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The Furious Man
Feb. 19th, 2014 01:01 amWitness a man possessed standing on the corner of Decatur and Grant just outside King Memorial Station. He keeps roaring into his Blue-Tooth the same question over and over again - "Where's my shit?"
It begins as a roar to rival the freight train shuffle rattling away and ends with a profane bellow that stops the foot traffic cold. He shouts the question to them as well,as the cabs and the wailing ambulanc, to the rush hour push of mini vans, pick-up trucks, Mustangs (always Mustangs in this town), to the old woman in the station wagon and to the squad car that cruised by oblivious. None of them offer an answer.
"Where's my shit?" The furious man is a short man, not exceptionally so, but the wild throws of arms towards the traffic and possessed stance serve only to amplify his lack of stature. He wears a baseball cap from which braids flail along with each blind point of finger or 'What's-Up?' shrug. A loose fitting grey coat patterned with a designer brand logo and red baggy pants. All of it immaculately clean without so much as a spot or a wrinkle or a crease. The furious man turns to me, five feet and a respectful distance away from the station's no-smoking zone enjoying the show with a Camel.
"Where's my shit?" He asks stripped of all belligerence and in the helpless tone you ask when you can't find your keys.
And that's when I realize that the furious man isn't talking into a blue tooth at all. He's not talking into anything but at everything and everyone. The world around him is on trial before the wrath of this Napoleon sized Sphinx and it is they who must solve the riddle's mantra.
Myself included.
But Fucking-A and blessed be the Baby Buddha, for before I have to pose an answer of have my heart swallowed whole, here comes the 21 ready to Evac my ass out of the madness ground zero.
Throwing down my cigarette the way a ninja must throw down her smoke bomb, I bolt for the stop with unnecessary velocity and theatric leaps of escape worthy of a Jack Kirby splash page. I arrive about three minutes shy of the nick of time and board the bus with a shake of my head. I take a seat on a very packed bus just in time to watch as the furious man boards directly behind me.
Expecting another shout from the furious man he instead surprises me by pulling out a wallet from out of his deep red pockets and producing a fresh MARTA card. The pass beeps. The furious man walks slowly down the corridor of the bus and takes the only remaining seat.
Directly across from me in the back.
The door shut and the 21pulls out of the station towards Memorial.
I'm squeezed between a human turtle and a gangsta dad with his little princess on his lap. The turtle is going through a well-worn bible with a yellow marker and highlighting every sentence across every page. The little princess is telling her dad about all the things she will do when she grows up - including the taming of giant cats and flying a plane - all while her father nods along sagely without a doubt and a tear drop tattooed under the eye.
"Where's my shit?" The furious man growls looking around and then back at me to repeat the question only a little louder.
Gangsta dad, the little princess and the human turtle look at me like I would know. I turn to the furious man helplessly and shrug. To which the furious man could only ask, just a little louder now, "Where's my shit?"
Tired old men pivot their attention off clutched canes, morbidly obese fast food employees look up from a bag of fries sold by their competitor, teenagers giggle imperiously and the bus slows to a stop.
"Where's my shit?"
"Alright." The bus driver's voice squawks through the intercom, "I'm not driving if there's a commotion."
A collective groan followed by a bark of - "Where's my shit?"
The little princess is laughing now and gangsta dad is looking anything but pleased. The human turtle opens to Revelations and starts highlighting away.
"Well...," gangsta dad looks over at me impatiently, "answer the man and shut him up."
"But...,"
"Answer the man, son." The human turtle mumbles and the little princess shrieks excitedly and the whole bus grumbles out an agreement until the bus driver squawks in authoritatively. "None of us are going anywhere until you do, sir."
The furious man leans forward and looks me dead in the eyes: "Where's my shit?"
I close my eyes in that way you do just in case doing so meant you could open them somewhere else. Instead I take a deep breath and mirroring the furious man's lean settle my face inches from his own.
I tap a single finger against my finger and answer - "It's all in your head."
The furious man looks confused in that way dogs look confused before they bite your ass.
"That's where your shit's at, man. That's where my shit's at, that's..., " and I nod towards the folks I'm squeezed between, "where their shit's at. We carry it around with us every day and everywhere we go. We carry it around so long we start to forget it's there. Then when we forget it's there we make room for the bad things. The drama, the drugs, the bad days that only lead to worse, and that thing we have in our skull now feeding off us the whole time. It becomes a song that's stuck in your head only it's a song about how everything's wrong around as well as about you and it just keeps playing over and over and over again until you have to start singing along, singing along louder and louder and you just want someone to make it stop..."
... and I snap my fingers...
"... and all of a sudden you remember exactly where you left your shit. You left it while leaving the bed of a woman too beautiful to wake. You left it at the club partying with your boys getting drunk and dancing and everybody laughing. You left it on the kitchen table right after finishing that one meal that only your mother and the good lord above know how to make so good. You left it somewhere deep inside so you'd never lose it and it's there now waiting for you behind that question you keep asking."
I lean back, I resist the gulp in the throat and muffle the fear in my voice, and as calmly as I can fake tell him. "When you're ready to start asking yourself that question you'll be doing a lot better than most of can on our best days."
The furious man stands up with eyes wide with rage and he reaches out for me with a hand...
... and pulls the cord that rings the bell that tells the bus to do what it is already doing.
The furious man nods not a me but the little princess, turns around and exits through the back door.
When he leaves I become invisible again as the world dials me out and the bus rumbles us all off to whatever place we were trying to get back to.
It begins as a roar to rival the freight train shuffle rattling away and ends with a profane bellow that stops the foot traffic cold. He shouts the question to them as well,as the cabs and the wailing ambulanc, to the rush hour push of mini vans, pick-up trucks, Mustangs (always Mustangs in this town), to the old woman in the station wagon and to the squad car that cruised by oblivious. None of them offer an answer.
"Where's my shit?" The furious man is a short man, not exceptionally so, but the wild throws of arms towards the traffic and possessed stance serve only to amplify his lack of stature. He wears a baseball cap from which braids flail along with each blind point of finger or 'What's-Up?' shrug. A loose fitting grey coat patterned with a designer brand logo and red baggy pants. All of it immaculately clean without so much as a spot or a wrinkle or a crease. The furious man turns to me, five feet and a respectful distance away from the station's no-smoking zone enjoying the show with a Camel.
"Where's my shit?" He asks stripped of all belligerence and in the helpless tone you ask when you can't find your keys.
And that's when I realize that the furious man isn't talking into a blue tooth at all. He's not talking into anything but at everything and everyone. The world around him is on trial before the wrath of this Napoleon sized Sphinx and it is they who must solve the riddle's mantra.
Myself included.
But Fucking-A and blessed be the Baby Buddha, for before I have to pose an answer of have my heart swallowed whole, here comes the 21 ready to Evac my ass out of the madness ground zero.
Throwing down my cigarette the way a ninja must throw down her smoke bomb, I bolt for the stop with unnecessary velocity and theatric leaps of escape worthy of a Jack Kirby splash page. I arrive about three minutes shy of the nick of time and board the bus with a shake of my head. I take a seat on a very packed bus just in time to watch as the furious man boards directly behind me.
Expecting another shout from the furious man he instead surprises me by pulling out a wallet from out of his deep red pockets and producing a fresh MARTA card. The pass beeps. The furious man walks slowly down the corridor of the bus and takes the only remaining seat.
Directly across from me in the back.
The door shut and the 21pulls out of the station towards Memorial.
I'm squeezed between a human turtle and a gangsta dad with his little princess on his lap. The turtle is going through a well-worn bible with a yellow marker and highlighting every sentence across every page. The little princess is telling her dad about all the things she will do when she grows up - including the taming of giant cats and flying a plane - all while her father nods along sagely without a doubt and a tear drop tattooed under the eye.
"Where's my shit?" The furious man growls looking around and then back at me to repeat the question only a little louder.
Gangsta dad, the little princess and the human turtle look at me like I would know. I turn to the furious man helplessly and shrug. To which the furious man could only ask, just a little louder now, "Where's my shit?"
Tired old men pivot their attention off clutched canes, morbidly obese fast food employees look up from a bag of fries sold by their competitor, teenagers giggle imperiously and the bus slows to a stop.
"Where's my shit?"
"Alright." The bus driver's voice squawks through the intercom, "I'm not driving if there's a commotion."
A collective groan followed by a bark of - "Where's my shit?"
The little princess is laughing now and gangsta dad is looking anything but pleased. The human turtle opens to Revelations and starts highlighting away.
"Well...," gangsta dad looks over at me impatiently, "answer the man and shut him up."
"But...,"
"Answer the man, son." The human turtle mumbles and the little princess shrieks excitedly and the whole bus grumbles out an agreement until the bus driver squawks in authoritatively. "None of us are going anywhere until you do, sir."
The furious man leans forward and looks me dead in the eyes: "Where's my shit?"
I close my eyes in that way you do just in case doing so meant you could open them somewhere else. Instead I take a deep breath and mirroring the furious man's lean settle my face inches from his own.
I tap a single finger against my finger and answer - "It's all in your head."
The furious man looks confused in that way dogs look confused before they bite your ass.
"That's where your shit's at, man. That's where my shit's at, that's..., " and I nod towards the folks I'm squeezed between, "where their shit's at. We carry it around with us every day and everywhere we go. We carry it around so long we start to forget it's there. Then when we forget it's there we make room for the bad things. The drama, the drugs, the bad days that only lead to worse, and that thing we have in our skull now feeding off us the whole time. It becomes a song that's stuck in your head only it's a song about how everything's wrong around as well as about you and it just keeps playing over and over and over again until you have to start singing along, singing along louder and louder and you just want someone to make it stop..."
... and I snap my fingers...
"... and all of a sudden you remember exactly where you left your shit. You left it while leaving the bed of a woman too beautiful to wake. You left it at the club partying with your boys getting drunk and dancing and everybody laughing. You left it on the kitchen table right after finishing that one meal that only your mother and the good lord above know how to make so good. You left it somewhere deep inside so you'd never lose it and it's there now waiting for you behind that question you keep asking."
I lean back, I resist the gulp in the throat and muffle the fear in my voice, and as calmly as I can fake tell him. "When you're ready to start asking yourself that question you'll be doing a lot better than most of can on our best days."
The furious man stands up with eyes wide with rage and he reaches out for me with a hand...
... and pulls the cord that rings the bell that tells the bus to do what it is already doing.
The furious man nods not a me but the little princess, turns around and exits through the back door.
When he leaves I become invisible again as the world dials me out and the bus rumbles us all off to whatever place we were trying to get back to.