I'ma sign for'm anyway - Akin's story

(My friend Akin, also an Obama supporter, took the time to write down this anecdote which I think is great and wonderfully told and he gave me permission to reproduce it here)

I'ma sign for'm anyway

So I’m walking back from the bank wearing my Barack shirt and reading Barack Obama In His Own Words while juggling a bunch of bags. As I’m a pretty clumsy guy, I drop the book and it tumbles…into a sewer.

Yup.

I gather up some sticks I think may be strong enough and I lean over the curb to fish the book out. Cars are whizzing by and all when this black pick up truck putters around me and puts on the brakes. I’m using a stick to nudge the book into a dry brown paper bag as the faintly southern voice of an older Black American Man chimes in, “You dead?”

I lift my head up and he frowns, “Nah. You’re just stupid.”

I smile as he tells me how dangerous trying to retrieve this book is. In his dirt smeared white T-shirt and black jeans that are a few sizes too big for him, the Man asks me what is so important that I'm willing to reach into the sewer to get it back. I think he was relieved that I was trying to get a book.

After he makes me swear I will in fact read this book if I get it back, he drives off to get some tools. I listen to Rachel Portman’s theme song to Cider House Rules on my iPod while I wait.

The pick up putters to the corner and the Man emerges with three rather large tools. He offers me a gardening hoe.

“Now I’ma stand in the street while you get your book.”

This man stands in the street while I use his gardening hoe to fish my book out of the sewer. We shake hands and I offer to give him one of my Barack shirts for free.“You made that up yourself?”

“Ahuh.”

“Pay for it yourself?”

“Yup. I’ll give you one – if you want it.”

He mulls it over, sighs that retired man sigh, then releases the proudest of proud smirks, “I’ma sign for'm anyway. You give that to someone who ain’t. Cause I’ma sign for'm anyway.”

And with that, he was gone.

[like so much Kaiser Soeze -- ed.]


Thanks, Akin!