Greetings, From the Streets of Tulsa....
Cochise and I were walking along this morning, headed for the free Tuesday clothing give-out. He needed to tell me about his 40 oz bottle of beer.
I was carryin it real careful like in my little pouch this mornin, he says. Holdin it jist like this, see? And walking like real careful like? And sumthin happened and I ran it into this pillar, see, and it smashed all to smithereens inside my bag. And when I turned the bag over all the beer ran out.
He was very sad, telling me this story, and we walked on in silence a while. He is Indian, of course, with this great bulbous nose which looks to be molded of silly putty and dominates his face, but there is a softness and gentleness and laughter about him which I like.
We met last night.
As I went into the library, I saw a small group of people setting up a table with a cooler and what looked like a coffee urn. Ahhhh, I thought, free coffee? And later I came out, when Hotmail was acting up, and had a coffee and a cookie and a doughnut. This young fella, Doug, comes over to talk to me. He's 35, which still seems awfully young. Close-cropped hair, a drawly accent which comes out so soft and drawn out as though his words were a kind of extruded dough.
Assembly of God, and this is their first night ever setting up. The cops are there, complaining they don't have a permit to pass out coffee, tea, cookies and doughnuts. I am pleased that these cops are so on the ball, preventing crime from running rampant in the nearly empty mall. The lady patiently explains to them that she has already been given permission, that faxes have been faxed, hand-carried, and still the cops don't get it.
Cochise is there singing a song on the hand mike. He is a terrible singer, but who am I to complain? When I walk by him, I can smell the whiskey strong and later, Doug tells me the cops were gonna haul his ass off to jail but the lady promised to load him up and take him away somewhere out of the good peoples' eyes. Cochise don't really give a damn at this point.
So it was lovely to sit there in the evening, with the night coming on and a drunk Indian serenading us all, with people who speak in tongues giving me cookies and tea, and promising to come get me tomorrow night at six (be over there by the lamppost) and run me 30 miles out to Prue, OK to worship with them. What can it hurt, I think. One more thing to share with the ladies I love.
So that's the deal. Tomorrow to Prue, OK (doooooon't blink yer eyes, Doug said, purty small place, ollllllld Prrrrrrue) where perhaps I will hear glossolalia and whatever else the Spirit wishes to bring. Tongues of fire would be nice.
Cochise told me he was going, too. They're gonna feed us, he said. Helluva deal, I tell him. Well, yes, because if we go at six, we miss the feed at Uncle John's. And if we miss Uncle John's we are hungry until the Church of the Scripturally Forced Ta Feed Ya opens up at 8:30.
We walk along the Main Mall and we exchange drunk stories. I only have the one to share, back in '81 being in Tulsa the one day, getting drunk, getting on a city bus, panhandling enough money to get a jug, ending up drunk as a Lord on some highway headed south. That's the night I met Hannibal Lecter, but that's another story.
Cochise and I are headed for that free clothing give out, as I said. I'd tried to find it earlier, only to end up in this mammoth Baptist Church with this gargantuan lady rentacop moving up on me...nicely. She told me I had to have an appointment to get anything and that they weren't accepting any appointments until November. This was lovely to know, and I would have been lost but for running into Cochise who saw me coming away off and waved at me.
So we walked up to the *right* place, Cochise stopping every now and then to tell the story of the broken 40 oz bottle of beer to friends staggering by. A tragic tale, yes, one worthy of Shakespeare.
At the give-out, they give Cochise the heave-ho as he has been drinking. I am left there with 8 or 10 people seeking everything from shoes to coats. My list is small: dress shoes or tennies, and some kind of sport coat. I long to once again pass for someone *not* on the street.
And eventually I get in there, and there on a shelf are these gorgeous black newly shined classically slim and elegant wingtips. Mr. Conservative.
The lady says wistfully, "Those belonged to my husband. And those brown ones, too." I do not ask her if he recently died or anything, but that is the feeling I have. I have the feeling I am wearing a dead man's shoes which fit my feet perfectly. She gives me two pair of white tube socks. White socks do *not* go with dress shoes, and I mention that casually, but not in an ungrateful manner, and she brings me a pair of silkies, colored. They will do. Add a houndstooth/herringbone sport coat and I walk out of there...respectable.
I w began to feel like Mickey, that people were looking at me dismissively with their eyes, and it made me feel like I was somehow shrinking, becoming smaller. Now, I walk down the street like I *own* it. Smile...well, perhaps I exaggerate a bit.
No poetry thus far, but this morning I began to feel a sense of the Spirit coming on me, a sense of being filled up with power, blessings, holiness. In short, ecstacy. I looked about me and poetry was everywhere, there in the story of the broken 40 pounder, in the sad-eyed ladies turned away from the give-away (only once every 3 months ladies, and you were here just over two months ago), in the suitcase of clothing found around the corner (hey, man, sumbuddy sho nuff stole this shit frum the bus station....sheeeit), in the mad scrabbling through those articles of clothing, in the blue scrubbed sky, in those ironed out clouds, flat as this morning's toast, in the bird who stays within my mind from Ft. Smith, broken-winged, on a ledge, eyes as patient as death, awaiting the same.
For those of you who believe in the power of shared concern (prayer), as I do, a blessing on our Sister Lorelis who is suffering from her affliction. She is so incredibly brave and loving beyond measure. Think good thoughts of her today. Hold her in your loving thoughts and wishes. Brave heart, dear soul.
As for me, the day moves on. It's already one o'clock, and I will skip the Sally once more. I must find another place tonight. When I awakened and sat up, I saw the warehouse man across the way looking at me. So that is no longer safe. Invisibility is a virtue, hon.
I am at peace. Sometime today I will run out of tobacco, so I will be in withdrawal soon. And I remember well what that's like. I will be whirling for days, a Sufi w/o dervish, but it has to be done. I want to see what it is like to be down here with no addictions running wild. I want to see if I can write w/ no addictions beating my drum.
There are many things I want to see down here. One lady wrote that she sort of envies me my freedom but likes to wear clean clothing.
Well, yes.
But this is where I am right now. This is only temporary. It is a Quest. Clean clothing is optional.
God is not.
