“Tommy, Tommy, you did good, just as I expected.
“I say this for you, because I like you. You are a good man. You say what you think and I like this because you know we are a practical people. We say what we mean and do what we have to.
“But still, we deal with others, and we do performance. You pull out a gun, yes, and you are ready to use it, yes? But you won’t, probably, no. You show your piece maybe how many times a week? And how many times do you actually use it? Not so many, right?
“Now this is the thing, showing it is performance. We show them what we mean by this. When you bring them here, it is performance, too. Here, in our home, we must do performance for them.
“So you come with your gun, and this is good, and this shows we are serious, which is good, because we are. And then I tell you to put it away. And this is performance, too. I say “No need for that,” but you know that you can pull it back out if you need.
“This makes people happy. This tells them we are on their side. We are on their side if they listen to us, if they do what we say. If I don’t say it, they think we’re both against them. You have a gun. I tell you to use it sometimes. They think we’re both against them.
“I tell you to put it away, and they see we’re on their side. Nothing changes, really. But is performance. We make a space, here, and they feel safer, and they talk, and maybe they do what we want. And maybe they see that we’re on their side if they talk a bit more.
“So I tell you put away, and you put away, and this is not against you. You are family, and you do right. Performance is not for you. Is for him. Yes?
“And we are here, too, in performance. Now he stands out there, and he thinks about things, and he sees how it is. We leave for a time and he thinks that maybe he should make choices. Important choices about how he leaves here.
We go back now and see what he chooses.”
I find myself writing bits of stories, poems, or even song lyrics in odd places. Sometimes an idea shows up and demands that it be written down while I’m eating, or in a meeting, or waiting for the bus, or on a telephone conference. Consequently, scraps show up on my desk as precious bits of napkin, envelopes, or powerpoint cue pages. They are found amid meeting notes on my computer, saved as email messages to myself, and scattered across a dozen types of word processor files on every computer I’ve ever used.
Peace.