The coming revolution

1.

“Oh! Where did the blue sky go? Oh! Why is it raining so cold, so cold? I can’t sleep tonight; everybody’s sayin’ everything is all right. Still I can’t close my eyes. I’m seeing a tunnel at the end of all the lights.”
-Travis, “Why does it always rain on me?”

“Where’d you get your information from, huh?You know you can’t front when Revelation comes!No…you can’t front on that!”
-Beastie Boys, “So whatcha want.”

“There’ll be no shelter here; the front line is everywhere.”
-Rage Against the Machine, “No shelter.”

Winter/spring, 1996

Since neither Todd nor I had cars, we walked around parts of St. Louis where we had no business walking. Todd was a good lookin’ southern boy from Lexington, Kentucky. He had moved to southeast St. Louis a couple of months after I had, and we worked together for a short time at the same restaurant. We liked each other quite a bit, but romantically, not at the same times, which was probably for the best anyway. We still remain friends.

Very Aquarian in his ways, Todd would disappear at different times, for days, weeks, or months sometimes, and then re-appear; picking up our acquaintance where we’d left off. Nights out at the bars were the same, also. Somehow, some way, he’d show up right when we decided that enough was enough and it was time to go home. Then there he’d be, shots in hand, beckoning, calling, cajoling, and imploring us to stay, “Just for a drink.” Then one more, then another, then he’d say, “Let’s go to the East Side!” Nights with Todd almost always ended with a morning drive west to Missouri, the sun chasing us home to our beds for a few minutes or hours before our next shift, a hangover, imminent. I got into a lot of trouble with Todd, but we were never bored in each other’s company.

One night, early into our friendship, we decided to go out. We met at Magnolia’s, a bar fairly close to his apartment. I liked Mag’s, as it was the most integrated boy bar in the city. A lot of cute black and white guys dancing together which was unusual in racially polarized St. Louis. The music was loud that night, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. The dance floor was on the first level, with pool tables and a jukebox and a kind of cruise-y, leathery, country theme-thing happening on the second.

As our friendship was fairly new, we hung close together, not dancing that night, just drinking and talking. About Kentucky, Florida, Branson, St. Louis, the future, some boy watching, along with some casual flirtation thrown about. Comfortable conversation, light and affable, and increasingly drunken. Laughter, and lots of reflected smiles.

Towards the end of the night, a black man approached us. He was handsome and smiling. It was nearly 2 a.m. when he sat down on the barstool next to mine and started with the come-ons. Todd was playing video trivia, leaving me to fend for myself. “You are good lookin’, man,” he said. “You got a pretty face, a pretty face. You know that?”

“Yeah? Thanks.” I was drunk and laughed, flattered, prepared, feeling cocky and cool.
“My name’s Boe and you pretty.” He was smiling a big smile.
“Thanks.” I said again, still laughing, alternating looks between Todd and Boe, looking for a little help from Todd, but enjoying Boe’s attention.

“I’m straight, ya know. I just wanna get a blow-job.” I laughed in his face.“That’s pretty ballsy, Boe. You couldn’t find a girl to take care of you? Why’d you come here?” He was cute, but the tide had turned.

He looked at me for a moment, unsure of what to say. “You pretty. I got some friends here. I just wanna get a blow-job.” I looked at Todd. He purposely stayed fixed on the video game. He was not helping at all.

“Well, Boe…” I said with that extra confidence being drunk allows, “I’m flattered and all, but I’m hangin’ out with my friend and we’re gettin’ ready to go, so I’m gonna have to say no. But thanks for the offer. Not tonight, though.” Not ever, I meant, with that approach.

He looked at me, his expression serious. “You know the revolution’s cummin’, dontcha?” I stared at him.
“Yeah, Boe, I do.”“Things are gonna change. Poor people aren’t gonna take it forever.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Ya better be ready.” He was staring, his beautiful eyes dark, fixed on mine. “It’ll happen here.”
“I don’t doubt it, Boe,” my eyes locked on his. He stared at me a few moments more, looked towards Todd, then me, then left without a word.

Todd continued to play a couple more games; we drank another beer, and then walked the 12 blocks or so down Vandeventer to his apartment. We didn’t want to wait or pay for a taxi. Not a real wise decision on our part, as the neighborhood was a pretty tough area. A couple of months later, in fact, Todd got jumped by some guys while walking down that same street.

Nothing happened that night, though. Todd and I were drunk but aware, walking fast, looking around, looking tough, and establishing our presence. Boe’s words echoed in my thoughts and steps. “The revolution’s coming. You know that, dontcha?” It could be anything. It could be anytime. “It” is the statistical inevitability of catastrophic disaster on any number of fronts. Eventually, the wrong (or right) elements will combine, or synchronize, or form, and events leading to the end will occur soon after.

2.

“Don’t everybody like the smell of gasoline, well burn motherfucker on American dreams…”
-Outkast, “Gasoline dreams.”

“When I am king, you will be first against the wall.”
-Radiohead, “Paranoid Android.”

Some white folks laugh at the possibility of a race war. Some black folks wait only for that day..

People who laugh off the doomsayers who predict the end of the world aren’t looking at the whole picture. Even if the world doesn’t end in total annihilation, fire raining from the sky, race wars, space wars, class wars, biblical Armageddon, an evil strain of Marburg or Ebola, something major along these lines, so many things could change forever the way we live, thereby effectively ending our world. The world as we know it, what we take for granted, things that we love, things we don’t know we love. So many scenarios, so many possibilities, and so many opportunities for us to light it up and end it all.

Life as we know it hangs in a balance of which we have no control. Are we ready? Am I ready? Probably not. But Boe senses it, as do I. We’re getting closer to massive changes, closer to crossing an unknown point of no return. All points of anger and catastrophe and strife, despair, dissidence, and dissonance are coming to a single unified point.. sometime soon.

The people with their placards and bibles, walking the streets, yelling at strangers, proclaiming the time is near. What possesses them? What do they know? And the others, they still wait, waiting for the signs to manifest. “Patience child, the Mother ship be here soon..”

Todd and I, we made it safely to his apartment that night in early 1996. We drank some more beer. Since he had no furniture, we made a bed out of some sheets, and slept on the living room floor. We laid there, in our underwear, on our stomachs, my arm on his back, listening to his breathing. He fell asleep quickly, and I lay there, thinking of all the futures the Future might hold.