Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
The following is a series of Facebook Statuses made from a bus, and then a boat, as I made my way from my current home of Cambridge to the place of my ancestral homeland, Martha's Vineyard.
--------------------------------------------- I apologize to the people whose seat is so far back I can taste their shoulderblades because the entire bus must unite to battle the insane woman tunelessly mumbling the lyrics to Christmas Carols loud enough that I can hear her through my headphones. --------------------------------------------- Oh no, insane mumbling woman and person tunelessly relaying Christmas lyrics are two different people AND THEY ARE BECOMING LOUD FRIENDS. --------------------------------------------- "ARE YOU IN A BAND?" "NO, I CAN"T FIND ANYONE AS COMMITTED AS I AM." "I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE DON'T COMMIT TO THINGS. DO YOU LIKE NEW YORK?" "I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO NEW YORK." "YOU SHOULD GO. THAT'S WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE WITH MUSIC GO." "REALLY?" "YEA. OH MY GOD. YOU'RE SO YOUNG. YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUL. YOU HAVE SUCH A GREAT VOICE." I wish my seat back went back about three rows. ------------------------------------------------------- The loud peoples' names are Karen and Tray, in case you were wondering. And I know you were. ------------------------------------------------------- "AM I BEING TOO LOUD?" "YOU SHOULDA TOLD ME." "I DON'T CARE. ASSHOLE. SORRY. AM I BEING TOO LOUD? WATCH OUT WILD DRIVER. HAHA. SORRY, AM I BEING TOO LOUD? I'M SORRY. YOU DIDN'T DESERVE THAT. I'M SORRY. SORRY. I DON'T MEAN TO BE SO LOUD. AM I BEING LOUD?" -------------------------------------------------------- Tray, the Christmas Carol warbler has grown completely silent, realizing he has lost the title of Craziest Person On The Bus. -------------------------------------------------------- Tray gets off the bus in Bourne. Karen starts to follow him off before realizing that she has no idea where she is. "HOW LONG UNTIL WE GET TO BOSTON?" I stare blankly at her. "HOW. LONG. UNTIL. BOSTON?" I feign concern. "Pardon?" "BOSTON? CHRIST. WHEN DO WE GET TO BOSTON." We, of course, departed from Boston about an hour previous. "Je suis desole. Je ne parle pas Anglais." "KEY-RIST. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU? WHEN BOSTON?" "I sorry. I no speak good English." I shrug. "WHEN THE--" Mr. Seatback says, "He doesn't speak English. We're not going to Boston. We're coming FROM Boston. We're going to Woods Hole." "OH RIGHT. I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP AND THE BUS IS GOING THE OTHER WAY NOW." Karen says. She is wrong. She got on just after me at South Station. Mrs. Seatback asks "Could you lower your voice, please? We're in an enclosed space. There is no need to shout." "SORRY. I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP. WHEN DO WE GET TO BOSTON?" Mr. Seatback sighs. "In an hour. Go back to sleep." "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE. SORRY, SORRY. YOU DIDN'T DESERVE THAT." Then Karen goes and sits back down, occasionally muttering to herself for the duration of the trip. In Woods Hole, I make sure to put at least two people between me and Karen, so that when she inevitably stumbles into someone, "I'M SORRY. YOU DIDN'T DESERVE THAT. THE BUS SWERVED. IT SWERVED." It's parked. "I'M SORRY." I'm not the one she's stumbling into. I move fast enough that there's no line to get my tickets to the ferry. Mr. and Mrs. Seatback walk to the also lineless window next to mine. I ask, "Could I have a round trip to The Vineyard please?" Mrs. Seatback's eyes balloon. "Sure thing. That'll be sixteen dollars." The guy behind the window says. "Thank you so much. Have a Happy Holiday." I say. "I think you mean A MERRY CHRISTMAS." Mr. Seatback says. "I don't think I do." I say. "But then again, my English isn't very good." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For those concerned that I am mocking Karen for being mentally deficient, I should point out that she didn't appear to be mentally disabled, but you could smell the gin on her breath from the Mars Rover. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Karen just ran a full loop around the ferry following some poor steamship authority employee. I'm not quite motivated enough to find out what's going on in this part of her Soap Opera. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- She's back! "IS THE BOAT GOING THAT WAY?" She points to the front of the boat. "Sorry. No English." She sits down a few rows away. "WHERE ARE WE GOING NOW?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- She also just tried to buy a drink from the very friendly guy behind the counter. She was not served. "WHY CAN'T I HAVE ANOTHER BEER." She, of course, has not had a beer since at least getting on the bus nearly three hours ago. "We're not serving anymore." The guy says. "But I AM about to play a very naughty Christmas Carol." "WHY AREN'T YOU SERVING ANYMORE? I'M SORRY. I DON'T MEAN TO BE NOSEY BUT FUCK I WANT A BEER." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Seatback, who I had not seen since getting on the boat just kept her from walking out to the open deck, probably saving her drunk life. I guess he's not all bad. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "IT IS SO WINDY IN HERE!" Karen says, though we are in an enclosed part of the ferry. I mean, Mr. Seatback has been sighing a lot but I don't think it's enough to be called "windy". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I got caught breaking character on my way off the boat. She was standing between me and the exit and she said "JUST GO AROUND. GO AROUND ME." And I said. "Thank you." And she looked bewildered but didn't say anything. Also, if you had two and a half minutes in the "How long before Adam's dad says something racist about Ferguson" then congratulations you win the deep foreboding sense of decay in American society.
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My father doesn't really celebrate Christmas ever since the Church where he served as altar boy for years told him he wasn't good enough to adopt a child. He played along while I grew up, but once he and my mother were divorced, he decided he'd give out unwrapped gifts that he thought people needed. Not what they, necessarily wanted. I've always been ok with that. Even when, some years, it was scratch tickets and beer.
This, the first year (first week really) since his second wife died, he went through the Christmas presents she'd bought, and, without a list, decided who should get what. I was puzzled by the aromatherapy neck & back pillows, until he called and let me know that those were "probably" meant for my grandmother. So I got a snuggie, and t-shirts. Now, the t-shirts. The t-shirts. I suspect they are t-shirts someone gave to my father that don't actually fit him. They are, of course, huge on me. There are a couple of Martha's Vineyard art fairs, and country fair shirts. Those are fine. The seven traffic cone orange Doo-Wop 2007 shirts are...interesting. But the truly fantastic? "Welcome To America, Now Learn To Speak English", and "Richardology: The Study Of Dicks". The first shirt was, I assume, a deliberately ironic shirt. The second? I wonder if my dad understands that when he, a Richard, wears it, it has a very different meaning than when I, not a Richard, put it on. Doesn't he know I'm an ass man? My Christmhistory:1977-1981: I don't fucken remember. 1982-1990: My cousins and aunts and uncles on my mother's side of the family owned all of the property around a lake in Atamansit. Every year we would all gather at my great aunt's and tell stories, sing Christmas Carols, and record the event on VHS. There were a couple of years when my father's parents would come, too. I'm blinded by nostalgia, of course, but apart from my prick of an uncle who would berate his business-arrangement-wife and kid, I remember these being very happy Christmases. We didn't exchange many gifts at these events, mainly stocking stuffers, but even as a kid, I didn't care. I just lliked being around people who were happy. 1992-4: I had about two weeks of vacation from boarding school, and every year I would come home with another student, and my parents would tone down their arguing (they were going through a divorce, and then they were divorced) for the visitor. 1992 my guest was a Saudi Arabian prince who lived in the next room (there are billions of Saudi Arabian princes, I'm told). He bought my parents traditional Saudi Arabian garb, and my parents bought him tacky sweatshirts and jeans (traditional American garb). In 1993, my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend came by for a couple of days. It was ho ho hella awkward. 1995: I had just dropped out of college, which I spent all of Christmas hearing about. Most of my gifts were suited toward me living in Florida, which I no longer did. I also spent the vacation week running a holiday camp at they YMCA. The camgrounds I loved so much in the summer were pretty desolate in the arctic winter, so we ended up mostly watching movies, doing arts and crafts, and playing Capture the Flag. 1996-8: The more immediate part of my mother's side of the family (just her brothers, not any cousins) would get together in western MA to exchange gifts, and go to a restaurant with my nearly housebound uncle. There were always some pleasant times, and a lot of arguing. In 1998, I videotaped the event. Before recording, I checked the camera to see that I wasn't recording over anything important. What I found was my eighty-one year old grandfather and two eighteen year old escorts at an event called Fantasy Fest, where there were all kinds of kinky shit going on. There was a point where my grandfather was making out with someone who I'm near positive was a guy, but my grandfather didn't know that. I haven't picked up a video recording device since. 1999: Being completely in love with my oblivious, homophobic (didn't know that at the time) best friend, I spent much of the holiday with him and his family. We cleaned up his father's warehouse, made each other mix CDs, recorded an EP of songs with my lyrics and his music, had a long conversation about relationships. Seriously, the fact that it took him another seven months to realize I was in love with him makes him borderline comatose. 2000: Having just quit my job selling chocolates in Vermont, I made my first trip back to the Cape in months. My mom and her boyfriend spent the day arguing with each other, even throwing ornaments across the room, which triggered their singing fucken Christmas tree. 2001: I watched the snow from my new apartment with MelissafuckenPlummer. I also headed over to housesit for Zuzu. 2002: My last Christmas spent with my mother's side of the family. My mom's neurotic then-boyfriend, now-husband freaked out because my mom had moved his dining room table over six inches so that my grandfather could fit at the table. Every person in the house spent the day arguing with everyone else in the house, including my Alzheimer's infused grandfather. 2003: The end of my time in Arizona. All I wanted to do was get back to MA. I cooked some Ground Nut Stew for myself, and watched A Very Brady Christmas. I was so absorbed in the show (I was also downloading porn and music), that I forgot I was cooking until the smoke from the burning rice spread to the bedroom. I scraped most of the rice into the trash, but a small amount (cough) made it into the sink, blocking the pipes, causing rice to flow up through the shower when I turned the water on. Did I mention I was staying in a friend's apartment? I made it back to MA in time for New Year's. 2004: My father and I hung out at his house, watching TV and eating too much. There was no exchange of presents (my father is a post-Catholic non-celebratory agnostic), no family drama. I returned home to discover that not only was FOOD included in the RENT at my new apartment, but that my whack ass landlord was an opportunist. During my four day absence, he had let three Chinese teenagers (18/19 year olds) stay in my room, and sleep in my bed. He was befuddled when I seemed upset that I was paying for a room that I couldn't use until three people who were also paying for the room (a single bedroom) got their shit out of it. 2005: I was invited to spend the day with Baker, a guy who was infatuated with me. He cooked kangaroo, and a variety of other delicious foods. We did a Holiday Present swap with his assortment of roommates and friends, we played some games, and hung out for a while. We retired to his room, where he proceeded to do a lot of post-drink vomiting. I declined to make out with him (vomit breath, not sexy), but we made plans to hang out the next week. I never heard from him again. 2006: I did nothing. 2007: The first year where I set out to be alone, to no avail. Zuzu needed help fixing her toilet seat, so I spent an hour or so on Christmas Eve in a position most people reserve for New Year's Day. Of course, I wasn't vomiting, so, point me. When we were done in the bathroom, Zuzu offered to drop me off at Racist Grandma's on her way to Virginia. We left at 11pm, spent the entire time failing to find any decent songs on the radio while Pup Ratzinger sat in the back, alternating between whining and farting. Christmas was brimming with stank dogs. We got to CT around 1am, where I was assaulted by Frisky, my grandmother's ADD mutt. Once Zuzu took Ratzinger, and headed out, my grandmother filled me in on how my mother keeps hysterically calling her, asking how I'm doing. We haven't spoken in three months, as I told her I wouldn't talk to her on the phone if she insisted on calling me while her deaf, nosy husband was in the room. I don't like listening to people argue over the phone. On Christmas Day, my grandmother and I watched a Crossing Jordan marathon, ate some great steak, and talked. Everything was low-key until my she looked out her window and saw a bunch of cars across the street. "What are all those people doing over there?" she asked. "It's Christmas, they're probably having a party or something." She sucked on her false teeth. "No. I don't like it. They're up to no good." A few minute pass, and then she inhales deeply, "Safey! Look! There are colored people coming out of that house! I knew it, they're dealing drugs." "Grandma, keep your voice down." I said, trying not to laugh. "You know those people always carry guns. Do you want to get us shot?" I figure, since I can't get her to stop being a racist lout, I can at least entertain myself by upping the stereotype ante. On my way home, the next day, new laptop in hand, I receive the greatest Christmas present I can think of. In the middle of South Station is a gaggle of attractive people, among them, Mr. HotPositive, the man who gave me a rousing round of Applause for Thanksgiving. Mr. HotPositive and I haven't really spoken since I informed him that he gave me The Applause. In fact, he deleted his Myspace Profile, and changed his e-mail address within a week or so of my notifying him. Needless to say, he didn't look too excited to see me, particularly as he appeared to be surrounded by people he was trying to impress. "Hi?" "How have you been?" I asked, positively nauseous with champagne voice (sweet and bubbly, with a hint of dryness). "Uh. I've been okay." He didn't ask how I've been. "I'm sorry," one of the obvious fag hags around him said, "I don't think I know you." "Safey Mode." I said. "Mr. HotPositive and I are" PAUSE OF DOOM "friends. We met" PAUSE OF DOOM "at a poetry event I work at." "Ooooh." She said. And we small talked about nothing, while Mr. Hot Positive (who has never been to a poetry event in his life) tried to stay away from my eye contact. After a minute or so of chatter I said, "Well, I really have to get going. It was great catching up with you, though. This was loads of fun." PAUSE OF DOOM. "Hot, positive loads of fun." Then I kissed him on the cheek (I assume his mouth is full of herpes), and walked away. Thanks Santa. Ok, seriously, what is it with my parents getting married without telling anyone?
I suppose, barring the death of their spouses, that this is the last time one of my parents will have the opportunity to get married (barring their embrace of Mormonism) and then casually drop that fact in conversation after the ceremony is over. Now that I think about, I suppose my birth parents would each have the opportunity to do this to me. Let's call that another reason why I have no plans to get in touch with them. It's summery, and the geese are honking in the park. I am in a park. It's summery and I'm outdoors in the morning, and I swear this time, mom, I'm not even close to homeless.
The geese are honking, not at me, but at each other. Mating and flying and hissing and swimming and eating the plant life in this unswimmable water. These black capped, white chin-strapped loud beaks breaking the silence of a Tuesday morning bagel. They will not get the bagel. I remember being three or four, sitting on the pondfront in front of my cousins' house in Atasmansit, with various members of my mother's side of the family. There was a family of geese that owned their quarter of Lawrence Pond. We called the alpha female, Big Hiss, because she was big. And hissy. I remember feeding her bits of bagel, and turning to my Aunt Maggie, a laughful Canadian woman with fluffy black hair and a ten mile smile. "Canadian geese are funny." I said. She crossed her arms. "They aren't Canadian geese, Adam, they're Canada Geese." Now I understand why they honk and hiss so much. These beautiful vegetarians named for a country that refuses to claim them. The nation that births them, but does not allow them to call their birthplace home. I get it. When the article in the paper announced my upcoming show, I was disheartened to see that they'd labeled me a Gay Poet. Sure, I've been sleeping predominantly with men for the last decade or so, but more often I've been sleeping alone, and nobody labels me an Asexual Poet. I'm not sure why the Gay distinction makes me any angrier than the poetry distinction. After all, I've been writing more prose than poetry these days. I suppose I'm more forgiving of the poet because I'm doing the show to perform poetry. I'm not going there to recruit gays, pick up guys, or pass along any agenda associated with who I sleep with. Will I be reading some poems about men I've slept with? Probably. But I'll also be reading some surrealist shit, and some a bunch of persona poems. I'd probably be just as angry if I'd been listed as a Surrealist Poet or a Persona Poet, because, while they're things I do write about, I rarely fill a set with them. Still, the whole being a Gay Poet thing annoys me. Not just because I don't often identify with the Stereotype Gay Poets. Those who only write about being Gay. Those who go out of their way to be self-parody or walking political campaigns. When I think of my favorite poets who are gay, I don't think of them as gay poets. Who gives an unfuck who Daphne Gottleib sleeps with? Justin Chin? What part of Morris Stegosaurus's "Clockwork" is enhanced by the fact that he's a gay babyfur? And what does giving the occasional blowjob have to do with Buddy Wakefield's "Pretend"? I'm getting ranty. And Rant Poet isn't a title anyone should be reaching for, so I'll just fold this little article up into my poetry scrapbook, pick up the copy of Blues For All The Changes, that I hope will get me to remember what it was about Nikki Giovanni that made me love her work, and start reading again. I'll try and relax while the joggers and dog walkers dance around me to the beat of the geese, who skim the water in front of me, honking "Fuck Canada" over and over again in their beautifully raspy voices. Every Tuesday night, I head over to Zuzu and Lot's for dinner, TV, and conversation. Tonight, after dinner, but before television time, Pup Ratzinger (Zuzu's dachshund) started to go a little haywire, so Zuzu picked him up, and immediately fell over an exercise machine and on to the floor (thus furthering my theory that exercise machines and dachshunds are evil). Both Lot and I are fairly certain she broke her arm. She's refusing to go to the hospital until tomorrow morning, so we made her a sling, and made her put a bag of frozen asparagus over her arm (it's the closest thing to an icepack in the house).
Last week, my grandmother threw out her shoulder shoveling the sidewalk in front of her house because she wasn't sure her neighbor was going to help her. He always helps her, and arrived to do the shoveling three minutes after she damaged her shoulder. She's completely fine, but while I was down there visiting her and making sure she was okay, her evil mutt, Frisky, kept jumping on her shoulder and humping it. I would yell at him, which did no good, and ended up smacking him on the nose to make him stop. Then my grandmother yelled at me "He would have stopped when he was done. Leave him be." She also refused to go to the hospital. But at least her house had a proper icepack in it. If Zuzu's arm doesn't improve, it looks like she won't be driving for a while, so I'm going to be her acting chauffeur for a while. How does this affect you? Apparently, this weekend she's doing some sort of promotional work in Worcester. Many of you who read this, live in Worcester. I have no problem driving her out to Worcester and back, but would rather not drive her there and back on Friday, and then drive her there and back on Saturday. Any Worcesterites have a spare couch or two that Zuzu and I could use? Preferably one inside a heated house? Zuzu offers free magazines (Which, I assume has something to do with her promo work), I will offer to either cook or pay for/order take out food, depending on what you think of my cooking. And, of course, there's bound to be an amusing story or two involved. I have awkward carries. You’re supposed to lift trays above your head, support dishes on one arm, and hold utensils in the other. Whenever I start a new job waiting tables, people think I must be inept. I rest trays on my shoulder, juxtapose dishes so they always look like they’re about to succumb to gravity’s kiss. But they never do. I’ve never broken a plate, or dropped a dish full of food. I’ve lost a couple of mugs, but mostly because they came straight from a hot dishwasher, and then some idiot filled them up with ice and handed them to me, and the bottom fell out. Sometimes, I was even the idiot in question.
Tonight, my second night back at Kookaburra Canyon, several of the rookies asked if I needed help, because they thought I was on the brink of dropping everything. I’d just smile, and walk out into the dining room. The weight of my life is distributed unevenly. I’ve got financial burdens lined up one arm, my failure to deal with my housing situation on the other. An urgent e-mail from my mother’s boyfriend is wrapped a little too tightly around my neck. I’ve got Ben dangling from one of my fingers. Celeste’s suggestion that I’m too focused on Ben is balanced precariously on my head. Surely, something has got to give. As I walk out of the dining room, arms full of lamb and mashed potatoes, my boss (also a Ben) shouts “Sack smack!” and lunges for my testicles. I’ve missed working for a twelve year old. When I walk back into the kitchen, he yells, “Catch!” and throws a full pitcher of water at me, which I somehow catch. When he laughs and turns around, I kick an empty mug rack on wheels at him. It hits him in the shins and nearly knocks him over. He knows I’m waiting for a call about my mother. That I don’t know if I’m overreacting to the boyfriend’s e-mail. So he’s fucking with me to keep me in good spirits, and it’s working. Everyone around me is yelling at each other and complaining to me “What’s the fucken deal? Salads are taking forever tonight. They’ve fucked up every order that’s gone through the kitchen tonight.” Not mine. The actual work part of my night was flawless. I didn’t make as much as I’d have liked, but it was nice out, and there was a Red Sox/Yankees game, so I didn’t expect it to be busy. When the rookie server who’s been there three months tells me I’m not carrying things properly, and I’m taking too much time at the soda machine, and maybe I’m a little rusty at serving, I calmly turn and say, “While you’re back here complaining about how hectic things are, and trying to tell me what I’m doing wrong, I’m back here filling the ice machine, filling the bread oven, getting fresh mugs, and all my tables are happy, and I’m happy, so really, who should be telling who how to do their job?” And at ten, I call Ben and ask him if he’d like me to bring any food home. And then I think home? Ben’s apartment, while it is where I’ve spent most of my time for the past month, isn’t my home. This is followed by Fuck, what am I doing? We’re not dating or sleeping together, yet I’m at his house almost every night, using his computer, keeping him up late talking, and slowly turning his asscat against him. And, let’s not forget, confessing how much I love him and how much it hurts that he doesn’t love me back. As soon as I’m done with work, I grab my bag full of his food, and get on the subway. At his stop, I get off, buy him a pack of cigarettes, and something to drink. It’s 12:30. He is awake long enough for me to get in the door, but then immediately passes out. As I write a lengthy e-mail to my mom’s boyfriend, he sits bolt upright and says “Some day my hair won’t beehive when I lay down.” And then promptly rolls over and passes out again. How could I not love him? I, unrealistically, expect everything in my life will work itself out shortly. I have a date tomorrow night with an emo musician who isn’t Ben. Despite the scheduler forgetting to put me on the schedule at Kookaburra Canyon, I’ve picked up every shift I could possibly work. Zuzu got my five month overdue check for the last school gig I did without the “Cash first, THEN performance” rule that I’ve had to institute, since every college and high school in the country seems to think it’s okay to keep poets waiting years and years for their checks, because hey, we all know poets are all rich beyond peoples’ wildest fantasies. Shit, Billy Collins owns half the state of Tennessee, and Bill Gates keeps calling Sharon Olds to ask her how she manages to handle her finances so well. If she can’t tell him, I will. The trick is to line one arm with dollar coins, and the other with hundred dollar bills folded into origami butterflies. Fold your stocks and bonds into the folds of your shirt. Stuff your assets down the back of your pants, and keep your debts resting on your shoes. It’s a hell of a way to carry yourself through rough times I am a creature of cycles. Short term rituals created, followed, broken, started again.
I am nineteen years old and terrified of not being normal. If I learned anything from my three years at Torpor Heights, it's that I'm a pussy closet case homo. While fooling around with Victor, I'd publicly dated Kate, who I dumped for Beckee because dumping a fat chick for a skinny artist girl with purple hair makes you look straighter. When I dumped Beckee on Valentine's Day, I told everyone I'd gotten back together with Jennifer, but the truth was I was in lust with Victor, and didn't want to be distracted by fake dating. But that got too dangerous, so I stopped talking to Victor without explanation, redated Beckee, redumped her for Jennifer (this time for real). Jennifer, Beckee, Victor, Jennifer, Beckee, Victor, sorry, sorry, sorry. When Jennifer came back from Europe pregnant with someone else's child, I knew our cycle was broken. But I still used her name as a place holder at college. Jennifer, My Girlfriend Back Home. And now here is Alex. Salvation in sunglasses. Fluid as sulfur water. Of course I am going to do right by him. I have an appointment with my guidance counselor two days after my horrible Thanksgiving with my grandparents. The plan is to look at next semester's classes and make some minor changes. "What is this?" I ask my counselor, the head of the Education Department. "Your schedule for next year." "These are all English classes. I'm an Education Major." He blurs his words at me. "excellent grades" "natural ability" "problems in your elementary education class" "try it for a semester" "I don't want to be an English major here." I say, nearly in tears. "I could have been an English major back at home." You can't fall out a window in Massachusetts without landing in a four year college with an exceptional English department. "I came here to major in Deaf Education." "Well, we can see how next semester goes and---" "No. No." Flurry of words "transfer" "paperwork" "so out of here" "sucks" "¿okay?" Alex asks, when I see him in the dining hall. "no - college bad - hate everything" Frog eyed Alex. Fucken bloodshot probably high frog eyes. "slow down - ¿happen?" "must leave" I say, and pick up my bag. He probably assumes I just mean the dining hall, which is why he doesn't follow me. I don't return his e-mails. I make it a point not to be in the room when I think he might stop by. I don't answer the phone ever. My roommate thinks this has something to do with a screaming match I have with my grandfather when I tell my family that I'm not coming back to Sulfur City after New Year's, that I'm transferring to UMass Cranberry Lake. Let him think that. Matt is the only person I say goodbye to besides my teachers. He is the only person I say goodbye to that I don't sneer at when I say it. Back in Cranberry Lake, I take a job at a place called Raspberry Records. I take a full course load at UMCL. I get in touch with Saint. I start writing again. My tan fades. My blood thickens. I have mostly forgotten Florida by February when I receive a postcard from Alex. The front of the card has a Brazilain man laying on his back, his huge cock filling out his Speedo, and in white bubble letters it says "An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance." On the back Alex scribbled out a note "Saw this card and thought of you. The biggest cock I know." I know he's not talking about my endowment. The worst Thanksgiving ever happened between St. Augustine and Vero Beach Florida in 1995. I was eighteen, and angry at my family for not flying me back to New England for Thanksgiving. "But, Safey, your grandfather lives just a few hours away. And he says you never go and visit him." Probably because I hated the man. Everyone in the world had to conform to his timetable, and his way of life. If you did something that didn't fit exactly into the mold he had set for his life, he would spew forth venom that made Poison Dart Frogs and Sea Wasps blush and ask "Was that really necessary?" I made plans to stay there as short a time as I could.
My roommate, Matt, lived two and a half hours further south. He kindly offered to drop me off on his way to his happy platonic orgy of Thanksgiving Family Fun on Wednesday afternoon, and pick me up Saturday morning, so we could get work done before classes resumed on Monday. Truth be told, I had brought all the work I had to do with me, knowing there would be loads of time that I didn't want to deal with my grandfather. On our way down, Matt decided to show me what was, at the time, The World's Largest Wal-Mart. A grocery store and three fast food restaurants in one department store was a little much for my non-Walmartian brain to deal with. I had to get away from the grocery section before my head a sploded. As I walked away, I heard a man absolutely screaming at an eight year old boy. The kid was bawling. And while I am just evil enough to be amused by kids who cry at ridiculous things like losing an annoying toy, or not getting to eat ice cream because they called their mother a bitch; seeing a defenseless kid being verbally abused in public while not being in injury threatening danger (I do believe a parent should scream their head off at a kid who is about to seriously hurt himself or someone else.), twists my psyche into something pretzilian and Herculean. It took every fibre of my being not to get involved. I did not know what the kid did that instigated the yelling. Unless there was physical violence, this was none of my business. After we finished our BK or MCD "food", Matt and I headed back to the car. We were nearly in the car when I saw Screamy MacAsshole continuing to berate his kid. This was easily twenty minutes after I saw them by the grocery section. "Safey, are you ok?" I knew there were blood vessels bursting in my face. "Do you want me to hit you again?" Again? "Because I'll beat your ass right here in the parking lot." I snapped. This happens generally every three years or so, when something strikes me as so heinous, I lose all sense of boundaries and social behavior. "I fucken dare you." "Excuse me?" This was none of my business. I should be in the car. I should be on my way to a miserable Thanksgiving with the one member of my family I truly couldn't stand. And maybe that was a part of the reason why I snapped. "If you hit him while I'm in the same parking lot," Matt grabbed my arm, which I yanked from his grasp, "I will beat you til you bleed." I very much meant it. "Safe, we should--" Matt looked into my eyes and backed off. "No. We shouldn't. This guy has been yelling at this kid for at least a half hour, and he's threatening to beat him right here in public." "Mind your fucken business, padre?" Padre? As in Father? As in the thing he wasn't qualified to be? And here, I'm making a huge assumption. Maybe he wasn't a bad dad, maybe he was a kidnapper, or maybe he was what my friend referred to as Daddy Stove Top, a guy who just happened to be stuffing the kid's mom. We were still close enough to the front entrance that the security guards could see us, and one of them, Spidey Sense all akimbo, came outside. "Is everything alright out here?" "No." I said, in my sterncalm voice. "This man is threatening to beat up his son in your parking lot." "Now wait a fucken minute. This isn't anybody's goddamn business." "Actually, sir," the security guard said, "it is our business. You were asked to leave the store because you couldn't keep your language in check. I've already called the police. If I see you touch your son, I'll make sure your arrested for assaulting a minor. And I doubt the police will be real gentle with you." The guard went on. But his presence made this very much No Longer My Business. Shaking, I followed Matt to his car. I buckled my seat belt, and we drove out of the parking lot. "I hope I didn't make things any worse for that kid." I said five minutes into the silence. It was about to get dark when Matt dropped me off at my grandfather's condo. My grandfather's second wife (my grandmother had died in 1991), buzzed me in, and met me at the door. "Your grandfather is...I'm not sure where he is, but he's not in the house, Thank God. Your room is all made up. Do you want any ice cream or anything." I loved Caroline (my step-grandmother). I had no concept of what she was doing with my grandfather. She was unselfish, smart, funny, an English teacher. None of us knew that by next Thanksgiving she'd be ravaged with Cancer. "No, thanks. I had a long trip." "How about a game of Cribbage?" Ahh, Cribbage. The family card game. "Sure. But if Grandpa comes home, let's hide the board. I don't think I can deal with him losing and accusing me of cheating. The only thing worse is actually losing to him." After three games, and half a bag of Milano cookies, my grandfather came home, and the board and cards were hidden under one of the deck chairs. "Well lookee who's here." Oh, great, he was drunk. "My favorite grandson. My only grandson." "Hey Grandpa." "Up for a game of cribbage?" "No, I was thinking about turning in. I'm incredibly tired." "You chicken?" I wanted to fire his internal author. "Goodnight Grandpa." I went to the guest room for about a half hour when I heard him snoring on one of the couches. I took the opportunity to sneak out to the beach and get some writing done. I was so incredibly proud of the poetry I wrote that night. It was so cutting edge, so Important. I've long since burned any and all copies of it, but that's because it was too amazing to be comprehended, not because it was horrible crap written by an egomaniacal eighteen year old with three different colored pens in his possession. I snuck back into the house and went to sleep around three. At six, I woke up to my step-grandmother stage whispering. "Robert, you keep your voice down. Safe is in the other room trying to sleep." "Well, he needs to get up. We should leave in an hour." "For heaven's sake, we are not going to spend Thanksgiving at a boat yard--" "A yacht club." "A boat yard. This is Thanksgiving. If you want to go to a proper yacht club with a buffet service, that's fine. But I see no reason to drive to your old boat docks and eat turkey with a bunch of strangers who don't need our company." "Care, they're living on boats, and need some company during the Holidays. It's the Christian thing to do." It's important to note that my Grandfather only attended church for weddings and funerals. I'd never heard him mention Christ's name before without having dropped something on his foot. "If you want to be Christian, let's go volunteer at a soup kitchen. I'm not going to your damned boat yard." But we did. When the smoke cleared, Caroline and I were sitting on elementary cafeteria style chairs at the end of an oblong table full of rich people too cheap to buy their own food, and too hated by their families to be invited to Thanksgiving dinners. These were definitely my grandfather's people: assholes who owned boats and treated everyone else like trash. They hated us, despite our best green bean casserole and mashed potato intentions. "He was the cutest little thing." Snob #47 said. "A Brazilian nigger. Dumb as a tack, but loyal to no end." The part of me that wasn't horrified by the language, was amused that he'd inadvertently admitted the guy was smart. You didn't have to be sharp as a rubber ball to figure that out. "Sandi" (sometimes you can tell when names are spelled with an "i") "be a good girl and get daddy some more turkey." Daddy was too fat to get it himself. "Wayers yer bote?" asked a particularly well-groomed boat child. "Ares is the biggggg won over thayer." It's important to note that I'm not making fun of a child's accent. This kid was likely from Connecticut or Ohio, or one of those states that has no discernible accent. He was talking this way specifically to aggravate me. "We don't have a boat anymore." My grandfather had sold the Spar-Kee a year before. "Sew weye are ewe heeeeyer?" "That's a great question." Caroline asked. "Why are we here Bob?" I excused myself under the pretext of getting more turkey. I have actually never been hungry enough to eat the fried cardboard that they were serving as turkey. But while I was up, Caroline grabbed my arm. "Grab your jacket, we're leaving." Hallefuckenlujah. "Do you have a suit with you?" Caroline asked. Given that I'd expected my grandfather to spring a formal meal on me, I had, indeed, brought a suit. "Good, we're going to the Yacht Club." "We were at a yacht club." My grandfather mumbled. "We're going to a yacht club that made a big fancy buffet for all the members. Not one where I have to eat jello with marshmallows and broken glass with a bunch of people who were invited to spend time with their family, but decided they were too good for it. You know, civil snobs." So we stopped off at the condo, and walked to The Yacht Club down the street. The Yacht Club was only about half full. "Most of the members are with their families today." The hot maitre'd said when my grandfather pointed out that they weren't full. There was an implied "But I can see you're the sort of asshole who doesn't get invited to family functions" on the end of his statement that made me miss Alex. I got the feeling that if Alex spoke better, all of his statements would have implied insults in their intonation. The Yacht Club was...Yacht Clubby. There was a gigantic center island in the ballroom with a six foot tall cornucopia ice sculpture. It was surrounded with every type of food imaginable. And a few types you wouldn't believe even after they'd passed through your digestive system. Having already had my stomach shredded by the half piece of cardboard I'd ingested with The Boat People (and not the interesting International kind), I was pretty reserved with what I picked up from the buffet. A little bit of turkey with mashed potato. Then, some ham with corn on the cob. Then, a very little roast beef. "Safe!" My grandfather called from the other side of the ice sculpture. "Come here." Not willing to sink to his level and scream back across the room, I walked over to him. "Try this." He said, putting some sort of grease covered squid looking thing on my plate. "No, thanks. I'm getting kind of full." "Try this." I began walking away from him. "No, thank you." "I'm not asking you. Safe!" My name is not Safe. I am Edouardo. I am minding my own business at this hoity-toity buffet being stalked by a cray person. Ring-around-the-rosy-pocket-full-of-restraining-orders. "SAFE!" "Robert!" Caroline. "Lower your voice this instant." Thus began the public unwinding of five years of family turmoil being voiced very loudly in public. I'd like to think that if this happened now, I would have just taken whatever the alien life form was he was trying to get me to eat, and defused the situation. Of course, if this happened now, it would be really creepy because my grandfather has been dead for eight months. But I was eighteen, and angry, so every time he pushed one of my buttons, I pushed his back until the hot maitre'd actually asked us to lower our voices because we were disturbing the other guests. "I'm going back to the condo." I walked back to the condo, changed into some less formal wear, and went back to the beach to be passive aggressively angry. Contrary to rumor, Jeremy Burdick didn't beat me up. I didn't move to Arizona to join the priesthood. I didn't drown, trying to save one of my campers at Camp Davis. I was not institutionalized because of my schizophrenia. I just went away to boarding school. I didn't tell anyone, because I hadn't planned on going. Ninth grade hadn't been a hardship, I'd made a number of popular friends, and discovered that I was really good at American Sign Language, and working with kids. I had every intention of returning to Cranberry Lake High, and yawning my way through another year's worth of classes. My grandfather had other ideas. And my grandfather's ideas were always more important than my own.
My first real memory of him was when I was three or four. I was watching The Smurfs or The Snorks or some tirelessly friendly cartoon inspired by a Scandinavian comic book. My grandfather walked into the room, changed the TV to the news, and then walked out of the room. I turned the cartoon back on. He walked into the room, changed to the news, and walked out. I changed back to the cartoons. When he came back in, I asked "You want to watch the news?" "No." He said. "I read the paper this morning. I want you to watch the news." And he turned the channel back to the news, and pulled the dial off the TV. During the summer between ninth and tenth grades, I was a summer camp counselor in training. I helped run the sports program, and taught swimming lessons (and nobody drowned during them). I had planned on being there all ten weeks, but during the fifth week, my grandfather stopped by. He was captaining a boat from Jacksonville, Florida to Portland, Maine. I'd gone with him for the southern part of the journey when I was twelve. This summer, he wanted me to help out with the Cranberry Lake to Portland leg. I agreed, because I had no choice. I figured, it was a three day trip, max. And I was technically correct. We arrived in Portland the next day, spent one day at my uncle's house, eating lobster and catching up with relatives, and the next day, he rented a car, and we began driving, I assumed, home. I assumed wrong. "It's Reunion Weekend at my old highschool." He said. And I knew I was doomed to spend the next two days with his fellow septuagenarians, listening to dull stories about their childhood, and how I looked just like my grandfather, which was a lie, as I was adopted, and shared none of his body or facial design. I also knew I'd have to take some sort of tour, where a smiling admissions officer would tell me how much fun I'd have there, what a great drama department they had, how I could volunteer to work with kids, and how I would yadda yadda smile love it there. I knew that if my grandfather wanted me to go there, odds were I was going to go there no matter what I wanted. Plus, it meant I wouldn't have to watch my parents fumble toward their inevitable divorce. So when I got home, I told my parents how much I'd loved the school, and, sure, I'd really apply myself there, and could I please go back to my summer at Camp Davis now? Three days after camp ended, my parents drove me back to Torpor Heights, carried a bunch of my clothes and belongings up the four flights of stairs to my room, and took me out to lunch. My mother cried. My father was proud of me. Back in Florida, my grandfather was proud of me. The only thing I was excited about was meeting my new roommate. Through a fluke in the admissions process (or maybe a donation from my grandfather), I'd been booked into the biggest room in the dorm, a triple. But there would only be two of us. Whereas all the other rooms had a single, cumbersome wardrobe, our room had two walk-in closets AND two cumbersome wardrobes. We also had a bunkbed AND a non-bunkbed. My roommate, though absent when I had moved in, had already been in the room, and claimed a closet and the non bunkbed, which was totally fine with me. It was a few minutes after my parents left when one of the student leaders knocked on my door. "Hey. My name is Daveed. I'll be living across the hall. You met your roommate yet?" "Not yet." "Oh, man." He made Oh, man sound precisely like I'm so sorry that your puppy got murdered, but don't worry, you're going to get a chance to see him real soon, because you're about to get hit by a very big truck with very spikey tires. "Oh, man?" I asked. My very first roommate at Torpor Heights was a twenty-one year old sophomore named Yao Wen Handsome. A Chinese student, whose mother had recently married a very inaccurately named banker named Sean Handsome. Their marriage was some sort of business arrangement that, for some reason, meant that Yao Wen had to change his last name to his American stepfather's. Yao Wen had been in America for two weeks when school started, and the only English he spoke was "Yes", "No", and "I want fuck yo'r ice", which had been taught to him by one of the very unscrupulous hockey jocks who lived down the hall from us. I hoped that his English would improve quickly, as THA had one of the premier English as a Second Language programs in the country. Alas, instead of teaching him things he could use like "How do I get to the Science Building?", "Do you mind if I use your stereo to blast my shitty Chinese pop music while you're trying to sleep?", or "Excuse me. I had some really spicy food for dinner.", they taught him annoying phrases like "Need you help now." and "Giant bresteses." Two things he liked to say almost as much as he liked to announce that he wanted to fuck my rice. No matter how many times I explained that I didn't like my rice fucked, he insisted that he would be really good at it. After the third night in a row that he'd slapped me awake at three in the morning to ask for help with his homework, I started setting up a line of tennis balls in the little dip between my bunk and the wall. Every time I caught him walking in my direction, I'd chuck one at his head. I wasn't the only person in the school who was less than pleased with the existence of Yao Wen Handsome. Next door to David (pronounced Daveed)'s room were two juniors. A shaved-headed punk fan named Jack Marple, and a purple headed goth rocker, who voluntarily went by the name of Roadkill. I wasn't present when Roadkill and Yao Wen began their war. I don't know who first insulted who, but I do know that I came home from dinner during the third week of school to find Roadkill running down the hall. Yao Wen was chasing him, with three of my tennis balls in his hands, chucking them at Roadkill, yelling "No shoes on bed! No shoes on bed!" After the fourth time the dormhead was called to settle a dispute between Yao Wen and one of our floormates, I made a request that he be moved out of my room. I was assured that I'd have permission to request a change of roommates by the end of the week. Three weeks, and a dozen or so excuses later, I decided to take matters into my own hands. One of the other sophomores, who lived on the third floor, had the unfortunate pleasure of sharing a room with a kleptomaniac named Charlie Denton. Barely a month into the school year, and Charlie had been caught stealing two jackets, a dozen or so CDs, and Roadkill's favorite hairbrush. "It's bullshit." JBob (Denton's unfortunate roommate) said. "He's stolen two of my Guns and Roses bootlegs, sharpied out my name, and wrote his own. And my favorite jacket disappeared my first day here. I asked the dormhead to transfer rooms, and he told me he'd get it done by the end of the week. That was two weeks ago. Fuck, dood, there's an empty room on your floor. I don't get why one of us can't move into it." "I have a better idea." I said. That afternoon, while Yao Wen was in class, JBob and I moved all of his furniture and clothes into the empty room, and moved all of JBob's furniture into my room. "This way," I said, "we can claim that you didn't know I didn't have permission to move Yao Wen's shit out, and, with any luck, the dormhead will feel sorry for you, and let things stay the way we want them." Which is pretty much what happened. Yao Wen came back from class, flipped out that all his stuff had been moved, and found the nearest Chinese interpreter to take his case to the dormhead who, initially, flipped out, then shook his head after Yao Wen left, and said "Well played. You guys can be roommates, but don't pull any shit like that or again, or I'll put you on disciplinary probation." Little did he know, JBob and I had one more game to play before we felt we were even. Every Wednesday morning, there was a mandatory all campus meeting at our Chapel. The student leaders checked each of us in at the beginning of the meeting, and we'd sit in our assigned pews, listening to the deans or the headmaster or a guest speaker fill our minds with morality or mortality or whatever opinion they were determined to inflict on us. JBob and I had loyally attended each one, but we knew that Denton liked to sneak out and take a cab into town and shoplift, since he had the two post-meeting periods open. On this particular morning, I checked in with David, and JBob checked in with his student leader, then we excused ourselves to go to the bathroom. While our dormmates listened to our Headmaster explain how important cultural diversity was to a school like ours, JBob and I broke into their rooms and began playing a game of Kleptomaniac Scavenger Hunt Bingo. I took Roadkill's brush, and Jack's New York Dolls CD. JBob took David's drumsticks, and one of his roommate's Argentinean porno magazines. I took our resident Republican's U2 poster, and his roommate's favorite sweatshirt. And together, we went up and down all floors, taking one or two things from each room (including our own), and scattering them all throughout Denton's room. Then we went to our fourth period classes. Neither of us were there to witness the beginning of the chaos. Seeing as he'd already caught Denton stealing his hairbrush once, Roadkill knew where to go when he discovered it missing a second time. And, of course, he saw Jonathan Fletcher Tork the Fourth's U2 poster, and told him about it. JFT4 saw David's drumsticks, and one of the other student leader's guitar, and on and on and on. When Denton came back, he was pulled into the dormhead's apartment. He was completely befuddled, and swore he was innocent. But he was wearing JBob's favorite jacket, and had the inside pockets stuffed with CDs that were stolen from the local music store. He was kicked out at the end of the week. For the remainder of the first trimester, JBob and I got along famously. Despite his justifiable concern over my taste in music (I had just grown out of a pop phase, and had a Mariah Carey CD and some Paula Abdul tapes scattered throughout my U2 and Nirvana), we found we had a lot in common. Our honeymoon period was brief but enjoyable. Both of us had work jobs (the most redundantly named program at the school) in the dining hall. He served lunch. I helped prepare dinner. One night, while squeezing whipped cream onto the lime jello, one of the salad ladies approached me with a petition. "Do you know that Yao Wen kid?" She asked. I told her that we'd been roommates. "Well, the faculty and students that work here have been having problems with the way he talks to people. And the way he touches them." I relayed the story about my walk back to the dorm, after my first tennis class, when Yao Wen had touched my ass. How I'd firmly shook my head and said "Don't touch me." And how he'd touched me again, anyway. And how I'd cracked him over the head with my tennis racket and ran like hell to the dining hall. "So you'll sign this?" "What will it do?" That week, it got him banned from the back of the line in the dining hall. He could still eat there, but he wasn't allowed to even talk to the cooks or the students serving the food. The next week, he was told he was no longer welcome at the farm. It wasn't too long before I came back from French class to find his new room empty. Some months later, my guidance counselor told me he'd been sent to "an institution better suited to his needs". |
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