What about today?

His name is Chuck. He's a roofer.

I was standing in back of the venue after an amazing Kylie Campion show. He'd been hanging around, talking to some folks as they passed but not really bothering anyone. He was just there, part of the scenery I guess. You might move away if he got too close, I probably would've done the same on any other night.

After most of the folks hanging out had left, he came over and said hey. He asked if I could get him some food. I had a dollar in cash on me and didn't know the area too well, but looking over my shoulder there was a Mexican Restaurant.

"Yknow what I really don't get?" he began almost as soon as we had sat down. "I had to shut off all the TV and the news and all that crap because I just can't take it." His voice stumbled out more like a rolling grumble of syllables than words. The whole time I was straining to decipher meaning amongst the low gravel.

"What's that?" I asked, nervously staring down at the menu. I'd already eaten, so when the server came, I just got a coke.
"Order anything for me," He said, "I don't speak Espanol so you order for me."

"What would you like to drink?" She repeated, once again in non-accented American English.

He turned to me, looking me up and down. "Ask what kinda liquor they got."

"I'm not buying you alcohol," I said. "You want a soda?"

"Okay," he sighed, "Fine. Dr. Pepper."

A minute of silence led back to, "...yeah, what bothers me just...what pisses me off so much is this--You hear all this stuff from like two thousand years ago, from like 2000 B.C., but it's 2013, yknow what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm saying to you, man? It's all this preaching about two thousand years back and tell me what...what does any of that stuff have to do with right here and now."

I leaned and nodded, not knowing what to say, but thankfully he quickly filled up the silence.

"I just wonder, after everything I've seen. All the things that are going on in the world, I wonder where he is...where God is yknow. Moses parting waters (though I'm not too sure about that) and with Jonah, you hear about all that...and Jesus died and came back after three days but then what's the point 'cause...and you seem like a true believer but yknow I'm not sure but yknow I am a real true believer but I gotta say where'd he go? What about today? Where did God fuck off to when they bomb us and we bomb them?"

I noticed something wet making a small trail down his cheek. There was a glimmer to the red on the edges of his eyes and he was silent for a few moments just looking at me, pleading with me.

Not sure why I said it, but I asked him, "What would you say to him if you could talk to him?"

"Say to who?"

"To God. What would you ask him?"

"Hmm, well, you know what? I'd ask that sonofabitch where the fuck he's been for this whole time? Y'hear all this two thousand year ol' preaching and y'hear all these miracles and stuff from back but this is today. Now, I've been a roofer, and a crackhead, and a drunk, and a, uh...and everything and so I know what I mean yknow...Where's he been? He sleepin' or...or..."

I watched the tide overcome the walls and he unwrapped his napkin from around the silverware. When he set it down, it was marked by two dark circles.

"Grew up in an orphanage way back when, yknow," he said after the Waitress had brought him two big plates of food. I'd told him I got something with lots of choices, so if he didn't like something he could have something else. He'd thanked me and dove right in. "'Ts'really good."

"Grew up in an orphanage with my brother and I and..." The food made it even harder to pick through his mumbling, but he kept on. I sipped my coke and tried not to stare at the tears as they fell while still looking respectfully in his tired eyes.

Just keep nodding and smiling, I thought, as I struggled to listen. What was I supposed to say? Why am I even here? Okay, Luke, pay attention.

"...and he was younger. He liked guys, yknow, but I like girls, and he got AIDS and died. Maybe 20, 25 years or longer, ago...I don't...when we were growing up there'd be 40 guys and 40 girls in the orphanage and I had to stick up for him when the older guys would all go after him. You mess with my brother, you mess with me. Yknow what I mean? You fuck with him, you fuck with me? 'Cause I'm his older brother. I was his older brother."

He raised his napkin to his eyes again. He gave me his phone number and told me about being a roofer. "One roof, let me do it, and you'll see how great I am. Just, Luke, you gotta supply the ladder, okay?"

Walking back to my car, I passed a church's night service getting out, folks talking, laughing, arguing.

Went back to the house and ready for work, but I stopped by my friend's birthday party before my shift. One or two of them had seen me leave the parking lot with Chuck, had stopped by to say they were going to the party, to check on me.

"That was really cool, man."

Nah, it wasn't, I thought, All I could think the whole time was how I'm gonna blog about it later.
 

The Utopia Problem

A society that needs an enemy to bring it together can never be a society of peace.

…but then, ask yourself, do you even really want peace. As a society do you want the chaos and honesty that must come for peace to be achieved?

In this age of vast amounts of dystopian fiction, I’ve been thinking a bit about why that’s so apparent to envision (not easy to flesh out in a decent literary way, to be sure, but certainly fitting very nicely with current sensibilities toward the future). I’ve also been wondering about what it would be like to build a Utopia, one where the plot didn’t include finding out how it was secretly so corrupt but one where the struggle was based in how it’s actually hard to keep a good, honest, healthy society working. We’ve seen writers speculate about “Utopia” wherein all is serene and problem-free. It’s all feasts and fun and dare I say divine. It’s a half-cocked day-dream with old ideas of what’s good, I think. I also think it’s a false Utopia because it denies the humanity of the citizens. 

I want a damn good Human Utopia. I want discussion and problem-solving through intellectual struggle and debate. I want growth and change and mystery and confusion. I don’t want easy answers.

A Utopia shouldn’t be the death of the big questions, but the garden in which those seeds we call big questions grow into mighty mountains of trees with roots and branch all intertwined and reaching out in every burdensome and inconvenient direction. 

I want a Utopia not built upon the pax romana of intimidation or the drunken complacency of cake and circus. I want a Utopia where peace means the utter and constant tension of recognizing the complexity of the other. 

I want a human Utopia. 

But then perhaps Utopia would be the wrong word. 

Perhaps there’s not a right word for it. 

I want a place where there doesn’t need to be a right word for everything. 

I want a place where there actually can be. 

Dirty Lenses

Sometimes, whilst cleaning my glasses, I think about how when I put them on I’ll be a white guy, aged 22 years, with glasses. It’s like they’ll never know I dropped out of college. It’s like they’ll never know that although I do love to read long works of historical and/or classical fiction, I also enjoy comic books and children’s cartoons. It’s like they’ll never know that I’ve been rhyming since middle school and have in fact gotten half-decent at spitting a verse or two. It’s like they’ll never know I spent two months sleeping in my car last fall. It’s like they’ll never know I’m more than some white guy, aged 22 years, with glasses, but I could go on.

I could go on assuming that other people make as shallow assumptions about me as I do about them even though I know my backstory in and out and yet with others I’m only window shopping. Maybe I’m the one who’s too cheap to even try their shoes on, much less walk a mile behind a stranger’s dirty lenses.

The Shadow of a Shadow

This part of the week, I work the night shift, so I really didn't know about any of this till I was hurrying to work late with NPR low in the background.

It hurts when it happens anywhere but it's weird how it resounds when it happens somewhere you know.

I grew up in Quincy, MA. Spent my childhood there. Went to college there. With friends or often by my self, I'd take a short T ride north and wander round the brick buildings and cemeteries and shops and people watch on the streets of that big old city. My first big city.

I've been to THE big city once or twice, the one in which all the movies and comic books are set. But this, on the bay, with the seagulls and a wicked strong disregard for R's, was my big city.

I always liked how old it felt.

We're such a young nation, still making so many young mistakes. Still learning when there's much time to learn, but those streets always felt grounded.

And cold is different there. And parades are different there. And the flag is different there. I can't explain it, because as hard as it is for me to call anywhere home, I guess there were times I felt kinda home there. Heck, I've never felt more patriotic than when hanging out, singing songs by the occupy tents near the bank buildings. Never felt more American than when watching breakdancers busk to the gaze of a sea of multi-colored faces.

I don't really know what I'm saying, but as I rushed to work, tired and disoriented from trying and failing to wake up on time for the night shift, I heard the news on the radio.

But right before that, they were replaying an interview with Tom Waits from 2009.

"The shadow of a shadow is light," he said.

Yeah, something like that.