Mr. Moody (or damn, he’s beautiful!)
My second job is as an Youth Support Counselor in a group home for boys with a private agency in Long Island. I took this job while I was in graduate school to earn extra cash, get out of the house, and to continue my work with At-risk youth, while pursuing an MFA. New York art school is so pretentious and concerned with getting into New York galleries. There really wasn’t any support for community based artists, who makes work for that reflects and spoke to a given community, or at least mine. I make art that has a purpose, that being, the uplift of my community…no one understood the value in this.
My work with youth in care kept/keeps me grounded, having come out of the classroom prior to my pursue of grad. school, I kept my purpose in focus.
Sometimes, the agency’s Administrator on Duty (AOD) can pop up on you, this is to keep us overnight workers on our toes since it is a widely known “rumor” that some overnight staff sleep when they should be checking on the residents, calling in the census and, documenting in the communication log. Well I always called in on my shift and spoke to a particular moody AOD. Mr. Moody, with his deep and velvet voice, was either sweet and polite with his, “Good night, how many residents do you have?” Followed up with a, ” Is everything ok there..etc” or on other nights if you happen to call a few minutes late because the line was busy and you couldn’t get through on the hour exactly, Mr. Moody would bark ” Why are you calling so late, or, Do I hear and attitude?” In the past we have had our words. ” I would say, ” Yeah, I have an attitude because of your tone with me!” He would usually, rush me off the phone. Yes, his bark is bigger than his bite!
Who is he?, I wondered. After doing some research, ( asking around) I found out that he is a divorced, father of one and very bitter. He is known for being moody but no one takes his attitude seriously.
Well, last night, he popped up at my house. He is tall ( six feet…something) dark skinned, about three-four spoonfuls darker than me and very, very handsome. He wore all black with a baseball cap ( why he wore this 1:00am…I can’t guess) I looked at him…eyes wide open.
He asked the usual AOD questions,
“How many residents?” ( 8 ), “What’s the staff to resident ratio?” ( 1 to 5 ), my partner stays in the basement-one staff to each floor.) He inquired as to why I wasn’t wearing the panic button. I just took It off- I went to the rest room, it’s in the staff office. “Ok” he says, as he simply checks yes or no as to weather or not I had it on. Clearly, Mr. Moody was in a good mood tonight. He looked over the house, all while taking note on his clip board.
The whole time he was there, I couldn’t help but marvel over Mr. Moody. His understated attractiveness, his walk, his soft spoken-ness and to finally match a face and body to a voice that I have heard mundanely for the past 4+ years.
“Make sure you lock-up.” He says as he leaves.
Our eyes meet and lock. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”, he says
I smile, thinking, damn. he’s beautiful.
[...] have also been thinking about what made Mr. Moody so attractive to me. He is of a different generation, being more than twenty years older than I. I [...]
Charles White’s Men. « Zingha. said this on September 22, 2008 at 11:03 pm |