Happy Families!

     There are human beings living in there; human beings I will never meet. I found this by happenstance, when looking for a quiet corner of the world to hide and do some drugs; that being coffee, Starbucks coffee, my favorite drug dealers.

     Not a particularly nice looking building, but it sits at the heart of a very opulent area. That's Los Angeles for you, a third world county that doesn't see itself for what it is because is busy telling the rest of world how to live.

     I grew up an orphan, and windows are, and always have been my Achilles's heel. I remember seeing them at night - beauty and perfection has always taken place at night for me; under the harsh light of day I see it all - I remember windows lit inside and waited to get a glimpse of a mother, a father, their happy children. It is the only thing I have envied in this world: families.

     In my imagination, they were always happy and I always walked away feeling sad and lonely; asking God why He had deprived me of a family. It would be years until I found out he doesn't exist.

     If you look carefully at the picture, you will see the hanging grapes on the wall that mark the division of the property line. I tried one. They are as sour as I feel right now. I wonder if someone with a better life story than mine would find any sweetness in them.

     Could it be true? Could life be a matrix where our experiences reflect how we feel? If it is, then I'm doomed because when I see lit or unlit windows I always imagine a happy family inside; something I've never had.

The Light of Night

     I travel into myself; there's no other destination as urgent, as essential. I, a ghost in my own lifetime, too old  to fit among the live, naive, the young; too optimistic for the bitter, the old, the others that harvested practicality from all they've lived.

     I fit nowhere. I have nothing else but the journey within, the lonely road into myself, like a teenager swimming in a river, diving deeper and deeper into the darkness without ever looking back at the horizon, the misleading thin line of light above; deeper and deeper until a voice out of nowhere reminds me: " This is not your environment, you need air."  Air being others of my kind. 

     But it is the diving I enjoy. It is the diving that disperses bits of truth, moments of me that pop like bubbles in the water surrounding me,  in which I recognize my humanity; the revealed moments of me within myself. The diving one must do alone, without love, companionship; love requires the surface, the island, a blanket: basket, fresh fruit, wine. Another. London.The sun. 

     The sun does nothing but reveal the already seen. Such useless star, the sun. Scorching everything below, as pretentious as an ivy league college professor, pontificating, like that gentleman on PBS who interviewed others and spoke gravely, exuding importance, saying nothing original, regurgitating words of others as if the simple act of understanding merited such arrogance. Such is the sun above. 

     At night, I temper with things at easy. Not at will. In the dark corners, shadows, and reflections of light, the subconscious flourishes, comes out to space, to air  the dense matter inside: mash of memories, disappointments, deep injuries and sorrows. It comes out to be among others, outside of the harsh light that judges, that seem to understand but doesn't. How can it, when the entity itself labors for the reasoning of its own mysterious actions and words?

     In the darkness of lonely nights, if one sits still, doesn't interfere, doesn't judge, one can get those lovely bubbles of self recognition. One can meet the true self dormant within.

     I guess this is my way of saying that this world has gotten to be overexposed and so, so, so very loud that everyone should just shut the hell up! Myself included.

     For a bit. A heartbeat or two until we are so deep within ourselves that we have something to say. About ourselves. Not others. 

Downtown

Near the chaos

of a big city

I met a man.

On a narrow street,

forgotten,

like a bloodless vessel 

in the heart of the city

of the hidden angels.

The man with sharp wit

inquisitive mind

blue shirt

surrounded by pigeons

like a renaissance painting, 

sat invisible,

amidst the Asturian architecture.

He pulled a chair,

I quietly sat.

When a man

talks about his son

one should always listen:

my son the musician

my son the artist,

the genius, the soulful,

the embodiment of an ideal;

my daughter 

the producer, the writer,

the unrelenting warrior -

my heart

begins pondering my own story.

You can easily measure 

the stature of a man

when he,

unaware of his own stature,

is busy elevating others.

When you walk away 

from such a man

you can no longer hide

the smallness inside:

I’m filled with tomorrows

haunted by the yesteryears 

unaware of beauty,

beneath my feet,

unnoticed,

a few blocks from my home.

In the past

I hurt for men,

sleeping on the edge of buildings

sometimes

so forgotten by themselves that

they fall short,

and lie

on sidewalks

on the edge of the street.

I hurt for them no more,

and I no longer float on clouds

my generous heart creates.

Today I met a man

who wanted nothing from me,

and as I walked away

I finally embraced 

all the lost souls in the city:

the homeless, the destitute,

prostitutes, thieves, beggars.

They are no longer

the pitiful

the sorrowful,

the forgotten,

they are what they always were:

they are me,

reflected everywhere.

                                              

Homebound

 

     He stepped this way, that way, the other way; his fingers inside a peanut butter jar; half-empty; eating and pacing. Where does one go when there's no place to go to? His hair, Jamaican style, lending a vitality to his ambiguous steps, or perhaps, it was his firefighter suit jacket that implanted the thought on my mind, causing the judgment, pre-judgement, misjudgment. 

     He began crossing the street, stopped, turned around, stepped backwards: that way, this way, again. He looked inside his jar and got his fingers dirty again; stuck in his mouth and sucked it clean. How long has it been?

     Someone, long ago, handed you a pacifier, apropos of that, immersed in something- what? What kind of parents did you have? Apple juice, milk, beer, wine? Did they imagine their baby would grow such a beautiful dreadlock? I bet they never once imagined he would end up by my window, homeless in Santa Monica, trying to decide where to go, which direction to head towards when all directions lead to nowhere.

     And just like he appeared, out of nowhere, out of nowhere he went. We shared but a fraction of a moment, but from this day forth, his destiny, his tribulations; he has made me an accomplice to it. I was busy watching him as one binge watch a series; as someone who has made to the forth season in one sitting; and is not quite there anymore. 

     In my stupor, it never occurred to me to open my window and yell to him: " Go home, man. Go home. Don't you know that parent's doors are built with spring hinges?"  

- AMENDMENT TO OUR SOCIAL CONTRACT -

From this day forth, no human being will be allowed to bear a child he's unwilling to provide for, forgive his/her/them transgressions and extend a hand in times of need.

***An exception will be extended to all religious  people who happen to bear un-traditional children. They should follow the guidance of their loving God.*** 

MOVIE STAR or someone like you and me.

So I’ve decided to change, to shed my proverbial skin and find myself; somehow. And that is what’s crazy and sad: I know that I’m in here and not out there; somewhere.

Desperate to be, I bought a Tesla. The car can fly. And yet, it takes me nowhere, for wherever I’ve been, I am not there. It’s a fast ride to a vacuum: big houses, noises, private planes and people. God, I know so many freaking people. Not a single flight alone anywhere. Flights to nowhere: a city, a beach somewhere, where I will walk alone and friends and family will tell me how lucky I am.  “you ought to be happy,” “do you know how many people want to be you?”

Really? Millions of people, according to this motivational speaker wannabe, want to be me, and I just want to meet these people and ask them: who am I? Because fuck if I know.

So I sold the Tesla, sold the house in the Hamptons, stopped pretending and said: “no more,” to all the busy bees.

And now they know who I am: I’m the irresponsible narcissist who threw all away for a dream of a better place, a place where I might be. “ Fuck you if you can’t breathe.” “What will you do? ”What will you do for me?”

Your what is a why for me, because all the material things you claim ought to make me happy led me here: a cul-de-sac where other people are trying desperately to be; grasping at windmills, worshipping Cardi B, sipping schadenfreude tea, and finding validation on the desperation of wannabes. I-I just wanna be me.


                                              

A Whooshing Sound.

 

     You look like your anger; face pressed against the windshield of your car, flying through the intersection in an utterly absurd state of motion; your body hugging the steering wheel, but it is your expression that will remain. 

     Things are not well in the city of angels, Los Angeles, California; now an overmarked third world country where the locals are rude, inexplicably arrogant and proud, strangely unaware of the poverty lining up the sidewalks. Perhaps it is the reason they demand that their movie stars show up on television perky and happy. Always.

     The postcard for the anger is you, and I ask myself if I would have felt different if you were a good looking girl but the memory of the speed in which you passed by me brings me back to the reality of you condition: you are as ugly inside as outside, lacking any empathy to your fellow bystanders as you hurled your 3 tons object a foot away from each and everyone of them. 

     Your face registers with me as the second ugliest face I've seen in my lifetime; the first being of a mother sadistically mocking her own daughter. Faces one can't forget but ought to try; so I search my memory bank for the face of my mother and find nothing but one scene that never fades: 

I'm sitting on a bench. You are tying my shoes. I, too young to understand the importance of that moment, didn't memorized your face; instead I look down at my shoes.

     One bunny ear. Two bunny ears. Cheeky to cheeky now. Embrace. Zig and zag. Pull it apart until I feel the pressure on my little feet and hear the sound of the leather coming together. A whooshing sound. 

A sound film editors know so well: : "Gimme a whooshing sound." ask producers worldwide. I know why. I know the feeling they are after. 

In each encounter with the sad, the angry, and the ugly, I crave it more and more.

The boy and the barista

from the series LA NIGHTS | tab above |

     

Los Angeles, 07.01.2021                                                         

Day 1

     Inside a landmark café in the city of Los Angeles enters a boy; the word boy brings back many feelings when spoken out loud. Boy. You can go back to the first days of school and remember writing the three letters that encompasses an entire life: brothers, sisters, mother, father, grandparents, friends, neighbors. An entire community surrounds this being.

     At his early stage of life, hopefully, one is busy with being a kid: playing, attending elementary school, falling in love for the very first time. Boy and Girl, the very reason we exist lies in the romantic notion of these two nouns.

     This particular boy is nameless; one of thousands that wander the city, while, the city in question, Los Angeles, now asks what to do with them all. This particular boy is tall, has curly hair, a goatee and is as handsome as the young stars Hollywood sell to us as the new face to watch. He carries a blanket; filthy. He takes three steps into the store and looks around; turns on his heel, opens the door and tosses the blanket outside, before walking to a barista and ordering: " Two glasses of water, please. No ice."

     The young girl does not flinch, which makes me think that this has happen before and she is used to it. She treats him as well as any of her other customers, probably feeling a sense of accomplishment, because this might be the only humane interaction he will have all day. This café has a reputation for training their employees extremely well and if dealing with homeless was part of her training program she has not forgotten the lesson. 

     He does not engage with her in any way; doesn't look at her in the eyes, doesn't talk to her at all. His eyes are distant somewhere. I've seen this gaze before since starting this assignment. Some of the homeless I encountered have mastered it. Models have the same gaze; I will venture a guess that, for the very same reason.

     I have an untouched cappuccino in my hand; I ask if he would feel offended If I gave it to him. He does not look at me. He does not answer me. He does not acknowledge my question in any way. I am not such a hopeless romantic that I don't understand where I am; the very next thing I do has to be the right thing not to offend this kid in any way. I look down, avoiding looking at him and turn away. The barista is looking straight at me and tells me softly that, " he just wants his water." confirming with the pronoun "his" that she has served him before. He has a friend in the city, at this café. I make a mental note of this and understand that at some point I ought to sit down and investigate what does that mean: this relationship.

     She is casual about the whole thing; pleasant and yet I do not see any indication that she is following any protocol of engagement. She deals with it as if this is the most natural thing in the world; a young good looking boy, homeless, who has enough awareness to toss his filthy blanket outside the store before ordering a couple of glasses of water. His demeanor is the same as the girl by the bridge. You don't care for me, so I don't care for you. I deny you and your attention regardless of your intention.

     The interaction had me thinking about the properness of offering him anything, after all, I have never approached anyone in the store and offered to pay for their coffee. My action reminded me of Madonna and the late, unbelievably misguided, Michael Jackson, who visited the country I was born, Brasil, and asked to tour the favelas. As if poor people were an attraction they schedule during their visit, after they had become bored with their other activities.  

     I wonder if this boy cared enough to give me a second thought. I wonder if I ruined his perfect day. A beautiful barista who treats him as a human being and a clueless writer who treats him as a homeless. The road to hell is paved by good intentions. I wonder if my motive, my reason, my failed attempt at humanity registered with him at all. My guess and hope is that it doesn't. We gave up on him. He gave up on us. Just another day in downtown L.A.

     When you visit downtown L.A. try asking for direction to a passerby,  your fellow human being, Nine out of ten times they will ignore you completely as if you don't exist. Yesterday, I saw someone in front of a couple asking for directions and they went around that person in a synchronized movement, as if they had agreed that  'we will venture outside our pristine, meticulously manicured expensive building, in the middle of this mess, but we will remain inside our little bubble."

     Today, a tall gentleman gave me directions, so I engaged him: " why your fellow Angelinos don't like giving directions?"  He smiled. " They get bombarded daily with beggars so they got used to doing this." So I put it into context: " Even for people that are obviously not homeless?" " It is easier to just avoid everyone." he said.

     I had to smile at that; my mask prevented him from seeing it. I thought with meus botões, "this must be a new clause added to our social contract."

     I am not signing it!