chapter 11

when i was nineteen years old i drove 240 miles one day
to take my girlfriend-a country gal-to see the box office
classic :"the elephant man''...i couldnt help but thinking
how beautiful she was in comparison...shit , she was beautiful
compared to anyone , really...the pain that he must have
had to have gone through...so different and so vulnerable...an
easy target , as he was a perfect display of how most feel
inside...to attack such a man would be to attack our own
fears...the fears that we attempt to hide like homosexual
feelings constantly being repressed into our blood stream
and pushed into the caverns of our souls...like the desire
to suck on a womans tit and pretend she is your mother nurturing
you in the way mom was supposed to yet never did .

''the elephant man''was a prophetic voice...revealing to us
the truth of our condition...how pathetic we really are...to
love such a man is the beginning of self love and discovery...to
despise him is to despise ones self...the judgment of god
is made manifest...to anyone with the wisdom to see it...and
with judgment is the possibility of healing...though this
road ls seldom embraced.

on the streets of the city of nice , i saw ''the elephant
man"...or at least one with the same affliction...his pain
i could actually feel 100 meters away...i wanted to take
his picture but my heart was too broken to lift the camera...when
i look out to the ocean i see my sadness...as i stare at
his broken , deformed , pulverized body i see my loneliness...yet
i am fully aware that this is not about merits... it is about someone
who will never be heard...and who probably has insights
that could cause the earth to shatter...he has seen what
the world is like when no one has anything at all to gain
by treating one with dignity...all by himself he has reduced
the human race to the very thing that most spend virtually
all their energy avoiding...reality...this man knows no
games of manipulation or of :"climbing the company ladder"...or
even of how to get fucked...he and his pain simply are...and
the rest of us have to deal with that .

at this time i felt god speak to me quite clearly...to the
train station i was supposed to go...quite specifically
, i was to meet someone in southern spain...this was his
will for me...yet as the trees and the villages passed by
the slightly dirt tainted window...i felt somewhat afraid...sort
of like i always do.