yustyoking

 

With the demise of the White Flint Mall, I find myself farther afield. I use Westfield Montgomery Mall off Democracy Boulevard. I park in the cavernous parking garage closest to the Super Mart. Mom has given me an eclectic shopping list of peaches (on sale, in season), chopped liver (a luxury), egg salad (another luxury), strawberries, her fave brand of Asian pot stickers, peanut butter ice cream from Maryland’s own Broom’s Bloom Dairy in Bel Air, north of Balto, and a list of veggies as long as the par-5 ninth hole at Congressional CC.

Naturally, I stop first at the Redbox kiosk outside the Mai Ling Chinese Restaurant to see what DVD’s are for sale. I once got a fortune cookie at the Mai Ling which said, “Even now your car is being towed.” At the kiosk, DVD’s cost $5 each plus tax. I never rent. I buy.  In the old days, you could pick up any studio’s used movie. Sadly, today, the choice of movies on sale no longer reflects the variety offered up for hire. Last month’s hits disappear forever into a mercantile fog of corporate distrust. Those DVD’s get sold at other outlets. Movies for sale in the big red box consist either of Disney features or C-movies. Period. Hey, Marvel—  which Disney bought for 4 billion dollars—  puts out some nice Avenger movies. I liked Disney’s The Lone Ranger.  Most B- and C-movies, however, leave me cold. Touching the screen, that’s all I see. Two school kids, a young boy and his sister, approach. They want to rent video games. I get out of their way, joking “Help! Help! I want an action movie and all I find are zombies!” The girl laughs. The boy rolls his eyes. No talking to strange men at the Mall!

What I don’t expect is to be approached by a 20-something lass in a sky-blue frock holding a folded white note. “Excuse me,” she says in a soft, southern drawl.

I’m a man. My first reaction is to register the cute face, the girlish figure, the pale blue eyes and blond hair. “She’s pretty,” I think, although her features are strangely young and undeveloped. My second reaction is to assume she’s lost.  Taking and unfolding her note, I expect it to ask “How do I get to Brandorff Helsing?” Instead, it says in a loopy handwriting reminiscent of an 11^th grader,

My name is Heather. I have a child and am unemployed. Please make a contribution toward diapers and baby formula. GOD BLESS YOU!

Succinct and to the point. She’s panhandling. Okay, the economy is in a downturn. The Jobs Section of the newspaper is only two and a half pages long and a third of those are tech jobs. Still, panhandling is somewhat unusual at Westfield Montgomery. People are more stand-offish, the shops indomitably upscale. One shouldn’t encourage panhandling, obviously, but since she’s pretty, I smile and ask, “Did you write this?”

Widening her blue eyes provocatively, she says “Yes.”

“Great handwriting!”

“Oh! Oh, wow! Can I have some money?” she lisps, a smile as bright as a sunflower filling her face. Her teeth are pearly white.

“Well,” I say, trying to formulate an innocuous way to say no.

“Hey, man! What are you sayin’ t’ my girlfriend?” growls her rowdy boyfriend. In scruffy jeans, leather boots and a baggy gray tee, he approaches me aggressively, all ratty brown hair and acne, stubble on his cheeks.

“I was telling her ‘no way,’ ” I chuckle. Panhandling is one crime, shakedown another.  I know human nature hasn’t changed, but this all seems so 1970’s.

“Maybe ya wanna give us some money,” the young man insists, his fists clenched. “T’ make up for your rude behavior!”

“Somehow I don’t think so,” I tell them evenly. They seem extremely young. “My mom sent me to buy groceries. Bye bye!”

“I oughta punch you out!” he exclaims, sidling up to me.

“Billy— ” says the girl.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I ask him. “You don’t know anything about me! You can get seriously hurt accosting strangers in this mall! I’m retired military. You don’t want the grief I can provide! We snipers hate anything even as imprecise as golf! You think I’m going to stand here listening to your garbage? Think again. Goodbye!”

I walk away.

I’m inside Super Mart, standing in front of the frozen food section looking for pot stickers, when I notice out of the corner of my eye a police officer approaching with my hillbilly antagonist. Who points at me and declares accusingly, “Yeah, that’s him!” Another policeman is coming up behind them with the girl. She has a red bruise on her cheek that is rapidly swelling. Her frock looks the worse for wear.

“Don’t look at me,” I tell the officers, indicating my shopping cart. “I’m just here buying groceries.”

“You got an ID?” the first policeman asks, almost apologetic.

“Sure! But let’s not get browned off just because Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show.”

Full disclosure: I’m having trouble taking these clowns seriously. My bad. I can’t relate.

“That you? Jon Stewart?”

“Hardly.” I give him my driver’s license and wait, asking the second officer, “What’s up?”

“Who let the bras out?” he drawls, pointing at Heather. “You’re accused of assault.”

“Hello-o!” I retort. “I’m just here food shopping.”

“This young man says he saw you pound on his girlfriend.”

“You know what the Romans say,” I remind them.“ ‘One witness is no witness.’ ”

“That may be,” insists the cop doggedly, “but we are here in America. Somebody hit this young lady!”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it wasn’t me.”

“Ya should cuff him!” insists Billy the boyfriend, lunging at me angrily.

“Whoa there, pardner,” admonishes the cop. “Hold your horses!” He blocks the guy with his arm.

“I’m just pissed because o’ what he did t’ mah girl!”

“I’m sure you are,” agrees the cop, looking at me like I’m some sort of dirtbag.

You know, watching the police over the years as they man speed traps, seize people’s money and shoot unarmed civilians, I have lost all faith in the mofo’s. Call it self-preservation, but wherever possible, I avoid them. Fighting crime, the police consider everyone else a dangerous criminal.

The first officer is busy on his tablet, scoping out my particulars. The second cop peers over his shoulder. “You vets think military service gives you the right to beat up on people,” insists the first cop.

“Says you. I’m not down with that.”

“What kind of name is Feingold?” asks the second cop. “You Latino?”

The first cop and I look at each other and roll our eyes. “It says here an FBI informant heard you asking about white powder,” he tells me.

“White powder means pristine skiing conditions.”

All four of them gawk at me like I come from outer space.

“You ever waterski?” asks the second cop. “You got any drug money on you?” He is all but panting.

“I refuse to answer,” I only half joke, “because anything I say can be used against me in a court of law.”

“Forget it, Roger,” his partner interjects. “These military heroes expect us to thank them for their service.” He speaks with a chip on his shoulder the size of Mt. Rushmore. Only 1% of the people serve and there’s still rivalry among the corps. Eventually, he hands me back my ID. “Did you accost this young lady?” he asks.

“I spoke with her. She handed me a note asking for money. I certainly didn’t hit her!”

“Let’s go look at the restaurant’s security video,” he suggests.

Abandoning my cartload of groceries, we all troop over to the Mai Ling. I don’t say what I’m thinking: I know the owner. A tough Cantonese lady from Hong Kong, she isn’t going to be very helpful. Sure enough, she listens for a minute to the policemen’s request and squawks, “Is middle of working day! You want see video, you come tomorrow. I no turn off cameras now, you mess up whole system. I need pay to have reprogrammed. No good!”

“Ma’am— ” says the first cop.

“No, no, no! You come inna my place, okay! Lookit my security system? No! I know my rights. You get warrant!”

“Ma’am, we’re trying— ”

But she has already dismissed us with a wave of her hand, turning to ring up a sale.

“It would help if you had a witness,” the cop mutters to me, not wanting to let it go.

I look around. “Holy moly!” I exclaim. “There they are! Those two kids. They were at Redbox the same time as me. Maybe they saw something! Let’s ask them.”

The kids are walking with their mom, carrying purchases in tony shopping bags.

“They’re minors,” grouses the second cop. He’s holding Billy the boyfriend by one arm to keep him from throwing a punch at me. This Punch and Judy Show is getting very old, very fast. If I had left frozen food in my grocery cart, it would have melted by now.

“What’s going on?” asks the mother, eyeing the police officers suspiciously.

“Can we ask your children a question?”

“What kind of question?”

“Were they at the Redbox machine?”

The boy is still holding a disc in its red plastic cover. “Whaddya want?” asks his sister with the serious mien of young people.

“Did you guys see this gentleman talk with this lady?”

The kids look at each other, as if to say, oh boy, now we’re in for it!

“Yes.”

“Did he strike her or push her? Were there harsh words?”

“Not that we saw. They just talked. Then that other man approached them. And he sounded angry.”

“Did you hear what they talked about?”

“No. We didn’t do anything!”

“Okay, officers, that’s quite enough, thank you!” intervenes their mom frostily.

The cops give me helpless looks. I can almost hear them complaining, “Nobody helps the men in blue!”

“Are you a transsexual?” the sister asks Billy. He looks like he’s ready to explode.

“Let’s take it outside,” sighs the first policeman. Leaving the kids and their mom, the five of us walk out to the police cruiser.

Heather, bless her heart, explains that she and Billy are traveling cross-country. “If y’all let us skedaddle, ya nevah gonna hear hide nor hair from us ag’in,” she assures us.

“I don’t think you’ve got a case,” I tell the Polizei. I keep expecting them to pull a gun or do something equally stupid, but what with Billy being such a hothead, the rest of us are on our best behavior. “I won’t comment on their scam,” I tell the officers, “but I certainly never hit anyone. I have a Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure. Bayer aspirin is my friend. I think you’re gonna have to call it a day. Before I phone my abogado.”

“See! I told you he was Latino!”

Very regretfully, they let me go. Amazingly, returning to Super Mart, I cannot find my shopping cart. It’s gone! Who would walk off with a shopping cart half filled with produce? When I go to complain to the manager, I find it parked by her office. “Your cart?” she demands, an angry Turk. “Don’t leave it sitting around my store! You shop, you pay, you go home!”

Listen, fuck all, my life isn’t exactly empty! I’m trying to sell a movie screenplay entitled “Trumped!”, but I’m on my own here. Unlike my fave actress Rooney Mara, my mom’s family doesn’t own the Pittsburgh Steelers and my dad’s family doesn’t own the New York Giants. My folks could have owned half of La Jolla out in California. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.  When the land went up for sale forty years ago, in 1975, my mom decided she didn’t want the headaches and paperwork. So they didn’t buy the mountainside. While her contemporaries left their children flush, mom and I currently live like schlubs: rich enough to get by, but only by counting our pfennigs.

Nobody is inviting me on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

My younger bro’ Tim in Abilene is composing Music Inspired by a Description of the Logline to the Manuscript to the Film “Trumped!” Hugging his synthesizer, he says, “This soundtrack and $5 will get me a regular coffee at Starbucks.”

The film’s main character “George” is a man, but if the producer wants, I’ll rewrite “George” as a woman, a dog, a robot or a CGI monkey. I’m flexible that way.

Here’s the trailer: “Their love is wetter than a tsunami, hotter than a volcano! Even if you never see it, their molten passion oozes off the movie theater screen into a seat near you. Warm. Sticky. Pulsing. In Cinemascope and Technicolor! Ouch! Gotcha! Now gimme back that microphone!”

Meanwhile, my old classmate Eddie Edwards, a bonafide Hollywood screenwriter, doesn’t have time to chat. He emailed me the suggestion I send out a two-page “treatment” to lit agents and production companies . He also thinks I should post outrageous content on YouTube to get the attention of the industry.

Take it from me, if you don’t strike gold when you’re young and in your prime, you’ll spend the rest of your days playing catchup.

Now this happens. I feel like I accidently hit the pause button.