[lit-ideas] FRIDAY'S MEDITATION
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:29:23 -0600
I saw Norman today, walking down the street I live on. I was driving the
opposite direction. Norman used to be at least five feet tall, now he's more
like four eight or so, or maybe it was just the bent-overness. He's still as
dark as espresso and lean as a whippet though. I waved at him but apparently
he's still so absorbed in his own world that he doesn't see anything unless it
bumps into him. I used to work alongside him at Overton Square. A complex of
bars and restaurants and retail shops. Norman was the crew chief of the
janitorial staff. I was the maintenance man. That was some thirty years ago,
or so. Norman was known as HNIC. That's what his fellow workers called him
because he was their immediate supervisor. HNIC meant 'Head Nigger In Charge'.
If any one of the others told another what to do, the invariable response was,
"Who made you HNIC?" There was a period of time, about three weeks as I
remember, when Norman wasn't HNIC. He had gotten drunk and beat up his wife
pretty bad. Stupid of him to then have fallen asleep. His wife boiled up a
pot of water and poured it on his back as he slept. He was out for 3 weeks. I
was astonished at the violence in his life and his cavalier attitude towards
it. He shrugged. He had it coming to him, he said.
Don't we all.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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