Waayesayo- A Story About How We Must Forget
This is a story of why we must forget. It begins with a girl and goes like this: Hase walks to school every morning by herself. Few kids walk with her. She likes it this way. It gives her a chance to think and get herself ready for the day. She takes her time and gazes at the stores filled with expensive furniture. She passes the store where her mother bought a skirt for her birthday yesterday. She walks by the bakery block and she smells the sweet smell of bread in the morning.
Like she does everyday, Hase passes the new school that was built two years ago. It was only for those who could afford it. As she passes she gets the sense that something is missing that morning but she doesn’t miss that much so it couldn’t have been that important. So she continues on.
All this time Hase makes sure to enjoy the walk to her school. Might as well, she says since I have no choice but to make this trip everyday anyway. On this particular day she happens upon someone stooped over curb with his head in the gutter. Cars zoomed by at a velocity that had to be higher than legal. But the cops wouldn’t be out until the coffee shops opened at 8:30. Everybody knew this. The shopkeepers knew this, they kept a gun under the counter just in case. The street walkers knew this. Nobody walks on the street at this time. This is the thugs free range time. Most people drove. The fumes from the cars intoxicated the air. But for Hase it was the only way. Now that person in the gutter was either in trouble or insane she concluded. But as there was nobody around to assist him, she swallowed her fear and ventured into new territory.
“What are you looking for” Hase asked.
“Nothing” the boy said with out looking up. “Nothing”. Hase didn’t know how to reply to this at all. So she stood silent. After a few minutes she said “Do you need help”?
“Yes” the boy said. He still did not look up and did not explain.
“What do you want me to do?” Hase asked.
“Tell me” he begins to say and then for the first time he looks up. His dark eyes peer over his long coat. He smiles and returns it with a smile. “I am sorry” he begins
again “what did you say?”
“I wanted to know how I could help” Hase replied.
“oh” the boy says “theres nothing you can do”.
This puzzled Hase so she asked “I don’t understand. Are you all right?”
“You ask a lot of questions” the boy says.
“You give bad answers” Hase retorts.
He stands up straight and smiles again. He is about the same height as Hase. Hase looks at the gutter and sees a small hairless baby bird. For a minute they just stand there in awkward silence, but the boy seems to say ‘I’m all right but that bird isn’t. Yep, you couldn’t be more dead than that” Then the boy says quietly “My name is Bakayle”.
“Hase” she replies.
As they walk down the lonely streets and dark alleyways Hase is comforted that today she has someone to way with, even if that someone is quite weird. “I actually try to delay my arrive to school, hoping to miss the bell in the morning. School is pain” explains Bakayle. He then stares off into the distance in the direction of the smoke from the city hall furnace.
“But why?” Hase asks.
“What?” Bakayle says as if he had just dropped in and has no idea what is happening.
“Why do you try hide” Hase repeats. He doesn’t answer for the longest time. So long in fact Hase considers the conversation dead. She had killed this unique dialogue by asking an invasive question. But when the school grounds came in to sight Bakayle says “If you want to know keep you eyes opened for a day”. He then walks off and disappears. Hase decided not to try to follow him. Not that she had a choice; he seemed to have dissolved into the brick walls of the school. Other than the awkward Bakayle, this was a normal day Hase thought. That is until… “What you doing with that nigger?” She turned quickly, trying to find the voice that spoke those words.
“What?” she says.
“Hey girl, clean out your ears cause I ain’t mumbling. What you doing with a black boy?” she had identified the voice now. The boy sat on the concrete stairway. He glared at her and repeated his question. She didn’t know how to answer. She walked right by him into the school. What a weirdo Hase thought.
Hase’s class is talking about the civil war. When the teacher explains that the cause was to keep the South from seceding but mostly it was to abolish slavery. Someone yells “Why spill blood for a bunch of bumper lips?” A black kid hears this in says “Shut up honky”.
“Who you calling honky? Jackass”
“Who do you think? Blanco”
“You know, this burnt toast isn’t good to eat”
“Oh, somebody get me a broom. I need to clean me up some white trash”. You can see where this is going. And sure enough it went there. A fist fight, no a brawl, no a war has begun and it doesn’t end here.
For the first time, Hase realizes what Bakayle meant. And just as if he heard her he was right next to her. “Hey. I’ve been thinking about what you said” she said this in one blur of speech.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that” said Bakayle slowing down. Just then another boy walks between them.
“Hey, Hase so I was thinking…I know it’s rare, but I was thinking…Hey, who is he? He says pointing to Bakayle. Apparently he expected the answer of I don’t know because he didn’t seem to like what he heard. “Hase” he says “You can’t affiliate with darkies like him. Come on its time for class”. Hase doesn’t move. The boy gives up and goes his way. Finally Hase and Bakayle are the only ones left. She stares at
him. He stares at the floor.
“I think they do” Bakayle replies “But they are either too afraid to admit it’s a problem or feel that ignoring will solve it. Nobody is born racist. They have to be taught. And to this day, it feeds conflicts, arguments, and wars. Racism is the creation of society and the human mind. It doesn’t truly exist. But we make it exist and therefore we make it matter when it really doesn’t”. He stands a while and stares at her. They meet eye to eye for a minute and before Hase realizes it Bakayle is gone again.
first black man ever to take over leadership of the Grand Old Party defeats
incumbent Lee Roy Jack. Jack was quote saying “I am pleased that an African-
American won today.” Tyler would not comment.
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