He had been living in a New York City a long time when I got off the bus underneath Times Square.
I got off the bus about 50 feet underground. Tom White was standing there leaning on a wall. I considered telling him about the 40 year old woman's pussy I finger fucked but decided it was too weird and dysfunctional and it didn't really make any sense.
I yelled, “Tom!”
He yelled back, “Benny Baradat.”
We embraced each other. He was smaller than me and I felt his frail body in my arms. We shook hands softly, not with a firm grip. I always shook people's hands which surprised the people of New York City. It was always very important that people shook each other's hands in Youngstown. Perhaps because Youngstown was more violent than New York City and people in Youngstown might actually be carrying weapons.
Tom said, “How was your ride?”
“It was fine. I sat there and listened to the CD player. Sometimes the CD player worked, sometimes it didn't.”
We walked out into Times Square. There it was, in all its glory. The lights, the big absurd advertisements, the restaurants, the tourist shops, The American Dream. Times Square was this huge church dedicated to capitalism, commercialism, corporatism, marketing, and absurdity. People would come from all over the world to gaze upon that church of commercialism called Times Square. Everything screamed “BUY SOMETHING.” It was all seven deadly sins rolled into one place, lust, gluttony, vanity, sloth, greed, envy, and even wrath. A marketer trained in the dark arts during The Gilded Age decided to turn the square into Lucifer's very own playground.
It's been said by people who actually grew up in New York City that Time Square is a porthole to hell. And that on Friday the 13th if you go to Times Square and say, “Bloody Mary” 20 times in a row a lesser demon will pop out and tell you to buy Paris Hilton perfume. And you will be forced to buy perfume and sometimes even an iPhone even if you already have one.
Tom White and I walked down the street, I said, “Where are the people? There are usually people everywhere. So many fucking people I usually can't stand it.”
Tom said, “They disappeared, after October.”
“Who, the tourists?”
“Yeah, it's only real New Yorkers now.”
“Is this a real depression? I've never lived through a depression. I've received a terrorist attack, two wars and a tech and housing bubble pop but no depression.”
“I'm 50 and never lived through a depression either. I got the Vietnam War and several more oil price spikes than you,” Tom said.
“I don't think this will be good.”
“They are bleeding money so they are only having us work three days a week. I thought about looking for another job but they've laid off 100,000 stock brokers and hedge funders who can do invoices a thousand times better than me.”
We walked away from Times Square to the lower east side. The scenery changed from an overload of advertisements to a normal New York City amount.
Tom said, “How is college going?”
“Good, I like getting up early, going to campus, buying coffee and a muffin and walking to class. I like walking around the campus. I like looking at the young girls. The young girls don't look at me. But I look at them like a creepy old man.”
“The young girls are always nice.”
After saying that I realized New York City is like a giant college campus. Everyone walking around from destination to destination; young girls walking around everywhere. Everyone stopping to get coffee and eat pastries. I didn't say it out loud though.
“I remember thinking college was going to be really hard. Everyone would talk about how hard it was going to be. It wasn't. It was high school plus a couple more pages of work,” said Tom White.
“No, it isn't hard. Showing up is the hardest thing. That's what life is about though, showing up, being on time, doing what needs to be done.”
“People have been trying to make life more than that since the beginning of humanity. We try to pretend that when we make a peanut butter sandwich somehow God is watching and giving it meaning. But it really requires that we go to work, make money. Buy the bread and peanut butter. And walk from where we were sitting in our house to the kitchen and making the sandwich. Nothing really happens.”
“Nothing ever happens. Maybe this depression will change that,” I said.
“It probably won't.”
“Maybe there will be civil unrest.”
“Look around Benny,” Tom pointed to the people walking by and said, “Everyone is walking around consumed with their own personal interest. The Americans that are alive have known nothing but their own personal interest. The only thing that ties us together is The Constitution. Which means what? We point at that document and say, 'We believe in a democratic republic, we believe in the separation of powers, the separation of church and state, we believe we have certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away.' Let's look at what that means, a democratic republic means we believe in voting in a few who can afford to take a year off of their lives just to campaign to represent the many, so we believe in an oligarchy. We believe in separating power so we don't have to constantly fight each other, and we believe in rights and not in doing things. I don't think that is bad. The system has worked for me. America doesn't have a lot of internal conflict. The system is stable, the roads are paved and the police have never brought me in for treason. But there isn't anything that binds us. We have no universal raison d'etre here. We have a voice and we have rights and we even have protection. But nothing gives us meaning. An Arab in Iraq or a Catholic in Peru walks to the kitchen to make a sandwich God watches them. God says, 'Thou shall eat a sandwich because I've made you hungry.' When a Chinese person walks to the kitchen to make a sandwich they are staying alive, remaining strong, to honor the ancestors, for the beauty and legacy that is China. When an American walks to the kitchen to make a sandwich, what they tell themselves is that they are doing it for the free exercise of religion. For the ability to not have to testify against oneself, to bear arms. No, an American walks to the kitchen and makes a sandwich and that's all. There is no reason to it. It is absolutely meaningless. When an Arab in Iraq or a Catholic in Peru go to the market to buy food, they see their fellow Muslims and Catholics, those who love, pray, and have devoted themselves to the same function as them, to serve their God. When a Chinese person goes to the market they see their fellow communists, their fellow Chinese who have kept China running for three thousand years. What do we see at the market? Other people who believe in free-market capitalism? We have no roots. We have no real history. A Brazilian can at least say they are part of the history of Catholicism. An institution that has lasted for 200 years and shows no sign of disappearing. The Arabs have history, theirs goes back all the way to the ancients. To Persia, to ancient Egypt. We might feel horrified by the Indian religion and their caste system, but their religion and caste system has sustained them for three thousand years. There is something about an ancient institution that gives a person a place in history. And knowing you are in history makes you recognize that people came before you and people will come after you. That the lakes, oceans, mountains, and the soil were before you, and if you don't destroy them they will be there after you. There is no sense of time in The Constitution. The Christian Bible is nothing but time, it starts at the birth of the universe, traces generation after generation of good and bad behavior, of foolishness, of folly, of heroism, of greatness. And it ends with the end of time. The history of the Catholic church, of Islam, of Buddhism, the histories of European nations and China. Those people are reared in history. It never occurs to people that maybe all these other countries are poorer than America, because they see no point in being rich as America. Knowing that you are part of history, also lets you know that being rich and being consumed with your own self-interest does not really matter. It is good to have security, comfort, a place to live, and some food to eat. But it doesn't really matter. Before you were born everyone got along without you, and when you die, and are nothing but bones, everyone will get along without you. You aren't that important. You might be important if you did something or treated people in a way that left your mark on further generations. But owning an expensive apartment or the newest coolest cell phone will not cause that. The Constitution does not teach us that. The Constitution does not teach us about time. The Constitution does not mention time, it doesn't even mention history, it is meant to be a timeless document that can be applied to any situation in history, but does not create a way we can view our own lives and the lives of others with any sense of meaning. It is nothing but procedures and the granting of rights. Americans don't have a sense that we are in history together, and more than just those who are alive, but those who have come before and those who will come after. There is no poetry in The Constitution. Religion has poetry, the story of Job, the stories of Hindu gods, the stories of the Buddha and the Buddhists who came after, and the Koran. Those books may not make sense to our empirical American minds. But they contain laws, which other people — dead and living — have assumed to be worth living by. Just like we assume The Constitution is worth living by. But there is no poetry in The Constitution. A person can lose everything, they can be on the street homeless crying, their wife gone, their kids, their job gone, and they can think of the story Job, they can cry, and find hope. And they can tell themselves that life is still worth living. But you can't be homeless, wife gone, kids gone, and job and think of the Second Amendment, start crying and find hope. Americans think that with the application of enough sociological, psychological, and biological theories and remedies mankind will just feel great about being alive. A political philosophy may design the perfect procedure so that everyone is treated equally. But that's not what humanity really wants, learning the Labeling Theory in a classroom or on television is not the same as when David was labeled a little man, a teenager, worth nothing, but he didn't allow the label of being young and small to deter his will to take on life, to take charge of his destiny and kill Goliath. A person can read that and cry. A person can find hope and courage in that story. I have no problem and fully support research and the creation of theories to better humanity. But everyone, even those who make those theories want something more out of life,” Tom said.