Good story Mike.

Question?  "Mr. Mike".  Its an expression that struck as new to me in  
Louisiana, although I may have run into it before.  It appeared to be  
used mostly by younger folks as a sign of both affection and respect  
for leaders... not necessarily managers, supervisors and bosses, but  
folks who knew their stuff.  We had a Mr. Mike, a Miss Mary, a Miss  
Lydia and the occasional Mr. John.  Its use was quite natural among  
the local youngsters (I find myself referring to any of the team less  
than 30 as a youngster or a kid), it flowed less easily from the kids  
from Philly, NYC and other northerly places.  (It was strange to hear  
Virginia described as "up north").  What does it mean to be "Mr. John"?

I'm home now.  The mornings are cool.  The daylight lingers on the  
horizon until its absence signals the time to send the dogs out one  
last time and close down the house for the night.  Its good to be  
home.  Things here are tidy, ordered, the angles are right, the walls  
tend to be plumb, there are no boats on the boulevard, and the folks  
here are easily embarrassed.  It may justifiably be considered  
boring.  Folks here do seem to strive for the worlds of the Brady  
Bunch, of the Cleavers.  But, its home and it was my choice, not an  
accident of birth.  I certainly shouldn't complain about its  
shortcomings.

Its good to be home.

-jc


On Jun 26, 2006, at 1:31 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Demons
> It was hot; man it was hot.
> The electronic board out in front of the Mobile bank said 96 deg.
>  And the traffic crawling by
> didn't make it any cooler.
>
> I was hanging boulder onto some stainless pins
> for some church signage when my mud man Byron
> tapped me on the shoulder and told me to check
>  out what was going down across the highway.
> At first I didn't see anything;
> I was anxiously holding the rock and getting it to slip into the  
> pin hole
> with the epoxies, waiting for that pregnant sound
> of the hole sucking pin and epoxy
> in what I can only describe as a nauseating flatulent sound
> of air escaping a hidden orifice.
>
> Like love making  in darkened   closet
> I found the hole and slapped it home
> with a blind thrust followed with a urgent sigh of relief
>  that I was Atlas no more holding the weight of the world .
>
> Then with sweat laded eyes
>  I peered once again across the street .
>  This time I was greeted by the sight of 3 police cruisers
> circled like wagons in a back parking lot
> of the Shell   service station.
>
> The cruisers were placed just so nothing could be seen but because  
> we were at a particular angel we could see everything. .
> A man was handcuffed face down in the tarmac
> and several officers were taking turns kicking him.
> The officers kept asking him questions,
> and not likening what they heard pummeled him again and again
> into his face and phalanx  with their boots.
>
> I grew up witnessing a lot of violence.
> 42 ND; the old 42ND street was a bus ride away.
> The west side before the construction of the Met
>  across 8 ave was treacherous neighborhood of Irish, Spanish and  
> Black slums
> in what was historically known as Hells kitchen.
> We went there because at 14 we could drink beer in pool halls and  
> hustle illegal fireworks up from China town  then over to  the rich  
> suburban white enclaves across the river to triple our money from  
> bored white teenagers.
> The old neighborhood of the Westies was dangerous.
>  You had to know what route to take;
> juvenile gangs would jump you with sticks, bats, bricks,
> anything to make sure you never went back there again.
> I saw stabbings in the subway,
> muggings, and racial violence of unparallel brutality.
> One thing we learned early however was to never crack wise to a  
> cop; because the beating you got was going to be worse than the  
> beating you got when you got home.
> And that wasn't good.
>
> The man on the ground was taking the licks
> and spitting out invectives to his tormentor’s
> As if he was in this for the long haul and by proxy so were we .
>  .If it were 96 out here imagining what it was face down on the  
> tarmac.
>
> The beating went on unobserved for 5 then 10 minuets
> My mud man; a minority with shortened dread locks, had a peculiar  
> look on his face.
> It was a historical look of fear, bordered by sadness and outrage   
> if not abject  helplessness,
>
> This is the South; the dirty South.
> The across the tracks, the skid row
>  of winos, pimps, hookers, runaways,
> illegal's and hustlers who will shake you down
> for your false teeth and WIC card ,
> pan handlers ,hobos, crack heads sleeping under highways
>  who show up at churches for the free meals and showers ;
> while stealing the offering box ..
>
> It’s a jungle out here ,Mobile is a cross roads of American  
> humanity .The rich and the poor ;and the very poor.
>
> 10 min's now into the beating with no sign of stopping.
> I'm having a hard time living with myself.
> I got down off my sign and started to make my way over there.
> “Please Mr. Mike “  don go over dere
>  “I knows dese Po- leese; and they will take you..
> Dey  surely will”.
>
> I assured my mud man I was not going to engage them in fisticuffs  
> or anything that would set them off. I was just going over to  
> “witness’ them
> As I thought if anything ,that might just  stop the violence
> .
>  He wouldn't hear of it…. and pleaded with me
>
> ‘Please Mr. Mike “please don go over dere  “
>
> Just then a man pulled into the drive and stood some distance from  
> the police in that same parking lot
> …Good I thought a “witness” at last.
> Wrong.
>  The man was there only a minuet or two
> witnessing their violence and seemingly doing nothing wrong
>   when the police came over and knocked him violently to the ground,
>  then pummeled him with punches and kicks
> followed by throwing him   him into a cruiser
>
> “See Mr. Mike …see what dey do,” whispered the mud man
> I am outraged
> Not since the black jacketed Zomos in corrupt communist Poland have  
> I witnessed such official violence perpetrated by the state on its  
> citizens .
>
> Those characters were just like these animals .
> Fierce, violent using the law to break the law
> with brutal animalistic and masochistic force of the police state.
> This is terrible
> 15 min's then 20 min's went on; were helpless and outraged
> Now and the beating has taken a turn for the worse,
> A police (non public) ambulance is called
> and the man is finally carried away in a stretcher
> I couldn't see if he was still moving let alone responding.
>
> I felt dead inside.
> Mad yet wanting to make sense
>  I now found the opportunity and courage  to cross the street
> and engage the gas station owner about what the hell is going on.
>
>  The cruisers were making  their exit
>
> “We all have our demons “ The proprietor; announces to me as if he  
> is prefacing  a sermon of  Aseops fables
> I'm not falling asleep but what he is telling me seems contrary to  
> what i saw .
> It seems the perp is one of the many homeless of the area that gets  
> violent when he is drunk and high on drugs
> He comes into his station and refuses to leave …what’s worse he  
> gets physical and abrasive with the customers,
> They in turn call the cops.
> Cops come and he gets violent with them
> Then its old home week;
> The perp is a big man with a shaved head
>  and not somebody to mess with.
>
> “What about the bystander witness?
> I ask  still outraged about what I saw and not what I am hearing
> “Oh that guy”
>
> “As I said " We all have our demons “
> The gas guy is on a roll with the one liner
>
> “That guy pulls in and gets out of his car and before anyone knows  
> it he has his Johnson out and is masturbating in front of the cops. …
> ”Seems the violence turned him on”
>
> I am slacked jawed in disbelief.
> .
> The whole thing was graphically upsetting ;I brooded on it the rest  
> of the day and throughout the evening, going to bed perturbed and  
> unsettled.
>
> The next day I returned to the work site only to discover that  
> somebody had broken into my box and stolen all my hand tools.
>
> All day; I caught myself wanting to kick  somebody really bad .
> and well ,
> "we all have our demons" .Py
>
>
>
>
>
>
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