What if: you had a destiny?
What if: you found out what it was?
What if: it was something you liked? or something you didn't?
What if: you tried to change it?
What if: you tried to make it so?
Would you ruin it?
Or would it happen no matter what, being destiny and all?
You are destined to read Sarah's essay, "The Instant Billionaire's Wife."
Showing posts with label Mustaches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mustaches. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 01, 2010
Carnival
Carnivals and fairs, like proper federal holidays, serve a very specific purpose on our social calendars—at the same time special and regular. On the one hand, any sort of variation from our standard routine is a welcome and exciting departure into a world in which we don’t have to go to school or work; on the other, we expect them each and every time they arrive allowing us to develop enough of a routine to properly enjoy them. Truly unique events (weddings, graduations, Super Bowl victories) are confusing—we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, and don’t get enough practice to figure it out (unless you’re Larry King or Joe Montana).
A carnival has a further advantage: not only is the day itself unique; the actual activities are sufficiently unordinary to hold our attention. This is why holidays like Independence Day (explosions!) and Halloween (costumes!) will always be better than Thanksgiving (…a bigger meal than normal!) and the like. Where else but the carnival can you win a poorly-made stuffed animal and ride bumper cars? Nowhere, that’s where.
In a town like Clark’s the carnival took on the added importance of providing a rare bit of actual entertainment. Awkwardly sized, the town was big enough to sustain a rudimentary bus system, while at the same time not of a significant enough population to boast a first-run movie theatre. Actual activities, aside from year-old films and an afternoon at the café, could be hard to come by. Even the annual state fair was hosted far enough away as to be prohibitive, meaning that when the carnival set up shop on the outskirts, the town took notice.
Clark took notice as well. He was just old enough to have an idea of what it meant to be adult, without being seasoned enough to actually be one. He was aware of his constraints, but not savvy enough to understand their purpose. And so that spring when the tents rolled into town he never entertained the thought of not attending with Jenny, regardless of the fact that he’d never before cruised the carnival un-chaperoned.
He assumed he loved Jenny; after all, he felt something, and adults apparently felt love, and he was now an adult, so what else was there to think about? Put aside the fact that, until he asked her to join him at the carnival, he had no reason to think she knew who he was—love was love, and he loved her. He had mustered his best eleven-year-old bravado when propositioning her, and had not been the least bit surprised when she quietly nodded “yes.” This was just how things were supposed to work. They would attend the carnival on Saturday.
Being the eldest child, Clark was a bit of a parenting experiment—his guardians were, as it usually happens, making up the rules as they went along and hoping for the best. Unsurprisingly, this led to occasional conflict, as it did in this case. Clark’s casual mention of his weekend plans over dinner on Thursday night led to a standard boundary-pushing back-and-forth, with Clark quite maturely sequestering himself in his study. Obviously, his parents did not understand the importance of Saturday’s events.
But after some consideration, the elder residents of the household began to come around. While they were first-time parents, they were not totally unaware of the town’s upbringing protocols: Clark’s father ran the town’s theatre, and his mother taught in the middle school, so they knew enough about the town’s standard child-rearing protocol. Ultimately, they decided that confining Clark to another carnival of solitude would be counterproductive, a decision Clark found most agreeable. They then retired to their separate quarters for the evening.
The following day, Friday, Clark largely spent in anticipation. Never one to totally give himself over to his studies, he let his mind wander to the unavoidable grandeur that would be tomorrow’s main event. While some outsiders may believe the carnival to be little more than a second-rate state fair knockoff, Clark could see its unique possibility. Tomorrow, as he and Jenny strolled up and down the midway raised from an empty field, the next stage of his courtship would begin. With a little luck, they might even hold hands.
During lunch period, Clark spied his love sitting off to the side with a few other young lasses. From his periphery, it seemed to him that she was watching him fondly as he strolled to his own seat. In keeping with proper decorum, Clark kept his manful gaze forward, striding forcefully across the lunchroom. No doubt, she swooned as he passed.
After staying the course for the remainder of the school day, Clark returned home to prepare for the next day’s romp. After carefully selecting the proper wardrobe, he began to put his bankroll in order. Having accumulated a respectable amount of currency through various odd grounds-keeping-related endeavors, he was sure of his ability to show his lady a properly luxurious time. Soon, having been informed by his mother that the hour was late, he turned in to accumulate the necessary amount of rest. Clark slept soundly.
Rising early the next morning, Clark went about his routine. He took his breakfast (toaster pastries and milk) in the dining room, then freshened and dressed himself. Allowing for a precise seven minutes of travel time, he departed so as to arrive at Jenny’s door at the agreed-upon hour. She lived a few blocks down the street, a straight shot west. After perfunctory greetings, they turned back east for a leisurely three minutes until they reached the bus stop, which was positioned in between their respective dwellings. Obviously, they could have chosen to simply meet at the bus stop, but this would not have been in proper form—to leave a lady to walk unattended would be most out of order.
The bus arrived within an acceptable margin for error, and they prepared to board. With a chivalrous flourish, Clark removed from his pocket proper currency for two fairs. Following Jenny up the stairs, he saw something momentarily disheartening—the city buses to the carnival were operating gratis. But a gentleman never allows himself to be rattled by unexpected events. With subtle precision, Clark returned the coins to his pocket. There was, he thought, a high probability that Jenny would not have noticed the free-of-charge nature of this bus ride, allowing him to reap the benefits of his gesture while bearing no financial cost. Clark took the seat next to her, pleased by his own quick-mindedness.
The bus ride was not a long one, so after a few minutes of pleasant chit-chat the two children arrived at the carnival site and (along with the rest of the bus’s passengers) disembarked. This time, Clark’s noble attempt at payment went much more smoothly, and he escorted Jenny onto the carnival grounds—all noise, flashing lights, whirring rides. The sheer variety of it all was paralyzing, briefly—while both of them had been to the carnival in past years, they never before had been able to direct themselves by their own wills. Seeing this moment as one requiring decisive action, Clark led the way to a nearby fried food stand for some corndog-related fortification. He took approving note of Jenny’s spurning of childish ketchup for the more proper yellow mustard, then dove into his own confection.
The searing pain of the hot breading smashing into the roof of his mouth caused Clark’s eyes to water. Most un-distinguished. A hurried pull on his soda soothed him, and he quickly verified that Jenny’s attention had been turned elsewhere during his moment of weakness. His mouth settled into an uncomfortable stinging, with little raw bits of flesh dangling everywhere like he had been attacked by a delicious cheese grater, but Clark manfully pushed on. He made a couple of wry observations about their surroundings, and was pleased by the relative lack of a speech impediment the infernal corndog had inflicted upon him. Then they turned to wander down the ramshackle midway.
The various carnival games spread out on either side of the path, with semi-enthusiastic purveyors of low-quality stuffed animals barking out their selling points to anyone who happened to amble by. One—a ring-toss game—caught Clark’s eye; after all, Clark was by all accounts the neighborhood’s premier horseshoes player, and how different could this be? Rows of posts extended to the back wall of the rickety stand, getting progressively thicker as the distance grew. A gentleman always elevates his game under pressure, and Clark had no doubt in his ability to gracefully drop a plastic ring around the most distant post—thus earning the handsome panda hanging on the back wall and earning favor with his lady.
After a businesslike exchange of currency-for-plastic-ring, Clark narrowed his gaze on one of the back posts. The sights and sounds of his surroundings dimmed and faded; he was alone with the post. Time seemed to slow. He stood, gauging the weight of the ring in his hand. He envisioned the throw—proper arc, speed, spin, dropping neatly around the post. He drew back and tossed, making sure to maintain the proper follow-through.
It clanked off the front of the post. Too low, by and inch. Curses.
Clark blinked twice, momentarily stunned. Knowing he had an audience, though, he managed to yank himself back into the moment. Composure is key. He put on his best wry grin, shrugged at Jenny, and turned to walk further down the row. He considered trying his hand at one of the other games, but decided that would appear overly desperate. At this point Jenny expressed interest in investigating the rides set up around the perimeter of the carnival, so they turned outward to see what sort of fun could be had.
“Who wants a ride?” bellowed a mustachioed man. Clark turned, and was struck by the character standing in front of the Tilt-A-Whirl. Up to this point, Clark had not taken notice of how bored most of the carnival workers seemed to be. After all, for them, all of these fantastic sights amounted to little more than another day at the office. But this fellow taking Tilt-A-Whirl tickets seemed different. There was genuine enthusiasm in his voice, and a grin framed by a perfectly manicured handlebar mustache. Clearly this was a gentleman from the great vaudevillian tradition.
Clark saw that Jenny seemed equally enraptured by this character’s charisma, so he suggested taking a spin. She agreed, and they approached the entrance. The line proved to be of a reasonable length, and they boarded for the next cycle, the dashing attendant giving Clark a wry wink as they passed. Clark stepped to the side of the Tilt-A-Whirl pod and allowed his fair companion to board, then slid in next to her and pulled the protective bar down over their laps. He noted that, for the first time, Jenny seemed genuinely excited.
And so it began, the pair lurching around in circles and they both tilted and whirled. This was Clark’s first encounter with the ride, having never previously been allowed on due mainly to parental reticence. His father had a bit of a weak stomach. As it turned out, Clark quite enjoyed himself, but tried to keep up a relatively stoic appearance. He couldn’t help but notice how the spinning force was pushing Jenny steadily closer, until they were rubbing shoulders.
The ride came to a stop. Clark lifted the protective bar, but Jenny made no immediate attempt to climb out. He felt her resting her head on his shoulder. Clark stole a glance to his side, and saw that Jenny was smiling contentedly. What was this feeling in his gut? It must be love.
Then, Clark vomited on Jenny’s shoes.
A carnival has a further advantage: not only is the day itself unique; the actual activities are sufficiently unordinary to hold our attention. This is why holidays like Independence Day (explosions!) and Halloween (costumes!) will always be better than Thanksgiving (…a bigger meal than normal!) and the like. Where else but the carnival can you win a poorly-made stuffed animal and ride bumper cars? Nowhere, that’s where.
In a town like Clark’s the carnival took on the added importance of providing a rare bit of actual entertainment. Awkwardly sized, the town was big enough to sustain a rudimentary bus system, while at the same time not of a significant enough population to boast a first-run movie theatre. Actual activities, aside from year-old films and an afternoon at the café, could be hard to come by. Even the annual state fair was hosted far enough away as to be prohibitive, meaning that when the carnival set up shop on the outskirts, the town took notice.
Clark took notice as well. He was just old enough to have an idea of what it meant to be adult, without being seasoned enough to actually be one. He was aware of his constraints, but not savvy enough to understand their purpose. And so that spring when the tents rolled into town he never entertained the thought of not attending with Jenny, regardless of the fact that he’d never before cruised the carnival un-chaperoned.
He assumed he loved Jenny; after all, he felt something, and adults apparently felt love, and he was now an adult, so what else was there to think about? Put aside the fact that, until he asked her to join him at the carnival, he had no reason to think she knew who he was—love was love, and he loved her. He had mustered his best eleven-year-old bravado when propositioning her, and had not been the least bit surprised when she quietly nodded “yes.” This was just how things were supposed to work. They would attend the carnival on Saturday.
Being the eldest child, Clark was a bit of a parenting experiment—his guardians were, as it usually happens, making up the rules as they went along and hoping for the best. Unsurprisingly, this led to occasional conflict, as it did in this case. Clark’s casual mention of his weekend plans over dinner on Thursday night led to a standard boundary-pushing back-and-forth, with Clark quite maturely sequestering himself in his study. Obviously, his parents did not understand the importance of Saturday’s events.
But after some consideration, the elder residents of the household began to come around. While they were first-time parents, they were not totally unaware of the town’s upbringing protocols: Clark’s father ran the town’s theatre, and his mother taught in the middle school, so they knew enough about the town’s standard child-rearing protocol. Ultimately, they decided that confining Clark to another carnival of solitude would be counterproductive, a decision Clark found most agreeable. They then retired to their separate quarters for the evening.
The following day, Friday, Clark largely spent in anticipation. Never one to totally give himself over to his studies, he let his mind wander to the unavoidable grandeur that would be tomorrow’s main event. While some outsiders may believe the carnival to be little more than a second-rate state fair knockoff, Clark could see its unique possibility. Tomorrow, as he and Jenny strolled up and down the midway raised from an empty field, the next stage of his courtship would begin. With a little luck, they might even hold hands.
During lunch period, Clark spied his love sitting off to the side with a few other young lasses. From his periphery, it seemed to him that she was watching him fondly as he strolled to his own seat. In keeping with proper decorum, Clark kept his manful gaze forward, striding forcefully across the lunchroom. No doubt, she swooned as he passed.
After staying the course for the remainder of the school day, Clark returned home to prepare for the next day’s romp. After carefully selecting the proper wardrobe, he began to put his bankroll in order. Having accumulated a respectable amount of currency through various odd grounds-keeping-related endeavors, he was sure of his ability to show his lady a properly luxurious time. Soon, having been informed by his mother that the hour was late, he turned in to accumulate the necessary amount of rest. Clark slept soundly.
Rising early the next morning, Clark went about his routine. He took his breakfast (toaster pastries and milk) in the dining room, then freshened and dressed himself. Allowing for a precise seven minutes of travel time, he departed so as to arrive at Jenny’s door at the agreed-upon hour. She lived a few blocks down the street, a straight shot west. After perfunctory greetings, they turned back east for a leisurely three minutes until they reached the bus stop, which was positioned in between their respective dwellings. Obviously, they could have chosen to simply meet at the bus stop, but this would not have been in proper form—to leave a lady to walk unattended would be most out of order.
The bus arrived within an acceptable margin for error, and they prepared to board. With a chivalrous flourish, Clark removed from his pocket proper currency for two fairs. Following Jenny up the stairs, he saw something momentarily disheartening—the city buses to the carnival were operating gratis. But a gentleman never allows himself to be rattled by unexpected events. With subtle precision, Clark returned the coins to his pocket. There was, he thought, a high probability that Jenny would not have noticed the free-of-charge nature of this bus ride, allowing him to reap the benefits of his gesture while bearing no financial cost. Clark took the seat next to her, pleased by his own quick-mindedness.
The bus ride was not a long one, so after a few minutes of pleasant chit-chat the two children arrived at the carnival site and (along with the rest of the bus’s passengers) disembarked. This time, Clark’s noble attempt at payment went much more smoothly, and he escorted Jenny onto the carnival grounds—all noise, flashing lights, whirring rides. The sheer variety of it all was paralyzing, briefly—while both of them had been to the carnival in past years, they never before had been able to direct themselves by their own wills. Seeing this moment as one requiring decisive action, Clark led the way to a nearby fried food stand for some corndog-related fortification. He took approving note of Jenny’s spurning of childish ketchup for the more proper yellow mustard, then dove into his own confection.
The searing pain of the hot breading smashing into the roof of his mouth caused Clark’s eyes to water. Most un-distinguished. A hurried pull on his soda soothed him, and he quickly verified that Jenny’s attention had been turned elsewhere during his moment of weakness. His mouth settled into an uncomfortable stinging, with little raw bits of flesh dangling everywhere like he had been attacked by a delicious cheese grater, but Clark manfully pushed on. He made a couple of wry observations about their surroundings, and was pleased by the relative lack of a speech impediment the infernal corndog had inflicted upon him. Then they turned to wander down the ramshackle midway.
The various carnival games spread out on either side of the path, with semi-enthusiastic purveyors of low-quality stuffed animals barking out their selling points to anyone who happened to amble by. One—a ring-toss game—caught Clark’s eye; after all, Clark was by all accounts the neighborhood’s premier horseshoes player, and how different could this be? Rows of posts extended to the back wall of the rickety stand, getting progressively thicker as the distance grew. A gentleman always elevates his game under pressure, and Clark had no doubt in his ability to gracefully drop a plastic ring around the most distant post—thus earning the handsome panda hanging on the back wall and earning favor with his lady.
After a businesslike exchange of currency-for-plastic-ring, Clark narrowed his gaze on one of the back posts. The sights and sounds of his surroundings dimmed and faded; he was alone with the post. Time seemed to slow. He stood, gauging the weight of the ring in his hand. He envisioned the throw—proper arc, speed, spin, dropping neatly around the post. He drew back and tossed, making sure to maintain the proper follow-through.
It clanked off the front of the post. Too low, by and inch. Curses.
Clark blinked twice, momentarily stunned. Knowing he had an audience, though, he managed to yank himself back into the moment. Composure is key. He put on his best wry grin, shrugged at Jenny, and turned to walk further down the row. He considered trying his hand at one of the other games, but decided that would appear overly desperate. At this point Jenny expressed interest in investigating the rides set up around the perimeter of the carnival, so they turned outward to see what sort of fun could be had.
“Who wants a ride?” bellowed a mustachioed man. Clark turned, and was struck by the character standing in front of the Tilt-A-Whirl. Up to this point, Clark had not taken notice of how bored most of the carnival workers seemed to be. After all, for them, all of these fantastic sights amounted to little more than another day at the office. But this fellow taking Tilt-A-Whirl tickets seemed different. There was genuine enthusiasm in his voice, and a grin framed by a perfectly manicured handlebar mustache. Clearly this was a gentleman from the great vaudevillian tradition.
Clark saw that Jenny seemed equally enraptured by this character’s charisma, so he suggested taking a spin. She agreed, and they approached the entrance. The line proved to be of a reasonable length, and they boarded for the next cycle, the dashing attendant giving Clark a wry wink as they passed. Clark stepped to the side of the Tilt-A-Whirl pod and allowed his fair companion to board, then slid in next to her and pulled the protective bar down over their laps. He noted that, for the first time, Jenny seemed genuinely excited.
And so it began, the pair lurching around in circles and they both tilted and whirled. This was Clark’s first encounter with the ride, having never previously been allowed on due mainly to parental reticence. His father had a bit of a weak stomach. As it turned out, Clark quite enjoyed himself, but tried to keep up a relatively stoic appearance. He couldn’t help but notice how the spinning force was pushing Jenny steadily closer, until they were rubbing shoulders.
The ride came to a stop. Clark lifted the protective bar, but Jenny made no immediate attempt to climb out. He felt her resting her head on his shoulder. Clark stole a glance to his side, and saw that Jenny was smiling contentedly. What was this feeling in his gut? It must be love.
Then, Clark vomited on Jenny’s shoes.
Monday, January 25, 2010
All in the Game of Chuck
Question # 298: Can God make a mustache so wonderful that even he would envy it?
Allison revisits her high school days and unearths the memories of a book of questions and its owner's infamous ‘stache. Remember, all things are fair in love and war, but not necessarily in “The Game of Chuck.”
Enjoy.
Allison revisits her high school days and unearths the memories of a book of questions and its owner's infamous ‘stache. Remember, all things are fair in love and war, but not necessarily in “The Game of Chuck.”
Enjoy.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Writing Outside the Mustache
Question #118: If your friends and acquaintances were willing to bluntly and honestly tell you what they really thought of you, would you want them to do so? (Stock 103)
Gone are the days of Advanced Placement English as it used to exist at my high school, and I will tell you why. AP English, one of those “college-level” high school courses where you were supposed to work your ass off, take one huge test in the spring, and get enough credits to skip a class or two once you actually got to college, was defined not by the subject matter, but by the instructor, as classes often are. A teacher almost always affects how much you enjoy a class. Favorite subject + shitty teacher (where shitty teacher = particularly brainless, apathetic, patronizing or boring) = I hate this subject. Or, least favorite subject + awesome teacher (where awesome teacher = smart, caring, innovative, mindful) = I can dig this subject.
And there are, of course, some teachers who split the difference, maybe the teacher who is completely knowledgeable and probably cares that he gets his students to learn, but is un-personable.
That’s exactly where I’m headed — to an explanation of Chuckness. I say AP English is no longer the same because Chuck, the class’s long-time instructor, retired a few years back, but not before he imposed his Chuckness on me and my classmates.
The 4-1-1 on Chuck:
• He taught English.
• He was nobody’s favorite teacher.
• He was a lot of people’s least favorite teacher.
• He had a mustache.
When Chuck was my teacher, it wasn’t his mustache that interested me, not in the slightest. But now, it represents entirely what interests me about Chuck. This is because of what I now know about Chuck and his mustache, and what I deduced from what I have learned. Ready for a heavy dose of metaphor?
When I knew him five or six years ago, Chuck’s life was neither too big nor too small, but it represented what he perceived to be perfect normalcy. His manner of dress: classic khakis and a short-sleeved polo. Hair: short, light brown, naturally graying a little. Our class schedule was always pre-planned and adhered to: The first half of class was book discussion (for which Chuck kept tally marks next to our names for each comment we made, to effectively measure participation), the second half of class was vocabulary — ten words each week, with a quiz on Fridays — then preparing for the AP English exam by studying sample passages or learning and practicing the proper format to achieve a score of 7 or above on the essays (on a scale up to 9; that’s how you earned A’s in class).
But part of him must have known that he was so tidy (almost a little weenie-like; not full-on weenie, just a little) that he should make himself less so, maybe to have more in common with the rest of us in that we all have natural quirky differences, which are usually unobvious to us until someone else points them out. They make us human. It was my conclusion that he purposely integrated quirks into his personality to make himself seem more lax. The problem was that they were so obviously calculated that they never seemed natural, rather more like an automaton programmed to “be human.”
There was the golf swing, for one. Every once in awhile, he mimed a golf swing.[1] He didn’t say anything about it, before or after the act. He merely stood in front of the classroom and did the golf swing. Then he continued with whatever had been happening. The first couple of times this happened, the class reacted with confused chuckles, and then it continued to happen without reaction.
Chuck also forever played the devil’s advocate, especially when it came to the occasional “treat” class activity: The Book of Questions. That’s where Question #118 came from. Questions in the book largely fit into categories like wagering what physical attribute you would trade for an intellectual attribute (and vice versa), considering how mean you could be, or calculating how much of a risk-taker you are.
He would choose respondents for the questions he selected. When you answered, you were really answering to convince him, not to spark lively debate with the rest of the class. Whatever your answer, he always found another angle and used it to challenge you (some people really are just like that, I guess, but Chuck’s version of devil’s advocate was entirely manufactured). For many questions, different students would have various opinions, so Chuck would end up agreeing with someone. But for some questions, it would be almost inconceivable to hold any opinion but one; Chuck, however, was never fazed. Here’s another made-up but completely realistic and plausible book-of-questions moment:
“Absolutely not.”
“But don’t you feel like your role as a friend in that situation would be burdensome? And then what happens if you remain invested and he dies — that affects your emotions negatively. I think I would probably just say ‘So long, Jack.’ ”
As I sit back and read what I just wrote, I’m thinking to myself: Did not most of what I just said describe Chuck’s mustache? That mustache, the more I think about it, was not just neat and tidy, it was forced and calculated, too. Well, obviously every mustache is somewhat calculated; unless he’s a wild mountain man, a man grooms his ‘stache. But Chuck’s mustache was more than groomed — it was militarized. It obeyed his every command, rank and file with the rest of his neatness so that it did exactly, precisely what it was supposed to — act as a mustache — without really standing out. Maybe the mustache was originally a failed attempt at another quirk that ultimately blended in instead.
And many of us, as Chuck’s students, followed suit. You had very little time to play The Game of Chuck before he decided whether you’d win or lose, because in the beginning, you showed whether you would adapt to his grooming tactics or try to combat them. He decided, consciously or subconsciously, whether you had the potential to be the way he wanted you to be in his class. There were some students who were favored beyond a doubt, and others who seemed to be perpetually luckless in Texas Chuck’em, because of their willingness (or lack thereof) to conform to his style (at this juncture, it was quite important to a bunch of honors students to keep a good GPA). And his style never changed; his classes never changed. Nobody was naturally like Chuck because Chuck wasn’t completely, humanly natural. But lord knows Chuck would never change, like his mustache never changed, like the format for one of his AP English essays never changed. What, Chuck, was so bad about somebody thinking or being outside the boundaries of that too-perfect mustache? Why, Chuck, couldn’t you figure out that this very idea was the essence of being human?
When we met Question #118 many words ago, it was still just a question in need of an answer.
“Hmm, maybe. On one hand, they are my friends for some reason, which should logically be positive reasons that outweigh any potential criticisms. I know that everyone is bugged by little things about other people, and I would be no exception. Understanding this and knowing that it’s no reason to be angry, I could use their comments to improve upon myself. On the other hand, I could just assume the things people don’t like about me and try to change them, so they’d never have to bring it up at all. Or, what if I’m worse at reading people than I’ve thought, and I’ve really picked backstabbing, conniving friends who want to kill me and take all my possessions? That would be devastating to know.”
That’s me. Chuck’s approach, however, tended to be more black and white, and of course, in contrast to my answer. Chuck would have said no, definitely, because learning that others thought he had flaws would have ruined the pleasant equilibrium in which Chuck could perceive himself as ideal. I believe if Chuck would have thought of this metaphor as I am, he would agree; he would see himself like his perfectly balanced mustache, not too big and not too small, not drawing too much attention, but still smart and neat and functional and having enough character to be considered human.
I don’t know how long Chuck had had that mustache, or if he was different before he grew it. What I know is what I described: that I can represent Chuck and his mustache using many of the same descriptors.
What shakes me up a little is what has happened since he shaved it off.
Yes, Chuck shaved off the ‘stache. This was after my high school tenure, of course. Shortly after, he ran away with the school librarian, they got married and retired.
This whirlwind of events seemed dramatically un-Chucklike; first, it was pretty dramatic, for him (not to mention sort of made for a movie). Second, it was both uncharacteristic and natural, not like his other quirks, which were uncharacteristic but unnatural (as I explained before, like he made his quirks happen on purpose).
When Chuck shaved off his mustache, it suddenly became clear what his mustache represented – that the mustache was Chuck, and vice versa. Was this the end of Chuck as we had known him, we all wondered? It was definitely the end of his mustache, but the beginning of the legacy of his mustache, almost like an artist becomes famous post mortem. He could grow it back, sure, but he and I and other people would always remember that he had shaved it off for awhile — that even for Chuck, it was possible to change, even just for the sake of change itself.
It’s refreshing to know that not even the most constant of irksome constants will stay that way forever, because Chuck’s ability to maintain his Chucknicity sort of freaked me out. Maybe that’s what we all need — to shave off our mustaches and run away and get married and write an AP English essay that doesn’t look like every other person’s AP English essay, just to show that it’s possible — at least once in a while, to ensure that we aren’t destined to be stuck.
Question #132: If you went to a beach and it turned out to be a nude beach, would you stay and go swimming? Would you swim nude? (Stock 114)
Me: “I probably would stay, because nudity doesn’t really bother me — it’s a more modern thing, to make public what used to be considered private, and to be accepting of it and even nonchalant about it. Plus, I’d probably never see the people again. In light of that, I might even swim nude.”
Chuck: “But there would undoubtedly be people there whose bodies were better-looking than yours. Wouldn’t that make you self conscious? I wouldn’t do it. That’s just too personal.”
Well, Chuck, did you ever think you’d shave off your mustache?
***
Works Cited
Stock, Gregory. The Book of Questions. Workman Publishing Company, 1985.
Works Referenced
Kuehl, Matt. E-mail correspondence. 17 Jan. 2010.
[1] Matt Kuehl told me this could be imitative of the golf swing Johnny Carson did at the end of all his monologues, but how many high school students in the 2000s have watched a Johnny Carson Tonight Show?
[2] This question kind of gives away that the book was written in 1985, I think.
Gone are the days of Advanced Placement English as it used to exist at my high school, and I will tell you why. AP English, one of those “college-level” high school courses where you were supposed to work your ass off, take one huge test in the spring, and get enough credits to skip a class or two once you actually got to college, was defined not by the subject matter, but by the instructor, as classes often are. A teacher almost always affects how much you enjoy a class. Favorite subject + shitty teacher (where shitty teacher = particularly brainless, apathetic, patronizing or boring) = I hate this subject. Or, least favorite subject + awesome teacher (where awesome teacher = smart, caring, innovative, mindful) = I can dig this subject.
And there are, of course, some teachers who split the difference, maybe the teacher who is completely knowledgeable and probably cares that he gets his students to learn, but is un-personable.
That’s exactly where I’m headed — to an explanation of Chuckness. I say AP English is no longer the same because Chuck, the class’s long-time instructor, retired a few years back, but not before he imposed his Chuckness on me and my classmates.
The 4-1-1 on Chuck:
• He taught English.
• He was nobody’s favorite teacher.
• He was a lot of people’s least favorite teacher.
• He had a mustache.
When Chuck was my teacher, it wasn’t his mustache that interested me, not in the slightest. But now, it represents entirely what interests me about Chuck. This is because of what I now know about Chuck and his mustache, and what I deduced from what I have learned. Ready for a heavy dose of metaphor?
When I knew him five or six years ago, Chuck’s life was neither too big nor too small, but it represented what he perceived to be perfect normalcy. His manner of dress: classic khakis and a short-sleeved polo. Hair: short, light brown, naturally graying a little. Our class schedule was always pre-planned and adhered to: The first half of class was book discussion (for which Chuck kept tally marks next to our names for each comment we made, to effectively measure participation), the second half of class was vocabulary — ten words each week, with a quiz on Fridays — then preparing for the AP English exam by studying sample passages or learning and practicing the proper format to achieve a score of 7 or above on the essays (on a scale up to 9; that’s how you earned A’s in class).
But part of him must have known that he was so tidy (almost a little weenie-like; not full-on weenie, just a little) that he should make himself less so, maybe to have more in common with the rest of us in that we all have natural quirky differences, which are usually unobvious to us until someone else points them out. They make us human. It was my conclusion that he purposely integrated quirks into his personality to make himself seem more lax. The problem was that they were so obviously calculated that they never seemed natural, rather more like an automaton programmed to “be human.”
There was the golf swing, for one. Every once in awhile, he mimed a golf swing.[1] He didn’t say anything about it, before or after the act. He merely stood in front of the classroom and did the golf swing. Then he continued with whatever had been happening. The first couple of times this happened, the class reacted with confused chuckles, and then it continued to happen without reaction.
Chuck also forever played the devil’s advocate, especially when it came to the occasional “treat” class activity: The Book of Questions. That’s where Question #118 came from. Questions in the book largely fit into categories like wagering what physical attribute you would trade for an intellectual attribute (and vice versa), considering how mean you could be, or calculating how much of a risk-taker you are.
He would choose respondents for the questions he selected. When you answered, you were really answering to convince him, not to spark lively debate with the rest of the class. Whatever your answer, he always found another angle and used it to challenge you (some people really are just like that, I guess, but Chuck’s version of devil’s advocate was entirely manufactured). For many questions, different students would have various opinions, so Chuck would end up agreeing with someone. But for some questions, it would be almost inconceivable to hold any opinion but one; Chuck, however, was never fazed. Here’s another made-up but completely realistic and plausible book-of-questions moment:
“Now Miss Wickler, if you found that a good friend had AIDS, would you avoid him? How about if it was a brother or sister?[2]
“Absolutely not.”
“But don’t you think it would be too difficult to maintain a relationship without the subject of the disease making things uncomfortable?”
“But don’t you feel like your role as a friend in that situation would be burdensome? And then what happens if you remain invested and he dies — that affects your emotions negatively. I think I would probably just say ‘So long, Jack.’ ”
As I sit back and read what I just wrote, I’m thinking to myself: Did not most of what I just said describe Chuck’s mustache? That mustache, the more I think about it, was not just neat and tidy, it was forced and calculated, too. Well, obviously every mustache is somewhat calculated; unless he’s a wild mountain man, a man grooms his ‘stache. But Chuck’s mustache was more than groomed — it was militarized. It obeyed his every command, rank and file with the rest of his neatness so that it did exactly, precisely what it was supposed to — act as a mustache — without really standing out. Maybe the mustache was originally a failed attempt at another quirk that ultimately blended in instead.
And many of us, as Chuck’s students, followed suit. You had very little time to play The Game of Chuck before he decided whether you’d win or lose, because in the beginning, you showed whether you would adapt to his grooming tactics or try to combat them. He decided, consciously or subconsciously, whether you had the potential to be the way he wanted you to be in his class. There were some students who were favored beyond a doubt, and others who seemed to be perpetually luckless in Texas Chuck’em, because of their willingness (or lack thereof) to conform to his style (at this juncture, it was quite important to a bunch of honors students to keep a good GPA). And his style never changed; his classes never changed. Nobody was naturally like Chuck because Chuck wasn’t completely, humanly natural. But lord knows Chuck would never change, like his mustache never changed, like the format for one of his AP English essays never changed. What, Chuck, was so bad about somebody thinking or being outside the boundaries of that too-perfect mustache? Why, Chuck, couldn’t you figure out that this very idea was the essence of being human?
When we met Question #118 many words ago, it was still just a question in need of an answer.
“Hmm, maybe. On one hand, they are my friends for some reason, which should logically be positive reasons that outweigh any potential criticisms. I know that everyone is bugged by little things about other people, and I would be no exception. Understanding this and knowing that it’s no reason to be angry, I could use their comments to improve upon myself. On the other hand, I could just assume the things people don’t like about me and try to change them, so they’d never have to bring it up at all. Or, what if I’m worse at reading people than I’ve thought, and I’ve really picked backstabbing, conniving friends who want to kill me and take all my possessions? That would be devastating to know.”
That’s me. Chuck’s approach, however, tended to be more black and white, and of course, in contrast to my answer. Chuck would have said no, definitely, because learning that others thought he had flaws would have ruined the pleasant equilibrium in which Chuck could perceive himself as ideal. I believe if Chuck would have thought of this metaphor as I am, he would agree; he would see himself like his perfectly balanced mustache, not too big and not too small, not drawing too much attention, but still smart and neat and functional and having enough character to be considered human.
I don’t know how long Chuck had had that mustache, or if he was different before he grew it. What I know is what I described: that I can represent Chuck and his mustache using many of the same descriptors.
What shakes me up a little is what has happened since he shaved it off.
Yes, Chuck shaved off the ‘stache. This was after my high school tenure, of course. Shortly after, he ran away with the school librarian, they got married and retired.
This whirlwind of events seemed dramatically un-Chucklike; first, it was pretty dramatic, for him (not to mention sort of made for a movie). Second, it was both uncharacteristic and natural, not like his other quirks, which were uncharacteristic but unnatural (as I explained before, like he made his quirks happen on purpose).
When Chuck shaved off his mustache, it suddenly became clear what his mustache represented – that the mustache was Chuck, and vice versa. Was this the end of Chuck as we had known him, we all wondered? It was definitely the end of his mustache, but the beginning of the legacy of his mustache, almost like an artist becomes famous post mortem. He could grow it back, sure, but he and I and other people would always remember that he had shaved it off for awhile — that even for Chuck, it was possible to change, even just for the sake of change itself.
It’s refreshing to know that not even the most constant of irksome constants will stay that way forever, because Chuck’s ability to maintain his Chucknicity sort of freaked me out. Maybe that’s what we all need — to shave off our mustaches and run away and get married and write an AP English essay that doesn’t look like every other person’s AP English essay, just to show that it’s possible — at least once in a while, to ensure that we aren’t destined to be stuck.
Question #132: If you went to a beach and it turned out to be a nude beach, would you stay and go swimming? Would you swim nude? (Stock 114)
Me: “I probably would stay, because nudity doesn’t really bother me — it’s a more modern thing, to make public what used to be considered private, and to be accepting of it and even nonchalant about it. Plus, I’d probably never see the people again. In light of that, I might even swim nude.”
Chuck: “But there would undoubtedly be people there whose bodies were better-looking than yours. Wouldn’t that make you self conscious? I wouldn’t do it. That’s just too personal.”
Well, Chuck, did you ever think you’d shave off your mustache?
***
Works Cited
Stock, Gregory. The Book of Questions. Workman Publishing Company, 1985.
Works Referenced
Kuehl, Matt. E-mail correspondence. 17 Jan. 2010.
[1] Matt Kuehl told me this could be imitative of the golf swing Johnny Carson did at the end of all his monologues, but how many high school students in the 2000s have watched a Johnny Carson Tonight Show?
[2] This question kind of gives away that the book was written in 1985, I think.
Monday, January 18, 2010
This Week: The Man Behind the 'Stache
**WOOSH**
This week on... THE PROOFREAD.
**ROCKIN GUITAR RIFF**
Mystery! Intrigue! Mustache!
**FLASHY MONTAGE OF CAR JUMPING RAVINE, GUY FIRING MACHINE GUN, GENERICALLY BAD GUYS LOOKING SCARED**
You won't want to miss this gripping tale of vigilante justice. Stay tuned for... THE PROOFREAD.
**BITCHIN GUITAR RIFF**
CREDITS:
Written by: Matt Kuehl
Starring Sean Connery, Steve Buscemi, Michael Cera
This week on... THE PROOFREAD.
**ROCKIN GUITAR RIFF**
Mystery! Intrigue! Mustache!
**FLASHY MONTAGE OF CAR JUMPING RAVINE, GUY FIRING MACHINE GUN, GENERICALLY BAD GUYS LOOKING SCARED**
You won't want to miss this gripping tale of vigilante justice. Stay tuned for... THE PROOFREAD.
**BITCHIN GUITAR RIFF**
CREDITS:
Written by: Matt Kuehl
Starring Sean Connery, Steve Buscemi, Michael Cera
Mustachio
It was an innocent question.
“Hey, do you have jumper cables?”
I always liked grocery shopping at night. I deplore the evening crowds. And what makes matters worse is that grocery stores aren’t grocery stores anymore, they are warehouses. Those bigwigs in the food industry trick us. You don’t notice the deception because they tile the warehouse floors. Have you ever been in a warehouse with tiled floors? Of course not, but a warehouse is still a warehouse no matter how fancily you decorate the floors. Plus, grocery stores are small. They have burly butchers there named “Fred” or “Rico.” Grocery stores have bag boys. They have fifteen-year-olds, their first job, both jock and nerd, working side by side for minimum wage, doing a job that warehouses figured out they could make the consumer do for free. If you want definitive proof that your “grocery store” is a warehouse, look up. They may trick you into thinking they are a grocery store with their fresh fruits and vegetables, decorative end caps, and those “tiled floors,” but those ceilings are too tall. If you see high ceilings, and you aren’t in a church, library, or auditorium, by logical deduction, you must be in a warehouse. Grocery stores are personal. They are California condors, and at the same time, fossils. If you want to find a grocery store, take a stroll through small town, main street USA. You won’t find one there, but you’ll find an antique store inhabiting the shell of one.
“Who the hell doesn’t have jumper cables?” I thought to myself. It’s winter and it gets cold enough here, the kind of cold where you might open up your freezer and stick your hands inside just to warm them up. Everyone needs jumper cables. And just because everyone has them isn’t an excuse to rely on the fact that everyone should have them.
Did mention I deplore crowds more than I deplore warehouses with identity issues? I shop at night because I hate to wait in line; I am disgusted when I have to push through crowds. Pushing through crowds to get the discount cereal or pickles — disgusting. No doubt, Washington wasn’t wasting his time wrestling with the masses to get five tomatoes for a dollar. And though I am not giving birth to a country, I would like to think the one thing Washington and I have in common is that we wouldn’t waste time fighting over something as silly as produce at the super market.
I hate the mobs. I get furious at the guy who takes seventeen items into the fifteen-items-or-less lane. I get angry at the elderly man who examines each apple for flaws. I get jealous of the mother who shops with three small children. Why can’t I multitask like her? She manages to get 99 percent of the food she sets out to buy while watching and multitasking a bunch of uncoordinated, miniature humans. Shopping with old kids makes sense. No bag boy at the warehouse, you make the kids do it. Good for building character and all that jazz. But little kids, I know those moms just can’t leave them at home, but I don’t have such fortitude. If presented with the option, I’d order out all the time. I would change the emergency speed dial on my phone to a place that delivered submarine sandwiches. Hungry, yelling kids who need a healthy dinner. Now that’s a real everyday emergency.
“Yeah, I got jumper cables. Give me a second to put away the rest of the groceries.”
“Ya need help?”
“Sure, buddy.”
So I go there at night. But I must admit that the place creeps me out. It’s like a haunted house with coupons. Barren. Cans, freezers, one cashier, and a couple of stock boys. Are they really apparitions though? You glance down an aisle and you might see one by chance, but if look twice, they are gone. Don’t go searching for cornstarch at night; you’ll find an ivory billed woodpecker before you find a stock boy or the cornstarch. If food warehouses sold those creepy dolls with glass eyes, I would go grocery shopping during the day, or have that submarine sandwich place on my emergency speed dial, too. I have never seen a possessed doll kill a person with a group of witnesses; I would take some comfort in knowing that the millions of other urban day hunter-gathers were protecting me solely by existing.
“Okay, let me grab those cables. Where’s your car?”
He just breathes heavily. And of course I am weirded out, so much so that I would prefer the crowds or doll-lined shelves of a warehouse. At least they didn’t breathe like him. Grocery warehouses have all types of breathers, though. Huffers, puffers, wheezers, suckers, panters, double panters, mouth breathers, inverse mouth breathers, largemouth bassers, spittlers, lippers, snake lungers. That’s the problem. Everyone who breathes has to eat, and everyone who eats has to buy food at the grocery warehouses. Exceptions may exist. There are probably some rich inverse mouth breathers out there that have butlers shop for them, but 99 percent of the time, you could identify every phenotype of breather on Earth at any day of the week at a grocery warehouse. But when do these diverse fauna of breathers shop? During the day. That’s why I shop at night. I bemoan crowds along with the choruses of breathers.
“Fuck.”
Why didn’t I notice that there weren’t any other cars in this parking lot? He grabs hold of my wrist tightly and pulls me closer to him. I want to scream. Did he grab my tongue as well? If I were a mother, this wouldn’t have happened. Mothers have motherly instincts. They detect danger. They are like bats with an echo location that specifically bounce back off of trouble. That’s why when you are young, mothers know if you are running with scissors or just about to light a funeral pyre for a Darth Vader figure in your backyard. But they don’t even have to go and find you, they just yell from a faraway land, and if you fear their wrath, you stop. Plus, mothers have children. They don’t like crowds, but they aren’t stupid. Mothers don’t shop with their kids at night. If I had children, this wouldn’t have happened. Or if I was George Washington, I would go Valley Forge on his ass.
A voice calls out.
“Are you okay?”
Jumper Cables and I turn in surprise; he instinctively covers my mouth with his hand. A shadowy figure stands in the street light.
“Yeah… everything is cool. Just, ummmm, a lover’s quarrel with the misses.”
The eyes stare. They do not seem convinced.
“Get outta here you fucking lurker,” Jumper Cables said.
A friend of mine once called him a lurker, too. Lurker. No one uses that word anymore except when describing Internet stalkers. But that is what he does. He lurks. That’s how he finds crime. However, you know where you find the most lurkers? Food warehouses. Especially on free samples day. Usually it’s bachelors, cheap ones, but I have seen a woman or two lurk; they make the best lurkers. It’s pathetic. To the experienced food lurker, a successful sample lurking is an accomplishment. They fall asleep at the end of the day with a rewarding feeling in their heart, but also with hunger pains. Why? Because even after 1,000 samples, you still only ate about three-and-a-half ounces of food. If you want a sense of accomplishment, how about you donate blood? At least then you’ll save three lives AND get a juice box and three-and-a-half ounces of cookies.
“Are you okay?”
The figure moves closer, revealing a tan, weathered face, with silver hair and masked eyes. I notice his hands. They are weathered too, his fingernails cracked, like one who has worked or suffered. In one of his tempered hands though — his right, he carries a red fire extinguisher.
”Wait, is that him?” I think.
I first read about him on the rare occasion when I went grocery shopping during the day. There was a party, and since I procrastinated till the afternoon prior, I needed to go the food warehouse in the daytime to get supplies. I fought through the crowds. I swerved past the slow walkers. I dodged some motorized scooters to get my five tomatoes for a dollar, I didn’t fight for them, I just waited for an opening, like Washington would. I got my food, and since I had seventeen items and I wasn’t a skank that would go into the fifteen-items-or-less line, I take my place in one of the normal queues, the kind so long that women give birth in them because, hell, they’ve waited there so long, why lose their place now? As my food spoils in the cart, I notice a headline: “Man eats over 300 poinsettias, breaks world record.” “How festive,” I thought, “and right around Christmas, too.” Then my attention was grabbed by something less stupid: “Page 8: The Legend of Mustachio, as told by his ex-neighbor.” Anyone named Mustachio must be a cool dude. So I took a peek.
He asks again.
“Are you okay?”
He steps farther into the light, and I can finally notice it: The mustache.
The article I read, the one on page 8, went something like this:
“‘Mustachio, this city’s newest vigilante, has a sordid history, like any vigilante,’ says Mustachio’s former neighbor. ‘I never really talked to the guy. Maybe I should have when I look back at it, but the guy kept to himself. Kind of an old guy — tough looking, with a mustache. I don’t think he spoke English. Like, you’d see him and all he would ever say was ‘Are you okay?’ and I’d say ‘Yes, I’m fine.” Then he’d smile and go on with his business. He didn’t look like a moron or anything. Maybe he was, like, a refugee or political prisoner. He just didn’t speak English. I even tried a little bit of Spanish, but no luck. Anyway, he kept to himself, except for a dog. He loved this scrappy-looking dog. It had pointy ears, a long tail, and the mange. I don’t know if he owned the dog. But he always gave him food, and the dog hung out on his stoop.
One day some young punks, real no-good-nicks, kick the dog. Mustachio sees, goes out there and starts yelling up a storm in some kind of foreign tongue. The kids don’t like that, so you know what they do? They come back that night, drunk or high, and bone his dog. Bestiality. Disgusting, man. Just sick. And on top of that, they then douse the dog in bacon grease and start it on fire. Mustachio, who was woken up by the barking, goes out and sees his dog ablaze. He panics, turns on a garden hose and sprays down the dog. But you know what happens when you put water on a grease fire? It flares up. The dog is a roaring fireball and, of course, is scorched to death. Mustachio can’t do anything but watch. I don’t know if he cracked after that or what. But that’s when I think he swore a life of vigilantism; one week after the burning, a few of the men suspected of the crime were found bludgeoned to near death and covered in a fine white powder. That’s some messed up junk, man.’ ”
Cables grips me tighter than ever. Am I sensing fear? Had he read the same newspaper, skipped the front page and turned to page 8? Maybe he was normally a night shopper just like me and saw the article in a spot of boredom one evening. Or was he a day shopper? I bet a guy like him is a food lurker, always eyeing for an opportunity to take advantage of a situation.
“Are you okay?” the mustached lips ask again.
“Why the fuck do you keep asking that, old man?”
I stood silent. He looked on at me, his eyes penetrating the lies of my assailant; he is not fazed by Cable’s growing anger. The mysterious man’s nostrils flared, the air ruffling the hairs of his great silver mustache.
“Are you okay?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Are you okay?” he repeats.
Cables is still holding me. I assumed the fucker would probably leave a bruise, but I’d be lucky if that was all that happened to me. He readies himself to attack the old man.
“Are you okay?”
Cables clenches his teeth. He is about to lunge.
Finally, I shook my head from side to side; a muffled sound snuck its way out of my mouth.
“No.”
There is a loud rushing sound. A white fog envelopes the assailant and me, and from within this cloud I hear the clang of metal; the vice entrapping my wrist is limply unlocked. A body falls to the ground. The smoke hasn’t cleared when I hear a ripping sound. I’d find out later that it was duck tape; the police found him, legs bound together, one hand taped over his mouth, the other hand taped onto his wrist. A hand grabs mine; it is rough, but gentle and caring. Two of us emerge from the dissipating vapor. The mustached man escorts me inside, walks up to the lonely cashier and dials 911 on the register’s phone. He makes the clerk speak to the police. We wait together. When he hears the sirens, he departs the store, reentering the shadows from whence he came.
Several weeks pass. I am a lot less shaken up than before, but I don’t mind the mouth breathers, the mothers, or the food lurkers of the food warehouse. Maybe I never gave them a chance. Perhaps they are good people... no, they are as irritating as ever. But it’s the kind of irritating you appreciate. Like a brother or great uncle who’s kind of annoying and you hate when you experience it, but then holiday get-togethers become oh-so-boring when they are dead or off at college.
Today, before visiting the food warehouse, I visit another warehouse — a home improvement store. I don’t hate them as much. They don’t have identity issues like grocery stores; they rarely tile their floors. Sometimes people like to say these warehouses are home improvement centers, but you know if you walked up to the building and said, “Hey, are you a warehouse?” It would respond, “The sign out front says I’mma center, but yeah, I’mma warehouse, you got a problem with that?” and I’d say “No, dude.” But I would be perplexed that a building spoke and had a Brooklyn accent. Regardless, the home improvement warehouse knows that it’s like my grandma used to say: “You don’t put a leotard on an alligator.”
Anyway, I am standing in line, bucket of paint in hand, when I hear a commotion a couple registers over.
“Sir, you must take this back to the hardware department,” the cashier says.
“Okay.” The man hands him money.
“Sir, this is the floor model. If you go back to the hardware department, one of our employees can assist you.”
“Okay.” The man looks confused and gestures to give the money back to the cashier.
The people behind him are getting visibly upset. I am still curious.
“Sir, please get out of the line and go back to the hardware department.”
“Okay.” The man is looks really confused; he gestures again in vain.
“Damn. Probably another immigrant. Why can’t they just learn some fucking English like everyone else?”
My curiosity piques. I get out of my line (yes, I know it’s sacrilege to abandon your line during peak business hours) and walk over. The young employee is frustrated. His job probably sucks (he does work in a warehouse), and he wants as few hassles as possible. The man stands there confused. He is his holding his money out; he must be thinking “this is just like before.” Yet, he doesn’t understand what the problem is now.
Then I notice everything. The silver hair. The weathered face. The tempered hands. An upper lip garnished with a simple yet magnanimous ‘stache. Damn. You can’t fake that kind of facial hair. Mustaches like his aren’t grown, they are earned. They are little prickly medals placed under the nose by a divine entity, a symbol for the rest of us of their nobility. A badge reserved for only the most worthy of our fathers and grandfathers.
But his eyes are sad. He’s trapped, being verbally beaten into submission by some high school chump. And no amount of extinguisher bashing would help him escape.
I stroll over.
“Hey, dude. What’s going on?”
“This idiot gramps here took the floor model fire extinguisher off the shelf and he is too stupid to go back and get the right one.”
“An honest mistake from a member of America’s Greatest Generation. Why haven’t you fixed the problem?”
He rolls his eyes. “He no ‘speaka the Engles’,” he says condescendingly.
Something in me snaps; I can feel the Valley Forge roaring up inside me.
“What’s your name, kid?”
I grab the kids name tag, it say “Ramesses.”
“Like King Ramesses II? Of Egypt? What kind of hippie-pagan parents name their kid Ramesses?” I take a deep breath. “Wait, Ramesses, I need to focus. If I don’t focus, I am going to rant about how I hate warehouses and food warehouses. I hate them with a fiery passion but now is not the time and place.”
“Here’s the deal. This ‘old guy’ here is a friend of mine, and I will guarantee that if a surgeon removed nine-tenths of his brain, he’d still be five times smarter than a young prick such as yourself, sans the ability to speak English. Do you see that little phone there, like the one that has probably been next to every cash register you have worked at and will work at, which, at this rate, will be an incredible number? Instead of being a stupid fuck, how about you take a proactive step, call hardware, and have one of your wood-stain sniffing friends bring up the right one. If not, I’ll take it up with your manager. I am sure he or she wouldn’t be happy to hear that you were berating a well-behaved customer with a pocket full of cash, especially during a recession.”
He picks up the phone, talks to someone on the other end, and soon another pimply greenhorn comes with the correct product.
“$124.48, sir.”
I look up at the old man, smile, and say one of the few words I know he will know.
“Okay.”
He smiles, hands the money to the cashier, and soon gets his change.
“The man prefers paper, Ramesses and thank you much, much for your coerced friendly service. Today could be a great new turning point in your life of mediocrity.”
The two of us step out together, and we both realize we probably shouldn’t go back to that store for awhile. We turn to each other. I know we both have a lot to say, but there’s that language barrier thing. We are silent. But then I ask him.
“Are you okay?”
He smiles again and says, “Are you okay?”
I smile back; he must remember me.
“Yeah, I am okay.”
“Hey, do you have jumper cables?”
I always liked grocery shopping at night. I deplore the evening crowds. And what makes matters worse is that grocery stores aren’t grocery stores anymore, they are warehouses. Those bigwigs in the food industry trick us. You don’t notice the deception because they tile the warehouse floors. Have you ever been in a warehouse with tiled floors? Of course not, but a warehouse is still a warehouse no matter how fancily you decorate the floors. Plus, grocery stores are small. They have burly butchers there named “Fred” or “Rico.” Grocery stores have bag boys. They have fifteen-year-olds, their first job, both jock and nerd, working side by side for minimum wage, doing a job that warehouses figured out they could make the consumer do for free. If you want definitive proof that your “grocery store” is a warehouse, look up. They may trick you into thinking they are a grocery store with their fresh fruits and vegetables, decorative end caps, and those “tiled floors,” but those ceilings are too tall. If you see high ceilings, and you aren’t in a church, library, or auditorium, by logical deduction, you must be in a warehouse. Grocery stores are personal. They are California condors, and at the same time, fossils. If you want to find a grocery store, take a stroll through small town, main street USA. You won’t find one there, but you’ll find an antique store inhabiting the shell of one.
“Who the hell doesn’t have jumper cables?” I thought to myself. It’s winter and it gets cold enough here, the kind of cold where you might open up your freezer and stick your hands inside just to warm them up. Everyone needs jumper cables. And just because everyone has them isn’t an excuse to rely on the fact that everyone should have them.
Did mention I deplore crowds more than I deplore warehouses with identity issues? I shop at night because I hate to wait in line; I am disgusted when I have to push through crowds. Pushing through crowds to get the discount cereal or pickles — disgusting. No doubt, Washington wasn’t wasting his time wrestling with the masses to get five tomatoes for a dollar. And though I am not giving birth to a country, I would like to think the one thing Washington and I have in common is that we wouldn’t waste time fighting over something as silly as produce at the super market.
I hate the mobs. I get furious at the guy who takes seventeen items into the fifteen-items-or-less lane. I get angry at the elderly man who examines each apple for flaws. I get jealous of the mother who shops with three small children. Why can’t I multitask like her? She manages to get 99 percent of the food she sets out to buy while watching and multitasking a bunch of uncoordinated, miniature humans. Shopping with old kids makes sense. No bag boy at the warehouse, you make the kids do it. Good for building character and all that jazz. But little kids, I know those moms just can’t leave them at home, but I don’t have such fortitude. If presented with the option, I’d order out all the time. I would change the emergency speed dial on my phone to a place that delivered submarine sandwiches. Hungry, yelling kids who need a healthy dinner. Now that’s a real everyday emergency.
“Yeah, I got jumper cables. Give me a second to put away the rest of the groceries.”
“Ya need help?”
“Sure, buddy.”
So I go there at night. But I must admit that the place creeps me out. It’s like a haunted house with coupons. Barren. Cans, freezers, one cashier, and a couple of stock boys. Are they really apparitions though? You glance down an aisle and you might see one by chance, but if look twice, they are gone. Don’t go searching for cornstarch at night; you’ll find an ivory billed woodpecker before you find a stock boy or the cornstarch. If food warehouses sold those creepy dolls with glass eyes, I would go grocery shopping during the day, or have that submarine sandwich place on my emergency speed dial, too. I have never seen a possessed doll kill a person with a group of witnesses; I would take some comfort in knowing that the millions of other urban day hunter-gathers were protecting me solely by existing.
“Okay, let me grab those cables. Where’s your car?”
He just breathes heavily. And of course I am weirded out, so much so that I would prefer the crowds or doll-lined shelves of a warehouse. At least they didn’t breathe like him. Grocery warehouses have all types of breathers, though. Huffers, puffers, wheezers, suckers, panters, double panters, mouth breathers, inverse mouth breathers, largemouth bassers, spittlers, lippers, snake lungers. That’s the problem. Everyone who breathes has to eat, and everyone who eats has to buy food at the grocery warehouses. Exceptions may exist. There are probably some rich inverse mouth breathers out there that have butlers shop for them, but 99 percent of the time, you could identify every phenotype of breather on Earth at any day of the week at a grocery warehouse. But when do these diverse fauna of breathers shop? During the day. That’s why I shop at night. I bemoan crowds along with the choruses of breathers.
“Fuck.”
Why didn’t I notice that there weren’t any other cars in this parking lot? He grabs hold of my wrist tightly and pulls me closer to him. I want to scream. Did he grab my tongue as well? If I were a mother, this wouldn’t have happened. Mothers have motherly instincts. They detect danger. They are like bats with an echo location that specifically bounce back off of trouble. That’s why when you are young, mothers know if you are running with scissors or just about to light a funeral pyre for a Darth Vader figure in your backyard. But they don’t even have to go and find you, they just yell from a faraway land, and if you fear their wrath, you stop. Plus, mothers have children. They don’t like crowds, but they aren’t stupid. Mothers don’t shop with their kids at night. If I had children, this wouldn’t have happened. Or if I was George Washington, I would go Valley Forge on his ass.
A voice calls out.
“Are you okay?”
Jumper Cables and I turn in surprise; he instinctively covers my mouth with his hand. A shadowy figure stands in the street light.
“Yeah… everything is cool. Just, ummmm, a lover’s quarrel with the misses.”
The eyes stare. They do not seem convinced.
“Get outta here you fucking lurker,” Jumper Cables said.
A friend of mine once called him a lurker, too. Lurker. No one uses that word anymore except when describing Internet stalkers. But that is what he does. He lurks. That’s how he finds crime. However, you know where you find the most lurkers? Food warehouses. Especially on free samples day. Usually it’s bachelors, cheap ones, but I have seen a woman or two lurk; they make the best lurkers. It’s pathetic. To the experienced food lurker, a successful sample lurking is an accomplishment. They fall asleep at the end of the day with a rewarding feeling in their heart, but also with hunger pains. Why? Because even after 1,000 samples, you still only ate about three-and-a-half ounces of food. If you want a sense of accomplishment, how about you donate blood? At least then you’ll save three lives AND get a juice box and three-and-a-half ounces of cookies.
“Are you okay?”
The figure moves closer, revealing a tan, weathered face, with silver hair and masked eyes. I notice his hands. They are weathered too, his fingernails cracked, like one who has worked or suffered. In one of his tempered hands though — his right, he carries a red fire extinguisher.
”Wait, is that him?” I think.
I first read about him on the rare occasion when I went grocery shopping during the day. There was a party, and since I procrastinated till the afternoon prior, I needed to go the food warehouse in the daytime to get supplies. I fought through the crowds. I swerved past the slow walkers. I dodged some motorized scooters to get my five tomatoes for a dollar, I didn’t fight for them, I just waited for an opening, like Washington would. I got my food, and since I had seventeen items and I wasn’t a skank that would go into the fifteen-items-or-less line, I take my place in one of the normal queues, the kind so long that women give birth in them because, hell, they’ve waited there so long, why lose their place now? As my food spoils in the cart, I notice a headline: “Man eats over 300 poinsettias, breaks world record.” “How festive,” I thought, “and right around Christmas, too.” Then my attention was grabbed by something less stupid: “Page 8: The Legend of Mustachio, as told by his ex-neighbor.” Anyone named Mustachio must be a cool dude. So I took a peek.
He asks again.
“Are you okay?”
He steps farther into the light, and I can finally notice it: The mustache.
The article I read, the one on page 8, went something like this:
“‘Mustachio, this city’s newest vigilante, has a sordid history, like any vigilante,’ says Mustachio’s former neighbor. ‘I never really talked to the guy. Maybe I should have when I look back at it, but the guy kept to himself. Kind of an old guy — tough looking, with a mustache. I don’t think he spoke English. Like, you’d see him and all he would ever say was ‘Are you okay?’ and I’d say ‘Yes, I’m fine.” Then he’d smile and go on with his business. He didn’t look like a moron or anything. Maybe he was, like, a refugee or political prisoner. He just didn’t speak English. I even tried a little bit of Spanish, but no luck. Anyway, he kept to himself, except for a dog. He loved this scrappy-looking dog. It had pointy ears, a long tail, and the mange. I don’t know if he owned the dog. But he always gave him food, and the dog hung out on his stoop.
One day some young punks, real no-good-nicks, kick the dog. Mustachio sees, goes out there and starts yelling up a storm in some kind of foreign tongue. The kids don’t like that, so you know what they do? They come back that night, drunk or high, and bone his dog. Bestiality. Disgusting, man. Just sick. And on top of that, they then douse the dog in bacon grease and start it on fire. Mustachio, who was woken up by the barking, goes out and sees his dog ablaze. He panics, turns on a garden hose and sprays down the dog. But you know what happens when you put water on a grease fire? It flares up. The dog is a roaring fireball and, of course, is scorched to death. Mustachio can’t do anything but watch. I don’t know if he cracked after that or what. But that’s when I think he swore a life of vigilantism; one week after the burning, a few of the men suspected of the crime were found bludgeoned to near death and covered in a fine white powder. That’s some messed up junk, man.’ ”
Cables grips me tighter than ever. Am I sensing fear? Had he read the same newspaper, skipped the front page and turned to page 8? Maybe he was normally a night shopper just like me and saw the article in a spot of boredom one evening. Or was he a day shopper? I bet a guy like him is a food lurker, always eyeing for an opportunity to take advantage of a situation.
“Are you okay?” the mustached lips ask again.
“Why the fuck do you keep asking that, old man?”
I stood silent. He looked on at me, his eyes penetrating the lies of my assailant; he is not fazed by Cable’s growing anger. The mysterious man’s nostrils flared, the air ruffling the hairs of his great silver mustache.
“Are you okay?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Are you okay?” he repeats.
Cables is still holding me. I assumed the fucker would probably leave a bruise, but I’d be lucky if that was all that happened to me. He readies himself to attack the old man.
“Are you okay?”
Cables clenches his teeth. He is about to lunge.
Finally, I shook my head from side to side; a muffled sound snuck its way out of my mouth.
“No.”
There is a loud rushing sound. A white fog envelopes the assailant and me, and from within this cloud I hear the clang of metal; the vice entrapping my wrist is limply unlocked. A body falls to the ground. The smoke hasn’t cleared when I hear a ripping sound. I’d find out later that it was duck tape; the police found him, legs bound together, one hand taped over his mouth, the other hand taped onto his wrist. A hand grabs mine; it is rough, but gentle and caring. Two of us emerge from the dissipating vapor. The mustached man escorts me inside, walks up to the lonely cashier and dials 911 on the register’s phone. He makes the clerk speak to the police. We wait together. When he hears the sirens, he departs the store, reentering the shadows from whence he came.
******
Several weeks pass. I am a lot less shaken up than before, but I don’t mind the mouth breathers, the mothers, or the food lurkers of the food warehouse. Maybe I never gave them a chance. Perhaps they are good people... no, they are as irritating as ever. But it’s the kind of irritating you appreciate. Like a brother or great uncle who’s kind of annoying and you hate when you experience it, but then holiday get-togethers become oh-so-boring when they are dead or off at college.
Today, before visiting the food warehouse, I visit another warehouse — a home improvement store. I don’t hate them as much. They don’t have identity issues like grocery stores; they rarely tile their floors. Sometimes people like to say these warehouses are home improvement centers, but you know if you walked up to the building and said, “Hey, are you a warehouse?” It would respond, “The sign out front says I’mma center, but yeah, I’mma warehouse, you got a problem with that?” and I’d say “No, dude.” But I would be perplexed that a building spoke and had a Brooklyn accent. Regardless, the home improvement warehouse knows that it’s like my grandma used to say: “You don’t put a leotard on an alligator.”
Anyway, I am standing in line, bucket of paint in hand, when I hear a commotion a couple registers over.
“Sir, you must take this back to the hardware department,” the cashier says.
“Okay.” The man hands him money.
“Sir, this is the floor model. If you go back to the hardware department, one of our employees can assist you.”
“Okay.” The man looks confused and gestures to give the money back to the cashier.
The people behind him are getting visibly upset. I am still curious.
“Sir, please get out of the line and go back to the hardware department.”
“Okay.” The man is looks really confused; he gestures again in vain.
“Damn. Probably another immigrant. Why can’t they just learn some fucking English like everyone else?”
My curiosity piques. I get out of my line (yes, I know it’s sacrilege to abandon your line during peak business hours) and walk over. The young employee is frustrated. His job probably sucks (he does work in a warehouse), and he wants as few hassles as possible. The man stands there confused. He is his holding his money out; he must be thinking “this is just like before.” Yet, he doesn’t understand what the problem is now.
Then I notice everything. The silver hair. The weathered face. The tempered hands. An upper lip garnished with a simple yet magnanimous ‘stache. Damn. You can’t fake that kind of facial hair. Mustaches like his aren’t grown, they are earned. They are little prickly medals placed under the nose by a divine entity, a symbol for the rest of us of their nobility. A badge reserved for only the most worthy of our fathers and grandfathers.
But his eyes are sad. He’s trapped, being verbally beaten into submission by some high school chump. And no amount of extinguisher bashing would help him escape.
I stroll over.
“Hey, dude. What’s going on?”
“This idiot gramps here took the floor model fire extinguisher off the shelf and he is too stupid to go back and get the right one.”
“An honest mistake from a member of America’s Greatest Generation. Why haven’t you fixed the problem?”
He rolls his eyes. “He no ‘speaka the Engles’,” he says condescendingly.
Something in me snaps; I can feel the Valley Forge roaring up inside me.
“What’s your name, kid?”
I grab the kids name tag, it say “Ramesses.”
“Like King Ramesses II? Of Egypt? What kind of hippie-pagan parents name their kid Ramesses?” I take a deep breath. “Wait, Ramesses, I need to focus. If I don’t focus, I am going to rant about how I hate warehouses and food warehouses. I hate them with a fiery passion but now is not the time and place.”
“Here’s the deal. This ‘old guy’ here is a friend of mine, and I will guarantee that if a surgeon removed nine-tenths of his brain, he’d still be five times smarter than a young prick such as yourself, sans the ability to speak English. Do you see that little phone there, like the one that has probably been next to every cash register you have worked at and will work at, which, at this rate, will be an incredible number? Instead of being a stupid fuck, how about you take a proactive step, call hardware, and have one of your wood-stain sniffing friends bring up the right one. If not, I’ll take it up with your manager. I am sure he or she wouldn’t be happy to hear that you were berating a well-behaved customer with a pocket full of cash, especially during a recession.”
He picks up the phone, talks to someone on the other end, and soon another pimply greenhorn comes with the correct product.
“$124.48, sir.”
I look up at the old man, smile, and say one of the few words I know he will know.
“Okay.”
He smiles, hands the money to the cashier, and soon gets his change.
“The man prefers paper, Ramesses and thank you much, much for your coerced friendly service. Today could be a great new turning point in your life of mediocrity.”
The two of us step out together, and we both realize we probably shouldn’t go back to that store for awhile. We turn to each other. I know we both have a lot to say, but there’s that language barrier thing. We are silent. But then I ask him.
“Are you okay?”
He smiles again and says, “Are you okay?”
I smile back; he must remember me.
“Yeah, I am okay.”
Friday, January 15, 2010
New Theme: Mustaches
Good day! Chester A. Arthur is just dropping by to help me introduce the next Proofread topic. I'll give you three guesses. No, not "Presidents who assumed office after assassinations"; not the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, either. That's right--it's Mustaches!
A noble piece of facial adornment, the mustache can mean many things to many people. This, and much else, is what your Proofreaders will explore over the coming weeks.
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