I’m seventy-one. When I went to Nam in Sixty-six there was plenty of tension between the races. After basic training, I went to gunnery school, scored high enough to be an instructor, and became a door gunner on a Chinook, one of those flying buses. I boxed, and had some swagger about me, but was not stupid—like my no-account cousin who talked me into takin’ our leave in the white town off base—turning left comin’ off base rather than turning right.
I was a big young man—heavyweight—but I weren’t no fool, even at that young age. I knew if somethin’ went down I would be all alone, so I slipped a razor under my cuff, somethin’ up the sleeve if necessary. There we go, turning left commin’ off base, the sentry shaking his head. We were not even onto the road headed to town, but coming to it, when this big car pulled up.
Out steps a white boy, as big as me.
I figure I can handle that without goin’ up the sleeve.
My cousin is runnin’ his fool mouth.
Out step another white boy, as big as the first, so I start to go up my sleeve, this fool still runnin’ his mouth, “so en so” and “this and that.”
Out of the back seat step a boy so big I had to look up at him—and things began to crystallize with some clarity in my mind, namely that I am standing between a no account fool and three big boys. So I gave his trifling ass ‘the look,’ and he shut his mouth.
Then, the car tilts, and the biggest white boy that has ever been birthed on God’s green earth rises up, towering over the rest. I nodded respectfully, as they stood there with arms crossed, let that razor stay where it was, and walked off down our side of the road.
They did not follow, simply drew a line, and I can’t say as I’d blame them. Hell, I didn’t even like my cousin!
That’s just the way it was, lines and whether or not to cross them. Now there are no lines and your own folks will do you in quicker than you can say mashed potatoes. There are things to prefer about now, just as there are things to prefer about then—just not the same things.
Change, brother, it comes for us all.
