Stranger Number One

In keeping with my contradictory nature, I was at Starbucks getting my fix for the day doing my normal "thing" . . . reading the paper with headphones on loudly. Something about the noise from the talking PLUS the noise of Everclear shouting in my ears soothes me, enough to focus on our local crappy paper. Not very friendly. Not very inviting. Not in keeping with the resolution I just made to the internet. But it was working today . . .

So I'm pleasantly reading about the 257 (or some such ridiculously high number) of unsolved murders for the year in Detroit when my neighbor starts talking to me. I did take some notice of him when I sat down but only because his coat was sprawled on the bench and I almost had to sit on it. There had been random outbursts coming from this man but I hadn't looked up. Now he was talking to me in earnest so I turned down my headphones and looked at him. He had scotch tape wrapped around both arms on his glasses, holding them together. He was wearing a newsboy cap and he had massive amounts of hair . . . long hair, unkempt beard. I would have said that he was in his fifties but he didn't have any gray hair. He started talking to me about the paper . . . and how it was corrupt and full of lies.

The conversation went on for about thirty minutes, with him sharing his thoughts on art theft; police brutality; corrupt, afraid newspaper editors; election conspiracies; the JFK conspiracy (it always comes back to that one doesn't it?); some artist in the schools billion dollar project that he founded; corrupt court officials; and the inability for him to bring a tape recorder into a court building . . . I mean how are you going to show that they CHANGE court documents?

Somehow these were all connected in his mind and I had no choice but to agree with him, as I was pressing myself on the wall and further away from him. I managed to end the conversation amicably and he went on his way.

So there you go . . . talked to stranger no. one. I now know that if I steal someone's art and they complain about it the police will come and beat them senseless . . . and if I keep the art for three years the statute of limitations is up, so it's mine. Good to know.