By Button Poetry
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Jared Singer, performing at Honey in Minneapolis.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
– It is the fourth of July.
00:05
A day meant to celebrate freedom and tolerance
00:10
in a country that seems to have forgotten both.
00:14
There is less to celebrate every year.
00:19
But we have the day off,
00:23
and most of us still have hope
00:26
that we can make this country better.
00:29
So we throw a party.
00:33
Not for our country, but for each other.
00:39
I invite all my friends in the city,
00:41
even though the ones I know can’t come,
00:44
I want to let the people I care
00:46
about know every single time I can.
00:50
Among those who come is the good man,
00:53
he is the first to laugh,
00:55
the first to pour somebody else a drink, and always,
00:59
always the first to hug you when you are struggling.
01:04
Later, during a conversation about discrimination,
01:10
someone mentions that they are Jewish,
01:12
and the good man, now drunk, says,
01:19
maybe if you were a foreigner it would count.
01:23
Maybe if you wore one of those
01:26
funny little hats it would count.
01:30
But you, you’re nothing.
01:35
My throat goes dread dry.
01:39
Shocked hoarse.
01:42
The good man knows that I am also Jewish,
01:46
but he says this looking right at me with a broadening
01:49
smile like he is letting me in on the sweetest joke.
01:56
Later, when I give the toast la heim,
02:04
he cuts me off.
02:06
He says, why are you using that gibberish?
02:09
Speak real words.
02:12
When he leaves he hugs me.
02:15
Says, goodnight, brother.
02:20
It’s funny, this new definition of brother.
02:26
It stings, tastes like ash.
02:32
Weeks later the first time I tell
02:35
this story on stage the good man is there.
02:39
When I am done he comes up to me,
02:41
he is the first one, he says,
02:43
I can’t believe someone said that to you.
02:45
What an asshole.
02:47
And for just a moment,
02:50
just long enough to decide that this
02:52
was more important than our friendship, I am silent.
02:58
And then, I tell him it was you.
03:02
You said that.
03:05
We talked it out.
03:08
He apologized.
03:10
At the end, we laughed.
03:13
When he went home he called me brother again.
03:17
We still get excited when we see each other.
03:20
Bear hug, even.
03:23
But I don’t invite him to parties anymore.
03:27
And he doesn’t call me brother.
03:30
He was drunk for both of these conversations.
03:34
They were years ago.
03:37
I don’t know if he even remembers,
03:41
but I never stopped thinking about it.
03:45
It still stings.
03:48
It’s still ash.
03:52
(applause)
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
