It had been a busy day, getting on the 1:10 PM D6 down to Dupont Circle for my annual physical, my old neighborhood, off the bus, walking up Connecticut Avenue past Zorba's, calling mom to explain where I am, and where she is, up to R, my old haunts, to see Dr. Patel, Miss Ellen, who talks to plants and preaches it, at the desk, explain to the doctor my little problems and concerns, we know the routine,  down to the basement to get my blood drawn, pee in a cup, blood pressure not so bad...   Then, to the Haircuttery for a quick haircut with a large busty African American woman who travels to Jamaica, lives in Baltimore, dressed as a witch, then over to PNC Bank to deposit a check to compensate myself for car rentals up to see mom and take her to doctor appointments and so forth, then catching the 3:40 bus, full, sitting in the back, to get back to catch my breath before running off in an Uber pool cab through traffic over to Arlington to join in with Betsy and her friends for Halloween.  I've dressed in a black suit, with a black fedora, some kind of generic costume, an Irish gypsy, an Irish poet of the kind The Pogues made tribute to when they dressed in their black suits, or maybe I'm an immigrant fresh to America to the Lower East Side, but she has a sort of canned pre-made disco 70's guy outfit, with wild curly wig, polyester disco shirt, bell bottom slip on pants, a good peace chain, sunglasses, so I change, obligingly into it, put on the mustache, have a little fun with it, sneak half a glass of wine from the fridge, and off we go.  My friend likes Halloween.  So do I.  I'm getting re-in-touch...


At 6 AM, after crashing over at my friend's pad, I walk back along Fort Myer Drive into Rosslyn, catching a red Circulator Bus for a buck across the river to M Street in Georgetown, and then walking westward along Canal Road, the stars still above in a clear dark sky, Big Dipper, handle upward.  Disconcerting walking along with the early traffic whooshing past me ten feet away, each with a gravitational pull, an independent field of physics relativity, zoom, zoom, zoom, whoosh, frightening as I cling to the edge of the woods that rise up to the bluff and the old University.   There's a big flood up ahead, inundating the sidewalk, and when a truck comes the water breaks up into the air in a giant splash wave, so I cut across to the slender brick median strip there at the turnoff to the University's parking garages, avoid getting soaked, dry feet and then up the old hill of Foxhall, then crossing to MacArthur and there was big rain last night and a real estate sign on a wooden post has tipped over on the sidewalk.


"Hateful old Dulouz me," as Kerouac says...  I may as well be a weed by the side of the road as far as the purposes of the city sit now, here in the very early morning not even light out as people go to work.  Bum without a clue, so it feels sometimes.

All Soul's Day...  Kerouac a road-side saint, hitchhiking meaning out of the meaningless not exactly earth friendly in the economic-engine culture of the great republic...  He would have keenly felt that exclusion, that isolation, that sense of not having a good job as for as economic standing, nor for societal understanding...  But then all the saints were in the same place, the place of adepts, who know, though not quite consciously, who know quite a lot about the spiritual realities behind the face of things, things that the people driving their new cars into the office to work might not want to focus on in their intent pursuit.

And today, a day of bringing the Gospels to life, and I'm walking along the road in an effort to get back to the apartment on the little hill to find some rest after calling mom.


The problem is people do not like the poor, considering them irresponsible.  The poor are an inconvenience.  They do not believe in the things you should believe in, so it seems.  They are idle.



At night, things are seen in context.  Halloween came and went.  Much ado about nothing?  Relax, Buddha and peace in all things, enjoy life, see the sights, visit, interact, but remember, after some fun, what you will go back to, what you shall go back to.

Mom calls around 9:15, as I'm sleeping, but I hear it, the throb of the cell phone.  They were through a hell of a storm too, up there, and it's very cold and windy, and mom gives me the usual about not being in her proper home, but up the road a piece, and if she were home...  But she's found her medicine, in her pocka'book, and she's being a good girl and taking one.  Good.   I go off to a deeper sleep, and when I finally wake, at 2 in the afternoon, I see she's called seven times around noon, and one of her colleagues has texted me about how upset mom  sounded...

I get up and find cold green tea in the refrigerator, and give her a call...  She's cold, it's freezing, the heat's not on.  I try to explain the thermostat to her...  The start of my day, proper....


Later on, after a walk, after a quick bite to eat after the little grocery store, I get a call from my old buddy.  It was back in June, when we all went to his wife's father's funeral up in Wheaton, the last time we spoke, as I recall.  I'm on the couch, more or less in taking a nap mode.  Hey, how have you been, and he's got a new pick-up truck, the story behind it...   And then, after the catching up, the conversation changes, and he announces it.  Now, to the problem.  Oh.  A says you were aggressive last time when you were leaving.  Oh.  Physical.  Took offense when you said it was her and not R. that night eons ago...

"Well, I...  she, I remember we went to the restaurant and we were talking about Kerouac.  Patriarchy, she says.  Okay.  But what about the beauty of Kerouac's prose, (there in the mountain climbing passages of The Dharma Bums,) but she just dismisses him, 'no,' as 'patriarchy...'  I guess I was trying to make up for that..."  But i know by it, this conversation.  Oh, yeah, I had a feeling.  I don't remember this "Leaving" part, I'm pretty certain I was just kidding around, but, yeah.   "Teddy I love your company, but..."

Okay.  I get it.  Oh, well.  That's how it goes.  That's how it goes on All Saint's Day, and poor Betsy finally texts me back, she's had a headache all day, is going to go to bed and not get up til tomorrow afternoon, and believe me, I understand.


Look.  You know.  You know I too have my doubts about Kerouac.  I know how easy it would be to find a path in writing toward the success of crafting a piece toward the audience, like a product, a product to tweak as far as market and sales and all that.  You could take any piece, write it out, then look at it, and then bring in the marketing department, and oh, here's how you should look here, and here's how you should look there, and here's how to say the political market correct thing to say that will warm people to you rather than offend them for treading on sensitive unpopular ground, that will assure them you are sticking to some tried and true expected cookie-cutter expression that fits a genre of some kind of "Lit."  Some kind of popular literary form  in which the writer ably goes through and ticks off the little boxes, all the popular psychology stuff, to be applauded as a "Tell All" kind of memoir.  Sure.  The prose darling of the day.  Okay, fine.

Then there are the artists who challenge what they themselves know or would want to hear and through an effort without hope of finding the predictable place in the predictable market take the risk of standing under the stars, walking alone, as everyone else is driving by, and put to it a place of reality as it is, the psyche, the hard stuff that we will always have to grapple with as a species with a  soul, a heart, a brain.