Permissions and permissions…
A note: The person formerly known in this blog as ‘Mahou’ has requested that I use his real name. From this point forward, Malibu will be Malibu. I’ve gone back to edit past entries for consistency.
Malibu called the house, this evening, and asked to stop by to get a CD burned. Said he was two blocks away — probably on the corner of Haight and Fillmore. I was relieved to hear from him. Last I’d seen him, I’d told him that I needed a favour, but figured it might take some time to explain what, exactly, I was trying to do. ‘Anything, loved one. Anything.’ ‘Don’t promise me that just yet. Just… I’ll explain to you what I’m trying to do next time I see you.’ That was the Friday, two weeks ago, when I learned that I wouldn’t be able to attend SOAS this coming year. Since then, life’s been hectic. My parents came to town for a visit. Malibu had to attend a trial in San Rafael for having an open container in public, and then spent a week baby-sitting his niece’s daughters (I think in Marin City). ‘Bu had, through some magic, acquired a cell phone, but his coverage had expired by the time my parents left town.
So Malibu came by bearing one CD, which I started burning. We waited for a bit in the living room where two of my housemates were watching The Simpsons. Malibu’s been by the house a number of times. Sometimes we sit on the front steps, but he’s been up to the kitchen and to my room on several occasions. Most of those occasions, one of the two housemates had been there. The other had met ‘Bu on at least two occasions, previously, but they acted as though they’d never met.
We made smalltalk. I asked him about his niece, who is only a couple months’ pregnant, and who was hospitalised last week. She was in decent condition, but the doctors said there was a 50-50 chance she would lose the baby. He’d had a hell of a time taking care of the kids in Marin — the house was a mess and there was no discipline. ‘Respect is the most fundamental thing in this world. You show people respect, and everything else falls into place.’ I hehhled. ‘Usually.’ ‘Well. If you show someone respect and they don’t respect you back, that means they don’t respect themself.’ I put the kettle on for tea, and we wandered down the hall toward my room to check the CD’s progress.
‘So what’s up with you, homie?’ he asked me. I told him about my job interview, tomorrow. ‘It’d be twenty hours a week, and enough money to meet my needs.’ ‘Not it would be — it will be.’ ‘And I just got hired, today, to write ten grant applications, which means I’ll have some money to pay off debts. It’s looking like things are probably going to work out.’ ‘Not probably — things will work out. And you know why?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you got one job, and when you get one job, the second always follows close behind.’ I crossed my fingers. ‘You don’t need to cross your fingers. There ain’t no such thing as luck. There’s the right time, the right place, situation, and attitude.’ ‘Well, as long as I don’t know where the right place or when the right time is, it’s close enough to luck for me.’ He smiled, as if he didn’t fully buy my point of view, but knew he wasn’t going to win me over. ‘I guess it’s a matter of beliefs.’
‘Listen, Malibu, remember that favour I mentioned last time I saw you?’ ‘Yeah, homie. Anything. Anything.’ ‘Well, wait. Let me explain first. The graduate program that I couldn’t go to this year was for cultural anthropology. I want to do anthropology because I believe that documenting the ways that people live their lives can help to humani-’ ‘So you want to interview me.’ ‘Yes.’ He grinned huge. Never seen him smile like that. ‘I can do that. I can tell you whatever you need to know.’ ‘And it’ll be on the Internet, too.’ ‘That’s okay.’ ‘Any time you want to tell me anything that you don’t want me to put in print, just let me know that it’s off the record.’ ‘Listen: Anything I tell you emanates originally from the voice of God. [What kind of ethnographer am I that I didn't ask him what that meant?] You can print anything.’ ‘Well, there’s stuff I’m smart enough to know is confidential, like ❚❚❚❚ ❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚ ❚❚❚❚ ❚❚❚❚❚ ❚❚❚❚ ❚❚❚❚ ❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚-’ ‘Nah, homie. People do stuff like that every day. You need to let people know.’ ‘Also, instead of your real name, I can use a pseudonym of your choice.’ ‘Nah, man. I’m Malibu. Everybody knows I’m Malibu. Everybody knows who I am. Use my real name.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah, homie. You just let me know when you want to interview me.’ ‘It’s going to be more than one interview.’ ‘Heh… You just let me know. When you interview me, it’s going to be insane, like…’ Malibu’s eyes grow wide and he makes a few asylum faces. ‘And I’m also going to include stuff from casual conversations.’ ‘All right.’ ‘Like this one.’ ‘You just let me know.’
Malibu seemed excited about this prospect, which took me by surprise. I had expected him to say Yes, but though he might be a little reticent — it might take some time to get comfortable with the idea. But perhaps he’s expected this for a while: Right now, I’m remembering a time when we were talking on Fillmore a month or two ago: ‘Homie, when you write this down, it’s going to be the craziest story you ever told.’ I had not, at the time, ever mentioned to him my anthropological or ethnographic aspirations.
‘Hey, homie, you got a couple bucks I can borrow?’ ‘I’m flat broke—’ My bank account holds September’s rent plus ten dollars; I’m living off lentils and rice. ‘—but you can-’ ‘Nah, I know you vegetarian. You ain’t going to get me to eat that. I need to go make some money so I can get some real food to eat.’
I walked back into The Simpsons, and gave my two housemates a double thumbs up. The one gave me a cold look. ‘What?’ ‘Nothing.’ I sat down to catch a couple minutes of Bart making a jail break. After a brief silence: ‘Who was that, again?’ ‘That was Malibu.’ ‘And who is he?’ ‘He’s a homeless guy. A poet. He sells CDs of his stuff in this neighbourhood a lot.’ ‘And how long have you know him — like, two weeks?’ ‘Six to eight months.’ Truth be told, I met Malibu more than a year ago. But I’ve been talking with him a fair bit since February. My housemate is distrustful. I’m not sure what he thinks: Perhaps that a homeless guy is likely to attempt to steal our belongings. Or maybe he, himself black, is made uncomfortable by my strange relationship with a forty-something-year-old black man. (Am I trying to make myself cool, somehow, by associating with a black man who talks like a black man’s supposed to talk?) Or perhaps he was put off by Malibu’s addressing him as ‘brother’ — he’s confessed to me before a discomfort with white people’s attempts to “jive-talk” him. Maybe he sees Malibu’s language as packed with the same racial assumptions…
I think I’m going to have to have a talk with my housemates about ethnography.