his name was win and he was crying.
i wasn’t doing so well myself because earlier in the day i had picked up some ADHD meds and they were not making me feel 100%, let’s say.
i was nauseous, out of sorts, and oddly horny.
i like to be at peak performance when i drive other people. even if they are crying in my backseat, which i rarely allow.
win was a student from asia. he was at an LA art school studying Toy Making which i never knew was a thing, but i guess if George Lucas made more money off the Star Wars toys than he did the movie, someone figured ah, let’s join the cash grab.
he was crying because several of his teachers hated his concepts. he had to look up the phrase Basic Bitch after one of them put that in the notes of his most recent project.
i’m going to get kicked out of school. my mother is going to be so disappointed. the shame our family will endure will be too much, he said between sniffles.
no one gets kicked out of art school, i assured him. they want your money.
win informed me that several of his classmates had been kicked out.
were they really booted or did they quit? i asked.
people love to quit shit, i said.
he just cried and told me how his mother carried the whole family on her back after his father went to jail.
ok, look win, before i start crying, what do these teachers want from you?
they keep saying they want us to think Outside the Box. they say they want edge. they say they want New.
fuck. i sighed.
what happened? win asked startled, probably concerned about the traffic or the benz.
im Mister Outside the Box, i said quietly. but he heard.
YOU ARE? please help me Mr. Anthony. please.
we were on lincoln blvd in venice, close to venice blvd. traffic was bad. there’s only a few places in la where when things are jammed up theres nothing you can do. this part of Venice was like that.
so i turned down the hendrix and spit my gum out the window barely avoiding a tesla, who’s driver then rolled up his windows.
here’s the problem bro, i am the wrong person to help you. i am incredibly dark. i’m black. don’t be fooled by my wrinkle-free light skinned complexion. all the darkness is inside me.
prick me. do i not bleed? of course, but my blood’s like ink.
win was incredibly confused. which was the point. and best of all he had stopped crying.
any idea i give you will be great. but very few teachers ever gave me good grades. IT TOOK ME SIX YEARS TO GRADUATE COLLEGE!
please mr. anthony. please!
uber refuses to change my name to tony. it’s just as weird for me to hear that name as i’m sure it is for you.
i will help, but know my heart is so dark im probably gonna go to Hell bc God judges us by our hearts and theres no faking that. also, ive done bad things that im trying to make up for, but inside of me is a caldron of wickedness waiting to boil over.
if i get kicked out mr. anthony, i have to return to china. much shame.
fine, win, but if you use this idea please do not mention me. if you end up making it and becoming rich, say it just dawned on you while you were in the back of an uber driving around LA. do with it what you want.
he was all ears.
first, when you pitch this, tell your teachers that once this becomes successful all of the profits needs to go to a homeless nonprofit like Invisible People.
ok ok but what is it?
in a way, it’s a parody of Barbie, but they’re hyperrealistic versions of homeless people.
but they also have all these accessories. that’s the real hook: tents, shopping carts, half-broken bicycles, rusty bbqs, weirdly healthy dogs, rickety structures covered with blue tarps, street lights that have been tapped into so the people can “steal” the electricity to run generators and little tvs.
the figurines of the homeless should be the easy part. young people with face tattoos. dudes with giant coats on in the summer. a guy who’s mostly naked sleeping on a bus bench that has an armrest in the middle of the seat so people cant sleep on it, a guy with an almost new Kobe jersey, and a guy dressed up in his army fatigues.
a once beautiful woman with pockmarks and dreadlocks. a fat guy in a wheelchair even though his legs work fine. and of course a few teenage runaway boys with skateboards and guyliner who do tricks in the alley.
so dark, win whispered.
and edgy and outside that box, i said, as we drove through an overpass lined with tents, old RVs and port-a-potties.
very.
but here’s what i want you to do. i want you to either pee on them or figure out a way you can make them smell bad.
then win said something that worried me. he said, we have chemicals that can make things smell like fruit or happiness.
ok, but do you have anything that smells like sadness?
yes.
sell the extra jars of bad smells separately.
win was so quiet looking out the window. as if he had just been offered the opportunity to sell his soul to the devil for a delicious slice of pizza. he took out his phone and started tapping the idea down in his notes app.
i continued, because i hate silence in my car.
each homeless person comes with two accessories, like a tent and a sleeping bag. and win, they’re tucked inside a pair of clean, new athletic socks, rolled up in a ball the size of your fist.
when someone buys the toys, there’s a little note in them stating that the bearer should give the socks to the first homeless person they see because fresh socks are always welcome to our friends living on the street.
he used both thumbs quickly on his phone. i spied on him from my rearview mirror. someones frown had turned.
you will not go to hell, Anthony, he finally told me. you are very nice.
nice? i said surprised.
so let me tell you about the second series of homeless toys. there will be a garbage truck, five cops, and three guys in yellow vests who roll by and put all the tents and skateboards and sleeping bags and clothes and reading materials and found items that had been collected
and they toss them into the back of the garbage truck and instruct the homeless toys to leave.
and then win went back to crying.