They were referred to as “Skin Doctors," in our house back in the early 60’s. (Especially the times our neighbor Aunt Ruthie would pile at least six neighborhood kids into her car and take us to the Blue Spruce Swim Club, and we would all lie out in the sun for at least 5 hours, sometimes using iodine just to make sure we were all perfectly red and raw, or whenever we were lucky enough to travel up to Lake Erie, which for me had been the largest body of water I had ever seen in person until I was a Senior in High School) The words “Skin Doctor” would be used in a sentence, coming from my mother which sounded like…”…two more minutes in all of that sun, and I am sure you will need to see the “skin doctor,” for your fourth-degree burns…” Growing up in the 60’s for our family there was only one kind of doctor, our Family Doctor, and only wealthy people could afford, at least mention something called a Specialist. (Oh yeah, my Grandmother did see a Foot Doctor”, but that didn’t count because he was the son of one of her friends.) All of this trivial pursuit because today, I was on Wilshire Blvd (in Beverly Hills, oooh, ahhh) returning from my annual best to the Dermatologist. I mention Beverly Hills because one might assume as did the Beverly Hillbillies, that the pavements are made from gold, and anyone seen standing (remember nobody walks in LA or BH) must either be famous or really, really rich! But I walked and was on my return route when two things happened at one time. A massive Escalade, was double parked, causing lots of traffic to build up, and blaring from its dark, mysterious interior, was the radio, and the talking head from some show, was speaking about just how hypocritical the GOP has regarded, their disregard for fair and just actions towards Dr Christine Blasey Ford, and how this IS just ONE more moment when the Constitution of the United States will either be used as toilet paper for Putin, or perhaps salvaged to live another day. Of course, as a news addict, I had to stop and listen, angry that no one was directly around me to hear me scream (If a Progressive American screams in a forest does he make a sound or not). Of course, I was pissed, anyway and shouted FUCK!
And here is the second amount of things that happened at the same time. The driver of the Escalade told me to fuck off, he could park wherever he wanted to. An older gentleman, (I know because as he spoke to me, he mentioned his age) I am 83, and I have to wait for that bus (pointing two blocks to the East) to get here because this idiot (the man in the Escalade) is, pardon my French an asshole. I am tired, my food (he was holding a cloth bag (no plastic in LA or BH) is going to rot, and this is all I have to eat for today. As this older man was talking at me, a girl oblivious to anything except either the game she was playing on her phone (she was quick as hell with only using her pinkie and thumb) or texting someone, when she stumbled into the older man with the bag, and said, you are the asshole, stand by the bus stop, in one place, or you will be stepped on. And while that was playing out, a lady shouted something to the girl on the phone in a language I had yet not known existed, who then came over to me asking me for a cigarette. There I was, struck with what I believed to be the end of the world, or at least the end of the last great democracy, worrying what I still must do to resist, when I witnessed, real life.
I replaced the air pods in my ear (I was listening to the music from the Broadway show Les Miserables…(musicals are the best kind of drugs to relieve the stress and strain of LIFE), made a quick decision to not flip off the Escalade driver, or tell the girl on the phone to fuck off, or offer the lady a few bucks, or call a LYFT for the older man whose food was melting, and quickly and earnestly walked forward toward home. It was the day after Yom Kippur, and supposedly the Book of Life is sealed, as I headed due east, I looked up into the sky (where I am sure my God just uses as an extra room, because he is always around me), And I began talking to God, or myself (but nowadays no one thinks you are crazy, for doing so, and said, what is real, what is not, what matters and what does not, oh yeah…and as I inhaled then with a giant puff of LA smoggy oxygen exhaled the word WHY!
