2010-05-05 - 11:30 a.m.
I see a lot of big black girls. Big black women, too, and little girls on their way to getting big. I see them during the day, in the suburbs that go on forever, where they're driving big cars or pushing shopping carts around. I see them in the mornings, and at nights, in the city, pushing strollers. Often they've got a trail of kids behind them, some coming up to hips, some to knees. They're on their way to the 7-Eleven near my place, for Slurpees or Tastykakes. They come over from East Baltimore, across the Chase Street Bridge over the Jones Falls Expressway, all day and night.
They come over because the 7-Eleven is nicer than the stores over there, the Newports-and-grape-soda corner stores where the Korean owners' sons take their money from behind bullet-proof glass. They're on my side of town because they're on a little trip out of the house, to get the kids something sweet, to see a nicer part of the city for a few minutes.
I drive through downtown every morning and this morning, I was stopped at Light and Lombard. There's a Dunkin' Donuts there and from it came a group of three big black girls, with bags of doughnuts. I don't know. Sometimes I just want to give all these big black girls a hug, or write them a letter or a song. There are so many of them, laughing their loud laughs, bending over, slapping their big thighs when something's funny. A city full of bright dresses, big asses, cornrows and braids for miles, and just-done nails. I see you, is what I'm saying, and I hear you, big black girls. I hear you flip-flopping up the sidewalk. I see you with your little Darius and little Shawndra, I see your million shades of brown, your big butts. I hear your shouts, your laughs, always your laughs, a whole alleyway, a whole city full of big-assed laughs.
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