So I’m walking back from the bank wearing my Barack shirt and reading Barack Obama In His Own Words while juggling a bunch of bags. Now I’m a pretty clumsy guy so, of course, I drop the book and it tumbles…into a sewer. Yup. I gather up some sticks I think may be strong enough and I lean over the curb to fish the book out. Cars are whizzing by and all when this black pick up truck putters by and puts on the brakes. I’m using a stick to nudge the book into a dry brown paper bag as the slightly southern voice of an older Black American Man chimes in, “You dead?”
I lift my head up and he frowns, “Nah. You’re just stupid.”
I smile as he tells me how dangerous trying to retrieve this book is. In his dirt smeared white T-shirt and black jeans that are a few sizes too big for him, the man asks me what is so important that I would reach into the sewer to get back. I think he was relieved that I was trying to get a book. He promises me he lives close by and drives off to get some tools. I listed to Rachel Portman’s theme song to Cider House Rules while I wait.
The pick up putters to the corner and the Man emerges with three rather large tools. He offers me a gardening hoe.
This man stands in the street while I use his gardening hoe to fish my book out of the sewer. We shake hands and I offer to give him one of my Barack shirts for free.
He releases a kinda cool smirk, mulls it over, then sighs that retired man sigh, “I’ma sign for him anyway. You give that to someone who ain’t. Cause I’ma sign for him anyway.”
And with that, he was gone.
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