A Primer for Bay Negroes: Chronicle One

It's Sunday.  The fatigued 30-year-old black mother sits in the underground train station, dank and wet with midnight San Francisco air.  She leans into her bike, regrets riding it down the hill to work.  After work, the uphill dig looms in her mind, in her muscles, she recalls the ache from that last mile.

Behind her, an Asian boy, in big jeans and Raiders cap is wrapped around his girl.  She plays with his knee.

-- Why you was looking at that nigga so hard?  he says.
She, -- You trippin nigga.

The black mother's hands turn cold.  Her mind speeds into making sense here.  Who is their nigga subject? Is he black?  Is he their friend?  Is he a schoolmate?  Is he Asian?  Is this alright?  She wants the warmth of her limbs to circle back.

She crosses into where she can make it alright. Correct the chill.
To herself, -- they're from Oakland where Asians are niggas too.  Everybody wants to be a nigga in Oakland.  They are as much out of town as I am, here in San Francisco.  Their family is new to the country.  They don't know nothing about niggas feet smoldering at the foot of dogwood trees.  Their nigga is not your nigga.  Don't be hurt. They are wandering, here, and Oakland generates its niggas in the first generation.  Sense.

She holds her bike erect and stands to move.  Her lips force a smile.  She spots a bench, two white bears in lumberjacks and work boots lean into each other.

Fading military tattoos show beneath the tight creases at their elbows. They are hairy and their skin rough.  The taller one's hand steadies the back of the other.  They are drunk.

She is tired, so she sits. She nods hello and waits for her train.  Two minutes flashes over the marquee.  Fremont train, two minutes.  The train will carry her under the Bay, back to Oakland, the city a friend said was --wall-to-wall niggas.  Oakland is soft to her.  She can walk through all of Oakland those street niggas don't ever bother her or her daughters.  Those street niggas know the story of black mothers and children alone.  They watch out for her.

A breeze rises and the train's horn signals to her, you will be home soon.  She's better.

Behind her the bigger bear asks his lover, "You liked that nigger, didn't you?"

She cannot believe her fortune.  She is cold again.  These these two muscled men will have to pay for it all.  The cold fires from her mouth.

--You two bitches,  who you calling nigger?
Their slow drunken sorry-s do nothing.

She is cold again, struggling to grip her bike's handlebars onto the train.

"Fremont train to West Oakland Bart."