Hall Of Poetic Justice

I parked my ’64 VW Minibus where I hoped it wouldn’t get towed. Fingers crossed, I headed up the stairs to my friend Ritchie's Brooklyn apartment where I often crashed, unless there were the sounds of a squeaky bed with its headboard banging against the wall. Lucky for me, Ritchie was hitting a dry spell so a hallway and a blowup mattress was to be my manna from heaven. For sure, a leaky blowup is one hell of a lot better than another night scrunched up in the VW, or hoping for an unchallenged spot at the park’s bandshell. Ritchie's Park Slope floor-thru had the lingering stench of burned chicken fat splattered upon the kitchen walls from an indoor barbeque the night before: At the time, It seemed like a really great idea. I took a deep breath and ran through the kitchen to the closet, hoping that my ten bucks worth of pre- owned business attire was still there, or wasn’t permeated with the stench of what had gone down in the kitchen. Checking out my threads, I had a realization: If I didn't get to that suit first, someone would be wearing it to the big sleep at Potter's Field. Instead, it was there for my resurrection into the world. Lucky me, I was the fleetest of foot at the church’s used apparel sale and nailed it, a shirt, a tie and a pair of shiny black vinyl shoes. Gazing at my blurred image in the shoes, I blinked away visions of my getup's better days as my image appeared to be saying, “It’s 1974, and time to ring the business world's doorbell. Corporate America, Kenny’s coming on back!” Walking to the Ninth Street train station, I found it difficult to stop gaping at store windows as I observed my reflection rehearsing smiles or licking at the hairlessness around my

2 Hall Of Poetic Justice © mouth: Some onlookers licked back at me. There was no time for excuses or an explanation, my hippie hair and beard had been shorn, flushed down the crapper and my shiny black vinyl shoes and business suit would take it from there! A cold wind kissed my face as I descended the stairs to where the F train would carry me to my top of the morning meeting at the Aaron Aardvark headhunter mill in midtown Manhattan. I took great comfort recalling Ellen’s words the night before: “Kenny, you have the shiny shoes, the suit and an ass-kicking haircut. Go set the world on fire, but try not to burn down the neighborhood.” Ellen was the love of my life, but I couldn’t come out and say that. First, I had to rise above the aftermath of my middle finger’s flight into the face of the CEO of the company that had once been my stairway to heaven. It really sucks when you finally understand that the heaven on earth you bought into was just one more take on the hell on earth you thought you had risen above. Lesson learned! Next time I listen to a pitch, we’ll be riding on an escalator so I can catch its entire drift. Ellen seemed happy for me and my newly found change of focus, but I sensed a bittersweet undercurrent. Ours was a lady and the tramp relationship. She had a real job with the City of New York and was studying for an advanced degree. I was hustling moving gigs with a Minibus and dealing a bit of stairway to heaven along the way. Both of us realized that a real relationship between two people from totally different worlds might never be. Sooner or later we’d wake up from our shared fantasy and part ways, but not that day. Like a cattle herd swooped up in a Texas twister, morning

3 Hall Of Poetic Justice © commuters dashed madly up the subway staircase to join the Broadway stampede to everywhere but there. Overwhelmed by the crushing force of humankind, I slipped into the safety of a notch between two buildings. As if propelled by a blast of hot air from a sidewalk subway vent, a trembling gray hand reached out to me as I pondered, ‘Where there’s a trembling gray hand, there’s gotta be a trembling gray body!’ I looked down to see a hunched over, elderly homeless man covered by a raggedy army coat, sitting atop the vent. His eyes darted east then west as he demanded, “Kid, lay some change on an old veteran. I'm kinda hungry an’ between checks!” As quickly as I dropped two quarters into his palm, he looked away and laid the very same pitch on the next passerby, ignoring me in the process. I wondered, ‘Did he fall from a rush of commuters years ago to discover that all he needed in this world would come to him by sitting on a vent while begging for change? Is my journey back to the world beginning where his stopped?’ I turned to resume my mission upon seeing the antiquated Aaron Aardvark Aagency’s neon sign flickering its welcoming message from above: “Your journey to success begins here!” ‘Will my success necessitate that I become reshaped to fit neatly into the corporate world’s idea of me?’ I wondered as The Aardvark waiting room’s bucket chair embraced my tush, ‘Is this employment application the teeth that will chew me up once again, launching my journey through the bowels of Corporate America? Will my next career be measured as the time between my first bite of an all I can eat buffet of empty promises, to the day when this pathetic sucker’s keys and entry codes seem to have moved on to whomever is next? Will the cheap itchy apparel for junior executives become like taco

4 Hall Of Poetic Justice © shells enshrouding my ground up flesh as a digestive aid? Is sitting here my first step to getting me a gold plated Timex when my geezer to be ass is swapped out as an intern to be shouts, ‘Next!’ With every throb of my hammering heart, the walls closed in on me a bit more as I gazed at the application: “Shit! These gas chamber green walls are like the floor planks covering Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart! Could gas chamber green be the color of places where the human spirit is condemned, then shuttled to a fitting afterworld? It’s all come full circle: There is a hall of poetic justice and I’m sitting in it! Am I rushing headlong to becoming a Kapo in just one more Establishment death camp, much like where I sold my soul for the rewards of being a well-paid hatchet man for my last corporate cult.” I hung my head downward. My reflection in my shiny vinyl left shoe stared back at me saying, “Stop the paranoid bullshit; you just came here to land a friggin’ job.” While hoping to control my hyperventilation, I took a few hits of cooling air from a hissing vent. I glanced back at my feet to hear the reflection in my right shoe shout, “Asshole! You haven't learned a goddamned thing; have you?” My left shoe countered with, “Kenny, you're here to market your skills, not your soul.” Placing itself over my left foot, the reflection in my right shoe shouted, “Idiot! Is there a goddamn bit of difference?” I was about to snap my application to a clipboard when my attention was drawn to the scribbles and doodles of those who came before me. My right shoe questioned; “Okay, kids! Just what might we all be learning from all of these frantically scribbled mosaics of circles, squares and question marks?”

5 Hall Of Poetic Justice © My left shoe replied, “Enough of that crap! We're here to land us a job! So stop the over-analyzing.” The Aardvark’s stick pen ran dry as I integrated all of the scribbles and doodles into a massive question mark. Having described everything my entire existence had contributed to our Earth Mother’s life force, in fifty words or fewer, I turned my awareness to the worn down linoleum blocks throughout the agency’s worker class area. Like a boundary line between serfs and vassals, they ended at fine carpeting that extended beyond a glass partition. The carpet bore the nearly comatose bodies of The Aardvark’s bosses interred on the opposite side of that dichotomous border; as proletariat and bourgeoisie drones lumbered their lives away in a cathedral of servitude. Upon the linoleum, beneath a constant flicker of fluorescent tubes, sat The Aardvark’s secretaries. As if chained to galley oars by their I.D. bracelets, they clacked away on typewriters. Supervisors’ glaring eyes oversaw all, as the expressionless overseers goose-stepped along the aisles. Squinty eyed, trolls scurried about with shopping carts picking papers up, and leaving papers off. Beneath their dear founder’s portrait, they each served their idea of him in solitude: Their indifference toward one another, granting them yet another day. Boss’s eyes peered over glasses slipping off the tips of their noses, saved only by the ubiquitous black mole, as they sought prey for the dreaded red folder. As secretary’s breath smelled of bubblegum, boss’s breath reeked of halitosis: Perhaps the result of all the shit they had to swallow from their sovereign whose extravagant fixtures sat behind guarded doors. Boss breath is a weapon of distinction that is used on everyone but one another. Boss breath is released solely upon those of the

6 Hall Of Poetic Justice © worker class who enter their manager’s unventilated offices. Upon removing their hand shield, the boss might say to the serf; “Sit on the uneasy chair while I lean back on my recliner, because I have a carpet!” Since most people can’t hold their breath for more than a minute; one could only listen, nod in accord to whatever they say and then run outside the office to exhale. “So here’s to ya, corporate emancipation! Now we’re all friggin slaves!” stated my right shoe. My thoughts were eclipsed by the shadow of a figure I tagged as Ann Saleri. She wasn't a serf nor did she cover her mouth with her hand. I determined she was a hybrid, a variant of middle management or perhaps a hologram. She said to me, “Mister Savory, please walk this way.” There was no time to tell her that, Savoy, my family name was not that of a mint, but that of a cabbage. We halted at a workspace on the carpet side of the linoleum-carpet boundary. She instructed me to sit in its interview section. As she left, ‘I chose me a plastic bucket that seemed perfect for my ever re-forming tush!’ I lowered my head as a door creaked open and a contralto voice stated, “Mister Savory, please remain seated.” Confused as to how I should refer to the person, I found no relief upon reading Jordan on their nametag. After Jordan sat, an extended farting noise filled the room as air was forced through the executive chair’s vent holes. Jordan gazed over half-glasses and half-smiled. Jordan’s eyes shifted back and forth between me and my application. After a few glances at each, Jordan said, “Your application states that you seek the position of a Personnel Director. Is that correct, Mister Savory?” “It is, but I'm rather curious to know exactly what position

7 Hall Of Poetic Justice © one must assume in order to become the Aardvark Aagency’s ideal of a personnel director.” “Mister Savory, I beg your pardon?” “Family joke, sorry.” “Please continue, Mister Savory.” I presented Jordan with my interview packet by saying: “As you’ll see from my credentials, my last position at The Beria Syndicate was, Operations and Personnel Director. There's a letter of recommendation from the company’s CEO. By the way, ours was an amicable separation.” What I didn’t tell Jordan was: That CEO had me falsely attest, during frequent fraud investigations, that the all cash payoffs I’d bestow on prospective client’s purchasing agents were presented to them as: ‘Donations to employee health and welfare plans’. Along with other nefarious and clandestine tasks, being their go-to bagman was my main job. One morning, I looked in the mirror and saw a thing less worthy than what I had just flushed down the toilet. My fist’s shattering the vanity’s mirror began a long overdue crisis of conscience. My resignation statement consisted of telling the CEO to sit his fat ass on a pissed off pickle while I thrust my middle finger at both of his faces. Since a real value can never be placed upon years of the juiciest of inside info, his more than generous severance package did allow me to live high on the hog for quite a while, that is until the pig finally croaked. Jordan’s face lit up and broke into a smirk saying, “All of that aside, Mister Savory: You misspelled ‘personnel!’ You see, you spelled it as ‘personel.’ We here at The Aardvark are ‘specially trained to catch errors such as this. In order to avoid this problem in the future, think of a person named Nel. Ya got

8 Hall Of Poetic Justice © it, Mister Savory? Person-Nel becomes personnel!” As my sorry ass ripped itself free from the grip of its plastic bucket, I leaned over the desk and said, “Excuse me, you said that you're trained to catch things?” I held up my always eager middle finger adding, “Trained to catch things like this?” Jordan’s head nodded diagonally as if attempting to process my reaction to The Aardvark’s interview format. Typewriters went silent as I yelled, “I gotta tell you: Your dumbass head is so far up your dumbass tush, it's sticking out from your dumbass neck! Don't worry, I'm done!” I walked to the door, then turned adding, “On the other hand folks, perhaps I'm not entirely done.” Then, in my best Liverpool accent I shouted for all to hear, “Thank you and I hope I passed the audition!” “Ayn Rand, ya better check your own dumbass premises! True, they do look great from a distance, but those skyscraper monoliths that knocked your socks off when you set foot on Ellis Island are not temples to the inspired mind of Mankind: They’re mausoleums smothering the soul of its Humanness! Don’t you worry, I really dug your books. I just deluded myself into thinking I could endure re-absorption into the pervasive monster that is the fucking Establishment. Though I did learn a thing or two from my journey through The Aardvark: Since individuals of all kind make up the corporate body, those who become its asshole are there to squeeze out the stools!” The yo-yo that was my stomach arrived at its default setting when the elevator hit the lobby floor. The doors couldn’t open fast enough as I rushed out for a cleansing breath of New York smog only to inhale a lungful of sweltering subway fumes bursting from gray guy’s sidewalk vent. As I poked around in my pocket for change to lay on the resident veteran’s ever-

9 Hall Of Poetic Justice © grasping palm, his hand moved away as he said, “Sorry sonny, shop’s gotta have to be closed for a bit. It’s just that time ...” “That time? Bro, I just made an attempt to ‘lay some change’ on an old veteran like you said I should do just a little while ago. So what’s with your sudden change?” Holding his hands to the vent’s warmth, he asked, “Change, you ask? Each and every time silver goes from one hand to another sonny, Nature sets change in motion for both of them: Mine gets me a step closer to getting over for that day, while a guy like you walks away feeling a lot better ‘bout yerself for helping a guy like me to get there.” “I never thought of it that way …” “Sonny, if ya vent sit long enough, ya’ll will begin to see the change in every one of us.” “How’s that possible? You’re just sitting there … on a vent!” “And so’s a speck of sand and so’s the universe both sitting there on something or other: that is, so far as we all can tell ...” “And you’re high minded too? Okay, this is all a perspective thing: I mean like … you spend your time seeing folks from the knees on up, while others may only see over their heads?” “Now I’m the one standing sonny, so everything’s changed.” “But now we’re eye to eye, so what’s really your point?” “Heh-heh, ya done got me with that one. But you’ll finally really get what I been sayin’ if ya’ll take my place and sit on this here vent and guard it for me … just for a little bit.” “Why would I want to do that? I have a train to catch, and like I don’t even know you!” “Who knows anyone, anyway? An’ who is anyone anyway?” “Yeah… I guess that’s all true but … No! Sorry, I gotta go!” “Slow down an’ just hear me out there, sonny. The truth is,

10 Hall Of Poetic Justice © I been sittin’ my calloused tush here all day and now I gotta take me a racehorse level piss! If I just walk away, and I don’t get someone to vent sit for me, I’ll lose this spot for good!” “So, then you can just go and find yourself another spot!” “Sonny! This here’s a primo, top-notch, pre-war New York City Subway vent! Twenty-four-seven: Warm as toast! ” Somehow accepting the octogenarian’s sense of urgency, I plopped right down on the vent saying, “Go take your piss! But I have no idea why the hell I’m going along with this!” “Perhaps it’s because ya have common decency and respect for others. Sonny, after vent surfing all these years, I can see, ya’ll ain’t never gonna be like them Gordon Gekko wannabes out there who have no time for real human connection. The true-blue good stuff in folks can only be found in street people like us, right where it all began...” “Like us?” “Sonny, I’ve lived long enough to know that it’s that thing inside some of us that just grows there, unless fairy tales of shiny things and castles in the sky take its place…” as two gray eyes met mine, he added, “I think ya’ll gets what I means ...” “Yeah! Come to think of it, I was just saying to myself…” Before I could squeeze out another word, he shouted, “Hey, here comes Charley! You can do the handoff, then be on your way,” squirming, he added, “I still gotta take me a wicked piss, so it don’t matter whose butt’s on the grill, I do gotta go!” “Handoff? Who’s Charley? Dude, what the hell is going on?” “Charley’s my partner. He’s heading down the hall from the elevator right now.” “Partner? Elevator?” “Charley makes dinner for us and leaves me mine on the

11 Hall Of Poetic Justice © table, just like always. Then he comes back down to cover the evening rush on the vent and I get to take me a leak, eat and rest on up! He’ll be here to relieve you in just a sec’.” “Relieve me? Hey! Is this vent surfing shit some kind of con job, or what?” “Actually, you’re just vent sitting. Vent surfing is when you swap vents with neighboring vent sitters, but just for a spell. It’s kinda like having them timeshares in common. Anyway, ain’t no matter what we each do on this here rock in the wind, we all need an occasional change of perspective, right?” “Well okay, I think I’m getting your point…Wait a goddamn minute! This sitting thing really does seem like a con job!” “The real con job is all of the bullshit that’s all around us!” “Easy, old-timer! You were saying?” After murmuring, “Since we can’t change things globally, we must change things locally…” he went on to say, “Yeah, so for folks who know better, either vent surfing or sitting are the best seats where you can catch the real show. If ya sit here long enough, you’ll see how everything in our lives changes.” “Huh?” In a grandfatherly voice, he leaned over and said, “My boy, a few lifetimes ago I came out from that Aardvark headhunter joint like y’all just did, outta work an’ options. Then outta the blue, my shameful career chasing stopped right at this here vent! It was freezing and I was hungry: Even more, I was fed up with political bullshit an’ bouncing my ass from one for- shit, pointless hack job to the next. And then, Charley’s hand smacked me right across my leg while he demanded, “Hey kid, lay some change on an old veteran. I'm hungry an’ between checks!” Next thing I know, I sat beside him asking, “Change?”

12 Hall Of Poetic Justice © “Then, what?” “Charley said, “One way or another, life’s all about change, now ain’t it? Call it this, or call it that! So, palms up, sonny!” ‘Next thing I know, I’m working the morning rush, then he works the evening cattle-call back to the burbs while I grab me a bite and hang out in our condo next door…” “Condo?” “Boy! We do work hard at what we do! Here comes Charley, and I still got me that racehorse level piss that’s about to burst outta me skivvies! So if you can’t sit here and wait for him, gimme a buck and go find your future or your own vent! But ya better catch one that’s vacant, as if that’s gonna happen!” Charley plopped down on the grilled seat as gray guy rushed to his building’s powder room shouting, “From Wall Street to Riker’s Island, amazing how their casts of characters change from one to the other, and then back ... Hey, palms up, sonny!” The steel and glass empire that was Manhattan faded from eyesight as I descended the subway stairs; my spirit yearning for the freeform of Brooklyn life. My shorn hair and beard thirsted for the liberated flow of regrowth so they could once again frame a face of dignity. The airstream within the subway tunnel wafted toward me reeking of the stench of dead rats, burned electrical insulators and a hundred years of human and various critter waste. A blind man would know that it heralded the coming of his long-awaited ride. I stepped onto the first Brooklyn bound. The soothing thunder of the train’s journey beneath New York Harbor provided motivation for meditation as I pondered, ‘Did I leave the best that’s yet to come behind me by not taking a chance and getting myself a subway vent, then letting life change me from there on? Or,

13 Hall Of Poetic Justice © are there better changes ahead if I take my chances wherever the wind takes me from here on? Chance? Change? Only a tiny letter different from one another yet while so unalike, they’re ever-so mutually dependent.’ I stood with my back to the F train’s door as it surfaced following our journey beneath the East River, then greeted the daylight at Red Hook. I was about to turn and assume the position against the sliding door when I saw a uniformed city cop staring at me. To my amazement, he smiled and asked, “We sure did get lucky with the weather, right?” Having endured many a night sleeping in the park’s bandshell, I had become accustomed to cops shouting their shit at me from behind a flashlight. But this young cop had an innocent and caring look about him. I thought, ‘Would he react differently toward me in my prior to the haircut and cheap suit context? Does he embrace the prejudices that other officers evidenced toward yours truly, and street people like me? Does he submit to pre-conceived notions about certain citizens and act out on them? Why the hell does a Black guy or a long-haired honkey deserve greetings like, “Hands on the wall and get spread eagled!” or “Freeze or you’re dead!” while a suit, even a pre- owned, gets; “Got lucky with weather, right?” Or could it be that he’s a decent guy just commuting to the job or returning home from it.’ As the train clickety-clacked along the Cobble Hill overpass, I asked him, “Brooklyn looks exceptionally good down there today, doesn't it?” as he smiled. I held on to an overhead handle when the train entered a darkened tunnel. As it broke into the light of day, I saw a tiny stuffed toy dog beside my shiny stuffed shoes. While I bent over to pick it up, I was greeted by the smiling face of a boy

14 Hall Of Poetic Justice © around four years old reaching out from behind a woman's skirt. He smiled as I handed him the toy. His mother said to the kid, “Don't forget to say thank you to the nice gentleman, Christopher.” She sat him upon the seat next to her and said to me, “There's plenty of room for you to sit too, sir.” “No thanks, ma’am! I get off right here.” The sun shined brightly on an ancient commercial building across the way. Momentarily blinded, I stopped at the top of the stairs of the Ninth Street subway station where I struggled to decrypt its ancient lettering and an image that the sunlight of countless days had blistered on to the weathered structure. The enduring letters were those of a product driven battle cry that would resonate forever throughout Mother Earth: “Have a Coke!” Corporate dictates aside, my mind overlaid the name, ‘Gladys Glover’. So who was Gladys Glover? ‘Everyone knows!’ would be the response of all of us who had seen the 1954 movie classic, “It Should Happen to You” in which, Gladys Glover was a fictional media sensation. During the film, the moviegoer would find her name plastered on every type of building in New York City promoting numerous products. Her endorsement could elect, or even bring down the power elite or their wannabes. Prior to all of that, Gladys Glover was a terminated office worker smitten by an obsession of having her name written on places of prominence, if only to validate her existence: She directed her paychecks, her entire life savings and all other resources toward that end. Her fantasy became realized right after she rented numerous billboard spaces and any form of media of that era where her message simply read: Gladys Glover! She did this throughout Manhattan and the boroughs on anything

15 Hall Of Poetic Justice © that stood still, until prominent people and large companies assumed that Gladys Glover possessed the captivating power of name recognition. Head over heel in love with the sensation that was Gladys Glover; they all pursued her, found her then paid whatever price she demanded to allow her notoriety to lend integrity to whatever line of crap they had to pitch. I thought, ‘If a fictional dreamer can do it, then a real-life visionary can put an end to his nightmare of an enterprise with a Junior-Achievement version of hers. As commuters rushed past me, I stood dead in my tracks shouting, “Hey, I got it! Eye catching yellow and black letter size posters on bulletin boards or any flat surface where one’s vision might land! Tiny ads in throwaway local newspapers that hardly anyone reads have brought me and my Minibus moving venture to where I’m able to control my destiny, at least with train fare and a few occasional meals. So what might happen if I saturate a neighborhood with an easy to recall message? Would those who need some stuff brought from here to there become those who would call me because I flashed yellow and black signs at them? Fact or fiction, the reality of either is in the message: As if, ‘Have A Coke’ was biblical revelation? The eyes see and the heart recalls what the mind may often dismiss. If I can embed my name into the hearts of the public by plugging my simple ‘Moving? Call Kenny!’ message from every surface possible, will the world beat down my door if and whenever I can afford to get me a door of my own?” As if I were a rock in a creek, throngs of people flowed around me while I stood at the top of the subway stairs gaping at the building. The instant I began to walk and then turn the corner on to Seventh Avenue, three Jehovah's Witnesses held

16 Hall Of Poetic Justice © copies of their magazine AWAKE into my face. So I raised a copy of The Daily News from a stand and held it to theirs. They stared at one another, shrugged and moved on. ‘That's it! Place a sign wherever normal line of sight falls, after turning a corner or when walking up or down a subway staircase. If that works, and my pockets become stuffed with cash, I’ll place ads not where others offer moving services but where folks may look for an apartment for rent. Bypassing the existence of all other movers, I’ll be the only bait where the fish gather. Why not go all the way? Be the only guy with a Minibus and a dream advertising on the real estate pages in community newspapers!’ I excused myself to the numerous people who piled into me as I came to a standstill during my prolonged inspiration, and then moved on. Once again, I was rear ended when I stopped dead in my tracks due to a blinding revelation: ‘Could there be conflict ahead? Will I be returning to where my obsessive nature would cause me to get sucked into being a pig again for those who once enslaved me? Can I keep images of the Gordon Gekkos centered on the dartboard in my mind as a warning to any warped ambitions of my own, should they arise?’ I sat myself on a stoop, grabbed my journal from my pocket and wrote: “Only by seizing the chance to change, does anyone ever learn a goddamn thing! The vision I have before me is my chance to stay ahead of what I choose to change, or leave in the dust. If I can look ahead to a conflict I might have regarding my place in this world, then from that point I must look back at myself at this point when I was taking bold chances and cherish the even bolder changes that had evolved. So how can I, an idea in form, possess anything at all but a clear conscience since

17 Hall Of Poetic Justice © existence itself is an ever-evolving, transitory illusion? No shit!” I turned the corner to Seventh Avenue and was greeted by Ellen: “Hi, Kenny. Come with me to the Bohack and tell me how you did at your interview.” We gathered groceries at the supermarket and placed them into a shopping cart. I told her of my desperation at the employment office, the revelations while vent sitting and my inspiration at the top of the subway station stairs. “Oh, I really dug that movie! Gladys Glover declares herself to be famous and succeeds! That's a terrific motivation.” She grabbed my hand and said, “If you feel content in going for it on your own then make yourself comfortable. Just remember what you told me when we first met. I think that you were paraphrasing a pilot friend of yours when you said, 'I’d rather be captain of a hang glider than a slave who sold out to be a co- pilot on a 747.” I stopped dead in my tracks as she placed her shopping cart in my path while saying, “And don't forget how you described your life when you were in the corporate world as, '… less significant than the cold sweat between another's crossed fingers.' “Kenny, I love being with you for who you are, not for what you do or you don't do. To hell with money and material crap. Do something that simply makes you feel right about yourself, then grow into the completed being of your dreams.” Talk about words you long to hear! I looked at her looking right through me. The groceries, the dairy cases, the other shoppers with their lists held to their faces, blended into fadeaway. A symphony via supermarket Muzak surrounded us, sweeping us along in dance. Like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire from the day, we waltzed around security personnel

18 Hall Of Poetic Justice © and shoplifters. We danced through aisles, as shelving with everything from condiments to incontinents spun around us. I placed my cheek on hers as we looked away from the meat morgue. As if Busby Berkeley himself had choreographed a ballet spectacle of falling canned goods, crashing shopping carts and jumping jelly jars; our flight of the fantastic had been complete. While blurred images of Kellogg's, Kraft, corn chips and cake mixes blended into the sounds of The Boston Pops meeting The Beatles, I saw only the soul essence of my universe completing me. I felt I was being seen for who I was and might choose to be, and nothing else! A feeling leaped from the bottom of my heart. Finally, I said what I thought I’d never hear myself say to any another, “Ellen, I really love you!” Her arms pressed my body closer to hers. She answered me by breathing softly and gently kissing my cheek. Our fantastic journey through the world of two-fers and one day specials ended as a voice warning of ‘slippery conditions in aisle six’ disrupted the music. The checkout girl asked for cash or any credit card, but not our autographs. The CEO whom I had served built his corporate kingdom from five hundred stolen dollars and the exploited services of the souls he would later abandon. Could I create a fortress of sovereignty for myself from my investment of a few bucks worth of paper signs? Will I become the legend of the down and out homeless guy who parlayed a rundown Minibus and his last few bucks into a shipping empire? Or, will it all crash and burn as its sovereign begs to be re-assimilated into any corporate entity that will have him. Or, might future Kenny wish he found a subway vent of his own and not wasted his time? I could always look straight ahead when living on the

19 Hall Of Poetic Justice © street, since I never had to look back to see if anyone I owed was chasing me. I stuck to a simple way of living, and a prime street directive that kept me breathing: “Whatever the need may be; if you can't pay for it on the spot, get it when you can!” On the path before me, the world of business I must deal with will be no different from the streets I had dealt from and survived. Whatever changes happen to result from chances I’m about to take, I’ll see my world ahead as being filled with avenues of opportunity since the streets behind me proved to be dead ends. I removed my shiny vinyl shoes, held their toe boxes to my face and saw only harmony in the eyes of two reflections. I tied their laces together and threw them to their final resting place, an oak tree branch high above the street. After they twisted around the limb, I walked away … Find JK Savoy at JKSavoy.com or on my Amazon KDP page.

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