Languor Management

Injun Joe Thompson's Reservation Cole Slaw

Maud was kind and generous enough to include my grandfather's recipe for his famous cole slaw in her Recipes from Writers series. I'm sure Injun Joe would be "pickled tink" to be included among the likes of James Hynes, Joshua Ferris, Justine Larbalestier, Laila Lalami, Tayari Jones, and others. Enjoy!

The Aqua Velva Man

While I was eating a modest lunch in Madison Square Park, a man and a woman sat near me on the base of the Eternal Light Memorial Flagpole, which was designed by architect Thomas Hastings and erected in 1918 to honor the military heroes of World War I. The couple appeared old beyond their years, and while they did not appear homeless, their russet and wind-burned faces and weatherworn clothing suggested a hard life knocking around the streets of New York. Each held a can of Budweiser in a paper bag with a straw sticking out of it. Tall and heavyset, the man held a bottle of Aqua Velva aftershave in his other hand. The woman, short and plump, held a pack of cigarettes in her's.

"Why do you wear that Aqua Velva shit anyway?" The woman asked in a gravelly voice as the pair took their seats.

"It gets me laid, doesn't it?" was the gentleman's response.

At least he wasn't drinking it, as US sailors in WWII were rumored to have done on account of its high alcohol content. While it contains a bittering agent, denatonium benzoate, to discourage consumption, the flavor was improved by adding vanilla extract or orange juice. In my neighbor's defense, I saw neither additive on his person. But from my vantage, I could also detect no scent other than beer on his person. Perhaps he wasn't feeling amorous just then.

I glanced at the pair for what I thought was only a moment but the man still managed to catch my eye and say, "Why else, right?" With that, he started cackling and swung his arm around his companion, who managed somehow to blush an even deeper shade of red than a lifetime of booze had allotted her.

I didn't answer his question, so he asked me another: "Hey, what kind of aftershave do you wear?"

"I don't wear aftershave," I said, looking back down at my book. I wasn't trying to come off as a snob; the sad truth is that I rarely have to shave, so I have no need for the product.

"What, you don't wanna get laid?" He looked incredulous and, shaking his head, turned his attention to his companion.

When he started splashing the blue liquid on his neck and chest, I knew that lunchtime was over.

Williamsburg Beltway

Bedford Avenue. On the way to work this morning, as on most mornings, I merged with a group of a dozen or so male students walking toward the Automotive High School. Almost as a body, they surrounded me and removed their wide leather belts right there on the street. Despite having long reached the autumn of my thirties, my stomach sank in preparation for the anticpated beat down by the teens. But then they turned right and entered the school leaving me alone on the sidewalk.

Cut!

Madison Avenue. While thumbing through my book en route to lunch, I was told by a seemingly deranged woman to "Step to the left!" an action I certainly did not take, as I am not in the habit of taking instruction from the deranged. Regrettably, she turned out to be some sort of film crew worker and, because I had ignored her, I ended up strolling right into the spot a scene that was being shot, actually illiciting an angry "Cut! Cut!" from someone whom I now took to be the director.

Booty call

This morning, I was loudly accused of repeatedly touching a woman's rear end--unfairly accused, I might add. But it wasn't so much the accusation that struck me as wrong and unnecessary as it was the woman's choice of wording.

The 7 Train was particularly crowded, as it usually is on a rainy day, so everyone was fairly packed in. In such situations, I swing my bag around in front of me to make sure that I'm not knocking into anyone I can't see with it. It's polite--and I can ensure that no one is standing too close to my face, which can be awkward on commutes of any length. And it was a good move on this particular rainy morning, because my frontside had been in danger of being pressed up against the backside of an extremely heavy woman who somehow, despite the crowding, had managed to find room to dance to whatever song was playing on her iPod. While from the waist up, neither of us were in danger of colliding, her rear end extended perpendicularly from her hips and well out beyond her back. The only thing between our respective lower parts was my leather bag--which offered the both of us a crucial barrier from intimacy--or so I thought.

While this woman was dancing, her body was rubbing against my poor bag and moving it uncomfortably across the front of my pants and stomach. I didn't say anything because I figured that we were only two stations away and the ordeal would be over soon enough. Finally, after the first stop, she turned to me and said loudly, "Don't be touching my booty!" She then turned to her a girlfriend, wedged in between her and the train door, "He's touching my booty." Her friend sucked her teeth, stared hard at me, and rolled her eyes deliberately. Next, they both resumed dancing. A few moments later, the heavy woman turned to me again and complained, "I said, 'Stop touching my booty!' That's my booty!" At this point everyone within ear shot was staring at me.

Technically, I was not touching her rear end, she was pushing it against my bag, but I pardoned myself, nevertheless, and tried to stare off into space—a space made pregnant by the unseemly accusation. But what else could be done? It hardly seemed worth the argument. Could I have relieved the tension by turning to the people around us and explaining that I wasn’t actually touching her rear end? “See, my bag is between us, so we're not actually touching.”

But no one else really seemed to care, probably because they all had had their own uninvited guest touching some part of their bodies that they didn't want to be touched. But we were, after all jammed in a crowded train, so there wasn't anything to be done.

But "booty"? Why had the woman chosen that word? Her accusation, however inaccurate, had made it clear that she thought I was acting inappropriately, yet the very word that she chose--"booty"--sexualized a situation that was really far from sexy, rather it was what one would expect would happen when that many people are crammed into such a small space. Booty? I mean, really! Though I suppose, I could just as easily have said, "Madam, quit rubbing your booty against my package." But then, that would have been just as inappropriate as dancing with your friend in a crowded subway car on a rainy Monday morning.

Street justice

Regrettably, I stepped on a woman’s foot this morning.

It was an accident of the sort likely to happen on a crowded New York City subway car when every passenger is jockeying for just a bit more space. When I realized what I had done, I turned to the woman, who was seated, and apologized for the infraction.

“Ow!” she yelped only after I had finished pardoning myself, as if she had only just realized what had happened.

Just to be on the safe side, I offered another apology. “Sorry.”

“You stepped on my foot!” the woman, who was probably in her late 40’s and dressed for work in an office, accused. Given, however, that there had already been one two apologizes made with an “ow!” thrown into the bargain, I had assumed that we were already at the same table on this issue. “Ow, ow, ow!” she added and frowned for good measure, reaching down to rub her foot.

“Pardon me. It was an accident,” I replied with a sympathetic smile, but with a bit less sincerity.

“A lot of good that does my foot!” she barked.

Since I had now made three conciliatory remarks for nothing more than stepping briefly on the toe of her shoe, I considered the matter closed and removed my book from my bag to pass the commute. “Ow, ow, ow…,” I could hear her grumbling softly rubbing her toe.

“Sure, he breaks my goddamn toe and now this jerk's reading Harry Potter like nothing happened,” she said to anyone in the car who might be listening. For the record, I wasn’t reading Harry Potter. It was Vladimir Nabokov’s King, Queen, Knave. But why was she going on like this? I had apologized, after all. What else was expected of me?

Now she had her shoe off and was scrutinizing her toes through her nylons. “Owwwww!” she moaned in my direction. There was a hole at the heel of her stocking that my foot could not have caused. She started fingering that and shaking her head as if that was somehow my fault too. By now, everyone in the vicinity was watching us, but I continued to ignore her.

“I think one might be broken,” she said, continuing to rub her toe and scanning the other passengers for support, finding none. “But these stockings are definitely ruined!” Of course they were, but they were probably ruined before she had even put them on this morning. What was it that she wanted? A kiss on the wounded toe? Someone to come to her defense and beat me for my rude clumsiness? Did she expect me to give her money for new nylons?

But by now we had arrived at Union Square and most of the passengers, myself included, flooded out of the train and onto the platform, leaving the woman nearly barefoot in the train, scrambling for the shoe that the departing crowd had accidentally forced from her hand and was now trampling beneath their feet.

Against the current

When the 7 train swept into Grand Central Station from Queens this morning, most of the passengers prepared to disembark, making moves toward the exit that faced the platform outside before the train had even come to a complete stop. That is, everyone but one extremely drunk man who staggered over and faced the opposite set of doors, which, if they would have opened, would have let him out into the small space between the train and the filthy subway tunnel wall. It was, however, the doors behind him that opened, releasing the crush of commuters out on to the platform and to the next stage of their respective journeys. This man's exit, however, remained closed.

Still decked out in what appeared to be yesterday's Easter suit, the man started talking to the door as though he was trying to reason with it--to make clear that it only made sense that it should open now so that he might be on his way. Receiving no answer, he cast about himself and gestured to his fellow passengers waiting to exit through the other doors, nodding his head at the closed ones in front of him as if to say "Can you believe this? These doors just won't open!"

He turned his gaze back toward the door and began loudly imploring them to open in Polish. Now he was yelling at it and loudly cursing the portals, beating them with his fists. Those passengers content to exit on to the platform--as opposed to into the tunnel--watched the man as he grew increasingly desperate, nearly punching the glass and slurring what I imagined to be dire oaths at it's reflective surface. You could see the frustration turning to anger and then to rage in the glass and his eyes welled up with tears, as though he would surely drown if these doors did not open and let him out so that he might swim up to the surface and life sustaining air! But everyone continued to pass without so much as a word to the man, silently considering his absurd predicament--even cruelly mocking him among themselves--yet offering no assistence.

When I reached the section of the train between both sets of doors, the man frantically turned toward me and back to the closed ones, and then back to me again. I simply pointed toward the open door that all the passengers were exiting through.  A confused look clouded his already beclouded face as he followed my finger and realized his mistake. Without so much as a "thank you", he stepped in front of me and staggered out on to the platform and into the teeming sea of commuters. But he didn't join them trudging toward the escalator that would take them into Grand Central Station, rather he struggled like a salmon against the rush-hour current, swearing Polish curses as he fought his way to the empty side of the platform, at least until I lost sight of him amid the bobbing heads of New York City's morning workforce.

The Doorman

The doorman of the building I work in hates me. This pains me because he really is a nice guy. He greets everyone who works in the building with a friendly smile and salutation, seeming always to know when and with whom it is appropriate to talk about last night’s game, the weather, the war in Iraq, or even a medical condition. That is, everyone but me. But I have, it seems, only myself to blame.

Things had started out great between us. The first day I reported for work at this building in Kips Bay, he had stopped me in the lobby and asked what business I was interested in visiting. When I told him that I was now working on the 8th floor, his tone changed from one of professional courtesy to that of warm friendship, and he introduced himself to me with a bow: "Carlos is at your service!". Back in those early days, it wasn’t unheard of that he might put his arm around my shoulders as I walked past or even ask me about my weekend—but he was never intrusive. A true professional, he never once crossed the line. He could also tell if I was having a bad day, and would simply smile and nod his greeting from his desk, sensing, correctly, that I might rather be left alone.

And everyone else loved him, too—the rug sellers, the girls from the lingerie manufacturer on two, even the dour Russian women from the nonprofit social services organization on the third floor. En route to and from the office, they would greet him cheerfully like a brother or some old acquaintance. And he would reply in kind, switching easily between English and Spanish—even tentatively trying to pronounce every last consonant in the Russian здравствулте—always extending his hand to shake one stretching out toward his own or to give a quick shoulder massage to some young delivery person. And I enjoyed this warm attention, too.

But things changed between us one morning a few weeks ago. When I was waiting for the elevator that day, Carlos stood up and walked from around his desk and stood in front of me. “Do you think these pants are too short,” he asked, gesturing toward his shoes.

They were, indeed, slightly too short. When he stood up straight, I could still see a hint of his white socks showing between the cuff of his pants and shoe. The cuff should have fallen to the top of his foot, never mind that he should have worn black socks to match his suit. But this was his work uniform and he had to wear a suit like this every day, and since he had to sit behind a desk most of the day, I didn’t really think it made too much of a difference, so I told him. “No, I don’t think so.”

“But don’t you think they’re just a little too short?” he insisted. “I mean, I can see some of my socks.”

“Well, maybe just a little,” I conceded.

“So, you do think they are too short! Man, why didn’t you say so in the first place?!” Carlos was clearly annoyed that I had lied to him. Then, without a word, he spun on his heel and returned to his desk, leaving me to wait for the elevator for the slowest elevator in New York City in silence. I didn’t know what to say. I only told him that I didn’t think his pants were too short to be polite. But why should I have cared at all? He was a grown man after all, and he had sought my advice. I should have told it to him straight: That his pants were too short and that white tube socks looked ridiculous with the suit. But I didn’t, and to this day, I suffer the consequences.

Now, when I come in to work in the morning, my “Good morning!” receives only a nod and a frown in return—even though everyone else continues to receive handshakes, shoulder massages, and pats on the back. Try as I might, I can regain neither his friendship nor his trust. So what good would it have done me if this morning I was to have pointed out that his navy jacket clashed with his black trousers, which, for the record, were a bit too long in the cuffs, if you ask me. But no one is asking me anymore, so I’ll keep my mouth shut.

If you're reading this, please call your mother

Being the good son, I reached for the phone to call my mother and give her an update of my life to date. It is a particularly good time to do it, since I’m experiencing an unusual streak of luck: my lawyer, Winkles, managed to get T-Mobile to drop $1,700 in charges for calls to Yemen--YEMEN!--that it claimed I was responsible for even though my cell phone had been stolen; a journal has agreed to publish six of my latest translations, my fiancée finally moved in; I received a nice raise at work, and I was well-received at a reading of my latest translations last night.

The last call home had been filled with worries about a possible lay-off, a cold, and grave concerns about how I was going to pay off that $1,700 for calls to Yemen. My mother added that I would likely be put on a CIA terrorist list, since “they are terrorists over there.” She was also under the impression that I was asking for money to help pay the bill, which inspired her to lecture me on how I was too old to ask my mother for money--and how would I ever be able to afford to get married if I kept on like that? So this new call would put me back on the right track—at least in my mother’s eyes.

I dialed her number and an older woman’s voice, slightly out of breath, came on the line. “Hello?” She sounded surprised.

“Mom?” I answered, not immediately recognizing her voice.

“Yes?” The woman answered, hesitating. That certainly wasn’t my mother’s voice.

I hesitated.

“Yes, dear?” She tried again.

“I’m sorry, I’ve dialed the wrong mother.” I answered.

“That’s alright, dear,” she replied. “I’ll adopt you--”

Cute, but unnerving. I laughed and hung up the phone, but realized that she was still talking. Here is some little old lady receiving an unexpected phone call from an estranged or distant son, and I hung up on her. I felt like a cad! But what could be done?

So I redialed my mother and got her voice mail--the automated message: a deep-voiced robot intoning the number I had just dialed and then advising me to call again. I called again and received the same heartless message. After lunch, I was again admonished by the robot and told to try again later.

Meanwhile, a lonely mother waits—hardly daring to hope-- for her son to call, while my own continues to think that I’m a loser and refuses to pick up the phone.

Speaking of gentlemen

Eyeshot, topping the list of High Hat's Top Ten Literary Websites of 2006, has published a story of mine. Please visit, and scroll!