Where are we?


The vibes player says he’s got
a gig playing Jazz
for kids.
Cool. Except they’re not. 

They are mostly teens, some mentally impaired, some physically impaired,
some both.
There are girls
with pointed heads and little top-knots, 
tied in ribbons - and big fluffy, 
stiff dresses.
Some people
are older, 
with ski masks, covering up something probably sad and awful. 
Fire maybe, or car accident. 
Maybe worse. 
More comfortable here. Blending in.

Kitchen Women; 
Kitchen Mothers, 
standing by to hold or help – tending.

Maybe these kids will be open
to new kinds of sounds. 
Maybe they won’t mind if we 
experiment. 
Maybe they’ll just enjoy us playing.


A teen-age, girl, steps on the stage and asks 
if she’s our girl friend. 
We say, “sure”
She beams.
She bends over to her friend and cackles, “Seeee? I told you they wouldn’t like you, you’re too ugly. I’m- the pretty one”.
They look the same.

As we play, the teen-age boys pretend to play along. 
Lots of drummers and guitar players; 
not caring who’s actually responsible for the sound. 
Just playing along.
The girls are all showing off for us.

They like every thing we play. They’ll dance to anything.

The shy ones are crying.

The ski-masks wander around on the dance floor, accompanied by someone comforting them.
The “regular” kids. (with Down's syndrome), have the pin-heads in tiers. 
Squads of sympathetic girls are dispatched to them.
Then they go dancing off like little ions.

I’m on break, outside having a puff. One of the cooler teenagers comes over.
He stands there for a while. Then he says: “I’m a Sheriff, you know.”
He pulls his badge out of his vest pocket. It’s a cut out drawing of a badge on white paper. Someone has written for him: "Sheriff". 
Another “cool-guy” saunters over. The new guy has a three piece leisure suit on with the required white belt and shoes. He leans over to me and says: “You know he’s not a real Sheriff don’t you?”.
I whisper an understanding “yeah”.
“I’m a real Sheriff” he says.” He shows me his real badge.
It’s a cheap toy badge from the drug store.

This is what they’ve seen when they copy us.
This is what they have all deduced about what we want, what we admire, what we reward. What we love.

They are just like us....