“Sir?,” “Ma’am?,” and Other Things I Miss
1.
Black Kid enters a coffee shop, stage right. They sport a graphic tee with the words sugar, we’re going down and Black jeans with a studded belt. The fake studs are falling, only saved by an occasional push-in-place by the Black Kid, their eyes smeared with clumps masquerading as mascara. Their eyes are blurring out everything on the way to the counter. A barista stops talking to a coworker, her straight and stringy hair stuffed under a cap that says Cole’s coffee shop. She meets the now-anxious Black Kid’s eyes to ask:
“What would you like to order?”
The Black Kid, wanting to try something new but loving the comfort of familiar things, whispers:
“A PSL with oat milk, please.”
“What did you say,” Cole’s barista says confidently, and less confidently says, “ma’am?”
The silence rips between them like paper, loose-leaf and gone into the wind of a Texas fall morning. “Sir?” Cole’s barista says, just as unsure and loud for everyone to hear, as before. The furrow in CB’s brow—mixed with her searching, reaching for the right innocuous greeting, a Southern hospitality, a region’s oxymoron—brings Black Kid’s eyes to a new point, a random groove in the iPad register.
“A pumpkin spice latte with oat milk. Grande,” Black Kid whispers, gently, back.
“Okay. Is there anything else?”
2.
It’s odd to miss embarrassment. Especially when those
moments—still vivid down to the touch—
disconnected you from reality. Like any habit that once
served you something like comfort, or felt like a human saying
I love you without a corresponding despite, it’s human nature to miss
the violence you’ve learned to put up with.
Sometimes I miss home and then I eat a sandwich.
Sometimes I want to call my cousin, tell her all her bullshit—
You shouldn’t look like a boy and other misgivings—is forgiven,
but lies have never sealed up a wound. Home is a matter
of circumstance. You were born into a city who marked you
by time then marked you in other ways, didn’t it? I am nothing great,
never been typecast as beautiful in any magazine, still haven’t
figured out a way to love that isn’t a vacant alleyway,
but I do miss other people’s uncertainty. You know what I mean?
3.
Legally Black Woman enters a courtroom, stage left. Their head sags like a heavy load, exploding1 under the pressure of a summons to jury duty. Everybody else in the room is white. Prosecution, judge, defendant’s counsel, Greek chorus of people from all over the city who got the same letter as Legally Black Woman—all white. Except for them, and the defendant, who has the hue of half the state, speckles of brown, dark enough for a dark cell dark enough to be in this courtroom, with a stain of innocence over his face nobody except me can see. His lawyer, a white man with circular glasses, the kind of white man that would be on the cover of GQ, says:
“Do you think that cops are more truthful than civilians?” Legally Black Woman squints their eyes at the word “civilians.”
“Yes,” says juror #38, a white man with bulging blue eyes.
“What about you, Mrs. Brookins? . . . Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Brookins,” he says, in a tone that soothes as much as it stings. In a tone that kind of sounds like Legally Black Woman’s voice when they look in the mirror every morning before work. Legally Black Woman, now summoned to speak, sits in a chair, their burgeoning beard a mainstay in the mind of the lawyer who sees the F next to their name, and oscillates between the choice to ignore it or uphold it as Legally Black Woman speaks:
“No. I don’t think they’re any more truthful than a kid who will say anything to get candy from his mom’s purse. Can I be dismissed?”
—
1Reference to Langston Hughes’s “Harlem”
4.
Hello _____ how are you
Excuse me, _____
Dear _____, I need an extension
Nice to meet you, _____
I don’t make the rules, _____. I just enforce them
Yes _____
No _____
_____ moiselle
I started to feel old when I was addressed as _____
Please _____ may I have some more
_____ Elton John
Good morning, _____
Please lower your voice, _____
Wham-bam-thank-you-_____
_____ upstairs; please let _____ rest
_____ Paul McCartney
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, _____
5.
Legally Black Man walks up to the stage. A woman who claims to have read all of their poems approaches the mic to introduce them. They’re wearing a homemade black crop top, which slightly exposes a pudge and love handles. Their jeans are ripped enough to teeter the line between straight and queer. Who’s to say except a fifty-word bio. Their years-old sandals hold on to their lotioned feet for dear life. Tonight might be their last use. The woman—smile painted on both sides of her well-meaning face—says:
“Let’s now welcome the man of the hour: LBM!”
The crowd erupts. Legally Black Man opts to change their naturally reflexed crown into a smile, so fake it could be sold at Hot Topic. They’ve made a life—some lines and a handful of good times—out of a number of misfortunes, so this is a walk in the park, right? Legally Black Man walks, with purpose only gathered from taking life with its life-long failures, and sets the mic on fire. Once the fire department’s been called and a number of expletives have been hurled, they say, to the crowd, calm and with careful purpose:
“Thank you. Are there any questions?”
6.
If we were in our last hours and
you had nothing but the sound of my voice
carrying you through the woods
created by bombs, a race war, a staged
panic brazen/raised only by the holders
of dollars and ways
they rationalize giving us pain, still
you would search for an honorific
to give me, a gift I didn’t
ask for, a way to define and historicize my voice.
MY voice. My VOICE. my voice.
What devils we unearth when we speak
his name, what mind games we play
when we liven the legacy
of Christopher Columbus. What terrible things
we name in our moments of seeing—
when the light is so close to us, it flickers
on and we jump—the customs we can’t trace
I want to give this name, this gender
to a flame and make it
eat my transgressions for dinner, make it
feel all the shame of confusion;
if curious was a viable option, I would take it,
but would you let me
could you let me
have you ever let me
be bigger than the boxes a form can hold,
braver than the thoughts a judge
will ever make, heavier than a barista
making common, global mistakes
I want to live in the gray matter
of earth, grow roots and be tall
Let my children speak truth and watch you
empty every bin, light every match,
set fire to everything so I have nothing to miss
While the coroner takes pleasure in warming me up,
asking what happened
and writing nothing down
***
Author photograph by Beowulf Sheehan
