A Kiss From The Golden Buddha, M. J. Wolper [good e books to read txt] 📗

Carlos had tan skin short cropped loosely kinky hair and dark brown eyes he was very slim about 5’9 and had black sneakers. All I could think (not perfect for an interview).


“Don’t worry” Carlos yells at me through the loud street sounds “It’s not far” “ I just need to meet with them” “Oh” I said, “you just need to fill out paper work?” He looks at me as if I said something in another language. “Huh?” “Your w-2 forms?” “He just needs to meet me” he repeats as if I misunderstood him. Which as it turns out I did. I decide to shut my mouth and hope things don’t get too confusing for me.

We ended up only three blocks away from the farmers market. Our destination was an empty storefront on a side street. Carlos pushes the door open and walks right in. I am amused by his boldness but a bit nervous. In the back of the space there was a long counter and behind that a glassed in kitchen. Carlos leaves me in the front and goes behind the counter. Suddenly three men in suits come out and greet Carlos like a visiting dignitary. The four of them are talking and pointing toward the kitchen. Then Carlos heads toward a hole in the bricks and says, “When will it be ready?” “Don’t worry it’ll be ready next week.” The tallest man said.

Carlos then turns around and walks out the door. I am confused and run after him. The streets are so crowded I can’t see before me. When I get to the corner Carlos is nowhere to be seen. At first I stand there and wait for him but then a feeling comes over me I know I will never see him again. I start walking again like I have somewhere to go. I miss Carlos because he gave me a momentary purpose even if I had no idea what it was. I start to understand the aimless life I have lead. I’m surprised at myself I am usually very depressed by my life but today I only take a careless note and move forward. I start thinking to myself are any of us moving forward backward or even moving at all? Is all this an idea we were told about and took it as our own? Like my following Carlos? It all makes as much sense.

It’s getting late but I don’t want to go home. Suddenly I see a man running very fast and a woman is trying to run after him “Help” she cries breathlessly. I turn and see the man almost next to me so I cry out to him “ look” He looks and then falls real hard. Thoughts are rushing through my head I hope he’s not hurt? Did he do something wrong? Why did I do this? The woman rushes up to me “ He pushed down an old lady” she says to me. “I was just walking and I saw what he did,” she says “Your great “she said “really” I’m amazed at myself too. It usually takes me some careful thought before I do anything. I always see so many possibilities. This time I just acted. How strange. We only stood together for a minute or two before a crowd surrounded us. The bad guy as I like to call him was still on the ground. I was worried about him. But now I hoped the old woman was ok too. The police came down the street in three police cars down the wrong way on the narrow side street we were on. That struck me as profound too.

The police end up calling an ambulance for the bad guy even though the guy did sit up and tried to run off. I asked the police about the old woman. The police either didn’t hear me or perfected ignoring the public. My new friend is named Beth and she could talk all day about anything. This was not an unappealing trait in a companion for me so I instantly liked her. Beth kept on the police till they coughed up the information about


Mrs. Rudge. We were told to sit in the backseat of one of the police cars. Both Beth and myself spent this time talking. Our conversation moved from our situation to how much has changed in the city to a brief outline of our lives. As it turned out Beth was an actress who almost never got any parts. I have always found myself attracted to actors for that very reason. There are very few people who dedicate themselves to something so completely as the actor to a life of rejection and struggle with so much joy. Here in New York most restaurants have out of work actors working as waiters and bartenders. During the holidays they work in retail and almost always do street promotions and parties. Beth tells me funny stories of her many jobs and bosses. My morale is boosted and I don’t care that I’m sitting in the backseat of a police car for over an hour.

The two policemen get into their patrol car as if we weren’t there. The two men are talking to each other and to a voice on their intercom thing. “Ok bring them in,” the voice says. It’s the only thing I understand because mostly everything else seemed like it was spoken in a strange foreign tongue. I look at Beth and she at me and she smiles like it’s all a joke. When we get to the preicent the police just get out of the car and walk up the stairs in front of us. It almost feels like they don’t expect us to come in I say to Beth. “They need to work on their customer service” she still with a smile on her face. So we walk up the stairs and into the lobby of ciaos. We don’t know were our police men are so I walk over to the main desk and wait till someone looks at me. “We are witnesses to an attack on an old woman” I say. “Ok” the young man said and walked away. “What is that?” I say to Beth. “They do this all the time,” she says. “But we don’t “I say. “They don’t know how it feels not to know,” she says. So there we are sitting in a badly lighted room with streams of police dragging in various people who look more down trodden than the last person. Beth and I witnessed the booking process and we saw the holding area. Beth looks at me “I was once arrested” she said “for what?” I ask.” Mostly for talking back to a police officer.” She says. I told her how my view of the police went from casual respect to distrust over the years. “Do you remember the Tompkins Square riot?” I asked her? “Wow” she said, “you were there?” “I lived a block away and saw the protesters being chased and beaten”. “Don’t say anymore here,” she said nervously. “These guys don’t need much to turn things around on you”. “It’s sad, “ I said because” they really have a dangerous and important job’. “Yeh” she said “but it does things to them.”

While we were talking a small man runs up to us. “Sorry sorry” he says “You guys had to wait long?” We looked at him and said, “No not long.” “Ok great follow me”. We follow detective Vos ( as we later find out his name) to a small badly lit room and sat around what looked like a school desk. He takes out a laptop and starts to look for something in his files. “There it is” He starts to rattle off questions to both of us at the same time. It was amazing how he was able to keep everything clear and even remind us of what we just said. Detective Vos had everything done in about ten minutes.


When we left the prescient we were on our own. I was worried about what would happen when we no longer had a common goal. But Beth didn’t miss a beat. “I know a great place for Indian.” “Lead away” So we just talked on and on.

Suddenly Beth said, “I didn’t mean to be rude but I was worried about the riot stuff in the prescient.” “I understand” I said, “If I was arrested I would be cautious too”. “I was young and just came to the city” “I came from Connecticut it’s not like I didn’t know the city we would visit all the time.” My grand parents still lived in a five bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side” I used to think my father was crazy moving us out of the city but he felt it was safer for a family. “ My childhood was a bit claustrophobic everyone knew everyone” I love the city because you could be what you want and no one cares. “What do you think?” She asked me. “Well I am a rare bird I was raised in the city my whole life” “It’s funny when I lived in the East Village there was a sense of community” “It only lasted for a while because the neighborhood became trendy” “Today I can walk down some streets and I don’t recognize anything” It’s a bit like the Twighlight Zone” “On Avenue A there is a Gap” I can’t wrap my head around that.” “My childhood neighborhood has become Disneyland ”. “Was it really dangerous?” She asked me with genuine curiosity in her voice. “ Yes and no” “You needed to be aware of who was who.” “We learned from bitter experience” “Our neighbor had us ripped off” “He knew too much about the crime and was hanging out with local drug addicts” “You had to be pretty far gone to rip us off we never had anything” “The police waited hours to stop by and do a report” “Yes we were ripped off twice and had all our sad possessions taken from us” Both times it was a drug addict that did it”. How do you know that? She asked. “Easy the first time they drank all our cool aid and ate all my Halloween candy” “They have a sweet tooth.” The second time my mother passed the two of them in the hall and looked right at them” “That’s terrible.” She said, “Yes when ever I hear about drug dealers and addicts I am filled with dread”. Why do you say that? Because I have seen the damage it does to people and neighborhoods” I have seen people killed” I also know it costs society billions but most importantly costs in lives in this country and other poor countries” We should legalize it” I said. “But won’t that just cause more problems?” “Make more addicts?” she said, “Well we need to break the back of the gangs and corrupted officials then we can work on prevention” “Just say “No” just doesn’t hack it if you’re poor with no options”.

“Sounds like you look at things from every angle “she said I felt it was a strange statement and was not sure I understood it. I then just nodded at her. It always works when you run out of things to say. I loved the fact that Beth could move on to other subjects with great ease. We arrived at the restaurant as if almost by magic. We just stopped in front and walked in.