Baloney Sandwiches

I left the house bundled up like an Eskimo and headed to school. It was freezing cold outside. I had on my new, rabbit-fur lined boots. I loved those boots. They were fluffy outside and knee high. Mom tried to get me practical boots that were big, ugly and waterproof but I wasn’t having that. I protested until I got what I wanted.

Life was alright. I have to admit it was scary walking to school all alone with snow up to your knees at five years old. The snow seemed like it was as tall as me in some areas. We had just moved into an area called Bexley on the east side of Columbus. Our townhouse was really nice. Mom was working for the post office. It was just two of us and we were doing pretty damn good.

We had new furniture, new TV’s, and beautiful paintings. Mom had a new car and even my bedroom set was beautiful. It was something like you’d never seen before and it was imported all the way from Mexico. It had neon yellow and tangerine colored flowers surrounding antique brass handles with lime green leaves on the stems of the flowers. It was a huge set and had a lot of pieces: two big bookcases with storage under them, a desk with drawers on the side, two nightstands, and a headboard. I loved it – my mother had exquisite taste and always managed to find beautiful things that were often overlooked by others.
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When I was growing up, my mother was pretty damn broke and we ate a lot of baloney sandwiches.  I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio in an all African American, poor neighborhood.  My sister and I were what they called back in the day “high-Yellow”.

During the summer, the local swimming pool served as “free” summer camp for my sister and I.  We took swimming lessons, joined the swim team and spent our entire day at Maryland pool from 7am until sunset.  Maryland Pool was huge with 3 sections.  One section had shallow water for small children and people who didn’t know how to swim.  Then came the middle section, which included the 50 meter “lap swim” section and finally the deep end which had 2 low dives and one high dive.  On really hot days,  the pool would become so crowded that they had to stop letting people in.  Racist individuals referred to Maryland Pool as “The Ink Well” because there were so many African American children in the water at one time that you could barely see the water in the pool – I never knew what they meant when they used the term “Ink Well” until I became an adult.

Since my sister and I spent the entire day swimming we became very hungry.

The recreation center affiliated with Maryland Pool provided all the kids with free lunch.  Most of the time, “free lunch” consisted of a banana, fruit punch (in a small, cardboard, triangular container), a piece of cake, and the main staple a “baloney sandwich”.

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Approximately 9 years ago in April of 2000, my friend, we will call her Glo, and I were headed to South Beach to go see a friend of mines open up for the rap group Mobb Deep.  Anthony asked me to be there early so that I could go on stage with them and help hype up the crowd.  I knew I would be moving around a lot so I wore my hip hop gear, which then consisted of black Dickie boots, loose Dickie overalls and a leather jacket.  I know it sounds weird but it was really cute at the time.

Glo and I were running late so I decided to speed all the way there.  I was driving a 2000 gold, Dodge Mini-van that a producer friend of mines we will call him Mr. Producer, let me borrow because my car was broken down at the time.  Mr. Producer was always in an out of town and always had several cars around. When he saw that I had no car he told me that he had an extra van that was a rental that he wasn’t using and that I could borrow that until I got my car fixed.  It had been two weeks since he loaned me the mini-van and by then I had my two-years car seat in it, my fishing rods, mail and anything else I could fit in it.  It desperately needed cleaning, but I was too busy working on my so-called music career and working to have time to clean it out.

Back to the story…..here we are riding over the I-195 expressway eastbound connecting Midtown Miami with Miami Beach.  I am driving and Glo is in the front passenger seat.  The speed limit on this section of the road is 55mph and here I am doing at least 70mph.  All of a sudden I hear the sound of a cop car signaling for me to pull over.  Glo and I both turned around and looked out the back window of the van and saw Florida Highway Patrol behind me.

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This Fourth of July I decided to do something I rarely do.  My close neighbors, a very nice, older Jamaican couple always ask me come by and join them whenever they have a cookout or family get-together, so I decided to take them up on their offer.

I usually don’t join them because I’m not what you would consider a very social person and their events usually consist of a 10 to 1 ratio of men to women (much more men).  Most of the men who visit them are family and they are visiting from Jamaica.  In addition most of them are married, yet they still try to see if they can sleep with you.

I left my daughters grandmothers house and it was about 9:00pm.  When I walked into the house I could hear my neighbors laughing really loud.  It sounded like they were having a lot of fun so I decided to go on over.  When I walked up everyone was still laughing.  The older couple I knew and their daughter and her husband were there.  There were also six males.  Everyone was drinking and having a good time.  I said hello to everyone and my neighbor’s wife (we will call her Vee) asked me to have a seat.  I was wearing big grey sweatpants and a brown tee-shirt and flip flops.  I probably looked like I was wearing pajamas.

Vee asked me to sit down and offered me some Jamaican Rum.  For some reason, Rum makes me horribly ill, so I declined and instead asked if they had any beer.  I like beer and it doesn’t make me sick.  Vee asked me if I liked Red Stripe beer and I told her, “yes”.  She asked her husband to hand me a beer because he was closest to the refrigerator, which was outside.  Vee then asked me if I wanted something to eat.  She was a great cook and brought me plates of food on several occasions.  I accepted and got up and followed her into the house.  She cooked roast pork, jerk chicken, rice and peas, and potato salad.  Potato salad was one of my favorites and she made some of the best.

Vee was a very good hostess and she liked seeing people eat.  She piled my plate up full enough for 3 people with roast pork and rice and peas.  Then she handed me the plate and told me to help myself to the salad and potato salad.  There was no room on my plate for anything else, but I managed to slide it all around and find a small space for the potato salad.

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After Grandma  died, everybody in the family went haywire.  I never realized that Mom wasn’t really around that much, because I loved Grandma so much that it didn’t matter to me one way or another.  Aunt Gretchen started drinking really bad.  Aunt Mary started shooting Heroine.   My favorite cousin became a pimp.  And me, well I guess I was left to the wolves.

Mom got heavily involved in the church.  I hated the church.  This had to be the most corrupt place with the meanest people in the world in it.  All everybody did was talk bad about each other and put each other down.  The kids at church were more prejudiced than the ones at school.  The pastors were all screwing all the women in the congregation and damn that shit lasted all day long.  I thought if there was a hell, this had to be it.   The only good thing about it was the bake sale down in the basement afterward.  Well, after you starved to death for 8 hours.  We would get there at 8am and get out at 3:00pm.  And all everybody did was try to see who was wearing the best hat.  Then sometimes we would be there all damn day and come right back that same night.  Night service was when they cast out the demons.  Well at least that was interesting to a little kid.  It was like an exorcist show – the lights going on and off and people howling and screaming and shit.  I was never scared.  I just thought they were all nuts and faking it.

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