Preacher on the bus, alternative ending
This was in New Orleans, after dark. Most of the seats were vacant.
A Black man got on, dressed smartly in robes inspired by ancient icons of Egyptian Royalty, sat right beside me on the double seat, and yelled “I hate white people!” Then he proceeded to shout out a story about how an evil scientist named Yakub created white people to serve as warrior-slaves. He said, this is why white people are evil and cunning, and have no heart or conscience. No soul. Because God did not make white people, an evil man did. He said, white people were never supposed to escape Yakub’s control and were never supposed to eat meat. Having done both of these things, white people are irredeemable and need to be either enslaved or put down like rabid dogs.
I’d heard this story before, because I read forbidden lit. I felt it had a grain of truth. Putting myself in his shoes, I could feel how he would feel like he did. Even so, I didn’t feel right sitting beside a perfect stranger hollering about how evil I am and how much he hates me. And I didn’t see why he would want to sit next to me if he hated me so much. So I got up and moved. Then he looked at me and shouted a few times, You better move!
I got off at the next stop and walked several miles home, never once looking back. The bitter rain poured, cold as the world, cold as White Supremacy. If only it could dissolve me, wash me and my kind away, leaving behind only God’s Chosen People.
Alternative Ending. What I wish I’d done / should have done, and how it probably would have gone from there, based on a composite of similar encounters over the years:
I sit there, listening intently, perfectly cool like Michelle Pfieffer with Coolio in the Gangsta’s Paradise video. When he winds down, I drop from my seat onto the floor into something resembling the Yoga Child Pose. Kissing his gold patent leather clad feet, I exclaim, “You are certainly right, Your Majesty!” Then I pull my lank black hair to the side, exposing my neck while pressing my forehead to floor. My face clings to the sticky residue of spilled drinks, my elbows brush aside the remnants many a bus rider’s snacks. I know my hair and the rest of me is getting cruddy on that filthy bus floor, but I don’t care. This is it. I say, “What you must do, Your Majesty, do quickly!”
His hand goes to the ceremonial dagger at his belt, then he pauses and busts out laughing. A great belly laugh, almost theatrical. After a moment, he composes himself and says, “You little fool, let me look at you.”
He grabs my chin, turns my face up. Studies it like an odd object in a curio shop. Takes in the Mediterranean coloring I’d inherited from my ancestors, the hint of Neanderthal in the bone structure. “Where are your ancestors from?” he asks. “Spain? Italy? Something like that?”
I nod.
“I see it. You know the Moors conquered Spain in the name of God, and Hannibal entered Italy on elephants.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said. I knew these things. Reading forbidden lit.
“For the sake of your humble heart and your African ancestors, I will let you live. Now go and tell your people who God is, and who His people are.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty! I’m on it!”
“I am Brother Y.,” he said, pronouncing his full name carefully several times. “Remember my name. If any of my people ever give you any trouble, tell them Brother Y. let you live.”
He rose from his seat and went to the door. Just as he exited, he nodded to me, and I nodded in return.
I got off several stops later, half a block from home. The rain had stopped, the night was clear and cool. I walked home in the dark, mentally rehearsing his name. Stopped under an oak tree that was still dripping, washed the bus floor crud off my arms face and hair, got clean.
I never had to use his name, not even once in the 40 years since. Most Black people, I’ve come to see, don’t want revenge, let alone supremacy. They simply want to live in peace, just like everybody else.
