HELIOLITH

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What A Smile Can Mean Between Men: The Seeds of War and Peace

I am driving the Ford south on the freeway, heading south to visit family, but stopping first back in town at the 76 to fill the tank. Now I’m stepping around to the passenger side, going through the motions so familiar now after numberless repetitions. I’m smiling broadly with the simple pleasure of being together with my life companion, my wife, and my two radiant daughters, on a Friday afternoon, with two days of rest laying in my open hands.

I catch the eye of a man stepping into the back seat of a nondescript american sedan,
already full of 4 other men.
At first I just see his eyes, and continue smiling lightly, sharing my simple joy in this moment.
In his face I first see neutrality,
but no trace of the possibly reciprocated smile,
which is absolutely fine.

In less than a second, I notice his seriousness,
like a tiredness of working hard all week, his color a soft brown like cinnamon,
with a few patches without pigmentation,
his mouth turned down slightly in a very subtle frown.
For less than another second, we hold each others’ gaze,
my expression open, and subtly happy,
his expression sullen, telling me directly, and by long experience,
that I should gently avert my eyes.

He appears to look still at me when I look back
and after a few moments the look seems to have changed–
from neutrality to a mild hostile incredulity as though he might asking me–
“Who are YOU to look at ME?”

The common male refrain… the challenge of quiet aggression,
the maintained eye on eye contact that in dogs and men,
in the street, in the ghetto, and in prison– is sometimes known as mad-dogging
I risk a couple of more open glances, scanning for an opening,
to break the quiet ice of separateness spawned when
silence echoed with the distant sounds of war.

It seems that a few more in his group are casting their eyes in my direction,
and none of them are smiling.
I feel as yet, mostly unfazed, but I’m increasingly aware of the rising expectation
to either avoid their gazes with feigned fear,
or to demonstrate some brotherly gesture of solidarity,
which it is probably a bit too late for in the dance at this point.

In moments, I scan through the possible scenarios they are playing in their minds–
of what a smile can mean between men, if it’s not simple unconditional warmth.
Could it be they imagine I was making a sexual advance?
That’s a fairly unlikely interpretation,
as they see me happy with my wife and daughters in the car.

Could it be he imagines that I’m mocking him with my smile,
or looking down at him somehow, smugly from my fortunate world?
This is unfortunately quite possible!
If only I could tell him that most likely we speak the same two languages,
that I treasure the richness of our differences,
and that I am happy to humble myself as low as a bug,
when entering into the discussion of ethnicity or racism,
myself a white male with priviledge and fortune,
my own deepest intentions and actions aimed at healing the inequalities
that all too often fall along color lines.

Could it be that he is in with the always present local gangs,
and he imagines I’ve identified him as a rival,
or is scanning me for any sign that I might be a rival,
or that simply by being a man who is unafraid to stand tall and feel at home anywhere,
even in this territory,
I’ve broken the rules of who he might think these streets belong to?
It could be, but I cannot possibly tell.

Speculation and projection is the defense of the rational mind,
as we rapidly scan like a slot machine through the combinations of
each others’ possible moves and motivations,
each of our mental circuits the product of countless fruitless interactions,
between men who do not trust their ears to hear
the music of the dance that keeps us all in time.
The analysis is more real and complex than those of a chess piece
on the playing board with a thousand pieces.
And as simple as the intuition of a faithful dog in smelling out a stranger’s intentions.

The human necessity of bowing one’s head and dancing around seems so animalistic,
like two dogs who nip and scuffle in a ritualistic encounter to establish who is dominant,
and how quickly each will accept their own biological dominance or submission,
yet it’s all we have to fall back on when we do not mutually trust our highest nature yet.

Perhaps this time a soft verbal token of solidarity
could have defused the subtle social escalation,
a soft ‘orale,’ ‘hola,’ or a ‘hey’, or even a broader smile at that first glance,
a manly vigorous nod-salute with the head and chin,
and the deeply ingrained conformance to breaking of eye contact before 2.3 full seconds.

So many questions and accusations could pass
between the eyes of men when they cross in the street
and myself being relatively young and of not the simplest identifiable ethnicity,
I will continue to avert my eyes, generally avoiding the visual engagement of men,
because of the great difficulty of simply sharing the wish of happiness
with each and every human being I meet.

As softly contemplating the openness of the sky lets me forget
the complicated rules of the darkest city streets,
I laugh, and then falter and misstep in the rules of a complicated social mandala,
knowing that deep behind the vicious cycling nature of male antler locking
there is a path of action that trusts deeply in the goodness of all beings,
that the illusion that we were ever separate is itself the cruelest nightmare.

Yet until the moment that brilliant openness
blesses each of us with that simultaneous realization…
I will continue to avert my eyes.

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This happened yesterday.
Just before leaving on this trip, I opened my copy (randomly) of Daniel Ladinsky’s Translation of the great poet Hafiz’ work entitled “The Gift” and had read the poem, “It has not rained Light.” Though I would like to think that Ladinsky wouldn’t mind if I posted the poem here, the original is clearly in the public domain, while his translation of it is not, and his publisher (Penguin Compass) might care more. Who knows? Check it out in your library. Daniel: if you read this (statistically improbable), please leave a comment or contact me if you have any opinion on this. I became aware of the book originally thanks to Saul Williams when he came and spoke locally.