New Amsterdam

Summer had a way of peeking in to the bleakest of winter weeks with radiant propriety, ushering forth the boniest of coming out carnivals. Brown limbs that once dangled in between the folds of woolen cabinets concur: There is Light, and I am here to reflect it. In a ritual like a collective prayer, patent leather thighs and forearms of oak come and go, up and down Convent Avenue. Their skins temporarily inked by the  silhouettes of blossoms that spread like lattices across the tree-lined walk. Our hero marched in  canary yellow shorts, and a pair of  winter boots, as if to coalesce the oppositional nature of the outside world  and map it on to the body. It was a queer way of being, and so, it was the only way it knew of existing.
 
In the wake of our hero's pronounced boot falls, many necks craned and suggestive mutterings were issued.

Stop playing,
you're playing too tough

or, the tired but never discarded,

Ow, Oww!
Hey sexy

were received without request. It was the common experience of any revealed flesh to have it's existence called to attention by the gaze of another. One simply couldn't walk in Harlem and expect it to be a singular event. No, there were eyes everywhere and they noticed, they made any activity public, and furthermore a part of the ever unfolding carnival. Each pedestrian had forgone the process of being In Transit as soon as they left the velvet curtains of their threshold. Instead, they became In Character where willingly contributing or being swept along did not matter since the parade. Did not discern. The parade never stopped, and in the midst of madness, it is best to Blend In.
 
Outside of  the house on 125th Street children play in front of an African hair braiding salon near the women sitting in chairs who run the business. The women: mothers, aunts, and/or sisters, pass remarks  to the children that let them know they are playing too rough, or sends them away like blue bottlenoses for becoming too much of nuisance. They are always outside of the house because the salon is their home. Any coming and going from the house was certain to be noticed and thought over, if not for a minute, then for the duration of Fela Kuti's chatty djembes that leak down from the third floor windows. The citizens of the house, Lerfe, were building a steady cast of bro-hemes  and vagabond friends. Our hero, was not the lead or the antagonist, but played both roles rather well when the drums called for it.
 
Our hero entered the rooms with graffiti soaked walls calling out for his doppelganger, Momo. Momo and our hero were both slender men. The former taller than the latter and with longer dreadlocked hair to match the years between them. Momo would sporadically comment on how people would always confuse them for brothers even though they were in no way (in the limited knowledge of their kinship) biologically related and, our hero cleaved the colors of modernity through acetate horn-rimmed frames.. In spite of this, they were doppelgangers by the souls their skins encased. Twin shadows  that stuck their tongues out at each other in the mis-en-abyme of fraternity. He called out with the sincerity of finite being:
 
Momo! Let's go look for some girlfriends, mah d00d!
 
Momo, who always seemed to be returning from another plane of existence when he entered a room took one look at our hero and smiled. In his eyes a wilderness roamed behind the black oil spills floating on ivory. Seconds seem to stagger in the distance between his thoughts and words.

Hell yeah man, let's go!
Hold up a minute, I got to put my pants on.

Although he was already wearing pants, he had made it to his quarters before anyone could console. In the mean time, our hero took to strumming one of the pink guitars that were cast around the space like flowers hung upside down to dry. They weren't exactly decoration, yet they functioned as set designs that cued whoever was present into the role they should be playing. Any person with an inkling of music trying in them would be moved to touch one of the many instruments in the room. And so, hero began to strum a song of waiting on the closest instrument in reach.
 
Gonna go look for some girlfriends.
Maybe make some new friends.
Though, I really just want a girlfriend.
She can be my best friend.
 
la la la.
 
Momo, in tight pink and grey zebra stripped jeans lead the procession down 125th street. He said he wore skinny jeans, because they were in style, and because girls think skinny jeans are sexy. It was the necessary regalia needed in order to gather the attention of perspective mates. Our hero agreed, although he never wore skinny jeans himself, he knew it was the style of the hip and modern. Whether or not he considered himself to be either, he could never justify spending what little money he came across on updating his style. There were more effective assets, such as booze and tobacco, which made anything one was wearing look cool. Or at least, feel that way. Out on the streets there was little difference to be found in looking and feeling. This is why the hip cats swagger when they walk, and all of the suits amble forth on stilts. Seeing them is visceral to the extent that one makes you aware of the content of your hips and the other the weight of your wallet.
 
They had barely made it to the corner of St. Nicholas before the parade picked back up again. The bustle of business and hustle punctuated by  gypsy cabbies honking for a pick up became the city's life pulse. He strummed the guitar on a corner near the traffic light, where people gathered for a moment like platelets,  clotting, waiting for red to become white and then release. It was the natural order of Harlem that no one ever spoke of, like the shape every human heart shares in silence. Their streets were wide enough for junkies to stretch seasoned organs prone, yet their bodies moved so intimately through this space one could feel the gravity of a head nod or the urgent tugging of a stare following a rear-end without denial. Momo spat in the direction of a pale tourist that sauntered down the street in platform shoes. “I hate white people in Harlem” he said, “They make me sick”. His face was furrowed with the wrinkles one develops just before sneezing. A genuine look of disgust.
 
“We'll never find  any girlfriend's if you look like that”, Hero said.
 
“We'd have better luck finding girlfriend's if we weren't dressed up like we were looking for boyfriends. Besides, white people make me sick, seriously. I'm allergic to them.” He made the motion of drawing a needle and thread from his shirt then dropping it on the ground. “And their hair gets everywhere. They fucking shed all of the  time. They're like cats.” His gaze followed a pair of brown women  laughing loudly about some riddle between themselves.
 
“You're being racist, Momo.”
 
“I'm not being racist. White people are animals.” he shot back with catlike reflexes. Hero laughed and said more to the guitar than to anyone else “I'm an animal, and I like animals”. The light changed and the pair meandered forward without much thought of where they were going. In the distance one could here the drumming of street performers congregating in the square beneath the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. state office building. Skin slapping skin and bones rattling inside of wooden cases brought many more than our pair to a halt in front of the performance. However, unlike the usual that stopped for a moment then moved on in groove, our two immersed themselves in the group of drummers, Momo taking a drum as guitar boy hammered  a steady bass pulse. Almost immediately  their bodies rocked in time with the rhythm that came before them, and in time, their contribution shaped the course of where songs go. 
 
“That's Africa inside all of us.”, Momo said in a voice of authority.
 
Perhaps no one heard him, but everyone seemed to agree. His voice, although assumptive, was readily accepted in the course of the procession. If anyone disagreed, they must have not have had the time or desire to engage in a debate, and so the statement affirmed itself in the sea of Yes they all had become.
 
Similar to his countenance, our hero's way of living was a walking, talking paradox:

I wonder what our girlfriend's will be like, man. It's slim pickins' out here, but everyone is so beautiful.
 
Hopefully they will be girls
Momo snubbed,
preferably over the age of seventeen.
 
 
“Yeah, I'll take em any ways they come” our hero joked in song.
 
 Seventeen is too young.
Seventeen is not too young for me.
I'm only twenty and seventeen is fine by me.
Huh, baby?
 
“Why do you sing like that? I don't like when you sing like that. You sound like you have an English accent when you sing that way. It doesn't sound good, you shouldn't sing like that.”
 
It's the only way I know how to sing, Momo.
 
Momo stopped  short in front of the patty shop and motioned  his thumb towards inside. Hero nodded. From the longer than usual line they were able to watch the people swim past each other through the window. A man carrying a suitcase stopped in front of the patty shop and decided to enter without much effort. His face was pale and his stare was watery with the film of indifference. His gaze cut through the people in the line as if they were invisible then locked on to the overhead menu that displayed the special combination platters that were offered. It occurred to Hero that perhaps he was not seeing people, but rather feeble marionettes, obstacles in his way. In a moment that left faster than it arrived, a shot of consideration flickered behind his eyes and broke the stolid wrinkles that carved his face. He was of money --the new kind --and his inability to humble himself in the presence of a crowd of difference belied his non-native upbringing. Without betraying a visage a disapproval the man quickly turned on his heels and ambled out into the streets. Although the current of the procession was strong, he worked against it, which was in itself impossible since the carnival had no set direction. However the man, the suitcase, the heels, the sum of their antithesis was an occasion becoming more present in the carnival of 125th. Many saw it coming, but few chose to react.
 
Who the fuck do he think he is? Walking in this place like he owns it?

Momo shot at the heels of the man with suitcase.

I'm so sick of all of these white people acting like they own Harlem.

The conversation belonged to the crowd sooner than anyone could claim it. Our Hero volunteered to rescue the statement from the chords of grumbles and teeth-suckings that were sure to follow.

He looked lost to me. Besides, who said he owns this place?

Momo grunted at this.

Who has the right to own this place anyway? Take a look around! He is probably living in a brownstone his family has owned for generations. For all I am concerned, Harlem is still a Dutch colony along with most of- most of New Amsterdam..

Our hero's cerebral  critique of historical and contemporary affairs usually fell short in the heat of active conversations. Life, as it happened, proved to be too fast for history to report in spoken word and debate. These conversations, held in the ivory towers that enunciate world views from an estranged center, detached from the world the arguments are grounded in, favored the form of cumulus: vertic and thin. Furthermore, their removal from any material consequence wrings them hallow of any spiritual movement, the reel and lighting behind any production.

I don't care, he's white and he doesn't belong here. Every person of color has the responsibility of preserving Harlem's dignity as a space for Black culture.

Momo shot a frustrated glance down at his cell phone and then canceled the incoming call that was itching at the lining of his military fatigue jacket. Hero thought of the History of his neighborhood. It is true that Harlem has been a bastion of Black revolutionary and nationalist culture. After all, Hero's current room on 127th was only footsteps away from The Nation of Islam's Mosque #7, and his room on Edgecombe just months before would have made him neighbors with WEB Du Bois. Momo's last statement sparked our hero's curiosity in a way that shifted his usual chamomile tea-like voice in to an agitated question.

And how do you propose we do that? Are you going to firebomb every white person that moves north of 125th Street?
Hero asked cheekily.

Momo closed his eyes for a second. The gravity of his thoughts caused his eyelids to collapse with the heavy lub-dub of floor toms.

Every revolution requires violent political action. I spit in their direction because they are getting too comfortable strutting about in our space. If more people did this there wouldn't be so much of them around.

Hero stuck a hand underneath the back of the too short shorts to pluck out a wedgie that had just become too constricting to stay.

"I don't think violence is necessary for a revolution." he said, as the moisture returned to his vocal chords. "My vision of revolution is everyone being comfortable in their own skins wherever they are. Being purposefully oppressive to another group isn't revolutionary, it's fascist."

Spare me the liberal bullshit.
Momo spat.

"That's exactly what's wrong with the left -or whatever they call it nowadays. Everyone thinks away their contentions and take No Action. The problem still persists and  nothing changes. People need to get angry, people need to get violent." With this, he drew his locks up into a bun on top of his head and took a bite of the patty that had been waiting for him on the counter top.

Hero, chewed his patty in consideration. He wasn't certain if he found it nauseating because the spinach tasted stale, or because  his comrade's fervor had unearthed a frog in his throat. There was an absence of emotion being articulated, and the hallow beating in his throat was the only confirmation of Momo's treatise. Without knowing, he began to choke on the silence. Instead of vomiting fire, an icicle shot down his back, back, back & forth.