Shopping Cart
    items

      ←

      May 27, 2012Next, NextPatricia Smith

      he is the only white boy in lawndale
      and who could blame him, searching
      for a line of commerce that could save
      his life? he starts hanging in the shadows
      of our apartment building, pulling down
      his pants and charging us a dime to look,
      a quarter to touch. stubbed fingers, dingy,
      pinkish, thumbing it. the slowly writhing
      nub hooded and winking sly neon, here,
      here, here, go on, touch it, go on be startled
      by its whispered little rhumba, its soft
      arrogance. the long line of wait, colored
      and curious, snakes washington street
      with giggles electric, our one stomach
      throbbing with this stupid magic. white boy
      shifts from Ked to Ked, corporate bigwig
      under the overhang, and if not for his
      clipped command, next, next, we would
      not even notice him attached to the thing.
      three dimes sticky in my fist. i’m two
      unraveled braids, grape bubble gum smash,
      newly baptized into the wrong world.
      i do not know the name of my immediate
      future, wouldn’t recognize the hot snap
      of the word cock, i don’t have a clue
      to that thing’s unerring purpose. but ouch,
      a vessel deep in me is already calling.
      i move forward, impatient, my touch
      outstretched for a stranger, blood money
      straight from my hurt to his. still, i’m blue
      with shame because i’m sure i’m the only one:
      he has to take my hand and guide it there.

       

      from #35 - Summer 2011

      Patricia Smith

      “I grew up on the west side of Chicago, in a tenement apartment building with an overhang on its north face. During the winter, the overhang would offer respite from the relentless Chicago winter, with its slushy sidewalks, mountains of snow and biting wind. In the summer, it provided shade from the searing sun. We’d gather in its shade to jump doubledutch or sit cross-legged in the dirt to play jacks. The west side was the part of town everyone said to stay away from—so, of course that meant that the people who lived there were poor, and black. In my neighborhood of Lawndale, though, there was one exception. One white family lived there. One mother, a father, a small girl, and one boy about my age. To keep from being stalked, teased or jumped—just because he was so foreign—the kid developed an ambitious and industrious schtick. Today, I imagine him retired to his villa in Tuscany, still counting our quarters.”

      →

      Related