Thank You Sudafed

I grew up when it was feasible to arrive at the age of six years old and to have never talked to a black person. Sure, I saw them, maybe. But people were still extremely segregated. And this was in the New York suburbs, 30 miles from Times Square.

The big news in the local newspaper when I was entering the first grade was that two black teachers were hired for a mostly white school. Turns out, one of the teachers was mine. I did not know what was going to happen to me. Would I be at a great disadvantage because of this? Somehow, I knew I would be okay (having faith in the white people around me who I knew knew what they were doing).

My first grade teacher turned out to be incredible. Though she did beat Larry M. into submission and one day threw him into a trash can. Apparently, his parents signed a note that allowed him to be punished in this manner. However, after the trash can beating, I noted that she never laid a hand on him again. So I imagine someone gave her a talking to.

Today, while heading to the F train in Queens, I saw a guy with brown skin, most likely Hispanic, maybe Asian, maybe a mix of the two, drop a napkin on the mezzanine floor. I got very indignant and harummphed something like, “These fucking dirty brown people really come from an inferior culture. What is wrong with them?”

Then, I had a feeling, maybe I noticed it without realizing it, but I thought, “Look at his hands.”

Well, his right hand had no fingers on it. So you can’t even say he was butter fingers. Clearly, the guy drops shit all the time. Poor thing.

Then, I was on my Sudafed high on the subway and a huge black woman with completely fake plastic orange extensions in her hair sat next to me. Tattoos that demarked deaths. She got on the subway at the stop that was underneath the largest government housing complex in all of New York City: Kingsbridge. Quite a place. I actually like it.
With her was her incredibly cute daughter in a stroller. She was between one and two. Babies between one and two are pretty much the cutest things on the planet and she was no exception.

I was, as I have written, on my high (Sudafed, mashed up and concentrated is basically Crack) and I looked at that baby and I simply wanted to take her home. I smiled at her. She looked back at me with a cautious glare. I thought, “Damn, her Momma already taught her fear.”

But then I thought, “All I have to do is smile at her a little, then ignore her, and you know she’ll be wanting my attention again.”

Sure enough, I did it and it happened. We had a little flirtation going on. I felt like one of those nutty women in a mall parking lot who just had to steal that baby!

At first, Momma was leery of me. I felt her anger. Then, she saw I was no threat. Then, she fell asleep, clearly overworked or depressed or both. I also got the sense that she felt sort of safe knowing that this crazy middle aged white guy was watching her baby. And then, I got the sense (did I say I was on a Sudafed high?) that she wanted me to marry her, take care of the baby, make everything okay. And I swear I would have, only I had to be somewhere by 9.

Gimme that baby!

(Of course, this is a bit of Atlantic mirroring to my Pacific best friend Mary’s adoption of the cutest African American baby on the planet, Jake. But then, aren’t we all just one big fungus?)