Seesaw by Timothy Ogene

Author:Timothy Ogene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nigeria;US;Brandon Taylor;Helon Habila;Teju Cole;Ben Lerner;Paul Beatty;Percival Everett;performativity;Black Lives Matter;BLM
Publisher: Swift Press
Published: 2021-09-28T19:20:15+00:00

The Reinhardts dropped me off at the station downtown. I took a train to Stonehill. On the train, I tried to suppress my experience at the Kirkpatricks but it was impossible to do so. I caught myself looking at my own black fingers where they rested on my knees, and glancing sideways to catch a glimpse of the white faces around me. I looked around to see if there were other black people in the carriage. I spotted a black teenager and stared at him until he caught me staring and changed his seat.

Out on Kendell Avenue, I stopped at a liquor store run by a bespectacled man who I overheard saying to a customer that his parents ‘moved here from Las Piedras’ in Puerto Rico.

I wandered around the store and eventually settled for a pack of Sam Adams.

At the till, the man from Las Piedras asked for my ID.

I showed him my Nigerian driver’s licence. He held it up, looked at me then back at the ID, and asked, ‘Any American ID?’

‘No,’ I answered, and told him that I was new in the US.

Something sparked in his eyes. I couldn’t tell what it was but it was warm and understanding.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘welcome to the United States of America.’

He returned my driver’s licence.

Turning around, I saw those in line behind me: two black men, each holding a bottle of hard liquor, and a sad-looking white woman in grey sweatpants hugging a large bottle of vodka. They were all staring at me, the new creature from Africa.

Hurrying out the door, I began the walk to Perky’s nice neighbourhood, away from the area around the liquor store, which seemed like the threshold between two sides of the socio-economic divide. Perky had offered to pick me up but I wanted to walk off my anxiety.

A minute or so into my walk, I stood and opened a can of beer.

There were two cans left when I got to Perky’s.

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