Walking stories

An unexpected meeting

April 25, 2023

Walking stories,  written since the beginning of the pandemic, have focused on the two pals at  opposite ends of a leash – Greenberg and I  – on fellow pedestrians and on unexpected things we come upon while en route to nowhere in particular.   

For example: At the sight of a naked man strolling on Haight Street the afternoon of 4:20, a day that is to Haight Street as Yom Kippur is to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, Greenberg went nuts barking at the  bouncing balls of the jaunty boulevardier. Nice mental image, but there’s no conclusion to that, no lesson to  be drawn.  And it just shows the dog, who struts around naked, too, is a hypocrite. Also, right now I am feeling philosophical. 

So  today’s essay is about the real activity that dominates everything on my walks:  proving to myself that I am a serious person by thinking.  (For Greenberg, of course, it’s sniffing; I can’t guess whether he’s thinking too, perhaps wondering if a dog on Page Street slighted him or if his having growled at  a puppy was taken  as an insult.) 

Anyway, this afternoon’s musings were dominated by the news.  I wasn’t thinking about the war in the Ukraine or which  political heavyweight might have the guts to inform Dianne Feinstein that it is time to give a regal bye-bye wave to her constituents, to sit back and let medals be pinned on her chest, laurels placed on her head.  I was thinking about what was immediate.

 If there is an afterlife, surely it has a VIP section, monitored by women in black dresses toting iPads crammed with lists of authorized guests.   Once arrived, what would Harry Belafonte and Dame Edna Everage talk about there?   

First off, of course,  is “Did you have a rough time getting here?”  Naah, traffic was light.  Deservedly, Belafonte had been beatified by the lefty folkie  boomer crowd (count me in) years ago, so he is welcomed to the lounge with a swish of the well-toned arm of the monitor behind the front desk.  

The importance of Dame Edna, who made a career out of underlining and undermining class differences, specialized in satire, is not so easily accessible to the sort of people who choose to do the work of letting people in and keeping people out.    But she arrives like the peer she is, carrying an armload of gladiolas, enough to dress up the place for everybody there.  Also, her aura of self-confidence allows her to sail past any naysayers.  She isn’t the sort of woman to be bothered by bouncers.

After that initial conversational foray, “I love what you’re wearing” is never out of place.  I’m assuming that the newly arrived get to wear a garment of choice.  Even though Belafonte died at 96, he shows up as he had been in his prime, wearing a cotton shirt unbuttoned to the navel, his smooth chest gleaming in reflected  rays shooting from his halo.  Once she arrives — Belafonte died first, but Dame Edna’s route was more circuitous, so she’s slower to reach the destination — Dame Edna won’t  be able to keep her eyes off it.

At last, having off-loaded her posies to the ladies-in-waiting,  Dame Edna bursts in and begins promenading this way and that. She is stuffed into one of her understated ensembles, an outfit that features multi-colored ornamentation with sequins, feathers and golden brooch bearing an image of Margaret Thatcher.  Visually, she’s a mash-up of an aging hoochy-koochy dancer and a real estate saleswoman who’s just nabbed her company’s star-of-the-month award.     “This old thing?” she says to Harry, lifting a beefy hand to the side of her rouged cheeks. 

At the time of his passing, Harry Belafonte was 96 years old.   Dame Edna (Barry Humphries) was 89.  Neither would talk about age, but the specific numbers represent  a good spread for potential romance.

“Are you interested in joining any groups here?” she asks, flashing a coquettish smile.  “We might have some fun playing together.  Pickleball? Mah jongg? Pinochle?” 

“I don’t much like games,” he says.  “I have devoted my life to fighting racism, to equal rights for all,  and to  the pursuit of social justice.”

“How about ballroom dancing?” she asks.  “I could tuck a rose between my teeth and you and I would make a beautiful tango couple.”

“I don’t need a dance partner,” he says. “There were times when I would slither across a stage, make a facial expression that the ladies used to say was  ‘come-hither,’  and sway to a beat that they called  ‘calypso.’ Fans thought if they liked that rhythm, it was proof that their progressive credentials were in order.”

“My credentials are always in order,” she says, reaching down to tug at the edge of her girdle, then fingering a string of gigantic pearls cascading over her bosom, “so maybe later, possums.” She looks around as though searching.  “Do you think there’s any tea around here?” she asks.  “I could do with a cuppa.” 

“I’m hoping there are some reclining chairs in this section,” he says. “It’s been a long day and I need some sleep. Daylight comes and I’ll want to go home.”