Joey Cloudy online

chapter 12

TRAMP: I am the passenger 1999

“I look up, the stars write themselves,

And at this very moment

someone spells me out.”

-Octavio Paz

The bedraggled old white woman, the county hospital psych ward issued plastic coated identification bracelet on her left wrist her only jewelry boarded the train in the underground Mockingbird station, with all of her odiferous belongings crammed into the half dozen plastic shopping bags that she carried with her every where. With schizophrenic blue eyes she scanned the car looking for some place else to sit before she reluctantly sat on the bench seat directly across from the couple of black clad freaks.

The old white woman stared at them mouth agape watching them as if she we’re watching television. They sat the way kittens would sit if they were people, legs across each other’s legs, her head resting on his shoulder. They smelled of that marijuana black boy his dark reddish brown hair hung down to his shoulders in nappy plats as thick as your fingers. She wondered how he got his hair to do that not aware that she had been staring at the duo every since she got on the train.

The pale skinned, dark haired girl sitting next to him wore combat boots with steel caps over the toes. They looked like a pair of devil worshippers there was a silver pentacle on a short chain around the boys neck and she couldn’t make out what was on the round tarnished silver amulet around the girls neck. All she wanted was to make it downtown to the shelter before it filled up for the night, otherwise she’d have to find a place to sleep on the streets. Her arthritis had been acting up with the cold wet weather and the last thing she wanted was to have to sleep outside tonight. She didn’t want any shit from these godless satanic hooligans either.

The black boy with soft brown eyes was so busy writing in a note book he hadn’t even looked up, probably college students she thought, but that didn’t mean shit. They’d beat you half to death and set you on fire just for shits and giggles. The girl looked feral, the black boy wore several earrings in both ears; silver, wood or stone. None of the gold or diamonds like most of the other colored kids liked these days.

The girl wore no makeup or jewelry other than the amulet. She also apparently, didn’t wear a bra or panties she noticed as she shifted her position in the seat next to her nigger boyfriend she could see that the girl wasn’t wearing anything under that long black linen priest frock that she wore. Definitely a couple of Satan’s spawn. She stared unblinking wondering if she should deliver the word of god to them. Should she share the gospel of our lord and savior Jesus Christ? Should she tell them the good news? They were too busy reading thier books, they hadn’t noticed her yet and with any luck they wouldn’t before she could get off of this goddamned train. She’d be gone before the boy finished his homework and began to look for something to do to keep from being bored.

In her day you would have never seen a colored boy with a white girl unless he wanted the date at the end of a rope. You saw this sort of thing more and more these days. They done lost their fear of the white man is what’s wrong with them. That’s why they can’t be controlled anymore. When the black boy finally looked up from his notebook he looked her into her eyes with that ignorant grin on his face.

There was no fear in his eyes he was completely unconcerned. She thought she saw some old sadness, bemusement, perhaps a little pity. Who did he think he was? She didn’t need no pity or anything else from his kind. Her Pappy would have had that one put in his place in a heartbeat. Negros walking around with white girls like they was as good as us.

Whole goddamned country’s gone mad is what’s wrong with the world. It was all that sorry SOB LBJ’s fault. Who would have guessed that one of our own would forget where he came from so quickly. She smiled her jack o lantern smile and leaned back into her seat relaxing a little as she recalled the day the whole class broke out in spontaneous cheers when the principle announced over the intercom at her North Dallas high school that JFK had been shot.

There was something familiar about them. They had that wary look of street people, but it was a refined look, as if someone had taken in a wild animal. Was that the fashion now with these kids? Was it hip to look like you lived on the streets or were they just a couple of uptown junkies looking to score? She wondered why she even cared. Whatever their story was she knew that she didn’t want any part in it, so she picked up her ragged belongings and wandered towards the back of the train hoping to find another empty seat or at least to just get away from these two freaks. They shoulda took care of that nigger’ lover LBJ when they took out his buddy Kennedy.

Lost in her madness she had no idea that she had no internal monologue as she spoke her every thought aloud. She left the seat screaming random sequences of numbers shuffling towards the back of the train 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89,144,233,377,610,987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, 17711, 28657, 46368, 75025, 121393, 196418, 317811, 514229!

Mona and Aaron walked to the bus stop at Forest and Abrams across the street from the quickie mart behind Mona’s apartment. The 486 south would take them to the Park Lane station which was the furthest north the new train tracks ran; from there they would take the train downtown.

The southbound train pulled out of the Mockingbird station with all of the usual noise of computerized voices warning all to stay away from the doors as the train beeped and whistled and dinged before its air brakes hydraulic brakes whooshed before it began rolling entered the tunnel heading towards the underground platform at city place then out of the tunnel downtown at Akard or is it Pearl in front of the old high school. Aaron sat absorbed in his scribblings oblivious as usual.

What does Hermatag’e mean? Mona pointed to the rectangular placard mounted overhead as a part of the poetry in motion program where poems shared space with advertisements on the cities trains and busses.

I don’t know. Why do you ask?

I was just wondering what that poem says up there and you speak Spanish.

Yeah, a little, but it’s work Spanish I never took any classes so I can’t read it at all. Mostly, I know curse words and how to ask a girl if she has a husband or where she lives or for sexual favors.

She laughed as Aaron glanced up at the poem.

Look, there on the right. Isn’t that the English translation.

The poem was ‘Brotherhood’ by Octavio Paz and it would be the first poem he would read on that cozy little stage the first night he hosted the poetry reading at Insomnia. She quickly copied the poem into her note book. Aaron would christen the stage located in a 24 hour coffee shop with this poem, their first night hosting the poetry reading at Deep Ellum Insomnia.

-about the author JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals; Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, Tx.