He was a happy man.

You will pass the train station and then the purple store with that weird smell you always complain about. You will get home and your mother will speak to you of something or other but you will not pay attention. You will go on to the living room to see what’s on and once again see him. That drunken ****!

He will be sleeping there with a snore that penetrates your ears.

You will then run to the unknown...or the house across the street
(with a little added romance it is as if reality or the past changes into what we mould them but sometimes it is hard to keep clean and honest)
—What? Who is this—go! This is my memory…
(also mine without me there would not be a you)

You will be still small—as much as you will have tried to grow in the forty seconds it took you to get there. Almost unwillingly you will cry on your grandmother’s lap. She will hold you as you cry…she will hold you as you cry…she will hold you and cry…she will hold you…hold you



(i don’t think that’s exactly what happened but i am sitting on some red cold uncomfortable stool i sit and my eyes drift from one place to another there is a plant across the room one branch stands out i think i can move it i stare as hard as i can not an inch it moves but that’s just the gentle breeze coming from the open window the man closes it i do not dare to move around the man may notice me and it’s back into the streets no inside is better alone thinking i am alone and i realize that i am now this and not the past that i cannot tell a story for i am in present tense the past tells me a story i recognize it but i think he exaggerates i am now but I must not move or the man will see me i look at the plant really hard i can move it)

You will get up late that morning. The bus is gone so you will have to run the mile and a half to school. You run to class.

“Hold up kid!”

It’s that security guard that you seem always to displease and who looks onto you with distrust.

“Looking kind of tense there… anything troubling you?” a smile…the bastard!

You will tremble looking back and try to walk away and then run.

He will stop you. Pull your bag, it will fall off and he will find it. He will bring it close to his nose—it’s over…you will cry
(but there is no lap how can one cry without a lap my grandmother’s lap i could not have cried i must have must have)
it’s over.


He was a man of forty, he spoke slowly and his thinning hair was combed forward so they wouldn’t notice. He was not scared, he spoke assertively. He smoked another cigar. It’s his office; he can do whatever he wants. He was happy at last, he was happy, he thought. He was happy in his lonely little office—he can do what he wants (i just ran out of tears, i bet) He lighted up the cigar; it was a 6 ½ inch Cohiba Sublime. He wrote something of little importance. Signed it.

“Mrs. Bethel is on the line”

“Hi, honey!”

“I told you not to call me honey anymore, it’s absurd…cliché!”

“Please don’t yell, they’re here”

“I thought they wouldn’t be here for another month…I guess I will be home for dinner”

He ended the call. Went back to his cigar, was reminded that he wasn’t so happy. He called her in… a fling.
His wife knew about it, she even knew who she was. And he knew about her—it was a happy marriage. He sat and smoked his cigar. She came in.
( i am still hiding from that clerk why is he taking so long it’s just four ounces not that hard to come by i stop trying to move the plant the clerk turns on the television i refuse to watch he knows i do and he knows i am not visiting anyone i think waiting for visitors of guests does not quite earn you lounge privileges i have been asked out once but not this lounge i have grown accustomed to it not so cold what could be taking him so long he couldn’t have gotten caught this isn’t the first time)

You will bring it with you, despite his warnings.
“It’s all about living on the edge; besides, it’s the only way to remain profitable.”
Trembling, you will pretend not to be afraid, but it will all catch up to you and the sweat will begin to flow from your face. You were not made for this, as much as you try. As much as you push it. You won’t know how to approach potential customers. Buying is so much easier. You’ll be scared but you will try the impossible to fight it. The atmosphere the same, the people, the same but you will find yourself a stranger, something separates you from your comfortable anonymity. Somehow, the magic of what you carry will present you naked in front of everybody else; you will have to trust them. Like in those dreams when you stand up and find out you are not wearing any pants. It seemed so much easier when you were buying it. The face of that security guard again. Failure.
You will wish that one day you will be in control of the forces that drive your life. But the wishing and the wishing will only bring you back to the fearful moment.
Of course, you will never admit that it is your first time…as always; you act as though such things are second nature—you have done it before. It works.
You know that the demand is there, all you have to do is ask. You trust these people; soon you will find yourself selling it. Your talent will remain hidden; success will be attributed to experience. The authority that your lie will buy will lose the true appreciation of your talent. You will continue to live in understatement.
(i know i can do better than this i know that i don’t lack the skills to get me out of my dependence but i am a reproach incarnate yes i stand before the world and
to spite it i don’t live up to what it expects of what i think the soury sweet smell of the woman sitting next to me could make me digress i won’t let it it makes me remember i am human perhaps it will put my expectation in perspective it has been two hours the clerk he keeps looking never stares just glances as if my face is familiar)


He spent the winter in New York; the year did not wind up in a manner that merited celebration. The children didn’t want to go on vacation either; spend their time in a cruise pretending that they have some kind of familiar bond to brag about. The strings binding them together were entirely monetary, and he was the spinster. He knew this, but this year it was different; he was tired. He had the means to keep the thoughts of those surrounding him in the tips of their tongues—just beyond utterance. Though everyone knew the truth, he had the means to keep it hidden, and the spoken truth was up to him.
But he was tired, not because he was struck by some desire to reveal himself to the world, some will to truth; he simply had tasted power and found it bitter.
He called her again. She came. She didn’t love him. In fact, he knew that she dreaded being touched by his wrinkly shiftless hands, being near his ashy breath. She made it blatant to him. He found it pleasurable. It meant the fling was his only; he owned it. He lit the cigar. He can do whatever he wants. He was a happy man.

(i have been asked out of here before but not from this lounge the stool is red and uncomfortable i have to wait there are those eyes again i want to leave what is taking him so long i know that i don’t need him i can get my own this is just a ritual i don’t really need him but we must establish ties i have been in there once i remember it now the clerk again the plant across the room i know that i can move it)

You will agree to stop by the corner store to pick up fresh bagels. You take off. The thought of going back home from school will worry you as you leave the house. Home—it’s kind of an ironic word to refer to what you have. Home you have no control over. The bagels make your return inevitable. The promise stops your fantasies of escape from occurring.
He will be lying in the couch as he has been since as long as you can remember. You have no control over that. You live off his retirement fund.

School you have control over. You have created an impenetrable enough shell of selflessness. People respect you for it. But home is where your reputation ends. It’s the only reason you are planning to go to college. That drunken ****!

You are a reproach incarnate. You’ll take pleasure in your fear, in your loneliness. You’ll teach them!

He was a man of forty. The world was his but his hair was thinning. The seconds winding down on his existence as he smoked his habano. He can do whatever he wants.

(it’s a trip how we can have more control over the past more than the future the past can be imagined the past can become a myth the future is not uncertain it is inevitable i try to imagine that it isn’t i can imagine a present i can act it out i can invent a past i am i sit here and wait i forget why i forget why he looks at me again i’ve seen him before)

He was alone…he was happy (i probably ran out of tears)

“Why does this **** always happen to us?”

Somehow, your lack of means translates into the increased illegality of your actions. This does not stop you from doing it. It is your right as a young man to get high… it ought to be written somewhere.

The authorities will not agree. And you will end up in one of those probationary anti-drug programs where you hear about old Brian who had convulsions from sniffing air freshener. Marijuana makes your kind violent.

(perhaps i have been waiting too long i know he won’t come back it all seems so familiar as if i have been here before i know i have been it happened so long ago i am still waiting for it to change my life)

“**** you! What the hell did you bring us this far for?”

He knows that, whatever happens, it will be his ****. And it will be. He loves you. He has been your only family through all these years of solitude and you need him.

“I am telling you, I am not getting in there! I don’t care about your **** four ounces; you know what he’s been known to do to niggers.”

But he will go with you anyway—he loves you. He is your man; you are ready for a successful transaction…

“Why does this **** only happen to us?”

You will cry, but there will be no lap. You will cry but your friend is gone. You will cry because he is gone. You need to run.

This one was another check going to fund that neighborhood betterment program he has become addicted to. It made him feel less dead. It made him human. He remembered that night. He remembered the bleeding head. It made him delirious; he had no power over that. Guilt—love for his friend prevented him from becoming a monster. This bothered him.
His hair was thinning. He was alone and this memory made him realize that he couldn’t be completely callous. It was the only anchor that he had to the world. It reminded him that there was perhaps something missing, that perhaps he wasn’t happy.
That morning will find you struggling with the last question in the AP exam. Should it be Dostoyevsky or Goethe? Used as a tool for the sufferings of others. You will end up settling for Shelley’s Frankenstein. But that is not where your head will be.

(These are the leftovers of a dream, one from which I could not get out, and how could I? Help from others is just not feasible in these kinds of situations. What is a seventeen year old to do when presented with a life of injustice… and how define this to the anonymous faces that society presents? And then I end up here, in the slums, family friends and love merely abstractions in my deteriorating memory as I lay unconscious in who knows what street.

I recall my mother as she told me “Don’t you think that because you are now bigger and stronger, you can go out in the world… You are not invulnerable.”
But I thought I was and I still think I am— broken down in the middle of the street I still believe that I can. That I am somehow stronger than the expectation and in telling my story I become more of a man than what I’ll ever be inside one of those tea parties to which successful men in suits attend.
I was born, I think I was, and I was told I was loved; I was cared for in expectation. They awaited my success. Success…hell, it never came; as you can see now I am a failure to men’s eyes, I am made an example for what one ought not to be. And for all this I never loved, though I was expected to. Once I though I did, but it was merely fear of being alone, fear of being something else.
Perhaps it was a dream; I’d like to think so anyway… the people around me in those casual yet meaningful parties. You know, those times when you are so surrounded you could not feel more alone. Yes, I remember it clearly and distinctly.
I spent time thinking I was living but my goal was to lose consciousness, lose the sense of self that had tortured me as long as I have been. And can you tell me that is not the human condition? Giving up your precious conscience to whoever can take it away and give you forgetfulness in return. And what better way to lose yourself than self-destruction. We are told to better ourselves; that it will be good but I have figured that life is not about enjoying but about experiencing, about taking it as it comes. Suffering, we dread it so much that we have to add a meaning to it, attach to it some corollary that tells it: this is why you exist.
And who is more human than I who am suffering, I suffer for those who…wait I suffer for nobody but myself.)



“Blood, I will tell you for the last time, you are not telekinetic, no matter how stoned you get!”
He will insist as you walk to the hotel. He doesn’t want to go but you convinced him. He is your friend, your only friend, he loves you. He will go with you even though he knows how much Alvarez hates blacks. He will be scared out of his mind but he won’t tell you. He is scared and you know it.
“To Mr. Alvarez’s suite?”
“Room 212, third floor”
“You better come with me…”
It’s only four ounces. You will come into the room. They won’t believe you…never seen you before. They think you are snitches.
“You are as good as dead.”
The gun, he will pull it out. They don’t really think you are snitches; they just don’t like you, especially him.
The gun goes off.
His bloody face hits the floor.

They will kill him anyway.

You will run as you never have, they will not chase after you.

He is dead.

(i know he won’t come back i’ve been coming here for two weeks now i know he won’t come back i know he won’t he won’t he won’t because he is dead the clerk looks at me again i understand now)

He was a happy man he can do whatever he wants he was not afraid he was not afraid he was a happy man he is a happy man I am a happy man the gun felt cold in his mouth I can do whatever I want he is a happy man He is dead.