People Pleaser

Dear diary,

What if someone were to read a few of these public-private entries that I write to you — I wonder how that person would react. Also I wonder what he would be wearing. I assume this test subject would be a male stranger; and he would have a hat on. But what type of hat? Let me do a quick Internet search — I’ll type in “most popular style of hat for male stranger”. OK, the results are in: He would be wearing a “crushable wool felt porkpie hat” and its color would be dark gray.

Now what should we name our male stranger?

Wait — we’re clothing and christening our character before we even know how he reacted to our writings? This good-Samaritanism is getting out of hand…

Let’s just say that, after reading a few entries, the stranger hands us back our two tablets (I published a selection of ten entries representing my best work, by etching them into stone tablets with a power-tool that I invented and nicknamed “The finger of God”, just for this purpose — see Exodus 31:18 “He gave unto the stranger, when he had made an end of communing with him, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” — they’re like a sampler platter, so that you can get to know a restaurant’s cuisine); and our stranger reacts by saying:

“I think your writing’s pretty good. Yeah. It’s got a good groove.”

So we reply:

“You don’t think there may be just a little something missing?”

& the stranger sez: “I don’t know. I guess not.”

& we say: “What was your favorite part?”

& the stranger assures us: “I liked it all equally — I would be interested in reading the rest of your stuff, since it said in the fine print that these are just sample tablets.”

& we say: “Really? Wow.”

& he sez: “Yeah, there’s this footnote here, which mentions that there’s more where this came from, and that the author plans on etching multiple volumes that will contain all the rest of her prophetic utterances?”

& we proudly announce: “That’s correct!”

So we spend a few minutes taking down all the stranger’s personal info, entering it into our portable computing device, so that we can email him updates about any progress that we make in our publishing adventures.

Then the stranger gives a firm handshake and walks away leisurely down the street:

He comes to a liquor store. He enters. He pulls out a firearm and tells the clerk to open the register. He takes all the cash. He also grabs an empty cardboard box from the floor and fills it with jug after jug of 80-proof booze.

He then exits the store and proceeds to pace leisurely down the sidewalk, with the satchel of cash strapped over his left shoulder, and the big box of booze cradled under his right arm. Banknotes are spilling out of the satchel as he walks: that’s how full it’s stuffed.

Then he meets a group of children playing a game of cricket in the middle of the street. He yells to the children, telling them to be careful and to keep an eye out for traffic — he doesn’t want them to get hit by a speeding motorcar. Then he asks who’s winning. The kids inform him that the game is currently tied. He then places the big box of booze on the ground and sez:

“Y’all want some refreshments? I’m tired of hefting this thing.”

So the children dash ecstatically over to the stranger, and each grabs his or her own 80-proof jug. (The group is a mixture of boys and girls.) The stranger smiles to see that his charitable action has brought pleasure into the world. He reflects to himself with a sigh that life really just boils down to the pursuit of happiness.

Then he looks to his right and sees, loitering between the brick buildings, a middle-aged woman whom he presumes is looking for love.

“Miss Lonelyhearts,” the stranger sez while approaching the woman, “how much will you pay me to give you some physical attention?”

But the woman’s slight smile now turns to a slight frown, and she snaps her fingers and shouts:

“Put this man out of his misery.”

Now a whole crew of actors emerges from the back of the alley and places the stranger into a wheelchair. The cast consists of a talented, single, composer-pianist; several married couples (one of them newlyweds); an amateur sculptor; and a traveling jewelry salesman with a bedridden wife.

The final event in the life of our nameless stranger goes as follows:

A small dog jumps out of a bike basket, sprints directly toward our wheelchair-bound protagonist, and bites the man’s pant leg. This little dog then, by yanking and tugging, wheels the stranger into a hole that he (the dog) has dug in the flower garden. We note that the dog has now turned and lifted his hind leg, but we look away before anything untoward happens.

P.S.

So I think that if I meet anyone on the street, I’m gonna vote for whoever they tell me to. Even if they demand to see my ballot, I’ll agree to fill it out, right there in front of them, and even to slide it into the ballot-counting machine while they are witnessing, to prove my loyalty. That’s how much I believe in electoral politics.

But if they ban paper ballots and only allow us to vote on an old arcade-style video game unit — the kind that have the joystick and two buttons on their control panel — I’d do that too, unhesitatingly. I’d press the red button, if instructed to do so; and, if instructed otherwise, I’d press the blue button. I’d even jiggle the joystick back & forth, and up & down (& diagonally, occasionally), while pressing both buttons, the red & the blue, in rapid succession, to move my avatar on the screen towards a voting booth inside the game, thus causing my representative to vote whichever way I was urged to control him. I’d even give my game character a secret password, so that, if it ever comes to this, I’ll only need to call him up on the telephone and whisper the magic charm “Rosebud!” whereupon he shall sink momentarily into a hypnotized state until he’s finished voting.

I’m serious: I want our candidate to win.