"You start walking your way
and I'll start walking mine.
We'll meet in the middle..."
"Too right for left, too left for right.
You can't get me, I can't get you.
From my spot on the fence
what a wonderful view."
I do this sometimes. Well, I do a lot of things sometimes. Not a very stable grrl, I suppose. But I can't remember ever reading about an artist who was stable. Most of them are down-right nuts and nuggets, as a matter of fact *shrug* I suppose I'm doing all right.
"Walk on down to the corner grocery store.
Bought myself some groceries and a little bit more.
Now I'm flying, flying higher than a kite.
And I'm doing all right, doing all right."
There is a stranger and you all know how I never learned not to talk to strangers. I figure that ever stranger is just an experience I haven't had yet. And as a gamer grrl I gotta get that EXP or I'll never level up, baby. I mean, What's your story? Right? This is Hollywood. Land of Dreams. Everybody gots a story.
So I'm slumming it because I've been working for twenty-three days straight and they've been those killer ten and twelve hour days and it's just shy of midnight and I look like slop. I'm in jeans all torn up and combat boots I bought off the back of a truck that have claw marks from some cat (I hope) along one side and a new-to-me ratty-ole brown leather jacket with Airforce patches and... oh yeah... that's about it.
'Cept, you know, my cross.
Now sometimes I don't wear one. I mean, I have ink. My shoulder. So I'm always wearing one. But sometimes I do stumble on my own belly button lint and I start to spinning about that whole concentric circle game of we're-gonna-be-different-because-we've-so-enlightened, "Why the cross?! What an icky symbol! Why celebrate His death?" And so I wear my Ichthys. You know. The little Christian fish symbol. But tonight I just so happen to be wearing my cross.
And my lefthand thumb ring.
And my left back-pocket purple bandanna.
And my attitude. And your cologne. (Not that I put it on... per say.)
So when I smile (way) up at the stranger in line before me at the corner store -- me a great big cornucopia of patches and symbols and code words and statements -- I'm not really surprised when he starts in. I was only surprised that he wasted no time.
"How do you know who you are?" He motions me up and down (mostly down because dude is like a big brickhouse and I'm his pool boy... or the tool shed).
I tilt my head and shrug a bit. "Cuz my Bible tells me so?"
He smiles, showing perfect LA teeth. I wonder, Do I know him? He says, "Society tells you who you are. The media."
My grin deepens. "I am the media, baby."
He laughs and he has a nice laugh and I look down and he steps outta line and I follow him. he leans against a concrete pillar next to the ice cream freezer and I notice he wears a wedding ring and the numbers tattooed across his knuckles might be scripture or they might be California penal code. Hard to tell. His skin is a two shades darker than mine, as chocolate as mine is cinnamon.
"You aren't suspicious?" He's looking down my half-zipped jacket. Not much to write home about ('cept the wearing no shirt part) but I know he's looking at my cross. "You're all covered in tags."
Oh, hon. If you only knew.
"It takes too much energy to be suspicious," I answer and my sincerity is so obvious in my voice it startles me a little. I guess... you know... I have something to say about suspicions. "I gotta look at it like this: If I work my skinny butt off to prove all my suspicions, I'll do it. Every one. I'll find liars and cheats and people who hate me who I thought were my friends. I'll find money exchanging hands in the parking lot of every church and blood in the confessionals and bribes on the offering plate. I'll find good people where I don't want to find them and bad people holding me tight when I cry. I think I'd rather spend my energy doing something else. Doing something... for Him. Not for me."
The stranger looks at me. The clock on the wall behind him says that, according to man's time, it's the Sabbath. Saturday and turned to Sunday by the power of man's great big black-on-white numbers. The power of the tick tock. It doesn't feel like the Sabbath to me until the horizon is painted with color. Or... does it?
"Do I make you suspicious?" What on Earth made me blurt that I don't know. Maybe not on Earth at all but rather in Heaven.
He smiles at me, the glib response ready to tumble on my deserving head but then he stops. He holds out his hand. We shake, just one pump, then hold, nothing wrong, mutual understanding. His hand is the length of my forearm.
"If I asked you, what should I do today, what would you say?" He means Sunday morning. What should he do Sunday morning.
"Ask me."
His smile widens. He even shakes his head in amusement. I don't wait for him to ask again.
"Stay home," I tell him as I realize our eyes are almost exactly the same color. "Stay home and make love with your lady and laugh with your kids. Go walking alone. Go walking with them. Plant something. Pray aloud together. Pray aloud alone. Realize that every congregation you need already hold dominion in your heart, in your home. You. Your family. God. The rest..." I look away. I shake my own head. I drop his hand and smile back at him. "The rest, man, is all suspicious."
And I turn and get back in line to pay for my gum, my Coke, and a pack of Beef Jerky.
I'll take my communion without the smoke, without the mirrors, without the closed curtains, pre-determined ballots, political pay-offs, and absolutely without the media.
The church of my heart is like my favorite dance clubs. Media Free.
EJ
403. Every person who, without authority of law, willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character (only in its spirit), other than an assembly or meeting is guilty of a misdemeanor.
404. Any use of force, disturbing the public peace, or any threat to use force, if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by two or more persons acting together, and without authority of law, is a riot.
405. (a) Every person who with the intent to cause a riot does an act or engages in conduct that urges a riot, or urges others to commit acts of force and power, or the burning or destroying of lies, and at a time and place and under circumstances that produce a clear and present and immediate danger of acts of force, is guilty of incitement to riot.... (b) The existence of any fact that would bring a person under this definition of subversion shall be alleged in the complaint, information, or indictment and either admitted by the defendant in open court, or found to be true by the jury trying the issue of guilt, by the court where guilt is established by a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, or by trial by the court sitting without a jury.
406. Every person who participates in any riot is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
407. The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer or lawful institution which confines any person is considered a lynching.
408. Every person who participates in any lynching is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.
409. Whenever two or more persons, assembled and acting together, make any attempt or advance toward the commission of an act which would be a riot if actually committed, such assembly is a rout.
410. Whenever two or more persons assemble together to do an unlawful act, or do a lawful act in a forceful, boisterous, or tumultuous manner, such assembly is an unlawful assembly.
Yeah... well... nolo contendere, baby. Nolo contendere.
