Cold Karma
My housemate, J., went out last night to buy a pack of cigarettes. On his way to the convenience store on the square, he passed a lad with a mohawk, in a tee shirt. Last night it was probably in the single digits with windchill factored in.
The kid was walking briskly in the opposite direction, shivering in the cold. They passed each other on the square. The kid said, "hey." J. said, "hey," back.
After buying his cigarettes J. returned home and stood on the front stoop smoking one. The kid with the mohawk in the tee shirt comes scrambling down our street, still shivering. J. shouts out to him from the stoop.
"Hey!" J. shouts. "You cold?"
The kid's like, "Uh, yeah."
J.'s like, "here, take my jacket." (He explained to me later that it was his smoking-on-the-stoop and snow-shoveling jacket, so he figured he could spare it.)
The kid took it, gratefully.
Then J. gave him his pack of cigarettes, too, keeping just a couple smokes for himself, and sent the kid on his way.
When he came upstairs, he told me maybe he'd generated some good karma, but then corrected himself: "there is no 'good karma,'" he said. "That's what people don't understand."
I took this to mean that all karma takes place on the wheel, with the goal of samsara. While you are in the cycle of cause and effect, you are perpetuating karma, when the goal is to transcend it.
My question was, now who's going to shovel the walk?
He said he thought he would get his coat back, but if he didn't that was OK, too. I thought he'd gone a little over the score with the smokes, and that any "good karma" (I still believe in it) he'd accumulated by the coat, he'd more than neutralized with the cigarettes, especially since he had given the kid the whole pack. But then he may have been—consciously or unconsciously—compensating himself for the loss of the coat. Karma can get pretty complicated.
I told him I would not have gotten involved, myself, though I imagine inaction has karmic consequences as serious as action, since inaction is often just a sort of negative action. In this case there were mitigating circumstances, though. For me, the mohawk was one.
J. said, "I know many, many people who've had mohawks who have become good, upstanding citizens of the Republic."
I said I didn't.
I have never been a fan of extreme hair. It's one of my few out-and-out prejudices.
The mohawk, while stunning at a distance, is, up close, an obvious attempt at provocation. Will Judy at blueblood.net ("the counterculture lifestyle magazine [dedicated to showcasing] the beauty and sensuality of the emerging eclectic underground populated by gothic, punk and pre-Internet cyberculture") puts it this way: "A Mohawk says one thing: Fuck you! A Mohawk is a tonsorial middle finger to the world."
One thing such attempts at provocation are guaranteed to do is provoke inaction in me. This may be from years—in my youth—hanging out among freaks of all stripes, never quite able to convince them that I was not a narc (never mind that if I were I would surely not be so square).
But J. is sometimes nostalgic for his skater-punk days, so he sort of saw the kid as a kindred spirit, I guess.
We were discussing all this when the doorbell rang. J. said, "betcha that's my coat."
And sure enough, it was.
But the kid was still in it.
"Hey," he said when J. opened the door. "Got any beer?"
A fine young lad (avec mohawk) destined to be a "good, upstanding citizen of the Republic." Hmm...
I understand, as do you, the "fuck you" implied by a mohawk. The whole punk movement flew in the face the established order.
Frankly, I am glad that he and his hairdo are out there. It seems that when a huge swath of this nation has a bumper sticker on the back of its Hummer that reads "I am spending my grandchildren's inheritance(on Iraq)" that there are a surplus of fuck yous needed. What a terrific time saver. Lend a kid your coat, give him a half pack of smokes and a list of addresses. Brilliant! what a load off.. I feel better already.
The Truth is a lot of the punks I know (thanks to my new friend from last night, I now know representatives from 5 different generations of said punk movement starting with the proto-punk era of The Stoooges through present day) turn out pretty ok people. Granted there are those that are left behind. Not everyone can be Henry Rollins or Jello Biafra. But a lot of those disenfranchised YOOTS start out nothing but angry. Ok, maybe high and angry, but definitely angry. Anger can be a great motivator for change. Those Angry Yoots from my childhood that I can't forget (even if I tried) slam dancing in a just kilt through a giant wedding cake, (loooong story) have turned into some fairly decent people and very brave souls. People who aren't afraid of speaking up for what's right. People who start a local chapter of Anti Racist Action. People who will, literally put themselves in harms way when they see social injustice. People who do say fuck you, to those that really really need a big fat bowl of steaming hot "fuck you" served breakfast lunch and dinner .
So, as I see it, the kid needed a coat. and the kid wanted a smoke. He got both. If its something that sticks with him, cool, if not, it was worth the energy expended to remind myself , just a little, what its like to be a decent human being instead of that automaton who wears my cloths and elbows his way into and out of the city every weekday.
ps I shoveled the walk this before work this am, if you could throw some salt down, that would be great.
pps we are out of beer
Reply to this
I LOVE the fact that you gave this lad your coat, Just J Period. (I did take some liberties with the "citizen of the Republic" quote, but I think that was the essence, wannit?)
Fact is, it was your coat and your smokes to give away. And you did it, as you do so much of what you do, with an open heart. So far as I have seen. And I admire that. And I'm serious when I say that.
My approach would have been different, but that's what makes things interesting around the house, don't you think? I was not suggesting there was a thing wrong with your approach. Again, your coat, your smokes, your karma. Have at it. Go crazy.
(I can't wait to see what you have to say when I post my piece about our drunken debate on the future of Iraq--I am waiting until you're off in the Alps to do it, though.)
And, by the way, I BELIEVE you that many of your mohawked mates turned out magnificent. It's maybe a Michigan thang. The kilts sound like Ska. I had some friends in a ska band, and they were cool, except that the lead singer ate the drummer's vomit on stage. When his girlfriend told his mom, he had to quit the band. He's probably a fine citizen today, if he's not dead. I should google him.
And one last thing: have no fear, you shall have beer. I was going to get you a six pack for Valentine's Day, but I thought you might find it a bit forward. So I decided to save it for your Welcome Home pahty.
XX M.
Reply to this
The kilt was just so the kid could flash his junk. I saw cake in places it should NEVER be. definitely punk rock....
Reply to this
Karma is just Karma. It is neither good nor bad - it just is. Just J at that moment of coat/cigarette giving was letting Karma be, through him. He met an interesting person, with a story to tell in the process. Now how great is that?
Reply to this
so just j met some dumb kid with a mohawk in a tee-shirt jonesing for cigarettes and beer
where does the interesting part come in again?
Reply to this
The interesting part, would be the conversation over the beer. Everyone has a story to tell.
Reply to this