Chapter 5: Eyes Not Yet Opening

Chapter 5:  Eyes Not Yet Opening

After riding the subway home after school, Quincy decided that he would go for a walk.  He traveled down the streets of Philadelphia absorbing his surroundings.  He saw many apartment buildings with broken windows on every floor, and he noticed that people were still living in these same buildings.  Clearly these people had grown tired of opening the windows during the summer heat waves and decided to permanently remove the windows.  Occasionally he would see people who had changed their minds too late, and decided to put plastic paper over the windows until they could get new ones.

Quincy also had noticed that people of similar skin color seemed to always be found together.  When he saw white people, they were always with white people and lived near white people.  When he saw black people, they were only with other black people and lived near black people.  When he saw Asian people, they were only with Asian people and lived near Asian people.  And the list went on.  Why was this?  Was there some law that prohibited people of different races from hanging out together?   But the answer soon came to Quincy.  Obviously it was mere coincidence, since there was no rational reason that people would choose to only be around people of their race, especially since race did not matter.  This must be a coincidence, just like the time that his bike disappeared and his next-door neighbor bought a bike that looked just like it.  Or like the time that his mother had been asked for her purse in exchange for a gun, and then the man forgot to give her the gun or bring back the purse.  Or maybe it was like the time his dad had mistaken another women for his mom and got her pregnant and then moved in with her.  Poor dad’s memory wasn’t very good, because he never remembered to come home to mom after that.  Quincy wondered why his mom never called to remind his father. Still, Quincy wondered if African American History Month and this observation on the cliquish nature of people had any connections.

As Quincy continued walking down the street he noticed many young girls, probably quite near his sixteen years of age, pushing around baby strollers.  And these were not the empty kind of baby carriages that one might use just to get exercise.  These were the kind that said no vacancy.  But this did not faze Quincy.  Clearly, Philadelphia was experiencing a population shortage.  Quincy wondered if he should notify the committee that deployed condoms to the streets of Philadelphia, since the two objectives seemed to clash.  Quincy had noticed the population shortage even back at his apartment.  Most of the buildings had seven to ten people living in two-bedroom places.  Yet, he and his father only had the two people in the two-bedroom place.  There were four people, but dad told his girlfriend and child to leave (probably because he realized that it was not his wife).  Clearly, their apartment could hold more people, and they were making insufficient use of space.  Thus, Philadelphians needed to convince young girls to start pumping out children. 

While walking, Quincy remembered that he had forgot, thus negating his ‘forget’, to ask his dad what, ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘ass’, and ‘slut’ meant.  He heard these words almost non-stop while walking down the street, and even while in the classroom.  He had once thought that these words were school related as he had heard students yelling these words at teachers quite a bit, but soon noticed that they were used everywhere by young and old people alike, in what never seemed to be academic discussions.  While walking, Quincy heard a new word.  Some guy was talking about shoving his cock in a bitch.  What was a bitch?  And why didn’t they just say chicken, cock sounded so formal.  He wondered if a bitch was a type of bread, and if it was good with chicken?  Realizing that his dad was usually passed out or nearly so, Quincy found his way to one of the local public libraries and found a dictionary and looked up bitch.  It meant female dog.  He was astonished to think that someone out there was shoving a chicken inside a dog.  What was the purpose?  Didn’t this hurt the dog? 

Baffled by this new idea, Quincy assumed he misheard the man speaking.  So, shaking his head to clear out the memory, he went on with his travels.  Every few steps his nose was overcome by the smell of trash.  He often compared it to the smell of rotten milk on the corpse of a rotting hamster, though he tried not to think back to that tragic discovery.  How Fluffy got in the glass was the biggest mystery of all.  And who knew milk could turn a light orange.  Nonetheless, Quincy wished that such smells were not necessary, but he realized that blind people needed a way to find the trash holders.  Maybe a similar scent based system would work for blind when trying to find the bathrooms in the subway.  

Another thing that befuddled Quincy about Philadelphia was the parking system.  Though most parking spaces were out of the way, many parking spaces were right in the middle of the street.  These spots sometimes had the special requirement that one turn on flashing lights, but Quincy didn’t understand how traffic was suppose to get around the cars that blocked an entire lane.  Yet, everywhere he went, parking spots were being used that were in the middle of the street.  Sometimes these spots were on the corner and were only short-term parking and someone was usually quick to come over to the car and sell them a small bag that must serve as a parking pass.  Quincy wondered how people could afford such expensive parking, as he had seen some people pay hundreds of dollars for a few seconds of parking.  Other times, it seemed that people would spontaneously set up obstacle courses on main roads like Walnut and Chestnut.  People would pick random places to stop in the middle of the road and test the drivers behind them.  The drivers behind them would often blare their horns as if to say, “Challenge accepted.”  Often, the stopped motorists would exit their vehicles and go pick up things at the store.  That way they were both challenging the driving skills of their fellow Philadelphians and getting their shopping done.  In short, a great utilization of time.

As he strolled the streets, Quincy decided that he was thirsty and stopped in a pizza restaurant.  Inside he noticed a few kids who had forgotten their belts, and must have been quite embarrassed to be displaying their boxers to the world.  Based on this embarrassment, they all displayed stone hard faces that looked like they might kill anyone that laughed at their lack of a belt.  Forgetting ones belt seemed to be quite common in Philadelphia.  Quincy proceeded up to the counter and stood right in front of the person behind the counter.  The counter person was talking to someone slightly to the right of Quincy.  Soon Quincy realized that this person did not have peripheral vision, as he had not even caught the slightest glimpse of Quincy.  Quincy stood there for a few minutes, and the counter person finally turned towards Quincy and seemed to stare through him.  His eyes consisted of red veins swimming through a glazed pool of white and brown.  He wore an oversized shirt that hung off his shoulders.  Only one word appeared on the shirt: FUBU.  Quincy joked in his mind that this stood for For Uniting and Bringing Unity.  Quincy’s thoughts were interrupted when finally the man mumbled, “Yesss???”  and frowned. 

Quincy responded, “Can I get this coke?”

The counter person grabbed the coke and took a dollar from Quincy’s hand and returned to talking to the person to Quincy’s right.  Quincy walked out of the store feeling lucky that the person had been so nice to him.  The last time he had tried to buy a coke, the person never said a word, but simply stared down at the cash register with a frown.  He had received a word from this counter person.  The people of Philadelphia must get friendlier by the day, he thought.  He wondered if one day, the people serving him at restaurants might actually smile at him.   After receiving the mumbled yes, he was sure things were looking up for such a possibility.  As he exited the establishment a middle-aged white man came walking in.  He reeked of sweat and feces.  Their arms brushed as they past each other and the man bumped air that smelled like 100 proof alcohol and the phrase “watch out asshole!” 

Quincy wandered past, oblivious to the encounter.