The Dirty Rat

We’d gathered together for a poetry reading none of us wanted to attend. This was weeks ago, the same day a group of men and women gathered in a church for bible study and were murdered by someone from the community they invited in. However awful and angry all of us had been feeling from events over the last year leading up to this day, now that energy had converted into untenable mourning and we all were as if gathered at a wake.

It was hard for me to find the café/bookstore at first, since its tucked in an area of smooth concrete and office buildings. Art here would be an afterthought. But not here in the new Oakland where this café serves beer on tap in mason jars. I’d already walked past it before this brother ran out after me calling me back. I’d just met him the night before at another event and though we were but gentle strangers, I still moved to hug him.

The café/bookstore is modest and comfy with its natural wood bookshelves and tables. Very homey in spite of being surrounded by so much cold concrete and steel and glass. I sat with this New Brother and a woman, whom I knew and who kept choking back tears talking with us about feeling professionally belittled and socially degraded on book tours due to her race, her being Spanish not black. At the end of the night I fell into her arms and hugged her a long time. I’m not usually the one to let go first, I told her. She said we should get together and write sometime and I said of course. Of course.

Across the room, there was a Filipino poet whom I knew and hadn’t seen in person in a long time. I went over to him, and though he wasn’t nasty to me, it somehow felt like I’d made a mistake. Like he was tired or just Done with everything. We shook hands, chatted briefly, but there was nothing he wanted from me and I quietly went back across the room to where I was.

None of us could figure any thing out. And we didn’t want to be there, but it was a book release for a local woman we all respected and liked. And the show must go on, right? It wouldn’t be a long night.

The night comprised of four mini-features and ended with the woman reading from her amazing new book. And though our energy muted, a lot of good work was shared and all the readers solid.

So: the end of the night. One woman I knew, whom I’ll call Tea, here, approached and asked if I wanted a ride home. I shrugged sure, of course. The organizer of the night’s event paid me and I told him about Tea and her work and asked him to consider her for a future event.

But before any of us left, I found Tea showing one of the men who featured earlier a picture on her phone. She took a shot of the Jesus projected on the fancy church just down the street. They were both staring at the photo incredulous.

I wanted to show you this because in your reading you mentioned studying theology in college, She told the man.

The man stared at her photo with his hand over his mouth. Blown away.

They both thought the image, glowing like a beacon on her phone, more closely resembled Baphomet than Jesus. The out of focus halo resembling horns. The hand position. Tea being no avid church goer. Believing more in people and spirit than religious doctrine and the bible. So she and the younger theology student bonded over the odd-looking photo before she and I finally left the venue.

We walked up to where she parked. Her car had been towed. She nearly stepped off the curb into traffic, cussing the air, dazed, confused and angered.

That next afternoon, downtown Oakland, a parade was scheduled for the Warriors recent win. But that was tomorrow, she kept saying. There was no sign when I parked there, she kept saying. Why would they do this?

All up the street, tow trucks glowed, their lights almost appearing to giggle in defiance. The sign we approached said the towing would start at 8pm. She parked at around 7. It was now 9:30. And there wasn’t much traffic to be seen anywhere. It was as if the city slept early in anticipation for the parade. All for a basketball game? she kept asking the empty street.

So, she sat on a bench and went into a series of panicked calls about her car, where was it, fully intending to pick it up that night. I could only pace the sidewalk and half listen as she tried to keep her composure talking with someone on the line who didn’t know this, wasn’t sure of that, asking her to please hold. I walked to the corner and stared up at the church and its projected image and remembered how my Catholic ex-girlfriend called it The Creepy Jesus church. The image is slightly blurred, softened. You know its a representation of Christ. But what if you don’t know, then what is it? In the glow of night, its haunting.

Tea found where they’d towed her car but found it otherwise hard to think.

Part time, she drives for Lyft or Uber or whomever. I haven’t yet used either service yet. So with me still waiting, she hung up from the towing company and then used her app to request a car. Only to find out that she would be charged 100% over the regular fee because right now it was a rush hour.

What rush, she shouted anew. What rush hour are you talking about? There’s no traffic. Do you see any traffic?

Beyond sweeping tow trucks and police lights, I didn’t. Some people walked. A car or two passed. The man who hosted the reading that night walked past us on the phone, his car having disappeared as well.

So I called a cab for Tea and me.

She kept arguing with her phone and the app. How do you get out of this, she said shaking her phone. I didn’t know.

A taxi quietly pulled up next to us. I directed the man to take us to my house. The driver overheard her talking with another person about how much she’d have to pay for her car. After she hung up told us what a racket it all was. You pay the police, you pay the towing service. You’ll end up paying $400, $500, the man said.

We pulled up in front of my house.

I’ll get out with you, Tea said disappointed.

I said no, its okay. Wanting to be done with everything.

I paid the cab fare and tipped him. Then gave her my last two twenty dollar bills to go from there to wherever else she needed. The tow yard and/or home. I hugged her. I got out.

And I was angry. But why? The night only cost me $60. For her, so much more. I don’t even own a car.

Yet I felt tense and frustrated. Once upstairs, I had to keep repeating how I was grateful and thankful, in order to ease the anger that rose within me. I was grateful and thankful:

* I had enough money to get us home safely
* Beyond the towed car, nothing bad happened, no one was hurt
* The reading went well
* I didn’t expect to get paid, but I was
* the money I put in the hat to pay the other readers, I got double my money back. I donated $6 and was paid $12.
* The features book was really good

My anger eventually dissolved like ice in a glass of water. She text me a thank you and said she’ll pick the car up in the morning before the parade. I texted back how sorry I was that had to happen but was still glad it ended okay. I took a shot of whiskey and went to sleep.

The first reading was for a fundraiser for Breast Cancer. My friend from high school emailed a while back asking if I’d participate. I immediately said yes before I thought—exactly what am I supposed to say to a room full of women about breast cancer?? What kind of audience is this?? But my heart kept insisting: Read the poem There Is Sun. Then, as time got closer: Read it and tell it to the audience as if to your mother…

Ok. “There are so many things I’ve never gotten to share with her.” There Is Sun is a poem of love and hope and its nearly songlike. I’d read after the praise dancers and before the fashion show, she said. Be high energy and positive, she said.

The venue was near the airport and I saw on line how a bus passed it, but when I got on that bus a different story emerged. The bus by-passes the area I needed by a half mile, then kept going. The bus driver had no idea what the street was or if a bus went there and apologized as he dropped me off at the quiet airport. I was stuck and needed a cab. I had less than a half hour.

A woman approached me at the taxi stand. She said it would be 20 dollars. I’d been paid 50 already. I reached into my pocket, but she said: After your ride, sir.

I got in shotgun. A woman was already in the backseat of the van waiting.

I was told we were going first to Alameda to drop her off. The driver took off slow. I relaxed, not trying to push into anxiety. Everything will turn out as it should, I thought.

The woman whispered directions to the driver. The driver turned onto a cul-de-sac where a huge spruce tree was covered with white lights. We pull up outside a boxy mansion, a necklace of lights smiling in the window. A woman strolled out down the path as the driver pulled a suitcase from out of the van. How much do I owe, she said after greeting the girl.

The driver plugged my address into his phone and we quietly drove back to the airport. No radio. No conversation until he pointed to a dark building I didn’t clearly see. A great Indian restaurant there, he said. I didn’t want to be an ass. I’ll need to talk to people later tonight, right? I said: I was in Mumbai last Christmas. He grunted. We turned down one street then another as his phone counted down the number of feet. We pulled up in the crowded driveway and I got out.

The banquet hall turned out to be a mason meeting temple. I stood in the lobby and saw group photographs of men and women in sashes and mason symbols hanging on the wall.

And not just any mason. But the order my mother was a member of.

I remained shyly in the lobby doorway. To my left, a large banquet hall where the breast cancer fundraiser was beginning. The huge round tables were decorated in white and pink. As I arrived, the crowded room all stood to get in line for hors’doerves of meatballs and deviled eggs and fruit slices. To my right, a doorway opened to a long hallway and a smaller meeting room and the bathrooms. Before me, a 1970’s wood paneled stairwell ascended upstairs, decorated with class-style group photographs and plaques. I wanted to follow the stairwell but didn’t. No one would’ve stopped me until they found out I was just being nosy. So I remained in the lobby, not feeling comfortable enough to go inside, not feeling comfortable enough to wander around upstairs and not sure what I was doing, period. With me at the door was a older man in a folding chair, and two women dressed in matching white who were to perform just before me. We all introduced ourselves. The women were waiting to be called next.

About then, I begin wondering where my friend was and what she looks like now. Then, for the first time in years, I lay eyes on her, recognizing her immediately. She reminded me of a spring bird with long black eyelashes. She seemed the perfect organizer, supervisor. Confident, cool, precise and all knowing. Not rushed. I entered slowly like a gunfighter, my hands in the pockets of my long black overcoat. She made an announcement on mic, then took a lap around the room before approaching me, sans hello.

Are you ready to go? She said. The program lay across her forearm like a clipboard.

Uh, right now? I shrugged. Yeah.

Well, in a minute, she said. You’re after the dancers, they’ll be up in one second. She spun off.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I talked with the dude sitting at the door about his grandchildren in Atlanta. I went over to a table of women and asked for a program, but there was none. After a couple of minutes, my friend marched over and handed me one. Then said: Can you go a little longer, the fashion people are still getting ready.

I told her I was going to read one poem, tell a story and do the Poem. She gave a non-verbal okay with that and walked off.

The praise dancers performed to a pre-recorded gospel song. I saw little of it being all the way in back, except how the ladies raised their gloved hands to push an imaginary sun across the sky with choreography. My friend walks past me with ‘you’re next’ and I slip out of my coat and get up.

I read a poem dedicated to my mom, then told the story about how my next poem was written, then do the last poem. I kept my eyes at the back of the room on the table of girls I’d gone to school with. I kept my eyes on the woman standing all the way at the back of the room against the wall. I scanned the tables of older women around me. There were some men in the room, but not many. One young man, maybe in his 20s or so, never looked up at me. I hoped something I said meant something. I finished my first poem to silence. I felt the silence and it halted me. The room was listening, though I was listening to the void left by them listening. There was no podium to hide behind and ground myself. This made me nervous and I told the room so. Me? Nervous? Rare. I began telling the story and felt suddenly inarticulate and foolish, as if my words were boxy Legos I had to awkwardly angle out of my mouth. I didn’t go blank, exactly. My words just felt sloppy and malleable.

I powered through the set, got off to applause, then sat in back of the room. No one really looked at me and certainly no one said anything. I thought: What did that have to do with breast cancer? Silly. I felt silly. And awkward.

A woman approached me flanked by two small children, each holding paper plates of fruit. The woman was taller, larger than me. Near her, I also felt like a kind of child. She sat in the chair next to me, her son on the other side. I got up and gave my seat to her daughter. I told her my ride was coming, and it was ok. No one was looking when I got up. I went out of the banquet hall into the lobby and called Harem, the shuttle driver. I went out to the cold parking lot. I didn’t want to see the fashion show, I didn’t want anything else. I stood outside, shrank into my coat and felt embarrassed.

The shuttle arrived in minutes. I got in, looked at my phone and realized I was inside the banquet hall for a shorter amount of time than the ride here from the airport through Alameda. The shuttle was still quiet, no other passengers and no radio playing. We passed the Indian restaurant the driver pointed out earlier and I asked him: What part of India are you from? He said he was from Afghanistan. I shrunk into my seat further and didn’t say anything else except Thank You when I got out.

**

The second reading was this past Saturday. Not far from my house.

I got off the bus, walked a couple of dark blocks through a double wall of boys standing quietly on the street corner. I found the address, double checked it on my phone and saw a small sign on the hand-rail pointing to the alley next to the house, which was illuminated with tall glass candles.

A white dude stood in shadow in the backyard. He greeted me, his voice nervous, watching me approach in the dark, alone, responding only to his questions. I could hear his heart thumping as he asked; You hear for the reading? Then: You’re the first to arrive. The reading was in the basement garage of a large Victorian. The basement huge, nicely lit with white rope lights. There was the presence of a piano and a white sheet up for a film to be shown later.

A small table with bottles of wine, cookies and crackers laid out like a shuffled deck of cards. I was cornered in conversation for a long while by a filmmaker from New Zealand. This benefited me because:

1) He stayed with our conversation as the room behind him filled up. There was no opportunity to mingle or feel awkward around anyone else.
2) He kept me from finding a seat and sitting quietly, pretending to scroll through my Facebook feed
3) He helped the hour pass while waiting for others to arrive and the show to start.

He apologized for holding me hostage– me not peeling out of my coat and backpack until it was time to read. I was surprised I did know about four or five people who arrived. I find myself often wishing I was a different kind of person, more gregarious, more likeable, more charming. One woman who arrived was in my writers group from years ago. She asked: What happened to your manuscript. And I was flooded with excuses and shame. It stalled, I told her truthfully. But some truth a West Indian woman will look askance at, and for good reason.

Its true, as shit piled on a corner is true. But its still shit.

There’s not much detail to share. But the event was nice, intimate. It opened with some great music, one of the performers playing piano, a woman sang a spiritual, the pianist read poems. I read, followed by another woman who performed from memory. The event ended with the filmmakers film. I’d been told the film was experimental and abstract. We all settled down quietly for the next seven minutes. The room darkened, the screen then lit with blue and we waited for the film to start.

But it started already. It was a shot of the sky, wispy clouds. A single shot, quiet. No ambient noise, and for several minutes we were unsure anything was playing at all. The filmmaker said: I submit this to you as a kind of meditation. But did we want that? We paitiently waited through the seven minutes and suddenly, as if a plug was pulled, the screen went black. The quiet room stayed quiet. And with no one speaking, we all gradually got up and began to leave.

Well, I was the first to leave…

Without Bart, I had to get to San Francisco hours early for the reading I was in. For a 5:30 call time, I was at the Embarcadero eating vegan doughnuts, sipping coffee and journalling by 3. I finally commuted deeper into the city, back to the Mission and a neighborhood I once lived. Behind me, there was a junior high school aged boy who wouldn’t stop talking; he was so bright and alive, yet he monologued confidently as a prison lifer. All attitude and energy and not one fuck was given.

I was a half hour early to the hood and took a walk. The bookstore I thought I might burn some time in was now a hollowed empty shell. As was the other bookstore a block down where years ago hosted a open mic and readers series. That’s history, and the place is now dark and shuttered. No one buys books anymore. A bookstore, you stay. What’s that?

I was here for Litcrawl, part of the Litquake literary festival. I got to the bar minutes before the host of the show and one of the festival organizers. While they set up mics and prepped the live on-line stream, I chatted briefly with a friend who showed up. She stopped by to visit before heading off to her own event later that night. We sat and talked a while. I kept thinking about how she once came up as a potential match for me on this on-line dating site. She never responded and we’ve never talked about it. Its a secret I’m supposed to keep or pretend never happened. I guess I also pretended not to hear her but briefly mention some project she was doing with her sweetie, how she tilted her head phototropically on that word and I also didn’t hear her say she was going to the bar to get a drink. She said this twice before getting up. I didn’t want to drink. What I wanted, I couldn’t get.

Another friend and co-feature for the night showed and sat across from me. He and I performed together years ago, before his marriage and daughter, before he was a published author and teacher. We talked but briefly before the reading began. And it was a solid one. Equal female to male readers and everyone was on point. The room, since tonight was a special event, was packed. Standing room only from what I could see at the mic. And folks appeared to listen and be attentive, those closest to the action. It was a great night. My friend shared something new and the two women who ended the night were both excellent. The woman who finsihed the night touched me greatly with poems on her mother– this before she herself began to choke up with her last lines.

The reading finished even if the night was far from over. People crawled out of the bar to the next closest venue, event. I gave copies of my chapbook to the other readers that night and passed out hugs. I sold enough books to get a burrito and some chips, then walked down to the bus stop for the commute home. I wanted to hear some more work, but not having Bart made getting around an ordeal. It would take two hours between leaving the bar and opening my front door.

At the bus stop, a man stopped me and said he enjoyed my poetry. What to do with a compliment? I thanked him, paused to see if there was anything else I need to do or say, but he just stared and I nodded and pushed on to the drug store for corn chips and aloe water. When the bus arrived, the same man got on after me. We talked since we were both heading to the transbay terminal and the same bus back to Oakland.

Turns out he is a reverend and author. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a novel he’d published, set in Oakland. We signed and traded books and talked. Truthfully: I interviewed him, uncomfortable as I was with silence hanging between us since we were travelling together and, well, “He started it.” He seemed quiet as I naturally am. But the conversation was cool. We got in the long line for the bus back to Oakland and waited for a half hour. Here, he turned to the man behind us and asked if he could take our picture. Then we stood quietly next to one another, reading each other’s books. I began his– its not bad. I don’t want to describe it as Ghetto/Urban Fiction, but what else to say? The cover has a hooded out of focus man holding a gun out towards the reader from beneath huge block lettering of the books title, as if the letters were bars, falling to enclose the character or crush him.

Reading the book and noting how one scene flowed into the next, I wondered if the author mapped out his story or just sat and wrote and let it happen. I didn’t ask. The answer is another question: “Why am I not writing a book right now?” Earlier, at the bar with the woman I knew, I mentioned how playwriting seemed like my next logical move. She looked at me and smiling longingly. She told me how while she was unemployed, no writing took place. She promptly disarmed all my excuses that kept me from sitting and thinking and working.

The bus was bloated and left several dozen people still in line as it pulled off. But the trip was peaceful and smooth. Strangers were talking and laughing. They had to, standing so close with one another. The man, Rev. Author, found a seat behind me. When I got off, we shook hands and I promised he’d see me again. I meant it. I was down to visit one of the churches he volunteers for. Both popular and legendary churches in the east bay, and despite my church upbringing, they’re churches I never thought to visit. Until now. And after reading a chapter, I was down to finish his book. Never would have touched it if I hadn’t met him…

I climbed the hill back home and saw the moon was full. My best friend sent me a few texts. He couldn’t make it to the bar and listened to the live stream of the show on line. It was a good night.