So, I am in the tight waiting room sharing space and chairs with half dozen black men in their fifties and sixties — the oldest of them twenty years younger than me. They are all of them thin and dressed in poverty uniform: shabby sweat pants or jeans slipping off slack thighs, loose sweaters and shirts that had once been molded to thicker chests and arms. Tired eyes, mustaches and hair combed, but still unkempt. Worn men, their unprivileged lives on display. They had all of them been driven up by van from black Brooklyn to glossy Mid-town Manhattan for their daily radiation doses. I mentioned to them — why? was it insecurity? to gain superiority? — that I taught at Pratt Institute (tuition 60plus) in their neighborhood. They were delighted. Hall Street? Lafayette? Dekalb Avenue? Mike’s Coffee shop? I had established my connection.
What kind of false equality was I trying to force on these men, who would never attend Pratt, would never step on its grounds? They knew on some level that I was full of shit and they also knew the true connection. They surrounded me in my chair as they rose to leave. Don’t worry Prof, they said. The radiation won’t hurt, although you may have trouble pissing at times, and maybe feel too tired for the time of day. You had to stick with it. You cannot give up. The true connection was human.