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I had just wrapped up Vignettes from the Village and was talking to Christian Bates on the telephone when he asked if a ‘Best Of' was on tap for the Scene series. I had pondered the idea many times. After hanging up the phone, I decided to get right to work on the anthology. It wasn’t easy deciding which stories to include. I tend to be somewhat biased, having lived through each and every adventure. I thought about surveying some of my readers, but quickly decided against it. What was the point?  Everyone tends to have their own reasons for liking a particular story. I would have received too much feedback and that might have been worse than none at all. In the end, I opted to select a balanced selection from all four Scene books...Man On The Scene, Malfeasance in Motion, Slippery Escarpment, and Another One More. I have also included two previously unreleased stories...Bandit Number Two, and Cyclos Dop Bpee.     

 284 pages/Published in 2009

Gypsies…Where’s the Love?

Arizona, 2004

  I’ll never be able to erase the tragic image of Dusty unwillingly dragging a tiny Gypsy girl down the sidewalk in Moscow.  We had just turned the corner, when a mob of disheveled, grubby, dark-skinned, obsidian-eyed kids made a beeline straight for us.  Some as young as three or four years old.  Some begging, most grabbing at our pockets.  All of them desperate and hungry.  Nary an adult in the vicinity.  We wanted to help, but how?  We had enough trouble just trying to escape.

  The bleeding hearts out there might say, you certainly can do something for these poor unfortunates.  And believe me, my heart bleeds to see kids in such predicaments. The problem is where do you begin to help them?  Do you spend every rouble in your pocket?  There were after all twenty kids.  Do you give two or three a rouble or two and let them fight it out?  Something akin to those outrageous bum fights in Las Vegas. 

  Besides, if you give them something…Anything, aren’t you just encouraging the behavior to go on and on forever?  Probably.  No…Absolutely.  It’s the welfare mentality discussion replaying itself over and over and over again.

  Most of the Russians I spoke to were unwilling to classify the Gypsies as Russian citizens, or at least not as “real Russians”.  “They are not our people”, said Zinaida Kourochkina, a woman we stayed with in Moscow.  “These dark-skinned people from the South will never be real Russians, never.” 

  Unfortunately Zinaida is not alone in her line of reasoning.  In fact, quite a few countries refuse to actually consider the Gypsies in their census headcounts.  Unofficial estimates place the number of Gypsies worldwide at around 12 million.  But with so many countries treating Gypsies as non-citizens, it’s almost impossible to acquire accurate figures.

  We chose to keep walking, or to at least attempt to do so.  Walking is never an easy task with little urchins, faces smeared with soot and despair, wrapped around your ankles.  As we escaped, I sickly wondered if they felt “gypped”, a word the world has casually uttered for centuries when they feel they were taken or cheated.  Unfortunately, this is the way most of us get to know these exotic, nomadic people. Few of us get to see the productive, intellectual, successful types.  Just these downtrodden, dirty versions.            

  Although this was Moscow, the scene is pretty much the same all over world.  I’ve been accosted in nearly every European country that I’ve ever visited.  I wish I could put a more positive spin on the situation, but the word “accosted” best describes my contact with Gypsies.  Begging with attitude.  An in-your-face, direct approach to panhandling. 

  It’s remarkable how similar the different groups residing in various countries resemble each other.  In the Middle East, they call themselves the Dom.  In Armenia, the Lom.  In Greece and other European locales, the Rom or Roma.  In some countries the Gypsies blend in well with the majority populous, in others, they stick out like proverbial sore thumbs. 

  I always find myself asking the same question?  Why does the world hate the Gypsies?  I know of no other group on earth as despised and misunderstood.  Not even the Jews.  Hitler regarded the Gypsies much the same as he did the Jews, exterminating over 500,000 during the Holocaust, 21,000 at Aushwitz alone.  However, Hitler was beat to the punch in his genocide bid by Karl VI, who in 1721 ordered the total erasure of the Roma.  “Gypsy Hunts” were carried out in an attempt to eradicate and exterminate the Gypsy population.  Modern skinhead organizations in Eastern Europe have taken up where Karl VI and Hitler left off.

  In fact, even the origins of this nomadic people are hotly debated among historians.  Where are they from?  Why did they leave?  Do they really kidnap kids?  Can their crystal balls and tarot cards really foresee the future?  Will they ever be accepted? In some instances the bottom line seems to be:  You’ve entertained us; now can you please leave. 

  I began to research.  I don’t know how we survived the pre-internet era?  All that bountiful information just floating out there for the taking.  Suspended in mid-modem. Unfortunately, alongside all that lovely information, resides a whole host of nasty disinformation.  Anyone can promote their own historical views.  And they do.  It has become an art in itself to separate the haystack from the needle.  Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll take it.  Better than sifting through an outdated encyclopedia any day. 

  As far as where the gypsies are from?  Most agree, they originally hailed from India.  More specifically the Punjab region of northwestern India.  This lends to the Hindi, Punjabi, and Dardic roots within their language.  Curiously, the name “Gypsy”, which has followed these people everywhere they have roamed, is a misnomer bestowed upon them by Europeans who assumed they originally emigrated from Egypt.  Others argue that they were originally from Europe and began traveling after the break up of feudalism in the fifteenth century.  I don’t buy that one, but of course, you can believe whatever you like.

It seems they left for a myriad of reasons. 

1.  Economic incentives.  We can all relate to that right?  Seek out the best opportunity.  Chase down the demand.  The need for labor by neighboring regions and kingdoms enticed the Gypsies to wander. 

2.  Persecution under the Indian caste system.  Who wants to dwell at the bottom of the barrel, with little hope of ever peering out over the lid?  One way to beat the caste system is to leave the system itself.

3.  Perhaps the rest of the world simply desired musicians and dancers to liven up their lives?  No one can discount the Gypsy’s entertainment value.

  Best guesses indicate the Gypsies westward movement began around 1,000 years ago.  First through Persia and Asia Minor and then westward into the Balkans and Eastern Europe.  Eventually the Gypsies made there way into Western Europe and into the Americas. 

  I asked my 89-year old grandmother, Jane Ladd, if she remembered encountering the Gypsies in Ohio?  “Oh yes they lived under the Route 20 bridge part of the year.  Camped out near the river.  I remember the neighbors told my sister and I to watch out for them since we had blue eyes and most of the other kids on our street had dark eyes.  They might want to snatch us.  It kept us from talking to them, that‘s for sure.” 

  Travel has always been important to the Gypsies.  Today the stereotypical horse-drawn wagon has been replaced by the stereotypical white van pulling a trailer.  The Gypsies have always preferred self-employment and consider wage-labor as degrading, especially under the Gorgios, the term they use for the non-gypsy-British.  In case you wondered, as an American (and in France as well), you are known as a Gadje.  Spaniards are known to the Gypsies as Payos. (Read more, buy the book)