2001-06-18 - 6:55 p.m.

What do I think I�m doing here? Is this all a bunch of phony garbage? I started this project wanting to communicate clearly what I feel, but now I wonder if I�m making up a personality, if what I am creating is a fiction. All this stuff about meeting my destiny, about the ways of the world, the beauty in the struggle � do I believe all that crap? Am I fooling myself so that I may fool you?

I don�t feel like working on the project much these days. It is defining me too deeply. Maybe you need some of that mystery inside you � that womb-space, as Andy calls it, where ideas can ferment and brew. In the past, I just let them ferment until they withered away; now I�ve got the opposite problem. I am becoming more like Nate; saying whatever comes into my head, not caring whether I believe it or not. I must keep talking to justify my existence. I�m letting myself craft more these days, not making things up but creating narrative where one may not exist. Maybe something like this would be just as honest:

Johnson Crouton: Now Pants, enough fiddling around. We�ve heard it before, how you want to feel everything so bad, how you want to get involved, but how you want to wander around all the time, too. Eventually you�re going to have to make up your mind and settle on something.

Pants LaRuey: I know, I know. I am. I�m doing stuff.

JC: Flying a kite does not count as doing something. Yo-yoing does not count as doing something. Walking to the lake and pondering your mortality does not count as doing something.

PL: Okay. What about� talking to the homeless?

JC: The homeless, eh? We�ve heard this one before. Where do you expect that to get you?

PL: How can you ask such a question? It exposes me to their humanity, made me feel a bit of their pain, made me feel my own pain of existence. It gets me involved in the plight of Uptown, helps me to break through the color barrier that we both face. It put me in an uncomfortable situation, and in doing so, it prepared me for future discomforts. And�

JC: And it allowed you to finally say that, yes, I have interacted with a homeless person, and surprise, surprise, he didn�t want anything from me but money, and people don�t care about each other anyway, and why am I going about such a futile task after all. I bet you�ve fulfilled the preconceptions that you took with you, you have had your little existential moment, and it was no different than taking a walk out to the lake.

PL: Not true, not true! I suffered and I was annoyed!

JC: Ah, but did you know all along the futility of the task, and yet still pursue it?

PL: Yes, I recognized the futility and I suffered through it anyway, because isn�t that what life is all about? Making futile efforts and suffering through them?

(and here, suddenly the writer has unexpectedly put Pants LaRuey at the winning end of the argument, even though all along he expected Johnson Crouton to gain the upper hand, leaving the perplexed Mr. Crouton to only plead:)

JC: Yes, but, but, but you knew it would get you nowhere before you even started, and that allowed you to shut a door to them in your heart right away, didn�t it?

PL: No! I contend that I was idealistic from the start, I forced myself to be idealistic, and I actually suffered! Here � let�s look at the tape�

Wednesday evening. Our young hero is out for a walk. He nearly heads for the lake, but then opts against it. He turns right on Sheridan Road and marches down the sidewalk, cigarette in hand. A black woman in her 30s is leaning against the wall.

Woman: Here. Give me one of them cigarettes.

He stops, hands over a cigarette and matches; smiles. They chat about the weather � get rid of the coats, they say. It�s jacket weather.

W: It�s so booring up here, I don�t know what to do. What you doing tonight?

Young Hero: Ah� just headed to the bank.

W:Yeah? What you doing there?

YH: Just getting out enough money to get me through tomorrow. (Here we note the irony, knowing as we do the false pretext of poverty our young hero has adopted)

W: Yeah? Well, here, I�ll walk with you. You can carry my bag.

They begin walking. Our Hero kicks a piece of concrete that juts out of the sidewalk.

W: You better watch out for your toe. I just might have to such that toe, make it feel better.

YH: That�s all right.

W: Oh no, maybe I want to suck on that toe. Maybe that�s what I want to do.

YH: That�s all right.

W: Don�t you be saying that�s all right. What if I want to suck on that toe?

Our young hero does not respond. They walk on.

W: I love to cook. I make nice meals. Some day I�ll make you a meal.

W: Yep. I like to get up in the morning, make the bed up nice, then clean up the whole place real nice. Then I make up a nice breakfast, with eggs. I love to make breakfast.

YH: That sounds nice. Then what you do, when you�re done with breakfast, on an average day?

W: Oh, I go over to my ma�s house. She�s got my kids over there. She make sure they eat right, and they all go to school and behave. She always do right by them. Sometimes she makes up a nice pie, and she always try to get me to have some, but I say, Why do you think I�m so big? Cause you keep giving me pie. But she says, you got to eat, and she gives me some anyway.

YH: Your mother sounds real nice.

W: Oh yeah� You seem like a nice young man. You seem like a good person.

YH: Well, I try, I try.

W: I�m a good person, too. I�ve very kind and generous, and if you ever needed something, I would always be there for you.

YH: That�s the way to be� You wait here a minute. I�ll be right back.

He goes into the glass-encased ATM room. She waits outside with her bag and stares out at the world. The he reappears and they walk on, talking sporadically, our young hero seemingly unsure what to say.

W: What you doing now?

YH: I�m pretty tired. I�m gonna go home and go to bed.

W: You don�t want to go to bed so early. Here. Come get me a Coke.

They disappear into a pizza stand, where our young hero buys two Cokes, one for her, one for him. Then they walk on, under the elevated train.

W (pointedly): Thank you.

YH: You�re welcome.

W: Here. Let�s go this way.

YH: Actually, I�m headed this way. I�m pretty tired.

W: Oh, you don�t want to come with me?

YH: Nah. I�m tired. You want another cigarette for the road?

(We see that she is still holding the original cigarette, never having smoked it.)

W: No. You could give me some money, though, so I could give my some a birthday card and maybe put some money in it.

YH: I don�t know, I don�t have that much money.

W: Pleeeease?

YH: Here, let me see. (produces wallet) I can give you two dollars.

W: Don�t you have five dollars you can give me? Pleeeease?

YH: I�m sorry. That�s all I can afford.

W (turning away): Okay. Thank you.

Our young hero wanders home.

***

Johnson Crouton: So that was your big moment. You walked around the block with this woman, gave her two dollars, a coke and a cigarette she didn�t want, and basically wasted her time.

Pants LaRuey: I also carried her bag. It was pretty heavy.

JC: Real good. You couldn�t even afford five bucks to give the lady?

PL: I know, I know. But that�s why I suffered. Here � you don�t believe that I actually felt something as a result of this encounter? Well, after I went home, I recorded my thoughts into this tape recorder. I was so sad and wishing I could do better. She was just so polite and well-raised, always saying thank-you and please and hoping for a little kindness. And I was just looking for a little human contact, I just wanted to chat with her and enjoy her company.

JC: You took from her, but you couldn�t give back.

PL: I just wanted to talk with her. I didn�t want a new live-in girlfriend to cook my meals!

JC: No, but you got what you wanted from her. You got your story to tell, you got this experience of talking to a homeless person, and all it cost you was two dollars, a can of Coke and a cigarette. Not a bad exchange.

PL: But I didn�t want to just make a transaction. I just wanted� I don�t know what I wanted. But I was sad afterwards; you should have heard me. I was talking into this tape and being sad, if only you could have heard this tape� but I can�t seem to find it now.

JC: Were you really sad? Or were you just playing the role of Sad Person for the tape, convincing yourself that you could actually be affected by someone, that you actually cared about someone, for the sake of your audience?

PL: I don�t know. It felt real. It felt like I was feeling something�

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(by the way, nate's awesome.)

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