RICK EDELSTEIN - PEOPLES

​Rick Edelstein was born and ill-bred on the streets of the Bronx. His initial writing was stage plays off-Broadway in NYC. When he moved to the golden marshmallow (Hollywood) he cut his teeth writing and directing multi-TV episodes of “Starsky & Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Chicago,” “Alfred Hitchcock,” et al. He also wrote screenplays, including one with Richard Pryor, “The M’Butu Affair” and a book for a London musical, “Fernando’s Folly.” His latest evolution has been prose with many published short stories and novellas, including, “Bodega,” “Manchester Arms,” “America Speaks,” “Women Go on,” “This is Only Dangerous,” “Aggressive Ignorance,” “Buy the Noise,” and “The Morning After the Night.” He writes every day as he is imbued with the Judeo-Christian ethic, “A man has to earn his day.” Writing atones.

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​                                               Peoples
 
 
          I have created a life-style of an urban recluse. After decades of active participation with many...no, this will not be a biography, just an intro...I evolved (or devolved if you’re judging) into an existence of quiet ease. As Oscar Wilde said, “Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex,” I  have a daily routine that’s like a warm blanket on a chilled dawn. In my morning robe retrieve---outside my door---the New York and L.A. Times, including the cross-word puzzles (Monday’s the easiest) and strong black coffee.  Shower just a few degrees short of raising blisters. Dress casual with scuffed New Balance sneakers. Breakfast and shmoozing with my wife/partner/lover/best friend. Grab my camera and go for a long city-boy walk. Said camera has a 300mm lens so I can zoom in on human moments without imposing on the unaware subjects. Download some good shots on I-photo and share ‘em with friends.  And then...yes, then to an assault of taming the beast a-k-a work on writing – sometimes it’s a novel, screenplay, stage play, or in this case a short story.
               Staring at the photos one afternoon I realized that despite the precision of catching a person in a moment of his/her life, I was comfortably detached as an observer, sans participation, my initial intent but now...now, what? I was reluctant to hear the answer as I was totally contented with my chosen solitude. Or over-protected I heard the inner voice uncomfortably urging me to reach past my comfort zones to—without the camera---connect with a specific person, be involved on some level with peoples whom I have intentionally created 300mm’s of distance.
          And so with a mini recorder I ventured into the world of peoples challenging me to relate one-on-one, with a specific person in parks, Starbucks, shopping malls, bars, bus stops and even the under-15-items line in the Market. I chose certain questions hoping to stimulate an exchange.
           The following are verbatim accounts with no editing. I am deliberately avoiding description, age, ethnicity, even gender, lest I fall into subjective editorializing. Just peoples and me.
 
        Hello, my name is Rick Edelstein and with your permission I am recording our conversation.
          Why?
          I am a writer and I realized that I need to connect with real people, not just my fictional characters. I promise to ensure that you will be anonymous and...
             Anonymous?
             It means that your identity will not be revealed.
          I know what anonymous means. Do not be talking down to me, arroganten zadnik.
          Apologies I just thought that...
          That I am less smart intelligent than you because I sitting am on a bench not wearing such good sneakers like you smoking a piece of a cigarette I picked out of the bokluk.
          With your permission I am recording our conversation. Is that shrug meaning yes?
          Shrug...strange word. Sounds Bulgarski but it isn’t.
          I am recording us, okay?
          Okay, yes, record. You do what you do and if I do not like to do with you at a such a point I will tell you to find another bench.
          Fair enough...why are you laughing?
          Not laughing. Just a grunt with a smile. Fair enough. What does that mean to you Americans. Enough of fair? And then to stop to be fair when you reach enough?
          You’re an interesting man. I am going to ask you questions and...
          You said you would be recording our conversation. You see! Even with not having a warm bed and shower for three days I listen, I hear. Conversation. You do not just ask questions or maybe I ask and we conversate.
          That’s a deal.
          So?
          Tell me about your life, positive, negative experiences, whatever.
          My life. Starting where?
          The middle.
          The first smart thing you have said since interrupting my time of solace. Good word, no? Even this mushenik pleasure takes wherever. What were we talking?
Starting in the middle...which you thought of smart, yes?
Of course the middle, we are always in the middle of our life even if it is the middle of the end. Too not specific fair enough? I can tell you things that would panic those buttons on your clean blue shirt.
          My buttons will take the chance. Tell me.
          First I must know that you I can trust.
          If you share something that you would rather not revealed I promise I will honor your request. I give you my word.
          Word. I should have your word, should I? You know why I am on this bench without a hot shower for six days? Peoples give me their word. Da ti go natshukam. No, you first tell me something naked.
          Naked?
          Yes, without buttons.
          Ah, you mean open, vulnerable.
          Vulnerable, yes, good word. Vul ner able. Be able to vulner, hah. Talk to trust me.
          Okay okay, let’s see, all right, inside of me is what I call la  pantera. A mean, angry, black panther who wants to strike out at all those lying motherfuckers in our government and you can toss in my last agent, too.
          Good vulner...and does la pantera ever get loose and do what a mean angry hurtfulling black beautiful clawed creature do the damage that some have earned the right and wrongs to be broken and to be sent to the hell they created for us?
          Whew...that’s a heavy question. What is your name?
          Zhivko Dimov. And you are Rick Edelstein. You see I listen and hear. Most people hear but do not listen.
          Your turn Zhivko. Start anywhere, just about your life, which I know throws a wide net but we have to start somewhere...why are you smiling?
          He is does not wanting to tell me about when the panther had his claws bloodied on the ones of hurting does he? Do you have anything to eat?
          No, but if you wish we can walk over to the mall and...
          I do not wish. More?
          Do you believe in God?
          Gad. All powerful, all loving, all bullshit. Gad is a mean rotten terrible magician.
          Magician?
          He throws misery in our path wanting us to die but at the same time simul what’s the word?
          Simultaneously.
          He puts, places too deep to take out, implants a gene we cannot remove.
          And that gene is?
          The will to survive in the face of the most indecent mean-spirited foul coarse dis...no I do not believe. I curse your Gad.  Something else.
          All right. How about your life...something, anything specific, whatever comes to mind?
          I am in a rage at...nothing else coming to mind.
          How about a person, someone you are or have been close to?
          Why ask that?
          Just wanting to know more about you, Zhivko.
          Petka.
          Ah, okay, Petka. Is that a name...of a person with whom...
          Petka Todorova is a person with whom...yes, my Petka.
          What happened? Is she still alive? Your wife, girlfriend, your...
          I...for me to go to the vulner place is not...will you give me enough for a hot meal in the market?
          Will twenty dollars do it?
          You want change?
          No. Petka?
          She always insisted, demanded in her sweet gentle strong voice Zhivko we have a hot meal to keep the body...ugh, Petka...all right, I will tell you. In Sofia, we were both drunk from Rakeyia laughing so hard tears coming down until a stupid dog runs in front of the car Petka screams, kuche! She loved every animal and I did not hit kuche but I did hit the tree. I hate fucking dogs. You know Leonard Cohen?
            Yes, a great poet, song writer. He is dead.
            So is Petka.
            I’m sorry, Zhivko.      
            What do you expect me to do with sorry?
            Nothing I...just...why did you mention Leonard Cohen?
            When I think of Petka which I try to not but you opened the eye of the rotting needle...Leonard Cohen...I’m leaving the table I’m out of the game I don’t know the people in your picture frame if I ever loved you oh no it’s a crying shame if I ever loved you. Terrible good song. I am finished Mr. Rick, you will have to find another bench.
 
            Mind if I sit here?
            It’s a free world. Free world. What bubbameinses. Nothing in this world is free, every choice costs, no free lunches even here they’re beginning to charge more for a lox and bagel than is justified but what’s a woman to do when not even the air you breathe in China outside is a terminal disease already. Six letter word beginning with c ending with g. Empathy.
            Caring.
            Of course! What is that what are you doing?
            It’s a recorder. With your permission I want to record our conversation.
            Are you from the government? My God, I told Stanley don’t mess with the taxes but you’d think he’d listen. The deductions are debatable if you’re kind but...
            No, I’m not from the IRS. I’m a writer and I need to have conversations with real people not just those created out of my imagination.
            Hmmm...you’re not lying. I can tell by a person’s mouth. Peoples’ lips, particularly the bottom one gets puffed up a smidgeon when they try to conceal. So writer, do you make a living by what you write?
            Sometimes, yes.
            Sometimes he says. What does that mean? Do you really truly, I am watching your mouth now, earn enough money as a writer?
            We pay the mortgage on our house every month, own two cars, food in the fridge, no outstanding debts that we can’t meet. How’s that?
            We he said. You’re married. Children? What does your wife do?
            No children. Yet. My wife is a dentist.
            Get out of here with a dentist. Who has a dentist for a wife? Is she good, give me a discount maybe because I need some work on a bridge that is coming too loose lately.
            She’s the best. I’ll tell her to give you a break.
            A dentist for a wife, whoda’ thought. How did you meet her and do not tell me when she said open wide?
            Close. She was recommended. I went to have my teeth examined. She was and still is very beautiful. In the chair I noticed she was wearing red, I think you call them pumps, shoes with a small heel, shiny red.
            A woman dentist with red shoes. You should write about this. Did you tell her you liked her shoes?
            As a matter of fact yes.
            What did she say?
            You have two cavities, come back next week and we’ll clean it up.
            That was it?
            She also said you comb your hair straight back. You would look better with a part.
            Uch, I see you have a part in your hair, your dentist-lady knew what she was talking. You do look better.
            But you haven’t seen it straight back.
            You think you have to see everything to know something? What happened with your dentist?
            Next week I came back with parted hair and now we’re married.
            Shoen, fartig, just like that. A man gets his teeth fixed by a woman dentist with shiny red shoes parts his hair and they pay the mortgage with two cars yet.
            So, do I have your permission to record this and use it in a short story if it works out that way?
            Do you make any kind of money on short stories?
            Not really.
            But you said you own a home, two cars...
            Major income from two screenplays never produced but options renewed every year so...what is your name and do you agree to this recording?
            Okay yes, every day except when it rains I come here, have a nosh a cuppa’ tea, people-watch, a favorite past time of Frieda Schwartzman. You see that man over there leaning towards the young woman?
            The one with the hat on?
            Hat. You call that a hat? It’s a cap put on backwards and an earring yet. He’s too white for such michigas. And it’s also a little bit dirty. I detest shmutz. He’s not her boyfriend but wants to be.
            How do you know that?
            Uch you men are so transparent. Look at him leaning into her, nodding, smiling too much...but she hasn’t made her mind up about him look at her with an earring in her nose yet and maybe showing more cleavage than necessary but he better look up, is that a tattoo just sneaking out over her boobie? Uch...people...I love them and can’t stand them. You have a name?
            Rick Edelstein.
            You’re Jewish.
            Yes.
            Which synagogue? The one I went to, past tense because the Rabbi got so full of himself he forgot about God.
            I don’t go to synagogue.
            Don’t tell me that. Even the high holidays, Yom Kippur?
            No.
            A shonda for the neighbors. Are you sure you’re Jewish?
            Yes.
            Circumcised by a moile?
            So my mother said.
            Your wife, it’s all right with her not to go to synagogue or do you at least have a Seder come Pasach?
            My wife is not Jewish.
            Guttenyu, there it is.
            There what is?
            We were the lost tribe and now we are losing our tribe even more. Marrying a shiksa, nothing against your dentist wife. She loves you, for real?
            Yes.
            How do you know? How much does your dentist love you?
            Like every other breath, she said after we made love one night.
            Your generation likes to give details about private nights, I’ll never get used to it. But still, every other breath is good even for a goniff like you who doesn’t attend. What will you tell your  children?
            We’ll tell them to treat people kindly and if they ever want to go to a synagogue or even a church...
            A church a Jewish man says. A church!? Oy gut.
            Or nothing. My child will make a choice on his own.
            Or maybe her own which perhaps she may want to indulge in her Jewish heritage possibly you think?
            If that’s her choice, it’s okay with us. So Frieda, tell me about your life.
            What’s  to tell? Life is terrible, wonderful most particularly if you have grand children, stupid if you listen to the politicians, and if you have a good husband as Stanley is a good man with occasional f’drait moments but here I am talking to a Jewish stranger who denies his heritage. There, that’s my life, bubbeleh, enough?
            Not nearly...we’re just getting started, Frieda.
            So start, wait. Four letters, inlet.
            Cove.
            Excellent. Finished.
            I see you have another crossword book. Why two?
            I never want to be without especially when I finish one book if I’m sitting here with nothing to do with my mind, then what? Stanley calls it mental gymnastics. After all a woman needs to exercise her intellectual abilities wouldn’t you say, boychik?
            Men, too. You mentioned going to synagogue...
            And you not going which maybe perhaps by the end of our whatever you call this unless I can convince you to go at least Yom Kippur or don’t you have something to atone?
            I’m working on it. Tell me, Frieda, about your relationship with God.
            Look at him mister writer he doesn’t fool around, going straight to the kishkas. What made you ask that?
            Synagogue...is it a cultural expression or a deeper connect with the deity.
            Deity smeity God is God. What else?
            Your relationship with...
            A person does not have a relationship with...all right with my sister-in-law Ruchel, bless her pipick which no doubt is full of lint, I have a relationship, not necessarily a good one but we tolerate each other for Stanley’s sake but with God, that’s not a relationship  like mishpucha, no, God is irregardless and I know that isn’t the correct word but it is when I say it, irregardless of the fact that I am sometimes disappointed with God, just the same still God is and no matter where I think He fails I mean did you see that little boy immigrant with all the shmutz on his face and dazed eyes my God how could somebody ignore a child like that? Are you sure you’re not from the government and if you are you should be ashamed of yourself the way you, uch, I’m going to stop right now because my inners are beginning to roil around and then what happens to the angry air is not a preference so ask me another question before...oh look, look, she is laughing, that is a tatoo on her right breast which is bouncing is she not wearing a bra? Ahhh, they melted into each other in public yet, look the man is sitting up straighter now, smiling, glancing at her tatoo and they both know that he knows that he got her. Good work, shmendrick.
            Tell me, Frieda, what is your greatest pleasure?
            What a question. Pleasure...naches...when my grand-daughter runs to me with her skinny arms open wide screaming, bubba. Uch...only a woman can know such...uhmmmm hmmm...yes, enough mister writer?
            Your greatest fear?
            In the middle of the day with people all around you ask such a question.
            If  you’d rather not...
            I’d rather not but it’s too late because you already put it in there. My greatest fear...oy, too many. Stanley goes before me, deflect, which would make me crazy and very angry with that inconsiderate putz for doing such a thing. But if you look at my lower lip you would see that I am avoiding, is that the word or evading, in my crosswords it’s good to know both? Never mind, my greatest fear is if something happens to Shelley, she’s only four but what a four. Cut my arm off right now to stopping anything happen to that...you should hear her, “Read me the story again, bubba.” Ten, twenty times, she never gets tired of it. Me, I would read the magic giraffe and the turtle a thousand, a million times just to keep my Shelley safe.
            Amen.
            Amen from the man who does not believe.
            I didn’t say I didn’t believe, I just don’t go to synagogue.
            So tell me Mister Jewish writer, what do you believe?
            Not so much a God as in a bearded figure in heaven but I do believe in Spiritual forces, in a Supreme intelligence but without morality.
            Without morality? What does that mean?
            A Supreme sort of detached force, not good or bad, just is.
            If you don’t know good from bad what good are you?
            I have my values, my good and bad but I can’t believe that a Supreme being does. I mean look at the world, Frieda.
            We made the world. We f’drait human beings made this facockedah  world. God is just waiting.
            Waiting for what?
            You know that play, Samuel Becket...Samuel is a Jewish name. You think he was Jewish?
            Waiting for Godot.
            Exactly. He put on the o and t but it is waiting for God to come, speaking of which Stanley will be getting up from his nap in twenty-two minutes and I must be there for him because he wakes up cranky.
            He insists that you’re there when he awakens, does he?
            No, shmendrick, I insist. Your dentist-shiksa-wife who loves you like her next breath she will understand better than you masculine cockers. Have a good day, and come the high holidays I expect you to attend but first give me the number of your shiksa dentist wife.
 
            Can we talk a while? I’m a writer and I need to have conversations with real people not just those created out of my imagination so with your permission I will record...
            You know about Rhodesian Ridgebacks?
            I believe they’re hunting dogs.
            They jump on the back of lions and rip their throats out.
            I am recording this with the intention of using what you say in my writing but I must have your permission.
            She was like a worn armchair with the stuffing sticking out in the hidden back my mother didn’t like me all that much but her husband my father was a mean son of a bitch so maybe it just rubbed off because I was a male child wouldn’t you say?
            Permission to use your words or not?
            In order to win you cannot must not be afraid to fail which at this juncture in my life I am in the failing phase but...
            If you do not agree to this recording and grant me permission to use if I ever get it published I will end this...
            Permission permission okay okay granted use any and everything any way you want but...
            What is your name?
            My name? My name is Leo Ridgeback.
            Like the dog.
            In search of a lion’s throat is my mission yes but then again on this planet of dumbosity one must embrace the ambiguity of the search knowing that the answer is the search for the answer the unexamined life is not worth living who said that?
            Ancient Greek, maybe Socrates I think.
            Who wants to examine a life of  the American dream morphed into a nightmare of genocidal proportions exterminating native Americans who the delusional liberals misname because there was no America when they were natives. Native Americans! Sentimental banality burrowing under a blanket of assumed indignation without earning a righteous scar.
            Is Leo Ridgeback your real name?
            Yes as real as names can be. People grow up to fulfill their names did you ever see an Irwin who was a warrior no Irwin’s hiding in virtual jungles with no vines as Leo Ridgeback squints his eyes for the blemished beings ensnarling our planet putting a timer for the end of the world as we know it tick fluking tock maybe a year or three while Armageddon gestures a smothering embrace for those unseeing in their affixed sleep masks made out of American currency thinking they are protected in their lair of means hiding in the American ethos as the top gets heavy with greediluscious whipcreamedriches and the rest of us short breathing stagnant circular eddies of deficit paying the rent for a cough drop as peoples looking for what they do not know is an undefined unrefined unkind loss. Loss. Loss of reason out of season grieve for believe why are you so angry she asked a man’s supposed to be angry if he’s got any balls but if you wish I can upshift into rage. Can you give a brother some help?
            What do you have in mind, Leo?
            My doctor’s prescription is not renewable for three weeks and six days or maybe six weeks and three days but it makes me no never-mind if you can help a brother out because I conjecture that you as a writer must go to the edge and thus needs surcease from the pressure in the form of a tranquilizer or pain killer or some reds vics or oxy or brown sugar don’t be telling me you writers do not need some form of alleviation some kind of escape relief from the circular grasp of illusive truth which is a frightening choke from the get go.
            I can’t help you  in that area, no.
            Come on, brother, a touch of Zoloft , valium, or that shit which sounds like Flamenco dances, Cymbalta, yeah, that’s it. Help a brother out.
            Not my scene. I come up empty in that area.
            True fucking blue?
            Yes.
            What do you do, what do you use to escape the dark nasties that are glued to our misbalancing act called life?
            I write about it.
            Does that relieve you of the darks?
            Not always but it helps.
            You’re making a lot of noise without saying shit.
            Tell me, Leo, about some experiences in your life, good, bad, threatening, challenging.
          You know about the Dalit?
 Dalit? No, what is the Dalit?
Writers are supposed to be on top of what’s happening below, where have you been undiscovering? I relate to the Dalit. India’s untouchables. Their mere touch would render the shrine unclean. This Dalit dude got too close and they thrashed the 70-year-old farmer leaving him wasted wiped out and then some. Every country has their niggers.
You feel, even in America, as an untouchable?
Never forget those who wrong you.
          Can you be more specific?
          They thought they pinned me, made me the victim. But no, I was victimized but never a victim. In fact I took a brackish pleasure in payback to their errant ways. Hah! I was eating a grilled cheese sandwich burned to a crisp watching their living demise it’s called schadenfreude. Victim this!
            How about details, specifics of the events that...
            Check the internet. Compton, Long Beach, East L.A. Pomona.
            How about names, what actually happened, the event that...
            Internet.
            Yes, I know but I need something more specific to...
            Internet’s dangerous. Addictive. Narcotic. Psychotic. In China there are more than 6,000 internet addicts. Teenagers treated with electroshock therapy. More than 24 million Chinese are digital addicts and you want more specifics. Awaken, writer. Use your mental faculties and create specifics just like all those other lying bastard cocksuckers who vomit their molten  spines when faced with a meal of truth. Mendacity must be made out of powerlust but truth ain’t. Truth just is no matter what biz curtains they drop on your cowardly eyes. You sure you don’t have even suboxone, a pill, red, white, green, beige...beige is a good color for anything that dulls the edge, Come on, man, help a brother out.
            I’m not holding. Can’t help you.
            Then what the fuck good are you. Consider me a fiction of your faction. I’m out!
 
            Do you mind if I join you?
            Yes, I do. I’m waiting for someone.
            When he comes I promise to leave.
            You just assume my date is a he...men!
            I apologize for my sexist assumption. I just want to have a conversation that...
            What is that? Why is the red light blinking?
            With your permission I’d like to interview you and record our conversation.
            Why?
            I’m a writer and after creating characters from my imagination I got that it’s time to talk to real people. So with your permission I want to record our...
            And then rewrite it to make me look bad and you look like the smartest man in the vicinity.
            No, not really. If you agree, as four already have, the deal is not to edit or rewrite. Print exactly, verbatim, your words and no editorializing from me. In fact I will not describe what you look like, wearing, even the name of this location.
            And then sell it to the New Yorker or Atlantic?
            From your mouth to God’s ears. Most likely just get it published online, no money in it but...
            If there is no financial compensation than why do it?
            Because...that’s what I do and this is my latest project.
            You don’t look like a starving writer.
            I’m not. The bills are paid. My income is not from short stories. Do I have your permission?
            Okay, go for it, but the minute...no the second my date comes, you are history, agreed?
            Agreed.
            Okay, go. How does this work?
            Well, it’s sort of non-linear. Whatever comes to mind.
            Yours or mine?
            I see you’re ... or rather were reading some article before I interrupted. Interesting?
            Oh this...get this...a team of Yale researchers used light to control the brains of mice turning these normally docile rodents into stone-cold killers. It’s called manipulating neurons. What waste.
            Why do you say that?
            Who needs neurons when you got a Marine. We train Marines to do just that...kill. The purpose of war is to kill the other guy. And America is quite good at it. We are war-junkies. World War one, two, Korean War, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan...addicts o-d’d on neurons. This is becoming a downer which I definitely do not want to go there so Mister whatever your name is...
            Rick Edelstein. Tell me about your family.
            Said he trying to lighten the load and failing miserably. As a kid I was a slow learner which is not an acceptable trait for a Greek father so they sent me to a live-in school when I was nine and learned the joys of sex with girls before I even knew I had a pussy.
            Your mother?
            Greek Daddy makes all the decisions. Mother. I never even saw her smile.
            What interests you?
            This will surprise you, writer. Basketball. Professional and college and even some high schools. I love the sport. Black kids, thank you very much, are wiping out the Caucasian persuasion. If it was up to me white kids should get extra points when they score...just to even the odds. More?
            Are you into the political scene and the commotion over fake news.
            I thought writers were wiser.
            Why do you say that?
            Fake news! You’re either ignorant or naïve. People no longer read newspapers, they check the internet or the TV which is more show biz than news, come on, writer, it’s all fake news. Fox delivers the same story as MSNBC but each of ‘em pushes their slant a-k-a fake news. This is beginning to be fun. More, Mister Writer.
            Okay...under what conditions would you commit a crime?
            Depends.
            On what?
            What kind of crime are you talking about? Stealing something from Wal-Mart’s? I already did that. Shades, wore ‘em out with the tag on and everything on a dare. Not busted. Make this more interesting, turn up the heat.
            Okay, fired up. Would you ever kill anyone?
            Yes.
            Under what conditions?
            If my life was in danger or someone I loved or even a stranger doing harm to a child. I would definitely kill a fucking child molester in a New York minute. Getting to be a downer. Change the frame.
            What’s your greatest pleasure?
            Ahhh, he hit the button. Sex.
            With a woman, a man...
            A woman with a great tongue, gentle hands, imagination even role play, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a dildo as a side-arm.
            More.
            Ah the man’s getting prurient horny, wants details. It’s like this mister man, I don’t know how it is for you dudes, but during the act, and don’t rush it baby, I disafuckingpear, leave all the hassles of planet earth and transmogrify onto another plane that bypasses my ceaseless mind-chatter and envelops me in a velvet cloud of shmush...and I try and try not to come which all sexperts think is the goal is actually the end-game as the orgasm clock runs out and brings me back to this oft-fucked planet. Whew...I went off on that one, didn’t I. Change the line.
            What kind of work do you do?
            I don’t want to give my i.d. away so let’s just say it’s a combination of smarts and physical stuff...and, well, I’m part of a crew of six, five men who taught me the joys of profanity said this one woman.  Let’s leave it at that. Switch gears.
            What’s your favorite animal?
            Talk about a switch! Elephants number one. Wise, beautiful, the female is the leader, they protect their young, peaceful and when necessary, warriors. You asked me if I was capable of killing anyone...well, yes, those motherfuckers who bounty hunt for ivory...they kill these beautiful beings and chop off their tusks, sell ‘em to Asians who carve up the ivory into little elephants. I’d chalk it up to irony if that wasn’t so horrific.
            Do you believe in heaven, hell, reincarnation?
            I’ve experienced them all, yes.
            Specifics, please.
            I’ve had moments of love that were heaven sent, yes, and abandonment which I will not specify but hellacious infuckingdeed, yes.
            Incarnation?
            It used to be a fad, incarnation. Like an obese woman who told me she was Cleopatra in a previous life and now with all this weight she is paying off karma as she nibbles on her third Twinkie.
            Do you have a recall of any incarnations?
            Yes.
            Tell me.
            I was a tall, skinny, black, I mean purple black dark skinned singer wearing a long faded print dress with part of the hem showing in a time I can’t define but I was poorer than poor so I turned tricks to pay the rent. In another I was a ten year old boy who ran into the street for a ball some fifteen year old took from me and threw it away. A car hit me and I died. The only other one I recall is a powerful male animal honcho leader of a primal gang in Denmark, maybe a century ago, a warrior who took offense easily and wrecked revenge havoc. I like that dude. Close the door on them. New Q, writer.
            Okay, let’s get current. What do you think of climate change?
            Thinking time over. Climate has already changed. Door slammed. Too bloody late. Ice caps melting the size of Delaware, we’re  just a few decades away from losing major coastal cities to the ocean swell, planetary disasters, millions dying due to lack ofs, you name it, crops, unpolluted water, clean air, edible food, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes. We’ve been on a suicide mission that looks to be successful. Talk about irony.
            So what are our choices?
            Choices are so yesterday. We blew it.
            You think the future for planet earth is that bleak?
            Planet earth will be fine. It adjusts. It’ll grow cactus with plastic bags hanging from the spiny arms. It’s the humans that are on the edge of extinction.
            That’s pretty devastating.
            Oxymoron. Pretty. Devastating. It is what it is and...Ooops, consider yourself absent, Mister Writer ‘cause here comes my only reason to pleasin’, ain’t she pretty! Be gone!
 
            I walked in the open air market with my recorder on...weaving in and out of many people...and here are some snippets in passing.
            Him? Please. He’s like a leaking fire hydrant.
            Ponyatiya Russian for a shady deal.
            I feel like I disappoint their expectations.
            I think we’re on pause.
            Nothing dies even these thoughts are riding on the tail of ...
            Dystopia leads to utopia.
            I’m running out of initials, LGBT whatevers.
            It’s like she has dust in her mouth.
            I like him but his stomach is always making noises.
            Love is love, you know what I’m saying?
 
            And so...I’ll call an end to this experimental project. Love is love, you know what I’m saying.
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