Page 7 - Contrast1966

After that I just stood in line. And watched the people. Watch-

ing people is much better than reading newspapers. People are
real. News really isn't. It's over when you read it. Or it's somewhere

else. It's all an illusion. People are here and now and real. There

were all kinds of people in line. All sizes, and colors, and types. And

they were all dressed different. I mean it wasn't like watching a

parade with uniforms and all. .

A half an hour later I was standing in this alley a half a block
from the museum -door, I looked in my wallet. All I had was a five

dollar bill. To last the week. Maybe the rest of my life. I asked

the guy beside me if it cost anything. He said no. I was glad and I

put my wallet away. I was still standing in the alley, and I looked

down it and saw this old lady dressed in black limping up it. Soon
she reached the line.

, But she didn't walk to the end of it. She just stepped into it. Right

into line ahead of me. Now I'd been waiting a half an hour already.

And this old lady just stepped into line ahead of me. What she real-

ly did was to start to talk to these people ahead of me. And she

worked her way in line beside them. Like she was with them. I know

they felt bad. I did. .

That made me mad. I mean I don't know why this old lady

thought she was so great that she could just get right in line. Without

waiting. I mean I didn't owe her anything. At least not because she

was old and I was young. I'm not Chinese.

Any kid who has ever had an adult waited on before him-when

he was there first-simply because they were adults and he was just

a kid, knows how I felt. Once I ordered a hamburger at a lunch coun-

ter at a drug store, and while it was cooking I went over and looked
at the magazines. And this jerk of a druggist told me, leave them

alone, kid. So I left. I just walked out. Leaving the girl at the
lunch counter with a half-cooked hamburger and no customer. May-
be she could refreeze it. I didn't care. I never went back there again.
Maybe it went bankrupt. I hope so.

Well, that was how I felt. I mean I didn't owe her anything.

Her generation didn't do so damn well with the world. Nobody's
has so far.

Eventually I got in the museum. But this lady was still a head
of me so I didn't care about the Scrolls. When I went outside there
was still a line to get in. When I crossed the alley I looked up it to see

if there were any more old ladies dressed in black coming up it. I
didn't see any, but they're always there.