Why Aren't You Smiling? (21 page)

A few of the old people stared my way with expressions midway between fear and distaste as I entered their lounge. I walked up to the man waiting for death and crouched down so that my eyes were on the same level as his. He turned his head and glared at me, alarmed and angry. “You're not getting any money from me, Sonny.”

“I'm not after money,” I explained. “I seek wisdom.”

“Get the hell out,” ordered the man gruffly. He sounded not so much scared or angry as exhausted.

A woman in a floral dress seated a few feet away peered over at me and scowled. “Leave Fred alone. Just go.”

Fred turned to her and nearly barked, “I can take care of myself.” He turned back to me. “Wisdom, huh?” Usually when seated people turn, their body twists a little, but Fred was utterly immobile from the neck down. I wondered if he suffered from some form of paralysis. “I got yer wisdom for you right here. You listening?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to convey my sincerity with an expression of respectful attention.

“Don't take any wooden nickels.” Fred convulsed with laughter that sounded like a cross between rasping and choking.

The woman who'd asked me to leave Fred alone produced a sickly smile. “We're not scared of you,” she said.

Fred was still laughing.

Majorly creeped out, I stood up. “Namaste,” I said with a little bow. It felt good knowing that the man probably wouldn't understand the word.

“Fly away, little birdie,” said the woman dismissively. She made shooing motions with her hands, as if I were a pigeon.

The marionette master marched me out the door. I stood immobile trying to wrap my head around what had just gone down, but was distracted by my surroundings. On the corner was a wooden kiosk with a man inside selling newspapers. Could he be the modern American equivalent of a humble ferryman? A bosomy woman in a low-cut dress came out of a donut shop holding a little white bag. Was she a worldly-wise courtesan like Kamala? And those two furtive men conducting some sort of illicit transaction in the alley adjacent the hotel, what wisdom would they have to impart?

Before I (or the marionette master) could devise a plan of action, a voice addressed me from the sidewalk. “Spare change?”

I looked down to see a fellow with a gray-tinged beard huddled in the doorway of a boarded-up shop. His eyes were rheumy and his voice slurry from drink. Next to him sat a desiccated and disheveled Black man wearing a fedora at a rakish angle.

I compassionately dug a quarter out of my pocket and handed it over. “Here,” I said and then, wanting to imbue the crass commercial transaction with some spiritual uplift, added, “Spend it wisely.” I recognized right away that this sounded impertinent but was still shocked when the man made a sour face and threw the quarter into the street.

“Go fuck yourself,” he muttered.

“What you do that for?” The fedora man elbowed him and pointed to the street. “Quarters grow on trees? You pick that up.”

“Fuuuuck you,” groaned the bearded man, slowly shutting his eyes as if the sight of the world were too much for his delicate sensibilities.

The fedora man looked up at me. “Hey, white boy, go get that quarter.” There was no hostility in his request, but the reminder of my race and its shameful history sent me scurrying into the street. I found the quarter and dropped it into his outstretched palm. “Thanks. Right kind of you,” said the man, nodding.

“Don't mention it,” I said hastily. I started to walk off, but then remembered my quest and turned back to the seated pair.

“If you don't mind my asking, what do you think the meaning of life is?”

“Get right with Jesus,” declared the fedora man, not missing a beat.

“Fuck Jesus,” muttered the bearded man. He took the quarter from his friend's hand and added it to a pile of change he produced from his pocket and started counting with an unhappy scowl.

Fedora man frowned at his friend. “You goin' to Hell for that.”

I'd never liked the idea of Hell. “You believe Jesus loves everyone, right?”

“Sure thing,” said fedora man.

“And you believe Jesus is God, right?”

Fedora man shook his head up and down. “Absolutely, praise the Lord.”

“So God Loves everyone?”

The bearded man snorted, but fedora man paused, gave this some serious consideration, then finally declared, “Well, now, as it happens, I suppose that I do believe that God Loves everyone.”

“If He Loves your friend, how could He send him to Hell?”

Fedora man chuckled. “You ask good questions!”

“Or what if God doesn't just Love everyone, but
is
Love. Or what if He isn't just Love, but everything that is, the sum totality of all consciousness…”

Before I could finish, the bearded man poured the change into his friend's hand. “We got enough.”

“Thank the Good Lord,” said fedora man. He pocketed the change and with great effort stood up. I wanted to offer my hand and help him, but couldn't make myself. He looked dirty and smelled foul. Oh, the shame! In my next life, I'd surely be reincarnated as a beggar.

“Take care now, Sonny,” said fedora man, hobbling toward a nearby liquor store.

“Peace be with you,” I replied.

The bearded man looked disgusted. “Fuck you both!” As he spoke, fedora man tripped and stumbled to his knees. This time it was instinctive. I trotted to his side and helped him up by the arm. He felt incredibly light, as if, under his shabby trenchcoat he were constructed of chicken bones and newspapers.

“Thank you right kindly,” said the man, tipping his hat with old-fashioned courtesy. As he went inside the store I could almost feel my karmic burden lighten. I was aiding the afflicted! The next order of business was finding a sink – for though I'd only touched the man's coat, I felt an overpowering compulsion to wash my hands. I began jaywalking towards a greasy spoon across the street, but noticed a sign in the window stating Restroom for Customers Only. I shifted directions toward the Greyhound bus terminal, a few doors over. Inside, I located their gargantuan, dingy, white-tiled bathroom. At the nearest sink I scrubbed my hands vigorously with the unnaturally fragrant pink soap and hot water till I was sure of being cootie-free. I felt mildly ashamed of my own disgust but consoled myself that cleanliness was, after all, next to godliness.

Safely sanitary once more, I exited the terminal just in time to see fedora man emerge from the liquor store pulling the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes. My heart plummeted. I'd aided him all right… aided him in purchasing the instruments of his own death! Oh, I had so many lessons to learn. I knew that all consciousness was One, and our individual psyches were only temporarily separated in order to be perfected through reincarnation. Every spirit would lead every life in the infinite universe, learning new lessons each time. I was probably a Young Soul, in need of many more lives before I could rejoin the cosmic unity. Not that I wasn't really already part of it. The separation was an illusion, as was time. That part of
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
had been right. We're all of us already everywhere, but just don't know it.

My ruminations were interrupted by the screech of a car swerving to miss me. I'd walked right into the street without looking! I smiled an apology to the driver, a young woman glaring at me with undisguised fury. She drove off, cursing me under her breath. I was racking up bad karma at an alarming rate! Suddenly, the marionette master took over. My body felt turbo-charged as I set off randomly, walking, walking, walking. Eventually I found myself in a residential neighborhood full of dilapidated Victorian houses and rundown apartment blocks. Despite their peeling paint and rusty railings, I preferred these to modern buildings as they had Soul. Evening fell and still I kept walking, enjoying the subtle thrill of being alone at night on the streets of a city my parents considered dangerous.

When my stomach began growling, I found a corner store and bought a tuna sandwich wrapped in cellophane and a Coke. I went outside and sat a bus stop bench to eat. As I did, I pondered the city around me. I was now in a lively district full of bars, restaurants, and boutiques catering to hip, young adults. All around were groups of people looking busy and cheery. Perhaps I envied them, just a little, but far better to be a Lonesome Wanderer seeking Truth than some outwardly happy zombie living an unexamined life in which bustle and striving took the place of wisdom and contentment.

As I finished my sandwich, I caught sight of a boy just a few years older than me walking across the street. His profile was exceptionally noble, resembling an illustration of young King Arthur from one of my favorite childhood storybooks. He wore tight denim flairs, a skimpy sleeveless tee-shirt with no jacket, and his long, dishwater blond hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. I was hit with an emotional tidal wave. This boy was no different than me, but he was poor. He would go home not to a cozy well-furnished house with a backyard, but a shabby apartment. And given his hair and demeanor of self-possessed street savvy, he was much cooler than I was. He probably slept naked and had a nickname.

The marionette master jerked me to my feet and set me to following him. In one motion, I gulped the last of my soda and tossed the can at a nearby waste-bin. My aim was, however, poor as always and the can missed, ricocheting off the top of the receptacle. Startled by the noise, the boy I'd been following turned around just in time to see me retrieve the can and dispose of it properly. He caught me looking at him and smiled. My heart froze and my legs buckled. I landed on the sidewalk in a sitting position with a painful thud.

The boy came over to me. “You OK?”

I had no words with which to express the welter of emotions I felt as I looked into his hazel green eyes, so I just nodded my head.

“Here.” The boy took my arm and helped me up. “Do you speak?” He thought I was mute! Though being mute sounded appealing just at that moment, I couldn't tell a lie.

“I can talk.”

“Did you faint?” The boy, every bit as handsome from the front as in profile, grinned. “You look kinda pale. C'mon, I'll buy you a drink.” This proposal was so unexpected, so sophisticated and adult, that I was again struck dumb.

“My name's Gabe, by the way.”

“Leonard,” I croaked, my voice coming out as a whisper due to my nervously constricted throat.

Gabe kept up a running monologue as we walked, most of which was incomprehensible. “This bar is great, they
never
ID. And the guys there are scrum-diddley-umptious! Beef, chicken, and everything in between. You're a bit on the porky end yourself, but you do have youth on your side. Make hay while the sun shines, I always say.”

The way Gabe spoke without pauses made him sound mentally ill, like one of the babblers who spare-changed around the university. Every time I looked at him, though, all I could think was that I wanted us to be very good friends. Soon enough we were outside a small hole-in-the-wall bar from which loud disco music blared.

Gabe pushed though the front doors as if he owned the place and I followed. The inside was dark but once my eyes adjusted I saw that it was what the Christians of yore would have called a Fleshpot. The space was evenly divided between a tiny dance floor on which perhaps a dozen men writhed under bright flashing lights, and a bar, around which another dozen men drank, chattered, whooped, and cackled. The only female present was a Filipina-looking woman at the bar wearing a slinky white dress and high heels. A man whispered in her ear and she let out a deep masculine laugh that utterly jarred me. In the corner, two guys in short shorts, mirrored sunglasses, and yellow hard hats were making out with wild abandon. I was in a gay bar.

Gabe pointed to a bench in a corner. “Go sit, I'll be right back.” He disappeared into the small crowd vying for the attention of the lone bartender. I'd once seen a gay bar on a made-for-TV movie about a boy whose father turned out to be homosexual. Compared to this place, the TV bar looked like a country club. In fact, the scene around me resembled a multi-ethnic remake of the scene in Cecil B. DeMille's
The Ten Commandments
when the Hebrews went berserk and worshipped the Golden Calf with a wild orgy.

Gabe reappeared and handed me a yellow concoction in a short glass. “Vodka pineapple. Full of vitamins. Good for whatever ails ya.”

“Thanks.” I tried a sip and discovered it mostly sweet, but slightly poisonous.

“Listen,” said Gabe, looking slightly amphibian under the weird bar lights, “I've got some business to attend to. You look OK now. Hope you don't go fainting again. Bye.” He darted off to join a fat man in a suit at the doorway and left. I wished he'd come back. I could see us roaming the world together, partners in the search for enlightenment. Would he be Siddhartha and I Govinda, or vice versa?

I didn't have time to ponder this because suddenly I became acutely conscious of being a fish out of water. Most of the men around me sported mustaches or beards with shockingly short hair while I was clean-shaven with long, luxuriant locks. And while I wore modest clothing, loose and humbly colored in earth-tones, they wore bright, tight, skimpy disco-wear that showed off their bodies. And what bodies! These men had bulging biceps, strong chests, and athletic poise. Were anyone to notice me, they'd surely see a pathetic clumsy oaf.

Suddenly thirsty, I downed the rest of my drink. As I put my glass down on the bench beside me, a man in red short shorts and a tank top came out of nowhere and shoved a tiny bottle under my nose. “Here, Sweetchips!” he sang out. Before I knew what was happening, I'd inhaled something noxious. “C'mon!” said the man, grabbing my hands and pulling me to my feet.

My head began throbbing painfully in time with the music. “What did you just do? What was that?”

He gave me a funny look. “Ain'tcha never seen poppers?”