I; King Canopy

It is possible to remain passive to the world. Oh, shame on me. To think that I have encountered the world is the great naivety – the great woe is me: the human being. But so we manage to believe. The crowd, the boys, the man, and me: the King Canopy.

I was fated to be the man who passed this three with neither guts nor fury – a panda, a goat, a sheep. I have felt the cold spittle of their mouths spray against my neck, my back, my knee. Not in great sheets, but enough to consider the three.

The crowd: I wore a pink shirt, my first mistake. And while walking through Thompkins Square I found myself in a gauntlet. There were two walls of boys, not young enough to be conceived as harmless, not old enough to know their doing. Three and three, and in the middle: me. Perhaps it was my pink shirt. Perhaps it was my canopy. My two able eyes numbed and staring forward as if at the sea. They wanted to wake me. Uttered “faggot,” and spit. From their mouths to my back. I walked their gauntlet and onward to Avenue B. I never looked back at them nor to the shirt of me, but felt their saliva soak through the fabric and to my skin. Yes, through my shirt, but not through me; the King Canopy. Nothing permeates me.

What a sin of the human being. He believes the moisture of his tongue, projected through air and landing on another the greatest of insults. What a sin of me. I did not change my pace, but ignored the dark skinned boys who spat on me. I did not meet their eyes, like so few ever do. I walked on. I; the Kind Canopy.

The boys: The second time it was by chance and by boredom I came to feel their spit. Two boys, young enough to know the acidity of their tongues but with lesser aim. Their saliva hit the back of my bare knee. I considered myself nearly missed, it was not my face nor the back of me. They spoke Spanish and had been recently freed from the chambers that be, standing on the sidewalk of their elementary school. Again, I walked onward with my father’s step, looking forward through my mother’s eyes, and swallowed with my own passive tongue whatever words one might say to a child that has just spat on me.

I am twenty-three and of no great storm, but a small and quiet pond. I am frozen and unthawed through and through; there is no shocking me; I, the Kind Canopy.

The man: Standing in the middle of the platform, waiting for a train. I noticed him at a yards length, darker skin than mine, and mirrored glasses. I stepped towards him and then to the side, looking down the tunnel for the train’s light. It was near arriving when I saw it fly pass my, a fleck of paper sodden with spit. I nearly glanced backwards but knew the mouth from whence it came. He must have sensed or saw my eyes follow the fleck pass my face and onto the tracks and so followed it with another that hit me directly on the cheek. I, without flinching, brushed it from my face, leaned forward and over the tracks as if I had not, in fact, been spat on. Nothing permeates this canopy. “You,” he said, “shoo.” Alas the train came and I boarded and took my place, not raising my eyes to see my reflection in his mirrored lenses as he sat across from me and continued to speak.

I, the King Canopy, shed whatever moisture falls on me. It falls down the lids of my eyes and past my tight mouth and to the floor or the street. From there, your thoughts on where it goes is as good as mine. Perhaps onto the tracks and under the East River where it collects itself until it causes train delays. Spit on me, let’s see.

Oh shame on me. I, the human being, have only triggered the three: the crowd, the boys, the man – my canopy – neither words nor actions that teach, to make them see. My ignorance to the spittle from their tongues causing their belief – that they are a power, a sea. That they can do as they please. And they will, not to me, but to whomever they please. And all because of me; the King Canopy – who ignores all he feels, thinks, and sees.