A Short Story

                                           Call Me By My Rightful Name

A young black guy came up to an old white man with a beard and a book sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean on a sunny, early-spring day in Southern California and sat down beside him, like a spider, and, without looking at him directly, said to him, in a low, menacing, as-though conspiratorial tone:

“This here is a black neighborhood, man.  It’s for us black folks.  Your kind aren’t welcome here.  You know what I mean?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” replied the old white dude affably; continuing: “I didn’t see any signs indicating that.  I’ll have to check with the City about their lack of clarity in the matter.”

He looked expressionlessly straight at the young black guy.  A silence ensued.  The old white guy then looked out to sea and went on, in a lower, but still friendly, tone: “Still fighting an old war, are you?  Let’s see; how long has it been since there was slavery in this country, as in others?  A hundred and fifty years??  And ‘your kind’ is still carrying that chip on your shoulder???…”        

Silence.  Gazing out over the scene in front of them, the old man continued, in a musing, conversational tone: “Actually, we should all know by now that we are all One.  Fractals of the same Holy Being that is the Creator of us all.  And that all this - ” said gesturing and looking around at their pleasant bucolic setting, with some guys on the park area behind them throwing a frisbee, and others enjoying in their own ways the early-spring day, looking for all the world like a French Impressionist painting come alive - “is a classroom, for learning lessons in.  About such things as how to get along with one another.”  He looked over directly at the young black dude again, and said, “I would like to shake your hand.  But that’s for you to choose.”

There was a pause.   A short ways out to sea, though still within the breakwater, a balloonist was being tracked by a speedboat to fish him out of the water when he swung too low, only to have another go at the joyful experience.  Some seagulls were swishing around overhead in the near distance, as though lazily enjoying their freedom of flight.

The younger of the two on the bench overlooking the scene - albeit a bit tentatively - held out his hand.

The two shook hands.

And shared the nicknames that their friends called them.

They then each looked out on the scene before them for a moment longer, reflectively.

And then went their separate ways.  The younger of the two of them first.  As though on a mission.

Or commission.

With the elder of the two of them, after a reflective moment longer, gazing unseeing at the expansive and idyllic scene before him, then closing his book, and trailing after. 

                                                           The End