What Becomes of the Closed Mind?

What Becomes of the Closed Mind?

Another Sunday has come and the day crowd came out for Yaega as usual.  Mr. Clean, Bossman and the crowd thinned out and left after the Jets lost in overtime.

‘Game On’ had a good vibe all day.  B.B. had cooked up some wings and the day crowd munched earlier when the Giants beat the Redskins.  

But when night descended on the ‘Game’ it was clear no one was going to be there for Ruby.

Yaega Lee had become tired of the bullshit that goes with bar politics and fighting to present a clean establishment when left with a bar that is filthy from the raunchy parties held at the ‘Game’ on ‘Hispanic Saturday Nights’.  The register rings nice but the bar looks like a riot went on in it and smells like pussy.  

Yaega voiced how tired she was spending her Sunday day shift quick cleaning enough to serve customers and chasing the stench out from the night before.

It was again that Yaega went off when Ruby inquired about the kitchen.  “Look, I tried to clean as much as I could but was disgusted by the nastiness, guess who shaved her legs in the women’s room sink and left the hair in there, …guess who left glasses, slime and other muck in the bar sink as well as a nasty kitchen, beer stains and bottle rings on the pool table, used rubbers and cigarette butts at the back door and in the parking lot,…it’s not fucking fair…I need a hazmat suit to just to clean up.”

Ruby calmed Yaega down and when the crowd thinned out no one was left in the Game except Ruby and me.  Ruby cleaned, washing windows, sweeping, washing glasses and dishes, trying to catch up on the havoc from the night before.  Even with ads on facebook and 'gameonvalley.blogspot.com' it seems that the ‘regulars’ at the Game won’t come out for Ruby even though most of them know her from the Corner Tavern and Sidestreet.

As Ruby and I talked about how to get business going to justify Poppy keeping the bar open on a Sunday Night, which she figured just as well be closed, a young Puerto Rican man bounced in, though coherent, he had obviously been drinking and looked a bit wild.  I had actually thought about leaving earlier but that thought changed quickly.  The next hour or so would bring clarity to why I had to be there.

After introducing ourselves, Don, the young man, was quite rattled and started talking.  Don said, “my friend Ricky, we were partying just the night before last…now he’s gone, he’s dead.”  Right then I knew this was going to be a tough time, I knew I was here to talk to this guy who let us know he was a commercial refrigerator mechanic who had good work and made a good wage.  He wondered why he should even work, why even live.  I knew he was deep in depression brought on by death.

 

I said, “Don, death happens like that often, suddenly, with no reason or rational explanation.  I’m sorry for your loss but if you intend to drive you might not want to climb all the way into that bottle just yet.”  “RJ what do you know about losing a close friend?”  

“Well Don, in a lifetime that is twice yours, making me old enough to be your Dad, I lost a friend in an artillery accident and my wife to cancer among other dead friends and family…I, in the words of the Old Testament, ‘am a man of sorrows acquainted with grief’.”

Don told me how he came from the Bronx with his family and now live in Valley Stream, how his Dad made him go get a trade and a job, and that he is the only one of his ‘niggas’ not in jail or selling drugs on the street.  I said, “Don, if you stick that nigga label on you or your ‘boys’ you let yourself be defeated.  Your not a ‘nigga’.  Your boys need you now because you’re the one who’s doing something.”

“You don’t understand, I’m from the streets…I can’t let my boy’s see me crying, I can’t let them see me weak, I can’t be a punk, that's why I'm by myself.  When we did get together where Ricky died none of us said nothing, we just looked at each other, shaking our heads and rolling our eyes.”  I asked Don how Ricky died.  Ruby kept the beers coming as he poured out his soul.

“RJ, Ricky was rolling with Manny, Willie and Jake, they were all at my house getting high on oxy’s, drinking Courvoisier and tokin Sensimilla talking about getting laid.  

Manny was driving and Ricky was in the front seat with him.  A car cut them off on Guy Brewer Blvd., Manny lost control and hit a pole, the pole went through the car.  

Manny heard Willie and Jake say they were OK, Manny looked at Ricky and said ‘we made it’.  Ricky just collapsed, his body fell into Manny’s lap.  Ricky’s woman and his little girl just kept screaming when the boys told them.”

 I asked Don, “where is Manny now?”  “Manny’s Mom and some of the boys took him to the hospital because his head wasn’t right, he’s taking this harder than me.  I think he’s going to Creedmore because he needs some kind of weird ass psych medication.”   I asked, “how are you holding up Don?  Can you be strong for yourself, your family and Ricky’s little girl?” 

“But why?  Why Ricky, he was the nicest one of all of us ‘niggas’”  “Don, you gotta stop with asking why, if you live life things happen, bad things happen to good people every day.  Also you gotta stop categorizing yourself as a ‘nigga’.”  “RJ, society hates us and that’s all we will ever be to society is niggas, my mind can’t see me being nothing but a nigga here.”  “Don, if you let society define you, what you say is right, if you define yourself you can be what you choose to be.”

I said to Don, “I grew up in a small town, I was called names until I got to Junior High School because in elementary school I made it clear I would not be defined by racial epithets, especially the ‘N’ word.  I left New York by joining the Marines and never looked back.  I made a great life for myself and you can too.  Don, you gotta decide when to be the man and not the nigga.”

After Don spilled his second beer he decided he would walk home. 

Don said, “I just can't see it all. I feel lost in my mind, in my head I just want to die, in my heart I just want to yell at God and make him explain this to me.”  I said, “Don, God can’t explain what God isn’t part of.  God wasn’t in that car, only the desire to get high and get laid along with your boys.  Sounds more like the Devil to me, it’s evil that kills, steals and destroys.  Not God!”

Don, more sober than when he walked in, walked out into the night lit by the half moon and the street lights in the autumn darkness.  Ruby didn’t feel sorry for him but she thought about the little girl.  Some of the Rockaway crowd came down and had a few beers.  I stayed till closing time wondering if Don would find himself and open his closed mind.

RJ