I was walking to the Prospect Park Bandshell when a man on a park bench called out to me. “Do you have a minute for a few questions?” he asked. I did the quick scan of him, myself, and the environment I have learned to do in New York when hailed by a complete stranger: What’s he up to? Is he unbathed; are his clothes dirty? How’s his mood? Does he seem manic, desperate, unhinged? What am I wearing; am I presenting in my actions as some kind of mark? How dark is it, how many other people can see us right now? If there are warning bells, tread carefully. If all this comes back clear, you could be up for an interesting conversation.
The scan came back without a hint of menace. It was well before dark, and the path was wide and treeless. He was sitting upright with his earbuds in, he was tidily dressed in a short-sleeved blue-gingham-check shirt and chinos, and he seemed calm and genuinely curious. I was dressed in multiple loud patterns and big septagonal-framed glasses, my usual weirdo self. My hair was still short, blue, yellow, and green from the concert a few weeks prior where the band I’m in had opened for a big Brazilian artist in Central Park. I was certainly not presenting as sexy to your average straight man (this is easier these days; it’s a relief), so any given conversation with a stranger felt likely to carry less risk or annoyance.
Sure, I said, but will you walk with me? I’m going to a concert across the park and I don’t want to be late. Oumou Sangaré—“the Aretha Franklin of Mali” by one of my fellow drummers’ estimates—was headlining at the bandshell, with Vox Sambou, a Haitian-Quebecois rapper, opening for her. Too much richness to miss a single minute.
He pocketed his earbuds and rose: he was earnest enough about his request to come along, which was also a good sign. So we started talking. His name was Thomas; he worked as a manager at a cell phone store. He had been born in Haiti and lived in Flatbush most of his life, but he’d also spent time in Germany.
What do you want to know? I asked.
How do you like the neighborhood? he started.
I gathered my thoughts. I was new to the neighborhood, sensitive to the fact that I was effectively a gentrifier. “Prospect Lefferts”—so-called I suspected mostly by real-estate schemers, alternately called Little Caribbean, or more bluntly, just the north part of Flatbush—presents a mix on the street these days, with lots of people with Jamaican and Trini accents, and restaurants with Haitian names; a stronger concentration of mostly-white deliberately genderqueer people than I think I’ve seen in any neighborhood yet in the city; a smattering of women in hijab and their children and partners; a concerted Mexican community running markets and food trucks; and many, many people sleeping rough around the park or cashing in recyclables at the nearby supermarket, most of them very dark-skinned. Perhaps most concerning, there was a lot of new construction. This added up to a lot of displacement.
You mean how do I like it as a plausibly queer middle-aged newcomer with multicolored hair? I asked. I’d caught him off guard, but he conceded the point.
I like the music here better than my old neighborhood, honestly, I told him. My old neighborhood was a lot of loud reggaeton, 24/7, and I’m not a fan of the genre. Turns out I’m happier with soca and reggae being the default background track. My old neighborhood was turning into a clubbing destination, too, and that was getting frustrating for the noise and the constant visible presence of drug sales and abuse. Prospect Lefferts seems quieter, to me, I said. Seems like a lot of people who work hard, come home, and go to bed pretty early.
Why do you ask? I returned. How has it been for you here lately?
To be honest, I’m feeling a lot of hate, he told me. As a Haitian and a black man. People being told to go back to their countries. People being pushed out of their homes. Rent is too high.
I’m sorry, I said, at a loss. Where do you experience this most?
On the subway, I guess, he said. People seem like they’re ready to snap. There’s a lot of yelling.
We ended up having a surprisingly long, intense conversation that delved into politics and global affairs. Thomas was pessimistic about the prospect of global stability. I don’t think things will hold if we don’t have a strong man to take over, he said. I don’t think people can get it together.
I remember dismissing similar predictions from colleagues of mine in Nigeria in 2016, who told me we were going to get Trump. I figured they were just jaded from years of government corruption. We all know now how that turned out. I’m not about to discount Nigerian, Haitian, or any part of African-diasporic analysis of the political landscape again.
But Thomas sees opportunities to move somewhere where he can thrive. Maybe I’ll go back to Germany, he said. I speak the language. And the women like me there, they were all telling me I am sexy, he grinned.
We walked all the way to the bandshell, and he entered the concert with me. But I regret that shortly thereafter, I ran into that fellow drummer, and I fell into another intense conversation. I looked up a few times and Thomas was still nearby; I wanted to introduce him, but when we came to a lull in the conversation, he had disappeared. It had begun to rain, and he didn’t have an umbrella with him.
Thomas, if you’re out there, I’m sorry how that ended up.
* * *
Coda:
Mind you: that’s the people who are actually staying in shelters. Wait for the next city homeless census for the number sleeping on grates and in the subway.
Know this: long before the headline-greedy stunts pulled last year by elected officials in Republican areas who sent refugees to Martha’s Vineyard, it has been the policy of many US cities to buy homeless people a one-way bus ticket to a large metropolis. I’m gonna smack the taste out of the mouth of the next Fox viewer who smugly asks me how I like New York now that (their channel says) it’s gone to hell. I won’t answer to the logic of the Stop Hitting Yourself Party.