Two Old Men

"Hey what's the difference between New York and Sydney?" Allen came out with it out of nowhere. I looked at him suspiciously and shook my head and kept walking. Was it one of those stupid 60's laugh-in jokes coming back into vogue like so many other things or was he leading me somewhere else.

When I didn't respond he came back with;

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What's the difference between New York and Sydney?" This time he uttered it slower and with more emphasis like I was a little simple.

I responded simply by saying "If that's a bad joke, I'm not interested, if it's not I'm even less interested."

Them there are fightin' words to someone like Allen.

"So you're happy to just lead this shallow oblivious life and not want to know anything."

"Yes, I'm happy to be living this shallow life and not wanting to know anything that's deep."

This time it was my turn to be patronising. I knew what he was trying to achieve. He wanted to make me feel like I was this ignorant soul walking the surface of this earth not aware of anything beyond what was in front of my eyes.

"So you're not interested?"

"Nope!"

He kept throwing me daggers, I kept dodging them as we kept walking and looking just like any other tourist.

He was chomping at the bit to tell me;

"Well suit yourself."

"I will."

I knew I would have to come up with something so I just reiterated "Hey man if you want to get all deep and mysterious that's fine, I'm not interested. That's all there is to it."

"You're not interested? Anyway it's not 'deep and mysterious'" he parodied, trying to show me up as though I was stupid. I kept looking ahead, slightly irritated and as a result was unable to enjoy the scenery.

"The answer to my riddle is that there is none." He couldn't help himself; he had to come out and say what it was he was dying to say.

"None what?" I knew that response would get to him.

"What do you mean, none what?"he asked, in agitation.

"I don’t know you said it."

 "There is no difference."

As he said that an African American guy dressed in his homey gear, walked past us muttering some hip hop lyrics to a beat only he could hear, so I took the opportunity to press on with his argument.

"So that guy there walking around in his own world, thinking about how to rhyme those words together so he can come up with a song that will show us his perspective is the same as you and me walking around here looking at buildings all day."

"Yes he's just like you and me."

"Duh!"

"I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about the cities. I mean all the cities are shells of what they used to be, caricatures, tourist destinations. Nothing's happening anymore. We're no longer localised, we're globalised, homogenised and categorised." Said purposely in a hip-hop fashion, which I ignored categorically.

"And?" 

 "There are no differences anymore."

"Well there is to me, NY is like Gotham City. Sydney is bright easy on the eye and out to please."

"Where have you been for the last decade? Sydney's not out to please. Sydney is a sheep like the rest of the world."

"Well who cares about cities, I'm more interested what the people in those cities do and I think we're all different."

"Not anymore we're all the same, we're all one big family, some happy, some shitty but there's nothing to prove anymore; we're just all actors. There are no differences anymore.

"That's your prerogative. I want to believe in differences. I see differences everywhere."

"But it's only superficial... He-llowww!" Allen said like some character in those American sitcoms

"Now who's being a sheep." I pounced but he didn't seem to catch on.

 

"Sometimes you have to be just to make people see," he pounced back, "the West has no more history to make. All it's doing is to try and convince the rest of the world that it is still viable by calling upon its once glorious past and trying to re-enact it, to instil some sort of moral, honour and responsibility in all of us but there aren't any; we've surpassed all morality and scruples. It's 'dog eat dog' just for the sake of it. We're on the dark side of all those virtues; we're fundamentalists. We're defiant because the books and movies tell us to be but most of the time we don't deserve to be; we got to earn that right. It's all just an act for the rest of TV land. The only differences between all cities or between 'individuals' as you're so inclined to dwell on, are superficial."

I didn't dare interrupt while he was on his soap box as he tends to get louder and more frustrated and it can be quite embarrassing when you're in a crowd with him so I let him have his little rave and put in my 2bob's worth.

"Aren't all differences on a 'superficial' level? I mean there's Human nature then there's differences, so shut the f**k up and let me be a sheepish tourist, awroight." I had no idea why I said that; I'm not even sure it made sense but at the time it felt the right thing to say in response to his idiotic theory; for all I knew I could have been way off the mark.

 

Allen was getting irritated and I wanted him to be, he spoilt my day so why not frustrate the crap out of his.

"Tony, Tony, Tony, you kill me, mate. You can't be that shallow, can you?"

"Uhuh! I sure can." That would get to him, for sure. He shook his head and looked straight ahead but what he really wanted to do was to give me another serve but he obviously thought better of it.

 

Truth be known, Allen had gotten to me. He did make me feel like I had missed some point somewhere that he had detected and that I was oblivious to. I hated that. I felt like this little butterfly fluttering about from flower to flower while he was deep in his dungeon, like Igor, reflecting upon all theories that allure most of us. He continued with his explanations why there was no real difference between Sydney and New York but I didn't allow it to faze me, the way his theories and observations of everyone's action, including mine, used to when we were younger.

 

Well this time I wasn't going to agree with him. I could see differences in everyone whether it'd be as a result of having been in contact with someone else and taking on parts of that person's demeanour; it was still a variation from the other person.