The Oracle

by Adam Lars

I saw him from a mile away. He wore a gray sweater, a black skullcap, and baggy black jeans. His head twitched as he stood in line looking impatient with the slowness of the person in front of him. "Hurry up and get a damn chicken wing!" he yelled at the poor guy. Dave who was one of the volunteers told the aggitated man to calm down, but he became more aggressive. "Fuck you! I know you. You're the one who always brings them potatoe salad." Dave's face lit up and smiled. He was very proud of his potatoe salad. "It tastes like shit!" the man yelled at his face. This guy may be crazy, but he doesn't know that Dave doesn't fuck around when it comes to his potatoe salad. Next thing we knew Dave was moving like Bruce Lee about to execute a flying kick towards the man. I have never seen a 250-pound guy move with such agility before. We all had to jump on him, intercepting him in the air as he tried to lunge forward towards the homeless man. It looked like those scenes you see on the Animal Planet where a cheetah grabs an antelope in mid-air.

"Dave, get a hold of yourself. We're supposed to be helping them, not fight with them." I told him as I pressed my weight on his back. He nodded because he was too out of breath to say anything. We picked him up and he brushed the dirt off his sweater. He walked away fuming as he passed the man who just insulted his beloved potatoe salad. The homeless man had a wide smile across his face as if he was proud of causing Dave to lose his temper. Indeed he was.

"Hey, that was very rude man. He gives up alot of his free time in making that potatoe salad and comes here to help you guys. The least you can do is hold back on comments like that." I told the man in gray.

"Oh yeah? Well, we never asked for you little punks from the suburbs to help us out! You go home to your nice two-story houses at the end of the night." he said pointing at me and all of the other volunteers looking at him.

"We live this shit man! You are just a bunch of hippie kids who think they can make a difference." he said grabbing a chicken leg off the tray. He put it on his plate and walked off laughing, shaking head. I turned to look at Kate, who just shrugged her shoulders. It was my fourth time volunteering for the organization, but I have never seen that man before.

I found out about this place through a friend of mine who used to volunteer here before he moved to California to study at UCLA. I remember when I first volunteered here. The setting was not what I had expected. I've volunteered at homeless shelters before, usually during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but when I got to the address my friend gave me, I was surprised to find that they held it outside the downtown library, practically on the sidewalk. Every Thursday and Saturdays, you'll see a small gathering of homeless men and women mixing like a vodka and milk with middle-class college kids from the suburbs. It was a moving scene to watch at first, but after a while the idealism dies down.

"That guy's always like that." Jake told us as he picked up a crate full of leftover apples.

"He never really talks to anyone, he always sits at that table and eats by himself." he nodded towards the man eating his food quietly at a table near the front of the library. He looked peaceful eating, different from the way he acted before. Or maybe it just seemed that way, either way, I walked towards him to see if he was doing alright. "Dude, are you crazy? He's probably gonna pick a fight with you too." Jake said from behind me. "Nah, I think he's alright now. I'm just gonna have a little chat with him."

He didn't notice me approach him. He ate his food with patience, but with such concentration. I leaned over and waved my hand to try to catch his attention. "This tables taken kid. Fuck off." he said without losing rhythm as he cut a piece of meat with his plastic knife, not even bothering to look up at me.

"Well, too bad. It's public property." I sat down across from him and said nothing--waiting for him to finish his food. He continued eating, keeping his focus on the plate in front of him. When you hardly have anything to eat everyday of your life, food becomes sacred. Once he did finish, he gulped down his cup of coffee.

"Was it good?" I asked him

"The chicken I mean. I made that." He looked at me like I was retarded. "Well whoop-dee-fucking-doo." he said with an expression in his face that highlighted his sarcasm.

He got up and was prepared to walk away, but he stopped and patted down the pockets of his jeans, feeling for something. I already knew what he was looking for. I pulled out my box of Kools cigarettes, took two out, and held up one as I put the other between my lips. "A meals never complete without having one of these bad boys for dessert." I said. He turned around and looked at me. I think I might have even glimpsed a bit of a grin. I don't know if he did that because he knew I wasn't going to let him go that easily, or it was because of the cigarette I held in my hand. He took it from me and sat back down. I gave him a light and he inhaled heavily. "Menthol eh? Good choice." he said closing his eyes, letting the nicotine hit the nerves.

"You owe me a conversation now." I told him.

"Geez kid, when I was your age, I was going after the hunnies, not old men. What are you, a fag or something?" he said with the cigarette hanging between his lips.
"I'm not very good with the ladies. Maybe a pimp like yourself can give me a few pointers." I said acting stupid and innocent as if I still believed that girls carried cooties around. He seemed to have liked that fact that I called him a pimp, and I began to wonder if in fact he actually used to be one.

"Go to grocerie stores." he said. He noticed the puzzled look I gave him and went on. "Everyone's gotta eat right?" I nodded my head at the obvious fact. "Well, don't you need to buy food first?" I nodded again. "What I'm saying is, it's all about playing probability to your favor. Go to Wal-Mart and you're guaranteed to find a herd of pussy." I acknowledged his interesting insight and thought about it deeply, and realized that this guy knew very well what he's talking about.

"What else can you tell me?" I asked him

"Tell you what?"

"Anything. Anything I should know--"

"About life?" he said smiling. "Who do you think I am, the Dalai fuckin' Lama?"

"Who knows you could be the real incarnate."

"Listen, I'm not Buddha and I sure as hell don't have anything to tell you about life."

"Why not? I'm sure you've experienced more than I have."

"Why, because I'm a homeless bum? You think I'll give you my sob-story so you can feel good about yourself?" he said kind of agitatedly. For a second, I thought I might have pushed his button and he was gonna go off on me like he did with Dave. But he saw my uneasiness and he calmed down.

"Look son, I don't have anything to tell you about life, because as much as you think it's this universal thing where everybody sees, thinks, and feels the same." he hesitated for a while, took a drag off his cigarette, and rubbed his long gray beard with his thumb and index finger, thinking about what to say next. "That's all bullshit. You live life according to your rules. I can tell you where I came from, what I think about when I watch the sunrise, what I used to do for a living--" he stopped in his tracks once again, as if the last words he said triggered something inside of him. "I can tell you all of those things, wrap it up in a nice little package, put a ribbon on top, and give it to you as a present, and tell you here this is the meaning of life." He let out a couple of harsh sounding coughs, like an exhaust pipe from a ill-maintained car.

"I could tell you all that, but then I would be giving a you lies, because only you can interperet what life gives you. No one else."

"Yeah, I know."

I thought about what he said and I looked at the other volunteers talking in their own little circles. Like individual fortresses keeping the vagabonds out, only to throw food over the high walls hoping that somehow that would make a difference in the world. Have I been reading life the wrong way? For some reason, sitting there while the cold wind brushed across my back, I didn't feel the same anymore. My vision of the world had been shaken by a total stranger. I mean, what he just told me was not anything new to me. I've always believed and practiced individuality. My life is my life--right?

Somehow I feel mentally confined in the suburbs where the streets are clean, the lawns are trimmed perfectly, and the nights are quiet. Peaceful enough to have latenight conversations in the driveway without worrying about getting shot by stray bullets. I was raised to think that Harvard, or Princeton was the ultimate goal for a young person. Get your degree, smile at the flashing cameras, hug your proud parents, they buy you a new car, a penthouse in Manhattan, the whole shabang. That was the meaning of life for me; success and going to homeless shelters to volunteer just so I can feel better about myself, or at least feel less selfish.

The man must have noticed the change in my mood, as we sat in silence for a few minutes. I didn't notice at first, but he was looking at me, I looked up and catched his gaze, and he seemed to look at me with pity, as if I was the one who had the disadvantages in life.

"You in college?" he asked me.

"Yeah."

"What's your major?"

"Political science. Minor in economics." I responded.

"And what do you plan to do with that?"

"Become an economist. Help third-world countries navigate out of poverty. Help the governments get back on an equal playing field as the West's economy." I said it the way I've said the lines a thousand times, like a script. I remember when I first said the same answer to my girlfriend's parents, they were impressed, and I felt proud, full of self-worth. But now, the words feel hollow, void of meaning. He nodded his head, a smile cracked in his face, and out came a wheezing laugh.

"What's so funny about that?" I asked him.

"Kid kid. You're just like all of your little friends back there." he said looking at the other volunteers who were now packing up. "You guys are naive. Idealists! But that's okay, because you don't know how the system works."

"What system?"

"The world is run on systems, heirarchies, and powerful people govern those systems." he said as he took another drag from his cigarette. "You'll know when you get out there. You think you're in the real world right now, but you're in the fucking matrix."

"Who are you, Morpheus all of the sudden?" I retorted.

"Nah, I'm the fucking Oracle." he said with a sly grin stamped on his face.
He stood up and looked at the dispersing crowd of gypsies. His band of brothers and sisters, wearing ragged clothes and faces that have turned to stone because they no longer had the need for emotions. "But keep at it kid. You got the heart." he said as he took one last drag from the cigarette and flicked it on to the ground. "Thanks for the food and the smoke." he said giving me a nod.

"No problem." I told him. "Thanks for the talk."

He didn't say anything. He just turned around and began walking away. I sat there waiting for some kind of heavenly beam to pick him up, but nothing came down. I just watched him walk down the street like a phantom. I never catched his name, but I guess that wasn't really important. He turned the corner and as he did, he walked right under the beam of a light post, and he was gone.



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Adam Lars was a second-year student at the famous London School of Economics when he decided to take a break from the chaos of the university life to work on the many unfinished manuscripts he has in his laptop. He is also an avid chess player, which explains the unfinished manuscripts.