Boardwalk Encounter.
I was walking along, minding my own business, engrossed in thought, when I was accosted by a teenager. "Hey,
mister, can I ask you a question?"
"Yeah, sure," I told him.
"What are you doing?" "What am I doing?"
"Yeah, what are you doing?" He asked it a third time, too.
I looked around while trying to formulate my answer. And when I thought about it, I really couldn't answer in
detail. Not that I was required to answer in detail, because, after all, who was this kid? Indeed, I had more
questions for him before I was going to answer him.
"Why do you want to know?"
I stared to walk again, and he tagged along. "Why are you inquiring?" I could not say I was particularly interested
in answering him. My street smarts antenna had popped up.
"Does Macy's tell Gimbles?"
Now that was a phrase I hadn't heard in quite a while. For a teen to even know of Gimbles seemed far-fetched.
"You want to know what I'm dong but you can't tell me why you want to know?"
"Look, Mister, I just asked a simple question, and now you're going all sarcastic on me."
I would have to admit to anyone who heard this exchange that my tone was sarcastic. But, the whole situation
was improbable. I had moved back into my deliberate walk in the hope he would get the message that I wanted
to be left alone. After all, that's what brisk walks along sunny boardwalks were for. Quiet contemplation and
clearing of the head. To become engaged in some roundabout discussion by a youngster wasn't part of the day's
plan.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"What are you doing?" He had impatience bubbling up in his tone of voice.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Now, we're back where we started, " he said in a near shout, exasperation was showing though.
"Yes, we are. But don't you think I should know why you're asking these questions?"
"It's not like I asked you your bank account number."
And I did have to agree that his question was innocent enough. On the other hand, there was no doubt that the
situation was not part of normal civil pubic behavior.
"Now that would be pushy, " I retorted.
"Sure would, I just wanted to know what you're doing. I wouldn't ask something so personal. All I did was ask a
simple questions and you're giving me attitude." He was waving his hands around in a gentle, almost shoulder
shrugging sort of way, but rhythmic. He had kept abreast of me, walking stride for stride. But did I only imagine
that he was avoiding stepping on the cracks between the boards? Or was he really doing it?
"I'm just perplexed why a total stranger would come up and ask a question like that."
"Like I said, inquiring minds want to know."
His demeanor has slipped back into a young innocence again. I almost felt ashamed I had brought the
conversation to this point. Had I just answered him perhaps he would have been satisfied and gone away.
"I'm just walking along, thinking" I answered.
"Oh, ok, you having fun?"
That took me by surprise. Complete satisfaction was apparent. He looked out at the sea, and before I could
answer this new question he commented on the seagulls.
"Boy, I sure wouldn't want to have to peck though people's garbage to get a meal. I wonder what they ate
before we came here. "
He said it like it was the plainest comment between old friends. I'm usually pretty astute, in command of my
surroundings and discussions, but here I was, totally confused.
"Don't look so confused," he stated, " There are bigger questions than this. Like why there's so much starvation
in the world ever though there's so much food? Or why countries in South America would need armies? Why
can't Congress people all just get along?
"I look confused?" I had to cut off his soliloquy because he hadn't ever looked at me. And was my confusion
really so apparent? I hadn't said the thought, and didn't recall at all making any scrunched up facial expression.
"Yeah you do. There are so many big questions, deep philosophical questions, questions as simple as 'what are
you doing?' Hardly qualifies as major. If I had asked a hard question then I could see the confusion. But simple
questions should arise no perplexity within."
This was a precocious kid. Geez, my mind was now replete with questions of my own. Where did he come
from? Why? What did he really want? Intrigue was almost overcoming my street smarts concern. I really had
nothing to say , so I said nothing. Instead, I looked at the other people on the boardwalk and wondered why he
had picked me. He launched back into this soliloquy by asking more questions. Rhetoric questions, questions I
couldn't answer. This was a most unusual boy. I wasn't really listening to him as I raced ideas though my head.
Mostly centering on what he was up to.
"Don't' worry. I'm not a trouble maker. I'm not going to rob you or any thing, I just thought you'd be able to help
me."
I stopped and tried to face him. He didn't expect me to stop apparently, because he was quickly two paces
ahead of me. Then he stopped and turned back to me. We looked at each other for the longest moment.
"Did I screw up your day?" Concern, true concern was clearly stated.
"Uh, no, uh, no," was my only response.
"Because I didn't want to screw up your day. I just wanted to ask some questions, hoping you had the answers."
The crisp clear lines of youth shone out of his face, which itself was not too unlike a model's, with chiseled
features and slightly pouty lips. There was no sign of facial hair, I doubted he had shaved even once in his life.
The cry of the gulls seemed much louder than they probably really were. I felt a heightened sensitivity to my
physical surroundings. His light blue eyes where intense with a student's sort of curiosity. His left eyebrow arched
up a bit and his mouth went askew like a person incredulous at the obviousness of it all.
"You ok?" The concern in his voice was sure.
"Um, yeah." I must have mumbled it, because he said, "What? Are you ok? You're not having a heart attack are
you? I don't want that!"
"I'm fine," I finally answered. But I was paralyzed in wonderment. So many Saturdays I had strolled here,
unbothered by anyone, and now in the space of maybe 15 minutes my entire thought process was turned topsy
turvy. How had this precocious boy brought me to this state? Now it seemed that time had slowed to the speed
of cross town Manhattan traffic and I was stunned into silence.
He smiled a million dollar movie star's smile, plenty of white and fresh, wholesome, wide eyed purity.
"Confusing isn't it?"
I knew what the 'it' was – this situation was it, one that could only be filed in the 'bizarre' file in my mind's
collection of stories. I could recall no similar situation in my life, and I was really searching the memory banks.
"Yeah, I know you're confused, after all, how many times does someone just come up and start asking
questions. My mom says I do it to people all the time." He smiled again, shoved his hand into his pockets and
swiveled his hips left and right, keenly surveying our surroundings.
I tried to pull together words that could sufficiently address the situation, but failed.
"Not much to say?"
Was he reading my mind?
"And no, I'm not reading your mind. Certain things are just so obvious.
Anybody would have the same thoughts as you are having right now. And faces are so expressive even if you try
to stay stone still. Here you are, minding your own business, taking a mid-morning perambulation and you're met
with some strange kid asking questions and expanding on issues far afield from what is expected. Added to that
is the very fact of why You? Why not some other soul upon the beach? Plus, am I someone to fear, do I have
ulterior motives?"
He stopped and craned his neck towards me, "Right?"
I felt a it wobbly on my feet, like I was punched by de la Hoya. How could a kid be so right. So positive about
the circumstances, which enveloped us like skin on an apple? All my prior assumptions and annoyances of him
left me.
He was wiggling his fingers in the pockets of the baggy jeans that teens were prone to wear. But not in the sexual
way that is best expressed by the phrase "pocket pool." It was with a rhythmic, pulsing, regularity, motion with a
hidden metronome.
He looked no more than 16, but no mere teen apparently more like a professor with metaphysics as his subject
matter. The countenance on his face was controlling bemusement, surety of purpose.
There was no way I could answer him, and there was also no probable way to react. Even my Bambi-in-the-
headlights state wasn't appropriate. I knew that I was devoid of ability to respond, like I was a colander trying to
hold a glass of water. I was using every cell in my brain to gain a grasp of this moment, but it was impossible. I
don't think I ever felt so powerless, thought maybe when I was at my mothers breast.
He was rocking gently in a clearly different rhythm than what he was doing with his fingers. It was so crisp, he
looked a like a marionette hooked up a to music box.
"So what are you doing?"
"Huh?" I snapped out of my trance, but my response was mechanical at best. "I'm walking on the boardwalk"
"Really? Having fun?"
"Uh, Yeah"
"Do this often?"
"Yeah"
"Cool"
He was teen again, all floppy haired and plain, with no pretense or deepness. He hadn't stopped his movements.
"Shall we start walking again?"
"Yeah, why not?"
I was obtaining control again. At least I thought I was.
"You know, I have so many questions."
"Apparently"
"So few people I know can help me, maybe nobody."
"So you talk to total strangers?"
"Sure."
"Do that often?"
"Whenever necessary?" Then he chuckled.
I thought that was a strange way to answer so I turned it back into a question.
"Yeah, sometime I become filled with questions, I save them up. Then I spill them out to someone hoping to get
some answers. Sometimes I'm satisfied, though less times than I would like."
He was back in precocious mode.
"Really, and how do you know who to talk to?"
"Some people look smart, so I ask them. You look smart, so I asked you."
"Incredible."
"Not really, smart people have to talk to other smart people. I helps them get smarter. The curiosity of us
requires that we do it. Otherwise we go nuts.
"Hmmm"
The sun highlighted his hair in a way that Da Vinci tried to paint, but never quite achieved. He had adopted some
new rhythmic patters in his gait. There was a different drummer playing here.
"Yeah, it is incredible. In its most literal sense. If I told someone about it, they wouldn't believe it. It's stranger
than fiction, "Young kid starts up deep conversation.' "
"Nah, its probably happens all the time."
"Not so"
"Happens to me"
"You're the one doing the asking."
Now he was back to his teen persona. Strange.
"The questions you ask" I continued, really can't be answered, you know."
"True, but they can be explored, tweaked, delved into, pricked," he went on like a thesaurus.
"Ok, ok, I get the point, " I said to cut him off.
"I do go on don't I?"
He had the strangest archaic way of expressing himself, like an old novel.
"Yes you do"
"That's ok," He approved of himself. "You gotta' sometimes bring these things up to make them clear to yourself."
"I guess you do.
We approached the end of the boardwalk, which I pointed out to him, and suggested we turn around and go
back. I stopped, and he went two paces further again, before spinning around, returning immediately to the
fingers in the pockets drumming away. I imagined him older and how he could be successful, even powerful. He
seemed to have the mind to do it, and he definitely had the looks. The forwardness and outgoingness required
seemed to be there too.
"Anyway, thanks for talking with me."
"Sure, sorry I was so standoffish."
"That's Ok, mister. Any way I gotta go." Without waiting for a response, and not offering to shake hands, he
turned on his heel is a dramatic fashion and walked away towards the stairs leading to the street. I was equally
perplexed with the abrupt departure as with the sudden appearance. The situation and the commentary were just
as confusing. I looked out over the ocean and tried to put these last 20 minutes into perspective, but the thoughts
were as stable as the surface of the crashing breakers.
A few of my friends told me I was making the story up before I quite bringing it up.
"Well, were you?" Mr. Finestein asked.
mister, can I ask you a question?"
"Yeah, sure," I told him.
"What are you doing?" "What am I doing?"
"Yeah, what are you doing?" He asked it a third time, too.
I looked around while trying to formulate my answer. And when I thought about it, I really couldn't answer in
detail. Not that I was required to answer in detail, because, after all, who was this kid? Indeed, I had more
questions for him before I was going to answer him.
"Why do you want to know?"
I stared to walk again, and he tagged along. "Why are you inquiring?" I could not say I was particularly interested
in answering him. My street smarts antenna had popped up.
"Does Macy's tell Gimbles?"
Now that was a phrase I hadn't heard in quite a while. For a teen to even know of Gimbles seemed far-fetched.
"You want to know what I'm dong but you can't tell me why you want to know?"
"Look, Mister, I just asked a simple question, and now you're going all sarcastic on me."
I would have to admit to anyone who heard this exchange that my tone was sarcastic. But, the whole situation
was improbable. I had moved back into my deliberate walk in the hope he would get the message that I wanted
to be left alone. After all, that's what brisk walks along sunny boardwalks were for. Quiet contemplation and
clearing of the head. To become engaged in some roundabout discussion by a youngster wasn't part of the day's
plan.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"What are you doing?" He had impatience bubbling up in his tone of voice.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Now, we're back where we started, " he said in a near shout, exasperation was showing though.
"Yes, we are. But don't you think I should know why you're asking these questions?"
"It's not like I asked you your bank account number."
And I did have to agree that his question was innocent enough. On the other hand, there was no doubt that the
situation was not part of normal civil pubic behavior.
"Now that would be pushy, " I retorted.
"Sure would, I just wanted to know what you're doing. I wouldn't ask something so personal. All I did was ask a
simple questions and you're giving me attitude." He was waving his hands around in a gentle, almost shoulder
shrugging sort of way, but rhythmic. He had kept abreast of me, walking stride for stride. But did I only imagine
that he was avoiding stepping on the cracks between the boards? Or was he really doing it?
"I'm just perplexed why a total stranger would come up and ask a question like that."
"Like I said, inquiring minds want to know."
His demeanor has slipped back into a young innocence again. I almost felt ashamed I had brought the
conversation to this point. Had I just answered him perhaps he would have been satisfied and gone away.
"I'm just walking along, thinking" I answered.
"Oh, ok, you having fun?"
That took me by surprise. Complete satisfaction was apparent. He looked out at the sea, and before I could
answer this new question he commented on the seagulls.
"Boy, I sure wouldn't want to have to peck though people's garbage to get a meal. I wonder what they ate
before we came here. "
He said it like it was the plainest comment between old friends. I'm usually pretty astute, in command of my
surroundings and discussions, but here I was, totally confused.
"Don't look so confused," he stated, " There are bigger questions than this. Like why there's so much starvation
in the world ever though there's so much food? Or why countries in South America would need armies? Why
can't Congress people all just get along?
"I look confused?" I had to cut off his soliloquy because he hadn't ever looked at me. And was my confusion
really so apparent? I hadn't said the thought, and didn't recall at all making any scrunched up facial expression.
"Yeah you do. There are so many big questions, deep philosophical questions, questions as simple as 'what are
you doing?' Hardly qualifies as major. If I had asked a hard question then I could see the confusion. But simple
questions should arise no perplexity within."
This was a precocious kid. Geez, my mind was now replete with questions of my own. Where did he come
from? Why? What did he really want? Intrigue was almost overcoming my street smarts concern. I really had
nothing to say , so I said nothing. Instead, I looked at the other people on the boardwalk and wondered why he
had picked me. He launched back into this soliloquy by asking more questions. Rhetoric questions, questions I
couldn't answer. This was a most unusual boy. I wasn't really listening to him as I raced ideas though my head.
Mostly centering on what he was up to.
"Don't' worry. I'm not a trouble maker. I'm not going to rob you or any thing, I just thought you'd be able to help
me."
I stopped and tried to face him. He didn't expect me to stop apparently, because he was quickly two paces
ahead of me. Then he stopped and turned back to me. We looked at each other for the longest moment.
"Did I screw up your day?" Concern, true concern was clearly stated.
"Uh, no, uh, no," was my only response.
"Because I didn't want to screw up your day. I just wanted to ask some questions, hoping you had the answers."
The crisp clear lines of youth shone out of his face, which itself was not too unlike a model's, with chiseled
features and slightly pouty lips. There was no sign of facial hair, I doubted he had shaved even once in his life.
The cry of the gulls seemed much louder than they probably really were. I felt a heightened sensitivity to my
physical surroundings. His light blue eyes where intense with a student's sort of curiosity. His left eyebrow arched
up a bit and his mouth went askew like a person incredulous at the obviousness of it all.
"You ok?" The concern in his voice was sure.
"Um, yeah." I must have mumbled it, because he said, "What? Are you ok? You're not having a heart attack are
you? I don't want that!"
"I'm fine," I finally answered. But I was paralyzed in wonderment. So many Saturdays I had strolled here,
unbothered by anyone, and now in the space of maybe 15 minutes my entire thought process was turned topsy
turvy. How had this precocious boy brought me to this state? Now it seemed that time had slowed to the speed
of cross town Manhattan traffic and I was stunned into silence.
He smiled a million dollar movie star's smile, plenty of white and fresh, wholesome, wide eyed purity.
"Confusing isn't it?"
I knew what the 'it' was – this situation was it, one that could only be filed in the 'bizarre' file in my mind's
collection of stories. I could recall no similar situation in my life, and I was really searching the memory banks.
"Yeah, I know you're confused, after all, how many times does someone just come up and start asking
questions. My mom says I do it to people all the time." He smiled again, shoved his hand into his pockets and
swiveled his hips left and right, keenly surveying our surroundings.
I tried to pull together words that could sufficiently address the situation, but failed.
"Not much to say?"
Was he reading my mind?
"And no, I'm not reading your mind. Certain things are just so obvious.
Anybody would have the same thoughts as you are having right now. And faces are so expressive even if you try
to stay stone still. Here you are, minding your own business, taking a mid-morning perambulation and you're met
with some strange kid asking questions and expanding on issues far afield from what is expected. Added to that
is the very fact of why You? Why not some other soul upon the beach? Plus, am I someone to fear, do I have
ulterior motives?"
He stopped and craned his neck towards me, "Right?"
I felt a it wobbly on my feet, like I was punched by de la Hoya. How could a kid be so right. So positive about
the circumstances, which enveloped us like skin on an apple? All my prior assumptions and annoyances of him
left me.
He was wiggling his fingers in the pockets of the baggy jeans that teens were prone to wear. But not in the sexual
way that is best expressed by the phrase "pocket pool." It was with a rhythmic, pulsing, regularity, motion with a
hidden metronome.
He looked no more than 16, but no mere teen apparently more like a professor with metaphysics as his subject
matter. The countenance on his face was controlling bemusement, surety of purpose.
There was no way I could answer him, and there was also no probable way to react. Even my Bambi-in-the-
headlights state wasn't appropriate. I knew that I was devoid of ability to respond, like I was a colander trying to
hold a glass of water. I was using every cell in my brain to gain a grasp of this moment, but it was impossible. I
don't think I ever felt so powerless, thought maybe when I was at my mothers breast.
He was rocking gently in a clearly different rhythm than what he was doing with his fingers. It was so crisp, he
looked a like a marionette hooked up a to music box.
"So what are you doing?"
"Huh?" I snapped out of my trance, but my response was mechanical at best. "I'm walking on the boardwalk"
"Really? Having fun?"
"Uh, Yeah"
"Do this often?"
"Yeah"
"Cool"
He was teen again, all floppy haired and plain, with no pretense or deepness. He hadn't stopped his movements.
"Shall we start walking again?"
"Yeah, why not?"
I was obtaining control again. At least I thought I was.
"You know, I have so many questions."
"Apparently"
"So few people I know can help me, maybe nobody."
"So you talk to total strangers?"
"Sure."
"Do that often?"
"Whenever necessary?" Then he chuckled.
I thought that was a strange way to answer so I turned it back into a question.
"Yeah, sometime I become filled with questions, I save them up. Then I spill them out to someone hoping to get
some answers. Sometimes I'm satisfied, though less times than I would like."
He was back in precocious mode.
"Really, and how do you know who to talk to?"
"Some people look smart, so I ask them. You look smart, so I asked you."
"Incredible."
"Not really, smart people have to talk to other smart people. I helps them get smarter. The curiosity of us
requires that we do it. Otherwise we go nuts.
"Hmmm"
The sun highlighted his hair in a way that Da Vinci tried to paint, but never quite achieved. He had adopted some
new rhythmic patters in his gait. There was a different drummer playing here.
"Yeah, it is incredible. In its most literal sense. If I told someone about it, they wouldn't believe it. It's stranger
than fiction, "Young kid starts up deep conversation.' "
"Nah, its probably happens all the time."
"Not so"
"Happens to me"
"You're the one doing the asking."
Now he was back to his teen persona. Strange.
"The questions you ask" I continued, really can't be answered, you know."
"True, but they can be explored, tweaked, delved into, pricked," he went on like a thesaurus.
"Ok, ok, I get the point, " I said to cut him off.
"I do go on don't I?"
He had the strangest archaic way of expressing himself, like an old novel.
"Yes you do"
"That's ok," He approved of himself. "You gotta' sometimes bring these things up to make them clear to yourself."
"I guess you do.
We approached the end of the boardwalk, which I pointed out to him, and suggested we turn around and go
back. I stopped, and he went two paces further again, before spinning around, returning immediately to the
fingers in the pockets drumming away. I imagined him older and how he could be successful, even powerful. He
seemed to have the mind to do it, and he definitely had the looks. The forwardness and outgoingness required
seemed to be there too.
"Anyway, thanks for talking with me."
"Sure, sorry I was so standoffish."
"That's Ok, mister. Any way I gotta go." Without waiting for a response, and not offering to shake hands, he
turned on his heel is a dramatic fashion and walked away towards the stairs leading to the street. I was equally
perplexed with the abrupt departure as with the sudden appearance. The situation and the commentary were just
as confusing. I looked out over the ocean and tried to put these last 20 minutes into perspective, but the thoughts
were as stable as the surface of the crashing breakers.
A few of my friends told me I was making the story up before I quite bringing it up.
"Well, were you?" Mr. Finestein asked.
Jim
Hlavac
Hlavac