"If today is all we see, then tomorrow seems to me is just an illusion we believe" - Zero 7, Morning Song
Despite it's tight quarters and ancient elevators, the Milford Plaza has it's charm. For instance, it has beds and a television that works. It features lights that turn on and off at your choosing and water that runs both hot and cold. Also, it is a block a way from Times Square and in New York while on vacation being where the action is is a must.
We walked Broadway. We ate large plates of food at delicatessens and Bubba Gump's and, my personal favorite, Virgil's BBQ. We saw a Broadway show and then ate at Thalia. We took short jaunts on the N/R to Soho for college tours and shopping and dinner at Woo Lae Oak with old friends. We visited Madame Tussaud's and the Empire State Building and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.
And then, on Thanksgiving Day, after chowing down at Virgil's for a second time, we trekked to Brooklyn in a cab that claimed to not know where he was going. We hadn't planned on this part. We expected to be picked up by our Aunt. She called at 9 AM to tell us she would be there by two. She called at noon to tell us she'd be there closer to three. She called at 2:45 to tell us she wasn't going to make it at all and that she'd pay for a cab.
Yeah right. Forty bones later and she had us in her house with the oddly working lights and the bedrooms and kitchens converted to classrooms with tattered school posters and ancient pictures and chicken scratch chalk writing and papers -- goodness, the clutter of papers -- strewn about. Before even the hugs and hellos, we're being told to remove our shoes and to honor their way of life. It has been years since I've seen these relatives and already I'm down forty dollars and a pair of kicks.
I'm shown to where I will be sleeping. A second story kitchen with wood floors and broken lights and no bed. Okay. My cousin, who lives here with his grandmother and aunt instead of in Detroit with his mother and his siblings, must be disciplined in this room. Pages of what look like demerit forms are taped to the door and all his indiscretions are listed. Speaking Negatively in the Car is listed as one and I audibly groaned. What are they doing to this poor child? He would turn 14 on Sunday yet few seemed to care. They'd rather yell his name out and ask him to do chores or tell him what he's doing wrong than simply celebrate that he's alive and a good, if rambuctious, kid. I would be too if I had to live in this house of crazy where I'd been given an African name that is not my own and told I must eat vegan and participate in rituals I do not understand nor care to.
My man just wants to wear Roc-A-Wear, watch basketball, play piano and chess and be left alone. Is that so wrong?
Their minivan makes noises and the inside light turns on and off when my Aunt pumps the brakes. They try to get places without knowing exact directionos or addresses. They leave late to everything. We can't get to the airport to pick up my parents on time. We get lost on our way to our cousin's in Queens for Thanksgiving Dinner. We sleep on the floor on makeshift mattresses. The bathroom doesn't lock and it takes 2 days before people learn to knock before entry.
They try to make us wear lime green to the party. Tye Dye Lime Green. Um, have you met me? Hi, I'm Jason. I'll be fly til I die and lime green ain't in that picture. And why are we going to what is essentially a take-out joint for a celebratory banquet? And why is your husband going to yell at the waitress for interrupting his whacked out prayer? And why don't you have dollars to pay for your people? And how all y'all gone sit here and undercut each other with snide comments in the middle of a party? Is this just how y'all do it? Is this the way of this family? Is this why I haven't seen half y'all fools in twenty years and why we don't talk on the phone?
I'm sayin', out here in the real world, we attempt to live prosperously and joyously. We expect things to work and people to ackright or at least try to. I'm not a judgmental person. Live your life, fam. I don't dismiss your culture and what you're trying to do and all that but, come on, people. Let's get it together. Let's be kind to each other and respectful and not make a grown ass man sleep on the floor in a classroom. Don't try to guilt me into feeling bad because I don't get your life. I don't. I won't. Ya can't.
Brooklyn wasn't all bad, though. As we rode down Flatbush, we passed a car parked on the right side blasting Biggie.
Where Brooklyn at? Where Brooklyn at? Where Brooklyn at? Where Brooklyn at?