Dead Sea

    The big thing 1 had to deal with was the passage of time. Trapped inside the house all day and all night with no television or Xbox or shit like that. I had to find things to occupy my mind, because otherwise I'd get very depressed and start thinking about walking outside, finding the nearest zombie, and letting him have a bite. The loneliness was the worst part, and that's why I was glad when I found out Alan was alive and he joined me (even if he was hopelessly straight). Alan was my neighbor. Nice enough guy. He'd worked at the plant too, and got laid off the same time as me. Alan took a gig with a temp agency. Did odd jobs like flagging traffic and loading trucks. Some days they had work for him. Some days they didn't. He barely scraped by. But he'd never once let his spirits get down. He was a funny, jovial person. After he'd moved in (because his house wasn't as secure) my loneliness vanished.

    But eventually, with his added presence, supplies went quicker than I'd imagined. With the power out, the food in the fridge had spoiled and the kitchen smelled like the zombies. I still had plenty of beer, canned goods, and packaged foods. Had plenty of water, too. We pissed in empty beer bottles so the toilet water would remain untainted. I figured we could drink from the commode if necessary.

    When we ran out of food, we had to venture out. That was when I participated in looting the Safeway. I know what you're thinking. Black man, late-twenties… of course he looted the grocery store. Well fuck you. It wasn't like that. I grew up hard. Lived in an old row house in the middle of Druid Hill Park. Place was a fucking dump. We had rags stuffed in the cracks in the walls and plastic over the windows in the wintertime to keep out the cold. My childhood pets were all cockroaches. The neighborhood was filthy-garbage on the sidewalks and dead grass and broken glass covering the vacant lots. I saw my friends get gunned down in the streets. Saw their dried blood on the sidewalks. Saw the cops and the preachers shrug in resigned consignation. They didn't care. Neither did anybody else. Only time people gave a fuck was during an election year-or if somebody white and wealthy got killed. I spent my childhood in shit. 1 stepped on crack vials every time I went outside to play. Drugs were all around me. So was crime. It was a way of life. But I didn't buy into that shit. 1 lived my life differently. Stayed in school. Worked a job. Never did drugs. Never boozed. Never robbed anybody. Like I said, until the stick-up at the dealership, I'd never held a gun in my life. And I ain't proud of that incident. But shove your stereotypes up your ass. I'm educated. No college, but I graduated high school. Not that GED shit, either. I actually went to class and got my diploma the old-fashioned way. I read a lot and watched Discovery Channel. I didn't talk like a thug. Didn't feel the need to emulate a rapper. Ground my teeth every time some well-meaning white acquaintance deferred to me at a party when the conversation turned to basketball or slave reparations or Colin Powell's run for president or hip-hop. I didn't flash the bling. I respected women. Didn't view them as ho’s. Didn't hang out in front of the liquor store. Thought P Diddy was a douche bag. Vote or die? Fuck you, you stupid, conceited, fronting motherfucker. I felt the same way about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, too. They were supposed to identify with what I'd been through? Please. None of them spoke for me. I didn't feel the need to respect them just because we shared the same skin color. Didn't drape myself in gold jewelry. Didn't let my pants sag around my fucking ankles. I refused to let a media-inspired culture influence how I dressed, talked, walked, thought, or behaved.

    Don't talk to me about equal rights. I got it from both sides. The quiet, almost apologetic racism from white America, and the more flagrant disapproval from my own race, simply because I refused to live up to what they'd been conditioned to think an African-American should be. My peers thought there was something wrong with me simply because I refused to act like a thug.

    And even on good days, when I'd faced down each and every one of the stereotypes that comes with being a black man-even then I'd be met with a whole bunch more prejudice because of my sexual orientation.

    Think that it's hard being black? Try being a gay black male sometime.

    Hamelin's Revenge not withstanding…