Originally Posted Thursday, April 11, 2013
I'm on a roller coaster, up and down, up and down. Today was all of that, fun, then threatening, then awful, then peaceful. Perhaps it is simply the chemistry of getting old. I didn't want to get pissed about it, but maybe. . . ho. . . I am.
First thing today at the factory, I got into it with my favorite girl about the meaning of "hot mess." I sent her the urban dictionary definition, and she said she didn't give a shit what some nerdy white guy thought it meant. I assumed she meant whoever wrote the Urban Dictionary, so I told her it was a Palestinian in Detroit. She sent my email around to her friends, one of whom is a published poet of some repute. He scoffed at me and said something about hot do-do. Doo-doo? I threatened to write a scathing review of his slim volume on Amazon. Later, however, one of the other cool, young workers (equally female and equally black) made reference to another worker as a "hot mess." It was clear she did not mean it in a good way. My secretary laughed a big guffaw. I am old. I haven't any mastery of the lexicon any more. Not that I was ever hip or ever cared. I am just more sensitive now, I guess.
I sent my new favorite model some of the more explicit images we shot, things I might put here even though I'm trying to keep this safe for Q's progeny. She loved them, she said. "If I didn't know I was the model in the pictures," she wrote, "I wouldn't know they were me. They are figures, like Roman statues." Yes, I said. Yes, yes, yes. Which part of nakedness do people not like?
Then one of my buddies wrote an email that hinted that he did not care for them. Boom.
Later, I had to listen to the factory CEO and her Vice-Henchman opine about the state of the state, etc. to all the foremen and foremen of foremen. . . a "select" group. They are pathetic. I chose a chair in the back corner of the crowd so I could look across to see the reactions on each of their sycophantic faces. It was awful. The CEO delivered her pep talk with her newly freshened face in the tones of someone who never got to be Homecoming Queen. Her stupid shit was met with beaming smiles and viciously nodding heads to make certain she saw how much they appreciated "the wisdom." I stood out, I know, for I could not "unfrown" myself. I was the visual equivalent of a fart in the room. That used to be a positive, if you will, for the room was once half-full of disbelievers. But they have been replaced, and I haven't any support now. I am alone. Still, I cannot smile and bob and weave and coo the way my fellow foreman do, and eventually, this will be the end of me. So it is. Selah.
And then the usual. Gym, grocery store. . . but wait! An incident occurred. I like the passive voice there. Here is what happened. I pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center where the Whole Foods is located. A fellow in a new white Mercedes was driving slowly, about five miles per hour. O.K. But he kept stopping, so I tried to pull around him. Suddenly, he sped up and turned his car into mine so that I had to brake furiously. And furious I became. I got behind him and motioned to him to stop the car, to pull over, to do anything so that I could explain to him that he was. . . er. . . not behaving well. And he did. Oh, boy, was I excited, and I exited my car as fast as an old man can thinking, "I hope he is not too young and bad." He wasn't. He was a man my own age in gym clothes. I got to his car before he had his door open, so I had every advantage in the world. Except for one thing. It is not that kind of world any more. We were at the Whole Foods, for God's sake, where everyone was looking at me like they knew all along I was Charles Manson with two heads. The fellow kept reaching into something I couldn't see all the time using a charged vocabulary with me. He was used to telling people what to do, I could tell. The million dollar Mercedes (it wasn't the economy model) was one of the give aways. I kept wondering if he was reaching for a gun or a cell phone. I hoped for the gun as I knew I was in trouble if he called 911. If it was a gun, he was the one in deep shit.
Then he made a mistake. He called me an asshole. "Provocation," I yelled and dance around like a Injun chief. "Get the fuck out of the car," I said. "You don't know how much this is going to hurt, you little cunt, but you will." He was either a surgeon or a judge, I'm certain, but suddenly the arrogance went out of his face.
"Get away from me," he said. "I'm not going to fight you here in the parking lot."
"That's because you are the worst kind of bitch," I said, "a pukey little fuck. Tell me I'm an asshole again right now and I'l fuck you up."
But I was getting scared. The little voice in my head told me that this would all go wrong no matter what. It is a Brave New World. Somebody was surely recording me with their cell phone. I would be in jail soon.
And so with some final invectives, I went back to my car to get my wallet. The puke went inside.
I tried to calm down thinking, "O.K. You told him. That's enough."
But it wasn't enough. I wanted to beat him badly. Really badly. To wit, when I walked into Whole Foods, I was looking for him. He was standing at the fruit stand.
I walked up.
"Where do you want to do it?" I asked him.
"What?"
"You said you weren't going to fight me in the parking lot. Where do you want to do it?" I really, really wanted to knock him down.
"I don't want to talk to you any more," he said looking very, very nervous.
"That's because you are nothing but a big mouthed, chicken shit, little dicked bitch," I said.
O.K. O.K. I know it is all sexist and racist language. I can't help it when I'm mad. I've explained this to my friends who are "other." You revert to the language of your youth, I tell them. They say that it is O.K., they do the same thing. That doesn't make it right. . . but whatever.
I hurried through the grocery store thinking the entire time that he would "call the law" as my parents used to say, so I picked up four items, checked out, and headed quickly for my car. When I got there, he was already gone.
At home, I waited for the police. Surely the little fuck would have taken my tag number, and if he WERE a judge. . . ooo-la-la.
I've showered, drank, cooked, eaten, put in a load of laundry, washed the dishes and drank some more. Nothing yet.
I realize that these are the lonely times. I am O.K. being alone to do what I want and when I want to, but there are things you want to tell someone, to brag or confess or just confide. It is all a trade off, a tragedy of sorts. I have always seen myself as one of those monks living in the mountains in a zen poem, making tea and meditating and being simple and wise. I've imagined myself sailing a boat around the world solo. I am immune to loneliness, I've said. That is for the weak.
But tonight I wouldn't mind drinking hot sake and telling tales with someone, trying to purge myself of my guilty existence. I wouldn't mind falling into bed in the arms of some kindly lover.
But the whiskey bottle if full and the cat is bumping at my leg seeking attention. I am going to go read more Salter now before I go to sleep. Surely. . . that will be enough.
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