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12/3/09--I talked to a man who thought he might be Superman. He had a S drawn on a piece of paper attached to his knit hat. "If you have blue eyes, you're set. If you have blue eyes, you're invincible." He was black. I saw an old woman putting pebbles in her purse and throwing them, repeatedly, down the grates. I noticed on two magazines, MICHAEL JACKSON--FOREVER THE KING OF POP and ANGELS AND MIRACLES--THE SPIRITUAL REALM AND THE WORLD YOU KNOW. Then I was asked:

"How often do you beat your dick?
"Say what?!"
"How often do you beat your dick?"
"Why are you asking me that?!"
"I just want to know. You masturbate? How often do you beat your dick?"

I walked away, chuckling, but turned back, "All the time!," which brought a relieved smile to his face. My interlocutor was a black teenager, maybe 17. I didn't shake his hand, but he did seem a bit frail.

Ah, the wonder of English, which allowed a tenth generation slave descendant and a first generation geopolitical refugee, both collaterals of the American fantasy, to communicate perfectly and spontaneously on the street. Through a brief spillage of blurted gutturals, we confirmed our common jerkhood, but not all is well, because I went home and read that 26 Asian students had been beaten up that same day at South Philadelphia High.

"Any girl?" my wife asked when I told her.

Our basest instinct is to look out only for our own kind, I suppose, but let's not go there no matter how bad this thing gets. Think fairness, not skin tone or tribal affiliation. English lesson: try not to say "thing." What the hell is "thing"?! Vallejo did say "thing thing," however, meaning the penis. Speaking of dicks, my Shaquille is eternally on the cusp of pronouncing his first word. Though he's extremely stupid and cannot get past A in the alphabet, I've never beaten him.










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