1. Police Car
2. Gun Range
3. Driving Range (car...not golf)
4. Bed on the Car Rooftop
5. Mid-Night Move
6. The Humble Pie
7. The Deaf Girl (Not my story...but it's worth retelling)
The story that has compelled me to come out of hiding is the one about the Naked Wise Man on the Metro. About 4 years ago, I decided to take a leap of faith and completely left everything I knew behind me and moved from the only place that I knew as my home. The word scared would be the understatement of the year. Scared shitless would be a more accurate description. This would be related to story #5, the mid-night move. The differences between the place I left and where I arrived was like Kansas and OZ. They had this amazing and fascinating mode of transportation that allowed the rider to bypass the ridiculous congestion of city traffic and minimize the time it took to get from 1 end of the city to the other. I asked a local resident upon my arrival...."what do you call this magical contraption?".......He replied....."We call it.......The METRO". I instantly fell in love with the Metro. I couldn't believe that something like this existed. Why in the fuck would anyone choose to drive themselves around and sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic????? Well, I'll tell you why. The thing about public transportation is that it is available to EVERYONE in the public. The homeless, the hopeless, the millionaires, the middle-class, the international visitors and the local residents. As someone with a Sociology minor, I absolutely love the metro. To be able to observe the interactions of people from every walk of life is a psychological gold mine for me. Everyone fits into a certain "class" that I have created.
The Marshawn Lych's: The majority of people that you see on the Metro fall into this category. These are the people who are only there so they "don't get fined". The only place in the world they would rather be LESS than the Metro, is in traffic. So they bite the bullet and suffer with the fact that they have to share oxygen with people who they feel are beneath them. Imagine being a business executive, making $100-$500K/year and having to sit/stand next to Ray-Ray from the block, who's probably plotting 3 ways that he can get your wallet out of your jacket without you knowing. Or next to Johnny, who hasn't taken a bath in 5 days and has been riding the metro since 5:30am so he can stay out of the heat and sleep off his hangover from last July. I used to wonder why people would stand in the Metro train, even though there are available seats vacant. Well, after seeing Johnny's bare ass sitting on the seat and almost passing out from the stench of dookie, piss, and vinegar corn-chips.......I too am afraid to sit down sometimes. I have never seen a cleaning crew come through in all my years of riding the metro. So why in the fuck would someone, who could afford to travel in style, choose to put themselves through that? Excellent question....I'm glad I asked. The reason is this: No matter how much money or influence you have, you can never buy TIME. Having a Maserati with 200mph on the dash, doesn't do you a bit of good in bumper-to-bumper traffic. You may as well be in a freaking 1991 Volkswagen with your emergency breaks on.The only thing in life that is more important that money is TIME. So if suffering for 15 minutes on a metro is necessary to save yourself a 1.5 hour commute....Then so be it.
The Socials: These are the people who I really can't stand. These people suffer from a condition known commonly as PLDNA "Pathetic, Lonely, & Desperately in Need of Attention". These poor, unfortunate souls are the type of people who live on the 1st floor of an apartment unit and always leave their blinds open....hoping that people will look at them. They get on the Metro and have conversations on their phone or with anyone who will listen. They have a need to feel like they are important, even though they are very unimpressive as a person or at life in general. They speak very loudly and put all of their business out there, not realizing (or caring) how much of an attention whore they appear to everyone around them. I have heard people discuss their STD medical results, in-grown pubic hair discomforts, and actual crimes committed while riding the metro. Some shit should not be discussed in public. That's all I have to say about that.
There was a 3rd category, but I deleted it. Words can be very powerful and hurtful, so I decided to sensor myself and remove it. See.....I've matured a little over the past 7 years. Back then, I would have put it on blast and given 2 fucks about people's fragile feelings. But, I digress!!!!! You are probably wondering about the Naked Wise Man on the Metro, huh?
Okay, so one day I was riding the metro in the middle of the afternoon. This was back in 2014 and I was Job hunting in the D.C. area. I really was going through some things in my life and I was at one of the lowest points. I always felt like I was destined to do one thing and God had designed me to be perfect for that mission. After a number of disappointing failures, I started to question everything. Like....."what's the fucking point"?
I was thinking that I had lost everything and was a complete and total loser for fucking everything up.
Just then then, I heard a loud commotion in the rear of the Metro train. There was a "local", homeless man causing a disturbance. I'm pretty sure that he was having a psychological meltdown from the deadly combination of the PTSD meds, alcohol, 100 degree heat outside and I'm sure the Crack Cocaine wasn't doing him any favors. Once we arrived at the next station, the Metro Transit Police were waiting with open arms to take this man into their gentle custody. Armed with Taser's, pepper spray, hand cuffs, an entourage of 4 officers, and 40mm Pistols (as a last resort of course), the police attempted to escort the man from the train. It was painfully obvious that this man had experienced some horrific drama in his life as he was reliving some past event (possibly from War or Grand Theft Auto V). He then began to strip down to his 1 piece suit, made by God, himself. Now please keep in mind that this man is surrounded by cops with guns.........There is a crowd of people watching at this point.....I was going through an Early-Mid-Life Crisis..... And the Naked Wise Man on the Metro looks at me (Yes...He looks me straight in the freaking eyes) and says this:
"I ain't got shit. I done gave up the only things that they didn't take from me already.......Fuck you and these goddamn chains. I'm free now".Now to the average Joe, this didn't mean shit....besides the fact that this guy is bat-shit crazy.....but to me, this was a sign from God. This was a message to me that by losing everything, I had actually gained true freedom. I no longer had to care about what society thought of me or to set my standard of behavior by the public's expectations. I was finally liberated that day. I lived the early part of my life through a prism that made me afraid to do anything that others may have thought to be wrong or "beneath the status quo". Thanks to the Naked man on the Metro, I stopped giving a fuck about what people thought. I found that I was lying to myself and everyone else before that day because I was ashamed that I wasn't the perfect human that I pretended to be in my 20's. That moment on the metro has resonated with me since that fortuitous encounter and I want to send a special shout out to the Naked man on the metro for changing my life. I probably should have stuck around to see if you got your ass shot or tased...but I was going through some things back then and honestly.....didn't give a fuck. I hope that you are alive, out there somewhere and continuing to spread the message of hope. Respectfully, -The Oracle
P.S.......Since I'm being honest...I'm from the South and I have never had Chitterlings (aka chittlins), nor do I have any plans of having them in the near future or EVER. Just keeping real.
