Freedom, Depression, Religion & Lady Nicotine

Smoke! Smoke!
She's only a joke
But to men she is the queen
But she lures them away
From the world of today
Millionaire or the fellow who's broke[1]

Freedom, Depression, Religion & Lady Nicotine

I had grown accustomed to the sound of my stomach gurgling and moaning for food each morning. Hell! I considered, People throughout history had often experienced a lot fucking worst.  I was fortunate. Every night, one of the local missions would allow me, and any of the other lost souls that wandered the streets, to have a meal—that being if we arrived on time. This was a far better blessing than the poverty and blight that afflicted the previous 30 thousand years of man, or even the last one hundred. Other than the occasional cop kicking my leg or another homeless guy seeking a smoke I could wake up when I wanted. I could decide which direction I chose to travel. And I had no appointments, nor a schedule to keep. 

I chose this path of being homeless in the leap year of 1988. There was a war going on between Iraq and Iran; Dustin Hoffman would win an Academy Award for Rain Man, and George Bush senior would be elected as President of the United States.  But as I walked the streets of Los Angles I knew of none of this—nor cared.  I vowed never to read another newspaper again.  If someone were to bring up any news or any current events, I would just block them out, which isn't difficult when you're alone and living on the streets.  Months earlier in my small apartment I listened to the news incessantly and read every newspaper at my disposal while CNN blasted 24 hours a day on my television.  I had become a new's junkie, whereas, during the previous years, I’d often escaped into the fantasy world of films . . . I would also learn in the years to follow, that this period in my life only accentuated my depression, which triggered my plunge into my false appraisal of the rewarding aspects of being homeless.

Yes, the first three months of "bum-hood" (as I liked to called it) was more like a continuous vacation my misguided reasoning told me at the time. There were no more job hunts, shitty jobs—when I found them—no bills, no endless days trying to write, and no need for an expensive meal or trying to bullshit my way to the top. It was a freedom most people could not understand. Everything previously had turned to complete shit as far as I was concerned, and the freedom of worrying over it was now finally absent from my days.

But the mind can play tricks on itself when there is no focus.

So this particular morning when I wandered the streets, my quest was not food (it would later come at Terry's Mission), a bus to catch to go to work, or a decent cup of coffee, it was basically a smoke. Now you would think this easy. Especially considering that daily hundreds of motorists dump their ashtrays at intersections. But this morning, it was apparent the street sweepers had been out, and most of the butts that I found were really only filters that had been sucked down to a yellowing cotton stub.  I found a few butts that weren't worth smoking, at least during the day, but at night when it sometimes got chilly I could probably get a hit or two out of them.  I kept them separate in a coffee can attached to my make-shift mobile-home fashioned from an Albertson's grocery cart, and at the end of the day those one hit delicacies could add up to be a modest pleasure.

While searching the gutter's and sidewalks that morning, I found myself on a street I had never previously passed.  I probably wouldn’t have looked up from my search of the ground had it not been for the aroma of freshly baked bread. I looked up and found I was standing by a small bakery.  It sat at the left corner of a road opening leading down a cul-de-sac.  On the other side of the street was a fading purple building boarded up, and void of life.  I could not see what sat at the far end of the road, my sight blocked by the two red panel trucks that were sitting in the street loading bread and pastries.

I looked up at the street sign and found I had been walking along Pico Blvd, and the cul-de-sac's name was Gotter Way. Someone had painted over the letters tter and wrote over it with d's. 

Two men came out of the bakery.  One passed and went to the far truck while the other man moved to the truck closest to me.  He was smoking a cigarette while carrying a cup of coffee. He ignored me and moved to the seat of the panel truck and as he passed his cigarette smoke engulfed me, and I could smell the flood of milk he had poured into his coffee.

"Can you spare a smoke, brother," I asked.

The man shook his head in disgust.  I could see he wanted to tell me to get a job—I had heard it before—or perhaps tell me to go fuck myself—I'd heard that just as often, but he grinned: a strange sort of sarcastic look and shoved the stick shift into first and, just before he released the clutch, he said, "These fuckin' things are bad for you," laughed and pulled away:  A breeze of freshly cooked pumpernickel and whole wheat bread blowing past.

Fucking asshole, I fumed inside. I guess you found that fucking amusing. Did this dick really care about my health? Fuck no! People fuck with you when you've got a job and they fuck with you when you're without a fucking job. Glad you found that funny, dick weed. I had seen the bulging square of the pack of cigarettes in your top pocket. You cheap asshole, I fumed inside. I hope those fucking things kill you, my mind lamented.

I looked up at the other guy.  He was looking at me through the windshield of the truck just before starting it.

Another asshole, they often come in pairs, I reasoned.  I sat down at the curb, thinking maybe this dip-shit we'll hit me with the truck and I can sue the living shit out of these bastards.  Come on you fucker my eyes raged in the direction of the driver.

The truck pulled slowly forward and stopped.  The truck's cab opened revealing the driver.  He got up from his seat and went to the back of the truck for a moment before reappearing.

"Dude, he said, it'll be all right," he handed me a large packaged blueberry muffin.

I looked at the finely sealed package. I could see the blueberries cooked into the brown toasted dough.

"You got banana?" I asked.

The guy just kind of shook his head, smiled, reached around to the back of the van and pulled a freshly baked and packed banana nut muffin.  He tossed it to me as he jumped back into the driver's seat.

 “You got a smoke.”

“Nope. Sorry brother, I don't smoke. They’re bad for you."

Déjà vu, I thought, while looking up to the previous truck as it rounded the corner and disappeared.

Had the world went schizo or was it me?

"Your lucky day," the driver said.

He pushed in the clutch, shifted into first, and pulled away.

I sat in the cool morning shadows of Ricardo's Bakery at the corner of Pico Blvd and Gotter… God's Way eating the freshest banana nut muffin I had perhaps ever bitten into in my entire life. As I was finishing the last bite I realized something was missing—besides a glass of milk to wash the muffin down—I still needed a smoke, and a butt from my collection of one-hitters would not be enough to satisfy this moment of bliss.  And then as I looked to the edge of the shadow where it met the morning sunlight, on the pavement no more then 10 feet away, lay a Marlboro 100 puffed maybe two times—Ah, I thought, a Marlboro 98.  I laughed to myself, my lucky day.

It sat in the street laying flat on the yellow line that separated the lanes.  It had been run over and crushed, and branded by a tire tread, but it was still salvageable.  The end was bent and slightly breached; but the imperfection would only play maybe during the first two puffs, and if I finessed it properly I could clench the small break with my fingers keeping the extra air from pulling through.

I carefully picked up the damaged treasure, making sure to keep the open-end up and any of the loose tobacco from spilling out.  I softly spun the head between my fingers creating a fine twist like that of the tip of a Hershey's kiss. Perfect! I thought.

Matches. Where are they? I questioned.  I searched my pockets.  I knew I had a pack.  I had just recently found them in the base of a cigarette machine.  Oh, yeah—I realized—I dropped them in my collector can.  I walked to my cart, the Marlboro 98 clamped tightly between my lips, and reached into the can.  Shit, something wasn't right.  I pulled the matches out.  They were wet.  I peered into my blue Maxwell House coffee can and could see a small pool of ash water buoying the floating butts. I had forgotten about the light rain from the night before, and not only were the matches soaked but everything I had collected that morning was now worthless.

The garage doors to the bakery had been shut. I went to the front door. It was locked.  I thought of banging to get someone's attention—hopefully a smoker—but I considered there would be more assholes inside like the first driver I encountered.  My time living on the streets made me realize they tend to run in packs, and good Samaritans (like their best driver as far as I was concerned) tended to be an anomaly. 

I pulled the cigarette from my lips and considered the momentary setback.  I sat down at the side of the road and laid the smoke on a clean area of the curb and stared at it for a moment. 

“Which direction to find you some fire?” I spoke to the 98.

And then—I'm not sure why—I brought my right hand down and with my middle finger I flicked the cigarette into a spin.  It came to a stop, and the Hershey Kiss end pointed down the street.  I looked up, and there at the end of the road was a church.

Okay, I thought, this street is a dead end, and I can't get past the church, so I spun the cigarette again.  It ended once more pointing down the street.  Okay, one more time; and I, again, recoiled my middle finger and then snapped it into the filter sending it out onto the road four feet away. But it still pointed towards the church.  I gently placed my Marlboro 98 nicotine compass in my top pocket and headed to the church.

As I approached the church, I became aware of my lack of a formal religious education. It being limited to my father having remarked to my mother once about "bringing the boy" to church, while dad not wanting to have anything to do with the physical part of attending himself. Perhaps, in some strange way, he felt the church might help me end up unlike him. His own beliefs about going: "the fucking church would probably collapse."

I can remember my mom taking me a few times. When Bobby Kennedy was shot, I remember her saying, “If there was a god, would he let these things happen?” She completely stopped going after that.

Also, while watching some films by Tarkovsky and Bergman, I searched for the religious meaning often spoke about in some of the film history books I had studied. But the lack of understanding their religious beliefs often left me with more questions than answers.

There, also, had been this guy, Ray—an ex-alcoholic—at Terry's Mission that would pray and give thanks, before we could chow down.  I often felt obligated to say, Amen, before diving into a bowl of (usually meatless) chili, when he quoted scripture from the Bible. I often tried to appear to be listening to what the hell he was trying to tell the me and the others, but I couldn't relate. And lately I hadn't seen him around. Word was, at the Mission, Ray had disappeared into the recent evolution of cocaine: something known as crack.

So when I entered through the large oak doors, and into the church, this would be very new to me, perhaps a place of discovery, or possible redemption.

Entering the church, I first came into a large foyer; its floor tiled in white, the room was rather bland, and painted brown. At both ends of this room were stairs leading to somewhere above.  It smelled of mothballs. I was reminded of a joke Harley had told me: "Have you ever smelled moth balls," Harley asked with a straight face. "Yes," I answered.  "How'd you get your big head," he would laugh, "in between their little legs."  I missed my friend.

Framed through two doors, leading into the chapel, I could see the altar. Just to my right, sitting on a wooden pedestal, was a white bowl of holy water, sculpted from finely polished marble.  A cherub carved into the bowl sat with its feet dangling in the water.  The cool water felt refreshing as I cupped my hands, reached in, pooled the water, and began washing my face and hands.  As I was rinsing my teeth—in the corner of my eye through the door's opening—I could see the glow of candles.  I smiled, took some water into my mouth gargled, swallowed the rinse, and then made my way into the church. 

I didn't notice my surroundings as I headed for the candles and the Virgin Mary statue that stood with her head down watching their glow. I pulled my 98 from my pocket, cupped the breached hole between my forefinger and thumb, and lit it from the tallest burning candle amongst the group.

"Thanks," I said to Mary as I pulled and released the first puff.

She appeared to wink and smile as if to say: No problem.

I sat down at the far corner in the back pew to relax and enjoy my only vice and addiction.  I looked toward the far wall.  It was lined with circular windows, like portals of a ship, casting beams of dusty light rays across the pews.  I took a hit and blew smoke into the light ray near me, watching the smoke spin into a small turbulent cloud of white haze.

A sound came from the front right corner, next to the altar, where two men appeared. One man wore a dark suit, the other, khakis and a white shirt.  They were looking at me and talking.  I glanced to their left and above the altar I saw Jesus hanging there in pain.  I could see the nails hammered through his palms and feet.  Poor bastard, I thought, all you wanted was peace and the fuckers hung you up like that.  It angered me.  I noticed the man in the white shirt was making his way towards me.  I took a drag and looked back at Jesus—what do you think this asshole wants? I groaned.  Jesus didn't move; he's head hung in pain.

The man walked up to me, as the man in the dark suit was exiting the door from where he entered.

"You can't smoke in here." He said

I took another drag.  "What?"

"You can't smoke in here."

I looked to the candles.  "What about them?" I questioned.

"What, about them?" He scoffed.

"What happens to them when you blow them out?"  

"All right wise ass lets go, before I have to call the cops."

I stood up and began to exit.  I looked towards Jesus.  He appeared to shrug his shoulders and say, I'm sorry brother I can't help—I'm dead.

"That's pretty fucked up, a candle can fucking smoke in here but a fucking human being can’t."

I could see the man didn't want to argue.

"Let's go." He ordered as he nudged me along.

"Hands off the suit," I said, as I made it to the front doors. 

"You know you people are really fucked up hanging poor Jesus up there half naked, tortured, and in agony as a fucking wall decoration . . . Go to hell." I walked outside.

"Buddy," the man boomed, "I said you were a wise ass, but you're really a dumb ass." His voice echoing through the church as he slammed the doors shut.

From inside the church I could hear the sound of a bolt sliding across the doors and a latch smashing down.

I stood at the steps of the church and smiled having found satisfaction in adhering to one of the vows taking when choosing this lifestyle: never to take any shit from anyone.

I noticed my cigarette was getting close to the filter.  I'd save it for later, I thought, as I pulled from my pocket a broken pocketknife I had found in an empty lot days earlier.  I sat down at the steps and cut the hot amber being careful to not waste any tobacco.

"Dumb ass?" I roared, "Who you calling a dumb ass?"

I looked at the cigarette, it close to being spent, and my dilapidated knife being held together by a piece of electrical tape I had salvaged from a discarded roll. The knife's blade shifted in the tape.

Maybe, I am a dumb ass. I considered my situation.  Maybe it is me that's fucked up.

It was true I hadn't much of an education having left school at the age of 15, never getting a high school diploma, and working at laborious jobs to make my way to Hollywood to become a movie star.  Others had done it before: James Cagney, Robert Mitchum, Robert Di Nero all high school dropouts as well as directors David Lean, and John Huston. I would realize later in my life that with a limited education—especially guidance—comes limited reasoning powers and the answers deduced from my questions were based on my own personal cultivation which was bound by my mother, my father, elementary school and the aimless meandering throughout 7th and 8th grade, as well as the times I had spent researching actors and directors in the many libraries and films throughout Los Angeles. If there were pieces of the cognitive decision-making process missing from my own mind or library of thought, a logical conclusion, quite often, was basically a guess, once in a while right but most often wrong. And the outcome usually expressed through frustration, anger, and ultimately depression.

But, as I walked the streets, I was totally unaware of these issues.  I was usually at peace on the streets; not having to deal with the things I had worked so hard to get in previous years.  The streets simplified my existence and in some strange way this personal act of rebellion gave me a sense of significance I couldn't attain in the Hollywood lifestyle I previously hounded. I enjoyed the power, I had over people that feared me, or perhaps what I might have appeared to represent to them.

I thought more about my life that day than I had in the previous ninety.  I wondered if I had made the right decision, but I hadn't a choice. An eviction notice had been given; I was broke with no place to go.  I had a hard time making friends and the few I could perhaps call my friends had nothing as well. 

I became despondent that day and spent the rest of my day thinking of a pleasant way to end my life.

---

[1] Will Cook