Robbery and Delivery or Finding the Pain Behind the Beauty

I knew something was up from the moment he walked in. I had recently been promoted to Pharmacy Technician. From behind the elevated pharmacy counter I had a clear view to the front door.  He had that look that junkies get. You’ve seen it. Wired, agitated, and worn down.

My parents knew the owner of a small but busy drugstore that was tucked away in a tiny strip mall on a back street. That’s how I got the job.  In the growing southern city I lived in, that was how college kids like me found work. We knew someone.  In the mid to late eighties, knowing someone was important. At first I ran deliveries. This consisted of delivering prescriptions to the wealthy white people who lived to the south of our store and to black people, mired in poverty, living to the west side of town. The disparity was striking.

He approached the lower check-out counter directly in front of me and the pharmacist on duty.

Like I said, I knew something was up. Often people who were strung out and short on money to buy their drug of choice, or couldn’t get a scrip, or their dealer had run out would resort to Class V Narcotics. They could get these medicines without a prescription. If you drank a whole bottle it would temporarily provide a high in times of desperation.

 As a delivery driver I drove down private lanes that lead to mansions on sprawling lots.  Many of these private roads had small lakes surrounded by beautiful Oaks and Maples. It felt like I was a million miles from the city. Rarely did I meet the people who lived in these houses.  I either left the package at the door or the maid would answer the bell. The occasional butler would open the door and accept the delivery.

He asked the pharmacist if he could come closer. He had a private medical concern.  Many of the Class V users would fake stomach pains to try and convince us to let them sign for a bottle of Donnagel PG. It was a diarrhea medicine that contained paregoric. I figured that was why he was here, but the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck.

Driving the Chevy Blazer provided by the store, I turned off of main roads into neighborhoods that I had been told to avoid when I was growing up. Dangerous places. Before this job I had driven past these neighborhoods thousands of times. I think white kids like me were born with blinders that kept us focused on the splendid tree lined roads that enabled us to skirt these “bad places”. 

“Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain.” 
― Bob Dylan

But here I am. A skinny, pale, stringy haired college kid making my way into a new world. My blinders vanished.

He was whispering to the pharmacist who then turned to me and said, “Can you step out here?”, trying to send a message with his eyes.  The drugstore’s pistol was just under the counter in a bin. I could see it. It was within my reach and situated in a way that would have made it easy for me to slip it into my hand. It was loaded.

Blinders now gone, I’m navigating new places. Seeing with the eyes of a child.  

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of

perception.”

― Aldous Huxley

Wow. Some of these neighborhoods were within walking distance of the street I grew up on. It was as if these cracked streets and dirt roads were somehow hidden like #12 Grimmauld Place under a Fidelius charm. The secret keepers in this case however were not motivated by fidelity, but by a desire to hide the effects of institutional racism.  In this wealthy banking city in 1986, how could there be roads that were not paved?  Or even graveled?

I leave the gun where it is and walk out to the check-out counter.  The pharmacist says we have a problem. The man pulls his jacket back to reveal his gun. He firmly places his hand around the grip.

The people I delivered to in the poor neighborhoods answered their own door. Mostly elderly ladies that lived in small duplexes, apartments, and hundred-year-old bungalows that were crumbling from neglect. Most were happy to see me. These folks didn’t have cars. This was a difficult city to navigate without a car.  Especially if you were old and the bus stop was several blocks away because the bus does not come down these streets. In my experience, all the people who lived in luxury on the private lanes had light skin.  All the people who lived in squalor on the broken back streets had dark skin.  

He says that he does not want to hurt anyone. He wants all of our Schedule II narcotics. He even knows where our safe is.  He goes on to say that he will accompany us to the safe, adding that if we do not cooperate, he will kill us.

Before the delivery job, I had been in a slumber. Living in a dream world where no one was hungry, everyone had a roof over their heads, and we all were safe. I’m awake now. Awake to the disparity that I knew existed. That knowledge had been a brown recluse spider hiding in the dark corners of my brain; not wanting to expose me to its venom.

We give him the drugs.  He starts getting nervous. He’s rushing us now, “hurry up, Hurry up!”.

He orders us to lie face down on the ground. He says “Close your eyes”. This makes me angry. Why close our eyes?  Is he going to shoot us execution style, in the back?

I keep my eyes open. He’s moving toward the door with his pillowcase full of Opioids and his gun pointed toward us. He’s very anxious. He’s hollering that we need to start counting out loud to 100.  “Don’t get up until you get to 100”, he shouts!

He runs out the door.  We are up by the count of seven.  The pharmacist goes for the phone punching 911.  I race for the store pistol.  I swing open the front door, gripping the gun with both hands and extending it in front of me.  I quickly turn one direction and then the other ready to shoot.  He’s gone.  He must have had a get-away waiting outside.

In the weeks that followed I often wondered would I have shot him if I had felt the odds were in my favor. If so, could I have lived with taking someone’s life?  Would it have been justified?  Certainly he knew the risk he was taking as an armed robber.

When I recounted this story to people I knew, most asked the same question: “Was he Black?”

They weren’t investigating the crime. They weren’t detectives trying to sketch a profile. Why this question? I’m not answering that question now. I did not like the question then either.  So, sometimes I said yes and sometimes I said no.  Here is the interesting part. If I said no, the response was consistently, “really? He was white?”. If I said yes, the answer was a nod or,” yeah, I figured.”

We want our fears and our prejudices confirmed. And then we want to hide them away. Just like we hide those who have the least.

We hide them right in our midst behind tree lined streets.

I got the job because my parents knew someone. I understand this. We hire people we know because we trust them. I do this myself.

But this practice is inherently biased.

How to Break Rules and Influence Good Outcomes

There’s a reason we have rules. This is something people say when not following a rule coincides with bad luck. You could break the rule a thousand times without anything bad happening, but you can bet that as soon as something bad does happen you will hear this smug phrase. Can’t you see them shaking a finger at you, talking to you like you’re a child, scolding you for not following the rules?  Man, I hate those people. I hope I’ve never been that person. There should be a rule against being that person.

Here is a quick rule-breaking story. It’s a great story because: 

1. It involves rule breaking. 2.  It involves sticking it to the man. And 3. A whole bunch of good results from the rule- breaking.

So here goes. 

I worked for a company that was becoming quite successful. The owner had invented a product that was revolutionizing the orthopedic industry.  The company was starting to make some real money.  He bought a building in an older industrial area of our city.  Distributions were being made and he was feeling flush.  He was also in a mood to share the wealth. The building was larger than the company needed, so he donated part of the building to a local Meals-on-Wheels program.  You know, the good folks who prepare food and then round up volunteers to bring that food to your Moms and Dads when they get too old to make their own dinner. Ok. This story is not living up to its promise. Not one rule has been broken yet.  But hang on, it's good when it happens.

So when this organization (No, that sounds boring. Let’s just call it Friendship Trays to make it a more fun story). So, when Friendship Trays volunteers come to pick up meals to deliver to all those hungry seniors, they need a place to park so that they can run inside, fill up their little cooler with milk cartons and pick up a bag of hot food, run back out the door, hop in their car and zoom away. 

The company had about twenty employees and the building had about about twelve parking spaces. One of the employees and the owner watched walk-in freezers and giant commercial equipment being moved into the future Operation Center for Friendship Trays. The employee decided to ask, “Where will the volunteers park?” That person had no vision at all.  The owner of the company said that he was going to build a parking lot in the back of the property. Oh. That was simple. Not a single rule has been broken yet. Maybe I should start getting to that part.

The person who clearly had no imagination or vision at all then asked, “What about the railroad tracks?” The owner said that he was just going to ask the railroad company to abandon the right of way and come take up the tracks. They weren’t using them, after all. The person who had no vision, no imagination, and obviously no sense stated, “I don’t think that they will do that.” And then, maybe, just maybe the owner considered that thought for about a millisecond or about the length of time Steph Curry has to think about whether to take a three pointer or not.

                            “No”, he said, “They will.”
                         Swish.

Unfortunately, the man at the local railroad company lacked vision as well. He could not see the future. He did not know that he was defending his tracks from philanthropy’s version of Steph Curry. He could hold up his arms, wave them around, and jump up and down. But nothing was going to stop that ball from going through the hoop. Or, nothing was going to stop a parking lot from going in a railroad right of way. The railroad man asked if there were tracks in the right of way. When he was told that there were, he replied that the Railroad does not abandon any right of way that has a track on it, whether they use it or not. He thought the game was over.

Now here is where the rule breaking happens. 

The owner of the company calls up a guy.  A guy with something called a Bobcat. If you don’t know, it is sort of like a cute little bulldozer.  The guy with the Bobcat was very excited about the impending rule breaking event.  He unloaded it from a trailer and moved railroad tracks like they were pick-up sticks.  He plucked them up and moved them to the front of the building and set them on the curb.  He then proceeded to grade a nice flat space for a new parking lot.

The owner of the company made another call to the railroad man.  Owner: “You know those tracks that were in the railroad right of way?” RR man: “yes.” Owner: “They aren’t there anymore.” RR man: “Where are my tracks?” Owner: “They are on the curb in front of my building.”  RR man, defeat in his voice, “Leave them there, we will come get them.” Owner victoriously asks, “Can I have the right of way back now?”

RR man said yes.

So sure enough they came and picked up the tracks.  

A beautiful, meal fulfilling parking lot was built.

That was twenty years ago and volunteers faithfully come to Friendship Trays and park there every day and run in grab the food and take it to people who are truly in need. Literally hundreds of thousands of meals have made their way from that parking lot to homes all across our city.

Actual Parking Lot from Story

There is a reason we have rules. 

So that we can break them and 

make good things happen.

Enough is Enough: Black Lives Matter

We don’t want to talk about it. We have successfully tucked away our collective knowledge of how things were in the past. We feel that things have changed. We think that all people have equal opportunity and therefore the past is no longer relevant. We tell ourselves that it’s not good to divide people by race. We think that the civil rights leaders fought hard to be seen as equal and that we should all strive to be colorblind.  Now that so much progress has been made, why would the Black Lives Matter movement be asking us to throw the concept of color blindness out the window?

We are white and we work hard, so terms like “white privilege” put us on the defensive. We struggle to provide for our families and we have to watch every penny to make ends meet. Life is difficult and challenging for us, so where is this white privilege? We tell ourselves that we know that some people are born in to privilege, but simply the color of our skin does not give us any easy routes to success.

We want to say All Lives Matter because that is what we have been taught. It is what we feel to be intrinsically true. We think that saying Black Lives Matter means that other lives matter less. We are confused about what is OK to talk about and we fear being labeled racist so much that we avoid having conversations about race with anyone outside of our own white culture. Yet we don’t believe there is a white culture. We see our culture as normal.

 We want all lives to matter. 

We congratulated ourselves when Barack Obama was elected as our country’s first black president. The media rushed ahead and began talking about living in a post-racial America. This was wrongheaded and wishful thinking. We are so unaware of our white privilege that we think that electing a black President means that the dream has been fulfilled and that equality has been achieved. But the reality is that for many Americans of all colors, race does still matter.

Race matters to the black people who disproportionately live in poverty. It matters because our prisons are full of black men. It matters because a person of color is more likely to be sentenced to death. It matters because a broken taillight should not result in being murdered by a police officer.

Race matters to white people who cling to relics of the past, like the confederate flag. It matters to them because they fool themselves into believing in a golden age when things were better for everyone. It matters to them because they fear becoming the new victims of discrimination. They fear that a progressive society means that their way of life will be wiped away and that they will be forced to abandon their values and be ashamed of their heritage.

It matters to those who feel that we have gone too far in trying to correct the wrongs inflicted upon black people. It matters because they think that we have now leveled the playing field and that any further measures to improve the lives of people of color will lead to less opportunity for themselves. It matters because they think that maybe the pendulum has swung too far and that black people get unmerited opportunities.

As for myself, I will confess that I’m not always proud of how I have perceived people who are a different race from me.

What does our history tell us about the value we place on black lives? From 1619 to 1865 people of African descent were legally treated as chattel. Property to be owned and traded. After slaves were emancipated, for the next one-hundred years black people were treated as second class citizens. They could not own land, their voting rights were suppressed, they were lynched, and they were terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan. Blacks were viewed by the majority white culture as inferior. They were forced to use separate facilities. To use separate entrances to buildings. A black maid in a white household would have to use the toilet in the basement.

After 1965, Blacks had to fight to go to the same schools as whites. It was not until 1970 that the city I live in became the first in the south to fully integrate its school system after a Federal mandate was handed down from the courts.

And here we are forty-six years later and blacks are still the first to be suspected when something goes missing from an office. They are followed around by security when they enter stores. White people cross the street to avoid passing a black man on a sidewalk. They are disproportionately stopped by police whether walking or driving. And they are more likely to be killed in an interaction with police.

And what about respect? Are black people respected as equals in our society?  I have watched nearly every State of the Union Address during my adult life.  Regardless of party, the elected President has always been treated with respect during the speech by the members of Congress. During the first black President’s initial State of the Union address, Joe Wilson, a Congressman from South Carolina broke the normal decorum. He shouted out, “You Lie, You Lie.” What message did this send to African Americans about their place in this country?  

We say that all lives matter. But do our actions really demonstrate that? Have we made enough effort?  Clearly, we have historically not treated black people as if their lives mattered equally.

Have we really made enough progress to just keep saying all lives matter? People are in the streets asking us to show them through our actions that their lives matter as much as ours.

We must demonstrate that Black Lives Matter.

Top Ten Things That are in the Top Ten Things

1. UGH!  I have been blindly enjoying writing my little blog posts and feeling all smug about the intelligent content. I have been pleased that a couple of posts seemed to get some attention that went beyond immediate family members and a few close friends.

2. I wanted to reach a larger audience. So I did a quick google search, rushed past all the keyword search engine optimization type thingies because that seemed a lot like math and I hate math. I stumbled across a fast and easy tip.  Find a Facebook Group relevant to your topic with around 7000 members and post a link to your blog in that group.  Easy-peasy. My post was about my experience with how healthcare had changed over the course of my adult life. At least from my perspective. None of the healthcare groups on Facebook seemed to match with my angle on things.  I stumbled across a group that fit the membership criteria and it was about the city I live in. Its past and present.  So I joined and posted.

3. Wham!  Instant success!  Stardom!  Discussions and threads grew from my little story.  Within 48 hours I had over 1500 views!  I had found the key to success!! Yay.  Work done.  Just churn out another one and post it in that group.  And guess what happened?  Nada. Or not much. I joined some other groups, posted and nothing.  Here I am as Yukon Cornelius again.

4. What gives?  I decided to return to trusty old google and get more tips.  Ugh!  I think I know what happened.  It's called a "catchy headline." You see my little viral phenomena happened to a post that I titled "Declining Professionalism in Healthcare." I think healthcare and declining are popular buzzwords or keywords!  Double Ugh!  Because then I read more articles about catchy headlines and realized that I have been falling for this kind of crappy bloggering for years!!  Headlines like Top Ten ways that Democrats are Better than Sliced Bread" and "23 ways to make your kids watch Kung Fu re-runs with You!"  Yikes! I'm a sucker!

5. I even saw this at work just tonight on Facebook. And in regard to serious matters. 15 things Punishable by Death Penalty if You are Black." "12  WaysYour Adopted Child will try to Push You Away"

6. It's really disgusting.  We are robots.  No we are taking orders from robots. Robots are telling us what to read!  Triple Ugh!!@!

7. And my clever links that I had been adding.  My brother was nice enough to say that no one has time to look at all those links. But guess what every article you see on the internet is full of them.  Do people actually click on them?  NO!!  They are there for SEO or Search Engine Optimization!  Marketing, marketing, marketing. Or is it manipulating, manipulating manipulating?  I have been manipulated.

8. So if the title of my post mislead you into reading this entry, then you know how I feel. You have been manipulated into reading my crappiest post yet.

9. From now on, I'm going back to my attempts at quality content and forgetting about my stats.

10. You can read it or not.