{"id":304,"date":"2010-08-10T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T13:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/2010\/08\/10\/one-from-the-vaults-july-4-1977\/"},"modified":"2010-08-10T13:51:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T13:51:00","slug":"one-from-the-vaults-july-4-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/2010\/08\/one-from-the-vaults-july-4-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"One from the Vaults &#8211; July 4, 1977"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Boston, July 4 (1977)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Black men walking on ball bearings own this jungle street.<\/div>\n<div>Wanna <i>love <\/i>my white skin and the green American blood<\/div>\n<div>Money right out of my<\/div>\n<div>Allotted six cubic feet of body space.<\/div>\n<div>Pimps, harlots, junkies<\/div>\n<div>Of assorted national origins<\/div>\n<div>Have their fingers in the great cheesecake<\/div>\n<div>And I have the cakewalk blues\u2026<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I\u2019m thinking of the Winter past, when I was held up for my groceries. Yes. I had taken my food stamps down to the Stop and Shop and stocked up on staples. It was snowy, and the ground crunched as I made my way back to the apartment with the bag. There were slick spots, so I was looking down. I missed the approach of the huge, tall black dude. He blocked my path. His hands were in his pockets. I leaped ahead to the possibility he was concealing a weapon. I assumed he wanted me to assume just that. He\u2019s very cool, this dude. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cDon\u2019t want no trouble, man. Just what you got in the bag.\u201d <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It\u2019s very cool in the cold, our breath rising in mist from our faces. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cI just got my groceries, man.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\u201cLet\u2019s see what all you got.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He indicates the park bench. I comply. I am recalling that Tyler, the owner of the Westland Avenue Parking Garage and Car Wash, told me just a few days before that he got held up in the office at gun point. Cleaned out his register and safe, but he didn\u2019t get fucking blown away. I don\u2019t want any holes in myself either. And C, the father I never had, also, a few years back, lost his watch as I looked on from a distance. I myself had been held up before. I gave \u2018em the four cents that I had in my pocket. I turned every pocket inside out. I did not have to do an orifice check. One by one, I take the groceries out of my bag and set them on the bench. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cOK. You can go.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I leave the dude with the groceries, the bag, sitting on the bench. He\u2019s putting the stuff back in the bag. I look back just the once, and that\u2019s what I see happening. On my shaking legs I walk back the way I came, in the direction of the Stop and Shop.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I stop in at the Garage, where I work week nights, six to midnight. Tyler\u2019s in his office. He comes out to say hi. It\u2019s not usual for me to drop in unless I\u2019m picking up my checque, or dickering about the schedule.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWhat\u2019s up, Cal?\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\u201cI just got held up.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\u201cWelcome to the club!\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I buy the same groceries again. On the way up the street, again, one of the prostitutes, looking a little ill in the daylight, walks past.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cI saw all that go down, baby,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s some bad shit!\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\u201cThanks for saying,\u201d I say, not breaking my stride.&nbsp;It was very cold. It was too cold for more chat. It crosses my mind that my assaulter could repeat the stunt. This time, I\u2019ll take the bullet. I gotta eat, man.<\/div>\n<div>Shit.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston, July 4 (1977) Black men walking on ball bearings own this jungle street. Wanna love my white skin and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}