Dukulay
Chapter One
Sunrise in New York City
Hamper Unwin was not yet aware of being lived by forces greater than himself. Asleep inside the soul of the world, he rolled like wind blown tumbleweed down a sidewalk to an unknown destination.
His girlfriend’s ultimatum, “Get a real job, or it’s over,” echoed in his ears and substitute teaching two days a week, three at the most to cover his monthly expenses, plus summers off, would be a day job he could live with to let him keep his music alive. She cleansed his ears.
He exited the subway, at 110th St., in a place he’d never been before and walked quickly down W 112th st., gleaning whatever he could from this potentially dangerous neighborhood with young and old men on corners and graffiti on every gated storefront…the crumbling sidewalk…he hurried through red lights and intersections and jaywalked to the public school. Later he would reflect on jaywalking and who gets pulled over and for what infraction, what broken law? But now, he was single-minded, turning right at the light and looking out for the last big building on the right side before the end of the block.
“I won't be late,” he feared. He didn’t know, but his will would get him there. His father’s gentle mind, his grandfathers’s grunt and grind. He would arrive at the appointed hour and submit…a coal miners’ son… ‘if cleanliness is next to godliness, and tardiness is a sin…then time and cleanliness are scarce and… fear and trembling…he scurried across this slippery surface of consciousness like a lily-walker fighting threats. Hurry!
A hook and ladder firetruck entered the scene and pushed through the morning traffic, squeezing between double parked cars until it was dead stopped. Then it really let loose. The driver behind the wheel, who was only going one mile an hour in the fire lane, lay on his horn until it was super loud.
Until the streets were echo canyons…if people let their voice rise likewise…cacophony would become epiphany…the walls of Jericho would come down…but we’re too loud to hear trumpet blasts, our tender, little, unprotected ears, are numb, the sirens, horns, bells, and whistles, don’t phases us and loud engines are not loud enough. How can anyone hear anything?
The drivers in cars couldn’t move behind the sanitation truck that cleaned the curb, but nobody seemed to figure it out, so everyone got loud.
When Hamper spotted the tan brick building on the far right, he mingled into the steam of parents, mostly women, getting their kids to school on time and inside the big doors.
Hamper had arrived on time, early in fact, had he not, who knows? And he paused for a long minute, to take in the scene where he saw more black and brown faces in two minutes than he had seen in his entire life. He triple checked his backpack to find a legal pad, thee pens, and the Earth Flag. With everything in place in his book bag, he jerked his white collar and borrowed tie into alignment, smoothed his thinning hair and went inside a New York City public school