South of Houston Street Socrates

I remember it was in the summer of my youth when I first met Socrates standing at the mouth of an alleyway. He stood dressed in flowing white robes and hair, (what he had left of it), the same flowing white. It didn’t matter it was the dead of winter, there he was in his robes. He was an enigma to most because his origin in SoHo District is unknown. Some say he lives in a nearby retirement home while others say he just appeared one day. The story I heard was he lives above a Chinese restaurant.

For me, it was 1962 when I first met him.  He was standing proud and tall with his fists clenched to the fabric of his tunic in a dignified manner. It was raining hard and he seemed oblivious to it as he stood there espousing philosophy to anyone, no one, me. I was the only person stupid enough to be in the rain except for Socrates. I was his only audience that day. He caught sight of me as I got near to him and he turned to face me. Without missing a beat, he continued making his finer point and then stopped. 
He said to me, “ah, wisdom is lost on the youth and that includes you young man.  You shouldn’t be out in this rain lest you catch something worse than my meaning..”     

“You’re in the rain mister!” I threw right back at him with a little attitude.

He let loose a guttural laugh, then went into the subject of rain. In a weird way, I understood him. He was getting into the effects of rain to alter moods which, in turn, could change the fate of the world, or something as significant. There I stood, listening to an impassioned man make an impassioned speech in the driving rain. Afterwards he sat on the closest stoop, brought out a silver flask, and took 3 healthy pulls. I don’t why, in that moment, my minds' subconsciously chose to listen to this man. I mean really listen. The real magic of Socrates is what lies “between”. If I listen to his ramblings and relax my anguished thoughts, then an understanding comes to me from “between”. It’s hard to explain, it’s more aptly described as a second vision. For Socrates reality is laced with factual events interwoven, yet invisible. It’s there, but only if you know what to look for. 

Once you train your mind to look into the between, then you start to see what reality, is! It came to me quite naturally and since then I have been at Socrates side whenever I can. His wisdom is all encompassing and it didn’t take long for others to join, to hear him speak come rain or shine. After 10 years he no longer stood in the rain soaked streets to speak, it was done indoors. It was the thanks of generous donations of the citizenry of New York ( $18.50 admission fee). Socrates now arrives to his speaking gigs in the back seat of a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce motorcar. Secret is, he bought another just like it, and is being stretched into a limo as we speak. 

Since those days Socrates has become a household name with a laundry list of endorsements pushed from some of the largest ad agencies in Lower Manhattan. He is at the pinnacle of his fame.

I can’t say that I haven’t benefitted from being in his orbit all of these years. I too have made a lot of money in his shadow. He is very generous and refers to me as “number one”.  Until that point in my life I wasn't first in anything. Not in love. Not in Life. His words made me see and understand. To this day the things that Socrates brings out in the open for me to see and consider are wonderfully insightful. I don’t see anything that could remotely be considered dark or cultish. 

Not in a long time had a single individual make such a profound impact on such large and diverse groups. All of media is ready to pounce, then share, whatever tidbit that comes from Socrates. Only a handful of individuals in all of history had such an impact with their words. The charisma these historic individuals exuded, which I consider Socrates a member of, is most palpable. Those like Ghandi, Hitler, Reagan and a few others have made positive and also murderous influences. The sheer number of Socrates followers and the constant demands from the media puts him right up there with the same kind of crowd strength.
 
I attend media "after parties" where the prevailing question asked of me is, “is he evil“? Is he good, or is he bad? I scoffed at the notion, at first. Then I took a good look around me. Everywhere I went, while in his presence, I saw the sheer number of the crowds. His believers. Then I started to randomly look into this crowd of believers to individual faces. Thousands of them since I started to see between the lines, so to speak. I came to a startling conclusion. It wasn’t the man that we should be looking at, it should be his followers. While I was looking at individuals, I was looking at the wrong ones. I should have looked at his early followers. The ones that came after me. There was an unofficial inner circle of certain people who do certain things. Specialized things. There was Hector, who worked at a postal center sorting mail. He did all the mailing. There was Saul the butcher who always seemed to smell like blood. There was Lucy the hospital nurse who happened to be a man. How he got the name Lucy is anybody’s guess. As hard as I thought, I could not recall what exactly it is, Lucy does. 

Lucy likes to flash money about and bought a lot of friends with influence which he parlayed into success outside the hallowed halls of the hospital ICU unit.

Lucy spends the most time with Socrates besides me. I never seem to be in the room with them both at the same time. I remember a quote attributed to Lucy when, at a luncheon he said “Who do you think owned the alley where Socrates first spoke, me?”

I decided it was time I look behind the curtain of Mr. Lucy. If I was right, then Mr. Lucy should currently be in the company of Socrate because of the simple fact, I was not. I am going to confront him with posing questions so as to get to the bottom of this question mark of a man. I looked at my reflection in the mirror to adjust my tie one last time before meeting them, and turned to go out the door.  As I turned, there he was standing in front of me. 
“How did you get in here?”, was the first thing that came out of my mouth! I saw him for the very first time in his full glory. The power in the room went up exponentially. Any façade he ever wore was gone and what I saw, is what I got. It was Lucifer.

“It makes sense why you took the name Lucy. So I suppose you think it is clever?”  I said, as bravely as I could under the circumstances.   

“I have kept an eye on you for a long time now.” He replied.  “I have allowed for you to travel this path of yours since the beginning. Now that everything is in place, I thought it appropriate we should meet because you seem to think we should" he said, as smooth as molasses while giving me a wink.

“Let me tell you something. Call it a courtesy if you will. There are two outcomes in the present time. Outcome number one has you giving me all of the followers and in return I make you rich, famous and having what you want, when you want it. The second outcome is you disappear. Only you and I share the oracle Socrates, and once you are eliminated from the equation then I control the message. Look at it like this, you and I are standing shoulder to shoulder and there is this monkey straddling both of our backs, together. I simply turn and walk away and the monkey jumps to your back so now, it is yours. It’s a metaphor you moron”. He hissed.

“How long do I have? To decide, that is.” I inquired. He is after all the Prince of Darkness.

I made my decision.

He ran for and won the election for the President of the United States under the name of John Smith aka, Socrates. I was on my approach to the East gate of the White House, on a short break in between movie sets and thought it was time I saw the man whom I followed for a good portion of my very successful life.  He met me with a wink at the East Portico.