Why do dolphins leap joyful from the sea? Why do the morning birds sing? Why does the earth dance in trees and reach forests to the sun? Why do children play? This is a recreational universe. When you remember the play that lifted your heart as a child, you will know the heart of God.
-Ken Carey, The Third Millennium
“NYLON JUMBO LAUNDRY BAGS! MACHINE WASHABLE! WATER RESISTANT!”
Uttered at the top of my vocal volume range, I repeated these words for seven years as I worked the sidewalks of New York City as an unlicensed, self-employed, street peddler. I bought the bags below wholesale, straight from a factory in North Carolina, and made a great profit selling them just below retail. I loved the quick cash and the gutsy, streetwise calluses that formed on my psyche. I was part of the color and pulse of New York, a place where adrenaline, art and survival all blended together in a tapestry of shadows and light.
My style for hawking the laundry bags became something of a creative, comic performance. “How did you get into this?” people asked me as I handed them their purchase. “How do I get out of this?” became the question I asked daily as the call of a career in music grew louder and my patience for eluding the police grew thinner.
Did I say police? Yes, I confess! This crazy job of mine was not exactly legal. “Slightly illegal” was my juicy rationalization. About once a week I got caught, collected a ticket, and had to hand over a sack of laundry bags to the City of New York, via the police. Did breaking the law nag at my conscience? Not at all. Well, at least not my conscious conscience. I was a rebel without a pause, enjoying the game of cops and robbers, and moving too fast to question my ethics or my sanity. Besides, I was also using the job to fine-tune my meditation skills.
My discipline was called Zen and The Art of Spotting the Cops Before They See You. This spiritual practice for finding inner strength in the inner city found me routinely in the Yoga posture of being on my toes, my head stretching from left to right, focused like a laser beam in the here and now. The police sometimes dressed in civilian clothes, immersing themselves amongst the human sardines that swamped the city sidewalks on any given day. I developed a sixth sense, an organically grown synthesis of intuition and paranoia. I could spot the police, pack up my bags, and slip into the crowd at a speed that Houdini would have admired. But even with my escape skills honed to a science, I did get busted on occasion. It was part of the job.
While tempted to let those instances dampen my day, I took it upon myself to make light of the moments when the police were writing me tickets and confiscating my bags. Feather dusting the situation with levity, I refused to buy into the attitude of doom and gloom.
One day an outrageous idea crossed my mind. I have learned to spring into action when a creative prompting knocks on my door. Before hesitation festered into analysis, which almost always leads to paralysis, I took out my pen and wrote:
To The Proud Officers Of The New York City Police Dept,
This note is written permission for my son, Scott, to sell laundry bags on the streets of the city without a license. I know it is against the law, but my son is such a good boy in almost every other aspect of his life. I think he is entitled to some leeway here. This note officially absolves him from the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but a mother’s written permission sure is!
Hugs and kisses,
Mom
I put the note in my pocket and waited, almost eagerly, for the next time I was caught in the act, bags in hand. Sure enough, my sales were interrupted the next day by two blue-clad members of the N.Y.P.D. “Hold it!” I confidently barked. “I’ve got a pardon!” I handed one of the officers my note. He read it out loud in official police business monotone. Neither of them had any change of facial expression, and for a moment I feared the worst. Trying to humor a New York City police officer, committed to the confines of seriousness, can have disastrous results. Finally, the pregnant moment gave birth to a response: “Take a walk! This one’s on Mom!” I put my bags over my shoulder and skipped away a free man, thankful for the juices of creativity that turned a potentially negative situation into a close encounter of the hilarious kind.
The next day I was selling in the same location when a police car careened out of nowhere, flashing lights and blasting sirens, and screeched to a halt on the sidewalk, a breath away from my body. The two officers from yesterday were right in my face before I even realized that they were after me. But instead of my bags, it seemed I was in possession of a rare and precious piece of literature. “We want the note!” one of them said, as if expecting me to challenge their authority. I handed him the scribbled piece of evidence. “We told everybody in the precinct about it, but they didn’t believe us. We’re going to laminate it and post it on the bulletin board!” I relaxed, realizing that the sirens and the flashing lights were part of a joke they were playing to get back at me. So there we were, three human beings, sharing an odd and playful moment, temporarily suspending the crime and punishment game and connecting at a level that the script did not call for.
Perhaps the finest moments of connection happen when we are willing to abandon the popular script and improvise our own.
Sometimes my silly sales tactics included barking things like, “You’ve Read The Book. You’ve Seen The Movie! NOW BUY THE BAG!!” Other times I would proclaim with authority, “The Strongest Laundry Bag You Can Buy Without A Prescription!” Some people enjoyed a good laugh as they passed. Others would quicken their pace and be careful not to smile or make eye contact and possibly catch whatever I seemed to have! Maybe on some level they knew that playfulness could be contagious, dangerously spread through inner child-to-child contact, and often renders its victims quite vulnerable to subversive and spontaneous emissions of joy and laughter.
When my laundry bags or my humor were not well received, I got to work on my rejection issues. My sidewalk escapades became adventures in personal growth, time and space to slip out of self-consciousness and develop some confidence, as well as some cockiness! I look back on those days with affection, amused and grateful that I actually did it, and even more grateful that I don’t do it anymore!
Six months after selling my last laundry bag and moving to California, I went back to New York to visit friends and family. I couldn’t resist paying a visit to Court Street in Brooklyn Heights, where many of my bags were sold. I strolled into the Kosher Pizzeria that had become my hangout over the years. The employees gave me a warm greeting. One of the waiters, visibly excited, handed me a copy of the most recent edition of the Brooklyn Heights Gazette.
the back page was a comic strip with yours truly in it. An artist had captured me in caricature, selling my wares on Court Street. The caption read, “Whatever happened to the laundry bag man?” I had left my mark on the streets of the city I grew up in! That felt good.
A few years later I was back in Brooklyn to give a concert. A woman in the front row of the audience was looking at me quite strangely all throughout the performance. She appeared dazed, confused and disoriented. At the concert’s close she approached me. “I know you from somewhere,” she said painfully, as she attempted to make a difficult withdrawal from her memory bank.
I looked into her eyes and instantly knew. “NYLON JUMBO LAUNDRY BAGS!” I exclaimed with a huge smile spread across my face. Her eyes registered both shock and the relief of recognition. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “You were the laundry bag man!” She had cracked the case, but there were more pieces of the puzzle to put together. “I passed you on Court Street for years, feeling so sorry for you. What happened? How did you get off the streets?” She had many more questions, wanting to know the details of how I had created such a rewarding career doing what I love. It was obvious that her belief system did not have much room for the possibility of people transforming their lives for the better, yet there I was, guitar in hand, proof before her eyes.
I walked her to her car, telling her more of my story; voice lessons, recording my music, making my “no more bags” commitment, moving to California, taking the leap, trusting the universe. Her reactions gave me a richer appreciation for my bags to riches journey. What a tale to tell around the campfire!
Sometimes remembering those days feels like a sketchy recall of a past life memory. Did I really spend seven years in this life as a street peddler, running from the police like a criminal? Yes, and with no regrets. I made warm, human, and creative contact with each of my customers, sending each of them off with some positive vibes along with their purchase. I made friends with the homeless, and even sang rap songs to the passing high school students. (I don’t mean to boast, I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve got the world’s best laundry bags! They’re a bargain for you, they’re a profit for me. If you buy a couple dozen, I’ll give you one for free!)
What had started as simply a laundry bag sales job, just in it for the money, evolved into a laundry bag performance ministry, where I went to work each day excited and eager to make a small difference in people’s lives, to bring a little levity to their gravity. It strikes me sometimes that although I have changed products, in all these years I have not really changed jobs. My job has always been about sharing joy and celebrating life, and that is always the business at hand, whether it is gift wrapped in singing, writing, or selling NYLON JUMBO LAUNDRY BAGS!
