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Oct. 16th, 2004 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kublakhanWe decided to go out to eat and play some pool this evening with a friend. Dinner was relatively uneventful and quite tasty. And I took great delight in tricking our waitress to ask me if I wanted "another sloe comfortable screw". Twice. :)
After dinner was consumed, we drove over to a a little hole-in-the-wall bar with two pool tables. The place was populated with a bunch of locals including the prerequisite drunk, horny guy who managed to hit on every woman in the place except the brunette who was on her cell phone the entire time we were there. Largely diseveled place but the tables were in good condition.
We played a few rounds with each of us getting a couple of runs at the table. As the evening went on, I was feeling warm and my stomach was bugging me. After a brief trip to the way-too-small bathroom I sat down at our table to await the ladies finish their game. They finished up and I was convincing them to head out when a gentleman (and I use the term loosely) came up and asked if I had a cell phone with Megatalk on it. I said no and he wandered off to try and find someone else.
Before I had a chance to wonder why the hell he was going around asking people for their cell phones, he came back and asked if he could use mine again and that he'd pay me back somehow. Well, he didn't exactly ask like that; it was more like "If'n I use ya phone I'll hook ya up." Or something along those lines. Suffice it to say that his lingustic skills were closer to a black rapper in da hood than a drunk white guy in Iowa.
I lent him my phone, wondering if I was going to have to shove Gail out of my way to run after him if he bolted when I heard him screaming into the phone, "Mom? You there? Mom? Mom?" I suddenly had visions of a markely less popular, pre-rap star Eminem using my cell phone (and he was dressed the part too). An endearing conversation ensued where he begged his mother to send someone to pick him up and him getting more and more pissed at her obviously negative reply.
Believe me when I say this: I cannot do this man justice in reproducing his venacular. His speach was spot on for a facinating lesson in both street and Ebonics. And when he finished his phone call, it only got better.
After berating his mother a couple of times, he began to explain that he was broke, drunk and prone to getting arrested for public intox. He was pisssed that "the 5-0" were "whack" and kept busting him. Apparently, he'd been in jail 15 times in the last year and did not want a repear performance ("Ain't goin' there again. Can't go there, man. Look into my eyes; you can see it? Can't ya?") He was on the verge of tears.
I asked Gail and Rae if we could take him home and, after they agreed, we gathered our things and started to head out. I don't even remember what he was babbling about but he was still quite upset and even tried to start a fight with a couple of the other patrons on the way out. A big thanks to Rae for ushering him out the door before a battle ensued.
We got him in the car (not before berating his potential victims back in the bar and triumphantly stating that he could have "jacked them and thier hillbilly ride") and started out. He gave directions while talking constantly about how grateful he was and that "he'd hook me up" but not immediately because he was "dope broke". During the drive, He slipped me the pack of smokes that he had (Liggets Select with only five cigarettes left) and shook my hand (handshake, finger lock then fist-to-fist). He directed us to an apartment complex about 10-15 blocks from the bar and told Gail to kill the lights "so he wouldn't draw attention" when he got out. We backed out of the lot and I looked down the street at the darkened figure walking solumnly away with his head hung and shoulders slumped.
Gail and Rae (and me to a smaller extent) took great amusement in his calling me "homey" and "G". Considering I was likely one of the most articulate people in the place at the time, it was interesting to have him confide in me so readily. And his language was one of a class of people who traditionally have little to live for and even less to look forward to. He commented on the drive home that he wished the cops'd just kill him and get it over with. How do you respond to that? Especially when you can hear the ferver in his voice that truely wished for death at the hands of another.
I started this entry as a "Hey! Look at the funny thing that happened to me" but somewhere along the lines, and maybe it was this way from the beginning, I can't help but feel sympathy for him. He's drunk, stuck in a bar, no money to call a cab and begging complete and utter strangers for help. The fact that he didn't speak the King's English, amusing though it may be, only served to strenthen the hopelessness of his reality. And the only thing he can offer in grattitude is the mostly empty pack of cigarrettes he had on him.
I don't want to pity him but I do. I see the world he lives in and know that, had things not gone so well for me, I could have been him.
And I don't even know his name.
After dinner was consumed, we drove over to a a little hole-in-the-wall bar with two pool tables. The place was populated with a bunch of locals including the prerequisite drunk, horny guy who managed to hit on every woman in the place except the brunette who was on her cell phone the entire time we were there. Largely diseveled place but the tables were in good condition.
We played a few rounds with each of us getting a couple of runs at the table. As the evening went on, I was feeling warm and my stomach was bugging me. After a brief trip to the way-too-small bathroom I sat down at our table to await the ladies finish their game. They finished up and I was convincing them to head out when a gentleman (and I use the term loosely) came up and asked if I had a cell phone with Megatalk on it. I said no and he wandered off to try and find someone else.
Before I had a chance to wonder why the hell he was going around asking people for their cell phones, he came back and asked if he could use mine again and that he'd pay me back somehow. Well, he didn't exactly ask like that; it was more like "If'n I use ya phone I'll hook ya up." Or something along those lines. Suffice it to say that his lingustic skills were closer to a black rapper in da hood than a drunk white guy in Iowa.
I lent him my phone, wondering if I was going to have to shove Gail out of my way to run after him if he bolted when I heard him screaming into the phone, "Mom? You there? Mom? Mom?" I suddenly had visions of a markely less popular, pre-rap star Eminem using my cell phone (and he was dressed the part too). An endearing conversation ensued where he begged his mother to send someone to pick him up and him getting more and more pissed at her obviously negative reply.
Believe me when I say this: I cannot do this man justice in reproducing his venacular. His speach was spot on for a facinating lesson in both street and Ebonics. And when he finished his phone call, it only got better.
After berating his mother a couple of times, he began to explain that he was broke, drunk and prone to getting arrested for public intox. He was pisssed that "the 5-0" were "whack" and kept busting him. Apparently, he'd been in jail 15 times in the last year and did not want a repear performance ("Ain't goin' there again. Can't go there, man. Look into my eyes; you can see it? Can't ya?") He was on the verge of tears.
I asked Gail and Rae if we could take him home and, after they agreed, we gathered our things and started to head out. I don't even remember what he was babbling about but he was still quite upset and even tried to start a fight with a couple of the other patrons on the way out. A big thanks to Rae for ushering him out the door before a battle ensued.
We got him in the car (not before berating his potential victims back in the bar and triumphantly stating that he could have "jacked them and thier hillbilly ride") and started out. He gave directions while talking constantly about how grateful he was and that "he'd hook me up" but not immediately because he was "dope broke". During the drive, He slipped me the pack of smokes that he had (Liggets Select with only five cigarettes left) and shook my hand (handshake, finger lock then fist-to-fist). He directed us to an apartment complex about 10-15 blocks from the bar and told Gail to kill the lights "so he wouldn't draw attention" when he got out. We backed out of the lot and I looked down the street at the darkened figure walking solumnly away with his head hung and shoulders slumped.
Gail and Rae (and me to a smaller extent) took great amusement in his calling me "homey" and "G". Considering I was likely one of the most articulate people in the place at the time, it was interesting to have him confide in me so readily. And his language was one of a class of people who traditionally have little to live for and even less to look forward to. He commented on the drive home that he wished the cops'd just kill him and get it over with. How do you respond to that? Especially when you can hear the ferver in his voice that truely wished for death at the hands of another.
I started this entry as a "Hey! Look at the funny thing that happened to me" but somewhere along the lines, and maybe it was this way from the beginning, I can't help but feel sympathy for him. He's drunk, stuck in a bar, no money to call a cab and begging complete and utter strangers for help. The fact that he didn't speak the King's English, amusing though it may be, only served to strenthen the hopelessness of his reality. And the only thing he can offer in grattitude is the mostly empty pack of cigarrettes he had on him.
I don't want to pity him but I do. I see the world he lives in and know that, had things not gone so well for me, I could have been him.
And I don't even know his name.
