Stumbling on the Road to Sainthood

St. Sebastian, pray for me.

Since Catholic grade school I have worried about the quality of life, fretted about the people starving in India, about pitching in and shouldering the burden.

We were taught the importance of virtue, sacrifice and suffering. I remember being especially awed by the story of Sebastian, the Roman martyr whom the Emperor Diocletian ordered shot to death with arrows. He recovered, stood up to his antagonist for his cruelty, and was promptly beaten to death with clubs.

What courage! What a hero! Next stop, sainthood.

Fast forward 20-some-odd years. My concerns for the people starving in India have been replaced by worrying over the drought, the smoggy air we breathe, the landfills gorged with trash.

My inspiration was a billboard from the DWP, the one that reads “Flush Only When Necessary, Save 20 Gallons.” Something went off in my head. It was as if a nun had come up behind me and shouted: “Think globally, act locally.”

That’s when I decided, as far as the environment goes, to lead an exemplary life. Alone, I was going to save thousands of gallons of water and help get this parched city through the drought.

And the bulging landfills? I had that covered too. I would start a simple compost pile. I already possessed a wicked knack for killing everything green in my yard. How hard could it be to let dead things turn even deader?

But I didn’t stop there. Nooooo. I trained my guilt-ridden eyes on my car, my air-conditioned oasis. And a battle began in my mind: Not the car . . . yes, the car . . . please, just this one thing . . . air pollution is everyone’s concern . . . but I really . . . polluter . . . Now see here! . . . spoiled gas-guzzling, road-hog yuppie . . .

Worry and guilt are great motivators. So I decided to take the bus--once a week. OK, OK. Twice a week.

But I’ve realized something. Sebastian wouldn’t have lasted two days in Los Angeles.

It’s tough to be a saint in this city.

My dreams of becoming some sort of self-styled Captain Commode were shaken one day while visiting my friend Marie’s house, where I was pulled aside after visiting the facilities and chided like a schoolboy. “Here,” my friend told me, “we’re not pigs.”

Even her 3-year-old got in on the act. “Ya gotta flush the toilet,” he said.

Another friend, already in danger of turning into a curmudgeon, breaks out into laughter whenever he hears about my efforts. Sarcasm is quickly becoming his native language.

“One people, one planet, please,” he says, trying to keep a straight face.

Please.

Perhaps I would have more luck in the field of decay. My goal was to have a very small compost pile out back behind the garage. Something I could gaze upon for succor whenever I was feeling guilty about taking an unnecessary trip in the car, or ordering take-out food, then throwing the Styrofoam containers in the trash.

The pile became a heap, which became a hill, which became a mountain. A mountain of shame.

It’s six feet and growing, and apparently in no hurry to do what I want it to do.

“Too much nitrogen in there,” one expert told me.

“Put some bone meal in there,” another said.

“Too much carbon,” somebody else said.

“Too dry.”

“Too damp.”

“Too big.”

“Not enough oxygen.”

“Turn it more often.”

I decided to go to the source on this one, a man whose opinion and counsel I’ve always respected. Dad.

“Bag it and throw it out,” he said.

But those darts of disapproval pale in comparison to what people say when they learn that I ride the RTD.

“The bus?” said my friend Lisa. “Eeuuuuwwwwwww. Dir-tee.”

Oh, well. Riding the bus is a great chance to reflect, daydream, read. Right?

Nah.

There’s the two retirees, with their ample stomachs, who habitually get on in the early morning. Both have booming voices. One day their conversation centered on breakfast.

“Don’t much like hollandaise sauce on my eggs Benedict,” says Mr. Foghorn Voice No. 1. “What I like is that there bearnaise sauce. That’s the one I like.”

And it’s getting dicey out there.

Recently, conversation aboard a standing-room-only bus came to a dead halt when one passenger near me in the back, obviously down on his luck, was loudly telling his two friends about a drug deal at MacArthur Park that wasn’t to his liking.

Someone had tried to pull a fast one.

“I woulda taken care of her good, “ this guy says. “But I only got 15 days left on parole.”

Just then I remembered that there was a compelling advertisement that I wanted to study at the front.

It’s tough to be a saint in this city.