December 2009
17 posts
Jury Duty
Woman in line at the jury duty clerk's office: I missed jury duty a year ago. I'm comin now to take care of it.
Clerk: Oh! Well. Let me see. What's your name?
Woman: Uh, Judy Legrange
Clerk: Okaaaaaaay. It looks like we sent you some notices back in February about a court hearing...you had missed jury duty in March of that year, 2008...did you get those notices?
Woman: No.
Cleark: Ok. Well, what's important is that you came in, and now you're here. So we can sign you up and you can come in one day next month to serve and then it will all be taken care of, okay? Then you don't have to deal with it for another 8 years.
Woman: Great!
Next man in line comes up, trying to ask a question with his paper, he's old, wearing a sort of sad beanie and looks Pakistani and doesn't really speak English: Sir...sir?
Clerk is still filling out woman's paperwork: Uh...yes?
Foreign man: Oh, sorry.
Woman, clerk: No, come, it's okay.
Foreign man: No no, sorry sorry.
Clerk: Sir, don't worry, give me your paper.
Woman stands aside as the foreign man shows his jury summons.
Clerk: Sir, are you an American citizen?
Foreign man: What?
Clerk: are....you....an...american....citizen sir?
Foreign man: No. NO! I DON'T EVEN HAVE GREEN CARD!
Clerk: That's okay, that's okay. Do you have your passport, from your country?
Foreign man: WHAT? What?
Clerk: Your....passport....photocopy [making motion] your foreign passport and send it to us, and you will be excused.
Foreign man: Oh.
Woman: Do you understand sir?
Foreign man: Yes.
Woman, to clerk: Do you think he understands?
Clerk: Yes. They always pretend they don't understand because they're worried about getting deported or something. But we don't do that here. He just has to show his passport. Don't worry, he understands.
Woman approaches foreign man privately: Sir, don't worry. Just photocopy your passport. They won't punish you for anything. Do you understand?
Foreign man: Oh...yes...yes
Woman: You won't have any problems. Just photocopy [making motion] your passport, okay? No problems.
Foreign man, smiling: OK. Thank you, thank you.
As I leave the building much later, I pass the old man standing in the freezing wind waiting for a bus. He looks lost.
I’m listening to: Golden Cage by The Whitest...
Dinner party
Young man drunk at a dinner party: I'm really glad I'm with you right now, because earlier today I didn't know I would see you. I mean, I didn't know if I'd see anyone ever again.
Young woman drunk at a dinner party: Yeah
Young man: Do you know what I mean?
Young woman: Yes, I felt like that a million times in the past year. It's horrible.
Young man: Is that insane? I mean, am I insane to still care so much about this [failed relationship]? Like, sometimes I just think I should do something really crazy...sometimes I do do things that are really crazy.
Young woman: I know. It sucks.
Young man: That's what I'm saying. I've been insane over this for a year and half now.
Kush Cafe is listening to: Nuthin’ to Do by...
Fort Greene is listening to: Do Your Thing by Lyn...
Christmas in Fort Greene
Shopper in Sister's Community Hardware: How was your Christmas?
Middle aged male clerk: It was good! I painted all day.
Shopper: Oh! Me too! I painted the whole day.
Clerk: Yeah? It was niiiice. Made myself some food, picked up a six-pack, good day.
Homey stopped at the red light is listening to:...
A working mother's special day for her daughters
I rode the bus to Ikea, and across from me were two little girls, one was fidgeting away and the other was reverently well-behaved, making a point to tell her mom her sister was the one who knocked her over each time the bus jolted and the little one tipped and hit her sister in a fidget-accident. The mother was young, and the little one’s carriage was notably frayed and sad. The girls were...
Running for the B69 bus
I run down the street to catch the bus at a red light carrying a folded up 60 lb Ikea cabinet base made of steel in the crook of my arms in front of me, and make it just in time, totally breathless: Dude, I feel like I just performed in the olympics!
Female bus driver: Hahaaa! At least you didn't have to throw it. Next time, they got little handcarts for that.
Me, still breathless: Oh my God
Bus driver: Next week I'm gonna see you all buff. You'll be carryin a little lassoo and talkin bout your name is Sheera. 'Yes, that is I. Tis I, and Spartacus.'"
Me: Yep
Bus driver: I say that, but I can carry anything. I can carry that, AND you at the same time! From drivin a bus! My arm is 24" around. From drivin a bus, baby.
Listening to: Lost Without You by Robin Thicke
Listening to: Misread by Kings of Convenience
Nabir, a car service driver in Brooklyn skidding...
Passenger: Where are you from?
Car Service Driver: Yemen
Passenger: Yemen? Oh.
Driver: You know something about Yemen?
Passenger: I was working on Somalia for a while and a lot of Somalis went to Yemen as refugees. How is it in Yemen right now?
Driver: It was bad when the Somalis came, and now it is getting worse.
Passenger: Why?
Driver: The southerners are trying to start a war.
Passenger: Why? Are they part of some different tribe?
Driver: They used to be a separate territory.
Passenger: And why are you in New York? Isn't it cold here for you?
Driver: For the first year it was. Now it is normal.
Passenger: But don't you miss your country? Is it really that bad that you have to live here in this freezing place?
Driver: Every day, it is bad. There, you have only two people who can make enough money to support five, maybe more family members. Mother, father.
Passenger: So here you make more money and can support them better?
Driver: Yes, of course.
Passenger: But why do you have to support them? Why don't you just tell them to support themselves?
Driver: Partly because of religion, partly because of family.
Passenger: But your parents, they are older than you, they have much more experience with life, shouldn't they be making more money than you?
Driver: Silence
Passenger: Do you still think all the time about Yemen, I mean, do you feel like you still live there in your head even though you live so far away?
Driver: A person never stops thinking about their own country. The first year...now it is different after four years.
Passenger: Why do you keep caring? There are many people - in warzones, and in peacefull places - who only think about themselves and their own business. They only think about the situation of their country when something happens to them. But there isn't something happening all the time, even in a war, it is only sometimes that the war affects you...most of the other time it is just normal, life is like usual. Do you think you are unusual for paying enough attention to the problem that you had to leave your country to come here and get away from it?
Driver: A person must care. If he doesn't, he is not his....self. He is not part of the earth. If a person is one of those people who only thinks about his own business, he is not caring about anyone but his own self, he is not caring about his country. He is not part of his country. His country...means nothing to him.
Mobutu died of AIDS?!
Djallo, a Senegalese car service driver (in French): Why do you speak French?
Passenger: Because I spent the last year in Congo
Djallo: Hmm. How is it there?
Passenger: There are a lot of problems. I mean, Kinshasa is okay, life is normal there and think people are pretty happy, there aren't rebels there. But I was in the east, and there are a lot of problems there.
Djallo: They have A LOT of problems there. It's the most dishonest country in Africa. But Senegal is beautiful. You would not believe how perfect it is there.
Passenger: I have never been to Senegal. I'd like to go. But don't you think Nigeria puts some serious competition up to Congo on the dishonesty count?
Djallo: Nigeria!? NO! NIGERIA HAS DEMOCRACY. It is a very rich country, perhaps the most successful economy in Africa!
Passenger: They have democracy? I don't think so.
Djallo: Nigeria?! That country has more than 100 million people! It is not easy to govern that many people.
Passenger: Well, anyway you're right that Congo is full of dishonesty.
Djallo: Yes. And it's because of Mobutu. That man pillaged his country for 30 years. It was disgusting.
Passenger: I know.
Djallo: And look how he ended.
Passenger: I'm not sure what you mean, but, I do think it's ironic that this man who stole money from his people to own tons of limousines and homes in Switzerland and France ended up dying of prostate cancer, which he didn't even know he had until he was practically on his death bed, despite more or less routine examinations for the illness being widely available to even middle class people in the developed world.
Djallo: It was not cancer. I don't think so. It was AIDS. African leaders always hide their illnesses.
Passenger: You think so?? I've never heard that theory before.
Beacon's Closet clerk in Williamsburg runs into...
Cute boy: Hey what have you been doing?
Girl who looks annoyed: I don't know, nothing. I'm applying to grad school.
Boy: Cool!
Girl: I don't really want to.
Boy: Well what are you going to do?
Girl: Nothing. I don't know. Are you still writing?
Boy: Yeah! I'm actually finishing a chapter, and I want to make some books to give to people. I had my graduation last week...we had a little party at the boat house at dock 40. There was a flute group that played.
Girl: Boat house? Where?
Boy: Dock 40. In Manhattan.
Girl: Cool. How do you, like, reserve something like that?
Boy: Ummm, call them and put your name on the book I guess.
Girl: Oh.
Boy: Yeah it was pretty cool. I just wish I knew how to glue the bindings of book spines together. I actually have no idea how to make a book...some people are so into it though...
Girl: Yeah I don't know. No.
Boy: There was actually a woman who came and read at our school before I finished, and she gave away some of her little chapters all bound together afterward, I got one for free! And later she was charging $40 each...
Girl: No really. Wow. Well, you should read more.
Boy: I'm terrible at reading.
Girl: No.
Boy: I get sweaty and shaky.
Girl: Well have you thought about getting published commercially?
Boy: Yeah, you know with poetry I'd rather just make my own books in these times and try to sell them than go through commercial...you know...publishing.
Girl: Yeah...well in these times that might be the choice of a lot of people.
Boy: Yeah...
Girl: Well, it was really nice to see
Boy: Yeah great
Girl: It
Boy: Yeah it should happen more often
Girl: Totally
Boy: Okay
Girl: Okay
Boy: Okay, well, see ya
Girl: Bye
Conversation on the B61 bus during the first big...
Mother: Anthony look at the snow
Anthony: I CAN'T WAIT TO GIT OUT
Father: We're goin to git you a jacket so you can slide down the hill with Darone and the otha boys
Anthony: YEAH, YEAH I GOT THIS DOWN
Man sitting across the aisle drinking a can of Arizona iced tea out of a paper bag: I remember when they used to be like that
Mother: Anthony, your santa hat is makin all kinds a music. Maybe da otha people on the bus don't want to hear so much music from you...hold on... let me adjust you... Okay.
Man across the aisle: Look at that snow fall!
Anthony: LET IT FALL BABY!
Mother, father, and man across the aisle: chuckle
Mother: I heard it's supposed to be a squall until tomorrow night
Man across the aisle: oooh baby
Mother: I love the snow
Father: Anthony, you still makin all kinds of music over there
Man across the aisle: I miss them at that age, gettin 'em all suited up so they can go out an play in the snow...ohooo! I remember my boy at that all, all squirrelly as soon as he git up in the mornin...you gotta put em in all the warm clothes and then you let em loose on the street and ...oohooo!...all day they's happy out there. My boy's 21 now. He ain't like that no more. I miss those days.
Bus driver: Bedford and south 6th, bedford and south 6th
Mother: Okay Anthony we got to step down hea
Man across the aisle: Okay take care y'all, happy holidays
Father: Same to you man
Man across the aisle makes a cheers gesture with the can of tea: Bye now
Teenagers at Little Louie's Pizza on Myrtle after...
Girl: So you're Sicilian
Boy: I'm not from Sicily, my father's Italian
Girl: And your mother's black
Boy: My mother's family is African
Girl: So you're black
Boy: My mother's grandparents come from Africa
Other girl: So you're black
Boy: I'm African
Girl: We're all African