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music |
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frank black - los angeles |
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last night while walking down 34th street i saw the side of a homeless man's face. i thought to myself, "any one of these men could be my father." i paused for a second, and caught a glimpse of his face, frontally. we made eye contact. his gaze held mine for a second longer than i felt comfortable and i hastened my pace. i noticed the police officers in their permanent post, at the long island rail road entrance to penn station. i felt a twinge of that false sense of security [or insecurity, depending on your position] you feel whenever you see a cop. i went down the escalator and bought my ticket and boarded the train. i was sitting in my seat for about two minutes when i noticed a shadow towering above my seat. at first i thought it was some dude that was gonna get cute and try to sit down next to me (there were like 30 open seats in the car), but when i looked up i realized that it was the homeless man from the street. he had followed me down to my train. he tried saying something to me but it was incomprehensibile. he was white, blue eyes, wore shorts and a blue du-rag. he was carrying two garbage filled with something. his belongings, presumably. he was of an unidentifiable age. i got up and said "excuse me?" really forcefully. he muttered something again, something i couldn't make out. i must've resorted to my primal instinct, standing up, making myself appear larger to other animals. less afraid. i left my seat and found another in the next car.
there are some central americans speaking spanish outside my window. i know they're from central america because basically all of the esquineros on long island are from there. susan's dad is an independent contract electrician and he drives a white van to his jobs in queens and brooklyn. a lot of the time he'll pass a group of day laborers standing on a corner somewhere in queens, and often they'll mistake his van for the white van that picks them up for jobs in the morning. sometimes in hopes of getting work they'll run after the van despite his "no, no, no, i'm not your guy" gesturing. i wonder what they think of america, or what they think of the overweight uneducated housewives who call them 'mexicans', despite their country or even region of origin. so many americans (my rich, educated, republican-voting stepfather included) hardly view them as much other than an "undocumented." i'm not trying to say anything pivotal here, nor am i trying to make any sweeping claims of social injustice, or even any sort of jilted social commentary -- but as i was listening to them speak outside of my window, i watched them for a little bit, and i thought about how many white middle class americans tucked away in their vinyl siding [with airconditioning and digital cable] actually view these people as that of real people? people with mothers, children, lovers, hates, desires, anger, love? probably not many. i know this because i think that way, too, sometimes. same with the homeless man the other night -- these people that we render humanless, people not deserving of mutual human respect, attention. whatever, i'm essentially a stupid white girl too.
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