photo by Alex Lear

the streets

the streets cleared very slowly like the scent of loving from the body; we stood out on the streets looking at the lights for awhile and then at the three lanes as the cars passed new and shiny over the slickness of the rain washed streets/”Damn man, just damn” Josman was cursing softly beside me & I had not even looked up twice since we got out of that place, “come on man, let’s go somewhere,” he was trying to smoke a cigarette which hung gently from this soft wide mouth, a girl we knew was passing, wooden bracelets shone on her bronze wrists, she passed us by quietly, we could barely hear her sandals on the sidewalk, we let her walk away saying nothing, she was crying, at the corner she stopped to turn & look back toward the building & to pass us I’m sure, “aw man naw, we suppose to do sumpin’ it aint suppose to be this way,”/”come on man,” we went on off into the night blue & haunting

we got to the car in short order, Josman waited on the curbside for me to open the doors, I opened it, he got in & I started the car up pulling out into the street, “where we going man?” I told him I didn’t know and after awhile suggested maybe Crip’s cause I knew most likely a bunch the other dudes would be headin that way if they weren’t already sitting there mapping out strategies over a bottle of vino or cream sherry, Josman knew it too, & answered with his head turned out the window, “naw man, I don’t want be round them niggers up there just talking shit,”/”yeah, I’m hip man” I got a chance to stroke my beard at a stop light, “hey man stop at that phone, I wants to make a call,” I turned toward the curb and sat back waiting while Josman leaned against the car talking softly into the phone’s mouthpiece, he got back in slowly waiting until I was well out into the street before he slammed the door shut, “man Mary say fuzz running all over the place (I saw one just then & nodded to him) “yeah uh-huh they so cool though, just know these noo arlins niggers aint gonna do nothing,”/”just be cool man,”/”uh fuck being cool, just fuck being cool, cool, shit man we been on ice (he was laughing bitterly now) man this is it, I’m through, I’m going home, I done had it, yaknow, had it with this shit up to here (bumping his hand against the car’s ceiling)”/”yeah, where’s home for you nigger”/”anywhere, nowhere yaknow, could be we meant to never get nuthin till we take supin, yahonw!”/”awh man shut up fo you starts crying and gets to feeling sorry for yourself, white people been killing niggers since they first laid eyes on um,”/”yeah man but Rap’s dead! We gotta do sumpin, yaknow!”/”fuck man, Rap he just a niger too just like us, he go when his time come,” Josman didn’t say nomo till we got home and momma was standing there waiting for us saying how scared she was that we might been out there trying to kill people and committing all kinds of violence, I was still talking to momma when Josman came back w/h a bigass rifle in his hand a bag of bullets, “son…”/”shut up mama, come on lil bro we goin kill some hunkies,” and he broke for the car like bad & full of determination, I picked up my feet and followed him off into the waiting blk night, it has come to this and like hunters we stalked the streets slowly under the moon in a blue Volkswagen, I didn’t want to kill nobody, “man I don’t wanta kill nobody,”/”aint got nothing to do with it lil bro, it aint even a matter of right or wrong, its just simple survival and being able to live yaknow, (Bang, Josman had his gun stuck out the window blasting away, Bang)”/”you got him?”/”yeah,” I looked at him & thought he would be smiling or happy or something but he weren’t, he just sat there staring straight on, I drove on

the next morning neither of us felt any better bout Rap, I wondered what made whitepeople kill us, I knew why I had killed, it was cause I had to do something, but why I wondered why whitepeople killed

—kalamu ya salaam

march 1969