Pridian

The sign read: Great Advice, only $.50.

He was a younger man, slightly slumped in his Venice Beach bench. Ironically, his black skin shone white in the bright California sun. Yet his eyes were incredibly dark, like pools of a melting 75% cacao chocolate bar. As I dug through my multiple pockets, I found a quarter, nickel and some dimes. Walking over to him, I struck out my curled palm over his dark hand and let the silver coins drip from white to black.

“Have a seat,” he said, and I seated myself slightly angled toward him. “What would you like advice on my friend?”

“I’m not really sure. Work… love… the pursuit of happiness… life.”

He smirked and slumped a little more, shaking his head.

I smiled at myself, “No advice on generality?”

“No one is special. No one is better than another. No one is smarter. No one is dumber. No one is prettier and no one is dumber. No one is richer and no one is poorer. We all have a brain. We all have a heart. We all have lungs. We breathe the same air. We live on the same land. We work on the same land. We use the same time. We use the same money. We buy the same things. We eat the same food and we drink the same water. We are all the same. No one is better. No one is special.”

“But doesn’t the way we utilize our time, money and land distinguish ourselves from one another?” I asked skeptically.

“Name one thing you have done with your time that no one else has thought to do. You think you are different because you took the time to travel here, look around you, 85% of these people are visitors. You think you are different because you spent your money from my advice while most walk past, stay all day and you will see 50 people who spent their money exactly like you. You think you are different because you own or rent property, look around you 99% of these people own or rent property and about 98% of them have more than you. You. Are. Not. Special.”

“Do you say this out of bitterness or enlightenment?”

He gave me a curious glance. “I say this out of reality.”

“Are you different?”

“No.”

I turned and looked forward toward the sidewalk cafe filled with people just like me. On the same vacation from our same life consuming jobs, eating the same food I ate an hour ago. Drinking the same water, paying with the same money, taking the same time.

“You see. No difference.”

“Well, thanks for the.. uh… advice,” I hedged.

“See you my friend.”

As I walked away I tried to gain a perspective on his words. I think ultimately he was speaking of humility. Treat others as yourself. A trait few use and even fewer have. Beautiful, quiet humility.

September 2nd, 2007

I finally left the garage today and was thrown into the back of a pick up. Though I prefer a bike rack atop a car, so the wind can blow through my bars, I was please to find myself beneath the sun and way from the lingering scent of bug spray. As we drove at higher speeds than I can attempt, I let my tires rotate, knowing the humans would simply assume it was a draft.

My hind tire has been flat for sometime. The man who loaded me and a young lady rolled me into a bike’s version of the ER. I remember them saying “Thanks” and leaving before I was heaved on to a diagnosis table and put under.

When I came-to, the young lady was standing at the ER’s counter and talking to my doctor.

“Whoever rode this bike rode it rough. It’s a cruiser, not a dirt bike,” Doctor said.

The young lady glanced at me before saying, “Well, it was my grandmother’s, but I will be sure to question her.”

She handed him some paper, took me by my handles and lifted me back into the pick-up.

The next location we stopped at was a house. I eyed the garage wearily. But before I had time to contemplate the suffocating matter, I was decapitated.

The last thing I remember was pain from forceful shoves and a blueberry.

September 3rd, 2007

My head and tire were reunited. The young lady was with me we cruised through gray buildings. I was carried through a room where three other humans were sitting on fluffy objects. Before I could observe them further, my front wheel hit something.

“Oops, screen,” the young lady exclaimed.

The other humans smirked.

The rest of the day I sat in a fenced cubed. Small, but at least beneath the sun.

September 4th, 2007

I heard the glass door slide and woke up. The young lady was there. She was not looking at me but carrying on a conversation with one of those humans I got a glimpse at.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Target. A journey.” The young lady replied.

“Do you have a lock?” The human asked, half her attention on a color-changing box.

“Yep.”

The young lady lifted me back through the room and set me on concrete. As soon as she shut the door, we were off.

It felt good to be sailing asphalt again. To watch houses and cars blur out of my vision. To hear dogs barking at me. And to smell nature instead of garage chemicals. We glided over sidewalks, around people, through water…

“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!!! I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like!!! You say black, I say white. You say bark, I say…” The young lady started singing, loudly.

What’s this? I thought. She has written a song for me! A song for us!

We rode through one neighborhood to the next. Some parts had houses beautiful with nice yards (some even had no garages).
Others were run down apartments with little humans playing with an ugly shaped ball in the street while big humans put brown glass to their lips.

Before the sun fully set, the young lady and I drifted back through the gray buildings. And she carried me to the small cube… this time remembering the screen.

We set our alarms for 1:45 AM. And when that time came, my body hardly recognized the alarm. Unsynchronized, I exited my

bed to stumble into the living room where Sarah seemed to have slept all night.

“Hey,” I said groggily.

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

We shuffled outside in our baggy pajamas and step out from beneath the breeze-way. We had gone out three hours earlier to

check on it. Then, it was a perfect circle hovering above the trees. It seems closer and brighter than usual. Maybe it was

because I was so focused, or maybe because I anticipated to much.

But there we stood, three hours later and though we had expected a dark sky and incandescent moon, we saw only the edges

blurred, like a tear to words of ink.

“Huh,” I stated.

“Come back out in 30?” Sarah asked, still observing the moon.

“Perhaps, in due time, maybe… tired? Hope, once.” Tease my body again? How could I?

After one more silent scrutiny we headed in. I vaguely remember flying to bed, in fact once fully awake the next morning, I

vaguely remember it at all.

“Did you go back out?” She asked, reaching for the chips.

“Heh, no. You?”

“At 2:30, it was definitely darker.”

“I’ll Google it.”

But it seems where ever I initiate a Google search, I end up looking up everything, become over stimulated with articles and

sites therefore forgetting my initial investigation. Yet I preserver!

For you poor souls who missed this because uninterrupted sleep is far more important… the next total lunar eclipse will be:

February 21, 2008.

The next total solar eclipse will be: August 1, 2008

Admission is free.

I walked into Starbucks… I know, I know, I have a lot of Starbucks stories.

I walked into Starbucks to order my tall black iced tea- unsweetened. Employees at the coffee shop are usually out going and sometimes on the verge of dramatic.

“Hey Muscles! What can I get you this afternoon?” The man in familiar green, black and khaki asked.

“Muscles?” I questioned incredulously.

“Yeah, you have nice muscles. It’s a compliment.”

I smirked, “Compliments generally don’t require clarifying…”

“Ah, well, what can I get you Gorgeous?” He switched.

“Your sarcasm diminishes your charm.”

He smiled.

“A tall black iced tea, unsweetened, no water.”

“Mm-Kay, Ms. High-Class-Watching-My-Caloric-Intake.”

“Hardly,” I responded handing him a five.

“Oh yeah?” He challenged. “What’d you eat for lunch?”

“Grilled cheese - with the works -, fries, a chocolate malt and water.”

“Ah-ha! Water!” He exclaimed, placing the change in my hand.

The other barista handed me my tea and rolled her eyes slightly toward her co-worker.

“Thanks.” I said, not knowing if I was thanking her for the drink, the empathy or both.

I jammed my straw against the counter, pulled off the paper and stuck the green plastic through my clear lid.

“See you next week,” I said.

“Till then… Muscles.”

With my back to him, I lifted my drink in mock salute.

Wind blew the heavy rain into obsidian waves over the asphalt. We ran, heads huddled under jackets, into the warm restaurant. Walking to the hostess, I saw a man sitting alone with his head bowed over his knees. His clothes were filthy and an old beanie atop his head had a hole on top where greasy, gray hair stuck out. The rings around his dirty fingers were tight and tarnished.

“Sir?” He turned his tawny-red eyes on me. “Would you like to eat with my friend Sarah and I? On us.”

He blinked, looked forward, then slowly turned his head back to me saying, “Ya want me, to sit in d’ere an eat ata table with ya?”

“Yes, sir.”

Smiling slowly to himself, he stood.

Sarah and I followed the hostess to our table while the man slightly hobbled behind. All eyes in the restaurant followed us. Diverse glances were cast our way and with each one a discreet judgment.

After we were seated, menus in hand, the man began to speak.

“Ya know, I don’t do to bad sittin’ in front of dis restaurant. I mean, people give me der leftovas with a few dead presidents… it all adds up. Ya just gotta know how to look.”

He took off his black beanie, sifted his brown fingernails through his long-since-washed hair, so it stood obnoxiously astray. Then he proceeded to give himself and dazed look while making unintelligible sounds.

Sarah and I laughed.

The bum continued to entertain us, in his mumbled speech, awkward hand gesture way. We decided him a pirate, Robert the disgruntled pirate. Growing up his father used to shove him through windows of houses so he could run to the back door and let him in. They stole everything worth something in those houses.

In the middle of his animated story, he paused and looked down at his food.

“Ya know,” he started, “I caint remember da last time I’ve eatin ina restaurant.”

We laughed, thinking it another joke.

“Na, I’m serious.” He looked to the ceiling and spouted dates to himself. “1980, 1985, 1983, 1987, 1989. Yep, 1989.”

We stared at him.

“An now I’m sittin here, eatin good food, wit two beautiful young women… Say, can I see dat knife.” He grabbed it and began to open his coat.

“Not on my watch,” Sarah said.

The bum farced disappointment, then excused himself to the restroom.

“Fascinating man.”

“Yeah, out of all the bums out there, we pick ourselves a funny one,” Sarah joked. “I am going to go pay for the food now, I don’t want him to see our wallets out. He is a bum after all.”

I watched her walk to the register and read her gestures as she explained to our waiter the situation. Something was confusing to her, she had that look.

“They compted our meal.”

“Huh?” I murmured.

“They said, ‘You two took a bum out to dinner. We, in return, are paying for your meal.’”