Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 33 — “I Don’t Want To Be Alone Anymore”
The 1968 Democratic National Convention begins in Chicago today. Of course, the festivities already have begun for Chet Michalski. He’s got a monster headache from last night’s revelry at the lakefront. Not that he was drinking or carousing, mind you. His head merely was in the path of Patrolman Sal Sanfillipo’s swinging nightstick. Just as Sal was playing Lionel Hampton on Chet’s skull, Anna Michalski was being gripped by uterine contractions. It’s now 5:30, Monday morning. Welcome to the latest installment of my novel, Black Comedy. — Big Mike
It’s almost sunrise when Anna hears Chet’s key in the front door. Lucky for Chet the sun hasn’t come up yet because its rays would surely stab through his retinas like ice picks. His head is exploding right now. That is, even when he doesn’t inadvertently touch the bandaged wound on his occiput.
Anna’s still sitting on the sofa, holding her medicine ball abdomen and sleeping on and off. She awakens with a snort. She watches Chet close the front door as if the slightest noise would shatter his crystal skull. He gingerly walks to the old recliner and sits across from Anna.
“My God, what happened?” Anna asks, pointing at the inch-thick pad held onto his cranium by a criss-cross of gauze.
“I don’t know,” he answers.
Where Am I?
Space
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I just don’t know.”
“How did you get home?”
“Somebody gave me a ride.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Some chick.”
“Chet, this doesn’t make any sense.”
Anna’s husband is silent as he removes a folded-up piece of paper from the back pocket of his Levi’s. He half-stands and offers it to Anna. She extends her arm but can’t reach it. Rather than walk it to her, he tosses it in her general direction. It falls at her feet and Anna reaches down with great difficulty, grunting and farting as she strains to pick it up.
“What’s this?” she asks as she unfolds it.
“Read it,” Chet says.
It’s his release from the emergency room at Henrotin Hospital. He has suffered a traumatic head wound, specifically a six-centimeter laceration probably caused by blunt trauma, along with swelling, associated abrasion, ecchymosis, and moderate loss of blood. He has received 23 sutures as well as a prescription for tylenol with codeine.
“My God,” Anna says. “Does it hurt?”
“It sure does.”
“Why don’t you take some tylenol?”
“I gave it to the chick who gave me a ride home.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t have any money to give her for gas and she digs codeine.”
“Chet, damn it, none of this makes any sense. What happened?”
“I honestly don’t know. All I know is the cops attacked us. They gassed us, then they started coming after us. I know I was running toward Clark Street. That much I remember.”
“But where were you?”
“At Lincoln Park. We were going to camp out there overnight but Daley ordered the park closed. Lotta bullshit, man. We weren’t hurting anybody. Ginsberg was there, man, chanting. Probably got his head broken. I guess that’s what happened to me, I don’t know. I remember running, then seeing this huge flash like the atom bomb went off. Honest to God, Anna, I thought Daley’d dropped the bomb on us.”
Ginsberg Was There, Man.
Space
“Oh, Chet, for cryin’ out loud, Mayor Daley doesn’t have the atom bomb!”
“Anna! Of course I know that. But the cops, they could have some kind of grenades or percussion bombs, you know? Come on, man, this is a fascist state now!”
“So they threw bombs at you? I mean little ones?”
“No, I…, I don’t think so. There were lots of other people in the emergency room. Some guy told me the cops were beating everybody on the head. I mean literally, everybody. Reporters. Bystanders. Us, of course. Mainly us.”
I Mean, Literally, Everybody
Space
“Those bastards! I’ll bet that animal Sal Sanfillipo was there.”
“The neighbor? That cop? You know, I think I remember seeing him somewhere around there.”
With that, Chet falls silent again.
“Chet,” Anna says after a few moments, “I’ve got to tell you something.”
Chet grunts.
“Last night, I started having pains.”
Silence.
“Chet?”
He grunts again.
“Did you hear me? I said I had labor pains last night. But they went away. I guess it was false labor. I thought the baby was coming. I was scared. I wish you were here with me. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I tried to call Daddy but Ma answered. I hung up on her. I don’t know what to do. Should I call an ambulance if it happens again? I don’t know. The pains…, oh, they were amazing! I’ve never felt such pains in my life. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. God, am I hungry! I haven’t eaten a decent meal in days. Weeks. Will you stay home today and make me something? I have such a taste for bacon and eggs. Do you think you could fry me up some eggs. Come to think of it, maybe not. Eggs. Ick. I think I’d puke if the yolk came up all hard. I don’t want any eggs. But bacon — mmmm! Bacon sandwiches on buttered Italian bread. Oh my God, would you please go to the Dominick’s and get us some bacon and butter? Daddy dropped off a lot of bread yesterday afternoon. Maybe if Daddy comes around this afternoon I’ll ask him if he’ll stay here. You know I wouldn’t have to do it if you stayed home today. I’d rather not ask him. Will you stay home today? Look at you. You could have gotten a broken skull, Chet. Just stay home today. There’s plenty of other people out there. Today might be the day. I’ve got a feeling. I think the baby’s gonna come today. So will you stay home today, honey?”
Will You Stay Home Today And Make Me Something?
Space
Silence.
“Chet? Will you please stay home today?”
Anna waits a beat. The silence is finally broken when Chet emits a loud snore. Anna’s eyes turn to slits as she watches her husband, his breathing now sleepy regular. With great effort, she hoists herself off the sofa and waddles the few steps to the recliner where Chet sits, fast asleep as an innocent child. Anna looks into his face. He looks so young, so vulnerable. His mouth is open slightly. She thinks of some fat cop with a billyclub, cracking her husband’s head open last night. That had to be what happened. She thinks, Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if it was that bastard Sal Sanfillipo who hit him? It could have been. It’d be just like that animal to hit his own neighbor over the head.
She thinks, If it was that pig Sal, I’d tell Daddy. He could get some of his Mafia goon buddies to fix him. Just this once, Anna is thankful that her father has Outfit connections. Just this once.
Anna thinks, I hate the idea of anyone hurting my husband.
Anna thinks, Look at him, sitting there with a lump on his head! Nobody has a right to do that to him!
Anna thinks, Except me. I like to kick him right in his balls.
The only reason Anna doesn’t kick her husband in his balls is that her medicine ball abdomen won’t allow her to raise her leg more than two or three inches off the ground. She turns and heads upstairs to bed and lays down to sleep, still hungry, still almost tasting the bacon and butter sandwich on Italian bread that Chet will not fix for her today.
Anna does not hear Chet leave the house at a few minutes past one. He takes the Oak Park Avenue bus down to the Lake Street el. He rides to the Adams Street stop where he debarks and walks east toward the Art Institute. He takes a right at Michigan Avenue and walks three blocks south to the Conrad Hilton where he joins a thousand or so other protesters. He has already missed the morning’s big event, an impromptu rally at police headquarters at 11th and State. The cops broke that up and the protesters have now gathered at the General Logan statue across Michigan Avenue from the Hilton. Chet squints to look into the face of every cop ringing the Hilton. He’s looking for the face of Sal Sanfillipo. He doesn’t find it. He’d failed to notice Sal’s Bonneville parked out in front of his house when he, Chet, had left. Sal won’t be back on duty until three.
No matter. There are still plenty of other Chicago police officers who’ll be more than willing to open up another two-inch gash on Chet’s scalp. Not that Chet thinks he’ll be clunked on the head again — hell, he’s got this big bandage on. Nobody’s gonna hit a guy who’s already injured. Nobody’s that brutal.
Chet joins the crowd around the General Logan statue.
The Crowd Around General Logan
Space
At that moment, Anna wakes up. She calls out, “Chet?”
Nothing.
Louder. “Chet?”
Still nothing.
Now she hollers. “Chet! Are you here?”
Silence.
Anna thinks, That fucker.
Join us Thursday for the next installment of Black Comedy.
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Letter From Milo: Damn That Roger Ebert
Benny Jay, a talentless hack who happens to be one of my colleagues here at The Third City, holds the opinion that Roger Ebert is America’s greatest living journalist. Now, anybody that knows Benny has long ago accepted the fact that he’s full of shit. His opinions are generally worthless. If he told me it was raining turds outside, I wouldn’t even bother with an umbrella.
I try not to pay much attention to him, but once Benny gets going on a subject, it’s hard to shut him up.
“The great thing about Ebert is that he’s so versatile. I mean he can write serious film criticism for cinephiles, then turn around and write movie reviews for the masses, guys like me, and do both with intelligence and wit.”
“I don’t know, Ben, I’m still pissed at the fucker.”
Roger Ebert on the right, and the great Russ Meyers on the left….
“Milo, you’ve got to get over it. Ebert is a national treasure. Have you ever read any of his political commentary or satire, or some of his memoirs? How many writers can make you laugh, cry and think at the same time? The other thing about his writing is his range. He can write about anything. If he wanted to be a sportswriter, he’d be the best. He wrote a piece years ago about watching Dick Butkus play ball at the U. of I. that was as good as any sports journalism I’ve ever read.”
“The bastard’s still got a lot to answer for.”
“Ebert is amazingly prolific and a master of the language. He was born to write. Even his posts on Facebook reflect a freakishly wide range of interests. I’m telling you, in my lifetime I’ve idolized three journalists, Royko, Ebert and Kup, in that order.”
“Why did you have to mention Facebook?”
“Jesus, Milo, are you still angry at Ebert about that Facebook thing?”
“The fucker almost drove The Third City into bankruptcy.”
“It was your fault as much as his.”
“I figured you’d take his side.”
When I think about it, maybe I do bear some of the blame for the disaster that nearly destroyed The Third City. Actually, there were probably several mistakes I made that contributed to the mess.
The first stupid thing I did was to send Roger Ebert a friend request on Facebook. It was strictly a financial decision. I figured I’d save myself 75 cents every Friday and get some free movie reviews. The second mistake I made was to comment on one of his posts.
Roger Ebert is a stubborn, hard-headed fucker who just will not go along with the Facebook program. He refuses to post anything like “Just left Starbucks” or “On my way to Whole Foods,” the way the rest of us do. Instead, he perversely insists on posting well-thought-out opinions, reviews, character sketches, excerpts from his memoir in progress, film clips and shorts that interest him, as well as anything else that catches his wildly eclectic interests. Even though I consider it extremely selfish of Roger not to tell us what he’s having for breakfast, I’ve got to admit that his posts are never boring, mundane or lacking in interest.
A couple of weeks ago Roger posted a link to a fascinating short film about the legendary stripper, Tempest Storm. Coincidentally, a year or so earlier I had written a blog bit about the time I and a few of my underage friends snuck into the old Follies Theater, a burlesque house that once stood on south State Street, to see the great stripper, Ineeda Mann. I made a comment on Roger’s post and included the link to my piece about the immortal Miss Mann.
Milo’s favorite stripper….
And that, my friends, was nearly the end of The Third City.
A couple of days later, Benny called me from The Third City’s lavish office suite on Michigan Avenue. He was hysterical, practically in tears.
“We’re done, Milo,” he groaned, piteously. “The Third City is finished.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Our entire infrastructure is trashed! The computer banks exploded. The switchboard is in flames. The phones are all dead. There’s smoke gushing from the Telex and the Fax machine is spitting out hundreds of Chinese restaurant menus every minute.”
“Good God!”
“Big Mike is passed out drunk and Jon Randolph is out on the ledge getting ready to jump.”
“What happened?”
“We must have been hacked. I’m guessing it’s a North Korean job. We’re getting tens of thousands of visitors to our site and the system can’t handle it.”
“Man, who would do a rotten thing like that?”
You see, in two years of operation, The Third City has managed to attract about 14 readers a day, 15 if we make a reference to porn in the title of a blog. I will say this about our readers, they may be few in number, but they are extremely loyal. Nickel Bag Bernie never misses a daily posting, He especially likes the pictures. Madame LaFarge and her girls over in Cicero are faithful followers, too. They are great fans of Benny’s dog stories. A few guys in Cook County are regulars and so are a couple of the workers up at the Zion Nuclear plant. My sister, when she’s sober, likes to visit the site.
That said, there’s no way our system could handle the number of visitors that we attracted on that disastrous day. The system imploded and exploded at the same time. We were fortunate that nobody but an intern was hurt.
When our crack IT team, consisting of Benny’s nine-year-old niece and a couple of her classmates, figured out what had happened, we were stunned to discover it was all Roger Ebert’s fault.
The bastard had apparently noticed my comment on his Facebook post, followed the link and read the story about the burlesque house. He thought enough of it to put it on Twitter and you can just imagine how many followers Roger has on Twitter. It was nearly the end of us.
Thank God we were able to survive and live to blog another day. Things have returned to normal. We’re back to our 14 or 15 readers a day. But we learned a valuable lesson. Never, ever get on Roger Ebert’s good side. If he’s got a bad side, well, that’s something I don’t even want to think about it.
We at The Third City are not the kind of guys to hold grudges. Besides, our attorneys, Loeb, Leopold & Partners, tell us there are no real grounds for a suit. So, I suppose we’ll eventually forgive Roger for the grievous damage he’s done to The Third City.
We’ll give Roger a pass this time, but I’ll be damned if I ever comment on anything the fucker writes again.
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Benny Jay: Wait `til Next Year….
It’s early morning and I’m sitting in the dining room of the inn, waiting for breakfast – French toast and hard-boiled egg.
I know – weird….
My daughters stagger in. Eyes bleary. T-shirts and pajama pants. Clearly, just got out of bed….
It’s day one or two of the old family vacation. And I can tell the girls are already in top-vacation form….
“Late night, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah….”
“What did you do?”
They have a cup of coffee and tell me all about it. A whole bunch of them – a dozen, maybe more – took a midnight hike up the big sand dune.
Patrick led the way. He’s an old boy scout who’s really good at the outdoor stuff. It was dark as a cavern as they made their way through the forest. They held hands and walked in single file. Couldn’t see a thing. Stumbling on brambles. Giggling and laughing and scared out of their minds. Climbed all the way to the top, breaking through the forest, walking clear of the trees, to stand on the top and face the stars.
Thousands of stars. As far as the eye could see. Twinkling in the sky.
Lots of stars in the sky….
“Wow,” I say.
“Yeah….”
“A lot of stars….”
“Tons….”
“Wow….”
“Yeah….”
I nibble my toast. “I wanna do that….”
They shrug – “talk to Pat….”
You have to understand — we’ve been going to the same place on the same week each summer seeing some of the same faces for the last, oh, two-thousand years. At least….
A lot of these kids were squirts when we first met. In Pat’s case, I remember him as an eight-year-old. Used to hang with his buddy, Dane. Chase the girls and push them off the dock. Now he’s about six-foot-two and almost out of college. I’m sure he’s still chasing the girls — just not pushing them off the dock….
Anyway, I track him down as he’s stretching his legs, preparing to go for a run.
“So, Pat,” I say. “How about leading me up the dune at night?”
He laughs. “They told you about that?” he says.
“Yeah….”
He does some weird yoga stretch.
“So can you do it?” I ask.
“Yeah. Sure. No problem….”
“Cool. Let’s wait for a clear night,” I say. “I just want to see those stars as we break through the forest….”
That was a Tuesday. We’re only there for a week. Days go fast. I do all sorts of things. Swim. Run. Read a book or two. Listen to my wife talk to Nancy about knitting. See Despicable Me at the drive in. Write some post cards. Talk to Jessica bout the Blago trial – she’s getting updates on her phone. Talk to Jon and about the Bulls — don’t get us going on the Bulls. Talk to Dane about great cinematic stoners. We agree that Jeff Bridges as Jeff Lebowski is the best, though you can’t overlook Brad Pitt as Floyd in True Romance.
Whenever Dane and I get together, we talk about the Big Lebowski….
Before you know it, the week’s done.
Drive home. Eat at the local Thai joint. Walk the dog….
It’s nearing midnight. Look at the sky. Don’t see a star. Never see stars in Chicago.
It dawns on me that I didn’t get around to climbing that dune at midnight – never saw all those stars in the Michigan sky.
Oh, well, it’ll have to wait til next year. Give me something to look forward to. I think you’ll all agree – life would be a lot duller without that….
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Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 32 — Phantom Pains
Anna feels queasy. Funny thing is, so does Chet. It’s a few minutes past eleven on Sunday night. Anna has turned the TV off and on a half dozen times already in the half hour or so since the news ended. She can’t decide whether to stay right where she is and let the little waves of nausea pass or get up and go kneel over the toilet.
Chet, on the other hand, knows precisely what to do to combat his unsettled stomach. He learned all about it this afternoon during Yippie!’s informal self-defense training sessions in Lincoln Park. He ties a water-soaked bandanna over his nose and mouth. He rather likes the idea; it makes him look like an outlaw.
Anna picks up the months-old copy of TV Guide and thumbs through it. A few seconds later, she tosses it across the room.
Chet dips his fingers into a jar of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly being passed around by some hippie chick wearing a nurse’s cap with a peace sign button pinned to it. He rubs the jelly on his exposed facial skin. It reminds him of the time some ten years ago in his mother’s kitchen when he tried to reach into the pot where polish sausage was boiling. He was famished from playing baseball all afternoon out in the alley with his pals. He’d been Ernie Banks that day. He has to laugh right now. Even then he was a radical. He was the only kid on the block who wanted to be one of the Negroes on the Cubs. Anyway, he’d reached into the potful of boiling water with a ladle and accidentally flipped a link of sausage and a good three quarters of a cup of hot water onto his face. His skin immediately turned carmine. His mother, reacting to his howl of pain, raced into the kitchen and whacked him on the side of the head with her wedding ring hand, which produced a welt on his cranium that long outlasted the redness of his face. Jenna then got the jar of petroleum jelly and rubbed some on the burned skin. Chet smiles at the memory. The hippie chick says, “What’s funny?” He says, “Nothing. Just thinking about my mother.” And she replies, “Yeah, I’ve heard that soldiers going into battle think about their mothers.” Chet is silent; he’s stunned by the realization that this may indeed be a war.
Anna needs to stand up. Then she doesn’t. Anna thinks she has to pee. Then she doesn’t. Her feet throb. Then they don’t. She feels dizzy. Then…, well, you know. She thinks, This is really weird. She’s going in a thousand different directions at once. Like that time she and Chet did Orange Sunshine for the first time back in January. So speedy and confusing. She didn’t like it at all, like she was out of control. She thinks, Is this a flashback?
“Chet, Everything Looks Too Weird!”
Space
Chet’s still rubbing petroleum jelly onto his skin when he hears a voice over a distant police bullhorn. “It is now eleven o ‘clock. The park is closed. You must disperse. Begin leaving the park now.” The cop issuing the announcement has a deep, raspy voice, the voice of a stupendously aggravated old geezer, say, who’s pissed that these scruffy kids have hit their goddamned ball into his backyard for the two-dozenth time. Only the guy behind the voice is no geezer. He has a badge and a billy club and a service revolver and several hundred other supremely pissed off guys behind him. At least that’s what Chet figures since he can’t see any of the mass of cops. The voice comes from over a little rise, a relic of an ancient shoreline some several hundred yards from the present one. Chet shivers. Nothing like a disembodied voice to scare you to death.
Anna gently holds her enormous round abdomen in her hands. She feels like Atlas preparing to hoist the world up on his shoulders. She describes little circles with her hands. Her shirt buttons look like they’re about to pop. She undoes the bottom three buttons to expose the skin of her belly. She places her fingertips on that taut skin, so softly, so carefully that they’re almost not making contact with it.
Space
Now there’s a light, a corona, an aura emanating from behind the little rise in Lincoln Park. The scene looks fake, as if someone’s making a cheap horror movie set on the Scottish moors. Haze begins to billow up, backlit by the corona. A few people near Chet start singing “Kumbaya.” The singing itself makes Chet even more tense, contrary to the intent of the singers. He thinks, Jesus Christ, you people, do you think that’s gonna stop these guys from breaking our heads?
Storm Over The Moor
Space
The middle of Anna’s body feels as if it’s being gradually squeezed, as if a giant hand has taken hold of her around the waist. She says out loud, “Oh!” She’s embarrassed because no one else is around. Then she’s embarrassed because she’s embarrassed. The giant hand squeezes again. She hollers, “Oh!”
Chet hears the hippie chick with the nurse’s cap blurt out a frightful, “Oh!” She has caught sight of the front line of Chicago police officers coming over the little rise, their faces covered by gas masks, some of them carrying billy clubs, others shotguns. The hippie chick turns and runs blindly. She stumbles into a semicircle of people sitting in the lotus position. The poet Allen Ginsberg is leading them in chanting “Om.” It sounds like the drone of a beehive. They don’t even stop when the hippie chick flops on the grass in the middle of their circle. She gets up quickly and dashes to the west, toward Clark Street. Chet thinks, Are these people serious?
Anna thinks, This is it!
Chet thinks, This is it!
Anna’s nausea has disappeared.
Chet’s nausea grows worse. The teargas fog that seconds earlier had looked like a a cheap cinematic effect has drifted over the protesters. His eyes sting. His skin burns. It feels as though his nasal passages and throat are filled with razor blades. He unties his bandanna and flings it away.
Anna undoes the top button of her clamdiggers. Still, she feels as if they’re gripping her like a vise. She stands and wiggles out of her pants. She tosses them across the room where they land on the months-old TV Guide.
The cops begin to run toward the protesters. Chet feels the hairs of his body going erect. He pivots and begins to run himself, toward the west, toward Clark Street, out in the city where he’ll undoubtedly find a place to hide. But before he gets there, dozens and dozens of cops seem to come out of nowhere, converging head-on on the mass of fleeing protesters, catching them in a pincer.
Anna’s uterus contracts. It is a pain so severe it seems the entire room has been bathed in a bright white light.
Space
A cop’s nightstick travels in a downward arc some 36 inches or so. The sweet spot makes contact with Chet’s skull. Chet’s field of vision is filled with a brilliant flash, a light so bright and bold that for a millisecond he wonders if the atom bomb has fallen.
Pow!
Space
Anna glances down at her abdomen. The first contraction was so strong she assumes she can literally see her belly turn smaller. She waits — not too long — for a second contraction.
That brilliant white light fades away. Chet reels. He half spins until he comes face to face with the cop wielding the nightstick. It is Chet’s very own neighbor, Sal Sanfillipo. He is grinning. He right arm is also poised above his head. That arm begins a second downward trajectory. Chet closes his eyes tightly. He doesn’t even feel the second blow.
Space
Anna stands, unsure of herself, wondering if she’s going to be able to maintain her balance. She picks up the phone and dials her old phone number. “Please, please, please,” she whispers, “pick it up, Daddy. Pick it up!” But it is Tree who says hello. Anna silently places the receiver back in its cradle. She walks gingerly back to the sofa and eases herself onto it again. She breathes deeply. She closes her eyes. A few minutes later, she awakens and says, aloud, “What happened?”
At that moment, Chet, laying on the grass fewer than ten feet away from Clark Street, awakens from his own involuntary nap. He has the worst headache he’s ever felt. He says, “What happened?” But he, too, is alone. Sal Sanfillipo has already run off to swing his billy club at other stinkin’ hippies.
Also at that moment, Tree stands at her front window. Al’s voice comes from the bedroom: “Who was it?” She takes a drag from her Pall Mall. “Wrong number,” she says. She parts the curtains a half inch and peers across the street at Anna and Chet’s house.
Join us Tuesday for the next installment of Black Comedy.
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Randolph Street: Picture Postcards
Two Girls–Xecotz, Guatemala
Man In Coat–Cotzal, Guatemala
Mother & Daughter–Cotzal, Guatemala
Weaver–Cotzal, Guatemala
Blue Wall–Nebaj, Guatemala
Bus Plaza–Guatemala City, Guatemala
Mayor’s Office–Cotzal, Guatemala
All photos © Jon Randolph
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Benny Jay: Eminem On The Beach
I’ve got this thing with songs — I don’t know the words….
Which is funny cause I’ve been listening to the same five-hundred or so songs over and over for the last thirty to forty something years.
You’d think that after all that listening, I’d know what they’re saying.
The problem is patience. As in I have none. I’m so thirsty to sing, I sing the first thing that comes to mind. Doesn’t matter what the actual singer is singing. Just gotta do my thing….
Reminds me of the time I was singing Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly while I was driving my younger daughter and her friend, Devyn, to school.
The great Roberta Flack….
I’m up front, belting it out, when here comes Devyn’s voice from the back of the car.
“It’s strumming my pain, Pops,” she says.
By the way, Devyn calls me Pops.
“What’s strumming my pain?” I ask.
“The words,” she says. “You said `stroking my face.’”
I look at her in the rear view mirror. “That’s cause it is stroking my face….”
“No it’s not, Pops….”
“Yes, it is….”
“No, Pops….”
“I think you’re wrong, Devyn….”
“I know I’m right, Pops….”
So I go home and turn on the computer and look it up and I’m all set to send Devyn an email telling her I’m right and she’s wrong when I discover that she’s right and I’m wrong. Damn, I hate when that happens….
Turns out I’d been singing the wrong words since high school!
Fast forward to one night last week….
I’m on a beach in Michigan hanging with my wife and kids, and my younger daughter gets up and does Eminem’s rap from the movie Eight Mile.
It’s the one from the climatic showdown when Eminem’s up against this black dude who rips into him for being white.
What’s the matter, dawg — you embarrassed?
You have to see it to believe it. My daughter’s on the beach, yellow hoody up, silhouetted against the setting sun, waves splashing on the sand behind her, reciting this rap from memory:
“Now everybody from the 3-1-3 put your motherfucking hands up and follow me….”
And so on and so forth with the “this guy ain’t no mother-fuckin MC” and “I know everything he’s got to say against me, I am white, I am a fuckin’ bum, I do live in a trailer with my mom….”
Leading up to the grand finale:
“Don’t ever try to judge me dude, you don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through, but I know something about you. You went to Cranbrook, that’s a private school. What’s the matter, dawg? You embarrassed? This guy’s a gangster? His real name’s Clarence. And Clarence lives at home with both parents and Clarence’s parents have a real good marriage. This guy don’t wanna battle, he’s shook cause there’s no such things as halfway crooks. He’s scared to death. He’s scared to look in his fuckin’ yearbook, fuck Cranbrook. Fuck a beat, I go a capella. Fuck a papa doc, fuck a clock, fuck a trailer, fuck everybody. Fuck y’all if you doubt me, I’m a piece of fucking white trash, I say it proudly. And fuck this battle, I don’t wanna win. I’m outty — Here, tell this people something they don’t know about me….”
And when it’s over I got my mouth open. Like — wow. These kids grow up fast….
As I walk back from the beach the words are so fresh in my my brain I can say them almost as they are – “what’s the matter, dawg. You embarrassed….”
But as time passes my memory fades and I’m left with just a general recollection. And so by breakfast the next morning, I’m still rapping the song only it’s coming out something like this:
“Your name is Clarence and you got two parents and they’re happily married. And you went to a private school. So fuck ya’ll….”
Pause. One sister looks at the other. Then they look at me.
“That’s kind of how it goes,” says my younger daughter.
Wise ass.
Doesn’t bother me. I switch to Killing Me Softly. More my style. Only instead of singing, “strumming my pain,” I sing, “stroking my face.”
Fuck ya’ll! As Eminem might put it.
I like it my way best….
Wat up, Third City….
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No Blaise: Meeting Shia — As in LeBeouf
My sister picked out a nice restaurant for the family to go to before she left for her freshman year of college.
The outside looks like a house with shutters on the windows and everything. I don’t even think my parent’s house has shutters on the windows.
The inside is even better: low lighting, candles, fresh flowers. The hostess leads the four of us up the stairs to the second fancy floor. We sit down and look over the menu. Then a waiter comes up with a plate of food, I’m confused because we haven’t ordered anything yet.
“Compliments of the chef,” he tells us.
I like this place even more now.
The low light is a problem for my mother who has apparently forgotten her reading glasses. She asks the host if they have any extra she might borrow. He runs to get them, but they’re too strong. He scurries for a second pair, but they’re also too strong. Just as he’s about to search for a third pair my mother opens her purse and realizes she in fact has had hers the entire time.
It was very Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Someone comes to take our drink order. I’ll have a martini. The waiter asks if it’s alright that the vodka they use is Grey Goose. I mean what else is there, really….
Our drinks come and we place our orders for food. We’re having family chitchat when I raise my head and look around the room.
Oh my god!
For older readers — Shia’s the guy in Transformers….
“Why are you hyperventilating?” my sister asks.
“Don’t look,” I tell her. “But Shia LaBeouf is sitting over there….”
So, of course, she whips her head around to look.
“Oh, my god,” she says. “It’s him.”
My mother turns to stare to even though I’m sure she has no real idea as to who he is.
My dad just doesn’t really care.
My seat is diagonal from Shia’s so that if he turns his head just slightly to the left we’ll make eye contact, since I can’t stop staring at him.
Staring and acting like I always pull my fork slowly from my mouth and giggle after each bite I take.
My dad says he’s going to walk over to Shia and ask to take a photo.
“Don’t, dad, don’t,” I plea. “Please, please, please don’t….”
“Okay,” he says. “I won’t….”
Dinner continues. I have a few more fake fits of girly laughter. The bill gets paid. We make our way down the stairs and out the door.
I’m waiting by the valet for the car when I glance over and — there he is! Standing about 10 feet away smoking a cigarette.
Then what else do I see?
Oh, no — please no. He promised he wouldn’t, but….
My dad’s talking to Shia!
“Nora — come here!” my dad says. “He says he’ll take a photo with you!”
My father is a dead man.
I grit my teeth into a smile and walk over.
Shia shakes my hand and introduces himself; then my sister and I get on either side of him to pose.
My dad has the bright idea of taking the picture on his phone, but my mom has a camera so I call her over.
Big mistake!
The three of us stand in our pose, smiling, as she walks over and finally gets her camera out.
When it comes to pictures of the dog, my mother’s Ansel Adams….
First try — she can’t find the button and asks for my help. She can take 100 photos of my dog everyday, but now she’s baffled?
Second try — wrong button, turns camera off. This isn’t happening.
Third try — turns it off again.
I go to help her and Shia bounces, telling us to have a good night.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I just went through all the awkward taking a photo with a celebrity stuff for literally nothing.
I give my mother an earful as soon as we get in the car.
She insists it wasn’t all the Grey Goose that made her incapable of taking a picture with her own camera, but Shia just made her so nervous she got flustered.
I am traumatized….
By No Blaise
Editor’s Note: No Blaise last piece for The Third City was Bus Drivers….
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Guest Blogger:
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Candyman. Written by Benny Jay. Read by Joel Reitsma, Lorenzo Toia, Ray Jay 3000, Andy Orscheln and No Blaise. Produced by Jus Buckingham of King Conundrum Productions.
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