orange and blue
02 Oct 2004

A Floridian October Saturday. The streets surge with a tide of orange and blue. 
I sit on a rickety stool behind the counter of a ubiquitous textbook store, a 
wall of glass opening to the blacktop sea of commerce surrounding. It is my first 
day alone in this cold and empty space; few customers break up the hours and my 
mind can't seem to stay within the walls.

I allow the drifting as remnants of the stadium begin to wash past me. Every 
adrenalized male becomes a spot of terror: predators with one form of prey. The 
women become inscrutable mysteries, relics from a deep Southern past that I think 
I understand because I have read, because I can see the Krispy Kreme Hot Donut 
sign flashing across rhe street.

But I don't comprehend the motives or the joy. Saturdays in Gainesville are 
(un)simply one more facet of human life to which I am a stranger. I am the shadow 
at the end of the bar, the face behind black hair, the shoulders bent boomerang 
beneath a bookbag. I didn't leave the concept of family because I was never in 
stride. I am not Southern. I am not a Gator. I am not a girl. I am not a woman.

I am not writer but I am holding this pen.