| My father had kicked me out of his house at the height of an argument over an opinion difference. He had become so enraged. He told me never to come back, and that was all the severance it took. I had no place to go. I stuck out my thumb on a freeway entrance, going through all my tears to Venice, where I remembered beatniks lived. Afraid, with all my books, my dictionary, my eye makeup clutched to me, I sat on a bench staring at the ocean.
Suddenly, an elfish, dirty little creature in a little cap hopped over the low wall, grinning, saying "What's the problem?" He was either old, or very young. I couldn't tell. He had a two-day beard and reminded me of a fancy hobo-rather elegant, but my fear was up.
"How did you know?" I started to say, and he smiled really bright, and I had the strangest feeling that he knew my thoughts.
"Up in the Haight I'm called the gardener,"he said. "I tend to all the flower children." My mind was struck with the thought...that a gardener plants seeds, and I became more afraid and clenched my legs together. "It's alright," he told me, and I could feel in his voice that it was. He had the most delicate, quick motion, like majic, as if glided along by air, and a smile that went from warm daddy to twinkely devil. i couldn't tell what he was.
I was enchanted and afraid all at once, but I put my head down and wished he would go away, and when I looked up, really he was gone! And I turned my head, wanting to talk to him now with urgency. And as soon as I turned back around, there he was again, sitting on the wall, grinning at me. I had only conceived of such things in fairytales.
"So your father kicked you out," he said with certainty, and once again my mind went with the wind, and I laughed and relaxed...We talked and I felt very good with him and freer, much freer. "The way out of a room is not through the door," he said, laughing. "Just don't want out and you're free." Then he unfolded a tale of the 20 years he's spent behind bars, of the struggle and the giving up and the loving of himself.
We came back to the fact that I didn't have any place to go. He told me that he was on his way to the woods up north and that I could come with him if I wished. I declined, having obligations to fulfill, having three weeks of my first college semester left. Then I looked at him, wanting to get up, cruching up my face in thought. "Well," he said, moving down the walk, "I can't make up your mind for you." He smiled a soft feeling and was on his way. I grabbed my books, running to catch up with him. i don't know why-I didn't care-and I never left. |
