The first time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at Granny's Kitchen in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The waitress, a soft spoken white woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, had just dropped off my plates --- a simple mix of scrambled eggs, two pieces of greasy bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. Now, no matter how cheap, I always feel like I'm cutting loose at breakfast places for the sheer abundance of plates. While I'm sure the eggs and bacon could have shared real estate, each component had its own china.

The waitress lingered at my table, her fingers fidgeting with straws in her apron. I made eye contact. Well, my eyes contacted hers; she was staring at my lips.

Sure I can't get you something to drink? she asked.

This was approximately the tenth time she'd made sure. She was uncomfortable that I had supplied my own beverage -- a Big Gulp. But even more than that, she was uncomfortable by the deep red stain taking over my lips. Contents of the Big Gulp: merlot, boxed.

(That is an unnecessary detail. I've only written it so I never do it again.)

Before Greg hopped up on a table and announced to the restaurant, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, blah, blah blah, I poured a copious amount of syrup on my pancakes. Then I moved the bacon to my pancake plate. In my experience, very little in this life is better than syrup on bacon.

I shut my eyes for that first bite, just like the commercials. The syrup dribbled a bit onto my beard, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered it had also landed on my shirt. I grabbed a napkin. Heard a chair slide backwards. I started with my beard, peering around the diner, making sure no one saw. I think I heard someone gasp. But I was busy, working that napkin then against my shirt. Jesus, I thought. My grandma, who's got a splash of the Parkinson's, could eat with more grace.

If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, a very official voice boomed behind me.

I turned around to see if I recognized him as one of those cuffed jean-sporting, wild plaid-loving NPR hosts. He wasn't one of those. He was a sunburn with mop hair in a black tank top and hemmed jean shorts. He did, however, have a cleft chin. That's actually worth noting. Don't see a lot of them these days.

I know you guys are busy, he said. I know that like me, you guys are probably broke as hell. I mean no offense Granny's, I love this place, but it ain't exactly four stars. Or three. Anyway, all I want from each of you is five dollars. If you ain't got five, give me four. Ain't got four, three. And so on.

He started with the stringy Japanese couple on the west side of the restaurant. Nobody really seemed scared, not the freckled brat in canvas sneakers, not the liver-spotted gentleman with a copy of that day's paper.

My old friend Jerome used to say that white folks are the only romantic criminals. He tacked it up to that whole Bonnie and Clyde crap. Greg, it seemed, was privy to that information, too. He smiled and thanked each person as he robbed them of a few presidents. The victims, smiling back, seemed to be thinking of their names tagged at the end of some newspaper dialogue. A few even gave more than he asked.

Here, take fifteen. Times will get better.

Aren't you just a charmer.

It was all very moving.

So he gets to me, and of course, I don't have any cash. I carry a debit and an arsenal of credit cards like a normal American. I don't know how he made it to me before running into this particular problem.

No, I don't have one of those iPhone card swipers, he said. Well, you gotta give me something.

I offered a gift card to Harold's Clothes for Men, it had like two bucks on it, but he wasn't interested.

What's your name?

Henry.

How much do you weigh?

Enough to keep me prohibited from most amusement park rides.

I like you, Henry. Well, let me ask you something. Have you ever loved a man? he asked, pointing his smudgy revolver just past my ear.

I shook my head no.

Me neither. I've always been curious, though. You been curious?

There was a time when I was thirteen -- Blake Hinton was changing after basketball practice -- and I remember thinking, that is an incredible chest. These lines just sprawled from his sternum, lines leading to these almond *******, and I specifically remember wanting to eat them like, well, almonds. But that hardly counts as curious. So, I said, No.

To which Greg responded: Get curious, boy. You're coming with me.


In the spirit of honesty, I was in a bit of a haze before Greg made me climb into his beat up Cavalier. Not just from the Big Gulp brimmed with merlot, no, I hadn't slept in two days prior to the whole gun-in-face incident. Reason being, I was, as Greg would say, broke as hell, and the rent was due. I stayed up both nights conspiring (and drinking). So, really I was pretty thrilled to be kidnapped away from the whole situation.

I had visions. I guess from the lack of sleep. Maybe they weren't visions, maybe just dreams, or fever dreams, I don't know. All I know is I blinked, and we were in the Appalachians. And there was a grey longbeard in the backseat rattling on and on about how change is easy, movement is easy; it's that whole nesting thing that takes courage and strength, blah, blah, blah. I told him to be quiet. Greg told me to get some sleep. I blinked.

We were in a karaoke bar in Madison, Tennessee. There was a gin and tonic in front of me. I took a drink. There was a water with lime in front of me.

Greg asked, Where did you go?

I told him, your dreams, trying to be cute. He turned and asked the bartender for a Yeager bomb. Reaching for the server in -- granted -- an overly dramatic gesture, I said, Make it two. We made it three. We made it four. Seven. Then some vague, but perfect number, because my head rang right. The words came right. And I was a journalist, asking Greg all the right questions.

I'm not a criminal, he said.

I was just bored, man, he said.

You see, I was in a rut, he said. Last month I put up a personal on Craigslist. I know, it's pretty ******* desperate. I've read the kind **** people put on there. But mine was different. I just wanted some time with my ex-wife. Some couch ***, you know? We hadn't done it on a couch since I dropped out of college, and I hadn't even really thought about it until a couple weeks after the divorce. Then it was all I could think about.

A black woman, whose teeth glowed under the black light, began singing "Wild Horses." Then he read my mind, I think.

Yeah, she answered it. Did our thing on her sofa. It was nice and all, and like all nice things, you just want more, but she said I couldn't have no more, this was a fluke, a one-time, or no, a one-off thing, she said. Had to relocate, so that's why I did that whole thing at Granny's.

You ever get it on a couch? he asked.

No, I said. I've see a bra though --- two actually.

He took that as a joke, which was good.

Though wild horses couldn't drag me away, a gasoline horse could.


He handed me a courtesy breath mint after I finished throwing up. The Nashville skyline looks perfect, he said. Especially at night.

My stomach was gravel in a washing machine. Masculine love. At gunpoint, I had agreed to indulge it. I was going to make love to a man -- not just a man -- a criminal. Not something to write about on a postcard.

Mr. Winters, my esteemed landlord,
Apologies about the rent. Got kidnapped by a *******, and I'm presently banging and being banged by him in Music City, USA.

I blinked.

We laid on opposite ends of the queen-sized mattress.

I always liked Super 8s, Greg said. I don't see the point in spending so much on a hotel. A bed is a bed.

And I tried to be funny with something about the confidentiality of dark bedsheets, but it fell flat.

Greg cried. I love my ex-wife, he said.

Can I help?

Will you hold me? he asked.

The air conditioner kicked on in the already freezing room.

I'm sorry. You don't have to, he said.

I scooted against him. He smelled pleasant in a family-vacation-kind-of-way, like a fresh pretzel covered in salt. I put my arm under his neck. He buried his face into my shoulder. I blinked.


The front end of his Cavalier was held together with copper wire and coat hangers. It was a two-door. Both doors dented from, according to Greg, hit-and-runs. It had a Vermont plate on the back. It was red. I mention all of this to say: if we kept moving, we were bound to get pulled over.

In the parking lot of 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer, Greg asked me to retrieve his revolver from the glove compartment. You kinda have to uppercut it, he said. And I did.

I don't want to do it again, but we have to. I'm not staying put, not until I hit the ocean. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt anyone.

He showed me the revolver. No bullets. I nodded, in approval, I guess.


The second time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer in Bellevue, Tennessee. Of course, it was the same man, Greg, but the circumstances were a little different.

I went with two orders of biscuits and gravy --- or B & G as my dear friend Chance affectionately calls it. Four bites in and I'd yet to hit biscuit. For a moment, I wanted to tell Greg, C'mon man, ***** the ocean. Tennessee does gravy the way God intended. Nobody would find us in this suburb. We could be sharecroppers. Do they still have sharecroppers?

Do you like fresh corn? I asked. It was the first crop that came to mind.

Greg didn't answer. I noticed his plate of hash browns and eggs -- sunny-side up -- were untouched. You okay?

He was, he said, trying to get in the zone, that's all.

Alright.

Our waitress looked like a poster child for ******'s Youth. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen. She had blonde -- almost white -- hair. Her eyes changed color with the intensity and direction of light, a gradient between seaweed and dark ocean blue. She appeared to be an amish girl gone defective, and I was about to inquire into that very supposition when Greg stood on the table, and said, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second.

Tennessee is not North Carolina. In North Carolina, they got a healthy aversion to firearms. In Tennessee, however, once a babe can walk, the *******'s got a BB gun and an endless supply of empty soda cans for target practice. I say that, to say this: when Greg stood on the table, so did three other men. Their three guns pointed right at him.

Lower that gun, brother. You ain't gettin' any money out of us.

Hate to shoot you in front of your boyfriend.

Coffee spilled and ran off the tray our waitress held. She shook so hard, it wasn't clear how many women she was.

Greg's cleft chin centered on one gunman, than the other, than the other.

Just drop the gun, *******.

We don't want to ruin no one's breakfast.

Fellas, I said, he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We need a little money that's all.

That ****** is just trying to protect him.

I'm calling the cops, a purple-haired old woman yelped from under her table. Silverware clanged against the floor. Then the buzz of a fly. Then the pop of fries drowning in grease. Then the bell chimed as some idiot walked inside.

Greg's arm was shaky as he pointed the gun at me. Do you love me? he asked.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I put my arms up. Slid my chair back a ways. Stepped on the chair, then unto the table.

Do you love me? Greg asked.

His breath smelled like last night's alcohol and that morning's coffee. He was a child, a sunburnt child with a cap gun. He wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I put my hand on top of the revolver and lowered it. He crumpled, as if I were scolding him. They still pointed their guns at us. But for the first time in my life, I felt secured, tethered to a space.

I lifted Greg's chin up with my index finger. Covered his eyes with the palm of my hand. And I kissed him. I kissed him, keeping my eyes closed tight.

This week, Jesse Herndon has more on her plate than the typical high school student.

She has spent hours after school each day making calls, finalizing details for an event happening Sunday.

Collecting donated items for an upcoming silent auction. Calling every bakery in Greensboro.

“It’s very stressful,” said Herndon, a junior at Weaver Academy.

But it’s all for a good cause.

She’s organizing an event with free pastries, live music, a fashion show and a silent auction, which will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday night at The Blind Tiger, 1819 Spring Garden Street in Greensboro.

Admission is $4 with the donation of clothing of any size. The goal is to collect clothes that would comply with Standard Mode of Dress, or SMOD, the uniforms required at some local schools.

The fashion show will feature clothes from Plato’s Closet, Mack and Mack, and Patina Bridal and Formals.

The silent auction would include items such as Weaver Academy student artwork and a gift bag full of beauty products valued at about $200. Herdon is still seeking donations of items to auction.

The event will benefit Backpack Beginnings, a local organization that provides food and clothing for thousands of local needy children.

All 127 Guilford schools have a dress code, but a few dozen require students to wear uniforms.

Some parents have complained about the cost of buying the uniforms. They’ve also complained that the uniform dress codes vary from school to school, requiring additional clothes purchases if a child changes schools.

Parents and some students also described dress code violations for wearing a jacket with a hood, a logo deemed too large or the wrong color shoelaces.

“SMOD is really expensive,” Herdon said. She knows because her sisters have attended SMOD schools.

In January, the Guilford County Board of Education unanimously approved changes to its policy on SMOD. Principals of current SMOD schools have until June to survey parents on whether to continue requiring students to wear uniforms in the 2015-16 school year.

Now, school administrators at traditional schools also have to get public input before requiring uniforms. Ever two years, traditional schools with SMOD have to reconsider requiring uniforms and demonstrate public support for the policy.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

At last
The yawning late night conversation ended.
Silence surged and widened over us like sleep.
Your roommates knew we wished them gone
And yet they could not bring themselves to leave.

How did it feel to them?
The way we clutched them near us
And at the same time
Wished them far away.

Hands clasped,
We shivered at the prospect
Of two distances,
Heard faint goodbyes
Then sat like blocks of marble
In the humming silence,
Shaken children filled with questions.

How will this be?
My God, what now?
And all this strange aloneness.

A narrow breasted, dark eyed lover
Spread her hopeless shadow over us.
The morning pressed in through the windows.
I plunged into you.

All night I'd planned
How soft, how gentle I would be,
The way I'd ease myself inside you
Like a melting, precious metal,
Slip through you in the darkness.
I could not.

The wait had been too long,
The low cloud crying over us
Too vast.

My ****** was sudden, sharp, and deep.
Your breath rushed in.
Your body arced.
Your gasping cry soared up,
Fled down the empty street
And echoed in the dreams of one
Just learning how to sleep alone.

I rose up on my hands,
Looked down upon your startled face
As if I stood high on a deck
And felt an old ship
Sinking under me.

Your thighs below me were a lifeboat.

I closed my eyes and jumped.

1.   Greensboro boys at a counter
watch dead astronauts rain on Texas,
2. hear the scream of eight states  
being ripped from Hidalgo’s belly,
3. imagine themselves the first black hand
to cast a ballot in front of snarling mastiffs-
4.  Cochise chanting a war chant
in front of white captors-
5. A free Mexican crossing the Rio Grande-
6. the black Babe Ruth circling the bases-
7. a dark Sinclair Lewis accepting the Noble-
8. an Eagle Scout-
9. their fathers fighting in Guadalcanal,
10. receiving the Medal of Honor from FDR,
succeeding him as President,
11.  even Nelson Mandela blinking in the bright light,
12.  grateful no Lincolns need ever be born.

13. They paint American Gothics,
14. write Valentines to their sweets,
15. take the A-train,
16. score 30k dunks like Wilt the Stilt,
17. toil for minimum wage,
18. are jailed and freed a la the Chicago Seven,
19. speeding free in a T-bird singing Smokey Robinson,
20. imagining they’re Batman and Robin,
21. knowing their bodies will wash ashore on Zawiya,
22. no WEB Dubois,
23. just American casualties of Desert Storm,
24. wishing upon a star,
25. the nightmare that has Liston beat Clay,
26. nobodies never seeing the Grand Canyon,
27. never playing Ebony and Ivory on a Baby Grand,
28. everyone saying “Goodbye, farewell and amen”,
as the last episode of MAS*H fades off

29. as they die on the bonus day in February
no one wishes to be born on.
The day Gone With the Wind wins it all.


This is not only a February poem but also a black history month one as well.  Note the numbers 1-29 denote events that happened on that particular day in. February history.

If we make it through tonight
we have made it through the war.

**** poetry when I could be in a bed
with you         no unfuck poetry
because how else could I enumerate
your tidal wave hair rising and crashing
under the light of my moonbeam fingers?

**** tv when I could be at tate street
coffee        on saturday morning livid
with jazz hopped up on the best **** cup of coffee in greensboro sharing bass notes with a caricature of iggy pop and you.

no unfuck tv because that's the way we spend our tuesdays          giggling
up in high definition with a freshly packed bowl and your head on
my belly tired as tires pushing 85 on 85 for 85000 miles but netflix leads to chill leads to naked leads

to my tongue to your belly's favorite cavity leads to **        ly **** hallelujah! if anything **** god and
the devil **** yin and closed fist yang **** bodhisatva **** dharma and the other things i dont know **** the big bang because the
universe we **** into creation is a rainbow balloon

bursting candy confetti compared to the one we leave when I, all hands and ribcage, am allowed to share your bed.

Lauri Anderson Alford
more or less



fifteen years ago more or less
my father killed a man
on the road with his car
of course to him
it isn’t more or less
he knows the date the time
to the minute
the pattern on the man’s shirt
how blood on asphalt looks
only like water
lately he’s been repeating himself
calling to tell me the same things
over and over again
my grandmother has died
his sisters are *******
there was bone in the ashes
I worry he might disappear
again as he did
fifteen years ago more or less
when the road took the man
more or less
after he died more or less
while my father watched
more or less or more
which is it I want to know
because a thing like that
can never be both
or else it is nothing
only more and never less
or less and never more
more road more black
more wet more night less
stars less sight more
fast more glass
less heart less breath
less hands on chest
more quiet more time
more nothing and always
more and more and more
and more less

↔

Lauri Anderson Alford’s writing has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Greensboro Review, The Common, Willow Springs, Meridian, and elsewhere. She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband and sons. Visit her online at www.lauriandersonalford.com.

Scientific Discovery…
but one grand paradox

The Spacetime Continuum
  —contradiction defined

(Greensboro North Carolina: April, 2019)

To ourselves and our posterity
We throw a future rope
Maybe wait for centuries
As patient as ShePope

Travel to Japan
Take a bullet train
Mural Minneapolis
Dance in Purple Rain

Enlist in Star Fleet
Kobayashi Maru
Kamakura Buddha
8772

Hope springs eternal
As does despair
Songs in the night
County fair, County fair

         Carolina Care

Bring your lover into your world,
  don’t hide inside of hers

    ‘A mistake too often made
       with respect to women’

Self inflicted homicide…
  men die of good intention

A modern age hormonal trap
  —loves truth no longer free

(Greensboro North Carolina: April, 2019)

I would never hurt you the way you hurt me

I loved you very much and would had done anything for you

It was love at first sight or it was for me
You were charming and I had money

It was a trip of a lifetime, wish it never end
California where I was from too
Met in positive ways from a mutual friend
Davis and Suisun City seemed to match
Meeting from Greensboro to kernersville

Only loved my address, loved your ***
Loved all you can drink wine and trips
Money runs dry, just like wine and sips
How dare you take over my life and be me

Thought I had a man and just got a *****
One that claims assault while laughing
***** remember the cameras were recording

This ***** is more man than you will be
Meal ticket already expired
Sure that mad dog expects his 50/50

Took advantage when I didn’t see it
Not as stupid as you thought I was
Finding out more about you makes me sick
Computer genius you were
Keeping everyone’s information
When you were working as a tech guy
Then again you were unemployed with me
******* ******* *******
Russian ******* hacker
Not even a hacker but a new age peeping Tom.
Hard drives hard drives
You don’t know how to drive one hard

My son perks up in DC
My sins follow me
My son salvifically
2023

So many churches on the drive
So many useless searches
San Francisco Zen
Breezes in the birches

Sanskrit and Arabic
Dreaming spires, Ancient things
DC's Chinatown
Flee all wedding rings

Sleep off the headache
Analogical obsessions
Greensboro in March
Loneliness love lessons

                 Selah.

On January 25 of this year there was a awful occurrence that did happen. I called the police to do a welfare check on my boyfriend. It was during those freezing temperatures. I have video of the whole occurrence. I was arrested that morning due to simple assault, but was later let go and was told they didn’t want anymore calls. But later turned to be untrue. There is more video, but as embarrassing this is I don’t want to show it until the authorities of my case have seen it all. The officers that were called are on the video as well. They arrested me that night, but decided not to. I did receive a knock at my door on Friday 1, 2019. The same male officer along with an unknown black female officer came. They had an arrest warrant on me. It was Friday night and everyone was asleep and I was about to go off too. I answered the door and they came in and to my surprise they said they were there to arrest me. The female officer asked many times if we were smoking drugs upstairs and if I was on something. Anyone that knows me, knows I don’t do stuff like that. The arrest warrant was taken on the 26 of January. Signed by a judge in high Point and the claimant is unknown, but says SL stark of Greensboro police department. They got me on a Friday night because of statue G.S. 15-A-534. Meaning that they will try for a real judge to decide on a bond instead of a magistrate. They can’t hold no one for 48 hours legally without a bond. Injustice was done. I do have more evidence of this.

I can't write like an academic
I don't wanna go!
Socrates spoke
The Buddha was often No

I read aloud to students
Things Not Seen
Flush
The Giver

Me and Ry and the boys
Nashville to Louisville
Hitch Hikin'
The River

March 2023 in Greensboro
Where we also saw weird Al
And Oakland
I'm more Northern than Southern Cal

                      Galway Gal

Stanley Yelnsts and Zero
I read indeed aloud
Bob. Mom. Dad.
We're Martians: Be proud.

Weird Al Yancovic
In Greensboro we hear Star Wars
Unusual odd Todd
In Boonsboro I remember Thai ******

There's a train a-comin
Comin' in the Night
Leave your things: All aboard!
Two green lights

                     Fights

Weird Al in Greensboro
       The Saga Begins
              Yoda too


May the 4th be with you!