I figured that it was going to take about two hours. So I settled into a cushy chair that was tucked away in the corner of the room at the dealership repair shop and whipped out my iPhone for some calm, mind-my-own business, surfin. The wall mounted television was broadcasting the 2022 Olympics, specifically, Curling. After about 20 minutes or so an older woman came into the room and as our eyes met, she said, “Hi.” I said hi back to her and smiled. There was dead silence for about 10 minutes other than the quiet drone of the TV when the woman gave me a look of bewilderment and glanced towards the TV and said, “This is the weirdest game I’ve ever seen and it’s on the Olympics!” I let out a hardy laugh and told her that I had just been watching the coverage for a bit myself and I had thought the same exact thing! We laughed and a few minutes later I asked her what kind of work she was there to have done on her car and then . . . we were off and running. By off and running I mean that we were now in a friendly, slow paced and steady conversation. You know the kind—where you talk to someone here and there, from the heart, no pressure just an observation about life kind of talk. Like sitting on the porch shootin the shit with someone.
About 30 minutes later a worker came in and told my nameless friend that her car was done. She slowly got up from the deep and thick cushioned seat and joked about how hard it was for her to get out of it and then said, “Good luck with your car.” “Thank you,” I replied.” A second or so later, as her back was turned to me “and she was walking out, I said, “It was nice talking to you.” She stopped and looked back at me and said, “It was nice talking to you too.”
As she walked out I watched her as the others in the room watched as well and they also stared at me too. God knows what they were thinking, but they seemed to be smiling. As I watched my friend walk out the door, I thought that her being black and me being white didn’t matter a bit for us. We both knew it had nothing to do with two human beings sharing about life. It seemed like the others in the room noticed that too.
Steve’s latest book: https://tinyurl.com/zcbkkyy
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