John O’Kane
In “Mining the States of City Minds,” a recent offering here, I introduced my approach to experiencing the texture of city life in Venice, California and writing up the resulting stories with a type of literary journalism. This kind of writing, with roots in the New Journalism of the 1960s, captures these stories as they happen in the streets and other sites of everyday life through scenes that are faithful to the action and events they emerged from. It lets characters speak for themselves, which gives the writing the feel of a fictional short story but also a more truthful approximation of the surfacing event through their differing perspectives or points of view. Like a Surrealist flaneur I amble through the city trolling for stories and find their potential elements in various clusters of activity, sometimes homeless camps, where these voices dramatize their challenging existences. They present the evidence that might lead to a larger story waiting to be told. My resulting scenes mix direct and indirect (playing undercover detective on occasion) observations and the reorganization of conversations. This is the ninth in my series.
In the first I capture the chaos ensuing from a crime in the streets, and especially the actions and impressions of one person suspected of committing it as he escapes. In the second I capture another scene in a park at night where several occupants confront the suspect and force him to move on. In the third I trace the suspect’s continued flight and his securing of temporary sanctuary. In the fourth I track his escape from there to the beach where he meets occupants of a camp who have created a kind of alternative, mini-society, and detain him as an alleged infiltrator. In the fifth I record his continuing experiences at this camp and his eventual escape. In the sixth I record his return to a friend’s place after this escape and his trek to the Dog Park where he encounters a woman who appears to be stalking him. In the seventh I record his reminiscences from the front yard of a house he stumbles on about the limits of street life but also how it helped him nurture a different existence and lifestyle. In the eighth I capture the moments after he surfaces from his reflections when he has a discussion in the house with activists he encountered earlier on the beach about their philosophy and how to improve the city. In the ninth I record his return to a friend’s place where he recharges his batteries and contrives a new appearance before retracing his steps to the scene of the crime, hoping to jar his memory. In the tenth I capture Wyatt’s experience when he returns to this scene. In the eleventh I document his continuing journey to another familiar haunt in search of friends he shared experiences with on the street, and who can help him reconstruct important events from the past. He finds Lionel and they reminisce, while discussing how to get off the street. Here we follow Lionel onto the beach. Inspired by his discussion with Wyatt, he begins to think differently and perceive his surroundings in fresh new ways, and encounters two activists who want to recruit him and others into a group that will help them get off the street…
Sidebar: Revival Meeting
Lionel pushes his cart along Speedway into the wee hours of the morning charged up about his chat with Wyatt. It’s been a long time since he’s opened up like this to anyone. But he never expected it would happen with Wyatt. He was never quite sure of him, what he was all about and especially why he appeared at the camp on Indiana when he did. He certainly wasn’t like those suspicious characters who showed up fairly recently who had no links to the area. But now he seems a lot different, talking about stuff he never did before and with such enthusiasm. He used to keep mostly to himself, always a flag for the long-timers who were wary of outsiders. Was he trying to get something from him now? What if he’s the killer?
Echoes of the past and future now flood his mind. He’d learned over the many months, years, to live closed off from the outside world, buffered from the censure that could only make him more confused and depressed. He took tourist slurs in stride after a while because his existence had been absorbed into his daily wanderings by forces he had no knowledge of. But now he feels like he has to respond, like he’s living in more than one mental space.
His cart seems to roll along on a smooth rubber surface when suddenly it strikes a pothole near Breeze and the boardwalk and he tumbles onto the sand near two lifeless forms shadowed by a tree. He gathers himself, blinking at the first flickers of light parsing the clouds, and manages to get his belongings back in the cart without disturbing his unfamiliar neighbors. The field of sand stretching to the water seems smirched with random growths of desert foliage. The firmament filters a few more traces of light, illuminating a scatter of human shapes. He blinks again, these once-familiar sights taxing his underused perceptual skills. He curls up against the tree as the firmament finally dissolves the remaining darkness.
An easel-ready artist can capture this natural progression, this accidental design, and make it speak the truth. Lionel had never been an astute observer or creator. He could occasionally recognize and appreciate a breathtaking sunrise but during moments when nature’s special light speaks, like in these early morning hours, he was usually savoring his last vestiges of slumber before the tourist invasion began. Sleep-deprived, he could do little more than ogle the smudges, shadows and sparkling undulations of the sea, missing the profound patterns.
A poet can see the world in a grain of sand but Lionel and his fellow shapes use these grains to secure their makeshift domiciles, leaving them to the winds of time when they forge ahead to the next one.
Conditions, especially if accompanied by heartfelt human intervention, can bring out the creative instincts in most anyone. Lionel and his fellow shapes are mostly mystified about their surroundings but they can salvage the grains of meaning that those who see so much in a single grain have little awareness of. They’ve learned the craft of survival in the natural street jungle and this language can teach them how society works. From repeated exposure to the waste and the wasted, and becoming little more than objects, they can grasp what’s responsible for such horror glaring at them everyday like a spastic neon sign. Perhaps the putrescence will become commonsense and spur their desire to create, their primitive existences offering ample material for finagling some facsimile of an honorary art degree. Their creations may not resemble those of the conventional artist, or even end up in a gallery or published tome. They may not even share space with other like-minded victims since they’re always on the move, attempting to escape the tentacles of the repressive society that houses them in its cracks…
Lionel gets his cart back on the firm surface and pushes it further south toward a tree ten feet or so onto the sand. He parks it against the east side of the tree, grabs his torn field jacket and curls around the other side to snatch some shuteye before the invasion, hoping to cocoon his lingering impressions from the chat with Wyatt. He fades quickly as the first smudges of orange enflame the trees and buildings, ruffling the snores of a few nearby shapes.
An hour or so into his repose, as the fire extinguishes and the asynchronous cart-parade symphony commences on the boardwalk, these impressions are trying to break through but his exhaustion appears to have nearly flatlined his conscious state of mind. He erupts like he’s come back from the other side, his eyes a mirror of conflicting memories, one gazing at f16 and the other at f2. Each seeks to compromise at around f9 as he settles in.
A male walks across the sand with a female companion, and they pivot toward one motionless shape, then another, summoning them with evangelical gestures to awaken, but having little success at even getting them to flinch. He persists as she forks off to the east in the direction of Lionel, plying her own more measured supplications to the sleeping flock. Lionel thinks he recognizes both of them but has never seen them together. He straightens up, perplexed about what they’re doing on the beach at this hour, and decides to seek another space.
“Brother, where you off to?” she asks from about twenty feet away, slowing his escape just slightly as he pretends to ignore her entreaties. “Did we violate your space? We want to talk to you. We aren’t cops.”
Lionel can’t imagine what they could be bringing him. He picks up the pace, pushing his cart onto the cement surface of the boardwalk, as she turns away and pursues a shape that’s starting to stir a little further north. He’s curious why she gave up so soon and turns around to see her engaging in conversation with this shape.
Meanwhile, the male is working the area close to the shore, his animated silhouette appearing to Lionel against the backdrop of the ocean’s mauve haze like some exotic beast. Other shapes begin to hobble his way. The female notices the gathering and turns toward Lionel, as if giving him one more chance to change his mind before joining it. Lionel wonders what they’re doing to get these others stirring. They must be offering something for free.
Curious, he pushes his cart further up the boardwalk to get in earshot of the conversations. Several shapes occupy a loose semi-circle twenty feet or so from the water, gawking at the speaker like they’re struggling to grasp a piece of avant-garde theater. They suddenly spill away and gyrate to their previous comfort zones, leaving the oratory suspended in the sea breezes. Now even more curious, Lionel imagines what might have changed their minds so quickly and decides these are probably another team of hucksters, or possibly undercover cops. He settles in and watches them as they fan out across the sand, taking different paths to reach whoever reveals signs of life, retooling their raps for every new potential listener. Are they doing the Lord’s work?
The two orators have little interest in doing the work of the Lord, though they’re quite familiar with it. The previous night they had a meeting at their half-way house near the beach with their whole group and at times the tenor was religiously inspired. But no one brandished any particular good book, proselytized any privileged sectarian message, or proffered any special guru that could deliver us from evil. It was about the quite pragmatic goal of getting the city’s victims off the street and on the way to becoming functional citizens, not in the rat race with all the other lost souls but in some alternative niche that could truly save their souls, and bodies to boot, and get them to believe in something and especially themselves. They don’t have to be reborn, or reinvented, merely included more fairly in some social arrangement where they have a voice in it. It came down to reviving the country’s true spirit without getting giddy over abstract ideals, spectacles and murky images. Some ranted about producing the guarantee of full and absolute equality, blahblahblah, but the consensus was only that they had to start encouraging victims to take charge of their lives, wake them up to actual threats on the streets and the real enemy and become critically aware.
Things had reached a crisis point with the recent murder on Indiana and they had to act soon. Their whole scene was threatened by many who wanted all of them gone. The same forces threatened everyone, the homeless as well as those living marginal existences, and they had to act together. The task before them was to convince their mostly clueless brothers what their true interests are so they can join the effort. The plan was to catch them at a moment when they are most likely to be receptive to a discussion and then get them to work together toward the same goals.
Lionel continues to watch and listen, perplexed but also intrigued by their zigging and zagging from body to body. He remembers some clean cut people dressed in suits and hats doing this over at the Dog Park one afternoon a while ago. But they had thick black books they would read from. These are dressed funny. They bear a resemblance to the street folks but they have a lot more energy. Are they friends or trying to get something from us? Why don’t they have books? They’re probably cops testing new ways to get us.
“Rise brothers and sisters…come with us,” the female says, speaking to all the shapes within ear range but in particular to one showing signs of life ten feet or so from her, and Lionel whose suspicion is partially allayed by the tone of her voice. “Aren’t you tired of wasting away in the same old places, always having to worry about being harassed and threatened by people everywhere around town, especially the cops?” She’s getting more animated and confident as the shape shows signs of responding.
“It’s in your power…you can do it. Renounce your bad habits and face up to your situations. Don’t let them do this to you!”
“What ya want us ta…who are you guys comin’ here and takin’ away our time?” the shape blurts.
“We’re not taking anything from you…we want to give you something.”
“Why you botherin’ us now then?”
“We don’t mean to…we apologize. Don’t you want to get off the street and start…”
“…they helpin’ us over at the Mission to…you all from there?”
“No, we aren’t from the Mission. We’re our own group with a mission. You’ve probably seen some of us around town. Many of us have been in the same situations.”
“They give us Bibles at the Mission and I still got mine somewers.” He moves his head slowly to the left as if some force is pushing hard against his effort, and gazes at his pile of belongings.
“That’s good of them but you need a lot more than a book to escape the…”
“…they says we needs to just keep believing in the Lord and good things will come…they got a meetin’ every week and we get some good things to read and eat and get ta talk to this real friendly preacher.”
“That could help make you feel good for a while or get you through the week. But how will those good things happen? Who will bring them? Are you expecting someone to come and help you out of…”
“…what ya got fer us? Ya ain’t got no books or stuff ta look at or somethin’ to eat or nothin’.”
“Yeah, he’s right,” another shape weighs in who had been lying over by Lionel but crept slowly toward the female as the conversation progressed. “What ya got for us?”
“None of those books are going to save you or…any of those friendly faces who claim to bring you the true word.”
“Yeah, you…last time I was over at that place they just kept readin’ from this passage and everone just stared at the talker,” Lionel interjects, feeling like she’s speaking to him now. “So we asked ‘em what all that was about and they didn’t even say nothin’…just kept readin’ from it until we got sleepy and asked ‘em for somethin’ to eat.”
“We got some nourishment for you brothers, trust us,” says the male who trails a few more shapes creeping toward the activity. “Morsels of meaning to see the light!”
“But when we git all that what’s we sposed ta do with it?” returns the first shape. “How we gonna see stuff when we can’t git somethin’ ta help us stay above the ground?”
“Right…easy fer you guys to say when ya got so much ya don’t even have to think about it,” Lionel adds in a skeptically curious tone.
“We’re all in it together, brothers,” returns the male. “We face the same issues of want as you…we can help you with all nutrients. But you must renounce the slick tongued talkers who claim to be your saviors but keep you down!”
“That’s all we usta is good talkers and…well, there’s some good words that they give us over there…the book gits us some hope when we…they git us up!” says the shape as he looks around sheepishly for his belongings, like he’s feeling the need to quote from the book but not sure if he still has it.
“You gonna save us?” Lionel responds testily. His chat with Wyatt insinuated the idea of redemption in his mind. “What you got that they ain’t? Different bunch a readin’? Friendlier faces? Better places to sleep when things get tough?” His words sound strange to him, like he might be speaking someone else’s. Is he getting more articulate somehow? Is all the practice, with Wyatt and now the female, doing something to his tongue?
“We aren’t saviors, and none of us need any,” says the female. “It’s about getting the knowledge to save ourselves.”
“What’s all that mean?” a new shape from the fringe taunts. “Save ourselves! Where you get that? You mean like in the Bible where they say somethin’ bout healing yourself?”
“Well…”
“…you guys are too heavy,” says another shape from the fringe. “I was always taught by my parents ta stick with the Lord no matter what…and stay positive.”
“No, we aren’t heavy…we’re your brothers and sisters, your family, speaking the same language,” says the female.
“It means getting rid of Lords and becoming master of your own material existence,” adds the male as more shapes appear in the gallery.
“Believe in us!” exhorts the female who’s already gesturing her flock off the sand and across Speedway. “Follow us to our Lordless temple!”…
John O’Kane has published over a hundred fifty stories, essays and poems in a variety of venues, blogs regularly on Huffingtonpost, and edits and publishes AMASS Magazine. His most recent book is, A People’s Manifesto (2015). He has a short story, “Exhumation,” in the annual Goose River Press anthology (2017). He has a book of short stories forthcoming in 2018.