2004-10-28����2:14 p.m. the cinder block building....
... as i locked the door to my car and tightened the scarf around my neck, i heard screams comming from every direction. they echoed thru the parking lot. rattled beween the buildings surrounding me... the planned parent hood clinic, the plating company, the architect building, the parking attendant booth, the cinder block building i was heading for... my mind was swimming and my heart started beating faster... i started to up the pace of my steps. i hit the door and opened it... there were people everywhere... in awe... with tears in their eyes. there was silence again... and all eyes were on me. the new commer... i tried to make it quickly thru the crowd and to the back where it was safe... where i knew no one would be looking at me. i was held up by the boy with the empty eyes as he mumbled something to me which i still cant make out... no matter how many times i run it over in my head, changing the pacing of the words and changing the emphisis on the sylablles... i still dont know what he was trying to say.
i made it.
i made it to the back... to the one open space in the stuffy room filled with intensity... then they started chanting...
then it happened... what i have been waiting to see. there was an old man... to old to be out this late at night... he was smoking a cigar and drinkiing something that was colored from the cask it had sat in for 8 or 10 or 12 maybe 14 years. it had waited for the moment it would be poured into a glass... but it wasnt expecting to be here... now... and neither was i. i watched the crowd... nothing else meant anything to me... just the elation... the screaming... the pure joy in thier faces. i watched this old man. his face wrinkled with time and black with heritage. his hair, white with age.
i watched the tears come to his eyes and i watched his inhibitions fly away. i watched him jump up and down like he was a 4 year old on christmas that just saw the presents and he was relieved that the threats of santa not comming were erased... i watched him and only him. no one else mattered. he was by far the oldest out of anyone there... im no sure of his exact age but i knew he had been waiting for this longer then anyone in the room... in that building... on that corner... on that block... maybe in this part of the jewelry district. i watched him. it didnt matter to me what the score was. it mattered to me that this man had won. along with all those men who believed in eachother and them selves... he believed... and he won it.
