The Heart is Decietful Above All Things

Clouds pass by over The City. I stand on the balcony puffing on my Lucky Strike - feeling guilty because in this day and age cigarette smokers are considered complete and utterly evil, ya know? Below the shoppers of Horton Plaza - San Diego's seven story monument to rampant consumerism - bustle from shop to shop. Happy clean assholes confident in their control of their little personal empires.

Standing - barely - next to me is a withered old man - a ninety year old sidewalk sleeping acquaintance from my Vinnie's days, he chose to live on the streets twenty years ago and never looked back - hunched, long nose droops over toothless mouth, his face a wrinkled paper bag, eyes black dark soulless. His dark navy coat is dirty - shiny over the dirt. He is smoking, too.

We are discussing life and it's worth. I had been wracked by insidious depressions lately and when I do - I always entertain the idea of pulling the plug. Waking up and not wanting to face what ever stupid shit God hurls at me. Wanting to end this life, because quite frankly - I am bored with it. I mention that I want to chuck the whole thing and just wonder aimlessly around the planet.

"Take Jesus Christ, for example." He states. "He was the King of Kings - yet he wondered all his short life homeless. Buddha, Muhammad - all your so called prophets - were transients. Do not put your worries on material possessions. They are nothing. Your soul - your spiritual happiness is the only thing that matters."

I confided that I had been thinking of ending it, again. I felt ashamed. I mentioned the only thing that has stopped me - had stopped me from previous attempts - is the belief that suicide was the one sin that God don't take any shit with. You're fucked in the eyes of the Lord in that sense.

"You realise." He croaks in his thick French/Canadian accent, "When we die - it is not the end."

"You're talking of heaven?" I ask inhaling another deep puff - watching a clunk of thick grey ash spiral down to the levels below.

"No." He wheezes like a broken accordion. "I am speaking of reincarnation." He waves his hand in dismissal. "I have been reincarnated many times. I remember some my past lives - on other planets, in distant galaxies."

I blink - taking this fodder in.

"You wanna coffee? I'm hittin' Starbucks." I ask, glancing at my watch. The Wrestler started in twenty minutes and I wanted to catch it. No was the reply and I said my goodbyes to this crazed street living hobo guru.

After the movie, which was quite good - I jumped the trolley back to the Mexican border. At a station, a large black man - well dressed and wearing flashy gold trinkets sat across from me. He held a laptop blasting funk as he harshly spoke to someone via his bluetooth ear piece.

Old white man - slicked back white hair, blazer with patches on the elbows sitting a few seats away states that there is no radio playing on the train. All other passengers are quiet. Black man issues forth hostile comments to said white man, "Wut you muthuh fuckin cop? You don't tell me fuckin nuthin. Fuck you - fuck the cops! I'll say it to thier fuckin faces 'Fuck the cops!'" Stream of more hostile insults to the old white man.

Next stop, there is a patrol officer checking tickets with onboarding passengers. Tall handsome Latino in tight black uniform - he could have been a model if he wanted to change professions. Old white man sticks his head out the open door and explains the situation concerning the old black man. Trolley patrol enters and as he is passing us - old black man is sitting in front of me - their eyes meet.

"You gotta fucking problem?" Snarls the old black man.

Pissing of testosterone ensues, snapping insulting remarks by both - the cop has to keep control and save face, right. "Sir, I need you to step off the trolley at the next stop so we can discuss this."

"Fuck you! I ain't gettin off till my stop, muthuh fuckuh!"

Then it gets out of hand. The cop grabs the old black man and tries to throw him off the trolley with ill effect. The passengers are yelling for the cop to leave him alone, he didn't do anything, appalled at the abuse of authority that this young Latino is displaying. The trolley cop hurls the old black man off the trolley once it reaches the next station.

Outside as the trolley sits idle, the two erupt into a fist fight.

I turn at a young black kid - him and his friends jumping up and down excitingly on the seats watching the confrontation - the kid yells at the cop, "You just mad coz Obama is president!"

I smile and turn back to the fight outside. The young Latino is on his back with the old black man sitting on his chest pummeling him with his fists. That was until four squad cars roar up, swarm the old black man and beat him with their clubs.

The trolley continues on its route. This world is sick and evil. The things I do are nothing, I think, compared to the evil that I see around me. I stumble home in a bigger frump than when I awoke that morning...