Exposure

EX:11

Chapter 11

Twon's Perspective

"Stop being afraid of what can go wrong and start being positive about what can go right."-Unknown

•••••

      DUST corrupted my vision as I casually swept the hardwood floors. My arms were sore from dusting off furniture, taking out loads of heavy trash, and wiping several windows squeaky clean. I would consider myself to be in shape, but this was by far the hardest workout I had ever done in my life. This building was huge. After wiping the sweat off of my face with my bare hands I stood the old broom up in a nearby corner.

     I knew that the past had a funny way of catching up to you in the long run but all of this over a minor incident that happened years ago was unnecessary. I took a break observing the room. Apparently this was a learning center for troubled young boys and cleaning up here had its challenges, but what pissed me off the most was that I wasn't even getting paid to do this shit. The only reward for my hard work was a chance to possibly return back to work.

     The room struck my interest considering the walls were filled with quotes and posters appealing to the black man. Icons old and contemporary of all forms like Bobby Seal, Kendrick Lamar, Usain Bolt, and so forth took up all available space. From what I had seen so far this center was very diverse, which left me puzzled about a room aesthetically portraying successful black men around the globe. I toyed with a few of the items on some of the tables in the room until I heard deep chuckles in the hallway. I turned around looking out of the door spotting two young boys littering on the floor. They hadn't noticed me yet.

"Aye! Pick that up!" I startled them catching their attention.

I had been sweeping too damn long for them to throw their shit on the floor as if it was nothing.

One of the boys paused looking in my direction before bursting out into full laughter. He threw a couple of his long dreadlocks back clutching his stomach continuing to laugh a few feet away.

"Nigga who are you? The trash patrol."

They took me for a joke. I could admit, I was hard-headed back in the day myself but these kids took it to another level.

"I'm serious young buck pick it up because if you don't I have to and I'm not a damn maid."

"But you are a janitor and I ain't pickin' up shit." He stuck his hand into his loose denim jeans pulling out a string of notebook paper slowly dropping it onto the floor.

His friend laughed shaking his head.

"Let's go dawg before the trash man snitch on us." He joked walking off with the other boy following him.

    I didn't know how much more of this shit I could take. It was easy to understand why these boys were here. A lot of them deserved someone to sit down and talk to about getting their act together especially those that were black because if not they were just going to be another stereotype put into the system.

    I walked into the hallway picking up the paper off the floor throwing it into the trash. Thank God the day was almost over with because the next young nigga that tried me might end up in a chokehold.