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Out of context: Reply #5242
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- kingjulien0
I think I just saw Gorbie selling number 2 pencils at the Greyhound Station downtown. At first it seemed like he had just shaved his head, but upon further inspection I'm certain it was one of those synthetic bald wigs, because at the top of his neck there was a small patch of hair. It was lumpy. After sitting in the lotus position for 15 minutes , he joined a game of hackeysack in front of the terminal. There was Mo, a 300 pound Guamanian (who claims to have once been a bananna picker), Sherod Thaxton the Black Muslin street preacher who talks to you militantly with his fist positioned on his chin (and often murmurs ' that white boy hella cool' whenever I meander in his periphery, this being that I've known him since high school), Freedom Rosenthal - the Yippie poet from LaJolla who videotapes instances of police abuse against the homeless from the inside window of the station, and Gorbie, who had on a tye died skirt with some brown striped wool socks and a real thin Hitler mustache. They had a nice little session going, back and forth, back and forth, complete with the accompanying Boys To Men choir, who were circled around a fire burning from the one garbage can in sight, despite the intense 85 degree heat (and who didn't listen to my request for the New Jack City theme song 'Living Just Enough for the City Now', despite how perfect the moment would have been). I sat in the corner in blue Vaurnets with a book on the 1967 Six Day Israeli/Palestinian War, the one I'm reading to correct anyone who oversimplifies the current Middle East tension as a series of wars simply about oil. I saw all this without Gorbie noticing me. I think he was happy, like he had found an inner peace away from the computer, away from his former life, and I don't think he saw me, despite our close proximity. I didn't want to interrupt that smile he had, the look of total abandomnet, the look that said, I've just gone all the way, and there's no turning back now.
At least that's what I'd like to believe.