I'm in Africa. The Sahel. It's hot. Yes, really Africa Hot. Periodic dust storms get into every crack and crevice. You breathe it. We've done our part. We have performed under difficult circumstances. If you know anything about Africa, you will know what that means. They now have to do their part. We need the ducats. We move things forward - hold and wait. Something occurs to change the situation but never enough to finalize it. When you deal with enterprises that think of themselves as entitled Leviathans, it takes all that is in you to not just scream and slap these MFs into next week!
Breathing. At any rate, I have begun to clean out some electronic files and came upon my writing junk drawer so to speak. I'm posting a few things over the next few days as SavMarshMama continues with her PT to 1 - fill the blog void and 2 - do something that will keep my mind off becoming a news story on CNN!
Here is my first offering.
WESTSIDE PEE PEE DANCE - A L.A. STORY
Went to Ralph's Market -
Miracle Mile. Had to pee bad. Walked swiftly through the market
trying to look nonchalant—business like.
I didn't want to draw attention to myself. My bladder was about to bust. If I didn't get to the head soon I would look and smell
worse than the homeless man at the bus stop, asleep in the L.A. Miracle Mile
sun. As I approached the entrance
to the restroom, a young black father was reaching for dairy products from the
refrigerated case. His son, about
five years old, was hanging on the end of the shopping cart, holding his legs
together and doing a contorted form of the same thing I was doing—The Pee Pee
Dance. Everybody's been there.
As I headed into the
restroom I heard his father say,
"Go head, boy. And hurry
up!". I was happily relieving
my anxiety after having danced quickly to the urinal, hopped on one foot,
unzipped my fly and began to take an overdue piss. There was only one wall urinal in the restroom so when the
young boy entered he went into the toilet stall. I could hear him doing a junior version of what I had just
gone through. As I moved towards
the sink to wash my hands a tiny voice said, "Help me.
Can you help me mister?"
Like my sons had done so many times when they where his age, the boy
couldn't get his pants undone and had intensified his pee pee dance gyrations
to not piss on himself. He was
hopping from foot to foot and twisting his waist from side to side while he
held his crotch with one hand. I
wanted to laugh but didn't because I knew it would destroy his faith in
humanity. I reached down, undid
the difficult metal button on his jeans and released the zipper. He scurried into the toilet stall
without even a thank you. He
didn't have time. He began peeing
in mid-stride. As I washed my
hands I thought of my own boys, now men, and how they probably still do the pee
pee dance but hopefully don't need a stranger to help them pull their pants
down.
A stranger! As soon as I thought about the word my
mind went through a whole series of social, political, sexual, legal, racial,
urban scenarios and ramifications based on the possible consequences of my
assumed avuncular act. I was a
stranger and had helped a five year old boy undo his pants in the restroom of a
major Westside L.A. market sans witnesses! Should I find his father and tell him in an authoritative
voice that his son is having a little trouble in the restroom? Throw in a "Don't worry Dad. Same thing happened when my three boys
where that age" so that I broadcast the message that I'm a dad too. What if he rushes in and the first
thing the boy says is, "I'm
OK dad. Some man helped me take my
pants down"? What will he
think? What questions will he
start to ask his son? Even worse,
under that pressure, what will the boy tell his dad? What happens when the child—innocent of any wrongdoing and
just happy that he didn't piss on himself—begins to pick-up that psychic vibe
from his parent that something should be wrong? Better not to tell his dad anything and just go on about my
business. I could, however, go to
his father and tell him exactly what happened. What if he thinks I'm trying to be frank to cover something
up? I mean, it's not every day
that a stranger comes up to you and tells you he just took down your five year
old's pants in the restroom. If I
were in his place, I'd have questions.
This is sick. Forget it.
But what if the boy
exits the mens' room, runs happily to his dad, points at me in front of
everybody in the store and says, smiling, "Thank you mister for taking my
pants down. Dad he helped me take
my pants off in the bathroom."
How will his father react?
What will be construed, maybe not immediately, but over the next few
minutes? Hours? Days? How will this father see me at that very instant? I am a light skinned African American,
taken as white by most people, especially on the Westside of L.A. I'm dressed in a sport coat and tie. Expensive shoes. I have gray hair (unfortunately for me
cut close to my head) and I'm in a market in an area that has a fair share of
gay residents.
Oh come on, I
thought. You're overreacting! Let it go. It's a sad statement about our society that you even have to
think of all this crap. It's true,
many children have been abused, molested, traumatized or kidnapped by strangers
in random incidents in L.A., but you hate these people. If it were up to you, you'd punish them
with Biblical, Quranic, Code of Hamurabbi methods, or worse. Surely if anything happens as a result
of helping this young boy, you can make his father and everyone else know who
you are. What kind of character
you have. But this is politically
correct Westside L.A., baby on board area, hyper reality to the extreme, where
parents control their child's every move.
And to complicate things, this is a part of L.A. that is as aloof from
"village" mentality (we're all in this together, my children can be
helped or scolded by you as I can help or scold yours, etc.) as you can
get. It ain’t anything like the
South Central L.A. of my childhood where, although not a village, you did
something bad in your neighborhood, you were liable to get whipped by neighbors
and then taken home for a real Ass Whippin.
FUCK! I wasn’t guilty of anything! What the hell was I worried about? I tried to keep that in my head as I
went to the front of the store to get a shopping cart and begin my list
oriented stroll up and down the aisles.
At each turn I hesitated, looking for the little man and his dad. Was I trying to avoid them? Honestly, most likely. And this bugged the shit out of me.
I did not lay eyes on
this father and son again. I
finished my shopping and headed to my daughter’s apartment nearby, unloaded the
sacks of groceries and walked towards the apt door. The sounds of my daughter and wife laughing together, like
only they can, made me forget the weirdness of shopping in mid-Wilshire L.A.,
the little boy and his pee pee dance, his father, my wandering worries and
thoughts. Later that night, over a
glass of scotch, I felt a great sadness for what we have become.
Cheers.
