now and wiping her daughter's face with a wet wipe. An ironically mundane scene after what I'd witnessed earlier. I took a deep breath and approached her.

"Hey little sister . . .I didn't mean to get in your business like that. . .I just. . . yeah, it just sounded . . . . .personal."

"Tha's okay, " she replied. Her voice was surprisingly pleasant. "I just got a lot going on. Sorry I was loud."

And I stared at her and wished that I could sit right next to her and talk to her for four more hours. About why she was even in that conversation and what it could mean to her daughter to hear and see things that could rob of her innocence. I wanted to hold her hands and tell her that she was beautiful and full of promise. And that we are no different except that I was born to William and Cheryl Draper and she was born to whomever she was born to. But, still,  that we were one and the same and that we needed to fight. Together. That's what I wanted to tell her.

But I didn't. Instead I just smiled and said, "I hope everything works out for you. I really do, little sister." And I really did call her "little sister" because that helped me to see her that way instead of hating her.

Because hating her would be hating me.

Yeah.

You know what? I love being who I am. But sometimes? Sometimes it's kind of hard.

***
Happy Saturday.

Now playing on my mental iPod. . . . the great Frankie Beverly singing "We are one." Because we are.

The boy in the hoodie.

My boy, Isaiah on the way to school. . . .in his hoodie.

A boy was walking with a hoodie on. Walking through a neighborhood talking on his cellphone with a hoodie on. A man saw him and didn't like what he saw. The hoodie, the way he was walking, the all of it.

"Something's wrong with him," that man said. "He must be on drugs or something."

But he wasn't on drugs. He was simply on the phone. Talking to his girlfriend. With a hoodie pulled over his head. Did I mention that it was raining? Oh, well it was. Perhaps that could explain the hood on his head.

Perhaps.

That man who saw the boy kept watching. The more he watched the more he worried. He even called 911. 

"There's a suspicious guy out here," he told the dispatcher.

And that dispatcher listened and asked questions. Questions like, "What does he look like?" and "What is he doing?"  

And that man shared that he was a black male. And that he was walking. But that it looked suspicious.

The boy was talking to his girlfriend and felt worried by the way this man was watching him. "Run!" she told him. He agreed that this is what he should do. To get away from those scary, accusatory eyes that were on him. So that's what he did. He ran.

"He's running!" That's what that man told the 911 dispatcher. And through pants into the phone he repeated it. "He's running!"  

The dispatcher asked that man if he was chasing the boy. When it was obvious that he was, the dispatcher calmly told him, "We don't need you to do that." But he did it anyway. He sure did.

He chased the boy. And eventually he caught up with him. They scuffled a bit. In fact, they scuffled more than just a bit.

That boy was afraid. He was screaming out for someone to help him. Someone, anyone help. And then, a gunshot. Straight to the chest. 

And the boy was gone.

Just like that a boy with a hoodie, a cellphone and a pack of Skittles in his pocket that he'd just bought for his brother was gone. A son, a brother, a grandson, a friend. Gone. 

What happened next is even sadder.  The man who shot that gun said he'd done so in self defense. And without further questioning, he was let go. Just like that.

Somebody's son, brother, grandson, and friend was gone in an instant and it didn't even warrant much more investigation. 

Turns out that the boy in that hoodie didn't have any criminal record. Turns out that he was an athlete and a kind big brother who would run to the store to get candy for his little brother during halftime. Even if it was raining. 

It also turns out that the man who shot him had a history of calling the police. In fact he had called the police more times in that year before than many of us will in our entire lifetimes put together. He'd even assaulted a police officer before. He sure had.

But that part wasn't taken into consideration that day. That day when that man shot and killed that boy, all the police saw in his corpse was his hoodie and, of course, that suspicious black skin of his.

And this is sad. Very, very sad.

Yes, I think this was about race. Yes, it hurt me somewhere deep because that black boy in the hoodie could be my son or my nephew or my godson or the child of any one of many of my friends. And yes, being a black woman and a black mother of black sons, this cuts me straight down to the white meat. Yes, it does.

But all of this makes me sad for other reasons, too. I hate it that there are black boys in hoodies that do kick in doors and hold people up. I hate it that for many complicated reasons this country has so many black boys in hoodies that feel like they have nothing to lose. 

My husband was once pulled over on the side of a major street in Atlanta. Pulled over in his own car that happened to be a BMW. A "black man in sweats" had just carjacked a woman for her BMW that happened to fit the description of the one my husband owned. "Get down on the ground," the police told Harry. He refused. And fortunately, before it got ugly, they ran his license and plates and learned that he was not that "black man in sweats." 

But what makes me sad is that there was a black man in sweats somewhere. The one who did take that car. At least, allegedly there was.

That makes it hard for boys like Trayvon and men like Harry. And for children like Isaiah and Zachary? That sucks.

Yes. I want racism to go away. I want someone to run it out of town until it never comes back. But. Just as much, I'm tired. Tired of driving down the street and seeing my little brothers standing on corners with pants slung under their bottoms. I'm tired of seeing them passing tiny plastic bags filled with rocks to my sisters and aunties and uncles, too. I hate seeing their faces on the evening news or captured on hidden cameras in convenience stores wielding guns in scared shop owners' faces. Because that isn't helping things. At all.

Sometimes I hear a story about a crime and automatically start chanting, "Please don't be black, please don't be black, please don't be black--damn, he was black."  And I wish I could count how many times that has happened to me. But I can't. And that pisses me off that my boys and my husband  and people like Trayvon Martin and Troy Davis are up against this kind of reputation.

We've got to love on our children and build them up to believe that they, too, can be Barack Obama. Teach them, show them that they are more than sagging pants and poor choices. But that takes time and love and consistency. That takes nurture and resources and a belief that you can and are raising kings and queens. It also helps if you grew up with some sort of template of how to do that. And when it comes to blacks in this country, that isn't as easy as it sounds.

It kind of makes me think of the day I wrote about what happens when people don't "represent." Or rather, when they do represent all of us by doing things that make us all seem suspicious. And as long as that continues, woe to the boy Trayvon Martin, and woe to my sons, too.

I'm sad. Sad that this happened. Sad that we are even talking about this again. Again.

I honestly think that man who shot Trayvon Martin was mentally off. No, that doesn't excuse him but anyone who calls 911 as many times as he had and who had assaulted a police officer is probably not right. 

And the cops who blew it all off? Who had so little regard for that boy's life that they immediately assumed that he had it coming? That chills me to the bone. Just like it chilled me to the bone when the police in Atlanta assumed my husband was violent enough to order him to lay on some dirty concrete just because he looked like someone who stole a car.

Sigh. I don't even know what else to say about all of this. It's just so layered. 

But I will say this:

Man, America. We've got to do better. Period.

***

 Now playing on my mental iPod. . . . if only more of our kids knew that they were this.

First comes love.

"I'm you

You are me 

and we are you. . ."

~ Maxwell

 ______________________

I saw this young couple in the residents' clinic several months ago. Super young--like not even twenty years old. And it was a rather odd visit to have in an Internal Medicine clinic at a public hospital. This couple was here together because even though they hadn't been using any birth control methods for several months . . . . they hadn't yet conceived.

"So we just came to get checked out."  That's what the young woman said as she looked over at her partner.

"Checked out?" I asked.

"Yeah, ma'am," he quickly answered. "Like to make sure we can have a baby."

And I looked at this teenage couple and coached myself not to have a judging facial expression. I hoped my face didn't show my thoughts.

Which included:

Say WHAT? What the hell are y'all thinking? A baby? A BABY!

But they sat there patiently--her in the chair next to the desk and him rolling around on the wheeled stool. Faces as innocent as little cherubs and eyes twinkling-twinkling like little stars.

Even though they were young, I liked how genuinely and lovingly they looked at one another.

"Do you mind me asking how old you all are?"

"Both of us nineteen," she replied. She scoldingly cut her eyes at him and he abruptly stopped rolling back and forth on the chair.

I cleared my throat. "Are you . . .like trying to get pregnant?"

"Yes, ma'am. We're the last ones in our family. Everybody be asking what we waiting for." When he said that, he looked at her and laughed.

And honestly? This sounded completely crazy to me. Two nineteen year-olds who'd been trying to conceive since age eighteen sitting in our clinic asking to have thyroids checked and sperms counted up to see what was keeping a bun from going into their oven.

Wait, huh?

"Ma'am, do you think we gon' be here more than another hour? I got to go to work and need to know if I should call my job," he said.

His face was so boyish and the way he kept twirling from side to side on that chair made him look even younger. I couldn't imagine what kind of work he was doing.

"What kind of work do you do?" I queried.

He then told me of his job working in a storage warehouse. Good money. A very solid, substantially-more-than-minimum hourly wage. And health benefits even.

"Including dental," he added proudly.

And her? She was finishing up cosmetology school.

"It's going real good," she shared before launching into telling me about the upscale salon where she hoped to get a job.

"Yeah, she always been great with hair. She do everybody hair already so I'm glad she in school for it." He was quick to support her. It was endearing.

"That's great," I responded. Because that was great.

Great yes. Even though in my head I still thought the whole idea of two nineteen year-olds intentionally trying to get pregnant was a little off putting. And even more, I found the thought of those same two nineteen year-olds getting sweated by their respective families because they hadn't had a baby yet rather . . . crazy-ish.

That said, we ran a few simple tests on them both. Each received a full physical exam and everything checked out okay.  After referring them to the family planning clinic, I bid them adieu and wished them well.

And by well I meant growing older and maturing some more before conceiving a human.

Anyways.

The other day I was standing next to the clinic elevators and who did I see?  Them. Side by side still and looking at each other just as lovingly as they had before. I glanced down at her unbuttoned coat and noticed an increasing abdominal girth poking out of the opening.

"Pregnant!" I said out loud when I saw them.

They immediately remembered me. He spoke first. "Yeah, ma'am. We just kept tryin' and we finally got pregnant!"

I love it when men refer to pregnancies as a "we" phenomenon. And you know? They were a "we." A nineteen and a half year-old we. But a "we" all the same.

I looked at their hands and their laced together fingers. Next I noticed the cursive name on his uniform. Just coming from or going to work again I supposed.

"You all having a boy?" I asked.

"Naw, it's a girl! We just fount out!" she squealed. "But everybody guessed it's a boy!"

They looked at each other again and smiled.

"She gon' be so spoiled," he said with a shake of his head. "I know it already." He glanced over at her again with her petite body with it's new miniature beachball in front. Beyond that, she didn't look pregnant at all.

"You know why they keep guessing boy, right? It's because you look so good." I figured I'd throw in my mother-wit as I mindlessly pushed the "down" elevator button repeatedly.

"Oh yeah," he chimed in, "'cause them girls rob you of your beauty right? Tha's what they say? Ha ha!"

"That's what they say." I giggled at that old adage.

"Well, not her. She been pretty since the day we start going together."

Going together. Wow.

"How long has that been?"

They both knitted their brows in tandem thinking. "Middle school," she finally answered. "Or a little before that."

We stepped onto the elevator and I watched them. He carried her purse and held up his arm for support even though she wasn't that big or tired appearing. It was just the gentlemanly thing to do for the lady you love.

And it was obvious that there was love there. Love between that young couple for sure. And no, they weren't married and yes, nineteen is hella-young if you ask me. . .

But.

Nobody asked me. And even if they did. . . . who am I to judge their readiness to start a family? A tax payer you say? Was this your initial thought?

Hmmm.

Funny that my initial thought was negative. . . . or rather, it's actually not funny at all. The truth? Here I was imagining for them some life tethered to government support and generational poverty and ignorance. All because they wanted a baby at nineteen. Or was that all?

Hmmm.

Look. I sure as hell wasn't looking to have or feeling ready for a baby at nineteen. But that doesn't mean they aren't. Or that someone else isn't.

What if this hadn't been at Grady? What if this was some young ivory-faced nineteen year-old couple with tiny crosses around their necks and vermeil bands on their ring fingers?

Hmmm.

I waved good bye to them and congratulated them once more on the pregnancy. As I watched them walk away, I froze for a moment.

Wait.

Had I passed judgment on them for being young, black and working poor? Had I sized them up and assigned them a life and a future that, in all actuality, I had no idea about at all? Had I?

Damn.

All that they had shown me up until that point was youth, yes. . . .but more than that, just love and devotion. The same things we had when we were expecting our first baby. Harry taking off of work and holding my coat and my arm at those prenatal visits just like them. And just like our first baby and the one that came after. . . .the main thing their little daughter would have in common with Isaiah and Zachary was that she was wanted. . .and conceived in love.

Young love, no less, but love all the same. I had no grounds for thinking anything else.

As they disappeared from my sight, this word popped into my head:

prejudice [prej-uh-dis]: an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.

I stopped at the glass door and caught my reflection. . . . .

I told that woman in the mirror, Careful, profesora. . . . Be careful.

***

Happy Wednesday.


Now playing on my mental iPod. . . . .Maxwell singing "I'm you."

Unreasonable doubt.

After the execution of Troy Davis.

This haunted my husband. Haunted him. Gave him nightmares and everything. We sat on the couch together after the kids were off to school and I listened to my husband saying over and over again, "This could happen to me. Totally. This was right here where we live. It's crazy."

And I just nodded and thought about how Harry felt. I also thought about the day when Harry was driving his (own) car down Ponce de Leon Avenue and got pulled over by a cop. That cop hollered in his face with spit flying out of his mouth and demanded Harry to lay on the asphalt. Right next to this busy Atlanta street.

Lay on the who?

Any who know Harry either in real life or virtually through this blog know that Harry wasn't about to get on nobody's ground. But that officer kept pointing and bellowing in his face something about how some "black guy" had just carjacked a woman in a white BMW. Now. Seeing as my husband is in fact a black person--or "black guy" depending on who you ask--who happened to be driving that overpriced white car, then surely it was him, right?

Okay, maybe there was a wee bit of doubt, but still.  Not enough to stop this cop from making this grown ass man lay down on some dirty Midtown concrete. Or at least try to make him.

That story ends with Harry telling that officer his most respectful version of "hell naw" and letting the accuser know that he might really want to check the registration on this car before asking him to "get down" and "put your hands where I can see them."

Registered to a Harry A. Manning. And a "black guy," too.  Imagine that.

No apology.  Just some mumbling about how "it's our job to protect" and some other mess about having a good rest of the day.

Look.  I'm no dummy.  I know that there have been some instances--okay maybe a lot of instances--where a "black guy" committed some sort of crime such as robbing a car or even shooting at a cop. But I'm here to stomp my foot and say that, dammit,  there's a whole lot of other "black guys" out there who aren't. Like my man or my daddy. Brothers who go to work, come home, love on their wives, and pray to their Lord. Every single day. And I can testify that some of them are working hard to train up their own little "black guys" to do great things in this world. They are. They're doing it with all of their might and trying their damnedest to get it right.

It's terrifying to imagine that after all of that, somebody could potentially roll up on one of them one day and force them out of their car and onto some asphalt. Just for looking like they look or being where they are. But what gives the real nightmares is the thought of someone locking them up for two decades and ending their life. . . . .all in the name of the "job to protect."

Look, Mr. Officer. It's our job to protect, too.

We've since gotten rid of that overpriced car. See? We should've known that anything with that high of a note and that cost that much to fill up was nothing but bad news.
***

And Justice for all.

Oh, just wanted to follow up. Here's a picture of Isaiah this morning with the replacement Jake Justice. Getting the replacement Jake wasn't so easy either. Oh, did I tell you? Turns out the dude has been discontinued. Discontinued!  Well hallelujah for used and collectors items on Amazon. Lawdy Miss Claudie! First the Green Lantern situation and now Jake Justice gets axed from the Rescue Heroes?!  Seriously? Seriously.

Dang. 

Don't worry. I didn't tell Isaiah about the diss-continuation. Besides, I'm told that there's been some sort of crazy ethnic remix on Spiderman and trust me--that'll be confusing enough.

***
Happy Sunday.

Represent.

*names, details, etc. changed to protect anonymity. . . .

 

Part story-Part late night rambling. Read at your own risk. . . . 

"You know, I'm fixin' to move."

These were words I heard spoken by one of my clinic F.P.'s when I bumped into him in the hall. Always chatty, I knew this was just the beginning of what would be a detailed story.

Mr. Kiefer widened his eyes and spoke before I could respond. "I was hopin' I was gon' see you! I was thinkin', 'Now, if that woman is up takin' care of folks upstairs in the main hospital and not in this clinic I'm gon' march right up there and find her!'" He let out his signature cackle.

"Hey there, Mr. Kiefer. What do you mean 'fixin' to move?' What's that about?"

My tone was easy and familiar, and rightfully so. I've known him for nearly eight years and have cared for him shoulder to shoulder with three different resident physicians--four if you count the new intern who assumed care after the last one graduated. Usually, Mr. Kiefer made a point to poke his head into the Physician's Room with some kind of teaser to get me in the hallway chatting with him before the visit. This time he caught me coming out of another patient's room so did the honors right there.

Sure. Mr. Kiefer is what Seinfeld would refer to as a bit of a "close talker." He breaks all kinds of rules from entering personal space to speaking too loudly to dropping f-bombs when and wherever he damn well pleases. But I adore him though--especially his little teasers before the visits.

Most of the time it's something like, "Did you know I went and got my medicine on that four dollar list? Hell, it add up if you got four times fourteen!"  (insert signature cackle)

Always something like that. Lighthearted and jovial. But this day wasn't like that. His voice was decidedly serious--and even though he cracked a joke, there was a sadness in his usually twinkling blue eyes.

"Moving?" I repeated.

"Soon as I get all my business straight I'm movin' down to the Alabama gulf shore.  The other L.A."

We then said in unison, "Lower Alabama."  As we shared a laugh, he slapped his knee in the animated way that he always does and shook his head. 

"Won't even get a chance to pick on my new doctor since I'm leavin'.  You know how I like 'em when they're all green."  He giggled as I followed him into the room, but just like that I saw it again. A wistful sadness that washed over his face and disappeared like vapor.  I knew I'd get to see him more after his resident doctor discussed his visit with me, but for whatever reason, Mr. Kiefer wanted more of my attention than usual.

I leaned on the door jamb at first; then I decided to step in and follow my instincts. Yes. There was work to be done and probably someone waiting for me to precept their patient with them. But Mr. K had something going on.

I softened my voice and sat on the foot rest at the end of the exam table. Looking up at him, I asked, "So what's going on?"

"I got robbed. At gunpoint."

Originally I'd positioned myself with my elbow on my knee and my cheek cradled sideways in my hand--relaxed but concerned. His statement caught me by surprise; I stiffened my spine and furrowed my brow. "What? That's awful. I'm sorry."

"Kicked the door straight in. Point that gun right in my face like a old dog. I was holding a hot cup of coffee and plum dropped it all over my nether regions!" He let out an anemic laugh. I could tell it took a lot out of him. This wasn't funny.

"Oh my gosh, sir. Robbed? I'm so sorry to hear that!"

"The guy had a mask on and came marching all through my house hollering at me and everything. He was like, 'Look old white man! Where your gun? Make one move and I'm gon' blow your head off.' But hell, I was too busy worryin' 'bout my nether regions!" Just telling the story seemed to scare him.

I narrowed my eyes and sighed.

Look old white man. 

Damn. Those words spoke volumes. It told me that more than likely, whoever put this gun in sweet Mr. Kiefer's face looked like me and not him. Just like some white folks say "this black guy" when speaking of an African-American man, I'd be lying if I hadn't seen that reciprocated. Seems to me like anyone who looked like Mr. Kiefer would have been just fine to say, "Look old man"-- no adjective needed. 

Look old white man.

Damn.  Who could be sweeter and more harmless than Mr. Kiefer? Who?  This man lived in his same neighborhood for longer than I've been alive. That neighborhood changed big time and all those working poor Caucasians tipped out toward outlying counties when the going in town got either too tough or too expensive. But not him.

"I ain't scared a nobody. I don't mess with them and they don't mess with me.  I got my dogs and my cats and my Smith and my Wesson," he'd always say. And that's what he'd been saying for the last eight years so I believed him. But today? He was less feisty. There was fear in his eyes.

Look old white man.

Really? Mr. Kiefer? Who would want to hurt him?  I shook my head and pressed my lips together. I could feel my face getting hot and my heel tapping to let out the mounting emotion. I wanted to kick somebody's ass. Right now. Kind of like the way you yank your kid up by the shirt for embarrassing the crap out of you. Only worse than that.

"Got me a nice little place to go down near Mobile. Dogs gon' love it. Now them cats, you know cats got a attitude so ain't no tellin' what they gon' say. You know Miss Ellie had some kittens."
 
And you know, the dogs and the kittens and the fact that Kroger makes some good instant coffee is where our conversation went next. I let it because that's where he wanted it to go and seemed to need it to go.  I stayed silent and offered obligatory smiles and chuckles at all the right times. This image of this seventy-something year old harmless man being startled so bad that he dropped hot coffee all over his crotch haunted me.  He talked and talked and I can't remember a single thing he said after "Look old white man."

Damn.

Or as Florida Evans would say, "DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!"
  
No. I do not have some deep way to end this. No I do not have the answers to all of this. I don't. I do know that hearing that raised my blood to boiling point quick fast and in a hurry.  Oh--and before someone says, "You don't know if the dude who kicked his door in and said 'Look old white man' was of color!" And to that I say this:

0_0 ------>  uuuuhhh, okay-----> 0_v


That reminds me. When I was a cheerleader at my 99.9% black high school and we went across town to a 99.9% non-black cheerleading competition this was what was said in our huddle:

"You better get out there and REPRESENT."

Represent.  That's an all encompassing word in the hood and is usually meant to get you shadow boxing. When you "represent" it means you "show up and show out" -- giving your best effort on behalf of every single person out there that identifies with you.  I heard those words again when I left Meharry to go to residency in Ohio.

"You better represent!" one of my sista-professors said with a 100% straight face. That meant "don't embarrass me." That meant "if you look bad, you make me look bad."

And sure, I've passed that torch and have spoken those words to more than a few medical students with that same dead pan.  Hands on my hip and a growl in my voice--"LOOK--I'm gon' tell you like somebody once told me. . .you're representing more than just YOU up in here, alright? So you better represent, do you hear me?" Oh and trust. They know exactly what I mean. I feel proud when I see them taking that to heart and doing their thing--you know--really representing.

Then, I turn on my television and see this man with this buttery smooth voice speaking to our country with his wife next to him who happens to be from the South side of Chicago.  I see her and I get to poke my chest out some more because even if folks are saying he isn't really this or that, there's no mistaking that she's sho' nuff from Chi-town and knows how to double dutch and cabbage patch. I look at her walking with queens and diplomats with her Harvard Law degree and her chiseled arms and I point at that television yelling, "YOU BETTER REPRESENT, GIRLFRIEND!" And that's my way of saying "you make me proud."

If that's not enough I look out of the window from Grady and can see the steeple of Ebenezer Baptist Church where a man represented so hard for the people that 200,000+ folks came to D.C. to hear him speak and he even got a whole holiday got named for him.  Talk about representing!

And then.

After all that, I hear this. Look old white man. This is how you represent? Kickin' in a door waving a four-four and scaring the shit out of somebody who's just tryin' enjoy a cup of instant Kroger's joe up in his paid-for house? The same one he grew up in and had the guts to never leave?

Seriously, y'all?

No, it doesn't make me any less proud to be black but it does make me mad. I know it's complex and I know there's like 400+ years wrapped somewhere in some part of it and I know all that. But I'm still mad.  Because no matter what anyone anywhere says, as a mother raising black boys that person who kicked in his door was representing us, too.

Damn.


"Hey, Dr. Manning? You listenin' to me?"

"I'm sorry. What was that you said, Mr. Kiefer?"

"I said, 'Look like I made you sad tellin' you all that. I'm sorry, Doc.'"

I sighed hard and told him exactly what was on my mind.

"Yeah, man. I'm sorry, too."

***

The Green Lantern.

"Then you'll finally see the truth

that a hero lies in you."

~ Mariah Carey

Does anybody have the manual that came with their children? I'm just saying. . . if you do, can I please borrow it for . . .I don't know. . .the next eighteen years?

I promise. . . I don't make this stuff up. . . .

***

Yesterday in the car on the way home from school:


Isaiah:  The legs broke on my Jake Justice and I really, really liked my Jake Justice.

Me:  You'll have to be kinder to your toys in the future, bud.

Isaiah:  Would you be able to get me another Jake Justice? We had him for a long, long time remember?

Me:  You've got plenty of toys to play with. Maybe we can see about you getting another one when Christmas comes around.

Isaiah:  Christmas! Christmas?  (lip starts quivering.)

Me:  Oh, come on, Isaiah. Really?

Isaiah:  It's just that . . . I really, really liked my Jake Justice. I really, really did.  (now crying)

Ugggghhh.  

Me:  Come on, son. This is not something to get this upset over. Besides, you have tons of toys and this is not the first time one has broken.

Isaiah:  (now whimpering/wailing) But this is different, Mom!  He's the one that makes me not feel left out!

Huh?

Me:  I don't understand what you mean, Isaiah.

Isaiah:  He has brown skin like me, Mommy.  He's one of the only superhero guys with brown skin! Nobody has brown skin that's a superhero but him, Mom!

Speechless.

Isaiah:  Mommy, not even Green Lantern. Remember? The Green Lantern in my bedtime book has brown skin but they changed him in the movie to have white skin.

Speechless.

Isaiah:  Why did they change him, Mom? What was wrong with him having brown skin?

Rut roh.

Whew.

Isaiah:  I just want another Jake Justice, that's all. (now a little whimpery whine.)

Lawd.

Me:  Isaiah?

Isaiah:  Yes?

Me:  Your skin is beautiful and so are you.

Isaiah:  Yes, ma'am.

Me:  And Isaiah?

Isaiah:  Yes, Mom?

Me:  A long time ago when they first drew the Green Lantern in a comic book he had white skin. And then they changed him and he had brown skin. And then they changed him again for the movie and he had white skin again.  But the whole time he was still tough and a superhero and helped people. No matter what color his skin was.

(Okay, okay. . . I admit that I had Wikipedia-ed this question when the trailer first came out.)

Isaiah: But, Mom? Sometimes it makes me feel left out when none of the superheroes have brown skin like me. Not Superman, not Spiderman, not Batman, and not even Captain America. The only one was Green Lantern in my bedtime book. And my Jake Justice. But he's broke now.

Me:  Broken. (habit, sorry.)

Isaiah:  Bro-ken.  And they changed the Green Lantern to not have brown skin anymore. 

Gulp.

Isaiah:  And sometimes. . . .sometimes. . .  that kind of hurts my feelings and makes it seem like it's better to not have brown skin. Like the Green Lantern.

Oh Lawd. 

Me: (stammering) Uhh. . .so. . . do you think that? Like . . .think that it's better if you didn't have brown skin?

Gripping steering wheel real, real tight. . . knuckles whiter than the new Green Lantern. . . 

Isaiah:  (thinking) No. . . . I like my skin. But that makes me feel like somebody else doesn't like it when they changed the Green Lantern like that. Like they liked him better if he didn't have brown skin.

Mom? Dad? Can I get a consult here?

Me:  You know, Isaiah. . . .I'm not sure why they changed the Green Lantern. Maybe it wasn't even that big a decision when they did. But you know. . . there are some people who don't like other people for nonsense reasons. Like for having brown skin or being too short or being too tall or speaking another language or liking who they like. Really dumb reasons. So you just have to love how God made you no matter what anybody else thinks, you know? And then you just have to keep it moving.

Isaiah:  What does 'keep it moving' mean, Mom?

Me:  It means you look in the mirror and know that the way you were born was exactly right. You give yourself a thumbs up and then go on back to doing what you were doing. Like playing or coloring or doing karate chops. You remember that you are wonderfully made and once you know that you keep it moving.

Isaiah:  Okay.

Me:  Hey Poops? You know what?

Isaiah:  What?

Me:  Those guys are all make believe, you know. Those superheroes. And you can make believe anything you want in your own imagination. In your imagination, superheroes can be any color you want. Even blue-skinned with green hair.

Isaiah:  Blue!  (giggling)

Me:  Oh, yeah. Blue with big blue muscles. Especially if they're make believe.  But there are some real superheroes who do have brown skin just like you.  In real life.

Isaiah:  Like Obama?

Yaay. Yay, Yay, YAY.

Me:  Obama? He's one of them. . .yeah.

Isaiah:  And my dad. . .and my Papa. . . and my Uncle Shannon in Iraq.

Me: Yep, I've got one that you forgot.


Isaiah:  Who, Mom?

Me:  You.

Isaiah:  Me?

Me:  You. 



I looked in my rearview mirror at Isaiah. He was looking out of the window smiling. At what? I do not know. But the sight of it still made me smile too. . . .

That night, I logged onto Amazon and ordered him another Jake Justice.  And it wasn't even Christmas.

***
Happy Tuesday