Justice Rarely Found

   
We went to see a show at one of the venues on Market Street on evening. We exited somewhat disappointed by enjoying the evening none the less when we saw a white yuppie-ish woman pushing a black homeless woman over. The cops descended on the conflict like pigeons to breadcrumbs. They immediately went after the black woman.

I looked at my friend debating what to do with only hunched eyebrows and slightly squinted eyes. Her return gaze said "Keep to yourself". The brief look was all I needed to enter the middle of the conflict. When she said no, I always said go.

"Excuse me, but I am a witness. I saw what happened," I interjected to the police. An officer, not the one cuffing the homeless woman, approached with an air of annoyance and the body language of "Back the fuck off." I persisted.

"The white woman," and here the supposed "victim" started shifting on her feet, eyes darting between me and the woman she pushes, "started it all."

"Excuse me sir, but we don't need any help right now."

I was befuddled. My only interactions with police until that point was casual. I was in my early twenties, and I tended to only see the side of the police meant for white folks: "law enforcer", "hero", "authority". I hadn't yet witnessed the "selective enforcer", "racist", or "authoritarian". That was the land of literature, movies, news articles, and research papers.

"But she," and I pointed to the white woman, "started it. She pushed the other woman."

"If you don't back up right now, you too will be arrested." His voice deepened and grew gruff and blunt with no hint of truth-seeking.

"But she started it. What don't you understand about that?"

The white blond woman started crying. My friend pulled my arm begging me to leave; she had seen this side of the police before and knew it was time to go. The officer started to grab my other arm. I pulled away thanks to my defiance towards authority entering dangerous territory. I was about to ask for a badge number and the station he worked out of when my friend hailed a taxi and demanded to leave.

As I entered the cab, I noticed the homeless woman with her face on the ground crying, an officer's knee in her back. The white woman was telling another police officer she'd like to press harassment charges. I felt helpless, distance growing between me and the incident.

I wanted justice terribly. I wanted to lend a voice where I could. But I realized that justice, especially institutional justice, is rarely given or found. Rather, we find justice in those small moments of voice even when they aren't heard. And institutional justice? It resides only in the lands of Batman and fiction.

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Friends, Lovers, Fiances, Enemies, Fiances, and Then...

 
She was wrapped in a towel and freshly showered when I first met her. I was unexpected and met with a nervous giggle that escaped pursed lips. My grandparents were there helping carry luggage as I coughed green and and ran to throw up. She excused herself as we made our way to my new bedroom. The sagging mattress tossed on an industrial metal frame was one of two beds in the large wooden room. It was to be mine although not quite yet.

She reemerged clothed, and my grandparents asked her for a hotel room and a hospital. We departed with a "Thank-you" towards Lombard Street.

I returned a few days later feeling slightly less sick and more consciously aware of the screaming and chair throwing. She wasn't there to greet me. Instead, I was welcomed dryly by the director from his first floor office. His dog yapping should have been a warning cry; I should have heard its pain and story. But my headache made intuition impossible, so I stayed.

Eight months of screams, bites, feces, transformations, trauma, and love occurred. It was abusive and kept me contained fearful of quiet and stillness. I also gained a close, close friend as only abuse and trauma can create: the woman in the towel.

We both stopped working at the same time and became roommates. Then, we became lovers. It was unexpected, familiar, and beautiful. It was also cyclically unhealthy.

After six plus years of being friends, lovers, fiances, enemies, and fiances again, we ended it. She ended it. I accepted it.

For all its abusive start, cyclical middle, and rocky finish, she showed me love. It prepared us for what was next. For her, grad school and a job in economic development. For me, falling in love all over again.

This time I learned: cruising dark alleys is no more riskier than meeting in a group home.

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Wildly Laughter

  
He dances wildly arms flailing; free. The lights flash and spin as he pirouettes and leaps. He lands with a thud on the floor catching his toe on someone else's shoe. Both tumble creating a new dance: laughter.

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Mirrored Perfection

   

She stood in front of the mirror fussing with hairspray hoping it would go just a little higher conscious not to look like a hooker. Suburbanites hate hookers.

Perfect hair signaled personal perfection reflected in daily dusting, hourly vacuuming, and unending cycles of laundry. Everything was a reflection of everything else, so nothing was supposed to be out of place. It was suffocating her. It suffocated me. 

It became more than either of us could handle. She'd cry downstairs in the unfinished basement behind the tiny bathroom hoping no one would find her. I rebelled with messy drawers that were easily closed and by hoarding discarded wrappers in school lockers and backpacks. It led to four or five years of silence.

Her hair is unkept as she looks in the mirror, so she throws on a hat. The dusting is sporadic; the vacuuming is only weekly; the washing machine is silent. She works downtown among the hookers and drag queens and dykes and druggies providing respite and care for those with HIV/AIDS. She breathes freely. 

So do I. 

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Gashed, Burn, and Loved

  
They were rough with deep gashes and hard looking burns from the shrink-wrap machine. They caught on smooth surfaces like sandpaper against pantyhose. I didn't want mine to be like his. I wanted dainty as if they had never seen the sun or manual labor. I was better than his. Or at least I wanted to be.,

Mine aren't dainty, but their not as rough as his. They've done and see a lot; manual labor is low on that list. Their soft smoothness is gone replaced by a chafing dryness. I love them and I would be lost without them; left wandering a landscape void of shape, color, depth, life. They create.

He no longer burns them on the shrink-wrap machine. His 50 plus body and quick temper at authority pushed him out. He's happier. They're happier. They love the motion of the back and forth mopping. The love the familiarity of manual labor. It is etched deep within his hands.

I watch mine scribe across a blank page and I see the lines of black ink and penmanship etch memories and stories. He gave me that gift with each gash, burn, and scar. I am forever indebted to labor and love.

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Truth Is Not Fact

    
This piece is a slight departure from previous The Space Between... writing styles because it highlights the intended purpose of these posts. Hope you enjoy.

***
I'm not sure what to write about today. I know I want to write, and I am happy that I have been writing, but ask me what to write this morning and I'm at a loss. I know I need to generate/mine my life for more The Space Between... topics. There really should be endless material. But the stories of my mind and memory are only loud in spurts. Then, they fade. Finally, they are gone, and I am left only with echoes and reverberations of detail and emotion. I am left by myself looking backwards with everything out of focus unable to discern one event from the next moment from another time altogether. It makes capturing anything near impossible.

I remember my mother crying hysterically in the basement, but I do not recall how she got there or why she was crying. I remember breaking bread at bible school with second graders, but have no memory of when it occurred or what happened before or after. I remember emotions surrounding the fight that ended our six-plus-years relationship, but ask me why we broke up and the only thing I can tell you is "It was time."

These bits and pieces are beautiful and real. They hold more truth than the facts of the events or the details of my life. They are like the colors on a painter's palette: they inform the image that emerges but are not the image itself; they influence and shape direction and choice; they work together to craft story, theme, character, and setting. These moments hold an essence that must be conveyed, and fact will never convey that essence.

The Space Between... stories are never fact. I make absolutely no claim that the details are correct. Hopefully, they unveil a truth: that we as humans are complex, intricate, and connected.

I wasn't sure what to write today. But I think I found it.

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