Eduard, born Ebbie, called Ed, renamed Eduard, which did not take, but alas, what is a man more than his name? And what is truth more than a word and deed done for the other who is weak, cold, and outcast?

"Thar He," cried Mose Wright who, with guts and courage seldom beheld in the whiteman's courtroom, pointed his long, hungry, boney black finger at the big bellied Caucasian man who had lynched his Chicago bred grandson; and the white man smiled like Satan when the votes were counted in the sovereign state of Florida in the maniacal year of 2000.

Yep, there I was, but wounded and disabled. The doctor's hand slipped as I slide from my mama's womb toward the old man. His thumb pierced my left eye.

I have been one-eyed from the start. Although, in that no-time between the tick and tock, when, with 2 good dark brown eyes, I did survey the wondrous hospital room in Bamberg, I eye-cornered a short black woman mopping up my mom's placenta which spilled onto the floor when the doc's hand slipped.

Slowly she raised her head. Our eyes met. "You gonna," she murmured. The white nurse angrily shot back, "Hush, Harriet, get your mopping done, and get on out of these white folks' way." That was all. But did she wink at me?