'hood #8

It was a lingering walk back to 85 Mount Vernon and we talked of many things; the strengths of her voice, husky, yet clear and decisive made everything she had to say to me even more attractive. She asked about my browned skin and I told her it was only my arms and face, that working on a farm under a roasting sun makes you stay covered even if it made you warmer so I took the advice from Brother Bernard when he told me to keep my shirt on. I asked her about the note. What would she tell me of her dad's feelings about me? She deflected the real purpose of the question by telling me that Bobby was the only guy she trusted to get the note to me. I let it go and pulled her into me by her shoulder and savored the smells in her hair before kissing her full on the lips for a lasting minute – until someone walked past and gave us “a’ hem”. We chuckled knowing he couldn’t know how long it’s been.
I told her about the anti-war protestors (she immediately corrected me saying they’re called war-protesters); I didn't want to bring up the confusion with"peace protestors". The big protests on this campus were for Civil Rights, and there were people on campus who had participated in some of the freedom rides focusing on de-segregation of facilities all up and down Route 40. Marie told me about Michael and his girl friend named Penny who went to Swarthmore. Seems she was a big player in the Route 40 freedom rides. South of Boston, down the waters edge past New York City in Maryland, east of Baltimore is a little city called Cambridge where she joined their second ride into this city of segregated lunch counters, schools, churches and movie houses – but worst was lack of health care – if you needed a hospital, you also needed a car to take you 200 miles to Johns Hopkins where black doctors don’t have hospital privileges; but, at least, you are not turned away!
Penny and other students were on their way back to schools like Morgan, Howard, Lincoln and Bryn Mawr; all beaten, whites more so than the blacks. Not enough gains this summer and the ranks were thinning. Penny talked about how she had taken strength from the songs they sung.

"And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin' "
Bob Dylan

The stories Marie told me reminded me of Joey’s stories and both Cairo and Cambridge seemed to have predictable futures for a shrinking population, lack of customers for its’ stores and factories moving out of town with the new wave of corporations being formed creating more unemployment and even homeless people.
Both these cities represent an upheaval from old ways and pursuit of a new way of life. No longer was it acceptable to refuse a child to go to school. No longer was it acceptable to turn people away at the hospital front door. A man should be able to work if he can do the work and pray to his God wherever that may be. Many men and their families would have a home if they could live in a de-segregated society. These two small cities and others across America will be asked to be un-afraid of the future and trust to be asked for by their new leader. He had the foot soldiers, now he needed that support from every town and city across America including the capitol city on the Potomac River.

For the times they are a-changin’


Right turn onto the steps of 78 Mount Vernon and, she unlocks the outside door and goes up a flight of stairs into a hallway with three doorways – one for her front apartment and entry to a living room, the two rear doorstwo for two big bedrooms, each with its’ own bathroom, bed and desk and sofa and closets. Nice!

A shoulder to lie on, a body to embrace

Entering the room I felt a glow coming from
my inner self while I simply closed my eyes to breathe in the scents of my love. She asked for the duffel bag I carried and flung it into the corner. She goes to a radio and says she found a good station that had a good mix of “modern” music and flicks it on and The Righteous Brothers come forth as if on cue. She curls an arm across the small of my back, looks into my eyes and I want to read it as “nothings changed”. She rests her cheek on the muscles just below my collarbone and we begin to dance, a slow, swaying dance. We kiss softly and my hands fall onto her until our lips are simply rubbing and a small moan comes from her depths. I pull her hips closer into me and the swaying motion of our hips presses her harder against me and passionate pleasure slowly washes over us. We kiss harder now, as we dance and sway, our hearts race as we touch and hug and feel each other. The song slowly fades. She leaves me to go into the bathroom telling me to “get under the covers” and I’m momentarily asking someone who isn’t there what I’m supposed to do? Marie appears in a short white slip and I could already see her erected nipples to be a sign of how eager she is for the coming. I open the covers for her and wrap one arm around her, gazing into her eyes and I know we love each other.






Spent and exhilarated, exhausted and excited,

we lie hugging, warm and softly whispering private love-things to each other and we eventually fall asleep like this.

# # # # # # # # #

If the Potomac River is what gave Washington its’ bright reflections, it also made the darness much thicker. Here was Jack, trying to do a balancing act with Nikki and suddenly he found himself on a high wire without a net. Jack came back from Geneva a beaten man. Nikki was sure he had withered Jack down to a pansy; so he started sending missiles to Cuba in April to prevent an invasion by the Americans. At first he only sent surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-surface cruise missiles for the purpose of defending Cuba, but Jack had ticked him off back in ’61 by installing nuclear IRBM’s in Turkey; just 16 minutes away from Moscow. Nikki was gonna take one more step – in May he decided Cuba needed nuclear missiles and by July nearly 60 ships filled the ports and here’s how they found out. The head of the CIA was on his honeymoon and the French Intelligence Agency tells him about the Soviet missiles. So the Director of CIA finds a satellite-telephone and calls Jack from Paris. Well, Jack and Bobby and Rusk and McNamara have a meeting and they figure Nikki wouldn’t do that – mostly because the mid-term elections were coming and he didn’t want to influence them in any way (could it be he was afraid of Republicans). Well, it’s the end of August already so they do a fly-over and all they see





is the surface-to-air defensive missiles and, besides that, the Soviet ambassador said “nyet” to the existence or intent of offensive missiles. Jack goes to Congress and says everything’s O.K.;

Nikki had prevailed, again, for a little while.


He drank some vodka and went on a second honeymoon.


I awoke because my body was on fire! I put my face into her hair and at the end of this long day she was still fresh. Marie slept and I went to shower, thinking twice before soaping her off me; no denying I needed this shower – last being a thousand miles and two days ago. I fixed my eyes on her resting body and knew I couldn’t leave – especially now; we had shared each other deeply; yes, as so many have shared each other; all, they knew, in a special way. This was our first times and we were impassioned while those firing spots in our brain took us upwards to unseen and unknown places before bursting into rousing moments as finale leads to prelude. She awakened and turned to me opening her eyes and arms. As I sat onto the bed in my wet towel she rose up and stripped it from right under me praying I not wet the bed where WE will sleep tonight. But now she was hungry and flew into and out of the shower, her hair rolling in glistening curls to her shoulders. When her hair wasn’t wet, it had a fullness pulled higher by those curls; of course I’ve seen this many times at 12th street beach and would watch again the slow rising of her hair. I didn’t know where we were eating and I asked about how I should dress. She immediately asked where did I get those blue jeans and said it would be neat to wear them anywhere 'cause nobody on this campus was wearing them. So I reached into my second hand duffel bag to get my second hand blue jeans to slip over my old gym shoes that didn’t hold onto the gym floor any more. She told me I looked good; must be the shirt she bought me.






James Meredith rebuked,





again

for the last time.