CHAPTER

art copyright© 2015 joeyfeldman, all rights reserved 

By Charlie Seller

and it got worse.

Allen (Ginsberg) sat on a bench opposite the St. Mark’s

entrance to Tompkins Square Park, his full, graying rabbinical

beard; fuller, grayer lips; eagles nest bald head and

worn black eyeglass frames the definitive

trademarks of this 20th century Beat icon. As usual, he

wore a short sleeved button down shirt and Hero thought

that all Allen was missing to look like a real hippie-nerd

was one of those cheap plastic pocket protectors full of

pens and sharpened pencils.
Protesters were wandering around

this strange attractor unintentionally frightening the

television news crews from coming into the park. The night

before, things had gotten pretty crazy. The police had chased

anyone who wasn’t a cop down the streets around Tompkins

Square and clubbed them mercilessly with their nightsticks

in doorways and between parked cars. A peaceful protest

against a park curfew had turned into a police riot no one

had previously thought possible. Well, almost no one. The

cops were the official hired goons of the real estate speculators,

those assholes on the community board, and that

bastard, The Mayor. Now everyone was wired and slowly gearing up for another night of constitutionally sanctioned gang

violence . And Ginsberg sat there like some aging hippie

guru in cheap sneakers as a beautiful late summers afternoon slowly developed the scents of electrified violence running through her delicate humid air, explosions lost to immaculate arrogance; we were the prodigal sons who’d rebelled (yet again) and now Allen was here to take us home and,

without wanting to be rude, we had but to ask him,

“Who asked you?”

Pete and Adam were trying to talk with Ginsberg who was

unapologetically espousing a loose and somewhat ambiguous

philosophical agenda based in Buddhism and nonviolence

when Hero walked up. Adam dismissed Allen out of

hand as he stepped past rolling his eyes. Hero listened

for a few minutes until tiredly, he cut him off, “Violence

doesn’t always work, but it’s got its place,” he said.

Ginsberg responded in what Hero perceived to be the closest

Thing to a “rise” he might get out of him without ever looking

up from the ground. Through his thick-lensed glasses his

eyes were distorted and large. The combination of Allen’s

eyes and lips reminded Hero of a great big bottom feeder

that was thought to have been extinct – and yet – was

alive. He tried to politely crane his neck and look for it’s

gills but supposed that they were masked by all of it’s

whiskers. With his face practically vertical and his eyes

cast down Allen spoke as if the Spirit Of The Temple Oracle

had possessed him after taking up residence in his lowest

orifice. “Violence will never be an effective means

of positive social change we must learn to meditate… “

And Hero tersely cut him off for good when he told Allen,

“What are you talking about? Even the Tibetan Buddhists

had fierce and violent protection by the Mongols – and besides

– that all sounds real good, Allen, until someone’s trying

to take your shit! “

A harsh message to remind the long financially secure

Ginsberg of just what the fuck was going on here.

“Tourist,” muttered Adam with genuine derision for the

old man and followed with everyone who’d been listening

when Hero turned away – leaving Allen alone – to go and

deal with the twisted media exclusive. Enquiring slime wanted

to know. Hero covered his face with a red bandanna because

he was still on parole. Everyone pointed at him when the

camera crew asked who would be speaking. Apocalypse Bob

(The Murderer) egged him on, “Go ahead, Hero, do your stuff!”

The camera s little red light was on and the great big

black contraption of mechanically exploited thalidomide

aluminum limbs with one huge unblinking rubber hooded

eye shone a blinding light from its very top at Hero’s

face. This electronically enhanced gun metal black prosthesis

could search to find the images that would later be defined

in the terms its masters manipulated to label as “True”

– because – Enquiring minds wanted a show.

The interviewer asked Hero, “What do you want?”

“A national health care program!” And the crowd listened

in tense silence until suddenly the interviewer stopped

everything midway through Hero’s second sentence and tried

to find someone else more suitable for the type of story

that he’d been told to get – when the crowd insisted that

he talk to Hero. Once they got started again, Hero launched

into a 12 minute diatribe/indictment that ran the gamut

from the park, to the government, to the People (whoever

the fuck they were), their lives, and everything in between.

He talked about the lies that they’d beckoned and embraced,

that had twisted everyone’s mind.

“The park is nothing but a pimple on the ass of this whole

thing,” he said, “it is a symptom of the sickness that is

our whole civilization – while we consistently point accusatory

fingers with one hand, we have no choice but to participate

in the selfsame debilitating crime with the other – who

can make us good? Who will we be accountable to?

And everyone stood mesmerized by his words of truth so

succinctly delivered to them for their benefit first. The memory brought with it a chill and 10 years later

he regretted having been rude to Allen but as the old

saying went,: “If you can’ t take the heat – stay the fuck

out of the kitchen.”