In the Airport Hilton near
LAX some people wait for hours; some all night to get a hug and a Hershey Kiss
from a brown woman sitting on a brightly lit stage under an umbrella who looks
like an electric happy island guru from some Japanese animation character
drawing executed by a four year old genius who loves mangos and coconut milk.
They sell little dolls of
this brown woman here and there are all types of things going on here as bunch
of stressed out happy helpers doing happy work and people who look like Covina,
Jersey, The Playa and Venice Beach as well as Watts, The Hamptons, Bangladesh,
Texas and Mexico wander around in a vegan daze trying to gleam a taste of the
eternal hum.
I saw a guy with tie-die
socks, a girl with her tits showing and mysteriously appreciative appreciated
guy named Pagan. I saw snappy
people of the high and tight variety who looked like they needed to get a
little dirty as well as some children of the other polarity who looked like
they needed the services of a hazmat team, a hot tub full of 171 proof rum, and
a strike anywhere match. I, myself
used to go for weeks without a shower and used to get off on the smell of my
own asshole. I found the rift
fantastic. It was a smorgasbord of
weird fucks coming to see a modern day saint.
I approached on my knees like
everyone else; dangerously irritated and in great pain. Sweating and suffering to get close to
her, I wanted magic and mystery. I
wanted her to whisper secrets about me to me.
She will see I’m
special. She will see I’m
good. She will see how much I
suffered to see her, barely able to bend on a shred of faith, hope and desire
for something better. At three
hundred and twenty pounds the weight pushing down on my kneecaps was causing me
great discomfort and pain.
I thought that she’d see this
when I got up to her. I was
certain that she was going take me in her arms and say, “It’s you Buddha. I’ve been waiting for you.” However, when I got up there my
presence caused a small schism.
It seemed I was too sweaty
and the stressed out helper didn’t wipe me down enough and saints don’t dig on
stink.
This schism embarrasses me
horribly and makes me paranoid. I
feel worthless and angry because of it but I go up to her nonetheless. Not sure if it’s okay and if I’m
wanted, I push this out of my mind and belch out something about claiming self,
time and space.
She wipes me down. I lay into her. She whispers, “Walla walla walla walla
walla” into my ear, hugs me, lets go of me, puts a Hershey kiss and I’m
scuttled off the stage with the rest of the meat. Its over and I feel nothing other than a strong sense of
kindred with a dog fart.
Immediately I start to
sweat. In the world of explosives,
it had the combustive significance of popping a paper cap. You know, the kind of fun for poor
kids, timid arsonists and old men from the glory days of the dustbowl used to
have.
I found my way back to a
group of strangers standing around talking to the girl I came with. They knew each other. She introduced me. They looked at me with wide eyes
knowing it was my first time expecting a gushing forth of glad and glow.
I got angry. Fuck them. Its mine not yours.
I’m not going to testify to the mass hysteria and drink the cool aid and
cosign your lazy desperate eyes searching for a clue.
This girl speaks. She says, “You have the Shanti glow”.
I respond, “Oh, yeah? I have to take a piss.”
This girl looks at me like
I’m crazy and stupid. The feeling
is mutual. I walk away.
Fuck you. Get your own hug. I’m not sure what I feel. I’m not telling you anything just to
make you feel less stupid for waiting for ten hours at the Holy Hilton you
hysterical fucks.
Angry. Angry. Angry. I take a
piss. My dick smells. I am ashamed of it. I go back. They want a cigarette.
I tell them I want to sit and bask in the Shanti glow.
I am angry and want to smash
something. I sit alone.
A stranger looks at me. She’s a tourist too. She heard about the brown lady from a
metaphysics class and saw the brown lady’s advertisement in a magazine and,
like me, wanted to meet someone who’s a bonafied saint in the flesh.
She asks how it was. I tell her I don’t know -- It takes a
while for my head to catch up with my heart. I tell her that the group of people I was with all looked at
me expecting some big epiphany but I gave them nothing except telling them I
had to go to take a piss. I tell her that they looked at me like I was crazy
but I didn’t want to tell them something for their benefit if it wasn’t
true. They can get their own
hug. Their own testimony. Their own first time.
She sees I’m thinking out
loud and have more to process. She
leaves me alone. I like her. She likes me.
I sit. I wonder. Then things start to fire as I ask “why” and “what for”
because at an event like that with an ending so anticlimactic it is something
that you do.
I admit I expected special
treatment and magic for my suffering but was treated like the rest of the
cattle and didn’t like it. There
was nothing special. Nothing. No big pay off for all the meaningless
painful shit.
Then I thought of how I have
recently come to shift paradigms and decided not to glorify or inflate my
suffering, at least in theory and pontification. I realize that I’ve been patting myself on the back for
becoming willing to kill it. Like
I’ve come to some special place.
That I have been killing it but it was not yet dead and it may never
die.
Then I concede to the fact
that in my heart of hearts I felt that my suffering made me
special and I deserved great
things because of it and I was angry and got nothing
in return. I wait in pain for hours, get a hug, a
whisper, a piece of chocolate then they violate the agreement by moving me
along to make room for the next sucker come for truth.
As I sat there, I thought to
myself, I do not shine. I am no
different. If I am treated just
like everyone else I deserve the same love and neglect as everyone else.
That’s the message.
I am not Buddha. I’m just a man who has been bitch
slapped. My suffering does not
bring me worth or make me deficient.
It does not make me great.
It does not make me inferior.
It does not set me apart from you.
It is a mental
Hiroshima. It is an ”ahhh”. It is an “aha”. It is a great big “oh” at the Airport
Hilton. The “why” and “what for”
that I have attached like humans do.
God damn, the little brown
lady delivered. I felt that the last ten hours were hours well spent and
forgive them for their little brown dolls, hundred dollar bracelets and want to
go home.
I want. I hunt. I get. And
there I was. Bitch slapped by a
little brown lady and given a Hershey Kiss. The rest was up to me.
