Walking home, I passed the local elementary school and stopped to look into the window of a first-grade classroom, where the lights were still on as the janitor finished his work. I see that the first grade is through the “B’s” now—“B is for bat and ball and bed and bird . . .” and so on. Also two big B’s back to back make a butterfly, which can be turned into a work of art with crayons. “C” is coming. Along with addition and subtraction.
All the neat little desks and chairs, and workbooks, and bins of games are there, ready for tomorrow. It’s like looking into a dynamite storage room, knowing that, come morning, the miners in the pit of learning will be back at the seams of knowledge, blasting and digging and hauling away.
I envy them.
These first graders learn all day, have sleepovers and playdates and recess, and someone to tell them a story at night and carry them to bed and tuck them in. Maybe that’s what extended care is like when you get old and feeble and stupid. One last chance at the lovely moments.
In my pocket as I walk is a trilobite, which I carry and turn over in my fingers as a talisman. It’s a fossil preserved in black slate from life 530 million years ago, when nothing like us was around.
I sat still in the moonlight on the bench on the highest hill in my mind, held my trilobite in my hand, and considered the long view. It’s my “ant-in-Chicago” position. An ant will never comprehend Chicago. Never. But sometimes the ant must have a vague sense that something astonishing is going on around it. Vibrations and energy and change. As I do.
The long view—the Big Picture: what’s the meaning of it all?
I can’t seem to let go of the wondering. That’s a good thing. But meanwhile, I may, like those first graders, give my life meaning by throwing myself recklessly into it daily, as if something astonishing is happening and I am part of it.
It is and I am.
17
Hopelessly Confused Sometimes:
A Story with Four Parts
and No End
Part One
Between my office and my home there are several traffic intersections where people regularly stand with cardboard signs asking for help: “Homeless.” “Will Work For Food.” “Viet Nam Vet With Aids.” “Why Lie, Need a Beer.” “Need A Ride. Anywhere But Here.” “We All Need A Little Help Sometimes.” And the most inventive sign: “Ninjas Killed My Family—Need Tae Kwan Do Lessons.”
One woman in particular has drawn my attention several times. She doesn’t stand with her hand out. She sits on a green plastic bucket looking down at her hands. She doesn’t look very needy either: young and pretty, neat and clean, and dressed in the refugee-style of most people her age.
The wording on her sign varies: “Stranded.” “Broke.” “Pregnant.” “Sick and Tired.” And this morning’s message: “Hopelessly Confused.” What to do for her? I don’t know.
It’s easy to excuse my concern for these intersection beggars by thinking most are probably not helpless—begging is just their day job. Some must be scam artists. And some may be addicts or drunks wanting only enough cash for a fix. And some are probably already on all kinds of welfare—many outreach programs are available in Seattle.
So I tell myself.
I’ve thought it through. Often.
But still, there I am, idling, waiting for the light.
And there they are, six feet away.
I have far more than enough. They do not.
And here we are, face-to-face.
Part Two
I wondered what it would be like to be out there on the street. I tried to imagine myself hunkered down on a corner, looking old, ugly, scruffy, and pitiful—with my “Need Help” sign. Just to feel what it must be like to do what they do.
I could imagine doing that. I just couldn’t bring myself to actually do it. But maybe I could come close. So, on Friday afteroon, when I saw a street-side beggar, I parked my car and stood in a bus-stop shelter about twenty feet away and watched.
It was five o’clock, hot day, roaring traffic, cars with people headed home from work. Raggedy middle-aged guy with a sign: “Homeless Viet Nam Vet.” A wave of rejection washed over him. People stared or looked once, then pointedly looked away. A few changed lanes to avoid him. One rolled down his window and shouted, “Get a job, jackass!” Two guys in a van flipped him the finger, and a car full of teenagers swerved at him and honked. In an hour he got one smile and one dollar and one hell of a lot of hostility. I felt bad for him and bad for the human race. But not half as bad as he must have felt. A hard, miserable job. You would have to be both tough and desperate to do it, no matter what your reasons.
So what happened next? I did what you would do. Talked to him. Gave him twenty dollars and a ride back to the shelter downtown where he spends the night. I didn’t feel like I deserved any credit. I could not fix his life. I know that. And pity is not compassion. I know that. He would be back on the street tomorrow. I know that, too.
Part Three
And how about that girl on the green bucket: “Stranded, Homeless, Pregnant, Sick and Tired, and Hopelessly Confused?” The combination of her appearance and her signs mystified me. Maybe she is really involved in research of some kind. Writing a Ph.D. thesis on homelessness. When I saw her again a few days later I parked, walked back, and said, “Hello.”
She looked up and shouted
“I suppose you’re looking for sex! Most guys like you are!”
What? How could she just glance at me and judge me?
“I only want to help,” I said.
“Oh sure, they all say that. Well, I’m a drug addict with AIDS and you wouldn’t want to screw me. Don’t mess with me either—I’ve got a knife and I can protect myself. Just satisfy your middle-class conscience and give me some money and go away.” (That’s not exactly what she said. Her language was acidly crude.)
Her sign said: “Hopelessly Confused.” And now there were two of us. And neither one of us was going to get any good feelings out of the encounter. Her cynicism and my naïveté didn’t add up to a positive number. Maybe she’s crazy, I thought. But what difference does that make? Before I could do anything, she picked up her belongings, crossed the street, and walked away, leaving only me on the corner.
I wished she had left me her sign. Hopelessly confused. That’s me.
Part Four
These encounters with those who profess need will never be simple or easy or leave me satisfied, I suppose. And having tried, oh so briefly, to stand in the footsteps of those who ask, I am at least more convinced that they are all desperately needy if they are out there.
It is not my job to judge them. It is my job to judge me.
Sure, if I give something to each and all of them, I may in the process give to some who do not really deserve help. That’s the chance I take, but I will have not missed anyone whose need is real.
I could do more. Right. And God and the government could do more. Right. Society could do more. Right. But never mind all that. In the meantime I am there at the existential intersection—in the moment—with more than I need. And they are there—in the moment—asking for help. And no matter what I do, I will go away feeling that nothing is finally resolved.
Maybe that’s my problem: this matter of having something “finally resolved.” Wanting to do good and feel good at the same time. Wanting a permanent, surgical solution when a temporary bandage is all that the moment requires. Having great expectations when a small kindness is enough. Hopelessly confusing a need to have a final YES or NO with the reality that only untidy MAYBE is ever possible.
I must not pass by—I cannot. Maybe being a bleeding heart is always better than having no heart at all.
18
Just a Moment
How many times in my life have I said that phrase?
Or, considering the phrase another way, how many small moments of my life remain fixed in memory marking sudden insight, epiphany, revelation, inspiration, enlightenment, beauty, or joy. The sudden flash of l
ight. The instant of comprehension. So immediate, so evanescent.
There are those unforgettable big lightning strikes: Love at first sight, comprehending algebra, flying solo, seeing your mother as a person, and knowing that, this time, the jumper cables are hooked up right. And so on.
But there are the small flashes—when time and again something like a neutron of imagination collides with an ordinary particle of perception in your senses and something new and unforgettable flies off and sticks. And you were glad you were there when it happened.
I know this is getting wooly minded. There isn’t just the right word for this experience—all the ones I know are too small or too large. But I have no doubt you know what I’m talking about. Not the cosmic stuff.
Just a moment . . .
From time to time I will try sharing one of mine, beginning with a man and some rocks.
19
Rockman
Myrtle Edwards Park is a long, narrow strip of green on Seattle’s west waterfront at Elliott Bay. The shoreline there is protected by a steep breakwater of granite rubble—gray, rough, angular stones of all sizes. Practical, but not pretty. Certainly not the raw material for art, unless you have the imagination of Rockman.
He makes sculptures out of those ugly rocks. Delicately balanced stacks of heavy jagged stones, four or five or even six feet tall. Not only do the piles seem to defy gravity, they seem to defy good judgment—because if a stack fell while he was working on it, he could get seriously hurt—toes or fingers crushed. Dangerous art. That’s why people stand around silently, holding their breath while watching Rockman work.
He’s young and homeless, part Mexican, part Black. Sleeps in the bushes at the park in a tiny tent. Started stacking rocks on impulse one afternoon. People stopped to watch and gave him money in appreciation of his skill and courage. Now this is what he does for a living. When he finishes a piece, he stands back from it and sings a song to it or recites a poem. Performance Art. At the end of each day, he lets people push the work over into the water. No problem. He values the process of making art, not the finished sculpture.
I wish I had a picture of Rockman to show you, but he asks that he not be photographed. His reasons vary. Says he’s in the Witness Protection Program. Fears that one of his wives might recognize him. Claims that he is the love-child of Condoleeza Rice and the president of Mexico. Says that he is proof that aliens have landed and made a few mistakes.
You’ll just have to imagine what Rockman and his art look like.
He has no problem imagining his life.
He has something I want but cannot have.
The memory of just a moment.
That particular magical moment that day when he looked at those rubbly rocks and saw . . . art.
20
Freaky
A tattoo convention was held this last weekend at the Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center. Two hundred licensed professional tattooists displayed their designs and demonstrated their skills in open booths where actual tattooing and body piercing took place in full view of the conventioneers. Not exactly a WASP potluck supper.
In fact, I may have been a one-man minority. The crowd was young, multi-racial, multi-pierced, multi-tattooed and outlandishly dressed. And I was an older, white, clean-cut, bearded man in a jacket and tie, who was on his way out to dinner and had just stopped by to see what the counterculture was up to. They stared at me.
“Look at him—how freaky can you get?”
I did see a way for me to fit in sometime in the future. An elderly man in a black bikini bottom was posing for photographers. His scrawny old hide was completely covered from neck to wrist and on down to his feet in traditional Japanese tattoos.
Cutie-pie young tattooed chicks with tight tank tops and short shorts paid five bucks each to sit on his knees to have their pictures taken with him.
Noticing me, he winked and said:
“Beats hell out of bingo at the nursing home.”
21
Square
Not more than fifty yards away at the same time in the main court of Seattle Center, the free Friday-evening dance party was underway. Hearing the music as I left the tattoo convention, I wandered over.
Tonight it’s square dancing, and there are several squares of older, experienced dancers hard at work. The women are dressed in low-heeled shoes with straps over the instep, with fluffy petticoats under colorful skirts. The men wear shirts that match the skirts. Now this is more like a WASP potluck.
They’re an ill-built, odd-lot bunch of geezers, but damn, they can dance: so smooth, so easy, so together. The same with the couples’ dances as well—waltzes, polkas, and two-steps. I might not give any of them a second glance in passing on the street, but I can’t keep my eyes off them now.
One couple drew my attention. He was old and gray, and danced with the slightly awkward movements of a man with an artificial leg. I can see its outline underneath his trouser leg. She’s old and plump and golden blonde. At the end of one arm is a steel hook, but she partners well while compensating only slightly for not having one hand.
What’s their story? How did they lose their limbs? It doesn’t seem to make any difference to them or their dancing. They’re really good. They dance every dance. And laugh when they sit down. They seem very happy.
It’s possible that they are.
22
Halloween Hangover
Only now, two days later, am I coming down from the sugar high of Halloween. Whatever well-meaning adults may say or wish, IT IS THE CANDY, stupid. Of course it rots your teeth and makes you fat and spoils your appetite and makes you manic and even sick. I don’t care.
A three-day sweet-binge once a year is something to look forward to. Besides, my mother is not around now to supervise me. And it’s not true that I’m a bad influence on my grandchildren. I do not eat candy around them because their mother is around. I take the candy surplus, as a favor to their parents, and eat it alone whenever I want.
These are the perks of seniority.
________
For Halloweening this year I wore my white-rabbit costume, with black mask, blinking red nose, fake blood running out of my mouth in which I wore fake fangs. And I moved along the dark streets in that baggy-pants rolling lurch perfected by young rapsters-in-the-hood.
Scary?
Questionable.
People were surprised to see the Easter Bunny at Halloween—especially the Big Bunny of Death. I figure even the Easter Bunny has a dark side. He’s probably disappointed with his very limited role of hiding hard-boiled, dyed chicken eggs once a year. Big Deal. Being reproduced in chocolate so little kids can bite his head off can’t make him happy with his job either.
Out in the night trick-or-treating with my grandchildren and nieces, I was suddenly accosted by an eight-year-old kid in a pig suit. “Stop!” he shouted. He peered at the Easter Bunny of Death with the white beard. “How old are you?” he wanted to know.
Busted by the Trick-or-Treat Police.
“Very old and very wicked. Did you know the Death Bunny eats little pigs?” I growled. He was not impressed. He shrugged his shoulders. There were much scarier things out on the sidewalk than an old guy in a rabbit suit.
Next year I want a two-humped camel outfit. Talking someone into driving the back end of the thing may be a problem. The Death Camel ought to freak out somebody. Especially if he also stalks the streets at Christmas. Death Camels eat Wise Men. Did you know that?
Scary?
Questionable.
23
Flashlight Advice
Lots of flashlights out in the streets on Halloween. For safety, of course, but also because little kids really like flashlights.
It’s an introduction to adult power. Toys but not-toys.
Longer lasting and less expensive than a lot of the junk we give them.
No fire, no smoke, no calories.
Just light—to shine in dark places.
Where there would be no lig
ht otherwise.
Not a bad metaphor for a basic life mission.
Not really kid stuff, after all.
If you want to please little children, give them their own flashlight.
Not cheapo, cutesy, throw-aways, either.
Give them real grown-up, heavy-duty rubberized flashlights.
With extra bulbs and batteries.
And show them all the neat things you can do with light.
Shadow figures. Monster faces. Tag games.
Remember?
Use your imagination. So they will use theirs.
The purpose of flashlights is to show the Way.
24
Fools and Fat Butts
A neighbor my age has resumed his childhood passion for bicycling. His new ride is a titanium-zirconium-carbon-fiber recumbent bike. Even with fifty gears, a GPS, and full shock absorbers, it probably weighs less than his laptop.
But it’s not the bike that stuns me: it’s his outfit. Cute red shoes, a Star Wars helmet that makes his head seem like it’s going faster than the rest of his body, fighter-pilot sun goggles, and a color-splashed, skin-tight Lycra body-suit that leaves little to the imagination.
As I look at him, my steady grin is a ziplock on a belly laugh. I know the truth. He wants to look cool while reducing the size of his big fat butt.
He stopped by to decline my invitation to an evening of salsa dancing at my house. “Can’t dance—I’d make a fool of myself on the floor,” says he. Well, all right. But he doesn’t mind dressing like a second-rate circus freak on a bike? When he rode off, I saw from behind his big fat butt looking like two loose cannonballs in a condom. No doubt he’s never seen himself from this angle.
What On Earth Have I Done? Page 4