State of Summer

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Crooked as an Elbow

I woke up at 4 am with a pain in my left elbow. It was a knotted, heavy pain like someone had whacked me with a hammer. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. The pain spread out from the tip of my elbow and dug into the meat of my forearm.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I yelled.

I whipped the blankets off my chest and kicked outta bed. I clicked on the light and rotated my arm. My elbow was red and swollen. It looked like something had bitten me.

“That little bitch,” I muttered.

I was referring to the spider I’d found a week prior, living in the panels of my bed frame. I’d tried to squish him with the tip of a broom handle but he’d vanished into the wall. I figured he’d come back for revenge. This lit my ribs on fire and I started ripping apart my bed.

“When I find you I’m gonna tear your legs off and sprinkle ‘em on my salad!”

I heaved and pulled and flung. When I finished, I looked down at the mess I’d made. My mattress was splayed over a pile of books. My bed frame looked like an exploded tower of Jenga blocks. The spider was nowhere to be found. I curled my lip and reassembled everything.

After an hour of fitful sleep, I took a shower. As I hosed myself down, I noticed my elbow. It was now the size of a tennis ball. It hurt like a filthy knife wound, to boot. I toweled off and walked to the freezer. I spent the next four hours icing my arm and watching garbage.

….

Due to a string of cancellations, I only had a single private lesson that day. I showed up to it with sagging eye sockets and foul breath. My student shook my hand and asked me what was wrong. I flipped my arm over and showered her.

“Huuuaaannhh!” she gasped. “Vas happin?!”

“I don’t know. I think I was bitten by a spider.”

She thinned her eyes at my throbbing tomato. A light clicked on in her head.

“Dis no from spider. Dis from exercise.”

“Good God, really?”

“Yes. Did you do some verkout recently?”

“Yeah, fifty pushups last night before dinner.”

“And you do dis every night?”

“Uhhh …”

I couldn’t let her know what a lazy fuck I am. It was bad enough I needed a bra more than she did.

“Most nights,” I said.

“Vell, you must have to injure it. I am athletic so I know. I really fink you should take elbow to doctor.”

….

Our lesson ended and I split to the nearest poliklinika (polyclinic). When I arrived, I went up to the skin doctor’s. I still wasn’t convinced the state of my elbow was from exercise. I showed the ladies at the front desk my swell-spot and they ooooohhhh’d.

“You should really go into surgery,” one said in Czech.

“Surgery?! Before we jump on that shit-wagon, can’t you just get a doctor out here to look at this?”

The lady scoffed and hit the intercom. A skinny ol’ prick with a shoe-brush-stash came out the back.

“What is it?!” he said.

“My elbow,” I whined, rotating my arm. “I think it was bitten by a spider.”

“That’s not a spider bite, that’s an inflamed joint! You should go into surgery.”

“For God’s sake, I’m not gonna have you guys slice open my elbow just because it’s puffy!”

The ladies started laughing.

“He doesn’t mean you should have surgery,” one said. “He means you should go to the Surgery Center at Karlovo Náměstí Nemocnice (Charles’ Square Hospital) nearby. It’s where they treat general emergencies like yours.”

“Oh.”

….

I left the building and got on a tram. The whole way to the hospital I was tense. I thought back to the single time I’d been to Karlovo Náměstí Nemocnice (KNN). I’d gone in for a suspicious-looking freckle on my nutsack. The whole affair had taken five days. When I’d finally gotten to see a doctor, it was in a dirty little office with two other women. One of them was scrolling through pictures on her laptop. The other was fiddling with her cell phone. I walked up to my doctor and told her my problem. I asked if we could go somewhere private and she squinted at me.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “Drop your pants and lemme have a look.”

I bit my lip and did what she said. As I stood there with my cock out, the lady fished around for her otoscope (the ear thing). When she found it, she put it to her eye. I pointed to my nut-freckle and she leaned in close. As she did her examination, I could feel her breath against my balls. I almost started laughing.  I turned around to see if the others were watching. Both were staring at my naked ass. The doctor finished up and popped her glove off.

“You’re fine,” she said.

Luckily, she was right. The freckle turned out to be nothing. Even still the examination of it at KNN had felt pretty unprofessional. Not to mention, it was embarrassing as hell. The one silver lining was that the whole thing had been covered by my previous healthcare plan. But due to “budget cuts” at my school I was kicked off that plan in September (2013) and was now on the one for “foreigners.” I was livid the day it happened. I had to trade in my clean green insurance card (the one Czech nationals use) for a laminated piece of toilet paper with a red stamp on it that read “Insurance for Foreigners.” Since that time I hadn’t seen a doctor with it. This meant my whole elbow-deal was hanging in the trees with fate’s dirty underwear.

….

As per usual, the clouds unzipped their flies and pissed on my head the second I stepped off the tram. I’d sprouted gills by the time I made to the Surgery Center. I waded up to the front counter and told the lady my problem. Her face tighten to a small V.

“It’s four o’clock!” she barked. “You should have come in the morning!”

“I’m sorry I had work. Plus, I don’t know the system here very well. I’m a foreigner.”

I gave her my ID and insurance card. She eyeballed them for a good minute.

“You’re from California?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, ya speak nice Czech. Have a seat in the waiting room and we’ll get to ya.”

I took a chair amongst the injured. The state of the place was grim. The walls were yellow and the lights were flickering. Some dude with a busted ankle was groaning on a forgotten stretcher in the corner. A nurse the size of an iceberg finally called my name. I followed her to the back where the X-ray room was. She told me to hang my still-wet jacket and waddled into a glass booth.

“What do I do now?” I asked.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“You put your arm on that table there and I X-ray it!”

I may sound like a pampered little twat saying this but I’m used to a bit of assistance in these situations. I mean, at the very least a lead apron and a seat. As it was, I got none of that. Just some walrus in a chef’s hat barking at me from behind the glass.

After half a dozen tries, the nurse got the X-rays she needed. She looked them over briefly and wrote me a slip. It said I had no big injuries. The source of my condition was simply listed as “zánět.”

Inflammation? I thought. Boy, that narrows it down.

I walked back to the crummy waiting room and parked it. Thirty minutes later, a girl from the doctors’ office called me in. She had curly blond hair and cherry lip gloss. A smiley face was pinned to her tit.

“So where’s my doctor?” I asked.

“You’re looking at her!”

My eyes nearly fell outta my head. I sat on the bed so I wouldn’t faint. Ms. Cherry laughed and went in the other room. She came back with two gloved hands and a syringe the size of a bike pump.

“Now I’m gonna drain your elbow, jooooo?” she said.

I nodded weakly and raised my arm. She grabbed it and stuck the needle to it. I sucked in deep and held my breath. Ms. Cherry snickered.

“You afraid of needles?”

“Not usually,” I said.

She shrugged and pushed the point into my skin. The pain curled my eyelashes. It felt like a beetle was eating its way through my joint. I wanted to scream. I bit down hard and bore it. The needle went deeper and deeper. Suddenly, I felt it stop. Ms. Cherry let go of the syringe and scratched her head.

“What’s the problem?!” I asked.

“Not sure. Normally I hit water by now but not today. Guess, I’ll have to go deeper, jooooo?”

I wanted to ring the little shit by her neck. I slouched forward and glared at the wall.

“Go ahead.”

Ms. Cherry repositioned her mitts on the syringe. She slipped her tongue-tip up and pushed. The wall in front of me cracked. My nerves fired off like spooked pollywogs. I almost shit my pants. I slammed my fist into the mattress and growled. A second later, I felt cold. I looked over at Ms. Cherry and she was smiling.

“I’m there,” she said. “But you might not wanna watch this.”

At that point I didn’t give a crap. I tossed a few fingers off and gave her the green light. She gripped the syringe-bar and pulled. She pulled my eyeballs out with it. The pain tightened to a singularity. Then it expanded.

“There it is!” she said.

The tube swelled with bright orange liquid. It looked like alien blood. Once there was a good plug of it, Ms. Cherry stopped. She then drew the needle out.

“Seeee, now that wasn’t so bad,” she said.

I spent the next ten minutes gripping my elbow while Ms. Cherry debated with her colleague about what my treatment should be. They finally settled on two days in a bandage and sling with a check up the following Monday. They wrote me prescriptions for oral and topical inflammation-reducers and dressed my wound. The mucky ointment they used reeked like smoked meat. I thanked them for their time and they thanked me for mine. I left the hospital and walked out into the rain.

….

On Monday morning I hit KNN. My elbow was still swollen and immobile. I was hoping for better treatment and a new doctor. What I got was a longer wait and a teenager. The guy looked like Ferris Bueller in a lab coat. Only difference was someone had penciled in a mustache. I picked my eye with my middle finger at him and sat down. He quacked at me in rapid-fire Czech. I had to rehash everything that had happened to me. When I asked him his “professional opinion” of it all, he dropped his cell phone.

“It was probably just all those pushups,” he said, picking up the pieces.

“I just told you that!”

“Well, there it is.”

Another doctor came by and started chatting with him. Ferris ignored me and yacked it up. Ten minutes later, he had a nurse redress my wound. Then he punched out a slip and handed it to me.
“Two weeks, no pushups,” he said. “Oh, and keep taking whatever we’ve got you on.”

“Right-o.”

….

I followed the doctor’s orders. The pain went away a bit, but the swelling remained. This meant I had to walk around all day like an idiot with my sling on. When Friday finally came, I was ready to collapse. I returned from teaching that day at around 15:00. I entered my building and opened my mailbox. There was a letter in it from the tax department. I opened it hoping for a check.

“What the fuck?!”

It was a notice stating they’d pruned down my return. I crumpled it up and hurled it at the stairs.

“Ass-raping criminals!!!”

I spent the weekend seething. That Monday I sought answers. My first lesson of the day was with a ministry lawyer. I told him my predicament and he laughed.

“Dey fuck you bouf kinds,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“One to arm and one to vallet.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“You vant?”

“What?”

“Me to tell you about it.”

“Oh, haha. Yeah sure.”

“Ok, in Czech Republic, it verk like dis …”

I won’t bore you with every tiny detail of what my student said. Nor will I make you suffer through a paragraph of his choppy English. In short, he explained to me that the reason my doctor’s visit was such a piece of shit was because hospitals (like many other public institutions here) aren’t getting the money they need to function properly due to widespread (political) corruption. This may not sound like news to any of you. And it didn’t to me either. What did though was my student’s way of illuminating the link between my crooked elbow and all those crooked pricks in office.
In a major city like Prague, there are three governmental “organs” that deal with our tax money. They are the Zastupitelstvo (City Government), the Rada (City Council), and the Magistrát (Municipal Authority). Now, when a public institution like, say, the crappy hospital I went to, needs to be reconstructed, the City Government kick starts something called “Veřejné Zakázky” or “Public Procurement,” whereby different construction companies bid for the job. Each company writes a price down, sticks it in an envelope and hands it to the clerks at the Magistrát. In theory, the company with the lowest price is contracted and Jan Q. Taxpayer saves a crown. In practice, however, members of the City Government and Council routinely take bribes from the more expensive construction companies, who end up doing the same job the cheaper ones would have. The result is, the politicians get paid, the contractors get paid, and we get fucked right between the knees.

So how does this relate to my elbow?

My student went on to explain that it’s not just the construction companies who are handing out bribes. Employees of public institutions looking to make their cushy jobs, cushier, will oftentimes grease the palms of the City Government as well. In the case of hospitals like KNN, a senior doctor gunning for director has only to bribe the right politician to get what they want. Once in power, this new hospital director will surely seek make their bribe money back (and then some). To achieve this, they’ll overstate the prices on equipment orders then go and buy crap (hence my miserable X-ray experience, etc.). Plus, instead of hiring experienced doctors, they’ll round up mostly fledglings fresh outta medical school cuz’ they can pay ‘em dirt and stick ‘em on five year contracts. And when I say “fledglings” I mean it, because unlike in America where everyone has to get a B.S. first, here in the Czech Republic, students can go straight into med school after graduating high school. At a guess, I’d say my doctors – Ms. Cherry and her colleague Ferris – were probably around the age of 24. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was 24, I could barely keep my dick in my pants. Asking me to treat patients, even after six years of medical school, would have been like handing Iggy Pop a scalpel and inviting him to perform brain surgery on your grandmother.

To exemplify his point that the Czech Republic is indeed leaking with corruption, my student cited the case of Central Bohemian Governor, David Rath, who in 2012 overstated the cost of repairs to a local chateau called “Buštěhrad,“ by 7,000,000 crowns (roughly 350 grand). Naturally, he pocketed the cash. When the cops caught wind of this via phone recordings, they raided his house and found the 7 mil in a wine box.  Under questioning, Rath played stupid. He claimed an anonymous stranger had given him the box, in which he had assumed was only wine. This response didn’t fly with the police. Upon further investigation of the man’s home, they found an additional 30,000,000 crowns. The source of this money is believed to be public tenders. Phone recordings indicate that these tenders were procured by Rath during shady purchases of medical equipment for three central Bohemian hospitals, one of which was run by a criminal colleague of his.

….

When my student finished his spiel, my head was swimming. I couldn’t believe how deeply and royally I (and the rest of the nation) was being fucked. I told him I was inches away from leaving the Czech Republic for good. He looked at me and chuckled.

“Ver vil you go? Back to America? Corruption is horrible der too. Plus, dee Healthcare system is much verse dan here, haha.”

I didn’t argue with him on those points. Still, I was curious if the US was actually below the Czech Republic on the Healthcare chain. I thanked him for the depressing convo and finished my day. When I got home, I looked around on the net. I came across a study carried out by the World Health Organization. It measured the “overall health system performance for 191 countries.” I scrolled through the rhetoric and found the chart. At the top of it was France. I flipped down further and found the Czech Republic. It was wedged in at 48, between Thailand and Malaysia. I went to click down, when I noticed the US. It was at 37, between Costa Rica and Slovenia.

“You silly bullshitter,” I said.

Now, I’m not a huge patriot by any means. In fact, most of what America does makes me sick to my stomach. I will admit however that the knowledge of having proven my student wrong did make me feel a tinge of pride. This got me thinking about my service in the Peace Corps. I wondered where Turkmenistan (my country of service) ranked on the Healthcare list. I scrolled way down and found it. It was at 153. While this is pretty low, I couldn’t imagine that there were 38 grades below it. As an active volunteer, I’d received OK Healthcare. But in my village, the Healthcare system had basically been one doctor that went from house to house with a syringe, pumping sick kids full of vitamin solution.

With memories of this weighing on me, I clicked down further. I passed through most of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. When I got to number 191, I looked right. There was the bottom fish all by its lonely.

Sierra Leone?

Aside from a shitty song by Kanye West, I knew zilch about the place. I decided to investigate further. The things I read, especially those concerning the health of the country’s people, horrified me. Here’s a short but sobering list of them.

Sierra Leone has …

1. Among the highest rates of child mortality in the world (~20% in 2010).

2. A staggering infant mortality rate of 192 deaths per 1000 live births (2009).

3. A maternal mortality rate of almost 1 in 10 (2010).

4. Regular outbreaks of Ebola, yellow fever, meningitis, cholera, and Lassa fever.

5. A prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which is 1.6% percent above the world average.

6. An overall life expectancy of 57 years (2014).

7. And an entire generation of young adults, who are both drug-addicted and mentally ill because of atrocities they were forced to commit as child soldiers during the Civil War (1991-2002).

To deal with all this, Sierra Leone has a Healthcare system that is in shambles and a Mental Healthcare system that is virtually non-existent. In 2010, with the aid of the United Kingdom (the country’s former colonizer) and the United Nations, Sierra Leone tried to take action by launching “Free Health Care Medical Insurance,” which is “a system of free healthcare for pregnant and breast-feeding women and children under five.” While this plan was expected to save the lives of millions of women and children, many local women, especially those in rural areas, are unaware that they’re entitled to free medical care, and thus not using it. As a result, the country is still struggling greatly. It remains one of the poorest, most godforsaken places on earth.

....

 

After absorbing all this, I looked down at my elbow. It was bent up and swollen, but it was still there. Had I been born in Sierra Leone I might not even have my elbow ... or my damn life, for that matter, given the state of things. I sighed at this thought and crawled into bed. As laid there in pain, it came to me: Healthcare at its root, is a reflection of how much we as a people give a fuck about one another. So what does it say when the best we can do is ineptitude mired in corruption and the worst is one in five of our children dying before they see their fifth birthday?

....

 

Note: I reserve the right to occasionally alter the character names, descriptions, and/or event details in my posts for the purposes of identity protection and “fluidity of story.” If this puts a kink in your panties, read someone else’s blog, homey.

A Night Out at a Bar

When you write, there’s always a critic around the corner waiting to wipe their ass with your work. Like just recently, I went for drinks with this dude I know who’d been pickin’ at me to read my shit for the longest time. When I finally started this blog, I sent him the link. Sure enough, he’d read it top to bottom and was now telling me his opinion of it between sips.

“You know, it’s okay, man,” he said. “But I really feel like your stories are just the standard things I would hear during a night out at a bar.”

I thanked him politely and changed the subject. Later that week, I had a special experience. Below is an account of that experience. And dude, if you’re reading this, feel free to tell it to your buddies the next time you’re at a bar :)

….

I walked to the bar in the rain alone. I got in there and the place was packed. Blue and pink lights shined over a sea of heads. Silver tinsel lined the walls. I threaded my way up to the counter and ordered a beer. I was tired so I yawned. A girl with long black hair yawned back at me. I grabbed my beer and went up to her. The instant my mouth opened, my cock was snipped off by her friends. I deflated like a balloon onto a stool. I watched the cute barmaid make a Margarita. As she drew up the ingredients from below the mirrors, it hit me. Everything she picked had been plucked from somewhere else – the limes from Portuguese orchards, the Tequila from Mexican cacti, the glass from Arab sands, the ice from Polish streams. There on her slab of wood, this woman molded the fruits of the Earth to her liking. I looked around and saw that everything else – the chairs, tables, floors, walls, sinks, ceilings, shoes, shirts, watches, on and on and on was precisely of this nature. Christ, there was even a special fridge just for the Red Bull! I brushed my fingers over a forest of straws. When the barmaid grabbed some napkins it was like she was ripping out the guts of a tree. I could no longer take it. I left the bar dizzy and stunned. My mind was a twisted wreck. As I turned the corner, I was stopped dead. Just in front of me was a strange cluster of trees. They looked like they were huddling together over the street below. I felt drawn to the closest tree. I ran up to it and wrapped both my arms around its trunk. I told it I loved it.  It loved me back unconditionally. It was almost like hugging a dog. I told it I was sorry for everything I’d done. It forgave me instantly. People saw me hugging this tree and crying. I heard them laughing at me. I could feel the points of their fingers burning into my back. Eventually, I let go. I promised the tree that I would never forget it. I staggered off towards home. When I reached the cemetery, I felt a giant finger pass through my head and on down to my toes. My body rained with sunlight. The finger moved me forward like a penny over glass. I heard a voice in my ears. It told me I was doing the right thing. I told it this place was too fucked up for me. It told me to see that and know it well but to keep going. I remembered a friend had once called me “touched.” I smiled at the thought of this. I fixed my shirt and brushed my shoulders off. My night ended with a kebab.

 

 

 

 

Note: I reserve the right to occasionally alter the character names, descriptions, and/or event details in my posts for the purposes of identity protection and “fluidity of story.” If this puts a kink in your panties, read someone else’s blog, homey.

Pass the Knife

When I was a kid we used to go to Washington during the summer. My Dad’s college buddy, Lance lived up there near Puget Sound. We’d stay with him and his family for two or three weeks at a crack. They had a house by the edge of the forest, which I loved. I could walk right off their terrace and disappear into the trees. There I could light up and be alone with my smoke. While this kind of privacy was nice, it was a breeding ground for weirdoes. One such weirdo was Lance’s next door neighbor. I can remember seeing the guy a few times from my smoke post. The most memorable occasion was when I was seventeen.

I was sitting on a stump puffing a cigarette. I saw the guy come out the back of his house carrying a lopsided tower of shit. There were water bottles, canned foods, flashlights, First Aid kits, etc. He took it all down to what I assumed was his basement. When he came back up I caught a hard look at him. His hair was an exploded carrot and his glasses were crooked on his nose. He was breathing heavily and sweating up his wife-beater. I snubbed my cigarette on a mushroom cap and made for the house. Lance was out on the terrace watering his tomatoes. I walked up to him and smirked.

“What the hell is your next door neighbor’s deal?” I asked.

Lance smiled with half his face.

“Who, Gus? Don’t mind him, he’s a fucking idiot.”

“Haha, why’s that?”

“Oh he buys all that Y2K crap, so he’s getting himself ready for the end of the world.”

I vaguely recalled hearing something on the news about the possibility of a global digital meltdown the coming New Year’s Day. I knew it had something to do with computers only being able to store two decimal digits and suddenly flipping back to 1900. I voiced this to Lance and he laughed.

“God, that’s garbage. I can’t wait till January first comes. I’m gonna march right over to Gus’s bomb shelter and tell him what a gigantic moron he is.”

Lance and I cracked up. Gus stumbled out his back door with another pile of supplies. New Year’s Day came and went. I barely remember the fireworks.

….

The years rolled by. Though there was no apocalypse, a lot of bad things happened. Airliners slammed into New York’s Twin Towers and reduced them rubble. America went to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The economy tanked around the world. BP dumped five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes, cyclones and earthquakes caused mass destruction in Southern Asia and the US. And in Fukushima, Japan a 130-foot tsunami engulfed a nuclear power plant and triggered the release of countless amounts of radiation into the Pacific Ocean.

All of the above is merely a fraction of the horror that transpired. Despite this, I was able to maintain an aloof attitude towards it. Sure a few things shocked me here and there. But with enough booze, bimbos and bullshit, I could easily cloud my mind into grey indifference.

….

After blasting all over the planet like this, I settled in Prague. It was the ideal spot for me because the alcohol is cheap, the girls are pretty, the teaching is here, and the winters are long. This last one was especially important to me. I’m a huge lover of sunshine so I knew that if I moved somewhere like Thailand or Brazil, I’d never get any writing done. My main goals when I came here were to edit my first book and bang out my second. Three winters in and I was well on my way.

At the start of my fourth, I blew the sun a kiss and got down to the heavy writing again. I drilled out chapter after chapter after chapter. I took a little break to see my family in Cali at Christmas. Come January, 1st (2014), I was back at it here in Prague. Things flowed smoothly down the same vein. I began rewarding myself with ripped weekends on the town. These weekends became more frequent. Soon the liquor was spilling into my weekdays. I woke up one morning in March with the sun blazing through my curtains. My windows were actually hot to the touch. The previous Marches had been snowy and freezing. I realized the passing winter had been more of a spring. This explained my binge drinking. It also explained my stumbling productivity.

I made a focused effort to get back on track. Within three weeks, I had my writing up to speed. Instead of drinking, I rewarded myself by diddling on Facebook. On one such occasion, I came across an alarming post. The title read “New U.N. Report: Climate Change Risks Destabilizing Human Society.” I remembered that hot “winter” morning and clicked. The article’s contents were terrifying. They said, quote:

“For the first time, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has scientifically linked the changing climate with the destabilization of nation states. It is also increasingly confident of serious effects on food crops, water supplies, and human health, plus global species loss … Unless we change our path, the simple answer is: Climate change could put our future into question.”

Something snapped on inside my head. I could feel the fog peeling apart like a steamed onion. I wondered if this information would affect others the same way. I posted it on Facebook and waited. Over the course of an hour it garnered a few likes. Someone’s cross-eyed selfie below boasted 40 comments. My fingers curled in anger.

“What the fuck is wrong with these people?!” I yelled.

I thought of myself not three weeks prior. The answer was clear. My peeps needed more exposure. I did too.

….

That week, I tried to get on it. I did a bit of research but was sidetracked by my writing. I had my poetry reading at Alchemy the following Monday to prepare for. I also had a ton of work to do on my book. All this lasted through the weekend. That Sunday night, however, I was left with a few free hours. I used them to watch documentaries on YouTube. I’d recently gotten into the TV-series Vice, which does awesome docs on some of today’s craziest political and cultural topics.

I punched through a few of them. They were good and I wanted more. I scrolled down further to see what I could find. I came across an interesting one entitled “Apocalypse, Man.” The cover-pic was of an old guy bearing his teeth. He had sweaty hair and wild eyes. His face was red as a cherry. It dinged me sidelong like a stray rock.

“Good Christ, he looks like Gus,” I muttered.

I saw that the documentary had six parts. I decided to watch it the next day after my reading. I closed my computer and hit the sack. Sleep took me with strange fingers.

….

The next day I was tired. I hadn’t slept well due to a general feeling of anxiety. I made it though my classes and came home for a nap. It was a fruitless exercise, so I went over my poems. At 7:00 pm I hit the road. I made it to Alchemy in time for the open-mic sign up. Everyone there was excited about the readings. My mind was still glued to “Apocalypse, Man.” I sat through poem after poem after poem. I read mine, slammed a beer and came home. My computer was there waiting for me like a silent maw. I clicked its teeth and its throat lit up. The documentary started rolling. It opened with the toll of a bell and these words:

“How would you know if you were the last man on earth?” he said.

“I don’t guess you would know it. You’d just be it.”

A smoking mountain came into focus. An unseen man began narrating. His voice was raspy and urgent. As scenes of global mayhem crawled across the screen, he warned us.

“The planet is being destroyed all around us,” he said. “Using money to try to address that problem is shooting yourself in the foot. Evolve or perish, grow up or die. An entirely new level of human consciousness is needed right now … or we’re all dead.”

An explosion rocked a nuclear power plant. My eyes, ears and mouth blew open. My heart sucked in and out like a balloon. I was flush with needles but I was listening. The man continued speaking. He said we fought our hardest at the moment of death. He said he was ready to die. Then the camera showed his face. It was red and haggard. Tears jittered around his pollywog eyes. He clenched his jaw and breathed in deeply. When he exhaled, he said:

“The Scout’s knife is sharp on both edges. It cuts in both directions.”

The words “Apocalypse, Man” faded in to nails-across-the-blackboard guitar. From the confines of a teepee, the man in question (Michael C. Rupert) told his story. He mentioned his well-known documentary “Collapse.” He told of his books “Crossing the Rubicon” and “Confronting Collapse.” He spoke of his career as an LAPD narcotics detective. He said he’d begun questioning the validity of that career because he’d caught the CIA bringing drugs into the country in the late 70’s. He explained that some twenty years later, he confronted the then director of the CIA, John Deutch on national television about CIA drug distribution.

“That confrontation and John Deutch’s poor handling of it cost him his job …” he said.

After being thrown on to the world stage by this incident, Michael started a newsletter called “From the Wilderness.” With it, he and his team attempted to blow the lid off a great many government cover-ups. In the process, however, they were accused by some as being conspiracy theorists. The stress of this, compounded by the deteriorating world situation via wars, peak oil, tar sands, and fracking, pushed Michael to wash his hands of everything and move into isolation. He chose the valley outside Creston, Colorado as it’s the home of his friend (and former band-mate) Doug Lewis. Michael’s plan was simple:

“I came here to die or commit suicide,” he said.

Upon arrival, he met Lakota medicine man, Christopher Long. He doesn’t say this, but I suspect Christopher’s spiritual teachings had a lot to do with why Michael decided to shirk death and keep going.

….

In parts 2-6 the documentary fettered in many directions. The meat of it, however, was delivered right there in that teepee. Mike broke it down for us in a matter of minutes.

“Where I am,” he said. “With the prioritized threats facing humanity … there are only two. One is climate collapse. The collapse of the jet stream, global warming, in which we know of an absolute scientific certainty that we have baked a 4 degree centigrade rise above baseline, baseline being the start of human industrial civilization … The second threat, which is more imminent, is Fukushima.”
According to Mike, the tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant at Fukushima is the more imminent threat because of its not-yet-collapsed fourth tower. He claimed that this now-crumbling tower “contains the radiation equivalent of 15,000 Hiroshima bombs.” All of the measures to secure it have thus far failed. If it collapses, he said, it will be a “human extinction event.”

Hearing this information put my jaw in my lap. I was up till 4:00 a.m. staring at the ceiling.

….

The next day I was in a panic. I did everything I could to effectuate change. At the supermarket, I bought organic vegetables and chicken. At home, I separated all my plastics down to the soda cap. I then went on Facebook and posted “Apocalypse, Man.” My headline read:

“I have no snooty hook. Just please, please watch this.”

My post got a whopping ONE like. I slammed my fist down and screamed. For the next five hours I did research on Fukushima. Though I didn’t find much on the infamous “tower four,” what I did find concerning the other three destroyed towers was pretty scary. According to “Greenpeace:”

“Many people have been exposed to significantly elevated levels of radiation. Thousands of square kilometres have been contaminated and will be for many decades to come by radioactive fallout from the accident.”

Despite this, they claimed that “it’s not the apocalypse.” I was confused and wondering if this wasn’t a cover-up. I did what I always do in times of great stress. I emailed my Dad, the big chemist. I sent him all the shit that was frightening me. I told him to call me after he’d gone through it. That evening, I got his call. I was chewing my nails off when I answered the phone. He asked me how I was doing.

“I’M FUCKING FLIPPING OUT!” I said.

He told me to “cool down.” I took a few deep breaths and did. We started talking about the information I’d sent him. The first thing to come up was “Apocalypse, Man.”

“So what the hell do you make of this guy, Mike?” I asked. “Is he crazy right or just crazy?”

My Dad cleared his throat.

“Well, he’s a whistleblower. This means he’s out there lookin’ for stuff.”

“Yeah? Well, what if he’s right? What if climate change and Fukushima do end the world?”

“I don’t know about Fukushima ending the world, but he might be right on climate change. Any idiot can see that global weather patterns are all screwy. Christ, your uncle Jim out in Chicago was just telling me what kinda winter they’re havin’. He’s still freezing his balls off.”

“God, that’s scary. We just had the warmest winter on record here.”

“I know, I was reading about it.”

“Well, what if it keeps getting worse? That Michael guy was saying that if Fukushima didn’t take us out, climate change for sure would by 2030.”

There was a pause. I heard my father scratch his beard.

“Something like this might happen,” he said. “But I suspect we’ll be OK.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you look at history, when the shit hits the fan, it’s usually the very poor who are affected most.”

I felt a wave of relief. This was followed by a greater wave of guilt.

“Are you saying they’re a buffer for us?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Well, then who are we a buffer for? The rich? And them, the super rich? What kind of fucked up system is this?!”

My Dad told me to “cool down” again. I refused.

“You know, maybe Mike was right. I mean, during one of his rants he said the fix for this isn’t about more technology but more spirituality. The native populations of the world have always created a balance with their environments. And all we do is fuck everything up!”

“Do you really wanna go back to living like an Indian?”

“I don’t know. But there’s gotta be some fuckin’ thing we can do besides just fracking and jacking off.”

….

I ended the conversation with my father. My face was red and my scalp was sweating. I lied in bed and tried to meditate the anger away. It clung to my heart with black talons. A slow, sinking feeling overcame me. I was being pulled through the middle of the bed. I clawed at my sheets and kicked at the air. A voice in my ears kept saying:

“Useless … Useless … Useless …”

I fell through space. My back cracked the sky and I landed on a green hill. There were many green hills around. Their grass dissolved into a grey sea. I stood up and brushed my knees off. I saw others doing the same. We all looked at each other. Then the earth started rumbling. I tried to catch my balance. My foot slipped and I went tumbling downwards. Others tumbled with me. As they approached the sea, they were covered by earth and crushed like wet grapes. Their screams hissed from their splitting skin. I felt my brain wrinkles swell. I threw my eyes backwards. An enormous boulder was crashing down at me. I tore my mouth open and screamed. The boulder slammed into me and I awoke.

….

The next day I was a wreck. I staggered through my classes like a man made of glass. Every wind-rustle threatened my composure. It was a miracle I made it home in one piece. I ate a bland lunch and stared at my computer screen. It stared back at me like an endless corridor. I searched it for something I could use. I watched more documentaries and did more research. The horizon went from grey to black. I saw proof that we’re turning our ocean waters into plastic. I saw killing after killing after killing in Mexico, Pakistan, Syria, and the Ukraine. I contemplated my abilities against all this.

“I’m not a scientist,” I sighed. “Nor, a politician.”

This got me thinking about “Apocalypse, Man.” I remembered what Michael had said in the beginning about the “Scout’s knife” being sharp on both edges. I decided to watch the documentary again. I came across a part of it I’d overlooked. In it, Mike was sitting in his teepee. He was smiling painfully and explaining what he’d meant.

“I’m a scout for all ‘two-leggeds,’” he said. “‘Two-leggeds’ being a native reference for all human beings.”

He said he was one of the first. He said he’d been unaware of this until he’d met his Indian teacher. He grabbed at his belt.

“That’s why the scout’s knife is sharp on both edges,” he said, whipping it out. “It cuts your life to go out into the world of the enemy and see what they are … [But] ya gotta bring back a good scouting report. Ya gotta do it with honor … once you get to the belly of the beast you have to make your way back to the light, to balance.”

He explained how at the start he’d walked alone.

“[But] I realize [now] that I’m not alone,” he said. “I see other really exceptional people rising up and innovating and kicking ass and leading … leading.”

Hs last word drilled into my ears. I looked at my hands and saw hope. My fingers came to life and wove this story. I pass the knife to you …

….

While writing this piece, I discovered that Mike had committed suicide soon after I’d first watched his documentary. He was found in his home with a “single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNVHbzlzUS8

 



 

 

 

Note: I reserve the right to occasionally alter the character names, descriptions, and/or event details in my posts for the purposes of identity protection and “fluidity of story.” If this puts a kink in your panties, read someone else’s blog, homey.

Machinegun Wally (Part 2)

The silence between me and Wally continued. It was actually quite nice. Sure he was a vinegary old prick when I’d catch him in the hall. But at least he wasn’t asking me to wipe down the toilet with a silk towel or demanding I trim my butt hairs for aesthetic purposes. This went on for about a week. Then I got an email from Fuckface. The subject line was “Hi.”  Below are the contents of that email:

“Hans, how is it there? Please, can you be nice to that guy? U talk to him the way that he though that u want to beat with him. Now he is scared that u can even poisoned his food. Can u solve it with him? I payed 2 month after Michael (referring to “Michelle,” our previous flat-mate) and its hard to find someone to that room. Thanx a lot. He is a nice guy. Don't akt please as a mad man.”

I was tempted to tell Fuckface to shove it. This desire was overridden by the fact that if I didn’t at least try to make amends with Wally, the guy might leave, after which point Fuckface would surly seek to charge me for the empty room. I told homeboy I’d take care of it. I wrote Wally a letter saying we should talk. It evoked no response from him. I knew I had to go bolder. One afternoon, I knocked on his door. He opened it in his mustard-stained t-shirt.

“Hey man, I know we’re having problems,” I said. “But I really don’t wanna fight anymore.”

Wally stared at me from behind his reading glasses. I didn’t know whether he was gonna drop dead or bite my nose off. Suddenly, his face softened. The tiniest smile parted his lips.

“I don’t exactly want to fight also,” he said. “Let’s just agree on this.”

….

A sense of calmness pervaded our flat. Wally now worked nights so I never saw him. I had the whole joint to myself. This was great because it meant I could let the lunatics hiding in my bones out. I walked the halls naked. I drank with abandon and banged out poems on my computer. When I took showers, I sang songs. Many of them were about Wally. My favorite was one I entitled “WWFF.” It went something like this:

“Wally! Wally! Fat Fuuuck! Fat Fat Fuuuuuuuk! Fat Fuuuck! Fat Fat Fuuuuuuuk!”

Once, while I was in the middle of howling this little ditty, I had a lucid moment. I wondered what I, a thirty two years-old man, singing “Wally! Wally! Fat Fuck!” to himself in the shower, might look like to another person. The thought terrified me at first. Then a thousand screaming hands ripped it to pieces. I collapsed in the shower, laughing. The entire flat filled with my laughter.

After that, I was downright happy. Wally’s crummy little peccadilloes couldn’t get to me. I dusted the sound of him cooking at 2 am off my shoulders. I snubbed my nose at his blanket of back-hair covering the tub. His cigarette smoke went in one nostril and out the other. Even his hacking, his infernal fucking hacking, was reduced to a mouse fart. I was a mad king in an empty castle. Wally just rented a candle flame.

….

One Tuesday, I came home from work, whistling. I opened the door to my room and strolled in. Just then, I heard a stirring in the hallway. I looked back and saw Wally standing there in his sweats. My veins hiccupped.

“What are you doing home?” I asked.

Wally frowned miserably and bumped the floor with his big toe.

“My boss is a shit,” he said. “Just today, he fired me.”

“What?!”

“Yes, can you believe this? He didn’t ever give me a notice. Only today came to me and fired. What will I do now? Go back to Lebanon? There is always war. I will for sure be in streets with a machinegun.”

The thought of Wally lumbering through the streets of Beirut with a machinegun was disturbing. The thought of him hanging around our flat all day every day until he left, was equally disturbing. I asked if there wasn’t another job he could find. He shook his head slowly.

“It will be very, very hard. I am only IT guy and there are many in Prague. Plus, I am from Middle East. Employers prefer Czechs or Slovaks because they will stay here. I was lucky to find this one job, which I had.”

“Well, don’t you know anyone here?”

“Not one person. I came here for experiment, that’s all. Now, I am seeing it is a shit. I will try to find something for next three weeks. If I don’t, I will leave to Beirut.”

I felt bad for Wally. But three solid weeks of him piddling around our flat in a mood would be a nightmare. I wondered if Fuckface knew of any available jobs (preferably with long nightshifts). I got online to ask him. When I clicked open my post box, I saw I already had an email from him. In it he complained that Wally still hadn’t paid his second month’s rent. I went to Wally and asked him about this. He told me he’d already given Fuckface a deposit, which he’d use to pay for his last three weeks. This seemed fair given the circumstances. But if I knew Fuckface, he was counting on that money to party with in The Gulf for his honeymoon. I knew he’d come back furious. Even still, I advised Wally to stick with his plan.

….

I was certain Wally would be grumpier during the following weeks. I was also certain he’d be more demanding. What I didn’t account for was him becoming particular to the point of weirdness. The crap he pulled was almost breathtaking. For starters, he began separating his garbage. He’d put it in a knotted trash bag next to the can. From there he went on to separate more of “his things.” He put his fruit on the windowsill, his dishes on the counter’s edge, his soap in the top cupboard, and his sponges in the bottom. He even went so far as to throw away my vegetable container. When I asked him about it he said:

“I’m sorry, but your vegetables were too close to mine and making them stink.”

I tried to choke this all down. It kept getting worse. One night I was walking to the bathroom. Wally opened his door and scowled.

“Do you have any big soft sandals?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Yes. When you walk by my room it’s waking me up.”

“But I wear socks!”

“This is not helpful. The tiles are old and loud. You must wear big soft sandals.”

I told Wally to shove his “big soft sandals” up his “big soft ass.” I hoped that would shut him up. The fucker just got weirder. He started demanding I keep the door to my room completely closed “at all times.” I told him that was insanity.

“Why the hell should I do that?!” I asked.

He pretended not to hear me. I yelled my question at him again. He poked his head in my room.

“Don’t ask why,” he said. “Just do it.”

“I’m not gonna shut the door to my room every time I take a piss!” I said.

“No? Then you are clearly an uncivilized Bedouin!”

“Ha! I’ve partied with Bedouins in the deserts of Egypt. They are nice people. I’m glad to have you think of me as one!”

My defiance infuriated Wally. In an effort to demonstrate what he expected of me, he started slamming his own door just to use the toilet. He even took to locking it.

What in Christ’s name is his deal? I thought.

One evening, just before Fuckface returned from Dubai, I was at the stove cooking. Wally opened the kitchen door and walked up next to me. He poked his nose over my food and sniffed. Then he licked his lips.

“I’m going to be frank with you,” he said. “And I want that you be honest.”

“Ok?”

“Have you been entering my room when I’m not home?”

My knees buckled. I almost dropped to the floor laughing. It took me a few seconds to cringe away the smile.

“Absolutely not,” I said.

“Well, what about your friends? Or those girls you bring home? Do you think they have entered my room?”

“Why on earth would ANYONE go in your room?”

“I don’t know. Nothing is missing. But I am ninety nine percent sure they are entering.”

“How?”

“I won’t tell you this. But I know for sure. Anyways, if it is not you or your friends, it is probably old tenants who have keys and are coming in, or possibly strangers who made copies. You should be very careful.”

I was stunned. Any attempt to make sense of Wally’s horseshit was now futile. I needed a witness to prove I wasn’t going insane. I called up my childhood buddy Bert, who also lives in Prague. He answered the phone, chewing.

“Zhuuuuuuup?’ he said.

“Hey man, you know that Wally guy I’ve been telling you about who’s my new weird-ass flat-mate?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, dude I think he’s going crazy.”

“Haha, why?”

I proceeded to give Bert a detailed account of the past two weeks. He laughed his balls off the entire time.

“I gotta meet this guy,” he said.

I told him it would have to been soon. Fuckface would be arriving that weekend and would surely want Wally out by the end of the following week. We agreed Bert would come over that Saturday. We’d drink it up in the common area and hope for a chance encounter with Wally. Bert ended the conversation with a single statement.

“I wanna see a show.”

….

Saturday came. I waited in front of the grocery store for Bert. We were gonna select that evening’s beverage. Then go up to the flat, have a few and see what transpired. As I stood there fixing my coat, a figure appeared. He was whoofing up the hill his sunglasses. His gut was jiggling and his titties were flapping. As he got closer, I realized it was Wally. I gave him a curt “hello.” He gave one back and walked up the ramp to the grocery store. Just then I saw Bert come around the corner. I pointed to Wally and mouthed “That’s him!” Bert brought his teeth out and laughed. He walked up and we went in the store together. As we passed the produce, I said:

“Should we try and talk to him?”

“Why not?”

We rounded the corner. There was Wally scowling at a container of yogurt.

“How’s that shit lookin’?” I asked him.

He glanced at me and sneered. He put the container back and walked off. Bert and I cracked up into our fists. Then it was off to the alcohol section. We bought a bottle of whiskey and brought it up to the flat. We started drinking and chatting about travel. The idea of going to Olomouc the following weekend came up. We’d both had it with Prague and needed to get out. We agreed we’d split the coming Friday. This put us in fantastic moods. We broke out the iPod dock. The tunes blared and the drinks poured. Soon the entire common area was swollen with good vibes. Then the kitchen door opened. Wally marched in wearing nothing but flannel. A storm cloud rumbled and flashed above him. He dragged his rain right through the middle of our party. He went to the windowsill (where his fruit was) and snatched a banana. As he turned back around, I rose. I looked him in the eyes and winked.

“How ya’ doin’ there, guy?” I said.

He walked past me without saying anything. He left the kitchen and went to his room. After his door shut, Bert laughed.

“Dude, he knows you’re fucking with him,” he said.

“I don’t care. He’s not just gonna come in here and shit all over our good time. Seriously, man, I’ve had it with him. But whatever, I wanna have fun tonight.”

Bert and I tried to reanimate the good vibes. The minute they came back, so did Wally. This time it was to wash out his coffee mug. As he scrubbed away at the sink, I approached him.

“Hey, bro, what’s your deal?”

Wally didn’t answer. He just continued scrubbing. When he finished he brushed past me. As he reached for the door handle, I said:

“You just gonna ignore me?”

He turned and shot me a look. It crippled the remains of my good mood. I still had the wherewithal to keep it together. I stood there, clenching my jaw. Wally opened the door.  He stepped past the threshold and slammed it. The blowback knocked my bones loose. Rage welled up in me like a charging tiger. I threw open the door and caught Wally in the hall. He stopped walking and turned to face me.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER, DON’T YOU EVER SLAM THAT FUCKING DOOR AGAIN!” I screamed.

Wally dangled his arms and blinked.

“I was the wind,” he said.

“BULLSHIT! YOU SLAMMED IT! YOU DO THAT AGAIN AND I’LL NAIL YOU TO THE FLOOR!”

He left without a word. I went back to the common area and sat down. Bert’s face was in a state of shock. I reached out and clinked my drink against his.

“Was that enough of a show for ya’?”

“Haha, yeah, but now I’m worried.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, there’s something about that guy. Like maybe he holds it all in. Then one day, BOOM!”

“He ain’t gonna do shit. Let’s just get back to it.”

We tried to “get back to it.” The mood was officially spoiled. We kept thinking Wally was gonna kick the door open and blast us apart with a machinegun. Lord knows, we probably deserved it. The entire common area was silent. It stayed that way for a while. When we thought the coast was clear we started drinking again. The alcohol made us sentimental. We began to feel for the poor sap. He had just lost his job, after all. We contemplated inviting him to drink with his. Miraculously, he returned. I glanced at his hands to see if there was a weapon there. When I saw there wasn’t, I said:

“Hey Wally, wanna drink?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

He filled a glass of water over the faucet. He looked absolutely miserable.

“Hey look man, I’m sorry about what happened,” I said.” It’s just that you slammed the door and I lost my temper.”

“It’s OK.”

“Well dude, at least come and chill with us. If you do, I’ll light up the hookah.”

Wally’s eyes sparked. A grayness behind them drowned the sparkles. He set his glass down and looked at me.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because. I don’t know how to talk with people. When I do, it is just shit coming from my mouth.”
His words were like a long needle. They popped my heart and sent it withering to the ground. I wanted to tell him he was wrong. All I could muster was:

“I understand.”

Wally told us to enjoy our night and walked out. Six days later, Fuckface kicked him out. He left Prague jobless, friendless and penniless. I pray he’s not in the streets of Beirut with a machinegun ...

Note: I reserve the right to occasionally alter the character names, descriptions, and/or event details in my posts for the purposes of identity protection and “fluidity of story.” If this puts a kink in your panties, read someone else’s blog, homey.

Machinegun Wally (Part 1)

I woke up in a friend’s bed. It was New Year’s Day and my ears were ringing. I ran to the bathroom and puked. It sounded like eels blasting from a sewer pipe.

“You OK?” my friend asked.

“Dandy.”

I came back in and collapsed on her sheets. She laughed and got up.

“I’ll make you some coffee.”

I went into the kitchen and drank the coffee. It was hot and good. My friend picked away at her laptop. When she finished sending an email, she looked up at me.

“I have this thing today,” she said. “What are your plans?”

I scratched my head.

“Well, I’m gonna finish this coffee and schlep my ass home. Then I’ll prolly meet my new flat-mate.”

“New flat-mate, huh?”

“Yep.”

I drank down the last of my scalding beverage and set the mug on the counter. My friend gave me directions to the nearest tram stop and we hugged goodbye. I walked out the front door and into the cold. It bit into me like greased teeth. I tightened my scarf and pressed on. Forty minutes later, I found the tram. I boarded it and took a seat. My head was a swimming mess. I’d just flown into Prague from SFO some thirty hours beforehand. Since that time, I’d done little but drink. In the haze, I’d failed to meet my new flat-mate, who’d moved in while I was in Cali for Christmas. My current flat-mate (who’s also the flat-owner) had told me in a previous e-mail the guy was “nice.” This meant little coming from him as he himself is a horrendous asshole.

Some fuckin' New Year, I thought.

….

I staggered to my flat. I opened the door and went inside. The place was calm and empty. I figured people were still out. I went to the toilet and had a piss. The floor and bowl were unusually clean. I zipped up and went to the washroom. As I ran soap across my palms, I noticed that the walls, tiles, tub and sink were spotless. This got me curious. I went into the kitchen to check the states of things. The floors had been freshly mopped and the counters, scrubbed. The fridge and stovetop had been wiped of their stains. The common area was neat as a pin. This left only the oven. Prior to my departure, it had been a disaster in there. Blackened cheese had hung from the grate and biscuits of carbonized slop had littered the base. I pulled down the face and had a peek. The grate and four walls were gleaming black.

I closed the oven up, smiling. Just as I did, the kitchen door squeaked. I stood up and turned around. There at the threshold was a dude in his sweats. He was bald and stocky with a crooked nose. His belly hung below his t-shirt and his eyes were deep in his face. I flinched when I saw him. When I realized who he was, I smiled.

“Hey man, I’m your flat-mate, Hans,” I said.

“Hello, I’m Wally.”

We shook hands. It was then that I noticed how hairy Wally was. His knuckles were like little unshaved crotches. His arms were like vast, public jungles. I unlaced my fingers and took my hand back.

“So,” I said. “You really did a job on this place.”

“Yeah, it needed it. Come and let me show you all things I cleaned.”

“OK?”

Wally took me on a slow tour of my flat. He pointed out every spot he’d run a brush over. We ended up back where we’d started. This brought him to the oven.

“I’m sorry, but this one was really disgusting,” he said. “When you cook, just place our black pan underneath to catch the food, which is falling.”

Our black pan?

“Listen,” I said. “I use that pan to bake chicken with so I don’t wanna dirty it too bad. How ‘bout I just put a doubled sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom?”

Wally blinked at me like I’d just ripped a fart up his schnozz.

“Use the pan,” he said.

I could feel my insides heating up. The nerves along my spine popped loose. A deeeeep breath saved me.

“I’ll take care of it,” I said.

….

That night I thought about how I’d approach the situation. I was very much divided.  Part of me wanted to bum rush Wally and backhand the fucker across the mouth. The other, more reasonable part of me thought back to my college days when I’d been the annoying new flat-mate. I’d moved in with someone I’d barely known. He was a soft-spoken Persian guy named Roy, who plucked his eyebrows and took hour-long dumps. He was very particular about how he wanted our flat kept.

“This place has to look nice,” he told me. “Otherwise, any girls we bring home will judge us by it.”

I nodded under my beanie and proceeded to give two shits. While Roy worked his buns off to keep our flat in a relative state of cleanliness, I helped him out by leaving my dishes unwashed, tossing my clothes everywhere, and throwing temper tantrums every time he told me nicely to flush twice. Had I followed his advice I might have gotten laid more than the zero times I did while living with him. But as things were, Roy pulled pussy like a bowl of milk, and I pulled it in silence like a god damned loser.  Despite all this, Roy had been patient and kind with me. I figured it was my turn to do the same with ol’ Wally.

….

Over the next ten days, I tried to befriend the lout. This wasn’t an easy task as our work schedules rarely matched. Even still, I managed to get him talking one evening. He told me he was forty five, Christian and from Beirut. I told him I’d studied Arabic in college. I rattled off a few phrases and he got a kick out of it. I mentioned I had a hookah and his eyes lit up.

“I am loving hookah!” he said.

“Really?”

“Yes, but only this very well-prepared hookah with Isfahan tobacco.”

“Well, hey, I do a pretty good hookah. We should smoke it together sometime.”

Wally grinned sweetly.

“Don’t be offensive, but I am from the land of the hookah so I’m sure you can’t do it correctly.”

I raised an eyebrow and cracked my knuckles.

“Wanna bet?”

“Sorry?” he said.

“Nothing. Anyways, my offer stands. Have a good one.”

….

Though our little chat hadn’t made us instant friends, it had at least opened the lines of communication. I hoped this might be a good thing. For a while it seemed to be. We talked a few times about Lebanese culture and whatnot. Then Wally shifted tracks. He started engaging me only to make demands. At the top of his list was addressing the freezer issue. I’ll admit, it looked like a Yeti cave in there. He wanted us to get together and bang the ice out. That way we’d have more space. When he’d approached our other flat-mate with his plan, the guy had blown him off. This left yours truly holding the bag. I told Wally we’d get to it eventually. He wasn’t pleased with this answer.

The days passed. I woke up one Saturday morning with a fabulous headache. I’d spent the entire night prior, guzzling beers and writing poems. I hadn’t gone to bed till 4 am. I walked into the bathroom and took a shit. When I came out, Wally was standing at the door. His gut looked atrociously big. He hadn’t shaved in a week. I asked him what the problem was. He pursed his lips into an “M.”

“I would really like to manage the freezer,” he said.

My mouth fell open and my eyes rolled back.

“Now?!”

“Well yes, or at latest tonight. I believe I was very patient with you.”

I had a party to attend that evening so option two was out the window. This left “right fucking now.” I stomped to my bedroom and threw on my shirt.

“Let’s get this over with.”

I followed Wally into the kitchen. He opened the freezer door and winced. The ice inside was swollen and grey. It looked like an arctic bunghole. Wally reached in there and started pulling things out. As I’d been to a zabijačka (i.e. “pig-slaughter”) ten weeks prior, the stuff he produced wasn’t pretty. There was every type of crystallized sausage. Not to mention, frozen headcheese, blood soup, and pork belly. He stacked it all up on the counter. It looked like the forgotten remains of a snitch from Tony Soprano’s ice chest. I sized up the pile and asked him “What now?” He fingered his bellybutton delicately.

“Well, I need something to hit the ice. Do you have a hammer?”

I thought of the labyrinth of cabinets in our hallway. I was sure there was a hammer in there somewhere. Problem was, our other flat-mate (whom I will henceforth refer to as “Fuckface” for the sake of convenience), has a decade’s worth of garbage stored therein. Thus, finding anything specific is nearly impossible. I told Wally to check the cabinet opposite the kitchen anyway. He went over there and opened it up. An ancient vacuum tumbled apart at his feet. He kicked away the pieces and reached in. I heard a squeaking noise, then a loud “POP!”

“This will work,” he said.

He held up the leg of a chair. It was peeling and bent but it looked solid. I gave him the go-ahead salute. He crouched down and raised the chair-leg. I knew Fuckface was sleeping in the room adjacent.

This outta be good, I thought.

Wally went to town like a nutbag on a virgin. He swung and pounded and blasted away. Chunks of ice flew up everywhere. They bounced across the floor and spun into corners. The noise was unbearable. It got louder as Wally went deeper. Soon he was halfway inside the freezer. His t-shirt was up around his belly and his sweats had slid down. I could see the top of his ass crack. It looked like a hairy hell-mouth. I felt myself getting ready puke. The kitchen door swung open and distracted me. In walked Fuckface with his glasses and boxers on. His entire body was red with sheet wrinkles. He looked at me then looked down. The sight of Wally’s bounding ass crack widened his eyes. He noticed the ice everywhere and flipped.

“Vat are deez shits you are doing?!” he said.

Wally stopped pounding and turned his head.

“I am breaking the ice from the freezer. Then Hans will sweep it.”

Fuckface craned his neck and scratched it.

“Dis is idiotness. You should do grandmother remedy wit dee varm vater.”

Even Wally was blown away by Fuckface’s terrible English. I heard him eject a tiny puff of laughter.

“That would be too slow,” he said. “This way, it’s fast.”

Fuckface shrugged and left us to it. After a few dozen more slams, Wally finished. I grabbed the broom and swept up the ice. When all was said and done the freezer looked pretty nice. There was plenty of room for all our stuff. Wally told me I could have the bottom shelves, while he took top. I said “Whatever” and loaded in my shit. I walked to my bed and pitched forward. As I lied on my face, I could hear Wally mumbling. I drove in my earplugs and drifted off.

….

The freezer incident emboldened Wally. He started taking more liberties with the flat. He threw away our old dish towels on the grounds that they were “too disgusting to touch.” He rearranged our kitchen cabinets, claiming that their “management of space” was poor. He started smoking heavily in his bedroom and leaving the window shut. This stunk up the entire hallway and drove me nuts. I tried to bite my tongue, but it was tough. Wally made it tougher with his after-smoking ritual. When he’d finish a cigarette, he’d lumber into the washroom. He’d lean over the sink, snort deeply then hack up a lung’s worth of phlegm. As the washroom is next to my bedroom, I could hear everything. It sounded like a walrus battling a sever sinus condition. I asked him politely to tone it (and the smoking) down. He said he would, and then didn’t.

On a Wednesday towards the end of the month, I came home exhausted from teaching. All I wanted to do was slip into bed and die. I changed into my sweats and got to it. Suddenly, I heard Wally open his door. He stomped into the washroom and started hacking. I gritted my teeth and bore it. When it finally ended, I heard him fire up the washing machine. This blew me to the ceiling. I jumped out of bed and opened my door. Wally was already in his room. I went in the washroom and unplugged the machine. It wound down and froze. My nerves eased a little. I went back to bed and tried to sleep. It was a lost cause. Twenty minutes later I gave up. I went to the John to take a piss. When I came out I found Wally in the hallway. His mouth was pinched to an anus. I asked him “How’s it hangin’?” He lifted his hand in the air.

“Why you unplug this?” he said.

“Because, man. I was trying to sleep. Anyways, I was just about to plug it back in. It’s only been twenty minutes.”

“This is a shit!” he snapped. “You have for sure ruined my socks. Now, I will need to buy new ones. Next time, don’t unplug, just write a note that you are sleeping and I won’t wash.”

It was a reasonable request. Under reasonable circumstances I might have considered it. As things were though, Wally was driving my shit bonkers. I couldn’t help myself.

“Look, buddy,” I said. “You don’t ever tell me what to do. I’ve lived here for almost four years and you’ve barley been here a minute. But you think you can just come in, rearrange everything, and start telling me to write notes?! Fuck that!”

Wally was flabbergasted. I could tell he wanted to yell back. For some reason he bit his lip and stomped into his room. I did the same and we both slammed our doors. This jostled Fuckface. He pounded his wall and told us to shut up. I yelled the same back at him. Then I opened my computer and wrote it out.

The rest of the week was bad. Not only were Wally and I not on speaking terms but Fuckface left for Dubai to get married (a whole other story). This meant that for the next six weeks it’d be just me and the walrus. I wanted to leap from my window sideways …

Note: I reserve the right to occasionally alter the character names, descriptions, and/or event details in my posts for the purposes of identity protection and “fluidity of story.” If this puts a kink in your panties, read someone else’s blog, homey.

The Other Hans

“Hans.” Scarcely have I encountered a four letter word that’s provoked such varied responses from my peers. As an adult, their reactions to my name have ranged from mild curiosity to genuine interest.  As a child, however, their reactions weren’t nearly so favorable. From any given new acquaintance, I could expect everything from incredulous looks to gut-busting laughter.

“ Haha, Haaans?! Like the bad guy in ‘Die Hard?’” Many classmates would say.

“Yes, fucking idiot. Like the bad guy in ‘Die Hard.’”

My common cut-back may have been harsh, but it paled in comparison to what came next. Once these kids got a whiff of my irritation, they all wanted a crack at my name. I heard a thousand different word plays. Among the favorites were “Hans-Solo” and “Hans Ketchup,” “Hans Her Way,” and “Hans Down.”  There were even ones that involved my last name – Fellmann.  The most devastating of these for a pointlessly homophobic youth such as myself, would have no doubt been “Hans Feels Men.” Fortunately for me, its creator was named, “Nick Beanus.”

Despite my name being everybody’s free-for-all throughout my childhood, I at least had the distinction of being the only poor fuck with the name “Hans.”  Most times, I carried the thing around our little cow town like a genital wart – something that could indeed be teased about, but as far as I knew was unique to the adolescent ranks of Shitspeck, California.

After surviving high school, I wanted to get away from the imbeciles who’d ridiculed me for so long. Thus, I spent the summer in Europe, where finding someone with the name “Hans” was as easy as finding said genital wart – not that I would know really, just a guess.

When I returned home that September, I was eager to get back out there and travel. I quickly realized, however, that traipsing around the planet, getting drunk and screwing anything that moved required capital. As I was just in Junior College and in no position to get a real job, I turned to part-time work to fund my summer blow-ups. It was then that I heard about an opening for a food delivery driver at an Italian joint in my hometown called “Lucca’s.”

….

I showed up at the place one Monday around closing time. I inquired about the position and the manager – a Brazilian dude with greasy black hair and the mouth of a catfish named Federico – gave me the rundown and told me I could start the following day. It was money in the bag. I shook his hand and made for the door.

“Wait,” he said. “Whuss yo’ name?”

Now that I’d been to Europe and thought my name was hot shit, I dropped it with style. I curled my lip, shot my chin up n’ let ‘er rip.

“HAAANS.”

I was hoping for at least a casual inquiry as to why an American had such a name. Instead, I got a bucket of laughter to the face.

“Ha-ha-ha, Hans?! Yo’ name iz, Hans?!”

Those sour memories from the schoolyard started swelling in my brain. I almost spouted off with my go-to response, but was somehow able to refrain.

“Yes,” I said. “What of it?”

“Ha-ha, nuthin’. It’s juss that I’m surprise. Before I come here, I don’ know any Hans. Now I gonna be workin’ wit two!”

My bowels almost released into my boxers. I collected my jaw from the floor, cracked it into place and spoke.

“What do you mean ‘two’?’”

“Juss what I said, TWO! Anutha guy name Hans, he work here too!”

I was flabbergasted. Not only was there a second “Hans” in my town, but he was working at the very same restaurant where I’d just been hired! It’s funny saying this, but I was almost jealous. The presence of another with the same shit-smear across his nametag took from my dirty prestige. It was like someone had just knifed out an old battle scar of mine, and was now parading around the room with it to his mouth, poking his tongue through the middle and making fart noises.

I “humph’d” under my breath. Federico heard me and chuckled.

“Don’ werry,” he said. “He’s nat like you. This guy really special, ha-ha.”

“Really special?” I thought. “What does the hell does that mean?”

I’d have asked him but it didn’t matter. I’d be meeting my doppelganger in the flesh and there was no substitute for that. I tipped my new boss two and slipped out the front. My mind was burning with

curiosity.

….

I pulled up at Lucca’s the next afternoon with crack in my veins. I didn’t even punch my new timecard. I just went straight to the back tables where I found Federico. He was leaning cross-legged against a booth-panel, chatting up a waitress. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around.

“So where is this guy?” I asked.

“Who?” he said.

“The other Hans!”

“Oh, ha-ha. He come in at five.”

I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock.

“Damn it,” I thought. “Three more hours.”

To kill time, I started working in earnest. I folded five stacks of boxes, took three deliveries, and made two runs to the grocery store. Once five rolled around, I could barely contain myself. I stood out back, scratching my elbow to cranberries and waiting for this fucker to show up. At around 5:20 I began thinking Federico had bullshitted me. Right then, he spoke from the doorway.

“You gonna fold some more boxes?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes and turned around. As I made for the door, I heard something in the distance. It was a man’s voice but it sounded unnatural … almost like someone had run an electric wire through it and was frying it to static. The seconds clicked off and the voice grew louder. I turned my head and Federico pointed.

“Here come yo’ frien’,” he said.

I watched as a man in spandex shorts pedaled up into the parking lot. He was perched on a stilted unicycle with a megaphone to his lips, shouting nonsense at the clouds. Around his neck hung a square placard painted with red, white and blue letters. They read “HANS OLAFSON FOR PRESIDENT.”

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” I said.

Federico unhinged his lips and chuckled through his big teeth. I just stood there staring as my name-twin approached. He got about two feet from me on his unicycle then hopped off. It swiveled to the ground with a resounding “PLOP!” He picked it up with one hand and offered me the other. I was reluctant to, but I shook it.

“Err, nice ta’ meet’cha,” he said. “I’m Hans.”

“I gathered that,” I said, eyeing his placard.

It took a bit but homeboy caught my drift. He dimpled one side of his mouth, raised the opposite eyebrow and spluttered.

“Prrr, yes, yes,” he said. “Well, I’m running for president.”

“Picked up on that too.”

Now he was really confused. I figured then was a good a time as any to hit him with the news.

“Name’s Haaans,” I said.

A spring came loose in his brain. He glared at me with his owly eyes and slowly retracted his head. I tried to discontinue shaking but he gripped my hand tighter. Just when I thought his hair might catch fire, he released.

“Oh,” he quacked. “Well, I gotta work.”

With that, he slipped past us and into the restaurant. Federico and I upturned our hands and howled.

….

In the months after meeting Hans, I got to know the guy pretty well.  He was a fantastically bizarre character full of idiosyncrasies that could spook your mind down a rat hole.  My favorite of these involved his journal. He carried it folded in half underneath his sweaty armpit wherever he went. One day I got curious about the thing and asked him to show me it. He chewed the wall of his cheek in consideration and stared at me. After what seemed like minutes, he popped it from his armpit and unfolded it across a nearby table. In it were scores of esoteric phrases and acronyms stacked on top of one another in crooked patterns. He pointed to a line of letters that looked like barbed wire drawn across the page.

“Mmmmm, know what this means?” he asked.

I cupped my chin with one hand and my scalp with the other and tried to twist my brain into processing the letters.  All I managed to do was tweak my neck and hurt my eyes.

“Fuck no!” I said. “What?!”

Hans stood back proudly and raised an index finger. With the tone of a sage, he enlightened me.

“Don’t turn ketchup into peanut butter or the angry dogs will start flying over your ass cheeks in the swamp.”

“A-hoosity whu whu whu?!” I said.

He didn’t bother to elucidate further. He simply collected his journal, tucked it under his pit n’ split. A moment later, Federico came over and sat down in front of me. He could see in my face that I needed answers.

“Rememba when I tol’ you Hans was 'special'?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I meant "special" like he crazy.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he used ta’ be in a mental hospita’ but they let him out on medication. Now he work here so he even betta.”

“Better?”

….

I couldn’t fathom how Hans had been before. However, I soon learned the severity of his current state. What I once thought were quirks, revealed themselves to be deep disturbances. For instance, his journal didn’t just contain odd entries of his own crafting, but messages he believed had been sent to him by God via “107.7 The Bone” – a local rock radio station. To add to that, he thought extraterrestrials were trying to control his mind. The megaphone he often screamed at the skies with (though multifunctional) was primarily a defense against them. His deepest disturbance concerned his father – a Norwegian fisherman who’d moved to the states when Hans was a child. I never found out exactly what it was, but whenever he mentioned the man his brow would furrow down past his eyes and he’d start punching his knees violently and hissing something about his life being “a total disorganization” because of him.

Despite his madness, there was one realm where Hans could perform smoothly. I first became aware of it one night not long after we’d met one another. I was standing in back waiting for Federico to count out the tips I’d earned. Suddenly, the phone rang and Hans leapt up and grabbed it. I was expecting Federico to rip it from his hand and take the call. Instead, he winked at me and drew my attention to Hans with a jerk of his head. I watched as the blips and twitches melted from the man’s composure. He stood up straight, craned his neck and in a voice any businessman would be proud to own, said:

“Hello, Lucca’s Italian Eatery, Hans speaking. Will that be takeout or delivery?”

Every orifice in my body widened in astonishment. This lasted till the call ended. Once the phone hit the cradle, Hans shrunk back down to his fidgety self. He skewered the delivery slip then wandered off towards the stockroom.

“This why I hire him,” Federico said.

….

Although Hans was disturbed in his marrow, he’d never struck me as the dangerous type. In fact, I’d gathered that he was quite kind. I can recall at least three occasions where I watched him from the doorway as he milled around the back parking lot petting stray cats and feeding pigeons. Sure there were rumors floating around Lucca’s that he had an odd crush on some young girl. But even if they were true, that didn’t make him a bad guy.

One afternoon, about six months after having been hired, I came into the restaurant to pick up my paycheck. I didn’t see Federico (or any other staff member) up front so I headed to the back. When I pushed open the swinging doors I saw a sight that made me flinch. There, in his cream colored work slacks, stood Hans with both hands behind his back and his head slouched forward. Around him were two police officers – one male, one female – leaning into his face and shouting. The female officer had even put her hand to the wall so she could press in on Hans’ space and reduce his will to that of a carpet stain. The entire staff watched from the sidelines as the scene unfolded. I went up to Federico asked him what was going on.

“Hans went on his unicycle las’ night to that litta’ girl’s house. He was outside her window fa’ tweny minutes yelling sumthin’ with his megaphone like he loved her. Then she wake her parents up and they call police. He ride off before they catch him tho.”

“Jesus, are they gonna arrest him?”

“Don’t think so. They juss gonna scare him a litta’ so he don’t do it again.”

Federico was right. A few minutes later the cops took off, leaving Hans with a harsh warning.

“If you ever go near that little girl again,” the female officer had said. “I’m gonna personally hunt you down and imprison you for the rest of your damn life!”

Hans reacted to the threat like it was a spider dangling in front of his face. He smacked its invisible presence away from the tip of his nose then scampered off. The officers left without saying another word. None of us knew how to interact with Hans after that.

….

Over the next month, Hans’ behavior grew stranger. He started having full-on conversations with nonentities and pacing up and down the back halls of the restaurant. All of us tried to ignore it as much as we could. When he lost his ability to take calls, something had to be done. I tried to talk to him one day to see if I could bring him out of his funk. He mumbled something about homosexuality being “unnatural” then started cursing his father. I didn’t know what to make of this. I changed the subject.

“Tell me how you got your name, Hans,” I said.

I watched as the incongruous mass of mental gears slowed behind his eyes. A drop of peace suffused his weathered face and he spoke with relative clarity.

“Well, I’m Norwegian. And uh Hans is my uncle’s name.”

“Oh that’s cool. Do you see him ever?”

“Yeah but uh he died. I used to visit him in Norway. We’d go fishing together.”

“Hmmm, I like Norway. It’s a beautiful place. I was there not too long ago.”

“Yeah we’re from Bergen. I like seeing all the fjords.”

“Me too. The waterfalls and the villages nearby are also nice …”

At that point our conversation started to dissipate. I’d have brought up Norwegian troll mythology but I didn’t want to go there. Instead, I let the silence bake. I was hoping Hans would pose a few questions of his own.

Thirty seconds went by. A minute. Finally he spoke.

“Err, your name is Hans.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well how …?”

“… did I get that name? My Dad. His great-grandparents were German.  And even though he doesn’t speak a lick of German or have any real connection to Germany, I think he gave me the name cuz my mother is Mexican and has a huge family, and he didn’t want me to forget that not all my ancestors swilled mescal and wore loincloths, ha-ha.”

My racially self-deprecating joke sailed right over Hans’ head and crashed against the wall behind him. He dimpled both ends of his smirk and looked off to one side. Just then the phone rang. He shot up, grabbed it, and with cool professionalism, said:

“Hello, Lucca’s Italian Eatery, Hans speaking. Will that be takeout or delivery?”

I took this as a sign that things were back to “normal.” I walked over, patted Hans on the shoulder and wished him a goodnight. He gave me a funny grin from behind the receiver. I returned it as best I could then went off and punched my timecard.

….

The next day I rolled to Lucca’s at five. I clocked in, took a leak, and then went to the back to find Hans. I wanted to ask him if he’d ever been to Geirangerfjord – my favorite spot in Norway. I ran into Federico instead. He was sitting at a booth with a few waitresses and speaking to them in a low voice. I gathered something had happened, so I asked what was up. He turned around and looked at me. There was a disappointment in his eyes that I couldn’t place. I thought back to the previous night and tried to remember if I’d screwed up any deliveries. When I was sure I hadn’t, I asked again.

“What is it?”

He took a deep breath and folded his hands.

“Hans got arrested las’ night.”

“WHAT?!”

My first thought was that he’d been stalking that girl again. I voiced this and Federico shook his head.

“Not that,” he said.

I racked my brain to think of what else it could be. When nothing came to me, I asked. As the words “What happened then?” left my mouth, the room sunk into a pit. Federico looked away and let it crawl from his lips.

“Hans murder his fatha’ in his sleep.”

“JESUS!” I shouted. “HOW?!”

“Wit a pillow to his face. I guess they living togetha’ or sumthin’ and had a fight las’ night. Then Hans wait till his fatha’ go to sleep and he kill him.”

Even though it was his father who’d been murdered, I felt terrible for Hans. He’d never said it outright, but I knew something unforgivable must have happened to him in his life, and I suspected it was his father who’d been responsible. I felt sick to my stomach. I asked Federico if I could have the day off and he told me I could. I clocked out and went to the back lot where my car was parked. It was a cloudy day, not unlike the one I’d met Hans. I looked up at the sky and wondered where he might be.

Prolly back in a mental institution, I thought.

Suddenly, I felt a little better. Hans may have been without his megaphone and unicycle, but he’d surely have his notebook, and hopefully, a few people around who understood him.

….

After his father’s murder, I never saw Hans again. I’d heard he’d been locked up, but where and for how long I never found out. Though my memories of him are fading, I still think of him sometimes. Mostly it’s when I tell someone my name and they get all curious. They ask me where it’s from and how I got it, tell me it’s unique to the US and that so am I. But I smile bigger than I used to. Not out of pride or arrogance but because I’m thinking:

“Homey … you ain’t met ‘The Other Hans.’”

 

 

 

 

 

Note: I reserve the right to occasionally alter the character names, descriptions, and/or event details in my posts for the purposes of identity protection and “fluidity of story.” If this puts a kink in your panties, read someone else’s blog, homey.