Palimpsest

         (For Rufus)

                 I

No diner here wore denim
overalls to kindergarten
that weekly washings and Delta toil
scrubbed pewter-blue and gossamer
except the man whose guests we are.
His line-backer bulk in asphalt-grey
12-ounce wool Brooks Brothers suit
cerulean Sea Island shirt
and four in hand scarlet silk tie,
his glistening bald hemisphere
atop a horseshoe ear to ear
of nubby sexagenarian silver hair
promise competence summoning champagne
four courses, claret, port
in this K Street^[1] power-brokers’ haunt.
Only melanin sets him apart
from other hosts in this restaurant.

                 II

Nothing hinted at cotton rows
and shot-gun shacks by red clay roads
where he’d been minted
nor five-decade anabasis through
Jim Crow schools, HBCU^[2]
and hay-seed university law degree
to lead lobbyist at PG&E
in the Capital.^[3] The waiter ignores his eye
and lays the tab down by my side,
the young, sole white male at our table.

“I’m paying, not him. Bring it to me.”
“Oh... excuse me, I thought...”
“What?”
“uhh, well, uh, um, er....”
Carotids bulging, on his feet
“What? What did you think?”
through bared teeth.
We knew what he thought.

                 III

Sixty years of signs down-home
on toilets, fountains, waiting rooms –
No Coloureds, Whites Only –
police, officials all the colour of bone
still called Boy when fully grown,
in diapers schooled to suffer sleights
in silence, hide pride and indignation’s trace –
Don’t sass. Walk by.
Cross the street. Know your place. –
reflexively draw rein, tuck chin
automatically avert his face
scrape fury’s lineaments away
and over a lifetime’s palimpsest of rage
repaint the mask of a facilitator
he wears in C-suite and Capitol corridor.

We leave in silence, politely part apace
never again mention
how I watched a nation’s id
shame a paragon and race.

 
[1] DC’s main street for lobbyists’ offices and expense account restaurants.
[2] Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
[3] Pacific Gas & Electric, one of America’s largest regulated natural gas and electric power companies, with 16 million customers.