June 12, 2013
A crowd of children,
from barely walking to racing in the rain, are jumbled in the Riverside
library. The male librarian announces the free lunch for kids and
enthusiastically adds they would be accompanied by the St Paul mayor. A few of the children murmur in
recognition, as he skirts through the front door and down the stairs. The kids
race down to the basement like red ants to an open honey jar, to grab their
brown bag of processed food. I am not sure what the mayor is sharing but a
number of young men tromp back up the stairwell, minutes later, with cheese
sticks in hand. They hover over a friend’s shoulder as he hunts and pecks next
to me. I turn and ask the boys with wild brows to tell me what is going on in
the cellar. The youth, sitting in his hard, upright chair gasps since I was
talking with him while rapid-fire typing and he glances over to see if I am, in
fact, writing “real words” and checking for errors. None.
Reminds me of the
little guy on the bus who asked if the thick novel I was reading is a chapter
book. “Yes,” I chortled, “it is.” Then he requested to look at the pictures. I
told him there aren’t any and one day, sooner than he thinks, he will be
reading books like the one in my hand. He just shook his head in disbelief.
John John from
upstairs is down to “play” with the animals. She decides to brush my hair when
I take it down from the clips. “Wow, your hair is nappy! Does you comb it out
when you get a weave?” “I don’t think I have ever had a weave,” I reply. She
gave me a pinched look as though she felt sorry for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment