It Gets Better

Yesturday, was one of the worst days I have ever had at work. I got off at four, jumped on the train, got home by five, and at 5:15 learn that I was scheduled to do a double. I jump on the train and head back to work. By the time I got there my migraine was pounding all thanks to the stress of moment and an impacted wisdom tooth that’s been acting up these last few days. It not looking nice although the gargling, compressions and Waterpik flossing is helping.

Anyway, I wasn’t really very upset about working a double I kind needed the money but it sucked to have gone all the way home just to return. Besides the pressure of having two writers for the NY Times culinary section scheduled to pop up in the next few days, it seemed like it would turn out to be an easy not so hectic night. Boy was I fucking wrong. I have never experience such a difficult rush to manage.

Everybody and their mothers came in for dinner. Everything was taking forever, there was confusion, lost checks, angry people, happy people who walked out, wines out of stock, items breaking, understaffing, new bus boys, not very helpful co-workers and a hundred not so good other little things. Did I mention the migraine? I got home at 1:15.

My next shift starts at 10:30 this morning.

On the train, on the way here from work, I came across a situation that I felt obliged to have gotten involved in. Sometimes, one has to do such things to set examples, set standards, break norms, and defy expectations and share of one’s spirit, for the elevation of another’s. I say this because most of the time the world would rather turn its proverbial face and pretend that nothing is happening when everything in fact is.

It was alright, that the group of Caucasian punk-like kids was loud. They after all seemed fueled by the often inherent sense of entitlement that good suburban brats who denounce acknowledgment of mommy and daddy’s money, in a cry for help and attention mixed with a touch of defiance, often adopt. They had the tattoos, and freshly deconstructed new garbs with safety pins and patches, which they long ago started wearing as an act of non conformity not realizing it would in turn become if anything more uniform and predictable than anything mainstream. They were loud and rambunctious and probably believed themselves to be anarchist because they had a downy scented Misfits t-shirt folded up in a nice cedar dresser somewhere. It was cool though, I got it and they weren’t bothering me.

Then she walked in. She was African American and on her way to a party. She wasn’t giving the light skinned Cherokee mix Thomas Jefferson was my great-great granddaddy thing either. She had strong phonotypical features. She was a beautiful black color, the kind that looks like it has been kindly and self lovingly rubbed in coco-butter for a lifetime. She wore her broad nose proudly over a full pair of lips that knew the secret entire life in flavors of one soul’s reincarnation. She had on extensions that must have taken her an entire day to get and not the most expensive of cloths but they were clean and pressed and you can tell she felt pretty walking into that train. That is, until they all laughed at her.

They looked dead at her and laughed hard and hysterically. They laughed because they were ignorant, uncompassionate, and spiteful. They laughed because she wasn’t a pin up on a magazine representing the very society they shy from. They laughed at her because she was different, because they were white and she was black, because she wore a headdress they didn’t approve of and lastly because they could-wouldn’t see the pain that I saw in her face the second the luster of joy left it.

It fucking killed me to see that young woman’s face. She was so animated and statuesque a second ago that one couldn’t help but to turn and with one’s gaze follow her tread. I didn’t know what to do, yet I knew I had to do or say something. Getting my ass kicked by five guys at 1am in the morning while already with a migraine and bad tooth was not an option.

She looked up and caught me looking at her, aware of her pain. I felt it only caused her further discomfort. I then felt the urge to really do something so I got up from my chair and I walked up and took a seat near her. I told her, “Hey, I don’t know what they are laughing about because you look beautiful this evening.” She smiled the best smile ever covered, and one long tear, she quickly caught, rolled down her cheek. She replied, “Thank you, you just made everything so much better.” I believed her.

And we both just sat there smiling knowing that everything was going to be o.k.