The State Department inducted Duke Ellington as a jazz ambassador in 1963 and sent him and his Famous Orchestra on their first sponsored tour in the fall of that year.  In three months, the band visited Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Ever charming, ever gracious, ever elegant, his audiences loved him madly, though the trip had its share of hiccups as well as triumphs. The most famous close call came in Baghdad. Shortly after arriving, a coup d’etat ensued forcing the band to make a hasty retreat. Afterwards, when asked about his experience in Baghdad, Ellington nonchalantly replied, “Baghdad? It was swinging!” The tour was to have included Ankara, Turkey, but the State Department cut it short before they could perform there because of the assassination of President John Kennedy.

Not long after the band’s triumphs in the Middle East and South Asia, they also performed in Japan.

All of these travels to places never visited by the much travelled Ellington inspired him and long-time writing partner Billy Strayhorn to compose new music influenced by some of the people and cultures they met. The orchestra rehearsed and recorded the results in 1966:  The Far East Suite.

My first encounter with this celebrated work came in 1999.  Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra arranged and performed their own interpretation of the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn masterpiece as part of the Ellington Centennial celebrations in 1999.  The augmented the score with instruments from South and East Asia.  My partner and I saw the premiere performance in Oakland. It blew us both away. But even their fine performance could not have prepared me for the wonders of the original 1966 recording by the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Music inspires stories for me. It paints images, suggests scenes. Far East Suite does all of this. The opening number, “Tourist Point of View,” finds a restless orchestra tuning up before baritone sax-player Harry Carney establishes the melody and then hands it over to Paul Gonsalves on tenor. He then becomes the tourist.  The rest of the band places a tapestry before him where he wanders and encounters enticing colors, friendly people, unfamiliar animals, and ancient wonders. It’s a great way to start a trip.

Far East Suite does not seek to replicate the music of other lands.  There are no tombaks or sitars mixed in with the reeds and horns — that innovation would have to wait for Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra. Instead, Ellington and Strayhorn allowed the cultures they visited to influence their music, to offer hints and suggestions.  So in a sense, the entire album offers a tourist’s point of view of the sights, sounds, and colors of the places traveled. At that time, though the jet age made traveling a lot more practical than when Ellington first went abroad in the early 1930s, the Middle East and South Asia were still far away, unfamiliar worlds.

A bird in Delhi inspired “Bluebird of Delhi,” the second track. Clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton copied its song while bassist John Lamb played its harsh raspberry sound.  In the liner notes, compiled by long time Ellington associate Stanley Dance, the Maestro remarked that the bird sang whenever Billy Strayhorn was in the room, but made the raspberry sounds after he left.  Perhaps the foreboding melody the brass section opened with mimicked the bird’s mercurial personality.

Ellington said of Isfahan, Iran, “It is a place where everything is poetry. They meet you at the airport with poetry and you go away with poetry.” The track “Isfahan” actually started life apart from the Suite.  Strayhorn wrote it years earlier and called it “Elf.” But its sensual melody, realized by the master of sensuality Johnny Hodges, must have suggested poetry to Ellington, so it was included.  The piece follows a long line of luscious tunes taylor-written by Ellington and Strayhorn for Hodges. And over the years it has become a jazz standard.

“Depk” was inspired by the dabke, a line dance popular from Lebanon to Iraq that’s usually performed at weddings.  Though Ellington said he purposely avoided writing in odd time signatures, ala Brubeck, he clearly allowed the rhythm of this dance, with its “kick” in the sixth beat, to shine. Though he generally stuck to 4/4s and 3/4s in his composing throughout his career, Duke Ellington had a sublime sense of rhythm. Indeed, the true master can make 4s and 3s sound quite exotic.

“Mount Harissa” is one of the standout pieces, often cited by reviewers and covered by many musicians.  For me, it tells a story.  It starts with Ellington on piano, the learned master who was used to traveling the world but still capable of being fascinated by it. He is a master not jaded by all he has seen, but one still hungering to learn more.  The chords suggest wonder and awe. After this tranquil beginning, the orchestra bursts to life with a lively, flowing, happy melody. Paul Gonsalves once again plays tour guide. It has a very continental sound. I envision jets with PanAm logos taking the newly minted jet-set crowd on new adventures. But then the Piano Player, as he liked to call himself, comes back with the introductory melody, adding a bit more hop to his step, to take out the piece. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

The next track is “Blue Pepper” or “Far East of the Blues.” This time Johnny Hodges comes back to do a stomping blues, with Ellington providing counterpoint. It was said that Ellington and Hodges were like brothers, sometimes fighting, but always maintaining great respect and affection for each other. It shows in their playing. Another great example of the musical dynamic tension between them is their performance of Hodge’s “Jeep’s Blues” from the famous Newport Jazz Festival concert in 1956.

Harry Carney returns in “Agra” to tell the tale of a man condemned to prison by his son after the former spent most of his kingdom’s resources to build a staggering edifice in honor of his deceased wife. We know the monument as the Taj Mahal.  You can hear the man’s moans over his fate in Carney’s deep baritone, as well as his still-mourning heart over his long gone wife.

The liner notes describe the next track, “Amad,” as a “surging damascene sketch.”  It’s certainly one of the most rhythmically interesting numbers.  It actually starts with no rhythm at all, only a restless stirring, like the chaos of a rising sun over an already hot landscape. Then Ellington declares the pulse, largely relying on a single note, before the rest of the band launches into the melody.  After the horns play with the tune a bit, the peerless reed section (Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Hamilton, Russell Procope, and Paul Gonsalves) play a stirring chorus before handing over to long-time trombonist Lawrence Brown to give the “call to prayer” solo.  This is the performance which earned Brown my nickname for him: Soulful.  The reeds return for another chorus, followed by the horns, before Soulful takes us out, with Rufus Jones providing some dynamic drumming in the background.  All the while, Ellington reminds all of the pulse, the driving force, the life force, largely with a single note.

Some, including jazz critic Scott Yanow, describe this album as two pieces: the eight-part Suite followed by the final track, “Ad Lib on Nippon.” However, you divide it, the final piece of the album provides a beautiful summation of all that came before it. It goes through several sections and has many personalities, almost making it a suite in and of itself.

Ellington begins with a lengthy solo with bassist John Lamb playing in the background and drummer Rufus Jones adding rhythmic color with brushes on the cymbals. Then the Piano Player coalesces his loose playing into a driving melody which thrusts us into the heart of bustling Tokyo. Dashing cars, bicycles, neon lights, crowded sidewalks, the works.

Then the next section takes us away from the madding crowd.  Over a few measures, Ellington softens the melody, plays with it, slows it down. We’re in a garden. We’re contemplating the majesty of Mt. Fuji in the distance. We’re sipping tea in proper, ritualistic fashion.

After more playfulness on the piano, the next section is introduced by Jimmy Hamilton in probably some of his finest recorded work. Hamilton and the band play off of each other in concerto fashion, his clarinet running, skipping, and jumping like a frolicking doe or the young, gurgling fount of a river. Maintaining its concerto structure, the piece ends with Hamilton playing a cadenza before the orchestra comes back for a final, punctuating chord. Eat your heart out, Mozart.

I’ll never forget the weekend I bought this CD. I listened to the whole thing, nonstop from beginning to end five times. It mesmerized and enchanted. My already considerable respect for Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn jumped astronomically.

Jazz critics and artists continue to praise the work to this day. Trumpet master Wynton Marsalis places the album on his list of essential jazz works. Others have covered some or all of the pieces. “Mt. Harissa” has followed “Isfahan” into becoming a jazz standard.

Ravi Shankar famously described ragas as “that which colors the mind.” This work is not a raga, but it still colors my mind with each listening, some 14 years after my first.

This would be the last major project completed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Shortly after its recording, Billy passed away. The next major release by the orchestra is a dedication to their late friend and colleague. And it is one of Ellington’s most personal and affecting works.

Next stop, . . .And his mother called him Bill.

Fallow my ass.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

Duke Ellington’s recording career spanned nearly 50 years, from 1924 to 1973, and his output was ginormous.  Recordings are constantly being rediscovered and reissued as “new” Ellington, to this day.  So my mom’s statement about Mozart can easily apply to Ellington as well.

By far his most celebrated period is the so-called Blanton-Webster Band era, from about 1939 to 1942.  Steeped in the height of the Swing Era, this is the period most folks think of when they think of Duke Ellington music.  During this time, three major voices joined the orchestra.  Bassist Jimmy Blanton freed the bass from its strictly timekeeping role and transformed it to a melodic instrument.  Legendary saxophonist Ben Webster was already well established when he became Ellington’s first star on tenor sax.  And then there was that young man from Ohio whom Ellington heard for the first time while touring through the state.  Stunned by the young man’s ability to interpret his own compositions at the keyboard — sans sheet music — Ellington invited Billy Strayhorn to come to New York and work with him.  The rest, as they say, was history.

This fertile period produced a rack of classics:  ”Ko-Ko,” “Never No Lament” (the instrumental version of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”), “In A Mellotone,” “Warm Valley,” “C-Jame Blues,” etc.  As typical of the Ellington way of composing, he wrote pieces to highlight the strengths of his musicians.  So, Jimmy Blanton is featured on a number of works, including “Jack the Bear” and the band’s temporary theme song “Sepia Panorama” (a good piece of trivia, by the way, to impress your friends with — it was the band’s theme between “East St. Louis Toodle-O” and “Take the A Train”).  Ben Webster is well featured on “Cottontail” and he also wrote the arrangement of the tune’s famous reed section chorus.  Billy Strayhorn got his first big break to compose lots of music for the band during a recording industry strike at that time, which kept Ellington’s music off the radio.  In addition to “A Train,” Strayhorn composed “Chelsea Bridge,” “Rain Check,” and “After All” during this period.

Though fertile, this era was short lived.  Billy Strayhorn remained with the orchestra until his death at age 51 in 1967 of cancer.  But the era’s namesakes departed much earlier, Ben Webster in 1943 and Jimmy Blanton tragically died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in 1942.

But as rich and creative as this period was, it is not the end all, be all of Duke Ellington’s celebrated career.  Not by a long shot.  While many may well agree with that, they typically will hearken back to 20s and 30s Ellington, and dismiss his work from his final decade, from about 1960 – 1973.  One person on Amazon called this era “fallow.”  I take exception to that.  So I thought, hey, why not give my own take on this final decade of Ellington, to sort of set the record straight.

So over the next while, I’ll be posting my reviews and impressions of recordings made in the 1960s and 70s.  This period is fairly well represented in my collection, though there are some classics missing.  This would include Ella at Duke’s Place (1965), Ella Fitzgerald’s second date with the orchestra, The Great Paris Concert (1963), and the first Sacred Concert from 1966.  But I have a lot more.  As I said, a “little” Ellington is still a lot of music.

This is not to say that everything Duke Ellington recorded, during any part of his career, is instant gold.  During the 1950s, he recorded a lot of mambos because they were popular at the time and he wanted a hit record.  I have the entire collection of Ellington recordings for Capitol Records from 1951-54, as compiled by Mosaic Records.  I ripped exactly zero of the mambos to my iPhone.  Similarly, in the era I’ll be covering, Ellington, like many other jazz artists at that time, recorded interpretations of popular music.  This would include recordings of music from Mary Poppins.  Curiously, this did not make it to my iPhone, either — not even Johnny Hodges’ take of “A Spoonful of Sugar.”

So clunkers do exist, but they do not an era define.

Next time around, I’ll start with a heavy hitter: 1967′s  The Far East Suite.  Fallow my ass.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

First we had Howard Kurtz, Washington Post blogger, CNN host, and until recently Washington Bureau Chief for the Daily Beast.  For whatever reason, Mr. Kurtz thought it necessary to point out that Jason Collins, in his beautiful coming out essay in Sports Illustrated, neglected to note that he was once engaged to a woman.  He downplayed that bit of personal history, Mr. Kurtz insisted.  Except, of course, Mr. Collins didn’t.  Jason Linkins at HuffPost has a wonderful graphic which demonstrates, with Mr. Collins’ own words, why this assertion falls flat on its face.  Indeed, I found the passage where Mr. Collins discussed his engagement, and his inner turmoil at having to maintain a heterosexual facade, to be one of the most moving parts of the essay.

Mr. Kurtz didn’t seek forgiveness at first.  He changed his story to say Jason Collins may not have denied being engaged to a woman, but he  ”downplayed” his heterosexual experiences.  He then went on to make similar comments in his other gig on Daily Download.  I once again refer you to Mr. Linkins’ article and graphic linked above so that you can make your own assessment.

But then, the Daily Beast had had enough, and retracted the story for Mr. Kurtz.  And then they fired him.  Both sides are claiming that the parting was amicable, sort of like those celebrity marriages where they promise to remain “good friends.”  Similarly, Daily Download pulled the video where he continued to make his baseless assertions about Mr. Collins. It was at this point that Mr. Kurtz finally came forward and came clean.

My logic about what happened between Jason Collins and his former fiancee and what was and wasn’t disclosed, in hindsight, well I was wrong to even raise that and showed a lack of sensitivity to the issue.
- from Huffington Post

He gets marks for admitting that he should not have raised the issue in the first place and that doing so showed a careless lack of sensitivity.  But we have to look at the origins of this type of thinking.  Here again we find the old trope that homosexuality is a phase or its something that one fiddles with once in a while, like orange colored ties or something.  It’s just a passing fancy.  Real people date people of the opposite sex.  That’s what Mr. Kurtz’s clumsy remarks said.

Let me introduce you, Mr. Kurtz, to the world of the gay teenager.  I’m not talking about teens who are gay.  I’m talking about folks of any age who, after finally coming out, go through their “teen years.”  Teen years are when we date, we play the field, we score, we lose, we learn about life and ourselves.  Unfortunately, if you’re gay, you can miss out on the teen years as a teen if you spend them in the closet.  I certainly did.  As I stated in my last post, I came out 25 years ago.  That would place my coming out age at 23.  Oops.  So I didn’t go on dates or play the field, or score or learn about life and myself as a teen.  I only lost out.

This is what the closet can do for you.  It squelches you. Or, as in Mr. Collins’ case, it forces you to make false choices.

I’d like to see Mr. Kurtz take his apology a step further and do a piece on the “gay teen” phenomena to educate his audience about why staying in the closet is so unhealthy and just plain wrong.  (For extra credit, read Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.)  Then he’ll get top marks.

This other apology came after a bizarre outburst.  While discussing his issues with the philosophy of noted 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes, Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson felt it necessary to gay bash him.  Mr. Keynes, he asserted, held the economics views he had because he didn’t care about the future.  And he didn’t care about the future because he was a childless gay dude.  Gays can’t have children, therefore why would they care about the future?

WTF?

Mr. Ferguson quickly issued an apology on his own blog.

But I should not have suggested – in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation – that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.

Mr. Ferguson apparently has a right-leaning view of things and like most right-leaning folks, has a problem with the theories and opinions expounded by Keynes, often considered an icon of the left.  And it’s perfectly fine, of course, to have such disagreements.  By why go off on a tangent about the man’s sexuality?  I give Mr. Ferguson marks for walking it back quickly.  But why did he go there to begin with?

The usage here is sort of akin to Godwin’s law, where calling your opponent a Nazi is thrown up as a last, desperate attempt to win an argument.  It never works and only makes the accuser look foolish. (Speaking of arguments, gays, and Nazis, or crypto-Nazis, check out this famous exchange between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal.)

But the days of dismissing arguments by invoking The Gay are numbered.  Similarly, the days of dismissing someone’s non-heterosexual sexuality as a phase are also numbered.  Homophobes abound, to be sure, but the standard is quickly changing to where it’s not possible to espouse such thinking without consequences.  Mr. Kurtz may or may not have lost his job over his missteps about Jason Collins, but in his apology he referenced his damaged reputation and his desire to quickly repair it.  And Mr. Ferguson obviously saw how damaging it would be to his reputation to be called the department homophobe at Harvard, so he, too, quickly made amends.

Their quick realignments  give me hope.  Homophobia isn’t dead yet, by any means, but we’re heading in the right direction.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

I had moved out of the house by this point, but still lived in Los Angeles.  I remember riding my old motorcycle Achilles down the 10 from West LA to South Central to deliver the letter personally to my mother.  I had tears in my eyes and butterflies in my stomach.  I had worked myself up into quite a state.

When I got home, I smiled nervously as I hugged Mom and my younger sister, who was also home at the time.  Then I got to the purpose of my visit.  I handed Mom the letter.  She didn’t read it.  She saw the title and put it down immediately to stand up and give me another hug.  My sister hugged me, too.  They both conveyed words of support and love.  And yes, Mom said she had a feeling, but wanted me to speak to the issue first.  Moms always know.  My sister said that she learned early on not to be afraid or freakish around gay folks because she knew what a decent person I was; she has suspected as well. So before coming out, I had already helped shape a positive opinion about queer folks for her.  How cool is that?

In a flash, all the anxiety, tears, and sweat that drenched by body and spirit vanished.  The acceptance I received turned those feelings into what they were: illusions.

All of this flooded back for me when I read NBA player Jason Collins’ beautiful, heartfelt essay, his coming out letter not to his family, but to the world.

The first relative I came out to was my aunt Teri, a superior court judge in San Francisco. Her reaction surprised me. “I’ve known you were gay for years,” she said. From that moment on I was comfortable in my own skin. In her presence I ignored my censor button for the first time. She gave me support. The relief I felt was a sweet release.

After his earliest moments of telling a family member, he felt a release.  This is how I felt after coming out to my mother and sister.  At the time I said it felt like I lost 7 pounds.  And from this release comes power.  Later on, Mr. Collins states that he is ready for all that may come his way, including the hate, because he knows the people that mean the most to him have his back.

I know this power, because it has allowed me to do the writing and activism that I’ve done over the years.  The sad truth is that far too many coming out stories do not turn out nearly as well. Though the tide is turning.  It’s exciting and still very important and heartening when public figures like Mr. Collins come out.  It is to his credit that he used the power of his own coming out story to help others, folks he may never meet but know exist.

So many things touched me in his essay. In one passage, he describes the envy he felt when a former college roommate of his, Congressman Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, went to a gay pride celebration.  Mr. Collins felt that he could not, for it would have exposed too many questions about himself.

I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator.

AARRGG!  I was so there!  During my early days at UCLA, I would not read the campus LGBT newspaper 10%, for fear that “someone might see me and ask questions.”  I flinched when my German teacher showed a film which had some homoerotic moments in it.  I never dreamed of going to the Gay and Lesbian Center in Los Angeles, one of the country’s oldest.  That was out of the question.  All of these resources were out of reach to me because I feared, to the point of phobia, what others might say about me.  The fear the closet produces is complete and absolute.

Jason Collins gives props to other allies who have voiced support for LGBT rights and visibility, in particular fellow athletes Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo.  He rightly states that their clear voices help to encourage the voices of others, in particular those who live within the tight confines of the closet.  The more who speak out the better.  The closet only has power when we observe its decree of silence.  And as we said in ACT UP, Silence = Death.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling of freedom one has after being released from the closet’s confines.  Mr. Collins’ eloquent essay does the process much justice.  He was able to speak about many aspects of his life, some of which we share, and some which we do not share.  I, for example, did not have a religious upbringing.  However, Mr. Collins has been able to reconcile his identity with his faith, using his spirituality as a tool for growth and not a weapon to bludgeon himself or others.  His example will help others still struggling with the closet, in particular other young black gay men still looking for that sometimes elusive key to the closet door.

25 years after my own coming out, I still found it possible to be moved to tears reading about someone else’s victory over the closet. Part of that comes from Jason Collins’ eloquence.  Part also comes from the affirmation, still very important after all this time, that my experience was not freakish, that others have walked the same path, and that many of us have lived to see ourselves blossom.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

It is quite possible that this ditty appeared in the ad for another organization, and my old brain is scrambling it up again.  But in any case, it’s stuck in my head as I think about the Boy Scouts and their “new” policy on how to deal with the gay thing.

They punted on the issue of allowing openly gay members and scout leaders last year.  First they would then they wouldn’t. Now they are back to would again, but with a twist. They propose allowing openly gay scout members, boys under 18, but they would not allow adult scout leaders who are gay. Some might call this progress. I call it baffling.

It’s an odd approach because “gay” and “youth” never mix company in the mouths of the gay-averse. To them, there are no gay children: one day, you wake up and decide BOOM! I’m going to be gay! Woo hoo! Folks do this, the theory goes, to piss off society, their friends and relatives, and basically because they are selfish human beings who lack morals. So the one unique thing about the scouts proposal is that it ipso facto acknowledges the existence of gay youth. By extension, then, the proposed policy also accepts as fact that those who are gay are born that way — but then again, in their revised Membership Standards Resolution, they include the language, “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” (Emphasis added.) So perhaps the BSA is not demonstrating as much enlightenment as hoped for.

And indeed they are not. Because, as stated, the new policy will continue to exclude gay adults. Gay men, and presumably lesbians, too, will still not be permitted to work with or for the Boy Scouts in any way. So it’s cool if you’re gay as a kid, but once you’re an adult it’s tough luck. This sends out a myriad of problematic messages.

It pays homage to that old saw that one will eventually grow out of being gay. It’s just a phase. Let the boy have his fun. He’ll soon grow out of it. Uh, no.

It cowers to the old ghost that gay men are sexual deviants who can’t wait to molest and have sexual relations with underaged boys. Thus, gay men can’t be trusted with children. Uh, wrong. Inappropriate sexual contact is not limited to any gender, sex, or sexual orientation, including no sexual orientation. The Catholic Church, one of the Boy Scout’s biggest bolsters, should know about that.

It disses its own alums. So lets say that you were a successful scout as a boy. You became an Eagle Scout and all that. These are the sort of folks the Boy Scouts normally depend on to help steer their younger members. But all that gets washed away if the successful scout is gay.  Great! Cool! You did all the right things and mastered all the right skills! Now get out. Uh, wrong. That’s a terrible message to send to anyone, child or adult. We can use you for so long, but then you have to go? Really?

Long-time gar spot readers may recall my word for something that is overly complicated for the sake of avoiding something viewed as undesirable, even if that undesirable thing is much simpler.  The word is ptolemaic, after the Ptolemiac model of the solar system which placed the Earth at the center of everything and had all the other bodies — the moon, planets, and even the sun — orbit it. For a long time, many in Europe viewed having the Earth as the center of the universe as crucial. Never mind that the model failed to account for observed planetary motions. Rather than adopt the simple, though undesired view, that the Earth moves around the sun and not the other way around, the Ptolemaic model became more and more elaborate. And preposterous. No physics in the universe could explain the circles it posited the planets took in their journeys through space. Yet, this model held sway for centuries because the “other” view, a sun-centerd solar system, was so feared or hated.

The Boy Scouts, in trying to please those who would rather not allow gays at all, while also trying to avoid charges of anti-gay bigotry, have crafted a new policy that serves as a perfect archetype for ptolemaic. Rather than reach the apparently undesired conclusion that it should not discriminate at all on the basis of sexual orientation, the organization has proposed an illogical, indefensible, harmful, overly complicated policy that ultimately solves nothing. You can’t more ptolemaic than that.

Anti-gay bigotry lends itself to such illogic. The marriage equality debate is rife with it. So was the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell debate. The Girl Scouts of America has not discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation for years. The world did not end when this happened. However, as the Advocate pointed out in an article from late last year, the Boy Scouts of America receives a great deal of their support and sponsorship from Catholic and Mormon churches.  BSA also, by the way, discriminates against those with no faith at all — all members must swear allegiance to God.

If the Catholic and Mormon churches changed their moral objections to homosexuality, then the issue would potentially vanish overnight for the Boy Scouts. Sadly, that’s not likely to happen any time soon. So the Boy Scouts have a choice.  They can either continue to contort themselves into more and more complicated policies in a vain attempt to modernize yet still maintain their “traditional values”; or they can just modernize, join the right side of history, and move on.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel.
-Gandalf, from “The Two Towers” by JRR Tolkien

Chortles undoubtedly rose high in Fairfax, Virginia, along with slapping hands and champaign glasses, after a Republican-led filibuster blocked the much negotiated gun reform bill from coming to a vote.  They won. The NRA’s lobbying efforts paid off. Not only did they scare all but a couple of Republicans into voting against popular, common-sense gun legislation, but they also managed to spook four Democratic senators into doing their bidding.

The legislation was not nearly as strong as it should have been — it did not contain an assault weapons ban which survived Congress back in 1994.  Nor did it clean up all the loopholes in background checks.  But even this watered-down bill could not survive the Senate.  And the bill was bipartisan, negotiated into mediocrity by one of those Senate gangs.  And yet, it still failed.

Grieving parents from Newtown could not convince politicians that strengthening gun background checks nationwide was the right thing to do.  Indeed, the monied fiends of the NRA dismissed them as props for the anti-gun lobby.

And yet, by any logical and sane standard, the legislation should have passed.  It “failed” by a vote of 54-46.  Math tells you that there were enough yes votes to pass the bill.  But math hasn’t lived in the Senate chambers for years now.

These days, everything needs 60 votes in the Senate to pass.  This arbitrary number is the threshold for clearing a filibuster, the arcane procedure in the Senate were one or more senators can stop any bill they don’t like and force it to jump through this extra hoop in order to pass.  If it had passed the filibuster vote, then a “normal” vote would have been taken and the bill would have passed.  We know that it would have passed.  It “failed” by a vote of 54-46.

This bullshit is exactly what I feared would happen when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed to weak-willed reforms to the filibuster rules.  The “reforms” adopted have done nothing to stop the continued abuse of the procedure.  Republicans continue to wield it with wild abandon.  Markos Moulitsas took Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to task for complaining about filibuster abuse after the death of the gun legislation.  And for good reason, too, because she was one of the old guard senators who opposed stronger filibuster reforms in January.  Chickens, meet the roost.

Democratic Senators, I’ll spell it out one more time.  Comity is a myth.  It’s a comforting myth, like the fabled nuclear family of the 1950s, but it does not exist.  It is a misty ideal, one completely divorced from reality.  There is no comity.  Republicans will use every trick in the book to hold things up.  They will simply not allow something that they hate, which they know will pass, to come for a final vote of passage.

Gridlock, gridlock, gridlock, gridlock, gridlock, gridlock, gridlock.  That is what bowing to the fictitious ideal of comity has brought us.

So while the Senate remains gridlocked, the NRA rules.  And laughs.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

Our world today is jam packed with imaginary demons and boogeymen.  All of them can be described loosely as “those people.”  My life would be so much better if it weren’t for “those people.”  That type of thing.

“Those people” is such a wonderful way of dismissing people you loathe.  The term vanquishes humanity, individuality, life story, all that.  The only things left are a set of superficial traits.  Hair color.  Skin color.  Eye color.  Religion.  National heritage.  Race.  Sexual orientation.  Gender identity.  And so forth.

Hence, you get tirades based on something like, Those people with that color skin, that type of hair, those color eyes, that religion, that national heritage, that race, that sexual orientation, and that gender identity –which is not their birth identity — ruin my life because they  _____.

Fill in the blank.

People who subscribe to this type of broad stroke labeling have been around since forever.  Their powers have amplified, however, in the age of the Internet.  No long are they left to stew silently and alone in their homes and scream at the TV, radio, or newspaper.  Now they can scream on the Internet.  They can seek out and connect with similar screamers more easily and have a screaming good time screaming about all “those people” who have wrought nothing but horror and turmoil in their lives.  Sadly, we now have entrenched institutions in the media that cater to such screaming.  One can hear it 24/7 on both terrestrial and internet based media.

They validate themselves, each other, and their ideas via these channels.

This is where the pressure cooker comes in.  A growing, stewing, dare I say festering, pot of bile and hatred can only remain contained for so long before it starts spilling over and creating a real mess.  And this is what happened at the Boston Marathon this year.  Someone, a heretofore silent screamer, carefully planned and aired his or her rage in a way guaranteed to attract the most attention and inflict the most damage.

Those of us who lack this type of rage, or anything close to it, are left asking, why?  And who would do such a thing?  As of this writing, we don’t know the answer to either question.  Jumping to conclusions is both dangerous and counterproductive.

And this gets us back to “those people.”  When the pressure cooker became too much for the killer or killers, when they could no longer bear the imagined threat posed by “those people” whom they’ve loathed for so long, they struck back.  They felt they had a right to do so and they felt that the people they were striking, “those people,” had it coming because they lacked humanity, not like the killer.  The killer isn’t one of “those people,” therefore, s/he is cool.  Or so their warped thinking goes.  It’s easy to see how such “thinking” can become very dangerous thinking.

Bombings of this sort tragically happen the world over.  They are just relatively rare in the US.  But when it strikes close to home, one feels it that much more.  I have relatives in the Boston area.  Fortunately, they are all well.  I have friends who ran the Marathon.  Fortunately, they are OK, too.  But in addition those injured and killed, the other casualty of this event is the institution of the Boston Marathon and events like it nationwide.  Security has already been stepped up at sporting events and large public gatherings.  Bomb-sniffing dogs are in high demand.  Civilization dies when these types of measures become necessary.

I hope that a cycle of finger pointing does not ensue.  I hope that those of us who would never dream of carrying out such heinous acts do not start shouting “those people” this and “those people” that as we seek and demand justice.  I would much rather we calmly, doggedly, and methodically investigate the crime and capture the individuals responsible for it.

When that happens, civilization is restored.  And the power of the “those people” haters is further diminished.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

It wasn’t until the Internet age that it became possible to read Mr. Ebert’s reviews regularly. There I discovered his true power with the written word.

A brief aside: I once asked my mother why she read the LA Times sports section so regularly. She was a casual sports fan at best. She looked at me with vague indignation and said, “Because the writing is good.” She was referring in particular to the late Jim Murray, the long time sports columnist for the LA Times. I started reading Mr. Murray, too, and found out, as usual, she was right. (Indeed, some of the best writing in newspapers is usually found in the sports pages.)

It is with this heightened awareness that I read Roger Ebert consistently over the years. I’m no more of a movie goer now than I was as a teen watching him and Mr. Siskel on TV. In fact, I probably go to movies a lot less these days. But I enjoyed reading Mr. Ebert’s reviews because the writing was so good. He wrote accessibly, and in fact it is impossible for me to read anything he wrote without hearing his voice. He truly wrote the way he talked.

But these qualities alone are not why we are celebrating his work in light of his death. Roger Ebert didn’t just write about films. Roger Ebert wrote about passion.  He wrote about hate. He wrote about love. He wrote about revenge. He wrote about envy. He wrote about sacrifice. He wrote about stamina. He wrote about loyalty. He wrote about betrayal. In short, he wrote about humanity and all of the shadings of the human condition. He chose to spend his writing career talking about the human condition via the medium of film reviews. He celebrated films which depicted some aspect of the human condition vividly, intelligently, successfully, and castigated the films that did the opposite, or that simply didn’t even try.

One review that stands out for me was his take on “Zoolander” (2001). He hated it, not hated hated hated hated hated it, but he was not amused. While most of his peers saw a harmless fluff comedy, Mr. Ebert saw a film which answered the question, “why the US is so hated in some parts of the world.”

As this week’s Exhibit A from Hollywood, I offer “Zoolander,” a comedy about a plot to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia because of his opposition to child labor. You might want to read that sentence twice.
-rogerebert.com

In the shadow of 9/11, he felt it rather inappropriate to put out a movie set in Malaysia, the world’s largest Muslim nation by population, with the plot being to kill that nation’s prime minister because he’s trying to eliminate child labor from his nation. In the story, the US fashion industry feels threatened by this, you see, and hires the bumbling title character to carry out the deed. Mr. Ebert found offense with this plot and stated that a Malaysian film depicting the assassination of an American president who opposed slavery would hardly be viewed as a comedy.

Some may argue that he went a bit harsh on what was supposed to be a senseless comedy. But as I said, this review stands out for me, nearly 12 years after it was written. And the reason is that his review went beyond the film and put it into context with the time of its release. Muslim bashing, both subtle and overt, was all the rage in light of 9/11, but Mr. Ebert would not be a part of it, even if it meant flunking a fluff comedy. Good for him.

I similarly remember Roger Ebert’s reaction to 9/11. It was a short statement — can’t remember if it appeared on his site or was quoted in some other context — but he argued against rebuilding skyscrapers at the World Trade Center site. He said that instead, the land should become a park, a place of quiet reflection. I remember these words well because of the passion that lay behind them.

As many tributes have noted, Roger Ebert celebrated diversity in films. JozJozJoz posted on 8Asians.com the essay, “Why Roger Ebert is One of My Asian-American Heroes.” It features a great video of Mr. Ebert lambasting a heckler at a screening of an Asian-American film at Sundance. The heckler charged the film-makers with making an anti-Asian-American film because the characters, I guess, were not saints — or perhaps Model Minorities would be more appropriate.  Mr. Ebert would have none of that and stood up to yell at the heckler,

[W]hat I find very offensive and condescending about your statement, is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, “How could you do this to your people?” … This film has the right to be about these people and Asian American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be.

Again, this harkens back to something my mom used to say, with equal passion. She argued that African-Americans did not need to be hallowed saints in films, on TV, or in books. We can be good, bad, or in between. We need to have the right be human beings like everybody else, she used to say. Clearly, Mr. Ebert felt the same way. He got it.

So he argued on behalf of humanity and celebrated humanity via the storytellers he reviewed week after week, year after year. But what made him such a master of the art was in fact his own ability to tell stories and how he infused his own considerable humanity in them. His valedictory essay, posted just two days before his passing, demonstrates this, as does his essay on dying from his book, “Life Itself: A Memoir.”

Salon.com reprinted that essay, “I do not fear death,” the day Roger Ebert died. Read it, if you haven’t already. And if you have, read it again. It’s a perfect example of why he was a great writer and why he will be missed.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

Bill suggested that they meet on one of the benches next to the creek leading up to the north side of campus.  Besides its natural tranquility, it was tucked away enough for them not to worry about unwanted peering eyes or listening ears.

When Alfonso came up the walk, Bill immediately got up to give him a kiss and a hug.  They sat next to each other.

“You sounded hella serious on your phone call,” Bill said.  “What’s up?”

“Sorry for the drama,” Alfonso said.

“That’s alright, babe.  What’s going on?”

Alfonso had expended his nervous energy on his trip to campus.  Chain smoking changed to walking.  Walking changed to strolling.  Strolling changed to the sort of jaunt-step Carlton used to do when he had music going through his head, which was virtually all the time.  It was this Alfonso, chilled and measured, that told his stories to Bill.  He paused often to realign his thoughts.  He leaned back on the bench, eyes towards the filtered sunlight through the high trees.  He allowed nature to fill in the gaps.  Bill listened attentively, never once taking his eyes off of Alfonso.  Despite the cool delivery, he could hear the turmoil in Alfonso’s voice, a volcano in false dormancy lulling those near its base into calamitous complacency.

“I told Bingo,” Alfonso continued, “that I want to check out the needle exchange for myself.  I want to meet the rest of the collective and talk to them about their AIDS work, about Carlton, all for my paper.  In fact, I was gonna meet ‘em tonight.  They’re doing it every Thursday night.  I wanna be there, Bill.  But now, I have to go and be my dad again at ASA.”

“I’m sorry, babe.  I really am.”

“Bill, I feel like such a chickenshit, on so many levels.”  He sighed.  “I know I told you that if you didn’t want to go to ASA meeting, then don’t.  But I’m desperate.  I can’t face those people alone.  I just need someone real near me, that’s all.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Alfonso,” Bill said.  “We all have to do what we have to do to get by sometimes.  You know I’ll be there with you.  And look, you know, going tonight will probably be a good thing for me, too.  I’m still in the tutorial program at Reverend Johnson’s.  I like that gig.  I like my students a lot.  We have a good time and I feel like they are getting something out of our sessions.  So, you know, I think it’s important for me to stay involve on some level with ASA just to keep up appearances if nothing else.  At least then, maybe they’ll stop tripping about me in the Cuddle Corner or some shit like that.”

Alfonso snickered.  Then he put his head on Bill’s shoulder.

“Thanks, sistah,” he said.

Bill wrapped his arm around Alfonso.  “ASA meeting at the usual time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s cool,” Bill said.  “I have to meet one of my students tonight, but that’s not until 7:30.  We’ll be alright.  We can take the bus together back to the hood.  Just tell ‘em that you have to work with your dad on the rally or something.  I’ll be cool.  Don’t sweat it, babe.”

Alfonso fell asleep.  He closed his eyes and drifted off behind the melodiousness of Bill’s low voice and the spritely gurgling of the creek behind them.  Bill took Alfonso’s head and put it on his lap.  Then he leaned back and folded his hands behind his head.  He allowed his eyes to close, too, and opened his ears to the sounds of the creek and the wind speaking to the trees above.

*     *     *

In their own time they reached the Student Union building.  As they started up the stairs, Bill stopped.

“Alfonso, what was your cousin’s name again?”

“Carlton.”

“OK.  We’re gonna call ourselves Carlton’s Posse, alright?”

Alfonso smiled.  It was all he could do to keep from kissing him on the steps of the Student Union.

“That’s so beautiful, Bill!  We’ll tell Roy Saturday at Sammy’s, alright.”

“For sure.”

They walked inside and up the stairs to room 320.

“Hey everyone,” Alfonso said, entering the room.

“What up, dawg?” Leon said, then he saw Bill.  “Hey, man.  Good to see you.”

“Thanks.  Alfonso told me this was an important meeting and I only have one student at the church tonight, so I got some time to hang.”

“Good,” Leon said.  “Thanks for coming.”

Jameel sat on the couch, legs spread wide, usual hard look on his face.  He nodded at Bill and Alfonso as they sat down.  His eyes studied them very carefully, but he didn’t say a word.

“OK, let me put you on speaker phone,” Cynthia said, pressing the button.  “Can you hear me, Reverend?”

“Yes, Cynthia.  Hello everybody.”

Shout outs to the Reverend came from all corners.  Alfonso felt a depth charge go off in his already uneasy stomach.  What the hell?

“I’m only going to talk for a little bit,” Reverend Johnson said, “so that I won’t take too much of your meeting time.  But I wanted to let you know that the rally has been set for the 3^rd.  That’s three weeks from this coming Sunday.  I know that’s rushing things a bit for an event this size, but time is of the essence and Councilman Berry needs our help.  He is a stalwart of the community and we must support him just as he has supported all of us.”

Alfonso’s nervous energy worked overtime.  Bill tried to calm him by clearing his throat and other such cues, since touching him was out of the question.

“And let’s not forget,” the Reverend continued, “that all of this work is ultimately for your own benefit.  You have a third generation of civic-minded Berry’s in the room with you there.”  And they shouted out Alfonso’s name with sporadic clapping.  Alfonso smiled faintly.  “But all of you are part of the next generation, and to you, we, myself and Councilman Berry, dedicate our service.  Thanks for listening, everyone.  Take it away, Alfonso!”

Shout outs rang to the Reverend before he hung up.

“OK!” Cynthia said, perked up.  “So we have some work in front of us!  Alfonso, how can we assist your father?”

“Well, we need to help with the logistics.  My dad said in particular that he’d like to see us help with getting the food and getting some kind of entertainment.”

“Mickey can cater it,” Cecelia said.  “He’s always quick.”

“Do we have to pay for this?” Leon said.

“No,” Alfonso said.  “That’s covered.  We just need to make it happen.  But, my dad said don’t spend a fortune.”

“Alright, then,” Leon said, “Mickey it is.  Shit, he can do it.”

“Who we gonna get to spin?”  Jameel said.

Names were shouted out and shouted down.  A lively discussion started about it being a family event, but that it shouldn’t be boring, and that it had to cater to all tastes, but that it needed to speak to the youth, that it had to be real, but that it couldn’t be an embarrassment to Councilman Berry.

“Then I say we have DJ DeFunk do it,” Victor said.  “And he won’t charge a lot.”

Jameel didn’t feel he was revolutionary enough, but since he didn’t have a better suggestion, he kept his opinion to himself.  “So you think this is all good, Alfonso?” he said, sitting up.

“Yeah, this is great,” he said.  “I know my dad will love it.  Thanks y’all.”

They gave Alfonso shout outs while Jameel kept his eyes trained on him and Bill as he slowly slouched back on the couch.

*     *     *

And again they excused themselves from going to dinner.  Bill had a confirmed excuse:  a student to tutor.  Alfonso had a plausible one:  to help his father on “stuff.”  Everyone accepted both, even Jameel, and let them go on without much ado.

They sat at the very back of the bus.  Alfonso played Erykah softly over his iPhone’s internal speaker.  Bill stared out the window while comforting Alfonso as he flopped on his shoulder.  Silence between them allowed the music to fill in the blanks.

“You know what’s funny?” Alfonso said after a while.

“What, babe?”

“I was all worried about having to put on this show and dance about why we need to do this rally for my dad.  I was gonna put on the performance of a lifetime.  Even Roy’s Mr. Patrick would have been impressed.  And then Reverend Johnson ends up giving my spiel over the phone.  How rich is that?”

“Sometimes it’s just a little crazy like that,” Bill said.

“I started freaking a little, ‘cause I thought maybe my dad had seen through me and thought I would be unreliable.  Like he knew I had been you-know-where last night.  I know he doesn’t know, but it just felt like that.”

“Uh-huh.  I’m sure he doesn’t.”

“Naw, he doesn’t.  If he knew, I’d know it, believe me.  He wouldn’t be coy about it.”

Erykah filled in the spaces again.

“Hey, Bill.  Does you mother know?”

“Uh-uh.  And neither does my little brother.  He still razzes me about how many girls he’s had compared to his ‘old man’ brother.”  Alfonso smiled.  “He’s full of shit, but I can’t throw it back at him, ‘cause then he’ll be all over me.  But no, neither of them knows, at least as far as I know they don’t.  We’ve never talked about it.”

“But it sounds like you’re pretty close to your mom.”

They had date nights where they watched something on TV together, a series they’d rent and watch over successive nights, or just one of the late-night shows when both knew that they should be in bed.  Her encouragements gave him reason to keep his head up high no matter what.  She often spoke as if she knew every inch of her son, even the parts he did not readily share.  “Stand up for yourself, Bill,” she’d say, “because no one can do as good a job as you can.  Not even me.”  Practicality, pumped by a full heart, coursed through her veins.

“I don’t like that we don’t talk about it,” Bill said.  “But I get scared.  I don’t want to lose her.  She and Derek are all I’ve got.”

“You’ll be OK, Bill,” Alfonso said.  “I know you will.”

A call interrupted Erykah.  Alfonso sat up and took the phone from his shirt pocket.  He knew who it was from the ringtone.

“Hey Thes,” Alfonso said.  “How’s it going?”

“Alright.  We’re on a break,” Roy said.

“How’s Mr. Patrick treating you?”

“He’s slowing down.  Only reamed us twice tonight so far.”

Alfonso laughed.

“How are you?  I heard your father’s press conference.”

“Yeah,” Alfonso said.  “The retirement of the First Lieutenant has been postponed.  Just coming from the ASA meeting.  But don’t worry, Roy.  I got reinforcements.”  He held the phone to Bill’s face.

“Yo, babe,” Bill said.

“I’d recognize that voice anywhere,” Roy said.

“We’re holding it down, keeping it real amidst the chaos,” Bill said.

“Nice.”

Alfonso took the phone back.  “Yeah, I’m good.  But thanks for checking on me, sistah.”

“You still gonna hang with the needle exchange folks?”

“Got to, Roy.  I can’t go on pretending to be my father 24/7.  Gotta have some down time.  Anyway, I have a paper to write now.”

“Well be careful, alright?  And see you Saturday?”

“With bells on,” Alfonso said.

They exchanged air kisses and Bill gave a final whoop before Alfonso hung up.

Sammy had his store filled with customers when the boys arrived.  Over the stereo played trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and his men of honor.  Alfonso agreed to meet Bingo at the store, then they’d walk together to the exchange.  Bill dutifully dropped him off at the rendezvous point, even thought it took him somewhat out of the way from Reverend Johnson’s.  Sammy greeted the boys as he closed his register after the last customer filed out with a bag full of groceries.  Before leaving, Bill reminded Alfonso that he lived in Mrs. Parker’s building, right across the street from the park.  “Call and I’ll come running,” he said.  They pecked each other on the lips and Bill skipped out the store, gleefully telling Sammy how much he looked forward to dinner on Saturday.

Bingo did not keep Alfonso waiting long.  He arrived, cigar smoke on his breath, dressed in his usual battle fatigues:  leather and Levis.  Both took turns pecking Sammy on the cheek before exiting southward for Huckleberry Park.  Alfonso pulled his blue hoodie over his head.

“I am an invisible man,” Alfonso said.  “And for once, that’s OK.”

“We have an early warning system,” Bingo said, “so if we hear shit’s gonna happen I’ll give you a head’s up so that you can get the hell out.”

“Appreciate it, Bingo.”

“But I think they’re more occupied with the sit-in on the other side of the park than with us.  We told all the neighbors that we were doing this, and they’re cool with it.  We have awesome neighbors.”

They rounded the corner at Lincoln and could see in the middle of the long block a white van parked opposite the site of the burned out exchange.  It was just as it had been on the newscast, the day of the fire.  But now the crowds and the TV cameras were all gone.  Harry and Lucinda huddled next to the van, under the canopy of trees that hung over the sidewalk.  Lincoln saw little vehicle traffic and few walked the sidewalks.

“Oh lord!” Bingo said.  “Is that Curtis standing there with them?”

“I think it is,” Alfonso said.

Henny Penny wore tight black jeans and a loose-fit pullover sweater.  Lucinda listened to him go on while Harry busied himself in the back of the van, getting some condoms to give to Henny Penny to make him go away.

Bingo and Alfonso arrived just as he happily stuffed the rubbers into his tight jeans pockets.

“Hello Curtis,” Bingo said dully.

“Hi Bingo,” he said.

Henny Penny looked at Alfonso with a faint smile, displaying none of the histrionics of his visit to Sammy’s store a few weeks ago or even the talkativeness he engaged in with Lucinda.  All became subdued.

“Hi, Alfonso,” he said.

“Hi Curtis,” Alfonso replied, startled, not realizing Henny Penny knew his name.  They looked at each other awkwardly for a bit.

“So,” Alfonso said, feeling the need to say something, “how did the date go last week?”

“Hmm?”

“The date with that guy, remember?  Sammy made some food for your dinner with him.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, his voice blushing in the dark.  “Well, that didn’t go off quite as planned.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Alfonso said.

“It happens.”  He turned and looked at Lucinda and Harry.  “Well, thank you for the condoms.  I’ll see y’all later.  Bye, Alfonso.”

“Bye, Curtis,” Alfonso said.

He walked north on Lincoln towards 51^st.

“Uh-huh.  She ain’t fooling no one,” Harry said, once he was sure Henny Penny was out of earshot.

“What do you mean?” Alfonso said.

“She’s heading north now, but she’ll curl around and head back that away,” he said, pointing behind him, “and visit the black tearoom.”

“Oh,” Alfonso said.  He had heard about the cruisy restroom just off the basketball courts, but never visited it.

“That’s why she bulked up on the condoms,” Harry continued.

“At least he uses them,” Lucinda said.

“Yeah,” Harry said.

“So I guess Mr. Wonderful didn’t work out, then,” Alfonso said.

“They never do, Alfonso,” Harry said.  “He was bugging Sammy the other day, telling him how the man never even showed up.  Henny Penny is first, last, and always drama.”

“And sad,” Alfonso said.

“Yeah, she’s sad alright,” Harry said.

“No, I mean really, sad,” Alfonso said.  “It’s interesting how differently he came out compared to Carlton.  They both had similar experiences, getting kicked out of the house at an early age.  But Curtis carries it in a totally different way.”

Henny Penny’s sad eyes lingered in Alfonso’s.  They looked like a perpetually cloudy day.  It was an image he could not shake or erase.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.

Alfonso had a nightlong fight with the bedding.  The sheets won.  He didn’t have a prayer.  They tangled and twisted around him in serpentine fashion until they threatened to rip his limbs right out of their sockets.  As the hours pounded through the dark, he didn’t achieve a halfway to dawn state as much as a state of delirium.  Sleep would have provided a reprieve, but the sheets were like, “Uh-uh!” as they contorted his body into more novel positions.  He obsessed over his tormentors and contemplated their stratagems, endowing them with consciousness and purpose, which in turn granted them more power.  ‘Why don’t they just wrap themselves around my neck, snap it clean, and get it over with,’ he pondered.  ‘They clearly have it in for me.’  But no, instead they satisfied themselves by torturing him with gleeful sadism.

Only at sunrise, when light reentered his bedroom, did it occurred to him that he could have rid himself of the serpentine sheets by simply getting up, undoing the bed, and remaking it again.  But by dawn, it was too late.  The crooked night’s sleep had already left its mark in his neck and shoulders.

Facing the world involved too many complications, so he remained sequestered.  Even a soothing hot shower could not entice him out of his hermitage.  Instead, he sat at the computer in his tighty whities while allowing his right leg to bounce freely off the ball of his foot.  A teacher in middle school told him not to bob his knee when he spoke in class, because it exposed his nervousness to the world.  You won’t win debates like that, she warned.  He ignored her advice, since he sat only with himself, the debate already lost.

Alfonso cruised the Internet for photos of the vigil.  Most of what he found appeared on Auntie Vera’s Flickr page.  True to her word, she completely avoided the councilman’s son in all of her shots.  Still, his eyes combed for someone hidden in a blue hoodie jacket next to a bald white dude.  Bingo would stand out more, though he found him in none of the shots, either.  Most of the photos were of Charlotte and Harry.  Worry still tied him up in knots.  A thousand photos could not prove innocence, but one would confirm guilt.

Gradually, though, as he browsed through the usual sites, he relaxed.  Then a knock on the door brought metallic acid to his mouth.

“Alfonso,” Belinda said through the door, “Dad wants to see you.”

He sat in a frozen stupor, unable to even breath.

*     *     *

He dressed without showering and went down to the kitchen.  The house seemed very still.  Too still.  It took all he had to walk from the bottom of the steps, through the dining room, and into the kitchen.  His parents sat at the small table, coffee mugs and the newspaper spread between them.  His eyes scanned for photos, but saw none.

Ford looked up at his son with a faint smile.  “Hello, Son,” he started.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“We’ve got a problem.  Sit down, Son, sit down.”

He didn’t want to, because he meant his knee would start up.  But he grabbed a chair and sat, hoping the table would mask any involuntary movements.

“I suppose you heard about last night’s ‘vigil.’  It was more like a damn political rally.  Way to stay classy after someone died, isn’t it?”  He shot down a gulp of coffee.  “Do you know that there are people who stayed there overnight?  They’re starting a damn encampment or something.  Outrageous.  Just outrageous.”

Alfonso turned to marble.  His knee did not move one inch.

“Son, I don’t know if you’ve been reading the papers, but it’s been a blood bath out there for me.  It seems almost every day someone is saying something is my fault.  The needle exchange clinic burns down, it’s my fault.  Man gets killed in the park, it’s my fault.  Stores closing, it’s my fault.  It’s all my fault, you see?  That’s what they’re saying.  It’s just gotten ridiculous.”  He sighed and took another sip of coffee.  “You see what I’m saying?”

Alfonso nodded his head but otherwise remained very still.

“Exactly.  The election is next year and this isn’t the publicity I need.  So your mother and I started thinking and I’m going to call Reverend Johnson and see if he agrees.  But we’re thinking that now would be a good time to have a unity rally.  You know, like in the old days, a revival.  It’s one of those feel good things, Son.  It brings the community together.  We’ll have some good food, some music, we’ll invite all of the local preachers and let them do their thing, and it will bring everyone together.  You see what I’m saying?  We want to show the media that this is a thriving community, not the destitute-ridden hood they portray it as.”

Alfonso nodded and shifted in his seat a bit.

“The community has lost its center,” his mother said.  “That is why this rally is so important.”

“Right, so that’s the game plan.  We’ll set it up.  It’ll probably be in two or three weeks at Reverend Johnson’s, if he agrees and I’m sure he will.  Now, what I need from you, Son, is the ASA’s support.  You know how important it is when the young people come out in support of these things.  I need them to endorse it.  But I need more than that.  I need help in setting it up.”

The mask he thought he had thrown away last night reemerged from the garbage bin, soiled but serviceable.  It mocked Alfonso to his face and dared him not to put it on.  Go ahead, boy, it taunted, be the tough guy in front of your father and show your true colors.

“I know you guys put on a lot of events at school, and that you all have lots of connections.  You know where to get catered food, cheap.  You can get some entertainment, maybe a good DJ to spin or something, as long as he doesn’t cost a fortune.  This isn’t a lush budget production.  Something like that.  And of course I need the group’s help to spread the word.”

What was that Strayhorn tune you were singing last night, the mask continued to mock.  Goombye to that!

“I’m sure the group will help you out, Dad,” Alfonso said.

“That’s what I want to hear.  How soon can you get me that endorsement?”

“The group has its weekly meeting tonight.”

“That’s not soon enough,” his father snapped.  “Alfonso, did you hear me?  They are in the park now, camping out.  This is a public relations disaster for me.  I have to counter this shit now.  We have to be serious about this, Alfonso.”  He signed.  “Sure wish you had run for president.”  Alfonso avoided eye contact.  “Look, I want to make the midday news cycle and announce my supporters.  I want to include ASA on the list.  You understand?”

“Can’t you call some of your friends, dear?” his mother said.  “Maybe do a phone conference?”

“Yeah.  I can do that, Mom.”

He and his mother exchanged a glance, the depth of which Alfonso had not felt from her for quite some time.  Could she see through the soiled mask he wore?

“Good,” his father said.  “Let me know when you get it, alright?  And then tonight, at your meeting, you can start talking about the logistics.  Thanks, Son.”

Alfonso got up and poured himself a mug of coffee.  Even the bland house stuff was better than nothing.  Then he marched straight to his room and closed the door.  He stood and leaned heavy against it.  After a moment, he took out his iPhone to make the first important call of the day.

“Hey, Bill?  This is Alfonso.  Listen, call me on my cell when you got a minute, alright?  I might be on the phone, but call me as soon as you can, alright?  Thanks, sistah.”

He stood against the door motionless.  Across the room, the sheets, still twisted and knotted, mocked him just as the mask had.  He waited for a call from Bill, but it did not come.  He looked at the clock.  Probably in Quill’s class by now, he concluded.  Finally, he started calling the ASA gestalt.  First he tried Cynthia, but she didn’t answer.  He left a message.  Then he tried Cecelia.  No answer.  Finally he got through to Leon.  He liked the idea of a unity rally.

“I need to give him our endorsement, now,” Alfonso said.  “He’s having a news conference at noon.”

“Just tell him it’s cool, man,” Leon said.  “Tell him he has it.  I’ll let Cynthia know.  I know how to get a hold of her.  Just tell him it’s cool and to give the press my number or Cynthia’s if they want to contact someone, alright?”

“Thanks,” Alfonso sighed.

He checked for voice mail.  Nothing.  Bill probably was in class.  He couldn’t wait around the house any longer.  The air grew tight around him.

He went downstairs to the kitchen where he heard his father on the phone.

“Yeah, that’s fine.  No, no I think that’s right.  We’ll invite her, just like we’ll invite all of them.  And Sanders.  We’ll invite them both.  It doesn’t mean they have to speak, but we’ll invite them.”  A pause.  “Right, exactly.  That way they can’t say we left them out.  If they don’t show up, that’s their problem.”

Alfonso could not believe what he was hearing.  Already his father was dissing the north side by sidelining its two main spiritual leaders, Rick Sanders and Tamera Woodson, and the election had not even started yet.  Here we go again, he thought.

“Yeah, I’m sure Eunice can get one of her groups on board.  And Thad, I talked to Alfonso about this.  He said he was going to get ASA’s endorsement.”  Alfonso nodded and gave thumbs up.  His father responded in kind.  “Yep, my First Lieutenant is standing here now, and he said he got the endorsement.  That’s great, Son,” he said off the phone.  “Yep, they’re meeting tonight to start planning for it.”  He looked at Alfonso again.  “Have a good day, Son.”  He went back to the phone.  Alfonso kissed his mother on the cheek and left the kitchen.

As soon as he got outside he lit his first one for the day and was sucking on it hard before reaching the sidewalk.  He never felt dirtier than he did at that moment and no amount of puffing brought relief.

*     *     *

Charlotte walked into the store feeling heavy.  Sammy looked up at her then back down at his paper.  She went straight to the back for a cup of blues before returning to the counter.

“You are the subject of many a rumor, lady.”

For once, she did not shut him up with her pet phrase.  She sat silently next to him, staring blankly in front of her.

“Liz and I had a fight last night.”

“What about?”

“Something stupid.”

“Uh-huh.  You two patch it up this morning?”

“No.  I left the house before she woke up.  I just came from Huckleberry Park.  Can you believe that?  I was walking around that damn park for about an hour early this morning.”

Sammy turned and faced her, with one elbow on the counter.

“Saw Bill running for the bus.  He waved ‘hi.’”  Sammy smiled.  “And I saw Mrs. Parker sitting on her stoop, just staring into the park.  She didn’t even notice me looking at her.  You know how you get when you’re watching something good on TV?  That’s how she was staring into the park.”  She paused.  “You know, Sammy, until that moment, I didn’t really understand.  We’ve all heard her go on about how the Park used to be or how the neighborhood used to be.  And we remember, we just don’t think about it.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“But until that moment, seeing her staring into the park, I never really understood just how lonely she was.  And I don’t mean that she don’t have people who visit her or talk with her.  I know she does.  But she’s lonely, Sammy.  She’s lonely for her used to be, you know what I’m saying?  She ain’t just lonely for herself, she’s lonely for all of us.  It was like I could see the world through her eyes.  And it all just came together.”

Sammy nodded his head, eyebrows low over his eyes.

“I went over to her and we said ‘hi’ to each other.  Then we both just sat on the stoop and stared at the park.  And that’s when I decided to start running.”

Sammy let out a big sigh and put on a warm smile.  Then he got up and shuffled behind Charlotte so that he could go to the stereo.

“Hang on, I got it here somewhere.”  He found the CD he wanted and put it on.  Soon the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah rang throughout the store.  Charlotte nearly busted a gut.

“Miss Charlotte, I’ve been waiting to hear those words from you for too many damned years!”  He bent over and gave her a hug as the Hallelujahs sang above them.

“You crazy, Samuel Turner!” she said.

“Now,” he said, standing upright again, “we’ll figure out the particulars later.  We got a whole lotta work ahead of our behinds.  But right now, you march through this store and get what you need for dinner tonight, then go home this evening and make y’all’s special dish and patch it up with Liz.  Cause you two are in for a long haul, and you’ll need each other.”

Charlotte stood up and walked to the vegetable counter.

“You’re beautiful, Sammy,” she said, as she picked over the onions.

© 2013, gar. All rights reserved.