I was reminded of just how inconspicuous I can be today. In fact, you could say that I was quite literally smacked right on top of the head by it. As I walked to the corner store a block from my condo, I just so happened to be in the flight path of a group of pigeons that was re-locating from their rooftop perch to the vacant lot below. While most of them navigated all obstructions on their way between point A and point B, one of them had some difficulty, glancing right off my forehead and into my sunglasses. Apparently his depth perception was a little off. Perhaps he had taken this route many times before and couldn’t fathom that something in motion could actually be that tall.
Initially, I was stunned, and for a microsecond, my gait became a tad more deliberate. Then the germiphobe in me set in, as I had to resist the urge to immediately wipe my forehead. I really have a strong dislike for these winged rats. It seemed like an eternity between this encounter and the moment that I returned home, immediately heading to the sink to scour the contaminated area over and over again with soap and scalding water. Once I was convinced that all remnants of bird were gone, I sat down and relaxed, gazing out my 6th story window at the profusion of pigeons pecking away at the gravel in the lot below.
How could that bird have missed me? I cut quite an imposing figure on any landscape that I strut across. After all, I’m nearly a foot taller than the average adult male (5’9” in case you hadn’t noticed) but I am not, however, the most boisterous or overbearing fellow you’ve ever met. Perhaps he was as indifferent to my existence as many of the people that I encounter throughout the day. I can’t say that I’m in need of attention. I don’t have an exceptional need to be noticed or acknowledged all of the time. Attention from the opposite sex or maybe from someone having the clout to consider me for a career promotion being exempt, I must confess that I rather prefer the anonymity as I walk through my urban surroundings on my way to and fro each day. It’s downright absurd how all of us pass by one another pretending not to notice. It never ceases to amaze me how we can sit so close to one another on a 5-hour flight and not utter one word. Are they not worthy of our acknowledgement? Do we also discount their humanity? Their struggle? What good things are happening in their life? What turmoil they are enduring?
I fashion myself an observer, and in so doing, I spend exorbitant amounts of time absorbing my surroundings. Admittedly, this is quite a maddening habit. As such, it makes it nearly impossible for me to ignore the poverty or blight, homelessness or hunger that often smacks me upside the head (figuratively speaking, this time) as I walk down the street. I wonder what the guy sitting on the steps across the way is thinking. I wonder why the kids congregating on the corner outside the barbeque joint can’t find it within themselves to deposit the Styrofoam containers that formerly held their hot link sandwich into the trash can just a few feet away. I imagine that the rather attractive lady sitting across from me on the train is listening to Led Zeppelin’s the Song Remains the Same as she intently reads Elijah Mohammed’s a Message to the Black Man. Maybe that guy over there is a talented musician. Perhaps he’s sitting on that park bench going over the riffs, in his head, that he’ll play later this evening at the after hours spot when he sits in with whoever is headlining at Yoshi’s tonight. Maybe that lady rummaging through the dumpster wishes she were invisible, or perhaps she’s certain that she is.
It’s no wonder that my favorite book of all time is Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. This book so moved me when I read it at the end of my sophomore year in college that I remember staying up all night turning the pages. I literally could not put it down. Ellison’s imagery, his use of jazz music and prominent figures, and very in your face investigation of the simultaneous hope and hopelessness that is not only race relations but class relations as well, captivated me in a way that few novels have. Early on in the novel, the main character, whose name we conveniently never learn, muses over the Louis Armstrong tune “What did I do to be so black and blue” and very surreptitiously discloses one of the underlying themes of the book. The Battle Royale scene is the ultimate metaphor for one of society’s main ills, as it pits the have-nots against one another merely for the amusement of the haves.
I daresay that every black man in America might feel like he lives the Battle Royal each day, or at least has at some point in their life. My stature often makes it difficult for some to fathom the possibility that I might be adept at anything other than putting the ball in the basket. That I once adorned the same UCLA uniform as Alcindor and Walton, alarmingly, interests them much more than my qualifications to perform an operation that, if unsuccessful, could bring their business to a halt. I sat next to some middle-aged Caucasian men at the Warriors-Jazz game the other night and was struck by the extreme disgust they had for one of the “meaner…more intimidating” looking black players that failed to impede the progress of a more skilled white player on the opposing team. Clearly experts in the science of Dr. Naismith’s great game, the notion of skill level superceding their sociological prejudices was lost on these two that I doubt had played much competitive ball in their day. But now I’m passing judgment. That I was transparent yet again, however, was quite apparent as these two spoke as if I could not hear them.
My hyper-awareness often prevents me from enjoying the mindless dribble that is fed to me 24 hours a day from ESPN as they more often present the featured athletes as commodity rather than ponder their humanity. My inner existentialist ponders this often. All of the so-called experts that have never laced up a pair of sneakers are somehow ultra-qualified to interpret the actions and statements made by any of the hired help. Meanwhile the real story recedes back into the ether, not seen as conducive to increasing and retaining the viewership so coveted by advertisers.
Well, it’s getting late and my ramblings are drifting in and out of resembling anything cohesive. I’m just tired. It couldn’t be the veil going up preserve the clandestine notions that drift in and out of the chasms of my mind. No, I’m just tired…right?
“Son, after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you , but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you til they vomit or bust wide open.”--- The meek grandfather from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
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