Blue Hair Fare

What I saw that night was a handsome, young man. His smooth, brown skin and limber limbs seemed to defy his oddly clad image and a terrible stench he carried with him. He got on our bus. I had seen him before, but had been too tired to notice much about him. Maybe I could not miss him this time: quiet in voice, but so loud to all my other senses.

On this cold night in a nice Washington, DC neighborhood, he wore a colorful outfit, a blue, Afro wig and carried a big purse that I assumed either contained all his belongings or just the ones he thought he could not do without: a version of his stuff that had no purpose other than the security blanket they provided.

He smelled because he has soiled himself. It was strong. His royal blue pants were darkened by moisture down the middle, up to the waist on front and back, and the insides of the legs.

What was I supposed to think? What did I think?. This is, as you might recognize, one of those instances in which we catch ourselves in the middle of the tug between 1) what we are taught to believe and think when we are confronted by instances of humanity that are a little too strong for the delicate attitudes of our small minds (something like being taught not to stare at people who are “different”); 2) what we really think and feel and how much, that night, I could stand to be confronted by uncommon and, to my tiredly intolerant nose's sense of conformity: challenging and uncommon instances of human phenomenon; and 3) which version of that thinking I would be willing to express and share with him—and with you.

What could I express in that moment: how should I look at him? Do I say something to him? Do I talk about him to the bus driver or other riders? Given this teachable moment, what might I express in the days that follow: What do I say or perceive when I see someone else who might strike me the same way. Have my senses been girded or do I carry the same weak bias to the next encounter? What can I express right now: Do I really want to let YOU know how I felt?

Was it fear, “a simple sense of superiority," the common mixture of both, or something else that made me somehow think it was necessary to speculate happened to bring him to that state. I don't do this speculation for everyone, and chances are I am not doing it for you, right now—or maybe I am and likely have in the past, out of fear, a simple sense of inferiority or a combination of both.

What was it? Mental illness? Drugs? His? Someone else's? Where was he before getting on the bus and what happened that left him with soiled pants? Was this the result of an assault perpetrated by someone who attacked out of their fear at not being able to handle the sight of a brightly clad, blue-haired, beautiful man? Was it due to an assault self-inflicted? Was the assault no assault at all, but the result of a nature that made his brain work differently than the rest of the bus' population—a personality (dis)order that cannot be contained by his clothes, conventional hair or places to eliminate human waste?

Not everything I though was so abstract and prone to create hypotheses. Things like:

• Please don't sit down on that seat. Later, someone will board with weary legs and tired eyes after a long day at work, wanting a moment's respite before reaching her destination, the start of a short walk before she finishes her day by feeding children and putting them to bed. It will ruin her day. (I won't mention here my inconvenienced, curled nose.)
• Please sit down. I know you smell, but it is not your fault and it is the least justice after what you have been through. And maybe I will gather the courage to sit near you—and maybe ask you how you are.
• Please, bus driver. Don't let him on the bus.

I spent enough time thinking and wondering what a good, trying-to-be-moral man was supposed to do. I spent enough time avoiding acting on any thought. I spent enough time trying on the different attitudes, thoughts and intestinal fortitudes. I spent enough time looking and trying not to look.

It didn't matter what I thought. It mattered what I did. It mattered that I knew that most of the things that I thought of doing were of no help. I was left paralyzed, sitting with the awkward discomfort that makes a lot of us (well, me) look away. Or maybe sit up more straight so that we won't be mistaken for another pitiful soul. Or maybe we slouch a bit as to not appear too proud. Maybe we turn to a peer and laugh mockingly—because our embarrassed selves cannot recall just where the proper social and emotional response resides in our bag of empathy and moral fiber.

And when I stopped thinking, stopped worrying about how I was “supposed” to respond, and stopped judging—myself, this man or the society that left him as he is, what was important and what I needed to understand came to me in a simple epiphany: This man was some mother's little baby boy.

What happened to her son? I had a heavy heart, but was spared a small amount of grief to know that this mother was not there to witness the bus scene. But she had to know—know better than I could the reality that brought him to a world for which that night may not have been the only tale that would embarrass me and other frail hearts.

Where was her son? Would he make it home that night? Did he have a home? Was his mother still living? Was she alive to him and he to her? Why did I suddenly feel ashamed to be warm and dry? Why did I suddenly feel cold, even in the relatively mild autumn of the nation's capital: a pathetic, psycho-sympathetic attempt at empathy?

Feeling sorry for him does neither of us no good. I did not—and maybe could not muster the care to find out why he presented himself as he did that night, much less find a solution. Maybe even thinking that there needed to be a big solution (beyond a change of pants) flags an arrogance on my part: maybe his loss of control or dignity was the result of a “good time.” Maybe if I had asked, he would have said something like, Man, it might not look pretty, but it sure was fun!

I don't feel smug thinking that his state was something more than just a misadventure in recreation: Having feces and urine soak your clothing isn't right. Having a bus load of people and hundreds more in the path who do not know how to respond in this situation isn't right. I thought of who I could blame, whose morality I could question and felt my own shame.

I went home, thought of my son, thought of this man's mother and prayed for all of us. I showered off my feelings of guilt. Asked for forgiveness and hoped God would tell the man because I was too bashful to ask the man myself. I hoped not to be challenged by this sight again. (Did I pray for this too? Or did I pray for some super power that would bring me to save this “poor soul?”)

I know some who would have pointed and silently mocked. I know some who would leave him with a pasty smile and a meaningless, out-of-date Bible pamphlet. I know my brother Michael would have tried to bring him home, let him wash and give him a pair of pants. I have no idea which of those three people I was.

This is all too much musing when maybe it is as simple as this: One autumn night in a nice neighborhood in Washington, DC, a young man, with as many problems and virtues as the rest of us, got on a bus, paid his fare, and like the rest of us, got off the bus when it was his turn. And me, I eventually, went to sleep—just like the rest of us.

Celebrity Crush

Bookseller conventions have their perks.  Near the end of my career as a bookseller, I had the grand opportunity to sit next to historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin, most famous for her biographies of Lyndon Johnson, the Kennedys and the Roosevelts, at the convention dinner where she was a keynote speaker.  This is especially significant—at least to me, because Doris Kearns Goodwin was once the object of the closest thing I ever had as an adult to a celebrity crush. 

The crush was a secret that I appropriately kept from her for the couple of hours we shared in the dinner hall.  I forewent much of the school boy gush: Traded such statements about loving her work and asking her about the challenges of working with her subjects—being polite (or timid) around the issue of Lyndon Johnson and his reputation for hands that roamed as much as most men’s fantasies.  Better that banter than exposing my fantasy that ignores the reality of Mr. Goodwin.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is smart. She is cute.  She knows how to turn our allure to  history's charismatic characters and to salt their personae so that we don’t recognize them as history, but, rather a compelling and even slightly sexy story.  She also loves baseball and knows the importance of the institution to American culture and the importance of baseball’s stories (history) to the American story. 

I saw her as the lone woman commentator for Ken Burns’ baseball documentary aired on PBS back in the mid 1990s.  Except for the fact that I was currently in love at the time, I would have fallen head over heals right then.
When she got up to give her talk, her small frame struck an imposing figure, in spite of her slight and petite size.  Her words were large as she read off her page, like the smart kid in class, grown-up school girl who was making good, once again, on her promise to go far.  She stood at the podium with her smart suit, smart ideas and a smart gaze at her notes, the ones that held her assignment for the night. 

But before her talk, we had the chance to share a mediocre meal, great conversation and, one or two great ideas.

This was big.  I had the best seat in the house, which is saying a lot given that the other keynote speaker was Suds Trukel.  I don’t remember much of the conversation.  I am sure any facility in conversing was compromised by my not wanting to appear too fawning or by the fear that I could not possibly hold my end of a conversation with her about any Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson.
But, of course, the conversation turned to politics. And even my reticent self knew that this was one subject on which I knew a little more than my opinions.
The next year would be a Presidential election year and somehow the conversation turned to who we wanted to see as the next President of the United States.  She said something that shocked me.  She said, You know who I think should be the next President of the United States?  Paul Wellstone.

I smiled to myself.  Two thoughts crossed my mind.  The first was that she was just saying this because she was in Minnesota amongst a crowd that almost certainly loved Paul—unconditionally.  This may have been true, but I did not quiz her on this. 

‑­The second thought was, Oh, here we go again.  A well-off, out-of-touch elite who is going to go on about how wonderful and liberal Paul is and “don’t you just love him?”  But what she said surprised me.  It was smarter than a knee jerk and was what I now see as a distinction that, today, is fading: that distinction between liberal and progressive.

She said something like this:  You know, Paul and Sheila (Wellstone) are just about the only people on Capitol Hill and maybe the only ones in the Senate, who, when they go out, have to pay attention to how much they spend.  She reminded/pointed out that the Senate was a club of the very wealthy.  As such, most of them had little perspective on what it meant for most Americans to live day to day, make their way through the mine field of common economic and social realities. 

It was an important articulation of the difference between liberal and progressive.  Today, the two seem to be used interchangeably, since so many people have become shy to use the world liberal and find “progressive” more trendy.  It seems the term liberal has gone out of favor, for some good reasons and some not so good ones, but seems to have as much to do with the waning of liberal glory that reached its apex with the charisma of Camelot and found its nadir in the series of political defeats, culminating in the disaster of Michael Dukakis’ campaign that will ever be marked by the press opportunity image of his egg-head bobbing out of the hatch of that blasted tank.  (I think it is more than an urban legend that said that the guy who had the idea for this photo-op was looking for work before the next news cycle.)

Paul was a progressive.  A profound and fundamental antidote to the criticism that says all non-right wing politics is about the elites.  He was also the response to a subculture that looks to segments of society with mock pity and finds itself sufficiently superior to the masses upon whom their empire was built. The class that hands out bread crumbs of mock generosity left from their lavish feast.  And Paul still stood in profound opposition to the supremacist cultures that chose to pick on an underclass that includes more of us than we care to admit.   We would still rather do for ourselves than have the crumbs handed to us.

And at the same time, looking closely to the public that surrounded Paul made us look at the liberal, conservative, progressive, tentative moderate, and supremacist in ourselves.  It is a place where we met the enemy if we looked in the mirror—if we looked.

But I didn't need to think about any such complex social diagrams.  I didn't need to remember Stud's stories.  I didn't need to think much about the dinner which was most likely chicken and something.  I didn't need to sound smarter than the school boy I never was in front of the smartest girl in the class.  No matter, because I got to sit with her, talk with her and at least seem smart in front of her.  (Or she made me feel smart.)

Could Dr. Doris Kearns Goodwin forgive the fact that I did not totally fall in love with her at the sight of her on the Burns baseball special (cute, smart and loves baseball for what it is: who could possibly resist?) given that, at the time the show aired, I was in love with  a woman who was dearly loved by Paul and Sheila? She would have at least been impressed.  I was and continue to be impressed—by all those people. 

So, I am humble enough to admit that I am not above succumbing to a celebrity crush.  It is a lesson that helps me (us) be humble enough to accept the reality when real-life crushes are not returned.  Maybe it is a lesson that prepares me (us) for the true humility that comes when a crush IS actually returned.

To end the drama, as you might have guessed, I did not succeed in wooing her away from her husband.  (Gosh, one would think, after sharing the “rubber chicken,” we would have been ready to elope.)  I did get to sit next to Doris Kearns Goodwin, hear a story about one of my heroes, and learn that some days, I am just smart enough to appreciate and participate in those glories. 

And if you run into her, please don't tell her my secret.  I'll be like SO embarrassed.

Stop Him Before He Writes (or at least tries)

One year, in the late 1980s, I wrote over 380 personal letters.  I could give a lot of reasons why.  Most of it had to do with the loathing I had for my graduate program.  Much of it had to do with loneliness.  Some of it, I am afraid to admit, was fueled by a bit of depression that was greater than the 20-something-what-the-heck-am-I going-to-do-with-my-life angst.  A bit of it was fueled by absurd amorous feelings that could not possibility be requited. 

But I have written enough so that people then and since have said to me, You should write more.  You should try to get (more) published.  I try to explain that this is a folly as dangerous as admitting love.  On the more practical side, I try to tell them that what they read is really only wonderful in their eyes because, unlike the rest of the world, I am writing to them with their life as a backdrop.   (Or maybe I loved them too much and it was showing.)

The missives may have seemed interesting and profound because 1) the recipients were young and anything that has to do with their life was profound; 2) they did not have to reciprocate; and 3) they were getting attention that they received when they were the child-center of everyone's attention—that period of life before anything real is expected of us in order to get attention.

Another practical reason to not write more: It means telling secrets.  People say I should write more, for bigger audiences, but do they really want their secrets told to the world?  We are Minnesotans.  Such behavior is not polite.  Besides, in telling the world YOUR secrets, I would also have to reveal even more about myself.   To say that this is too much for someone who spent his most formative years as a profoundly conspicuous person who cultivated a very fine art of becoming invisible would be an oversimplified hyperbole. 

“Is my slip showing?”

So, you can understand how I came to the point where I had to ask myself, What would I possibility write?  Practically speaking, I have been staring at a blank page for the past 20 years.  I have been hiding a lot in pages in journals, or places in my mind for which I think my journal just has no interest (or the readers of my letters just have no interest—or I am just to afraid to tell those readers). 

We're not supposed to show what's under the clothing of our politeness.  I've had a few discussions recently with friends about posing in the artists' studio.  In spite of the beauty displayed and the beauty created from the artists' eyes, it is a gaze for which  we have not earned the privilege.  As anonymous as we want to pretend the exercise is, we are never really as disembodied and never really as care-full as that beauty deserves and requires.

But unlike being a model, this exposure comes without consent or pre-knowledge.  The baring is done by someone who may never have anticipated or desired their image be publicized.  How fair is that?  There comes no fee paid for this exploitation, but I can still provide an exaggerated, impressionist depiction of your and my personae based on the poses we've shared as I spy in our common places.

And with everything I write, I run the risk—the certitude that I will expose something more precious than my or someone else's naked body.  Will I show something more precious and private than what I can muster in quality of story, much less be esteemed as art?  Yes.  Cheap thrill? 

The price I am supposed to pay for this privilege is to demonstrate the beauty as I expose the subjects.  I too want to seem beautiful on the page.  Is what I know about the subjects--the subject of me and the subject of the other--sufficient to allow me to write it?  No. 

Does that stop me? 

It is the charge of the blogger, I am told, to demonstrate authority and expertise related to the subjects about which we write.  Not so sure I can do this.  Am I an expert on anything?  Maybe, but not everyone will agree.  I am a jack of all trades and a master of none, but I will not be ashamed to hear, expose and appropriate the expertise of others in my quest to seem like a wise guy. 

If you are reading this, it is likely that you are one of the people or know one of the people or are somehow connected by less than six degrees of separation from one of the “experts.”  Does it help if I am showing you in relative “undress” if I call you beautiful and an expert?  Should I call it love?  Should I call it respect?  Does Hugh Heffner revere and worship women?  (That reminds me, what in the hell was Jello Pudding-Fat Albert Bill Cosby doing in Heffner's playmate palace?  And how in the hell do I know he was there?)

Okay, is this a love letter?  (By the way, if you ever get more than five letters from one person in a week or less, this person is in love with you—or they see you as a vehicle to some love object; you do not need to question yourself or any of your friends or your therapist about this.  You don't even need to ask the sender—who will likely deny it, but such behaviors are common among those who fall in love but who really understand the folly of admitting affections to someone who has more to do with their own life than answer letters from gaga-eyed unsuitable suitors.  These types of attentions can only be fueled by that strong desire or psychological disorders—or both.  It is, at least, fodder for a significant portion of 380-letter year.)

I have not discovered how to keep this from being, or degenerating into  little more than an open-book, navel-gazing journal, a rant (or revealing my degenerated state), or a place where I get to tell everyone else's secrets besides my own.  If you are reading this, this is a letter to you. 

I am sure that you will not get 380 this year, but that does not mean I don't love you.  I might say some things that make it seem like I don't like you, things that are more critical of your perspective than I can be of my own.  I still love you.  It might seem like I am writing to someone else or writing too much about someone else or writing about someone in a way that does not seem real to you.  I might say something that hurts you.  You might let me know, and that will hurt me—or you might say something that hurts me.  I guess it is my job to take are, but can I?  Maybe.  

In the mean time, I'm writing.  Will I find some inspiration, here, getting beyond my ego: the writer's absurd idea that someone else is going to find what we write of any interest to someone else?  Will I be artful enough to show any personal inspiration?  Maybe you will be inspired to write.  This is about writing—writing love letters, and maybe it will give you a little inspiration to pen something to a friend, family or great love.  If you are so moved, let me know (even if I'm not the mover).