Note of achievement follows.
Today I reference matters concerning identity, sex, love and death.
As you might be aware, sometimes I try to think about nothing.
This one currently eludes. So there, I am back to the realms of identity, sex love and death.
On all occasions, I think and wonder what is to become of the health and wellbeing of some of my children – [particularly those who are challenged] – in that time when I am gone yonder.
But surely, most would know and appreciate that coming with love, sex and death, there is also that precious something that can be said to live in the realm of I-dentity.
Here take note that, a few weeks ago, I went to a Church where some fine folks were assembled to say a final fare thee well to a good woman who had died and whose mortal remains were there in the sanctuary and in the midst of neighbors, family and friends.
Those in the audience who had eyes to see would have seen that one of this woman’s children was decidedly and decisively different in appearance from all of his other flesh and blood brothers and sisters.
As a Black man, he stood out.
Some who mourned knew why he was Black and how it came to be that he was obliged to stand as he did. Others wanted to know why. And for sure, no one in the Church on that good day would dare say anything about the taxi driver and the love affair he had with one fine looking Long Island girl in precisely that time when her husband was far, far away.
Indeed that violet-streaked story concerning the black tax-driver and their love-child was not unique. Other pubescent girls also had their furtive encounters with youth-men drenched in testosterone.
In case after case, the boring story had a similar ending: nine months later, the baby born.
Six decades later, the product of one such successful experiment writes.
Today I write concerning the fact that some of the dogs are growling; and one or two are learning that they can bark. Among those that would be satisfied with nothing but the truth, is the ‘I’ that does its furtive rounds, watches, waits and pounces whenever ‘that!’ character arises.
Some part of this life of mine still grieves and yet hurts.
But beyond all this, there is that other question; that one that wants to know the answer to the identity question, who am I?
From time to time, I like to tell people a half-truth to the effect that, I am Miss Sylvie’s boy.
But surely, this is only half of the story!
The fact of the matter is that while I am thankful enough for all and some more that a Joseph-man was able to do for that baby Felix Frederick and his desperate mother-Sylvia Benebee, I must remember, respect and recognize the man from whose loins I was sprung.
And so, while the word in the wind is that I should – after all these years – let sleeping dogs lie, I can and will do no such thing.
I must remember, respect and recognize this man for all that he was.
This realization was recently brought home to me – and with some degree of blunt-trauma force – that I was born in a dread time; a time when girls and boys often became man and woman long before their time.
This and more like this flowed from a wound-like place deep in my mind as I watched and prayed with a family that had lost its matriarch.
I was particularly intrigued by the story that was hers and that did become her child’s inheritance as he grew to learn that his wife’s husband was not ‘real’ daddy.
It was this part of that Black man’s story that caused me so much pain on that day when a violet of a woman was eulogized. In the meanwhile, the Black man in the Church stood out as he and his mother’s other children stood together to bid farewell to a good woman who dared ‘to cheat’ in the good old days.
It was the chance she took that led to that inevitable scene where one Black man – the precious fruit of her womb and her second child – literally stood out. Thankfully, he also stood up – as he should have.
After all, his mother was dead.
And he was there to comfort the Joseph-man who had parented him, becoming father to this seemingly father-less black bastard.
In very many ways – save one – his story is quite like the one that led to the birth of the I & I – another black, bastard boy.
This might well explain how and why, half in jest, but also half in all seriousness, I always advise people to rid themselves of any concern with my education or my schooling, and that they should take me as I am: as Miss Sylvie’s boy.
While this much is true, there is also another way I am known by a precious few who are in the real know.
For those in the know concerning my time in genesis, I remind them of a man who died all too soon.
That is to say I remind them of the man who sired that child who was the I&I in the long ago years, some sixty years ago with a few months added on for good measure.
Thus my concern with I-dentity.
Evidently, I am some man’s son.
As I now know from painful experience, the man who sired the ‘I’, lived a life that mirrors – almost to a tee – the life that I have lived; but with some crucial differences.
As I now realize and recognize, this man’s tragic fate has hovered like a nightmare over mine for as long as I have known myself.
On occasion, the memory of this man’s lived life hovers vulture-like over mine whenever I smell defeat or taste failure. But too, when I succeed, I also remember the man for his courage and capacity to fight even when the odds were stacked against him.
Here the memory is of a man who could – when he wished – soar like an eagle.
Indeed, in coming upon myself and in trying to get a grip on myself, I had to have an encounter with this wanderer of a man; this man who craved company but wished to be alone; did sire children but could not truly nurture them; loved the company of women, but found it difficult living with any one for any sustained period of time.
As I have come to understand the man who was my father, I came to understand that he was – like me – a lover of words, a connoisseur of the bon mot. And for it, he stood out like the sorest of thumbs in this or that rum-shop here, there and seemingly everywhere in this infernal place.
Suffice it to say, without more details, that this man chose as a profession an occupation that from time to time brought him face to face with fire and death.
This man – as I have learned – was part of a brood of young men and women sent from Long Island to Nassau; each in search of work, income, bread and life.
Everyone in their own unique way has done very well.
Their children are today bankers, teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, nurses and other respectable people.
All of this sings of I-dentity.
