★ Leonard ★
Jamal keeps gazing at the horizon, where it meets the starry heaven. I ask him what I have had on my mind.
"Jamal! You aren't an ordinary beach bum, are you? You seem so knowledgeable and insightful at the same time. What are you? Are you an urban poet or something?"
He laughs so loudly and starts to tell me about his past.
"I am going through a life transformation now. I am looking for a successful life. Everything that I thought success was is nothing but an illusion."
I don't want to offend him, but being a bum is far from success in my eyes. I decide to continue listening to him to find out what he is getting at. He continues.
"I went through the traditional success story that the society imprinted on us. I was the best student in my high school. I went to Harvard. Upon my graduation, I got a great job as a broker on Wall Street. By the time I was in my late 20s, I was earning more than a million dollars a year."
"I bought a brownstone in the Upper East Side with a swimming pool in the basement. I got married to a gorgeous girl, and we were going out to expensive restaurants every night. Everyone thought I made it—including myself. But I was always nervous, I wasn't happy, and the dark cloud above my head was always there."
"Everyone asked me what I was complaining about. I had everything. One day in my early 30s, I had a heart attack. Within a month, my company gave up on me and replaced me with someone younger. I no longer could pay my mortgage, so I had to sell the brownstone."
"Then my wife didn't want to take care of me, so she left me. Before I knew it, I was living couch to couch, in and out of my friends' apartments. I couldn't take the downward spiral, so I took a Greyhound and came to LA, where nobody knows me. I became a bum on the street."
"But I didn't have any more anxiety attacks. The dark cloud above my head was gone. Above all, I was happier. I didn't need to worry about my mortgage. I didn't lie to clients about why I was buying stocks. I didn't live the life my ex-wife expected me to live."
"Now, I live day to day and minute to minute instead of worrying about tomorrow. One day, I had a revelation. I finally found out what successful life really means to me. It doesn't matter how society defines success. It doesn't matter what other people consider successful. What matters is what I think success is. And the answer was quite simple. Do you know what success means to me?"
I see he is definitely an urban poet. I look at him and shake my head. He utters a couple of simple words.
"Being Happy!"
He smiles.
"To be happy, you have to listen to your heart, what it is telling you. You always listen to your heart. If your heart is not content with your actions, you will never be able to feel happiness. That's all."
He lifts himself from the edge of the boardwalk and tells me.
"I'm gonna go for a walk for a while. It is such a beautiful full moon tonight!"
He walks away.
Since then, Jamal and I have talked a lot about each other's pasts. I explain to him why I left Texas, and I am still trying to figure things out in my own way. He also tells me about what he thought was the darkest nightmare of his life, in fact, was the biggest blessing in disguise.
This is what Juan Carlo and Risa told me as well. Now, Jamal is telling me. I feel as if my life is repeating it over and over through different people I encounter to let me see the universal truth. Life is a weird matrix of crossword puzzles.
One month has passed since I became a bum on Venice Beach. I am getting an itch to move on. As I clean my dirty car, Jamal comes to me and introduces me to an Asian woman.
"This is Janet. We met the night of our Mexican dinner. She appeared out of the blue when I was walking on the beach. Since then, I have been seeing her, and I decided to quit being a bum."
"I want to have a family with her, and it isn't that convenient being a bum, you know. I know she isn't after my money!"
He looks at her and laughs.
"I know she loves me for who I am. Now I know how to be happy without many possessions. So I came to say goodbye to my old neighbor because we are leaving Venice Beach for good now."
He hugs me tight and thanks me for being a good friend. At that moment, I know that it is time for me to move on as well. My heart is telling me to go forward. I wish both good luck and watch them until they disappear into the crowd on the boardwalk.
YOU ARE READING
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