My First Black Mamba

So yesterday I saw my first black mamba.

I was walking to work at about 8am from the Blue line, nothing out of the ordinary, just my normal 4 block route to the tower. I was about 1 block into my walk, and starting to get into a good walking rhythm, when I noticed a scruffy black homeless man yelling things on the sidewalk in front of me shaking his black mamba at every passerby. Now there’s a lot of construction going on at the building to the right of me and I have a cement barricade blocking the sidewalk from the street to my left so I have to pass this guy no matter what. I put on my toughest face, looked straight ahead and picked up the pace trying hard to block out the image of what I had just seen. Now I’ve seen a lot of sick things in my young life, but this, this topped that list and then some.

To my dismay I can still see that image, and that disgusting… thing. It’s tattooed into my memory like a cigarette burn on a crack whore. As my friend said, I’ve been visually raped. I felt violated and my wheat bagel I had just purchased at DD had no home any longer. I guess this is the city’s way of hazing my virgin eyes into its exclusive club. Maybe I should consider myself lucky, I had survived. But if one more person asks me, “Is it true?” I’m going to scream.

Chicago 1 Maxine 0