(woman looks up from contemplation…. pause )

Well, I was taught not to say the bad words ..you know and I won’t say them now even though its a kinda a new sort of freedom to throw them around like they have no particular weight .. like their meaning’s lost somewhere in outer space – lost to the newly cruel/cool..I said cruel oh, well my father taught us not to say these words because he was a guinea and he’d heard ‘em all “Wop do wop de doh” and all..greaseball.

Anyway,like the other biggie myths generated by suburban parents ,the strange man who’d show up uninvited , crash the party with his dirty yellow cigarette some generalities stuck. About the “colored ” boys which I later felt was a misrepresentation expecting when I was young , very and living in in an all white BLIZZARD WHITE ZONE and had not actually seen one in person- colored -I imagined that they’d all spill out pink, puce, yellow and orange some huge crayola box of flesh human shaped…

To the point.. They told us black men smelt differently. (SIGH) Well experience informed me number one .. that the dirty yellow cigarette was white and that black men do smell different. Better . Intoxicatingly good after ..um..ah you know an intimate experience. Especially after that. I’m so enamored of that particular fragrance I’ve crept up often behind some dusky man in an elevator or paused at a street crossing , eyes closed and sniffed . Inhaled. I’ve been frightening. Yes I admit it. There are so many betters we neutralize by calling “differences ” So many betters ,size, and color and scent which is what all the other lies are made up from -FOR ..to cover the fear, the fear of the powerful that its rights might be challenged give the “others” some betters .

So is this racism? Oh, ugly word. Is it racism sniffing strangers because they’re delicious after all and different is not a dirty word, Smell not pejorative. But how can I come out to the world and admit I’ve smelt enough men of all colors in myriad situations to approximate a scientific study. Yes , its true – a representative sample – Well I did I do and I can testify testify as to why I go stalking the world for more ..eyes closed sucking up close – forcing frightened brothers off elevators two floors below their original destination.