Skip to main content

the things they carried

Wherein we're all walking variations of the same path, although some more stylishly than others.

* * * * *
Downtown the other night, and it was richly littered with homeless people. Unexpected -- it had getting colder all day, and filled with more dust, and every so many blocks I found myself trying to turn my head away from some kind of industrial stink, something like diesel only I imagined it in thick red and leaking, the air you could feel getting colder and drier, and I imagined, too, that even the homeless would be seeking shelter. But there they were, manning all their stations, and two of their number were especially interesting.

The first guy I'd seen before. In fact, the first time I saw him, he didn't seem homeless at all. Quite a good looking guy, actually. Youngish. But that first time he'd been smoking a little too determinedly, and then there was the muttering, and the pacing in little circles. This night he had an eyepatch in fluorescent silver. He'd ask people passing by for money and then say, Sorry. He asked me and I waved him away -- I only give to the Salvation Army and the old guys in front of the liquor store (and then only the ones who don't make up stories about bus fare). He said, Sorry.

The second guy I'd seen before, too. I'd already nicknamed him: Jesus. He looked a lot more like Jesus that first time I saw him in the park: all thinness and hair and half-nakedness, all that blank, peaceful sauntering around. But I'd seen him several times since, and on every occasion his circumstances seemed to be improving. One day I saw him looking like a tourist, in a new Hawaiian shirt, sitting on a bench with a coffee, cigarette, and newspaper. Watching traffic. On this night he was almost fashionable, with aviator sunglasses and a ski jacket and pants pulled up and tied around the knee with nylon rope, so that they looked like pumpkin pants. Christ, Jesus, I thought, you could have been a runway conquistadore.

None of the other homeless guys were that interesting.

Comments

  1. If you are interested in "interesting" homeless people, I would suggest that you and your family visit St. Petersburg, FL sometime. It's weird that there are much more homeless people there than here in Miami..or at least visible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. God it must be miserable to be homeless at this time of year, in this hemisphere at least. Not that I think it's marvellous in the summer, just that it must be so much worse when it's cold, even if you look like Jesus and have ski clothes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:11 am

    that is interesting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the indisputable weight of the ocean

People are always telling me that my work is too dark. So I've put up this sunnier story, but even it has a shadow, as its original publisher – a fine Atlantic Canadian literary magazine called the Gaspereau Review – is no longer in business. ---------------- It was a simple enough thing and that thing was simply this: Edmund Kelley was a gentleman. Of course his mom called him her 'little gentleman', as in 'Oh Edmund, you are my perfect little gentleman,' which did seem to hold to a certain logic that these type of things often follow, considering her affection for him and the fact that he was, after all, only ten years old. Still, Edmund himself was not particularly fond of the diminutive aspect of that title. Gentleman was enough; gentleman summed up the whole thing rather nicely, thank you. He was definitely a more refined version of your average child. He lived in a state of perpetual Sunday m

Oona Balloona (doesn't care about new tables)

Well, it's Friday, and since I'm pretty depleted in the chit-chat department, I might as well put up some pictures of Ol' Giggles At Ghosts before Grandma starts sending me hate mail. Man, what a goofball. At this rate it's going to be, like, eighteen years before she has gainful employment and moves out of the house. I mean, come on . * * * * * C is especially crazy and frantic today. About two months ago she decided that she no longer liked our dining room table (take that, dining room table! no more BFF for you!). Since then she's switched the dining room and kitchen table (and all the rest of the furniture in the house -- about thirty times, but that's another story) as a provisional solution while she scoured area stores for an upgrade. And she thought she had found one, on Wednesday, at JYSK ( Whatever , I said). But when she ordered it, JYSK called back to say that they were really low on stock, and that the stock they did have was damaged, and

some paintings to keep you company

  at the stations of seeing ; mixed media on cradled wood panel, 24 x 30 inches.   $350 local.     At the Stations of Seeing I expected something on the level of poetry moving the machinery within but instead it was wreckage and difficult instructions Recursive Procedures for Life Structures and that sort of thing. IF—THEN—ELSE where the option is optional CASE, which is multi-situational DO—WHILE the function is zero BREAK and LOOP again and again until failure. please CALL, if you can, or while you are still missed. . . . I went away for awhile, for various reasons, and now I am starting to come back. Where I finally end up is anyone's guess, but one of the stations on the path of that return is a willingness to sell my art again; this post is about just one of the larger paintings I currently have for sale for clients and customers in the Kingston area. A good place to start. The prices for these works are lower because the transaction is personal, easier — come by my stud