Eleanor Rigby

[kingtycoon]

What happens is that I observe a thing that happens all the time and I start to wonder why it happens. Persuaded that smarter & less diffident people have considered the question I just start asking around.

"Why do people have shouting conversations on the phone?" That was a question for much of last year. Unfathomable to me - as a course to take - why would one countenance any level of disrespect or aggression? There's plenty of more people to know. You are easily replaced! Anyhow - I'd hang right up and ban a number if someone raised their voice to me. And yet - these conversations are the conversations that happen on the bus all the time. Someone - my sociologist friend- had an answer, after I asked for months & months. Poor people, lacking capital, invest heavily in social arrangements - these are held to be the most important thing and so there are passionate conversations and heated arguments concerning them. Not a great explanation -but I can understand - phrased that way - having a very loud conversation, if it were about a certain quantity of money. People. The poor man's wealth... Such a bleak & useful insight.

My current mystery isn't mine though. Downtown in public square we're busying ourselves with going to places and transiting. There's the inevitable approach by a madman. I'm so capricious I never understand how I'll be - braced by the madman. In this instance the madman made the somehow insulting assumption that I was lost and didn't know my way - he approached offering instruction - wanted to shake hands - also somehow vaguely insulting. I have a reasonable respect for madmen - it's a difficult life no doubt & virtuous because it is difficult (that's my hangup inserted in moral judgment). Shaking hands is a matter of some earnest feeling for me though. And the madman's handshake approach - they all have the same one - elbow fixed to the waist, hand awkwardly outstretched in a pleading gesture. Once the man with that palsied approach was covered in his own shit - and I shouted at him over and over because he was smeared with his own shit. This time though - the man isn't overly offensive - but he wants to shake hands & I don't. I look at his hand and then at him and he says "I help you find your way man." And I really didn't like the implication that somehow I would go somewhere or do something without thought or purpose. I rely on the old standard, my torch song. "Don't speak to me." You have to lean into it - overmaster the person by looming and glare at their eyes - they need to know that you want them to die and they need to worry that you might kill them. I don't want a bad thing to happen to this guy, but I present the performance because in this instance - I'm displeased. Caprice! Sometimes I like a fellow and offer money, sometimes I share a snack or a cigarette. Sometimes I menace cruelly. I don't know why I make these choices - but I trust my instincts.

The interaction mystifies Agatha - who doesn't see madmen often, who is surprised when I assert myself sincerely, and who is freaked out by the casual approach of a stranger. That's life in these days - only talk to people you know. Crossing that line is more and more fraught an enterprise - going from stranger to acquaintance.

The question comes up - "Why are there so many crazy people downtown?"

And downtown isn't really right- Public Square - that's what she means. It might be the train station - but other train stations aren't full of madmen. It may be the casino? It may be the crowd - but the crowds are always pretty thin. It's not the social services - they are all blocks away - significant blocks away. I'm thinking about this early in the morning in the dark at Public Square while a man is shouting racist theories and another man is arguing about the KGB with invisible interlocutors.

So why do crazy people congregate? I'm told by my acquaintance - a madwoman - that it's nice to be around people why you don't have to explain being crazy to. You don't have to go into details about why you are crazy that apparently non crazy people are hung up on.

So why do the madmen & madwomen go to Public Square to gather. Any ideas?

Comments

[avatar-x.livejournal.com]

I catch hell for my low tolerance of disrespect all the time. I don't get it. Basic civility shouldn't really be that hard, which I think is what bothers me the most about it- it's like someone has failed at the easiest possible way of interaction.

The mad people gather downtown because Tower city is climate-controlled and free. See also most libraries and some shopping malls. I know that's an obvious answer, but I don't think it really gets much deeper than that- it's just convenience.