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MARCH 2003
The small tree by the road in Baghdad still hasn't tiptoed away. I hesitate to mention it for fear that it will burst into flames or be whittled into a statue of Saddam Hussein or a Nike swoosh.
I know that at a time like this, that tree should be the last thing on anyone's mind, but whenever I'm "brought to the scene," I look for it. "Where the hell is that tree? Did something happen to the...oh there it is."
Four images commonly found in childhood drawings are trees, buildings, stick figures, and airplanes dropping bombs. Drawing pictures was once a means of expression for children, now they attend televised town hall meetings and recite passionate missives about the squandering of diplomatic favor and the ominous gold standard.
But the elemental, objective sketch of what's happening at the moment involves stick figures lying on their sides with X's for eyes, bombs falling on buildings...and in the middle of the scene (slightly off center) a tree. You have to have the tree.
A few days ago, it (the tree) was approached by what appeared to be the only pedestrian in Baghdad. He walked right up to it and stood for a few seconds, sort of aligning himself with the trunk. His arms remained at his sides, ruling out urination, and it didn't look like he was going to be shot or shoot at anyone, so I went ahead and imagined that he was regarding the thing as a symbol of life, time, or the healing persistence of nature.
I'm not a tree hugging spaz and don't believe that trees are more important than people; I'm just acknowledging that there is this tree in Iraq.
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It's 1991 and I'm in my apartment watching the beginning of the war. Bernard Shaw and some guy. (Was it Wolf Blitzer?) are on the phone from a hotel in BAGHDAD, for Chrissakes, where they're hiding under a table. I had spent the previous month believing I would be drafted and thunked into a desert fox-hole to tremble and wait, secretly remembering the lyrics to all three They Might Be Giants records. Andy Rooney has been whining about Iraq and all of the sand--"How do you fight in sand? It gets in your eyes." I believe that Andy is correct and that I will be finding out first hand. Bernard describes armed guards in the hotel. The idea of reporters being in the middle of an "enemy" nation drives home the impossibility of modern war. You can, as a civilian or reporter, run through a war zone and describe it over the phone to your friends. You can hang out in cafes and take colorful pictures of Iraqis watching TV. You can continue to rock steady and smoke cigarettes. If something bad happens get under a table and give everybody the gas face without even spilling your drink.
But I won't be a civilian, I'll be a shorn-skulled grunt sent running into a hail of bullets...like the guy in Galipoli. I consider making flyers that read This is the man who killed you, across an image of George Bush's head. A month ago, at a Christmas party, my uncle took a look at my olive drab mock turtleneck and said "That will serve you well in Iraq."
Man, shut up!
In one month, I will turn 21. Mojo Nixon said "You can die for your country, but you can't buy a beer." He's right. I can't even buy a fucking beer! Yet, somehow, my refrigerator is filled with beer. My sister bought it--a gift for her doomed little brother. Next month, when I can buy my own, it won't matter because I'll be in boot camp, enduring soap-in-socks beatings for getting tangled in the rope ladder.
Less than a week passes and I understand that the war is (from my vantage point) nothing worse than a dangerous, outdoor, round-the clock taping of Good Morning America.
Spring break, Tony and I drive to North Carolina, collecting Operation Desert Storm trading cards along the way. The goal is to obtain the "Commander In Chief" card. After eight packs we finally find it and Tony sticks it in the vent on the dashboard.
DECEMBER/JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003 (Sorry)
Anymore, I look forward to things being over. My thoughts run this way: "This is a great album. Is it almost over?" or "How many more shows do we have to watch before we can watch that other show. And when will that one be over?" While watching a movie, I become preoccupied with the freedom I'll feel when we're all out of the theater and standing by our cars. (About Schmidt was an exception) Showering, shaving and the dead syncopation of tooth-brushing are interminable.
In a an endless corridor of waiting rooms, I look forward to my name being called--imagining a more eclectic scattering of middle of the road magazines, a nurse who is not necessarily talking about the weather, but about things she would do if the weather were different, and a repositioning of the screaming infant to make better sense of the decor--below the photograph of the cancerous lung, not the Rugrats poster (though you could argue either case.)
That's it. I won't waste any more of your time.
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The infamous Rodney "Pigeon" Pidgin, otherwise known as Duke "Pidgeon" Xavier gunned his engine as the women of the VOFW in rheumatic unison, clutched their coffees a little tighter. As the local news camera's rolled, he untied the Snoopy doll, dotted with ice-melt and reeking of gasoline, from the front of his chopper and removed its sludgy goggles. Rhonda Purrsnatch otherwise known as Rhonda "Straddlin'" Stradlin, languidly climbed from the motorcycle and grinned at the crowd as Duke held the toy up over his head. He nudged a plate of dentures with his tongue to feel the sweet suction of tobacco, palmed the Snoopy and brought it down to his waist as if to suddenly disparage not only that toy, which he had carefully dressed for the journey, but all toys. Toys were for babies. He chucked it into the bin, giving it a last-moment twist so that it would not bounce, but lodge itself down into the side of the barrel.
The line of toy-decked choppers, drawn to the vanishing point of Rt. 990, roared with approval as Duke and Rhonda hobbled their bike through a u-turn and, with faces of stone, smoothly retreated to receive the procession of tanned and leathered brethren.
Duke couldn't sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head hanging.
"What's wrong?" asked Rhonda, straightening the tube-top of her pajamas as she rose to touch his shoulders.
"Don't you worry nuthin' about it, swee-pea," he said. "I might head back to the bar for one more."
"Well I am bushed," said Rhonda. "Just make sure you keep your eyes on your glass and not them Pennsylvania waitresses."
"Shoot. Now Pea, we've been at it all night, what more could I want?"
"I'm just warnin' you is all."
The snow had mostly melted, and pyramids of mist met every street-light of the motel parking lot.
The old boys in the bar were hooting along to Honky Tonk Night Time Man and wagering over eggnog wrestling.
Duke passed the entrance and stole heavily around to the back of the bar to stand with the stacks of bottles and discarded stainless steel. Finding it impossible to enjoy the few visible stars, he sneered at the sky. A line of fir trees introduced the rocky tracts of forest between the two highways. "Big Foot wasn't real. They just made the fucker up. There aint nothing nowhere," he mumbled, wandering into the dark and knowable wilderness, never to be seen again.
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2002
When I shift my weight, the chair makes a farting noise loud enough to garner a sliver of attention from everyone in the room--ears tick slightly or eyes roll away from their work. This happens thirty to forty times a day.
My job, as I understand it, is to pull staples from stacks of attached insurance policies which I then sort into bundles. I've gotten into a habit of loudly snapping the staple remover and clicking my teeth simultaneously. This sends a jolt through my body and leaves me momentarily crazed, like clamping down on a Gobstopper or a ball of tin foil. This happens 1000 times a day.
At noon, the staff repairs to something called the "vendeteria." I haven't gone in there yet. For my lunch break, I pivot my chair to one side, eat a bag of pretzels and read a book for an hour, then pivot back and continue with my work.
A woman, also a temp, sits at the desk facing mine. We work in silence from 8AM to 4:30 PM. By mid-afternoon, thresholds of tolerance are reached and she, at least once a day, covers her eyes and ineffectively stifles the squeaky prelude to a sob...then snaps out of it. "Idle chit chat" is discouraged as per the temping handbook. At the end of the day she grabs her jacket and says "goodnight." I straighten my batch- slips into a flawless brick, wait thirty seconds and follow her lead.
Due to some yet undefined perversion, I love this job. It is the opposite of entertainment, devoid of conversational thrill, free of competitive quipping. No one knows who the Coen Brothers are. I don't have to go to the Employee appreciation parties to receive a "team" t-shirt only to complain about it later. And when somebody starts talking about Dr. Phil, I don't care, and have nothing to say about it. And I don't have to have anything to say about it because I'm a temp, a mercenary. The fact that "Rose doesn't do her job and has been hogging the scanner and the old-style batch-slips and somebody had better do something about it because she thinks she's all..." means nothing to me. I'm busy. For the Thanksgiving pot luck party I'm bringing a muted and disintegrating sense of irony.
Ahooooo!
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My current dismissive generalization about New Yorkers after spending another weekend in Manhattan:
One million rich kids dressed like the Sweat Hogs.
( Exempt: Jeff and Claire who are not rich and do not dress like the Sweat Hogs. Mazltov, you guys.)
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The movie Pumpkin.
Poltergeist wasn't about ghosts, it was about the decline of suburbia and the American nuclear family. Easily, Pumpkin isn't about retarded kids, it's about stoned homebodies who listen to The Microphones and revel in, taciturn, pigeon-toed mantis-wristed isolation.
This is not your uncle's confused and cynical antihero, it's your younger cousin's annoying college persona, just slightly more boring than your own. And you thought that was impossible
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