WALKING ON THIN ICE

foto by smith

cri de coeur - goya (cry of heart)

leaving new york, lady chose the front of the empty amtrack car because it’d be quieter. tried front seat first, but it had no window, so we moved back one. 2 stops later they packed the car, put crazy lady in the no window seat in front of us.

she’d make cartoon soundtrack noises, unhealthy variations on internal explosions. she’d go mmmmmmmpha while jabbing her fist upwards in short rocky thrusts - she’d do it 3 times each time, sometimes the times coming very close together. other times she’d place her hands behind her head and wag her crooked arms forward 3 times going poo poo poo. one point her male friend had been gone awhile, she pulled handfuls of her hair up and outward in slow motion going eeeeeeeeeeeeee low in her throat. i think initially he was trying to pick her up, but ended up trying to take care of her.

every time she was alone, she’d simmer, then burst out of herself and into the rest of us.

stood up, turned to an older black man snapping “quit standing over me. . . and don’t you dare bow to me.”

told her companion one of the afro-american conductors, a “mountain of a man,” had been rude, kept trying to get too close to her in the aisles.

when a young black man walked by looking at seat numbers, she lashed out “you get away from here, go on, go away” and as he did she yelled “don’t you smile at me.” she sat awhile, turned to the old rural couple across the aisle, told him that man she’d sent away had tried to sit with her 4 times, but she kept changing her seat and finally had to get off the train.

when the u.s. border patrol marched a different afro-american from the train, she yelled out “thank you, officers, thank you, very good”.

before we got off in cleveland, i started sniffling - “blow your nose” the dark seat in front of me ordered. sniffed again few minutes later and she snapped “i told you to blow your nose”. started to say something wicked back when i thought no, i can’t do that, she can’t help what she is, it’d be wrong to make her worse.so i blew my nose. knowing we’d be off the train in 20 minutes sure helped a lot.

foto by smith

foto by smith

arise 5 a.m. barcelona monday leave hotel 6 to bus subway train to airport to plane to dublin wait 5 hours plane to new york taxi to harlem hostel sorta sleep not much due dormatory bunk beds walk to jimbo’s early morning breakfast subway to penn station to ride 12.5 hour train to cleveland thru the american gestapo border police who force 1 black skin two brown skins from our train at midnight to finally reaching chiplis’s love shack out back here in cleveland ohio u.s.of a. at 4:30 thursday morning.

this will be our home for next two months after 14 month traveling england, netherlands, poland, croatia, italy, france, spain, morocco, england again, france again, spain again.

had 2 hours sleep this morning, maybe couple hours on train, 2 hours in harlem, no hours dublin to nyc. little sleep 3 nights before in barcelona or the week before in france due to massive sinus colds picked up in paris which we’ve dosed with 2 weeks various sinus cold flu tablets liquids powders all which act like speed on me and refuse to let me sleep.

my head throbs, my body aches and cries for sleep, my nose is shut down for unauthorized maintenance, our refrigerator is empty, our clothes filthy, we are car-less but have feet, bicycles, and bus. of course we’re too tired and ill to fix any of these problems today. it’s so bad i’m sitting here drinking cold coffee thinking it’s about time coffee and i quit being so close… not going to break off, more like reduce our relationship to occasional visits. had i not automatically ordered stong dark coffee this morning, i’d be asleep right now next to lady… think she’s gone in sleepland for the day.

we have 4 poetry readings scheduled here (the first next week), and lady k has her 1st one person art exhibition opening in 2 weeks.

in 2 months we move on to chicago and start life over in one place for at least a year while we get our 2 manuscripts done - Special by Lady K, and criminal by smith - and a couple more started.

we haven’t had time to analyze being back yet, or how we’ve changed, but it is way weird being in familiar surroundings after 14 months overseas. we’ve slept in 47 different beds, moved on 47 times past 14 months.

it’s important this blog doesn’t wipe out the previous one i posted earlier today 2 hours after we got here - it’s titled They’re Coming To Take Us Away, and it’s about the u.s. government border patrol forcibly removing 3 non-whites from our amtrack train at midnight at the ohio pennsylvania border - things we all say can’t happen here in america, yet this is something i saw happen with my own eyes. since when are there border police between pennsylvania and ohio? did i miss something our 14 months away?

foto by smith

they stopped our amtrak train at the ohio pennsylvania border - an american train on american soil - to let the border patrol come on. arrogant fucks. they walked down the isle 11:30 at night waking folk up shining lights into each of our eyes demanding in rude snotty intimidating voice whether we were “american citizens.”

then they grabbed a young black man and a young husband wife couple who looked eastern or arabic and marched them off the train, hands on their guns. as the train pulled off without them, we saw them surrounded by brownshirted uniformed guards and german shepherd dogs - their bags had been tossed on the ground and were being searched.

it’s no longer what might happen - it’s what’s happening right now, right here, in america, the land of the free, the home of the immigrant. it happened on an american train, on american soil, on amtrack train route 49 at 11:30 pm wednesday at the pennsylvania ohio border.

even if they let those 3 go, they’ve lost 24 hours of their life because their skin wasn’t white or their attitude wasn’t right.

the border patrol jackboots were enjoying their show of force too, you could see it on their faces. while they were still in the car, a few passengers started talking about gestapo tactics and laughing at them, so the brownshirts marched their 3 victims all the way back up the car to show us, when it would have been closer to leave by the rear exit.

the 1984 totalitarian state or the 1937 fascist nazi regime ain’t tomorrow or yesterday, baby, it’s right now. and right now 3 young folk are suffering because they didn’t fit in.

this was our welcome back to america.

“something is a happening here, and what it is is frightfully clear…”