HAPPENINGS: NYC

HUG IN HARLEM
by Laurence Bass

The time was now. Dominic just put his final etches of black magic marker on the dull-brown cardboard. I watched him as Jacob, our Sinister Minister of Sound, offered me food and conversation on the works of Sun Ra. Physically participating in the dialogue, but mentally engaged in the task at hand, my thoughts wandered. One part of me felt nervous and extremely unsure of what the next few hours would offer. The other part of me was devoted to the overall rationale for this event. To my right was Jacob’s window showcasing a barren and trash-riddled back alley of his East 122nd Street and Lexington Avenue apartment. The urban folklore of our elders paints flawless images of yesteryear’s beauty in our hearts and minds. Yet the after shocks of the Vietnam War draft, Reaganomics, police brutality, broken promises, gang proliferation, the HIV and Crack epidemics of the 1980’s, and the new social cancers of urban renewal and gentrification throw turpentine on those images. My daydream was interrupted. Nostalgia took a back seat as Dominic handed me the sign with today’s theme written in big-bold-Stakes Is High lettering: Free Hugs.

Let’s go back one step to understand the underlying reasoning for this event. The idea of Free Hugs as a Happening formulated when I saw a woman giving out free hugs in Union Square. A kind gesture to say the least, but why there? Union Square did not need a warm embrace and a pat on the back while being told in its right ear, “Everything will be alright.” It was thriving on all levels akin to the stereotypical Manhattan experience: corporate sponsorship, live entertainment, sensitivity to all lifestyles, political activism, and a powerful generation of yuppies ready to build on the developing trends. So I ask again, why there, in that mecca of tapioca and good vibrations, where organically-grown meets Pentium-powered and the chanting of caravan of Hare Krishnas act like the backing vocals to the soulful sounds of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Is there a pressing need to offer free hugs? By appearances (and the plethora of yoga satchels hanging loosely off every P.Y.T.’s arm) this is a safe place, all for show. I’m not saying the young woman who gave free hugs was fake in any way, but I felt that her actions could have been more appreciated in other neighborhoods. Neighborhoods like Brownsville, Central Harlem, Queensbridge, Alphabet City, Bushwick, Far Rockaway, Coney Island, Southside Jamaica, Flatbush, South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and East Harlem. Opposed to waiting for her to make a pilgrimage to these places, Dominic and I set out to the intersection of West 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem.

We took the 4 Train from East 125th Street to Yankee Stadium and transferred to the B Train to West 145th Street. Before we entered the B Train, I handed Dominic my wallet, keys, and cell phone. “I love my people, but I know my people”, I muttered. It was the West Baltimorean in me who said that to him. The sixth grader who was jumped twice by his neighborhood peers for simply wearing a Catholic school uniform. The ninth grader who then tried to integrate the mundane slang and customs of said peers only to conceal the more creative person he really was. It is true what they say about the first cut being the deepest. Similar cuts have not only affected me but have sliced through the collective epidermis, passed the lymph nodes, the nerve tissue and into the bone of communities everywhere. It has become the human condition to repair those things that are vital to our physical existence. The motivation to renovate is always there for dilapidated buildings, old cars, broken bones, and other monuments of our aesthetic age. But when it comes to the reconstruction of healthy relationships between one another other, the effort is harder to come by.

The B Train pulled into the West 145th Street subway stop. We exited the subway car in silence, separately making our ways up the stairs and out of the terminal. I can remember seeing the sun resting on top of the brownstones as we emerged from underground. Beneath my feet a litany of promotional fliers lay browning in the mid day heat while the rumbling of buses maneuvering pass traffic at the intersection filled the air like the bellowing of laboring beasts. My eyes were fixed on the imaginary stage that I began to outline with my feet on the southeast corner of the intersection. The sign felt like an immovable anchor in my right hand. I took several deep sighs and closed my eyes attempting to muster any and all energy to raise my right arm. Slowly, I began to hear the footsteps and voices of the people walking past me. That was the moment when I acknowledged the human qualities of this community and not just the physical surroundings. The anchor began to move now. I opened my eyes and my arm was fully extended far above my head with the sign in plain view.

The three o’clock rush hour crowd took a slight break at this intersection. I saw everything and everyone in slow motion. Their eyes were fixed on the sign initially, then immediately it shifted to the man holding that kind of sign up at this intersection in this part of town. Both pedestrians and motorists slowed down to analyze me from head to toe. I felt naked. People from the subway looked at me and started to gather around behind me. Some of them stayed to see how long I would stand there and what might happen to me in the process, while others rolled their eyes and simply continued with their travels. Within that group behind me were teenagers affiliated with some social-community group. Many thought I was holding the sign up for their organization. When someone asked one of them was I a part of their group, “No. I have no idea what this is. He must’ve seen Jesus or something.” Laughter followed from all directions in crippling waves. The ridicule hurt but didn’t cut. What did cut were the skeptical glances and conversation I generated from the elderly folks. It is very difficult when you have the elders (in any community) looking oddly at what you’re doing. I could only imagine what they were saying about me as they pointed in my direction from their stoops.

Throughout the first twenty minutes, my face was completely emotionless. I felt I had to remain that way so as not to appear scary like a clown with a frightful grin or too mean to look at as if I were an ex con doing this for penance via community service. I made some eye contact but not much. The times that I did, some people looked away or just passed me by. I became the novelty act; the invisible message many wanted absolutely nothing to do with. I almost gave up at that point but then something shinned brighter than the afternoon sun over this Harlem mosaic.

“Free hugs? Yeah. I could use a hug.”

This woman, from my parents’ generation, smiled as if she knew me. There was something very familiar I heard in her tone of voice. She didn’t hesitate to walk towards my open arms. Ironically, she was the one who asked for the hug but I was the one who needed it. After our embrace the doubtful onlookers paused. Whether they were looking at me or her was undetermined, but they saw the fact that anyone was welcomed to receive a free hug. I felt great and very relaxed after that first hug. Most of the people still looked at me as if I was some court jester but none of that mattered anymore as they saw one person buy into the idea that something as simple as a hug could breakdown the complexities of the way we treat each other.

The time was now 3:32 p.m. and more cars, buses, subway-goers and neighbors watched me at this corner. I was the target of a few camera phones, the recipient of sporadic honks from car horns and also some cold glares from my peers. The first two hugs seemed like a lifetime away. On the car at the corner a group of young gentlemen camped out to look at me and provide vocal analysis. “Damn! Your pussy game is that bad? Niggas giving out free hugs and shit?” Other people heard their remarks and laughed along. I ignored them for the most part. The best thing I could do was keep my body on a swivel to get the message out and watch my back as well. My sign became my sheild.

Moments later I was approached by another young brother. “That’s how you get ‘em? Free hugs and the ladies just come running?” he asked. We laughed and I told him why I was there. I voiced my concern of how we are so divided as a people and how we have a dependency for someone or something to come and lead us toward becoming a unified. I told tell him that free hugs were the best thing I could give at this particular moment. He shook my hand and gave me a few words of encouragement. That was heavy for me.  It felt like two members from a lost and endangered tribe converged on this corner in fellowship. About 15 minutes later he came back and offered me a slice of cheese pizza. To quote Ahmad from Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, “Black Panthers eat pizza! We eat pizza!”

Overall, this was a day of heart warming moments and agonizing instances. The few who stopped to hear my story and the others would rather crush and gawk at the oddity of a man holding a sign offering a free service really toyed with my emotions. Regardless of what I felt on the inside, I didn’t let it show on the outside. The emotionless face I donned less than an hour ago disappeared and a light smile with a head nod was given to anyone who took the time to look in my direction to make eye contact.

In the midst of this process I noticed something. Maybe this is the agnostic speaking but all of the things that were taught in Sunday School, church and even in etiquette classes flew out of the window when it came to how I was perceived. I wasn’t expecting everyone to take advantage of my embrace gratis but the fear of getting to know and making physical contact with another human being was startling. If it is a New York thing to be an island all the time, let me know. Even a gracious head nod or a polite salutation would’ve been fair. We have to get over this fear thing. There’s no other way to say it.

The sun began to set behind the roofs of the brownstones. My watch now showed 5:23 p.m. I turned to Dominic and gave him the signal to start making our way to the subway terminal to end this Happening. We reconvened underground and went over all the details of the day with each other. He told me that a little girl, who was walking next to her mother, looked back at me as she crossed the street and doubtfully said to her mother, “That’s not real.” On the other hand, one of the women who walked by me as I hugged another person, smiled as she walked pass. It’s never about what you see and hear. The true energy is what we take away from a situation and how we transform it into either a constructive force or a negative entity. The day of July 3, 2007 was a testament that the world can be changed one sign, one hug, and one corner at a time.