Well, I was gonna do some writing but I'm just not feeling it tonight. Shift change. Today I worked from 4a to noon. Tomorrow it's 11a-7p. Tonight's chapter was to be from the upcoming tome "Truckin' Days: The Black Man from Trinidad, Part 1." It's about Frank my co-driver from my trucking days. Frank's ancestors came from India, he grew up in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad where whether folks' ancestors came from India or Africa they were all considered black. Frank was quite convinced that Americans had it in for him, this came to a head one day when he and I stopped at a truck stop between Austin and San Antonio, Texas and some dweeb passenger in a car passing through the parking lot flipped me the bird and yelled "N***** LOVER." I looked the jerk in the eye as he drove away and made a motion with my arm for him to come back. He didn't.
"SEE? SEE?" Frank stopped and yelled at me. "Americans don't like me because I am black."
I stopped and looked at Frank in the eyes.
"Dude," I said. "How often has that happened to you?"
Frank just stared at me.
"Yeah," I said, "Like I thought. Not often if ever. Look, I dare say 99.9 percent of the people don't give a rat's ass that you're black or Trinidadian. We're all here working on our hopes and dreams. And you came here because you're working on yours. Most people are too busy to care about the dude walking into the truck stop to pay for his fuel except for THAT asshole who drove by whose momma probably beat him, he probably doesn't have a girlfriend so he's not getting laid and he probably doesn't have a job. So get over it, dude."
And so Frank and I walked in to the truck stop and paid for our fuel.
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