A personal example
I generally do not provide details of my private and misspent youth in my blog except to refer to it on occasion. However, my previous blog post can be easily contextualized by the following “blast from the past”:
When living in North Carolina and at the tender age of about 17, I took a job on a truck delivering carpet for installation by my colleague, a large and physically strong black guy who could toss the carpet rolls into the truck by himself!
I learned while working with my colleague, Hazel was his name, that he was dating a girl in my school. We developed a bond.
On one occasion, Hazel told me he was going to meet with his girl friend (my schoolmate) and I should take the truck to a bar on the West side of town where he would meet me after lunch. The bar was almost empty – just one guy shooting some pool in a burgundy-colored silk shirt. Given the hour of the day, the shirt, and his skill at the table, I concluded that he was not necessarily “gainfully employed” and probably made his living as a pool shark.
He also did not appear to be overly friendly or amused by my white face in an otherwise all black bar in an all black neighborhood. He gave me a hostile look and said, “You a soul brother?”
I tried to disarm his hostility with the comment, “Would I be anything else in this bar at this time of day?”
That didn’t help! He looked at me with a little more hostility and said, “I think you don’t like me because I’m black!” (There’s that initial premise!)
Knowing that conflict was imminent, I (rather stupidly) replied, “No, that’s not it at all. I think I would not like you if you were green, blue, purple or any other color!”
He was now totally pissed off and started moving toward me and at his gesture, I grabbed a pool cue for possible defense. When I grabbed the cue, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a razor. Now, I am neither foolishly brave nor stupid, but I knew enough to know that I was either going to die or sport a very ugly scar after that day.
Fortunately, another patron entered the bar and yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS???!! My antagonist replied, “I’m gonna cut this honky, Hazel!”
Hazel knew the guy! And the guy was afraid of Hazel! He said, in a calm voice, “You ain’t gonna cut no friend of mine. He was waitin’ for me.”
The guy apologized to Hazel (not to me!). Hazel simply said, “Let’s get outta here!” and we quietly left. He said nothing further after I thanked him and we went off to deliver our carpet.
My point is that some situations are simply inevitable when mutually exclusive options are concerned. The truth is no more useful than an explanation, an outright lie, or an attempted negotiation in such a situation. My antagonist’s initial premise took over and there was nothing more to say. (My motive for my wise-ass answer was just to not let the challenge go unanswered – dumb, but I am from New Jersey!) Hazel’s arrival “impeached” any further action that day.
I never tested my hypothesis further by returning to that bar!!
Sorry for waxing personal!
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