Leave It

I was never all that into Leave It to Beaver when I was a kid. Something always seemed off about the characters, their relationships to each other. The parents I remember as OK pretty much, but everyone else, the kids, too contrived. So ocntrived that I quickly made the assumption that Beav and whatever the hell the other kid's name was, they were a couple of miscreants lucky enough to be adopted by this nice, normal couple who dressed just like my grandparents. Fuck, I mean Diff'rent Strokes looked more natural. The mother, I guess it was her idea to adopt these poor orphans, and although the father didn't like it so much, it was the right thing to do, the Wilford Brimley, Christian thing to do (equally mysterious). He seemed so patient, the father, not out of some deep paternal instinct, but rather because he wanted to strangle the little brats 90% of the time, and that particular course of action being distinctly non-Christian he was forced to keep a tight hold of himself.

And as for the little white orphans, it was clear to me that the Beav was totally fucked in one way or another, most likely a firestarted who burned down his old house, killing his biological parents in the process. Ooh, and that is the terrible secret his brother (what the fuck is his name?) must keep from their nice, normal new parents, lest they both be tossed out into the cold. The new parents, the nice ones, they know something's wrong, perhaps that the older one's gay, and they discuss it at length once the boys are asleep in lieu of sex, but just can't put a finger on it.

Well, I'd like to think it was something like that on the train the other morning, so selfless and weird, but I suspect it was just weird, and by that I mean normal: a lady and her kid, kid elementary-school age and lady a hard yuppie. She looks unaccustomed to train-riding, the lady; the kid looks used to it. The kid's sitting on the end of a row right by the door, lady blocking the door, frantically blackberrying with one hand, stroking the kid's hair with the other.

"Why are you doing that, Mommy?" Huh, apparently a stranger to such affection, this kid.

Silence. Awkward, thumb- flailing, awkward silence. For me and the kid, that is. She didn't notice:

"Because..." Typing, then: "Because I love you."

Wow, that was bad. Set some fucking fires, kid.

Self-Fulfilling Prophesy

Wow, so "supremely worse" is an expression I used to hear in old-school roughneck reggae shit, the songs that made no real sense and generally had lots of elementary-school sound effects, lazer guns and whatnot. Just the other day I mentioned it, and then there I was, smack in the middle of a unpleasantly crowded evening rush hour. Everyone else looked cold and sleepy, quite, resigned after much platform waiting, and not yet roused by the man in the blue hat. So it was blue and silk, definitely silk, shiny as hell, and he wore it proudly, jauntily even. Looking smug beneath the silk sat a large 40-ish West Indian man, legs sprawled, knees agape, impeccably groomed as one would expect of blue silk from trimmed goatee to leather trenchcoat and pointy, aligator-esque shoes. His headphones, large like of old, crackled considerably, considerably loud, and he nodded perfection. Thirty-fourth, 23rd, 14th begin:

"---"

You know, I really wanted some quote to really give a sense of the whole thing but, to be perfectly frank, I hadn't the slightest idea wha the hell he was saying, singing, whatever. It was one of those gargle-glass-over-whiskey growls, impossilby deep and comically gravelly, indecipherable and exuberant, even over the crackle. Needless to say, the audience was on eggshells, half a-titter and terrified of the large and obviously insane black dude in the blue silk hat. At West Fourth he stood up with a flourish, twirling the drape of his trenchcoat around his legs, and stood at the opposite door, swaying. The doors closed; we kept on. Broadway-Lafayette and he was dancing, singing much louder than before , no more intelligably. Suddenly the grunts and growls started coalescing and a narrative emerged. Alright, not quite, but it became clear that it was of a sexual nature, somehow. Then the break: girl screaming, his falsetto, hollering, his very own sound effect. And what an effect it had: wide eyes and raised eyebrows all around. He was dancing against the door, quiet for Second Ave, then at it again. Delancey, straight screaming, high and passionate from this strange, strange man, all on beat, and he's gone. Hopefully to the motherfucking L-train.