We never learned how Mr. Gerber maintained himself. He helped out here at the building, kept an eye on things, but that hardly could have been enough to live on.
Mr. Gerber was peculiar, certainly. I don't doubt that he was somewhat mad. He may have been a pervert. A skim milk-looking middle-aged man, thinning hair, the kind of man you can hardly tell if he is 38 or 61. The sun seems to never shine directly on such a person.
In a crowd of people Mr. Gerber was useful as an end table. You gave him your drink to hold when you went to the toilet. Fifteen minutes later he hadn't moved. I suppose you could have thrown your coat over him.
Mr. Gerber was part of the complex. He lived in a corner basement apartment. A made-over utility closet, I suspect, though of course I never saw it. In this building we're all good friends -- it's required. When we had parties we invited everyone. When we invited everyone, we invited Mr. Gerber, too.
If you forced him to speak, Mr. Gerber would straighten up, tuck his chin down toward his chest, and say that he was grateful, grateful to be at a party like this, among people like these people. Mr. Gerber was so strenuously grateful one wondered if he was grateful at all.
I should clarify some things about myself. I am a person who tells the truth. Thus many people do not like me very much. I'm not a sentimentalist. I'm not a sympathetic sort of person. I'm a pragmatist. I'm an M.T.V. person. Do you know what that means? That means: My Time is Valuable. All right, let's continue.
Mr. Gerber was extremely unobtrusive, but he was always around. If you came home early feeling under the weather, there was Mr. Gerber. Or late on Sunday afternoon when distractions were running low. At 3am when you couldn't sleep, there was Mr. Gerber, clearing away the junk mail, sweeping out the entryway.
If you caught him alone Mr. Gerber was chatty, in a style both humdrum and bizarre. He'd chat about the light that was out, about trash collection, about the weather -- and then he'd sigh and say, "For so long I dreamed of this and now I'm living it!" And an enormous smile would sweep over his face.
I am not impressed by poetic-type people. If you take a moment to investigate their self-conscious behavior, you will nearly always see an attempt to camouflage failure. Like women who gain weight and become spiritual.
For all his being nothing, Mr. Gerber was extremely grandiose. His life appeared to be 10% of one's own life, which frankly was shoddy in some departments, and yet he talked like he was rags to riches, like his whole entire wish list had been delivered. He was delusional obviously. Probably he was actually severely depressed. I've seen a case or two of this before.
I suppose he was giving me some clue the afternoon we discussed Christmas shopping, while leaning up against the mailboxes. He said he was pleased to be finished with his shopping. (I have no idea who he could have been shopping for. I myself never received anything from him.)
Mr. Gerber said, "I like things -- but most of all I like the space between things."
Well. It sounds a little spiritual written down, doesn't it? Trust me, it wasn't spiritual at the time. He had one hand in a crinkly bag of BBQ ripple chips, He had little orange specks around his lips.
Conspiratorially he leaned near me, breathing on me with his barbecue chip breath. "Have you ever been in the train station at rush hour, shoving and elbowing along with everyone else, when, without warning, a gap appears? You've got 144,000 people in front of you. 144,000 in back. But nobody is quite exactly where you are. You're in a little gap. I love that."
I bet, if we really looked into it, we'd find out that Mr. Gerber really was a pervert. Perverts resemble skim milk and are always careful to be the nobody next door.
As for myself, I don't shirk responsibility. I believe in doing things. I celebrate achievement. That is why I live on the top floor, whereas Mr. Gerber lived in the basement. Both of us, it's true, live alone. But a corner on the top floor is obviously very different from a corner in the basement.
All religions of the world agree on one point: every little thing you do matters. All of us are born with a 'to do' list. We must work, procreate, ornament, etc. Like it or not this is the situation. When we die we go to Heaven, to the auditors, and all our exotic destinations, university publications, and redheads are tallied.
You can pretend otherwise but that just means you are afraid of life. At very least you must avoid blowing your nose on cloth napkins and eating potato chips on the train.
One night -- I was having some troubles, I admit. I don't have nearly as many troubles as most other people, but still I have some. For some reason I was walking around in my t-shirt. And underpants.
This is not as inappropriate, as abandoned, as it may seem. I am fastidious about underwear, about its cleanliness. And all my underwear is very modest, more modest than what many people wear on the outside.
Anyway, it was the middle of the night. In one of my hands could be found a fifth of whiskey. I turned the corner and saw that there was someone there. I started to apologize -- but there was no need. It was only Mr. Gerber.
"Whiskey?"
Mr. Gerber looked at the bottle. "It isn't space really," he said. "Actually it obliterates space. But it feels like space." I thought this meant I could continue enjoying my liquor privately, but he took the bottle from me, and had a good strong slug of it.
I remember he didn't shiver and his eyes didn't widen any. So maybe that was Mr. Gerber's story.
"Isn't this the very best time of night?" said Mr. Gerber. "I adore it. I like stumbling on these odd times when one can really live."
Well, this was nonsense, and I would certainly have said so, had I not been overwhelmingly intoxicated. And so I said, "Gosh. You really like some unusual things, Mr. Gerber."
"I like all the things that are likeable. And also those things that cannot help but be loved. Dust, for instance." Now he started counting things off on his thick stubby fingers. "I like train stations when the train is gone. I like gardens in winter. Nothing charms like the absence of charm! I like cafeterias. I am addicted to laundromats. I dislike traveling, but I enjoy being in transit. There's no place a man can really live, don't you agree, besides in a city, in a basement apartment, in a building where no one really likes anyone!"
Likely this was not Mr. Gerber's first whiskey of the evening. Some people enjoy being eccentric and contrary. And they expect other people to find it just delightful.
Personally, I dislike monologists. Don't you, too, dislike monologists? It's the back and forth of dialogue that enriches one, connects one to the species, even has health benefits. Not so Mr. Gerber. He did not seek the back and forth, the to and fro. Mr. Gerber had his speech prepared. No doubt he was a deeply lonely man, and monologues, as everyone knows, are a hazard of that species.
"One of the joys of modern life," said Mr. Gerber, "Is the perfectly anonymous coffee shop -- not the most popular chain, but its cheaper, though I grant still over-priced, imitators. Each shop is just like another and even the street corners on which they appear are so similar, so dull and gray, that you could never agree to meet anyone there, because you could never think of anything that might distinguish it from any other shop, its street from any other street, its city from any other city, until finally you cannot even distinguish yourself from anyone else: in a place like this you can really live!"
My diction doubtless makes Mr. Gerber's gobbledygook more distinguished than it really was. I decided to confront him about his evasions, to remind him that work and restraint are necessary, that the age of consent is 18. Unfortunately that drunken evening was the last I saw of him. For shortly after this discussion, Mr. Gerber disappeared.
I don't mean that there was anything untoward about it. I don't think he ran out on the rent. He just isn't with us anymore.
The odd thing is, now that Mr. Gerber is gone, he's become a very common topic of conversation among residents here in the building. They want to know where he went. They want to understand him. This is a sentimental and foolish interest which Mr. Gerber does not in any way merit.
Thus it disturbs me somewhat to discover that I, too, am unable to stop thinking about Mr. Gerber. Mr. Gerber is absolutely stuck in my mind. He appears to have become part of the structure, like train stations and dull street corners. Like dust.
I want very much to see Mr. Gerber again. I would greet him courteously. I'd listen to whatever nonsense he wished to share. And I'd be sure to tell him, "We cannot forget you, Mr. Gerber." I think the look of disappointment on his dull face would be most satisfactory.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Holy Books of Guttersnipe Das: Robert Walser
Robert Walser, Masquerade
translated by Susan Bernofsky
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990
I adore Robert Walser. Sometimes I think I love him too much. Like, I might have amounted to something, might have succeeded in life, if I hadn't been all the time reading and re-reading Robert Walser. Maybe this book was a really bad influence on me. Maybe you shouldn't read it.
But it is so wonderful. So alive. Despite reading omnivorously and obsessively for years, I haven't found anyone else who writes anything like Robert Walser.
Walser's work is gleefully improvisatory, deliberately sketchy. It disappears as you read it. He is strenuously humble. Haughtily humble. He never stops referring to himself and how minor he is.
There's a special Jane Bowles variety of relief I feel, reading Robert Walser. The relief of having absolutely no idea what sentence is coming next. The feeling that the writer does NOT have a perfect and fixed agenda that I must now march down without missing a scenic vista or semi-colon, as if I were a tourist/prisoner on some kind of militant buttoned-up bus tour.
I think Masquerade is my favorite, among the Robert Walser books now available. (If you can, buy whatever is available. The books go in and out of print.) However, if you're just discovering Walser, I recommend reading Selected Stories first, followed by Masquerade, and then try one of the novels -- Jakob von Gunten or The Tanners.
It's more useful to "taste" Walser, than to try to explain him. Thus, here are a few typical sentences you'll find inside Masquerade:
(p.71) "I came into the world on this or that day, was brought up in this or that place, went properly to school, am something or other, am called so and so, and don't think much."
(p.77) "She then offered the opinion that she was the embodiment of a long string of capricious notions. I said I would love all her notions, would even worship them."
(p.31) "The elegant woman is somewhat hesitant to bite into the caviar marvel; naturally I imagine it's me she's holding and no other, that's why she's not entirely in control of her biting powers. It's so easy and so enjoyable to fool oneself."
(p.154) "Being carefree is never permissible, only seeming to be."
(p.170) "One should, in my opinion, treat sinners with care. To be sure, depravity can not only be exceedingly moving, but even something splendid. I incidentally possess, at the moment, a great deal of social polish, which I point out expressly for the benefit of those incapable of believing it. What a smashing, springblossomishly unfolding tussle I tussle!"
Thursday, January 14, 2010
AWE.
"Please," you said. "Less awe."
I’m sorry. I must have seemed terribly exaggerated. Maudlin. But please imagine, pretty boy, that you are 53. Beauty’s not just some dainty treat. It’s a surprise. And not like a birthday party, but really a shock to the system. Especially if you have been alone for a very long time.
Do you know what it’s like to be lonely? Perhaps you do. In the beginning loneliness is quite passionate really, as it stumbles over broken ground: boulders, lava flows, birds of prey. That sort of thing.
After a long time it is a clear cold flat expanse. You can see for miles in every direction. No one is coming.
Excuse the fancy turns of phrase. Nowadays I read more books than I talk to people. Drama is something I enjoy – but only in books with Russians! Years ago I was advised to cultivate a simple life.
I shouldn’t be grandiose. After all, I was completely wrong. I felt like I was living on the moon. And someone was sneaking up on me.
I’m 53. I wrote that already. At a certain point your age becomes a talisman you wave in front of you in hopes life will leave you alone. It doesn’t work. But anyway – I’m 53. I was never particularly handsome. Not like you! OK, for awhile I had a certain something maybe. That something has long passed. My father and grandfather were both bureaucrats. I have inherited neither their money nor their influence. Their jowls alone have been vouchsafed to me.
I have enough money for basic security, none for excess. I admit I like security. I have never been a globetrotter, a go-getter, an enthusiast. I am not saying this is the way you ought to live. But it is not such an uncommon strategy either. I look upon disappointment as a friend and ally.
Now can you imagine how I felt – when I answered the door and a boy stuck his tongue in my mouth?
Do you understand why I shook? You looked worried -- I must have seemed even older than I am. Please understand: I prepared for disappointment. I did not prepare to have an Italian boy (28!) unbuckle his belt in my entryway.
Those who fast are warned to resume eating only gradually -- a bit of gruel, weak tea. Whereas I was accosted by the buffet. I am sorry if I sighed a lot or looked close to tears. I am grateful to have survived.
This is not an effect of age: all my life I have struggled to retain my composure in the face of good news. I remember the day at work when I was told I had been promoted to assistant manager. (This is the same job I have now, 23 years later.) I still remember the day. I locked myself in the bathroom for an hour. I was sure I was about to be sick.
The year before last a stranger's child threw her arms around me at the park. I'd been pushing her on the swings. I'd sung a little song for her. She hugged me and my eyes welled up. Her mother laughed -- and pulled her off of me at once. I'm sure I seemed a little crazy, the kind of person not to be trusted with children.
Years ago I had as many aspirations as anyone. I may even have been grandiose, if you can believe it. And then – well, I lost my balance. I was advised to live a simple life. I got a job at the drug store. I moved in with my mother.
It would have been easier for me, I think, if you'd refused to move and expected me to do everything. If you'd demanded money or stolen something from the nightstand. Lord knows, I'm used to that.
But you said (and, hello, you demonstrated) that you are attracted to older men. Good Lord, the fetishes people have nowadays: spitting, spanking, amputees, auto-asphyxiation, old men. Such perversity. God bless you!
I have adjusted, adapted, prepared, accommodated myself to simplicity, to ordinariness, to what is drab. But please keep in mind: I recognize that I am very humble, very nothing. But life however is very rich. It is extremely even overpoweringly rich and, contrary to the advertising blitz, it does not care whose handbag you are carrying. It does not care if you have a Mercedes or a Mastercard or an enormous penis. Life goes on being rich. Yessir, even for me at Payless Drug six days a week, with library books and 2 cans of Diet Beer, with my chapped lips and increasingly demented mother.
All that is required is a certain quiet precise attention. I cultivate this. I sometimes even think that life is more well-disposed toward me, because I am so very nothing.
My mother used to tell me that I was too proud. You see how we are misunderstood even by those who purport to know us best.
Mother, as you know, is extremely unwell. But there is something in her even now: Mother adores monster movies. Often now she seems very far away, but she still lights up to see a giant reptile wreaking havoc, a luxury shopping district squashed.
That night -- the night before we met -- was a double feature. I stayed up very late to watch with her, to watch her. Something I would ordinarily never do. And so the next morning I was exceptionally tired and accepted the new clerk's offer to get coffee from the gas station, except that the clerk is new and added too much sugar and got an extra large instead of a small and I was on auto-pilot and drank it all and that, I think, is why I did something so abandoned, so reckless, so entirely uncharacteristic of me, and winked at you, when you came up to the counter with your can of Red Bull, and Cheddar Cheese pretzel combos, and two boxes of Trojan Magnum XL.
Please understand – about the wink – it’s not the sort of thing that I would ever do. Except that I did.
I’m sure you understand now how I felt when you handed me the receipt. I’m sorry I acted so dense. I assumed you wanted to return something. You smirked, I looked down at the paper and – there was your phone number.
The other clerks are very good to me. Even if they accuse me of being “brainy”. I bring them donut holes every Friday. Nobody minded that I lay down in the storeroom for an hour. I’m sure they just assumed that I was worried about my mother.
I didn’t call you. Of course I didn’t call you! Do I have to start explaining all over again? I am 53. Almost 54 actually. I have a double-chin. If an Italian boy with a trouser snake passes me his number I assume it is going to cost more than I can afford.
The next day you were back, looking aggrieved and demanding my address. Which was, of course, just next door. Of course I would never give a total stranger my address. My own mother’s address. Except that I did.
I have water and canned food in case of earthquakes. I have a back-up generator. I have the phone numbers of three coroners taped inside the cupboard. But you were an emergency for which I was not prepared.
About my mother. Please don’t be sorry! Yes, she was startled to see a nearly naked man in the entryway, grappling with her very own unbuttoned son. But in another moment I’m sure the memory had entirely dissolved. Anyway, she was exceptionally cheerful the whole rest of the evening. And I’m sorry that I myself was so startled. I wasn’t horrified actually. It’s just that, at the moment she came around the corner, I’d forgotten that I even had a mother.
As for the rest – how can I thank you? It’s like my soul’s been reupholstered, new doors and windows, new carpets throughout, all new appliances, solar power!
And that is why I must insist that you not contact me again. Good news, for a man like me, is contraindicated: it’s over-rich, intoxicating. Potentially devastating. I am nursing my mother throurgh her twilight years. To tell the truth, management has several times offered me promotion. But I don’t want my own store. Assistant manager is high enough in the world for me.
I’m sure this will be no sacrifice for you – I suspect that you are only passing through. Wild boy! Anyway, this city has an army of plain faced fifty-somethings if that is your fetish. They will be thrilled to see you. Most of them have money.
I’m sorry – to good news I cannot adapt. I suspect my mother will soon be unable to dress herself. I am prepared for that. I have learned to live my simple life. I cannot risk losing my balance now. I cannot adapt to good news – which is, I suppose, a kind of fear of heights.
There are many drug stores in this city. I reckon most of them stock Magnum XLs! It will be easy for you to avoid mine. Super Walgreens, to tell the truth, has better prices.
Please tear up my number. My face will be easy to forget. Thank you for your praise and endearments. I am certain that you do not mean them. This is a well-known Italian characteristic.
Please don’t call or come into the store. Please no letters. I almost never go out now that Mother is doing so poorly so there is zero chance of a random meeting.
Above all I must insist that you not come to the door again. You see what kind of man I am. I do not know what I would do --
I’m sorry. I must have seemed terribly exaggerated. Maudlin. But please imagine, pretty boy, that you are 53. Beauty’s not just some dainty treat. It’s a surprise. And not like a birthday party, but really a shock to the system. Especially if you have been alone for a very long time.
Do you know what it’s like to be lonely? Perhaps you do. In the beginning loneliness is quite passionate really, as it stumbles over broken ground: boulders, lava flows, birds of prey. That sort of thing.
After a long time it is a clear cold flat expanse. You can see for miles in every direction. No one is coming.
Excuse the fancy turns of phrase. Nowadays I read more books than I talk to people. Drama is something I enjoy – but only in books with Russians! Years ago I was advised to cultivate a simple life.
I shouldn’t be grandiose. After all, I was completely wrong. I felt like I was living on the moon. And someone was sneaking up on me.
I’m 53. I wrote that already. At a certain point your age becomes a talisman you wave in front of you in hopes life will leave you alone. It doesn’t work. But anyway – I’m 53. I was never particularly handsome. Not like you! OK, for awhile I had a certain something maybe. That something has long passed. My father and grandfather were both bureaucrats. I have inherited neither their money nor their influence. Their jowls alone have been vouchsafed to me.
I have enough money for basic security, none for excess. I admit I like security. I have never been a globetrotter, a go-getter, an enthusiast. I am not saying this is the way you ought to live. But it is not such an uncommon strategy either. I look upon disappointment as a friend and ally.
Now can you imagine how I felt – when I answered the door and a boy stuck his tongue in my mouth?
Do you understand why I shook? You looked worried -- I must have seemed even older than I am. Please understand: I prepared for disappointment. I did not prepare to have an Italian boy (28!) unbuckle his belt in my entryway.
Those who fast are warned to resume eating only gradually -- a bit of gruel, weak tea. Whereas I was accosted by the buffet. I am sorry if I sighed a lot or looked close to tears. I am grateful to have survived.
This is not an effect of age: all my life I have struggled to retain my composure in the face of good news. I remember the day at work when I was told I had been promoted to assistant manager. (This is the same job I have now, 23 years later.) I still remember the day. I locked myself in the bathroom for an hour. I was sure I was about to be sick.
The year before last a stranger's child threw her arms around me at the park. I'd been pushing her on the swings. I'd sung a little song for her. She hugged me and my eyes welled up. Her mother laughed -- and pulled her off of me at once. I'm sure I seemed a little crazy, the kind of person not to be trusted with children.
Years ago I had as many aspirations as anyone. I may even have been grandiose, if you can believe it. And then – well, I lost my balance. I was advised to live a simple life. I got a job at the drug store. I moved in with my mother.
It would have been easier for me, I think, if you'd refused to move and expected me to do everything. If you'd demanded money or stolen something from the nightstand. Lord knows, I'm used to that.
But you said (and, hello, you demonstrated) that you are attracted to older men. Good Lord, the fetishes people have nowadays: spitting, spanking, amputees, auto-asphyxiation, old men. Such perversity. God bless you!
I have adjusted, adapted, prepared, accommodated myself to simplicity, to ordinariness, to what is drab. But please keep in mind: I recognize that I am very humble, very nothing. But life however is very rich. It is extremely even overpoweringly rich and, contrary to the advertising blitz, it does not care whose handbag you are carrying. It does not care if you have a Mercedes or a Mastercard or an enormous penis. Life goes on being rich. Yessir, even for me at Payless Drug six days a week, with library books and 2 cans of Diet Beer, with my chapped lips and increasingly demented mother.
All that is required is a certain quiet precise attention. I cultivate this. I sometimes even think that life is more well-disposed toward me, because I am so very nothing.
My mother used to tell me that I was too proud. You see how we are misunderstood even by those who purport to know us best.
Mother, as you know, is extremely unwell. But there is something in her even now: Mother adores monster movies. Often now she seems very far away, but she still lights up to see a giant reptile wreaking havoc, a luxury shopping district squashed.
That night -- the night before we met -- was a double feature. I stayed up very late to watch with her, to watch her. Something I would ordinarily never do. And so the next morning I was exceptionally tired and accepted the new clerk's offer to get coffee from the gas station, except that the clerk is new and added too much sugar and got an extra large instead of a small and I was on auto-pilot and drank it all and that, I think, is why I did something so abandoned, so reckless, so entirely uncharacteristic of me, and winked at you, when you came up to the counter with your can of Red Bull, and Cheddar Cheese pretzel combos, and two boxes of Trojan Magnum XL.
Please understand – about the wink – it’s not the sort of thing that I would ever do. Except that I did.
I’m sure you understand now how I felt when you handed me the receipt. I’m sorry I acted so dense. I assumed you wanted to return something. You smirked, I looked down at the paper and – there was your phone number.
The other clerks are very good to me. Even if they accuse me of being “brainy”. I bring them donut holes every Friday. Nobody minded that I lay down in the storeroom for an hour. I’m sure they just assumed that I was worried about my mother.
I didn’t call you. Of course I didn’t call you! Do I have to start explaining all over again? I am 53. Almost 54 actually. I have a double-chin. If an Italian boy with a trouser snake passes me his number I assume it is going to cost more than I can afford.
The next day you were back, looking aggrieved and demanding my address. Which was, of course, just next door. Of course I would never give a total stranger my address. My own mother’s address. Except that I did.
I have water and canned food in case of earthquakes. I have a back-up generator. I have the phone numbers of three coroners taped inside the cupboard. But you were an emergency for which I was not prepared.
About my mother. Please don’t be sorry! Yes, she was startled to see a nearly naked man in the entryway, grappling with her very own unbuttoned son. But in another moment I’m sure the memory had entirely dissolved. Anyway, she was exceptionally cheerful the whole rest of the evening. And I’m sorry that I myself was so startled. I wasn’t horrified actually. It’s just that, at the moment she came around the corner, I’d forgotten that I even had a mother.
As for the rest – how can I thank you? It’s like my soul’s been reupholstered, new doors and windows, new carpets throughout, all new appliances, solar power!
And that is why I must insist that you not contact me again. Good news, for a man like me, is contraindicated: it’s over-rich, intoxicating. Potentially devastating. I am nursing my mother throurgh her twilight years. To tell the truth, management has several times offered me promotion. But I don’t want my own store. Assistant manager is high enough in the world for me.
I’m sure this will be no sacrifice for you – I suspect that you are only passing through. Wild boy! Anyway, this city has an army of plain faced fifty-somethings if that is your fetish. They will be thrilled to see you. Most of them have money.
I’m sorry – to good news I cannot adapt. I suspect my mother will soon be unable to dress herself. I am prepared for that. I have learned to live my simple life. I cannot risk losing my balance now. I cannot adapt to good news – which is, I suppose, a kind of fear of heights.
There are many drug stores in this city. I reckon most of them stock Magnum XLs! It will be easy for you to avoid mine. Super Walgreens, to tell the truth, has better prices.
Please tear up my number. My face will be easy to forget. Thank you for your praise and endearments. I am certain that you do not mean them. This is a well-known Italian characteristic.
Please don’t call or come into the store. Please no letters. I almost never go out now that Mother is doing so poorly so there is zero chance of a random meeting.
Above all I must insist that you not come to the door again. You see what kind of man I am. I do not know what I would do --
Friday, December 18, 2009
Enlightenment -- and What I Wore.
A Zen Story Retold.
A rich lady who wanted to be enlightened climbed a mountain to meet a holy woman. Reports that the rich lady climbed the mountain in 400 dollar Italian pumps are completely false. In fact she'd bought new high-class hiking boots for the occasion. Extremely comfortable, excellent traction, and also quite chic. For hiking boots anyway.
Certainly it's a question that merits consideration: what shoes do you wear to be enlightened?
Also false are reports that the holy woman was up there wearing a white sheet or even naked. She had a down parka. A cheap one and patched with duck tape but still -- real down. A few tiny feathers were caught in her wooly brow. Reports that the holy woman had once been a courtesan or even a princess are likewise groundless. No question but that this old woman had been Plain Jane even half a century before.
The rich woman presented gifts as she had been instructed: a garland of orchids, a specialty fruit basket, beeswax candles. The holy woman was very interested in these gifts at first, but afterwards looked quite disappointed. As the rich lady began to prostrate before her she could be heard muttering, "Still no cream corn! Why, after all this time, can't people understand that I would simply like a few cans of creamed corn!"
As she prostrated, the rich lady recited the obligatory verses of praise. And all the while she was thinking, "This had better not be a scam! Maybe this old girl is going to be re-selling the Alfonso mangos in two hours time." The rich lady was also worried this might all be joke and there was a camera somewhere and this was all going to be on TV and then she would never ever be promoted to executive vice president.
Still, she'd come this far -- she'd bought new boots, she'd gotten a blister -- and so she joined her palms above her head and said, "Please! Show me the way to enlightenment!"
The holy woman stared at her. The holy woman ran her tongue over her desiccated lips. She had an enormous thick tongue, a real dong of a tongue, the kind of tongue possessed only by people in nursing homes, a tongue seen wandering around the mouth after the mind is gone.
"You're sure that's what you want?" said the holy woman. Her voice was unexpectedly tender and motherly, as though she were asking if French Literature was really such a practical thing to be majoring in. "You're sure that's what you want?"
"Yes, that's what I want! The student is ready! Show me the way to enlightenment!" The rich lady recited it thrice, as she'd been instructed.
The holy woman sighed, like this was really not what she was in the mood for today, but still she put her shoes on. She had an old pair of sneakers, quite incongruous really, like a high school boy might wear for track and field. She laced them up carefully and then she pushed herself up to a standing position.
"Well, all right then," said the old woman and transformed in a flash into a gigantic three-headed demon, a dank shaggy saber-toothed thing, which drove the rich lady out the door and out onto the mountain path.
"WTF!" thought the rich lady abbreviatedly. "Why did I ever sign up for yoga! I could have signed up for hula! I could have signed up for Pilates!" The rich lady kept running, always just a few steps in front of the demon, gagging at hideous smell of its breath: dead puppies and peanut butter.
Although the holy woman might have seemed kind of fake, but the demon was entirely real. Vicious and horrifying and -- Sorry -- not in any way comical.
In spite of the fact the rich lady had never seen a demon before, this demon was not wholly unfamiliar. One of its three heads was that of a guy who'd put a gun to her once, the only time in her life she'd ever been threatened, a strung-out dead soul face -- even blown up three times the size and sulphur-colored she could recognize him.
As for the second head, well, of course she recognized that one -- she was married to it. Her good husband, who had a personality at work supposedly, who did as he was told to do, who thought as he was told to think, who could no more have an original thought than he could lay an egg. What an agreeable thing, it seems, to be marry an agreeable man. Until you find yourself in a walled-up room screaming, Is anyone there?
The third head, well, that also was easy. That was her own face in the mirror. Not the face she saw -- the face that always threatened to arrive. The face she attempted to ward off with creams and exercises, with yoga and antioxidant supplements, with positive thinking. Here was that face, her own face, wrecked by time, by bitterness and busy-ness, by the life she'd left unlived.
All three heads had the same horrible teeth, the same awful breath, as the demon ran behind her shrieking in unison the same terrible word.
NOW! Shrieked the demon. Now! Now! Now!
The rich lady sprinted along the mountain path, the demon close upon her, its claws extended, its teeth about to chomp.
NOW! Shrieked the demon. Now! Now! Now!
A rich lady who wanted to be enlightened climbed a mountain to meet a holy woman. Reports that the rich lady climbed the mountain in 400 dollar Italian pumps are completely false. In fact she'd bought new high-class hiking boots for the occasion. Extremely comfortable, excellent traction, and also quite chic. For hiking boots anyway.
Certainly it's a question that merits consideration: what shoes do you wear to be enlightened?
Also false are reports that the holy woman was up there wearing a white sheet or even naked. She had a down parka. A cheap one and patched with duck tape but still -- real down. A few tiny feathers were caught in her wooly brow. Reports that the holy woman had once been a courtesan or even a princess are likewise groundless. No question but that this old woman had been Plain Jane even half a century before.
The rich woman presented gifts as she had been instructed: a garland of orchids, a specialty fruit basket, beeswax candles. The holy woman was very interested in these gifts at first, but afterwards looked quite disappointed. As the rich lady began to prostrate before her she could be heard muttering, "Still no cream corn! Why, after all this time, can't people understand that I would simply like a few cans of creamed corn!"
As she prostrated, the rich lady recited the obligatory verses of praise. And all the while she was thinking, "This had better not be a scam! Maybe this old girl is going to be re-selling the Alfonso mangos in two hours time." The rich lady was also worried this might all be joke and there was a camera somewhere and this was all going to be on TV and then she would never ever be promoted to executive vice president.
Still, she'd come this far -- she'd bought new boots, she'd gotten a blister -- and so she joined her palms above her head and said, "Please! Show me the way to enlightenment!"
The holy woman stared at her. The holy woman ran her tongue over her desiccated lips. She had an enormous thick tongue, a real dong of a tongue, the kind of tongue possessed only by people in nursing homes, a tongue seen wandering around the mouth after the mind is gone.
"You're sure that's what you want?" said the holy woman. Her voice was unexpectedly tender and motherly, as though she were asking if French Literature was really such a practical thing to be majoring in. "You're sure that's what you want?"
"Yes, that's what I want! The student is ready! Show me the way to enlightenment!" The rich lady recited it thrice, as she'd been instructed.
The holy woman sighed, like this was really not what she was in the mood for today, but still she put her shoes on. She had an old pair of sneakers, quite incongruous really, like a high school boy might wear for track and field. She laced them up carefully and then she pushed herself up to a standing position.
"Well, all right then," said the old woman and transformed in a flash into a gigantic three-headed demon, a dank shaggy saber-toothed thing, which drove the rich lady out the door and out onto the mountain path.
"WTF!" thought the rich lady abbreviatedly. "Why did I ever sign up for yoga! I could have signed up for hula! I could have signed up for Pilates!" The rich lady kept running, always just a few steps in front of the demon, gagging at hideous smell of its breath: dead puppies and peanut butter.
Although the holy woman might have seemed kind of fake, but the demon was entirely real. Vicious and horrifying and -- Sorry -- not in any way comical.
In spite of the fact the rich lady had never seen a demon before, this demon was not wholly unfamiliar. One of its three heads was that of a guy who'd put a gun to her once, the only time in her life she'd ever been threatened, a strung-out dead soul face -- even blown up three times the size and sulphur-colored she could recognize him.
As for the second head, well, of course she recognized that one -- she was married to it. Her good husband, who had a personality at work supposedly, who did as he was told to do, who thought as he was told to think, who could no more have an original thought than he could lay an egg. What an agreeable thing, it seems, to be marry an agreeable man. Until you find yourself in a walled-up room screaming, Is anyone there?
The third head, well, that also was easy. That was her own face in the mirror. Not the face she saw -- the face that always threatened to arrive. The face she attempted to ward off with creams and exercises, with yoga and antioxidant supplements, with positive thinking. Here was that face, her own face, wrecked by time, by bitterness and busy-ness, by the life she'd left unlived.
All three heads had the same horrible teeth, the same awful breath, as the demon ran behind her shrieking in unison the same terrible word.
NOW! Shrieked the demon. Now! Now! Now!
The rich lady sprinted along the mountain path, the demon close upon her, its claws extended, its teeth about to chomp.
NOW! Shrieked the demon. Now! Now! Now!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Overheard: Charity
“Charity is impatience with God. That’s all it is. Doing something God ought to have done already but God didn’t do it and finally it pissed you off enough you decided, fine, I’ll do it myself, and I’ll have a talk with that G.O.D. when I see him.
“There are so many paths to God, so many attitudes one can assume: friend, slave, child, mother but nowhere in the sacred treatises will you see 'God as roommate' discussed as a sacred path. And that is because God SUCKS as a roommate. God will leave the dishes in the sink forever.
“And all God’s codependents, all God’s buttbuddies, will try to explain it away: God is busy, God couldn’t possibly be expected to --, maybe God thinks this would be a nice time for YOU to develop your leadership skills. More generally everyone will just pretend that the dishes aren’t there or even that it’s the dishes own damn fault.
“And this is how charity arises, charity means being entirely pissed off and fed up. To such an extreme degree that you decide, fuck it, I’ll just do it myself. This is charity, and naturally it is virtue most prized by God, since it gives God one less thing to do.”
“There are so many paths to God, so many attitudes one can assume: friend, slave, child, mother but nowhere in the sacred treatises will you see 'God as roommate' discussed as a sacred path. And that is because God SUCKS as a roommate. God will leave the dishes in the sink forever.
“And all God’s codependents, all God’s buttbuddies, will try to explain it away: God is busy, God couldn’t possibly be expected to --, maybe God thinks this would be a nice time for YOU to develop your leadership skills. More generally everyone will just pretend that the dishes aren’t there or even that it’s the dishes own damn fault.
“And this is how charity arises, charity means being entirely pissed off and fed up. To such an extreme degree that you decide, fuck it, I’ll just do it myself. This is charity, and naturally it is virtue most prized by God, since it gives God one less thing to do.”
The Difficulty of Making Good Choices.
After much deliberation, after contemplating and delineating their desires and expectations, as well their weaknesses, histories, and needs, along with the possibilities and limitations of their current situation, they decided not to become lovers. Because, despite their physical attraction to each other, they recognized a physical relationship would not likely lead to happiness, not for themselves and not for others, at least not in the long term. This was the choice that they had made and they had made this choice carefully. This was the right choice.
They were still friends. Of course. And so they met for coffee. As friends do.
“Great to see you again.”
“Great to see you, too.”
“Thanks for meeting me.”
“My pleasure.”
“I think – is it okay to talk about this? I think we made the right decision.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re feeling well?”
“Perfect.”
“And you’re -- comfortable sitting out here? Not chilly? You don't want a table inside?”
“No, it’s lovely out here. So bright.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Personal questions are okay?”
“Well. Ask me and I’ll think about it.”
“Why are you wearing a face mask and a scarf and galoshes and industrial overalls and a motorcycle helmet? It’s a warm day – and you are not riding a motorcycle.”
“Just felt like it.”
The café was a little expensive, the coffee incredibly strong. They sat sipping it now.
“A face mask is certainly a common sight in this city. It’s flu season after all. And as for the winter clothes, well, plenty of people believe that winter begins on a certain day and so they wear their fur trimmed coat and snow boots even if it’s downright balmy. Overalls are always adorable but the overall effect – is it okay to say this – seems to me, frankly, outlandish. I’m not hurting you am I? You know I never want to hurt you. The motorcycle helmet seems particularly superfluous, since you came here on the bus --”
“I’m comfortable.”
“That’s what matters. Are you comfortable?”
“I’m not comfortable at all. Physically. But I can say that I have a certain spiritual comfort as well as a hard-headed pragmatic satisfaction.”
“You’re quoting my letter.”
“I agreed with your letter.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
They sat together in silence for the next few sips of coffee. The man who asked questions bobbed his head around, nodded like he was checking things off a list. Yes, it was Thursday morning. Yes, this was Tokyo. The sun was out and so were the high society wives and their ten thousand dollar dogs. He never stopped smiling.
The other man may or may not have been smiling. He had his visor down.
“You’re okay?”
“Yes! I’m completely okay,” said the voice inside the helmet. “Of course I’m a little sweaty, but that’s to be expected.”
“Good, good.” He went on nodding at the air. “Listen, I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you – because I totally respect you and your decisions and those decisions, we both agree, don’t have to look anything like what other people are deciding but – are you sure you don’t want to remove something?”
“Of course I would like! But no, absolutely not. Oh, hell.” There was a muffled sob from inside the helmet.
“Oh honey – I mean, dear friend. Does this have anything to do with what we decided?”
“I completely agree with what we decided. It’s definitely the right choice.”
“It’s good to hear you say that.”
“And sometimes, when you make the right choice, you have to accept, it’s going to be a little awkward sometimes. For example, now.”
Another long silence.
“I am very interested in what you are saying. Please -- continue.”
“We made an excellent choice. A mature thoughtful and ethical choice. I will sleep better. Eventually. I presume. In the meantime, there may be, as I said, some awkwardness.”
“I think I see what you’re saying. You mean, despite the choices we made there are still residual feelings which – point in another direction.”
“Something like that.”
They nodded to each other, one hairy head and one motorcycle helmet. The natural opening was lost; the moment passed. Their coffee was nearly finished and what was left was cold.
The man in the motorcycle helmet lay one gloved hand on the other man’s thigh. The other man looked carefully at that hand.
The voice behind the visor said, “I want to fuck you in bed. But only to start. Really I what I want is to fuck you down on the floor. So we can really have at it. I want to spank your hairy ass. I want to be buck naked with the blinds open and the sun streaming in. I want to beg for it. I want to cram your cock down my throat. I want to feel your balls resting on my beard. I want to put my tongue in your asshole. I want to drink your hot spunk.”
At tables all around them, Japanese ladies did not turn to look. Immaculate in linen, in the style, still, of Audrey Hepburn, those ladies did not turn and did not look. Perhaps a particularly sharp eyed observer might have noticed the muscles straining in their delicate necks. Perhaps they might even make an appointment later with their acupuncturist. To help them manage the discomfort accumulated over a lifetime of not turning. Because these were absolutely first-rate ladies, the kind who do not ever look.
Their dogs had no such qualms however. Naturally. The dogs were positively riveted, straining at the end of their leashes. Those little dogs were absolutely interested in finding out what happened next.
But anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of men, or dogs, will not require such elucidation.
They were still friends. Of course. And so they met for coffee. As friends do.
“Great to see you again.”
“Great to see you, too.”
“Thanks for meeting me.”
“My pleasure.”
“I think – is it okay to talk about this? I think we made the right decision.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re feeling well?”
“Perfect.”
“And you’re -- comfortable sitting out here? Not chilly? You don't want a table inside?”
“No, it’s lovely out here. So bright.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Personal questions are okay?”
“Well. Ask me and I’ll think about it.”
“Why are you wearing a face mask and a scarf and galoshes and industrial overalls and a motorcycle helmet? It’s a warm day – and you are not riding a motorcycle.”
“Just felt like it.”
The café was a little expensive, the coffee incredibly strong. They sat sipping it now.
“A face mask is certainly a common sight in this city. It’s flu season after all. And as for the winter clothes, well, plenty of people believe that winter begins on a certain day and so they wear their fur trimmed coat and snow boots even if it’s downright balmy. Overalls are always adorable but the overall effect – is it okay to say this – seems to me, frankly, outlandish. I’m not hurting you am I? You know I never want to hurt you. The motorcycle helmet seems particularly superfluous, since you came here on the bus --”
“I’m comfortable.”
“That’s what matters. Are you comfortable?”
“I’m not comfortable at all. Physically. But I can say that I have a certain spiritual comfort as well as a hard-headed pragmatic satisfaction.”
“You’re quoting my letter.”
“I agreed with your letter.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
They sat together in silence for the next few sips of coffee. The man who asked questions bobbed his head around, nodded like he was checking things off a list. Yes, it was Thursday morning. Yes, this was Tokyo. The sun was out and so were the high society wives and their ten thousand dollar dogs. He never stopped smiling.
The other man may or may not have been smiling. He had his visor down.
“You’re okay?”
“Yes! I’m completely okay,” said the voice inside the helmet. “Of course I’m a little sweaty, but that’s to be expected.”
“Good, good.” He went on nodding at the air. “Listen, I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you – because I totally respect you and your decisions and those decisions, we both agree, don’t have to look anything like what other people are deciding but – are you sure you don’t want to remove something?”
“Of course I would like! But no, absolutely not. Oh, hell.” There was a muffled sob from inside the helmet.
“Oh honey – I mean, dear friend. Does this have anything to do with what we decided?”
“I completely agree with what we decided. It’s definitely the right choice.”
“It’s good to hear you say that.”
“And sometimes, when you make the right choice, you have to accept, it’s going to be a little awkward sometimes. For example, now.”
Another long silence.
“I am very interested in what you are saying. Please -- continue.”
“We made an excellent choice. A mature thoughtful and ethical choice. I will sleep better. Eventually. I presume. In the meantime, there may be, as I said, some awkwardness.”
“I think I see what you’re saying. You mean, despite the choices we made there are still residual feelings which – point in another direction.”
“Something like that.”
They nodded to each other, one hairy head and one motorcycle helmet. The natural opening was lost; the moment passed. Their coffee was nearly finished and what was left was cold.
The man in the motorcycle helmet lay one gloved hand on the other man’s thigh. The other man looked carefully at that hand.
The voice behind the visor said, “I want to fuck you in bed. But only to start. Really I what I want is to fuck you down on the floor. So we can really have at it. I want to spank your hairy ass. I want to be buck naked with the blinds open and the sun streaming in. I want to beg for it. I want to cram your cock down my throat. I want to feel your balls resting on my beard. I want to put my tongue in your asshole. I want to drink your hot spunk.”
At tables all around them, Japanese ladies did not turn to look. Immaculate in linen, in the style, still, of Audrey Hepburn, those ladies did not turn and did not look. Perhaps a particularly sharp eyed observer might have noticed the muscles straining in their delicate necks. Perhaps they might even make an appointment later with their acupuncturist. To help them manage the discomfort accumulated over a lifetime of not turning. Because these were absolutely first-rate ladies, the kind who do not ever look.
Their dogs had no such qualms however. Naturally. The dogs were positively riveted, straining at the end of their leashes. Those little dogs were absolutely interested in finding out what happened next.
But anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of men, or dogs, will not require such elucidation.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Holy Books of Guttersnipe Das: Robert Walser
The Tanners, Robert Walser
New Directions, 2009. Translated by Susan Bernofsky.
With a perfect introduction to Walser by W. G. Sebald.
The Tanners is the last novel Robert Walser published before entering the madhouse -- and we waited a century for this translation. This is the last of Walser's novels to be translated, which leads one to think it must be the bottom of the barrel somehow, like the last of Hemingway. But no, not at all! It's as lovely as anything Walser wrote. I can't believe my good fortune, finding this now, after re-reading the NYRB Walser Selected Stories so many times it may qualify as a personal tic.
The Tanners is the story of five siblings and focuses on Simon, who explains, "I am the youngest and the one who occasions the fewest hopes." Like every Walser protagonist, he wanders around dreaming, walking, losing jobs, renting rooms, and praising women without actually getting involved with them. He moves from misfortune to misfortune, and praises them all.
The translation, by Susan Bernofsky, reads so beautifully. Can she be enticed to do more? How about a fresh selection of stories? Can we take up a collection?
This book is full of all the strange things only Walser can do -- the peculiar storm light of mania, the special cheerfulness of extremely depressed people, the vast detached love of which they are capable. Magic is spun from the most pedestrian adjectives. So much that is dreamy, disappointing, unfathomable -- it's so nearly weightless and at the same time succeeds in catching so many extraordinary moments and feelings.
There's something so exhilarating about Walser's protagonist, an eternal zero, who never succeeds at anything -- but also never seems to fail in any way that matters. (I love the way people fail in this novel. Money is lost, wives are abandoned, people freeze to death in the forest -- but no one ever seems to mind.) It's exhilarating to read about someone who isn't interested in success, power, importance, travel or sexual conquest -- I feel myself in the presence of a man who has stumbled upon real life.
New Directions, 2009. Translated by Susan Bernofsky.
With a perfect introduction to Walser by W. G. Sebald.
The Tanners is the last novel Robert Walser published before entering the madhouse -- and we waited a century for this translation. This is the last of Walser's novels to be translated, which leads one to think it must be the bottom of the barrel somehow, like the last of Hemingway. But no, not at all! It's as lovely as anything Walser wrote. I can't believe my good fortune, finding this now, after re-reading the NYRB Walser Selected Stories so many times it may qualify as a personal tic.
The Tanners is the story of five siblings and focuses on Simon, who explains, "I am the youngest and the one who occasions the fewest hopes." Like every Walser protagonist, he wanders around dreaming, walking, losing jobs, renting rooms, and praising women without actually getting involved with them. He moves from misfortune to misfortune, and praises them all.
The translation, by Susan Bernofsky, reads so beautifully. Can she be enticed to do more? How about a fresh selection of stories? Can we take up a collection?
This book is full of all the strange things only Walser can do -- the peculiar storm light of mania, the special cheerfulness of extremely depressed people, the vast detached love of which they are capable. Magic is spun from the most pedestrian adjectives. So much that is dreamy, disappointing, unfathomable -- it's so nearly weightless and at the same time succeeds in catching so many extraordinary moments and feelings.
There's something so exhilarating about Walser's protagonist, an eternal zero, who never succeeds at anything -- but also never seems to fail in any way that matters. (I love the way people fail in this novel. Money is lost, wives are abandoned, people freeze to death in the forest -- but no one ever seems to mind.) It's exhilarating to read about someone who isn't interested in success, power, importance, travel or sexual conquest -- I feel myself in the presence of a man who has stumbled upon real life.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Preface: The Return of Color
I prayed to God, God couldn’t be bothered. The Buddha remained Gone Beyond. Who showed up was Clarice Lispector (died, Brazil, 1977), wrapped in a shawl the green of dragonflies and looking entirely ferocious. She had no tolerance for self-pity. She took me by the wrist. She used her nails. The door was flung open. She led me out of the house, away from the alcohol and the collection of benzodiazepines. “You are going to the park,” she said.
Ten days later, out the door of the Malaysia Hotel in Bangkok. The taxi cabs are flamingo pink, the motorbike men wear orange vests and the vendors blue caps. Everywhere death has not been nailed down there is green. I clutch the door frame. The guard (pink shirt!) smiles encouragement.
Sweet Mary Mother of God: someone has turned on the color.
Depression is such a misleading word I wonder if the government isn’t somehow behind it. “Panicked frenzy of self-loathing” is somewhat more accurate, but I prefer to vote with tradition and say demons. And I do not believe in demons either – but try telling that to them.
The demons steal away the color, the world goes out of reach – it can be bumped against, it cannot be touched. What remains is a flabby putrefied fly-swarmed maggoty self. The easiest test for depression is with a mirror: check for a corpse. (This also works the other way. Occasionally I think I’m just adorable. And this is a very dangerous sign.)
The demons are not impressed by prayer. They like to see me beg and bang my head against the floor. The demons like liquor and adore psychiatry. In Tokyo it is possible for them to get a visa to stay almost indefinitely.
Nonetheless a moment comes when one is released. Fuck if I know why. There is not a moment when the guard opens the door and says that one is free to go. More like the kidnappers throw you from the car. I find myself suddenly out on the street and still in prison clothes.
And there is a breeze, an actual breeze, which touches your skin and is not off-limits to you. There is a space around things. The sky goes up and up. Men are wearing pants that don’t hide much.
Almost immediately I become busy. That’s all right: the nice thing about being functional is you can do things. Life is underway and demands attention. Oh, hello, I’m in Thailand! Oh goodness gracious, I’m married aren’t I?
Looking around me now, I walk a little faster. This is no permanent reprieve. This open window may hover for a month, or be gone in an hour. There are repairs that need to be made, windows to be taped, books to read and suicide notes to burn. (Suicide notes must be written afresh for each occasion: this is how one buys time.)
Above all, there are people to be loved, people with sharp voices or curly hair, people smelling of shampoo and sweat and curry. People with problems of their own. Actual people with hands to be held, with real mouths and real ears to hear as you walk around together exclaiming, “My god, look at the colors!”
Ten days later, out the door of the Malaysia Hotel in Bangkok. The taxi cabs are flamingo pink, the motorbike men wear orange vests and the vendors blue caps. Everywhere death has not been nailed down there is green. I clutch the door frame. The guard (pink shirt!) smiles encouragement.
Sweet Mary Mother of God: someone has turned on the color.
Depression is such a misleading word I wonder if the government isn’t somehow behind it. “Panicked frenzy of self-loathing” is somewhat more accurate, but I prefer to vote with tradition and say demons. And I do not believe in demons either – but try telling that to them.
The demons steal away the color, the world goes out of reach – it can be bumped against, it cannot be touched. What remains is a flabby putrefied fly-swarmed maggoty self. The easiest test for depression is with a mirror: check for a corpse. (This also works the other way. Occasionally I think I’m just adorable. And this is a very dangerous sign.)
The demons are not impressed by prayer. They like to see me beg and bang my head against the floor. The demons like liquor and adore psychiatry. In Tokyo it is possible for them to get a visa to stay almost indefinitely.
Nonetheless a moment comes when one is released. Fuck if I know why. There is not a moment when the guard opens the door and says that one is free to go. More like the kidnappers throw you from the car. I find myself suddenly out on the street and still in prison clothes.
And there is a breeze, an actual breeze, which touches your skin and is not off-limits to you. There is a space around things. The sky goes up and up. Men are wearing pants that don’t hide much.
Almost immediately I become busy. That’s all right: the nice thing about being functional is you can do things. Life is underway and demands attention. Oh, hello, I’m in Thailand! Oh goodness gracious, I’m married aren’t I?
Looking around me now, I walk a little faster. This is no permanent reprieve. This open window may hover for a month, or be gone in an hour. There are repairs that need to be made, windows to be taped, books to read and suicide notes to burn. (Suicide notes must be written afresh for each occasion: this is how one buys time.)
Above all, there are people to be loved, people with sharp voices or curly hair, people smelling of shampoo and sweat and curry. People with problems of their own. Actual people with hands to be held, with real mouths and real ears to hear as you walk around together exclaiming, “My god, look at the colors!”
Mad Relative
After a long time abroad, Randy Mesmer returned home to discover that he'd become the mad relative. Of course he did not realize it right away. Everyone seemed only unusually interested. His father ceased to criticize; his brothers grinned at everything he said. His mother stood often in the doorway, gazing at him with tender brimming eyes. And Randy Mesmer's heart grew warm. He thought they'd really missed him after all. For weeks he didn't have a clue. In fact he felt quite pleased with himself. He thought, it's about time they start to respect me!
The mad relative: every generation must have one. Like Aunt Lucy, his father's sister, who was brought from the state hospital in Laconia to attend all family occasions. There she sat, grinning in her folding chair, smoking menthol Salems, and mumbling into the air. Now and then she groped one of the nephews. She was getting old, poor Aunt Lucy. She'd had surgery for cancer and afterward no one could say for certain what had been removed.
After a few weeks home, Randy began to make suggestions about the future of the pumpkin farm. His father, Ulysses Richard Mesmer, was also getting on in years. Certain decisions must be made. Randy was relieved to discover that everyone agreed to his suggestions immediately.
He was so pleased it took him weeks to notice, and weeks longer to admit, that his suggestions and opinions had absolutely no effect. Everything went on exactly as it always had. Dick Mesmer remained firmly in charge. (His father hated the name Ulysses and used only the first initial.)
One day, when Randy became particularly insistent, he was taken to the furthest corner of Pumpkin Field #12 and left there for nine hours with only a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a deplorably dull hoe.
Certainly it is disconcerting to discover that one has become Puerto Rico in the family: you go right on voting, but your vote counts for nothing.
Every member of the family felt pleased at the way Aunt Lucy was treated. They removed her from the madhouse for special events the same way they took the big punch bowl from the back closet, always careful to give it a good rinse first. They considered themselves extremely enlightened. Randy had felt this way too. He was ashamed to think of it now.
Every generation must have a mad relative. Now it was his turn.
"I'm not crazy," Randy Mesmer insisted. "I can quietly give reasonable and pragmatic reasons to support my moderate opinions!"
His brother and sister-in-law nodded at him and smiled beneath sad eyes. He was the mad relative. There was no court of appeal.
Actual madness, you see, had very little to do with being the mad relative. The entire family was mad. It was more about power and plain bad luck. Traditionally of course, a woman generally got stuck being the mad relative. Now it was more equal opportunity.
If being the mad relative were determined by actual madness, his father would win hands down. Instead he was in charge of the farm and took turns persecuting his sons and imagining himself to be prominent figures from history: Lincoln, Trotsky, Madame Blavatsky, Harry Houdini, Helen Keller. If you questioned him you were promptly demonized. This was a miserable and dangerous situation -- you could very well be declared the mad relative.
Why, he wondered, must there always be a mad relative? Certainly it must have stemmed, centuries before, from pragmatic reasons. One less way to divide the pie. The mad relative forfeits everything.
It is true that the mad relative usually did end up being actually, factually mad. After all, it is enough to make anyone crazy, being the ghost/dream voice/dependent protectorate in the family. Also it is natural to want to fulfill family expectations, just as, in other families, one son becomes a priest.
Aunt Lucy had begun years ago to drool. She drooled more as time went on. Nephews learned to dodge her hands. Who could blame her, Randy thought. There was no prize for obedience, nor penalty for misbehavior. You are a ghost in the family. You might as well not exist. You are the mad relative and you will always be the mad relative.
The mad relative: every generation must have one. Like Aunt Lucy, his father's sister, who was brought from the state hospital in Laconia to attend all family occasions. There she sat, grinning in her folding chair, smoking menthol Salems, and mumbling into the air. Now and then she groped one of the nephews. She was getting old, poor Aunt Lucy. She'd had surgery for cancer and afterward no one could say for certain what had been removed.
After a few weeks home, Randy began to make suggestions about the future of the pumpkin farm. His father, Ulysses Richard Mesmer, was also getting on in years. Certain decisions must be made. Randy was relieved to discover that everyone agreed to his suggestions immediately.
He was so pleased it took him weeks to notice, and weeks longer to admit, that his suggestions and opinions had absolutely no effect. Everything went on exactly as it always had. Dick Mesmer remained firmly in charge. (His father hated the name Ulysses and used only the first initial.)
One day, when Randy became particularly insistent, he was taken to the furthest corner of Pumpkin Field #12 and left there for nine hours with only a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a deplorably dull hoe.
Certainly it is disconcerting to discover that one has become Puerto Rico in the family: you go right on voting, but your vote counts for nothing.
Every member of the family felt pleased at the way Aunt Lucy was treated. They removed her from the madhouse for special events the same way they took the big punch bowl from the back closet, always careful to give it a good rinse first. They considered themselves extremely enlightened. Randy had felt this way too. He was ashamed to think of it now.
Every generation must have a mad relative. Now it was his turn.
"I'm not crazy," Randy Mesmer insisted. "I can quietly give reasonable and pragmatic reasons to support my moderate opinions!"
His brother and sister-in-law nodded at him and smiled beneath sad eyes. He was the mad relative. There was no court of appeal.
Actual madness, you see, had very little to do with being the mad relative. The entire family was mad. It was more about power and plain bad luck. Traditionally of course, a woman generally got stuck being the mad relative. Now it was more equal opportunity.
If being the mad relative were determined by actual madness, his father would win hands down. Instead he was in charge of the farm and took turns persecuting his sons and imagining himself to be prominent figures from history: Lincoln, Trotsky, Madame Blavatsky, Harry Houdini, Helen Keller. If you questioned him you were promptly demonized. This was a miserable and dangerous situation -- you could very well be declared the mad relative.
Why, he wondered, must there always be a mad relative? Certainly it must have stemmed, centuries before, from pragmatic reasons. One less way to divide the pie. The mad relative forfeits everything.
It is true that the mad relative usually did end up being actually, factually mad. After all, it is enough to make anyone crazy, being the ghost/dream voice/dependent protectorate in the family. Also it is natural to want to fulfill family expectations, just as, in other families, one son becomes a priest.
Aunt Lucy had begun years ago to drool. She drooled more as time went on. Nephews learned to dodge her hands. Who could blame her, Randy thought. There was no prize for obedience, nor penalty for misbehavior. You are a ghost in the family. You might as well not exist. You are the mad relative and you will always be the mad relative.
A Lost Soul
Sorry -- I can't explain it. I don't understand it myself and I was there. The nicest couple. Pillar of the community types. Sure, a little starchy. He's a manager at my company, not my branch but another. Been there forever. He volunteered his dining room.
His wife was -- very much a manager's wife. Very polite, not a chit-chatty type, but then she had a huge amount of food to lay out. She did it all herself, that's unusual, and the food itself was -- different. At least not what folks around here are used to. As we had our meeting I could see her setting the table. Formal for us means a salad fork and a cloth napkin -- but she laid out a huge amount of silver, spoon after spoon, like a kid copying out a composition. I thought gosh she must be anxious to make a good impression.
Everything she cooked had curry in it, or avocado, or eggplant. Fish with the head still on. The kind of bitter salad that nobody in the world eats unless other people are watching. Mollusks. Nothing for the white bread crowd in sight and I know for a fact that several people went out for a burger later.
We were all seated at the table. I was wondering if there was any way to mix things together so it might taste normal. The guacamole turned out to be mustard so hot it was like getting whooped in the head. And somebody brought up Sean, who had to be let go. He didn't have the charisma for sales. Frankly I don't think he had the charisma for accounting. He may have had a little drinking problem. And he got caught once with porno on his computer. He didn't have the right professionalism, shall we say. So we had to let him go.
Mr. Arlington didn't say anything that hadn't been said before. Mr. Arlington always agrees with everyone -- which frankly may be why he's risen so far even though he's not, shall we say, an innovator. He wasn't adding anything, just putting his seal on the conversation. Mr. Arlington sighed and said, "He's a lost soul." We nodded and said uh-huh, and looked up to see a jalapeno glazed drumstick hit Mr. Arlington right between the eyes.
The guacamole followed, along with a pitcher of sangria. At the opposite end of the table, Mr. Arlington's wife had erupted: she was hurling dishes at him just as calmly and methodically she'd laid them out. A Cornish game hen in a clay pot, tuna in raspberry sauce, venison in molé . She was a helluva good shot too. She would have killed him if she'd started in with the cutlery. And for his part he just sat there and stared at her, like he was seeing her for the first time in his life, and then he looked down at his Brooks Brothers shirt, which, he discovered, now had wine, chocolate, curry, hollandaise, and tomato stains.
Obviously the rest of us had scattered as best we could. Johnson, Stuckey, and Young -- the vice presidents -- spent the whole time under the table and got away with little more than mustard stains. The president was already on his cell phone pleading for a fresh set of clothes.
The wife had been entirely silent except for an umph! when she hurled the platter of duck curry and assassinated a painting of sailboats in a harbor which I believe was very valuable.
Now she started to howl. A sound you'd never think a lady like that would have in her. The same thing over and over. A lost soul! A lost soul! A lost soul!
The wife really was a beautiful woman, though I guess she wasn't young. Pitching dinner at her husband had put some nice color in her face. She was wearing a crisp peach pant suit which I swear did not get one spot on it and which I bet she wore again.
She cleared the entire table right straight at Mr. Arlington. He got the mango chutney last and took it too, like a man receiving final judgment.
Last thing she did she pulled up the linen tablecloth, the silver slid and clattered, the crystal smashed on the hardwood floor. She walked right up to him and tossed the white cloth over his head and he just sat there, wrapped in it.
Of course we didn't blame poor Mr. Arlington. He kept his good job. Lately he is more agreeable than ever. Mr. Arlington, as I have said, is not an innovator. No one blames him or teases him, though I'm sure the combined dry cleaning bill was astronomical. The only thing that's different is we don't have dinner at Mr. Arlington's house anymore. The poor man can't be expected to do all that cooking on his own.
His wife was -- very much a manager's wife. Very polite, not a chit-chatty type, but then she had a huge amount of food to lay out. She did it all herself, that's unusual, and the food itself was -- different. At least not what folks around here are used to. As we had our meeting I could see her setting the table. Formal for us means a salad fork and a cloth napkin -- but she laid out a huge amount of silver, spoon after spoon, like a kid copying out a composition. I thought gosh she must be anxious to make a good impression.
Everything she cooked had curry in it, or avocado, or eggplant. Fish with the head still on. The kind of bitter salad that nobody in the world eats unless other people are watching. Mollusks. Nothing for the white bread crowd in sight and I know for a fact that several people went out for a burger later.
We were all seated at the table. I was wondering if there was any way to mix things together so it might taste normal. The guacamole turned out to be mustard so hot it was like getting whooped in the head. And somebody brought up Sean, who had to be let go. He didn't have the charisma for sales. Frankly I don't think he had the charisma for accounting. He may have had a little drinking problem. And he got caught once with porno on his computer. He didn't have the right professionalism, shall we say. So we had to let him go.
Mr. Arlington didn't say anything that hadn't been said before. Mr. Arlington always agrees with everyone -- which frankly may be why he's risen so far even though he's not, shall we say, an innovator. He wasn't adding anything, just putting his seal on the conversation. Mr. Arlington sighed and said, "He's a lost soul." We nodded and said uh-huh, and looked up to see a jalapeno glazed drumstick hit Mr. Arlington right between the eyes.
The guacamole followed, along with a pitcher of sangria. At the opposite end of the table, Mr. Arlington's wife had erupted: she was hurling dishes at him just as calmly and methodically she'd laid them out. A Cornish game hen in a clay pot, tuna in raspberry sauce, venison in molé . She was a helluva good shot too. She would have killed him if she'd started in with the cutlery. And for his part he just sat there and stared at her, like he was seeing her for the first time in his life, and then he looked down at his Brooks Brothers shirt, which, he discovered, now had wine, chocolate, curry, hollandaise, and tomato stains.
Obviously the rest of us had scattered as best we could. Johnson, Stuckey, and Young -- the vice presidents -- spent the whole time under the table and got away with little more than mustard stains. The president was already on his cell phone pleading for a fresh set of clothes.
The wife had been entirely silent except for an umph! when she hurled the platter of duck curry and assassinated a painting of sailboats in a harbor which I believe was very valuable.
Now she started to howl. A sound you'd never think a lady like that would have in her. The same thing over and over. A lost soul! A lost soul! A lost soul!
The wife really was a beautiful woman, though I guess she wasn't young. Pitching dinner at her husband had put some nice color in her face. She was wearing a crisp peach pant suit which I swear did not get one spot on it and which I bet she wore again.
She cleared the entire table right straight at Mr. Arlington. He got the mango chutney last and took it too, like a man receiving final judgment.
Last thing she did she pulled up the linen tablecloth, the silver slid and clattered, the crystal smashed on the hardwood floor. She walked right up to him and tossed the white cloth over his head and he just sat there, wrapped in it.
Of course we didn't blame poor Mr. Arlington. He kept his good job. Lately he is more agreeable than ever. Mr. Arlington, as I have said, is not an innovator. No one blames him or teases him, though I'm sure the combined dry cleaning bill was astronomical. The only thing that's different is we don't have dinner at Mr. Arlington's house anymore. The poor man can't be expected to do all that cooking on his own.
Don Quixote Does Escalators
In Yotsuya station, at the bottom of an immensely tall escalator, a cleaning lady stands holding a cloth soaked in antiseptic against the handrail. Even though the escalator is a hundred meters long, she can clean it all this way, just standing there, enjoying a small break in her arduous day.
This is exactly the sort of thing I would never in a million years figure out myself.
Oh no, I'd be dashing up and down the escalator, flinging myself at the arm rail, gasping for breath, getting my pants caught in the jaws at the edge. Running up the down side, then down the up side. Of course! Let no one accuse me of being lazy or taking the easy way out! Unrivaled in my ferocity! Famed for relentlessness! Day after day I battle the escalator and lunge with my cloth at the rail, wiping six inches here, six inches there, as sweat and grime coat my distorted face, a man at war.
But I wouldn't complain, oh no. Not a word of complaint would pass my lips -- not even as I jostled a businessman, or sent a schoolboy in a sailor suit into a headlong plunge as I battled, desperate and fearless, to clean the handrail of the escalator. One brave and reckless man stands alone between Tokyo and contagion!
Not only would I not complain, I would respect myself even more. My hard work! My sacrifice! Oh no, I'd insist, I'd never trade shoes with anyone. This is my dharma, my sacred duty. The Emperor and MLK agree: Do your job and do it well. Oh I would really give it my all. . .
At the end of the day I would collapse in a heap at the base of the escalator. I would die young -- and cheerfully, knowing that I had saved the lives of millions of Tokyoites.
Because not even the greatest of heroes are entirely free of human frailties, among them resentment, I would often wonder why I had not been discretely passed a medal, why I had not yet been declared, to unanimous and thunderous acclaim, a Living National Treasure.
If, by chance, on my way home, I passed another station, another escalator, where a woman stood, holding the cloth against the moving rail, I would shake my head and feel very sorry for her. "Oh isn't that just the spirit of the times! Sure you can do it that way -- but then you miss entirely the spirit of the thing."
This is exactly the sort of thing I would never in a million years figure out myself.
Oh no, I'd be dashing up and down the escalator, flinging myself at the arm rail, gasping for breath, getting my pants caught in the jaws at the edge. Running up the down side, then down the up side. Of course! Let no one accuse me of being lazy or taking the easy way out! Unrivaled in my ferocity! Famed for relentlessness! Day after day I battle the escalator and lunge with my cloth at the rail, wiping six inches here, six inches there, as sweat and grime coat my distorted face, a man at war.
But I wouldn't complain, oh no. Not a word of complaint would pass my lips -- not even as I jostled a businessman, or sent a schoolboy in a sailor suit into a headlong plunge as I battled, desperate and fearless, to clean the handrail of the escalator. One brave and reckless man stands alone between Tokyo and contagion!
Not only would I not complain, I would respect myself even more. My hard work! My sacrifice! Oh no, I'd insist, I'd never trade shoes with anyone. This is my dharma, my sacred duty. The Emperor and MLK agree: Do your job and do it well. Oh I would really give it my all. . .
At the end of the day I would collapse in a heap at the base of the escalator. I would die young -- and cheerfully, knowing that I had saved the lives of millions of Tokyoites.
Because not even the greatest of heroes are entirely free of human frailties, among them resentment, I would often wonder why I had not been discretely passed a medal, why I had not yet been declared, to unanimous and thunderous acclaim, a Living National Treasure.
If, by chance, on my way home, I passed another station, another escalator, where a woman stood, holding the cloth against the moving rail, I would shake my head and feel very sorry for her. "Oh isn't that just the spirit of the times! Sure you can do it that way -- but then you miss entirely the spirit of the thing."
The Turquoise Stone
By the side of the street, in front of a shop, I found a large geode. Gray and rough on the edge: brilliant blue-green inside.
I carried the geode into the shop and said, "I want to use this stone for a project. Of course I won't harm it any way. I'll even give you my contact information so you can check up on it."
The man at the counter was reluctant. Of course the stone didn't actually belong to anyone, but still it was well-known in the neighborhood. Folks had become rather fond of it, like a friendly homeless person who's always on the same corner, and always humming the same funny song.
The stone wasn't valuable, its shape was irregular, even the color was actually quite tacky, but people really liked it. The shop clerk wasn't sure it was fair of me to think I could just go ahead and monopolize it.
I said I didn't want to monopolize it, I just wanted to take it home for awhile. Because I was absolutely certain we could do interesting work together, the stone and I.
I carried the geode into the shop and said, "I want to use this stone for a project. Of course I won't harm it any way. I'll even give you my contact information so you can check up on it."
The man at the counter was reluctant. Of course the stone didn't actually belong to anyone, but still it was well-known in the neighborhood. Folks had become rather fond of it, like a friendly homeless person who's always on the same corner, and always humming the same funny song.
The stone wasn't valuable, its shape was irregular, even the color was actually quite tacky, but people really liked it. The shop clerk wasn't sure it was fair of me to think I could just go ahead and monopolize it.
I said I didn't want to monopolize it, I just wanted to take it home for awhile. Because I was absolutely certain we could do interesting work together, the stone and I.
Symmetry
This is from the crippled boy -- who is a man now, except in the way that a cripple remains always a boy, attached for life to his leg, which does not grow.
I do not think there is a heaven, where my stray sad-hearted wishes will be answered, but just the same those wishes hang round me like unsent letters -- and so there is this wish of mine and nothing to be done with it --
The wish to stand on two whole legs, two legs the same length, with functional equal calves, ankles, knees, with two whole feet which both point forward, with everything the mirror of what is on the other side.
Take a moment to rejoice, those of you immersed in such a form, which seems as remarkable to me as flying through the air might seem to you.
I long to go run barefoot on the beach in such a form, to be seen thus, with legs that would draw no attention to themselves because, well, one is just like the other.
In recompense I possess the crippled arts -- the absolute persistence, the knack of appearing harmless, the air of apology, the small-toothed viciousness. The air of something not expected to survive, which did survive.
The boundless hunger, which goads me cross the world. To Bangkok and the Super A, the sleaziest bar in Bangkok, which, come to think of it, is no small accomplishment.
I find it comforting to rest sometimes on the very bottom of the ocean, deep in the muck, with everything else that is stunted, and half-born, and did not turn out as hoped.
The boys in white underpants perched round my chair, poking at me half-heartedly; they knew I was not buying anything except another beer. Engaging in the usual timid immoral anthropology.
The bored boys found my crippled leg encased in its plastic brace. I tried to shy away. (No one is allowed to touch the leg, none of my funhouse lovers. It is my only private part.)
The boys smiled at me and one said, sympathetically, "Army?" One boy aimed an invisible gun, another mimed a landmine exploding, and what astonished me was the way this made the leg, for the first time in my life, entirely all right. Suddenly I was no longer a freak -- I was a soldier. The leg was a scar in recognition of my service, a commendation, worthy of a star.
If its five bucks to get groped, and ten bucks for a blowjob -- how much do you tip the bar boys when they perform a miracle? The leg was not a deficiency. And it wasn't my fault. I was a veteran, one of the brave. A patriot. Not like I was some freak. Not like I was born this way.
I do not think there is a heaven, where my stray sad-hearted wishes will be answered, but just the same those wishes hang round me like unsent letters -- and so there is this wish of mine and nothing to be done with it --
The wish to stand on two whole legs, two legs the same length, with functional equal calves, ankles, knees, with two whole feet which both point forward, with everything the mirror of what is on the other side.
Take a moment to rejoice, those of you immersed in such a form, which seems as remarkable to me as flying through the air might seem to you.
I long to go run barefoot on the beach in such a form, to be seen thus, with legs that would draw no attention to themselves because, well, one is just like the other.
In recompense I possess the crippled arts -- the absolute persistence, the knack of appearing harmless, the air of apology, the small-toothed viciousness. The air of something not expected to survive, which did survive.
The boundless hunger, which goads me cross the world. To Bangkok and the Super A, the sleaziest bar in Bangkok, which, come to think of it, is no small accomplishment.
I find it comforting to rest sometimes on the very bottom of the ocean, deep in the muck, with everything else that is stunted, and half-born, and did not turn out as hoped.
The boys in white underpants perched round my chair, poking at me half-heartedly; they knew I was not buying anything except another beer. Engaging in the usual timid immoral anthropology.
The bored boys found my crippled leg encased in its plastic brace. I tried to shy away. (No one is allowed to touch the leg, none of my funhouse lovers. It is my only private part.)
The boys smiled at me and one said, sympathetically, "Army?" One boy aimed an invisible gun, another mimed a landmine exploding, and what astonished me was the way this made the leg, for the first time in my life, entirely all right. Suddenly I was no longer a freak -- I was a soldier. The leg was a scar in recognition of my service, a commendation, worthy of a star.
If its five bucks to get groped, and ten bucks for a blowjob -- how much do you tip the bar boys when they perform a miracle? The leg was not a deficiency. And it wasn't my fault. I was a veteran, one of the brave. A patriot. Not like I was some freak. Not like I was born this way.
Hazelnut
Out the farmhouse and down the dirt road, past the swimming pond and the cemetery. That night I did not swim. I did not even stop to visit with the dead. To the hazelnut tree that juts out slightly toward the road, that now and then must withstand the strike of a car, some teenager's car, out for a joyride. Or lightning.
On the hazelnut's trunk, on a smooth knot, I placed my hand. I knocked. I demanded entrance to another life. The tree admitted me and I stepped through.
I have not been back
On the hazelnut's trunk, on a smooth knot, I placed my hand. I knocked. I demanded entrance to another life. The tree admitted me and I stepped through.
I have not been back
Monday, October 12, 2009
Meaningful Living at the End of the World
Tokyo, October 2009
1.
When actual beauty arrives I am more scared than hungry. Just as when fumbling in the night my fingers find, instead of the switch, the electric socket. This man, startling me now on the train: he's not beautiful like a smooth skin commercial, or a Bel Ami porn angel. He's beautiful like stepping off a cliff in the dark. Suddenly I'm dangling 100 feet in the air, skewered, vulnerable.
What I want to do now is stare. To stare and stare until I understand, until I get it, this force and how to be free of it. But I can't stare. To stare is to be caught hungry, to be exposed -- he'd holler, someone would push the emergency button, the train would stop, security would hurry aboard, and I'd be shot in the interest of human safety because, well ma'am, nothing can be done with them once they've tasted human flesh.
Beauty's a pharmacy-bright fluorescent. Suddenly there I am, with my jug ears and my sad skin. My face, which a moment before was empty on the way to work, now contorts with longing and posturing. With nerves. Oh Jonathon Mock, why can't you just act natural?
Not for one moment in all my life have I ever acted natural. Shot through with longing, I pin my eyes to my clipboard (these words I wrote as I tried not to stare) and it occurs to me suddenly that this must be what God is like. Or as close as I am ever liable to get. The presence, the pressure of God, that dark radiance, an itch at the corner of one's vision.
Even if you turn to look it can't be comprehended. Doesn't really answer the question. I've looked three times already -- I am not eligible to look again. The contrast of dark lashes stubble eyebrows against that bright skin, the lean intensity of the face, those eyes! Once in my life I want to know what it's like to be born into the body of a god.
Don't look! Once more and he'll be irritated, I'll be exposed for ravenous hunger, caught with this dog-begging-at-the-table face and so I pin my eyes down and I feel that yearning, a pressure at the edge of my vision. I turn to him behind my eyes and silently say Oh Krishna
Storm god Krishna accept my adoration, this oil lamp, garland of jasmine. Krishna who multiplies in countless forms, one for each of the milkmaids and the buffalo boys, one to accost me on the train, Monday morning Tokyo commute, Mita Line to Onarimon. Pray to the longing. Oh Krishna.
Don't look again!
2.
Dear Zot,
Thank you for fielding my questions regarding meaningful living amid environmental catastrophe. I accept, and am highly disappointed you do not have some simple formula for me, directing me instead to my own still voice, pearl of discrimination, whatever.
i don't stay on the positive side. i just keep going, doing what makes sense as i see it from where i am. i also keep doing what last made sense the last time anything made sense, which if i'm saying it well enough means i get through times of nonsense or insensibility or senselessness. Sometimes it's like that. i get assignments in times of clarity. When out of clarity, i make myself continue to do the assignments.
Buddha nature is supposed to be boundary-less. Instead it's like trying to find one wad of gum beneath one chair in a porn theater the size of Yankee Stadium. OK, you're right, maybe the problem is I'm always watching the porn.
You asked me what I was expecting -- I guess I meant a book. Some NYT bestseller I'd overlooked: Meaningful Living at the End of the World. Some handy 1,2,3 guide on how to matter, use less plastic, maintain one's dignity and look great here at the end of human history. Evidently this book has not yet been written.
Perhaps we should collaborate?
3.
It's a lousy picture. When it appears on screen the narrator apologizes and explains it was the best they could do. The camera battery was dead, I think. Someone took it with their phone. Almost all you can see are the riot police with their silver shields and helmets. Behind them is a yellow gate with a plain red banner overhead. You have to peer, lean forward a little, to see the gate is in fact open, just wide enough to reveal a thin woman standing there, her hands before her, joined together in reverence. You can just make out that she is crying.
No, that's not true. I cannot see that clearly. I say that the woman in the picture is crying because I am crying whenever I look at the picture.
Aung San Su Kyi, is there any hope at all?
I found the picture on the Internet, very small. I printed it out and taped it to the wall above my altar. Above the buddhas and the Mother of the Universe. When I see this picture I see the state of truth and justice in the world, peering out at us through a narrow gap in the wall, behind a line of police. Greeting us from a distance. Standing straight and reverent behind a line of thugs.
4.
I dreamt I was back in the green kitchen in New Hampshire. A sheep was there with me in the kitchen. It started talking in a dry quiet voice best described as 'secretarial'.
"The quota of surprises for this year has been exceeded. Therefore, for the remainder of this year nothing expected will occur."
My first feeling was relief. But then I thought, "Can I really trust this sheep?"
5.
Finally they were able to travel but it was too late. Rido and his wife were over 80 by then and not well. They went to Paris and hardly left the hotel. They went on a cruise and stayed on the ship.
Maybe it wasn't too late. The maid had taught him how to count in French, he said. He got up early and watch as the streets were washed. The year before that his great grandchild was born. The year before that he'd found a dead cat on his roof covered in oil. And then there was the time when a policeman accused him of stealing a bicycle!
Rido sits at the table without moving. His eyes are gummy. His last tuft of hair grows long in the back. He speaks only when spoken to. He is so busy finding everything interesting he does not pause to ask what is good or bad.
The cruise ship stopped at Bangkok, but he and his wife stayed on board and watched a movie. Did you enjoy it, I asked. Yes very much. When the movie was finished the lights came on and we saw that we were alone in the theater!
6.
My sister, who is lovely and bored out of her mind with me all the time threatening to kill myself, says there is no point in trying to figure it all out. Instead she asks me to chant AH and imagine a white light, chest-high, surrounded by a rainbow.
There was a time I had spiritual beliefs. I still do. I used to believe in the Buddha. Before that I believed in God. Now I believe in my sister. And so I follow her instructions to imagine a white light (step one) collapse the universe into it (step two), collapse my body too (step three) everything together down to a radiant ball (step four) which becomes a star and (step 5) finally vanishes into space and stillness.
Each time creates the sadhana it requires. A horse sacrifice or a warrior, space man or holy mother. Thus it does not surprise me that we are trying now to collapse the universe and dissolve it all. AH, Nevermind. Start over.
7.
Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh have composed gathas -- short verses which aid to practice mindfulness in everyday life. There are gathas for waking and eating, gathas for hugging or inviting the bell to sound. There is even a gatha for using the toilet. However, I have not yet found a gatha to recite upon seeing a really luscious man. So I took the liberty of composing one.
May I always act
To care for and preserve
The beauty and the wonder
Of the world.
You say it silently of course. Otherwise the guy may be alarmed.
I admit I'd prefer a spell of infatuation: Om Ah Snog With Me. (I tried. It doesn't work.) As it is, the best I can do is remind myself that beauty is not an invitation for mindless devouring. There's a lot to be said for enjoying the vistas. Or at least not leaving marks.
The downside of the gatha is that it's really long. So, when there is an abundance of really gorgeous men around, you can just repeat the word "Wonder". Or, in times of extreme incessant beauty, at a South Indian bathing tank, say, or Turkish soccer match, Italian locker room, when you're just about to swoon from awe and lust, it's enough to repeat the holy seed syllable DUH, which is probably all you'll be able to think anyhow.
That gatha, one more time:
May I always act
To care for and preserve
The beauty and the wonder
Of the world.
1.
When actual beauty arrives I am more scared than hungry. Just as when fumbling in the night my fingers find, instead of the switch, the electric socket. This man, startling me now on the train: he's not beautiful like a smooth skin commercial, or a Bel Ami porn angel. He's beautiful like stepping off a cliff in the dark. Suddenly I'm dangling 100 feet in the air, skewered, vulnerable.
What I want to do now is stare. To stare and stare until I understand, until I get it, this force and how to be free of it. But I can't stare. To stare is to be caught hungry, to be exposed -- he'd holler, someone would push the emergency button, the train would stop, security would hurry aboard, and I'd be shot in the interest of human safety because, well ma'am, nothing can be done with them once they've tasted human flesh.
Beauty's a pharmacy-bright fluorescent. Suddenly there I am, with my jug ears and my sad skin. My face, which a moment before was empty on the way to work, now contorts with longing and posturing. With nerves. Oh Jonathon Mock, why can't you just act natural?
Not for one moment in all my life have I ever acted natural. Shot through with longing, I pin my eyes to my clipboard (these words I wrote as I tried not to stare) and it occurs to me suddenly that this must be what God is like. Or as close as I am ever liable to get. The presence, the pressure of God, that dark radiance, an itch at the corner of one's vision.
Even if you turn to look it can't be comprehended. Doesn't really answer the question. I've looked three times already -- I am not eligible to look again. The contrast of dark lashes stubble eyebrows against that bright skin, the lean intensity of the face, those eyes! Once in my life I want to know what it's like to be born into the body of a god.
Don't look! Once more and he'll be irritated, I'll be exposed for ravenous hunger, caught with this dog-begging-at-the-table face and so I pin my eyes down and I feel that yearning, a pressure at the edge of my vision. I turn to him behind my eyes and silently say Oh Krishna
Storm god Krishna accept my adoration, this oil lamp, garland of jasmine. Krishna who multiplies in countless forms, one for each of the milkmaids and the buffalo boys, one to accost me on the train, Monday morning Tokyo commute, Mita Line to Onarimon. Pray to the longing. Oh Krishna.
Don't look again!
2.
Dear Zot,
Thank you for fielding my questions regarding meaningful living amid environmental catastrophe. I accept, and am highly disappointed you do not have some simple formula for me, directing me instead to my own still voice, pearl of discrimination, whatever.
i don't stay on the positive side. i just keep going, doing what makes sense as i see it from where i am. i also keep doing what last made sense the last time anything made sense, which if i'm saying it well enough means i get through times of nonsense or insensibility or senselessness. Sometimes it's like that. i get assignments in times of clarity. When out of clarity, i make myself continue to do the assignments.
Buddha nature is supposed to be boundary-less. Instead it's like trying to find one wad of gum beneath one chair in a porn theater the size of Yankee Stadium. OK, you're right, maybe the problem is I'm always watching the porn.
You asked me what I was expecting -- I guess I meant a book. Some NYT bestseller I'd overlooked: Meaningful Living at the End of the World. Some handy 1,2,3 guide on how to matter, use less plastic, maintain one's dignity and look great here at the end of human history. Evidently this book has not yet been written.
Perhaps we should collaborate?
3.
It's a lousy picture. When it appears on screen the narrator apologizes and explains it was the best they could do. The camera battery was dead, I think. Someone took it with their phone. Almost all you can see are the riot police with their silver shields and helmets. Behind them is a yellow gate with a plain red banner overhead. You have to peer, lean forward a little, to see the gate is in fact open, just wide enough to reveal a thin woman standing there, her hands before her, joined together in reverence. You can just make out that she is crying.
No, that's not true. I cannot see that clearly. I say that the woman in the picture is crying because I am crying whenever I look at the picture.
Aung San Su Kyi, is there any hope at all?
I found the picture on the Internet, very small. I printed it out and taped it to the wall above my altar. Above the buddhas and the Mother of the Universe. When I see this picture I see the state of truth and justice in the world, peering out at us through a narrow gap in the wall, behind a line of police. Greeting us from a distance. Standing straight and reverent behind a line of thugs.
4.
I dreamt I was back in the green kitchen in New Hampshire. A sheep was there with me in the kitchen. It started talking in a dry quiet voice best described as 'secretarial'.
"The quota of surprises for this year has been exceeded. Therefore, for the remainder of this year nothing expected will occur."
My first feeling was relief. But then I thought, "Can I really trust this sheep?"
5.
Finally they were able to travel but it was too late. Rido and his wife were over 80 by then and not well. They went to Paris and hardly left the hotel. They went on a cruise and stayed on the ship.
Maybe it wasn't too late. The maid had taught him how to count in French, he said. He got up early and watch as the streets were washed. The year before that his great grandchild was born. The year before that he'd found a dead cat on his roof covered in oil. And then there was the time when a policeman accused him of stealing a bicycle!
Rido sits at the table without moving. His eyes are gummy. His last tuft of hair grows long in the back. He speaks only when spoken to. He is so busy finding everything interesting he does not pause to ask what is good or bad.
The cruise ship stopped at Bangkok, but he and his wife stayed on board and watched a movie. Did you enjoy it, I asked. Yes very much. When the movie was finished the lights came on and we saw that we were alone in the theater!
6.
My sister, who is lovely and bored out of her mind with me all the time threatening to kill myself, says there is no point in trying to figure it all out. Instead she asks me to chant AH and imagine a white light, chest-high, surrounded by a rainbow.
There was a time I had spiritual beliefs. I still do. I used to believe in the Buddha. Before that I believed in God. Now I believe in my sister. And so I follow her instructions to imagine a white light (step one) collapse the universe into it (step two), collapse my body too (step three) everything together down to a radiant ball (step four) which becomes a star and (step 5) finally vanishes into space and stillness.
Each time creates the sadhana it requires. A horse sacrifice or a warrior, space man or holy mother. Thus it does not surprise me that we are trying now to collapse the universe and dissolve it all. AH, Nevermind. Start over.
7.
Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh have composed gathas -- short verses which aid to practice mindfulness in everyday life. There are gathas for waking and eating, gathas for hugging or inviting the bell to sound. There is even a gatha for using the toilet. However, I have not yet found a gatha to recite upon seeing a really luscious man. So I took the liberty of composing one.
May I always act
To care for and preserve
The beauty and the wonder
Of the world.
You say it silently of course. Otherwise the guy may be alarmed.
I admit I'd prefer a spell of infatuation: Om Ah Snog With Me. (I tried. It doesn't work.) As it is, the best I can do is remind myself that beauty is not an invitation for mindless devouring. There's a lot to be said for enjoying the vistas. Or at least not leaving marks.
The downside of the gatha is that it's really long. So, when there is an abundance of really gorgeous men around, you can just repeat the word "Wonder". Or, in times of extreme incessant beauty, at a South Indian bathing tank, say, or Turkish soccer match, Italian locker room, when you're just about to swoon from awe and lust, it's enough to repeat the holy seed syllable DUH, which is probably all you'll be able to think anyhow.
That gatha, one more time:
May I always act
To care for and preserve
The beauty and the wonder
Of the world.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
What I Found When I Was Lost
“Candor ends paranoia.” – Allen Ginsberg
Easy.
I am an extraordinarily difficult person to flirt with. I tend to agree to any inappropriate suggestion immediately. Sometimes this catches people off guard.
As I unlock my door at the Malaysia Hotel, a drunk unshaven Filipino lug peers out next door. Leans against the doorframe and leers cheerfully. “Well, well, well! I had no idea I had such a cute neighbor! I ought to come visit you.”
“That’s a good idea. Give me five minutes, okay?”
Five minutes later there’s a knock at the door. But it’s not the drunk Filipino. It’s an impish young
Soliloquy from Dick’s Café, Soi Twilight
“Who am I in
Voyeurism.
In the window directly above and facing the pool at the Malaysia Hotel, there is a head. A white old round head with even whiter hair. Behind glasses with thick black frames eyes stare unblinking at any young man swimming or sunning himself. That head is always in the window, as if it has been mounted there, on a post. It is there in the morning and there in the afternoon. I was here years ago; the head was there then. And it is always staring. If you stare back long enough, the head will finally turn, and a hand will appear and toy nervously with an ear.
How is it possible to ever do anything useful or true with a mind designed for deception? A mind that continually tells small but crucial lies and seeks out poisonous consolations. A human mind.
Obituaries.
Imagine if newspapers told the truth and you opened the obituary page to the words
Addict, 72 Addict, 46 Addict, 19 Addict, 84
Wouldn’t that be excellent? We would be warned and we would not feel so all alone. Also we would have more respect for this Mrs. Joan Tatro, 68, formerly of
It’s extremely unlikely anyone will be able convince the obituary page to boldface the word cocksucker. Maybe I could learn to be a secretary?
∞
The frog in a pot on the stove is slowly, slowly, slowly coming to a boil. Everyone around is smoking, or admiring themselves for not smoking. Even the frog is full of resolutions.
Survey.
I used to wonder if other people felt as lonely as I did. Or as frightened. Or as depressed. And the answer turned out to be Yes. I am still trying to figure out, however, if other people are actually this horny. Please -- take a moment to respond below.
Aunt Lucy.
My schizophrenic Aunt Lucy, lifetime resident of the state hospital in
So maybe I have a condition and other people are actually reasonable. Not the people I’m meeting of course, but other people.
God speaks to Aunt Lucy. God speaks to me, too. Not often. Perhaps semi-annually. I am also sometimes afflicted with the sense that everything is meaningful and people are basically good. Pathology!
Then there’s the tendency to endlessly compose long story/poem/essays consisting almost wholly of inappropriate information. (There’s a word for this too: hypergraphia.)
Isn’t this writing, which adheres to no genre and contains no structure, akin to the mythological kingdoms unemployed plumbers build secretly for 38 years in their garages using only aluminum foil, bottle caps and chewing gum?
Creativity is for other people. What I do is probably a symptom of something.
Bodhicitta.
When I sit down to meditate, I set my motivation. And at the end I dedicate the merit. I aspire to wake up and to be of benefit to every living thing. I know, it seems ridiculous for someone who can’t pay his student loans or keep his zipper zipped to pray in such a way but, nonetheless, I aspire.
The innocent
can
get
donations.
Or
fend
for
themselves.
I don’t want them.
Holy Mother, bless me one day to be the Deep Shit Bodhisattva.
Bulge.
Night after night, a man calls me at
He is not young; he has spent far too much time in the sun. His body is still sleek however and, most importantly, the bulge in his turquoise-striped Speedo is impressive. I’ve noted this, repeatedly, and double-checked to make absolutely sure. He caught me at it, got my room number from the pool sign-in sheet, and now calls drunk at
Cold Shower
What I have in mind is a portable shower, ice cold and dousing. The kind they use in science labs for emergencies, with a broad steel sunflower head and a chain to pull.
This is what I need above my head at all times. (Perhaps they could somehow attach it to my spine?) When overcome with flaming lust I could just pull the chain and at once douse myself. The water would have to be very, very cold.
Also it would be convenient for other people. Sturdy tourists commando in flimsy shorts with thick tanned calves adorned with golden hairs -- and sick to death of me staring -- they could just pull the chain! The whole world could help me to be virtuous, instead of aiding and abetting my unending perversities.
When I am supposed to be concerned with Real Adult Things – the future of the farm, the bills, elections, schedules – and I instead I am lost in a masturbatory haze because some cocky Israeli buck has sauntered past brandishing his delectable armpits – pull the chain! pull the chain! Instantly I am soaked, shivering, and able to return my attention to the details of the lease agreement.
I’d need to wear some light fabric which would quickly dry (and nothing see thru, Porno Boy!) since I would presumably be dousing myself, or being doused, 18 to 36 times a day.
Or course it would hideously embarrassing, to walk around all day beneath a broad metal shower head. Constantly wetting myself! I’d be shivering, cold and wet. I might catch pneumonia. Yes -- but I would be good.
If this is for any reason impracticable, my next idea is a special ice pack I could wear in my shorts. Very very cold. But I fear this would not be sufficient. I think some small electric shock is also very much in order.
(This is the twelth and final essay in the series "What I Found When I Was Lost".)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
What I Found When I Was Lost
Rivalry
They arrived on Soi 4 grinning, dressed as twins in white dress shirts with sleeves rolled and ties knotted halfway down their chests. (“Like Japanese schoolgirls!” they said.) They looked very much alike, except that one was gorgeous and the other just good enough, as if they were two versions of a single person -- one perfect and one botched.
I grinned back, and when the table beside mine was free, they came and talked to me. “It is our first time to Asia! We are having the most wonderful time! We are busy from 6am until midnight every day. We go sightseeing and shopping and then always to have a massage! We cannot believe how fast the time is going – in only two days we must return to Berlin!”
They approved heartily of everything in Bangkok – the food, the shopping, the massage – they liked everything but Chinatown. “It is very dirty! There are garbages in the street. Men spit! Men piss! We decided we never go to China.”
“Please feel my leg,” said the plain-looking man. He was not really so plain. He was actually quite good-looking. He looked plain because he was beside the gorgeous man -- who now invited me to feel his arm.
I approved heartily of both and believed that my night was, at last, headed in the right direction.
“So smooth!” said the plain-looking man. “Today we had tried the body polish. They polish you all over! Then they use powder. It smells so nice! Afterwards you feel so smooth. You do not sweat.” Then he teased the gorgeous one. “He often uses powder. And he is shaved everywhere. I mean, everywhere you can think of! He also wears a little makeup. And never once in his life is there a hair between his eyebrows. It is not allowed. Even in Asia he travels with mascara!”
This is the trouble I always have with threesomes. It’s hard to keep both guys happy – somebody always gets jealous. “Both of you are excellent,” I said. “How long have you been together?”
They laughed and waved their hands, as if to scatter my words in the air.
“No! No!” said the plain one. “We’ve always been together. We’re brothers.”
“I’m straight,” said the gorgeous brother. I checked to see if he was serious. His big brown eyes certainly looked earnest. But maybe it was just the mascara.
“He is so girly,” said the plain brother.
“I am a personal trainer in Berlin,” said the gorgeous brother. “My body is my asset.”
“He is the ultimate number one metrosexual. He is so girly!”
Over the next dozen or so beers they continued in much the same fashion. The gorgeous one gave me workout tips. (Three times a week is perfect. Twenty minutes cardio, then weights, then twenty minutes cardio again. And drink enough water!)
”He is so girly. So totally girly! I do not understand why he does not just give up and be gay already. His girlfriend is sometimes so bitchy. Sometimes no sex for one month. Always he must talk sweetly to her and give her massage any time she asks for it. I told him, you go gay, you can have sex every night!”
I ran my eyes over the beautiful brother. “You could have sex every hour. That’s the good part of being a gay guy. Also the bad part.”
“I love her,” said the gorgeous brother. “We have been together five years now.”
“So girly!” protested the plain brother, who had just broken up with his lover after seventeen years. They’d met when he was twenty. “All that time I could have had anyone I wanted! Now I am free and nobody wants me. Nobody! Everybody, all the time, they only want him.”
There was a short pause then, as sometimes happens when one has arrived at the heart of the matter.
I laughed and rubbed his back a little. “On this subject, sir, I am an authority.” I explained that my unfortunate parents had suffered diminishing returns when having children. Each son was two inches shorter, and less handsome, and duller than the one before. I was the youngest and had inherited nothing but the runt’s sharp-toothed determination. Every beautiful person in the world paraded right up to me to beg. “Please. Introduce me to your brother.”
It bothered me for a long time. Then it didn’t bother me anymore. I have an awkward stumbling soul – this Quasimodo shape of mine is its natural physical extension.
All right. Maybe it still bothers me a little.
“You’re fine,” I said. “You’re cute. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.” The gorgeous brother enthusiastically agreed. We were both insulting him. We knew it and couldn’t help ourselves. The plain brother sat there, drinking his beer, getting smaller and more homely by the minute.
The gorgeous brother continued to counsel me. He reminded me that there was no point to using supplements, except perhaps Creatine and salmon oil, but it was very important to always remain balanced. The plain brother had his hands all over me now, which the gorgeous brother politely ignored. He assured me there was nothing at all wrong with beer, except that it dehydrates one. Dehydrate was a very serious word in his vocabulary. For each pint of beer I must drink half a pint of water. Then I’d be all right.
The plain brother interrupted. “How much for you?”
“What?”
At last the gorgeous brother winced. “Stefan!”
“Come on. We are in Bangkok. Everything has its price.”
I smiled and pretended I’d understood nothing. Anyway it was absurd. The plain-looking brother was still better-looking than me. Nothing was wrong with him at all, in fact, except for the baby shit stink of self-loathing and need that rose off of him. How well I knew that smell, which became stronger the more one tried to eradicate it. It had never occurred to me to try to cover it with powder.
The gorgeous brother announced it was time for them to return to their hotel. The lights of the bar had already turned off. It was almost 2am and he still had to do his evening routine: remove his makeup, rinse off the powder, moisturize, care for his feet, calculate the number of beers he’d drunk and drink a half a pint of water for each. Maybe he’d do some stretches too, or even a few sit-ups. Alcohol is only empty calories.
It had never occurred to me before that it must be tiresome, too, to be the beautiful brother. To keep to routines and maintain your advantage. To be trailed always by a hungry brother who praised you and blamed you. Who begged you. Who loved you and desired you. Who hated you.
(Bangkok, 09.15.09)
Friday, September 04, 2009
What I Found When I Was Lost
Two Hustlers
I only ever saw him on the edge of places. I met him on the way to Dharamkot; I saw him on the far side of Bhagsu. I’d seen him at least twice before on the path around the temple. Each time he asked me to ‘help him out’ and when I refused – he was young and strong – he walked off muttering Jesus Christ. A young Indian guy, though his accent sounded like Newark. Yesterday I saw him at the monastery guesthouse where I’m staying – he was asleep behind the shower block, just barely out of the rain.
Today he was sitting on a bench beside the temple path. I sat down beside him. “All right,” I said. “Tell me.”
“Listen to me, okay? Are you going to listen to me, man? Maybe you will not believe me, but I’m going to tell you anyway. My father’s name was Patrick Kevin O’Brien. Do you know him? He was a great man. I lost my parents very young; he took me in. He paid for me to go to a school. Very expensive school, man. The best. He was like a father to me.
“We came to this place for a holiday. I did not think I would stay here forever. One night he fell. He was a heavy drinker, see. Nobody would help me. I paid two coolies a thousand rupees to take him to the hospital. I went to the Embassy. Nobody would help him and he died. I went to my school to get my certificate but they wouldn’t give it. He didn’t pay the last six months you see. Give us fifteen thousand rupees, they said. But where could I get that kind of money? Are you listening to me man? Are you believing me?”
I was listening. Even if I didn’t want to, I listened. I made a promise years ago. I guess it is a kind of vow. I must listen, and buy him lunch, and never lay a finger on him. I could shake his hand, if he offered it. That’s all. I couldn’t ruffle his hair or touch his shoulder. I made a vow. Because I have been this kind of boy.
He was still good-looking in a sly, rakish way. He had early lines from his face from cheap cigarettes and whiskey. Looked at everything out the corners of his eyes.. He said he was 19. He was lying. I reckon he was 26 and figured 19 was the maximum age he could be and still win sympathy. I could imagine how beautiful he must have been a dozen years before, when he’d attracted the attention of globe-trotting do-gooder pedophiles. Men who paid for everything during the day, and thought highly of themselves -- and at night drank, and figured then that they were within their rights.
I am certain this was the case, though I can show no proof, except to say that I have been this kind of boy.
If you really want to fuck someone over, if you want to pulverize their integrity and reduce their dignity to a fine powder, if is enough to give them money unpredictably. You can destroy a person very efficiently this way. And you can assure yourself that all you ever did was help them.
“Another guy came. He was a German. He sent money for awhile and then I never heard from him anymore. One French man came. He got me a job with a non-profit. I had a staff of six people working under me. But he stopped sending money too and then they said I had to leave. Bad luck, man! Just bad luck!
“I started to work a job then. Because I speak English well. I worked in Bhagsu at a very fine hotel. I worked at the Himalayan Queen. And at the Simla Plaza Hotel. Finally I had to work at the Green Hotel. I did a good job, a very fine job, man, but every place let me go. Because they said I was a thief. I am not a thief. But everyone they say I am a thief. They are fucking liars, man. Do you believe me?”
Obviously, this guy was seriously twisted up. His morality was shot. Boundaries and integrity gone. How could he ever be good for anything now?
Of course, as the son of privilege, I can never truly understand this young man’s situation. After all, my rich father paid for college. Or said he would. Sometimes he did. Other times he changed his mind. If he felt I didn’t respect him enough. Mostly he forgot I existed. He was a very important man, see, and I was not among his priorities.
I was not a poor boy, but I reckon I understand something about benefactors. My father was a benefactor in the grand old style. He liked to be thanked -- he could not be thanked enough, and he enjoyed it very much – but most of all he liked to be begged. Of course we’d agreed to everything in advance, but he never once remembered that. Nothing ever came until I called, never less than three times, often six or eight, each time more desperate, until I’d say “this is the last day I’ll be eating” and then he’d send a check. I’d hurry to pay my bills. And then the check would bounce.
“Everybody knows me, man. And I know everybody. I saw you yesterday, man. You’re staying up at the monastery. I said hello to you, man. You didn’t hear me. You were sleeping in the room with the broken window.”
I reminded myself that I must always keep my valuables out of sight.
“Did I tell you, man? I’m a Christian. I had a dream last night. I dreamt of Jesus. I dreamed of Jesus and he told me I had to get out of here. If I could get to Bombay, I could just start over. All I need is a bus ticket, man. Can you help me out? Nobody helps me, man.”
“I totally agree with Jesus,” I said. “But all you’re getting from me is lunch.”
I gave him thirty rupees. He beamed, took off to buy a bottle of the vicious local liquor. I didn’t blame him. I’d want the same thing in his situation. I did want the same thing. Each day I practiced not drinking it.
Prayer beads in hand, I resumed my pious circumambulation of the temple. I reminded myself that I must warn the guest house. There is a thief in the area.
I only ever saw him on the edge of places. I met him on the way to Dharamkot; I saw him on the far side of Bhagsu. I’d seen him at least twice before on the path around the temple. Each time he asked me to ‘help him out’ and when I refused – he was young and strong – he walked off muttering Jesus Christ. A young Indian guy, though his accent sounded like Newark. Yesterday I saw him at the monastery guesthouse where I’m staying – he was asleep behind the shower block, just barely out of the rain.
Today he was sitting on a bench beside the temple path. I sat down beside him. “All right,” I said. “Tell me.”
“Listen to me, okay? Are you going to listen to me, man? Maybe you will not believe me, but I’m going to tell you anyway. My father’s name was Patrick Kevin O’Brien. Do you know him? He was a great man. I lost my parents very young; he took me in. He paid for me to go to a school. Very expensive school, man. The best. He was like a father to me.
“We came to this place for a holiday. I did not think I would stay here forever. One night he fell. He was a heavy drinker, see. Nobody would help me. I paid two coolies a thousand rupees to take him to the hospital. I went to the Embassy. Nobody would help him and he died. I went to my school to get my certificate but they wouldn’t give it. He didn’t pay the last six months you see. Give us fifteen thousand rupees, they said. But where could I get that kind of money? Are you listening to me man? Are you believing me?”
I was listening. Even if I didn’t want to, I listened. I made a promise years ago. I guess it is a kind of vow. I must listen, and buy him lunch, and never lay a finger on him. I could shake his hand, if he offered it. That’s all. I couldn’t ruffle his hair or touch his shoulder. I made a vow. Because I have been this kind of boy.
He was still good-looking in a sly, rakish way. He had early lines from his face from cheap cigarettes and whiskey. Looked at everything out the corners of his eyes.. He said he was 19. He was lying. I reckon he was 26 and figured 19 was the maximum age he could be and still win sympathy. I could imagine how beautiful he must have been a dozen years before, when he’d attracted the attention of globe-trotting do-gooder pedophiles. Men who paid for everything during the day, and thought highly of themselves -- and at night drank, and figured then that they were within their rights.
I am certain this was the case, though I can show no proof, except to say that I have been this kind of boy.
If you really want to fuck someone over, if you want to pulverize their integrity and reduce their dignity to a fine powder, if is enough to give them money unpredictably. You can destroy a person very efficiently this way. And you can assure yourself that all you ever did was help them.
“Another guy came. He was a German. He sent money for awhile and then I never heard from him anymore. One French man came. He got me a job with a non-profit. I had a staff of six people working under me. But he stopped sending money too and then they said I had to leave. Bad luck, man! Just bad luck!
“I started to work a job then. Because I speak English well. I worked in Bhagsu at a very fine hotel. I worked at the Himalayan Queen. And at the Simla Plaza Hotel. Finally I had to work at the Green Hotel. I did a good job, a very fine job, man, but every place let me go. Because they said I was a thief. I am not a thief. But everyone they say I am a thief. They are fucking liars, man. Do you believe me?”
Obviously, this guy was seriously twisted up. His morality was shot. Boundaries and integrity gone. How could he ever be good for anything now?
Of course, as the son of privilege, I can never truly understand this young man’s situation. After all, my rich father paid for college. Or said he would. Sometimes he did. Other times he changed his mind. If he felt I didn’t respect him enough. Mostly he forgot I existed. He was a very important man, see, and I was not among his priorities.
I was not a poor boy, but I reckon I understand something about benefactors. My father was a benefactor in the grand old style. He liked to be thanked -- he could not be thanked enough, and he enjoyed it very much – but most of all he liked to be begged. Of course we’d agreed to everything in advance, but he never once remembered that. Nothing ever came until I called, never less than three times, often six or eight, each time more desperate, until I’d say “this is the last day I’ll be eating” and then he’d send a check. I’d hurry to pay my bills. And then the check would bounce.
“Everybody knows me, man. And I know everybody. I saw you yesterday, man. You’re staying up at the monastery. I said hello to you, man. You didn’t hear me. You were sleeping in the room with the broken window.”
I reminded myself that I must always keep my valuables out of sight.
“Did I tell you, man? I’m a Christian. I had a dream last night. I dreamt of Jesus. I dreamed of Jesus and he told me I had to get out of here. If I could get to Bombay, I could just start over. All I need is a bus ticket, man. Can you help me out? Nobody helps me, man.”
“I totally agree with Jesus,” I said. “But all you’re getting from me is lunch.”
I gave him thirty rupees. He beamed, took off to buy a bottle of the vicious local liquor. I didn’t blame him. I’d want the same thing in his situation. I did want the same thing. Each day I practiced not drinking it.
Prayer beads in hand, I resumed my pious circumambulation of the temple. I reminded myself that I must warn the guest house. There is a thief in the area.
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