"Get over it, and just live a little." - Michelle Obama
I weighed the clippers in my hand. Fuck! Here goes nothing. I flipped the switch. The heavy clunk of the magnet came before the buzz. I held the blade to my hair and eyed my nappy hair in the mirror. Dropping, dropping, black stringy cheese puffs fell towards the ground. I feared they wouldn't let me in with those or raise their eyebrows uncomfortably at me. Fear, fear, fear! A constant factor of existence to ruffle feathers wherever I go. But you can't let fear define yourself. You have to leave your hood.
Awkward in my job interview suit, I looked back at the yellow and purple basketball jersey with the number 6 on my bed. I'll be back for you! Don't worry! I'm loyal! I stepped out of our big brownstone five-floor high building. The super Roger was standing in the street. He didn't do a lot of work. Most of his contribution was simply security by his presence. He had a big belly and a stance used to standing for hours under that giant elm tree from before the neighborhood turned black. The old folks say that the elm tree witnessed George Washington's battle.
The subway was the usual. A Guatemalan lady with a baby wrapped to her back was holding up churros for a dollar a piece. An Asian grandpa played slot machines on his phone at full volume. An orange-haired black momma in a colorful hippie jumpsuit with pink glasses gave me the up and down with her eyes before she pointed her nose to the sky. She was telling me that she was better than me. Some little, white college kid was squeezed way in the corner of the packed subway, scared for his life, benefitting from the cheap rent.
Next stop Port Authority, if anything feels like going into combat, it's that hell hole of a bus terminal. At the underground entrance from the subway, three national guard soldiers in khaki camoflage uniforms held machine guns with the finger on the trigger guard. Not two, but they needed three! The moment you step through the swinging doors, you leave the dirty, grimy subway, riddled with rats, and stagnant sewage water, and cross into something nastier. The lights are dim to save money. The white floor tiles are a dark gray with damage furrowed into them. There is no underlying grandeur but a cheap place from the beginning. More authority in the form of police officers standing around, showing off their extra thick bulletproof armor.
Climbing up a floor of the giant multi-story bus stop, the crowd thinned out. Fear climbed up as I entered a more isolated space. People looked poor here: Shabby clothing, sad faces, and patience to put up with anything. I entered the staircase to the 183 line. Nobody was here. A long, narrow, steep staircase to the third floor to pop up right next to the bus. You never knew what you'd find in those staircases out of shouting range from anyone: A passed-out druggy, a fellow with a knife, or your garden variety corpse. It was alright today.
At the gate, a quiet line of people was waiting at the door to the bus. We were waiting. The bus arrival time came. We were waiting. A worker came out. She mumbled something unintelligible. A passenger asked her a question. She stared and said nothing. The passenger repeated. She kept staring at him and then turned around to walk away. The heat sweltered in the glass box of the waiting room. A fan in one corner did nothing. I was covered in sweat.
The bus pulled up to the first door. Passengers got off. The bus pulled up to the second floor. Our pilgrims entered. I asked the bus driver if I needed to scan and held my phone up with the mobile ticket. He mumbled something unintelligible. He seemed upset that I was still standing there. I felt the pressure of the crowd behind me. I walked into the belly of the bus. Was I unintentionally fare evading because I didn't follow the right procedure? I had no clue.
We entered the Holland Tunnel directly from the bus terminal. Somewhere above us was the immense water body of the Hudson River, water weighing gazillion tons. The bus had a loose panel. It rattled. When we hit a pothole, a cacophony of clinks, bings, and clacks sounded around the bus. We pride ourselves on being a first-world nation because we don't have chickens on our buses. That's our glorious distinction.
The first thing you notice about Jersey is the stench. We weren't even far enough out of the tunnel to see daylight when the stench took up its squatter home in my nose. You want a lesson on what it's like to be a landlord? Go to Jersey and try to evict he stench out of your nose. You can't! Supposedly, it doesn't come from the people or industry but from the marshes.
"Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something that you have to do for yourselves." - Malcolm X
I stepped off the bus. The enormous Hudson River lay behind me. Around me was flat land, the emptiness of being outside of Manhattan. In front of me was the towering spa building with gleaming windows across a multi-story entrance lobby. Everything was doused in muted grays from the fog hanging in the air. Tiny little water droplets hovered and stuck to my face as I walked forward.
Luckily, I wasn't the only one who took the public bus to a fancy spa. There were three other people who had gotten off the bus. They ran across the street like hurried animals dodging cars shooting by at suburban speeds. I ran with them, not wanting to fall behind my pack, my adopted people. My heart beat easier. They looked like me: Regular people. So normal people go to the spa as well. I had stressed myself out too much about how out of place I'd feel. The last of them, a friendly Latin guy, held the door open for me.
When I looked inside, something didn't feel right. It looked like a utility staircase. That's not how a fancy spa is supposed to look like. I had paid a hundred dollars for the reservation. I felt confused. That's not what spas look like in the movies. The Latin guy smiled big at me. I remembered the giant big multi-story lobby with the gleaming glass. This didn't lead to it. And then it dawned on me. This was the employee entrance. They had taken one look at me and where sure that I was another employee. And no, those regular people weren't spa guests. They were workers. I smiled. I waved. I stepped back.
I walked to the real entrance. A worker opened the door for me with an attitude like my hands were too good to touch a door handle. I walked to the nearest line. A worker behind a register asked me for my ID and credit card. The worker started working furiously. I didn't know what he was doing. I feared that somehow I'd run into a snag. The minutes stretched on. Everyone waited in really dignified patience like we were in a venerable space. When he handed me my things back with a wristband key, I asked him what to expect. It were my first time. He told me to go explore. Also, there'd be many helpful attendants to answer my questions. Then he called, "Next!" looking at the person behind me.
Feeling lost in the big auditorium, I looked for what might be the entrance but found only closed gates. Then a guy with latex gloves behind a table waved me over. He asked for my backpack. I showed it to him. Without hesitation, he unzipped my backpack wide and pulled everything out to look insight. I felt taken aback but also scared to complain. He handed me my water bottle and my turkey sandwich. "Throw these out!" he told me matter of fact and pointed to a row of three trash cans for different types of garbage. At their bottoms, I saw that I wasn't the only one who had gone through that treatment. It felt like airport security. I felt somewhat alarmed.
From his nod, I took that I had to keep walking to the left. A young, white woman told me, "Take your shoes off! This is a shoe-free facility." She pointed at a pretty wooden bench, seemingly handcrafted from a trunk of an Alpine tree. I couldn't help shake the feeling like I was entering prison and was being stripped of my personal clothing. That two well-off-looking ladies were happily stripping their heels of while chatting was reassuring.
The white lady walked me into the next room. Rows and rows of shoe lockers filled the room. She showed me how to tap my wristband to the lock of my personal shoe locker 4371. The door opened. I put my shoes inside. She led me to a gate where I tapped my wristband again to be allowed into the hallowed halls. A group of us was herded to an elevator anteroom. I call it an anteroom because it felt so festive. There was a giant table in the middle with an even more giant bouquet of flowers on top of it, each flower more exotic than the next. I could tell the air felt already different - softer, balmier, cleaner. We looked like goofballs standing around in our socks waiting for the elevator.
Coming out on the fourth floor, I quickly eyed the men's locker room sign and entered. A guy came rushing towards me with a robe and towel in hand. He warned me that pulling out my phone could get me evicted. The dignified atmosphere of a spa was here. Everything felt hush. Everything moved slower. Nothing drew attention. You had space to drift in your own thing.
I found my locker 4371. There were no benches. I got the bottom locker. I started stripping down. I felt awkward getting naked, but there wasn't anyone to see me. Why does it feel so awkward to be naked? If you are a guy, you become a threat to people. If they see you naked, they become hostile. You always have to cover yourself, hide yourself. Hurried like an animal I was quick to pull my trunks. Relief! I was covered again. I threw the robe over.
