Walking with Strangers.
My thoughts as others took me to their lives.
By Mark William Darus
Taking a crushed gravel path barely three feet in width to waters edge. Hoping for shots I’ve yet to take of glistening rock and bubbling waters. I soon realized I’d spend more time listening than shooting. When my photos and P:SA hit the net, electrically, others shared viewpoints.
I’ve always been a sociable person, bidding a good day, great night, happy morn to anyone that met my eyes. Taking this to mind, I have always believed: ‘We are all teachers and students to one another. What they express to us we can grow from. The words we speak to them can help, perhaps aide their suffering mind and guide them. Dare I say, help them take stock in what they have to give as they do us? A grand place to be as one feeds another for their quest for being here.
Parasites?
Perhaps. But what can humanity say living in the USA that isn’t parasitic in its very nature?
Living here, we’re all no different than the very prostitutes, well dressed hookers from legal dating services and straight-up crack whores on the street most dismiss and speak down about to others. Yeah, that statement might cause some of you to gasp and say otherwise. Fine if you do so, I frankly don’t care. Who amongst us, at least here in the United States isn’t selling themselves in one way, shape or form? Do most of us not value our time for dollars and salaries, benefits? Don’t we value benefits and vacation time?
Can one of you tell the difference between any of us here and the life of a whore? Is it Christianity, Judaism, Buddha, Islam, or a host of other organized beliefs or some moral sense of being that states this is horribly wrong?
Here goes: The hooker sucks into them what others have to give for payment. They do this minutes at a shot over the course of their day. Most people spend many hours a day taking in the bullshit that hurts their spirit, feelings and take the advice of others to sooth them, no different than a whore, proclaiming: Suck it up!
Since July 2012 I’ve gone on a great many treading into nature and industrial landscapes paths. These are a few things people shared with me.
Shooting Arcelor Mittal Cleveland Steel Works, I had a woman approach me about a mile from Steelyard Commons. I was standing in knee-high weeds and poison ivy wearing shorts and sandaled feet. She was dressed in the tiniest of shorts that did not cover dark pubic hair running down her inner thighs and a hot-pink tube covering her breasts. Noticing bonelike fingers placed soundly on her hips, their nails chipping hues that once matched her skimpy top, being a Hood-Rat, I knew where this would go.
“Hey, Hon. Want to take a roll in the grass?”
“This ain’t grass, darlin’. This is weeds and nasty Ivy. You want to risk that?” My stomach began to violently churn about. Tied in knots only experienced briefly when kicked in the nuts.
“Oh yeah, babeeeeee! Let’s fuck!”
“Nah, I’m busy, sweetpea,”
“You cop?!?”
Beginning to stare away from her, grinning sickly, I said, “would a cop do this?” I then turned my back from her while cocking my head so she could see. I placed my hands below my belly, just under my waste line. I made a few gasps, body beginning to writhe about, I blew bodily fluid from me.
“Damn Taco Bell to hell!” I said as I puked my stomach to weeds and other things. I would have doubled over and fell if she hadn’t taken me into her arms from behind me, hands across my chest.
“Y’ain’t Jones’ng baby. I know this. No addict talks like you. D’ats fo-show.” she spoke behind me as she went into ghetto-speak.
Thinking as I do , ‘okay, gonna upchuck in front of a stranger. How cool is that???’
I asked her to release me so I could hit the Earth on my knees and finish my guts desire. She did, but I did feel her hands take the small of my waist, maintaining contact. I heard the rens of the mills overhead cranes and trains bay sincere warnings to others they’d cross. Smelling July foliage, coke gas and my very own puke, my odd mind thought, ‘who is this woman that holds me?”
Turning to her, my beard covered with spent burritos, refried beans and whitish froth, eyes watering. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a roll of Scott Towels half wides. Still on knees, she crouched toward me, her green eyes boring into mine. So gently she wiped my face, clearing it.
Sirens of the mills overhead cranes and trains bay sincere warnings to others they’d cross. Smelling July foliage, coke gas and my very own puke, my odd mind thought, ‘who is this woman that holds me?”
“Let me do this,” she quietly said to me, reaching into her backpack once again. She pulled out a bottle of Aramis cologne.
“No! Sorry! You wouldn’t happen to carry the Jenn Aniston fragrance, would you?” I am such an ass. I could smell like a man all the time, but I do like Jen’s Perfume. I have never smelled this scent on any human that had any interest in me whatsoever.
Recoiling, leaning tiny well shaped ass to the backs of her heels, smiling, she puts her right hand into the pink and black backpack now nestled in the weeds and such.
I have no idea why, but this woman so many would label an insignificant whore, begins to cry. So emaciated is she, so svelte, so very fragile. Her skeletal right hand pulls the smell of my wanting.
“Should I shoot this above us?”
“yes, Please do so,” I say as I place my hands on her hips as I rise to meet her fully.
She sprayed Jen above us. So delightfully sweet, the smell of light flowers amongst that of barf, weeds and the many foul men she’d know this day.
“Day by Day,” I threw out there to her as she yanked me closer.
“Three things I pray,” her eyes, face brightening, lips curling happily. She began to clap her hands.
“Day by day, oh dear lord, three things I pray…” I respond.
Violently, tossing her dirty hair backward, seagulls screeching and mixtures of perfume, weeds and upchuck fill the air, they begin to sing together.
“To see more clearly…” we sing in time with one another, bodies connected. I have her hips met with mine as our chests lightly touch. Our spit hits each others face. Cherishing this moment in time, I take her saliva into my mouth as she does mine.
“Day by Day!” Clapping in rhythm we sing. Godspell.
WHOOOOOOUP WOOOOOOOOUP!
She and I look over our shoulders and find a Cleveland Police car and two cops looking at us. Standing tall in their blues as the sun strolls to the West, winding this another chronicle for their hooker diaries, they asked: “Stand at attention, please.” a rookie asks.
“What are you doing?” the senior Cop inquires.
Her and I, both fully dressed, take each others hands as we rose facing them. My eyes and hers never strayed from each other. I saw so many brake lights splash as their drivers the red and blues with my peripheral vision.
She cocked her head to me as she said, “That’s what dreams are made of….”
Following her lead as she did mine. I screamed, “ WE BELONG IN A WORLD WHERE ALL MUST BE STRONG, THAT ‘S WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF!”
“AND IN THE END, WE WILL DEFEND , CUZ THAT’S WHAT LOVE IS MADE OF,” Her voice hitting the brilliance of that of an opera singer.
We sang Van Halen as we did GodSpell. Smiles, bodies and eyes never leaving each others as the cops dismissed up as they didn’t want to deal with the paperwork.
“So baby dry your eyes, and all the tears you’ve cried,”
Twin Black and White Challengers heading down the road away from her and I, their v-8 exhaust growling as it goes away like an unwanted bee getting quiet.
Catching her eye in mine, we begin to laugh. In my life, so seldom do I encounter such locking. Allowing them to be the deer in your headlights.
We undressed each other in tall grass and weeds. We embraced. We did not make love or have sex. We did stare at each others forms.
“Visions of an empty room,” we whispered to each other.
“Just spread your broken wings, we’ll get higher and higher….”
Who knows what any of us will find……..
I pulled her naked body to mine. Her thighs and hips sparking blue arcs with their connecting as they touched me. Drawing back, her standing nipples dancing across my chest, we rose and stood in RA’s clear fading light.
She says: “If I could love-”
“I know you do or would if you could.” I conclude
“You are?” her voice nearly choking, face contorting.
“I am no different than you,” I say to her as I lift her face to look and seek sky.
We sing Day by Day for nearly 90 minutes til her phone calls to her. Another client desiring her attention.
We part
She may be a whore.
I am no stranger in my walk than Hers. Hers is cap'd because she has earned my respect.
This entry goes...
i talk to her from time to time. We embrace and kiss.
I Walk with Strangers. Do you walk at all?
Mark William Darus 10112012