a regular, i was told. yet another cart pusher without cats as evidence of her crazy. i don’t know the closeness i can get so i just leave it be, sitting on the curb outside a korean-owned seven eleven store with my menthol. she pilfers my empty tall can soon as i make the bank shot. i study her every move making sure i can capture the moment just right in my mind: an elderly lady wearing layers of odd colors unfit for los angeles summer nights, face tanned and leathered like the cowboy belts i made at art camp, and shoes made out of shopping bags. she won’t ask me for quarters, i can tell based on my newly found sixth sense on knowing who will or will not approach me. it took only a few lonely nights on the street to pick up the skill. or maybe i give off absolute terror.
yoshiyuki sadamoto first described the absolute terror field, it’s the literal wall we put up to separate ourselves from other egos and the external reality. conversely it’s the blister pack around our soul, the excess smog from our little carbon generator that supports our separate existences. he figured it was the cause of loneliness and pain, and the absolute terror field is the quills on our backs that prevents us from ever getting close to another human because the pain, the terror, would be absolutely too great. how funny. if sarcasm is the lowest form of wit then paradoxes is god’s invention of the highest form. just imagine the platypus and, fuck, if you don’t giggle you’re just too stupid.
she won’t leave. but then paradoxically in a city with thirteen million souls and miles of space where can she go? i can feel her eyes strained on me, waiting for me to finish my second can. it’s worth a dime in redemption value based on california’s scammy shanty street economics. eleven means food at mcdonald’s. twenty one means a shower at a starbuck’s. i should just give her change. i finally have enough in my pocket to give away. yet, how close can i get?
“what’s your name?”
“angela.” angela in the city of angels. god is funnier than robin williams.
“do you need change?”
“no, sir.” she starts to dig through her bags.
“what do you need?”
she stops shuffling with her bags. “i need, i need, i don’t need anything,” she huffs.
“then why are you here,” i ask sheepishly. i already have an idea of why. there’s those on the streets because they deserve to be, the ill, the lazy, the untamed but there’s also people on the street because when you fly by wire all it takes is less than a handful of mistakes to land you here. the streets stays blind. how close can i get?
she looks at me with brown, judicious eyes. should i puff up a bit to pretend i’m trustworthy? do i chug my beer to show i’m just talking out of my ass? maybe i can play like i don’t give a shit? what if i lean back and open up? what if i just finally find something to stop my brain involving me with every fucking sigh, frown, or vapid, maudlin bullshit? what if i… so she spoke.
and i listened. to secrets that doesn’t requires repeating. to sighs. to frowns. to vapid maudlin bullshit. and she wouldn’t stop. how close did i get? in my field of work, in the military we call being so close to $17 million dollar jets dropping $100k bombs that we can feel our boots soles melting: danger close.
you don’t belong here, you don’t belong with us, she tells me. i don’t belong anywhere, i tell myself, that’s why i’m here living in my car. killing time one tall can at a time.
