The
numbers are in. In the wake of the worst recession since the Great
Depression of the early 20th Century, we now have more poor people than
we’ve had since we started keeping track of poor folk—46.2 million.
That’s over 15% of Americans now defined as poor, up from about 14% the
previous year. In case you need to understand how our country defines
poverty, if your family of four makes less than $22,314 a year, you are
poor.
I
got out of bed today, September 11, 2011, at the exact same time I did
ten years ago. I know this because I did the same thing I did ten years
ago—I turned on the television. It was 8:46 a.m. They had begun a moment
of silence in remembrance of the very moment the first plane hit the
North Tower. What a tragedy, I thought then, a terrible accident, as the folks on Good Morning America tried to make sense of it all.
And then the second plane struck the South Tower. I saw it—a plane
streaked from the right of the television screen and slammed right into
the other building. Everyone who had become glued to the television, by
this point, saw it—9:03 a.m. At that moment, there came the collective
realization that we were under attack. This was no coincidence. This was
an act full of intent and malice.
It had become such a part of my youth that I was shocked to learn during my first day in the ninth grade that I was no longer the Smallest Kid in the Class. That honor went to some kid named Eddie who had me beat by a good inch or so. Although I hated being so small, I was disappointed by having lost my title. I was still teased, but I’d lost the only thing that had set me apart since moving to Maryland two years earlier. Being Puerto Rican—the strongest part of my identity back in Jersey—meant nothing here. No one at Stemmer’s Run Junior High had ever met a Hispanic, much less a Puerto Rican. “Are you Indian?” they would ask, a question that plagues me to this day. “Is that Mexican?” was the next question, followed by, “Do you speak Puerto Rican?” I tried not to let the questions, however absurd, bother me, and I answered them patiently. “No, I’m not Indian. Mexican’s are different. We all speak Spanish.” I also started using Freddy, my father’s nickname, because I couldn’t stand the twang they added when saying Fernando. What did bother me were those who insisted on mocking my uniqueness with their own labels, like the kids at Hampstead Hill Junior High in Highlandtown that called me The Cambonian, or those in high school that refused to consider me anything besides Mexican or The Immigrant. One of those kids, a boy of Italian descent named Tony, wanted to beat the shit out of me when, after months of harassment, I pointed out that my family, having been granted citizenship dating back to 1899 following the Spanish-American War, had been Americans longer, most likely, than his family. He refused to accept the facts, even though I opened up a history book and pointed out to him the part where Spain gave up Puerto Rico as part of the treaty ending the war, and where all Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship a few years thereafter. Being so detached from my culture, my size became the only thing that set me apart, as long as I could find ways use it to my advantage. As boys who, like me, grew up height disadvantaged know all too well, the tendency is to get picked on incessantly. I was no different, except that I was more game than most. During the Hampstead years, rather than fighting the inevitable, I would ingratiate myself to my tormentors by playing the willing victim. “Sure, you can see how far you can lift/toss/bench press me,” just became part of my vocabulary. When someone suggested that I be placed in a gym bag and hung from a basketball hoop, I was the first to try to fit in the bag. And anytime they played their little macho games, like Letter B, or the one to test how hard a punch you could take right to the sternum, I was always all-in, making sure they realized that I could take it with the best of them. It didn’t take long before I was just another one of the group. What’s more, they decided that being their little guy, their French Fry as I was dubbed, I had to be protected. Anytime anyone outside our group tried to mess with me, one, if not all of them, would break in and scare off the offender. It wasn’t hard considering that my little gang included the biggest boys in Hampstead: Kirk, Russell and Stan. They were all nearly six feet tall by eighth grade. Kirk and Stan tipped the scales at close to, if not over, 200 pounds. I once got to see Kirk and Stan wrestle each other near Patterson Park. Afraid of getting in trouble, we all scattered after Kirk picked Stan up and slammed him into a car leaving a huge Stan-shaped dent on the side. There was a downside. I could never stick up for myself, even when I wanted to. I was seeing this girl named Bobbi Jo who I’d met on top of one of the Spiders, what we called huge twin the playsets that inhabited the playground in Patterson Park. The older kids would climb unto the rooves, the Spider's back, where we could get away from the younger kids. It offered a great view of the park, as well as the perfect lookout point for police. Bobbi Jo was one of the first girls to show an interest in me since I’d moved to Baltimore from Middle River. She was welcoming, friendly and sweet. She was also a little too boyish for my thirteen-year-old tastes, short hair, flat chest. But as easy as it was for me to attract a girlfriend in Jersey, it was equally as hard to find one here. Here, I had to take what I could get.
Bobbi Jo was maybe a little too friendly, though. The day we met, after some flirting and kissing, we walked across the park to get home. I lived just west of the park, on Pratt Street. She lived northwest, near Patterson Park Avenue. We got to a large bush sitting in the shadow of The Pagoda that stands watch from the top of Hampstead Hill, the very hill that defended the city successfully during the Battle of Baltimore, in 1812. As usual, I got distracted by the Pagoda, and when I looked back, she was gone. The bush whispered to me, beckoned me. I followed the voice, found the opening and made my way inside. With its thin trunk and its long, bowing branches, the bush created a cove, of sorts, that kept us hidden from the rest of the park. Inside was Bobbi Jo, and I was faced with a bush of another kind. Bobbi Jo had pulled down her tiny O.P. shorts, spread her legs.
"We can fuck if you want," she said. I was never a prude, was always eager to give up my virginity, but this was sudden, unexpected. I immediately got nervous and scared. I apologized and made up some excuse about being late for dinner. Another time. Bobbi Jo casually pulled her shorts back up, followed me out of the bush, and continued our walk to the top of the hill. I mentioned how cool the bush was, and that we would be hanging out there plenty, in the future. We kissed one last time on the corner of Patterson Park Avenue and Baltimore Street, said our goodbyes, and promised we'd see each other the next day. Bobbi Jo wasn’t on top of either of the Spiders the next day. Her cousin Tammy was there, however, and introduced herself. She also introduced me to French kissing. Actually, I had French kissed once before. The day we left Middle River for Baltimore, as I was making my rounds, saying my goodbyes, Tasha, one of the cutest girls in Riverdale Village, invited me into her apartment. I'd always had a biggest crush on her, but she had barely ever said more than a few words to me the year I lived in Middle River. She closed the door behind us, whipped around, grabbed me, put her lips to mine, and our tongues were dancing, like flames. So I guess Tammy was actually practice. Tammy was more my type, more feminine, prettier. After a few hours with Tammy, I decided that I needed to break up with Bobbi Jo. Tammy said that Bobbi Jo would be there early the next morning. I ran off, excited, in love, delighted at my turn of events. I had choices! Jimmy, one of my not-so-big friends, was the only one I told about the experience. Jimmy led around a crew of misfits that were always fun to hang around with. Jimmy soon realized that I wasn't really a follower, that I was just as smart and charismatic as he was, so we became close friends. I would go to his house, where he would brag about incredible lie after incredible lie while we played Atari. I hadn't seen him in a couple of days, so I was excited to tell him about my girl problems.He knew Bobbi Jo, so I asked him not to mention a word to her. I wanted to be the one to tell her so that I could break it to her as gently as possible. But when I saw Bobbi Jo the next day, she already knew. Jimmy had told her. Furious, I found Jimmy on the playground and after a few choice words, punched him in the mouth. I wanted a chance to beat the piss out of him. He was eager for a little mano a mano, too, but Kirk and Russell weren’t about to let me get in a real fight. They stepped in and kept us separated. Granted, when Jimmy’s big brother Joe came around looking to exact revenge for hitting Jimmy so hard that he had to have the orthodontist separate his lips from his braces, the guys were there to stop that too. Looking back, I’m grateful to have had them around. Kirk once saved me from a stint in Juvie. There was one idiot in my class, I can’t even remember his name, who just seemed to have it out for me. Coming in late for school one day, he took the opportunity of passing by my desk to knock my books to the floor. When I got my chance, I knocked his books across the room. Next period, gym, coming out of the locker room, I felt an arm wrap around my neck and yank me to the ground. The idiot was choking the life out of me, and the more I struggled, the harder he squeezed. Finally, just when I thought I would pass out, he let me go. Once I caught my breath, I peeled myself off the ground and picked up the first thing I could find, an aluminum baseball bat. That bastard had his back turned to me chatting with some friends. I crept up close behind him and swung, as hard as I could. The bat stopped inches from his head with a smack as Kirk caught it with one hand. “Freddy, are you nuts?!” I remembered Kirk yelling as he yanked the bat out of my hand. I felt nuts. I must have looked it too, judging by the fear in that kid’s eyes when he spun around to realize how close he had come to getting beaned by the little Puerto Rican. He didn’t give me any problems after that. High school pretty much broke up our little band. I got into Baltimore Polytechnic while everyone else was fated to attend Patterson High, their zoned school. Two plus hours of daily travel time and a heavy homework load made it nearly impossible to even meet up with the old crew, except for the occasional weekend. They were always excited to see me, but I could tell even then that they were getting used to not having me around. None of them felt the need to see how high they could lift me or how far they could toss me anymore. They didn’t need me. They’d never needed me. I didn’t need them either, I would think in fits of anger. They never even let me fight my own battles. But that’s not exactly true. It’s not that they felt I couldn’t handle myself in a fight. The truth was that they knew that while I did hang out with them, I wasn’t part of them. They knew then what I’ve only realized recently. As violent as they could be, they could see I wasn’t. Not really. I just needed to fit in somewhere. They weren’t protecting me from getting hurt. They were protecting me from becoming like them. And now, I had outgrown them. I ran into Kirk one chilly November night on Castle Street. He asked me what I was up to, and I let him know I had decided to join Poly’s wrestling team. “Oh yeah?” he replied, all excited, “Let me see what you got French Fry!” He reached out to grab me in one of his crushing bear hugs. I ducked under, grabbed around his knees offering a hug of my own, and pulled, hard. He fell on his back with a loud ¡fwoomp! and started laughing uncontrollably. I helped him up and he was still laughing, shaking his head. He offered me a friendlier, less painful embrace. “It’s great seeing you, French Fry” he said, still laughing, still shaking his head as we both continued on our separate paths.
It wasn’t my first, but it was the first job I ever worked during the school year, not just a summer gig. I was great at it, too. I mean we’re only talking fast food here, the McDonalds on Dundalk Avenue near Willow Spring Road; but it’s where I developed my work ethic. Like most of the fresh meat, I began my career on the grill. I became the master of the short-lived McDLT, one of Mickey Dees’ attempts to compete with the Whopper. Soon enough I was training other new hires on the grill and was moved to the front to take orders and ring sales. There was even talk of promoting me to assistant manager during the summer.
For a sixteen-year-old, life couldn’t have been much better. And it wasn’t just how successful I was at flipping burgers and taking orders. I made lots of good friends. One of the managers, Rob, bribed us at closing time by plying us with pot and gin. We’d crank on the OJ machines (we sold the little plastic, foil-topped cups to the public), mix some drinks, smoke a bit of herb, and get wasted. The breakfast crew would come in to the cleanest, best-prepped store in Maryland. Rob would even squeeze as many of us as he could into his little, two-seater Fiero and drive us home.
My family liked all the food I brought home that would have otherwise gotten thrown away. Nowadays they might donate food to homeless shelters and soup kitchens, but back then it would all go to waste — straight to the dumpster. The cooler managers would look the other way while I stacked bags full of double cheeseburgers, fries and cherry pies at the end of my shift. My parents and sibs would actually wait up, if I wasn’t getting home too late, for a late night feast. I was a hero.
There were, however, villains. One was named was Mike. He was a particularly lazy, fat-assed manager who spent most of his shift, once the day shift managers were gone, parked at a table in a far corner of the dining room sipping coffee and chain smoking.
He’d hand his keys over to his lackey, a girl named Tia, for voids and other register issues. Tia took this as a sign of power to lord over the rest of the peons. So while Mike hid in his corner like a troll, Tia would scatter off like a roach to find her own crack to hide in.
Now, once you’re on a register you’re not supposed to walk away unless a manager knows. Once, I had to go to the bathroom really bad — not a surprise since we got to fill our little courtesy cups as often as we liked. Mike was unseen in his corner adding more yellow to his fingers and teeth. Tia, as usual, was nowhere to be found. I figured one of them would have to show up, eventually.
I kept taking orders and ringing customers. And then I realized I was trembling. I could still take orders, but my voice was halting as I had to focus most of my concentration on not pissing myself.
I looked around. Still no Mike. Still no Tia. At this point I was in serious pain. Finally, I had a brilliant idea. Maybe, I thought, just maybe if I let it out slowly most of the urine will get absorbed into my underwear and not show through my pants. So I did. I continued to take a customer’s order while slowly, carefully releasing the contents of my painfully over-bloated bladder.
I was handing the customer change when I realized that as good as my plan was, my tighty whities just weren’t going to be able to hold all that liquid. I tried not to panic as I felt the warm wetness of my urine drizzle down my legs.
The pants saved me. Back then, the uniform pants were a heavy, forest green polyester. I looked down. I could feel that parts of my pants were wet, but they didn’t look wet. Also lucky for me, I had drunken so much soda, the piss was so diluted, that there was no smell to speak of. When Tia finally showed up I was furious to the point of tears.
I promptly excused myself, ran downstairs to the employee bathroom and threw my soaked underwear away. The other great thing about the McDonalds uniform pants of old: they dried quickly. By the time my shift was over a couple of hours later it was like nothing had ever happened.
Regardless, I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Neither Mike nor Tia were around, as usual, when I found myself in a similar situation a few weeks later. I was working the drive-thru. I abandoned my post before it was too late, ran down the stairs to the employee bathroom and relieved myself the human way. I was able to dart right back to my post undetected. However, as soon as I opened my register I realized something was terribly wrong. There was money missing.
I noticed it right away because a customer had paid using a fifty-dollar bill, and that fifty was no longer in the register. The first moment I could, I asked Tia about it thinking perhaps she had pulled it from my register to make change. She knew nothing about it, she claimed. To me that meant she took it. No one else could have. I was worried, but it was the first time any of my drawers had come up short. Not to big a deal, right?
Wrong. I was called down to the manager’s office at the start of my very next shift and was promptly fired. I tried to explain exactly what was wrong with their location, about lazy, fat-assed Mike and power hungry, thieving Tia, but all the general manager cared about was policy. Policy dictated that any shortage of fifty dollars or more could be dealt with by termination. It didn’t matter how promising I was as an employee, that I was the master of the McDLT or the king of customer service. All that mattered was that I could be fired, so I was. I was too embarrassed, then, to point out that I had pissed myself.
And there I was, pissed again. This time, though, I was pissed off. My mother had this saying for people who said they were pissed off. It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on. I always thought she was right, but as I walked out of McDonalds for the last time in what would turn out to be a long time I couldn’t help feeling that I was both.
I know, I know. I've been a bit quiet lately. In my defense I've been pretty busy, and it looks like I'll only get busier from here on out. However, April will keep me the kind of busy you can be a part of.
In case you haven't heard, two of my poems were published in Life in Me Like Grass on Fire, and anthology of poetry written by members of the Maryland Writers Association and edited by the wonderful Laura Shovan. I also wrote the introduction to "Love of Nature," the section where my poems appear. I will be making a number of appearances in April to promote the book and National Poetry Month.
First up, I'm honored to be one of this month's Poets at Preston Gardens on Tuesday, April 12, from noon until 1:00PM. Preston Gardens runs from the 200 to 300 blocks of Saint Paul Street, across the street from Mercy Hospital. Caryn Coyle and Lomeize Rulo will also be reading. This event is sponsored by the Downtown Partnership and organized by Andy Rubin , proprietor of Cyclops Books & Music. (NOTE: TODAY'S POETS IN PRESTON GARDENS READING HAS BEEN RAINED OUT. A NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN THE NEAR FUTURE.)
On the following evening, Wednesday, April 13, please join me, Shirley Brewer and other contributors from Life in Me Like Grass on Fire at the Village Learning Place from 7:00PM until 9:00PM.
Celebrate the official launch of Life in Me Like Grass on Fire at the CityLit Festival with me, editor Laura Shovan, Dennis Kirschbaum, Ann Bracken, Barbara Westwood Diehl, Heidi Mordhorst & Shirley Brewer in the Poe Room from 10:45AM until noon.
I return to the Towson Branch the very next week, Monday, April 25, to help close out CruMoPoPerFest with the Maryland Writers Association (MWA) and a baker's dozen of the poets featured in Life in Me Like Grass on Fire for our official launch party; and who doesn't like a good party. All Cruellest Month events run from 6:30PM-8:30PM.
¿Can't make it to any of the readings? No worries. Just make sure to purchase your copy of Life in Me Like Grass on Fireby following the link. Also, you can check out a few of my poems featured on Laura Shovan's blog, Author Amokas well as on eightelevenpointfiftyfour, a poetry blog run by NYC librarian, Rita Stein-Grollman. By the way, Rita's still looking for some good poets to host, hint, hint.
Well, I think that's everything. It better be. You're all likely tired of me already. I hope not, though. See you all... somewhere, soon.
First, let me get this out of the way: I was a virgin until the ripe old age of nineteen, which even by the standards of those days (late 80s), was fairly old—at least compared to my friends. That's not to say I didn't try hard, or that I didn't come real damned close on a few occassions. I’d done almost everything else. It's just that each of those times I got real damned close something would go terribly, terribly wrong and the deed always went undone. Those are actually fairly humorous stories too. I've posted many of them here:Never Too Short to Get Cock Blocked by God, Part I, Never Too Short to Get Cock Blocked by God, Part II& Never Too Short to Get Cock Blocked by God, Part III. Suffice it to say that it was hard for a little, geeky Puerto Rican like me to get laid in Baltimore.
At the time I was living with Chris, a graffiti artist with whom I vandalized (¡Beautified!) most of East Baltimore and plenty of Eastern Baltimore County. Chris was this scrawny blonde-haired, blue-eyed sixteen year old whose long skater bangs and upturned nose made him look just like Hermey, the misfit elf who wanted to be a dentist from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Our friendship was starting to fall apart once I realized that Chris was using me. I had a job and money. He didn’t. I paid for food. I paid for clubs. I even paid for a cab ride from Highlandtown to a party in Perry Hall that didn't exist so he could screw with his girlfriend while I was forced to lie on the floor next to their bed and try not to listen.
A couple of weeks after that fiasco I was taking a break from my job at this little coffee shop Downtown when I noticed this hot Latina sitting on a bench filling out a job app. She had dark brown, almost-black hair, a gorgeous cappuccino complexion, and a pointed chin I just wanted to nibble on. I wanted to get her attention, so I looped around and passed by her again. She didn't look up, but she reached out, grabbed my wrist and yanked me down to the seat beside her. She introduced herself as Maria. She had seen me go past the first time and had recognized me. Maria reminded me that we had met previously, a little over a year before, at St. Elizabeth's Carnival.
I immediately remembered her. She had been sitting on the steps of St. E’s and had yanked me down to her as I walked by, not unlike the move she pulled near the coffee shop. She had tried to speak to me in Spanish, but it was so broken I could barely make it out. She was about to miss her curfew that night, so we couldn't talk long that first time. It didn't matter because that same night I hooked up with Marilyn, a girl I had been crushing on for the previous three years who I consider my first adult love. You can find that story onNever Too Short to Get Cock Blocked by God, Part III.
Maria decided to stick to English this time, and I was able to understand her a bit better. Apparently, she remembered me from my skateboarding days when I would roll past her house on Chester Street. She had seemingly spent some considerable amount of time learning about me because it looked as if she knew more about me than I did. It was more than enough to feed my hungry, young ego. We exchanged numbers and made arrangements to meet up at Chris' place that coming Saturday.
I should have suspected something was a little off with Maria when I invited her into Chris' apartment, and the first thing she did was rummage through the cabinets and fridge for food without bothering to ask. Chris gave me a disapproving look, and I just shrugged. Finding nothing to satisfy her there, we all left and jumped on the number 23 to Eastpoint Mall where I bought her dinner, which she ate ravenously—simultaneously disgusting me and turning me on. We hung out for a little while, then I brought her back to Chris' where we went into his room and started making out. This is the first time I allowed myself to believe that it was actually going to happen. I was gonna get some, and God wasn't going to cock block me like he had been doing throughout my youth.
Chris left to give us some privacy, and I pulled out the only condom I owned, which had been sitting in my wallet waiting for this moment for over a year. I never did get to use it. "You don't need that," Maria told me, "I had this accident at Patterson Park Pool when I was a little girl, and my doctor told me I will probably never be able to have children." (Yeah, I know, but remember I was nineteen and horny—& STOOPID). I didn't care. Even better, I thought. I'd prefer to go bareback my first time.
Mind you, I didn't let on I was a virgin. It wasn't an issue because, like I said, I'd done almost everything else, and I'd read enough of the articles in porno mags (¡It pays to read, people!) to have an idea of how I wanted to, um, work it. Suffice it to say there were no complaints, unless you count the ones that came from Chris. When he came back at around 2 a.m., we were still going at it, so he left again. Chris' stepfather even walked in on us while Maria was riding me like a lust-crazed coffee bean picker on a rabid burro in heat. An hour and a half later, when Chris came back, again, we still weren't done. Tired, he decided to crash on his bed with the pillow over his head. I didn’t care. This was payback for him screwing that Perry Hall girl right over my head. We fucked so hard that I know his parents heard Maria yelling, so I know Chris didn't get any sleep, regardless of how hard he pretended.
Maria was insatiable, which was ironic considering she only ever got to the brink of an orgasm, at which point we would have to stop for a few until she was ready to go again. It was no surprise when Chris told me I would have to move out the next day. But we didn't need Chris' room. We screwed anywhere and everywhere: the Rain House in Patterson Park, all three floors of her father's house, including on her father's bed, the Number 14 bus stop on Howard Street near the Inner Harbor (okay, that was just a blowjob, but still). My absolute favorite though was in my mother's bedroom while my mother and sister were still in it.
The reason I had been staying with Chris in the first place was because my mother had taken my sister and moved out of her boyfriend's house, leaving me behind. Not long after I'd hooked up with Maria, I ran into my sister downtown. She told me where she was staying with our mother, sharing a duplex in Park Heights with a couple. I took Maria over there one weekend around Christmas to meet her. It got late, so my mom offered to set up this little rollaway bed in the small bedroom she and my sister were sharing.
¿Did I mention Maria and I couldn't keep our hands off each other? Needless to say, once we felt sure mom & sis were in lost in Lalaland, we decided that a little spooning would likely make the least noise. Everything was going swimmingly until Maria let out this yelp. Instinctively, I clamped a hand over her mouth. We stood perfectly still for a few seconds to see if anybody had heard us. Then we started giggling uncontrollably. Mom woke up long enough to shout, "If you two don't stop fucking around I'm going to beat both of your asses!"
Anyway, the fun kind of stopped that Spring when I found out Maria was pregnant. Apparently, she had wanted a baby—she had wanted my baby—and was willing to lie to me to have it. What she didn't count on was that I was too responsible to take her suggestion that I walk away and forget about her and our child. Having grown up without a father, I wasn't the type to abandon my own offspring, conceived through deception or not. Besides, I did love her, and I wanted to make it work. At the suggestion (insistence) of her father, Jupiter (appropriately named considering his massive frame and an ego to match), we got married in October of 1989, just weeks before Maria gave birth.
The magic lasted until I found out she was pregnant a second time, this time because of her inconsistent use of the pill. (Jupiter told me she took them like Tic Tacs, popping two or three at a time when she missed a few days.) At that point, I took things into my own hands getting a vasectomy at twenty-one.
The relationship chilled for good when I found out she had cheated on me with six men after we'd gotten married. She had played me to get what she wanted—a child, played along when I wouldn't just turn my back on that child, and didn't want to play anymore when the unexpected second child came along.
There are some important lessons here kids. First, don't fall in love with the first person you screw. Second, always, always, ALWAYS wrap it before you tap it. And finally, when someone offers you a copy of your girlfriend's psychiatric evaluation and it starts off with terms like narcissistic paranoid & borderline psychotic, don't think, maybe I can help her get past all that. Scrap all the Night-in-Shining-Armor delusions. ¡Just RUN!
The
numbers are in. In the wake of the worst recession since the Great
Depression of the early 20th Century, we now have more poor people than
we’ve had since we started keeping track of poor folk—46.2 million.
That’s over 15% of Americans now defined as poor, up from about 14% the
previous year. In case you need to understand how our country defines
poverty, if your family of four makes less than $22,314 a year, you are
poor.
