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Fools Consultation
Sitting on a four hundred pound square of rough cut granite continuing with the theme of insanity as it pertains to survival in the inner city I am deep into retribution fantasy with my crack consultant when the female sculptor pulls up in her new Nissan truck and says, "having a block party?" I lamented the mail system's lack of proficiency in delivering her invitation and complimented her husband's recent public work (large house shaped piece constructed of half inch ship's aluminum with painstakingly detailed cutout work which sits now in the neutral ground on St. Bernard near the Gentilly/DeSaix intersection). "Is he famous now?" I asked in good humor and she said no more so than he was before and how art is not such a big deal in New Orleans and how he already has pieces in the museum, and I said, "well, I liked it," partly because I do and partly to be polite and partly because her husband seems like one of those interesting quiet type of persons, and she responded to the polite, yet obviously totally ignorant person, artistically speaking, with an expression that said well big fuckin' deal.
My crack consultant went inside to try and bum a cigarette and I waited patiently inside the haze of thirty or so ounces of Budweiser, gazing to one of the corners where a wheelchair-ridden living gunshot victim sat exacerbating the problem currently being discussed.
Sometimes you just have to talk things out and this is what me and my consultant were doing before he left, and continued to do when he returned without cigarette.
I was empathizing with him. And I'm sad to say I was because the subject is not pretty. He too has been seeing Travis Bickle in his mirror. The simple aggravation inherent to co-existence had put my friend on the edge of the brink. My crack consultant, in the most perfectly political correct manner, was seeing beyond the wheelchair of the man, and considering him full equal.
"Ima kill the motherfucker."
"Yeah, but the world's only going to see another jobless hustler done some terrible, terrible deed and that's all it will look like."
"I don't give a fuck."
"Well, you should. You can't set a guy in a wheelchair on fire. It's just not done."
"It's been done."
"I'm sure, but not in polite company."
"The motherfucker showed me the gun in his waistband."
"Yeah, that's why I'm advocating caution. You wanna dedicate your whole life, as defined by the end thereof, to the aggravating tendencies of some punk? 'Oh yeah, whassisname, over on Rocheblave, he got smoked by that Wheelchair dude who been handlin' him.'"
"He ain't handlin' me."
"I know he's not bro, but you should quit worrying if he is or isn't. He's pretty well punished already for being an asshole."
"He is an asshole."
"I believe you. So you wanna die for him?"
Later I called his retributive scheme half-cocked and he called my scheme ridiculous.
"I shouldn't be telling you any of this."
"That's true, you shouldn't."
He noticed an NOPD bicycle cruiser rushing up Bienville and said, "That's new."
"Yeah, for around here I guess, I've seen it in the Quarter (but I was thinking about Seattle)."
"I think it's about to come down."
"Well, it would be about time, if nothing else we have made clear through discussion that there way to many stupid sumabitches on the street right now."
Earlier I had with considerable more aplomb than I ever showed on Dumaine dealt verbally with the two young hustlers, the one of which has taken to calling me "white boy," in an effort to get into my good graces and hopefully, I think he thinks, become my sole supplier for something he hustles but for which I have no pressing need. I asked him not to call me "white boy," and suggested that being good neighbors was more important than feeding this young boy's drug kinpin delusion, and besides, whether or not I was one to partake in certain pleasures outside the law, as he insisted I was, was not something one would want to discuss on the street if one were hoping to instill trust in his clients. I did become impatient a couple of times and I guess with some condescending incredulity expressed an attitude of--Jesus Christ, who's teaching you kids today. I introduced myself by name and his little partner gave me his Christian name but bad boy gave me his street name. And then I bid them adieu.
To show me that he had been listening to my every word, and I must say it appeared he had been, he said to me, "so I can come by you?"
"No brah, you can't."