Honor?

I gotta be honest—there are some concepts I just don’t get.

Take my first three years at Wal-Mart, for example. My supervisor changed jobs in my first week of work. Then the director of the department quit. It was all a muddle, and they left me blissfully alone, never bothering to “evaluate” me.

Well, that was perfectly fine. My old boss, Ofelia, had never really evaluated me. Or rather, she was always evaluating me.

“How are you liking your classes,” she’d say in low tones and with a you-can-tell-me-anything look.

“Wonderful,” the student would whisper.

“Ofelia, you pumping the students again!?” I’d boom….

So I was nicely under the radar—the best place to be in corporate America. Had I stayed there, I might still be there….

“That’s a lack of respect,” cried one of the students. “You have to demand an evaluation!”

Why? Would it help me? Did my boss know anything about what I was doing? (Answer—no, which she cheerfully admitted. So she did what Ofelia did, and figured all was well….) They gave me a raise every year, evaluated or not, so there was no financial motive.

But respect is a big thing down here—and the phrase una falta de respeto signals serious annoyance and hurt. And I am as deaf to it as Beethoven was to his last symphony.

In the first place, if I perceive that someone has dissed (seriously expected that to get red-squiggled, but no, it passes!) me, is it true? A boss irritably asks for a report that is overdue, the student comes in the very highest dudgeon to class and reports this assault on her dignity. Time for an open-door! (Read, jump one level over the supervisor and complain….)

I would be delicate. Wasn’t the report overdue?

Right—so maybe the supervisor was having a bad day and his supervisor was riding him for the report—or the information in it—and yes, he should have been nice. Maybe.

Or maybe not?

The second problem I have with all this respect stuff is that I can’t figure out how someone’s bad behavior to me diminishes me. My boss at Wal-Mart told me the shocking story of a boss at another renowned company—3M. She had submitted a report. And he threw it on the floor, denouncing her and it.

In a staff meeting.

Not the classic example of Minnesota nice.

Right—that truly is an assault. But did anyone in the room think that the report was bad? Did anyone think that the boss was anything but a pathetically weak, rude and petty tyrant? His behavior diminished him, not my boss.

OK—now we come to honor. Susan, in perceptive comments, rightly points out that “honor killings” predate religions, and are not endorsed in the Qur’an. In fact, just the opposite.

And she sent me to an interesting—however chilling—Wikipedia article on the subject.

Well, well—the old problem sticks its head up again. Because whatever the Qur’an says or doesn’t say on the matter, twenty percent of Jordanians—in one survey—think it does.

And it may be that I am just as ill-informed as those twenty percent. I didn’t know, for example, that there are a dozen or so honor killings in Great Britain, every year. I vaguely knew that there are honor killings of guys engaging in homosexual acts. Nor did I know that honor killings in the United States both exist and are probably under-reported, since people want to be politically correct and respect “cultural differences.”

Did your blood pressure just rise?

Should have. But apparently some people value correct over life. Here’s one citation from the Wikipedia article:

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, an anthropology professor at Rhode Island College, explains how honor killings can be viewed in cultural relativist terms. She writes that the act, or even alleged act, of any female sexual misconduct, upsets moral order for the culture of interest and bloodshed is the only way to remove any shame brought about by the actions and restore social equilibrium.[9]

Yeah? You know, I’m not sure if this “explanation” has crossed the line and joined into “justification.” I also don’t see that we get much from this point of view.

The real truth—in my view—comes from another writer, also a woman. Try this out….

As noted by Christian Arab writer, Norma Khouri, honor killings originate from the belief that a woman’s chastity is the property of her families, a cultural norm that comes "from our ancient tribal days, from the Hammurabi and Assyrian tribes of 1200 B.C."[31]

More like it, hunh? And could we add that 3212 or more years have passed, and men are still valuing women only for their ability to make more men? Or more chattel that might later produce more men?

There’s cold reasoning and hot reasoning, the social psychologists say. Cold reasoning is what you imagine you’d do in a given situation. Hot reasoning is what you think and do in the situation itself. In other words, it’s easy to look on in indignation at the American soldiers torturing guys in the prison in Iraq. You’d never do that!

But you weren’t there. You didn’t see the mine blow up, the body parts of your best buddy fly past you, feel your bowels turn to water as you shit on yourself. You don’t know terror.

And it may be that it’s easy to think about cultures relatively in Rhode Island. So maybe Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban should watch the clip below.

On Edge

Tell me again—when did we agree that it was OK to play your music into my ears?

I know, I know—you must be tired of this rant. Look, everybody’s life is hard, and mostly getting harder. You don’t need this.

So here’s the good news. It wasn’t I, this time, who lost control. Just the guy next to me, on a supremely jammed subway train on the upper West Side of Manhattan at 8AM.

Well, we crammed ourselves in, and a black woman and boyfriend were having sharp words. I tuned them out, of course—do I need that? Isn’t getting to the airport on time with two bags in a subway car holding people in the low three figures enough?

Well, miraculously, a seat became vacant. I sat, figuring to chill until Columbus Circle. That’s when the black guy flipped on a transistor radio and treated us all to some (I think / presume) hip-hop.

Let me put this gently, Refined Reader. Every stanza made explicit and very street reference to the pudenda of African-American females.

We all stood it for a couple of minutes. Then the eye telegraphs began among us—the brows furled, the eyes flicking heavenward, the shoulders shrugging. And then the guy next to me said, loudly but politely…

“Would you please turn that down!”

Guess the response…

Second time, and note the absence of “please.”

“TURN THAT DOWN.”

Just realized—it can’t be a response since it wasn’t a response. It was…what? Ignoration? Ignor-ance? Ignorance? You choose….

The guy has the insight to say…

“I’M LOSING MY CONTROL!”

But he doesn’t have the power to act on it. Instead, he lunges across several people to get at the black guy.

I don’t do well in emergencies. I look on, a stunned witness, as the lion mauls me, or the scorpion plunges its stinger into my foot.

So I was not among the group of guys who separated the two.

I did hear, however, the screaming rage of the black woman as she soundly (pun intended) berated the white guy. Must have had some effect—the guy sat down, and then said, “I apologize for my behavior.”

“I am leaving this train,” said the black woman, stomping out of the car. Her boyfriend / husband sauntered out—every movement a “fuck you.”

The man was shaking with rage—I could feel it just sitting next to him.

Well, first question—am I gonna go there?

Nope.

I’m not letting that into my day. Which was very nice—got to the airport with plenty of time, came home, scolded / caressed the cats, talked with Mr. Fernández.

Second question—why did the guy act so explosively?

Well, first there is the…right, it’s not music, so let’s call it “aural incitement.” Because make no mistake, the stuff is there to provoke rage. I once heard a song blaring down the street (started up by the Governor’s mansion, ended down by the plaza) in which the last word of each line was the endearment “motherfucker.” Took twenty minutes of meditation to wash that out….

The city is also on edge. No, not up in Upper Manhattan. But the train was coming from the Bronx. When was the last shower the guy took?

Third question—what about the black guy? Why didn’t he react? Yeah, he was trying to throw punches too—who wouldn’t? But when the situation stabilized—or perhaps was stabilized—he went back to being his insouciant self.

Well, a blogger on his toes would have the answers to all these questions. The Internet, however, is slow these days. The best I can do is to provide the conclusion of a research paper by an admittedly less-than-stellar source—The Journal of Undergraduate Psychological Research. Eliana Tropeano, in 2006, wrote the following:

This study examined whether or not watching a violent music video would provoke individuals to answer questions with violent responses. Eleven participants watched a violent music video, 11 participants watched a non- violent music video, and 11 participants were in the control group and did not watch any videos. It was found that watching the violent music video containing violent lyrics, aggressive behavior, and degrading behaviors toward women did make an individual feel and react more violently with regards to responses to questions about fictitious scenarios. The conclusion was that watching violent music videos does negatively affect behavior.

Well, well, so the dog bit the man. Nice to know.

Now, here’s my absolutely un-researched theory. This music does what pornography does. It blunts you, stupefies you, and puts you into a mindless state of inert violence.

And what happens when there’s a trigger?

Two Muslims (Part Two)

Readers may remember my rant against a “religious” Muslim, who in the name of Islam was going to kill his 15-year old daughter for the sin of writing a boy’s name in her notebook.

Three hours after writing the post we’re in a cab, John and Jeanne and I. The driver is clearly an Arab, and—let’s assume—Muslim.

The first thing he says?

“Wow, Ma’am, that’s a wonderful button you’re wearing! I love it!”

“Oh, you mean the one of Big Bird?” asks Jeanne.

“Yeah, it popped right out at me—even before I stopped! Love it—it’s terrific!”

And so we meet our second Muslim.

Who doesn’t lack for words, nor opinions. In fact, he’s on a par with Puerto Rican volubility—and that’s high in the nineties on the standard scale.

“My daughter just loves Obama—she calls him ‘Barrack.’ And the other day, she told me, ‘Daddy, why does your belly stick out and Barrack’s doesn’t? You’re never gonna get to be president with your belly sticking out!’”

Jeanne inquires—how many kids does he have?

Two girls—12 and 5.

And he wants to know—where can he get that Big Bird pin?

The pin is round, has Big Bird smack in the middle. Above—“Save Big Bird.” Below—“Vote Obama!”

“I was almost going to give him mine,” says Jeanne later, “but I have a collection of pins going back decades, and this one is special.”

That’s when she remembers—the Obama campaign committee is striking camp at Broadway and 93d. So she proposes that he stop, she’ll get out, grab one, and we can be on our way.

“God bless you, Ma’am!”

So we do, picking up one for me as well.

Well, the cabbie is ecstatic with the gift; he can barely wait to get home and give it to his daughter.

We go on to talk politics.

“You know, it’s incredible to me that the first thing the Republicans are saying is that they’ll do everything possible to prevent Obama from doing ANYTHING! I mean, aren’t they elected to lead, to make compromises, to make the country a better place? Isn’t that what we pay them for?”

A cab? Nah—we’re in the Democratic National Convention, with the cabbie the keynote speaker!

“And you know, what I like about Obama is that he’s all about the next generation, about improving the schools, about making a world that’s better for all, about seeing your kids go places that you couldn’t get to!”

Balloons are dropping!

“People come into my cab who are Republican, I tell them ‘hey, that’s OK! We’re all American, we’re all working for the same goal, and even though we may disagree, that’s great! That’s what makes us strong! That’s what unites us, our ability to listen, criticize, compromise, and respect each other! That’s the American way!’”

Confetti!

“I see my kids learning things I never knew and I know that their world is going to better than mine!”

And the spotlights pan the backseat!

Fearing that at any moment the Stars and Stripes Forever would fill the taxi, I asked about the gasoline situation. The governor has imposed rationing, and so you can only get gas every other day, depending on the last number of your license plate.

And yeah—that applies to cab drivers, as well.

‘What,’ I think, ‘that’s completely outrageous! Gas is the lifeblood of this guy’s business!”

The guy responds—he was in a line from 7 to 11PM to get a tank of gas.

Right—but what about tomorrow? Will a tank of gas last him?

“It’s a hard life,” remarks Jeanne. “Most cabbies gotta make 200 bucks a day, just to pay rent, expenses, gas….  So a lot of them have partners, who can work the extra shift.”

I’m thinking something different. I’m thinking of two parents, two fathers. And three girls. One father is somewhere in Pakistan, planning—perhaps—a ritual killing of his daughter in America.

The other father is on the streets of Manhattan, driving for hours on end, thrilled that a stranger—now a friend!—would stop and buy him a campaign button.

Two fathers, both Muslim.

One has gone forward—physically, to another country; spiritually, to another reality.

The other is locked into his past.

We should have a word, I think.

“Two fathers, both Muslim,” I wrote four paragraphs up.

A word for a father who is, and who is not.

Performance Through Panic?

If true, it’s amazing.

The problem?

I don’t think it’s true.

But what do I know? I don’t play golf. So I have no way of knowing whether Charlie Beljan—28-years old, recently married, recently childed (his son was born in September), and needing a top ten finish to stay in the PGA—played his way through a panic attack to win the Children’s Miracle Network Classic.

OK, so I don’t know anything about golf. But I do know something about panic attacks, having had two or three at the beginning of this year. That said, could I have done a routine activity, an activity I had spent thousands of hours to perfect?

Teaching. I have taught for twenty years, and the average person works 2000 hours per year. So, I have an estimated 40,000 hours of teaching notched on my belt. Could I have taught a class—that day the decision to hurl myself into the stream of cars or fish out my cell phone and call for help was made by convention only?

No.

Well, the clip below lets you see for yourself. Something is clearly happening. I don’t think it’s a stunt. I’m convinced that what was happening was exactly what we see—a guy struggling with anxiety, a man battling demons.

And Beljan was fighting some heavy odds. There are three things, scientists say, that completely remap your brain: getting married, having a child, moving to a foreign country. Beljan was married early in the year, and his first son was born two months ago.

Never had the experience, but I’ve heard about it. Yes, initially it’s exhilaration. But it quickly turns to exhaustion.

So he’s already under stress. And then, last Friday, on the second round of the first day of the golf tournament, he goes into a panic attack. And emerges with a 64—his second best performance.

Gets into an ambulance, goes to the hospital, gets a battery of tests. Comes out the next day, and decides to do the last two rounds. “I was crying on the range because I was so afraid these feeling would come back,” the New York Times quotes him as saying.

Two other quotes:

1.     Beljan also picked up a paycheck of $846,000

2.     “I never tried to make golf something more than it is.”

Well, my question would be ‘what is it?’ Is it a game or a high-risk, high-exposure job under conditions that you mostly cannot control? The Times quotes an expert as saying that golf is the most mental of games (though what about chess?).

And certainly sports is about pressure, and how we react to it. My current theory is that guys, for most of our evolution, were hunters. The chase, the hunt, the kill are bred into us. The corporate world isn’t quite the forest or savannah we crave. A football stadium with 250-pound muscled beasts facing us is more to the taste.  

And there’s a term in sports—the choke. A talented player, someone who has worked ceaselessly to perfect his game, loses it completely, enters into a panic, gets worse, gets tight, starts to analyze when he should relax. It’s a horrifying spectacle to see. (Even worse to go through, as I have….)

My take? Beljan did a reverse choke. He was operating under extreme stress, but somehow never lost his automaticity. Look at the clip—yes, he’s gasping for air and crouching on the sidelines (or whatever golfers have). But when he’s playing? He seems as loose as a jellyfish.

My question? What would have happened if he had lost, just for a second, that automaticity, that ease? For most of the time, that’s what happens. A missed note, a missed shot—the shoulders go up, the forearms tense, sweat forms and runs down the fingerboard. The next high note will now be harder, you think, and then….

…you’re spiraling down.

Did Beljan trust his body so much that he never lost flow?

Think so.

Panic attack?

No.

Yogaed on the Upper West Side

It was later in the day, and we were venturing down to a yoga class. Well, why not? I don’t do well with New Age spirituality, with all that energy and white light stuff, but I’m here, it’s the West Side, and certainly yoga is part of the culture.

We arrive to a steel, glass and wood interior, and head for the stairs. The sign says "Yoga Pure, one chakra down."

I brace myself.

"Awesome," says the girl, when I give her my pass.

"Awesome," she repeats, when I tell her it's my first time at the center.

And everything is cool, mellow, relaxing as we leave the dressing room and sit on a couch.

“It’s sort of like the baths,” I say to Johnny, “just that no one—apparently—is having sex….”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Whaddya mean ‘yeah,’” I say. “You ever been to the baths?”

“Naw, just heard about ‘em….”

Well, that’s a relief. Though I suppose if I can cope with my mother being an ex-lesbian, I can deal with Johnny swinging both ways.

Right, and then this guy with muscles he wears easily comes by, and Johnny hails him. And introduces me.

“When was the last time you did yoga?”

He’s the yoga teacher. Oh, and forget what I said up there about the white light. I now believe. Rather, I’m experiencing. Because this guy is not radiating but swimming in the stuff, and I am too.

“1972,” I tell him.

“Oh, the year I was born,” he says.

“Thank you for that information….”

Well, he’s a sweetheart, and why not? He’s from some town outside of Milwaukee.

“You’ll do great,” he tells me.

Unfortunately, he’s referring to the class….

Well, in addition to yoga he must have learned neuro-linguistic programming, because everything is positive, everything is subliminal messaging, everything I do is great.

“If you happen to be new in the class, feel free to take breaks, modify the positions, listen to your body, or just observe….”

OK—got that message!

Well, here’s where the serious contortioning begins.

We are on the ball of the right foot with the left foot at knee height and with our body turned to the right and our head turned to the left. Oh, and our arms are stretched above our head.

Jeanne, of course, is a former dancer. She’s doing all this and stifling a yawn.

I’m not really teetering, I’m pre-toppling. So I do what any sane guy would do. Grab the column next to me.

I do this because I’ve been given the freedom to do so. Three minutes previously (that’s six centuries ago experientially) a woman had done the same, and White Light had approved her for it.

“Great use of the wall, Marc!” WL calls out.

And he’s completely sincere!

Well, the instructions are coming with machine gun frequency, and now I’m down on my left knee, with my right leg sticking out and my right arm flung up and left, twisting my torso to the left as my head is pulled backwards. White Light appears and gently pushes my abdomen down. His hands are warm, kind.

“LOWER!” I’m shouting.

Internally. Externally, I’m sweating as badly as I do in San Juan on the trot. I look to the clock, as the faithful look to the altar.

10 minutes down, 50 to go!

It’s clear—I’m in terrible shape. Oh, and the plan to hide in the back of the class?

Forget it. White Light has us turning around and around. I might as well be on a pedestal.

“Great, Marc,” shouts my love, my executioner. I’ve stumbled back into the class, after taking a five-minute break.

'It's gotta be genetic,' I'm thinking. 'It's not that I'm discovering muscles I haven't used--I actually don't have these muscles. And a sorry time to find out....'

We're now doing down-dog / up-dog--and my back is crackling like bacon in a skillet.

It’s sort of the Stockholm Syndrome reversed, I think at one point. Instead of falling in love after weeks of torture or confinement, I fell in love before the torture began….

And perhaps it’s just as well that I came to the class tougher in spirit than in body. I grit my teeth. I remind myself—I’ve endured worse. All bad things come to an end.

It does. I’m drenched in sweat. My mat as well. I go to thank the light.

Really, just to touch him again….

“You did great, Marc!” he says.

I stumble away, only later to think…

…wonder if he’d review Iguanas!

Two Muslims (Part One)

Well, New York continues to surprise.

Or maybe not. Coming to the city as a new (or perhaps altered) person, I’m not sure what was here before that I couldn’t see, versus what was never here at all.

“She’s a pretty amazing person,” said Jeanne about her colleague, who conducts evaluations for people requesting asylum in the US.

Then she told me the story of a fifteen-year old girl from—where? Let’s call it Pakistan, though it could be any one of countries where fundamentalist Islam is raging.

The girl wrote the name of a schoolmate in her notebook. The family discovered it.

So?

The schoolmate was a boy.

Well, you and I would probably say “so,” and maybe even wonder whether the family had any business looking inside the girl’s notebook. Not being a parent, I don’t know if that’s standard operating procedure….

You can probably guess.

Family wasn’t pleased. So they gave the girl two options:

1.     marry a fifty-some guy whom the family would chose

2.     ritual killing by a family member

The girl chose:

       3.   get the hell outta town

Well, she did. Don’t know the story of how, but she landed in the United States. And is now in hiding because she fears her family may be sending / arranging a hit man to kill her.

That’s where Jeanne’s colleague comes in. Working for a group called Physicians for Human Rights, she does evaluations for people seeking asylum in the United States.

Which has, by the way, the largest number of petitioners for asylum of any industrialized country. About 40,000 people, if yesterday’s-read-today’s-not-findable number is correct in my memory.

And she trains young physicians and med students to do the evaluations as well.

The evaluations themselves are interesting. They’re not supposed to be therapeutic—though paradoxically, they can be. Instead, they’re meant to make the person requesting asylum relive and retell the worst of the (usually) torture that they have endured—to do it fast and dirty, as it were.

Why?

Because the person requesting asylum is gonna face a judge who is going to rule on the question—has this person truly suffered persecution or terror? Is he or she in danger, should the US deport? How convincing is the evidence? Yes, you call appeal the decision. Better, though, if you don’t have to.

The person doing the evaluation, then, becomes a psychic surgeon—applying the saws and drills to the mind and memory, extracting the most painful abuse and torture to display to the judge.

Curiously, some people find the process helpful.

Right, so Jeanne’s colleague had a problem. A fifteen-year old in hiding somewhere, without cash or food or clothes. And Super Storm Sandy bearing into the city. What to do?

Rent a car and deliver the goods, make sure the kid was safe.

Well, I did my share of snorting and some of Franny’s share as well. It seemed to call for it. Look, I don’t give a shit about culture and respecting religions and pluralism and anything else. This family? Rather, these guys—since they have completely subjugated the women?

They’re unspeakable. “Heinous,” perhaps, is the adjective that springs to mind. “Abominable,” certainly, is another alternative.

I can make a case—sort of—for why Islam developed the rules and traditions it did when it was a desert religion. A religion formed where water was precious, hospitality was a necessity not a nicety, when a harsh environment forged a harsh societal code.

Right, but now?

I’d say something that I think any woman would say. There is nothing more important than the family—the husband she has loved, the children she has born and has raised. And for a guy who is willing to kill his daughter for the “crime” of writing a boy’s name in a notebook? A guy who has sent her fleeing in terror halfway around the world, and who is hiding who-knows-where as a massive hurricane / Nor’easter / snowstorm bears down on the region? A guy who does that for his family’s “honor?”

Off with his balls!

(Stay tuned for part 2.)

Multiple Worlds

It’s one thing to be motherless, another to be familyless—and that’s how it was beginning to feel. And though the Fernández family does very well—excellently—in some areas, even exceeding my own, they can’t compete in others. Who else but Johnny has been observing my muddled attempts to open containers, waiting for my imploring eyes to lift to his. He’ll take the container, slide his fingernail under a slot hidden somewhere, and open it in seconds. Pass it back to me.

He once taught me how to fold a shirt—a shirt we were giving to a little Puerto Rican kid living up in Spanish Harlem. I’ve forgotten the process now, of course, but not the thought—is a little kid gonna care? Is he gonna see all John’s careful, neat, ordered work? Nah—it’s Christmas morning, he’s ripping into his presents, wrapping paper flying everywhere, the tape stuck to his fingers or nose!

It’s a thing with John—he can’t abide something less than tidily done.

Well, they lead crazy lives, these two. And there are more of them than me / us. So it was time to come up to a city still recovering from a disaster.

Which announced itself at the airport. Waiting for the luggage, I watched a news reporter follow a social worker around the darkened halls of one of the projects. Knocking on doors, checking on people. 60,000 people are still without power.

The gypsy cab driver, checking his GPS for directions to West End Avenue and 93.

Hunh?

A New York City cabbie can’t get to an easy mark on a grid? I begin to explain.

“Listen, just go up to whatever-that-bridge-is-that-comes-into-125^th, you know, up there in Harlem…”

“Listen, Buddy, you think I don’t know my city?”

We have a breezy confrontational exchange—quite pleasant after Caribbean gusto and cordiality, which variably turns into action.

Some of the bridges are still closed.

Oh, and the subway is jam-packed, and quite slow.

But the world of Upper West Side Manhattan is unaffected. Yes, trees are down in Central Park, and the North Woods is closed. Widow-makers, I think, and then remember that Jack told me that curiously, the branches that are resting in forks of trees—until they fall on the victim walking under them—tend to come down on perfectly still days. One of those things he had to say in lieu of “I love you….”

The supermarket, as usual, never ceases to astound. The logistics—how do they get all this stuff into the city? And what stuff it is. Pomegranates? Syrian figs? Thirty-five kinds of olives? Who buys this stuff?

And curiously, little bits of Puerto Rico are incorporated here. I’m in line at the deli, wanting my lox and bagel. The lady in front of me is ordering pinchos and then it’s my turn. Another guy takes my order.

“¿Son de cerdo o de carne de res?” asks the pincho lady.

Pork or beef?

Pure Puerto Rican Spanish, as is the pincho.

So I switch to Spanish, as does the clerk, and we’re all 2600 miles south. 

Or maybe farther. Since I enter John and Jeanne’s apartment and discover disorder, for the first time in my life. Then I see—I’m backstage, behind the scenes, and the stagehand is Ángela, the cleaning lady from Queens, via El Salvador.

Well, I’m curious about life, or rather lives, and we chat. She’s not a lady who much likes, or practices, taciturnity (what! No red squiggle? Did I get away with it, or has the computer given up on me?).

Mostly in English, some in Spanish. In fact, she’s set this stage for almost a decade now, and met and knew Franny. We talk about life—how it takes her two hours, now, to get home to Queens by subway. So she’s spending the night with her mother, up in a project in Harlem. How lucky they were that the hurricane hit Jersey, not the city. How fast the power had been restored, all things considered. How good it was to have work.

Well, last week it was the hurricane. John stood and watched through the window as the transformers blew across the river in New Jersey. “Looked like the 4^th of July,” he reports. (Note to John—tempting as they are, windows tend not to be the best places to stand afront {no, computer, I did mean that “afront”} in hurricanes.)

And yesterday it was the Nor’easter. Well, there’s snow in the Park, and this morning I was much more in Wisconsin that Manhattan. Snow on the ground, the trees losing their leaves, a dark, cold sky. Squirrels leaping branches above the urbanite dogs below.

Leave the park, and it’s city, all right, with chrysanthemums still blooming over patches of snow.

And oh, another thing different.

Marc.

Always before, this city had overwhelmed me, mocked me, doubted that anything would come of or from me. It had scorned me, or rather sniffed at me.

Wrong.

It hadn’t. I had come limping with self-doubt / self-defeat leading to the point of despair and suicide. The city had welcomed me. I had slunk back from its embrace.

My Spanish is better than Ángela’s English, and we’re saying farewell. I escort her to the door of the home that’s not mine but is; a home that is, in a way, more Ángela’ s than John or Jeanne’s.

“Mucho gusto” I say to my new friend, whom I may not see again….

Or do I say it—finally—to a city welcoming me?

Colonies—Coming and Going

Readers of this blog may have noted the absence of a new post yesterday.

Sorry—I, and most of the rest of the island, was feeling a bit the worse for wear.

No, no fight. Just the second most-ardent passion on the island.

Politics?

Yup—politics. We do ‘em with a flare, I’m happy to say. Starting with the caravanas, that snake around the island towns, blaring jingles loud enough to tumble the coconuts (seriously, that’s the name—tumbacocos,—really the speaker that dwarfs an Austin Mini….). Like so many things, it’s very colorful, unless, of course, you have anything you need to do.

Like call your boss, announce “this is where I am” and hold your phone up.

Boss will get it, of course, and hold his phone up.

You’ll commiserate, and agree to meet for lunch.

Well, this election was special, since it offered yet another chance to weigh in on the ever-pressing question of the political status of Puerto Rico.

I’ve written about the status issue before. In my first decade on the island, it was fiercely discussed. Now?

Gone underground.

Nor can I tell you why. It may be that Puerto Rico is so beset with other problems—one thinks of the 1000 murders a year (twice that of New York City) or the unemployment rate of 15%—that no one can bear to deal with another one. And, it’s true, nothing sets off the fire eater (that comefuego down here) than a brisk trot through the status issue.

Or even a stroll, which is how one of the most colorful characters did it. Long, dirty hair, baggy pants, a sign with myriad messages, and most importantly…

…a megaphone!

Look guys, I’m no one to talk—having a voice that can blow a semi from the highway—but a Puerto Rican with a megaphone is serious system overdesign…

So there he’d be, loping down the sidewalk, with his megaphone and…

…a message!

¡La colonia se va! The colony is going!

This confident pronouncement made two thirds of the political spectrum beam—if spectra can beam…

Unfortunately, it was the diametrically opposing spectra.

Both the people favoring independence and the people rooting for statehood (order by alphabet, please note!) agree on one—and only one—thing.

What we got now is a colony.

No, no—cries the middle, those defending the Free Associated State!

It’s a little like the trinity—one of those absurdities where a great deal of verbiage and intellectual energy has been spent uselessly and pointlessly.

But there are those who will fight anyone challenging the contention that Truman and Muñoz Marín sat down representing sovereign entities and negotiated a deal. One that can be…

…improved!

Rather, enhanced!

This notion is perhaps better expressed in lyrical Spanish instead of cold English.

“You mean, you don’t want to pay taxes, but want the vote, but don’t want to fight in the army, and want full parity in ALL federal programs without any of the responsibilities?”

Or words to that effect. Clearly, a gringo singularly lacking in imagination.

Well, the senator, or representative, or whoever he was, finally said, yeah! Great idea! And he was gonna go back home to Nebraska and get everybody on board with it!

For Nebraska, not Puerto Rico.

Well, it was therefore refreshing to hear—at last—a Free Associated Statehooder freely admitting it! And no less than through his very own megaphone!

Yup, so molested (molesto) was he that he bought a megaphone, and was booming out the counter-news.

¡La colonia se queda!

Was I hearing that right?

“Yup,” said Mr. Fernández, nodding his head in wonder.

The colony is staying!

Thus, for several weeks, we had megaphoned ideological discourse. Neighborhood response?

Less than pleased!

Which may be why Germán, that day, finally settled it for good. And he’s a guy of some weight.

Which may be why the colonia se va guy did nothing as Germán snatched the megaphone from his hands, slammed it on the sidewalk, and stomped it to death.

Never did find out what happened to the colonia se queda’s megaphone….