Chango Crying: ONE

Prayer to The Seven African Powers

O, Seven African Powers, who are so near to our divine Creator, with great humility I kneel before thee, and implore your intercession before almighty God. Hear my petition, and grant me peace and prosperity. Please remove, forever, all of the obstacles that cause me to sin. Oh Heavenly Father, I trust in your words, “Ask and thy shall receive.”

Ashé

ONE

Standing in a stiff March wind in front of the Maryland House of Corrections in Jessup, I resist the urge to pull the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head. The breeze feels different on this side, freer. I’ve been locked up for almost five years for one last gram of cocaine. Because I wouldn’t give up my connection, they had wanted to give me twenty. I pled to eight. They paroled me after four and a half—a year too late to be there for my mother when she died. I’ve been in too long.

I turn around to catch the gate click shut behind me. It could have been worse, I think. It could have been like all the movies and television shows: a den of iniquity and violence, overflowing with criminals teaching each other how to be better criminals. It can be, if what you want is to be a criminal.

I just wanted to get out. I don’t want to remember going in, but I can’t help it. Walking into the cellblock, hearing the inmates hollering.

“¡Look at what we got here, fresh meat!”

“¡Oh Yeah! I see we got some tight virgin ass up in he’e.”

“I got dibs on the little Indian.”

The first night was the roughest. The few days I spent in lockup before making bail were bad enough. But this was a whole new monster. When you get to the pen, everyone is eyeing you up, checking you out. Some look at you with hungry eyes, as if you were meant to be their next meal. Some measure you up, as if deciding how much of a challenge it would be to take you out. It was the ones that didn’t look at you, the ones walking around with cold dead stares that scared me, most.

It seemed I knew what I could expect from the rest. With the zombies, as I called them in my own head, anything seemed possible. Make a mistake, hit their trigger and I was sure I’d find myself on a coroner’s table quicker than I hoped.

The worst was that first dinner call. I always feel lost my first time in any cafeteria. The pen was no different, except I was lost in the most inhospitable of environments. No time to stand still and get my bearings, I was shoved aside like some willowy branch hanging in between predators and their prey. Even when I got in line, I kept getting grabbed and pushed back until I realized I was in the rear with the group I had come in with that day. What was left when we finally made it to the front was cold and inedible, not that being warm would have made what we were served any better.

My plan had been to pass the time by finishing my high school diploma, catching up with some reading, and ingratiating myself to a few of the prisoners. I was no idiot, but my senior year in high school had been all about getting high and trying to get laid. I got plenty high, but never did manage to get laid. By the end of the third quarter, I had missed more days than not, so I decided to just stop going altogether. When I was sentenced, I figured I would at least have the time to finish what I had started. I’m not very good at that. I owed it to myself to at least finish high school.

I went to a few classes in the pen, and gave up. I couldn’t stand sitting in a classroom full of remedials. Anytime I heard someone trying to read at anything higher than a third grade level, stuttering and stammering through each word, I grit my teeth until my jaws ached. I never had the patience to sit through class, but that was unbearable. I think I went three times before dropping out. Again. I did spend plenty of time reading. And I managed to make a few friends by trying to be funny and useful.

My cellmate was going on trial for stabbing a panhandler who he felt got too aggressive. The state wanted Ricky to cop to six years. Ricky claimed that because he only stabbed the bum in the leg, that he wouldn’t cop to more than three. He would end up pleading out for five years, three suspended.

Ricky was seventeen, two years younger than I was. He didn’t say much the first of couple days, except to run down some things I should know. “Don’t step on nobody’s kicks!” By kicks, he meant tennis shoes. “That’s instant beef. Watch where you walk, cuz you so much as nudge some of these fools, they’ll shank yo’ ass without lookin’ at you. Get to the food line as fast as you can. Some folks are friends with the servers, or they pay ‘em fugs...”

“Fugs?” I interrupted.

“¡Fugs! Cigarettes. Where you from man? Anyway, they get what you might say is healthy servings. So if you late, you might be going to bed a little hungry. And if you ain’t looking to get fucked, don’t be nowhere where you by yo’self. They figure, if you there, you want some. And if you ain’t want some, you shouldn’ a been there.”

After a few days, once he realized I read a lot, he asked if I could write.

“I’m no writer, but I know how to write.”

“Can you help me throw some shit together for my girl? She sent me some nekkid pictures, and I wanna say something nice.”

“Did you try thank you?” I asked, realizing after I said it that I might have come across as belittling.

The sucking noise he made through his teeth told me I did, but forgivably so. “¡Yeah man! But I wanna do something nice for her. Like write a rap. You freestyle? You write rhymes?”

“You can probably freestyle a whole hell of a lot better than me,” I admitted, “but I can maybe help you write a decent poem.”

“¡Tight! Maybe I can beatbox over it. ¡Maybe we can tape it!”

We didn’t make a soundtrack for it, but I wrote a readable letter with a few verses and only had to think of three rhymes for fuck while he made sound effects with his mouth as he stood over my ear. Soon enough, I was writing or reading for fugs for almost half the block. I didn’t even smoke, at least not cigarettes. It was a dying currency, anyway. You can no longer smoke in bars and restaurants, so it won't be long before prisons make cigarettes contraband.

I never charged them, anyway. Tradition holds that I just do what is in my power for those that ask and deserve it. I’m to ask for nothing in return, but accept anything offered.

I ended up helping these kids sort through paperwork, reading the documents from the public defenders whose faces they rarely saw before their trail date, writing letters to try to get those same public defenders to visit, or filling out their parole applications. I’d listen to them for hours, telling me about problems I could rarely help with, but I’d try to offer what advice I could. I’d done the same thing in high school.

The seat on the bus next to mine was always empty for anyone wanting to share their pain. Actually, most of the time Krissy sat there. She couldn’t stop sleeping with her brother, or any other boy that asked nicely enough, except me. She walked over to me during lunch one day, her only complaint being that she was horny as hell. I offered to help her out if she’d just sneak behind our school’s little stadium with me. She thought about it for maybe five seconds before saying no.

I don’t think anything I said ever made a difference. My schoolmates would always go back to doing the same things that ended up hurting them—problems they would bother me with sooner or later. After I left high school, I heard Krissy went down on two guys at once in the walk-in freezer of the Hardee’s they all worked in. But I never let that stop me from trying to get in her pants every time I ran into her, to no avail.

Most of the inmates in my cellblock were young like Ricky. They were awaiting trial and couldn’t afford bail. There was no room left in the Juvenile pre-trial facilities. The rest were juveniles convicted as adults. I supposed the powers-that-be either thought I wasn’t particularly dangerous, or they thought a small, nerdy guy like me might have some trouble in genpop.

Not being forced to serve my time in general population suited me fine. Here the kids tried to act like adults, but could never shake that childlike demeanor. I never could either, really. At twenty two, I wasn’t much older.

Not everyone was friendly, though. Even in the juvie block, there were some crazies who’d snap your neck just to break the boredom. But my little crew of reprobates—they even had a name, Dyin’ Tryin’—protected me.

As young as they were, some of the kids broke six feet and two hundred pounds. I almost caught some trouble a few times, but I was always able to talk my way out of it. Those conversations generally involved me shoving a fistful of cigarettes into someone’s hands, albeit a bit bent and slightly stale. Still, better than none at all. I had plenty and wasn’t using them.

All of that was on the other side of the gate, now. I need to forget about that—leave it behind. On this side, I have nearly nothing. I gave my stash of fugs to Ricky. You would’ve thought he was eight years old and I’d given him a bike for Christmas. All I have now are the clothes on my back, $40 cash and an 8X10 picture of my mother lying dead on a coroner’s table in New Jersey. She’s been dead for nearly a year, now. They wouldn’t let me see her, wouldn’t give me a furlough to go to the funeral. I got the photo last October, five months after she died, and I had to write a few letters just to get that.

On a bus headed to Baltimore, I slip the picture out of its manila envelope and stare at it. It doesn’t even look like her, face bloated like a fish left out in the hot sun too long. I trace the scars on each of her shoulders with a finger. Perhaps it’s a trick of the camera, but they seem to glow. Why wouldn’t they? The scar on each shoulder, along with the one on each foot, the one on each palm and the one over her heart represent the power she once believed she wielded.

Las Siete Potencias, The Seven African Powers, which her scars represent, are supposed to be our connection to the energy of our ancestors which anyone is supposed to have access to. Los Siete Rayos, The Seven Slashes, two of which seem to glow more as I stare at my mother’s bare shoulders, mean that she was Palo Mayombe, Keeper of the Mysteries of the Spirits, a high priestess privy to the power of the ancestors to aid those in need. I reach under my shirt collar to feel one of the scars on my own shoulder. It seems inert, dead. Mine will never glow.

I slide the picture back into its envelope. I can feel tears starting to well. Inside, I could never cry for my mother. I couldn’t afford to. Like in the wild, a sign of weakness is seen as an opportunity to strike. But I’m not inside anymore. As I finally head home, I pull my hood up over my head and let the previously dammed tears flow.

Chango Crying Pitch

Pedro Santos has lost everything. He lost his freedom when he was sent to prison, lost his wife, his kids. Pedro lost his mother, who died while he was locked up, without ever getting a chance to say goodbye. Ultimately, Pedro even lost his faith. That doesn’t stop his mother’s followers from turning to him for help once he gets out. Pedro’s mother, Paloma, was a powerful Santeria priestess, dedicating herself to using the mystical mesh of Catholicism and African Yoruba religion that rose out of slavery to aid anyone who came to her. Pedro wants to help, but can’t understand why anyone would look to a faithless loser, like him. Yet, all they see is El Milagrito, the “little miracle” that beat death twice by the time he was nine, and must therefore be destined to be a healer. If only he could heal himself...

In my novel, Chango Crying, we meet Pedro as he’s released after four years of incarceration near Baltimore for selling cocaine to help support his own young children after his wife abandoned their family to try to make it as a stripper in New York. Having nowhere else to go, Pedro returns to his mother’s tiny apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey. When people hear that El Milagrito has come home, they flock to Pedro. Despite no longer believing in the magic promised by Santeria and its rituals, he is obligated to help. Paloma only had two rules: turn no one away, and ask nothing in return. Saying no would dishonor his mom’s memory.

It’s not long before Pedro finds himself in way over his head. A desperate Manhattan socialite turns to him for help in finding her son, who disappeared in Mexico during Spring Break. Reluctantly, Pedro fulfills his obligation to 'turn no one away' and risks his newfound freedom by leaving the country while on probation. Pedro is able to track the socialite’s son to a pair of brujos, evil Santeria practitioners who sacrifice humans in dark, brutal rituals designed to protect a powerful Mexican drug cartel, and is soon caught in the midst of a violent drug war. He suspects the socialite’s son is already dead. Once the brujos discover his presence, Pedro needs to find his faith, fast, just to stay alive. Otherwise, he's going to need another miracle.

The Word Pimpdex

Poetry

  LOVE

Bloom
Blood Moon
Night Falls
Eight Blades 
The Longest Day
Nothing

Ghosts 
Your Eternal Dance
I Do Not Need
Painting the Moon
Lunacy
Jasmine
Wilt
My Night
Lunatic
the Bigger the Bang
Your Eternal Dance
Cyclops
Water: A Love Story
A Woman's Kiss
Phase
Alchemy
Firefly
Jealousy
Sky
Tarot for Beginners
The Jewel & The Shogun
Snapshot
Praying in the Temple of the Moon

Purgatory

Eternal
Under the Whatever Tree
Chosen

 NATURE

The Fall
Disconnect
Sons of the Equinox
Villalba

Orange Eye

Memory

  FAMILY

SonSpot

Candelario

Sometimes
The Daisy Field
Rocked by Ages
Parade
Father's Daze
Ceremony

  WRITING

How to Read This Poem

[LIKE A DIAMOND TRAPPED IN LODE...]

  SELF PORTRAITS

Five O'clock Shadows

smacking birdies from the foul line in the bed that eats tired men

These Lips 
Within, Without

  HATE

Final Letter to Maria

Embers

Clean Rinse

  POLITICAL

lullaby

soular eclipse

State of My Soul Address
#niggersmatter

Dream Catcher: Lurch

There’s a Ride waiting for me outside Tech. My dream girl told me it would be there after she disconnected me from my Assistant. After the quick procedure, she let me know it wouldn’t be long before Control discovered the broken link, likely as soon as the technician returned and realized I’m gone. I tried to ask questions, but she wouldn’t allow me to speak. “There’s no time now. Go. Hurry! Find your Ride before you get caught. I don’t have to tell you what happens if you get caught with a disconnected link.”

I hop in the back, close the door. The Ride speaks. Good Afternoon, Mr. Somnian. Your destination has been pre-programmed. Are you ready to depart?

I look back at the entrance to Tech. I can see a squad of guards headed to the doors, most likely looking for me. I can’t go back. “Go!” I shout. “Go, now.” The car pulls off. I look back to see my technician and his goons pour out onto the street.

Getting caught with a severed link is not as simple as having it reconnected. It’s illegal to tamper with the wireless connection between your wetware and your hardware. First of all, it’s proprietary, meaning that any required work has to be done by an authorized technician. There are a few out there that take the risk of jailbreaking their units, but if they ever get caught, we're talking about arrest and interrogation. Many have their units removed and taken away, then promptly dropped into a Red Zone to fend for themselves. It’s not a good life. Without an assistant, it’s nearly impossible to find work. Most major employers look at being able to get in touch with you at all times as imperative.

A few actually get accused of espionage or treason, accused of working on behalf of a foreign government or some shadow organization looking to overthrow the government. Those violators get the most press, their names and faces disseminated throughout traditional and social media, before they disappear, never again to be seen or heard from. The rumor is that these most dangerous of offenders are quietly shipped to Gitmo.

You have arrived at your destination.

Lost in my thoughts and anxiety, I didn’t pay attention to where I was being taken. I unbuckle my seatbelt and look around. I’m on a narrow street lined with tiny rowhouses. I think I’m still in the city, but where? I grasp the door handle when someone opens the driver’s side door and hops in the front. “Don’t move!” says the voice.

“Where—”

“Don’t speak,” she says as she begins to fiddle with the display on the dash. She’s in a hoodie, with the hood pulled up. Only her voice gives her away. I watch as she connects something to the display and gets busy tapping on the screen. “Okay, I’ve disabled all monitoring. We’re in the shadows for the next five minutes. I just have to remove any memory of your trip. It won’t take me long, so get ready to move.”

“Can you explain to me what’s going on?” I ask, solemnly.

“Not right now,” she says, “I’m a little busy.”

I don’t know what else to say. I wait.

“Okay, go now. Hurry.”

We open our doors, almost simultaneously, and hop out.

“This way,” she says. I follow her to an intersecting alley of nothing but connected garages. She turns down that alley and walks to one of the garages, reaches down, turns the oblong knob. The garage door flies up with a pop. Inside is a older car, a pre 21st century Impala. “Hop in,” she says as she opens the driver’s side door and gets in behind the wheel. I open the passenger side door and slide in next to her. By the time I close my door, the engine is running. By the time my seatbelt is on, we’re out of the garage, turning back toward the street we just left. The Ride is gone.

I lurch forward as the Impala stops abruptly. My driver pops the car into park and hops out. I watch her hustle back to the garage, fling its door back down, and hustle back into the car. We’re moving again. My heart feels too big, like it’s about to break through my ribcage. Only once we turn onto a larger street do I realize where we are, somewhere in lower Fells Point, not far from Patterson Park.

We get to Broadway, and neither of us have said a word. At this point, I have so many questions, I don’t know where to begin. Once we cross Broadway, she glances at me. “So, you’re the dreamer?”

“Dreamer? Not that I know of. I mean sure, but we all dream, don’t we?”

“Not quite like you, Solomon.”

She also knows my name. I’m getting tired of meeting people who seem to know me while I know nothing. Her hood is down. I finally get a decent look at her. She’s got a round face, cocoa brown, childlike, save for the scowl. Her hair is just an organic puff of tight curls, like a homemade crown. “Everyone seems to know me today, but I don’t know them. Who are you? What’s going on?”

“Sorry for all the cloak and dagger, Solomon. We have to be careful. We can’t afford for them to find you, now. I’m Asia. As for what’s going on, it’s not up to me to tell you. All I can say is I have to get you into the Red Zone before they track you down." Nothing she said makes my heart any smaller. On the contrary, once she mentioned our destination, my chest only got tighter.

As we approach the entrance to the Red Zone, we stop behind a line of other vehicles waiting to get in, about a block long. “Okay, I need you to hop in the back. Pull that center console down and squeeze through into the trunk.”

I look at her. “Is that really necessary?”

“Well, considering you need to show ID to get in, that you’re not authorized to enter the zone, and that by now, there’s an APB out for you, and you’ll be taken into custody at the gates, you tell me.”

Reluctantly, I undo my seatbelt, slither over the back of my seat onto the back seat, and pull the console down. I lurch as the car moves up the line. “Don’t dawdle,” says Asia. I squeeze my way through and into the dark. I reach an arm back through, grab the strap on the console, and pull it closed as the car lurches forward again.

I’m in pitch blackness for only a few minutes, the car moving along in short lunges, before I can hear muffled voices. I can barely make it out, a male voice asking for identification, Asia complying. The rest of the conversation is inaudible, until the male voice says, “I need to look in your trunk. Pop it!” I immediately start to shake uncontrollably, and am instantly coated in a layer of sweat.

“I can’t just pop it, man. I have to get out to open it.”

“Well then, you better fucking hurry. You’re holding up the line.”

I hear the engine stop, Asia’s door open and shut. I hold my breath, as if that was enough to make me invisible. I hear the key click into the lock, the lock pops, the trunk door squeaks as it opens. Light! None. I’m still in the dark. “We good?” I hear Asia ask.

“Move on.” the male voice replies. I want to breathe, but I can’t. So I try to remember how as I shiver in my now cold sweat. The car starts and we move forward with one last lurch.

Previous Chapter

Bus Stop

..some micro-fiction I originally wrote in 1994 or so... semi-autobiographical... edited a few times ... appeared in "Smile Hon, You're in Baltimore" and heard on "The Signal"

So there I am, sitting near the back of the number 13, working out the national debt in my head on my way to Fells Point, when I notice this woman getting on with a little boy who I figure is her son.

   As soon as I see her, I know she’s junked. Her hands look painfully swollen and puffy. Her cheeks, gaunt and sunken in, like someone had dug them out with a soup spoon. Dried spit, caked white, crusts on each corner of her mouth. Her half-lidded eyes are glazed over and unfocused, as if she can only see things within a foot of her—not that she’s trying to see anything.

   She saunters towards the back, led by the boy, and sits almost directly across from me. The boy can’t be more than four years old, but is as alert as his mother is high. She spends her time nodding off, in & out of the heroin induced nirvana in her mind, while he maneuvers from seat to seat, alternating between looking out the window and catching his mother before she falls out of her seat and onto the floor of the bus.

  He begins to get more agitated as we round North Avenue and start heading south on Wolfe Street. Every few blocks he tries to wake his mother up, each time with a little more desperation. At best she offers him nothing more than a quarter-lidded nod with a bit of a snort for good measure. At worst, she doesn’t even acknowledge his existence.

   Finally, as we near Johns Hopkins Hospital, he stands up on his seat and rings the bell himself, his cute little fingers barely able to reach the yellow stripe. As the driver slows to their stop, he hops down and starts tugging at his mother’s arm. “Momma! Momma!!” he squeals, “We gotta get off he’e!” …just loud enough to snap her out of her state of euphoria and bring her back to the city of Baltimore—at least long enough to let him guide her off the bus.

   Listening to the little boy’s voice, ingraining itself into my brain, takes me back to when I was his age… guiding my mother through the maze that is the New York subway system… making sure we got on the right PATH lest we end up at the Port Authority rather than Hoboken.

I wonder if he sits like I used to, in front of the television watching reruns of Batman and Gilligan’s Island, chomping on a box of Lucky Charms, hoping that Batgirl would show up in her skintight jumper, or that the Professor would finally get them off that fucking island. All the while, my mom would be slouching in a chair in the next room with lines of drool making etch-a-sketch patterns on her chest while she mumbled about how much she missed her friend Janis…   Joplin, it turned out to be. I would just pray that she could work off her fix in time to cook something for dinner before I went to bed.

   I realize that the bus is almost empty. We’re almost at my stop—the last stop. I use my sleeve to wipe the tears off my face and the drippings from my nose, wondering how long I’ve been crying… was I wailing… who had noticed… who cared?

   I send my heart out to the little man one last time, wondering if he would have the same chances I’d had, the same luck. I wonder if he too would grow up too early because of the premature responsibilities, missing out on a childhood you only try to relive once it’s too late. I shake my head. More than likely, he’ll just be another casualty, found lying in the street, in his teens, with a few bullet holes—Baltimore Birthmarks—in his body. Which fate was better?

   I finish composing myself as I walk towards the front of the bus, wiping my sleeve on my jeans so the snot won’t stain, trying to shake that boys voice from my head. It’s times like these when think I can feel the pain of the whole world, but I’m powerless to ease it. I think about dinner as the bus doors slide shut behind me.

Flag House

“Okay, we’re recording now.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Everything you say from this point forward will be on record.”

“Right. I understand.”

“Great! Why don’t we start with letting us know who you are? Your name, and your position.”

“Sure. My name is Alex Ortiz. I’m a Secretary Director in the Office of Family Assistance, a part of Administration for Children and Families, a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.”

“I think we have that cleared up. Now, let’s move on to why you asked me here. How can I help?”

“I’m resigning. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Ortiz, people leave their government jobs everyday. Unless you’re a cabinet secretary, quitting your job isn’t a big deal. I mean, unless there’s some juicy scandal involved. Did you get caught embezzling, Mr. Ortiz? Did you sleep with someone you shouldn’t have?”

“No! Nothing like that.”

“Well then, why should I care? Why should anyone care?”

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Nobody does care, do they? I mean, some care. For a minute. If it makes it into the news cycle. Don’t get me wrong. There are a few, like me, who care plenty. Care too much. Maybe that’s because we hope that we can care enough for the rest of you, but that’s not true. There’s not enough of us for that.”

“Care about what?”

“About what’s tearing up the very fabric of this country, the cancer that eats us from within.”

“I’m sorry. Don’t you think you’re being a bit cryptic and hyperbolic?”

“Sure! Sure. Let’s be real. We can’t cure a disease we don’t understand, can we?

“So, let’s take a look at what’s happening out here. Poor or low income families make up half of our country. More than a quarter of all blacks live in poverty, nearly as many Hispanics. A third of the families on welfare are black, but Hispanics and whites each make up nearly just as much. But it’s the African American community that bears the brunt of the blame for the need for social programs. When anybody says welfare, the image of the unmarried, black mother who’s too lazy to work, but can’t stop doing drugs and having children we have to pay for is the first one that comes to mind for a lot of people. For some, it’s the only image.”

“So you’re quitting because poverty has an image problem?”

“It does. 37% of people on SNAP, or what we used to call food stamps, are white compared to only 22% of all recipients made up of African Americans. Of course, that might be different if we had a living wage and didn’t have to supplement incomes for so many working families. You know, about 60% of people on food stamps work but just don’t earn enough to cover their bills and eat. But the myths persist, and they create enough resistance for anything to truly change. But, no, that’s not why.”

“So, why then?”

“Because nothing changes. Nothing seems to ever change, not where the change is really needed.”

“And where is that?”

“In the very communities we want to blame for the problem. If they’re not killing each other, the people we pay to protect us are killing them or locking them up, and for some reason, that’s just fine with plenty of people. One less thug on the streets is an improvement.

“But they’re wrong. I may work in Washington, but I still live in Baltimore. I grew up in Baltimore, and I’ve had a front row seat to the devastation that systemic poverty has wreaked in large pockets of that city.”

“So this is about Freddie Gray?”

“No, man! Freddie Gray is about this. Do you want to know why I got into this line of work?”

“Only if it’s relevant.”

“I could point to a number of things—being raised on welfare by a single mother who struggled with drugs and alcohol, never really knowing my father or even having had a strong male role model in my life; but to be perfectly honest, my childhood wasn’t as bad as it was for some.

“I was dating a girl named Sol when I was still at Temple. Her father named her that because when she smiled, it was like the sun suddenly appeared in the sky. Sol had two young daughters, and a deadbeat of an ex-husband. She was living in Flag House at the time, one of the high rise housing projects we finally began tearing down in 1990s. It was notorious as the type of housing that would be taken over by drug dealers, like you’d see in Homicide or The Wire. She would usually meet me at the room I rented during summer breaks from school. But we were eating in Little Italy, one time, and it didn’t make sense to go across town to my place when we were already right in the shadow of the towers.

“Flag House was so close to the Inner Harbor, I’d walked past them plenty of times, but walking up to them, at night, under the gloom of street lamps? It was intimidating, even to a kid with my background. This is what my mother was always hustling to keep us out of. The gauntlet of angry, young black men all staring you down as you walk past didn’t make it any easier.

“Sol had warned to keep my arm around her, and to keep my eyes straight ahead, or towards her until we made it into the building. Inside, there was just one working elevator. The other one had been disabled by the dealers to have more control over who went anywhere, and to make it easier to evade police.

“When the elevator finally arrived—maybe it was just the anxiety of so many violent eyes on me, but it felt like we were waiting for an eternity for it—the doors opened, and I had to steel myself so I didn’t gag at that rancid ammonia smell left from old urine. Fortunately, she lived on the eighth floor. I don’t know that I could have taken it if she had lived any higher.

“We stopped to check in on her daughter, first. The family across the hall was watching her. Sol introduced me to three women. The oldest was in her mid 40s. She lived there with her daughter, approaching 30, and her daughter, a pregnant teen who already had an infant daughter. Four generations of women, all living in the only home they’d ever known.

“I wasn’t surprised. I had just taken a course called The Sociology of Poverty, so I had read plenty about the vicious cycle that plagues many African American women. In a society where the men readily abandon their partners and children, the female parent typically exhibits resentment towards her own children, once the charm of being a parent wears off. If that child is a girl, she will seek intimacy in the arms of anyone willing to give it. Sadly, that usually ends up being one of the very black males that will disappear the very moment a new child comes into the equation.

“But that’s fine, because that girl’s going to have a child, someone she thinks will finally love her unconditionally. But then, the reality of parenting hits, and she has no one to help her, except the mother who drove her away in the first place. And sometime during the sleepless night and the endless crying, she ends up resenting her own child.

“They turn to alcohol and drugs to escape the loneliness, get addicted, turn to stealing or prostitution to feed the habit. And when they realize they need help, they have to wait for weeks before a bed becomes available in a treatment center. Weeks is too long to survive in that environment without giving in to the physical trauma of withdrawal and the desire to escape it. By the time the bed is open, the moment has passed, the desire to stop has been stifled. And on it goes.

“I understood the concept, but to see it, to meet the very women that had only existed in textbooks and research papers for me… That’s what put everything I was doing in perspective for me.”

“Okay, so I get why you do it. Why are you stopping?”

“I got up and got dressed early the next morning. I was fine in the safety of Sol’s apartment, but I was eager to be out of Flag House. Worse than taking forever, it seemed like the one working elevator wasn’t working at all. I thought, maybe the dealers disabled that one, too, once their workday was done. I decided to take the stairs.

“It was like descending a level of Hell. Most of the lights were out. The stench of urine and feces was overpowering. Once my eyes adjusted, I could just make out addicts, curled in dark corners, sleeping off their highs. I don’t think I was ever as happy to see the Sun as I was coming out of that stairwell.

“Just a couple of blocks west, there was this small field of bright yellow flowers planted on a large median just off the Jones Falls Expressway, a splash of beauty haunted by the shadow of those towers. I walked into it a bit, fell to my knees and cried. I’d walked past that very spot plenty of times, too, and never had the flowers looked so glorious. I got myself together, stood up, and turned back toward flag house. I could see someone looking down, hands gripped on the fence that wrapped around each tower like chainmail, and I wondered how the flowers looked from there. Could they even see them?”

“Like you said, they brought all those high rises down.”

“Yeah, but they just spread the problems out into surrounding counties. We eliminated the fortresses dealers used to operate a little more easily, but we also created easier access for addicts, especially white ones, migrating from Oxycontin and other overprescribed opiates. All we did is relocate their businesses to the suburbs, expanding their customer base”

“So you failed. That’s why you’re quitting?”

“We all failed. We continue to fail. We bicker about details and blame, and look for easy fixes instead of solutions. Look at the program I run, Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood. We’ve given out 150 million dollars in grants for programs to promote stable marriages and responsible fatherhood. Has any of that made a difference? We have our success stories. Most of these programs do. But you can’t force most kids who grew up in that environment, without fathers in their lives themselves, to want to be good fathers.”

“You’re leaving because you realize it’s hopeless.”

“I wouldn’t say hopeless. There are programs that have been shown to work effectively. Music and art programs that were successful in countries with similarly impoverished and violence-riddled urban populations have been imported into a few cities, here. Anything that uses up idle time and offers kids a healthy way to express themselves helps, including sports. Some school systems hire social workers to follow up on potential truants and make sure those students have everything they need to succeed in school. But that’s only happening in small pockets. It’s nearly impossible to get those programs funded with the political climate the way it is. Generally, we’re cutting arts to give these kids more time to study for standardized tests, a half-assed attempt to make up some of the ground we’ve lost to other students around the world. Not hopeless, just… not full of hope.”

“But wasn’t that what Obama was selling?”

“Sure. But he wasn't just the black president, he was the president. He can’t be seen as only partial to black people problems. Besides, Republicans have used gerrymandering and voter suppression strategies during midterm elections to entrench themselves in Congress and state houses. They opposed anything that could end up looking like a win for him. They were just coming around to the costs of mass incarceration, even if only from a fiscal perspective. 

“But even if they get out, what do they have to come out to? With few prospects, many will end up right back in a life of crime. They'll survive, whatever way they can.”

“So what happens, now?”

“Who knows. Maybe we’ll keep doing the right things. Maybe we’ll show them that we value them enough that they begin to value themselves. Only when they value their own lives will they begin to value the lives of others. Or maybe we keep dividing ourselves, keep blaming them for a situation we’re all responsible for creating. Or maybe we just keep treating them all like the dangerous criminals a few of them are. That seem to be the strategy of the new administration.

“If that happens, parts of the West Side will look more like the West Bank. Eventually, that deep seated rage they use to destroy each other will be turned outward. Black on black violence will transition to black on everything else violence. They’ll be primed for recruitment by terrorist organizations, if the gangs, themselves, don’t evolve into domestic terrorist outfits. We’ll be more scared. We’ll double down on the use of law enforcement and incarceration to try and restore order, kill guilty and innocent, alike, deepen their resentment of us, even further. And the spiral descends downward to... who knows where. But wherever that is, I don’t want to be around to see it. I can’t.”

“Where will you go, Mr. Ortiz. What will you do now?”

“I’m going home, Mr. Fitz. Puerto Rico. My family's from Ponce. I wasn’t born there, but I spent summers there. I have a profound connection to the people. They face many of the same issues, but they’re all worse off, financially, if you can believe that. They need me, and there, even small deeds can have large impacts.”

“So that’s it, then. You’re giving up.”

“Not giving up. Just giving in. This country hasn’t hit bottom, yet. Keeping everyone divided for the benefit of a few has proven to be an effective strategy. When America gets tired of shooting itself in the foot, over and over, I’ll be back. That is, if I’m not too in love with life in the tropics.”

“Ha! Well, if you know who wins, I might be right behind you.”

“Absolutely. Come check me out. I’ll show you all the great beaches the tourists don’t know about.”

“Well, I think we have enough. I'll get this to my editor, but to be honest, there's nothing new here. You realize, none of this will likely see the light of day?”

 “Sure. I get it. The information's been out there, but the people who need it most still don't get it.” 

“And they won't. Unless you get Fox to put it out there, but you know that's not going to happen. I'm sorry. I can see how important this is to you. I wish there was more I could do. Before we wrap, is there anything you’d like to add?”

“No, I think you have the basics. Except, and I’ll leave it at this: We’ve figured out that addicts don’t have to hit rock bottom to finally decide to enter recovery. They only need a moment of lucidity powerful enough for them to realize that they are killing themselves. There's a large part of this country that’s addicted to fear. It controls the way they live, the way they vote, the way they think about, even treat the people they’ve been taught to fear. Let’s hope America has it’s own moment of lucidity, because rock bottom will come with unbridled violence and race wars. And let’s hope that when that moment of lucidity comes, there will be a bed available for us, before it all collapses.”

Dream Catcher: Awakening

My eyes open at six. I sit up, touch my tab up, and begin reviewing my dreams. I don’t remember them. I never do. I know why. They’re boring. There are a few good ones—sex dreams, dreams where I’m bouncing over trees and buildings, dreams of flying. Those are few and far between.

I call up my keyboard up and type in some basic descriptions as I review last night's dreams—shaving in a desert with sand and a rock, a ride on a bus next to a stranger speaking gibberish, in a laundromat waiting for a dryer. Mundane things. A waste of time.

A beautiful girl. I hope this is a sex dream. She stares at me. She says, “Be free,” and walks away. I want to follow her. I can’t. I have to go to work. I call up some music—top forty—and head for the shower.

“One last thing,” says the man at the front the crowded room, “I was so sorry to hear that Macy’s has finally filed for Chapter Seven.”

The room breaks out in a loud, sarcastic awwww.

“I know,” says the man, “we’re all heartbroken.”

Someone raises a hand.

“Yes!”

“Are we buying them out?”

“Excellent question. We made them an offer last year. They turned us down, but I’m sure we can snap up some of their inventory as they liquidate. Anyway, that’s enough gloating, for now—at least until The Wal goes under. 

"This is inventory weekend. We have a lot of ground to cover, as usual. Let’s make sure we keep everything in order. Nobody wants to count all this shit, as is. Let’s not make our job harder.

“Redshirts, move out. Somnian, if I could just speak to you for a moment.”

I make my way to the front as everyone else filters back to the sales floor. “You asked to see me?”

“Yeah, we got a report this morning from Tech. They need you to go in for a scan, maybe some maintenance.”

“Sure,” I reply, “I’m off tomorrow.”

“They want to see you, today.” he says, “It’s probably nothing, but you know how it is. If something goes wrong, it can go really wrong. They’ve gotten approval to let you use some personal time. Rolley’s going to cover your shift. You can leave now."

The ride to Tech is always interesting. I live within walking distance to work, so I don’t get to take the Red Line very often, except when I’m headed to the harbor. Shit at the Inner Harbor’s too pricey for someone like me. The only time I go is when I have company from out of town. Truth is, my friends can’t really afford it either.

I pick it up right outside the mall. Everything starts off very barren as the train passes through the the commuter corridor that connects the city to its western suburbs—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the mall, of course. We drop into a tunnel at the city line and pop back up a couple of minutes later in Edmondson Village. This part of the city begins like a suburb, with its lovely little houses and their lovely little driveways. Any sense of loveliness fades as we pass Edmondson Village Shopping Center.

Lovely houses give way to blocks of cramped rowhouses, many of them boarded up. Security is thick at Allendale Station—men in riot gear spread out on the platform, batons firmly in hand. The same is true as we pass through Rosemont and the MARC station. The Red Line has only been in operation for seven years, and they’ve already shut down the stations in Harlem Park and Poppleton. Anyplace you need to get to between the MARC and Howard Street means a long walk, not that anyone in their right mind—anyone not already living there, if you can call it living—would walk into the Red Zone. Even I wouldn’t be that stupid, and I grew up in the Red Zone.

I graduated from Harlem Park Middle in 2018. Things were different. After years of decline, groups had come in to work with the kids—planting gardens, teaching music and art, treating us like we were normal people, filling us with hope, dreams. And then everything began to fall apart.

The decline was gradual, but it felt sudden. No More Free Rides was the slogan that replaced Make America Great Again. It spread like herpes among the Angry White demographic starting in 2020. No one was a victim of poverty. We were culprits, complicit in our own condition. We all wanted nothing more than to collect a government check, live in subsidized housing, and have babies that the government had to pay for.

By then, I was in my junior year in high school. By the end of my senior year, deficit reduction meant the "free rides" really were over. Social programs that weren’t cut were eliminated. The national wave of Personal Responsibility rolled over every poor, urban neighborhood hitting neighborhoods like Harlem Park harder than a Japanese tsunami.

The groups that had been working for those neighborhoods tried to reinforce their efforts, but having lost federal funding, too, there was not much they could do. As SNAP, what the old heads called Food Stamps, was phased out, soup kitchens and food pantries popped up all over to fill the void. Some voids are too big to fill. It wasn’t long before a new round of riots started.

Rioting happened all over the country. Baltimore wasn’t unusual in that regard. You could say that the Freddie Gray riots in Mobtown back in 2015 were a precursor of what was to come. But the West Baltimore riots during the summer of 2018 were epic, nevertheless.

 

I was one of the lucky ones. My high school, Baltimore Polytechnic, had been proactive, identifying which of their students had special needs, students whose parents had their benefits reduced, or had lost them, entirely. They managed, with the help of alumni, to get us jobs so that we could at least buy uniforms and supplies, even foster homes, in some cases.

I was on my way home, walking from the restaurant in Hollins Market where I washed dishes. I was making my way past a food pantry. What had started as a few people yelling in the unbearable August heat as I approached turned into everyone screaming at the top of their lungs, the crowd pushing, surging towards the doors of the pantry, the volunteers trying their best to hold them back. They had run out of food. I paused for a bit across the street, curious to how this was going to play out. I left as trash cans and tree branches began to fly through the pantry windows. When I heard the gunfire—repetitive, unceasing gunfire, not the sporadic gunfire you hear when the slingers are fighting for territory—my heart began to beat its way through my chest, fast and hard. I ran.

By morning, as I made my way back to work, so much of the old neighborhood was nothing more than burnt out husks; and it wasn’t over—not even close. Rioting went on for nights as the tired, desperate poor broke curfews to lash out against their own brothers and sisters, against the few businesses that had survived the government’s austerity measures. Within a week, the Westside was a war zone with National Guard troops patrolling the very corners that the drug slingers once held.

When the school year started, my senior year, I was forced to carry I.D. to get out and in of my own neighborhood. Much of the Westside had been fenced off. Everyone began to call it the West Bank. I didn’t bother with college after graduation. I got a job with Big Red and found a small place in Woodlawn where I could take care of my mother, where I could keep her safe, or as safe as I possibly could.


 

Bayview, the next to last stop. I get off and head to the Tech building, the same place where I’d had my Assistant installed. Inside, the lady at the front desk greets me by name. “Welcome, Mr. Somnian,” she says as she hands me a passcard, “You’re expected upstairs in suite 331.”

In 331, I’m reclining in a comfortable chair, the same type of chair I sat in as they installed my Assistant. The technician is on a stool on casters, rolling around me, tapping away on his pad. “Any problems with your waking protocol?”

“No. I’m awake at six every day, like clockwork.”

“Looks fine,” he says, “Let’s talk about your dreams.”

“My dreams? Why? I log them all.”

“Absolutely.” he says, excitedly, “I reckon you’re one of the most diligent dream loggers I’ve met. This morning. You logged a dream about a woman?”

“Yeah, but I dream about women all the time. It makes up for not having one in my life.”

“Right. Well, it’s never too late.”

“Have you seen my paycheck?”

He laughs at my lame joke. He goes on. “This woman, she mentioned something about being free.”

“That’s right. See for yourself. It should still be in the buffer.”

The technician picks up my pad, taps on it a few times. He watches, taps, watches. Finally, I hear the voice. “Be free.”

“Is there a problem?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ve experienced a few glitches with a some Assistants. All of them began with similar dreams. It’s a good thing you’re so thorough with your logs. It could have turned into a problem had you been neglectful. We’re just going to put you under for a few, make some preventative adjustments, make sure everything is shipshape. We wouldn’t want you to miss any important calls, right.”

“No sir,” I say, sarcastically, “I don't want any interruption to my busy social life.”

“Good. I’m going to step out for a few, see another client. A nurse will be in to administer a little anesthesia. Just sit back and relax.”

I do as he says, sinking deeper into my recliner as he exits. Within seconds, a young lady walks in dressed in scrubs. She’s familiar, attractive—auburn hair pulled back in a neat bun, thick lips drenched in glossy pink, skin like cafe au lait—but I can’t quite place her.

“Do I know you?” I ask, “I’m sorry. I know you must get that a lot. But you look so familiar.”

“That’s because I was in your dreams last night,” she says, casually, as if it were no big deal.

“That ain’t right,” I say, smiling, “Isn’t it unethical to fuck with someone like that, at least not if you’re not dating.”

She doesn’t smile. She either doesn’t get or doesn’t appreciate my attempts at flirty humor.

“Listen to me,” she says, seriously, “We don’t have a lot of time. The tech will be back in ten minutes, maybe less. That doesn’t give me much time to disconnect your Assistant—”

“What are you talking about? Why would you do that? How would I receive calls? How the fuck would I even get up in the morning?”

“Solomon, calm down,” she says, “Trust me—”

“Trust you? Bitch, I don’t even know you! How’re gonna just use my name like that?”

“Please, Solomon. Just listen. I know you think things are wonderful. You have your job. You’re mother’s safe. You’re better off than plenty. But you need to be free.”

“What are you talking about? I am free. Isn’t that what you said in my dream? How did you do that, anyway? Why?”

“I have a better question,” she says, “Why do people have to start logging their dreams when they have their Assistants installed?”

“What?”

“It’s not a complicated question.”

“The tech who installed it said something about interference... certain dreams can mess with the system... it could break down. He said a replacement would be more a lot more expensive than fixing the one I got.”

“Right,” she say, picking up where I trailed off, “because your original Assistant was free, as long as you commit to a network.”

“Right.”

“So why are you here, now?”

“Because they caught one of those precursor dreams. Because they want to fix it before it gets worse.”

“And you believe them? Because something so simple, so internal, like a dream can be powerful enough to compromise something so high tech.”

“Who are—”

“That doesn’t matter. Not now. We don’t have the time for introductions. The reason they want you to log your dreams is because they knew that it would be a matter of time before someone would figure out how to broadcast right to your head. We’ve finally jumped that hurdle.”

“Who’s we?”

“Seriously, Solomon, shut up. It’s not important, not yet. What’s important is that you understand that we chose you. You grew up in the West Bank. You went to Poly. You have a unique understanding of life on both sides of the fence. We need you inside. We need people that understand that it’s wrong to isolate and ignore a whole segment of society just to balance a budget so that those who already have plenty can keep more of it, that it’s wrong to turn neighborhoods into nothing more than feeders for privately owned prisons to keep them profitable and hold wages down.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“Solomon, are you happy?” she asks, casually, as if the conversation hadn’t just been frighteningly serious.

“I’m fine.”

“Lot’s of people are fine, Solomon. Are you happy?”

I can’t bring myself to answer.

“It’s okay. No one’s happy. We’ve all just been sold a hardline to permanent contentment. We’re given just enough to keep us from being miserable, just enough for us to forget those who live in misery. You can end this. All you have to do is close your eyes and let me disconnect your GPS and take you offline. Or I can put you under, and when you wake up, you can go back to your life of... contentment, if that’s what you want to call it. Decide now.”

It so much to process. “And then what?”

“Close your eyes, Solomon, and find out.”

My eyes close.

2—Lurch

This chapter originally published in REDLINES: Baltimore 2028, [2012] edited by Jason T. Harris

Beads: A Dream

“Oh, I have a project due on Monday.”

This doesn’t surprise me. I’d been through this enough times with my older kids, now grown men, to be surprised by these sudden revelations. Hell, I’ve been through this enough times with Malcolm, already. The pattern was the same. The pattern was always the same. I no longer even lost my temper.

“That’s fine, Mal, but you know we’re in Baltimore for the weekend. We’re going to have to do it while we’re here. Do you have a supply list?”

“No. I left the information sheet at school.”

This is also no great surprise. We had tried various ways to keep Malcolm organized—reminder notes, a folder that stayed in his bookbag where he was to keep all his important papers so any needed information was always accessible, but the notes and folders always seemed to end up lost, or forgotten.

“But that’s okay, Freddie. I really only need one thing.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that, kiddo?”

“Beads!”

Beads. That’s easy enough. Baltimore has an infinite supply.

I think about taking him to Beadazzled, or one of the other high end shops stocked to the gills with a dazzling variety of the tiny plastic or glass jewels. They cater to the do-it-yourself, neo-bohemian spirit that had begun sweeping over the city years ago, when we realized that what we could create on our own would always be more precious than anything that could be found in a store. Granted, there is plenty of pre-made jewelry, as well, for those less creatively inclined, or those who have run out of time.

But the truth is that we were already headed uptown. To turn around now wouldn’t make sense. Admittedly, there’s the issue of cost, too. Some individual beads at the high end stores can cost more than what I have in my pocket, and I don’t want to spend too much on a project I have too little information about. There’s no point, especially when 33rd and Greenmount is so close.

“No worries, kiddo. I know exactly where to go.”

You can always tell when you’re getting close to the corner of 33rd Street and Greenmount Avenue at night because of the grim, red and blue glow illuminating the black sky. The city begins strategically setting up pairs of cop cars at the McDonalds at 29th Street, and they keep running up Greenmount, in pairs every couple of blocks, all the way up to 40th—a not so subtle attempt at a reminding the populace that the city is still in control.

It’s been that way since before the most recent uprising, and I imagine will remain that way for far longer. More important than reminding criminals who’s in control, it makes the residents feel safer, safe enough to come out and shop on a hot, summer night, where, without the lights, the shops would simply close at dusk, and the residents would stay cooped up inside, or spend their money outside their own neighborhoods.

Tonight must have been particularly active. The pattern of pairs had been broken, and there were several cop cars congealed right at 33rd, the red and blue lights flashing in a rabid, frenetic pattern on the streets, up the walls of the storefront rowhouses, out into the night sky. The sidewalks are lined with young black males lying prone on their stomachs, hands behind their backs, knees pressing into the gutters—lined up like tunas on a dock after a big catch.

“Just stick close to me,” I tell Malcolm as I sense his nervousness. I casually draw him closer, enough to comfort him, but not enough to offend his independent tween sensibilities. “We’re almost there.”

We enter the store, a lovely old storefront on the northwest corner made more beautiful by the sheer, seemingly endless mass of beads covering the display windows, the chaos creating a expressionistic mosaic wrapping around that corner, more elaborate than anything Pollock could have concocted. Even Malcolm is agog at the immensity of it all—or he would be if the drama outside the doors hadn’t have bled inside.

One of the narrow aisles is blocked with several police officers, knees, hands and feet busy into the backs and necks of three young black boys, none of them older than Malcolm, their pockets bursting with stringed beads. I can’t help but to think why so many officers are needed to subdue three children. One of the officers, a sergeant, barks at us to wait. I recognize him. We went to high school together.

“Garrity, right?”

He looks at me quizzically. “Do I know you?”

“Yeah! We came out of Poly the same year.”

“French Fry?”

“Yeah, but nobody calls me that, anymore.”

“Right. Sorry about this. Things are crazy, you know.”

“ I can see that, but these are just kids, though.”

“Yeah, well, a dog is just going to grow into another wild animal if you don’t train them right.”

I don’t know how to respond to that.

“Is that your kid?” He asks, snapping his chin at Malcolm.

“Sort of,” I reply, “he’s my stepson.”

“Well, keep him safe,” he advises me, “and keep him away from these animals.” Garrity stretches an arm out, as if to protect us from the danger of the three boys now being dragged out of the store, hands zip-tied behind them, pockets still bulging with cheap beads. Once they are out, he looks back at me. “Nice running into you,” he says as he follows his squad and quarry back onto the streets.

Now that the store is clear, I let Malcolm loose, tell him to pick out what he needs. While he does, I can’t help thinking that the only thing separating Malcolm from the kids we just watched getting dragged out, aside from location and upbringing, is that no one can tell Mal is black just by looking at him. I wondered how he would be regarded, how he would be treated, if his skin showed more of the truth.

“I can’t find anything.”

“What do you mean, kiddo? Look at all these beads!”

“I know, but these are all on strings. They already have their patterns.”

I don’t understand, but he doesn’t have his assignment sheet, so there’s nothing for me to reference. “That’s okay, kiddo. There’s a store I can take you to tomorrow where the beads aren’t already on strings. We’ll try again, tomorrow.”

We walk out and cross Greenmount. There, Malcolm sees a kid he recognizes. Carlos, a boy he had gone to school with when we still lived in the city. He was carrying fistfuls of stringed beads. I stop to let them talk, a chatter I can barely understand, but soon enough they are on the ground going through Carlos’ collection. I hear a light pop, followed by an explosion of beads up in the air and hitting the sidewalk like plastic rain. I go to interfere, thinking this is the result of some unwarranted tug of war, but stop myself when I notice that the are still happy, still laughing.

I watch as they both sweep the beads together with their hands, create a mosaic, right there, on a 33rd Street sidewalk stained with years of grease, sweat and blood. After a while, the mosaic becomes a pile, and the beads are all gathered and poured into a clear plastic bag.

“You want some?” Carlos asks Malcolm.

“No, that’s okay,” he replies, before Carlos takes off running in some seemingly random direction.

“Freddie, is the store still open?”

I look behind us. The lights are still on. “I think so, kiddo.”

“Can we go back? I think I know what I need now.”

“Good!” I say as we head back to Greenmount, “let’s try it, again.”