He wasn't looking at me. He snuck a few fearful glances now and then, not knowing or not caring that I was on to him. He broke off before making eye contact.
It was obvious that he was thinking about me, and thinking hard.
Why was I on his mind? It's complicated. Almost a century of tightly woven nonsense. Part herd mentality, part old-fashioned bigotry and part outright greed I guess, at its root. But this man in particular? I was strange to him. I was the other, the oddball, the dope smoker. Weed is what I mean. Cannabis.
It's interesting, even now I can hear the muffled sound of minds snapping shut. It was the same with this man in the black suit.
I was to be feared. Hated. You want to do this criminal thing you enjoy? Buck the system? Unacceptable. Because authority. And there was more; a plague of myth on his fevered mind. To him I was doomed to either a cage or a gutter from my first toke onward. His life's twisted goal was to save me from the latter by making sure of the former.
But he couldn't. I was too quick for him. And there was another herd mentality at work, one much older and wiser, one which said live and let live. He was not immune to this, but it had no effect whatever on his mood or his direction. So he only followed, frustrated. And he lagged further and further behind.
I've never met him, as I said he keeps his distance, but I am almost certain we'd get along were it not for this one stupid thing.
Today, he follows still. Like the proverbial thrice-swatted wasp. Or a moaning zombie. Shuffling along, doing his best, as he sees it. Proud in his woeful ignorance. Poor fool.
He used to shout a lot more, but he's grown much quieter lately. That is a good thing.
crossposted at The Hammershop