——-Charles George Taylor ——-Wire Hangers

I’ve been suspended from work without pay again this week. Yesterday, Maria Barreto read a second final warning to me– one that promised ‘this is your real final warning’.

The Jewish Board is being sleazy. My suspension without pay has nothing to do with job performance. This is the second time I have been suspended without pay in three months– not including the $5,000 reduction from my annual salary that occurred two years ago. My pay was cut after I asked to be relived of new job duties for which I received a bonus. I requested reasonable accommodation because I have schizophrenia. They had grounds to take my bonus back, but they have no right to continue to suspend me without pay, threatening my very livelihood.

Paul Levine offered me a $5,000 raise to take minutes for the Youth Counseling League’s Divisional Board. My style of writing caught the attention of powerful people at JBFCS and they thought they were doing me a service by giving me more money and more job assignments.

“Look, I can’t do this. It’s not as simple as taking minutes,” I said to my boss at the time, Joan Adams. “You also want me to call and remind everyone of the meetings once a month, order food, reserve meeting rooms…the list goes on and on. Listen, Joan. I’m not exaggerating. I was institutionalized for over a month in 2002. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I don’t want to go back there. Please just let me do this one job.”

“You don’t have schizophrenia, you have bi-polar disorder,” my employer informed me.

My case was heard by the New York State Division of Human Rights, but no wrongdoing was found because too much time had passed from the moment the claim of discrimination occurred.

I’m a cripple. I told them to keep their money and let me continue doing the job for which I was hired to do– Office Manager. I’m protected by federal and state law.

I understand why and how what I write causes such a stir, especially when what I dictate in minutes serves as official documentation to remain in organization by-laws for decades. Most secretaries cannot do what I do– write well. My disability should not be written off simply because of my prose.

The Jewish Board has cut more than $7,000 from my take-home pay, and yet they continue to make me perform job duties from which I was relieved of doing after the pay cut. Last week, I reminded my boss that my pay was reduced and no longer was I being paid to write grant proposals on behalf of Susan Marx, a consultant grant writer who sits on the Board of Directors for the Jewish Board.

Apparently JBFCS will never forgive me for calling Joyce Cowin, the powerful Board Member, an ugly, old bitch– well, that’s not what I called her, but that’s what was on the tip of my tongue on the day I told her off. My words to Joyce Cowin on a Monday were these–

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you on Friday to remind you of the Board Meeting, Ms. Cowin, but I was told to call everyone on Monday.”

“You better straighten-up,” Joyce threatened.

“Who the hell do you think you are? This isn’t the West Bank of Israel. Listen to me, I have schizophrenia – a disability– and I’ve already requested ‘reasonable accommodating’ with Human Resources. Why are you calling to hound me?”

“What? What was that? What did you just say to me?” Joyce Cowin asked.

“You heard me. I am an individual with schizophrenia who just so happens to work for an institution that serves individuals with mental illness. Now get over it. It’s my right to request reasonable accommodation when things get too stressful at work. One should expect more from such an institution– one that receives funding from the New York Times Neediest cases fund. Try practicing what you read, honey. You have no right to complain to me directly. You are a Board member. If you have a complaint about the work I’m doing, take it up with Human Resources. I’m tired of all the whining, bitch!”

“I’ll take care of this matter,” Joyce threatened. She sure did. Our telephone argument resulted in a full investigation by the JBFCS Human Resources Department and New York State Division of Human Rights, under the scrutiny of Alton Wolff, Human Rights Specialist. The Jewish Board still took back the $5,000 despite our meeting at the State Office Building in Harlem. JBFCS has suspended me twice, for an entire week, without pay.

Joyce Cowin really is a powerful bitch.

According to what was written in my first ‘written warning’, I called Joyce Cowin a “money grubbing whore”– I never called Joyce Cowin a money grubbing whore– I said that to my boss, Joan Adams, who tried to make me take on new job responsibilities, despite my request for reasonable accommodation due to schizophrenia.

I never called Joyce Cowin a money grubbing whore. When the state asked Joyce Cowin to report to my disability hearing, JBFCS’s lawyer reported she couldn’t show, supposedly because her daughter’s tit had cancer in it. All I can say is that what comes around goes around, Joyce–you big cow!

The Jewish Board’s game of discrimination has grown old, like Paul Levine, the President and CEO who earns almost $1 Million a year, for looking old and ugly all the time.

Thanksgiving this year may consist of turkey burgers with all the trimmings at my house, but guess what, motherfukers– I’m free.

You have a demon and her name is Joyce Cowin!

I placed Edna Swope’s newspapers in her hands. Never did I slam a wrapped bundle of paper against her door. The noise of a harshly-delivered newspaper may have given her a heart attack. I pampered many, old, white-haired ladies along my paper route. The little Pennsylvania town is a retirement community. The dedication paid off. During the Christmas holiday, I received more than $1,000 in cash tips from my customers. I bought my first car, a green Ford Pinto, with tips from a paper route.

Edna Swope was one of almost 70 customers who depended on me for the news, six days a week. Residents of Three Springs didn’t always have money to pay their monthly newspaper subscriptions. (The paper required paperboys to collect subscription funds.) I knew just how poor some of them were. My customers gave me lots of confidence on my first real job in life. They reminded me, almost every day, that I was a special young man. I enjoyed the flattery. Never was I pushy when it came time for them to pay for their subscriptions. I knew their next paycheck was just days away. I was always willing to come back if they asked. I knew that eventually, after they paid their arrears, that I would get paid and could put more gas in my car.

In Three Springs, the daily newspaper was delivered in the evening, not the morning. “The Daily News” was an evening paper. It never made sense to me, as a paperboy, why they called the paper ‘news’ when most of the people who had it delivered already had time to watch the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Most customers said they got the paper, not for the articles, but because the weather forecast was always right. How would they know? They were never outside as much as I was!

It would have been much easier to be a newspaper boy with a morning route. At least at that time of the day, most customers would have still been in bed when I drove up on my blue bike with wide tires. Evening routes were demanding. The job required much social etiquette. I had a light on my bike that I never used because it simply wasn’t bright enough to see with, and I knew that if most of my customers saw me coming, they would step outside to chat for a moment. I didn’t mind chatting with my customers, but often, it took several hours to complete the deliveries. I knew there were other customers waiting. Often they complained: “The paper gets delivered later each night, Charles. What took you so long?” The town depended on me for more than just the news, so I always made room for small talk, no matter the urgency.

Edna lived alone in a trailer on the outskirts of Three Springs. Her mobile home was parked at the very end of Swope Road. Her place was way past the point along the road, near the Wible’s apple tree, just where street lights end. I rarely bothered turning on the light on my bike, despite the fact that I had to ride in the dark, almost one quarter of a mile, to get to Edna’s. I carried papers for more than six years and could do the route with my eyes closed. Edna found it difficult to get out of her chair. She was partially crippled. I felt obligated to do the right thing and take her paper to her. I often thought that perhaps one day, I would be the one to find her dead in her chair. She was so old, yet she still lived alone, and her mind was a sharp as the edge of a thin, hometown newspaper.

Edna knitted every day. She had nothing to do but read and knit line upon line of colorfully, patterned blankets. I wondered how often she looked up to see the sunshine outside or the snow that often piled above the knee. Edna kept her fingers busy as she waited for me to drop off the newspaper. Edna couldn’t wait to read it and put down her yarn for a while. She was always happy to see me come in the screen door. I never knocked. People still don’t lock their doors in that little town– I’d just walk in and say ‘hello’ with a paper in my hand.

Edna was always busy with her knotted hands. She worked her yarn in loops in an attempt to work out kinks in her knuckles, caused by an advanced case of arthritis. Her doctor told her knitting would be good therapy, and God knows, she had to do something to ease all her pain. Edna reached for the paper with a hooked-hand, retrieving the black and white like the point of a needle grasping yarn in a loop– knitting one, pearling two.

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“You’re welcome. You sure are making good progress on that blanket.”

“It’s going to be a coat.”

“Must be for a fat person.”

Edna laughed.

She was always grateful that I came inside to see her. I saved her the burden of suffering through excruciating wobbles to the screen door. Her legs were so infused with arthritis that she could hardly stand and only got up to use the restroom, to eat and go back to bed.

We’d talk for a little while each night. I was just doing my job as the town paperboy. It was never too much of a bother for me to walk the Daily News to her or others like her. They seemed so grateful. I knew that I would be old one day and would want the same respect and warmth.

The “Daily News” paid me five cents for each paper delivered. I spent at least ten minutes a day with Edna and chatty customers like her. It was never easy to simply drop- off the paper and head toward’s the next glowing doorway on a mobile home. The old gals waited at their windows and doors for me, often pretending to have already been outside, sweeping the porch or putting wet clothing up on lines.

Edna, like Grace Hershey and Mildred Brown always smiled at me, no matter what may have been on their minds. I found old men along my route grumpy. They were not always as sweet as the ladies. I encouraged the women to talk about what was bothering them, or what good happened that day, or what grandchild was coming by soon, or what things were like a long time ago. They said I was nothing like most young men.

Edna said the pain in her fingers would never go away. Grace was going to marry a rich man before she died. She seemed to be a character in the soaps she watched and told me about when I brought in the paper.

“No Grace. I’m at school all day. The Young and the Restless is boring. I watched it one day when I was home sick from school.”

“I’m going to marry a doctor. That’s what I want– a rich doctor!”

Mildred always made me eat something because the Brown’s often were just sitting down for supper when I walked their paper in.

“Hi, Chuck! You want some chicken and dumplin’s.”

“Alright!”

Edna hated the pills she took for her arthritis. Grace lived through the Depression and hated being old. Mildred called me “Chuck” and hated the name “Charles”.

Uncle Frank, Mildred’s husband told me that I spent too much time talking to the women along my paper route. One evening, he came right- out and asked me if I was queer– in front of Aunt Mildred and my cousins, Denny and Karen, and Denny’s new wife, Janet– all sitting at the supper table like a pack of hungry wolves.

I was only fourteen. I didn’t say anything. I just looked down and excused myself out the door.

I felt bad for Janet. She knew it wasn’t funny. She just smiled at me when Uncle Frank read me.

The pills made Edna sleepy.

Grace needed someone to mow her lawn.

Mildred and Frank lived near Grace. Mildred reminded me every day of how much Grace appreciated me stopping by to talk to her.

“You’re a good boy, Chuck! Don’t listen to Uncle Frank.”

Edna kept moving with yarn, stopping only to eat, to watch the news, to read the paper and on good days, she did dishes too.

Grace could still do dishes but left them pile up, as porcelain gauze awaiting miracle surgery.

Grace’s eyes were sometimes too bad to read the paper so she asked me ‘what’s new’ every night. Her un-read newspapers piled up like dirty dishes. She didn’t have to get out of her reclining chair with me, the paperboy, making life comfortable. Grace was such a dear old woman. She lived up to her name. She smiled at me every night in bright red lipstick with hair whiter than the background of the newspaper. Grace knew I was gay. She didn’t have to say anything about the topic– but she insisted that I should love the soaps.

Mildred smiled at me too– every night. She was so proud to be my Aunt in such a small town.

“What’s up, Chuck,” the Brown’s asked every night– laughing every day at the same line– “What’s up, Chuck?”

I’d hope Uncle Frank wouldn’t say anything about me being ‘queer’.

“What’s for dinner?” I’d ask.

They laughed no matter how many times we repeated the same joke, night after night,

“What’s up, Chuck?

“What’s for dinner?

President Obama’s economic stimulus package will likely include millions of dollars in funding for the arts.

Millions for violins may seem like wasteful spending to many, initially, when still there are no jobs and money is earmarked by a president with very big ears for communities that still matter.

In the end, the investment into the backbone of civilized culture, made by our next President, will prove historically, to be the leadership decision that changed the concept of modern art.

Factories that hire many are managed directly by the government. Almost everyone is offered a job working on the pyramids of a new Egypt.

A million points of light.

We will build solar panels, in a Hoover Dam project of the new millennium and construct a public education system that damns all to Master’s level apprenticeships. No more dropouts. College degrees are mandatory.

Drug laws are banished.

Harvard will always be there, but no longer will produce the best.

Teachers teach as women factory workers during the war, but are our new ‘presidents’.

Children of tomorrow are born into freedom, not capitalism.

Obama’s new Home Garden incentive will spawn millions in private contract funding and solve the immigration issue.

Front lawns will be transformed into private, organic greenhouses where robots and Mother Nature does most housework. Most choose to still get their hands dirty and work the soil, simply because it’s still feels good to be alive and not working at Walmart.

Knitting circles are how women share stories again.

Oprah goes off the air. Video games are banned. Again we are taught to read.

Our plan will be objected to initially; but as each town and city is welcomed with soft cash for the arts, a light of hope for tomorrow will shine. Our children will pull up their baggy jeans and learn of the softness and beauty of musical theater.

Gay men will be in demand.

Well- funded public libraries, community theaters and art museums everywhere!
Welfare to work programs that embrace the concept that it is not necessary for everyone to have jobs, but those who don’t should have flat-screen televisions and a little more than just cheese and butter.

Yes, it’s time for change.

Lots of it.

Anne Rice’s “Road to Cana” is much better than her first attempt at redemption through creating the novel– “Christ the Lord- Out of Egypt”. She wrote this one in California, during what must have been a most difficult time in her life. Her love for God is evident in this book.

Her husband, Stan Rice the poet passed recently. Her hope for life everlasting is present in this piece. The destruction of New Orleans must have ruined her heart, but in this novel, she really shines.

In “The Road to Cana”, missing pieces of Christ’s young-adult life are filled.

Rice writes beyond Jesus’ infant years, as in the first novel. She examines the character of a thirty-something son of God with fears just like the rest of us. Rice writes as Jesus in first-person.

A young, Jewish woman (age 12) is almost raped by a Roman soldier in the public square of Nazareth. Men rush to save her, but not soon enough– the child’s head covering was torn away in public, thus making her “unclean” to a future husband. Jesus was ordered by his older brother, James, to get married to the same girl, before the public attack took place. Jesus refused. Rice hints at possible traits of homosexuality, but not enough for most heterosexual readers to identify.

The climax of the book is a conversation between Jesus and Satan in the desert. As most followers of the Lord know, Jesus was tempted for 40 days…

“Shut down Time? I asked in a small voice. “The gift of Time?”

“The Gift? It’s a gift to be lost in this miserable world of His, lost to the pitiless ignorance of others, in Time?”

Lestat’s voice, via Anne, has returned in this masterpiece.

I give it five crucifixes up and my blessing.

The art of maintaining a clean, neat home was second nature to Lou. Never did dirty dishes clutter the kitchen sink, nor did dust gather as tiny tumbleweeds within the seams of a coiled rug that she vacuumed at least three times a week. Her children were still toddlers. Both boys crawled around in heavily bleached diapers. Never did a speck of filth ever cover the boys’ tiny fingers and toes. When women were still housewives and not pursuing careers, homes were much cleaner and as neat as closely cut fingernails on infants that are trimmed back with the careful bite of a loving mother’s teeth.

Lou’s home was considered impeccably clean, even during a time when almost all women were housewives; back when mothers understood that cleanliness is next to godliness, during a time when fathers were still breadwinners and men of the house.

She knitted. Lou stitched a little every day, starting promptly at 11 a.m. With the jab of a needle into seemingly endless loops, her overworked fingers clicked and tugged yarn, unyielding a landscape of near- perfect knots that ran parallel in perfect unison, as rows dug within a garden in the early part of Spring.

After linoleum floors were scrubbed with a mop that was wrung out in an old tin pail, Lou went to work, piecing together sweaters and blankets that covered the ones she loved with a fuzzy embrace. She wanted the children to have pictures taken at Sears after the two blue sweaters were complete. Her husband Barry’s brown and gold garment matched the blue sweaters for their sons to the stitch– only Barry’s was much larger, yet he himself looked childish in what she had made for him. She couldn’t wait to have the pictures taken. She dreamed each moment a new knot was tied upon a steel needle that she held in her fingers as a writer may embrace a pen.

Every nick-nack in the house in need of dusting was wiped over twice with heavy sprays of Pledge polish and a recycled diaper. The furniture polish scented the home with a hint of a keepsake chest. Lou always managed to chase away the smell of beer that followed Barry around, like his two little sons who often bounced on his knee while he smoked cigarettes and blew smoke rings

The smell of a clean home made the art of knitting more enjoyable for Lou. Never did she miss a stitch or become impatient when she had to unweave rows of carefully embroidered cotton fibers, to re-do a miscount of loops that possibly occurred when one of her boys needed a diaper changed, when the phone rang, or after one of the kids had smeared jelly across the tube of the family’s black and white RCA television.

Afternoons passed quickly when Barry was away at work with knitting to keep Lou busy. Dinner was put on sharply at four, and the kids were changed into sleeping pajamas at five, minutes before Dad was due home. 

Barry was late, so the kids ate in high chairs without him. Lou wasn’t hungry. Deer steak that had been rolled in flour and fried in Crisco went cold. She worried. Needles clicked as the sun went down under Stone Cree Ridge. Barry returned home at Ten, not particularly concerned about the anger that would poke at the nerves of his wife and jab at him as harsh words of warning were tied around his heart. He simply didn’t care.
“Where’s your sweater, Barry?”

“Oh shit– I left it at the legion.”

“Go get it now.”

Barry drove off and was gone until Midnight, returning with a hand knitted sweater tainted with the smell of a bar.

Barry never saw his sweater again. Lou kept her cool by starting to knit a dress. As each new stitch was sewn she grew more angry, hoping for a little girl, perhaps she could change Barry’s ways. One never came between the two of them. The boys seemed to grow at the rate in which she sewed new things, yet she never lifted a thumb to mend for the man for whom she once adored keeping a clean home for.

“What did you do with my good sweater, Lou?” Barry asked, several weeks later on a cold Sunday morning, while suffering from a hangover.

“I gave it to my Dad, you bastard.”

Engraved here upon firestone hauled from the cliffs of Preseli Hills are secrets of the underworld:-

Within the act of carving irrepressible words at the base of unshakable sandstone, we dispose of our burdens, brought about through the selfish art of penning. Through the creation of this sacred tablet, our ancestors are hereby released from the curse of collective consciousness. Truth has set us free from the burdens of textual matter.

This is our confession. Woe to those who turn over this slate, stumbling upon the secrets trapped within this text, interpreting in ignorance, words hidden for generations from the light. Buried within the pores of quartz, within these chiseled indentations, rests the fate of many tongues.

The buried words of this monolith serve as unread testimony to the magnificence of all that was and what is to be written. This spell of knowledge is hidden for eternity, placed under stone, the surface upon which it originated

Beneath this tower, the secret of the written word is protected. In the beginning there was the word and in the end, all will be read. With this stone erect, there is no end. Shake it down, and be cast from paradise—

Marked in the light, the written world is read by those in the underworld, reminding the deceased of the principles of life. Literature is all that the dead comprehend and see in the light. So much reading in all of eternity.

The great circle of stones will protect this truth. This inscription and these secrets were designed to remain face-down, embedded within the cold Earth, readable only by those trapped in the afterlife. Spirit eyes learn to listen to poetry as ears turn to music. This inverted tablet and the words engraved here will never perish, for these rhythmic lines are crafted to be read only in the light.

Eyes of the breathing– those with spoken tongues, remain blind to the lines of death. The majesty of these stone towers will never tumble, and here, beneath this ashlar, our secrets remains written but, unread. The silent prayer of eternity is the written word. Surely man will never again harness the jewels of the heavens and preserve time in word, marking the truth of life as it passes, preserving fact, leaving behind only original sin, only to be consumed as prose by unsuspecting minds. Those comprehending this inscription take on the fear of our past.

For generations, our Celtic ancestors preserved an ancient tradition of harvesting pure stones from the banks of Whales. They dragged chiseled portions of hardened Earth from the furthest places of the middle-world to place in this garden. These were stone seeds, carried by giant men. They moved their temples at the pace of the vast darkness which connects the tears that fill the night sky. With the gift of the word, learned by their red markings, men became small.
Lifetimes passed, generations served and our monuments moved only within the area of each generation. Slowly these slates were pulled by our people and only after many lifetimes, the rocks found this peaceful resting place. The secrets written here at the base of this harvested cliff, are known only by those who moved these great stones– a people who spoke man’s native tongue and now, through reading, live again. New seeds of each generation planted the pillars of this endless story. Our children will carry these mountain stones for generations that follow until new eyes of a strange people steal from us as we have the gods.

This was our curse.

When the secret of the word is discovered by foreigners, no longer are we held in chains by those who live in the bright stars and move as wolves– the small men with large eyes who govern the heavens. They left behind a way out, just as the truth that they revealed to the Celts was a way out of the light for them, this secret is shared with our neighbors.

Our downfall was caused by the act of bloodletting upon these sandstone alters. We sacrificed many bloodlines upon these porous rocks in honor and worship of the small men who came from the sky.

Our blood has turned this green stone purple.

Blood pierced from the ears of women was rubbed upon this sacred alter at the beginning, when the sun was at its weakest. Faint words of the dead mumbled within the great rock as our women bled and listened here. Men of age with sharpened flint stones cut fore-skin and joined the women– opening themselves to spirits of the ancestors, shedding precious blood upon this rock in an act of loyalty to those who have passed on and live as wolves in the sky.

This is the only way for them to return– through shed blood.

This stone and these words are the light for those in the underworld. They follow prose when returning to life– the bloodletting brings them here and signs such as this give them hope.

The gods of the afterlife feast upon the blood of man and never drink of beasts. It was here, upon this great stone, where we made our annual sacrifices of blood from our children and learned of the burden of eternal life.

Root vegetables were carved and light was placed within the gourds on the eve of an annual celebration of the sun– a lesson for our children who shed blood each year and learned to understand that there is pain associated with eternal life.

They became men of the word and were taught that great pain comes with new life and new tongues. Our ancestors found redemption through our ceremonies and we bled here, as written words, upon this stone.
Root vegetables were carved upon this granite and the pumpkins were lit during Samhuinn as a reminder of the burning pain of the loins– these acts guided to Earth spirits of the dead who burn for new life through the valves of children.

The gods blessed man for our sacrifices and taught us to understand the power of written word—the crimson markings of offspring helped us to understand our path, as each year, the story of the sacred word was sealed with blood and re-written.

We were perfected upon this stone.

This tabernacle led to the way of the unspoken mind. It was with this new light that we guided our ancestors out of darkness, but we continued to grow small with each passing incarnation.

Never again will we shed our blood and let the dead return through our children, for now it is written and in the light, thus the written word was made law.

Woe to those who fail to understand the beauty of death. The tongue of the word must remain sealed until the end, when all there remains is the word, the markings of man and the light of the word.

Seal up these words now, shed this truth as was done upon this interpretation, and continue in the tradition of carving the fruit of loins as was taught by the rulers of the heavens.

Hide this text and burry these secrets deep again. Live life in paradise and avoid the burden of the word. This malediction is eternal until new blood is shed in the manner of our Celtic brotherhood.

This condemnation, as with the word, is released only when innocent blood is shed in tradition– when the secret of the written word and the path to new life is revealed to innocent eyes of a strange tongue.

As new blood flows from innocent youth and a strange people thirst for knowledge, the secret is released and life remains eternal. A path for our ancestors has been carved again as this knowledge burns in the light.

Our children are pure in the word.

Only when the light of life is kindled again will we continue to pass from the light, back to the mid-realm, until eventually, the word is known by all.

Even now, they have returned to live in what is yours, the reader.

Take on a new language and unmask in the words of this rock as was done through your discovery of this text. Lift this curse that is now within the blood that flows in you.
Write until you bleed– for this is the nature of the true word and the curse of Stonehenge.

The Redbone Dance Company was owned by my second husband, Frank West. I met Frank at the decadent and somewhat gaudy gay bar and disco, ‘The Monster’ in New York City’s West Village. His offer to take me off the dance floor was what turned me onto him–

“Do you like to get fucked?” He asked as the Weather Girls pounded at 3 a.m.–

“Excuse me?” I replied, hoping I understood what he just implied.

“You know– do you take it up the ass?”

I was beside myself and replied– “Only by big dicks. You got one?”

The sex that followed later that night in his room in Washington Heights offered no choice for me but to assume the role as First Lady of Redbone Entertainment and marry him.

I fell in love with Frank West, the dancer man with a body toned from head to pointed toe–twelve years of professional study at the Dance Theater of Harlem. Frank referred to his own Cherokee and African American skin tone as “Red Bone”–

“Take that Red Bone dick, take it. You got some good pussy…”

I had no idea what he was talking about at first that night, but later, as we cleaned up, he apologized and explained how the African-American terminology originated.

“American Indian,” he said. “Got it flowing in me. A spiritual world is where I exist. Angel Dust– it fucked me up. Hope you don’t mind. Clean now. What was I saying? Oh yes, a red bone– see that skin– it’s red, not black.”

Frank was right. Even the color of his penis was different, yet he still had nappy hair that I like.

Frank knew all the right words to say to me while making love on me for the first time. I certainly didn’t need romance at the time, coming out of an eight- year relationship with a guy I met in the Army but separated from after he lanced me with scare– an STD. I was thankful it wasn’t AIDS and left that relationship, realizing that if the ‘gift that keeps on giving’ was going to get into my bloodstream regardless, then I might as well, at twenty-eight, become a full-fledged sex addict and enjoy the ride to inevitable destruction. I didn’t have sex for over a year. I was so upset. Frank felt so good after all that time.

Frank was a new adventure and what I really wanted, at that time in my life, was to become more artistic.

Unlike love that I had known until then with Anthony, Frank offered the services of a full-fledged ‘top’; not simply a lover to switch around with night after night, taking turns playing the female role, somehow finding one’s relationship expanding beyond the simple concept of love making and blowing precious hot moments trying to remember whose turn it was to be the violent giver, playing it rough– holding him down, shoving it in, saying silly things that were not so silly to either of us on those cold nights when we fought for the right to submit:–

“You like that white dick, don’t you?” I asked Anthony.

“Yes, Massa,” Anthony would respond.

I told our closest friends of the twisted role-playing that we’d do in our inter-racial, gay relationship. They thought my re-enactments were hysterical and knew, from the sheer cry in my voice that I was telling the truth. Anthony was so upset with me. But finding Frank re-opened my mind to the concept of settling down with another live- in domestic partner. Perhaps, I thought, one didn’t have to be gay just to be gay.

Frank cooked me breakfast the next morning. Redbone Eggs. The grits he whipped-up, along with eggs over-easy and toast heavily buttered caused my heart to swell like inflamed mucus membranes. He took me out later that Sunday, to show me off to his friends. I guess my ass was still good after all that Anthony had done to me when it was his turn to be top. I jumped on the A train with Frank and we headed down to Harlem. He introduced me to his friend, Keith David, the actor from the movie, “Platoon”. Who was this Redbone, I wondered. He really seemed to like me– my persona, as he called it. Quiet, shy, never too much to say and I kept my act simple–– act like a man– that’s what real men who happen to be gay like anyway– otherwise, wouldn’t they just go out with a girl?

Keith and Frank spent the afternoon discussing the theater. Frank choreographed a new work of art and was self-producing an off-Broadway show entitled “Shangra- Las Vegas” and hoped that Keith would do the honor of attending the one-night run of the ballet featuring strippers– male strippers that Frank had recruited from the infamous Stella’s Bar in Times Square and taught them to dance like trained professions. At Stellas, handsome, well-built ‘gays for pay’ could be bought with the slightest promise of fame and coin.

Keith, although not gay, thought Frank’s idea was great and went on to talk about his own desire to produce and star in his own Broadway number. I later learned that Frank knew other celebrities– stars that even Keith David is humbled by– although not having the cash, Frank had the connections, and Hollywood’s living legends all seemed at home with Frank West. Artisans like Geoffrey Holder respected Frank West as one of their own. I met them all, thanks to Frank– Phylicia Rashad, Geoffrey Holder, Lynn Whitfield– the butter of Black theater–and most still remember me, I’m sure, even though my relationship with Mr. West ended as abruptly as the sun rising in the East.

“Wait until you meet my dancers,” Frank explained as we left the famous Hollywood actor’s brownstone in Harlem. “I lose so many good lovers over the people I know. I hope you are different. I hope I can trust you,” he said.

I didn’t respond. I just looked down like a humble man. Frank grabbed my face the moment we jumped into a cab. He kissed me hard on my lips as he shouted “159^th and Riverside Drive”. Frank begged that I stay at his house again that night even though I had work the next day. He offered me his clothes.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg must leave office at the end of his second term. Changing New York City’s charter to meet the demands of a wealthy ego is not democracy– it’s monarchy.

The Big Apple does not need to squeeze more cider from another sour billionaire just to fix the potholes on Wall Street. Don’t believe everything printed in the ‘New York Times’– term limits are what distinguishes democracies from private islands.

Tenants of this town have watched rent-control rights vanish under the clever smile of this “successful business man”, turned mayor. Where is the real estate crisis in New York City? Have we avoided the real estate crash simply because of the music played on Bloomberg Radio?

Michael Bloomberg, master and owner of much media, chooses words carefully and somehow manages never to be at fault for what the poor have lost during his eight years in office. The tabloids of this town fail to pressure this man as they did great Mayors, like David Dinkins.

It is time Michael Bloomberg starts taking the bus to his corporate office each morning, permitting the poor to follow the new underground railroad. Bloomberg is as sour as Senator Joe Lieberman and as desperate as this state’s former governor, who lost his second term by sipping on pricy prostitutes. It’s time to go, Mike. It is not kosher to re-write the rules of politics when one’s juice has turned to vinegar.

America didn’t want Bloomberg as an independent third-party candidate for president, nor do working class New Yorkers want to watch a rich, white dude ride the subway on the evening news for four more years. Bloomberg strap hanging rituals remind us of how unstable capitalism can be.

Even in the town of billionaires and hillbillies, one is never exempt from sales tax, the wrath of an honest vote, or the jealousy of another billionaire who wants to buy public office space and air time.

May Thomas Golisano’s self-financed media campaign designed to derail Bloomberg’s re-election plans inspire voters to go for the goal on this icy issue and not simply sit back and listen to Mike say he likes it.

New York City’s council should not be left to decide whether to extend term-limits either, considering they too benefit from such cheap- shots. Ignoring voter- enacted, term-limit rules is Lieberman politics as usual and horrifically whorish.

A blizzard brewed over the Keystone state like a steaming bowl of Quaker oats in early January 1968. Farmers reckoned the storm was going to be an intense ‘twig bender’ long before the ground was covered in a blanket of icy porridge. Through acute senses, an inner-knowledge of climatic events, and a peculiar ability to predict the weather by studying caterpillars, citizens of Central Pennsylvania understood what was approaching. An Arctic blast was being overridden by a warm breeze from the South. Orchard growers in particular sensed what was rolling over the Allegheny Highlands. As surely as the moon changed shape through various quarters, fading from a perfect silver dollar into just a sliver of light no larger than a trimmed toenail, the blizzard would serve as the land’s annual twig bender. As cultivators of fertile, ice- aged soil deposits, woodlet gardeners of the Appalachians had prophetic visions generated by the weather and understood how the atmosphere works in cycles. Everyone sensed the impending storm as barometric pressures caused phantom pains in legs and arms to flair. It was a blizzard of a generation, according to the most trusted publication to have ever reached the highlands of the Susquehanna plateau– ‘The Old Farmers Almanac’. The periodical predicted the date of the great 1968 winter storm with near- perfect, literary merit:-

“Deadly storm in the Northeast in early January marks the start an early Spring for West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Twig Bending and branch banishment is good news for apple growers and the lumber industry. A dry, cold January in the Southeast and the Plains…Time to start tomatoes indoors in the Carolinas…Epsom Salt removes the demons of winter backache… “

Twig benders are nature’s way of pruning trees. Like hurricanes, twig benders are named, although not with an alphabetized eponym, but rather, with terminology that is characteristic of the damage done to forestry by these storms. Without such climatic events, hickory trees would produce flimsy branches, sassafras wouldn’t taste sassy, and evergreens would be less green. Forest limbs would not be strong enough to host baby birds in nests, without occasional cutting back. Without twig benders, hardwood trees would be suitable for nothing but making switches.

The powerful-pruning storms typically develop in the Gulf of Mexico in mid-March and spin in a counter-clockwise rotation; churning along America’s Eastern Seaboard as inverted hurricanes, stroking highlands and mountainous farming villages like Huntingdon with cumulus fingers wrapped in rings of abundant of moisture. The storm was driven by gale force winds out of the East and cracks of thunder harmonized with pelts of freezing rain and sleet, causing even snow bunnies to wish they were brown.

I was born during the Great Twig Bender of ‘68. The blizzard of January 9th created the heaviest accumulation of snow a generation of saplings had endured. Older folks were sure the end of the world had arrived because ‘Nor’ Easters’, like the storm of ‘68, typically only develop in late March and early April. The Old Farmer’s Almanac advised readers to buckle down, because typically, following the annual twig bender, land would soon receive the last frost of the season, and hard work associated with Spring planting was right around the corner. It was too soon for such a storm to strike.

Heavy amounts of snow were unleashed along the Appalachian highlands after the storm gathered moisture from Atlantic waters, just off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The monster wobbled inland like a drunk stumbling to a bar at closing time, and last rounds had just been called. The Twig Bender of my birth spun endlessly. A barren tapestry of yellow grasses, brown leaves and naked branches of an unwhite Christmas that had just passed suddenly vanished.

“The snow up here is really deep, I’m scared” Lou, my mother gasped on the telephone to her sister, Roxie while holding my head with her hand in her stomach. She placed a pair knitting needles on her inflated stomach, slightly above her bellybutton, where my head still rested.

“I think the baby is coming today. I feel her moving down in me. She wants out. What am I going to do if my water breaks and Barry ain’t here? My little girl is coming today, I just know it. My water ain’t broke yet, but it’s too damn cold for that to happen,” Mom joked as suddenly, I was pulled like a storm riding the jet stream.

“Barry ain’t no damned good! Where is he? Don’t tell me he’s working today. What about Esther, is she home?” Roxie asked. I could hear the faint voice of my aunt on the wire even though Mom had the phone cradled close to her ear with her shoulder. A steady click of metal needles persisted as my ears were flooded with the pound of a nervous heart and a gushing flow of blood all around me.

“Yes. She’s in her trailer. I want Barry to be with me when I deliver this one.”

“I can’t believe Esther gave birth to all her kids without a hospital or a doctor. She was up there on that farm just like you are now–all alone in labor. At least she had a midwife. I told you not to marry Barry Taylor. That Taylor family is ignorant, if you ask me. Where is he, Lou? Out drinking? If you start feeling pains, call Esther. Don’t try to drive yourself into Huntingdon today. You ain’t coming down off that mountain today unless you are on a horse. Just hold her inside you if you can. Keep your legs squeezed shut. Don’t even pee if you can help it. You better hope that baby don’t come out today of all days. Are you sure it’s going to be a girl? Does it feel different this time around?”

“Yes it does, Roxie. This one feels like a girl. Dr. Shively told me it was going to be a girl. He has delivered babies at Huntingdon Hospital for over thirty years and pulled hundreds of them out. He should know what the sex is going to be!”…

With the onset of the new depression, one must find ways to cut costs. Although I was smart and never invested, I know that eventually as sure as the Earth has eyes, that I will have to tighten my belt too during these times of economic crisis. During the first Great Depression, the Irish side of my family stepped in and rescued hungry bellies– not through stockpiles of gold and silver, but through common sense. My family survived on potatoes during the depression, so it seems fitting that once again, my family will stay afloat upon the tuber.

Unlike rice or maccaroni products, the potato does not cause obesity when eaten in excess, unless of course, one uses too much margarine like I do when mashing them with milk. There is more potassium in a potato than in a banana, and just one serving of the cholesterol-free vegetable offers 45% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.

My family remained poor after the Great Depression ended. Perhaps the potato was to blame. We continued to grow fields of potatoes into the late eighties, despite the fact that by then, they were inexpensive to purchase and instant varieties were as easy to buy as shares in General Motors. Unlike other foods, one never grows tired of eating potatoes, especially when they are mashed. In Irish families, the potato is quite often the first real food eaten by  toothless infants. Having eaten them since I was a baby and still on the bottle, I find myself cooking them often. As a kid, we had potatoes for supper every night; not for their succulence, but for the way the vegetable sticks to the ribs.

Having lived with Black men for all of my adult life, I have found myself explaining my culture and its connection to the potato time and time again to the lovers who have fallen for me and my mashed potatoes–

“Why not just cook rice?” they have asked. “Are you going to sit there and peel all of those potatoes?”

“It’s really not that hard and it will only take a few minutes,” I say.

They’d blush when I’d pull out my hand-held electric mixer and toss in an entire stick of butter to my chunks of boiled potatoes, whipping our family staple to the consistency of sweet potato pie in a matter of seconds. Every man who has ever lived with me only to be kicked out after I have grown tired of them, like tomatoes, has taken a part of my culture with them– the love and respect for the potato.

“Black people eat too much rice,” I have explained to my boyfriends, “this is why you all have such big asses.”

They’d just laugh and remind me that I got a lot going on back there too.

Lovers have grown too attached to me and my ability to cook. Eventually I would have to let them go. Saying good-bye was never easy though, especially after all the last spoonfuls of spuds were shared from a wooden spoon. Kicking them out was like sorting through the potato bin, weeding out the bad ones, so that their rottenness would not spread. Like apples, one potato can ruin the bunch. When it came time to set them free, I’d make this dish and never have to say a word.

“No mashed potatoes tonight, sexy?” They’d ask.

“No, master,” I’d reply. “These are scalloped…”

“Chaz’s Scalloped Lovers”

1 chopped onion

Melt the butter. Toss in the onion and cook for four minutes. Stir in the flour and a little salt and pepper. Add the milk. Cook and stir until bubbles form and pop.

Place half the potatoes in a greased casserole dish. Pour in half the Chaz white sauce. Add the remaining potatoes and cover with the remaining milk mixture.

Bake for 45 minutes covered, then uncover and cook a half-hour more.

You’ll never be depressed with this dish, but your ex’s will and potatoes, like men, come a dime a dozen.