tenements are warehouses for souls

like so many drawers stacked up and up  side by side  like apothecary cabinets or

library card catalogs

pushed back  just off the street  leaving just enough room for arminarm shoeleather and

heels between their deep curbs

unstable stairs ran up to stoops or porches

and within                                                                                                                                 

doors onto hallways

 if  at random  you could magically yank one open

                                                                                not that one would recommend it

beyond the clattering doorchain or behind two or three carelessly placed deadbolt locks

you might get hit in the face with the smell of ethnic food cooking for dinner 

a view of unexpected gentility  rank disorder  or a fist

as a kid I tried to sell newspapers there

no luck

except at the top floor

a sleazy who said yah he buy a subscription

did I have change

I saw the numbers or letters on his door were missing

I explained Id have to take his information and forward that to Subscriptions

he said smartly when he was a kid they had to go door to door make their own

collections

I said  Then you ruined it for me  Collections are handled by the companies now  The

kids are out

Get out of here punk Do I look like a need a newspaper subscription to see whats going

on in this world

No sir  I replied  Looks like you got the world by the balls Aint nothing more you need to

know than you already do No sir not you

A selfsatisfied smiled began across his lips as I backed away   unassumingly   

something my daddy taught me from his days collecting insurance premiums on his

route

and I had plenty of distance between he and me before his smile eroded and he realized

I was mocking him

You little motherfucker

interrupting I bleated  If you met my mother youd understand your compliment

and just before I went breakneck speed down the stairs I howled at him Fuck you

theres an immense galvanizing satisfaction as a kid to tell an adult any adult Fuck you

I was two storeys descended before he reached the landing on his floor

the food stains on his dago-t at his potbelly tipped me off he wasnt up for a chase even

if he could hear the subscription change jangling in my pocket as I skipped every-

other-step on the stairs down

I might have been able to take every third step if it wasnt for my daddys blackjack in

my backpocket

he had insisted  Youre a bit too small to go toetotoe despite how big you feel you are inside

On the temple if you can and fly  I know you can fly

I could  as long as my feet could find the ground Id be gone Id be a bluestreak Id be

like runnin for the can so I wouldnt embarrass myself and shit in my pants

and yet

I couldnt help myself

I returned time and time again to the tenements

not really to sell papers

I knew they needed to spend their money elsewhere

but Id knock at their doors

theyd answer

theyd answer just like wed answer a knock at our door

but Id see something like Id never see down in my neighborhood

Id hear things Id never hear

smell things Id never smell

and every time I confirmed for myself

they were no different from me

circumstances  yeah

but other than that there wasnt one thing different between us

and I struggled

I couldnt help but wonder why my neighborhood my family my classmates and friends

saw them  so  very  differently  from themselves

maybe if I got hurt in the tenements I would have thought otherwise

                                                                                                                 but then again

I was an outlier

I stuck out like a sore thumb

I knew I was tempting Fate

my blood liked it

my heart definitely liked it

my guts and it got all twisty when I went in

and over time

I learned a name for it

I learned a name for it for myself  and for everyone else I knew

Ignorant

I preferred it to ignorance   because ignorant was

                                                                              one person at a time

and one person at a time was going to be the only way to change it

and Change

I knew then

was a real slow clumsy motherfucker

who had an ugly mother

who was far bigger than me

and probably carried a bat

it seemed to me youd have to kill him to change him 

2332,  Saturday,  24  8. 13