Once I saved the bass
player from Fishbone
from getting his ass
handed to him, but not
before the fools bloodied
his lip & turnt
his pockets inside out
like a wish. All because,
Kendall, you refused
to rumble in that late night
chicken joint
where Philippe & I thought we’d die
as the regulars tried
picking a fight
with your bright
red coat, dreads
against your shoulder blades
like epaulets. The club we’d all been
now shut for the night—
the one Philippe & I had waited
outside of an hour, trying not
to beg. No one’s getting in—
then a posse with locks
longer than us & worse haircuts,
which is to say, cooler,
part the ropes—
Fishbone!
in London to play a show
so we sneak in
behind them, for tonight
just another
of the crew.
Every dread danced.
Starving, after, we enter the shack
to find you taunted
by locals, loudmouths
who nick your change
& call you names.
Yankee, one says, shoving you
who refuses, you say,
to battle another man
who’s black. Once his crew
jumps you & runs through
the street, we reel you in,
Kendall, stop you from chasing them
into the night, insulted
as much as anything
to be alive—Back home, South
Central, you say, I’d be dead.
Your breath itself
a rebuke, passport
a passing memory.
In the cab we hail
& pay to ride you
back to your hotel, pacifism
gives way—
wounded not just
by the blows, you fume—
angry at being
here but no longer
whole. In the lobby,
we take your manager’s
payback & his promise
to leave us passes
for tomorrow’s show.
Was it shame,
honor, or disbelief,
didn’t
let us go?