Metro Tale: Two

"Your Mema died," my mother told me on an unimportant Sunday evening. "Well this is going to screw everything up…"

I love my grandmother, but she couldn't have passed at a more inopportune time for me. I was in the process of moving to DC to go to school, which I had completely planned out. I was supposed to work until the Tuesday of the following week, train my replacement on Mon. and Tues, go to my good friends' wedding the coming Saturday, and finally begin my drive to DC on Wed.

"When's the funeral?" I asked. My mom told me it would be the coming Saturday, but I would need to get into Ft. Lauderdale by Friday morning so we could make the drive down to Key West while it was still light out. I was a mess; frustrated because of the passing of my grandmother and the unforeseeable interruption of my plans.

I quit my job a few days early, and left for Ft. Lauderdale that Friday. Upon arriving, I met my mom, her husband and two of my cousins that I hadn't seen in a very long time, Seleste and Lisa. Considering the reason for our gathering, everyone was of generally jovial spirits.

We later picked up my brother from the airport and immediately drove down to Key West. It was a trek that I had done many times before and one I intend to do again, even if I don't have the excuse of visiting my Mema. Along the trip we all caught up on each other's lives, and things were good… things were very good.

At the funeral, things were bad. I don't like seeing my mother cry. It makes me cry. I hate to see that beautiful woman hurt. She's tried all throughout the lives of my brother and me to be stoic, showing no emotion. But she cracked upon seeing her own mother in that painted box. She wept, and I held her… I didn't know how else to console my mommy.

My own pain went unnoticed, I'm sure. That was the intention. I've been vulnerable before; even amongst the shield of family and the love they emit, I won't allow myself to show vulnerability. I'm aware that it's a callow response to broken heart that's long since healed, but it's a response that works… for now.

To counter the lugubrious events of the day my brother, my cousin Seleste, and I decided to hit up "downtown" Key West for the evening, see what kind of trouble we could get into. Of course, as we walked up and down the main strip, I took surreptitious peeks into the several gay bars, understanding that they were off limits for the night. Instead we found ourselves at a generic straight bar. The twenty somethings were all drunk; no one seemed to be having a good time either. They were locked into this pallid ritual of libation and swing, twisting to the rhythm of song which long ago found them surfeit.

I participated… participating makes me hungry, so Seleste and I decided to get pizza from the nearby jumbo slice parlor. She stepped into her place in the winding queue and I… well, I got distracted by an arcade game. She lent me a dollar to play while she waited in line. Per usual, I lost to the computer and subsequently returned to Seleste's side. A considerable number of people had gathered behind her, and they apparently were not happy with my arrival.

One particularly obnoxious girl (she was Jewish; the Star of David around her neck gave it away) made no secret of her ire, accusing me and Seleste of cutting to her friends knowing that we could hear her. So I told Seleste, very loudly, that I like being passive aggressive too. The obnoxious girl then proceeded to call Seleste a bitch (although up to that point, Seleste had said nary a word), and from there it was "on."

The two women began flinging insults back and forth at one another. The obnoxious girl was frothing at the mouth, shouting and raising her fists, agitating not only the other customers but also her friends. Seleste remained relatively calmer, never reacting to the physical encroachments, but definitely spitting venom back. It got to the point where the obnoxious girl's friends even had to admit to her that we had been in line long before them. Yet she was inconsolable. She began taking swings at my cousin and her friends, reacting properly, immediately escorted her from the building.

Finally, as she was being pulled into the street, she screamed from the doorway, "Fuck you niggers!"