The Chick down the street

I pass her often enough; on my way home from work, on the way to the laundry, while I'm doing the walk of shame at 7,8 in the morning, etc... I don't know her name nor do I know what kind of person she is. I just know what I THINK I see.

She looks like she used to be pretty enough. Huge doe-like eyes, bronzed dark red skin, shoulder-length hair. She looks like she used to be a LOT of things; the hottest chick on the block, the captain of her Brooklyn sista-girl cheerleading team, the one who had on the latest style on the first day of school, the one who used to dawdle in her school composition book her first name and the last name of her ghettosoldier boyfriend in the center of a heart. She probably didn't get GREAT grades in school but did enough to pass and was happy to get out of high school. She seems like she would make some other chick a good friend and running buddy. BUT...then I see other things too. I see her struggling to get little Latoya to school in the morning, because Latoya has been up till 3 watching BET Uncut. I see (and hear) her arguing with her latest boyfriend (screaming at the top of her lungs the name of his latest indiscretion- (at 2 in the morning on a Wednesday)- "I'm gonna fuck that bitch up". I see stretchmarks on her sides, memories of the 3 kids she's sired by 3 different daddies. I see the stretchmarks peering from under her low-slung jeans that reveal a body NOT holding up to time. Maybe she let herself go taking care of the 3 kids from the 3 callous motherfuckers that used her body and her mind and then used the front door. Maybe she hadn't thought to monitor her fat and carbohydrate intake because its just easier to buy fried chicken wings and french fries from the chinese restaurant so she could feed the little bastards and put them to bed before 1 in the morning. Yeah, she tries to keep her hair and nails up, but sometimes its a couple MORE weeks than she would like between touch-ups because none of the ruthless bastards that sprayed seed in her wants to come up off of no fuckin' chedda. I see it all in her somewhat vacant stare as I approach and seemingly nonchalantly walk by the 4-apartment brownstone that has become (and probably will remain) her world.

I'm aware of her momentary stare- ("who does this nigga think HE is? ") . I'm cognizant of the head-to-toe once-over she administers in the 5 seconds that our worlds collide ("this nigga be poppin tags, but I don't never see him with no bitches"). I knew the first time I saw her that she was checkin me out, watching my comings and goings, and wondering how she could accidentallyonpurpose bump into me and check out my conversation- that hasn't happened yet. I think she's unconsciously internalized my orientation and doesn't have the time, luxury or inclination to pursue it further. OR, perhaps, its the involuntary expression that crosses my face everytime I see her- the same expression that I'm sure she's seen on the face of most uppity negroes when she takes her kids downtown or to the doctor or to the movies-' WHAT A WASTE, you could have been so much more'. I know that she senses this, because everytime I pass her and she's screaming at the kids, or chatting into the cell phone that I'm not sure she's going to be able to pay for at the end of the month, I know she sees (and I feel) the left corner of my mouth contort into that "mmmph mmmph mmmmph" that I, in my attempt to be LESS judgmental, desperately try to stifle. I don't think she works (other than being a full-time mother to 3 kids- which is in and of itself a job), because as my schedule is pretty unpredictable, I see her at 10 in the morning, 4 in the afternoon, and 2 in the morning-sometimes all on the same day. I think about how she is the PROTOTYPE for a LOT of black women around this city and indeed around this country; no prospects of improving her life, no stable relationship with the man or men with whom she aspired to build a life with, one or more small lives to be responsible for, no means to take care of them in the way that ensures that they become accomplished individuals, no real accomplishments herself, and a potboiler of anger because of the combination of some or all of these things. Every time I see a young black woman pushing a stroller I think about ALL of this. I think about all that she COULD have been, and how it is going to be soooo much more difficult for her to pursue ANY of her dreams because her priorities have been defined for her before she could define the woman that she is. I don't know if this is an ode to abortion, pregnancy prevention, better parenting, social mores, the importance of education and education programs, a prayer for the elevation of self-esteem of our youth, or ALL of these things.

But I do pray for her.