07.19.09
Gay
Jesus, could I be any happier? I’m almost nauseatingly at peace with the world.
For instance, I’m out driving around a while ago —completely oblivious to the carbon bigfootprint I was putting down— and I spot these two cats moving down the sidewalk in some sort of fraternally-cocksure gait. It’s a pair of very young black men —eleven or twelve, tops— wearing their white cotton wifebeaters and sporting some sort of overlong shorts or trunks. And they’re wearing them in a dignified manner —even pulled up to their waists! (Their kicks I don’t know from; I wasn’t paying attention.)
So, I’m idling there at the light with some early James Brown funk going on and watching these guys —and just beaming. And I’m thinking of all the afternoons of my own youth spent with my friends and of us wearing the appropriate uniforms of our day when we, too, would walk the streets like we owned them. And I’m thinking and hoping for these young men that they live long and prosper and realize the privilege that comes to men of my age to see the world anew in every moment lived with charity in one’s heart.
