November 2005
London, England
A Kebab Shop
I luxuriously slipped away from my studies abroad in Toulouse to join my beloved roommates Alana and Jack for a restorative weekend in London. The day had been crisp but sun-soaked as we glided from Harrod’s to Hyde Park, clinging to each other, drinking in our familiarity in order to purge some of the toxic strangeness that had accumulated over the semester. By dark we were full of decadent food and toothsome relief.
My joy was magnified as we tubed our way to meet Tom, another dear friend of mine who was then studying at RADA. Alana, Jack, and I gradually seeped into Tom’s surroundings as his acerbic roommate prepared to go to a midnight Madonna concert, and assorted entitled American girls slouched on each other convincing each other that giggled names were original thoughts.
With skills newly acquired from a sheepish kind of apprenticeship with his father, Jack used scissors, ruler and deft, boney fingers to role an excellent joint. Then we were out on the town, puffing away like dandies, tenuously clutching the glowing thing with a bobby pin. It was lost before Alana and Jack got it into their heads.
Tom and I meandered through the shinny cobblestone streets of foggy London town yammering in herbal intoxication, Alana and Jack trudged soberly behind us. Feet in dustbins, lost loves bemoaned and Bob Dylan sung! We unanimously decided we were hungry.
A New Yorker born and raised, Tom has been cause and witness to the my few instances of complete NYC disorientation. He once got us so lost in the Financial District that I was certain we would never again see the light of day. Taking into consideration the command of geography in his hometown, stoned London was no better. Tom led us deep into Anglo wilderness until we found ourselves at a little clearing, complete with another pub and kebab shop.
In accordance with the rules of a miraculous small world, Alana quickly spied people she went to high school with at the pub while Tom and I continued our trek to the kebab shop. We ordered kebabs and fries and sat at a counter that was situated in front of the panoramic front window of the shop. As we blissfully munched, some old, pickled Londoners slurred about the new set of pub laws enacted that week. Traditionally, pubs would close around midnight, forcing Londoners, bent on maximizing to binge drink from five till close, becoming so drunk that there would be no choice but to stick skewers in each others’ eyeballs. Now, an evening could be more leisurely, drinking slower, drinking in different environments, with less desire to rip the face off your fellow man.
As our faces glistened from kebab grease, we watched a peculiar crowd gather outside the kebab shop in front of the panoramic window. It was a group of about six, dressed in lavish formal wear, blitzed out of their minds. I had no choice but to name them. To the far right, stood Nelda, a woman in her late twenties, sour, butch and smoking, held her post as apathetic sentinel over the central proceedings. In the middle was Randal, a skinny man in his early thirties, with long, stringy hair and frightened eyes. On the far left, was Clive, an enormous, cranky butcher in a tux. In the middle, some pretty girls, drunker than kindergarten Scotch-testers, tottered to and fro. Randal was confronting Clive about the girls. He thrashed his hands nervously about and poked his finger hard into Clive’s chest. Clive—a stony monster—stood perfectly still, while Randal continued his drunken tirade. Randal was clearly a douche bag, foolishly trying to be the tough guy in the face of an impossible adversary. He was up in Clive’s face, yelling and spitting, commanding him to leave his pretty girls alone.
Clive punched Randal square in the nose. In a perfect moment of cinematic synchronicity, one of the blonde slutty girls instantly sprawled backwards, arms flailing, into the street. Randal’s face was oozing blood. He was completely emasculated, defeated, put in his place. Thus, like any stupid, drunk, weak-minded man, he kept on fighting. Back in Clive’s face he went, jumping around like a man with spiders in his hair. The slutty girls were sobbing, while Nelda kept on smoking with an air of utter boredom. He threatened Randal, dodging and diving under Clive’s stoic, meaty gaze. Randal gradually inflated, gaining real confidence from illusory bravado. Then Clive clocked him a second time.
With that, Clive vanished. The slutty girls tottered toward Randal’s aid on their high heels, more off their feet than on. Nelda munched haughtily on chips, still smoking and aloof.
Back in the kebab shop, we were all completely agape. My hands rubbed my face in disbelief and Tom kept smacking my shoulder to see if what he had just witnessed was real. A slumped Randal slowly rose and caught a glimpse of us, framed in this panoramic window. He slowly rose and limped toward us, his face covered with blood and rage.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! His fist slammed into the glass of the kebab shop window. He pointed directly at Tom. He then dragged his finger across his throat.
Randal had decided that Tom’s life was over. “Guys!” Tom hissed like the condemned man he was. “We need to get the FUCK out of here.” He then dictated an elaborate escape route. “You three go out first to create a diversion and then I’ll run out and we’ll all scatter!” We all somberly agreed. Breathing as one, we discarded our trash and exited the kebab shop. No one even noticed us leaving, not even Randal. We were safe.
We laughed off Tom’s death sentence and clapped each other on the backs for a diversion well played. It was very late and Jack, Alana and I wanted to get back to the hotel. “Tom, can you tell us a good place to hail a cab?” I asked. He lead us to a spot were cabs passed every few minutes. After an hour and half of waiting in the cold, a cabbie took pity on us and we were off.
“You’re Americans!” he exclaimed after we gave him directions in our Yankee dialect. “I’ve been all over America. I’ve taken my family to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and to Disney World. Fantastic place. You know I can’t really stand those Arab chaps those. And their women! All covered up like that. I took one of them in my cab here and I says to him, ‘How do you know it’s not a bloke under all that!”
“Haha,” I said. “I don’t know.”
Monday, June 2, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
His Broken Throne
August 2003
Whitefish Bay, WI
The House Where I Grew Up
The Bathroom
My girlfriend and I had just returned home a five-week acting program in Oxford. My parents had spent some time in London and the Cotswolds, recapturing the quaint and gentle vacation taken for their honeymoon. They were to arrive home from London later that evening.
It was very late. I was pacing around my girlfriend’s house fuming with worry, waiting for their call. It finally came.
My parents arrived at O’Hare so late that they missed the last bus to Milwaukee. So they found a cab that would drive them the ninety minutes home. My father, traveling with no cash, had to stop at a TYME machine to pay the gracious cabbie before finally dragging his weary body through the front door. Then we all went to bed very cranky, our bodies reeking of wind and travel.
The next morning my mother woke up very early to retrieve our mail and to buy milk for the house. I was still asleep. She went upstairs, and from inside the bathroom my father called to her, “Could you get me a sponge?”
For the first ten years of my life, I had always remembered my father to have a little twitch. On Saturday mornings, I would sit on the couch and watch cartoons. Every Saturday, my father would come into the family room, put his face close to the T.V. and twitch, a sharp intake of air and a little shudder throughout his body. One time the twitch was very violent and he fell down. It was truly one of the most pure, organic, and poetic bits of slapstick I had ever seen.
Until this morning. My mother opened the door of the bathroom and found that the floor was covered in water. My father had been stepping into the shower, very tense from the previous day’s travels, and twitched. This twitch pitched him backwards into the toilet, causing him to literally crack it in two. My father is five feet, six inches tall weighing roughly one hundred and fifty-five pounds. He is a compact man, mighty in his own right, but by no means any perceivable threat to a rugged, porcelain Kohler toilet. Frankly, I would be hard to imagine a man three times his size pummeling the thing with all his might to do so much as chip it. But there she was, in pieces on the sopping floor.
“A sponge!” my mother was shouting. I was awake at this point. “You need more than a sponge! You need towels! God, look at this mess! Lots and lots of towels. Goddamnit!” My mother was very upset. She had just come home from a trip. There were so many things to do: sort through the mail, go grocery shopping etc. This was the last straw.
Luckily, the plumber came that day and installed a brand new throne. All was restored and my mother now laughs heartily at the story. While my father is a bit sheepish at its retelling, I try to reassure him with this: When you’re little it’s easy for your dad to seem like a superhero. That is a much more difficult thing for him to achieve when his son is eighteen years old. But to break a toilet in half with nothing but a brief body tremor? Shit, I’m the son of the Man of Steel himself!
Whitefish Bay, WI
The House Where I Grew Up
The Bathroom
My girlfriend and I had just returned home a five-week acting program in Oxford. My parents had spent some time in London and the Cotswolds, recapturing the quaint and gentle vacation taken for their honeymoon. They were to arrive home from London later that evening.
It was very late. I was pacing around my girlfriend’s house fuming with worry, waiting for their call. It finally came.
My parents arrived at O’Hare so late that they missed the last bus to Milwaukee. So they found a cab that would drive them the ninety minutes home. My father, traveling with no cash, had to stop at a TYME machine to pay the gracious cabbie before finally dragging his weary body through the front door. Then we all went to bed very cranky, our bodies reeking of wind and travel.
The next morning my mother woke up very early to retrieve our mail and to buy milk for the house. I was still asleep. She went upstairs, and from inside the bathroom my father called to her, “Could you get me a sponge?”
For the first ten years of my life, I had always remembered my father to have a little twitch. On Saturday mornings, I would sit on the couch and watch cartoons. Every Saturday, my father would come into the family room, put his face close to the T.V. and twitch, a sharp intake of air and a little shudder throughout his body. One time the twitch was very violent and he fell down. It was truly one of the most pure, organic, and poetic bits of slapstick I had ever seen.
Until this morning. My mother opened the door of the bathroom and found that the floor was covered in water. My father had been stepping into the shower, very tense from the previous day’s travels, and twitched. This twitch pitched him backwards into the toilet, causing him to literally crack it in two. My father is five feet, six inches tall weighing roughly one hundred and fifty-five pounds. He is a compact man, mighty in his own right, but by no means any perceivable threat to a rugged, porcelain Kohler toilet. Frankly, I would be hard to imagine a man three times his size pummeling the thing with all his might to do so much as chip it. But there she was, in pieces on the sopping floor.
“A sponge!” my mother was shouting. I was awake at this point. “You need more than a sponge! You need towels! God, look at this mess! Lots and lots of towels. Goddamnit!” My mother was very upset. She had just come home from a trip. There were so many things to do: sort through the mail, go grocery shopping etc. This was the last straw.
Luckily, the plumber came that day and installed a brand new throne. All was restored and my mother now laughs heartily at the story. While my father is a bit sheepish at its retelling, I try to reassure him with this: When you’re little it’s easy for your dad to seem like a superhero. That is a much more difficult thing for him to achieve when his son is eighteen years old. But to break a toilet in half with nothing but a brief body tremor? Shit, I’m the son of the Man of Steel himself!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Ma Première Émission de Radio
October 2005
St. Girons, France
The Radio Station
During my undergraduate 2005 Fall Semester, I was stationed in Toulouse, France. There were two battalions of study abroad students, drafted from all over the nation. One battalion, comprised of 16 highly capable individuals, was responsible for conducting an extensive individual research project and producing a 40-page paper, which detailed the results of said research upon completion of the semester. My battalion, comprised of 6, was responsible for a less intensive research project, a shorter paper, and improving our passable, intermediate French language skills.
I entered this study abroad experience fully prepared to immerse myself in the exciting cultural and scholastic adventures that waited for me in the well-charted wilds of southern France. The two battalions all flew to Paris on the same flight. As soon as the entire roster of my battalion was drunk on Duty Free liquor, I knew I had to shift my expectations.
Once in France, it rapidly became evident, that while the six of us brought a lot to the table in terms of experiencing cultures different than our own, none of it would look too good on a Fulbright application. After weeks of almost unbearable struggle, our teachers applauded any efforts we made to open our mouths to allow French-like grunts to dribble out. Our teachers were so pleased when we showed up to class, and when we showed up only barely hung-over. We were the B-Squad, and damn proud of it.
It was a big adjustment for all of us. And after many weeks of methodically haunting the same three bars, thereby dubbing ourselves near-native experts of Toulousain night-life, we were all shipped off for two weeks to the remote and rural department of Ariège. Upon arrival to the St. Girons town hall, we were debriefed by several local officials—the St. Girons mayor, the head of tourism, and Gégé.
Gégé, from what we could tell, was the ceremonial king of Ariège. He was old, fat, lame, and blind. He spoke in a brassy tenor, frayed with phlegm and age. And he had the most powerful accent I have ever known a human being to possess. If you are familiar, for example, with Pépé LePew, high school language learning tapes, French movies, or for that matter French people, then you know that the French language, with a Parisian accent, is velvety and elegant. R’s are pronounced with the gentlest flip of the soft palate, hard consonants are cushioned by h’s, and the vowels naturally cause the mouth to prepare for a sensual kiss. Word endings are vaporized and the spaces between words are melted down to form seamless liaisons.
Gégé was not from Paris. He lived his entire life in a rural French village near the foothills of the Pyrenees, where the spicy, sun-choked essence of Spain cannot help but seep through. Gégé’s language strongly reflected this geography. His meaty r’s rolled like those of a Spaniard. Each vowel was pronounced distinctly, with rhythmic care, like an Italian confectioner. And the ends of his words were hammered forth with the unmistakable regional twang known as l’accent du midi. The northern pronunciation of the word for bread (pain), for example, is known to most Francophilic Americans to rhyme with Gauguin. Pain, when pronounced with an accent du midi rhymes with wang.
After our orientation, each of us joined forces with a different local host family who lived in remote, rural villages of the department. My host mother was Claire, a woman in her mid-sixties who, as a young hippy woman, had fled from Paris to live the simple life in the lush, hilly village of Alzen. She was a puppeteer who fashioned her puppets out of bits of foliage, mushrooms, and twigs. She drove an immense white Renault van and was never shy about pulling over to the side of the road to pee in the bushes.
Due to my above average command of French, reasonable work-ethic, and diplomacy with my B-Squad compatriots, I was chosen to be their representative during a special taping of the daily St. Girons radio show. I would be joining Carlos and Laura from the first battalion, superior students and accomplished French scholars. I was extremely honored and was determined to make my second-tier companions proud.
Arrangements were made for Claire to make the hour drive to St. Girons from Alzen so that I could seize my moment of Ariège celebrity. We set out early in the morning, and I filled the van with cheerful, clumsy conversation. I spied a hitchhiker on the side of the road and wondered how hitchhiking in France differed from doing so in the United States. I concentrated very hard on all of the French words I would need to express this for a future conversation I could have with Claire. For me, I would only hitchhike under the direst of circumstances, where it was a question of life and death. Under no circumstances would I ever pick up a hitchhiker. My ex-girlfriend’s uncle went hitchhiking across America when he was around eighteen. He disappeared without a trace.
Claire slowed down and pulled over next to the hitchhiker. He was in his thirties and his dirt-black hair was long and tangled. He jauntily slid in next to me and for the rest of the trip he and Claire had a very spirited conversation about what I think was politics. I tried very hard to dissipate the smell of fear that was slowly seeping from my body, filling the van. After twenty very tense minutes, Claire dropped off our friend and continued on to the radio station. During this time, feigned a casual and improvised conversation about the differences between hitchhiking in the United States and France.
I was the last one to arrive at the station. A radio technician took me to a sound recording booth, which consisted of a bench and a microphone attached to a little tape recorder. They performed a sound check where the technician asked me about my favorite French foods and I excitedly Frenched into the microphone. “Fantastic!” he said. “You’re going to be terrific.” I realized that the “sound check” was to just to make sure I wasn’t retarded.
In the main studio, built like a one-room schoolhouse, Carlos, Laura, and I sat around a large table in front of antiquated microphones. To my right sat Laura and across from me sat Carlos, Gégé, and Gégé’s assistant. This man was bald, mustachioed, and bespectacled, resembling a character from Milton Bradly’s “Guess Who”. I had noticed him at the orientation and figured he was just one of Gégé’s helpers. At the end of the program, it was confided in me that he was an agent with French intelligence. The show went like this:
The three of us limped out of the studio with wide eyes. I was filled with a subtle but undeniable sense of violation, as if some ghostly hand had been resting on my genitals for the past hour. We had been successfully reduced to the burlesque versions of Americans especially delicious to the provincial French psyche. While I am very doubtful, that any of my compatriots actually heard the broadcast, I am almost that an archived version of it lives in a dossier somewhere in a French government building in order to gain further insight into the American mind.
Epilogue
At the end of our stay in Ariège, we all gave presentations about mini-research projects we conducted. The most moving and beautiful presentation was done by Carlos on the subject of Love in Rural Communities. After we had all enthusiastically wept and clapped, Gégé decided to put in his two cents:
"You know, in small rural communities such as ours, there is a big problem with inbreeding. Children these days are often born with birth defects or with mental handicaps." The room was silent as Carlos took his seat.
St. Girons, France
The Radio Station
During my undergraduate 2005 Fall Semester, I was stationed in Toulouse, France. There were two battalions of study abroad students, drafted from all over the nation. One battalion, comprised of 16 highly capable individuals, was responsible for conducting an extensive individual research project and producing a 40-page paper, which detailed the results of said research upon completion of the semester. My battalion, comprised of 6, was responsible for a less intensive research project, a shorter paper, and improving our passable, intermediate French language skills.
I entered this study abroad experience fully prepared to immerse myself in the exciting cultural and scholastic adventures that waited for me in the well-charted wilds of southern France. The two battalions all flew to Paris on the same flight. As soon as the entire roster of my battalion was drunk on Duty Free liquor, I knew I had to shift my expectations.
Once in France, it rapidly became evident, that while the six of us brought a lot to the table in terms of experiencing cultures different than our own, none of it would look too good on a Fulbright application. After weeks of almost unbearable struggle, our teachers applauded any efforts we made to open our mouths to allow French-like grunts to dribble out. Our teachers were so pleased when we showed up to class, and when we showed up only barely hung-over. We were the B-Squad, and damn proud of it.
It was a big adjustment for all of us. And after many weeks of methodically haunting the same three bars, thereby dubbing ourselves near-native experts of Toulousain night-life, we were all shipped off for two weeks to the remote and rural department of Ariège. Upon arrival to the St. Girons town hall, we were debriefed by several local officials—the St. Girons mayor, the head of tourism, and Gégé.
Gégé, from what we could tell, was the ceremonial king of Ariège. He was old, fat, lame, and blind. He spoke in a brassy tenor, frayed with phlegm and age. And he had the most powerful accent I have ever known a human being to possess. If you are familiar, for example, with Pépé LePew, high school language learning tapes, French movies, or for that matter French people, then you know that the French language, with a Parisian accent, is velvety and elegant. R’s are pronounced with the gentlest flip of the soft palate, hard consonants are cushioned by h’s, and the vowels naturally cause the mouth to prepare for a sensual kiss. Word endings are vaporized and the spaces between words are melted down to form seamless liaisons.
Gégé was not from Paris. He lived his entire life in a rural French village near the foothills of the Pyrenees, where the spicy, sun-choked essence of Spain cannot help but seep through. Gégé’s language strongly reflected this geography. His meaty r’s rolled like those of a Spaniard. Each vowel was pronounced distinctly, with rhythmic care, like an Italian confectioner. And the ends of his words were hammered forth with the unmistakable regional twang known as l’accent du midi. The northern pronunciation of the word for bread (pain), for example, is known to most Francophilic Americans to rhyme with Gauguin. Pain, when pronounced with an accent du midi rhymes with wang.
After our orientation, each of us joined forces with a different local host family who lived in remote, rural villages of the department. My host mother was Claire, a woman in her mid-sixties who, as a young hippy woman, had fled from Paris to live the simple life in the lush, hilly village of Alzen. She was a puppeteer who fashioned her puppets out of bits of foliage, mushrooms, and twigs. She drove an immense white Renault van and was never shy about pulling over to the side of the road to pee in the bushes.
Due to my above average command of French, reasonable work-ethic, and diplomacy with my B-Squad compatriots, I was chosen to be their representative during a special taping of the daily St. Girons radio show. I would be joining Carlos and Laura from the first battalion, superior students and accomplished French scholars. I was extremely honored and was determined to make my second-tier companions proud.
Arrangements were made for Claire to make the hour drive to St. Girons from Alzen so that I could seize my moment of Ariège celebrity. We set out early in the morning, and I filled the van with cheerful, clumsy conversation. I spied a hitchhiker on the side of the road and wondered how hitchhiking in France differed from doing so in the United States. I concentrated very hard on all of the French words I would need to express this for a future conversation I could have with Claire. For me, I would only hitchhike under the direst of circumstances, where it was a question of life and death. Under no circumstances would I ever pick up a hitchhiker. My ex-girlfriend’s uncle went hitchhiking across America when he was around eighteen. He disappeared without a trace.
Claire slowed down and pulled over next to the hitchhiker. He was in his thirties and his dirt-black hair was long and tangled. He jauntily slid in next to me and for the rest of the trip he and Claire had a very spirited conversation about what I think was politics. I tried very hard to dissipate the smell of fear that was slowly seeping from my body, filling the van. After twenty very tense minutes, Claire dropped off our friend and continued on to the radio station. During this time, feigned a casual and improvised conversation about the differences between hitchhiking in the United States and France.
I was the last one to arrive at the station. A radio technician took me to a sound recording booth, which consisted of a bench and a microphone attached to a little tape recorder. They performed a sound check where the technician asked me about my favorite French foods and I excitedly Frenched into the microphone. “Fantastic!” he said. “You’re going to be terrific.” I realized that the “sound check” was to just to make sure I wasn’t retarded.
In the main studio, built like a one-room schoolhouse, Carlos, Laura, and I sat around a large table in front of antiquated microphones. To my right sat Laura and across from me sat Carlos, Gégé, and Gégé’s assistant. This man was bald, mustachioed, and bespectacled, resembling a character from Milton Bradly’s “Guess Who”. I had noticed him at the orientation and figured he was just one of Gégé’s helpers. At the end of the program, it was confided in me that he was an agent with French intelligence. The show went like this:
GÉGÉ
Good Morning, my friends. It is I, Gégé, coming to you live from St. Girons. Today, we have a special treat. Three American students, who have come here to our little community, to learn about what life here is like. Bonjour mes amis!CARLOS, LAURA, ME
BonjourGÉGÉ
Carlos, where are you from?CARLOS
I’m originally from California.GÉGÉ
Yes, but where is your family from? What is your ethnic background? You are not from the United States.CARLOS
Uh, well my father is from the Philippines.GÉGÉ
And how did he get to California? Did he swim?CARLOS
No, he came on a boat.GÉGÉ
So Laura. You are a very pretty young lady.LAURA
Thank you very much.GÉGÉ
How much exactly do you weigh?LAURA
What? I’m sorry, did you just ask me how much I weigh? I don’t really feel comfortable answering that.GÉGÉ
Pardon me, Laura. It is a rather normal question in French culture.LAURA
Not for Americans. You cannot ask a woman her weight or her age.GÉGÉ
Haha, okay. So, monsieur, which are better: British girls or French girls?ME
I’m going to have to say French girls.GÉGÉ
What do you like about French girls?ME
They are very beautiful, romantic, and mysterious.GÉGÉ
Do you find American girls are this way?ME
Sometimes. I think Americans and the French are actually very similar. They are both very patriotic, strong, and proud.GÉGÉ
I don’t know about that! Americans, like Jews, love to pretend that are being threatened them so that they can use force with impunity on anyone they like. Well, I see we are out of time! Please join us tomorrow when we discuss the perils of the wine harvest.The three of us limped out of the studio with wide eyes. I was filled with a subtle but undeniable sense of violation, as if some ghostly hand had been resting on my genitals for the past hour. We had been successfully reduced to the burlesque versions of Americans especially delicious to the provincial French psyche. While I am very doubtful, that any of my compatriots actually heard the broadcast, I am almost that an archived version of it lives in a dossier somewhere in a French government building in order to gain further insight into the American mind.
Epilogue
At the end of our stay in Ariège, we all gave presentations about mini-research projects we conducted. The most moving and beautiful presentation was done by Carlos on the subject of Love in Rural Communities. After we had all enthusiastically wept and clapped, Gégé decided to put in his two cents:
"You know, in small rural communities such as ours, there is a big problem with inbreeding. Children these days are often born with birth defects or with mental handicaps." The room was silent as Carlos took his seat.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Friendly Fire
February 1996
Milwaukee, WI
Spring Hill Cemetery
Gertrude and Beatrice were sisters who each had sons, Ed and Bob. When I was born, Bob, my father’s father, became my Papa. Papa’s mother Beatrice died when he was very young. His aunt Gertrude then became like a mother to him and his cousin Ed became like a brother. Later, Ed married Jean and Bob married Helen, who became my Nana.
Papa passed away before his time from colon cancer and a few years later, Gertrude passed away. At the funeral, to combat the brutal crust of a Milwaukee winter’s end, the family had arranged for tents complete with flaming gas heaters. The guests arrived, hunched with cold and condolence. A group of mourners gathered around one of the heaters. Among them was Jean, Ed’s wife, who nodded graciously at the guests who approached her to offer healing words.
Then Jean was on fire! Rogue flames from the tent heater had lit up the back of her wool coat as she erupted with confused yelps. Instantly, the surrounding men removed their leather gloves and furiously batted her fiery behind until the flames were subdued. The guests calmed down and the ceremony began as if nothing had happened.
Though the funeral continued with impeccable decorum, there remained three crucial pieces of evidence that betrayed the unresolved chaos of the not-so-bygone blaze: Jean’s charred, tattered coat, the men’s blistered leather gloves, and my laughing mother.
Furtively but ceaselessly, mother could not contain herself. From the moment those men’s gloves had pat-pat-patted against Jean’s flaming rump, my mother had been convulsing. Fits of breathless mirth overtook her entire body, so that all she could do was submit to her heaving. Her hands barely concealed her face, frozen with a helpless, shut-eyed grin.
Desperately, she tried to think of something sad. This should have been easy. She was at a funeral. But not even this could rid her body of laughter. She was flushed and gasping. Tears oozed freely out of her eyes. Onlookers were truly touched by her display because to them she was clearly incapacitated by grief. Rather, the tattered coat and the blistered gloves were the explosive ingredients necessary to produce an almost unstaunchable deluge of laughter.
Nana came over to comfort my mom. Between shrieks and gulps, she squeezed out a confession. “I’m just having some trouble not laughing,” Mom choked. Nana then gave her some space, so as not to be involved with this rather inappropriate situation.
Whenever my mother tells this story, she cannot help but break down again and again. The story can barely be finished without peals of her pure, throaty, nose-crinkling laughter. It is the way all stories about funerals should be.
Milwaukee, WI
Spring Hill Cemetery
Gertrude and Beatrice were sisters who each had sons, Ed and Bob. When I was born, Bob, my father’s father, became my Papa. Papa’s mother Beatrice died when he was very young. His aunt Gertrude then became like a mother to him and his cousin Ed became like a brother. Later, Ed married Jean and Bob married Helen, who became my Nana.
Papa passed away before his time from colon cancer and a few years later, Gertrude passed away. At the funeral, to combat the brutal crust of a Milwaukee winter’s end, the family had arranged for tents complete with flaming gas heaters. The guests arrived, hunched with cold and condolence. A group of mourners gathered around one of the heaters. Among them was Jean, Ed’s wife, who nodded graciously at the guests who approached her to offer healing words.
Then Jean was on fire! Rogue flames from the tent heater had lit up the back of her wool coat as she erupted with confused yelps. Instantly, the surrounding men removed their leather gloves and furiously batted her fiery behind until the flames were subdued. The guests calmed down and the ceremony began as if nothing had happened.
Though the funeral continued with impeccable decorum, there remained three crucial pieces of evidence that betrayed the unresolved chaos of the not-so-bygone blaze: Jean’s charred, tattered coat, the men’s blistered leather gloves, and my laughing mother.
Furtively but ceaselessly, mother could not contain herself. From the moment those men’s gloves had pat-pat-patted against Jean’s flaming rump, my mother had been convulsing. Fits of breathless mirth overtook her entire body, so that all she could do was submit to her heaving. Her hands barely concealed her face, frozen with a helpless, shut-eyed grin.
Desperately, she tried to think of something sad. This should have been easy. She was at a funeral. But not even this could rid her body of laughter. She was flushed and gasping. Tears oozed freely out of her eyes. Onlookers were truly touched by her display because to them she was clearly incapacitated by grief. Rather, the tattered coat and the blistered gloves were the explosive ingredients necessary to produce an almost unstaunchable deluge of laughter.
Nana came over to comfort my mom. Between shrieks and gulps, she squeezed out a confession. “I’m just having some trouble not laughing,” Mom choked. Nana then gave her some space, so as not to be involved with this rather inappropriate situation.
Whenever my mother tells this story, she cannot help but break down again and again. The story can barely be finished without peals of her pure, throaty, nose-crinkling laughter. It is the way all stories about funerals should be.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Halloween's Finest
October 2007
Brooklyn, NY
Lafayette Avenue and Ashland Place
I walk toward Park Slope to meet some friends at a bar. I hum as I walk, sans costume and slightly inebriated. I pause on the curb. Reggaeton and shrieks waft through the air as a large brown van passes. I glare at the vehicle. "Stupid party van," I mutter. More voices paint the air, the giggles and yelps of young women. From across the street, I see two girls, dressed sexy for the holiday, laughing and leaning on each other as they run into the night in their high boots and sparkling tops. Because their boots are so sexy, they aren’t moving very fast.
A cop car pulls up next to me. From the loudspeaker, an angry cop voice shouts at these girls. What have these girls done? Have they stolen something from a costume shop? Have they run out on a bar without paying their tab? The squad car’s loudspeaker fires again. One of the girls shoots a look behind her but continues her doughy stumbling towards Flatbush. I am horrified by the defiance of these girls. Don’t they know that obstructing justice so flagrantly will cause them even more trouble? There is a third salvo from the speakers, but this time I listen to what is being said.
“REMOVE YOUR COSTUMES! STOP RUNNING!” The two young officers are laughing, ribbing each other. I pass in front of the car, stunned and smiling. One cop sticks his dashing blond head out the window. “Hey! You know you like it!” he says, motioning toward the girls, wiggling into the distance.
“Uh, yes sir,” I say, quickly crossing the street. “Have a good night.”
“Hey, buddy!” The cop car has pulled next to me on the other side of the street. “I’d be going that way if I were you,” the officer says pointing in the direction of the escaping sexies.
“Not tonight,” I say, trying to be diplomatic. “Happy Halloween!”
“Happy Halloween,” says the policeman and they speed away into the night.
Brooklyn, NY
Lafayette Avenue and Ashland Place
I walk toward Park Slope to meet some friends at a bar. I hum as I walk, sans costume and slightly inebriated. I pause on the curb. Reggaeton and shrieks waft through the air as a large brown van passes. I glare at the vehicle. "Stupid party van," I mutter. More voices paint the air, the giggles and yelps of young women. From across the street, I see two girls, dressed sexy for the holiday, laughing and leaning on each other as they run into the night in their high boots and sparkling tops. Because their boots are so sexy, they aren’t moving very fast.
A cop car pulls up next to me. From the loudspeaker, an angry cop voice shouts at these girls. What have these girls done? Have they stolen something from a costume shop? Have they run out on a bar without paying their tab? The squad car’s loudspeaker fires again. One of the girls shoots a look behind her but continues her doughy stumbling towards Flatbush. I am horrified by the defiance of these girls. Don’t they know that obstructing justice so flagrantly will cause them even more trouble? There is a third salvo from the speakers, but this time I listen to what is being said.
“REMOVE YOUR COSTUMES! STOP RUNNING!” The two young officers are laughing, ribbing each other. I pass in front of the car, stunned and smiling. One cop sticks his dashing blond head out the window. “Hey! You know you like it!” he says, motioning toward the girls, wiggling into the distance.
“Uh, yes sir,” I say, quickly crossing the street. “Have a good night.”
“Hey, buddy!” The cop car has pulled next to me on the other side of the street. “I’d be going that way if I were you,” the officer says pointing in the direction of the escaping sexies.
“Not tonight,” I say, trying to be diplomatic. “Happy Halloween!”
“Happy Halloween,” says the policeman and they speed away into the night.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
The Spooky Taste of Thai Delirium
June 2005
A Train
A Guesthouse
Chiang Mai, Thailand
The curry we eat at the Bangkok marketplace is delicious. The fruit is luscious and vibrant, jewels from some unnamable palace that were shaken loose and put in baskets to soothe us after a long day of baking in the Southeast Asian sun. We buy three large Singha beers and sip them gluttonously as we wait for the train that will take us north to the province of Chiang Mai.
The train is spacious and cool. We spy a young mother and her breathtaking baby daughter seated in the berth next to us and can’t help but make silly faces. Night has fallen and we fold our seats into cots and get ready for sleep.
My eyes shoot open. I have been sleeping for many hours. There is daylight in the train. My clock says 1:30. There is a fluorescent bulb that drenches the train in an artificial glow. I try to fall asleep. I cannot. I am freezing. The white blanket is thin. I wake up. No time has passed. I am sweating. I try to sleep. I am dizzy. I shut my eyes and hope we arrive soon.
In the morning, I am woozy. I totter gingerly behind Daniel and Simon, my traveling companions. We arrive at our guesthouse. We are offered coffee and tea. I sip some water with effort. We get to our room. I lie down and sleep for a bit. Daniel and Simon go off to explore the town. I sleep, feeling feverish. I get up often to go to the bathroom. Always the same, hot liquid pours from my bowels.
It is dark. Daniel and Simon are away. I am asleep. My mind cooks with fever.
My body ceases to have substance and my consciousness expands. Through the power of my delirium, I am able to comprehend all of the numbers that have been and will ever be. As laborers toil over plows and architects manipulate angles, I see equations and formulas spring into being. History ceases to be the linear arrow, piercing ever forward but is a three-dimensional globe with infinite threads and points of entry. All things are numbers. Matter dissolves to reveal its component parts: proofs and variables, trigonometry and algebra.
The world, according to my fevered eyes, is not unlike that of The Matrix. I was never particularly strong at math so my number world was rather elementary. But you must understand that, at this moment, my consciousness was totally immersed in this vision and all of its surreal implications.
My physical body is in complete disarray. It is scared and nauseous, boiling and freezing. I feel myself get up out of bed and move around the room. Sensation now is no longer limited to my eyes, thus my number fingers stretched out toward the number walls to feel its number vibrations.
Since all things now are absolutely infinite and absolutely collapsible, my fever logic convince me that I can walk from Chiang Mai, Thailand, back home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And this is exactly what I set out to do. I open the door to our room, slump down the stairs, all the while listening to myself whimper with sickness, and find myself at the edge of the guesthouse gate. If my foot crosses this threshold, my integer-laced mind tells me, I will keep walking until I reach home. But, by some stroke of corporeal self-preservation, my tissues take over and force me back upstairs into my room and into bed.
I awake a second time. Everything is the same. My fever cries out, “Go home! Run to Milwaukee.” My delirium convinces me that this is possible. But my body resists. Again, I stumble down the stairs into the courtyard of the guesthouse. I hope that Daniel or Simon will see me and bring me back to my bed. They are not there. My legs take me to the front desk area, where there is a bank of computers. Dazed and shirtless, I watch my fingers check my email as if this exercise will snap me back into a state of normalcy. No new email and no normalcy. I teeter back up the stairs, feeling strangely better, and collapse back into bed.
I awake a third time. Same matrix world. Same homeward drive. But this time, something is different. There is a benevolent force at work. Something is demanding my mind to order itself, to return to a rational realm. My body-as-sense-organ turns to face it. I am sitting up in bed, and Simon’s cell phone is flashing a red light at regular intervals. I wave my hand over the light and my hand watches it intently. With each pulse, my body is calmer. This light leads me slowly out of my delirious state and I fall back to tranquil, sick sleep.
I will always be grateful to the LED light that showed me the way.
A Train
A Guesthouse
Chiang Mai, Thailand
The curry we eat at the Bangkok marketplace is delicious. The fruit is luscious and vibrant, jewels from some unnamable palace that were shaken loose and put in baskets to soothe us after a long day of baking in the Southeast Asian sun. We buy three large Singha beers and sip them gluttonously as we wait for the train that will take us north to the province of Chiang Mai.
The train is spacious and cool. We spy a young mother and her breathtaking baby daughter seated in the berth next to us and can’t help but make silly faces. Night has fallen and we fold our seats into cots and get ready for sleep.
My eyes shoot open. I have been sleeping for many hours. There is daylight in the train. My clock says 1:30. There is a fluorescent bulb that drenches the train in an artificial glow. I try to fall asleep. I cannot. I am freezing. The white blanket is thin. I wake up. No time has passed. I am sweating. I try to sleep. I am dizzy. I shut my eyes and hope we arrive soon.
In the morning, I am woozy. I totter gingerly behind Daniel and Simon, my traveling companions. We arrive at our guesthouse. We are offered coffee and tea. I sip some water with effort. We get to our room. I lie down and sleep for a bit. Daniel and Simon go off to explore the town. I sleep, feeling feverish. I get up often to go to the bathroom. Always the same, hot liquid pours from my bowels.
It is dark. Daniel and Simon are away. I am asleep. My mind cooks with fever.
My body ceases to have substance and my consciousness expands. Through the power of my delirium, I am able to comprehend all of the numbers that have been and will ever be. As laborers toil over plows and architects manipulate angles, I see equations and formulas spring into being. History ceases to be the linear arrow, piercing ever forward but is a three-dimensional globe with infinite threads and points of entry. All things are numbers. Matter dissolves to reveal its component parts: proofs and variables, trigonometry and algebra.
The world, according to my fevered eyes, is not unlike that of The Matrix. I was never particularly strong at math so my number world was rather elementary. But you must understand that, at this moment, my consciousness was totally immersed in this vision and all of its surreal implications.
My physical body is in complete disarray. It is scared and nauseous, boiling and freezing. I feel myself get up out of bed and move around the room. Sensation now is no longer limited to my eyes, thus my number fingers stretched out toward the number walls to feel its number vibrations.
Since all things now are absolutely infinite and absolutely collapsible, my fever logic convince me that I can walk from Chiang Mai, Thailand, back home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And this is exactly what I set out to do. I open the door to our room, slump down the stairs, all the while listening to myself whimper with sickness, and find myself at the edge of the guesthouse gate. If my foot crosses this threshold, my integer-laced mind tells me, I will keep walking until I reach home. But, by some stroke of corporeal self-preservation, my tissues take over and force me back upstairs into my room and into bed.
I awake a second time. Everything is the same. My fever cries out, “Go home! Run to Milwaukee.” My delirium convinces me that this is possible. But my body resists. Again, I stumble down the stairs into the courtyard of the guesthouse. I hope that Daniel or Simon will see me and bring me back to my bed. They are not there. My legs take me to the front desk area, where there is a bank of computers. Dazed and shirtless, I watch my fingers check my email as if this exercise will snap me back into a state of normalcy. No new email and no normalcy. I teeter back up the stairs, feeling strangely better, and collapse back into bed.
I awake a third time. Same matrix world. Same homeward drive. But this time, something is different. There is a benevolent force at work. Something is demanding my mind to order itself, to return to a rational realm. My body-as-sense-organ turns to face it. I am sitting up in bed, and Simon’s cell phone is flashing a red light at regular intervals. I wave my hand over the light and my hand watches it intently. With each pulse, my body is calmer. This light leads me slowly out of my delirious state and I fall back to tranquil, sick sleep.
I will always be grateful to the LED light that showed me the way.
Viewer Excretion Advised
August 2007
Brooklyn, NY
The House on Humboldt Street
The bathroom on the third floor is a little messy. The tub is coated with a film of filth, as if muddy goats had been receiving regular ink baths. A miraculous array of hair—diverse in color, curliness, and body region—huddles in thick colonies in every nook. The bathroom door bares its own unique battle wounds. Known to occasionally stick due to ambient humidity, the door now has a gaping, jagged hole, now covered with a flowery curtain swatch. During the Halloween party, a girl had become trapped inside and was rescued by her heroic friend threw himself against the door, then painted to resemble wood but easily shattered, like the glass that it was, from the force of his drunken charge.
On this particular evening, the toilet is clogged. Housemate Cherished Armoire*, after noting the golden soup of urine, fecal matter, and toilet paper, is inspired to idealistically or foolishly move his bowels anyway into this ailing appliance. As he flushes, the liquid and solid contents of the bowl do not spill out onto the bathroom floor, but retreat ever so slightly down the septic pipe, exposing the fragrant, newly minted excrement to the air currents of the house. He tumbles down the stairs to retrieve a plunger and clattered back up to take care of his body’s folly. Housemates Lego-Man*, Austin, and I are sitting downstairs in the dining room, quietly chatting. From upstairs we hear a blood-chilling cry, the shriek of an old Greek hero as his son plunges the dagger, which bears the family crest, deep into his father’s eye. Moments later, Cherished Armoire tumbles down the stairs again laughing manically, tears streaming down his face. “I just threw up,” he chortles. “Right in the middle of the floor. I was tried to unclog the toilet…and it just smelled so bad that I couldn’t handle it so I puked on the floor. Chloe and Vince[more housemates] were having sex upstairs and when they heard me vomiting…they stopped. I think Chloe asked if I was okay.” He can barely get through it, he’s laughing so hard.
“I’ve gotta go clean up that vomit,” Cherished says. “I don’t think I can go back to that bathroom.”
“Well, what are you gonna do?” asks Austin. The look in his eye suggests that he will not allow Cherished to take another breath unless he makes all of the stuff that used to be inside and is now outside go away right now.
“I’ll deal with the toilet,” I say. I proudly march upstairs, through a gauntlet of my housemates’ horrified stares, and size up my adversary. His stench hits me first, the cloying, sinister sweetness of another man’s waste. My breathing instantly switches from my nose to my mouth and I try not to think that I am sucking in shit air through my mouth. The plunger has been left in the toilet, as if a dragon had been abandoned, merely half-slain. I look only to verify coordinates for my brain to direct my hands to do their work and I watch the contents of the bowl, smeared thickly with stool, froth and churn as I create sufficient suction force. I deftly pull up on the plunger and there is a victimless splash. Nothing has changed save that the excrement is now more thoroughly mixed. I go at it again, and this time there is a satisfying slurp as the bowl drains for the first time in many days. I flush twice for good measure and triumphantly bring the plunger outside where it will be cleansed by dusty Williamsburg winds.
When asked why I did it, I mostly shrug my shoulders and say I don’t mind doing things like that. I studied the social implications of feces and other taboo subjects at college, so I might as well put some of my theories into practice. Perhaps I’m practicing for the scatological reality of fatherhood or testing the limits of my stomach. If anything, I’m proud to be remembered as the one who was good at dealing with shit.
Brooklyn, NY
The House on Humboldt Street
The bathroom on the third floor is a little messy. The tub is coated with a film of filth, as if muddy goats had been receiving regular ink baths. A miraculous array of hair—diverse in color, curliness, and body region—huddles in thick colonies in every nook. The bathroom door bares its own unique battle wounds. Known to occasionally stick due to ambient humidity, the door now has a gaping, jagged hole, now covered with a flowery curtain swatch. During the Halloween party, a girl had become trapped inside and was rescued by her heroic friend threw himself against the door, then painted to resemble wood but easily shattered, like the glass that it was, from the force of his drunken charge.
On this particular evening, the toilet is clogged. Housemate Cherished Armoire*, after noting the golden soup of urine, fecal matter, and toilet paper, is inspired to idealistically or foolishly move his bowels anyway into this ailing appliance. As he flushes, the liquid and solid contents of the bowl do not spill out onto the bathroom floor, but retreat ever so slightly down the septic pipe, exposing the fragrant, newly minted excrement to the air currents of the house. He tumbles down the stairs to retrieve a plunger and clattered back up to take care of his body’s folly. Housemates Lego-Man*, Austin, and I are sitting downstairs in the dining room, quietly chatting. From upstairs we hear a blood-chilling cry, the shriek of an old Greek hero as his son plunges the dagger, which bears the family crest, deep into his father’s eye. Moments later, Cherished Armoire tumbles down the stairs again laughing manically, tears streaming down his face. “I just threw up,” he chortles. “Right in the middle of the floor. I was tried to unclog the toilet…and it just smelled so bad that I couldn’t handle it so I puked on the floor. Chloe and Vince[more housemates] were having sex upstairs and when they heard me vomiting…they stopped. I think Chloe asked if I was okay.” He can barely get through it, he’s laughing so hard.
“I’ve gotta go clean up that vomit,” Cherished says. “I don’t think I can go back to that bathroom.”
“Well, what are you gonna do?” asks Austin. The look in his eye suggests that he will not allow Cherished to take another breath unless he makes all of the stuff that used to be inside and is now outside go away right now.
“I’ll deal with the toilet,” I say. I proudly march upstairs, through a gauntlet of my housemates’ horrified stares, and size up my adversary. His stench hits me first, the cloying, sinister sweetness of another man’s waste. My breathing instantly switches from my nose to my mouth and I try not to think that I am sucking in shit air through my mouth. The plunger has been left in the toilet, as if a dragon had been abandoned, merely half-slain. I look only to verify coordinates for my brain to direct my hands to do their work and I watch the contents of the bowl, smeared thickly with stool, froth and churn as I create sufficient suction force. I deftly pull up on the plunger and there is a victimless splash. Nothing has changed save that the excrement is now more thoroughly mixed. I go at it again, and this time there is a satisfying slurp as the bowl drains for the first time in many days. I flush twice for good measure and triumphantly bring the plunger outside where it will be cleansed by dusty Williamsburg winds.
When asked why I did it, I mostly shrug my shoulders and say I don’t mind doing things like that. I studied the social implications of feces and other taboo subjects at college, so I might as well put some of my theories into practice. Perhaps I’m practicing for the scatological reality of fatherhood or testing the limits of my stomach. If anything, I’m proud to be remembered as the one who was good at dealing with shit.
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