Black or white. Black or white.
I close my eyes, picturing their watery blue focus turn inwards, aiming for the almost-invisible pinpoint of light embedded like a diamond in the dark purple galaxy of my mind. This is the best place to make a decision.
Black or white? Black women make me feel like a baby. I like that. White women make me feel like a loser. I like that too … when it’s over.
But it’s not about what I like or don’t like. Or in this case what I like more. It’s about the color. Always about the color. And when black versus white presents, it gets my full attention; it’s pure. All colors. No colors. Black or white.
This is how I choose my path. It’s never about carrots or corn. Or Minnesota versus Philadelphia. I eat orange or yellow. I bet on Purple or Green.
The shrinks say I’m obsessive-compulsive. They try to cure me with pink Luvox, green and yellow Prozac, yellow Zoloft, blue Paxil, white Celexa … I tell them it won’t work. It doesn’t.
They don’t medicate the blessed masses who turn to God for truth and enlightenment. So why do they want me to pop every pill on the planet just because I believe in colors? Colors got me this far—with only one setback of note.
I’d been fixating on red. Zoning red for a week. Following it everywhere I found it. Shunning all other colors out of fear. I meditated on dragonflies that gleamed like waxed chili peppers, ate Matina cherries by the quart, chased after screaming fire engines. The answers seemed so near they were practically inside me, coursing like scarlet in my veins. And then a traffic light changed from red to green. I slammed on my brakes, and a bright yellow school bus plowed into me from behind.
The purple of my mind spits me back out without an answer and I note for a second that the two women at the bar aren’t even technically black and white. Their feminine hues tend more toward Pennsylvania mud and baby scallops. But black and white are such powerful notions that they won’t be denied.
I feel lucky, so I decide to let the sherbert haze of neon light guide me across the floor, through strewn peanut shells and cigarette butts and up to the bar where I’ll choose black or white. Or it’ll choose me.
I push the ebony ball of my joystick in the direction of the golden beer taps, but nothing happens. I try again. Nothing.
“Goddam it!” I curse louder than I intend, turning the few heads that still remain upright at 2 a.m. “This wheelchair is a fucking piece of shit.”
