Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Fate and the gods conspired to make me laugh.

Yesterday was one of those days when you thank God for giving you life. It was a great day to be alive. The day was beautiful, the air smelled of spring and fate and the gods seemed to have conspired to make me find laughter at every turn...

I was waiting for the bus when I heard this 1980’s R&B song, “Secret Lover” blasting from a boom box. Well as loud as a little boom box would allow. Just as I was about to turn around to see where it was coming from I saw the source of it. An elderly man about 80 yrs old rode past me on his “rascal” he was whizzing by at around 8 miles per hour; those things don’t go very fast. The kicker was that he had his rascal scooter all decked out. In his mind was a Harley and he was a bad young man from back in the day. I can tell he must've been a bad ass because in the basket of his scooter he had a small bat, which I’m assuming was for protection. I had to stop in my tracks before boarding the bus and laugh as he winked at me and made his way down the street “blasting” his music.

I got off the bus to take the train into Manhattan in the East Tremont section of the Bronx. This is an area with a lot of African immigrants. As I made my way towards the subway station I came across this beautiful older African woman balancing a heavy suitcase on her head. As I walked by her she smiled at me, she balanced the suitcase as it were a basket of feathers. Her walk was so graceful, her hands were beautiful and as she spoke her hands and muscular arms moved in a fluid motion, she was poetry in motion.

I made my way onto the subway and found a man playing his violin, when he was done he passed a small cardboard box around to collect money. Another man who seemed homeless had been watching him intently. At the next stop the man with the violin got off leaving his empty cardboard box on the seat. The homeless man got up and took the box and walked to the middle of the car and sat down. He then flipped the box over and began pounding a beat on it and singing this song,” I am broke (bang ,bang, bang) that ain’t no joke (bang, bang) I am broke...I need money (bang, bang, bang) not trying to be funny (bang,bang) if you’re having fun give me some (bang, bang, bang) cause I am broke and it ain’t no joke (bang, bang, bang)” Yeah I gave him a couple of dollars, I just had to.

An hour or so later I took my seat in class next to Reina. The professor is running late as usual and was hungry. She ran out of class to pick something up. One of my classmates reminds me how strict this professor is about eating in his class I call out to Reina not realizing how loud my voice was just then, “You better shove it in your mouth and swallow before he comes!” Just then one of the guys sitting next to me looked at me and burst out in hysterical laughter to the point where his eyes were tearing up. No matter how old a guy is there’s always that immature adolescent boy inside of him waiting to come out. Damn pervert.

A few hours later it is evening and I am on my way back home, riding the subway again. A couple of children get onboard with their grandmother. For some reason I was just enthralled by the kids. After telling my mom about them she said was probably look like what my future children will look like. The girl was around 9 years old and the boy was about 3 years old. They both had the same tan complexion as me and their hair was the same color as mine it was auburn with the occasional red highlight in it. They were adorable. The little girl was hard at work with her math homework. The little boy wanted to sit next to his sister but his grandmother wanted him near her. The little boy was not to happy about this. As his grandmother sat him next to her he pouted and said, “ I don’t wanna sit nest to ju!” his grandmother turned and looked him in the eye and sternly said ,”WHAT did you say?” he looked up at her with these big dark saucer like eyes and said, “nuffin! ” and then turned away and pouted. I had to laugh. For the rest of the train ride he kept me entertained making faces at his grandma every time her head was turned away from him.

I really wished for my camera then, I think I could’ve shot a whole roll of film on him alone.

Labels: new york

Posted by @ 10:50 AM
1 comment from:  Goggles Piasano Ritardo,