Columbia, Virginia, is like the most dilapidated part of my home county of Fluvanna, Virginia, the one place I’ve seen in my life that most reminds me of the Bottoms in In the Heat of the Night, the series not the movie. There’s tons of drugs going on around there, yet decades ago it was a prominent town that they briefly toyed with moving the capital of the South to during the war. But floods and neglect have left a dilapidated piece of shit town. There’s one little bobo ass store with barred windows, and when I used to have to commute to Richmond a lot, I never really stopped much because his egg sandwiches were expensive and not as good as up the road in George’s Tavern. But last week, I had spent a hot morning fixing some leak I created with my big ass in a fancy lady’s ceramic shingles on her roof over her bedroom, and once I slapped tar on like half the roof, finally the leak was gone, though no logic followed where it was at whatsoever. But she gave me my check, and I figured, “fuck it, it’s lunchtime already, I’m gonna go cash this bama.” Except my wife called me and her car was broke down, so I had to go to Charlottesville’s 29 commercial district and fix the connector to the solenoid like a fucking chump (though I saved a ton of money in doing so). After all that, I finally went to Richmond to cash the check and put it in my bank, and only putting on a shirt to go inside the bank. I often try to spend as much of a day without a shirt on as possible, because to not have to wear a shirt all day long from waking up till bedtime, that’s like vacation but on a regular work day, and something I am proud to do sometimes. (One time, I even left the house without taking a shirt to force the issue.)
Anyways, on the ride home, it was pouring rain like the apocalypse was a-coming, and I wasn’t wearing a shirt and listening to shitty classic rock really loud since my satellite radio was broken, coming into Columbia, and it just felt like a double deuce was appropriate. So I stopped, expecting the old white asshole who had always owned that joint, but instead it was some older, oddly dressed black dude. I got myself a double deuce of the Corona, in honor of the Beatnuts, and went to the counter.
Now I don’t know how long it’s been out there and if it’s been everywhere and I just started noticing, but I came across an article on Hollywood (the Nigerian film industry) a couple months back, and have been wanting to get some ever since. Actually, it was an old issue of Raw Visions and their flour sack paintings from Ghana of Nigerian movies and the weird moral themes contained that got me intrigued. Well, the dude behind the counter was watching an African flick on a portable DVD player, and Galavision style wacky antics, but with really black people was going on. I asked him what it was and he said east African movie, from where he was from. I got confused and said, “Like Nigeria” before my geographic nerdliness kicked in immediately, so I felt like a chump while he tutored me on African geography. I asked him where he got it, and he said the African stores in D.C. had a ton of movies like this. So now I know where to get some Nollywood, although there’s actually a couple of Africa stores in Richmond too, so I should probably check that out before I go to D.C. and the MS-13s chop my hand off with a machete. Still, I find it odd that African movie meme triggered in my head a while back, then was fulfilled with the wacky dude who for some reason owns the country store in shit ass Columbia, Virginia, now. Perhaps this has all happened before and I am a monarch slave about to open up into whatever I was pre-programmed to do.
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