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| Mi'kmaq warrior and dancer, Danny Boy Stephens, takes a moment to reflect on the shores of the Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. |
a very affluent section of Brooklyn called "Park Slope", famous for its' artsy writing crowd, media types, ubiquitous designers, and lesbians, which suited me just fine. Except for the occasional coffee-house misunderstanding (volunteer firefighter "dude" with a preference for Great Danes and Christmas lights, I know you knew I was straight, girl, but thanks for being a weirdo to me when I was sitting alone), I was pretty much left to my own devices, which also suited me fine.
I didn't have a lot of time for bullshit anymore. I was a full-time Art Director in publishing, and after I quit smoking, a part-time martial artist in training, which meant I had weekday evenings after 9pm and Saturday mornings to sleep in, which was exactly what I did, and I did it every week for years. I'd also tack on church and Sunday school classes when I worked from home, but it was pretty much the same deal, because no one around me was suitable for my company.
Sometimes I dated men I knew I could trust from my past, from places like old jobs or school, but that eventually went away, too, because they weren't suitable for me either. Mostly, I worked and walked and kept healthy, which kept me going. When the boom was lowered on me financially, I did double-time creatively by cutting out everything but food as an expense, but just like my training provided, I set up a new routine in which I could flourish and work, albeit more sporadically and with much less frills for decorating.
It's the same productivity I have in place today: free Internet access at the library, while trying to keep the freaks off of me. But in Brooklyn, it was harder. People are savvier, and they know how to work you over.
I met a man there that I knew was troubled, but because I grew up with it, I managed to stay safe by my own wits. He knew that, too, along with many other facts that were mixed in with his psychosis.
What my Nuyorican friend from Brownsville did not know, and had never known, was an Acadian Métis warrior. He thought his "street smarts" about welfare scams and rent cheats were powerful weapons that he had in his arsenal, along with an almost total lack of a moral compass, really bad acting skills, and one very serious mental illness. Over time, I put him through all the paces, but to no avail, which certainly didn't surprise me one bit.
If my friend said he needed a clock, I gave him the old one I'd had for more than 15 years hanging in my kitchen, because I had another one in my living room. If he said he was "learning" design at a broke-ass school on Staten Island, I gave him my old small spare portfolio to use, with deadlines in place for him to keep to, and he did absolutely nothing with the gifts I gave him, just like any other asshole white boy I've ever tried to trade with.
When I asked him to show me his portfolio pieces one day, as I was checking out his tiny room in a typical Brooklyn tenement in the Spanish-flavored part of the Slope that turns into Sunset Park, he shamefacedly opened it to reveal that he turned into a place to keep his checkbook and receipts for storage. Oh. OK. You've done nothing. Give it back to me, asshat. NO! I mean hand it over to me now.
He sputtered in shock. But, but...he's a welfare-case. Pretty white ladies usually give him stuff for being sick and broke! Yeah, bitch, meet the real deal ethnic minority. He tried to quibble with me about my genetic past, saying I just wanted to paint myself "exotic", like the mass murder in our Nova Scotian past was something I chose to brandish about town, like he did with his check from the government for school. You know, because he needed a "hand up", not a hand out.
Same thing with my room clock: you don't help me move my stuff after I run out of money "homeboy", you give me back my clock (which I eventually ditched at a Park Slope storage place when I ran out of money for that, too). By this point, I had him trained: he just sighed, took down the clock from the painted-over graffiti ghetto wall, and handed it back to me.
You see, esse, in my world, if you don't have something of equal value to trade, we don't trade with you at all, so give it back. All of it. It's okay, though. I've got a special lil' internal clock running, just to keep track of all the borrowed time you're on. Take your time with it.
from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_giver
