A random joke that Kurt Vonnegut tells: There once was an old man who lived on the edge of the border between two countries. Everyday he would cross the border with his wheelbarrow filled with odds and ends, and everyday the guard KNEW that the old man was smuggling something, but could never find out what it was. On the guards last day on the job, he was having a drink with the old man, and he finally just asked, “What have you been smuggling all these years, friend?” And the old man finally replied,”WHEELBARROWS.”

This is the only joke I know in the complete and unabridged history of jokes.

And I half feel like there’s some huge wheelbarrow staring me in the face, and for some reason, I’m refusing to see it.

***

On Thursday I went to a place where they shove burnt dead people into canisters and store them in a wooden building. It’s Buddhist temple, too. There are gardens surrounding the area, with fragrant flowers and a stream with koi in it. The whole place reeks of incense.

On my way in, I crossed over an ethnic looking red bridge, and I walked up to a huge bell. I banged the bell with a mallet, and I felt exhilarated to be making a loud noise, though somewhat embarrassed amongst Japanese and Mid-Western tourists and their families. I was by myself.

Just outside of the temple, I took my black rubber slippers off and stepped onto the cool concrete floor. There were some randoms lurking in the dark corners, and a little boy lighting a candle in front of Buddha. They all looked uncomfortable as the huge statue of Buddha stared serenely at them. From where I stood, the fat woman with the fanny pack and the comfortable shoes felt a strange connection to the equally fat, though unequally happy man sitting cross legged in front of her.

Positioning myself opposite of my fat friends, I mimicked Buddha’s seat and slowly lowered my eye lids.

Then there was black and empty and a slight musky smell.

When I came back up from the depths of my consciousness, a teenage girl was staring at me.

I walked out to the koi pond and watched as a couple from Florida fed the fish. The fish were thrashing around like ravenous sharks.

“Would you like some fish food to feed to the fish?” the woman asked me.

“Sure.” I said, and I sprinkled the food she gave me into a particularly large koi’s gasping mouth.

“Does that make you happy? Do you like that?” she asked me.

“Mmm. Did you know that the birds like the food too?”

“Really? Here you go. Feed them.”

I held my hand out and a finch landed on my index finger, its feathery weight heavier than I expected from one who dances on the wind. The finch’s beak gently pecked at the round, brown pellets, and I froze myself so I wouldn’t scare it.

Then it flew away and I walked on by myself.

***

I was waiting for the bus stop downtown, reading David Sedaris’s new book “When Engulfed in Flames,” when a woman approached me.

I half expected someone to approach me at this particular place, because someone always does. Whether it’s a homeless man with male pattern balding positioned four feet long dreds, or a robust tourist who is lost, I am addressed with phrases like, “Excuse me,” or “We need to stop this cancerous Vietnam War….mmphhmmmph…that gun shot me in the face…get your hands out of my…get yourself some anti-war packets and hand them out…”

This time, an old woman came up to me.

“Excuse me…do you know where King Street is?” she asked.

I looked up from my book at that moment, and my two eyes were met by one blue eye surrounded by white, powdery wrinkles, and one gaping, empty eyelid. It was like a gasping koi’s mouth in the place where an eye should be. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Blink. Pinkish blackness. Blink. There were no eye lashes.

“It’s right down this way, just keep walking on this sidewalk.”

“Thank you. I can’t see very well, because I have only one eye,” she explains. As if I hadn’t been staring at it the whole time. I felt guilty for flaunting my two good blues at her pink and blue.

“No…it’s ok. Have a good day.”

But that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say, “No, you don’t,” in the same sympathetic tone you tell your chubby friend, “No, that miniskirt doesn’t make your thighs look fat.”

Why is it that I’m so much more honest and open in my mind than I am in real life?