Certain People

Standing in line at a convenience store— not far from New Orleans—I became a pawn in some bigot’s game. I’d met the type, up in Maine, the way life should be...

They exist there too. 

That big mural of my grandfather’s he had painted on the wall in his woodshop, above the woodstove and piles of sawdust and cigarettes, even taught me to believe it was alright to kill certain people.

It showed a Japanese Naval ship being blown up by a United States Navy War Plane circa 1944 complete with flames and screaming bodies.

My catholic jesus, my catholic grandfather, my catholic little boy self sat there on winter nights feeding sticks into the fire while the woodsmoke made its way into the new england sky.

We produced pine wood derby cars out there, a guitar, clocks in the shape of Maine, and as I watched grampa work, I felt safe.

I grew up hearing jokes about spear chuckers and faggots, more light hearted ones about the Portuguese guy's wife. The Jews, the Italians....Why is Newton Mass called the garden city..

cuz there's a rose in bloom on every corner. 

And there were lessons learned about how there are colored men, good fellas, but also niggers

that I didn’t know how to challenge back then.

They made it make sense. There are black people, they're different from you and me obviously and some of em are bad, like a bad clam, niggers. It was clearly a matter of common sense. 

But getting back to the bigot down at that convenience near n orleans.

His sermon was heating up and it was mesmerizing as I waited to pay for a coke and some gas. It reminded me of people from maine but with a different accent and it involved what he referred to as certain people from the great city of norlins where his wife and he had spent time recently.

I smiled at him but sensed an animal magnetism drawing me in. That's Mary Baker Eddy.

He had an entertainer’s gift, this bayou blowhard. 

There was a pause as we all stood watching the woman and her four grandchildren at the counter buying scratch tickets and turning one dollar winners in for cash  and sodas for the kids.   

The clerk tried to contain her frustration and went about her duty, scanning the pile of tickets…beep…congratulations, you’re a winner…beep, sorry, not a winner…

“Some people,” the convenience store preacher proclaimed, loud enough so everyone in line could hear.  Then he lowered his voice and turned to the rest of us. “Certain people," he said to his congregation and gesturing with his eyes towards the counter.

Then he sermonized:

Me and the wife are down in norlins last weekend fer the Dixie Chicks and we’re having a blast when owta nowhere certain people standin on a corner outside the show start brining me down n I was gonna thrash somebodies ass...But there’s too many n this one dude… he was makin the wife upset the way he talked... n that concert had been such a sweet time too. I had Cowboy Take Me Away Runnin through my head…But seein these dang people just drove me crazy. 

His eyes rolled back and he took a breath as he relived the experience. 

He'd stressed Certain People as if all of us in line knew exactly what he meant. There were two or three that began to nod in approval with him as if to say amen brother.

I was trying not to make eye contact when I heard “certain people” again and looked up.

“You know what I mean brother...there are Certain People,” he said, directly to me now.

An altar call.

“Where you from?”

I recalled stories I’d heard about people who still fight over whether Lee or Grant was the better general…and I thought, what the hell.

“Maine”

“Maine,” he said, as if he were trying to place it on the map. “The wife and I never been there. Where you headin?”

“Headin to norlins actually.

 “Oh, jesus...nice city, cept fer…”

 He was shaking his head and smiling

 “Certain people” I almost said. But he finished for me.

 Around this time the family at the counter was collecting their scratch ticket winnings from the clerk along with some new ones for next time.

 The line moved up and the woman apologized to us for the wait.

The preacher made his way out after paying for his gas and a slurpy and I followed behind after paying for my coke and putting 20 on pump 2. The preacher was handing a six year old who'd been sitting in the truck a blue snow cone and then he looked over at me for the last time.

He gestured with his thumb towards the family that had been turning their scratch tickets in. They were pumping  gas next to me at pump 3.  I looked over at them, still under his spell, and it occurred to me that certain people were black.

“You be careful,” he said, as he drove past me, rolling his eyes once more, as if to say, “certain people,” and then headed into the swamp.

I took one more look at the family, the kids in the back seat of the car scratching tickets, laughing, drinking their sodas. I thought of Maine. I thought of that mural in the woodshop, thought about Lincoln’s description of how lynchings rival the spanish moss of the south as a forest drapery

I thought about sins of omission and I was overwhelmed with de ja vu.