Passed this guy on the way up the hill between the 57 and Cathedral Square Park. He was headed a different direction. About 5 and a half feet tall, maybe 3 and a half feet wide. If I were to gather a collection of artifacts to encapsulate his aura, it might include:
- sunglasses
- a pierogi
- a ticket to a Brewers game
- a steel and nylon-webbing lawn chair on a small square concrete balcony ’bout 13 stories above a neighborhood gentrified halfway (though halfway up or halfway down, I couldn’t say)
- yellow mustard
- an electric razor
- a letter in an envelope, unsealed, unopened, unsent, or unread, to or from a secret past or present heartbreak
- hard lemonade
- a short-haired narrow-tailed dog on a leash
In the glare of the late-morning sun, I could clearly see the sausage silhouettes of turds plopping one after another out of the dog’s butt, falling around the base of a lamp post. Then man and dog started walking away.
I said, “You’re just gonna leave shit on the sidewalk?”
Then it was like someone pulled his string. One exaggeratedly cordial affirmation after another:
“Oh yeah, you’re right.
“That’s a good idea.
“Good suggestion.
“Yeah you’re right.
“Thank you sir.
“Good job.
“You’re a good citizen.” (The tone changed all but imperceptibly. Slight pause.)
“Do you want to pick it up?
“I didn’t know you were the shit police.”
The weird part is, as he was delivering this diatribe, he was also walking back over to the lamp post, squatting down and getting out a plastic bag, presumably to pick up the dogshit.
WTF? I didn’t know I was the shit police either.
Did he actually follow through and finish picking it up? I’ll never know, because the light changed and I continued on across the street. I said ASSHOLE — not really to the guy, more like about him, half to myself, half for the benefit of the cordial middle-aged lady from the bus, still a few feet behind me on the sidewalk, who half chuckled when I said it.
On the way down from the northwest side she’d sat and listened to two elders in the sideways seats talk about survival, how to stretch your grocery bill.
“I get the four can of biscuits, make two, freeze the other two…”
“I’m blessed, on 28th and Wisconsin they had eggs, and bacon, and all kind of breads and muffins, orange juice, coffee, milk — your choice of beverage — all free! Now that’s my price!”
“Are you going to the demonstration?” she’d asked one of them, the white grandmotherly one, who said yes she was. Then the white grandma said “You’re brave to go,” because she knew they’d been cracking down on black people, on non-white people everywhere.
And then it was the ordered chaosium of the rally. Scattered, disheveled, strident, pathetic, ridiculous, tragic, essential —
Rhythm is everything. Let it lag by one syllable and the whole song falters to an awkward halt. Get it right, and people don’t even know why they’re crying.
I saw drone footage of Chicago’s rally, in Grant Park — wish ours coulda been that big. But Milwaukee’s a small town, after all. Small, but big, but small. At least I can say I was a pixel in our picture, whatever the resolution.
The energy generated by each and every momentary human interaction (whether pleasurable or rancorous) is a subset of solar energy, nuclear, thermonuclear, whatever you want to call it, it holds immense power. Unpredictable, measureless power. Should a critical mass of these incidental drams of star fuel align, multiply, chain-react, you’d get —
something —
Whoever claims they can control it, who thinks they’ve got the definition down, may be the biggest fool of all —
Oh sure, maybe for a little while —
We ride the waves, the waveforms of this hyperelectric megamagnetism, as long as we can, until we’re swept up in the current, driven deep or washed ashore.
Meanwhile “consciousness” picks fights, waves signs, sings songs, sends postcards to the homeland of our quieter selves:
wish you were here
the sun is bright
the water’s ill at ease, its depth unclear
there’s music every night, fish jumping every day
what else can i say
I wandered off the march route, past the lone cop blocking off the street, up Brady, to Apollo for coffee and falafel (but I didn’t know “greek coffee” meant a thimble full with sludge at the bottom, for $3, no wonder the proprietress said “I’ll give you a cup of ice water too,” bless her), bussed home. The bus driver was nice, she tapped the horn and waved at some Shorewood folks with “NO KINGS” signs alongside Capitol.
The things we think we know, the things we think we understand about each other and ourselves, are always writing little post-it notes, paper airplanes launched into the murk of loneliness:
i feel like i keep seeing you, everywhere i go, corner of my eye, and then you’re gone
we’ve got to get together soon
love … a pink heart on an airmail envelope
write when you get a chance