Black Ink

1. Drawing a Blank

One time on a fishing trip I went on with my dad and my uncle, it was so amazing to graze my hand along the side of the wooden boat, to see them both laugh and smile like it was the first time they had genuinely had fun since they were kids before they were business-men, ‘fore they were men. I loved seeing them crack jokes and whip each others upper arm without using any great strength, their chuckles and hysterical crackles whistling in the wind, echoing softly through the trees. I, of course, didn’t fully understand the jokes. Eventually when we pulled out to return our boat to the truck up ahead, a very pale man, who was wearing some disgustingly bright yellow trousers, with a disgruntled and angered look on his face started yelling as his messed bangs crossed his eyes. I was very startled but my father assured me to stay behind him. By 9 o’clock was when we finally were on our way two states away, my father and uncle very quiet.

    One thing I learned that day, people don’t see skin color the same way my child eyes saw. The man was very angry with how my uncle was a very dark yet small built man while my father was a very tall, bristled man who was packed full of strength and muscle were talking to each other. He had hated the way my father had married my dark mother and had me with him. He hated how my uncle and I, both of us being dark men, were with such a prideful white man. That day I also heard my first cuss words, damn and god damn (which I personally hate due to its mistreatment of God’s name). When the man first said those things I had gracefully asked him to please not mention God’s name in such vanity but he just screams a very foul name into my face.

    Nigger. That is what he said.

    I honestly didn’t know what it meant for a very long time until one day I got curious and looked it with my father’s new computer (which in now days was a very old electronic) and was completely horrified. I didn’t see anything wrong with what my skin was, what my mother’s skin was nor what my uncle’s was. When I saw my uncle and father in the boat during our fishing trip, I didn’t see black and white skin colors, I saw two older men, two older brothers, joking with each other and laughing with one another, keeping the hours full of fun. When I had looked at my mother and father holding each other on the couch or holding hands while walking into our church building, I didn’t see two different colors. I saw two people who were completely blinded by love to never care what the world said about them. I saw two wise people I very much looked up to sharing hands, both colors merging to make something beautifully new. I quite frankly never understood why anyone had to think differently, but, I still know it’s just what people do.

    Why is it so hard for people to look past simple things such as color? That, even at the age eighty-seven and after being happily married and two children I still am unsure of. People seem to not think as much as they used to when the civil war, with the great mind of Abraham Lincoln, and the revolutionary war, with the greatest mind of all: George Washington, when at least then they managed to come up with such courageous plans that distributed amazing freedoms through the country. Now people are so damn ignorant and dense they need their children, fathers, mothers, spouses, to tell them to ask how long will I have this when wanting to buy a six-month plan for a PO box at the post office downtown.

    I don’t understand how people can be so frigging stupid to the point where they can’t order a damn taco from a taco truck. When I raised my kids I taught them to look both ways before crossing the street and one day they came home and told me their friend John walked across the street without looking, so they told him off for it then he sweared, splatting that foul name in their brains, leaving them wailing when they came home. I told them to leave him alone, that he wasn’t worth it. My husband often likes to come to me going, “Jess, you have to cut them kids some slack” or something along those lines to which I say if they were raised to believe such things while being catholic, they ain’t no catholics. I sure as hell ain’t goin round preechin’ but I sure as hell will say that if parents really believe we dark men and women are not worthy at their tier, screw ‘em! If we ain’ as high as them just means were equal and they’re ignoring it. People are just as dumb as a box of rocks, that’s all they might be.