Written by Gil Gildner
If you want to meet the world’s most interesting fellow, I can point you in the right direction. He goes by the name of Eddie, plays in a ska band and works in a dilapidated pawn shop a couple blocks south of Sunset Boulevard. I can’t remember exactly how to get there. It was one of those places you don’t try to get to; you just stumble upon it. Like Oz. Or like Arkansas.So, I stumbled upon this place, opened the iron-barred door and walked into the cool. The outside world was a dish in which I, the casserole, was being slow-baked by the sun. There was a dusty row of amps against the wall. Of the dozens stacked there, only one was worth looking at: a little Marshall 1×12 practice amp from the early ’80s. Ninety bucks.I buddied up with Eddie and haggled the price down to 65 bucks (he didn’t charge tax, which I’m pretty sure is illegal). Eddie was a Jamaican, but he spoke like he came from Chicago. Eddie had dreadlocks. He had a floral shirt. He had bone earrings. Cargo shorts. Tattoos past imagination. Filthiest mouth in the entire Western hemisphere. He was all-round a pretty chill guy, and he told me I should come back after he gets off at 5. To hang, he said.No, I repeated to myself like a mantra, no way on this green earth will I come back at 5 to hang out with you bone-earringed, interesting Jamaican. No, I repeated silently, no, no, as I lugged out the Marshall and stuck it in my trunk. No. I can put two and two together. I see what you’re doing. I never took Eddie up on the offer ofhanging, once he got off work. I never regretted it either, to be honest, because I’ve never been attracted to the whole Rastafarian thing. Even though he was an awfully nice guy.Eddie is one of those people who scurries around on the face of the earth. Like you do. Like I do. The difference, though, is that he scurries around in the back alleys of Hollywood, while we scurry around Searcy or Murfreesboro or Hoxie. It’s shocking, really, if you think about it. We’re as much spectacles to people like him as he is to us.To us,he is the dreadlocked Rastafarian who listens to ska and probably drives a rusted ‘92 Camaro. To him, what are we? What am I? I’m just a skinny Southern kid with stubble and acne.After I lugged the amp into my trunk, I walked around the town a bit. I saw more people. I grabbed a really disgusting burger at a Carl’s Jr. and saw a caped Superman running down the sidewalk. Did he see my Converses or my Adam’s apple? I saw a tanned Italian on the corner of Sunset and Vine, disco dancing shirtless in the California sun (video exists on YouTube). Did he see a kid testing out film school, or a kid looking totally lost in a crazy West Coast alternate reality? I saw a suited gent drive by in a Lamborghini. Did he appreciate my Pink Floyd sticker or just laugh at how old my car is?You never know what people think when they look at you. Think about it.GIL GILDNER is a guest contributor for the Bison. He may be contacted atmgildner@harding.edu
