fuzzy
he was the nappy headed crack street person who
used to hang around the nappy headed little black girl
missing all her teeth.
they had something like true love, even though he beat her
like a rug on the line, and occasionally, she beat him. with
all their drugs and lack of education and streetside manner,
they had something i wouldn't hesitate to call true love between
them. you'd have to know them like i did in order to understand
this. and me, always giving up a dollar or two so fuzzy and his
girl could score a beer or a burger or maybe just a high; discussing
politics with him...
"it's all fucked up, tom. da shit be all fucked up!"
discussing life on the streets...
"it's all fucked up, tom. da shit be all fucked up!"
discussing philosophy...
"it's all fucked up, tom. da shit be all fucked up!"
and yet, there was some tiny speck of humanity in him, and
there is also in her... especially now, in her sad brown haunted
eyes.
it seems, according to rumor, that he was going to hit her during
an arguement, and instead, decided to hit a window. as his angry
fist broke through the glass, his wrist was severed open and he
bled to death, too dumb or too fucked up to be able to call for help.
same for her. i heard she just watched. probably talked for hours
at his corpse, not even realising there was nothing left. "get up you
damn fool," maybe she said to the thing in the dirt. "why you not
gettin' up?"
"he lay there, dead in his own damn blood," she told me tonight
at the common grounds coffee house. "he done try to beat me
and the stupid motherfucker lay there in he own blood. why he do that?
why he do that, tom? why he do that?"
she didn't spend a tear. too many gone the way of nowhere, i guess.
"it's okay," i offered, trying to comfort her. i put my arm around her.
she, so different from me; so black; so fucked in america; so wrong.
"but he's free now," i said. "no more jails. no more sadness.
no more pain."
"he not free," she said. "he dead."
-- miller