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    Black Man In Europe: Micro Volume
    Black Man In Europe: Micro Volume
    Black Man In Europe: Micro Volume
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Black Man In Europe: Micro Volume

    By Nathan Jones

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    About this ebook

    The Black Man In Europe micro-volume consists of a selection of abridged chapters from the novel of the same name. Nathan Jones chronicles his impressions and experiences leaving the readers to question for themselves the world of Europe as explored through the eyes of an American-born African.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNathan Jones
    Release dateJul 29, 2010
    ISBN9780980074758
    Black Man In Europe: Micro Volume
    Author

    Nathan Jones

    Nathan Anthony Jones hails from the Jazz capital a.k.a., The Big Easy. He exited his mother’s womb making waves the year Jimi freaked Woodstock 4 decades ago. He is a 7th Ward Bayou Bourbon Street Boogieing Baby born bubbly and bouncing to the African spiritual beats of the bamboulas and banzas of the Congo Square in New Orleans. His poetry is cayenne pepper; spicy and feisty, political and social, reflective and eclectic, and fulfilling like a hot bowl of gumbo and rice and a jar of homemade lemonade on a humid Southern summer afternoon. Raised in Oakland, he is a poet, teacher, publisher and author of several books: Revolutionary Erotica, Black Man In Europe and Excerpts From My Soul: Read Without Prejudice.

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      Book preview

      Black Man In Europe - Nathan Jones

      BLACK MAN IN EUROPE – MICRO VOLUME

      by

      Nathan Jones

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      PUBLISHED BY:

      SajeTanira Publishing Group, broke cannon press & Nathan Jones on Smashwords

      Black Man In Europe – Micro Volume

      Copyright © 2008, 2010 by Nathan Jones

      Edited by Stanhope Porter and Charlotte Y. Williams

      ISBN: 978-0-9800747-5-8

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      * * * * *

      This project is dedicated to all those individuals

      who believed in my ability and talent

      * * * * *

      To the Reader

      The present micro-volume, Black Man in Europe, consists of a selection of abridged chapters from the novel of the same title by Nathan A. Jones. Perhaps Mr. Jones shall option his first novel to broke cannon press. Perhaps a publisher rich like Croesus shall pick up Mr. Jones’ postmodern expatriate gem and pay him Attatulpah’s ransom for it, which would only be right and fitting. We wish Big Nate the best, whatever he chooses.

      * * * * *

      Contents

      Down at Night

      England: Bill Sikes

      Germany: Kassel

      Café De La Paix

      Club Atlantis

      Spain: Beyond the Beginning

      South of Italy: Brindisi

      Corfu

      * * * * *

      BLACK MAN IN EUROPE – MICRO VOLUME

      * * * * *

      Down at Night

      The Bible was fulfilling itself as I silently trembled, watching out of the window overlooking Rue de Bergère. God was admonishing his people with calamitous and deceptive changes of season. Lightning flashed out of the east, heaven and earth seemed to pass away. Outside there were two in the street, and one was taken, and the other left. Inside, at the well of drinks, one was spared, the other, not.

      Charcoal was the sky, something out of Poe. The floodgates of heaven beat the earth like a Senegalese, his djimbé. Still, my mind wandered back to the softness of her voice; to the sweetness of her perfume (divinity must smell like this).

      I lie in her bosom, warm and nurtured as a child. She fills my ear with spiritual salve, soothing as a mother’s love. Sheltered from inclemency, I daydreamed about the day I would finally arrive in Europe. And here I am.

      Following Richard Wright, Chester Himes, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, and Lois Mailou Jones, I am here to finally receive acknowledgement for my talents, person, character, and humanity. I am here, in Paris, to create novellas, vignettes, stories, prose, and romantic poetry. I am here to lounge in cafés, to comb the Latin Quarter, to stare out at the River Seine. I am here to sip old vines. I am here to sport a black beret tilted roguishly, a cashmere sweater over my shoulders, grey flannel on my legs, suede loafers couching my feet.

      This dream of Paris is not new, neither the one about Bordeaux or the Côte d’Azur.

      Then, years ago, the fresh smell of jasmine and clover filled Mama Enola’s kitchen, as I dreamed. The kitchen inside the 1930s Victorian that Grandpa remodeled over the course of two summers and one fall, relying on carpentry skills that he never had to learn.

      Mama Enola’s homemade peach cobbler and her famous tea cakes, that she would make for all her grandchildren, and would sell on occasion, when family members needed financial help, were cooling off in the window pane. I was lost in thought.

      In another time, in another place, Yani was listening intently, reacting with her hands, screwing her eyes, every now and then running her fingers through my locks.

      Why this talk of Europe so much? And what is your fascination with this European lifestyle? she stormed.

      Baby, it’s been calling me since I was eighteen, and I can’t let that voice go, not until I know what it is. It’s part of my destiny.

      Well, are you going to take me, or do you expect me to wait for you? Yani protested.

      I hope you wait because it’s something I have to do by myself, I tried to explain. She turned and left the room. I continued to sit and reminisce about my first trip to Europe. I feel my feet touching the ground at Gare du Nord. I hear the euphony of French. I see Renaults, Citroêns, and wide, tree-lined boulevards.

      Who would ever have thought that a boy from East Oakland, by way of Assumption Parish, would come face to face with his dream? The first time my feet touched French soil, I felt higher than Kaya and the Holy Ghost combined. That high never completely left, it lingers in my lungs and loins, fortifies my blood. Being there was like a boy’s first kiss, a virgin’s first love, and the more I experienced, the more I wanted more.

      As I was relishing all of this, Yani came back into the room. She moved closer to me than before. She began to ask me a series of why’s and what’s.

      What will you find in Europe that you don’t already have here? she lamented.

      Freedom, peace of mind, respect as a human being, and acknowledgement of my craft.

      Yani did not seem to understand that once a Black intellectual crosses the ocean blue, he or she quits Tally’s Corner, slays Jim Crow, and climbs life to find no ceilings – at least there is the hope of it. He or she slowly realizes that art is its own reward, a ladder to ethereal modes, to places that efficient, hardworking, monotonous souls rarely see, let alone taste.

      There is more to life than survival than sterling credentials. I always hear the voice of ancestors saying, Do better than we did. Create a legacy for yourself and your children. I told Yani that I wanted my legacy to begin with art. At these words, Yani opened up, a little.

      We talked for hours that night. I told her of my Spanish flat in Barcelona. It was located on the fifth floor of an apartment nearly one hundred and twenty years old, in the heart of Barcelona, near C/D en Blanco 54, 2-2, a block from the metro for Plaza de Sants (running off the red and blue lines).

      For two weeks I had no hot water. I showered with cold water in a half-sized tub. At certain hours of the day, the city smelled like dead fish and garbage. Every night, I slept nude because of the heat, not to mention the humidity. While the city partied all night, I studied in quiet isolation like a monk in my garret (a regular Benedictine was I).

      It was surreal to me. I did not know the language. I did not know the cultural codes. Nor did I know how impersonal Spanish were. None of those things mattered though. For, as Chester Himes said, "No matter what I did or how I lived, I had considered myself a writer

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