Still Feelin’ It for B-Bluzee

He sauntered into the classroom, nose in the air, bobbing his head, eyes gazing over other students, expecting me to sign an add slip, which I did since it was a small class I feared might be cancelled. As a writer, I needed the work as an adjunct instructor.

He didn’t seem a hipster per se, although he did sport a bleached dreadlock bun, oversized square glasses, drooping pants. I figured him for one of the theater majors who often enrolled in the course attracted by dramatic monologues and performance as part of the syllabus. Budding poetry and prose writers alike were drawn to the Asian and European forms of poetry, sudden fiction, and memoir.

Just as I was passing out the day’s activity sheet and about to introduce the process of peer review, the students were all abuzz, so much so that I turned to one and quietly asked: “What’s up with all the fuss?”

She whispered back: “He’s a local rapper. He’s even been part of the lineup at Paramount Theatre for Oakland’s Hip HopAthon.”  

That’s when I instead distributed the survey, “My Expectations for This Class” to be filled out, shared, discussed.

 During discussion, theater folk predictably revealed they wanted to be performative in class and that this and their other classes could enrich each other. The emerging poets B-Bluzee were open to just about everything as were the storytellers. 

He called himself B-Bluzee or something like that I couldn’t wrap my head around, probably because I’d grown uninterested in rappers, having been outspoken against rap lyrics demeaning women. This rapper, I came to call Blue, announced he enrolled to practice his act and make new rhymes, punctuated by “You feelin’ me?” as he looked past me and to the class as if an audience.

Some students chimed in with “Yas. aight, feelin’ you,” as if looking forward to, I imagined, a poppin’ class with some free entertainment.

Determined not to let Blue run the room, after class I handed him the syllabus and some rules of order: “Your assignments are nearly overdue having entered late, and your allowable absences for the term are practically used up.” Following his deadpan stare, I went on: “You, like everyone else, are expected to participate in aspects of creative writing meant not so much for the stage but more for the page, including being open to the work of established writers as well as to other students’ work.”  

Blue said little, or maybe said nothing. What I remember best are the wings on his jacket, back to me, as he drifted out of the room. I figured he would not return.

Return he did, but at his leisure. After I said: “Blue,” to get his attention, he corrected in a snappy head turn: “B-Bluzee.”  “Blue,” I continued, “your signature on the attendance sheet is artistic,” and continued with the off-the-cuff remark of “Just like tags on the campus pedestrian tunnel wall sprayed in silver huffer paint.”

He never turned in assignments or responded in workshops after that. Even the MMA fighter never missed a day despite late nights, black eyes, split lips. Nor did the single mother struggling with childcare, or others facing life’s unsung but ongoing challenges.

And then came time for final presentations of what students chose as their best writing to present as their portfolio in self-published chapbooks to exchange with each other and to turn in for a grade. This time I hoped Blue would finally participate, come to the front of the class and perform as others had, performance supposedly being his thing. I coaxed him: “C’mon Blue. Your’ve got a captive audience here.” 

He just shook it off with a shoulder shrug, pulling his hoodie up over his head and down past his eyes, slouching at his desk. At the end of that last class, I distributed a final survey titled “The Grade I Deserve and Why” students could pick up at my office for my written response.

As I read them at home later that night, I was touched by the thoughtfulness in their narratives about their own work and working with others. Then came B-Bluzee’s, an unexpected reply written in graffiti style lettering with a thick silver marker: “Fuck It. Gimme an F.” 

And at that, really feelin’ blue, I wrote heavy-handedly in blood red: “OK—you got it.”

The Naked Couple at the Window

The complimentary champagne cocktail couldn’t begin to take the edge of things, leaving me feeling downhearted and disenchanted by the whole arts scene in the city where The Woman I Love and I had relocated. What a night at Bazaar Cafe on the outskirts of San Francisco, feeling like quite the wallflower. Who wouldn’t, as the other three poets featured sequestered in a corner reminiscing college days and amusing current students there to perhaps get a bit of extra credit.

“Stop beating yourself up,” The Woman I Love insisted. “Your stuff is better than all of theirs,” she reassured; but it didn’t help much as I carped on about having sold only one book and to the owner who liked that we both had roots back East. 

As if this wasn’t enough, The Woman I Love decided to take one of her disastrous shortcuts through a neighborhood where we’d never been with its plethora of older highrises. Stuck in traffic, the light on the fritz, people were not playing well with everyone off to somewhere to do something that must have been terribly important made clear from the incessant bleating of horns and finger flying birds at windows.

Slumped riding shotgun, no radio station could drown out the self-obsessed clamor of thoughts in my head or cacophony of the street. It was then I looked upward toward the stars, perhaps for a bit of hope or calm; but there was not a one to be seen under the umbrella of city glow from ambient light. There was, however, something else that caught my eye—a second story apartment with blaring wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor lighting that seemed so barely furnished I wondered whether anyone lived there. Just then up from the couch, backs to the window, two figures rose, a fit and trim man and woman likely in their early twenties—both stark naked.

They stood there for a time. No hand holding, hugging, kissing. Then they moved in sync in glissades like practiced performers, one sliding along from the right, the other from the left until meeting center stage in front of the window where they did not touch, arms dangling at their sides, but only stared  into the sea of cars below. The Naked Couple at the Window stood for a few mesmerizing minutes doing absolutely nothing, until they slid back to their original position in front of the couch before moving effortlessly en pointe toward a darkened room across the open space, turned back around, dipped in ballet révérence, then switched off the lights.

“Did you see that? I asked The Woman I Love.

“Did I see what? Those damn robo-taxis jammed up in the next lane?” 

“No. Did you see The Naked Couple in the Window?” 

“Are you being a Peeping Tomacita again?” was her only response as she released her white knuckle grip from the steering wheel to applaud traffic lights finally functional.

“C’mon, you really didn’t see that?”

The Woman I Love took my hand in hers and answered, almost in a condescending whisper: “Time to go home and maybe write one of your more wacky poems or wild tales about being stuck in traffic and gawking at The Naked Couple at the Window.”

People’s Drug

Melody took her usual seat at the counter near the prescription window of People’s Drugstore in Washington D. C.’s Georgetown neighborhood for her Sunday morning order of rye toast and black tea.

Saturday nights, the People’s corner was a hot spot she sometimes visited to get psychedelics from kooky weekend dealers. In those days she fit in with the eccentric cast of characters, smoking her Virginia Slims, sporting a boyish pixie, wearing false eyelashes, mod dresses, colored tights in chunky heeled ankle boots. Like most young people then, she was open to new experiences, especially if a bit taboo.

The waitress, always in uniform with her enamel name tag as Alice, knew just when to offer her more hot water for her teabag, never commenting on anything. Until one day, nodding toward a man on the opposite side of the oval counter, Alice questioned with an air of suspicion: “Are you okay with that guy taking pictures of you?”

At first Melody shrugged it off, since she never paid attention to or spoke to other patrons, not even regulars and certainly not this gawky and ill-kempt man, but then some huff washed over her. She slid off her stool, circled over to him, taking him by surprise as he looked longingly into her eyes behind muted shades. Then in a snit she snatched his camera, pulled out the ribbon of film, took it back to her seat, stubbed out her cigarette on it before dropping it into the teacup Alice instantly filled with hot water.

Melody doubled Alice’s tab to make an appreciative tip for her and made her way out as Alice played a song of the times on the countertop juke box, “These Boots are Made for Walking.” That was Melody’s cue to point back at the guy clasping his camera to his chest as she chimed in on the song: “and they just walked all over you.”

xxx