How long can one look at a loogie? If you are the Phlegm Scientist, at least 10-minutes.
It’s midnight and I’m just leaving Central Park with my dog. I see a guy kneeling down, seemingly examining something on the ground at Columbus Circle. Being he’s in a vulnerable position, I consider pushing him over but thought he may not see the levity in the situation. From the back I can see that his hands look dirty, not just “could use a rinse under the sink” dirty but “homeless” dirty.
When the cross light turned to Walk, Abandon and I passed him by. He was still examining the mystery item on the ground with the intensity of someone searching for a lost contact lens or one looking at a dying bird on its last wing, so to speak. I turned around and saw him touching phlegm on the ground. I was a bit perplexed by his fascination with what seemed to me to be a foreign wad of phlegm. He touched it and then scooped up a sample with his thumb and forefinger. He spread the fingers apart and brought them closer together and the connected strand of phlegm stretched and contracted like a mini accordion.
He was now on his feet, walking across the street with his fingers still playing his accordionic phlegm concert. When we got across the street I finally broke.
“I don’t believe in germ theory either but that seems even nasty to me,” I shared. “What are you hoping to accomplish in doing that?”
“It’s not emphysema,” he said. While I might have lacked an understanding of his scientific method, this still didn’t stop me from pursuing my line of questioning further.
“So who cares? I mean, I don’t have to look in someone’s ass to see if they have AIDS or not.”
“What does that mean?” he asked and I laughed because it really didn’t make sense. What I suppose I meant was that I didn’t care enough to know if someone had AIDS or not to stick my face in their ass and I sure as hell didn’t care to know if some random loogie on the street came from someone with emphysema or not if it required me to stick my fingers in it. I tried to clarify.
“What do you care if the phlegm in question indicates the presence of emphysema or not?”
“Emphysema is more green,” he explained leaving me more educated on the topic and yet at the same time more confused.
“WHO CARES? I mean, that’s nasty!” I was begging for a logical explanation to why some guy over the age of three was playing with a piece of phlegm he found on the street. Einstein said that you couldn’t solve a problem with the same logic that caused the problem. I suppose I was seeking logic from the main player in a completely illogical situation and Einstein wouldn’t be too impressed with my line of questioning.
“I don’t have emphysema,” he said, “As that is green.” While my question, which despite me not having the foggiest idea what it was at this point, was not answered, at least I had the peace of mind to know that he was the one who birthed the lump of phlegm under analysis.
I said, “That’s good to know,” and continued to walk with the phlegm scientist a little back and to the left of me. Back and to the left.
After a half a block walking in silence he finally wiped the phlegm off his hand and said, “Have a good night.” If he wanted to shake hands at this point I would have been in a total quandary, not wanting to be rude but at the same time not wanting to contract non-emphysematic nausea.
I said, “You too, brother,” for at that moment we were brothers in the pursuit of Truth, even if it was just a small slice of it in the form of a gooey phlegm that, thankfully, was emphysema-free.