Noodles’ Accompaniment
by Quincy Scott Jones
I grew up with a full stomach, grew up with access to books, and grew up with parents that encouraged a life in the arts. These privileges, especially the last one, are not often granted to people of color. So I was grateful to have parents that passed down the rationale that since slaves could be killed for being literate, the written word must hold value, there must be great wealth with every turn of a page. It was a privilege to be an educated writer. And yet, in my twenties, with several degrees and published pieces, I found myself scraping money together to find food.
But such is the way of the adjunct professor. The first paycheck of the school year was often held until October. The last paycheck received could be as far back as June. In the hallways of academia, in the excitement of September, my colleagues would talk complexities of theory in one breath, problems with finding rent in the next.
Still, even with the gross inequities of higher education, it is a privilege. My situation was always temporary, seasonal. How many deal with hunger on a daily basis? How many who look like me are starving in the land of plenty?
In the area of pandemic, in the time of quarantine, I get headaches teaching to my computer. I lecture to names in black boxes on mute, my best students still pixels on my screen. And yet, how many risk sicknesses just to make “ends meet”? How many are now jobless and just scraping by? How many are hungry when I finally log off from class, rise and make dinner for my wife?
Quincy Scott Jones is the author of the The T-Bone Series, published by Whirlwind Press in 2009. His work has appeared in African American Review, The North American Review, Love Jawns: A Mixtape, and The Feminist Wire as well as anthologies Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology, and Black Lives Have Always Mattered: A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Personal Narratives. With Nina Sharma, he co-curates Black Shop, a column that thinks about allyship between BIPOC artists. His graphic narrative, Black Nerd, is in the works.