Are paid.
Lunch?
Has been bought.
I literally walked past a Black Owned and Operated Soul Food Restaurant.
Stopped in there.
And realized I'd walked past this place countless times when I was working at the Plantation-Station.
And I said to myself, let me go in and see what they have.
Looked over their menu.
Bought a platter of short ribs with two sides included, I made one string beans and one collard greens. Got large sides, one is Mac-n-Cheese, the other is Potato Salad. Bought a Homemade Iced Tea from them too and left a 15% tip!
It felt good to be able to pay for something and not freak out about it and count pennies and do calculations to make sure shit doesn't come up short. My transportation, has ALREADY BEEN BOUGHT FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS!
I am FINALLY starting to RETURN TO NORMAL.
And it feels, GREAT!
I was also told WHY I WAS HIRED SPECIFICALLY, by MY BOSS.
Never mind that YESTERDAY!?
TBA would have probably been, very proud. Because a Blackman of the Civil Rights Generation honestly admitted to me while he was waiting to leave the plant "We were wrong, young brother. We were wrong."
I didn't bother to get into that conversation last night and even typing this I am actually tearing up simply because THIS BLACKMAN who works at this plant, he LIVED IT AND PARTICIPATED and he honestly said to me while we were talking at My Guard House "We were wrong about integration and all of that." and it was something where it was VERY HARD FOR HIM TO SAY AND FOR ME TO HEAR, because since I've been at this job, at My Post, this Elderly Blackman has been very open and forthright with me and he stops by to talk because the shuttle bus LITERALLY STOPS in front of My Guard House!
And when he saw that very first drawing where I was inking and coloring Byron Maxwell, he was like "WOW!? What are you doing sitting here with THIS KIND OF TALENT!?" and I told him "Where exactly am I supposed to be going?" and when I answered him with JUST THAT. No smart-alecky tone, NO DISRESPECT, just?
Crisp.
Cold.
Rational.
Logic.
The Truth.
He was stunned and he showed me his own perceptiveness and he honestly looked ashamed as he said "Nowhere, Young Brother. Nowhere." and THAT, is how we started talking, because HE WAS HONEST WITH ME! And I asked him "Oh? Why do you say it that way?" and he replied "You can't take that to the Whites or the Jews, they'd make you take away all the things that, I can tell. Just from looking at this drawing, all the colors and the activity on this one page, that is a Blackman underneath that helmet. Underneath that armor. And he ain't here to play games. He has HIS AGENDA. And HIS AGENDA ALONE. And that scares White Folk and anybody else when they encounter Blackmen who aren't here to bullshit with them."
Typing this, as I knew it would be, is difficult.
And as you can tell, this convo took place MONTHS AGO at this point.
He's retired. Spent the majority of His Life working for this employer.
And he's seen his share of shit.
He only works three days a week, about 4 to 5 hours on those days.
But for me, watching him move around, I said to myself "He shouldn't be here. But even with whatever he has, he still needs to keep working. Keep working, in a fuckin factory."
Enough.
My food is getting cold.
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