The Transporter Couch

I was the PICTURE of sex.  I was wearing a white shirt and white flat-front plants and black shoes and a black belt.  The shirt unbontonned my waist.  My body lean and tan.  My hair …. you already know I have movie star hair.  I heard Air singing “Sexy Boy” evereywhere I went.

 And I was a sexy boy.  Self-absorbed though I was in that moment (and am in general), I was HOT.  People looked at me.  Looked and liked what they saw.  It was a breezy day and the breeze, like a blue silk sheet, would come along and drag open my shirt and expose a nipple.  Few confess but everyone likes a little nipple. 

 That’s all.

Yesterday was a day of boycotting and protest. Kind of like pears in LITE syrup, it was unsatisfactory. The immigration “reform” on the table is polarizing a country that has better things to do. I speak as one of the priveleged white males, which some would say mitigates the value of my voice, but those who might say it would be wrong.

I live in Texas, not on the border but not too far from it. I don’t “own” but I have a discernible interest in a tortilla factory. And everyone who works there is latino (I use the term loosely to refer both to men and to women, as I can’t stand the term “Hispanic.”) Because of my relationship to that factory I have come to enjoy many many beautiful friendships, a lot of camaraderie, moments both of depth and of simplicity, and always emotion. It’s not my job to oversee the matter but I’m reasonably certain all the employees have “papers.”

I took the time to talk to some of the folks who work there and by and large they were ambivalent. It would be nice if it were easier to cross the border, was the general sentiment, but once you’re here, you gain access to so many things. No one was complaining.

I talked to my friend, who actually does OWN the business, and we talked frankly. She… yes SHE ….. was a “wetback” 25 years ago, but she established herself and became a citizen and started a business and it thrives. She’s the great American success story, complete with all the drama in which we ice the cake of our stories. She’s an American of Mexican birth and heritage who clawed her way to the top and, while sometimes stepping on people to do so managed to make herself a sparkling star on a cloudy night. Everyone loves her. Everyone smiles when they see her coming. No one fears to approach her though she’s quick to say “no” in the nicest way if the request doesn’t suit her. And everyone loves the way she conducts business and the service and products she supplies. She is beloved in this community.

And yet, some people still call her a “wetback.”

I sort of derailed myself. Anyway, I talked to her about the “boycott” yesterday (her business was open) and she said, in short, “I don’t know what they’re complaining about. You work hard, you pay your bills. Trash comes in all colors. I know white people who live off welfare and I know brown people who live off welfare and I know ……” You see where that’s going.

Her message to me, inasmuch as she would care to convey a message (for she is shy and not political), is that people who don’t want to claw their way to the top, regardless of their ethnicity, don’t deserve anything more than what they get. She went ON to say, and this is the poignant part, “Brian, you see the turnover around here. This is HARD work! It is hot and it is laborious and I pay a fair wage and offer benefits as best I can and it’s not *joyless* work or a mean environment, just often *hard* work. And soandso never shows up because her boyfriend beat her up and soandso never shows up because he has a hangover and soandso quits because he thinks the grass is greener elsewhere and sosoandso is having a baby….” and on she goes. The point being that just because someone comes to the US looking for work doesn’t mean he really WANTS to work any more than anyone else, just that he’s compelled by the momentary need. Her personal stance is, life is beautiful but it isn’t easy and if you think you can make it any easier or better than working for ME…. go for it and have a nice life.

Laissez faire.

She’s not a coconut (a tacky term referring to “respectable” latinos meaning brown on the outside and white on the inside). She is very very true to her heritage and … she deserves a huge essay all about her. (Another time) Her sentiments ring true to me not as a white male but as someone that at some point will have to cast a vote as to a reformation.

I have lived all over this planet and met many people from many cultures and many walks of life and I have encountered many, not-always-friendly, opinions about myself and the US and the world and life and spirituality and reality and truth and reason. I am the LAST person anyone would ever call a racist. But I understand that bias is a reality and has to be worked with. I work with it through contemplation and understanding. Other people, who are angry with their credit card bills, take out that anger by moaning about “the Mexicans.” Or some other target. I started this diatribe by saying that we citizens of the US have other, better things to worry about. And we do. There’s much to honor about America but there’s much to mind. We’re AT war in one country, threatening war with another, in a cold war with several, in a trade war with yet a couple of others. We have internal strife on so many levels. I can’t begin to say how glad I am to live here, but I won’t even begin to enunciate all the things that are fucked up in this country, and yet we have a day of boycott because our borders are established. That just seems so utterly imbalanced to me.

The End.

I started this post, “how do your friends cease to be your friends?” And it was sort of an attack on some people I wanted to lay blame on, and whom I wanted to accuse aof abandoning me. But the truth is I abandoned them. I wouln’t presume to conclude that they needed me in their life, but I liked them in mine and it was I who walked away from them. Regardless whether or not it was warranted, it’s on me to embrace it. To savor it. To deal with it.

I just got a little harder.

I got a little buffer, too. I tanned a bit today …. in the actual sun. I don’t tan in beds. My dermatologist tells me I have too many moles and I tell him he has too many BMW payments. For the RECORD I have lots of moles but they’re all at the surface level and once upon a time they were “harmless.” I have, rather, a whole bunch of OTHER shit going on that is expensive and I don’t need my derm horning in on my miseries let alone creating them.

Apologies.

The spring rain came. Again and again. We’re all glad for it! And the concommitant thunderstorms are fun to watch and listen to, though lightning threatens people. So, with best wishes to all, bring it.

Not sure what to do with myself. I can’t drink anymore and I fear I will seek solace in food. Or, I should say, I fear I will be tempted to do so. I had three servings of foie gras last night. But it was all I had. But it’s 98% fat. You can’t just NOT eat. And you can’t NOT afford yourself some luxuries. (Well I suppose if your life fits in a stolen shopping cart you can.) But god DAMN I had the best night’s sleep last night!

I have been so … good looking lately. And I’ve taken pleasure in that. I’m scared of getting fat again. Scared. And I was never repulsively fat (no offense intended toward repulsively fat people) but I was 17 shades of out-of-shape and I overcame that. I’m not a “lifter” or a “builder” so I just had an average body and a gut. I lost the gut. I retain the average body and I’m happy with that.

Where are I going with this? I dunno. Some storm is brewing. When I can’t think it means I’m thinking.

First, my mistake, Mr. Tarantino didn’t write, direct or produce this movie, he just “presents” it. I’m not entirely sure what that means. Once I was talking to John Winston, who is (or was) rather familiar with the film industry, and he told that “it’s always complicated to ascertain who owns the ‘property’ .” So, whatever, I apologize for being a boob.

But someone, somewhere, has a fascination with body parts being sliced off.

OK, I step back and ask myself, was this just a trash movie or is there actually a message in there? I think of the horrible things we heard about Romania about 20 years ago …. or so ….. but this film isn’t set in Bucharest. Perhaps it’s a vehicle for conveying a sense of how that whole part of the world is emerging. We’re tired of picking on the asians so why not pick on the central Europeans? In a very Hollywood, articulated way.

The girl jumping in front of the train. That sort of blended the two. She was Japanese, in Slovenia, and she was really fucked up. Irreparably, if you ask me, and she jumps in front of a train, a la Anna Karenina. Honestly, it was best. And then you stop and ask if this movie actually has a message, about how tortured a person’s mind can be.

(You, dear reader, may or may not know that many suicides in Japan involve jumping in front of a train. In fact, once, if not still, the conductor’s cabin held a “suicide clean-up” kit because it was important that trains run on schedule!)

Or is it a parody of people’s notions? A mockery at American right-wing distaste for things different? A carefully- and darkly- and nastily-crafted parody of what people think about the rest of the world. Does the author, whoever he (or she) may be, even know the images and sentiments that are stirred by appalling films? Probably.

Or is it a trash film and someone just pulled out all the stops and happened on some substance?

I’ll say this. It provoked my thoughts. But it isn’t a joyful movie to watch. I notice it didn’t last long in theaters.

Art is my partner in crime in this blog. It was he who put the bee in my bonnet and he who encouraged me to get into it. In some sense I owe him my life.

I met him in college. At St. John’s there are “core” groups. Classes are very small but in any given semester you will have four or five people who are in all your classes. Art was in my freshman core group. We didn’t click at first because I was kind of preppy and he was an anarchist. Yay! Then one day a couple of weeks into school, actually it was at night, I walked into the Peterson Student Center, sort of heading to my mailbox, and he was sitting on this bench, and I said hi and he said hi, and…….. I sat down and we talked for three hours.

How does that happen? We had nothing in common except that we were both prone to sarcasm. We’d come from completely different parts of the country, had had completely different upbringings. I disparaged his politics and he disparaged my pretentions. But by and by he taught me some things about politics and the ways of the world, and I taught him how to make a martini, and we’re best friends. I was his best man. Twice. Maybe one day he’ll get to be mine. Should it ever come to that, he’ll certainly be offered the job.

In a way it’s kind of weird. Art is married and has kids and respectability and while he PROBABLY doesn’t vote Republican, he does vote and he’s established and stable. I, on the other hand, well I DO vote but I’m sort of an anarchist. Interesting how things change.

David is one of my best friends. He’s beautiful and thoughtful and kind and honest and hard-working. His life is one of trial and toil. He’s always a little bit lost. Which is part of why I love him. I love him for several reasons, largely because he’s generous and he loves me. But there’s this facet of vulnerability that he only shows to me, well maybe to others but he doesn’t show it on purpose and he only shows to his friends.

I can’t really talk about David right now because I’m still figuring out what to do with him and that process doesn’t look good on a page.