i was born with every advantage a living creature could have.
i lived in a big house on the hill with a servant in every room.
i was a white man.
my father was a white man, though not much of one, and my mother was a white woman, the whitest woman who ever lived.
but the head of the clan was my grandfather, the colonel, who had the biggest whitest mustache with the sharpest points in it that were ever waxed, and who wore the whitest suit that was ever worn, with the whitest shoes.
did he wear a white tie? the bag lady interrupted the zombie..
he wore a white string tie on sundays, the zombie replied, a black string tie on the other days of the week.
did he wear white socks? the bag lsdy asked.
of course, what else would he wear? and they were held up by white garters, so you don’t have to ask.
did he have a white cane?
no, gold. solid gold. i can see him mow, tapping his way up the long marble staircase with my grandmother by his side, to make his annual christmas speech, with all the servants holding torches , and baskets of flowers, white and red and blue flowers that they threw at his feet.
these servants, the clown asked. were they white, like your grandfather’s shoes and garters?
of course not. they were the duskiest negroes from the most forbidding depths of the dark continent.. but you knew that. you were just trying to be a smarty, as usual.
all right, the clown said, if you want to take that attitude, i will take an attitude too. i have had enough of this garbage, and i refuse to listen to any more of it.
why is that? the zombie replied, as the bag lady and the bounty hunter rolled their eyes. do you not realize that there are billions if universes, trillions of cultures, quadrillions of narratives in the super universe, and that some of them might evince different modes of perception and the processing of information from your own? must you be so quick to judge others?
the clown stood up. that is jut the kind of garbage i am talking about, he announced in a loud voice that everybody in the cafeteria could here. i leave you now, if you want to find me, i will be playing pool at eddie’s, or ping pong at the y.
the clown took his leave. a cold wind and a couple of raindrops blew into the cafeteria as the door closed behind him.
go on with your story, the bag lady encouraged the zombie, as the other patrons of the cafeteria, who had been momentarily distracted by the clown’s loud behavior, turned back to their own business, or their own thoughts.
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