The Itch

Saturday night, I'm all dressed up to go to a party on the East Bay. Catch the Pittsburg Bay Point train and a window seat. A very nicely dressed boy comes on - forget which station - and sits next to me. He has a Gucci shopping bag, black suit and shiny shoes, but he's quite young from what I can tell. The Gucciboy takes out a small pamphlet and starts reading.

I felt an itch on my leg.

So I bent over to scratch it.

The Gucci boy saw me, thought something dropped lunged forward to pick "it" up for me.

"Something dropped??"
"Oh! no, no I just all of a sudden had an itch on my leg - I uh. ... scratched it...."
"Oh I see. ... Isn't that weird - when you all of a sudden get an itch somewhere. It comes out of nowhere. Where do those itches come from?"
"Yes!! I know!!!", I said, "Where do they come from? But you know what I figured out? That if I have an itch and I make myself not scratch it then it eventually goes away."
"No!! REALLY!!!"
"YES!"

- The Gucci boy decided it was time for him to share with me his pamphlet - it was a book on Zen Buddhism -

"I want to show you a quote I just read - it's really interesting!"

- The train enters an underground tunnel and all sound muffles out. A skater boy comes in from another car with his skate board in one hand and a fat book in another. Skaterboy stands at the doors and opens the book. Gucciboy finds the quote and starts reading. The train shakes and rattles. Skaterboy's voice is challenged by the noise of the train as he recites from his book, the Bible. With passion and angst he proclaims God Almighty!! Then slaps the book shut and exits just as the train calms to the next stop.

Gucci boy and I look to each other in silence...

"I wonder if he was doing that for us or for himself", I said softly.

"I don't know"

Gucciboy read on in his pamphlet something about reality not really being real, tells me this is his stop and to have a nice night. He takes his Gucci gift bag.

This dark mysterious young man vanished as quickly as he came. And I wondered if he was just a figment of my imagination.