Goliath

You know how sometimes you’ll be in a depressive episode and it feels like you’re locked in a room with no ventilation? No windows, no doors. And there’s no conceivable way of getting out. And someone on the outside, someone bigger than the whole room, keeps raising the temperature. Up and up and up and up and up. Till you’re suffocating, and you’ll do anything to get out. Even something stupid.

But, yeah, I can’t say either way whether that girl was dancin’ out of respect or disrespect, but it looked like she was moving out of love. You know how sometimes you do things that look damn near inscrutable from the outside as a way to deal with your grief? Maybe you’re even a mystery to yourself. But your mind gets out of the way and you just let your body move. Most times, people just collapse, like all their bones disintegrated at the same time, but sometimes you do the opposite. Grief sets you on fire. Sometimes, you see bursts of that where I’m from or where I been in my life. Enough people dying and someone’s bound to dance on a casket.

“You play Spades like your whole reputation, your 401( k), and your credit score are on the line. A person will form their entire opinion of you based on that Spades game. How valuable you are to them.”

And you realize that even then, when the streets were animated with socio- economic caste struggle, this was a place with all history and no future.

They said gang, and he knew they meant Black. They said thugs, and he knew they meant the n- word.