Post maytes... (Broad & Olney)

zephaniah chesterfield
Mar 15, 2019
18 min read

There's a "lot" going on when you look outside of your self. The same can be said when you look inside and truly see. They're the same. As above, so below. As with-in, so on the outside (with-out). Given that, there's nothing really going on. It's the same thing, dig me? Just kinda.... on repeat... It's all a game of understanding what's already understood for the sake of filling consciousness which is an endless void. Don't matter what you put in it, it's all sucked down... but the rush of finding things, dis-covering them, and putting them in, feeling it being sucked down, only to lose it and forget it all and find it all over again must be some kinda thing.

True, WHY is a very important question, one worth applying to any and every situation, even if it's just to satisfy a fleeting curiosity. It may reveal deeper things when the layers are peeled back and understood. When it comes to the end of things, there are many areas to ask WHY? But, dig it, why is a question of consciousness. If you can escape it, then you don't need an answer, you need an escape. If you cannot escape it, then you can fill eternity with whys and be none the wiser. Interesting paradox, eh? Quite the predicament. Ends are completion... or so the story goes. There's no completion of the infinite. If what was infinite had an end, it wouldn't be infinite. Simple enough, right? The end of a thing allows the opportunity for the infinite possibility built up beneath it's surface to explore reality, BEing. Oh, and btw, if you ain't peeped it yet, yeeaaaah, this one's gonna be a little deep, but there's a bar story in it because that's where it came from... sit tight if you're with this ride. Fear is a product of lack of understanding and the love/acceptance of understanding(s)... like if you understand something you don't fear it because you now it inside and out. There's no mystery to it, nothing that could "have power over you" because you KNOW it. You don't just think it or believe... you know, and on top of that, you understand what you know. If you understand what you know you don't shake or waver. You just go with what you know. No need for faith when you understand what you know. You have faith in things you believe and maybe kinda know, but aren't sure of... there's wiggle room. You have faith in things you think, but might not know, or think but might not believe fully, ain't fully convinced you really believe whole-heartedly, as they say. When you know... and you understand what you know... it's solid. You would have to understand something else, and know that something else, and then move to that point.

I'm a night owl. Yes, sometimes with a white owl, yes. Backwoods or Swishers get bland. Folks are expected to live up to certain expectations, but you never live UP to an expectation, only down to expectations, unless that UP is like moving UP to a point of blockage-- a glass ceiling. If you're an infinite being, you can't live UP TO anything but a limitation, and since you're infinite, there are no limits, only boundaries. Boundaries are set, hopefully by you, because you're going to live inside of them... might as well be your own boundaries set for your own reasons. Not saying that you're capable of seeing beyond your point of view, because you aren't. Any point of view you reach is you viewing things from that point... which pretty much makes it your point of view. It's just up to you to determine what you gain from that perspective... if seeing and understanding things in that way is for you in the moment. Having said that, and completely ghettofying/ghettoizing it, sometimes you don't want friggin Swishers and backwoods all the time, sometimes you're a night owl with a white owl. Sometimes just an Al Capone or a Black n Mild will do. And i hate ghettoizing anything. Hate. Hate is a strong word, which is why i use that word... hate it. Hitler put ghetto on the map and then america glorified it by making it a marketable prison for blacks, and not only white-washing, but completely screwing over their future and possible escape... just like it did to their history. So it fucked them out of their past, is fucking them in the present, and that present fucking is fucking their fucking future... all while making them pay for it, and sell it with no return, only an itching arm and ten second high to escape it's vampyrical and zombiestic presence the rest of the time. That's Ghetto. Fuck that.

This little talk came about from being a night owl. Didn't have a whit owl then... it was a cognac Al Capone. Four of them actually. Was standing outside, one night, at Broad & Olney. Folks say Ala-nee. If you ain't from there you don't even know what the hell that is. Sometimes it's a place you don't mind being at night. Other times, you don't wanna be there at night. You ain't supposed to be there at night. If you are supposed to be there at night, you need to rethink a few things, or hurry up and do what you're doing, dig me? Anyways, so... chillin on the wall, Girls High side, across from the Pretzel spot... and i'm working on some egg rolls from the chinese food spot, which it ain't chinese food, but this is here, right? The "Indians" ain't even Indians, but history is economics, not art, which is why and how it sells you art as history. If you didn't get that, history is a bunch of crap that happened. Actions and reactions. Business paints that picture and is the motive. Art is expression, acts. A different kind of business.. the business, or B-US-IN-ESSence of directing the flow of currency and energy and power and information. It's the relationships between people and other people and things. It's made into a monetary business to control it, but that's where reality comes from, art. Not economics. Its why economics needs art, but art doesn't need economics. Economics ain't shit really, it's just a trick. Something to get you to give up power and freedom for the illusion of power and freedom. Why would you give up power if you have it already? To get back a sliver of what you just gave up? Pffft.... it's a trap. Anyways, so I'm posted up down there, right, up on the wall just off to the side of the stairway entrance, looking over to the other side, just people watching. After a certain hour the lines to trains and buses get shorter, folks go home and stop hanging out as much (they never stop hanging out)... listening to the trains running underground, smelling the buses pass. It's just a bit of city life that you get in you and now and then you might need a dose of just to help you to normalize your mind. It kinda puts you back in the grit, which clips your wings a little, but it does help you to survive. You're here on the ground for a reason. Spend too much time in the clouds and something might happen to your body, yeah? You hear the music knocking in cars... you hear the brakes squeak on vehicles, the engines rev up and take off... there's all of the smells of foods in the air from these places, no matter how toxic, it's a dose of home... a dose of reality... you hear all of the conversations in passing, watch people on their little glowing phones, rapping and talking to their selves or on their Bluetooth....

---shoot, i remember the first time i knew i had to get used to Bluetooth... i was mobbing back up Spring Garden st one night, going from Broad to the Art Museum direction... just out walking... and this fool is on his bike, delivering chinese food... he's mumbling something, but every time i turn around to look at him as he's getting closer, he shuts up. So it goes on for a couple seconds, and right when he passes me he starts talking in whatever language, and i see the thing in his ear... and i'm like, "Oh.... ok. Thought i was gonna have to stomp out a crazy delivery guy for a second and steal his bike to get away." In my head i says this. I don't know what kinda kung-fu styles this guy knows. I'm not trying to test the skill of Shao-lin over a bluetooth murmuring. Kinda loosened my body, fists and all. You get prepped for things, and are glad when it's something else, dig me?---

Anyways, it started smelling like rain, and even getting a little cloudy. That deep purple in the air as the sun goes down and the oranges and pinks fade. The lights change from that weird city day reflection of things to that electric beat of the night. I dunno, night time is just more alive. Folks spend the days in a daze half dead anyways, working for nothing, slaving away their time and minds... night is more honest.... to me. And since I'm thinking that it might rain, i steps inside the little roof that goes down to the subway, leaning on the railing.

There's an old guy with a poncho on, and a small shopping cart, one of them tall laundry looking two wheeler baskets, ya know? Like you get from the thrift stores or something.... and he's twisting up a spliff, cutting his little bit of bud with the rest of whatever tobacco he had. Smelled kinda grape'ish... that sweet smell, ya know? I don't know what's so cringy about people slobbering all over blunts to seal them. I've seen it licked ever so slightly, and quick too, and it worked. This guy was getting personal with it. So i laughs like, "Maaan, you gonna need a torch to dry that off to smoke it. You want a cig?" I don't normally offer. I'd expect someone to ask first, and then for me to not offer next, but he really soaked that thing. I thought it would just crap out and start breaking up.

He goes, "Bwaaaah, What'cha got there youngblood?" drying it off with his lighter.

I pulls out a Capone, "Ever had these? Al Capone. Got a little cognac in it, sweet filter like the wood tip blacks." Sticks one in my mouth and i reaches over with the other one in the box. There's two in a pack. If I'm feeling generous and i have two or so packs on me, not the big box, then I'll open a fresh pack and share one if in that sharing mood. If not, I'll pull out the one with one left and be like, "Ah, its my last one. Bump it if you wanna, or I'll give you the short", but this guy was one of them cool characters you come across in life and living it. It's cool to meet real genuine people. Honest people.

His eyes lit up, "Coooognac?! They put the Yack in the Backa?! Bwaaah, i tells ya." He starts shuffling over to me like he'd been walking for weeks that day. Shoes were a little busted. Most folks will revoke your black card for saying that. It's supposed to be, "his shoes was all busted" with the optional, "n'shit" but that's why i hang out at bus stops and go walking at night, or one of the reasons... to just be me, alone, freely. No judgments in the sidewalk. The scenes and pulse of the city and streets don't judge you. "God bless ya young blood. I really 'preciate this mane. You wanna hit this heuhn?" he asked me, holding up that soggy bean.

"Nah, pop, I'm straight. 'Preciate you tho. You enjoy that. Here you go tho.." and i passes over a capone. Sparked them both up... sat there for a second in the stairway, looking at the sky, sending a few clouds back to their peoples. "Nice out here tonight, huh?"

"Mane, the weather gotta make up it's mind! It was HOT today. Now it's lookin like it's tryna rain on us. They need to make up their mind up there. But... who am I? Little rain never hurt no body. Matter of fact, it make the plants to grow. Cleans the air. Maybe some of these young stupid assholes'll go home and stop killin people all crazy huh? Need to rain all the time."

We sat there for a couple more seconds. Some folks came off of a train and rushed by. I dunno, I smiles at people, or at least nod with a smirk. I'm not tryna be cocky or nothing, not being flirty, just recognizing that i see you and ain't afraid of you, and you shouldn't be afraid of me. I'm a human being, like you... at least like how human beings used to be. They don't make too many of those now. Everybody's either looking at their phone of their feet. Especially if they look up and look you in the eye. When did human contact become such a threat? I seen people walk past relatives... "in the zone" walking plugged up or deep in their social media, being anti-social. Then again, i've almost gotten into a few fights just saying "Hello" to people. You're walking by each other, you make eye contact, you nod and go, "Hey, sup." or "Peace yo." or something, and folks turn around like, "WHAT YOU SAY TO ME?!" Humanity. Yup. So... I go walking, hanging out being more and more faceless... more not here while deeply immersed in here. It's as cleansing as the rain. Before i slip back to limbo and am just rid of the lot of it all.

All the folks pass and there's two cops watching us sit up there. One, i guess just felt like he had to say something to make sure we saw them, "Hey, don't block the entrance." And i'm thinking that he must not be from here. Me and the old dude are both like, 'Yeah, ok." and keep smoking, smiling to our selves, shaking our heads. Why black people gotta mess with black people? It ain't enough the rest of the world does it... they gotta do it too? Not all black folks understand that some folks they think are niggas are just black. Don't get me wrong, there's no country called "Black" so you technically can't be "Black". They don't even have black people in Africa. They have Africans... cause it's Africa. They have Americans in America. Only, in America, we don't like you really, and so the America separates you from it... keeps you at arms length with that hyphen to show you the part it doesn't recognize as American, or the part of YOU that it's gonna disrespect and bleed because it's not American. For instance, African -(stiff arm)- American. The African part is something American didn't create and can't control... unless it becomes the "Made In America BLACK". Really, try it with your race. Keep in mind, the race is human, same team. The only way to be on a different team is to divide the race and consider the other part.. of your race... to be a different race. I can see if you're not really a human being, because there's plenty of that walking around... But yeah, try it. Native-American. The Native is what the American don't want and distances itself from. Irish-American. Even American-Indians ain't American. They're American- Indians. Cause India, where Indians come from, is in America.

The one cop was cool, but his boy that was all talkative stood there watching us take another drag before he came with that, "Hey, no smoking in the walkway please. Y'all gotta take that to the front or something." And i'm like, this mofo's tryna Johannesburg us right here at frickin B&O? A Clown and a homeless looking dude?! Two things you don't mess with separate, but together you're gonna harass them?!! If i was a killer clown, that fool would be cotton candy. Now, most folks who didn't grow up in it wouldn't think anything bad or wrong happened there. Most folks who aren't black wouldn't think that anything happened there. If you grew up in it, you KNOW what happened there, but, "It ain't nothing. It's cool." Ghetto. Shit like that keeps you human. Little things like that are what nudge you to out of the cloud and way of seeing things through your eyes as just you being you, and pulls you back into your skin, it's color, your location, the people and things at that location, and more and more tighter and tighter boxes of confinement until you're not even human anymore, but you're definitely not your self, and you damn sure ain't free. If you don't think or feel that, then it's working. So... night walker.

I remember this other time being up there with Tyy, in the heat of the summer, but still when school was in so it was still kinda empty up top. The few folks up there were sweating. The humidity is crazy in the summer. They're up there clinging to the little bit of shade wherever they can get it, and we're contemplating mobbing down Broad street at least to the next sub stop, or just take a hike for a little while... 'till it gets stupid, ya know? It could get dangerous, or just so hot it's pointless, or you just get tired. It cost the same amount of money no matter where you get on the pub, so you might as well do it as B&O, which was Tyy's argument, but I like being out sometimes, so i'd rag on his little bit of a gut and pudge and see if i can get him walking. I just like to see the city. Don't really care for it to see me, not that it does. Cities just have a look in the summer. The heat ripples down the main drag which just seems to stretch out further than it's supposed to be. People seem to move in slow motion, trying to rush, faces shiny and angry. Everybody talking about how hot it is, but nobody's doing anything about it. True you can only legally take off but so many clothes, but folks walk around with their fits all matched up, chicks tryna look cute in their jeans and boots... it's too hot for all that. Hustlers still hustling. Tables and carts lining the streets and bus stops, with people standing all in the windows of shops looking for buses so they don't have to be inside... you get that one runner who's a "good Samaritan" who steps out now and then, looks down the block, and comes back in with the traffic report. It's still life, and living it, but DAMN it's hot. Hahahahahaa. Yeah ok.

Anyways, dig, we were up top, Girls High side, and I'm just standing around with my cig... i really should quit, but there's a lot of things i should quit... and I see these two chicks walking up from the Hospital way (from up Broad St, coming from downtown way). Tyy's on his phone playing some kinda game. He was deep into that Candy Crush until he got to where you have to pay for stuff and was heartbroken, and then picked up one of them sniper games. I crack up when he's playing it cause for one, he cant keep his tongue in his mouth. I don't know if that makes the balance of the gun more accurate when you use your tongue to offset your body weight... but also it's funny to see because he likes to listen to music on the phone while he's playing, and the game cuts the music off. So he's going back and forth between the game and turning the music back on, getting frustrated, which makes him want to snipe more... and then after a while he just burns out and gives up on one of them. We'll both do that Wordscapes. I dig that one. Why am i talking about phone games? Wth. Anyways, I'll get into mostly solitaire and Mahjong, puzzle games... Either way, he was probably on the sniper game because his tongue was out and he was being reeeeeally careful with moving his thumbs across the screen. I elbowed him to get his attention, and he glances up and over at the two chicks walking up the street towards us. He goes right back to the game, "Meh. Too hot for all that." and i couldn't help but laugh.

I leaned back with my cig, watch the ladies pass. Tyy seemed to be struggling with the side comment while focusing on his game, "Oh, and smoking like that ain't cute in front of them. Don't nobody 'preciate your clown ass puffin death in they vicinity." I laughed, looking at him out of the corner of my eye, "Joker please." To which he just spits out some laughter trying to hold it in. That's our version of "nigga please." What? We're clowns. So I'm looking down the other way, towards the city, in the direction the girls came from, and i see a guy walking up the same direction they walked up... guessing they got off the same bus or something. Broad & Olney's a pretty decent sides SEPTA bus station. It serves it's purpose. So he's making that "OOooooh, nice." face and shaking his head, "Yeah." and i laugh because i know what he's talking about.. at least i'm thinking i do at this point. He walks up to us, "Man, you see that ass?! That's what I'M talkin 'bout! I LOVE summertime." and he looks up the street again at the ladies, and then goes down to catch his train.

Now... I do appreciate women. A great deal. There's a balance and connection there that's just as multi-level and apparent, but not understood... at least by me, other than to say "it's just how things are." Folks who dig chicks dig chicks, dig me? But i don't understand exactly what happens there other than brainwashing which uses already available chemical reactions and spiritual polar connectivity and attractions, if you will. The spirit and science of things makes one thing attracted to another, which is reinforced and or programmed and driven in further by social and cultural ideals. Dig on how back in the day the modern average family was the dad, mom, two-point-five kids which is odd to have a baby with no legs crawling around, maybe it was two kids and a Kuato or something, and a dog. Not a cat. A dog. This gets slathered all over the tv shows, all over the commercials, the radio, all images you see are "The perfect family is THIS" and soon folks are saying it in church and anti-church, in schools and government, all up in the club..... Then that got picked apart to serve economics further, and Ghetto more and more sold and bought and sold and traded... finally we end up at niggas (of every race, because the race is no longer human) and bitches, and ass. Back to the top of this block, I appreciate women. ALSO, i'm not a serial killer. A little sociopathic, maybe, it's America, if you're not then you're an alien. Having said that, i appreciate the whole woman, one level at a time. You understand them and have your relationship in layers, ya know? It's the same with all people. If you appreciate her body, you appreciate it because it's hers. It's a really dope thing, genuinely made to be a temple of the divine, i believe, but I'm a clown, so take that with two hits of whatever you got sparked and be easy. In appreciating women's bodies, it's hard to approach it with that meat-market mentality, for me anyways... it's a learned thing, like killing. It's not natural, and you know it, but its all you see and hear around you in the ghetto (the one sold and bought by your surroundings)... just like killing.

True, it has a place and a purpose, like fleas and ticks and mosquitoes and politics... but it don't feel natural. For everything that is created and everything that exists, there is a reason and a purpose. Not all of it is in your favor. Helps to know what the purpose of things is.... understanding WHY a lot of things really is important. Honestly, other than it's a learned thing, which is a mockery of it's natural instinctive nature, i have no idea why i even do it other than i'm attracted to women and there they are so look. It's not like either of us serve a purpose in each others way of being, especially in that moment, or else we'd know each other. If we were to get to know each other, what would be the initial reason? Sex. Not even procreation. Recreational sex. It don't even mean shit. That's not natural. It's like every since Azazel and Sammy and them dropped down and started telling the earth girls to put on make up so the perfection they already have looks "perfect" things have been fucked up. On top of that, now everything's about money. She's wearing those jeans because of the price, the name. Next is how they look. Plenty of people wear expensive or really cheap because its all they could afford stuff that looks like crap, because the price or the name. Money shit. She's wearing it to be comfortable, but it was designed to turn heads... attraction, which is rooted to money shit. Why attract people if you're not gonna use them? What purpose do they serve being there being attracted to you? Co-creation or someone's fucking someone. Both of those you can link to money. If you have a kid with them, you're gonna need money. If you're just fucking, then you're some kinda way getting money. True, there's a select few who are doing it all out of mutual interest and care for each other, wanting to really understand one another, and see what they can build... genuine co-creation. Not that caveman, "I want them. fuck what they want. I'mma go get that." But those folks, like i says, NOW, are a select few. Used to be the other way around. Now, what's normal ain't, and what ain't normal is. What WAS human ain't and what is humanoid is "human". I don't like this place. That's me tho. So when i hear things like, "Damn, look at that ass" then i immediately think , "Damn, look at those two humps of meat hidden in her clothes that you can't make out the true form of thanks to the clothes, which she's gonna sit on and maybe sweat a little in the crack, before she shoots poop out of it, and piss very close to it.... mmmmm, yummy." You'd have to be a zombie for that to make sense... I could understand if i enjoyed being sat upon, or even pooped or farted on ("Phartzed" says a former person named Doc i know) but that's not me, man. It's hard for me to notice "that ass" and ignore the rest of the person. People are not chickens to me. I can't look at two breasts and a thigh and a wing and call it a person, or treat it like i didn't just dissect a person, with a mind and intentions of their own, and reduce them to body parts for my own pleasure and amusement, just because society says this is how you measure your attraction to things or express attraction.... chop them up into parts and be a dick while making them uncomfortable and disrespecting them.... because you care. A woman's a woman, not a two piece with a nice buttery biscuit. Hail, i even feel disgusted eating chicken sometimes, especially the skin... something about it just ain't right. Fake chicken i can eat all day. Imagine that.

That Ghetto thing, man, i get it, but i'm not an economic slave master sucking the devil's dick, so i don't agree with it. I'm a frickin clown... an artist at best, ya know? Just a kid who digs music. To have your normalcy measured by your ability to do unnatural and not normal things is just fucked up, but then I'M fucked up for viewing it as that. SO.... fade to the streets alone.... night walker, clear your head, get away from this "reality". There's plenty of folks who think the same way, but damn if they ain't gonna be diced up and each dismembered part of them placed in a box, labeled, and shipped and sold as something it ain't really. I just wish the world would stop making monsters. But that only makes sense... not dollars.