Haibun Odyssey-3

Bleacher Trash 
-WHITE ONLY-

“Well Billy- maybe, if they take away the –ONLY-,  
you’ll finally get a chance to work the –colored- bleachers for a change,” Mother replied. “Not in this lifetime,” Billy mumbled, defiantly, walking down the tunnel with his Nee-Highs. 
Passing, a slightly bowed, Edgar Lee, who servilely greeted, “Mista Billy.” Ignoring the colored-man with enmity, 
Billy, bottles rattling, went about his way calling,
“Get-Cha Cold Dranks Here.”

candor shortens the
distance between a preferred
attitude and truth

Edgar never used his (white only) voice with the boy and his mother; he was always polite but never obsequious. 
People of color had a keen sense of when and when not to be sycophantic. Edgar was a teacher, in the colored school, by day vendor by night. Most everybody had two jobs. To feed, clothe, house, and educate your family, was hard for poor folks, colored or white, one of many shared commonalities hidden in plain sight by centuries of racism.

no matter how hard
the road; you have the right
of traveling on it

From the time the boss introduced a small commission on sales for the vendors. Billy and Jessie became suspicious, Edgar and Hue Willy earned more than they did and were endlessly fishing for the answer; - they did - but the boy’s mother would not give them the satisfaction of knowing. She told the boy, “Billy and Jessie spent more time watching the ball game than working the ball game and deserved to stew in their jealous juices.” The two would never miss an occasion to state, with authority, “Colored bleacher trash spends mo money than white bleacher trash.”

truth you impose
is not equivalent
to truth arrived at