Foley's Current

Words stream out of mouths and into ears. Images stream off screens and into eyes. The world streams through me and I feel most alive when streaming through the world.

Foley Gaspers has just offered his last cigarette to the county agency case manager who is responsible for making sure Gaspers’ mental health care needs are met.

“Got a light?” asks Shane Moses after he accepts the gift from his client. They stand in the parking lot of a Grocery Emporium, next to the case manager's car. 

“Sure thing,” responds Gaspers, using an orange lighter to fire up the cigarette. 

“I think Elysium House is the right place for you,” says Moses taking a puff.

“You know that was my last frajo,” says Gaspers, using the word many Hispanics do to refer to a smoke. “Do you mind if I have a couple of drags?”

Moses has already crossed a professional boundary by agreeing to share a cigarette with this difficult client, but he wants to maintain a connection with Gaspers. By passing the cigarette back, he allows a personal boundary to be crossed as well. He says, “Your mother told me you got into a little trouble in L.A.”

“Yeah, I didn’t have a red cent on me.” Foley is lying about not having any money. He had and still has, twelve cents to his name. “I was close to Skid Row, and I thought hoodlums were going to jack me for my kicks.” His report of the delusions he was experiencing while wandering the notorious Los Angeles district of homeless encampments is accurate. Foley left his Asics on the sidewalk for the ruffians to pick up, but miraculously he recovered the shoes before being delivered from the stressful situation by his mother and her boyfriend.

Holding the cigarette with his thumb and forefinger, Gaspers brings it to his lips and inhales.     

“I still don’t understand why you’re placing me in a home with a bunch of addicts. I don’t need drugs to get my kicks,” says Foley, slowly exhaling plumes of smoke through his nostrils.

“It’s not exactly a place for addicts, it’s a recovery home. Elysium House is a sanctuary for people with substance use issues and mental health disorders.”

I’m not neurotypical but I don’t have a mental illness. At times I just can’t help but go with the current. A recovery home is anathema to streaming. They’re machines for making puddles of gooey muck out of people. For stopping up the stream. Truth needs to stream if you’re going to lead an authentic life.  People living in recovery homes are often hypocrites. Steeled by righteousness but wracked by cravings. They keep the truth bottled up, the fact that oftentimes we need booze and drugs to stream. But once you become a drunk or junkie the only flow you become concerned about is the current of drink or junk through your blood stream. It’s no longer a means to flow, it’s the end of flow.  

“If I’m crazy and take the occasional drink, the last thing I need is to be trapped in a house with other crazy people who are fanatical about sobriety. They’ll skin me alive if I let them know that I’m the type that enjoys the occasional libation.”

Gaspers hands the cigarette back to the case worker, who says, “You’re the only client at the agency who I’ve heard refer to a drink as a ‘libation.’”

The word is derived from Liber, the name the Romans gave to the Greeks’ Dionysus, divinity of wine and revelry. From it we get words like “liberty,” also the Spanish libre which means “free,” and possibly libro, or "book," which makes sense since a good read is more likely to give you wings than an energy drink. I don’t think cats at Elysium House can appreciate lexical subtleties such as those.

The dwindling cigarette gets passed back to Gaspers, who concludes his silent sermon on etymology by saying, “I don’t think I can live with people who wouldn’t appreciate my use of that word.”

“Well, Foley, you don’t have an alternative. After you called your mother this morning, she contacted the office and told me you had been arrested again last night. For being drunk and disorderly. You’re lucky to be out of jail.”

I might’ve been drunk, but I wasn’t disorderly. I was exercising free speech. I was in the current. I was speaking truth to people at Venice Beach. I couldn’t help it if some passersby found it offensive. I’m not in jail because the cops know I was doing the right thing. 

“Let me call my mom on your phone. I’ll clear this all up.”

After a pause, Moses says, “She doesn’t want you staying with her anymore. She’s afraid of you.” The case manager is amazed by how little consideration this client has for a mother who puts up with her son’s countless lapses of good judgment. 

Gaspers flicks the cigarette into the path of an approaching car. Shit. Everyone I know is scared of me. I don’t have a choice. I’ll stay at the recovery home until I figure out what to do.

“Alright. Thanks for driving me to the store. What is it, about a couple miles back to Elysium House from here? I can walk there.”

Moses doesn’t trust Gaspers will return to the sanctuary he’s being offered. But he can’t force his client to stay at the recovery home.  

“No. It doesn’t make sense to walk to the house carrying groceries. Besides Foley, what they say about no one walking in L.A. is also true for Orange County.”

If more people did, L.A. and O.C. wouldn’t be the carmageddons they are. Their thoroughfares wouldn’t be rush hour parking lots. Traffic would stream as everything’s meant to.

“If you won’t accept the ride, I’ve got an all-day bus pass for you,” says the mental health worker, reaching into the bag where he keeps his laptop and other work-related items. “You can catch the 73 across the street, it’ll drop you off two blocks from the house.” 

Foley thanks the case worker and says, not without some insincerity, “I appreciate you doing everything you can to prevent me from being a loser with a capital L.”

“You’re not a loser Foley,” says the case manager, “and those men and women living in the home aren’t losers either. They’re people with priority needs. In that sense, you’re no different than they are. You sure you don’t want a ride back?”

“Nah, I’d like to get to know the new neighborhood, and the best way to do that is by foot. See you later.”

“I’ll drop by on Monday to see how you’ve settled in,” says Moses, getting into his car.

Gaspers is in the grocery store before Moses can check on him in his rear and side view mirrors.

As he walks into the air-conditioned supermarket, Foley asks a woman on her way out the time. 11:23 a.m. is the reply. Foley considers picking up a shopping basket, but instead waits to talk to an employee at the front of the store. He waits until the clerk has stopped bagging groceries.

“Can I get two bags, please. I’d like to triple ply the ones I just took to my car. They’re a nickel each, right?”

“Don’t worry about it,” says the clerk, disarmed by Gaspers’ convivial demeanor. “Help yourself,” she adds, motioning to the bag dispenser at a closed register.

I shouldn’t pay for them anyway. Something as priceless as convenience should be free. 

Gaspers fishes a dime from his pocket, then gives it to the teenage girl working her first job. She accepts it with a smile.

“Thank you and have a blessed day,” says Gaspers.  He then proceeds to pick up a shopping basket, place the bags in it and ambulates toward the refrigerated alcohol section, where he silently recites some lyrics with a bluesy melody. I’ve got a rich man’s thirst/and got no cash in my pockets. As he scans Grocery Emporium’s chilled beers, he repeats the lyric, this time in sotto voce. He picks up an expensive can from an artisanal West Coast brewery, momentarily presses it to his forehead, then cracks it open. Not daunted by the presence of a customer who joins him in the aisle, Foley steadily empties the can into his parched gullet. 

After he places the emptied container back on the shelf, he resolves the call-response blues lines by singing loud enough to be heard by the other customer.   

When I’m caught up in the stream/there ain’t no way to stop it.

Foley smiles at the man, who is a construction worker and has come to the market on his lunch break. The guy smiles back at the rule-flaunting stranger singing in the climate-controlled aisle. He asks Foley whether the beer is better than a leading German brand.

“I’ve always thought American companies should allow consumers to practice the ‘try before you buy’ approach,” says Foley, grabbing another can, opening it and offering it to the man, who takes the IPA in his hands, but thinks twice about drinking it.

“Go ahead. No pressure. Just don’t get caught.” says Foley with a wink.

The man looks both ways down the aisle, sees the coast is clear, and samples the beverage.  

“That’s definitely better tasting than the stuff I was going to buy,” he says, and adds a “thank you,” before taking another sip then returning the can to its place on the shelf.

“Oh, there’s no reason to let that go to waste,” says Foley as he reaches for the abandoned beer. The construction worker, grabbing an intact six-pack and surprised by the stranger’s intrepidness says, “I guess not.”    

Before he picks up his shopping basket, Foley tells the man, “Remember, bud. When in doubt, ‘sip before you tip.’” The construction worker raises the six pack in acknowledgement and heads toward the check-out register.

Foley knows he’s pushing his luck, but continues to imbibe the second can’s contents as he shops. He roams the aisles and fills the handbasket without experiencing the folie du doute, the acute indecisiveness, characteristic of his OCD. The voices he hears in his mind’s ear prompt him to pick up a roasted chicken. Perfect. He eyes a freshly baked cake and places it in the basket. It’s mine. As he bypasses the registers and proceeds to the supermarket’s sliding door exit, he picks up a bouquet of flowers. Keep going.

Once outside, Foley places the handbasket into a shopping cart. A strip mall security car comes to a halt in front of the curb where Foley is placing the stolen goods into the plastic bags he paid for with his unearned dime. 

Unphased, he proceeds to walk away from the scene of the petty theft but then hears a voice behind him call out, “Hey you, stop!” Foley, carrying his heisted goods, doesn’t cease from moving down the sidewalk adjacent to the supermarket, but a man and woman a few paces ahead of him stops in their tracks. The security officer gets out of his car and the Grocery Emporium employee, who Foley assumed was accosting him, points at the couple and says, “Officer, that’s them.”   

The officer asks the couple to sit on the curb. They comply. Foley watches the scene unfold as the supermarket employee explains that she witnessed the man put hygiene products into the woman’s oversized purse.

This is an act of gross injustice, thinks Foley, say something.   

“It’s not fair,” Foley begins, “that a corporation like Grocery Emporium literally steals hours from its employees lives in exchange for wages that are a pittance. It uses the profits made to line the pockets of shareholders instead of redistributing it amongst its hard-working employees. It expects you to pay out of pocket for stuff that’s required to keep up social appearances. It doesn’t want you stinking at work. Your fellow citizens don’t want you stinking on the bus or while you wait at the Motor Vehicles Department. Here these people are trying to wage the war on stink, a war the government and corporations should subsidize as they do the war on drugs or the war on crime, and what is their recompense? Apprehension and humiliation.”

The couple being arrested aren’t amused by the speech. Neither is the security guard who says to Foley, “You want me to have the cops book you for obstructing an arrest?”

“No sir, just practicing my right to free expression.”

“Take your soap box somewhere else before I get pissed off and send you, along with these confederates against stink, to the city jail.”

Foley snaps his heels together, gives the mustached mall cop a heil Hitler salute, and beats a grateful retreat from the scene of his crime.

As he does, he hears a soulful melody being played on a harmonica. His eyes shift in the direction the music is coming from and he sees a man sitting at the entrance to a thrift store about fifty yards from the Grocery Emporium. 

A seeing eye dog is seated next to the harmonica player, and there is a sign at the blind musician’s feet that reads, “Please let a black man eat.” After playing 7 bars of a blues rhythm, the harmonica player begins to sing,

Lord, help a poor man

Get on by and make ends meet

Lord, let a rich man

Not deny a brother a seat

And if you believe in God above                          

Oblige the sign that’s at my feet.

The minstrel is white. Foley is as impressed by the blind man’s audacious sense of humor, as he is by his crooning. 

Barriers impede currents. When people take chances, they dismantle impediments to freedom. It’s only by courting risk that we can break through walls of convention, of complacency.  

Foley places the cake he pilfered from the supermarket in front of the sightless man’s cardboard placard and resumes walking out of the mall parking lot toward the street.

As he crosses the boulevard, making his way to the corner bus stop, he sees the number 73 lumbering toward the intersection. He gets on the bus, finds a window-facing seat near the front and begins to devour the baked chicken he filched ten minutes ago. When he is finished, he discreetly wipes his hands on his pant legs.

Across from him sits a young woman who is speaking angrily into her phone. From the gist of the conversation, she appears to be having a lover’s quarrel. The exchange reminds Foley of the spats he always has with his girlfriend Sarah Lee. He stole her car last night and wonders if she is home, or whether she is with one of the several paramours he believes she has.

Love streams. It can’t be bottled up. When it isn't expressed, sickness results.

A few moments after the woman composes herself from the heated phone call, Foley says to her, “I know this is a weird request, but I don’t have a cell phone and my boyfriend hasn’t heard from me today and probably thinks I’m out cheating on him. Could I please call him?”

The woman regards him with a puzzled look, confirming that it is indeed a strange request, but she was just on the phone with a husband who was accusing her of infidelity. She regards Foley's hands, hesitates, but yields to her better nature and passes the phone to Foley.

Gaspers dials Sarah’s number. After four rings, she answers the line.

“Hello.” Sarah hears only the revving of the bus engine in the background. “Hello? Foley is that you?               

Gaspers does not respond to the questions. He disconnects from the call, and handing the woman back her phone says, “He didn’t answer.” 

The bus pulls up to Foley’s desired stop and as it does, he says to the woman, “Thanks. That was kind of you.” 

Karma is a current. Kindness responds to kindness.  

He places the flowers he carried onto the bus on the empty seat next to the charitable woman who allowed him to allay his suspicions. He says in parting, “You deserve these," then steps off the bus.