wrist roots

A day ago I had a dream that I was in a bookstore with a whole bunch of white people from PBS programs studio audiences. I don't know why my subconscious pays attention to the audiences on the public television network but there ya go. They were an friendly bunch. They were having wine and mingling--it seemed to be a book party. A lot of 30-something publishing and banking Manhattanites. The women were laughing heartily; twirling straight black shoulder-length hair with their fingers. Coquettish eyes, inviting body language--I'm telling you the husband hunters were on the offensive. The bookstore was sort of cramped. I busied myself checking out books on a shelf while I'm waited for the author to sign my copy. Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano is hanging out by a book island in the middle of the store. He was listless. Flipping boredom through a hardback on the table. He gave me directions on how to exit the store and visit the rest of the town. The part of Washington D.C. that wasn't talked about, he whispered to me.

Outside the store, the town resembled Port-Au-Prince more than Pennsylvania Ave. I decided to take a short jaunt through the nearly-deserted tropical town.

On my walk, I saw a lot of street children and starving cats and dogs. Every so often a mom would yell out of a window for a kid to go inside the house--lots of yelling, lots of hostility and stress in their interactions. There was a black woman dressed in a lobster costume shimmying and shaking beside two men wearing glittery tuxedo/cumberbun costumes. The men played the guitar and maraca respectively as a line of outdoor restaurant tables filled with tourists ate their surf-n-turf meals. The diners hardly noticed the troupe. It was a pathetic sight. Even though I walked down a straight boulevard, I got lost on the way back. There weren't street signs, names, or numbers. I kept asking locals but they quickly grew frustrated with me because I didn't see the directional logic in their system. Finally I started counting down the house until I found the mall/center place where the store was located.

Inside, I freaked out because I noticed that growths, like the kind that spud from old potatoes but in a Sour Punch green apple shade were sticking out of my left wrist. I start asking people at the party what they were. Only one woman turned around and answered. The rest brushed off the growths as if it were as common as dandruff or a hangnail. She said, "Ooh, don't worry. It's fine. It's nothing." Then Galeano, in a heavy-accented English, said "D'own wori. It's, it's your roots." Then I just stood there. Dumbfounded. Staring at this thing that didn't hurt but was freakin' me.