I feel it and I am going to talk about it.
Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn - “Bed Stuy”
Bed Stuy is beating up your mother and asking you, “What are you going to do about it, punk?”
Bed Stuy is looking outside onto the street and in between patches of icy, crunching snow, there is someone smashing a head onto the concrete sidewalk, asking, “What are you going to do about it, punk?”
Bed Stuy charmed, then dragged an innocent, orphaned girl into his cave of misery and liberated her into a motherhood of seven babies.
Don’t talk. Don’t feel.
it might make me uncomfortable, trigger me.
Don’t talk. Don’t feel
maybe you need some “tough talk” to let it go.
Bed Stuy will torture your mother and then ask, “What are you going to do about it?”
“Don’t talk?”
Don’t talk about his disgust and contempt for children who “don’t have the courage to stop him, to kill him.
Because in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, a real man, a boy even, would find a way, some way, to protect his mother.
Bed Stuy trained in boxing.
Bed Stuy was thrown out of the house onto the street, as several gang members waited. He was told, “get your ass out there and fight, and don’t come back until you beat up all of them.
California Dreamin’
Don’t talk about his pounding holes in walls or witness protection programs.
Don’t talk
about pushing a family of seven into an old car in the darkness of dawn and driving, due West, 2800 miles.
But before that, Bed Stuy sneaked into the trunk of the car the toxic sludge of bitterness and violence and delusions of California.
Soon Bed Stuy had several of them in diapers and baby bottles.
Bed Stuy laughs at your 30 pound toddler body and awkward gait.
Under the Hollywood sign the toddlers experienced the filthy streets of Bedford Stuyvesant and witnessed bloody heads, trash, baseball bats and bitterness.
“What are you going to do about it, you seven little shits?”
Below Queen Palms, he woke up from his California dream kicking the barking dog and slapping a tiny woman, a mother.
Bed Stuy is bold.
He challenges his five sons, “What are you going to do about it?”
Bed Stuy followed himself to the bar on Sunset Blvd where he picked a fight and beat up two other drunkards.
Seven hungry rodents at home.
He was a failure. Not one son would be capable of being a “real man,” of challenging him.
“What is the fun in that?”
He made do with what he had, the gang of seven.
Growing children
beginning to think and wonder and, god forbid , realize his insanity .
Into the sidewalk he could pound out this threat and taunt the children into hating themselves, as much as he hated himself.
Bed Stuy could pin them down and strip off their dignity and authentic selves.
And then ask” what are you going to do about it.”
Don’t feel. don’t talk about it.
It’s too intense
You’re triggering
You’re ruminating
But I’m talking, here.
Bed Stuy goes to AA for safety and vindication.
He becomes a sponsor.
Bed Stuy has a gun under his pillow and it’s not for intruders
Perhaps it’s for his head.
Or maybe one of his sons?
One who could not stand the humiliation any longer. The one might respond to “what are we going to do about it?”
I’m going to talk and I’m going to feel.
That’s what I’m doing.
Pancho