The King of Alabama Avenue

"Jallow is from my country as well" Turay admitted as he went down his list of co-workers. Jallow looked up from his container of rice and smelly spinach and glared over his golden-rimmed glasses.

"Sierra Leone? Bah! I am not from Sierra Leone!" he dismissed over his shoulder in an angry sort of gesture. Turay continued on with his list then noticed his flight had landed and sprung out the door. "Sierra Leone" Jallow continued under his breath. "All they do is kill each other, fighting fighting all the time--who would ever go back there?"

"Jallow, where are you from?" I asked politely, piqued with interest. He sat down and arranged his pungent African dish in front of him.

"I was born right here in DC! Southeast! I am the king of Alabama Avenue!" he proclaimed, poking the table as if to show me on it's smooth landscape right where his kingdom was located. He shook his head. "Only yesterday I saw a girl who was pregnant and all these boys--they all just run around and do this and sleep there, and hit him, and for what??"

He spit disgust to the side of the board and slammed a piece into place.

"For what? I told them, they are fools! They know nothing! And as king I had to tell them so. You see?? I am king!"

I'm not sure he realized that Turay was gone and that the game was over by forfeit. Jallow crowned the piece himself then got up from his table. Without another word, he hunkered down the hallway.

My Work, My Story?

The books pile around me, on the floor, propped open in organized structures to the pages I cannot highlight because I borrowed them from the library. The post-it notes correspond to the library I borrowed the books from, and the number on the ends indicate which interview their marked information corresponds to. My desk is covered in papers, notes, transcriptions.

"Are you going to clean this up?" my mother asks from the doorway. I look up at her with the most exasperated look in my repertoire, though not particularly exasperated about anything in particular. She glanced away from my expression. "Is this for your book?"

"Yeah," I admit. "I don't think Salieu has any idea how much work is actually going into this. And I wonder sometimes why I agreed to write a book about the Sierra Leone Civil War. You know, Festus is from Sierra Leone as well, and when I asked him to tell me what the Civil War was about, he waved it off and said he wasn't there, that it was over so there is nothing to tell."

"I don't know who Festus is" my mother replies in her pleasant voice, which means that she has lost interest in the subject. She wanders from my doorway, leaving me to the endless pile of research surrounding me.

When I gave Salieu the initial interview questions for him to prepare for the interview, he had been surprised at my preparation. "These are good questions" he observed with a smile.

"Well, it's an initial interview. They're vague. When we actually sit down to do the interview, I'll proabably deviate a little, or maybe ask more questions to clarify or make a comment to note for more research." I wasn't in a hurry to do the interview, so much as I didn't want to make Salieu uncomfortable if he wasn't fully aware of what I thought I had agreed to do. The look on his face when he pondered the questions again on the other side of the room told me that was exactly the case. Even though he had asked me to write his story, even though I had told him I was intending on doing a good job, the actual craft of writing had never presented itself to his thoughts. He thought he would dictate the story and I would simply write it down, make it a little coherent. Now he knew it was clearly something different.

I copy the reference to the quote I had found onto a makeshift bibliography I keep on pink paper, not to be confused with my notes and thoughts on the composition and theme of the story I keep on the yellow legal paper, or the notes on Sierra Leone culture I keep on white paper (in an ongoing outline format).

I'm afraid that though I have given all the rights to Turay to veto as he sees fit, he still will think that I have stolen his story. Every bit of it is his story. It is his name, his birthday, his family, his life that I'm telling. It is his culture, his heart, his soul. And yet it is my time and my education that is at stake. My name will be in the author slot and his will be in the title. Not willing to rescind the request, I see him hesitate as he realizes that even though it is his story, he has no idea how to tell it, or who he is talking to. He does not know why his story is being told.

"It's not about the money" I admit to DJ as he later peers over my shoulder at the pages and pages of notes. "It's about what Turay is trying to say."

"What is Turay trying to say?" DJ asks, his curiosity and confusion caught on his face.

"I don't think he knows quite yet" I answer with a sigh.

"So how will you know what to write?" DJ continues picking up one of the books that I had pushed aside into the ambiguous ready-to-return pile growing by the door.

"I'm going to write what I think he is trying to say, and he's going to say yes or no."

"So you're guessing what Turay is thinking?"

"No" I say with a dark expression of embarrassment. "I'm telling him what to think."

Someone Else's Story

The thing about Salieu Turay is that he is a complete mystery, just waiting to be cracked open. Some people are open books, who have their entire life story written on the front of their t-shirt, white on black with some odd graphic in the middle. Some are a little more conservative than others. But the good stories, the ones that you really want to hear, are sometimes the ones that cost and arm and a leg to acquire and after that it becomes an very high-level security-invitation-only affair.

On the one hand, Turay claimed his story with a bullet to the head, which happens to be a price that most people aren't asked to pay. In all senses of reality, he has every right to keep his story as personal as he chooses. Yet I've discovered at the cost of my pen, he will gladly sell you pieces of his story for about $15 a piece--$25 if you want it in hard cover.

When Turay suggested teaming up to write his story over a game of checkers, which he won, I was taken back. It had taken me weeks for him to tell me what he had so far, and it was clearly something he wasn't going to express lightly. Why in the world would he let himself become subject to that?

"We'd make so much money--I'll make sure to show you what's going to sell it" he says, glancing around to see who was paying attention. Other than the people watching the checkers game itself, no one had heard, and those observers were less interested in our conversation and more interested in Turay's nonchalant style of draughts. ("That's what you call brutality" said Festus as Turay cleared five pieces from the board, a move that had also given him a king early in the game.)

Ah, I sensed, that was it. I was going to write what he had to say, which may be something, and it may be nothing at all. As I thought about the project I had agreed to I realized that while his goal was to make some money, he certainly wasn't about to let just anyone learn what he had learned without them also taking a bullet to the head. I shook my head, knowing that while they story may be a prime opportunity to make some money, the real reason for telling the story would remain a mystery. If Turay ever let me tell his story, I could win a Pulitzer Prize. But that's thing about telling other people's stories--it's not yours to tell.

They Could Be Kings

There was a guy sitting right there on the bus, dressed in business-gone-casual. That means that it began as business and became casual as he rolled up his sleeves and adjusted his collar. He looked tired, and he sat like he was unemployed. Actually, he was holding an unemployment guide, and he had a hole in the bottom of his shoe, I noticed.

He probably had a rather decent job until recently, I gathered as I watched him. He reminded me of George.

George is tall and loud. He sleeps when he wants, and pokes and prods for fun. One of those people who naturally could put someone on edge by an unexpected glance. George isn't happy. When he sits and watches you, he is like the man on the bus--contemplative. Measuring.

People always say that eye contact is so important to communication, yet there is more to that. Eye contact is communication, from one soul to another. I've seen most people flush; embarrassed at what other people will see. There are a few who don't though, who gaze back steadily, opening themselves to you to gaze upon, hiding nothing. George did that today--as he does often to make people squirm.

I watched his eyes move behind his sunglasses. Lloyd and SB watched, waiting for me, the rookie, to bow to George's will as everyone else had; but I did not. Rookie, yes, but nothing less than George--what did I have to bow to?

George, I thought as I came to my conclusion, George in another life could be a king. He isn't--king of the rampers maybe. And the man on the bus--who knows what kind of life he has been dealt? What kind of situation put him on a bus with holes in the soles of his shoes, when he could be a king?

"George may pick on you, but in his heart, he's really got your back; if there is anyone who will look out for you--you especially--no matter what kind of trouble you've managed to get yourself into, George will take care of you" Kevin explained, as if I was afraid of George.

"I know that" I answered.

Bread and Butter With a Kick

There is something fulfilling about coming home from a hard day's work. Nostalgic even, I suppose.

"How do you like it?" Jallow asked me that first week over my first game of draughts. Draughts, not to be confused with grade-school checkers, is a science. These old men and their games, I thought to myself, watching as Jallow quickly moved over the majority of the board, sweeping a full 75% of my white pieces from the board. "Did you see your mistake? You left yourself completely open. You need to pay attention! Protect yourself. Now, what was your move supposed to be?" he went on, as if he had heard my thoughts.

I pointed and he laughed at my blush.

"Don't worry, if you won me, you would be champion. Many, many people loose to me! Everyone looses, because I always win!" he crowed in his thick foreign accent.

"His name is carved on the board" Lavar pointed out.

"It's not a hard job" Jallow continued, returning to his previous question, absent-mindedly slapping at my hand making another foolish move. I stared at the board. I saw his move, but I didn't want to make it. "Gotta eat!" Jallow urged, taking the piece and slapping it into place, then slapping his own token down and sweeping another two of my tokens I had forgotten about into is palm, out of my play. I had three pieces left.

These old men insist on finishing the game, even after they essentially win in four moves.

I looked up at the monitor and hastily stood.

"You have to go? Go! I don't want you to get in trouble" he said, then just as quickly as his questions floated from subject to subject, his eyes came to rest on Lavar, who had been enjoying the exchange in appreciation of my being new.

I later played against Lavar, as he filled the spot of another newbie who was loosing badly who was called away to attend to a Boeing 737. He sat down, studying the board, then realizing that in one more move his army of black would be reduced to three tokens, he sighed and sat back in the chair, making the inevitable move to spark the bloodbath.

To be honest, he played well with his three pieces.

I cornered him, finally, when suddenly a weathered hand reached over his dreds and slammed the black king down a couple rows over. "Chance! Always take the chance!" he reprimanded Lavar, who was studying the placement of the king. I looked and realized Jallow had simply picked the piece up and slammed it down out of the way of my attack.

"How are you allowed to--" I began to ask.

"When in doubt--cheat!" Jallow pronounced, before pushing Lavar from his seat for another round. I sighed.

I was rescued that time by an airbus. Between you and me, I don't really like the airbusses, but I dislike the Embraeyer, period, so I wont complain. Work is work, a job is a job. Who can afford to not like their bread and butter--not matter how uncomfortable its cargo bin is? And since when was it ever acceptable to not be hungry?

Gotta eat, gotta eat--that's the name of the game. But the real punch on the clock isn't the checkers, it's the sweat. The sore muscles itching for more. Bread and butter with a kick, I decided. None of this bland stuff.

"Want some?" Kevin asked me, passing a spice bottle of some kind of seasoning. "It's got habanero--do you like hot stuff?"

"Not particularly" I admit. That was always John's forte--bread and butter with a kick. Like he couldn't taste it without that physical punch. I guess I see what he meant all those times. Kevin offered me a french fry covered in the mystery dust. I winced as it went down.

"How do you like it?" he asked, watching my facial expressions with withheld laughter.

"I like it" I admitted, punching back. He nodded as Jallow's loud laughter echoed through the room. I fully agreed; when in doubt, cheat.

Entering a Cucoon-Like State

The hallways are always long, do you realize that? With the same tiles in the same pattern. They are always extremely long when you're nervous, though not so long when you're not--just long. Never short though. The room that holds the rest of your life is always the last room on your right.

"Why do you think I should give you this job?" the recruiter asked with a smile. He liked me, I could tell. He was a rather jovial person, this Tim, I had decided. Genuine charm, which is something more felt than learned. Sparked interest in people was his bread and butter, that was for certain.

Yet despite all this he has asked the inevitable question that always comes, like the last room on the right, at the end of job interview. This question is the gateway to the long hallway with your future being held captive in the last room on the right. The last pit of fire before reaching King Kupa, if you will.

Why do you think I want this job? I wanted to ask. A job is a job.

But instead I had smiled and shrugged. He waited, wanting to hear why it was I wanted this job. He knew what I thought. Some people actually say the first thing that comes to mind. But I thought about it. Was there more than just the want of an income and a way to spend my days that had brought me into Arlington's recruitment office?

Then I realized that wasn't the question. Why should he give me the job?

"Because I work" I said out loud, both to him and myself. His smile widened to a grin and he jotted down the answer, the grin tapping into laughter.

"That is the best answer I've ever heard" he admitted, offering his hand. "You're hired."

The beginning was really the fingerprinting though. I shed my life on those papers, documenting every apartment I had lived in, every job I had held in the last ten years. Apparently I move more than most people because I ran out of space and they had to add extra papers onto my background information packet for some contracted agency to go and check. Everything I had done.

"Here," the girl said as she traded me packet of paper for packet of paper. "You understand that having a conflicting job will subject you to possible termination?"

"Yes" I answered, stepping into the realization that I was signing my life into something new. From student, from office worker, from writer, into ramper.

I let everything happen around me as I sat and waited to clear. Every morning I got up, and every night I fell asleep, waiting. Memorizing city codes, and waiting. Doing push ups, and waiting. Watching the world pass me by, and waiting.

I stood in the mirror, watching as my mother trimmed my hair.

"How much should I cut?" she asked.

"Just chop it all off" I sighed.

"No, I wont. Rampers are rough people. It's a man's job. It's hard work that means having muscles, constantly moving. They don't sit around and think. They work. And the only thing feminine about you will be your hair."

I frowned but didn't answer, letting her cut six inches, leaving the other ten or so to hang just past my shoulders.

"I'm not going to be able to recognize you" John protested over the phone.

"It was only a trim" I reminded.

"But you had such long beautiful hair" he lamented.

"It's nothing; my hair is still relatively long" I shrugged.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" he asked hesitantly. "I mean, it's a good job and all, and the benefits are really good, but do you really want to be a ramper?"

Minor editor's note

So because I think this story is absolutely hilarious, I'm posting it in the words of Miriam. I was thinking, as I write this, that this would make a hilarious comic strip. Maybe that's how I'll earn some extra cash...


One day, me and Missy caught a ride home with the whole McDonald family. Camden, age 7, was filling out an application to the LA Film School. He became quite puzzled when it asked him if he had been charged or convicted of violating any federal or state law, and aloud, asked what it meant. Missy's response: "It's asking if you've ever been to jail. Have you? Say no, or else they won't let you in." Heather (Camden's mom) then said: "Missy knows from personal experience." My input: "She believes in trial and error." End of the story is... Camden continued with his application until he reached the final essay portion. "What do I put in this box?" Jarom (Camden's dad) responds: "You write and tell them why they should pick you." Camden, disappointed, shocked, appalled, and completely blown says: "What?! I was just gonna draw a picture!"

From left: Camden, Easton, Heather, Jarom, and Brighton

A Glance at Home

There is a woman in black over there, where she is every morning. Low lights flash at her feet to signal the arrival of the train, like they do. She carries a newspaper under her arm, bought on her way into the station. It's cold, and her breath colors the air in steady streams, in and out, in and out. It's cold but bright. It'll be a frigid morning, and even though everything is dead in the winter air, it's alive. Sleeping.

Hibernation happens when the body cools down. The higher temperature becomes, the more the particles move around. But when they stop, there is no heat. There is no energy given off. And things sleep.

Hibernating, that's what this is. Potential energy seeps out of everything, because even though you can't see it, you can feel it, the slow, relaxed breathing induced by sleep.

"This is the Red Line to Glenmont station; train boarding on your right" says the faceless man to the woman in black. She doesn't hear him; she simply steps through the open door, as if she were walking from room to room.

The comatose lifts, as if woken by the whistle of the slow breathing against the moving train. She opens her paper, eyes lighting from subject to subject. Men, women, police men, children, dead or alive in black print. They dance and talk ethics, they dance and talk politics, they dance and talk religion, to the sound of rumbling train wheels, bump bump bump, whiiiiiiiir.

"Now approaching Metro Center, this is a transfer stop for the Orange and Blue Lines. Doors open on your right, thank you for riding Metro Rail, have a nice day." The nameless man says, his voice crackling in the old speakers.

The woman stands, shaken into alertness, her eyes seeing nothing but light in the dark tunnels, deep underground.

"Excuse me" she says as she bumps into a man, who is hurrying the other way, feeding the crowd flowing in and out, like blood in vessels to the brain. He flashes a smile to say no harm is done and hurries, already gone in presence and thought.

She walks, they walk, we walk into buildings, down the streets, laughing, waiting, crying, alive, alive in the sleeping city, alive for the paradox of cities and nature.

Tomorrow she will stand in the cold, not seeing her breath, newspaper tucked in her armpit, maybe with a cup of coffee. "This is the Red Line to Glenmont Station. Doors opening on the right."

All I Wanted Was A Life of My Own, Part 2

As a battered old man I sat there and waited. Death was coming, or it had come and gone, and I still sat here, by the window. Color flashed, and there was pain. Pain that reflected in the window. I smiled and laughed when the visitors came, but just like that they were gone, and I remained by the window pane.

And then one day, she came to me. She came and showed me pretty things, which I reached out for and she let me hold, sun-catchers, dream-holders, things I used to know, but had since forgotten, belonging to the life that wasn't mine to have. And the power in them, oh, the power. Something in me longed for it, for it to course through my being, like it had before.

And why not? If it had once been mine, why not?

So I, in my flannel and jeans, stood before my window and reached, with all my might. And it came, everything, all at once. The power coursed through me, beginning in my feet. I ran with the wind. Faster and faster, higher and higher, my old wings brought me to the heavens, where I ran out of air.

I grasped at nothing, burning more and more power to stay adrift, and with a final burst of everything I had, I reached again, just to stay, and I fell. Death became me as I burned, falling, falling, ever falling, until there was nowhere left to fall to. I burned and burned and from my ashes, I moved.

Here I am, new. I spread my wings and lifted. Here I am, again. New. New. Up, I knew. Up up.

And in my hands were my dream-holders. And in my eyes were my sun-catchers. I was the power I sought, and I was all the time.

"There'll be that crowd to make men wild through all the centuries,
And maybe there'll be some young belle walk out to make men wild
Who is my beauty's equal, though that my heart denies,
But not the likeness, the simplicity of a child,
And that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun,
And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray,
I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God's will be done,
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day."

-from "His Phoenix" by W.B. Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole, 1919.

All I Wanted Was A Life of My Own

Consider the homeless man. No one wants him around, and so he sleeps wherever he wants, whenever he wants. He goes and comes as he feels. And is he miserable? Maybe.

It's the same as Huck Finn I would think. Someone who never had much to care for can never find themselves caring about more than that, even when it is handed to them. They appreciate the gesture, or so I would assume, but how often is it that they change to be something new?

And then consider the suburban housewife who runs around all day trying to make meaningless ends meet. Soccer practice, PTA meetings, groceries, and finding time for Ellen or Oprah (depending on preference of course). And she is probably just as miserable as the homeless man!

Which is why I went back. I stood outside in the cold, letting my hair freeze, waiting for that big, tall, insanely politically incorrect punk to open the door and smile and say "Welcome back." And the moment I picked up that pencil, facing my grey Stonehenge, I could simply smile and consider everything that I had just gotten back. And there is nothing else but me, right here, right now.

Consider the point, the line, the plane. Consider how in this space, there is really one true placement, one true gesture, one true size. From point a to point b, there are infinite possibilities, once you know the rules. And what are the rules? Would you know? Can you tell?

"It's just like riding a bike" Ryan said, looking over from his canvas. And I smiled and considered. Yes, yes it is.