The Puppet Show

We met him on the strip on Franklin, where my wife used to go. Byrds, next to the old bookstore. The moon rose behind a thick palm tree and the clouds kissed the night sky. Chinese lounge music from the 40's. A woman's voice, trembling and heartbreaking and he let the puppet dance to it, in despair, pain, agony. With shaking hands the puppet reached out, he was shivering like in uncontrollable pain - then collapsed like a house of cards, beating his hands against his head, crouching on the floor like a desperate person reaching out for help, for a little water in the desert of our desolate souls, for bread in our overfed homes. In a dramatic final fit he threw himself against the light, it was as if I heard him crying, sobbing from that place deeply hidden in our chests and then one last look and one last fist against the imaginary sky and he sank on his back, he fell, in a final resolution, giving in to the forces that tore his life and his heart apart, facing the sky and the sky only.
Now when you looked at the puppet player while this drama happened on the little wooden table in the midst of Franklin Ave. inbetween a couple of busy bars/restaurants, with chic LA chicks and wannabe directors, you saw something even greater happening. You saw a man totally absorbed in what he was doing, compassionately guiding the marionettes moves with fingers and hands shaking ever so slightly, his eyes following the unfolding drama on the little time and space refuge he had created. The sign on the floor read: The Puppet Show - give me what you can, in coins, in bills, in old letters or even older knitters (what's that?), in dust of pockets or a stone from the street. Give me what I deserve.
Amanda and I stood in awe. He was so intriguingly involved in his creating a very profound emotional performance that he captured the innocent beauty of God's children in his hands. He looks so hot, we whispered and we meant it very profoundly not in an obscene way.
Then he changed the puppet. Now it was a big one, with a dark long coat. In her meager hands she held a cigarette and danced to the slow blues that was playing now. Every now and then she would take a drag, and then slowly blow the smoke into the sky. Inbetween drags she would cough and almost die it seemed, from the smoking and then, swinging back, look at the cigarette in her hand as if at a lover, a person you have known for so long and all you can do is look at her with forbearance and indulgence, loving, hating, an addiction that you learned to love like a husband you can't get rid off.
He would drag the smoke through a flexible tube and as he later told us, the old tube got really yellow and all in all this performance was a big turn off to smoke yet in the same time beautifully and precisely capturing the ironic beauty of smoking.
As the smoke was still curling up behind his shoulders we left. I think maybe we should invite him to sit with us I said and so we did. We went back, invited him and then sat down outside this very sweet restaurant. We had some wine and the moon looked gently down on all the people.


And the magic is still on the streets. And the beauty is still happening.