The Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back
I paid twenty-five dollars for a comfortable old wicker love seat. The rasta man has his LP's and books displayed out on the sidewalk near Grand Army Plaza subway in Brooklyn. He's often there at the entrance. It was back before the turn of the century when I lived in that storefront on Vanderbilt Avenue. He just sits back in his beaten up old chair through all kinds of weather as the Park Slope crowd stream past. Streetwise. Street smart. Making a living. Hurting no one. Waiting to make a sale. So he can eat. So he can survive. So he can live. So when the rasta man saw me riding past on my bicycle, riding slow up the hill with my garden tools, he just walked out into the street and stopping me cold said: “You know me man. I'm no beggar man but I need some food some rice and beans. Can you help? Police have shut me down.” There's a thin line between civil society and revolution and sometimes it's more civil to revolt. What is it that keeps us down, compressed like t...