Jasper

Jasper doing his thing
(white shirt, center)

My sister and I visited St. Louis last month, and during our short trip there we visited the Gateway Arch, an upside-down silver U that towers over six hundred feet into the air. We were kind of bummed that we didn’t get to take a ride to the top because all the tickets were sold out, but at the same time, after seeing how staggeringly high the thing was, we weren’t so sure we could stomach it.

After perusing the underground museum (full of strange animatronic people that winked), we went back outside, where we saw this guy performing at the south end of the Arch, surrounded by lots of people who were cheering him on. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. It looked almost like some kind of dance, only he remained in one place. He ended his show and then started to leave, but his exit route took him right past us. He zeroed in on me and stopped at the bench where Hannah and I sat to ask if we had seen him. I said yes, and asked what he had done.

He proceeded to sit down right next to me, introduce himself as Jasper, tell me there were seven billion people of all ethnicities on the planet (for a solid five minutes), and then launch into a beatboxing session. I wasn’t sure how his beatboxing and hand motions were supposed to be connected to unity and the earth. (But as Hannah said, “he was a really good beatboxer.”)

I sat there half-watching him and half-watching my pockets to make sure he didn’t take my wallet. I was pretty sure I smelled alcohol on his breath. His right eyebrow was shaved through a quarter of the way from the edge, and he had hazel eyes that shone against dark skin. But he didn’t try anything weird. After he finished, he just walked off. That was it. Over. Done. Hannah and I looked at each other in puzzlement and then turned to watch him disappear down the path into the sunset, “before the cops” stopped him (apparently he has a history with the police department there, but we didn’t see him get caught that day). We ultimately concluded that he was probably under the influence of something (or else just very…creative) and then made our way into a crowd where we felt somewhat safer.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of that story of the country mouse going to the city. I don’t know…maybe it’s common for random guys to approach people and beatbox for them in national parks? (and did I just refer to myself as a mouse? ugh.)