"Where are you from?"
I got back into Indiana today at 10:30am. I had a red-eye trip that started in San Francisco at 1am, with a stop in Dallas. I thought I'd be able to sleep on the plane, but with all the noise. And even though I reclined in my seat and closed my eyes to let exhaustion take over, I was left with a waking, wandering mind with the rattle of the plane's turbulence shaking and shaking and shaking.
When I arrived in Indianapolis, I staggered through the airport to the wafting aroma of competing breakfast options from the food court: McDonald's Sausage McMuffins, Chick-Fil-A fried chicken nuggest with buttered biscuits, Arby's roast beef made from cow byproducts. It was florescent lighting and fried grease, and it made me alert with nausea.
Just as I stepped off the escalator to go to baggage claim, an old man and an accompanying middle-aged woman (his daughter) walked past me. I had a heavy messenger bag weighing down my shoulder and my hands were clutching a water bottle and toiletry travel bag. The old man had pale skin which looked even more ghostly against his dark brown suit. He was barely shorter than me and looked like Hank Hill's dad from King of the Hill. When we crossed paths, he stopped walking and crooned, "Where are you from?" I was still groggy from sleeplessness and it took me a few seconds to realize he was speaking to me. Hesitantly, I replied, "San Francisco?"
The truth is, I knew what he was getting at. And it showed in his response back, "San Francisco! Yeah right!" He shook his head and leaned on his cane to rejoin his daughter.
I told this story to my friend Viet when he picked me up half an hour later. We were in a giant pickup truck, riding down the highway in true Indiana fashion. We drove past barren crop fields and wilderness, followed by more barren crop fields and wilderness. Viet shook his head about the old man. "Welcome back to Indiana," he said.
But as much as I am bothered by the cultural backdrop that is Indiana -- the fact that in the last year I've attracted a racist stalking on gay.com, befriended Anthony who was arrested in Martinsville for being Black, and now this -- there is hope to be had. When the old man rejoined his middle-aged daughter, she shook her head and diverted her eyes from me. As they walked away, towards the escalators I had just departed, I could hear her response to his inquery: "What are you doing? Why did you even ask him that?"
I'd like to think she was embarrassed. But at the same time, I feel bad for hoping even that.
When I arrived in Indianapolis, I staggered through the airport to the wafting aroma of competing breakfast options from the food court: McDonald's Sausage McMuffins, Chick-Fil-A fried chicken nuggest with buttered biscuits, Arby's roast beef made from cow byproducts. It was florescent lighting and fried grease, and it made me alert with nausea.
Just as I stepped off the escalator to go to baggage claim, an old man and an accompanying middle-aged woman (his daughter) walked past me. I had a heavy messenger bag weighing down my shoulder and my hands were clutching a water bottle and toiletry travel bag. The old man had pale skin which looked even more ghostly against his dark brown suit. He was barely shorter than me and looked like Hank Hill's dad from King of the Hill. When we crossed paths, he stopped walking and crooned, "Where are you from?" I was still groggy from sleeplessness and it took me a few seconds to realize he was speaking to me. Hesitantly, I replied, "San Francisco?"
The truth is, I knew what he was getting at. And it showed in his response back, "San Francisco! Yeah right!" He shook his head and leaned on his cane to rejoin his daughter.
I told this story to my friend Viet when he picked me up half an hour later. We were in a giant pickup truck, riding down the highway in true Indiana fashion. We drove past barren crop fields and wilderness, followed by more barren crop fields and wilderness. Viet shook his head about the old man. "Welcome back to Indiana," he said.
But as much as I am bothered by the cultural backdrop that is Indiana -- the fact that in the last year I've attracted a racist stalking on gay.com, befriended Anthony who was arrested in Martinsville for being Black, and now this -- there is hope to be had. When the old man rejoined his middle-aged daughter, she shook her head and diverted her eyes from me. As they walked away, towards the escalators I had just departed, I could hear her response to his inquery: "What are you doing? Why did you even ask him that?"
I'd like to think she was embarrassed. But at the same time, I feel bad for hoping even that.
posted by Danny Thanh Nguyen at 2:27 AM
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