The Back of the Bus
Too old to be told they say, but that’s not true. I grew up hearing about the fights surrounding desegregation busing on the news, and when I got older and found out what busing actually was, because as a kid if I were told what it was, it just went into one ear and out the other, I thought it was such an imposition upon the White schools, so unnatural, so forced, echoing the opinion of my elders, which they voiced to the TV many times. As a young man in the army I thought all the fuss about equal opportunity was unnecessary (it was the 80s for God’s sake) and affirmative action outright reverse discrimination. So when I was a doorman at Four Leaf Towers and worked the west tower 7 to 3 shift, something I only did a few times, since I worked the east tower, I took the opportunity to ask the concierge about it, and I’m sorry I forget his name.
He was the most senior employee among the staff and was talkative and easy going but very vocal about discrimination in regards to being Black. He had a funny figure the way his hips stood out from the rest of his body, not a result of being fat but because this was the way he was built, which matched perfectly with his effeminate manner. He spoke with a ‘Black’ accent but not in ebonics, and he giggled a lot but could get dead serious when the situation called for it. He got that way when I asked him to explain why blacks felt they were being constantly discriminated against. He was not offended in the least, however, was happy to explain why, but instead of talking, he told me to wait a bit. What could that mean I thought? Little did I know it happened so much around there to him all we had to do was wait a few minutes.
It wasn’t long before we saw a well dressed, White man walking to the lobby from the outside. He told me to go and stand by the door on the opposite side of the lobby from where the man was coming, not to go and open the door for him because he wanted to show me something. He said to stand so the man could see me, and he stood up from inside his octagon desk, where he could be seen clearly from the waist up. The desk was very visible and in the center of the large lobby. We both wore a dark blue suit and red tie, the uniform of the doorman and concierge. He said to watch what the man does. The man walked in, looked at the concierge standing behind the desk smiling an inviting, ‘may I help you?’ smile, the one obviously in charge, and then he looked at me, the White person, the one obviously just the doorman, and he walked all the way across the lobby to speak to me. I referred him to the concierge.
After the man left, he asked me how I’d feel if something like that happened several times a day; how would that make me feel about myself he stressed. He said he knew the man didn’t mean to treat him of no account, and that he probably wasn’t even aware he was being racist, but that’s the way it usually is. He explained that discrimination wasn’t always of the outright variety, was most often not something people even knew they were doing, and it was that kind that got to you because, slight though a single instant of it was, it was constant enough to cut slowly but surely deeper and deeper into your self-image. He pointed out the same thing happened almost every time a White person came there for the first time. He asked me to imagine daily life among a White majority, going shopping, to restaurants, the movies, wherever, and then he brought the point home by bringing in employment, how many Whites would just naturally choose a White over a Black, without even thinking, without feeling the slightest bit of racism.
To solve the problem of unconscious, or even conscious, racism, however, we’ve done what we always do: enact laws that address specifics of the problem and punish individual violations of them, the hydra approach, because, as many instances of racism that we punish, more occur. The roots of the problem are hardly even seen let alone dug out and removed.
Many years later, living in India the only White person in the neighborhood and getting that same kind of treatment every time I turned around too, although I have the added baggage of being a foreigner to boot, I’ve come to understand the fundamental problem in a different light, one that concierge couldn’t see because he saw in terms of right and wrong, of morality, naturally because he was being treated badly. At first I too saw the people discriminating against me as bad, but then I began to realize how human it is to hate or fear people of a different race or culture, as I’ve said earlier, and, able to see it in that light, as the natural way the ego reacts to people not of its group, because it’s been conditioned to react that way, since it’s taught to identify first with its own group, I’ve come to realize the only way to heal that is by making integration a part of the transcription of every human ego so that the child, from the time they can distinguish differences in people, which is very young, learns to identify themselves with humanity first and foremost and with their particular group, be that a race, religion, nation, or what, second. If you think about it, there really is no other way, and that, in terms of good and evil, it’s for goodness’ sakes.
While it’s possible to try to teach some watered down version of this in the schools, of most democratic countries at least, where learning to see people of a different race, gender, religion or whatnot, are equal to you in terms of citizen rights, human rights and the right to self-determination, which would be taught right alongside the 3 R’s, the obstacles to implementing the humanity first ideal are insurmountable at this present time, nationwide being impossible enough, worldwide not even thinkable, as I think anyone can see. Imagine all evangelical Christians and patriotic Americans, or all Muslims, Jews, and Hindus for that matter, teaching their infants and children they are human beings first and Christians, Americans, Muslims, Jews, Hindus or whatever, second. The Devil you say.
Citywide, however, it’s possible to begin right this minute, with the kids being born now, but not in any regular city where the people have come to live for the usual reasons, to be safer, to live in a nicer place, to make a better or easier living, etc. It would have to be a city where the people have come as pioneers of human unity first and as creatures of comfort second, a city created and set aside for that purpose, to achieve that aim. There is such a city on our planet, Auroville, India, where this narrative is moving, slow, like the growth of trees upon the land.
At this moment in the narrative, however, we return to Safed, where the line between Jew and non is about to be drawn more definitively. As I’ve mentioned, I was sleeping outside, now out of the cemetery and in the little square Moshehiem’s apartment and Avraham’s gate opened onto, behind a little clump of bushes along a wall. I was perpetually hungry, and I think by this time I’d quit the back-breaking hauling stones out of old houses job. I really don’t remember how or what I was eating, only that on this particular Shabbis, my third or fourth one there, my last one actually, I was particularly hungry and was so looking forward to the Saturday feast. I was delighted when I got a special invite for the Friday evening meal from the expat American married couple that lived in an apartment next door to Avraham, the man one of the three men at the fountain who dressed me down about the Hitler poem. I figured with this invitation all was now well. It was at his apartment, and it was a modest meal I shared with he and his wife, her nephew, a little boy about nine, and his best friend from high school, who had come to visit from America, one of the people there exploring their Jewish identity, but that wasn’t the only identity of his he was exploring.
I remember him at the afternoon show and tell in the studio courtyard the day before. He appeared to be trying to make himself look much smaller than he was, and much younger than his 20 years, sitting in the chair the way a child would and holding onto a teddybear. The only thing missing was the thumb in his mouth. I forget what he said, only that it was all to make us think of him as a child and not as an adult, which was to get everyone to accept his love for little boys, but that didn’t become apparent to me until that dinner the next day when, as we were waiting to eat, he was rubbing the little nephew’s back as the boy lay on his stomach, running his fingers through his long payot (sidelocks), what he was doing when I came in, what it appeared he’d done all night, as he’d slept beside the boy there on the floor. I could smell the sexual desire, and when he suddenly goosed him between the legs, grabbing his package from behind, I could see it. The boy yelled, “Hey!” for his part, but I could tell this wasn’t the first goose, and the young man gave a faked devilish laugh and went back to safer territory the boy was more comfortable with, but I ascertained the boy had had a handful night.
I could sense the couple was not comfortable with all this, and he sensed it too, and as a way of trying to have them make some sense out of this, he got up and went up to the young woman and told her how wonderful it was he’d made such a deep bond with her nephew in so short of time. I about choked when he said that, thinking how immature and see through was his attempt at manipulating the people around so he could hook into the little boy. She didn’t say anything. When I left after dinner so did he, and I overheard his friend tell him he was to sleep at so and so’s house, not there, but there wasn’t any mention of why or any sound of disapproval or disgust in his voice. The separation was as much to protect the young man as it was the boy. I could sense the bewilderment of this man, who’d learned this unspeakable thing about his best friend, but I could also sense his concern for him.
The next day he was following the boys around as they played, looking very awkward doing so. I saw him standing on a thin concrete ledge above the now dry sewer that ran the length of the upper end of the square. He appeared very unsure of his footing. The group of boys had just ran over it without hesitation, and they didn’t wait for him, seemed not even to be aware he was there. The day before the boys had followed me being the Pied Piper as I ran the length of that ledge and expertly negotiated other obstacles around the square as though I were on an obstacle course, like a paratrooper. I’d been teaching a couple of boys who lived there the basics of meditation and pranayama, boys about ten who wanted to wake up in their dreams and such, lucid dreaming something I’d asked them about, if they did, and it happened that suddenly there was a number of boys in the square, and the Pied Piper thing just came about as I sat the two aforementioned boys down and began giving them their lesson. Curious, the visiting boys were not shy about interrupting us, and soon I’d abandoned the lesson and just played with them. With the young man on that ledge, Mr. Goose (let me call him), however, you didn’t have to use a crowbar to separate the men from the boys because the boys weren’t into him, but he so wanted them to be, as he’d seen me the day before too and wanted what they gave me, their undivided, unwavering attention.
The next day after Shabbis, he went to Jerusalem to stay at the house of the little boy who he’d made handfuls of, and I remember thinking what a wake up call that would be for that household, which had several boys, as the orthodox tend to have many kids, and what a day of reckoning it would probably be for young Mr.Goose. I doubted the father of the boy would be as concerned for his welfare as his best friend was. That the father was also the go to person for Americans who wanted to convert to Judaism, was I was told who I needed to go to if I did decide to convert, wasn’t the only connection that brought Mr. Goose’s story home to me. I sure didn’t want to arrive in that house after a nuke had gone off, the one strapped to my own back, well, that’s the thing see.
Er, ugh, so, like I said, I took the first meal Shabbis invitation on Friday evening to be a sign that all was well between me and the ‘gang’, but it wasn’t that at all but something more like a bone you’d throw to a dog so they’d not bother you begging for your food. It was an appeasement, I would be told on Saturday by Mr. Next Door (as in next door to the studio), so I’d be satisfied I’d been taken care of and not expect to come to the second meal Shabbis, which was that Saturday afternoon. Funny how his true intentions in inviting me to eat at his house, which weren’t good intentions, matched, in the weird way the universe matches this and that, the bad intentions of Mr. Goose, who’d been invited there with the best of intentions, but even if you believe things in this universe are put together consciously, it’d be hard for you to believe that bad intentions are bad intentions, whether that be to fondle a child over his trousers or invite someone to your house because you’re trying to ultimately exclude them. In other words, that all bad intentions are connected to one another and are the same in essence. You got that?
It was early Saturday afternoon, and I could tell something was up at the studio. The gate was closed and had been since I woke up. Three young British men were with me, having slept in a hostel nearby. Me? I slept in the bushes. They arrived the day before and were all beside themselves with a story of seeing a UFO in the Sinai desert. I say beside themselves, but maybe you don’t get the picture: they were unhinged. Their eyes shined with a fire of having seen something literally out of this world. I knew they were telling the truth by their unmistakable shaken look, like you know when someone’s terrified or hurt by the unmistakable note of such in their voice.
At once afraid and excited, they were people who’d had their worldview suddenly changed to include aliens upon earth and all the incredible things that suggests. They would not stop talking about it, but, lost in being Jewish or wanting to be included in being Jewish, we didn’t listen to their story, and it seems to me now the universe brought them to us to add emphasis to this story, to show us how narrow-minded we all were at that moment, myself included, although I did talk to the boys more about their encounter after hearing them tell the people in the studio who were there when they came in. I only remember it was a close encounter of the second kind, where a small glowing oddly shaped craft landed very close to them and then dashed off into the sky, leaving them stunned and unable to move for some minutes afterwards, but it was it close enough to remove any doubt of what they saw.
That afternoon, soon after the three British men arrived at the square, having spent the night in a hotel, Avraham, Mr. Next Door, and B Actor came out of the studio to talk to us, the same ones who spoke to me about the Hitler poem a couple of days earlier, although B Actor was a little behind the other two, appearing more like a tag along than who’d been elected to tell us what we were about to be told. Avraham did the talking, and it was obvious he wasn’t proud of what he had to say, and that he was struggling with it: “Hey look, we, uh, we just took a vote, and I’m sorry, but you guys can’t come to dinner this afternoon.”
“Why not? What’s going on?” I asked. I was so let down. I’d been looking forward to this meal all week watching everyone prepare for it. It was the first part of June, and the crowd of young Americans hanging out at the studio, who were mostly college kids on summer break, and a couple of recent graduates, had gotten pretty large. I knew this would be a feast.
“Like I said, we voted, and we only want Jewish people to come to the second meal this afternoon.”
As Avraham said this Mr. Next Door piped in, telling me what I’ve already explained above: “You got invited to my house last night for the first meal so that you’d be taken care of and not expect to come to the second meal too.” He said that like it was really rude of me to want to come to dinner that afternoon —the nerve of me.
Now there are times in life when you have a sense of saying things for the future, and you stand up and say them, and say them well, but here that didn’t happen. I only had the sense of saying such, not the well-spoken speech itself, but I did try. It’s always been that way with me. I’m a writer not a speaker. “What? Because we’re not Jewish? Do you know what you’re saying? Come on Avraham, you’re American. You’ve seen the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
Avraham was uneasy, and he looked quickly at the studio gate, where he wanted to be heading right about then. “I know how this looks, but we took a vote, and I have to abide by it. People are afraid that if you are there, well, they won’t feel comfortable to express their Jewishness.”
“And you have your own spirituality, and it’s strong, and we don’t want anything to get in the way of ours.” That was B Actor. That was the main reason, I surmised.
“What about these guys? Why them too?” I asked, motioning to the three Brits.
“We decided only Jews.” Avraham said. How everyone knew they weren’t Jewish I don’t know. That must’ve been a question, covert or otherwise, they got asked the night before, and the answer had gotten around. If you would ask me what’s wrong with that because this was Israel, I’d tell you that’s what wrong with Israel: the overriding importance placed on being Jewish, to the exclusion of others.
If I had been aligned with the cosmos at that moment, or, to sound less new agey, with what would be the most interesting dinner conversation around, I’d have pointed out that the three young gentlemen had a story to tell at the dinner table well worth hearing, and wasn’t it interesting they were there with it at the moment non-Jews were being excluded, like as if to say, “Hey, let’s not only exclude non-Jews, but let’s shut out the universe too while we’re at it?” But I was as lost in being excluded as they were in being Jews. I can, however, point that out now.
“What did you vote Avraham?”
“I agree with this, but not everybody does. The ones that don’t have made arrangements for you all to come after everyone has left and eat your fill.” I was surprised to hear he was among the people voting us out. I don’t think he was comfortable with his vote, but he’d opted to be part of the crowd and was going with it despite his reluctance.
“But you invited us last night, why we’re here now, to come to dinner,” one of the Brits threw in.
“Yeah I know, and I’m sorry, but this morning people objected to you guys coming, and there was a long argument, and so we took a vote,” Avraham said.
“Wait a minute. Something doesn’t fit because last night I got invited to the first meal Shabbis, as I’ve just been told, so I wouldn’t expect to come to the second meal, and so what’s the deal?” I was trying to point out that the exclusion had been pre-planned.
“We just don’t want any gentiles, and that’s that.” Avraham was obviously finished.
I argued more, but to no avail. We were told what time to come and told not to come before then, and the three walked back to the studio. Disappointed I’d have to wait until 10 p.m. to eat, but thankful I’d at least get to, I went to sit down at the fountain and just wait. Being excluded was par for the course for me there in Safed. The three Brits mumbled something about Jews being clannish and this being bullshit and walked off. When they’d arrived at the studio the night before, telling anyone who’d listen about their close encounter, they’d been invited to the second meal by not only Avraham, but others too, so to share their strange story. It got untold.
If anybody that voted that morning to exclude us because we weren’t Jews were to be asked today, it’s doubtful any one of them would own up to it, and I base that on virtually everybody’s reluctance to admit they are racist, even most neo-Nazis and White supremacists. When you combine that with our almost universal unwillingness to admit we’re wrong when we really are, and with our tendency to refuse to concede to an opposite point of view even when presented with concrete facts proving it, or tendency to become even more obstinate with our wrong view actually, you can bet the voters in this racist election won’t admit they cast votes to exclude us.
Whomever asked about it might use the reason I’ve just revealed to you about myself, that nuke on my back, but that wasn’t something they knew at the time, although I’m sure it entered the minds of the people watching me play so freely with the boys in the square on Thursday. In short, it wasn’t on the table with this crowd. And besides, Mr. Goose got not only to go to dinner but a place to sleep, and it was on the table with him. Yes, there was some controversy because of the Hitler poem, but there was no question of me being anti-Semitic or anything of the kind. This was about being someone with a spirituality stronger than their own, and I’m speaking about personal inner and mystical experience, and with a creativity flowing from that alive and kicking, those things more than I wasn’t a Jew, but the Brits would say it was because we weren’t Jewish, and that is the main thing on the table here, being excluded because we weren’t Jews.
At 10 p.m. we were waiting at the gate, and it opened for us. Avraham ushered us in but then made himself scarce. We ate the leftovers in the dark, as the lights had been turned off, but you could still see. And we ate in a relative silence, only speaking about how good the food was. No talk of the out of this world, unfortunately. The meal had been buffet style. There was one small table with dishes of food on it and a longer one where the people ate, and a couple of smaller empty tables behind. This had been a big dinner. I gathered about 20 or so people had eaten. We didn’t serve ourselves but were served by the three or four dissenters to the vote, served like we were important people they respected and admired, and in telling this story through the years I’ve said that’s the way it is with Jews: if some Jews do you wrong because you aren’t Jewish, other Jews will come along to try and make it right, and what’s different about that in the other peoples on this earth is that with Jews you’ll almost always have the ones trying to make it right right there within the same group that’s doing you wrong. That’s a generalization I know, maybe not even correct, but it’s become part of this story because that’s how I’ve told it since it happened. Let me just say thank you to the kind people that sacrificed to serve us.
I will tell you all the rules when outcasting these people. Drop in a sister’s pain. It was deliberate and actual. She threw him out the window, and years he’s been sitting at the fire tryin’ to make sense of it. It’s mean. She even has her daughter on the report. It’s vocabulary for everybody. It just hurts, you know? No one cares. They just reject you, like you’re some changeling in their midst, like you’re a monster. Just stop a moment and think, Gwen, do you ride the world this way? Are you taller than trees? Is this the good in you? And can you tell me why you’re doing it? I don’t understand, what’s society got to do with this? That’s who you propose is true? What’s it about you? What are you doing? Please tell me I can lay my head on your shoulder. Do you know the moon? Show the world you’re not some redneck from Texas. Be my friend. Be good to me Gwendolyn Gaye Duke. No don’t brag about this, but I think of you often. I just don’t know how to include you in my life. How can we be brother and sister? How can you even like me? I’ve done you wrong, as hurtful as I can do that. I’ve even threatened to put you behind bars, if you should just try and talk to me. Why did you have to go and be some security blanket for the world? Why did you have to stand up and sing? It makes me look so bad, and I handle it with care. No one talks about it around me. Oh man I’m sorry. What am I supposed to say? That worms, so I just sit here and count dimes till the end. What do I do with you? Of course you make my smile when I, when I practice childhood with you in my mind’s eye. How do you throw a brother away? Worse, how do you dig him out of the trash? Okay people I’m responsible. I did this to my brother and see I will official him again. I will be there for him when he needs me. I will do what’s right. These are starting on my lips. I’m on my way. Do you hear me Gwen? It’s time to overcome now the points you had with me taking over, stealing your mother’s love, being a boy in the room, when sisters are not allowed because they’re girls. I blamed you for the failure of being a girl instead of a boy. This is quite animal. Disappointed, stagnated, stand up. We need to redeem girls, don’t we? let them have the world in their hands like boys do. I don’t know how to start this. I don’t know how to make it right. I just know we need it, and it’s coming. In the meantime, Gwen, don’t blame me for the war. I am not the one who caused it. I just sat there, a little boy in my mother’s lap in love with her. I just didn’t know it hurt you. I couldn’t see you there. I was just a kid. That’s all I have to say. Do you need me? It’s on the way. Let’s fight this thing. I’m comin’. Endure all these stabs in the heart from my world and my family. They don’t even hesitate. I get rid of… I don’t know what to do with these feelins’. They hurt me. They go round all the time. They happen all the time. They don’t even think about it. It’s automatic for them, the outcast mode. Society allows this, encourages it. It’s what makes it mean. I’ve Heard the Crawdads Sing doesn’t do it, a Me Too statement science made— kill somebody and don’t even feel a thing what’s yah doin’? No one knows the story of outcast. They make movies they don’t believe in. Write books they’re not sure of. And they would outcast me too. We shake up underdogs, like they’re special, talk about them all the time, especially in children’s literature, their movies and things, and we go to town for them, bring them into you, make them heroes, and we don’t believe a word of it, are confused over what it means, can’t quite grasp its concept, don’t even know what to do with it. We just put people down when we meet them in real life, the underdog, the outcast. We can’t seem to understand they wear different clothes each time, and society is not true to itself: outcast might mean somethin’ else tomorrow. Do you even know what you’re doin puttin’ us in the outcast pen’? Do you even care? I’m here to warn you: you’re tearin’ society apart. You’re being loyal to your animal rage. You’re actually bein’ immoral. How do we show you this? You will not let us speak. You’ve just shut us off. It’s a crime, you know? It’s equity, you know? what’s missin’ with you. You would be safe and sorry. You will not risk a thing. You don’t know what it means to love someone you don’t have to. You can’t grasp love— a noble idea, but you can’t seize it. It’s not just something you declare, like Ari says it is. No, you feel it in every situation, because it’s how you encounter the world, and you’ve done the work to evolve that. It’s such hard work. You find the shop there: you have to put it on everything in your day. Try it on for size, and your shortcomings you study. They reveal yourself. This is not wide open to the world to just take you for a ride. You love. It’s never let people harm you, or take advantage of your things to the point you lose. You have to be wise. You have to know how to play. It comes and goes. You get stronger at it, and faced with someone like me, whom everybody hates. you love. And that brings society together. You’ve passed the test. You are your brother’s keeper, your sister’s righthand smile. You’ve saved the world here. Do you know love will solve the world? That’s equity. That’s how we deal each other. That’s how we make it right. And even the climate’s better. And even nuclear disarmament’s happened. And we have world peace, everywhere. I really hate these shoes. They don’t fit my feet, and they cause blisters, everyday. That’s society in its lower parts. We can do nothing about that. Until you try. We’ve have to give them the example in the press and on equity’s base. We do have better parts, don’t we? Can’t you even try? You had to go and get the world by the tail, you had to be a speaker for humanity, to even bring this up, to even bring this up. To the bullpen, I’m gettin’ there. You’ll have to listen to me. There’s we lose society if you don’t. I’m a wide speaker. I can bring people together. I know how that works. I know how divine it is, and I know its power. Can I introduce it to you? You think you have it. You don’t know the sacrifice it means. It’s got horns. It puts you in the way with people, makes you vulnerable, tests your limits. It’s not easy, but we break apart without it, I mean as a world, a society. You can see the fractures now. Don’t trust anybody. Kill anybody that laughs at you. Make a mistake, and the hounds are on you, to the fullest extent of the law. We just break here. It’s time we got smart, took love out of the cupboard (oh those silly 60s) and healed people with it, applied it to society in very practical terms. We make it rule our hands and feet, garden our minds, have it control our mouths. It’s the thing in the room we constantly refer to. It’s the basis of our acts, and I’m not talking blind. We do what needs to be done to protect ourselves, to protect our mistakes. We can’t go there. Imaginary self-defense invaded Russia, and the vast majority of a great and powerful nation, so sophisticated, charged that into invading Ukraine. Unbelievable the size of it, the lack of love. Do you see that? Can you see that? I’m talking to Russia. Scapegoats one and all, Ukrainians. I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got to hang out some clothes and other speedy deliveries for my family. That’s what I’m doin’ doin’ poetry, publishin’ a book, a lot of housework, where I take care of people and their things, It’s a large house, full of people and dogs, and they call me daddy around here, and I have a large family, so loveful, at times so uneasy. [heard sung] She went to say watch she was Heavenly pulled. Oh by the way, I clean my own bathroom. So this is founded on stuff, the nitty gritty of life’s room, and I am sorry, but the stuff comes first around here. Every shirt I could breathe, my chores, you know Douglas. He’s my friend, like a… like we’re married. It makes the day go by kind, and we sure do love each other, no gay involved. He’s the actor in the room the friend, the incredible, amazing friend. And I’m giving you the facts straight. There’s the welcome: dial 9. It’s got some kidney power. Bring the dog along. Contrary to doctrine that doesn’t like children, if you get distracted, there’s the Messiah there. He’s nice and warm. That’s your fingers on ice not bein’ a mean to people, and you’re the Messiah. How powerful that is when applied to everyday life. The Messiah settings, I don’t see here the crawdads and the frienddogs sing. Wait counsel. Eventually everyone will be the Messiah, although you are free to go. I did this in my own yard. I was wide open. How much gas is in my car? No it is not illegal. I got free spoken of her so much. Why didn’t you go with him? I don’t know how to make it right, not to mention, that notion is whimsically laid out. It’s the Messiah man. You can’t finish it and apply it on a cold and grey Chicago morn another little baby child is born in the ghetto, and his momma cries. [this and above three lines sung by Elvis] Do you have teeth? Just throw this off the bus. It’s Rembrandt. We believe its existence. We know it’s there. We can’t get under it. I’m right behind you. I stand on wheels. I’m the end of racism. I’m love, you understand? I’m really here. Just ask your heart. It’s got school in it, and there it is on your table. Well let’s get goin’. Let’s splash down in this water once more and look at the victim in the room. They’re there as originally supposed: they’ve been hurt. The question of the ages: what do we do on their behalf? We don’t get revenge. This is horrible on society. It destroys us, keeps us mean and hateful people, is barbaric. We have to help them. We have to take their hand. We need to protect them. We need to validate their experience. We need to give them room to breathe. The only way to heal is through the victim fall in this hole on the ground, and take the victimizer in their arms and pray. No, not that Europe. They’d have to learn a lesson. They’d have to learn that victimizer is in trouble. Do you see it? They don’t let him off scot-free, but we have institutions now to heal them, and they’d come together Norway, put in jail in lovely places and fellowed, brought back into the fold with gentle hands and loving eyes. We have angels for this, people put through soul force to get there. Wait a minute, they are certainly greased, made to feel their wrong, put in positions to see that in the time they are cuffed, Positions that do not harm them, but show them their weakness, why they kill, why they rape, why they bring harm to people. Maybe that’s out of doors in wilderness brought back to bear, if we understand the institution’s not a building housed. Why would he have roles if he didn’t have a victim? This is not a boneyard. It’s not a rub your nose in it please. I feel so guilty I’ll do it again. But they need to see the pain. They need to see it plainly, how it hits their lives and hurts them too. That’s the connection made. That’s what we get them to see. Not with the mask of they are jailed for that, put in nice prisons. This is in their very lives. They’ve caused harm to someone-themselves. This is an inner journey, soul searching. They need to see they hurt themselves. Who knows the function of dreams? They’re there for the taking, and here they bring a lot. That man, that woman, begins to investigate themselves. We have time. They’re in prison, some beautiful square walls that make inner learning easy. Beauty surrounds them and people who are not offended by them. They’re there to help. The factor involved is not a stretch, a time term. It’s their record of healing. Okay how do we do that in a society of hate and mean? The world’s gonna change you know. We will become a nation of lovers of other nations, until we lose that political boundary, and people’s populate the planet into one another. You, see the direction. What government might there be wrong? This will evolve to show, so wrong doesn’t come. We’re lookin’ at the future. We hug these ideas today. We’ve come a long ways, haven’t we, from the victim’s needs? No, we’ve brought them home. They’ve been vindicated, given their due, put in the right place: now I understand school. I really do. Time teaches them this without the victimizer. They need to heal. Left to themselves they crumble, they falter, they stumble. We can help them, and it’s part of society’s plan communicate with the perpetrator in the room. You wouldn’t see them at first. You would have be prepared for that. You would go through your trauma. You would see it. You would learn it’s not you. They soul is inviolate. Don’t hit the lady, force ‘em to hear it. How do you explain movies to children? And that’s the star of our role: we are actors on a stage the poets have told us. This is how we heal. Seein’ that reality we come along fine. I’m writing in a tactical attitude that has a historical basis, and we look at books now, the one I’m writing now. I can write on and on and on to get you in the breeze so you can hear me. I’ve touched your most precious subjects, and I will continue. I’m spanking you hard, aren’t I? This is not the ideal’s lair. I’m putting practicality in your hands. That’s why it smarts so. I touch bottom. Can you gather the sound of music? It’s military, ain’t it? I have some points to get across, a world to change, and let’s just get down to business, shall we? Went higher than where our pen works, and try it on for size. But this is too high to raise: supramental, and we just slag there. That’s the seer on his divine ground, where we’re goin’. I want you to tell the truth. On 27th you stay here a butterfly. I don’t bring zero down to Earth. I have no notion with the Antichrist. You mean the prophet here. The seer. I’ve got such a sofa. I don’t know how to write it., but you’re hearin’ me speak. I will protect you from the end of the Earth. You can see my bargain card. I’m an outcast wants in. Why do you do that, chop me in half when I ask? You just listen to Steve, my step-brother Steve Abbott, who turns me away. I think he’s read my material. He can’t deal with it. He doesn’t know what to say, and I’m his brother. This is ridiculous. Every one of you out there does the same thing. Why is that? Do I pee? Okay let’s give racism a chance, Is that what you’re saying? We’re really into vegetables. I think I should hang up the phone now, and let you get me some sleep. There’s enough to say in the whole book. I love you. I’m not pullin’ any punches, you know? What a surprise, I hear from Steve. Oh thank you Steve. Throw any rock at me? Okay Gwen, this isn’t good. I don’t understand it: never speak to me again? I’m Gwen, do my M.O. That’s stubbornness alerted itself. Look at your aspirations. You want to… You’re hurting me. Stop racism. You want to stop it. I’m finished. Do you understand? You aren’t finished. What have you got separations to say? Just let me shoot yah, put you out of your misery. A dual piece of property the owner was mine— a victim’s statement. And I’ve told you there’s teacher. But I think I told you this was a dream. I’m a hustler. I’m just tryin’ to get you to see reality. Something more than a movie, but can you call it? Victims square one. They have teeth. We’re not allowed to brush them aside. You have responsibility in the movie. We’ve got things to do here. This is not a nightclub. It’s a representative reality school involved. We’ve got so much to learn. We’ve got a world to learn, and we are here for that, every one of us, including you. We’re here to learn the notions of the universe that have us learn God. See here how God sees through our eyes, God what we’re lookin’ at. And I’ve explained myself and put you in the right place. And we put this helmet on and go to work. Now put up with society, everybody, so we can get the right music. Brother, brother, brother, what’s goin’ on? [this and above line heard sung voice of Marvin Gaye] A love notion.
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The Unknown in Perspective 