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How to write without having anything at all to write about

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/howtowritesmokestack.mp3

or read on…

Sometimes a writer’s great fear is that the keyboard sitting there right under the fingers will turn blank, useless. I know would-be writers who were so traumatized by the blankness of it all that they never, ever attempted to write again.

All us other writers know this feeling, but those of us who refuse to stop are the ones who keep turning out the books and stories and columns and poems.

Here’s an example of a piece that wrote itself without my help. Every line is true and actually happened. I just didn’t know the story was within me. I did not let the fact that I had nothing to write about stop my fingers from writing:

SMOKESTACK

It was a cool and clear and pleasant night, the night he raised his foot and placed it flat dead-center on the first rung. The rung felt solid and made a satisfying metallic thud when his shoe came to rest. There were no handrails on each side of the rung, so he grabbed the next rusty metal rung with both hands and gave himself a little lift with his other foot, then slowly unbent his rung leg so that he could ascend and place his other foot upon the rung. He gave the next rung up a quick shake to see whether its seeming stability was real.

Looking straight ahead, he saw a rung right before his eyes, dividing the cold red bricks comprising the smokestack with a perfectly horizontal line. He looked down to the rung above the one he was facing and hesitated. Should he try to rise to this next one? Why not? No-one else was around, the property from which the smokestack jutted was deserted this time of night. And the smokestack was just standing there, where it had been waiting for him for the fifteen years he had lived within sight of it.

His right foot rose and touched the next rung. Shifting his weight to the ball of this foot, he quickly and carefully brought his other foot up and, behold, he was standing on rung number two! His hands went one at a time up to the next rung. He remembered the first rule of wing-walking: never let go of one thing until you’ve gotten hold of something else. He did not want to look up yet, because the smokestack was so very tall. He did not yet need to look down at the ground because he was just a few feet up. He still could drop to the surface and not get hurt. He looked up at the next rung and grabbed it, then down at the lower rung and repeated his previous motions, carefully climbing to the next level. Then, he proceeded to go several more rungs upward, taking care to be methodical, taking care to gaze only straight ahead at the old red bricks.

Before he knew it, he did not know where he was on the smokestack. Had he gotten halfway up? He knew he was too far up to drop back safely. He knew he would probably die were he to fall at this point, so he held on even tighter to the rusty iron rungs, aware that some of the cement holding the bricks together was beginning to flake off here and there in response to the unfamiliar tugging at the iron rungs imbedded in it. Still, the rungs seemed firm.

Should he continue? Should he go all the way to the top? Nobody would ever know if he decided to back out, decided to descend while he still had the strength. He tried to go down one step to see what it was like. He was surprised to find that going down to a lower rung was a lot harder than going up. His foot did not find the rung as easily as he had imagined. He could not see where his foot was on the rung because he was clinging so tightly to the upper rungs. He could look down from side to side, but he could not look straight down at his feet. He froze there for a moment, his breath made visible in the coolness of the night, his heavy breathing the only sound he could hear at the moment, the pounding in his ears was the pounding of his heart, the buzzing was from the adrenalin rush from this unfamiliar experience.

He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and started climbing again. You’re only fifteen years old once, he thought. Soon, he was near the top of the smokestack. He must be near the top, he thought, though he could not quite look straight up. The next rung he grasped wiggled in the cement. It was coming loose from ages of neglect, ages of hot weather changing to humid weather changing to wet weather changing to cold weather changing to icy weather. Expanding, contracting, meshing cement against brick, different textures slowly eroding and grinding each other down and loose.

He tried not to panic. I’m too close to the top, he screamed without opening his mouth or engaging his vocal folds. Gotta do it, he thought. He parted his teeth and sucked in more cold air, then started climbing again. He was suddenly at the top, peering at the soot-stained interior of the thick smokestack rising above the town of Tuscaloosa, rising above his little neighborhood, overlooking Northington Campus and Northington Elementary School and the Board of Education and the University’s Student Housing and Eastwood Avenue and 15th Street.

Off in the distance he could hear the hollow mellow lonely sound of a train whistle. He could see the glow of lights from Downtown Tuscaloosa off in the distance. He could see the stars hanging exactly where they would be hanging a million years from now whether or not he ever made it down from the top of this smokestack, whether or not he ever told anybody what he had done, whether or not he ever even understood why he would do a thing such as this. He quickly started going down the smokestack rung by rung, forgetting how difficult it was going to be, determined to stay alive to the bottom, determined to live long enough to try to understand why anybody would do such a thing as climb a tall smokestack filled with loosening bricks and wobbling iron rungs in the middle of the night in the early part of his life.

When he wrote it all down a half century later, he began to understand why he had done it but he had great difficulty putting it all down so that you could understand it as deeply as he

It was the best of times, it was the best of times

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/itwasthebestoftimes.mp3

or read on…

Now that the world has ended and re-booted,

now that the New Year is well on its way to where nobody knows,

thoughts slippery & elusive & sublime & silly sift their way through my head.

They defy classification.

Here are some droppings…

1. Today the air is as thin as polished glass.

2. If I feel good, that means I’m not appreciating those who are suffering. If I feel bad, I am ignoring the joy and pleasures that can be found in the worst of situations.

3. Hosiery is important. For some the joy of sox is all there is.

4. Successful politicians are often merely the most skilled and persistent bullies on the block.

5. “The unjust get honors when they right their wrongs.” –Sally Ride

6. I spent time this morning being attacked on the Web. Damned spider keeps building across my path.

7. Every day on the way to work, I pass all the Overseers of my life: the bank, the power company, the gas company, the water works.

8. That guy was certainly sober on life, wasn’t he?

9. At my age, all my irony is sated.

10. The newscaster pronounces the word decal as DECK-uhl.

DECK-uhl all with boughs of holly!

11. I met a guy whose name is Christian. He seemed pleasant.

Guess that makes him a good Christian boy—or a good-boy Christian.

12. The interviewer pronounces the word presage as PRESS-edge.

13. The vehicle in front of me throws messages in my face: KIA Pelham Alabama 61340A7 Sep 13 Sorenta EXV8 Riverchase KIA burgundy color metal antenna. What am I to do with this information? Another vehicle says IG EY Sweet Home Alabama apr 13 St. Rose Academy Birmingham Alabama Serra Toyota Sequoia Force V V8. Hieroglyphs!

14. My age and experience make me more open to experiences and people.

The field widens, the prospects narrow.

15. The interviewee says, “…ranging the full philosophical gambit.”

16. From the Library of Thought: What if shadows remained a constant size and people lengthened or contracted with the light?

17. We are conscious of things, but things are not conscious of us.

18. The reporter says, “…there are a flurry…”

19. Before I found my bliss in the Museum of Fond Memories, I tried jobs and jobs tried me.

20. Why do pilots fly planes? Can’t they drive them? Or steer them?

21. Lies beget lies.

22. Yellow is the only color I know that is yellow.

23. “Everytime I think of the past, it brings back memories.” –Stephen Wright

24. The hand-lettered sign says, “Taco cards read…”

25. The Fred’s Store signs says, Those wanting to purchase TABACCO must present IDs.” Must bring tobasco sauce?

24. Naughty insect portrait: Ant, misbehaving.

25. Something only gets to happen for the first time once.

26. Business article refers to “commander and chief…”

27. NPR reporter mentions Nobel Laureate Willy Brandt, pronounced NO-bull. Guess Brandt was a noble guy. Wonder if he ever won the no-BELL prize?

28. From the Library of Thought: What if the mirror contains the real world and we are merely avatars for the mirror people?

The world has ended, a new year begins and I still can’t stop my brain

People of Earth, I Mean You No Harm

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/peopleofearthimeanyounoharm.mp3

or read on…

Peoples of the Planet Earth, I bring you glad tidings of great interest. Here they are:

1. The Earth did not end last week. I just wanted to reassure you about that, because I know you may be wondering whether this is some kind of after-life, or whether we are now in a sort of Hell or a jokester’s version of Heaven. Rest assured—the world is still here, you are still here, and, yes, this may be some kind of Heaven or Hell. We just have to deal with it as it is.

2. Some of us still believe in goodness and mercy…and we must band together. Here’s why this may be difficult: The Meek are scattered loosely among the wolves. We survive by hunkering down and trying to avoid the bullies and the sharks. Because we are largely invisible, we don’t always network with each other to protect the goodness and sustain the tender mercies. Whether we like it or not, this is probably the way it should be. Were we to gang up on the bullies and sharks and wolves, we just might become one of Them. Best we continue our quiet evangelism one person at a time, one situation at a time. Just keep in mind that we are together in spirit and mind.

3. Each day, the world ends and begins anew. This means we have no acceptable excuses for misbehaving, for failing to make the 24 hours just given us a little better. It’s a long journey, but each day can be different from each previous day. Even the lead character in Groundhog Day eventually found a way to redeem himself and others around him. He just kept on getting up and reassessing his circumstances. We can do that, too.

4. It’s time to construct our own Mayan calendar. There’s nothing restraining us—we can roughly steer our destinies by simply deciding to do so, then allowing nothing to get in the way. Whiners and naysayers and wimps who just know everything is going down the tubes…these folks haven’t met us yet, have they? We know how to expend our energies. As Duke Ellington said, “I merely took the time it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” Compose some blues today.

The Plan is self-evident. The Meek are contesting the will.

As Gandhi said, “First they ignore you. Then they make fun of you. Then they fight you. And then you win.”

Yep, we are the invisible warriors. All we have to do is keep in mind that the Mayan calendar doesn’t last forever unless we re-boot it from time to time.

Bo Diddley said it all: “We’re a short time here and a long time gone.”

Thank you, People of Earth, for reading these few words. I mean you no harm

Today is the Day Before the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/todayisthedaybeforethefirstday.mp3

or read on…

My dreams are getting better all the time.

Here are some clips:

First dream: I’m standing on the corner of a downtown city street on New Year’s Eve, hawking a stack of calendars. The sign around my neck reads, “Last chance to purchase your 2012 calendar. Get ‘em while they last!”

This dream is almost as sad as the end-stage career of a Mayan calendar salesman.

Another dream: A city meter maid walks up to me while I’m fumbling for change to insert into a dysfunctional parking meter. “Here, let me cover that,” she says, handing me a quarter. “Merry Christmas!” she says, quite jovially.

My dreams often have science-fiction plots like this.

Yet another dream: Scarlett Johansson calls me to express her despair. She’s just learned I’m already taken and won’t be eligible to marry her.

This actually happened. In my dreams.

More better dream: I’m reading a new mystery novel and notice that I am an actual character in the book. No kidding! I’m in the book!

Actually, I cheated. This isn’t a dream—it really occurred. Read Liza Elliott’s thriller,

30-A Supper Club (Red Camel Press, 2012). She warned me I’d be in her novel, but I assumed she was kidding. I am now what I always imagined I’d be: A fictitious character!

So, sometimes dreams come true. Except the Scarlett Johansson ones.

One more dream: The world ends on Friday. Poof! However, I’m not worried because I know what most sentient beings know—the world ends each and every day, then begins again. Over and over. I’m happy about this, since I realize that Saturday will be the beginning of everything, as will Sunday and Monday ad infinitum.

My dream teaches me that if I blow everything today, there’s always tomorrow. And if I keep my wits about me, I should be able to make each day better than the day before.

Beginnings and endings—and how I treat them—offer me renewed hope, fresh ways to comfort those around me who flail about and fail to see the Possibilities. Sometimes all I know to do is sell you an old nostalgic book. Sometimes all I know to do is make you laugh for a spell, to distract you from your travails.

Sometimes all I know to do is write a note like this, hoping you’ll be inspired to write your own note. It’s important to place those notes into bottles and cast them adrift to cheer somebody somewhere.

Note: prior to placing note in bottle, look into the neck and hold it up to the light. Wonders may appear. Then, place your ear next to the neck and listen. Really listen. There—you’re already on your way to making the beginning of the world just a little bit different, maybe a little bit fun

X Minus One Equals the Ride of My Life

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/xminusoneequals.mp3

or read on…

It’s time for a half-hour trip into space and Other Times, and I’m ready for takeoff!

Right now, I’m back in the 1950′s—a teenager who longs to be Elsewhere and Elsewhen. But I am a prisoner of Now, a captive of Reality—which means I don’t have a bicycle, can’t yet drive, am unemployed, thus dependent upon the means and whims of parents.

This is long before television enters my life. There is only radio, audio recordings, downtown movies, the written word.

My sole escape this special Sunday afternoon is to leap into the Toynbee Convector, batten the hatches, strap myself in, and engage the Master Controls for a thirty-minute escape into Anywhere Else But Here.

What this means is, I sneak into the only room of the house where sits an AM table radio that isn’t being used or censored by someone else. I stretch out alone on my parents’ twin bed, tune the set to the local NBC outlet and wait for the most daring of all shows, this week’s episode of X MINUS ONE.

Back here in the ’50′s science fiction is not mainstream, nor does it enjoy the approval of grown-ups and the literati. It is actually considered mind-rotting, or at least a waste of time, what with all that speculative ranting about alternate universes and what Might Be instead of What Is.

This is exactly what makes Sci-Fi exciting and daring in the ’50′s—you aren’t supposed to be indulging it!

Anyhow, X MINUS ONE hits the airwaves and I am ready for launch.

Through the tiny speaker, dulcet announcer Fred Collins delivers the show’s opening words, which go something like this: “Countdown for blastoff… X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one… Fire!” (Big noise of rocket engines and a long whistling sound.). “From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds.”

Wow! It doesn’t get any better than this! The announcer continues:

“The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Street and Smith Publications, presents… X Minus One.” (each word echoes down an imagined Space Chamber).

For the next two dozen minutes, I’m Elsewhere, listening to dramatized stories by Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Robert Sheckley, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp and a hundred other authors whose works I follow in paperback novels and pulp magazines.

And right now, I’m the only person in the universe, and these tales are being told just for me.

Through ensuing decades, as life continues beyond X MINUS ONE, I continue to be attracted to this special style of eyes-closed storytelling, and, as you may imagine, I eventually become a follower of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, STAR TREK, THE OUTER LIMITS, NIGHT GALLERY and the like.

These shows give me permission to imagine better things when times are harsh, they provide a protected place for me to go when I need re-charging and de-brainwashing. And, as time goes on, the only thing better than listening or reading or watching is writing…writing my little tales to entertain myself and anyone else who might be inclined to pay attention.

The only twist I use when relating my own personally-conceived stories is the Anti-Sci-Fi Turnabout: I never write anything that isn’t true, that hasn’t really happened. Because, you see, it occurs to me Elsewhen that life itself is more fantastical than any sci-fi or fantasy story. My life and yours—they are the true sci-fi adventures. The act of not ever making anything up, the process of just looking around and observing, will reveal beauties and horrors more profound than anything I’ll ever find in the works of these majestic tale-tellers of yore.

I become my own science fiction stories.

And even though X MINUS ONE is nearly past remembrance, I can still entertain myself with my own writings.

My real stories, my real life, are more mind-bending than anything I can manufacture

My Beautiful Santas

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/mybeautifulsantas.mp3

or read on!

I was born in 1941, into more beautiful and simple times.

Just three months before the U.S.’s entry into World War Two.

My early childhood was magnificent. Despite all the horrors that were taking place in the world, my parents and family managed to shield me. Despite all the suffering and sacrifice, I was allowed, with my brother Ronny and sister Barbara, to simply be a child.

I’ve never thanked my parents enough for this gift, nor can I ever.

My family, plus my uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, grandparents and my village in general, kept me pure and innocent as long as they possibly could.

Maybe that’s what all really good villagers do throughout the world. Good villagers know the secret of whistling past the graveyard, the secret of distracting yourself with simple pleasures and wide-eyed fantasies and lesson-laden folklore.

Anyhow, part of my joyful childhood was spent thinking about Santa Claus and all that he and Mrs. Claus represented. Mother and sister Barbara made sure we boys did not insult Santa by thinking of him as merely someone who brought us lots of undeserved loot each year. They carefully instilled in us the idea that Santa represented how good people could be to each other, given the opportunity. If Santa was to be good to us, we would have to learn to be good to Santa, too.

We respected Santa Claus and wrote him letters, making certain that we did more than ask for goodies. We asked how he was feeling, whether he and Mrs. Claus were weathering their perpetual winter ok, how Donder and Blitzen were getting along. We promised him we would leave lots of milk or hot chocolate and cookies for him, and of course a bowl of raisins for the reindeer. Early on, we knew the importance of frequent snacks when you’re working–or playing–hard.

We even knew what Santa Claus really looked like.

The fact that Santa was a black man and a white man at the same time did not confuse us at all, because we had visual proof.

White Santa looked exactly like Edmund Gwenn, a wonderful old character actor who played Kris Kringle in the movie, “Miracle on 34th Street.” Black Santa looked exactly like a beautiful color painting that appeared alongside Roark Bradford’s story, “How Come Christmas,” in Collier’s Magazine.

“Miracle on 34th Street” changed my life forever. It’s the story of how cynicism is useless in the face of fantasy. It’s the story of how fantasy is the only truth in a child-filled world. Santa lives!

“How Come Christmas” changed my life forever. It’s the story of Santa Claus through the eyes of African American children, who turned out to be exactly like White American children.

The only other Santa Claus-like figure in folklore that we believed in passionately was James Baskett, who played Uncle Remus in Walt Disney’s movie, “Song of the South.” Uncle Remus was every bit as heroic and gentle and child-loving as our White Santa and our Black Santa. We even suspected that all three were the same person.

I can’t think of anybody who exerted more influence in my life–to this very day–than Santa Claus. And I still remember what I discovered in childhood: There are Santas everywhere. They are rare, but they can be sought out and found if you look hard enough.

I guess I’ve spent my entire life looking for and secretly appreciating my Santa Claus heroes. These were people who profoundly believed in the child each of us tries to hide from the world, except when it’s safe. I still have them comfortably nearby, in my stories about them, in little keepsakes, in small reminders of their existence.

You could do worse in life than believe in Santa Claus, the kind of Santa Claus who can pop up anywhere in the world and treat you with kindness and respect. If you go looking for Santa, Santa will be available. Doesn’t matter whether you’re religious, unreligious, antireligious. Doesn’t matter whether you are 95 or five. Santa is right there, waiting to give you a reassuring smile and the gift of attention. Don’t blink and miss him!

Oh, by gosh by golly, it’s time for mistletoe and holly

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/ohbygoshbygolly.mp3

or read on…

A pleasant young Russian scientist with pretty wife and fussy baby girl in tow, shows up at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories, this pre-Christmas Saturday. The three stare wide-eyed at the array of books. He’s looking for Birmingham souvenirs they can afford. Frank Sinatra’s voice bounces against the books as other browsers drift the isles, ”Oh, by gosh, by golly, it’s time for mistletoe and holly…”

A smelly street guy shows up to purchase a HOBBIT DVD for his buddy, who can’t come to the shop “’cause he’s not allowed to leave the shelter.” He was caught with a cellphone and for some ethereal reason that’s forbidden. He’s being punished for not following the Memo. Mel Torme doesn’t notice, he just goes on about “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”

A slender shopper reminds me that she served me breakfast at Dimitri’s one morning and is making good on her promise to visit the store. We chat warmly while an enormous man cruises the isles in a cold sweat, searching for esoterica. Several customers appear escorting visiting family and friends who’ve never before been Downtown. I extoll the wonders of the city while they try to take it all in. The Modern Jazz Quartet dances the musical notes around “England’s Carol,” their version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen…”

A merry woman spends much of my time trying to fit as many purchases into a twenty-dollar bill as she possibly can. She finally seems happy with three small leatherbound Shakespeare plays and an enormous encyclopedia volume. She leaves behind several 1940′s pulp-fiction novels and a beat-up Purple Heart display case. Now, candyman Sammy Davis, Jr., is soaring about “Christmastime in the city…”

One departing customer returns to the shop, unable to resist purchasing an old copy of TALES OF UNCLE REMUS by Joel Chandler Harris. Something resonates with her childhood and she has to have it. The Russian couple wants to walk the city, so I send them to their next stops, the Jazz Museum and the Civil Rights Institute. Vince Guaraldi continues interpreting Charlie Brown with his rendition of “Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum….”

The day is filled with auld acquaintances materializing, new friends made, adventuresome explorers sated, bookmongers always looking for the next fix, children grabbing stacks of tales for their dad to read aloud, and one man spending two hours to find just the right volume to adopt. Dean Martin trills, “Rudoph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide mein sleigh tonight…”

And by gosh and by golly, a good day was had by almost all, and isn’t that about as much as you could possibly hope for in this erratic, terror-filled, joy-soaked world? “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams…”

The Christmas Spitz Junior Portable Universe Transporter

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/spitzjunior.mp3

or read on…

Here’s a vivid Christmas memory. Hope it takes you back…

When I was a young one just trying to absorb the fact that I’d never be a Babe Ruth or an Albert Einstein or an Edgar Allan Poe or a Gregory Peck, I received for Christmas, sitting there just beyond reach of the carnival-decorated gaudy fir tree, a SPITZ JUNIOR PLANETARIUM, manufactured by HARMONIC REED CORPORATION OF ROSEMONT, PENNA.

It was a most special Christmas gift.

Just looking at it now, in my mind’s eye, it has remained crystal-clear all these many years: a shiny black flexible-plastic globe bifurcated by a yellow rubber equatorial flange that represents the stellar ecliptic and incidentally holds the two half-spheres together. The black globe sits atop a white plastic observatory-shaped base, and the whole thing can be rotated round and round as well as moved up and down to simulate all the naked-eye observable movements of the stars.

To appreciate the planetarium, you had to take it into a pitch-dark, preferably cube-shaped room and slowly turn up the rheostat just above the off-on switch on the front of the base. If you did it just right and just slowly enough, you would suddenly feel yourself transported to the middle of a darkened field in the middle of the night in the middle of the planet in the middle of the universe because, all around you, there would suddenly appear stars in exactly the same positions, the same configurations, as they would appear if you actually were in the middle of a darkened field in the middle of the night in the middle of…etc.

Even if you couldn’t go outside to see the stars, even if it was cloudy and raining, even if you had just come indoors from the humid sunshine, you could still go into that darkened room and be somewhere else in time and space and feel all alone in a crowd of billions of others whose names you did not know.

One day way back when, my sister Rosi got my SPITZ JUNIOR PLANETARIUM out of storage and presented it to me and I took it home and now I sleep again in the middle of a darkened field in the middle of the night in the middle…

Whenever the demon insomnia causes my eyes to flicker open, I can see the old familiar stars keeping me silent company and reminding me that they will always be there and that any problems that seem gargantuan now are minuscule compared to the distant silent coolness and the close-up noisy fury of those suns upon suns upon suns out there. The mathematics and physics of astronomy escaped me early on, but the sheer personal poetry of the tiny points of light so large and so far away still affects me and still makes me remember what it was like to be a small boy and open an incredible shiny gift that pure and lonely Christmas so many eons ago in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

‘Tis the Season of the Parallel Parked Panhandler

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Jim

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/tistheseasonoftheparallelparked.mp3

or read on…

I’m manuevering between faded parallel stripes, sliding into a familiar parking place at Five Points South, but there’s something already parked there.

It’s nighttime, and the lump of clothing isn’t covered in reflective tape, so it would be easy to run over it before the thinking process kicks in.

I pause just short of filling the entire space, to see what’s what.

Lying full-length in the parking space is a man of darkness—dark clothing, dark beard, dark skin, dark asphalt, darkened night. He’s conscious. I know that because he’s leisurely smoking a cigarette, gazing up at the sky, head propped upon belongings, oblivious to the rhythms of the city surrounding him.

The uninitiated driver (me) might panic, might call 911 to report a vagrant, might call the cops to alert them to the possibility that this man is subject to being run over, might call the Jimmy Hale Mission (but what would they do?), might walk over and make a donation to the causeless cause, might pull back and park elsewhere (thus leaving the man once again vulnerable to the urban nighttime), might mind his own business and get on with his errand.

I can attempt to justify a dozen different actions, but most of them seem judgmental, most of them would entail behaving with incomplete data.

Does this man report me for almost running over him? Does he give me a lecture about invading his space? Does he ask anything of me, save his silent plea to leave him alone? Is he better off in his small universe than I am in mine? Am I the true vagrant—feasting off the images of people different from myself in order to write a story such as this?

Can’t stop my brain.

The better part of valor is to remember him kindly, appreciate what I have in my life, hope that he’s happier living without my imposed opinions, hope that he finishes his satisfying smoke, picks up his portable life, and saunters off to the next shelter—and finds some warmth and quiet within this nervous and nosy metropolis