WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.750 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.750 --> 00:00:06.950 align:middle line:84% The reception following the reading tonight in the hall 00:00:06.950 --> 00:00:11.190 align:middle line:84% and that submission for the Poetry Center's newsletter 00:00:11.190 --> 00:00:14.270 align:middle line:90% are due tomorrow September 29. 00:00:14.270 --> 00:00:19.010 align:middle line:84% Our next reading will be James Laughlin Monday at 3 o'clock 00:00:19.010 --> 00:00:21.800 align:middle line:90% in the terrace lounge. 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:23.600 align:middle line:90% That's a poetry reading. 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:28.100 align:middle line:84% And on Tuesday at 8:00 a lecture in modern languages. 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:30.800 align:middle line:84% And there's going to be a reading at the mosaic cafe 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:35.510 align:middle line:90% on Sunday, October 2 at 7:30. 00:00:35.510 --> 00:00:38.270 align:middle line:84% I imagine these announcements will be posted probably 00:00:38.270 --> 00:00:39.260 align:middle line:90% at the Poetry Center. 00:00:39.260 --> 00:00:44.610 align:middle line:90% 00:00:44.610 --> 00:00:47.070 align:middle line:90% John Williams. 00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:52.050 align:middle line:84% John A. Williams is a novelist, historian, biographer, 00:00:52.050 --> 00:00:53.760 align:middle line:90% and autobiographer. 00:00:53.760 --> 00:00:56.880 align:middle line:84% He has written nine novels, including !Click Song, 00:00:56.880 --> 00:01:00.360 align:middle line:84% The Junior Bachelor Society, Mothersil and the Foxes, 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:03.600 align:middle line:90% and The Man Who Cried I Am. 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:05.790 align:middle line:84% The most recent of his seven books of nonfiction 00:01:05.790 --> 00:01:08.280 align:middle line:84% are Minorities in the City and Flashbacks, 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.530 align:middle line:84% a 20 year diary of article writing. 00:01:10.530 --> 00:01:12.990 align:middle line:90% He has edited five anthologies. 00:01:12.990 --> 00:01:17.130 align:middle line:84% His work has appeared in almost 40 anthologies. 00:01:17.130 --> 00:01:18.690 align:middle line:84% His articles and essays have appeared 00:01:18.690 --> 00:01:24.330 align:middle line:84% in Holiday, Negro Digest, New York Magazine, Cavalier, Ebony, 00:01:24.330 --> 00:01:28.420 align:middle line:84% Saturday, Review, and many other magazines. 00:01:28.420 --> 00:01:31.200 align:middle line:84% He has served as European correspondent for Ebony and Jet 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84% and African correspondent for Newsweek. 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:38.130 align:middle line:84% His honors include the Richard Wright Jacques Roumain award, 00:01:38.130 --> 00:01:40.620 align:middle line:84% Centennial Medal for outstanding achievement 00:01:40.620 --> 00:01:43.710 align:middle line:84% from Syracuse University, inclusion in Who's 00:01:43.710 --> 00:01:47.843 align:middle line:84% Who in America and authors and writers Who's Who 00:01:47.843 --> 00:01:49.260 align:middle line:84% and a fellowship from the National 00:01:49.260 --> 00:01:51.000 align:middle line:90% Endowment for the Arts. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:55.000 align:middle line:84% He is currently a professor of English at Rutgers University. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:55.500 align:middle line:90% John. 00:01:55.500 --> 00:02:05.340 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.340 --> 00:02:06.180 align:middle line:90% Thank you Mary. 00:02:06.180 --> 00:02:07.740 align:middle line:90% Mary is an old friend of mine. 00:02:07.740 --> 00:02:11.400 align:middle line:84% I don't have too many friends who are writers, maybe just 00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:12.870 align:middle line:90% a couple. 00:02:12.870 --> 00:02:15.630 align:middle line:84% And I think that's an occupational hazard 00:02:15.630 --> 00:02:22.050 align:middle line:84% to have too many but I'm very proud to have Mary at least. 00:02:22.050 --> 00:02:23.610 align:middle line:84% Now that I have you captive here, 00:02:23.610 --> 00:02:27.150 align:middle line:84% I'm going to do some poetry as well as fiction. 00:02:27.150 --> 00:02:30.630 align:middle line:84% And I don't think I'm going to chase any of the poets 00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:34.290 align:middle line:90% out but we'll see how it goes. 00:02:34.290 --> 00:02:38.580 align:middle line:84% A few years ago, I started what I then envisioned 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:41.850 align:middle line:84% a very long poem called Safari West. 00:02:41.850 --> 00:02:45.270 align:middle line:84% It was actually to be a collection 00:02:45.270 --> 00:02:49.110 align:middle line:84% of poems about the sojourn of Black people from Africa 00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:52.920 align:middle line:90% to the West. 00:02:52.920 --> 00:02:56.550 align:middle line:84% But these are not necessarily in the final sequence. 00:02:56.550 --> 00:03:01.090 align:middle line:84% As a matter of fact, I don't think I've finished them all. 00:03:01.090 --> 00:03:03.990 align:middle line:84% But I will just move through certain periods 00:03:03.990 --> 00:03:08.710 align:middle line:84% beginning with the title poem, which is Safari West. 00:03:08.710 --> 00:03:26.850 align:middle line:90% 00:03:26.850 --> 00:03:29.970 align:middle line:84% "The South Atlantic clouds rode low blue fringed 00:03:29.970 --> 00:03:32.160 align:middle line:90% with coming rain. 00:03:32.160 --> 00:03:34.380 align:middle line:84% Snakes strong, popo channel rides 00:03:34.380 --> 00:03:38.430 align:middle line:84% beneath its mud green undulating surface and the boatmen 00:03:38.430 --> 00:03:41.910 align:middle line:90% pointed barracudas there. 00:03:41.910 --> 00:03:44.910 align:middle line:84% Noses like secrets, mouths like red lightning, 00:03:44.910 --> 00:03:48.120 align:middle line:84% once they ate nations that lay sick and dying. 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:52.470 align:middle line:84% Too ill for chains, then like galley waste were tossed after, 00:03:52.470 --> 00:03:57.480 align:middle line:84% scream flights clearing the gunnels into popo, now quiet. 00:03:57.480 --> 00:03:59.640 align:middle line:90% Now green. 00:03:59.640 --> 00:04:02.640 align:middle line:84% Badagry, the town roofed over with rusted tin 00:04:02.640 --> 00:04:06.000 align:middle line:84% and walled with concrete hard ancient mud, 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.700 align:middle line:84% pedals a view of its barracoons as 00:04:08.700 --> 00:04:13.530 align:middle line:84% does the town of Dachau for a Nigerian pound. 00:04:13.530 --> 00:04:17.220 align:middle line:84% For two you heft the holding irons worn thin 00:04:17.220 --> 00:04:20.010 align:middle line:84% and glide through cell silent with screams 00:04:20.010 --> 00:04:24.720 align:middle line:84% and meet relief and rage in numbing mid-terror. 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:27.270 align:middle line:84% Chains for the rebellious, the weak, the strong. 00:04:27.270 --> 00:04:30.210 align:middle line:84% Chains for the children, chains for the nation. 00:04:30.210 --> 00:04:33.810 align:middle line:84% Chains for the West bound Blacks. 00:04:33.810 --> 00:04:35.430 align:middle line:90% Crouching I reached out of it. 00:04:35.430 --> 00:04:36.420 align:middle line:90% Out of the heat. 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:38.610 align:middle line:90% The instruments were only metal. 00:04:38.610 --> 00:04:42.000 align:middle line:84% Rusted now and warm with a silent sun 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.520 align:middle line:90% that had not screamed. 00:04:44.520 --> 00:04:47.580 align:middle line:84% I fit them to my neck, wrists, legs, feeling 00:04:47.580 --> 00:04:49.920 align:middle line:90% for what I could never feel. 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:53.520 align:middle line:84% But knowing that feeling hides in time, I waited. 00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:55.170 align:middle line:90% Waited to feel. 00:04:55.170 --> 00:04:56.850 align:middle line:90% Wishing for pain. 00:04:56.850 --> 00:05:00.000 align:middle line:90% Waited, wished. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.780 align:middle line:84% Nigerians drifted through the heat, the awful heat. 00:05:03.780 --> 00:05:06.660 align:middle line:84% Their voices, like music, played through their smiles 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:09.150 align:middle line:90% and they called Hello, America. 00:05:09.150 --> 00:05:13.470 align:middle line:84% Unhinging my place and wondered at the Black man clothed 00:05:13.470 --> 00:05:14.610 align:middle line:90% in the West. 00:05:14.610 --> 00:05:17.700 align:middle line:84% Grasping the irons, his eyes swinging 00:05:17.700 --> 00:05:21.930 align:middle line:84% angrily out over Popo island and beyond, West. 00:05:21.930 --> 00:05:24.090 align:middle line:90% Westward to the passage. 00:05:24.090 --> 00:05:27.420 align:middle line:90% Eyes thundering, wetly. 00:05:27.420 --> 00:05:30.300 align:middle line:84% There is an old one pounder in the village. 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:33.600 align:middle line:84% It stands where a missionary forgetful, mindful, 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:37.755 align:middle line:84% of his place, fired the cannon to warn his flock that slave 00:05:37.755 --> 00:05:43.260 align:middle line:84% has swollen white with sail stood in the channel again. 00:05:43.260 --> 00:05:46.860 align:middle line:84% The ships rode high, cargoed with bright cloth and shining 00:05:46.860 --> 00:05:48.360 align:middle line:90% trinks. 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:51.870 align:middle line:84% And when the sail slid down, the Blacks ran traders with them, 00:05:51.870 --> 00:05:53.790 align:middle line:90% deep into the Bush. 00:05:53.790 --> 00:05:56.460 align:middle line:90% Not fast enough, nor far. 00:05:56.460 --> 00:05:59.610 align:middle line:84% The barracoons witnessed the right. 00:05:59.610 --> 00:06:00.960 align:middle line:90% I paid the pounds. 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:02.610 align:middle line:90% We paid the pounds. 00:06:02.610 --> 00:06:06.285 align:middle line:84% We are paying the pounds, paying the pounds at Popo." 00:06:06.285 --> 00:06:14.090 align:middle line:90% 00:06:14.090 --> 00:06:20.210 align:middle line:84% This is probably where the poem should begin. 00:06:20.210 --> 00:06:22.160 align:middle line:84% It's called Dig Down Olduvai which 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:28.700 align:middle line:84% is a gorge that runs through Tanzania and Kenya. 00:06:28.700 --> 00:06:30.380 align:middle line:84% And every time people go out there 00:06:30.380 --> 00:06:36.050 align:middle line:84% they find these bones that are about 60 million years old. 00:06:36.050 --> 00:06:39.260 align:middle line:84% And the guy from the Cleveland Museum went out 00:06:39.260 --> 00:06:43.220 align:middle line:84% and he dug up the skull of a female. 00:06:43.220 --> 00:06:45.140 align:middle line:84% I think it was 5 million years old. 00:06:45.140 --> 00:06:48.050 align:middle line:84% And he was so happy to have found it. 00:06:48.050 --> 00:06:52.190 align:middle line:84% He called her Lucy, for Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. 00:06:52.190 --> 00:06:55.550 align:middle line:90% 00:06:55.550 --> 00:06:57.260 align:middle line:90% "Dig down Olduvai. 00:06:57.260 --> 00:06:59.330 align:middle line:90% Digging down, digging down. 00:06:59.330 --> 00:07:03.500 align:middle line:84% In the rift, in the heat, digging down in Africa. 00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:05.210 align:middle line:84% Through the present, dig on down, 00:07:05.210 --> 00:07:07.010 align:middle line:90% through the past dig on down. 00:07:07.010 --> 00:07:11.210 align:middle line:84% Deeper down, deeper down through history. 00:07:11.210 --> 00:07:14.690 align:middle line:84% Past the pharaohs, digging down, past the mythos, digging down. 00:07:14.690 --> 00:07:18.770 align:middle line:84% Through the false books, digging down in Olduvai. 00:07:18.770 --> 00:07:21.320 align:middle line:84% In the heat, dig on down, on the slope dig 00:07:21.320 --> 00:07:25.340 align:middle line:84% on down, deep, deep, down in Africa. 00:07:25.340 --> 00:07:29.360 align:middle line:84% Darden Broom digging down, Louis Leakey digging down, 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:33.530 align:middle line:84% Don Johanson digging down in Africa. 00:07:33.530 --> 00:07:35.540 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] digging down. 00:07:35.540 --> 00:07:37.970 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] digging down. 00:07:37.970 --> 00:07:42.140 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] digging down in Olduvai. 00:07:42.140 --> 00:07:44.370 align:middle line:90% Here's a jawbone dig on down. 00:07:44.370 --> 00:07:46.730 align:middle line:90% Here's a head bone dig on down. 00:07:46.730 --> 00:07:50.930 align:middle line:84% There is a foot bone buried there in Olduvai. 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:52.940 align:middle line:90% Homo sapiens, dig, dig down. 00:07:52.940 --> 00:07:54.710 align:middle line:90% Homo habilis, deeper down. 00:07:54.710 --> 00:07:59.150 align:middle line:84% Zinjanthropus digging down in Olduvai. 00:07:59.150 --> 00:08:03.380 align:middle line:84% Australopithecus in the heat, Kenyapithecus way deep down. 00:08:03.380 --> 00:08:04.550 align:middle line:90% Here is Lucy. 00:08:04.550 --> 00:08:05.840 align:middle line:90% You Love Lucy. 00:08:05.840 --> 00:08:07.325 align:middle line:90% Digging down in Africa." 00:08:07.325 --> 00:08:10.560 align:middle line:90% 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:15.420 align:middle line:84% And then the people move westward into the new world. 00:08:15.420 --> 00:08:19.080 align:middle line:84% This is Corey and Jones of Carriacou. 00:08:19.080 --> 00:08:20.820 align:middle line:84% And Carriacou is one of the islands 00:08:20.820 --> 00:08:25.200 align:middle line:84% of the Grenadines, that little series of islands 00:08:25.200 --> 00:08:31.440 align:middle line:84% that constitute such a threat to our government with-- 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:35.940 align:middle line:90% I don't know, 126,000 people. 00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:38.340 align:middle line:90% "Corey and Jones of Carriacou. 00:08:38.340 --> 00:08:42.600 align:middle line:84% Caliber bread from clans long dead singer of keg 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:46.170 align:middle line:90% drums bright painted in hues. 00:08:46.170 --> 00:08:49.560 align:middle line:84% Corian clears the carob's view from wind stained hills 00:08:49.560 --> 00:08:54.960 align:middle line:84% to sunset red sea-freed sun on Carriacou. 00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:58.290 align:middle line:84% Corey and Jones will drum for you rhythms of Igboland 00:08:58.290 --> 00:09:02.910 align:middle line:84% yet undead and ask if you're an Igbo too. 00:09:02.910 --> 00:09:06.330 align:middle line:84% He drums atop old [INAUDIBLE] big drummer Jones, 00:09:06.330 --> 00:09:11.790 align:middle line:84% his legs outspread and winds that hear his father's blue. 00:09:11.790 --> 00:09:16.290 align:middle line:84% Casting beyond this Carriacou, Nuncy, Shango and tribe spoon 00:09:16.290 --> 00:09:17.310 align:middle line:90% fed. 00:09:17.310 --> 00:09:20.130 align:middle line:90% Cargoes, captains, cruise. 00:09:20.130 --> 00:09:23.220 align:middle line:84% To finger beat palm slap knuckle tattoo 00:09:23.220 --> 00:09:25.350 align:middle line:84% for a seeker who searches here have 00:09:25.350 --> 00:09:29.430 align:middle line:84% led to Corey and Jones of Carriacou. 00:09:29.430 --> 00:09:31.725 align:middle line:90% Evil astride this changed venue. 00:09:31.725 --> 00:09:38.250 align:middle line:90% 00:09:38.250 --> 00:09:45.300 align:middle line:84% And sometimes people manage to get away to other thoughts 00:09:45.300 --> 00:09:48.390 align:middle line:90% the caretaker. 00:09:48.390 --> 00:09:52.200 align:middle line:84% Our land is owned by catastrophe volcanoes 00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:56.940 align:middle line:84% cracked its crust and blackened skies that now are blue. 00:09:56.940 --> 00:09:59.850 align:middle line:84% Warm tides entombed the trilobite in mud 00:09:59.850 --> 00:10:02.580 align:middle line:90% that mixed the limestone. 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:06.750 align:middle line:84% The land was sold by a farmer to me measured, granted, 00:10:06.750 --> 00:10:08.760 align:middle line:90% deeded to death. 00:10:08.760 --> 00:10:11.550 align:middle line:90% Dug up, picked up, and dammed. 00:10:11.550 --> 00:10:16.170 align:middle line:84% Its boundary as barbed and wire or stacked with stones. 00:10:16.170 --> 00:10:19.770 align:middle line:90% I caretake take this land. 00:10:19.770 --> 00:10:22.320 align:middle line:84% How can it be this land is owned? 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:25.380 align:middle line:90% The timid white pays no tax. 00:10:25.380 --> 00:10:31.140 align:middle line:84% Emits Ebony nuggets to say it seems that it is hers and laces 00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:34.650 align:middle line:90% trails atop the hills. 00:10:34.650 --> 00:10:36.030 align:middle line:90% This land is owned. 00:10:36.030 --> 00:10:37.860 align:middle line:90% How can that be? 00:10:37.860 --> 00:10:40.770 align:middle line:84% The slick red fox knows mortgage none. 00:10:40.770 --> 00:10:44.160 align:middle line:84% Nor turkey heard but seldom seen. 00:10:44.160 --> 00:10:48.300 align:middle line:84% Blue heron fly to fish not banks while [INAUDIBLE] 00:10:48.300 --> 00:10:51.570 align:middle line:90% rides the Valley down. 00:10:51.570 --> 00:10:56.220 align:middle line:84% Benignly I nurture bluebells, Susans brown or black. 00:10:56.220 --> 00:11:01.020 align:middle line:84% Pope white buds on apple trees, lilies and lilacs. 00:11:01.020 --> 00:11:04.560 align:middle line:84% Cool hawks that glide on silver gusts. 00:11:04.560 --> 00:11:08.940 align:middle line:84% Rainbows crannied in the sun swept pond. 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:11.550 align:middle line:90% I caretake these acres. 00:11:11.550 --> 00:11:16.440 align:middle line:84% Except their blustering blankets of snow ascending summer mists 00:11:16.440 --> 00:11:20.040 align:middle line:84% that free the sun to streak the blue with gold. 00:11:20.040 --> 00:11:24.060 align:middle line:90% The spattered fantasies of fall. 00:11:24.060 --> 00:11:26.430 align:middle line:90% I caretake this land. 00:11:26.430 --> 00:11:30.600 align:middle line:84% Incur the seedlings of green giants to grow. 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:34.020 align:middle line:90% Desegregate raw wild roses. 00:11:34.020 --> 00:11:37.260 align:middle line:84% Cajole with care, color, and scent 00:11:37.260 --> 00:11:40.020 align:middle line:84% to match my time as wardens will. 00:11:40.020 --> 00:11:42.940 align:middle line:90% 00:11:42.940 --> 00:11:44.560 align:middle line:84% But in the same neighborhood, there 00:11:44.560 --> 00:11:46.615 align:middle line:84% is the South Worcester mission house. 00:11:46.615 --> 00:11:49.620 align:middle line:90% 00:11:49.620 --> 00:11:53.040 align:middle line:84% Down there below the sugar maples just so 00:11:53.040 --> 00:11:57.750 align:middle line:84% around that cluster of white fur, passed the stand of birch. 00:11:57.750 --> 00:12:02.430 align:middle line:84% It droops down there peeling and poor right on the hard road. 00:12:02.430 --> 00:12:04.890 align:middle line:84% Across from the weathered old white church, 00:12:04.890 --> 00:12:09.390 align:middle line:84% right there on the green valley floor. 00:12:09.390 --> 00:12:15.180 align:middle line:84% The mission house sits long, empty, silent. 00:12:15.180 --> 00:12:19.860 align:middle line:84% In summer inside it smells of wood sap cooked slowly by sun. 00:12:19.860 --> 00:12:22.590 align:middle line:90% A century plus half. 00:12:22.590 --> 00:12:25.650 align:middle line:90% Oak planks, pop slivers. 00:12:25.650 --> 00:12:29.280 align:middle line:84% Nails scream softly out of place. 00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:34.510 align:middle line:90% Wasps come home to holes of mud. 00:12:34.510 --> 00:12:39.240 align:middle line:84% A corn snake coils like painted sausage in the coolest corner 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:43.200 align:middle line:84% starting now like pulled long rope as the floor size 00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:45.270 align:middle line:90% beneath steps. 00:12:45.270 --> 00:12:48.120 align:middle line:90% Silent, long. 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:50.220 align:middle line:90% No echoes of song. 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:53.220 align:middle line:90% No remnants of prayers. 00:12:53.220 --> 00:12:57.090 align:middle line:90% God has fled this house. 00:12:57.090 --> 00:13:01.830 align:middle line:84% Across the sun-baked road cell sculpts racing cars. 00:13:01.830 --> 00:13:06.030 align:middle line:84% He [? rod ?] Jack Ray Joes and cranked it up the altar. 00:13:06.030 --> 00:13:10.050 align:middle line:84% Black Jack Ray Joe who ripped round old Western tracks 00:13:10.050 --> 00:13:12.210 align:middle line:90% to nowhere. 00:13:12.210 --> 00:13:14.880 align:middle line:84% Charlotte Valley sun glows through storm 00:13:14.880 --> 00:13:19.980 align:middle line:84% specked stained glass, while sale sips chivas and beer 00:13:19.980 --> 00:13:22.590 align:middle line:90% among his cars. 00:13:22.590 --> 00:13:25.710 align:middle line:84% He pisses were once the pulpit stood. 00:13:25.710 --> 00:13:27.990 align:middle line:90% The space his bathroom. 00:13:27.990 --> 00:13:32.010 align:middle line:84% Vaulted high where hawks wheel like dreams and blue. 00:13:32.010 --> 00:13:36.570 align:middle line:90% Scratching ease against the sky. 00:13:36.570 --> 00:13:40.950 align:middle line:84% The Christians worshipped in cells old church in grace. 00:13:40.950 --> 00:13:43.560 align:middle line:90% They'd built the mission house. 00:13:43.560 --> 00:13:48.870 align:middle line:84% Even one slave, a girl said they, is owed a worship place. 00:13:48.870 --> 00:13:51.390 align:middle line:90% Join her those who care. 00:13:51.390 --> 00:13:53.880 align:middle line:90% Guide her to a Christian ease. 00:13:53.880 --> 00:13:57.570 align:middle line:84% But there near that cluster of white fur trees." 00:13:57.570 --> 00:14:07.290 align:middle line:90% 00:14:07.290 --> 00:14:11.790 align:middle line:84% I don't have a title for this section yet. 00:14:11.790 --> 00:14:15.870 align:middle line:84% But it's a bit more contemporary. 00:14:15.870 --> 00:14:16.980 align:middle line:90% In a way it's not. 00:14:16.980 --> 00:14:20.400 align:middle line:90% 00:14:20.400 --> 00:14:22.770 align:middle line:84% "Father fled Mississippi under a fresh load 00:14:22.770 --> 00:14:25.710 align:middle line:84% of hay dressed in a starched white shirt grown dirty 00:14:25.710 --> 00:14:27.540 align:middle line:90% from the floorboards. 00:14:27.540 --> 00:14:30.540 align:middle line:84% And the flowering on his shoulder, a red bud of blood 00:14:30.540 --> 00:14:33.510 align:middle line:90% from a pitch fork time. 00:14:33.510 --> 00:14:36.030 align:middle line:84% When in darkness it hissed through the hay 00:14:36.030 --> 00:14:40.170 align:middle line:84% of steel, tonsil howling, and blood lusty vortex. 00:14:40.170 --> 00:14:42.720 align:middle line:90% He sucked the pain in silence. 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:45.810 align:middle line:84% Even when the sound slid like the baying of bloodhounds 00:14:45.810 --> 00:14:48.180 align:middle line:90% back down the road. 00:14:48.180 --> 00:14:49.530 align:middle line:90% He heard the horse. 00:14:49.530 --> 00:14:52.380 align:middle line:90% Hurried North its ancient hoofs. 00:14:52.380 --> 00:14:56.370 align:middle line:84% North which he should not have left and would not again. 00:14:56.370 --> 00:14:59.340 align:middle line:90% Never ever, ever again. 00:14:59.340 --> 00:15:02.760 align:middle line:90% So the tale is told. 00:15:02.760 --> 00:15:06.990 align:middle line:84% His sojourn South started with mother's journey North. 00:15:06.990 --> 00:15:11.010 align:middle line:84% Cute with quieted eyes and Velvet voice. 00:15:11.010 --> 00:15:15.090 align:middle line:84% Certified and cleaning, cooking and baby care. 00:15:15.090 --> 00:15:17.460 align:middle line:84% Veneered with yes ma'am's and no ma'am, 00:15:17.460 --> 00:15:22.020 align:middle line:84% she left the land steerage and a seaboard special. 00:15:22.020 --> 00:15:25.620 align:middle line:84% North to live in with God fearing church people. 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:28.470 align:middle line:90% Carpetbaggers of God. 00:15:28.470 --> 00:15:31.800 align:middle line:84% She worked without wages till her fare and extras 00:15:31.800 --> 00:15:33.660 align:middle line:90% were more than paid for. 00:15:33.660 --> 00:15:37.770 align:middle line:84% The usual arrangement of freedom. 00:15:37.770 --> 00:15:40.500 align:middle line:90% Thursdays off and Theda Bara. 00:15:40.500 --> 00:15:43.050 align:middle line:84% Mother mailed money home, scrawled letters 00:15:43.050 --> 00:15:49.290 align:middle line:84% about hip deep snow and frozen milk and the AME Zion Church. 00:15:49.290 --> 00:15:52.470 align:middle line:84% These grandchildren of Tony and Sarah Jones of Gorman 00:15:52.470 --> 00:15:55.950 align:middle line:84% and Margaret Williams of the fled and fleeing still. 00:15:55.950 --> 00:16:00.180 align:middle line:84% Egg sperm entities of mixtures praised and despised. 00:16:00.180 --> 00:16:02.850 align:middle line:90% Forgotten or almost. 00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:06.120 align:middle line:84% Bronze urns bearing the ash of legend. 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:11.730 align:middle line:84% Well, they met, married, made love in the black town hovels 00:16:11.730 --> 00:16:14.640 align:middle line:84% beside the slow heaving Erie Canal, 00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:18.030 align:middle line:84% where father liked to wear a starched white shirts even 00:16:18.030 --> 00:16:20.100 align:middle line:90% to work. 00:16:20.100 --> 00:16:22.590 align:middle line:84% In a period pregnant with applied science, 00:16:22.590 --> 00:16:25.980 align:middle line:84% he was a common laborer, and proud. 00:16:25.980 --> 00:16:28.620 align:middle line:84% One among millions whose bodies had not yet 00:16:28.620 --> 00:16:31.830 align:middle line:90% been tamed by the machines. 00:16:31.830 --> 00:16:34.470 align:middle line:90% He gloried in his body. 00:16:34.470 --> 00:16:35.370 align:middle line:90% So did mother. 00:16:35.370 --> 00:16:36.270 align:middle line:90% Glory, it's good! 00:16:36.270 --> 00:16:39.210 align:middle line:90% Hallelujah. 00:16:39.210 --> 00:16:42.390 align:middle line:90% Genes get to grow in glories. 00:16:42.390 --> 00:16:45.540 align:middle line:90% Stagnant canal smell sweet. 00:16:45.540 --> 00:16:47.700 align:middle line:84% Hard times hate the halo of glory. 00:16:47.700 --> 00:16:49.950 align:middle line:90% Hastened, rounded, pause. 00:16:49.950 --> 00:16:51.900 align:middle line:90% They are patient. 00:16:51.900 --> 00:16:55.680 align:middle line:84% Glory is a sun flare on a dead moon. 00:16:55.680 --> 00:16:58.200 align:middle line:84% It was not that Gorman's errors turned her out, 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:01.260 align:middle line:84% not that they did not love her liquid laugh 00:17:01.260 --> 00:17:03.720 align:middle line:90% or sassy southern ways. 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:08.579 align:middle line:84% She was, simply said, homesick and swelling with glory. 00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:12.390 align:middle line:84% Father agreed, the train fare was gathered, bonneted, blown 00:17:12.390 --> 00:17:14.160 align:middle line:90% with pride at her bigness. 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:15.720 align:middle line:90% She reversed flight. 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:19.140 align:middle line:84% Went home to where the Rattlers rested atop the fireplace 00:17:19.140 --> 00:17:20.579 align:middle line:90% chimney bricks. 00:17:20.579 --> 00:17:25.530 align:middle line:84% To Grandpa Joe Jones, hardscrabble, dirt farm. 00:17:25.530 --> 00:17:28.650 align:middle line:84% A bit more than half a quarter section. 00:17:28.650 --> 00:17:32.280 align:middle line:90% In due course, the midwife came. 00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:36.030 align:middle line:84% Joe Jones got the land in MI, crooked letter, crooked letter, 00:17:36.030 --> 00:17:41.280 align:middle line:84% I humpback, humpback, I, down through his father, Tony. 00:17:41.280 --> 00:17:45.330 align:middle line:84% Who lived for 35 years as a slave and 47 years 00:17:45.330 --> 00:17:48.780 align:middle line:84% as a Black man reputed to be free. 00:17:48.780 --> 00:17:51.330 align:middle line:84% Tony saw 21 presidents come and go 00:17:51.330 --> 00:17:53.220 align:middle line:84% and not one helped him with so much 00:17:53.220 --> 00:17:56.910 align:middle line:84% as a square inch of his scrabble land. 00:17:56.910 --> 00:17:58.770 align:middle line:90% It was all the same to him. 00:17:58.770 --> 00:18:02.340 align:middle line:90% White and far away. 00:18:02.340 --> 00:18:05.700 align:middle line:90% We are not a cussing clan. 00:18:05.700 --> 00:18:10.140 align:middle line:84% But at 82 grandpa Tony must have said, fuck it, Lord. 00:18:10.140 --> 00:18:12.030 align:middle line:90% Bring me on home. 00:18:12.030 --> 00:18:14.640 align:middle line:90% The request was honored. 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:19.620 align:middle line:84% Mother remembers at age of eight the church bell tolling to 82. 00:18:19.620 --> 00:18:22.020 align:middle line:84% And seeing a fly buzzing under the netting 00:18:22.020 --> 00:18:25.230 align:middle line:90% stretched taut over Tony's face. 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:26.220 align:middle line:90% Shoo, fly. 00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:29.790 align:middle line:90% Grandpa Tony don't need company. 00:18:29.790 --> 00:18:34.320 align:middle line:84% The land came down to Joseph, born in 1875. 00:18:34.320 --> 00:18:37.560 align:middle line:84% White man heard there might be oil on Joe Jones' land. 00:18:37.560 --> 00:18:39.420 align:middle line:90% Approached him about a trade. 00:18:39.420 --> 00:18:42.270 align:middle line:90% His land was better than Joe's. 00:18:42.270 --> 00:18:44.310 align:middle line:90% They shook on the deal. 00:18:44.310 --> 00:18:46.350 align:middle line:84% Grandpa Joe got the good land, Cracker 00:18:46.350 --> 00:18:49.530 align:middle line:84% got the bad, and grandpa blessed greed. 00:18:49.530 --> 00:18:53.520 align:middle line:84% Oil people poked around, perfumed like money. 00:18:53.520 --> 00:18:56.550 align:middle line:84% Folk got oil rig stamped on their eyeballs, got 00:18:56.550 --> 00:18:58.740 align:middle line:90% to thinking white folks did. 00:18:58.740 --> 00:19:03.480 align:middle line:84% Of pretty women and nice houses with inside plumbing. 00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:06.990 align:middle line:84% And cars they didn't have to crank. 00:19:06.990 --> 00:19:09.180 align:middle line:90% Oil people sniffed and snuffled. 00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:12.120 align:middle line:90% Ran up hills and down the dales. 00:19:12.120 --> 00:19:15.930 align:middle line:84% But they found no oil in Hinds County and the cracker 00:19:15.930 --> 00:19:19.770 align:middle line:84% traded grandpa back at the point of a double barrel shotgun 00:19:19.770 --> 00:19:23.190 align:middle line:90% and a pen pushing county clerk. 00:19:23.190 --> 00:19:26.370 align:middle line:84% Mother returned there, refused to look up at the warming 00:19:26.370 --> 00:19:29.970 align:middle line:90% Rattlers in the rafters. 00:19:29.970 --> 00:19:33.030 align:middle line:84% Father worked his way South with a circus. 00:19:33.030 --> 00:19:37.830 align:middle line:84% 1,800 miles of shoveling horse shit and elephant caca. 00:19:37.830 --> 00:19:43.140 align:middle line:84% Tiger turds, gorilla shit, and zebra boo boo. 00:19:43.140 --> 00:19:47.880 align:middle line:84% In a starched white shirt of good cotton cloth. 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:51.990 align:middle line:84% At grandpa's, said they and that soft southern way, 00:19:51.990 --> 00:19:56.460 align:middle line:84% folks down here don't wear white shirts during the week. 00:19:56.460 --> 00:19:59.430 align:middle line:84% Also they'd formed the unhappy but life lengthening 00:19:59.430 --> 00:20:03.030 align:middle line:84% habit of moving out of the way of white folks. 00:20:03.030 --> 00:20:06.270 align:middle line:90% That's so, father said. 00:20:06.270 --> 00:20:09.390 align:middle line:84% Then trouble came, no name necessary. 00:20:09.390 --> 00:20:11.880 align:middle line:90% The victim urgently needed. 00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:16.320 align:middle line:84% They came unable even to pronounce innocent. 00:20:16.320 --> 00:20:18.720 align:middle line:84% Father the only available stranger 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:21.750 align:middle line:84% did not stay to spell it for them. 00:20:21.750 --> 00:20:25.500 align:middle line:90% They tell the tale this way. 00:20:25.500 --> 00:20:28.440 align:middle line:84% The sun in Sagittarius saw me and slid me 00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:32.370 align:middle line:84% smoothly into the midwife's mellow hands. 00:20:32.370 --> 00:20:35.400 align:middle line:90% Two hours passed, peak of night. 00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:40.230 align:middle line:84% Did mother scream for me or for father then in flight? 00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:43.620 align:middle line:84% Six months there as seasons change, so North again. 00:20:43.620 --> 00:20:45.870 align:middle line:90% Cradling a tit-crazed boy. 00:20:45.870 --> 00:20:50.460 align:middle line:84% Firstborn off the land in '95 years from grandpa Tony. 00:20:50.460 --> 00:20:54.000 align:middle line:84% Longer there in lingered blackness. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:58.650 align:middle line:84% Where is the glory that hurries between homes? 00:20:58.650 --> 00:21:01.050 align:middle line:84% Grandpa Gorman's folks had fled the lower land 00:21:01.050 --> 00:21:03.090 align:middle line:84% before the railroad was finished. 00:21:03.090 --> 00:21:03.840 align:middle line:90% Couldn't wait. 00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:06.420 align:middle line:84% Some things don't need no organizing. 00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:10.170 align:middle line:84% And so ran out of steam in Syracuse. 00:21:10.170 --> 00:21:13.470 align:middle line:84% Later came Garrison and Garrett Smith, Beecher, and some 00:21:13.470 --> 00:21:15.630 align:middle line:90% say old John Brown. 00:21:15.630 --> 00:21:18.960 align:middle line:84% Ward and made Douglass and Tubman. 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:20.760 align:middle line:84% They preached the power of freedom 00:21:20.760 --> 00:21:22.590 align:middle line:84% and in the cellar of Yates castle 00:21:22.590 --> 00:21:25.380 align:middle line:84% built a station of the railroad amidst 00:21:25.380 --> 00:21:28.260 align:middle line:90% that nest of copperheads. 00:21:28.260 --> 00:21:30.600 align:middle line:84% Through tree named streets, the slave catchers 00:21:30.600 --> 00:21:34.650 align:middle line:84% slid up Maple, down Apple, around Orange. 00:21:34.650 --> 00:21:37.710 align:middle line:84% Pouncing on the free and fugitive alike. 00:21:37.710 --> 00:21:41.970 align:middle line:84% Freedom was invisible in the flotsam left from Africa. 00:21:41.970 --> 00:21:46.090 align:middle line:84% Some of Garmin's folks slipped farther North and some states 00:21:46.090 --> 00:21:48.840 align:middle line:90% surly in Syracuse. 00:21:48.840 --> 00:21:52.050 align:middle line:84% The North was different but endure it 00:21:52.050 --> 00:21:55.980 align:middle line:84% when Gorman wed Margaret in 1838. 00:21:55.980 --> 00:22:01.590 align:middle line:84% Down the lower land, grandpa Tony, just turned eight." 00:22:01.590 --> 00:22:05.880 align:middle line:84% So that's more or less where I am in this, 00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:10.020 align:middle line:90% dare I call it, epic poem. 00:22:10.020 --> 00:22:13.350 align:middle line:90% OK I'd like to read-- 00:22:13.350 --> 00:22:18.930 align:middle line:84% I'll try to connect these sections from [INAUDIBLE] which 00:22:18.930 --> 00:22:21.240 align:middle line:90% was published last year. 00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:24.480 align:middle line:90% 00:22:24.480 --> 00:22:26.100 align:middle line:84% That's click with the exclamation 00:22:26.100 --> 00:22:29.520 align:middle line:84% point in front of the first letter of the title. 00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:37.510 align:middle line:90% 00:22:37.510 --> 00:22:39.460 align:middle line:84% "From Algeciras I made my way North 00:22:39.460 --> 00:22:43.000 align:middle line:84% with along the coast through bone dry lands. 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:45.220 align:middle line:84% Past little Memorial set in front of homes 00:22:45.220 --> 00:22:48.070 align:middle line:84% commemorating the dead of the Civil War. 00:22:48.070 --> 00:22:51.850 align:middle line:84% Until finally, I came to Sitges, about 30 miles South 00:22:51.850 --> 00:22:53.920 align:middle line:90% of Barcelona. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:56.830 align:middle line:84% Oddly though, I had never been there, I was in a strange way 00:22:56.830 --> 00:22:58.990 align:middle line:84% familiar with its daily vibrations. 00:22:58.990 --> 00:23:03.370 align:middle line:84% The look of it when I located at the opposite end of the town. 00:23:03.370 --> 00:23:08.530 align:middle line:84% Away from the landscaped gardens of the British residents. 00:23:08.530 --> 00:23:11.170 align:middle line:84% I was at last alone in a large cheaply rented 00:23:11.170 --> 00:23:15.040 align:middle line:84% house and a sweet quiet stroke by the sound of the waves. 00:23:15.040 --> 00:23:19.060 align:middle line:84% And sometimes the wind careening against the mountains. 00:23:19.060 --> 00:23:23.410 align:middle line:84% I had never known such threadless quiet in my life. 00:23:23.410 --> 00:23:26.080 align:middle line:84% I sat down almost at once and wrote long letters 00:23:26.080 --> 00:23:28.630 align:middle line:84% to nearly everyone I knew in New York. 00:23:28.630 --> 00:23:32.500 align:middle line:84% And this was simply because I wish to receive answers. 00:23:32.500 --> 00:23:35.050 align:middle line:84% Getting mail is a necessity for most writers. 00:23:35.050 --> 00:23:37.900 align:middle line:84% It reaches in from faraway places, 00:23:37.900 --> 00:23:42.310 align:middle line:84% bringing the smells, colors, sounds, memories, lends vistas 00:23:42.310 --> 00:23:45.220 align:middle line:90% beyond the cold mute typewriter. 00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:48.490 align:middle line:84% The mail tells you that you are not yet dead even though you 00:23:48.490 --> 00:23:50.470 align:middle line:84% may have lived a life that has encompassed 00:23:50.470 --> 00:23:55.180 align:middle line:90% both the 3 and the $0.15 stamp." 00:23:55.180 --> 00:23:58.660 align:middle line:84% Its $0.20 now, but I can't help that. 00:23:58.660 --> 00:24:01.450 align:middle line:90% 00:24:01.450 --> 00:24:03.700 align:middle line:84% "I initiated a correspondence with Paul 00:24:03.700 --> 00:24:07.030 align:middle line:84% based on the image of the Negro and American literature. 00:24:07.030 --> 00:24:09.130 align:middle line:84% We had never talked of these things before. 00:24:09.130 --> 00:24:11.830 align:middle line:84% Feeling under some constraint because of our friendship, 00:24:11.830 --> 00:24:13.390 align:middle line:90% I suppose. 00:24:13.390 --> 00:24:15.430 align:middle line:84% Much of the imagery I said was light, 00:24:15.430 --> 00:24:18.610 align:middle line:84% formless, and basically filled with a racial prejudice 00:24:18.610 --> 00:24:20.350 align:middle line:84% through just about every white writer's 00:24:20.350 --> 00:24:23.560 align:middle line:84% traditional romantic view of Negroes. 00:24:23.560 --> 00:24:25.960 align:middle line:84% There were a few exceptions, but usually Negroes 00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:29.170 align:middle line:84% were just plain niggers or they were niggers with music. 00:24:29.170 --> 00:24:32.110 align:middle line:84% Faulkner sometimes brought depth to Black people. 00:24:32.110 --> 00:24:34.780 align:middle line:84% But most American writers who are white, I wrote, 00:24:34.780 --> 00:24:37.660 align:middle line:84% still were not freed from prejudice. 00:24:37.660 --> 00:24:39.490 align:middle line:84% Perhaps, Paul wrote, the beat writers 00:24:39.490 --> 00:24:40.870 align:middle line:90% would represent a change. 00:24:40.870 --> 00:24:42.520 align:middle line:84% He had been hearing much about some 00:24:42.520 --> 00:24:45.340 align:middle line:84% of the works that soon would be published. 00:24:45.340 --> 00:24:48.100 align:middle line:84% There was also talk about a piece mailer was working on. 00:24:48.100 --> 00:24:50.890 align:middle line:84% The Jew and existential connection between the beats 00:24:50.890 --> 00:24:53.860 align:middle line:90% hipsters and Negro life. 00:24:53.860 --> 00:24:55.300 align:middle line:84% It was true, I replied, that there 00:24:55.300 --> 00:24:58.090 align:middle line:84% might be an existential connection between jazz music 00:24:58.090 --> 00:24:58.720 align:middle line:90% and Negroes. 00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:00.850 align:middle line:84% Maybe just as there was a connection 00:25:00.850 --> 00:25:04.660 align:middle line:84% between the German people and Wagner's music. 00:25:04.660 --> 00:25:06.790 align:middle line:84% I was sure, however, that the connection did not 00:25:06.790 --> 00:25:09.370 align:middle line:84% extend to the beat simply because they did not have 00:25:09.370 --> 00:25:11.740 align:middle line:90% to be what they chose to be. 00:25:11.740 --> 00:25:17.590 align:middle line:84% The range of choices for Negroes was in most cases non-existent. 00:25:17.590 --> 00:25:20.650 align:middle line:84% In addition, I noted since I was becoming acutely aware of it 00:25:20.650 --> 00:25:23.890 align:middle line:84% in my Spanish solitude, the Negroes 00:25:23.890 --> 00:25:27.100 align:middle line:84% rarely were allowed to be experts about themselves. 00:25:27.100 --> 00:25:29.500 align:middle line:84% Others always knew more, wrote or said more, 00:25:29.500 --> 00:25:32.050 align:middle line:84% at least what they said or wrote got around more. 00:25:32.050 --> 00:25:35.470 align:middle line:84% And certainly was given more credence. 00:25:35.470 --> 00:25:38.230 align:middle line:84% In this vein purified by distance, 00:25:38.230 --> 00:25:42.430 align:middle line:84% I like to think that our dimensions expanded. 00:25:42.430 --> 00:25:44.770 align:middle line:90% I did not dream the old dream. 00:25:44.770 --> 00:25:47.605 align:middle line:84% Time was measured only by the grumbling of my stomach 00:25:47.605 --> 00:25:48.730 align:middle line:90% or the call of the mailman. 00:25:48.730 --> 00:25:52.360 align:middle line:90% 00:25:52.360 --> 00:25:53.800 align:middle line:90% I worked long, but easily. 00:25:53.800 --> 00:25:57.040 align:middle line:84% Like a distance runner who has found his stride. 00:25:57.040 --> 00:25:59.950 align:middle line:84% Whose breathing and soft thumps of his feet against the ground 00:25:59.950 --> 00:26:02.050 align:middle line:90% are his only rhythms. 00:26:02.050 --> 00:26:04.300 align:middle line:84% When I felt need of a pause, a change, 00:26:04.300 --> 00:26:09.790 align:middle line:84% being as full as a gourmand, and as satisfied, I went to Paris. 00:26:09.790 --> 00:26:12.520 align:middle line:84% Sidney Bechet reminded me of blind Willie Lemon 00:26:12.520 --> 00:26:14.620 align:middle line:90% at the Stuyvesant Casino. 00:26:14.620 --> 00:26:17.200 align:middle line:84% But even so, his life was better in France 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:19.660 align:middle line:90% than it had been at home. 00:26:19.660 --> 00:26:21.970 align:middle line:84% John Coltrane had not yet come along, 00:26:21.970 --> 00:26:24.520 align:middle line:84% but one day if someone does a study on the soprano 00:26:24.520 --> 00:26:28.420 align:middle line:84% sax and the changes its use made in popular music, 00:26:28.420 --> 00:26:31.930 align:middle line:84% they will have to study Sidney Bechet too. 00:26:31.930 --> 00:26:35.920 align:middle line:84% Professor Bechet, student of Bunk Johnson, Big Eye Nelson 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:37.540 align:middle line:90% and Storyville. 00:26:37.540 --> 00:26:41.020 align:middle line:84% Former resident of New Orleans, Chicago, in New York. 00:26:41.020 --> 00:26:44.110 align:middle line:84% Ex-member of the noble Sicilians Eddie Singleton bands 00:26:44.110 --> 00:26:46.390 align:middle line:90% among half 100 more. 00:26:46.390 --> 00:26:48.910 align:middle line:84% Leader of the New Orleans feet warmers and the barefoot 00:26:48.910 --> 00:26:50.980 align:middle line:90% Dixieland Philharmonic. 00:26:50.980 --> 00:26:52.870 align:middle line:90% There he was in March. 00:26:52.870 --> 00:26:56.500 align:middle line:84% Somewhat less fat, his widow's peak more severe. 00:26:56.500 --> 00:26:59.260 align:middle line:84% His high cheekbones less padded with the flesh 00:26:59.260 --> 00:27:01.780 align:middle line:90% of younger good times. 00:27:01.780 --> 00:27:05.680 align:middle line:84% I heard him playing his clubs [FRENCH] and with him 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:08.380 align:middle line:84% walked the winter slicked streets, the Rue Lepic, 00:27:08.380 --> 00:27:11.170 align:middle line:90% Rue Durand, Place Saint Pierre. 00:27:11.170 --> 00:27:13.540 align:middle line:84% The shop windows clouded with steam. 00:27:13.540 --> 00:27:16.420 align:middle line:84% Sacre-coeur visible between buildings. 00:27:16.420 --> 00:27:18.700 align:middle line:84% And smelled cooking foods whose scents 00:27:18.700 --> 00:27:21.040 align:middle line:90% leaked out into the street. 00:27:21.040 --> 00:27:23.260 align:middle line:84% I absorbed his reminiscences there as 00:27:23.260 --> 00:27:25.240 align:middle line:84% though I were a well designed to hold 00:27:25.240 --> 00:27:28.390 align:middle line:90% an infinite amount of water. 00:27:28.390 --> 00:27:31.930 align:middle line:84% As we strolled secure in our Blackness for Brown people, 00:27:31.930 --> 00:27:35.460 align:middle line:84% sometimes Algerian, and sometimes African-Americans, 00:27:35.460 --> 00:27:38.400 align:middle line:84% often South Americans, were abused daily 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:41.880 align:middle line:84% by swooping squads of gendarmes who fought the Algerian 00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:43.590 align:middle line:90% uprising in Paris. 00:27:43.590 --> 00:27:45.660 align:middle line:84% And who ignored the plastiques which 00:27:45.660 --> 00:27:48.210 align:middle line:84% were going off with tiresome regularity 00:27:48.210 --> 00:27:50.220 align:middle line:90% over in the Latin quarter. 00:27:50.220 --> 00:27:54.360 align:middle line:90% I drank it all in, digested it. 00:27:54.360 --> 00:27:56.460 align:middle line:84% And I wondered as all writers must do, 00:27:56.460 --> 00:27:57.990 align:middle line:84% if, when I reached his age, there 00:27:57.990 --> 00:28:00.870 align:middle line:84% would be younger writers seeking to talk with me. 00:28:00.870 --> 00:28:03.720 align:middle line:84% To somehow find their measurements against those 00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:05.385 align:middle line:90% I held for myself. 00:28:05.385 --> 00:28:08.160 align:middle line:84% Or to perceive for themselves the pitfalls 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:10.410 align:middle line:90% I never discovered. 00:28:10.410 --> 00:28:13.440 align:middle line:84% The sense was more intense when I found Llewellyn Dodge 00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:15.330 align:middle line:90% Johnson. 00:28:15.330 --> 00:28:18.840 align:middle line:84% He, when young, had come out of the Harlem Renaissance. 00:28:18.840 --> 00:28:20.880 align:middle line:84% Through Jean Toomer he'd been turned down 00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:24.330 align:middle line:84% to Gurdjieff, who was then at Fontainebleau. 00:28:24.330 --> 00:28:26.820 align:middle line:84% Unlike Toomer, Johnson had remained in Europe 00:28:26.820 --> 00:28:28.860 align:middle line:90% even during the war. 00:28:28.860 --> 00:28:31.110 align:middle line:84% He lived in the Rue de Turenne, the short street 00:28:31.110 --> 00:28:34.380 align:middle line:84% overlooked by the [INAUDIBLE] It was 00:28:34.380 --> 00:28:36.690 align:middle line:84% filled with shops and traffic growling out 00:28:36.690 --> 00:28:40.710 align:middle line:84% to the Boulevard Voltaire and the Boulevard [INAUDIBLE].. 00:28:40.710 --> 00:28:44.220 align:middle line:84% The street had little character, it was almost in transition. 00:28:44.220 --> 00:28:46.770 align:middle line:90% As in truth, all of Paris was. 00:28:46.770 --> 00:28:50.580 align:middle line:84% The war had been over for a dozen years. 00:28:50.580 --> 00:28:53.460 align:middle line:84% In his flat, Johnson sat in a soft deep chair 00:28:53.460 --> 00:28:57.210 align:middle line:84% and was dressed in an old suit of good dark material. 00:28:57.210 --> 00:28:59.880 align:middle line:84% The white shirt and precisely tucked gray tie 00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:03.540 align:middle line:84% made me think that he had just dressed for me. 00:29:03.540 --> 00:29:06.330 align:middle line:84% Johnson was a small man and carried about his person 00:29:06.330 --> 00:29:09.150 align:middle line:90% an aura of limitless life. 00:29:09.150 --> 00:29:11.820 align:middle line:84% He leaned down a dark carved walking stick, 00:29:11.820 --> 00:29:14.370 align:middle line:90% and remained almost motionless. 00:29:14.370 --> 00:29:17.490 align:middle line:84% Hunched over, talking about the Renaissance 00:29:17.490 --> 00:29:21.580 align:middle line:84% and what had happened to it and its people. 00:29:21.580 --> 00:29:23.490 align:middle line:84% It was strange, he said, so many of us 00:29:23.490 --> 00:29:26.940 align:middle line:84% were filled with self-hatred, except Langston. 00:29:26.940 --> 00:29:29.610 align:middle line:84% So many of us saw ourselves not through our own eyes, 00:29:29.610 --> 00:29:32.760 align:middle line:84% but to Van Vechten's as he was seeing then, 00:29:32.760 --> 00:29:34.680 align:middle line:90% or Johnny Ferraris. 00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:36.420 align:middle line:90% The downtown crowd loved us. 00:29:36.420 --> 00:29:38.670 align:middle line:90% We had shows on Broadway. 00:29:38.670 --> 00:29:42.240 align:middle line:84% Wally Thurman even worked quietly in Hollywood. 00:29:42.240 --> 00:29:46.290 align:middle line:84% Then as always, we were cruel, even murderous, to each other. 00:29:46.290 --> 00:29:49.560 align:middle line:90% Like cocks set into a pit. 00:29:49.560 --> 00:29:51.840 align:middle line:84% In the light, I could see a ring of vibrant blue 00:29:51.840 --> 00:29:54.150 align:middle line:84% around the pupils of Mr Johnson's eyes. 00:29:54.150 --> 00:29:55.760 align:middle line:90% He fixed them on me. 00:29:55.760 --> 00:29:58.330 align:middle line:84% You young writers should be very careful of that. 00:29:58.330 --> 00:29:59.880 align:middle line:90% We don't remember. 00:29:59.880 --> 00:30:03.240 align:middle line:84% Each Renaissance is the original. 00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:07.560 align:middle line:84% Toomer, he said, gene digested essences. 00:30:07.560 --> 00:30:10.350 align:middle line:84% Things that escaped description by word. 00:30:10.350 --> 00:30:11.790 align:middle line:90% Somehow though, he managed. 00:30:11.790 --> 00:30:13.890 align:middle line:90% He had that eerie ability. 00:30:13.890 --> 00:30:15.600 align:middle line:84% He was one of us who needed to work 00:30:15.600 --> 00:30:18.720 align:middle line:84% beyond the usual definition of the senses. 00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:21.510 align:middle line:84% Dreiser tried, but Dreiser failed. 00:30:21.510 --> 00:30:24.210 align:middle line:84% Gurdjieff couldn't help him with his writing. 00:30:24.210 --> 00:30:27.330 align:middle line:90% Nor could he help me. 00:30:27.330 --> 00:30:29.940 align:middle line:84% He turned his round smooth face to me and smiled, 00:30:29.940 --> 00:30:31.560 align:middle line:84% people like to think of Josephine 00:30:31.560 --> 00:30:33.575 align:middle line:84% Baker around those times too, you know. 00:30:33.575 --> 00:30:35.700 align:middle line:84% But there must have been a hundred, for all I know, 00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:39.300 align:middle line:84% a thousand, poor cunning, good looking black girls, 00:30:39.300 --> 00:30:40.710 align:middle line:90% who walked away with a hearts. 00:30:40.710 --> 00:30:44.340 align:middle line:84% Not to mention some of the wealth of the downtown set. 00:30:44.340 --> 00:30:47.920 align:middle line:84% Department store owners, city and state officials, editors, 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.230 align:middle line:90% publishers. 00:30:49.230 --> 00:30:52.900 align:middle line:84% Those girls made Josephine look like an amateur. 00:30:52.900 --> 00:30:55.620 align:middle line:90% He mused a long time ago. 00:30:55.620 --> 00:30:59.040 align:middle line:84% The edges have become smoothed and softened. 00:30:59.040 --> 00:31:02.400 align:middle line:84% Paul Laurence Dunbar wasn't the first nor the last Negro writer 00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:04.080 align:middle line:90% to be forced into the bottle. 00:31:04.080 --> 00:31:05.730 align:middle line:90% There were lots of us. 00:31:05.730 --> 00:31:07.680 align:middle line:84% I was in it myself for a long time, 00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:10.440 align:middle line:84% practically until I came to Europe. 00:31:10.440 --> 00:31:13.200 align:middle line:84% And the tragedies, Bud Fisher going so young, 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:15.870 align:middle line:90% Wally Thurman, the desertions. 00:31:15.870 --> 00:31:19.320 align:middle line:84% With Nancy Cunard laying golden breadcrumbs for two or three 00:31:19.320 --> 00:31:21.600 align:middle line:90% to pick up and follow. 00:31:21.600 --> 00:31:23.950 align:middle line:84% He was silent for a time, and still bent over, 00:31:23.950 --> 00:31:27.180 align:middle line:84% he seemed to be looking into an invisible glass ball. 00:31:27.180 --> 00:31:29.640 align:middle line:90% Watching the past. 00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:31.890 align:middle line:84% He sighed, America is a strange place 00:31:31.890 --> 00:31:33.990 align:middle line:90% for a Black man to write in. 00:31:33.990 --> 00:31:36.060 align:middle line:90% We always found it so. 00:31:36.060 --> 00:31:38.460 align:middle line:84% But I suppose only [? Countied ?] put 00:31:38.460 --> 00:31:41.790 align:middle line:84% it so succinctly, he swung toward me almost glaring. 00:31:41.790 --> 00:31:44.370 align:middle line:90% You know the poem I mean? 00:31:44.370 --> 00:31:46.770 align:middle line:90% I quoted the last two lines. 00:31:46.770 --> 00:31:51.360 align:middle line:84% Yet do I marvel at this curious thing to make a poet Black 00:31:51.360 --> 00:31:54.800 align:middle line:90% and bid him sing. 00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:58.780 align:middle line:84% Mr. Johnson's smile was warm and approving. 00:31:58.780 --> 00:32:01.130 align:middle line:90% Oh, yes, Mr. Douglas, precisely. 00:32:01.130 --> 00:32:02.900 align:middle line:84% In America, even if you are writing 00:32:02.900 --> 00:32:04.580 align:middle line:84% about a thing as simple as feeling 00:32:04.580 --> 00:32:08.480 align:middle line:84% good on a bright, clear morning filled with fresh air, feeling 00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:10.190 align:middle line:84% as perhaps millions of others are, 00:32:10.190 --> 00:32:12.230 align:middle line:84% they will find it difficult. Yes, 00:32:12.230 --> 00:32:15.380 align:middle line:84% white Americans will find that difficult to understand 00:32:15.380 --> 00:32:18.140 align:middle line:84% because the writer is Black and there are White. 00:32:18.140 --> 00:32:20.132 align:middle line:90% A few Whites will. 00:32:20.132 --> 00:32:21.590 align:middle line:84% On the other hand, should you write 00:32:21.590 --> 00:32:25.580 align:middle line:84% about their direct relationship to you, the only one they know 00:32:25.580 --> 00:32:29.220 align:middle line:84% are the correct, objective, historical relationship. 00:32:29.220 --> 00:32:32.840 align:middle line:84% The one that needs improving on they will understand. 00:32:32.840 --> 00:32:35.480 align:middle line:84% That is all they've been taught to understand. 00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:39.770 align:middle line:84% The inherent, basically unchanged, state of hostility. 00:32:39.770 --> 00:32:41.630 align:middle line:84% That's why, in so many words and deeds, 00:32:41.630 --> 00:32:43.760 align:middle line:84% they deny that history in which we have both 00:32:43.760 --> 00:32:47.000 align:middle line:84% suffered and are suffering still. 00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:49.160 align:middle line:84% What they did is our mutual Holocaust. 00:32:49.160 --> 00:32:52.010 align:middle line:84% Together, our passing through the Red Sea. 00:32:52.010 --> 00:32:54.410 align:middle line:84% The epicenter from which or to which 00:32:54.410 --> 00:32:56.300 align:middle line:84% the universality of the experience 00:32:56.300 --> 00:32:59.060 align:middle line:90% expands or contracts. 00:32:59.060 --> 00:33:02.000 align:middle line:84% It seems that we will always move at a fixed distance 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:03.860 align:middle line:90% in relation to each other. 00:33:03.860 --> 00:33:08.870 align:middle line:84% But only from one place in space to another place in space. 00:33:08.870 --> 00:33:10.730 align:middle line:84% I have been in tabac here where I've 00:33:10.730 --> 00:33:12.890 align:middle line:84% asked in my French, which is very good French, 00:33:12.890 --> 00:33:15.140 align:middle line:90% for a package of cigarettes. 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:16.760 align:middle line:90% The clerks do not understand me. 00:33:16.760 --> 00:33:18.680 align:middle line:90% I repeat and I repeat. 00:33:18.680 --> 00:33:22.040 align:middle line:84% While the expressions on the faces move from shallow 00:33:22.040 --> 00:33:25.160 align:middle line:84% politeness to exasperation and finally, to disgust. 00:33:25.160 --> 00:33:28.070 align:middle line:84% Flaubert was correct to despise clerks. 00:33:28.070 --> 00:33:30.110 align:middle line:84% And I'm finally put to the humiliation 00:33:30.110 --> 00:33:32.720 align:middle line:90% of pointing those C'est la? 00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:33.980 align:middle line:90% Do you see? 00:33:33.980 --> 00:33:35.750 align:middle line:90% Do you see? 00:33:35.750 --> 00:33:37.760 align:middle line:84% My Blackness blocks their ability 00:33:37.760 --> 00:33:40.850 align:middle line:84% to understand their own language. 00:33:40.850 --> 00:33:44.120 align:middle line:84% He gazed into the invisible ball again. 00:33:44.120 --> 00:33:46.280 align:middle line:84% As if reading a litany, he said, yet we 00:33:46.280 --> 00:33:49.460 align:middle line:84% must continue to do what our nature's bid us to do. 00:33:49.460 --> 00:33:51.530 align:middle line:84% And eventually, it is to be hoped that there 00:33:51.530 --> 00:33:53.750 align:middle line:90% will be moved upward. 00:33:53.750 --> 00:33:56.030 align:middle line:84% Is time the answer, Mr. Douglass-- 00:33:56.030 --> 00:33:57.590 align:middle line:90% Mr. Johnson? 00:33:57.590 --> 00:33:59.900 align:middle line:84% Mr. Douglass, time is not the answer. 00:33:59.900 --> 00:34:02.090 align:middle line:90% Time is only a poem. 00:34:02.090 --> 00:34:05.480 align:middle line:84% The will, the will is the only answer. 00:34:05.480 --> 00:34:06.110 align:middle line:90% Yes, sir. 00:34:06.110 --> 00:34:09.020 align:middle line:84% Any more questions, Mr. Douglass? 00:34:09.020 --> 00:34:09.770 align:middle line:90% One more. 00:34:09.770 --> 00:34:10.880 align:middle line:90% Yes, yes, of course. 00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:14.060 align:middle line:90% Well why did you stop writing? 00:34:14.060 --> 00:34:16.429 align:middle line:84% He tilted his head and threw another tolerant 00:34:16.429 --> 00:34:19.739 align:middle line:84% although distant impishly cold smile, aimed his eyes 00:34:19.739 --> 00:34:21.980 align:middle line:90% thin of light right at me. 00:34:21.980 --> 00:34:24.199 align:middle line:84% I did not stop writing, Mr. Douglass. 00:34:24.199 --> 00:34:25.580 align:middle line:90% I still write. 00:34:25.580 --> 00:34:27.230 align:middle line:90% A writer writes. 00:34:27.230 --> 00:34:32.090 align:middle line:84% That is self-evident to those of us who are writers. 00:34:32.090 --> 00:34:36.900 align:middle line:84% We seem to slide along smooth time on the end of that word. 00:34:36.900 --> 00:34:40.790 align:middle line:84% I am published in East Germany, Yugoslavia, Japan, and India. 00:34:40.790 --> 00:34:42.655 align:middle line:84% Next year, I will be published in China 00:34:42.655 --> 00:34:44.780 align:middle line:84% and I have reason to believe that all my works will 00:34:44.780 --> 00:34:48.130 align:middle line:84% be published in Russia within the next three months. 00:34:48.130 --> 00:34:49.340 align:middle line:90% No, I never stopped writing. 00:34:49.340 --> 00:34:51.590 align:middle line:84% In America, and predictably Western Europe, 00:34:51.590 --> 00:34:53.480 align:middle line:84% they simply stopped publishing me. 00:34:53.480 --> 00:34:55.280 align:middle line:90% Publishing us. 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:57.770 align:middle line:90% Our exoticism wore off. 00:34:57.770 --> 00:34:59.690 align:middle line:84% I suppose it would be natural, therefore, 00:34:59.690 --> 00:35:03.170 align:middle line:84% for an American to believe that I stopped writing. 00:35:03.170 --> 00:35:04.700 align:middle line:90% I said, I see. 00:35:04.700 --> 00:35:08.570 align:middle line:84% And he said, Mr Douglas, I hope you will. 00:35:08.570 --> 00:35:11.300 align:middle line:84% Back in Seches fortified by Cafe con Leches 00:35:11.300 --> 00:35:14.000 align:middle line:84% is an endless cognacs, while the village thinned out 00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:16.790 align:middle line:84% before the approaching cold, which had already 00:35:16.790 --> 00:35:19.880 align:middle line:84% fitted collars of frost and snow on the mountains between here 00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:21.500 align:middle line:90% and Barcelona. 00:35:21.500 --> 00:35:24.080 align:middle line:84% I sat and finished up the interviews. 00:35:24.080 --> 00:35:26.120 align:middle line:84% Every day now, a car in first gear 00:35:26.120 --> 00:35:29.750 align:middle line:84% wind away from the beach toward the hard road in Barcelona. 00:35:29.750 --> 00:35:34.010 align:middle line:84% The back loaded, the top loaded and tied down. 00:35:34.010 --> 00:35:35.885 align:middle line:84% Spain was becoming Spanish again. 00:35:35.885 --> 00:35:39.300 align:middle line:90% 00:35:39.300 --> 00:35:42.250 align:middle line:84% One morning, I awoke and felt filled 00:35:42.250 --> 00:35:44.340 align:middle line:84% to choking with wanting to be with, 00:35:44.340 --> 00:35:47.040 align:middle line:84% wanting to be deeply, deeply inside of, 00:35:47.040 --> 00:35:49.920 align:middle line:90% and warmed by a woman. 00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:53.025 align:middle line:84% The village was a proper place, as far as I knew. 00:35:53.025 --> 00:35:56.400 align:middle line:84% Las putas were always in the next village. 00:35:56.400 --> 00:35:59.370 align:middle line:84% I saw no signs that the Spanish women of Seches, 00:35:59.370 --> 00:36:03.330 align:middle line:84% or any of the few other European women who'd remain behind, 00:36:03.330 --> 00:36:06.960 align:middle line:84% were as eager as I for an eternity of bawling. 00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:10.170 align:middle line:84% I simply and painfully missed the hell out of New York. 00:36:10.170 --> 00:36:13.380 align:middle line:84% There, I knew the rules of the game. 00:36:13.380 --> 00:36:16.740 align:middle line:84% Close to noon the next day, I rode into Barcelona. 00:36:16.740 --> 00:36:18.540 align:middle line:90% Siesta was coming on fast. 00:36:18.540 --> 00:36:21.810 align:middle line:84% The big sleep, or whatever they do during that time. 00:36:21.810 --> 00:36:25.710 align:middle line:84% I walked up and down the Ramblas and from one Gaudi structure 00:36:25.710 --> 00:36:26.910 align:middle line:90% to another. 00:36:26.910 --> 00:36:31.410 align:middle line:84% I ate and drank, and tried to conceal the heat in my eyes. 00:36:31.410 --> 00:36:34.950 align:middle line:84% Traffic returned to the streets and the pace of the city 00:36:34.950 --> 00:36:37.020 align:middle line:90% picked up as darkness came. 00:36:37.020 --> 00:36:39.600 align:middle line:84% And still, I drifted from place to place, 00:36:39.600 --> 00:36:42.090 align:middle line:90% trying to find a woman. 00:36:42.090 --> 00:36:46.200 align:middle line:84% On my third pass near Paseo de Gracia and Plaza de Catalunya, 00:36:46.200 --> 00:36:49.710 align:middle line:84% it was nearly 10:00, and I was growing weary dejected, 00:36:49.710 --> 00:36:52.680 align:middle line:84% and more than a little sorry for myself. 00:36:52.680 --> 00:36:56.100 align:middle line:90% I heard Afro-Cuban music. 00:36:56.100 --> 00:36:59.280 align:middle line:84% When I paid the entrance fee, I knew that whatever cool I had, 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:02.790 align:middle line:84% or if you pretended to have had, was gone. 00:37:02.790 --> 00:37:05.160 align:middle line:84% I was going to have to pay for some pussy. 00:37:05.160 --> 00:37:06.270 align:middle line:90% Incredible. 00:37:06.270 --> 00:37:07.230 align:middle line:90% Unthinkable. 00:37:07.230 --> 00:37:08.790 align:middle line:90% But there it was. 00:37:08.790 --> 00:37:11.220 align:middle line:90% I stood looking around the hall. 00:37:11.220 --> 00:37:13.290 align:middle line:90% The musicians were on the stage. 00:37:13.290 --> 00:37:15.600 align:middle line:84% The Johns were young and wore suits. 00:37:15.600 --> 00:37:18.540 align:middle line:84% The type of young men you saw in the offices of struggling 00:37:18.540 --> 00:37:20.730 align:middle line:90% businesses in Barcelona. 00:37:20.730 --> 00:37:23.940 align:middle line:84% They had little French, a little English, a little German. 00:37:23.940 --> 00:37:28.047 align:middle line:84% And there were Catalan and wore gold rimmed glasses. 00:37:28.047 --> 00:37:29.880 align:middle line:84% The women looked a hell of a lot better here 00:37:29.880 --> 00:37:32.760 align:middle line:84% than they did along the Ramblas in the harbor. 00:37:32.760 --> 00:37:36.150 align:middle line:84% They could have been housewives, teachers, secretaries. 00:37:36.150 --> 00:37:38.490 align:middle line:84% I looked back at the musicians, who were all 00:37:38.490 --> 00:37:41.700 align:middle line:84% five of them, grinning at me as if they had just 00:37:41.700 --> 00:37:45.090 align:middle line:84% measured the size and hardness of my member. 00:37:45.090 --> 00:37:48.540 align:middle line:84% They ranged from purest black to mustard yellow. 00:37:48.540 --> 00:37:51.120 align:middle line:84% One of them waved for me to come closer to the stage, 00:37:51.120 --> 00:37:54.240 align:middle line:84% where loose limbed and tall, he was shaking his maracas 00:37:54.240 --> 00:37:55.680 align:middle line:90% and singing. 00:37:55.680 --> 00:37:57.960 align:middle line:90% Hello Yankee, New York, hey? 00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:02.100 align:middle line:84% We from Oriente Province to bassist said. 00:38:02.100 --> 00:38:06.300 align:middle line:84% Oh man, that Fidel, he kicks ass so we haul ass. 00:38:06.300 --> 00:38:07.440 align:middle line:90% Where you living? 00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:09.390 align:middle line:84% The Moroccan man leaned toward me. 00:38:09.390 --> 00:38:11.490 align:middle line:90% I liked his face, Sitges. 00:38:11.490 --> 00:38:13.230 align:middle line:84% And I started moving to the music. 00:38:13.230 --> 00:38:16.860 align:middle line:84% My coolness undone by a dozen cognacs, some brothers 00:38:16.860 --> 00:38:19.680 align:middle line:84% speaking with accents, and pussy on the hoof 00:38:19.680 --> 00:38:22.320 align:middle line:84% or was it cash on the Maidenhead. 00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:24.750 align:middle line:84% Piano, bass, drums, timberland, maracas, 00:38:24.750 --> 00:38:25.950 align:middle line:90% they moved to the finale. 00:38:25.950 --> 00:38:29.070 align:middle line:84% All singing, tossing dialogues at each other in the breathing 00:38:29.070 --> 00:38:30.420 align:middle line:90% spaces. 00:38:30.420 --> 00:38:33.600 align:middle line:84% The Moroccan man came down and shook my hand. 00:38:33.600 --> 00:38:36.660 align:middle line:84% We stand up there and play, he said, we know why we are here. 00:38:36.660 --> 00:38:40.410 align:middle line:84% Fidel Castro, no more Batista and the good times. 00:38:40.410 --> 00:38:42.625 align:middle line:90% Now Spain and Franco. 00:38:42.625 --> 00:38:44.250 align:middle line:84% And then we see you come in and we say, 00:38:44.250 --> 00:38:45.870 align:middle line:90% what's that nigger doing here. 00:38:45.870 --> 00:38:49.470 align:middle line:84% He laughs slapping his thighs and I laughed looking past him 00:38:49.470 --> 00:38:52.470 align:middle line:84% to the women sitting along the edge of the dance floor. 00:38:52.470 --> 00:38:53.490 align:middle line:90% Yeah, Luis know. 00:38:53.490 --> 00:38:54.240 align:middle line:90% We all know. 00:38:54.240 --> 00:38:55.860 align:middle line:90% But now you look. 00:38:55.860 --> 00:38:57.390 align:middle line:84% He put an arm around my shoulder, 00:38:57.390 --> 00:39:00.570 align:middle line:84% and I followed the movement of his head around the room. 00:39:00.570 --> 00:39:02.580 align:middle line:90% You see, Yankee, you see her. 00:39:02.580 --> 00:39:06.480 align:middle line:84% She sat almost alone, there were spaces on either side of her. 00:39:06.480 --> 00:39:08.920 align:middle line:90% She was pretty young and black. 00:39:08.920 --> 00:39:10.260 align:middle line:90% Is she Spanish? 00:39:10.260 --> 00:39:12.360 align:middle line:84% Carlos Luis said nodding toward the bass, 00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:14.490 align:middle line:84% I saw her when she came in tonight. 00:39:14.490 --> 00:39:16.650 align:middle line:90% This is her first time, no? 00:39:16.650 --> 00:39:19.710 align:middle line:84% A course of C's came from the musicians. 00:39:19.710 --> 00:39:21.780 align:middle line:90% She's a proud one, Carlos said. 00:39:21.780 --> 00:39:23.550 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] is a fucking poor country, 00:39:23.550 --> 00:39:25.980 align:middle line:84% and people can't fill their bellies with pride. 00:39:25.980 --> 00:39:27.840 align:middle line:84% The Spanish says, that's all they have 00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:29.790 align:middle line:90% left wherever they went, pride. 00:39:29.790 --> 00:39:31.890 align:middle line:90% Sheet for this pride. 00:39:31.890 --> 00:39:34.230 align:middle line:84% Is she Spanish, I asked once again. 00:39:34.230 --> 00:39:36.660 align:middle line:84% She has some Catalan I would bet, Luis said. 00:39:36.660 --> 00:39:38.250 align:middle line:90% Her mother's side, he winked. 00:39:38.250 --> 00:39:41.850 align:middle line:84% The Spanish women, they like moros, negros, [INAUDIBLE],, 00:39:41.850 --> 00:39:44.760 align:middle line:84% negros, yah yah, ching, ching, ching. 00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:48.900 align:middle line:84% And he was Cha Cha Cha'ing winking and grinning. 00:39:48.900 --> 00:39:51.810 align:middle line:84% I wondered how come he was so sure. 00:39:51.810 --> 00:39:54.540 align:middle line:84% No matter, I slid around people waiting for the next set 00:39:54.540 --> 00:39:58.320 align:middle line:84% to begin, and edged up the rows of chairs where she sat. 00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:00.540 align:middle line:90% She wasn't so pretty close up. 00:40:00.540 --> 00:40:02.160 align:middle line:84% I stopped and smoked a cigarette, 00:40:02.160 --> 00:40:04.530 align:middle line:84% hoping the band would get back to work. 00:40:04.530 --> 00:40:06.180 align:middle line:90% I said good evening to her. 00:40:06.180 --> 00:40:08.010 align:middle line:90% She returned my greeting. 00:40:08.010 --> 00:40:10.260 align:middle line:84% Asked if she would dance with me when the band started 00:40:10.260 --> 00:40:12.240 align:middle line:90% to play again, and she nodded. 00:40:12.240 --> 00:40:13.710 align:middle line:90% May I sit down, I asked. 00:40:13.710 --> 00:40:16.080 align:middle line:84% She shrugged, it's a public place isn't it? 00:40:16.080 --> 00:40:17.400 align:middle line:90% The band saved me. 00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:18.960 align:middle line:90% We danced. 00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:21.480 align:middle line:84% She was awkward for a few steps, but then as she came 00:40:21.480 --> 00:40:23.910 align:middle line:90% to anticipate me she improved. 00:40:23.910 --> 00:40:26.580 align:middle line:84% When the number was over, she smiled for the first time, 00:40:26.580 --> 00:40:27.850 align:middle line:90% and said you dance well. 00:40:27.850 --> 00:40:29.520 align:middle line:90% And so do you, I said. 00:40:29.520 --> 00:40:33.210 align:middle line:84% On the stand between numbers, Luis went into his little dance 00:40:33.210 --> 00:40:35.280 align:middle line:90% again, grinning at me. 00:40:35.280 --> 00:40:36.630 align:middle line:90% Do you come here all the time? 00:40:36.630 --> 00:40:37.350 align:middle line:90% No, I said. 00:40:37.350 --> 00:40:38.520 align:middle line:90% First time. 00:40:38.520 --> 00:40:40.800 align:middle line:90% My first time too, she said. 00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:43.650 align:middle line:84% Her eyes begged me to believe her. 00:40:43.650 --> 00:40:45.420 align:middle line:90% Nice place, I said. 00:40:45.420 --> 00:40:47.550 align:middle line:84% I glanced at the women, housewives, teachers, 00:40:47.550 --> 00:40:49.360 align:middle line:90% and secretaries. 00:40:49.360 --> 00:40:51.690 align:middle line:84% They all sat waiting patiently for one of the men 00:40:51.690 --> 00:40:53.340 align:middle line:90% to ask them to dance. 00:40:53.340 --> 00:40:56.370 align:middle line:84% They possess none of that jive feminine aggressiveness that 00:40:56.370 --> 00:40:58.770 align:middle line:90% one associates with whores. 00:40:58.770 --> 00:41:02.310 align:middle line:84% They sat waiting for the beginning of the ritual. 00:41:02.310 --> 00:41:06.450 align:middle line:84% A kind of benediction for the sin that would follow. 00:41:06.450 --> 00:41:08.730 align:middle line:84% She said in what I thought was a board voice, 00:41:08.730 --> 00:41:11.310 align:middle line:84% we are all very poor and very hungry, 00:41:11.310 --> 00:41:14.010 align:middle line:90% and that is why we are here. 00:41:14.010 --> 00:41:16.500 align:middle line:90% We were dancing again by now. 00:41:16.500 --> 00:41:18.480 align:middle line:84% I tried not to look at the seated women. 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:20.340 align:middle line:84% Of course I'd heard of the poor in Spain. 00:41:20.340 --> 00:41:23.100 align:middle line:84% The government swept the beggars off the streets. 00:41:23.100 --> 00:41:27.060 align:middle line:84% Some people lived in caves, the workers labored for pittances, 00:41:27.060 --> 00:41:29.800 align:middle line:90% farming was almost like slavery. 00:41:29.800 --> 00:41:33.650 align:middle line:84% Some of this I'd seen and closed my eyes against it. 00:41:33.650 --> 00:41:37.320 align:middle line:84% I had never been in a situation like it before. 00:41:37.320 --> 00:41:39.570 align:middle line:84% The woodman bringing his wood in his bare feet 00:41:39.570 --> 00:41:42.570 align:middle line:84% while I wore two pair of heavy socks and shoes 00:41:42.570 --> 00:41:46.080 align:middle line:84% against the cold tile of the floors of my house. 00:41:46.080 --> 00:41:51.090 align:middle line:84% People in the market buying ounces of meat. 00:41:51.090 --> 00:41:52.830 align:middle line:90% Married, I asked. 00:41:52.830 --> 00:41:56.340 align:middle line:84% No, but somehow I suppose, I have a child, a son. 00:41:56.340 --> 00:41:59.430 align:middle line:84% We were standing now waiting for the next number. 00:41:59.430 --> 00:42:01.770 align:middle line:90% Are you from Barcelona? 00:42:01.770 --> 00:42:05.070 align:middle line:84% Would you buy me something to eat first, she asked. 00:42:05.070 --> 00:42:07.440 align:middle line:84% her forehead pressed against my shoulder 00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:09.720 align:middle line:84% and she felt suddenly very slight in the arm 00:42:09.720 --> 00:42:11.670 align:middle line:90% I pressed against her back. 00:42:11.670 --> 00:42:13.530 align:middle line:90% Yes, I said hurriedly. 00:42:13.530 --> 00:42:15.900 align:middle line:84% Outside, she pressed her fingers against her lips 00:42:15.900 --> 00:42:16.890 align:middle line:90% and took a deep breath. 00:42:16.890 --> 00:42:18.210 align:middle line:90% Come on, I said. 00:42:18.210 --> 00:42:21.150 align:middle line:84% I'd passed this cafe at least three times earlier. 00:42:21.150 --> 00:42:23.670 align:middle line:90% I know of a place not far away. 00:42:23.670 --> 00:42:26.520 align:middle line:90% Just food, just food. 00:42:26.520 --> 00:42:30.210 align:middle line:84% When she finished the soup, she said, yes, I am from Barcelona. 00:42:30.210 --> 00:42:33.060 align:middle line:84% She sipped her wine, looked at the glass. 00:42:33.060 --> 00:42:35.760 align:middle line:84% She seemed to relax now, more vulnerable. 00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:38.250 align:middle line:84% Even with a soft Catalan conversations 00:42:38.250 --> 00:42:40.470 align:middle line:90% going on at the bar. 00:42:40.470 --> 00:42:42.780 align:middle line:84% I lived with my parents until I had the baby, 00:42:42.780 --> 00:42:43.920 align:middle line:90% then I had to leave. 00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:45.660 align:middle line:90% They made me leave. 00:42:45.660 --> 00:42:47.130 align:middle line:90% Where do you live now? 00:42:47.130 --> 00:42:49.620 align:middle line:84% She glanced toward the kitchen, the next course 00:42:49.620 --> 00:42:51.510 align:middle line:90% would be coming in a moment. 00:42:51.510 --> 00:42:54.690 align:middle line:84% She shrugged, sometimes here, sometimes there. 00:42:54.690 --> 00:42:57.540 align:middle line:84% It is very difficult in Spain if you are poor. 00:42:57.540 --> 00:42:59.010 align:middle line:90% Where is your baby? 00:42:59.010 --> 00:43:02.250 align:middle line:84% With friends, he is not so much a baby anymore. 00:43:02.250 --> 00:43:04.560 align:middle line:90% He walks and almost talks. 00:43:04.560 --> 00:43:07.350 align:middle line:84% The waiter came with the chicken and rice, the shallow dish 00:43:07.350 --> 00:43:09.870 align:middle line:90% of vegetables that were extra. 00:43:09.870 --> 00:43:12.060 align:middle line:84% The girl stopped talking and began eating. 00:43:12.060 --> 00:43:14.490 align:middle line:84% There were many things I wanted to ask her. 00:43:14.490 --> 00:43:16.980 align:middle line:84% When she came up for breath and another sip of wine, 00:43:16.980 --> 00:43:19.230 align:middle line:84% smiling now with a real luster in the eyes, 00:43:19.230 --> 00:43:21.420 align:middle line:90% she asked, are you rich. 00:43:21.420 --> 00:43:22.817 align:middle line:90% I shook my head. 00:43:22.817 --> 00:43:24.900 align:middle line:84% I wondered that there were people in the world who 00:43:24.900 --> 00:43:26.400 align:middle line:90% might believe me to be rich. 00:43:26.400 --> 00:43:29.160 align:middle line:90% How very poor they must be. 00:43:29.160 --> 00:43:31.180 align:middle line:84% American, not Cuban, like the musicians. 00:43:31.180 --> 00:43:31.680 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:43:31.680 --> 00:43:32.700 align:middle line:90% I nodded. 00:43:32.700 --> 00:43:34.410 align:middle line:90% Americans are rich. 00:43:34.410 --> 00:43:35.430 align:middle line:90% No, I said. 00:43:35.430 --> 00:43:38.550 align:middle line:84% She began to eat again with a slow deliberation of one 00:43:38.550 --> 00:43:42.510 align:middle line:84% determined to finish the entire task before him. 00:43:42.510 --> 00:43:44.790 align:middle line:84% A very few are rich, but most are not. 00:43:44.790 --> 00:43:47.310 align:middle line:84% Like Spain, like France, anywhere. 00:43:47.310 --> 00:43:49.410 align:middle line:84% All Americans want to be rich, though. 00:43:49.410 --> 00:43:51.420 align:middle line:90% That's part of the culture. 00:43:51.420 --> 00:43:53.730 align:middle line:84% Rich is good, she said, looking up at me 00:43:53.730 --> 00:43:58.300 align:middle line:84% as a few grains of rice sprayed from her fork to the table. 00:43:58.300 --> 00:44:01.210 align:middle line:84% I have not seen any Black Spanish people, I said. 00:44:01.210 --> 00:44:02.580 align:middle line:90% Because there aren't many. 00:44:02.580 --> 00:44:05.820 align:middle line:84% My father is an African from Sierra Leone. 00:44:05.820 --> 00:44:08.100 align:middle line:84% He was a Seaman who came here before the war, 00:44:08.100 --> 00:44:10.380 align:middle line:90% he met and married my mother. 00:44:10.380 --> 00:44:12.210 align:middle line:84% Now, he teaches English to the students 00:44:12.210 --> 00:44:14.760 align:middle line:84% who think they'll need it to get ahead in the world. 00:44:14.760 --> 00:44:17.400 align:middle line:90% I've disgraced them, and so. 00:44:17.400 --> 00:44:19.110 align:middle line:90% Don't you work? 00:44:19.110 --> 00:44:21.570 align:middle line:84% There are no jobs for women, very few in this country. 00:44:21.570 --> 00:44:22.590 align:middle line:90% It is the man first. 00:44:22.590 --> 00:44:25.440 align:middle line:84% Always the man, she said snappishly. 00:44:25.440 --> 00:44:28.590 align:middle line:84% I was a waitress until two weeks ago, business was bad, 00:44:28.590 --> 00:44:30.510 align:middle line:90% and nobody wanted a waitress. 00:44:30.510 --> 00:44:33.150 align:middle line:84% Not even a black one who would be an attraction here, 00:44:33.150 --> 00:44:34.680 align:middle line:90% you understand. 00:44:34.680 --> 00:44:36.840 align:middle line:84% She dipped back into the serving pan, 00:44:36.840 --> 00:44:39.510 align:middle line:84% cleaned it out with a whisk of the fork. 00:44:39.510 --> 00:44:41.460 align:middle line:84% How did you learn Spanish, she asked. 00:44:41.460 --> 00:44:43.050 align:middle line:90% In school, why? 00:44:43.050 --> 00:44:45.840 align:middle line:90% The way you speak it, it's cute. 00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:49.890 align:middle line:84% Dessert and coffee came almost as soon as she'd finished. 00:44:49.890 --> 00:44:51.360 align:middle line:90% Well, I guess I'm ready. 00:44:51.360 --> 00:44:54.390 align:middle line:84% She finished the wine in her glass, then swirled her coffee 00:44:54.390 --> 00:44:57.750 align:middle line:90% and looked at the table. 00:44:57.750 --> 00:44:59.580 align:middle line:90% Would you like to go to Sitges? 00:44:59.580 --> 00:45:00.330 align:middle line:90% She frowns. 00:45:00.330 --> 00:45:01.230 align:middle line:90% Seches? 00:45:01.230 --> 00:45:04.320 align:middle line:84% The hotel is closest, Seches is so far. 00:45:04.320 --> 00:45:05.910 align:middle line:90% I mean, I said to live with me. 00:45:05.910 --> 00:45:07.770 align:middle line:90% You and your son. 00:45:07.770 --> 00:45:11.580 align:middle line:84% First, she stared, and then she laughed quietly, cautiously. 00:45:11.580 --> 00:45:13.800 align:middle line:90% Seches, she said again. 00:45:13.800 --> 00:45:15.990 align:middle line:90% But what would I do there? 00:45:15.990 --> 00:45:17.170 align:middle line:90% Be with me. 00:45:17.170 --> 00:45:21.010 align:middle line:84% I'll take care of you as long as I'm in Spain. 00:45:21.010 --> 00:45:23.700 align:middle line:84% Her eyes flicked quickly back and forth across my face, 00:45:23.700 --> 00:45:27.420 align:middle line:84% seeking answers to the questions she was asking herself. 00:45:27.420 --> 00:45:29.700 align:middle line:84% She saw what she wanted to see, perhaps 00:45:29.700 --> 00:45:31.530 align:middle line:90% what I could not conceal. 00:45:31.530 --> 00:45:33.420 align:middle line:90% She dropped her head. 00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:36.120 align:middle line:84% We don't even know each other's names. 00:45:36.120 --> 00:45:38.835 align:middle line:84% Cato Douglas, and I come from New York. 00:45:38.835 --> 00:45:40.290 align:middle line:90% Ah, New York. 00:45:40.290 --> 00:45:43.950 align:middle line:84% There was something like awe and envy in her tone. 00:45:43.950 --> 00:45:44.890 align:middle line:90% Are you married? 00:45:44.890 --> 00:45:45.660 align:middle line:90% Divorced. 00:45:45.660 --> 00:45:46.530 align:middle line:90% Children? 00:45:46.530 --> 00:45:48.210 align:middle line:90% A son. 00:45:48.210 --> 00:45:51.450 align:middle line:84% A little smile played on her smooth brown face. 00:45:51.450 --> 00:45:52.950 align:middle line:90% I ordered more wine. 00:45:52.950 --> 00:45:55.830 align:middle line:84% What do you do here in Spain, she asked. 00:45:55.830 --> 00:45:59.040 align:middle line:84% I think a lot about my life and the world, I guess. 00:45:59.040 --> 00:46:03.000 align:middle line:84% And I write things, books, articles, poetry. 00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:06.150 align:middle line:84% The lashes of her eyes were long and curled. 00:46:06.150 --> 00:46:07.290 align:middle line:90% I see. 00:46:07.290 --> 00:46:09.660 align:middle line:90% She put her elbows on the table. 00:46:09.660 --> 00:46:12.000 align:middle line:90% I poured from the second bottle. 00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:15.570 align:middle line:84% Do you know, she said, I have never been with a Black man. 00:46:15.570 --> 00:46:18.960 align:middle line:84% And I have never been with a Black Spanish woman. 00:46:18.960 --> 00:46:20.790 align:middle line:90% Any Spanish woman? 00:46:20.790 --> 00:46:23.460 align:middle line:84% If I'd been able, I think I would have blushed. 00:46:23.460 --> 00:46:24.060 align:middle line:90% No. 00:46:24.060 --> 00:46:25.290 align:middle line:90% How long have you been here? 00:46:25.290 --> 00:46:26.520 align:middle line:90% Since fall. 00:46:26.520 --> 00:46:28.470 align:middle line:90% How long will you stay? 00:46:28.470 --> 00:46:31.200 align:middle line:84% I don't know, until something tells me it's time to go. 00:46:31.200 --> 00:46:35.060 align:middle line:90% 00:46:35.060 --> 00:46:38.660 align:middle line:84% Do you know, she said, I have never been with a Black man. 00:46:38.660 --> 00:46:41.990 align:middle line:84% And I have never been with a Black Spanish woman. 00:46:41.990 --> 00:46:43.850 align:middle line:90% Any Spanish woman? 00:46:43.850 --> 00:46:46.520 align:middle line:84% If I'd been able, I think I would have blushed. 00:46:46.520 --> 00:46:47.153 align:middle line:90% No. 00:46:47.153 --> 00:46:48.320 align:middle line:90% How long have you been here? 00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:49.580 align:middle line:90% Since fall. 00:46:49.580 --> 00:46:51.530 align:middle line:90% How long will you stay? 00:46:51.530 --> 00:46:55.430 align:middle line:84% I don't know, until something tells me it's time to go. 00:46:55.430 --> 00:46:58.430 align:middle line:84% I could see her thinking, almost. 00:46:58.430 --> 00:47:02.330 align:middle line:84% There are buses into Barcelona and back every day, I said. 00:47:02.330 --> 00:47:06.380 align:middle line:84% She sips from a wine, again, a long, delicate sip. 00:47:06.380 --> 00:47:07.910 align:middle line:90% I'll go tonight and see. 00:47:07.910 --> 00:47:11.250 align:middle line:84% She shrugged as if to say, what do I have to lose. 00:47:11.250 --> 00:47:13.670 align:middle line:84% And if I like it, tomorrow I'll go and get my son, 00:47:13.670 --> 00:47:15.590 align:middle line:90% and come back. 00:47:15.590 --> 00:47:17.120 align:middle line:90% The cab driver was a Basque. 00:47:17.120 --> 00:47:20.630 align:middle line:84% Not even the Catalans rested easily with Basques. 00:47:20.630 --> 00:47:22.880 align:middle line:84% When he had driven us to my house, and I'd paid him, 00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:25.130 align:middle line:84% the girl and I stood in the cold quiet night, 00:47:25.130 --> 00:47:27.200 align:middle line:90% before the gate leading to it. 00:47:27.200 --> 00:47:29.750 align:middle line:84% Then she walked slowly behind me. 00:47:29.750 --> 00:47:33.470 align:middle line:84% And I turned to look at her, sensing her thoughts. 00:47:33.470 --> 00:47:35.810 align:middle line:84% There I was a stranger in her country, 00:47:35.810 --> 00:47:40.100 align:middle line:84% living in it must have seemed to her a very fine house. 00:47:40.100 --> 00:47:43.340 align:middle line:84% While she, a Spaniard, in spite of her color, as I 00:47:43.340 --> 00:47:45.830 align:middle line:84% was an American in spite of mine. 00:47:45.830 --> 00:47:49.370 align:middle line:84% Did not know from one night to the next where she would sleep. 00:47:49.370 --> 00:47:52.700 align:middle line:84% There was nothing I could say to make her know I understood. 00:47:52.700 --> 00:47:55.040 align:middle line:90% My Spanish wasn't that good. 00:47:55.040 --> 00:47:59.900 align:middle line:84% Few languages can adequately explain anything like that. 00:47:59.900 --> 00:48:01.910 align:middle line:84% And Uncle Sam must have been smiling out 00:48:01.910 --> 00:48:04.370 align:middle line:84% of his Star Spangled heavens, furthermore, because 00:48:04.370 --> 00:48:09.230 align:middle line:84% like all other tourists, though Black people are special cases. 00:48:09.230 --> 00:48:11.360 align:middle line:84% I was proof that democracy works. 00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:15.290 align:middle line:84% Never mind Mack Parker and Emmett Till and Little Rock. 00:48:15.290 --> 00:48:19.130 align:middle line:84% If all was so bad, how had I managed to get away. 00:48:19.130 --> 00:48:22.670 align:middle line:84% I was standing there, my key in the lock, incontrovertible 00:48:22.670 --> 00:48:26.390 align:middle line:84% proof that America was indeed the land of the free. 00:48:26.390 --> 00:48:29.960 align:middle line:84% The masses no longer huddled except on flights to Europe 00:48:29.960 --> 00:48:32.450 align:middle line:90% during summer vacations. 00:48:32.450 --> 00:48:33.620 align:middle line:90% Fire. 00:48:33.620 --> 00:48:35.510 align:middle line:84% I sat her down near the fireplace 00:48:35.510 --> 00:48:38.570 align:middle line:84% and mashed some paper and pine twigs together, 00:48:38.570 --> 00:48:41.600 align:middle line:90% and began a fire. 00:48:41.600 --> 00:48:43.400 align:middle line:90% At first, I did not hear her. 00:48:43.400 --> 00:48:47.150 align:middle line:84% Her words sank in just as I was about to ask what it was. 00:48:47.150 --> 00:48:51.320 align:middle line:90% She'd said, and when you leave. 00:48:51.320 --> 00:48:54.680 align:middle line:84% Perhaps all things commence from mutual need. 00:48:54.680 --> 00:48:56.930 align:middle line:84% What we had ferreted out, one from the other, 00:48:56.930 --> 00:48:59.570 align:middle line:90% was our mutual loneliness. 00:48:59.570 --> 00:49:02.630 align:middle line:84% Later, much later, on a couple of midnight 00:49:02.630 --> 00:49:05.900 align:middle line:84% to dawn, phone and talk shows over radio, 00:49:05.900 --> 00:49:08.660 align:middle line:84% I would come to understand how insidious, 00:49:08.660 --> 00:49:11.510 align:middle line:84% how pernicious loneliness could be. 00:49:11.510 --> 00:49:14.930 align:middle line:84% Understand it through those voices trying not to show it. 00:49:14.930 --> 00:49:18.350 align:middle line:84% While those same voices attached to empty souls 00:49:18.350 --> 00:49:21.770 align:middle line:84% wandered over the wires to talk about anything. 00:49:21.770 --> 00:49:25.280 align:middle line:84% So long as another voice responded. 00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:27.470 align:middle line:84% These would be frightening experiences. 00:49:27.470 --> 00:49:30.740 align:middle line:84% The wee small hour darknesses fused 00:49:30.740 --> 00:49:33.080 align:middle line:84% with the latest technology, which 00:49:33.080 --> 00:49:35.690 align:middle line:84% emphasized the loneliness of the strangers groping 00:49:35.690 --> 00:49:37.910 align:middle line:90% through the night. 00:49:37.910 --> 00:49:40.010 align:middle line:84% Besides, the loneliness and the obvious 00:49:40.010 --> 00:49:43.670 align:middle line:84% need for someone to respect her real person. 00:49:43.670 --> 00:49:48.560 align:middle line:84% I was to her, I have-- plainly, she was a have not. 00:49:48.560 --> 00:49:50.240 align:middle line:84% She would let me use her presence, 00:49:50.240 --> 00:49:54.320 align:middle line:84% her laughter, I knew it wasn't, her son, in exchange 00:49:54.320 --> 00:49:56.630 align:middle line:90% for living in my house. 00:49:56.630 --> 00:49:59.780 align:middle line:84% Clicking in my mind, was this further thought. 00:49:59.780 --> 00:50:03.260 align:middle line:84% Perhaps she would get from me what no white Spaniard had ever 00:50:03.260 --> 00:50:04.950 align:middle line:90% given to her. 00:50:04.950 --> 00:50:08.490 align:middle line:84% I'd heard them on the Ramblas and calles as I passed, 00:50:08.490 --> 00:50:11.270 align:middle line:90% mira, mira, un moro, moro. 00:50:11.270 --> 00:50:12.860 align:middle line:84% In order to be rid of the Moors, they 00:50:12.860 --> 00:50:16.970 align:middle line:84% had had to laugh at those related to them. 00:50:16.970 --> 00:50:19.730 align:middle line:84% The Spanish make very remarkable floor tiles. 00:50:19.730 --> 00:50:21.230 align:middle line:84% And I was studying them because I 00:50:21.230 --> 00:50:23.600 align:middle line:90% didn't know how to answer her. 00:50:23.600 --> 00:50:25.760 align:middle line:84% When I did look up, she hunched her shoulders, 00:50:25.760 --> 00:50:28.850 align:middle line:84% stood, took off her thin hip length jacket, 00:50:28.850 --> 00:50:30.740 align:middle line:84% and said in English as we walked down 00:50:30.740 --> 00:50:33.620 align:middle line:84% the hall toward the bedrooms, let's see 00:50:33.620 --> 00:50:36.170 align:middle line:90% what else goes with the house. 00:50:36.170 --> 00:50:39.330 align:middle line:84% She made breakfast quietly and efficiently. 00:50:39.330 --> 00:50:42.440 align:middle line:84% And we sat down in a gray dawn, and now it is morning, 00:50:42.440 --> 00:50:43.370 align:middle line:90% she said. 00:50:43.370 --> 00:50:44.870 align:middle line:90% Do you still want to do it? 00:50:44.870 --> 00:50:46.100 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:50:46.100 --> 00:50:48.800 align:middle line:84% She nodded, and I think she was relieved. 00:50:48.800 --> 00:50:51.200 align:middle line:90% Monica Jones, that was her name. 00:50:51.200 --> 00:50:57.380 align:middle line:84% We'd go to get her son, Federico Garcia Lorca Jones, and return 00:50:57.380 --> 00:50:59.122 align:middle line:90% in the afternoon. 00:50:59.122 --> 00:51:01.580 align:middle line:84% Better to have what you know you can get for a little while 00:51:01.580 --> 00:51:04.520 align:middle line:84% than to have nothing, and not know where anything else was 00:51:04.520 --> 00:51:06.650 align:middle line:90% coming from. 00:51:06.650 --> 00:51:09.470 align:middle line:84% I could see her reasoning, but the sheer banality of the way 00:51:09.470 --> 00:51:13.310 align:middle line:90% things worked made me pensive. 00:51:13.310 --> 00:51:15.350 align:middle line:84% Is it true, I ask, that they just stood lock 00:51:15.350 --> 00:51:16.520 align:middle line:90% up and shot him. 00:51:16.520 --> 00:51:17.300 align:middle line:90% She nodded. 00:51:17.300 --> 00:51:19.460 align:middle line:90% She talked a lot with her body. 00:51:19.460 --> 00:51:21.500 align:middle line:84% Nodded and made a pistol with her finger 00:51:21.500 --> 00:51:24.170 align:middle line:90% and jerked it several times. 00:51:24.170 --> 00:51:26.720 align:middle line:84% Isn't it dangerous to name a child after him? 00:51:26.720 --> 00:51:29.360 align:middle line:84% Oh, they think it's a joke, because I'm Black, you see, 00:51:29.360 --> 00:51:30.980 align:middle line:90% and he is Black. 00:51:30.980 --> 00:51:34.460 align:middle line:84% And when I shout for him in the park, Federico Garcia Lorca 00:51:34.460 --> 00:51:37.040 align:middle line:90% Jones, people become frightened. 00:51:37.040 --> 00:51:42.440 align:middle line:84% Until they see who Federico Garcia Lorca Jones is. 00:51:42.440 --> 00:51:45.680 align:middle line:84% What a fine little road from Cadiz to Gibraltar, 00:51:45.680 --> 00:51:50.570 align:middle line:84% the sea recognizes my steps by its size. 00:51:50.570 --> 00:51:53.570 align:middle line:84% I laughed because I felt good, and while she was gone, 00:51:53.570 --> 00:51:55.770 align:middle line:90% I grew to like her more. 00:51:55.770 --> 00:51:57.980 align:middle line:84% And I felt this tingling in my body, 00:51:57.980 --> 00:52:00.365 align:middle line:84% as though goose pimples were changing places." 00:52:00.365 --> 00:52:05.950 align:middle line:90% 00:52:05.950 --> 00:52:08.000 align:middle line:90% I am almost through. 00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:09.100 align:middle line:90% I just want to-- 00:52:09.100 --> 00:52:38.760 align:middle line:90% 00:52:38.760 --> 00:52:41.910 align:middle line:84% Obviously, some time passes here. 00:52:41.910 --> 00:52:49.080 align:middle line:90% And they've been away on a trip. 00:52:49.080 --> 00:52:54.870 align:middle line:84% "After I returned to Seches, the week seemed to race in on us. 00:52:54.870 --> 00:52:56.790 align:middle line:84% The winds chopping through the mountains 00:52:56.790 --> 00:52:58.890 align:middle line:90% were no longer very cold at all. 00:52:58.890 --> 00:53:01.410 align:middle line:84% The first Europeans, Swedes, Danes, 00:53:01.410 --> 00:53:04.140 align:middle line:90% and Germans began to appear. 00:53:04.140 --> 00:53:06.540 align:middle line:90% Merchants became cheerful. 00:53:06.540 --> 00:53:08.850 align:middle line:84% Landlords were visible on weekends, 00:53:08.850 --> 00:53:12.480 align:middle line:84% puttering about the houses they soon would rent. 00:53:12.480 --> 00:53:15.720 align:middle line:84% And mine was already talking about the usual summer 00:53:15.720 --> 00:53:17.850 align:middle line:90% increase. 00:53:17.850 --> 00:53:19.930 align:middle line:84% Monica who had filled out during the winter, 00:53:19.930 --> 00:53:22.920 align:middle line:84% so that I no longer felt her ribs pushing against her skin 00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:25.680 align:middle line:84% when we made love, became more quiet. 00:53:25.680 --> 00:53:28.570 align:middle line:90% But less accusatory. 00:53:28.570 --> 00:53:31.590 align:middle line:84% I lingered longer with Federico Garcia Lorca Jones, 00:53:31.590 --> 00:53:34.140 align:middle line:84% building sandcastles on the beach. 00:53:34.140 --> 00:53:36.840 align:middle line:84% And buying him ice cream while the Spanish women 00:53:36.840 --> 00:53:39.270 align:middle line:90% smiled their dark approvals. 00:53:39.270 --> 00:53:41.220 align:middle line:84% I would start to worry about his life 00:53:41.220 --> 00:53:45.720 align:middle line:84% after I'd gone, and then angrily stopped. 00:53:45.720 --> 00:53:48.000 align:middle line:84% One day, I went into Barcelona to arrange 00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:51.060 align:middle line:84% with a landlord for Monica and Federico to stay in the house 00:53:51.060 --> 00:53:52.980 align:middle line:90% through summer. 00:53:52.980 --> 00:53:55.230 align:middle line:84% It was the same day I bought my plane ticket. 00:53:55.230 --> 00:53:57.660 align:middle line:90% Sailing would take too long. 00:53:57.660 --> 00:53:59.940 align:middle line:84% I wanted to be overwhelmed quickly by things 00:53:59.940 --> 00:54:01.750 align:middle line:90% I knew back in New York. 00:54:01.750 --> 00:54:06.390 align:middle line:84% And not have to spend days thinking about them or her. 00:54:06.390 --> 00:54:08.790 align:middle line:84% I got a stack of pesetas to leave behind, 00:54:08.790 --> 00:54:11.790 align:middle line:84% and then I returned home cradling the bottle of brandy 00:54:11.790 --> 00:54:15.480 align:middle line:84% I would drink while telling her that I had to leave. 00:54:15.480 --> 00:54:17.730 align:middle line:84% That I had a book being published. 00:54:17.730 --> 00:54:20.730 align:middle line:84% And that all my life I think I wanted to be a writer, 00:54:20.730 --> 00:54:23.040 align:middle line:90% and now I was. 00:54:23.040 --> 00:54:25.230 align:middle line:90% The front door was closed. 00:54:25.230 --> 00:54:26.910 align:middle line:84% Normally, it would have been opened, 00:54:26.910 --> 00:54:29.040 align:middle line:90% and the screen door closed. 00:54:29.040 --> 00:54:31.050 align:middle line:84% Normally, there would be wash on the line. 00:54:31.050 --> 00:54:34.710 align:middle line:84% Some little thing of Monica's or Federico's, or mine. 00:54:34.710 --> 00:54:36.540 align:middle line:84% Normally, they would be in the garden, 00:54:36.540 --> 00:54:40.170 align:middle line:84% or in the dirt road that ran straight down to the beach. 00:54:40.170 --> 00:54:43.830 align:middle line:84% Normally, she smiled and waved and Federico came 00:54:43.830 --> 00:54:46.980 align:middle line:90% charging up like a baby bull. 00:54:46.980 --> 00:54:49.170 align:middle line:90% I didn't see them outside. 00:54:49.170 --> 00:54:51.900 align:middle line:84% I unlocked the door and walked into the chilly house. 00:54:51.900 --> 00:54:52.920 align:middle line:90% I called. 00:54:52.920 --> 00:54:57.150 align:middle line:84% My voice bounced off the tile floors and plaster walls. 00:54:57.150 --> 00:54:59.190 align:middle line:84% I called again, and started down the hall. 00:54:59.190 --> 00:55:02.910 align:middle line:84% Federico's room across from ours looked strange. 00:55:02.910 --> 00:55:06.600 align:middle line:84% I walked in, his clothes were gone, his toys. 00:55:06.600 --> 00:55:09.480 align:middle line:84% In our room, her dresser drawers were empty. 00:55:09.480 --> 00:55:11.280 align:middle line:90% And there was a note on the bed. 00:55:11.280 --> 00:55:13.880 align:middle line:90% 00:55:13.880 --> 00:55:15.950 align:middle line:90% The room smells faintly of joy. 00:55:15.950 --> 00:55:19.370 align:middle line:84% I'd gotten it from one of the black market operators. 00:55:19.370 --> 00:55:22.670 align:middle line:84% I sat down on the bed with its bad springs, 00:55:22.670 --> 00:55:25.940 align:middle line:84% with the doors closed, the old Spanish smell of sweet decay 00:55:25.940 --> 00:55:28.670 align:middle line:84% which always made me think of Melville 00:55:28.670 --> 00:55:32.810 align:middle line:84% and Benito Sereno San Dominic, tapped at my brain, 00:55:32.810 --> 00:55:35.240 align:middle line:90% hung in my nostrils. 00:55:35.240 --> 00:55:37.550 align:middle line:84% I opened the brandy, and drinking from the bottle, 00:55:37.550 --> 00:55:39.140 align:middle line:90% read the note. 00:55:39.140 --> 00:55:42.770 align:middle line:84% I drank again and went to see Yanez and his wife. 00:55:42.770 --> 00:55:44.900 align:middle line:90% They did not know she'd gone. 00:55:44.900 --> 00:55:45.920 align:middle line:90% And his wife said. 00:55:45.920 --> 00:55:48.440 align:middle line:84% Slapping her own infertile belly, 00:55:48.440 --> 00:55:50.090 align:middle line:90% she is two months pregnant. 00:55:50.090 --> 00:55:52.850 align:middle line:90% She said so in the market. 00:55:52.850 --> 00:55:54.980 align:middle line:90% Her note had not said that. 00:55:54.980 --> 00:55:56.810 align:middle line:84% I went back to the place where I'd met her, 00:55:56.810 --> 00:55:59.180 align:middle line:84% and asked the musicians if they had seen her. 00:55:59.180 --> 00:56:00.620 align:middle line:90% They had not. 00:56:00.620 --> 00:56:03.890 align:middle line:84% I walked a road to the places where she might have been. 00:56:03.890 --> 00:56:06.350 align:middle line:90% But she was not in any of them. 00:56:06.350 --> 00:56:07.940 align:middle line:90% And I had to leave. 00:56:07.940 --> 00:56:10.280 align:middle line:90% It was time. 00:56:10.280 --> 00:56:11.448 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:56:11.448 --> 00:56:14.941 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:56:14.941 --> 00:56:35.410 align:middle line:90% 00:56:35.410 --> 00:56:38.910 align:middle line:84% In my fear or am I still [INAUDIBLE] here, OK. 00:56:38.910 --> 00:56:50.000 align:middle line:90%