Despite my gratitude to Maggie’s uncle and his girlfriend for having me in their home, I’m afraid I was too quiet. Like my moods, my gregariousness is cyclic. One moment, I’ll chug-a-lug beer and raise hell with complete strangers; the next, I’m reserved to the point of shyness. One moment, I’m violently assertive; the next, I’m bitterly withdrawn. Fortunately, I didn’t experience any of the extreme moods so characteristic of MDI during the roadtrip. I was, however, injured, sick, tired, and in the midst of a mixed episode. Therefore, the combination of fatigue toxins and artificial stimulants in my bloodstream only intensified the analytical detachment that often accompanies mixed and minor depressive episodes.
When our hosts offered me a beer, I accepted it and thanked them, but focused my attention upon the degree of carbonation, the "hoppiness," etc. When they offered us a selection of imported cheeses and crackers, I was likewise polite, but couldn’t refract my consciousness into more than three or four wavelengths. Certainly, I was aware of everything around me (in minute detail, at that), but for whatever perverse reason, the mildness or sharpness of any given cheese, the species of mold used in the ripening process, the cheese’s country of origin, and subtle nuances of taste and texture (Hmm…This one’s coarser than it should be. Was it overheated when the curd was separated from the whey? Aha! What’s this, a hint of ammonia? Well damn! I reckon it is! Some unscrupulous baw’bag must have reworked this piece…) partially occluded all else. It was as if some strange body that -- while not actually opaque – was, at best, translucent, had eclipsed the "sun" of sensory perception.
I managed to avoid the dark pit of "culinary Cartesianism" ("I eat Danish cheese and English biscuits; therefore, I am…") – but not by much. My then-fiancée and her loved ones served as focus points of sorts, but I still had hyper-analytical "tunnel vision." I shudder to remember some of the questions I asked, and I’m sure they thought me completely insane.
However odd they may have considered me, they were no less hospitable for it. In addition to putting us up for the night, they took us out to eat. Now I’d never been to Fort Myers before, so I had no idea what to expect. As, however, our hosts had already impressed me with their taste in food and drink, I trusted their judgment. We were, moreover, their guests. Being both omnivorous and somewhat old-fashioned, Mags and I would never squawk: "Oh, no! We’re vegans! We couldn’t possibly eat in meat-serving murder factory built on nematode-infested earth -- the poor, helpless things! Crushed to death for man’s greed! " or "Are you sure the shark steaks are remora-safe?"
Their check -- their choice of eateries, as far as we were concerned.
Upon eying the bill of fare, though, I became more than concerned. Our hosts had selected a charming Italian restaurant in downtown Fort Myers. It was small, homey, intimate, inviting – and expensive. I’m not sure why this is (if you’ll pardon the digression), but for some perverse reason, the latest trend in restaurant décor seems to be inexpensive "mom and pop" furnishings – and ludicrously overpriced fare. The combination of plain, wooden chairs, checkered linen tablecloths and fifteen-dollar appetizers is so incongruous; it leads to cognitive dissonance – and perhaps even petite mal epileptic seizures. A cursory glance at the menu left my jaw hanging so low; I had to apply a wristlock to one of the busboys to keep him from sweeping detritus into it and dragging it off to the dumpster.
Yes, I’m a Virgo – the stingiest sign of the Zodiac. Yes, I’m of Scottish descent. And yes, we’re called "the Jews of northern Europe" for a very good reason. "Tight as a Scotsman’s purse strings" is a perfectly valid expression -- and I wouldn’t have things any other way. Given the state of the economy, I’m damned proud of my people’s "negative" cultural inheritance -- and of us, as a matter of fact. Dourness and frugality are never so deleterious to a nation’s long-term health as frivolity and extravagance.
Whilst trying to justify the establishment’s prices (a fool’s errand…), I saw extravagance morphing into exorbitance. I also saw the irresistible force of common sense on a collision course with the immovable object of hospitality. Agonizing over the menu, I remembered a (possibly apocryphal) story I’d heard as a boy, in which an American/English/other foreign tourist popped into an Edinburgh grocer’s, hoping to purchase turtle soup.
"Do you have turtle soup?" he asked the proprietor, who answered in the affirmative.
"Well, then I’d like to buy some," said the tourist.
"Och! Ye’ maunna’, sir!" exclaimed the grocer, "It’s far tae expensive!"
To reiterate, I’m a cheapskate. Be that as it may, though, fourteen bucks a plate for capellini con aglio, olio e pepperoncino was highway robbery. Feeling as if I’d picked my host’s pocket detracted from my enjoyment of the meal, needless to say.
(A few days ago, for the record, I served the same recipe to Ma Bean, Mags and Yours Truly. In addition to the pasta, I made us a seafood dish: shrimp and homegrown broccoli, sautéed until just done in a mixture of extra virgin olive oil, real dairy butter, homemade tomato sauce, onions, garlic, white wine and fresh-ground black pepper; garnished with black olives. The entire dinner – for all three of us – didn’t cost anywhere near fourteen bucks. And Mags opined that like my roast duck, my mussels and a few other dishes, it was better than any she’d had in any restaurant.)
My horror at the restaurant’s prices aside, I was also worried about keeping up the conversation. Unless I’m hypomanic, I’m not much of a conversationalist (and even then, the racing thoughts make chatting very difficult). When I’m in a mixed episode – forget it. My only choice is pick a single subject and stick to it until it’s as worn-out as Paris Hilton’s -- you know.
Maggie’s uncle is, once again, a judge. During the ‘90s and early ‘00s, my father was a practicing attorney. In addition to tax law (his specialty, and a field he enjoyed very much – being a certified tax preparer as well, he was very good at it) and whatnot, he did indigent defense for Clayton County. From ’94 until ’98 or thereabout, I worked for him, proofreading various documents, transcribing taped affidavits, etc. Therefore, one would think the judge and I would have a few things to talk about. Unfortunately, as a friend once said, "I don’t think there’s any statute of limitation on some of the shit we did when we were younger." I received the distinct impression that the good judge had met any number of guys like me during the course of his career, so I decided to play it safe and keep the conversation dull. Luckily, he and his girlfriend are both avid gardeners. This allowed me to do just that.
After dinner, we had a pleasant walk back to the car (although it isn’t very old, the "historic" section of Fort Myers is quite pretty), went home, and retired for the evening. I zonked out the moment my head touched the pillow, and slept the sleep of the dead.
For me, the real fun began the next morning. Daylight lent the place an entirely new aspect, and after a quick shower, I headed outside to take in the sights. Our hosts’ home, as I’ve said, is directly on the bank of the Caloosahatchee River. Like the Halifax River on Florida’s Atlantic coast, the Caloosahatchee is brackish, receiving, considerable "backwash" from the Gulf. Unlike the Halifax, though, it doesn’t stink; and touching its waters doesn’t cause leprosy, typhus, cholera, cancer or birth defects in the next twenty generations of one’s descendants. Leaving the veranda, I wandered across the backyard (their grass was so tall, lush and green; I almost felt guilty about walking on it) and down to the shoreline to investigate the shallows.
By day, the mangroves were even more amazing than by night. Having adapted to saltwater, they gradually extend themselves outward from the shore into the water itself, thereby effectively extending the shoreline in turn. Observing their progress, I was reminded of the Dutch and the north Germans, who had essentially claimed much of their countries from the sea centuries ago. Here was a plant that did the same thing. Balancing myself upon the arching roots and peering into the water, I noted that they sheltered tiny fish and other aquatic life. I next investigated the shoreline itself, and was amazed at what I saw. Not two yards out were beds of oysters and clams -- alive and well, to all appearances.
I love Georgia, and never intend to leave it. I’ve called it home for my entire adult life and much of my childhood, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Florida, though, sorely tempts me at times – and this particular part of Florida more than most. Like anyone born in Maryland, I acquired a taste for seafood – and shellfish, in particular -- at a very early age. In short, I’m every bit as fond mollusks and crustaceans as I am of hocks and greens. And now, here I was, looking at free food just a few feet from the property line. As I poked around at the water’s edge, new marvels vied for my attention: mummified-looking coconuts, encrusted with barnacles and salt crystals; coconuts that had actually germinated; tiny lizards that scampered back and forth between the shore and the trees, and a bewildering assortment of alien plants.
In addition to a breathtaking variety of palms, our hosts had oranges, grapefruit, loquats and other citrus trees – many laden with ripe fruit – on the property. The kicker, though, was a pair of papaya trees growing at the foot of the veranda. Not only won’t Papayas grow in Georgia; they cost a fortune -- unless one buys them on Buford Highway, where they average $0.89-$0.99/lb. In Florida, though, the damned things are considered ornamentals – rather like crabapples or cornelian cherries are here. Our hosts also had a lovely herb garden beneath the veranda. Now Mags and I had a similar one at the head of the driveway. Like her uncle and his girlfriend, we grew them in oversized pots and half-barrels. Unlike our hosts, though, we face a daily struggle against aphids, mealy bugs, spittlebugs and a host of other chewing, gnawing, sucking (I’ve got something the li’l arthropod bastards can suck, by the way…) and otherwise destructive creepy-crawlies. By early spring of this year, things had gotten so bad that we had to transplant our rosemary, sage, marjoram and catnip into the main garden. Our hosts – as I noted from the enviable health of their plants – had no such problem.
Just as one man’s trash in another man’s treasure, though, one man’s paradiso is another’s inferno. And the light is always more divine on the other side of the gate, as I suppose. A chat with Maggie’s uncle revealed that south Floridians needn’t contend with the same pests we Georgians do. They do, however, have some nasty ones of their own. Their soil is generally sandy and neutral to slightly alkaline, so they have fewer problems with such fungi as verticillium, fusarium, damping off, early blight, late blight, etc., as well. Nematodes, as it happens, are another story – and a nasty one, at that.
In Georgia, the little shits aren’t much of a problem. I suppose our dense, red clay isn’t very hospitable to them -- for all that radish maggots, onion maggots, peach borers, cutworms, cabbage loopers, and every other multi-legged moth- or fly-larva on earth think of it as Six Flags and a titty bar rolled into one. To Floridians, on the other hand, nematodes are an invasive and frequently expensive nuisance. As a guy who’s spent the last several years shooting, squashing (I once became so incensed with a hornworm; I slapped him off one of my tomato plants and dropped a pumpkin on him, at which point he burst wetly, greenly and satisfyingly), poisoning and otherwise abbreviating the lifespan of undesirable organisms in his beloved garden, my heart went out to my host. A nematode, for the benefit of any non-gardeners reading this post, is a near-microscopic, worm-like creature. As the Biblical Goliath learned at David’s hands, though: size ain’t everything. Like viruses, certain bacilli, pinkos, neocons and other pathogens, just a few of these diminutive parasites can destroy an otherwise healthy, productive plant.
Unfortunately, I could only advise my benefactor – and imperfectly, at that. Nematodes, as I’ve mentioned, aren’t much of a problem in Roswell. The few times (once in a blue moon, for the record) they’ve managed to colonize my plot, I’ve driven them off by planting African and South American marigolds. As it’s worked for me, I suggested that he give it a try. As his soil and mine are so different, though, I also mentioned the "nuclear option": purchasing the eggs of parasitic nematodes. Like pushers or politicians, they prey on their own. I don’t know whether or not I successfully released Maggie’s uncle from the clutches of his nemeses, but I hope my advice helped.
Before we left, our hosts served us breakfast – typical morning fare, plus a wonderful perk: fresh-picked oranges and grapefruit from their backyard. As we left for the opposite coast, they plied us with a box full of the same fruit and an invitation to drop by whenever we were in the area. Since winter’s as good a time as any to flee to Florida, I suppose we’ll take them up on it when the weather turns cold, grey and pissy again. By way of repaying their kindness, we’ll have to take them a large sampler box of the pickles, relishes, sauces and preserves we make from our own produce.
They also suggested that we visit a place called Echo Farms before we left Ft. Myers. Heeding their advice, we entered the address (17430 Durrance Road, North Fort Myers, for the benefit of the curious) into our GPS and were there within half an hour. Echo Farms is, in a word, incredible. Shortly before we went to Florida, Mags had read a book entitled Lasagna Gardening, and was keen to give it a try. I’d like to see the author make some money, so I won’t divulge any of the book’s secrets. Like any system, the "lasgna" method has a few flaws and drawbacks, but one can easily overcome them with a little tinkering and tweaking. For this reason, I’ll give the book a four-star rating -- and mention that the title No soil? No Problem! would have been equally appropriate. We’d discussed the book with her uncle the evening before, and he’d mentioned that we might find Echo Farms interesting, as their "no till" approach to gardening was very similar.
Before I relate any of their methods, I’ll also state that I approve wholeheartedly of Echo Farms’ raison d’etre and mission. In their own words: "Echo is a non-profit, interdenominational, Christian organization dedicated to the fight against world hunger. We accomplish this by providing consultation, agricultural information, and seeds to those working in the Third World with peasant farmers or urban gardeners. ECHO receives no government help and depends upon public donations to carry on its work."
Amen. It’s nice to see a Christian organization "walking the walk" instead of just "talking the talk" for a change. Unfortunately, they weren’t conducting tours that day, but that didn’t prevent the wife and me from "walking the walk" in our own way. Pretending to be lost, we wandered the main garden until an attendant cordially – and very politely-- invited us to fuck off. (Being a warped son of a bitch and an associative thinker to boot, I was reminded of a line from the Clancy Brothers’ "The Poor Young Man"-- for all that nothing of the sort actually befell us: "All she said was ‘Heaven bless you"/ and left a mark upon his brow/ with a kick that she had learned/ before she was saved…"
What we saw before being ushered out of the main farm was both amazing and inspiring – for all that it shouldn’t have surprised me. If the Gentle Reader will pardon yet another digression…
One summer evening in 1978, my kid brother and I – obnoxious, hyperactive li’l Scots-Irish DOD brats with soles like ten-ounce latigo and mouths like sewers – were sitting in my backyard; roasting ants with my magnifying glass, swatting mosquitoes; shrieking, "Kiss my ass, mackerel-snapper!" and similar pleasantries at the Catholic kid who lived behind us, eating boiled peanuts and wedges of fresh "icebox" watermelon my Da had purchased at a roadside produce stand that very afternoon, and (I’ve mentioned that we were obnoxious little bastards, right?) spitting the seeds at each other.
What can I say? We were bored out of our skulls-- and probably waiting for J.R. to show up, so that we could ride our bicycles off the diving board at the neighborhood pool when the lifeguard wasn’t looking, draw peckers on so-and-so’s driveway in colored chalk (we were artistically gifted little shits, even then…), take a squirt in some particularly hated foe’s mailbox, make prank phone calls while J.R.’s Ma was off to Wednesday night services at the First Baptist, or trash a rival club’s "fort." Thirty-one years later, I can’t remember why, exactly, my brother and I were fragging arthropods; treating a neighbor to a lathering of obscene, bigoted invective and spitting watermelon seeds at each other -- but we were.
As fate would have it, we were a wee smidgen too close to Da’s compost heap; a mountain of horse pucks, "rabbit raisins" and decomposing vegetation, surrounded by a wall of cinderblocks. Within a week, seedlings were popping up like utter wanktards (as workable a synonym for "stupid, fuckin’ jerk-offs" as any, to my mind) at one of Obama’s campaign rallies or one of the so-called "tea parties" that bring tears to the eyes and bulges to the trousers of the Republican party faithful. By my brother’s birthday in August, we were the proud owners (and devourers) of four lovely "icebox" watermelons. Far from being angry with us for violating the sanctity of his compost heap (and we were both shaking in our cheap, Sears-Roebuck cowboy boots over our indiscretion, you see), Da said, "Let ‘em grow. We’ll see what happens."
He thinned the seedlings, of course, and pruned the fruit down to the healthiest one on each vine – but neither of us received a whuppin’. Far from it, to be sure: the dreaded belt remained about his waist and never crossed our impudent, unruly arses even once. Being children – and thusly too naïve to appreciate our own accomplishment – we consumed the fruits of our inadvertent labor, probably had a fist-fight or two before sundown, and eventually fading out of consciousness in front of the television.
As Maggie and I made our way to the bookstore/office, it occurred to me that "Echo Farms" was an appropriate moniker, in that I could almost hear the voices of my father and brother so many years later. These good folk had raised our youthful accident to an art and a science, and had managed to employ even unfinished compost as a growing medium par excellence. I suppose it goes without saying that I liked what I saw from the moment I crossed the threshold. The bookstore was small, but filled to brimming with an eye-popping selection of gardening manuals. The sight of neat rows of books and pamphlets; the muted sound of polite conversation, and the mingled scents of the dried herbs the facility offers for sale made for a paradoxical, synaesthetic mélange – gently overwhelming; stimulating and sedative in equal measure. To be sure, the atmosphere was very different from that of the old feed-and-seed stores my father frequented (they were always musty and dim – to my eyes, they appeared half barn, half warehouse -- and smelled of the pink and blue insecticides used to treat bins of bulk seed), but the sights, sounds and scents evoked a host of pleasant, half-forgotten childhood memories. We bought a few books, made a modest contribution to the farm (I couldn’t have done otherwise), and set out for Dawn Scoville’s house.
This leg of our trip saw us leaving Fort Myers and driving all the way across the state to Palm Springs – with expired tags and drivers’ licenses… I add this only because what would otherwise have been an uneventful drive became an exercise in melodrama every time a "roller" fell in behind us. Although not directly connected thereunto, my fear of getting pinched by the blue meanies surged to the forefront of my consciousness during yet another engagement in the interminable "Krystal Wars."
Since that probably makes no sense whatsoever, I’ll take a moment to explain. In some respects, I’m an incurable "food snob." In others, though, I crave toxic garbage as much as the next guy. My vice’s siren song invariably leads me to one of two restaurant chains: Waffle House or Krystal.
I’d imagine the former needs only a cursory explanation. Like any late ‘80s/early ‘90s boozehound or stoner, I often favored Waffle House with my custom at "zero dark thirty." In addition to serving cheap, filling grub to aimless young degenerates in search of caffeine and short-term respite from the ravages of one or more psychoactive chemicals, Waffle House afforded one the chance to indulge in what Desmond Morris called "manwatching."
Of all the terrestrial mammals, H. sapiens is by far the sickest, most dysfunctional and most interesting. As luck would have it, the sickest, most dysfunctional and most interesting specimens of humanity are often nocturnal – and just as often eat at Waffle House. Granted, our greasy spoon of choice wasn’t Carver Homes or Bankhead Court, but it provided ample opportunity for "freakwatching" and similar diversions.
Let’s face it, Gentle Reader; when, at four a.m., one craves steak, eggs, hash browns and the chance to observe an unwashed, spittle-spewing nutcase as he gesticulates wildly and complains of Pleiadean mind-worms hosting a Led Zeppelin reunion around his anus, Waffle House is the only way to go. It’s the AK-47 of all-night eateries, actually -- when you absolutely, positively have to kill every last motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes. In many respects, as a matter of fact, it’s like a 24-7 MARTA train.
My buddies and I were too young, naïve and arrogant to bask in the warm, glowing aura of irony and hypocrisy that enfolded us, though. At forty-two, it occurs to me that every time we sprawled in our booth, shoveling down gobbets of barely cooked beef, eggs and fried starch, snickering: "Look at the fuckin’ losers over at that table, dude! What a bunch of douche-bags!" -- the fuckin’ losers at the other table were probably saying the same about us.
I’ve heard it said that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones – and my friends and I didn’t. No, by God, we built functional, full-scale onagers, catapults, and trebuchets…
Becoming such an obtuse, clueless asshole isn’t easy, but it is possible -- with the aid of cheap suds (Hamm’s, Schaefer, Iron City, Olympia, Carling Black Label and "the Beast" – a.k.a. Milwaukee’s Best – are especially conducive to this end) and marijuana. Now I was never a heavy-duty pothead, Gentle Reader. I could take it or leave it. To be sure, I smoked my share of "wacky tabbacky" -- and your share, your wife’s share, your kids’ share, etc.-- during my wayward youth, but I much preferred Valium, Fiorinal, Percodan, and any upper, from "dexies" to meth. Oh yeah – and booze. That fact, however, is so well known; it merits no further mention.
In the penultimate sentence of the last paragraph, I mentioned crystal meth. Under normal circumstances, I could smoothly glide from "crystal" to Krystal, but I’m not normal – and doing so would be predictable and irritating. Besides, I was discussing marijuana, which is much less expensive than methamphetamine, and leads to short-term memory – uh, what was I just saying?
Therein,
then, lies the transition. Bluntly put, there’s no reason to eat at Krystal unless one is stoned out of one’s gourd and damn-near broke (often a direct consequence of blowing one’s last few shekels on dollar drafts and a quarter-ounce bag of skunkweed).
To be sure, marijuana is a "gateway drug" -- insofar as its side effects provide a "gateway" to cholesterol-laden fast-food.
Yes, I’m referring to the munchies.
As I’ve said, the munchies -- an empirically observable consequence of smoking one "bad Oscar" too many -- share a direct connection (whether causal or merely corollary is still hotly debated among those who’ve boarded the "Hooterville Express" and risked short-term memory -- Uh, what was I saying again?) with abject poverty.
Before I got hitched, I was completely unacquainted with abject poverty – in all but the moral and ethical senses of the word. Let’s get real, folks, shall we? From ’92 until ’00, our country enjoyed an "employee’s market," period. As the Japs remarked of their own economic "bubble" (until it burst, mind you): "Only idiots and gaijin didn’t get rich." Granted, I never got rich (being an idiot, a gaijin, and a gun-toting anti-materialist simultaneously; I suppose it was inevitable) -- but I lived very comfortably.
Even in those days, though, I knew the "unbearable lightness of the billfold" at times. Now when one is stoned and broke (even too broke to eat at Waffle House), there’s no place like Krystal. At this point, another digression is in order. Weed, as I understand it, isn’t physically addictive. I smoked my last joint over thirteen years ago and haven’t even craved the stuff since then. This being the case, I concur with majority opinion: "reefer madness" is a myth.
Krystal, in sharp contrast, is as addictive as crack or China white.
For the benefit of the uninitiated, Krystal is the Southeast’s answer to White Castle. A Krystal is a square, vaguely meat-like patty, roughly the size of a Midland G-series walkie-talkie, served on a square bun with chopped onions, mustard and pasteurized, processed cheese food product (for a few cents extra, of course). In the old days, they were something like a quarter each, and one could fit several dozen of them into a shoebox. Calorie-dense and inexpensive, they were the last word in stoner-chow. As a matter of fact, a night of five-card/blackjack/craps, boozing and sparking up without a bag of Krystals was as unthinkable as a crisp autumn evening without the soft glow of a harvest moon – or a day without gunfire on the Southside.
And the Krystal monkey -- more’s the pity -- is still very much on my back: shrieking, turning somersaults, making an awful row with a pair of cheap cymbals, and flinging turds at passers-by. My wife’s "junk-food Jones" usually compels her to scarf down a Big Mac at her fast-food opium den of choice, McDonalds. Mine, however, sees me creeping through the shadows, dodging the vicious pit-bull of public opinion and rapping at the back door of the "Krystal Krackhouse."
As fate would have it, McDonalds franchises outnumber Krystal franchises. The ratio of the former to the latter is approximately equal to the ratio of Vietminh to French at Ia Drang.
Bluntly put: This sucks long, green donkey dicks, accepts American Express by way of remuneration, and gives change.
Because the spousal unit and I spend several days per month watching our pickup truck light up and piss out an interminable series of line-segments, rendered with Abstract Expressionist monotony in white and/or yellow highway paint upon the "endless black ribbon," we sometimes eat fast food. Because (to reiterate) McDougall’s, Burger Khan, Taco Vato and Pizza Hovel outnumber Krystals, we usually end up eating at one of the above – unless I wax exceeding stubborn and hold out for a Krystal. (As I hold the purse strings on these outings, that’s not as difficult as it sounds.)
By the time we began feeling peckish, we were over halfway to our destination. We were driving along the south shore of Lake Okeechobee, staring at acres of what appeared to be sugarcane and launching verbal sling-stones at one another. Somewhere between La Belle and Shawnee, we’d had another argument (a daily occurrence while we were dating). The combativeness, like Miracle-Gro on friable soil, had seeped into our discussion of where and when to eat. We drove into Clewiston between noon and one, at which point Maggie’s truculence simply dissipated. Her facial expression, as a matter of fact, was identical to the one she’d sported when (quite against my advice) she’d insisted we try selling jewelry at a flea market just south of the Federal Pen in Atlanta. She took one look at some of the characters wandering the main drag and said, "Ohhh no! No way. We are not stopping here!"
"But dear," says I, "I simply must find out where that fifty-ish gentleman leaning against the lamppost got those tats. The black cat, the eight ball and the dice showing ‘snake eyes’ are especially quaint an’ noteworthy. And just look at those lovely Harleys! And so many of them! That must be a very popular bar! Hmmm… I wouldn’t mind a beer, myself, come to think of it. Oh! And look at those young Mexican gentlemen over there. They’re wearing color-coordinated plaid shirts. I’ll bet they’re members of the high school glee club."
Now my wife isn’t the most alert critter on earth, but since taking up with me (thereby befriending Marc MacYoung and a rogues’ gallery of like-minded riffraff), she’s learned to recognize a bad neighborhood when she sees one – even when the signs aren’t obvious. She still has trouble distinguishing mere "creepy-crawlies" and the "walking wounded" from actual predators, but she’s learned to spot the obvious predators – and those who wish to be perceived as such. All the aforementioned "castes," if you will, were well represented that day.
To my mind, the place merited only "code yellow," but it was refreshing to see Mags go into "code red" – without any prompting on my part.
Clewiston, Florida (essentially a wide spot in the road) is nothing compared to Atlanta, Columbus, or even parts of Dekalb, Gwinnett and Hall Counties. Hell, there are infinitely nastier neighborhoods in Fayetteville, Columbia, Jacksonville and Birmingham, to be honest. This particular stretch of blacktop and its inhabitants, however, didn’t appeal to me any more than they did to her. Granted, it wasn’t Bedford-Stuyvesant, south Philly or Detroit, but it was a bit of a shithole, for all that. Moreover – and more important, by far – it was an unfamiliar shithole. Even if we’d seen far worse elsewhere, we were "going in blind," in this case -- and we both knew it. We lacked the "home advantage" on this playing field (to a reasonably intelligent, resourceful human being, familiarity breeds far more than mere contempt – "Study deeply upon this," as Musashi wrote…); and I was proud of my wife for having "grokked" that so quickly.
Since this post has already degenerated into a digression-ridden free-for-all, I see no reason not to rocket off on yet another tangent – leaving the usual trail of sparks and smoke in my wake.
In NLP terms, acknowledging the validity of Maggie’s perceptions (even though I’d done so flippantly – hardly an aid to communication) resulted in a positive "feedback loop" and instant rapport. We left town as quickly as we’d entered it, sheathed our swords, and actually communicated with each other. This is an unflattering admission, to be sure (especially in the case of two aspiring writers), but the wife and I have become so intimately acquainted; we exchange information via grunts, gestures and facial expressions at times. (See my forthcoming book, How Love Brought Out My Inner Neanderthal.)
"Hmm!" says Mags.
"Hmmm!" says I.
"Mmmmh, mmmh, mmmh!" says Margarita, her delivery enhanced by an exquisitely alien, Finno-Ugric pitch contour and the hand-gestures so widely favored in the Latin world. (This, cultural trait, incidentally, can prove both inconvenient and hazardous – especially when any given son/daughter of said world is driving a straight shift.)
"I just can’t see how anyone would want to live that way," she continued.
"I can’t see m’ anus, on account o’ m’ pants cover it. That don’t mean it ain’t there," says I. "An’ I hope ye’ kin see that light turnin’ red."
"I’m serious, Jeff."
"So am I."
"Are you just being an asshole again?"
"Probably. I’m a creature of habit. Being an asshole works most of the time."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do."
A moment of silence followed.
I broke it.
"You say that you can’t see how anyone would want to live that way. But what if they can’t see any other way?"
"That’s awful."
"No shit, sister. You ain’t just whistlin’ ‘Dixie.’"
"But why?"
"We’ll ever know why – an’ I don’t much give a rat’s ass. Pancho’s Ma says: ‘Cada cabeza es un mundo,’ an’ that’s fuckin-A right, as far as I’m concerned. Piss on ‘why?’ It’s a useless question. ‘Why’ is a matter of opinion -- end of story. And opinions are like assholes: everybody has one."
Having signed a tacit armistice at this point, we drove for a few miles more, each lost in thought. I stopped thinking and began shrieking, "Left turn! Left turn! Left turn!" the moment I caught sight of a red-and-white sign.
A Krystal!
I could scarcely believe my luck. I can’t remember if it was in Lake Harbor or South Bay, but there it was…
To be continued
