From the passenger seat of my disposable car, Robert Lochaven eats pretzel rods and asks questions he already knows the answers to, like a father asking the child if he has cleaned his bedroom, making for a long morning commute.
We pass by disposable strip malls and restaurants selling disposable jewelry and lunches.
"Have you dealt with the roof yet?"
He knows the answer, yet it's not exactly a rhetorical question as he seems to expect some form of a response. He sincerely wants the details, not whether I have dealt with the roof yet, but why the roof has not been dealt with. I explain that it's a long, expensive process that should not be handled with haste. What I tell him is that a roof should not be disposable. If proper care is taken now and we choose wisely, it should last a good, long while.
"We don't have much time. A roof is a roof. Just fix it."
He has been right about everything else, so there's no questioning this. I convince him that the ball is rolling and the house (read: his house) will no longer leak in the very near future and that he's getting pretzel crumbs all over the passenger seat.
"And the trees?"
Robert Lochaven proceeds to brush the crumbs and salt off of his lap and onto the floor.
"What about them?" I respond.
"They've been neglected far too long, the shrubs, the low hanging branches, you're tending to them?"
He knows the answer to this question is 'yes' but apparently not to his satisfaction. I assure him it's being handled.
"You want a pretzel?"
Of course, he knows that I do, in fact, desire a pretzel. He hands me a rod as we wait for a pedestrian to cross the street ahead of us as she takes her disposable pet for a disposable, suburban walk.
The pedestrian has pretend boobs and a big fake smile.
Our conversation abruptly shifts to less tangible subjects. Robert Lochaven speaks now with a sense of urgency, critically absorbing my responses as if he's up against the clock. He mentions the lady on the crosswalk, how she represents the sad state of culture and that her condition is likely the result of a damaged ego from something that occurred in her life so long ago that she can't even identify the specifics. Robert Lochaven's judgment surprises me and I feel he's being a bit presumptuous.
I point out the fine craftsmanship.
Robert Lochaven continues to explain that he's not talking about the lady on the crosswalk, necessarily and begins to verbally list items ad nauseum. Disposable stores and restaurants and lights and lawns and tables and couches and hearts and all the other molded plastic body parts. His list breaches the fringes of reason. According to Robert Lochaven, we've created a world where even moments of our precious time have become disposable.
"What part of our fragile emotional state has resulted in this inferior, temporary means of existence?"
I look at him with raised eyebrows, which is answer enough apparently. He continues.
"Do you believe your id, ego and superego can be untangled, separated, potentially discarding the parts and pieces of your psyche that are holding you back?"
I put some thought into his query, and reply as intelligently as possible.
"Huh?"
"If everything in this world is disposable, what about the parts of our world that are unseeable? What about ego? Is it possible to discard the doubts of our superego and the selfish needs of our id?"
I continue to drive forward, doing my best not to check the rearview mirror, eyes squarely on what's ahead as I contemplate this strange line of questioning. Is this as rhetorical as the roof and the tree trimming? Robert Lochaven seems rushed, panicked. Adrenalized, his blood possibly racing from too much salt consumption.
And for once, I know the unfortunate answer to his questions.
Slowing for the red light at the portal intersection of Dale Mabry and West Kennedy Boulevard, Robert Lochaven finishes the last pretzel and then lifts the plastic bag up to his mouth to consume the remaining particles of salt that had settled at the bottom. I notice a homeless man, one that looks quite well fed, standing where I used to find Pops, whom I have not seen in quite some time.
I roll down my window, hand him a couple of dollars and ask him if he knows Pops.
He looks at me with wide eyes and a wider grin and says with a faint Caribbean accent, "Pops is dead!"
The large man laughs, backpedals, raises his hands up into the air as if presenting the world to me and yells, "WE ALL ARE!"
The light turns green, and a honk from behind prompts me to move along. I turn to Robert Lochaven for some assurance that what I had just witnessed actually occurred, but he has vanished. All that is left are an empty, plastic pretzel bag and salt dust on the passenger seat of my car.
Out of sight, out of mind.
This homeless man seemed a wild character, but articulate, fairly well dressed and what he said was mysterious and although I did ask him about Pops, fairly unsolicited, but there was a hint of intelligence and certainty within the fire he spat. Perhaps he knows and is willing to acknowledge what we don't really want to readily admit.
Just like the world we have created around us, we too are indiscriminately disposable. The lady with the handcrafted boobs, Keith on his speeding motorcycle, young Becky coming home from school, Sunset McMullen pushing her fur baby in a plastic stroller, our friend Pops, Coworker Mitch, you, me...everybody.
As I complete the morning commute beyond the portal intersection of Dale Mabry and West Kennedy Boulevard, the world seems to slightly shift before my eyes. In the places where molded plastics and disheveled strip malls once stood, glass, mirrored and shiny, occupy the real estate and dominate the skyline. Birds swirl and glide among the towers, their shapes deform and distort with every turn.
These jazzing hands will not dispose of today's precious moments.
Day three-hundred and twelve complete.
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