I met a man smoking a cigarette at the Grand metro station today.
I walked up to him hoping to buy a loose “square”. (“Square” is StL slang for cigarette, I learnt on a kayaking trip in July.)
His questionable health choices aside, the man wore his age well. I could tell he was fit underneath the baggy college jacket that he wore over a beaten sweater. I thought his prickly grey stubble worked for him. Handsome guy. I’d place him in his mid to late fifties. Chimney or not, black don’t seem to crack. His skin and crow’s feet, however, betray his habits.
He asked me what I was reading. I showed him your copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
He checked and asked “Is that the one with Hale- yeah, Alex Haley.”
I noticed a new gleam in his eye. Left. “
I’m with The Nation.”
I wonder, now, if he’s ever been to prison.
My white therapist thought it wouldn’t be unlikely that the CIA murdered Malcolm X and pinned it on the Nation on Islam. But she’s white and gets paid to validate most of what I say. Follow the money, ey?
My metro friend let me in on a secret. With concise conviction, he told me that the CIA rented out rooms in the building opposite from Malcolm X’s final address. He told me that only “about five people in the world” were privy to this. The CIA set up snipers in the rooms across, gave the sham assassins guns with blanks in their magazines, and then the CIA shot Brother Malcolm themselves. February 21, 1965.
Wikipedia says Malcolm was shot a total of 21 times. Julius Caesar was supposedly stabbed 23 times. The internet alleges that only one of those stab wounds was fatal. How many bullets killed Malcolm?
When my bus arrived, my new friend walked in line with me, chatting about the blue eyed devil’s great works. Amen.
I thought he was boarding too, so I didn’t get why he seemed to skip along adjacent to the line instead of as a part of it. He wasn’t boarding.
We shook hands. He seemed proud of me for reading the Autobiography. (The old white man I sat next to earlier seemed quite nervous, glancing furtively at the cover in between failed bouts of nonchalance.) My new friend recommended I also read “Message to the Blackman” by Elijah Muhammad. -’said Elijah and Malcolm fell out ’cause Malcolm got jealous after Elijah “took” one of his potential wives.
I never got this man’s name.
I didn’t get a loose square either. He himself had bought one from someone else at the station.
It worked out.
I don’t like lights anyway. Gimme darks and heavies.
