The Kindness

The Kindness will catch you now quicker than gangbusters.

This is the only line I can remember from that sheet of paper — a photocopy of a one-page poem with drawings. One of the drawings was of a gun, I remember that. Maybe there was a bullet coming out of it, which produced a visual effect, like a hard rule in typesetting. The handwritten text flowed around the drawing. The poem repeated the word kindness over and over again, like a mantra. It may have been written by a student at the broadcast school in Chicago, I was attending at the time, the early '90s, where I happened to be taking a Poetry class.

The Kindness poem wasn't from the class, I found it in the hallway somewhere, maybe on a bench where someone kindly left it, and I picked it up and read about the Kindness. I kept The Kindness for some time, possibly years, before it slipped from my possession. The gang culture in Chicago is as strong and fierce as in any big city. Not that I would know, years later, hanging out in the martini bar and then riding home on the train that banged and clanged and smelled slightly of sweat and urine. The kid riding on the train that night, telling me he was poor but not asking for a handout, just sharing his story. I told him I was an intern and a volunteer and was also technically poor, he looked at me suspiciously. He was from a poor neighborhood on the South Side of the city, and me, just a young adult from the suburbs. With kindness, we went about our way.

But why would this gangbanger write such a wonderful poem about kindness? I'm sure it wasn't the pretentious student in my poetry class who, on the first day, answered the teacher's question "What is poetry?" with "Poetry is company for your soul." Everyone was pleased with that answer. Maybe I felt jealous that I didn't have the best answer — or any answer — at that point. But I found my answer more in that sheet of paper and its kindness poem than I did in the class. In fact, that random poem, written by someone involved in the gang culture of Chicago, probably taught me more about poetry than I learned from the coursework. I have no other memories of the class, other than some vague sexual innuendo from the "poetry of soul" guy.

The poem, that class, and Wesley Willis have all dematerialised now. I recall Wesley — he could have been sitting on some crates outside the Cabaret Metro music hall, drawing a picture of it as he drew so many buildings around Chicago. As intimidating a figure as he was, I knew him to be a kind and gentle soul. I would have peered over his shoulder to admire the drawing, thinking to myself it was so basic and sketchy, not recognising the importance of the work or the person who created it. I did appreciate its value at the time, but that is life, you don't know what you have until it's gone.

The Kindness will catch you now quicker than gangbusters. It will put you in a headlock and whup your ass if you do not respect it.