I propose that God does not have a physical embodiment. How can He?  And I propose that God could not really be a He at all. And I'm totally okay with this realization because it gets us closer to what God really is - The Great Power, The Grand Creator, The Universal All. 

Perhaps all is God. Perhaps God is weaved info everything made or created. Perhaps that is what the ancients referred to as The Holy Spirit. I think the world would be better off removing all mystical elements surrounding God and Jesus. 

But that does not keep me from trying to figure out how God works. 

Last night, my wife and I took our Labrador Rocky for a walk. Halfway down a hilly road, Jules, a beautiful chocolate Lab started tuning up for her usual Rocky visit. Her owner and our good friend Sue let Jules out the front door. As Rocky and Jules began tumbling in the front yard, Sue quietly approached.

“Have you heard about Dave?” she said.

We hadn’t heard the latest.

“He passed away last night.”

And then she started crying and fell into my arms. The three of us just stood there. And then came a collection of the usual vocal cliches. My wife and I were deeply saddened.

Dave, his wife Susan, and their spaniel Tulla  left our community in their motorhome about a year ago. Their goal was to travel around America for about 3 years - then decide what’s next. Six months into their dream, Dave got cancer. 

Dave, Sue, and Tulla wintered in Wisconsin as Dave received exam after exam, treatment after treatment. Their original goal was to reach Florida by Christmas. They did reach their destination sometime after the new year.

I decided to pray for Dave and Sue everyday before breakfast. A short prayer asking God to cure, to watch over, to keep strong. I really tried to somehow connect with God on this. I thought perhaps I could hand over my request to the Holy Spirit dwelling inside me. After all, The Spirit would know how to reach God.  Hopefully, I was not the only soul praying. 

A few weeks ago I heard that Dave was failing. The family was now campering in Temecula - about 60 miles from home. Dave was scheduled for a surgical procedure that would drain his system of the debilitating and poisonous liquid that had built up from the disease. That was the news until last night. 

So, what benefit to Dave did my praying provide? Seems that any benefit was for my sake. Making me feel better as a Christian. I was doing my part. I was concerned and I was doing something. We’re told to pray, but Dave died nonetheless.

So we have death and we have prayer. Do we really thing our prayers can stave off the inevitable? After all, we all die. We can pray that the afflicted avoid pain and discomfort. We can pray that the dying go peacefully. We can - but we rarely see our prayers realized.  

That’s why I think God considers all human beings as one massive organism. We should try something. Every person in the world should pray the same prayer day in and day out - something big - like a cure for cancer. One massive organism sending one big message, one colossal prayer God’s way. Maybe this will work. Then we’ll know. And if this doesn’t work, we’ll also know.

Past this massacre of current events, the Red Rapid bus slid through a watery intersection and came to a mooring next to the antique green movie theatre. 

“Goddamn…I’m gettin’off. Move your hole out of the way.”

The Black Panther Cook pushed and shoved her route past a fat banker with a comb-over, a tiny Korean lady reading a tiny Korean bible, and a transvestite with a bad head cold.

A pod of middle-schoolers, dressed in the khaki pant/white polo shirt/blue sweater uniform, were cleaved in half as the big black woman pounded a trail out the rear bus doors: these never so abused. 

One poor Latina girl got spun around, dropping her CD player on the wet rubber floor. A Chinese kid’s size 12 stomped on the player as his pack slammed into the head of a shorter sidekick, knocking the Sean John cap off the poor kid’s bald skull. 

The Black Panther Cook, long drained of femininity and humanity, sized like a halfback, dressed in culinary turban, chef’s tunic, black and white checkered pants, gave a hearty double finger to the broadside of the bus as it slipped out of the stop. She jay-walked against the red light on Wilshire, past the incense shack, hot dog vendor and toothless saxophone player. The Black Panther Cook plodded through the Western Transit Center and bounded down three flights of wet granite to the subway below.  

A brutal wind whipped a Target ad supplement flat into her rubbery face. She grabbed the sheets with her free paw, crushed them into a messy ball and tossed the thing down into the black drippy maw.

With her left hand she protected a large faded Tupperware container, illustrated with stickers such as “White Bait”, “Eat Boys”, and “I Cook, You Clean Me”. Her small horn-rimmed glasses were old school: the kind Denzel wore in “Malcolm X.” A slight trace of vinegar and garlic trailed behind her as she moved on. 

She was a cook’s assistant but told her sister Adele she was a pastry chef. She had been bounced from two assignments in the last year: the first for hitting a waiter over the head with a colander and the second for wearing a Che button on her white tunic. Mr. Friessel at the Union gave her one more chance. She was on a streak of three jobs without issue. 

The Black Panther Cook poured onto the station platform just in time to catch the fading red tail lights of the Wilshire Western.  

“Shit. Fuck.” 

Loud enough for a group of Latinas dressed in white “Custom Maid” t-shirts to startle at the word.

“What you lookin’ at Mommasita bitches?”

The clutch of cleaning ladies shook their heads in unison, looked down, and moved on.

The Black Panther Cook found a pre-stressed concrete pillar to lean on, looked down at the Tupperware and closed her eyes. 

Her mind drifted. The $138.75 check needed to go in the bank sometime tonight. Appointment with Mr. Bonaventura, Parole Officer, Friday. On time this time or back doing time. Her 8 year old daughter Toya, living with an ex in Birmingham. Was it Toya’s birthday next week? Somewhere down the station, an old man couldn’t stop laughing.

The giant orange bus from East Los limped along - a sauna inside. Within, the foggy double-paned windows were dripping with yellow moisture. In the bus’s midriff, a heavyset leather-laden Latino was kissing the neck of his wife. Or was it his lover? Or did he even know her? She stayed coy so he added a nibble. Giggles in Spanish.  

Two pimply white girls in black leather huddled, holding hands, swapping secrets and whatever. Sitting up front, a pale ramrod straight white boy dressed in brown suede cowboy hat, brown duster, brown corduroys, brown jack boots struggled to adjust his insulin drip without moving a muscle. A transient from Miami, bearing an uncanny resemblance to David Crosby (the later years), was holding court in the back of the bus, instructing two black security guards how to use a coffee bean grinder to puree a better smoke of weed. 

“Come on bro…move this freakin’ barge, Jack.”  

The blond, dreadlocked, tattooed Nazi Skateboarder yelled his request to the prim Filipina bus driver dressed to military perfection. She had heard worse – purposely rubbing her nose with a middle finger he could not see. The leathered and lathered Latino kept pecking away at his squeeze. The hard girls kept swapping secrets. One nibbled the other’s pierced ear. The windows kept dripping ochre ooze. With each passing stop, the weather in the bus moved from immensely tropical to downright equatorial.  

“Hey Driver Boy…it’s hot as shit in here. Let’s have some freakin’ refrigeration in this century.” 

Again the finger against the nose. On this bus the ‘AC’ was ‘NG’. 

The Nazi Skateboarder was getting more agitated with each passing bus-stop, with each bump of Fahrenheit. He had a habit of biting his knuckles – each festooned with a tiny red swastika. He thought perhaps he could smash open a window with his skateboard. Naw, his luck a goddamn undercover narc would be on this boat.

He still skated the same board that won him the Western States Championship in ‘99. No tattoos then - no black swastika between his eyes. No drug habit then. No brain freezes then. His last job, swabbing johns with a clean-up crew, lasted approximately seven and a half toilets. El Jefe caught the boy smoking crack in one of the executive stalls on the 17th floor of the Transamerica Towers. The Nazi Skateboarder was lucky indeed to get a full day’s pay out of that gig – his last in quite some time.

“Western Avenue.” Announced the tiny driver.

The giant orange bus slid through a sea of brackish water that had pooled up against the craggy sidewalk. The L.A. rain, not welcome anywhere, beat down heavily on the tarmac. With three taps to a massive air brake, the Filipina delivered her iron ark a nose behind an ancient tilting Toyota van, parked illegally in the bus zone. The Filipina sat on the air horn, vibrating the van and the occupants within. On the van’s passenger side, a rusty door painfully slid open and an old rickety metal walker was thrust outside. A man older than Moses emerged from the drivers side, walked stiffly around the car, slogging through the water. He reached into the passenger compartment and hauled out a very old, very large woman holding a chipped oxygen canister. The old man slid the walker around her, quickly fitting the oxygen canister into a sleeve on the pram. He then secured her hands to the rails of the walker with Velcro fasteners, never looking at her once. Grandpa then walked through the water, back into the car and drove off.  

And there she stood. 

The rain ricocheted off the walker’s rails, off the corroding Velcro straps, off the old woman’s bare head. Then, ever so slowly she pointed herself in the direction of a Denny’s 20 yards down the street.

The sweat-soaked riders plowed off the bus as if running from Immigration and Naturalization. The last off the vehicle was the Nazi Skateboarder.

“Hey, busboy”! Gaining the Filipina’s attention for a fraction of a second, he pivoted on his laceless sneakers, dropped ‘trou’, and mooned the bus. The rear bus doors banged shut as the Nazi Skateboarder hoisted his baggy pants and bounded into the pouring rain, chipped wooden skateboard over his head. The Filipina bus driver managed a short half smile as she checked her side mirrors and plied the bus into the wet and slippery midday traffic. The third bare-ass on her bus this year.

The Nazi Skateboarder, rotting board on top of his dirty blond dreadlocks, jay-walked against the red light on Wilshire. He skateboarded through the Western Transit Center and slinked down three flights of wet granite to the subway below. 

Walking toward the steps leading to the Wilshire Western platform, he remembered that Marlboro lodged behind ear and scalp; now just a soggy nicotine-laden mass of pulp. 

“Motherfucka…son of a fuckin’ bitch.”

He quickly ran his hands behind his ear as if his hair was on fire – shaking out wet tobacco. He reached into his ripped backpack, pulled out a fresh cigarette (his last), and stuffed it in his mouth.  

There was a scattering of travelers on the Wilshire Western platform. The odor of the day was cheap rotting wine over 14 hour sweat. The Nazi Skateboarder walked to the tip of the platform and looked through the tunnel. No train. Just that dull gray darkness that signifies everybody’s lives.

He munched on his knuckles, scratched his head, then pivoted on his moldy Chuck Taylors.

“Hey, anybody…does this friggin’ train go to North Hollywood?” he yelled, scratching his head.

Those nearest the Nazi Skateboarder closed up like Pansies at night. The dirty glass elevator brought another batch of commuters down to the platform.

“Hey people…I ain’t gonna bite. Like I said, all I wanna know…does this train go to North Hollywood?”

The Black Panther Cook, hidden from view by the pillar she was leaning on answered, eyes closed:

“Two stops to Wilshire Vermont. Get off. Go downstairs. Take any train.”

The Nazi Skateboarder smiled, revealing two evil looking gold teeth. “You see…see, there are still some Good Samaritans left in this friggin’ hell-hole. Thank you. Thank you. Whoever you are.” 

He languidly strolled to the invisible voice of the Black Panther Cook. He studied her for a few seconds. She looked at him like a banker looks at a beggar. 

“You a chef or somethin’?” said the Nazi Skateboarder.

“I am a chef or something, right” The Black Panther closed her eyes again. 

“Hey, I used to work in a kitchen; cuttin’ up vegetables, sausage. Crap like that. Done other things too. I waited on tables once. Hey whadya got in that container of yours?” The Nazi Skateboarder pointed to the Black Panther Cook’s Tupperware luggage.

“What’s in here, none of your business.” She moved forward to look for approaching train lights, noticing the front page of “Hoy” had made itself into a tent over the third rail.

“Yea, okay, that’s cool. Your shit is your shit. But look, what’s your gig? You freelance or what?” The Nazi Skateboarder followed her to the lip of the platform.

“I freelance. That’s right. My freelance hat, my freelance jacket,” she held up her Tupperware, “my freelance kit.” With no train coming, she backed away from the edge.

The Nazi Skateboarder rolled his unlit Marlboro in his mouth. “So look, you godda business card or something. See, I can do this kinda work.” He paused to scratch. “Here’s my problem, every goddamn time I get an angle on some cush job, some freakin’ thing comes up, somethin’ gets in the way.”

“Yea, something gets in the way. Like liquor?, pills?, crack?…that what gets in the way? I can smell you from here Tarzan. How you going to hold onto employment” She stared him down like a probation officer ready for retirement.

He smiled that gold tooth smile and scratched his head, bit into a knuckle.

“I do what I do off-hours. Like you don’t fire up the pipe from time to time. Don’t get up in my face now. I might just toss you in front of the train, then see what’s inside your Tupperware.” The gold teeth again.

The Nazi Skateboarder took a step toward the Black Panther Cook. She could smell his Marlboro/Wild Turkey/Subway sandwich breath. She held her Tupperware a bit more firmly. 

A young Catholic priest in collar and blue jeans walked past. He was reading an out-of-date edition of Newsweek and did not notice The Cook or The Skateboarder.

The Black Panther Cook took another gander down the tracks then turned to the Nazi Skateboarder, breathing him in… 

“You a Hitler freak or something. Answer me this: how you going to sit in front of a hiring manager with that thing between your eyes? I’d go cross-eyed just looking at you.”

He pondered a sly answer then said, “Self expression, woman. I’m a walking performance piece. I got tattoos on tattoos.”

Another Wilshire Western stuck it’s nose into the tunnel between Normandy and Western. The train inched its way as if propelled simply by gravity. Commuters were streaming onto the platform now.

“Say Gary…or Murray…or whatever the hell your name is…look I just finished a gig at the Wilshire-Ebell. I’m tired. I’m heading home to change for another one at the Hollywood Bowl. You want a job cutting up zucchini, or paper dolls, or whatever? I suggest you get yourself over to the Culinary Workers Union but do yourself a favor – buy some foundation at the cosmetics counter and solder it over that swastika.”

“Chef Boyardee, look just gimme your card. I’ll tell them I know you. You give me a recommendation. Done deal. Do a dirty white boy a favor, huh?”

“You ain’t gonna get a card from me. I’m not gonna give you my card.”

The whistling train wheels shook the collected multitude from their day-ending stupors. People started herding into boarding packs.

As the Wilshire Western poked into the station, The Nazi Skateboarder looked directly into the black horn-rimmed eyeglasses of the Black Panther Cook. 

He turned himself off, as if trying to remember lines that will never come. Then, following an impulse, he reached for the cook’s Tupperware.

“Give me that fuckin’ thing.”

Surprised, the Black Panther Cook held firm to her container. The Nazi Skateboarder tried to pry the container out of her vise grip. 

Had The Nazi Skateboarder looked into her ebony eyes..really looked, he might have been witness to every wrong heaped on that black woman, every injustice she had had to endure, every cheap trick, every fast scheme, every asshole and bastard that had taken from her, every hurt, every pain. She never threw out anything. Never forgave anything. It was all there. 

Had the Black Panther Cook taken an equal look, she would have been the one spectator to every father’s fist, every sexual transgression, every leather belt tearing into a young boy’s flesh. And worse: to the cruelest abandonment. To endless tears, and to zero hope.

God gives us free choice. Most sell it.

Somehow, some way, a rusty switchblade showed up in the hands of the Nazi Skateboarder. The Wilshire Western softly came to a stop in the station and humanity piled in… 

At least nine out of the fifteen police reports didn’t get it right. Five of the reports stated that the Black Panther Cook ripped off the cover of the Tupperware, took out a small blue .22 and pumped it all into the chest of the Nazi Skateboarder well before the knife point entered her chest. 

One report said the gun went off at exactly the same time the knife entered – both suspects dying simultaneously. 

Two reports had it that the Nazi Skateboarder threw the knife at the Black Panther Cook shortly before she fired six bullets into his head.

Another version stated that the first two shots misfired. And that the Nazi Skateboarder charged the Black Panther Cook - knife pointed at her chest - she firing the four remaining slugs - one bullet after the next. He falling dead from the bullets. She falling dead from the knife half pushed into her body. 

Three of the remaining reports were written in Spanish…and three in Korean – so there’s no telling what those said.

No one was quite sure where all those hundreds came from. The Tupperware box perhaps.

One thing all the reports agreed on: The Nazi Skateboarder and The Black Panther Cook lay on the wet station concrete like two lovers asleep on Santa Monica beach.

The Filipina bus driver’s shift ended at 5 pm. Because it was Tuesday, she met her Fiancé Ray at Lorry’s Play Den in Pico Rivera for their usual dinner. Over Chicken Mole and Carnitas, they watched the KTLA news story of the murders on the Wilshire Western station. The Filipina recognized the mug-shot of the dead Nazi Skateboarder broadcast on the news - then remembered she needed to pick up her uniforms from the dry cleaner before they closed at 8 pm. 

Keeping up his pace of station announcing – head down, slur on – he eventually had to exit at 7th and Metro – the vagrants’ borderline. He kept announcing the stop, then started rhyming “7th and Metro, we’re ready to go…” As he was bopping off the Red Line, in comes two terrible examples of white suburbiana in action: Danny Dufus, Computer Support wonder boy, and Nancy Noogie , receptionist to someone’s purchasing department. These two bound by the Black Bag Man as if in another dimension. Does he see them? Do they see him?   7th and Metro is the crossroads for LA humanity. Are you a Vagrant? Cleaning Woman? Construction Worker?  Go no further! Are you an Information Technology geek?  Internal Auditor? Corporate Lawyer? You may pass…  Have a Nice Day. Those that never had a real vacation in their lives are exchanged for those that wrangle for airfare deals as a hobby. Those that own one dirty and worn ball cap are swapped for those that match up their golf visors with their polo shirts.  

Danny Dufus and Nancy Noogie couldn’t care a rat’s butt about the Black Bag Man, the Black Bag Woman, and all the hungry and forlorn Black Bag Kids. As our train heads closer to Union Station, and our Black Bag Man heads deeper and deeper into the bowels of Vagrant L. A., Danny chuffs to Nancy that he’s planning to pack a bag for a weekend of boating and beer drinking Lake Havasu style.  Nancy gushes at everything DuhDuhDanny says. Although she doesn’t confide this, our Miss Noogie will spend the weekend shopping for crafts at Michaels, watering her ferns, and walking her Beagle Bonbon around the cul-de-sac.

That’s the point.

Your message needs to be conveyed on something experienced like a rough piece of alleyway cardboard a cat peed on. Make that two cats. A cat and a dog. The sign needs to be roughly asymetrical in shape as if it was ripped from an empty sodden Valencia Orange box at three in the morning - picked up somewhere outside the Fruit and Vegetable Mart Annex in a driving rain.

And the message on the cardboard needs to be laid down in regrettable handwriting, with just the right collection of misspellings. Don’t follow a straight line, now. Use a small stub of a pencil if at all possible. Remember, you want sympathy, you want sadness, you want the money.

Well, we’ve all seen our share of these type of ‘message boards’. But, I’ve never seen one etched out of a institutional plastic food tray. You got to give the bum credit. Flip your tray up, there’s the pitch. Flip your tray down, load up with fixins. 

The chalky black man, surrounded in a deep brown and green blanket, ambled onto the Red Rapid this afternoon around quitting time. His weak and wasted body took it’s time taking the three bus steps. The bus driver was looking for a fare.  “I git at my pocket when I sits,” said the bum. 

The fare must’ve completely slipped Blanket Man’s mind after he sat down. The diplomatic bus driver said nothing and we moved on down Wilshire.

As Blanket Man settled into his seat, I noticed the aged white hospital bracelet wrapped around his right wrist. He rubbed his pulpy face over and over as if he was trying to rub it off. He ran his hands over his stale hair and scratched the nape of his neck. He looked around the bus.

Then I saw the sign.

Old sign. Very old. Brown tray, red writing. All the good stuff: misspellings, crossed-out words, red ink. Some words running straight, some crooked, some in downright unexplainable directions.

Then I saw the Gray Lady.

When was the last time you saw a decent looking, bus-sitting citizen pick up a conversation with a bonafide sign carrying bum? But, hey, there it was.

She was black, fiftyish; long straight silver hair. Dressed in a rust velour lounge-around pantsuit. Large gold ball lodged above her left nostril. Talking like this was one of her regular transit events.

Then she got the bus operator in on her caffe-klatch. Driver, Blanket Man, Gray Lady. And that tray.

She reached into her purse and pulled out some silver, stretched across the aisle, and deposited her charity onto Blanket Man’s tray. Another use. I think he muttered “that all y’ got?” Then “well, if that all y’ got, that all y’ got. God bless y’” And finally “where y’ goin’?”

She said “goin’ to meet a few friends.” That was it. That was all of it.

The Gray Lady was not prepared for the Western Wilshire Transit Plaza – sort of snuck up on her. She quickly gathered up her things and moved to the bus’s front door. The bum simply said “hope y’ don’t miss y’ tran.” She signified and left the bus.

Blanket Man was next off. The courtesy-rich bus driver made no mention of the missing fare. Wished the bum a good day. The boy slowly and stiffly wandered off onto a busy Wilshire Boulevard.

I quickly bounded down the stairs behind him, scratching for all of today’s change in my pockets. As I rounded on Blanket Man, he must’ve sensed my philanthropy because he raised that tray to chest level and I spread my change out on it’s brown chipped real estate.

“Gd bless y’ f’ y’ kinness. Gd bless y’”

He angled the tray so that the coins slid into his palm, pocketing them. He tightened the dirty wool blanket around his body, tucked the tray under an arm, then disappeared into the crowd.

 His jacket harkens back to the Davey Crockett style my mother never let me have. Brown and black leather, thin leather fingers fringe the arms and run down the sides.  The back and front of the jacket are overly decorated with native appliqués and tokens. His jeans are trim but a bit 'high-water'. He wears sensible brown shoes - too big for his body.

He jogs for the bus as if he might have been a sprinter or one of those long distance runners back in the day. Back in Algeria. . .Sudan. . .Chad - places like that. You wouldn't necessarily know what he's about to look at him. But, once he gets himself on the bus, he becomes the Great Lion, The Devilish Dervish, The Emperor of Ethiopia.

First of all, he won't stand. Refuses to stand under any and all circumstances. He plays the age card, and plays it well. Saw him once instruct a Latino gentleman to get up from a front-of-bus seat. The Latino kept shaking his head side to side. The Emperor kept the heat on, insisting that he remove himself. The Latino keep up the shaking.  Emperor, Latino; Emperor Latino. Then suddenly, a Latina lady stood up and beckoned the Emperor to take her seat. The Latino would have none of that. The Latino also stood up and beckoned the Latina to sit back in her seat. Meanwhile, The Emperor quietly slipped into the seat vacated by the other guy. I'm sure the Hispanic gentleman said a few 'madre de Dios' as he made his way to the rear of the bus.

Once he gets his seat, our boy starts the yakking. His well etched and oily sable face starts chatting to the bus at large (not at all a unique occurrence on Los Angeles public transit.) Within short order, his dialog gets inflamed and he's rousting all those in ear-shot. From a short distance, he looks pretty convincing: black head bobbing, hands like Punch and Judy puppets, spine pushed forward off his perch. 

Yesterday, God bless him, he took out a set of snapshots and started critiquing them for the nearest passenger. Using a wiry finger, he poked at one shot of a entrance to what appeared to be a men's public bathroom. He flipped through a few more - seemingly very proud of his craftsmanship. Yakking, yakking, and more yakking. 

Well, I know where he gets on the bus, but, where does he get off? Who is he? Where does he go when he reaches his destination?  One day I expect he'll get into some fight with someone who won't put up with the dude. Or, he'll get tossed off the bus into the waiting arms of the LAPD. That could be worse.

But for now, The Emperor of Ethiopia is my biggest transit mystery and I thoroughly enjoy watching his act.

I bought a pair of ethnic-looking watch caps for Annie. The Rasta-Islamic street vendor threw in two clumps of incense as a PWP. There's marketing even on the street. 

As I waited for change of a twenty (Rastaman had to go to his neighbor, the Hotdog Vendor, for it), I mentally inhaled the scene around me: piles of incense sticks, rows of woody elephant statuettes, triangles of brass jewel encrusted boxes; yellow, red, and green artifacts. A Third World Bazaar.

 Suddenly, I was a devotee of Che, had long wiggly dreds, and kept a dog-eared Quar-an stashed in my jean jacket. I longed for a pilgramage to The Ganges, Mecca, Medina, East Jerusalem, and Bangor Wat. I knew how to build and use a Molotov Cocktail, had two  chunks of the Berlin Wall as bookends surrounding such works as Mein Kampe, The Stranger, To The Lighthouse, The Seven Storey Mountain, and a German translation of the King James. I could've gone on a hunger strike right there and then.

 This transcultural illumination gave way to another more concrete one: being a man of all religions, of all causes, of all revolutions, of all peoples. Is there not good in all of us - perhaps even Stalin? Castro? Is there not some right in all causes? Is there not some truth in all religions? What happens when you extract all this good stuff and leave the rest behind? 

I'll tell you what happens...PEACE.