Black-eyed White People

He walked along Fulsome Street, crossing Geary . The streets were all about lights. White headlights mostly, moving toward him. Red ones too, moving away.

Some lights were fixed high-overhead casting huge white arcs across the pavement. The sidewalk was almost as wide as the street.

The man screamed into the sodium night: “Don't come back until you find it!” He took a deep breath and tried again; “Don't come back,” he said less loudly, “until you find it...” he was aware now, too much so, of all the thin, black-clad, black-haired, black-eyed white people, couples, men mostly, holding hands for the most part, giving him wide berths on the pale,white-orange sidewalk.

Another deep breath, and this time he sang, “DON'T you come back until you fiiiind it...until you haave it... untilllll it's YOOOOURS...” He sang in a full voice, forgetting the pedestrians walking against him. He took off his pork-pie hat and spread his arms, “Don't come back,” he sang reaching a high-note, his eyes tightly closed, “until you, fiiiind it,” he sang-- this time reaching a higher high-note he hadn't hit since Harlem fifteen years ago. “You wonderful man...” he added, barely able to keep from laughing.

“Hey!” said someone passing by, “You T-Bone Chester?”

“Yes Sir, I is!” he said shaking the man's hand with both his own.

“Well, why you out here when yous s'posd to be in there?” the man asked pointing to the Boom-Boom Room and the lit-up marque.

T-Bone said, “I lost somethin', but I found it,” and allowed two uniformed cops to stop the people waiting in line from getting any closer. T-Bone waved and smiled and used the cops as shields to get past through the side-door, laughing now, and more than ready.

-290 Words-