bitterisataste . . . words and ramblings . . . v.6.0

Saturday, November 01, 2008

this entry brought to you by beck, "we dance alone"

This past August Michelle, our daughter and I went to visit Michelle's dad, Jerry, up in Missouri. Jerry doesn't live in a city, though, he lives out in a very rural area outside of a smallish city. His nearest neighbor is probably a half mile away, and behind his house are a small lake and a damn forest, although I should point out that the former isn't that big a deal, as I'd never seen so many small bodies of water in my life than when I was in Missouri.

There was a day when Michelle, Celest, and her dad went out to spend the day together. I was asked if I wanted to come but I said no, I wanted Michelle to spend some time with her father. So I was in his house alone all day. Her father had a nice living arrangement in the basement with bed, comfy couch, and huge screen television. It was basically a studio apartment, and I was very content to stay down there. At about 10 in the morning I started to get hungry, and up the stairs I went to the kitchen to make myself breakfast.

I was standing up there, making bacon and eggs, all the light coming in from the windows. I was surprised that most of his windows did not have shades, and when I was in the car and I was driving down the road, looking into other houses I could see into them easily; if they had shades themselves, they were pulled open. So there I am, making breakfast in the kitchen.

I started to think. People in Missouri have guns. Jerry Biggs is a lawyer for this small town, and everybody knows him-- indeed, when we stopped by the local mega super duper Wal-Mart, seven or eight different people came up and happily said hi, a couple asking minor questions about cases. What if somebody came by Jerry's house during the day? What if, say, he had requested some important papers, they went by the office and he wasn't there, and they thought, enh, I'll drop them off by his house when I drive by. And they look inside and they see this black guy in the house. I'm out in the middle of the country. People in the country have guns.

I could just picture somebody opening the door-- doors were rarely locked, just as you'd heard about-- and sticking a gun in my face, demanding to know what the hell I was doing in his lawyer's house. "I'm his son-in-law!" I would say.

"I never heard of Jerry having no black son-in-law!"

"Honest! I'm his son-in-law! I'm married to his daughter! If I wasn't related, why would I be making breakfast in his house?"

"I was thinkin the same damn thing! What is some black guy doin' makin' breakfast in Jerry's house?"

I ate quickly and stayed downstairs for the rest of the day, petrified of my vision.

When Jerry and Michelle got back, I told them what I was thinking, and they both laughed heartily. That would never happen, they said. Besides, a lot of people around here don't have guns.

A lot of people. Which is such a wonderfully specific thing to say. You could say that in general. A lot of people in America don't have guns. Yet people still wind up getting shot for misunderstandings. Funny how that works.

My wife and father in law thought I was being silly for my paranoia of middle America, but a few days after I got home I heard a story. It was in Texas, and there was a 911 call placed. During the call an old man said his neighbor's place was being robbed by a couple of black dudes without the old man knowing the whole story, and while he was on the phone, despite the 911 operator repeatedly telling him not to leave the house and not to interfere, that the cops would be there soon, he walked over to the house and shot them both. Which gave me the assurance that, yes, if I'd've stayed in Missouri any longer, I absolutely would have been shot to death, without any question. And I'm only half black!
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with love from CRS @ 10:01 AM

Saturday, November 01, 2008

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