They Said It Would Be Good For You

I recently adventured, katabasis style, back to the wilds of my fostering. The aims and strategic goals of which may come to light later, but suffice to say it was complete and utter garbage. Maybe more on that later, but the cafe here, in Palmer, is slapping with all the muted violence of civilization and the denied and deeply rooted understanding of necessary bloodshed. Then again, maybe I've just read too much and this has informed my poor opinion of my fellow being. Then again, it could just be that I'm trash, like my momma used to say of other folks not to her liking. Who knows?

Mr. Hendrix here on the wall of a Hardy St. brewpub (Keg and Barrel if you're interested and in the vicinity.). This place was legit and by legit I mean it was a thinly veiled attempt at white gentrification in what had, in my memory, been a black neighborhood. Indeed, there were still many black folks going about their lives on the aforementioned street, blasting up and down the lanes, blowing loud dro out of their windows and blasting rap music of a kind unknown to me that rattled trunks and speakers. The brewpub featured many local brews from Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Kiln - the most delicious of which were the sour beers that perfectly matched the perpetual zeitgeist of the failed South in their bitterness, a perfect match to the humid, hot, racist environs of the region. Who knows what it is I'm trying to say here? The pub was nice. They had outdoor seating next to juvenile magnolia trees and yet to flower hydrangeas with beds strewn with pine straw and the hot afternoon sun warded off by giant umbrellas and a light breeze while inside was cool and quiet with close captioned sports channels. A vast oasis among the revving cars and birdnoise and human drama unspooling all around me.

I witnessed a uniquely human event during my travels - the presentation of music and the gathering of the masses on the public green - complete with brews and food provided by mostly black folks for the whites in attendance. The occasion was a Friday and it being hot in the Hub City and the need to congregate to establish that we are goddamn alive and this will all end but in the meantime we need to get in some recreation. I was poncho'd up, owl style, and received no small manner of looks. It would be some time before the train took me to the airport with the ultimate destination of home and I watched the folks behaving in strangely magnanimous ways, only taking the barest necessities from the commons - spreading their chairs and blankets with utmost respect and consideration of the other, even in a place as violent as the South, with a certain deference for their neighbors. I was stricken by the oddness of it.

This trip I spent much time amongst the dead, in their cities and beds, in the bardo of their transition, them still here somehow, yet somehow not. I marveled at their absurd monuments, the gravitational pull of their stones, the stupid desire to persist. My own journey was one of attempted right-making, taking someone where they should be and had not been for some time. A giant waste of time and resources, much like the mausoleums pictured here. And yet one hopes my charge ended up where he was destined to be.

I visited the zoo, usually not my jam because, you know, the unethical nature of housing inmates, but I had time to burn after I had completed my mission. I saw many beasts - tapirs, wild hogs, hyenas, flamingos, giraffes, alligators, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I was baffled more by the patrons, mostly white, mostly barking at their children in a way that seems not to happen elsewhere and would likely be frowned upon in other regions. There, in that place, no one gave a second look, as if that manner of aggression was preferred with regards to urchins. I saw this many places and I marveled at my own upbringing. The peacock and I communed for a good long while, within close proximity, he in his livery and me in mine, and I asked him if he regarded my plumage as a threat. He eyed me close and did not answer.

Back home at the Moosehead, I studied these things - the journey, the people, the muted disapproval of a freak such as myself flying his flag in southern Mississippi, on a mission to put someone somewhere, to close a thing, to finish a chapter, to find the right azimuth, to reconcile an existence, to be. No answers apparated and I was left alone, plunging magically toward oblivion. Perhaps I have not said what I have wanted to convey, perhaps I have been intentionally vague due to personal reasons, perhaps I have opted for obfuscation rather than clarity, yet here this thing is, signifying nothing.