Saturday, January 24, 2009

November 15, 2008: Richmond Bound BART, San Francisco, CA

On the way over to Berkeley to see a dance performance I don't want to see, she and I have a quiet discussion about what's pissing me off while she sits on my lap with her wild blue dress and pink little shoes. The discussion abruptly ends when a handsome, solid black man sits down next to us. We don't necessarily want to air out our dirty laundry for him, after all.

After a few moments of taking us in, he says, "I hate to say this, but y'all look like something out of a movie."

I ask what kind of movie and he says, " You know, the romantic kind."

He points at her. "She like Greta Garbo and shit."

He points at me. "And you're like the guy with the big ears. Whassis name?"

We think about it. "Clark Gable?" she asks.

"Yeah, that's it. The way you're sitting on his lap? That's sexy as hell."

She and I smile at each other, reveling in our public sexiness.

"Point is," he says, "y'all are doin' it right. You're keepin' it real pretty."

He tells us that he had to be tougher than he wanted to be, growing up in Oakland, that he was a thug when he wanted to be a lover, that he let too many good women go because he felt obligated to be that kind of man.

"But," he says, "I learned that you got to be keepin' it pretty with that good woman, more than anything. It doesn't matter if you've got that cash or you're funny as hell or you're that incorrigible sonofabitch that some ladies love. Give her those presents and the massages, rub her feet with the oils and the cocoa butter if she wants it."

I nod, understanding that it has to be that way and not the way of five minutes earlier, where I complain about something not worth complaining about and we sit in strange silence for a half an hour train ride. He looks at me with pleading eyes, knowing I understand.

"This is my stop," he says at 12th Street. We shake hands, Michael St. Clair and I. She and I made up his name because he never told it to us.

"I like you man," he says. "You've got a good thing. You keep it pretty!"

And I have.

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