Forty Flags

Forty Flags, Richmond CA

Boo Thang and I have been in search for the perfect artwork to decorate our new apartment. We came up with a few ideas. I thought it might be fun get a cityscape of the places we are from. He couldn't find one without a cow taking a poop and I thought one with a liquor store repeated at every corner wasn't so attractive. I thought maybe I would use a picture of the house a grew up. I then remembered I lived in a motel most of my childhood. Not just any motel it had forty flags or at least the sign said it did. When I was in grade school all the kids would talk about where they lived. Some said a two story house which was code word for a townhouse in the projects. I lied and said a white one story house with a white picket fence and had a dog named Astro who could talk to humans (I was a cliche traditionalist) I could never tell these kids where I actually lived. I mean my neighbors consisted of women of the night and their escorts, who I thought at the time were kind enough to make sure they got in cars safely.  We also had the frequent adulterers who's  wives would sometimes show up and ask for the room number, we would always give it out to watch the show either from the window or the single camera view we had of the parking lot and rooms. While these conditions may seem a bit unfit for a child, I really had no other choice. My Granny, as I like to call her lived where she worked and as children of parents who decided they no longer wanted to be attach (My mom came back when I was 14 to live and she was pretty awesome for dropping me off at school) this was our only option, a one bedroom in a motel office equipped with a kitchenette,  a day bed for all 5 children and a granny, and of course roaches. I wasn't so sure anymore I wanted to be reminded of this place by displaying an artful picture on my wall of this shabby roach motel. This picture would bring back memories of my uncle Frankie (who was only 5 years older) constantly going on a terror rampage and flipping off the camera in the parking lot and letting us know he was about to break some neighborhood windows by holding up the stick he had in hand or some other random gadget that could easily smash a window. There was always something exciting going on. I wasn't allowed outside, for obvious reasons, but often watched the action from the window. My Granny would often buy merchandise from various vendors as I liked to call them. Granny was actually known as "Moma" to the the neighborhood-I use to think she had a lot of kids when I first moved in and quickly realized my Granny was not the Jezebel I mistook her for (She is a saint and love her so much for everything). The Converse Man was one such vendor who would walk around the neighborhood with a grocery cart filled with Converse shoe boxes and the Meat Man, who actually drove a proper meat truck but would sell some of the meat to us.  I often look back and laugh at the silly moments I encountered that resemble a scene in a straight to DVD film starring Ice Cube. While things were rough at times and I definitely remember some pretty scary moments I would never take this back as it made me realize we pay way to much for store bought meat. Kidding aside it has enriched my life for having experienced it. I am still on the search for the perfect picture to decorate my wall and if you ever visit me and see a shabby motel with a sign that reads "Forty Flags", now you know.