Charleston and Pete

I don’t want to write about Charleston. There are plenty of other people out there who are – and I’ve said plenty myself on social media – but adding to the growing cacophony of blognoise in the face of such evil just isn’t my thing. Whenever tragedy strikes, I feel like a whole lot of people jump on it for the sake of getting their slice of the nation’s attention, and it all just feels too much like capitalizing on suffering for the sake of pageviews. Not gonna do it.

Not directly, anyway. I’m going to write about what I woke up to yesterday morning, but I don’t give a shit about Dylan Storm Roof other than to point out that his name sounds like a D-list villain in the back pages of some long forgotten C-list superhero comic. And this. I’ll say this about him, which is something I’ve already said on Facebook that I think bears repeating.

Dylann Roof didn’t go crazy and decide to start murdering black people in a vacuum.

“You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.”

He isn’t an aberration, kids. He’s the end result of a pervasive worldview that a whole lot of you subscribe to.

Dylann Roof isn’t crazy. He’s the “southern pride / strong conservative beliefs” fantasy realized.

He’s a by-product of the hate spewed by pundits and social media. He’s the end result of the proliferation of the divisive rhetoric preached by angry white men. He’s what happens when fervent belief comes together with virtually unrestricted access to the unlimited supply of guns we keep wanting to make it easier for people to buy and openly carry in this country.

He didn’t suddenly snap.

He was built.

No, I’m not saying that any of you Rush Limbaugh fans out there would ever pick up one (of the undoubtedly many guns you own) and start killing people. But the things some of you believe in, the worldview you espouse, the policies you believe in and the casual racism you don’t even see yourself engaged in LEADS TO THIS.

To people like this. People who will take to heart and act with conviction upon the same ideals you subscribe to.

He’s just an extremist. And evil. In the way of all extremists.

So does attacking a black church and murdering nine people make Dylann Roof mentally ill?

I don’t know. But while I tend to agree that extremism is a mental illness, you don’t just get to trot “crazy” out whenever a white dude kills a bunch of people and then ignore it for everyone else. Like suicide bombers or any terrorist anywhere. Or any revolutionary, for that matter.

If you believe in something strongly enough, you act on it. It’s extremism, plain and simple.

The question is, does extremism attract crazy people, or does it create them?

And that’s all I have to say about that. Oh, and the guy totally looks like Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber, but that seems like a cheap joke to make at someone else’s expense. Fortunately, I don’t really care about laughing at this loser. So here you go:

Sorry, but sometimes you just need a joke after a nightmare. Might as well be at this asshole’s expense.

Now with all that out of the way, I’m not going to write another word about Charleston after this paragraph. If you want to know my thoughts about mass shootings, you can read them here. If you want to know how I feel about guns, you can go check that out here. I’m not going to twist a nightmare into a political positive for My Side. I’ll leave that to the pundits and politicians, who will all say things like, “After this tragedy…” before distorting it to prove whatever point they’re trying to prove. Sorry, kids, but what happened in Charleston wasn’t a tragedy. It was just mass murder. The tragedy is that WE LET IT KEEP HAPPENING.

So that was my day yesterday. It was the nation’s day. And it sucked.

But then something amazing happened.

At around 10:30 last night, I had a sudden craving for waffles and grease as usually happens to me on days ending in -y, and it was Trey’s last night home before heading to his dad’s for the next two weeks of summer, so I let him stay up late and the two of us hopped in the car and drove to Waffle House.

We walked in and sat down in our usual booth, next to the bar where lonely people sip coffee. And there was a lonely person there, sipping coffee. He smiled and raised his cup to us as we sat down. I smiled back and nodded as I sat down. Trey smiled, then gave the man a little wave and said, “How are you?”

Conversation ensued.

The man’s name was Pete. He was a weathered soul, with a thick face and a loud voice. He rode a duct-taped old bicycle and was, as he described, “basically homeless” and living “in a cubby” somewhere nearby. He smiled a lot and wore a cowboy hat.

He and Trey talked back and forth between bar and booth, the old man getting louder and smiling more as Trey got louder and kept smiling back. I don’t remember everything they talked about, but the events of the day were lightly touched upon in a vague way. I hadn’t told Trey about them, and neither did Pete. But they did talk about what makes people different, and why people who get mad about our differences are stupid.

Eventually, the conversation slowed and we turned our attention to our waffles and our grease. When Pete stood to leave, he came by our table and reached out his hand to shake Trey’s. I can’t remember what he said to the boy, but I’ll always remember what Trey said back to him, because it’s a value I’ve worked really hard to instill in him, and I was proud.

He said, “People like all different things, and it’s nobody’s business what I like or you like. And it’s not our business to bother about what they like, if nobody’s hurting anybody.”

At that, Pete smiled and exclaimed to the universe at large that Trey had a grown head on a kid’s body. Then, he shook my hand and told me I was doing a good job. And then he paid for our meal.

Old cowboy Pete. Sipping coffee alone at the Waffle House, virtually homeless and riding a duct-taped bicycle paid for our meal.

I might’ve woken up to the Charleston shooting this morning, but I’m going to sleep tonight after a black man showed kindness to white strangers. Something to think about, America.

We all walked out together, where we shook hands again and smiled, and it was all one of those Perfect Moments you read about that happen sometimes, but that never happen to you.

This one happened. And I can’t think of a better end to a horrible day than that.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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I'll try to not be boring.

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What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.