Truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what is seen when eyes gaze upon me escapes my mind … What follows are some freely associating comments to recount a weekend of fun times, but mis-adventures all the same:
For a poem yet to be written: SoHo is what you basically shouted at me yesterday as I strolled the streets of Harlem.
*****
“Hey gul. Big guls can get love too an’ I got plenty of love for you gul,” spat one bystander as a toothpick dangled haphazardly on chapped lips.
“HA! Ha! Playa. You ain’t wrong. Yeh gul, if you need a lovuh, I ain’t ‘fraid to go unda covuh,” slurred asshole (pardon my disdain) #2 beneath the all-too-common and equally haphazardly dangling ballcap.
Not to be outdone, the 3rd wheel rolls out with the ultimate gesture of comeliness: the crotch grab and jerk followed by the thuggish what-up nod: “Baby girl, you ain’t got to look so mean. What you need is something to make you smile …”
It’s worth repeating that crack is whack and talk, I’m sad to say, is still cheap. I can’t help that I don’t have a face that possesses one of those naturally happy and contented gazes. I have pouty lips and I wouldn’t call my eyes droopy, but they’re definitely not perky, so it follows that unless I’m laughing or smiling, mine isn’t the sunniest of countenances. I suppose I could smile more often, but I’ve tried this and the effects are overwhelming in the sense that it drives even more attention to me as too many times I’ve been asked what’s so funny or what’s the big secret, like I’m Mona Lisa walking. (I won’t lie; I’m not into drawing attention to myself.) But mostly, walking around with even the slightest smile on my face makes me feel deranged. You know, like I’m liable to break into a jazz run and sing myself into a crescendo.
Anyway, just when I’d quickened my pace enough to feel safely lost in the crowd, I glance over my shoulder to make sure the catcallers aren’t following me and just as I whip my head back around I’m literally face-to-face with “The Final Call,” which for those of you who don’t know, is the publication founded by Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Behind the paper stands a tall, thin and very dark man with a striking Kelly green bow tie.
“MY SISTA!!!” he rasps.
“Oh lord,” say my arched eyebrows with wide eyes and puckered lips.
(I am speechless.)
“My, what pretty eyes you have. My goodness those are lovely eyes, my beautiful sista …”
(I catch myself from busting out laughing as I truly feel like I’m face to face with the big bad wolf himself whose teeth are shining brightly from his broad grin. I don’t laugh because by this time 8 pairs of eyes are staring at my eyes ... big brothas is watchin’.)
Sidestepping does not work for these gentlemen who quickly disassemble to assemble a circle around me. Immediately I wonder if there’s a crooked neon halo above my head that says, “Please, accost me as I need saving.”
“Would you like a final call?” offers the 2nd man in black with flashy bow-tie.
“How bout a final call dear sista?” asks man in black #3.
“Sista you need a final call,” says the 4th man in black assuredly as his steps join in with mine.
“My you’re a fine sista. Here’s a final call and let me speak at you for a minute,” drones yet another man in black with glasses like Malcolm X.
(Speak at you is right because they surely did not even care that I a) was still walking and b) had jammed my hand in my pockets and worst of all c) had tucked my head into my chest in a useless attempt to press on.
“Let me tell you about the Final Call my sista,” the wearer of the Malcolm glasses says in his best pseudo-Malcolm authoritative tone. “The Final Call tells the story that America is afraid to tell you.”
“No they’re not afraid to tell you,” says brotha # I lost count. “They ain’t gon’ tell you. The Final Call tells you what the mainstream white media that has brainwashed you won’t tell you – the TRUTH!”
(For a minute, I wonder if I’ve gone Republican as my eyes roll really hard at the sound of this tired ass way-out-in-liberal’s-left-field argument.)
“That’s right my brotha,” says one of the men in black who is still offering up what I wish could really be the final Final Call.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering quickly if I’m the lucky # so-and-so to pass by them who gets the special treatment because my eyes are meeting the pitying eyes of other passers-by who are all shaking their heads at me as if to say, “Lord chile, I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
Determined, they persist surrounding me in a floating bubble – like the old pope-mobile, floating along, but black.
I am thinking to myself that I am not from Harlem and they know it. How is it that they can tell? I am not the only person in blue jeans, a denim jacket, ponytail and sneakers. I am not the only person who has lighter black skin – there are even countless white people walking by un-accosted. With my eyes darting around I see that people are even buying what has to be pork-infested hot dogs on almost every corner and yet, here I am, a traveling “Save this Sista” show.
I’ll be hot damned if they don’t run me slam into their web, as my head is nearly blessed by the spit of a man preaching alongside to the loud static-y preaching of Minister Farrakhan broadcasting on an old UHF/VHF television changing primary colors by the second. Suddenly I am engulfed by a sea of black men with bow-ties, Final Calls and aged rhetoric. I am gonna put a stop to this, I pray to myself.
And then I stun them for a moment:
“Asalaam a laikum my brothas! But y’all gonna have to let me pass because I got things to do.”
“Wuh oh! My sista!” There is rumbling that I can’t distinguish, but I manage to press on past, but not before two more can keep pace with me. Long story slightly shortened, for about another block they walked beside me trying to get me to take their Final Call, attend a service, convert, cover up myself in the name of Allah and keep my beautiful self for a husband who will honor me, until finally, I dart into retail heaven and am truly saved by silence.
I enter the store and the security guard at the front says, “Dern girl, they were after you! They still standing at the door.”
An hour later I exit and am offered another Final Call. This time, the irony or the humor or whatever it is overtakes me and so, laughingly I say, “How final is this Final Call? Because you know this is more like Keep Callin’ than Final Call.”
At least they laughed … and let me alone.
Quickly I got onto the subway and headed back down South – to less tenuous environs, but ever-so pretentious SoHo. A place lovely, but dramatically overhyped and overpriced, so much so that I found myself reaching out to examine various items on the street only to snap my hand back with a that’s sooo-hooo expensive whistle. Tsk. Tsk. People take their modishness very seriously there. Everyone is so impossibly chic on a lazy and lovely Sunday afternoon that I was exhausted after a few blocks and happily schlepped on down to Canal Street – a place where I was again accosted and called beautiful for reasons beyond and totally unrelated to my liking:
*****
Come here beautiful and let me waste your time by showing you everything but what you flashed a picture of. Let me offer you some over-priced perfume, too. Oh beautiful you need this watch that – and I’m not the prickliest of shoppers – is seriously not even ticking. I am so beautiful that I need a belt buckle with my name on it that “bling bling pretty laydee.”
Who explained flattery to these grimy faced men who gesture at you with teeny, crooked fingers? These men who call you beautiful and wait until you’re a foot away to hock what may very well be the world’s most long-lost lougie from the depths of their chests? Seriously. Yesterday, I was thinking about buying this purse until I flipped it over and saw the filth on the other side. So I grimace and put it back. Do you know that the man grabbed the purse, spat on it, rubbed it in and not off, and then tried to hand it back to me with a “Lou. Ton. Dis betta?”
Ew. Not pretty.
I mean I had a good day though. It’s certainly fun to see what a neighborhood or place can offer you, and the people upon retrospect are endlessly entertaining, but again, I can’t tell you enough how the entire time I was wandering about yesterday I had this acute feeling that I was the odd one out – like eerily in my head, “One of these girls is not like the others, one of these girls is just not the same” was playing over and over again and those sick children's voices who sing for horror pictures were singing it…
And maybe it’s this very feeling which karmatically manifests itself into my being accosted more than others; maybe I’m just sensitive; maybe that’s just the way it is; and maybe some things will never change.