There is me... and then
there is the Earth 2 version. In Earth 2 Clark Kent wears a fedora;
doesn't fly, but leaps over tall buildings in a single bound and
strangely enough, is not involved in American war effort against the
Nazis but elects instead to fight corruption at home. Lex Luthor is a
scientist, Green Lantern's ring is vulnerable against wood, and his
greatest enemy is the Sports Master who clubs him on the head with a
base ball bat.
In Earth 2 I moved out of
my parents home at the age of 18 despite protestations and warnings
of failure. I moved out, self assured and confident that my destiny
was of my own making and subsisted on Rament noodles and four hours
sleep while I worked two jobs and payed for acting class and head
shots I could ill afford. In Earth 2, I did not need the reassurance
of others in order to validate my dreams.
In this alternate dimension, I wrote myself a check for one million dollars, tucked safely in my wallet with a promise to cash it as soon as I was able, for services rendered in the pursuit of my dreams. The Flash wore a helmet like the Mercury florist, Batman drove a plymouth and was free of the complex neurosis we demanded of him post Dirty Harry and the disillusionment of Watergate.
In this alternate dimension, I was nowhere near the corner of 36th avenue and 28th street in Miami, Florida when I heard a plaintive cry for help.
In this alternate dimension, I wrote myself a check for one million dollars, tucked safely in my wallet with a promise to cash it as soon as I was able, for services rendered in the pursuit of my dreams. The Flash wore a helmet like the Mercury florist, Batman drove a plymouth and was free of the complex neurosis we demanded of him post Dirty Harry and the disillusionment of Watergate.
In this alternate dimension, I was nowhere near the corner of 36th avenue and 28th street in Miami, Florida when I heard a plaintive cry for help.
At approximately nine, as
has been my custom of late, I was hanging around with cheap four pack
of beer after buying my groceries for the day. With an armful of
groceries, a knapsack slung over my shoulder, and a book and pair of
reading glasses inside, I stopped at the midway point between the
grocery store and home, and there, on the oudside lobby of a bank
after hours, underneath the arc lights of the extended roof overhang,
I sat on a bench intent to read a few pages of Supergods by Grant
Morrison as I smoked and drank and passed the time just to get out of
my closterphobic room that I rent because it's all I can afford.
Crowded by books I cannot beaar to part with, and a cat who has too
little room to play, and thus, misses me extremely when I'm gone even
for a minute (though I cannot deny, it's a side effect that is
extremely endearing to me) this is what constitutes a vacation from
the certitude of failure that has become the passage of days in which
I have travelled alone.
It has begun to rain, what wound up a very slight drizzle, but I don't know this yet, only that it feels as if I have arrived in time. Time to relax. Time to escape. Alone. Always alone. But a different alone at least, from that which I usually feel. And as I pop a can, and open to the marked page, I hear a mewling; a squeeking sort of meowing; high pitched and defenseless and crying or rescue.
At first, and for a while, I try to ignore it. I am not in a position to rescue anybody or anything. I own a cat I am barely allowed to have in a space too small for him as it is. I am on foot, I am blocks away from home, with an armfull of groceries and a knapsack I have to hold the strap of, lest it slip from my shoulder. I could not carry him if I wished, and he's not a dog who would follow me home. I resolve to mind my own business and continue reading my book.
But I do not move from my spot. Just get up and move to someplace out of earshot. I do not. I cannot (and more on that later). Time passes, and the mewling is sometimes short, sometimes long; sometimes loud, and sometimes soft. Until at last, I get up to investigate. I cannot do a thing for this poor creature that needs more than I can provide.
I stand and I walk towards where I think the sound is coming from. I am reminded of the pain in my right foot because I've been sitting down for five minutes now, and whenever I'm off my feet for more than two minutes, the heel of my foot screams in exucrutiating agony to me and reminds me of the Podiatrist I cannot afford to see because I'm not working and I have no health care. I just let the problem get worse, which seems like an acurate metaphor for my life as I try to make a difference for someone else's. I make kissing noises, and meowing noises, and move the branches of the bushes as try in the dark to peer inside, and the noise subsists, as if afraid, and I see nothing... and begin to doubt what I have heard. So I go back, take a sip of my beer, and pick up my book because I'm minding my own business when a page and half later, I hear the noise again.
It has begun to rain, what wound up a very slight drizzle, but I don't know this yet, only that it feels as if I have arrived in time. Time to relax. Time to escape. Alone. Always alone. But a different alone at least, from that which I usually feel. And as I pop a can, and open to the marked page, I hear a mewling; a squeeking sort of meowing; high pitched and defenseless and crying or rescue.
At first, and for a while, I try to ignore it. I am not in a position to rescue anybody or anything. I own a cat I am barely allowed to have in a space too small for him as it is. I am on foot, I am blocks away from home, with an armfull of groceries and a knapsack I have to hold the strap of, lest it slip from my shoulder. I could not carry him if I wished, and he's not a dog who would follow me home. I resolve to mind my own business and continue reading my book.
But I do not move from my spot. Just get up and move to someplace out of earshot. I do not. I cannot (and more on that later). Time passes, and the mewling is sometimes short, sometimes long; sometimes loud, and sometimes soft. Until at last, I get up to investigate. I cannot do a thing for this poor creature that needs more than I can provide.
I stand and I walk towards where I think the sound is coming from. I am reminded of the pain in my right foot because I've been sitting down for five minutes now, and whenever I'm off my feet for more than two minutes, the heel of my foot screams in exucrutiating agony to me and reminds me of the Podiatrist I cannot afford to see because I'm not working and I have no health care. I just let the problem get worse, which seems like an acurate metaphor for my life as I try to make a difference for someone else's. I make kissing noises, and meowing noises, and move the branches of the bushes as try in the dark to peer inside, and the noise subsists, as if afraid, and I see nothing... and begin to doubt what I have heard. So I go back, take a sip of my beer, and pick up my book because I'm minding my own business when a page and half later, I hear the noise again.
I go back to the bushes. I
make the same noises. I get the same quiet response. I still see
nothing as I circle around trying to peer from every angle. And I go
back, and when next the sound fills the air, I wait a good long
fifteen minutes before I get up again.
It is at this point I think of moving to the other side of the building: escape the sound; escape responsibility for an action which who's conclussion is doomed to end in disappointment. And I cannot. I am afraid of what that says of me if I do. I'm not a saint. I'm not even a good person. I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen and sinned against the angels and played upon their sympathies for absolution, knowing that the world is what it is, and I'd do what I had to do in order to get by.
But I have stuck my hand out and helped those better off than me based upon their needs in the moment. Because if anyone can relate, it's me. I have known the kindness of strangers, and I have resolved to do no less than the same. It's not karma or grace that I seek. It's a way to live with myself.
Bono once said, if you can play three cords, you can change the world. So I got up and searched for those three cords, as I got up again to search for the cat. And this time it seemed as if the sound came from across the street. So that's where I went, as I searched the bushes there and drains there, making kisses and meowing noises to the same strangely silent effect. In the dark. With my groceries and open beer across the street; feeling foolish and mystified.
We are all helpless: subject to forces we cannot control.
We are all capable: moved by forces we cannot comprehend.
People, like satelites, come withen our orbit, pulled by the gravity of our lives as they slingshot to their own exit point. Signal to noise. Some we save. Some save us. Some we bear witness to what seems an inevitable downfall. And what and how we feel, is the only choice we can make.
I am not asking for absolution or a reasuring statement that I did what I could. When next I heard that kitten, it sounded as if the sound was coming from the glass door of the office building I was sitting in front of. No matter where I went, the sound was just as loud as it was before, just as likely to be there as anywhere else, and just as silent as my reply with an offer of help. So yes, the sound carried both ways. And none of that matters. Because I'm making a statement of fact. The fact being, how I felt, and how I feel still.
In an alternate dimension I am a successful and working actor, rescuing a helpless kitten too small to climb the walk up steps from the basement of a tenement brownstone, and taking him home to meet a jealous and wary cat of my own.
I could have done better. I should have done better. In an alternate dimension, I did. I owe that dude, that other me, an explanation, and they all seem like excuses to me. I'm still searching: for those three cords that'll change the world; or at least, take me to the other one.
It is at this point I think of moving to the other side of the building: escape the sound; escape responsibility for an action which who's conclussion is doomed to end in disappointment. And I cannot. I am afraid of what that says of me if I do. I'm not a saint. I'm not even a good person. I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen and sinned against the angels and played upon their sympathies for absolution, knowing that the world is what it is, and I'd do what I had to do in order to get by.
But I have stuck my hand out and helped those better off than me based upon their needs in the moment. Because if anyone can relate, it's me. I have known the kindness of strangers, and I have resolved to do no less than the same. It's not karma or grace that I seek. It's a way to live with myself.
Bono once said, if you can play three cords, you can change the world. So I got up and searched for those three cords, as I got up again to search for the cat. And this time it seemed as if the sound came from across the street. So that's where I went, as I searched the bushes there and drains there, making kisses and meowing noises to the same strangely silent effect. In the dark. With my groceries and open beer across the street; feeling foolish and mystified.
We are all helpless: subject to forces we cannot control.
We are all capable: moved by forces we cannot comprehend.
People, like satelites, come withen our orbit, pulled by the gravity of our lives as they slingshot to their own exit point. Signal to noise. Some we save. Some save us. Some we bear witness to what seems an inevitable downfall. And what and how we feel, is the only choice we can make.
I am not asking for absolution or a reasuring statement that I did what I could. When next I heard that kitten, it sounded as if the sound was coming from the glass door of the office building I was sitting in front of. No matter where I went, the sound was just as loud as it was before, just as likely to be there as anywhere else, and just as silent as my reply with an offer of help. So yes, the sound carried both ways. And none of that matters. Because I'm making a statement of fact. The fact being, how I felt, and how I feel still.
In an alternate dimension I am a successful and working actor, rescuing a helpless kitten too small to climb the walk up steps from the basement of a tenement brownstone, and taking him home to meet a jealous and wary cat of my own.
I could have done better. I should have done better. In an alternate dimension, I did. I owe that dude, that other me, an explanation, and they all seem like excuses to me. I'm still searching: for those three cords that'll change the world; or at least, take me to the other one.
I hope I still know you in this other world...
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