We's moving! Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat, June 2004. ©
So my partner Larry is attending Princeton and we (me and Donald) helped him moved this weekend from Jersey City to Princeton. Fortunately Larry had already moved plenty of things already, so we were essentially handling big things like the bed, book cases, dressers, couch, love seat, etc., and lots of boxes of books. I was geeked. Donald and I took a smooth ride into Jersey City arriving about 1:30 p.m. On our way, we talked about black LGBT/SGL literature; what’s good, what sucks, that sort of thing. I’ll share a little about that conversation later. Anyways, we get to Jersey City and Larry comes barreling across the street in dress clothes. No, really. He’s exhausted, hungry, and irresistible.
Moving love, moving love. Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat, June 2004. ©
We go to secure the 14-foot U-Haul truck, and then to McDonalds for food (yeah, I know.) After tucking in, we head to the apartment to pack! Larry had everything in the front room, and there were a few things in the kitchen. Immediately, I turn into manager. You, hand me this, you there, hand me that. Hoist the sail! Fortunately, Donald and Larry allowed me to be a manager, so that helped instead of telling me to shut up. We started at 2:30 p.m. and finished loading the truck up about 7:30 pm.
The manager. Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat, June 2004. ©
After a quick meal at the VIP Diner (food was ok, service sucked), we were on the road to New Brunswick for a quick stop at Larry’s moms and to Rutgers where he’s employed at Upward Bound, and has a room on campus. Larry’s manning the U-Haul, I am driving Larry’s car with Donald in tow. Just as we get on the Turnpike where I promptly lose him!
Let me let you all in a little secret: I don’t like, loathe, hate
1) driving
2) driving at night
3) driving at night and getting lost.
So I was feeling good over when the U-Haul truck was nowhere to be seen and in its place, a fork in the road. Donald, bless his heart, calmed me down, and after 10 minutes of being lost, I call my betrothed who instructs me on how to get to him. Yay! He’s a rest stop, dancing like a madman. He jumps in the car and I ask him to write down the directions, lest I lose His Wonderfulness again.
30 minutes later we arrive intact in New Brunswick, and pull up to Larry’s mom’s house. She isn’t home, so we head over to his dorm room, grab some stuff and head to Princeton. Donald is especially fab as a passenger, sidekick, generally pal-on-the-go type. I don’t think there is a song this guy doesn’t know, or at least know about. Just don’t ask him to sing Ray of Light by Madonna anytime after 11 pm.
The new place! Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat, June 2004. ©
Anyways, we make to Princeton at 12 midnight. The place is quiet—the zaketas must be asleep. Larry backs the U-Haul up to his building’s entrance and I decide that I must unpack the truck in one hour. An hour and half later we are done! Again, Donald and Larry defer to me and allow me to direct. I like planning. It makes me feel like a man. So few things do. About 2:30 a.m. we are all asleep with little U-Haul dancing in our heads.
Me and my baby's feet under the diner at Denny's. Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat, June 2004. ©
Waiting on a heaping slice of black misery. Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat, June 2004. ©
Next day, we eat at Denny’s, drop off the U-Haul, Larry heads to Rutgers for a program, and Donald and I catch a train back to New York City. The train is filled with folks, some of whom I suspect are on their way to the Puerto Rican Day Parade (lots of PR flags and stuff, papi!) Stupidly, I think I am escaping a pack of noisy kids when four black women, one with baby in tow, board the train and promptly sit just in front of me. I heard them before I saw them: loud, boisterous, self-satisfied jerkettes providing perfectly awful companionship on a 30-45 ride to anyfuckingwhere. Before I put my headphones on, I listened a bit to their conversation. They looked En Vogue in a car wreck. Each one of them looked steeped in malnutrition, as if they had been breastfed Guinness. One woman had the prerequisite black girl scraped back ponytail; another woman’s hair was so short that it couldn’t even make it to ponytail, electing instead to lie on top of her head defeated, breathing heavily from the effort. Each spoke a high grade of disempowerment fluently. The discussions were all about “and I told hers” and “that’s why I said,” and “that bitch don’t know what she’s talking abouts.”
Donald and I discussed how and what we felt about the women on the way back to Harlem. He expressed his dismay at their loudness—didn’t they see that his eyes were closed? Maybe he was sleeping. Personally, I feel that what we witnessed was a poverty of being. My take on it is that if someone feels like no one shows them love or community, why should they show it to you? It’s all about me, regardless if “me” is boiled down to a cliché, a stereotype (a lip-smacking, hand-on-the-hips, skraight-from-the-ghetto, don’t-fuck-with-me, you-better-ask-somebody, kind of woman.)
The ponytail I saw from the back of one of the woman’s head was analogous to what I imagine her station in life might have been. Processed hair trying to make a break for the beauty fence framing a face that was pretty enough, but “they” (whoever “they” might be: no love, mis– or no education, lack of nutrition, the heirloom of intergeneration poverty) got her. And “they” got her good.
Earlier that day while I was moving stuff out of Larry’s old place, I saw a teenage girl with a young girl toddler be-bopping along with her down the street. She told the toddler just as I passed “come on, move your ass along,” in an irritated tone. Later, Donald and I saw a little boy, couldn’t have been more than 2 or 3 all by himself on his scooter with no guardian in sight. Donald took the kid down the street, and told me that whoever was watching the kid put it on the kid to be responsible. Who’s in charge here? Now where the fuck would he/she be if that kid were snatched?
That’s enough for now. I am done.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 @ 09:20 AM