The Man of Legends

by Kenneth C. Johnson

Then I come to a dead stop ’cause I caught sight of it. Whoa! It’uz glowin’ in the sun up aheada me. The fuckin’ Metropolitan Museum. I’uz amazed. It’uz so huge-assed I could see it from blocks away. Ain’t nothin’ like it in the

Bronx. Look like it come right out of some movie like Gladiator. Made me nervous, swallowin’ uncomfortable, y’know? I knowed that place definitely couldn’t be my kickin’ spot. I’m thinkin’ Will’s crazy. They ain’t gonna let some sorry ass like me go in there. When I got up right ’cross the street I seen they was about a hundred steps climbin’ up to the entrance from a big ol’ wide sidewalk along Fifth. Even though it’uz freezin’, lotta people’uz sittin’ on the steps, having hot dogs and coffee and shit. I’uz surprised how most of ’em’uz just regular people, not dressed snooty or nothin’. I seen blacks and Latins and Asians all different ages and all mixed in. I even saw a couple of street punks who looked just like me. I felt they’uz scopin’ me out, threatenin’-like, but then a couple just popped their heads, acknowledgin’ me. I nod back subtle, tryin’ to give off like I comed here all the time. Then I climbed up them steps ’tween the people and went through these huge-ass iron doors. When I stepped inside, my guts jumped. It’uz like in-tense! My eyes went wide as a big momma’s ass, and I whispered right out loud, “Whoa, muthafucka!”

If I thought these digs’uz big on the outside, on the inside it seemed even more gi-normous. I felt fuckin’ microscopic standing on this wide stone floor there in what’uz the biggest room I ever seen in my life. All made of this gray-whitish stone. All round me was these columns goin’ up fifty feet to a balcony with a stone fence round it. I seen lotsa people walkin’ up there. Lookin’ even higher up I seen skylights with the noonday sunshine streamin’ down in. Made me feel like I’uz on the terrace of some kinda outdoor garden, specially ’cause they’uz potted plants and flowers all round. There’uz a buncha flowers big enough for somebody to hide in sittin’ on toppa this circle counter in the center. I ain’t never even imagined a buildin’ like that place. I heard some touristy guy nearby to me sayin’, “Magnificent.” I heard that word before somewheres but never had somethin’ to ’ply it to till just that minute. It’uz weird...

subway car. It gimme a kick. Made me laugh a little to myself. Like I’uz just startin’ on some kinda cool new adventure. But I didn’t see no pitchers nowhere. I didn’t wanta sound like a dumb ass, so I walked around some, pretendin’ I been there lots and I’uz just decidin’ what to do. Then I ’membered the map that Will give me. I pulled it out and scoped it, but I’uz still confused. I seen some peeps at that counter in the middle axin’ questions so I sidled up closer. This older white woman behind the counter smiled at me and talked in a foreign but friendly accent, “Welcome to the Met.” She axed if it was my first time. I shook my head like I’uz a pro, but showed her the map, sayin’ I’uz just tryin’ to ’member the way to the Sackler Wing. I wanted to see that old graffiti Will’uz talkin’ about. I discovered what they called the Sackler Wing didn’t mean no wing like on a bird. It’uz another gi-normous room, bu...

of trees and sky. I also seen ’em reflected in this big pond o’water! Surroundin’ a stone island in the middle o’the room! I heard these Arab-lookin’ visitor guys talkin’, sayin’ the water represented the River Nile. The stone island’s almost as big as the whole damn room, but sitting up ’bout three feet out of the water. The water’uz dead still. In the middle of the island I seen what Will told me about: the Temple of Dendur. In front is this big stone gateway. Before I crossed the stone bridge over to it, I read a sign that said only part o’Dendur had survived ages of weather and earthquakes. It said these last ruins’uz gonna be flooded by them building some high Aswan Dam over in Egypt, so museum people had took it apart and brung it to New York. Then I crossed the stone bridge over the water to the island. I stopped at the big stone doorway. I reached out and touched it. That’uz pretty cool. At a couple thousand years, this templ...

tagging like Will said there was. Later on I tol’ my little cousin Chico, “Fool I was, thinkin’ it’uz gonna be like paint or somethin’.” That fifteen-foot stone gateway sits out by itself in the front. I walked under it toward the larger pieces of Dendur. Passin’ ’tween the two thick columns on the front I seen that behind ’em there’uz a square room made o’stone. That’s where I found the graffiti: a few names of French soldier guys chiseled into the stone. And the date they’uz there: 1799. It wudn’t much, but give me a weird kinda feeling twice over. I thought, Here I am lookin’ at them names cut into stone a couple hundred years ago, and I’m standin’ in a place somebody else built a couple thousand years ago! I ’magined the workmen who builded Dendur, cuttin’ them stones out of some quarry, then haulin’ and stackin’ ’em up with no cranes or skip loaders. And...

’magined ’em over there in Egypt one day a long time ago in 1799. Sittin’ in the shade of ol’ Dendur, eatin’ they lunch and maybe burpin’ or fartin’ and laughin’. Jus’ like me and Ray mighta done. Then usin’ they swords to scratch they names into the old stone wall. And it wudn’t even like art, it’uz just they names. And this’uz all that’s left of ’em. Made me think ’bout my own tagging. No matter how cool somethin’ is I paint, it don’t hardly last a month before some asshole covers i...