Hegel in Vancouver

"Married men and married women can only be close friends in large crowds."-- Ted Danson, has been heart candy.

Aunt Marie fell earlier in the week, broke her wrist. I did not tell her ancient cunning "I told you so," but I told her over the summer to begin the process of case managing her decline. She claimed she wasn't ready. Now that she is in pain with a joint fracture which will not heal properly, she is "ready to throw everything to PCA," and mildly incensed me by saying she doesn't know how I do it with one hand. She is old and in excruciating pain, but Jesus H Fucking Christ I need a new set of colorful expletives. I considered poon in the sense Ellroy uses it, but as slang it is more rancid and degenerative than I care to be. Barriers need not be built so thick. 

I spent the early years of my childhood shuttled from row home to row home to row home, yellowed with cellophane lamp shades and plastic upholstery, Marie's included, on my knees on her kitchen linoleum as a monkey child screaming at her Rottweiler, thinking it was going to eat me, which led Uncle Richie to yell at me for frightening the damn dog, the tumors in his chest floating into place with T-1 switches, then I lived with her prior to my entry into the steaming dung of North Philadelphia, but the bigotry rolls like kidney stones from colon polyps.

Any time blacks start something between Temple University and Drexel, it becomes an international incident, but drive byes in Kensington, robberies in West Philly, these are slasher lede segments for the local broadcasts (Fox still sleeps with Coppola's opera; as a local network they believe traditional mafia is still relevant). I have been dealing with the guilt terror in that street thief's face, even if the kid has a defense to play, for 27 years now. It is the face of every black man who cannot matriculate into a professional niche within the business class. It is the face that destroyed whatever liberal creed I had twisted in my vaginal mucous when I migrated back, the face that angrily moved me rightward, the face that allows me to lose intimidation if I set out to teach Spike Lee something about humility.

Of the 600k minorities who legally reside in this large but dilapidated urban grid, two thirds of their children are texting me in face time audio urging me to "get mommy out of the toilet." My restraint has been admirable; it shall not last. In studio when I feel the need I toss the 5c in my canvas and hook it where I can access it. That alone helps me relax, but having matured from a vigorous 30 something into a bitter hag sow on Internet screens, sexting Jobs rib cage is beyond my day dreams.