“Push the button when you hear this beep!”
– instruction on the View-Master recording of Sleeping Beauty
*
My momma likes to go on cruises. Walking with a cane at 90 years of age, the luxury of a cruise ship and her limited mobility = a good time. We sail on, gulp! Yes, you guessed it, The Scotch-Irish Line. Recently, we took a cruise to Baja, California. Cheap fares and top food sure beats top fares and cheap food. Some Brits say it’s the downside, some say it’s the up, but you also rub shoulders with a lot of Scotsmen and Irishmen. I can toss a bit of the old blarney, so I enjoy their horrendous rants. I do a lot of ranting myself.
The itineraries are good: At every stop, they offer excursions, through local vendors. At every stop, I go scuba diving.
At one of those Polideportivo sport centers that the Mexicans are so good at carving out of the jungle, I finish my dive, use the Men’s Room and walk down among the thatched huts. I load a paper plate with barbecued chicken, charbroiled squash, mango, locally grown potatoes, boiled cabbage and some concoctions whose identity remains a mystery to me. Lunch is included in the price of the dive.
“May I sit here?” I ask nervously at a small, wooden table. I’m nervous because the thrilling blond goddess sitting alone at this table for four is just about the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life. Vov! as we say in Swedish. Wow!
“Sure! Sit down,” she drawls, an enormous smirk on her gorgeous, young face.
“There are other… you have other…” I’m stammering, nodding at the glossy handbags adorning the other two chairs.
“Yeah, they’re my friends. They’re in the loo,” she replies with that ABBA Swenglish we’ve all come to enjoy listening to on iTunes.
“You’re Swedish!”— I’m not asking, I’m stating a fact.
So what else is new? telegraphs her dour frown.
After that, we speak Swedish.
Her name is Filippa Vingård, which— if you know Swedish— is quite a stretch. A very unusual first name. “I call myself Phyllis Weingarten,” she explains, that toothy white smile of hers outshining the sun. “Why does everyone think I’m Jewish?”
Uh-h-h-h, how to explain?
I am VERY MUCH in love with this girl: I experience a decided dizziness, as 90% of my blood flows into my nether organs. I have a burning in my throat, acute indigestion before eating a bite, the sweats. “It’s just an American thing,” I reply. “There are so many nationalities, people always try to pigeonhole one another in some category. You can call yourself Felicia Roussos. Then everyone will think you’re Greek.”
She has me write it on a napkin with her trusty ballpoint, practices saying it a few times. “But I’d have to get a new driver’s license,” she remarks.
“But you’d have to get a new driver’s license,” I agree.
Her girlfriends join us and, God help me, my cup runneth over! Already, they’ve zeroed in on my swimsuit. Under the table, I’m as erect as a sheik’s tent. Laughing openly, they introduce themselves, Anna-Karin and Sussi.
“Okay, I get it,” I tell them. “It’s a photo shoot. The swimsuit issue of a Swedish sport magazine.”
“No, no,” they laugh. “It’s just a vacation, ‘though the beach snakes are fearsome around these parts. Mexican beach snakes.”
“Caballeros,” I guess. Men.
“Caballeros,” they giggle, their cute little hands— with phenomenally painted nails— held shyly over their mouths.
They keep talking about Washington, D.C., Arizona, California and Mexico. Filippa is here specifically to purchase a taco-making machine. “We have all the ingredients locally in Arizona,” she explains. “All we need is the machine for making the tacos. I have people doing it by hand, but a machine would be a lot faster.”
“You run a restaurant?”
“A food service.” En matleverantör.
“You’re a caterer?”
“So they tell me!” she chortles, poking me in the side playfully. “How do you like the food here? Typical Mexican cuisine!”
“I love it! Hot and spicy.”
“Kevin here was in the army,” Filippa tells Anna-Karin and Sussi.
We finish lunch and they want to climb a mountain trail.
???
Mountain trail = Sex orgy? My hormones must be doing a number on me, I think.
“We heard about this really great trail!” they insist earnestly.
“Sure! But our boat goes in 20 minutes,” I point out. “Come on! Let’s do our thing!” It’s such a small island, you could cross it twice in 20 minutes.
The hang-bridge at the head of the trail is out, all that remains are the ropes and hand-holds. The ropes are an inch thick. There’s a ravine 15 feet below, but it’s all sand and water, so I waddle across on the ropes, feet splayed like Charlie Chaplin. “Okay,” I call to them. “It’ll hold your weight!” Following my lead, they come over, one after the other.
Cool!
We march up the trail, a series of switchbacks that obviously have fallen on hard times. “This probably looked nice when they first built it,” I remark, balancing precariously on crumbling bricks.
As agile as billy goats, my companions sashay past me up the hill, their tight little rear ends a wonder to behold.
From the top of the hill, we can see our water taxi pulling into the bay. All too soon, I have to turn us around and head back to the beach. They each put $5 in the island tip jar. I’ve already tipped my dive instructor and the team leader $5 apiece, but I fish out my wallet from my backpack and add my cinco to the mix.
As we churn for the mainland, they sit up front, on the deck, drawing hungry stares from every adult male on board. Minimal bikinis, acres of tanned skin, sun-drenched hair, wraparound sunglasses, pug noses and voluptuous bodies will have that effect under the baking Mexican sun! The blaring disco music is too much for my tender ears. I abandon them and take refuge in the wheelhouse, where the burly, bearded pilot is steering with one hand and plying the space between a señorita’s legs with the other. She seems to enjoy it, all smiles. Not wanting any trouble, I sip a cup of guava juice provided by the staff and watch the skyline coming nearer over the water.
My destination is the cruise ship. The ladies have flown in and are staying at a beachfront hotel.
“When does your boat leave?” Filippa asks.
“Actually, it leaves in about an hour,” I ruefully reply.
“That’s too bad,” she says in English, sounding like Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
“For that,” I say, “I have to be allowed to kiss you!”
It’s a Swedish thing. She’s vamping. I appreciate the effort.
We smooch a little there on the quay, surrounded by tourists, a brilliantly sunny day in Mexico. We exchange business cards.
Amazingly, her card says, “Washington, D.C.”
“I’m right there in Maryland!” I tell her excitedly. “I mean, this is incredible! We’re neighbors.”
“That’s the headquarters,” she explains. “I’m hardly ever there. But you can email me.”
“Sure. Yes! Wow! I mean, okay!”
With a final tug at our heartstrings and a final, innocent kiss, we part.
*
I receive an email from CharlizeWatson3045@ gmail.com: “Your 90-year-old mom should join an NGO and make the desert bloom!!!”
It doesn’t make any sense. I ignore it.
A week later, I receive another email from the same address. “We did meet, it’s your old buddy Filippa from the Sport Island. We ate lunch and hiked a freaky tail.”
I immediately write back in Swedish: “Sure! Yes! GREAT to hear from you. How’s your life getting on?”
“I just visited old friends in Alberta, Canada. They have a two year old who is sooooooooooooooo cute!” she writes me in English, showing off her virtuosity.
“That’s very good! That’s very nice,” I write back. I bring her up to date on what’s happening here in Maryland. Politics inside the Beltway. Obama. All that good shit.
A week later, I get a breathless email from… I’m getting a little alarmed! Filippa is kind of a dreamer and hard to pin down, but I don’t even know where she lives! “Sorry you haven’t heard from me, I been visiting my sister and her adorable little baby boy in San Antonio. Hot, hot was the Texas weather, but we always have so good a time and they have air conditioning. Very modern. Her husband Roland we call Roly Poly and he is very kind. So it was a great trip. Now I’m home again, unpacking and washing clothes.”
Swedish ladies of a certain age have babies on the brain. We call them “heifers.” Their biological clocks are ticking. They want to procreate. If I didn’t know this from personal experience, Elin Nordegren Woods and the other golf wives are living examples of this urge.
So, yes, great, I’m glad Filippa likes children, but it doesn’t exactly bring my penis to attention.
She also invites me to join Linked–In, the social media site for professionals. Like Facebook, that is the last thing I would ever consider! I am not a joiner. Social media, my ass.
Writing her, I mention in passing the wry fact that I don’t actually have email at home. I have a grand old PC in my bedroom (I’m hammering away on it as I write this), a monster from 1995 whose CMOS battery has died. It still functions as a word processor, Microsoft Word 97 and all. I save everything on a thumb drive and upload onto the Net at the public library, where they have 40 Dell PC’s in a clean, well lighted place.
Subject: Re: PC’s at library
Kevin, I certainly hope this is not an economic issue with you because my last boyfriend Pelle was forever saying “Oh, this restaurant is too expensive” and “Oh, that airline ticket cost too much” and going on all the time about money!!!!!! Is that you, some kind of miser????? A snåljåp. Because, if so, this friendship is, like, so very much over and done with, goodbye!!!!!!! Filippa
¡Ay, caramba! This fire and brimstone reaction I never expected. I immediately write back and assure Filippa that this is just a peculiarity that amuses me, a modest quirk. It has nothing to do with the economics of it, I don’t consider $35 a month for Internet in the home such an onerous burden. “If you ever catch me penny-pinching, Filippa, call me on it and I will stand corrected.”
At the same time, I don’t claim to be independently wealthy. I’m certainly not stepping into that trap.
Subject: What is your sweet spot?
Hola, Kevin! I wanted to kidnap you from Sport Island. Did you know that? I did! Don’t be so hard on yourself, baby! Where shall you and I travel together? Do you want to take me to Aruba? Whisk me off my feet! Or do you prefer Cabo san Lucas? Belize would be nice! I have always wanted to see the jungle in Belize. Let me know where you want us to go together and I’ll book with the travel agent. Your amiga, Filippa
Mi amiga, my lady friend.
Beautiful women the world over, heads held high, can be hard to please. High maintenance. I mean, I know that. But what is with all this traveling? Is she traveling on business? She keeps telling me about all the friends and family she stays with: “The Custers and I met on a cruise and have been bosom buddies ever since. They were so delighted to have me! I stayed a week…
“I met Tim and Roberta Hudson last year in Las Vegas. I love their seven year old and I’m her favorite person in the whole wide world!…
“Margaret and Stan have known me since we shared adjacent motel rooms in Albuquerque, New Mexico in a hail storm. That experience cemented the friendship. I have made it a point to visit them regularly ever since…
“Bob and Sally Davis are among my very favorite people. I use their log cabin whenever I am in Maine.”
I don’t know Filippa well enough to judge. I do know that I have cousins, two sisters, Judy and Lauren, who constantly correspond snail mail with my mom, their Aunt Rose. “I will be visiting the Nation’s Capital to see college chums Patty and Derek on July 19th. We can go to dinner, Aunt Rosa, on the 21st, 22nd or 23rd. Let me know which is most convenient,” writes Judy. Mom and I have taken her to dinner at least twice a year for as long as I can recall. That means we’ve been doing it twelve years! She has yet to pick up the check. “My late husband Ronald spoiled me rotten,” she gushes. “I found I liked it!”
Her younger sister Lauren is even more forthcoming. “Hiya, Aunt Rosa!” she writes. “I’m staying at the Dolley Madison for a horticultural conference on March 21st. Have Kevin pick me up at Reagan National Airport on March 21 at 2:35 p.m. I’ll be available for a late dinner on all three nights, March 22-23-24, as the conference only occupies the daylight hours. We’re at the forefront of the green revolution, learning housetop gardening techniques. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Kevin can take me back to Reagan National at 9:30 a.m. on March 25. I’m so glad I can fit you guys into my schedule. I miss you so much!”
Lauren has never been known to pick up a check either. In the midst of flamboyant talk and wild reminiscences, she all too often lets drop the none too subtle hint that her economic situation isn’t all that she could currently desire. Hint, hint, hint, hint…
We call them J.A.P.’s, Jewish American Princesses.
Where do the girls get it from? My parents couldn’t winter in Florida without Aunt Gertie and Uncle Max inviting themselves to join them. Uncle Max could afford to drive a Mercedes, since someone else always paid for their vacations. So much for the Straub family! Yes, we’re Jewish, but the Swedes, too, have family and farm traditions ripe with the communal spirit:
“What’s yours is mine and
what’s mine is mine!”
Thus, I grow slightly perturbed, a bit queasy, basically unsure, when I cannot place Filippa’s behavior in the best possible light.
Subject: Soft start
Hi, Filippa! If you’re going to be on the East Coast anytime soon, let’s do something more local to begin with. Grand travel plans can wait. Thanks! K
Subject: Maine, New York, New Jersey
So, Kevin, my friend, my travel plans are as follows. Maine with Bob and Sally Davis from May 12 – 17, New York City with Carl and Louise Jeffers and their darling children May 18 – 24. I will be staying in Atlantic City, New Jersey with my best friends in the whole world Sven and Maria Jakobsson from May 25 to May 29. Come ON, Kevin, one of these dates must fit your schedule????
Are all these people really dying to see her or is Filippa the perpetual guest?
Subject: Let’s do Atlantic City!
Hi, Filippa! Atlantic City will be truly excellent. I’ll drive up. I know the place. What’s their address, so I can book a motel on the correct side of town? Yours, K
Subject: R U a planner?
You sound like a planner, Kevin. You know, that weekend is American holiday Memorial Day Weekend. I’m thinking how crowded the Atlantic City hotels will be on big holiday weekend. I shall talk with Sven and Maria now, this Saturday or Sunday. It would be better if you flew out to Arizona and join me in camp. I’m delighted you are being flexible about this.
Jesus Christ! With Filippa, things keep getting more and more complicated! Camp? What camp?
In sociology, they talk about making an “emotional investment.” The more arduous the journey, the deeper your commitment. A pilgrimage to Mecca tests the depth of a Believer’s faith. Right up front, in the first inning of this new ballgame, Filippa wants me to travel straight across the country, testing not only my endurance, but the extent of my emotional involvement. We hardly know each other! I just find it a little early in the relationship for her to put up Challenges which I must overcome to win the hand of Faire Maiden.
I feel like I’m on board the Titanic.
I don’t like mind games!
I know! I know! I have no sense of romance. Servicing the hydraulics on vehicles in the U.S. Army Tank Corps brings you down to Earth very fast. The smell alone is an education.
My Swedish wife Eva read the teen romance magazine Mitt livs novell (“My Life Story”). Valiant suitors chased pretty damsels across its pages. “Should I abandon Kalle, who has always been so loyal to me, for the dashing Sven? Is Sven just toying with me or could this be true love?” At the end, someone collapses into someone else’s arms. (I’d have Kalle and Sven pair up, but that’s not Mitt livs novell ‘s demographic.) Very young, Eva and I drained the cup of happiness in that marriage down to the bitter dregs.
Carried away, I email Filippa, “Okay, let’s do camp!”
I joke about being “a soldier, once again under canvas.” I adopt an adventurous spirit, telling myself that it’s time to live a little.
What the hell kind of camp and why Arizona? She’s a caterer. I don’t get it. The pieces don’t add up. In politics, they call it Bait & Switch. Arizona isn’t what I signed up for. It’s a Friday night, and as the evening wears on, my impetuous behavior begins to annoy me. I wanted to meet her in Atlantic City to avoid getting on an airplane, renting a car, all that vacation palaver. Here I am, back in the soup again.
Saturday morning, I rush to the library and email her, “Don’t cancel your Atlantic City plans on my account! I don’t think I can make a weekend trip to Arizona fit into my schedule at this point. I’ll arrive exhausted and be horrendous company. The equation doesn’t add up. Stick to Atlantic City. That’s far better for all concerned!”
Afraid I’m messing up her plans, I even call the 1-800 number on her business card. I punch in her extension and get a message: “This is an automated voice messaging system. Your call is being forwarded to the voice mail of… [her voice] Phyllis Weingarten…[the robot] Please leave a message. When you’re finished, you may hang up or press ‘1’ for more options.”
“I don’t want your weekend plans to depend on me,” I explain in immaculate Swedish. “Let me hang with you guys in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and we’ll take it from there. Call me! Don’ t cancel Atlantic City on my account, please! “
*
“I don’t see what your problem is regarding Arizona,” Filippa writes back. I get the email on Sunday. Now I’m traipsing to the library daily, meaning an extra three-mile schlepp to Central Library on Sunday. “I really want to show you the camp. The countryside is breath-taking and everyone who sees it falls in love with it. You’ll have your own cot. I don’t expect you to sleep with me. So come on out and we’ll have a ball! Yours affectionately, Filippa.”
When reciting my phone number on her voice mail, I have enunciated super-clearly. It’s the same number as on my business card. She does not telephone me.
*
My mom had a bridge partner named Richard Dexter, a retired naval rear admiral. His wife had a live-in Filipina maid named Brandy Wine. Not only was her name a hoot, she was a character straight out of a Rogers & Hammerstein musical. When the Dexters would leave town on longer trips, Brandy brought home washing, through her church, and ran a 24-hour-a-day laundry. For cash. I only found out about it because Brandy telephoned me with a problem: The constant vibration of both washer and drier had the machines dancing across the utility room floor. Brandy called to ask me to secure the máquinas. Taking wooden blocks, bolts and assorted tools to the Dexters’ house, I discovered mounds of laundry in every room.
“What’s this, Brandy?” I asked.
“Oh, is laundry I do for my church. The Dexters, they want I should do this!” she insisted.
Not being a squealer, I never told the Dexters. I did tell my mom.
“This damn county,” Dex would complain over dinner at one of the finer restaurants. “Our water bill is reaching catastrophic proportions!”
Mom and I look at each other, but don’t comment.
Their washer and dryer never last ten years.
“We must have gotten a lemon,” says Maria Dexter. “We don’t run washes that often for our equipment to keep breaking down on us like this!”
Mom kicks me under the table. At home she counsels me, “Brandy is their maid. It’s their business! You keep your nose out of it, you hear?”
Good advice.
I see it as a case of conflicting agendas.
*
Date: Sunday, May 6, 2012
Subject: Mem Weekend Out
Hi, Filippa! Air travel on Memorial Day Weekend will be among the WORST of the year. If there’s one time the industry tells us to avoid, it’s that weekend. Take it from an old hand, I worked for Vasco da Gama Airline. Big holidays are Hell! It’s simply not do-able. Flight delays may be endless. A 5-hour trip could take 12 hours. It’s a crap shoot. You never know. People get stuck at airports overnight. Even if I reach Arizona, I’ll be so exhausted, I’ll need to spend 24 hours just recuperating. Resting and sleeping. Not exactly your boon companion. So let’s get together some other time. K
“You know,” mom tells me over dinner, “when she made that fuss about her previous boyfriend, and how you shouldn’t be a tightwad, that lost me right there! If she was a mensch, she would have let you show your true colors, not made generosity a stipulation of your friendship.”
I have just brought my mom up to date on where everything stands. I’d intended to use her car to drive to Atlantic City. My bird’s egg blue Honda Accord is fun to drive, but it’s too old to make that long a trip.
Half the charities my mom contributes to are graded “F” by the rating agency. Less than 15% of their revenue gets used for the advertised purpose of the organization. Everything else goes to salaries, travel expenses and overhead. The remaining charities on her list pay their CEO’s a salary in excess of $500,000 a year. “We can’t get top notch help for less,” they bleat. And these are charities. Mom gives anyway, but we share a cynical attitude toward Tikkun olam, repairing the world. We’re not fools. Human nature being what it is, we don’t expect greed, avarice and selfishness to evaporate anytime soon.
A Cobra gunship flies over the house. This doesn’t even begin to make sense. Either it’s a time warp or a collector’s item. I know I’m not hallucinating, but… what’s the answer?
In 1969, my personal heart-throb, my high school sweetheart Peggy Sue Cockburn, was home from college on Spring Break. I was finished with the Army and Vietnam, although there was a gentlemen’s agreement that I would re-up after college. I was studying Communications at Moosegrave and living at home in Oxburg, Maryland, in the house where I grew up. My dad and I did not get along, but that was “too fucking bad “ because I was seeing a psychiatrist four times a week. The Old Man could like it or lump it! I was so dangerous to myself and others, the only way for me to get discharged from the Army was for my parents to sign me up for psychiatric care. After a few months of therapy, that plainly wasn’t going to cut it. I ended up undergoing psychoanalysis with a brilliant clinician named Dr. Milton Rothstein. Together, he and I created the psychological tools I would need to navigate my way through life’s little stresses.
It’s April. Bearded, long hair, a badass pot smoker, I’m driving by the Cockburn residence on my way to an evening class in Kantian Philosophy. Every damn light is on at their house. “Peggy Sue’s home!” I think, my heart pounding. Forget school! I pull my little red sports car (bought used for $1,000) into their driveway. I ring the bell.
“Oh, hi-i-i-i-i !” she chants, standing in the door, giggling. Black slacks, a blood-red blouse, lo-o-ong blond hair, flashing blue eyes, a startlingly thick purple band of rouge rising up from each eyelid. She turns on her heels and leads me to the kitchen. We sit smoking cigarettes at the kitchen table. She tells me about school— the University of Oklahoma, in her case. She’s just turned 21. She’s in her prime: cute as a pin, a gorgeous figure, fulsome little breasts, a stupendous face, an ass sweet enough to die for.
“Jamie Reese and I go pan-handling in town when we don’t have any money,” she says in that incredibly whiny voice of hers, wrinkling her nose and chuckling.
Jag sitter som förstenad, I sit there, paralyzed, gazing into her eyes. “Y-Y-You must be wonderful a-at…p-pan-handling, Peggy Sue. I… don’t… know… how anyone c-could… refuse you anything!” I gasp.
“Gosh, if somebody would just loan me $250, I can fly back to school and I won’t have to take that long drive with Mike Haskins in his pick-up truck!” she informs me, widening her eyes. She takes a drag on her cigarette and holds her hand out over the ashtray, ostensibly to knock off ash. I reach… out… and touch her hand.
“G-Gosh, P-Peggy Sue! I… I could do that!” I sigh.
“Peggy Sue! Peggy Sue! Come see Kevin’s cute little red sports car!” Mrs. Cockburn shouts from the living room. Whatever Peggy Sue has, she got it from her mom. A dominatrix par excellence, Mrs. C wears the pants, bossing her poor husband around to beat the band. The Colonel’s refuge is Vietnam. On his third tour, he’s hardly ever home.
“I’ve already seen it!” drawls Peggy Sue, still riveting me with her stare.
“Are you going to loan me the $250?” she asks, making the amount sound like it’s three sentences long.
I own exactly $248 to my name. That’s what I have in my bank account at Gramercy Bank. Miserable, I tell her, “I don’t have the money!”
“Shit!” she replies. “You always let me down, Kevvy! You always have and you always will!”
“My psychiatrist says I shouldn’t see you anymore,” I blurt out. “He thinks… you’re just stringing me along!” Hey, I’m 20 years old, totally fucked up after Vietnam, piecing my life back together.
“I think psychiatrists cause more problems than they solve,” says my Vixen Savior, the Light of My Life, my One True Love. “You should come out to Oklahoma! We can live together, silly!”
Whenever she calls me “silly,” my dog whistle, I melt. Since ninth grade.
You choose! A 21-year-old coed who is heart-stoppingly beautiful, poignant, but not yet mature or a 42-year-old psychiatrist who has professional credits— and knowledge— as long as your arm.
Peggy Sue pulls a pendant on a silver chain out of her blouse, balances it on her fingertips and begins swinging it back and forth. “You’d better… not… stare… too long… at this… pen..dant,” she chants in a sing-song voice, “or… you’ll… get… really… sleep-y!” And she laughs and laughs and laughs.
My head is spinning. I get the hell out of there, that scathing laughter of hers ringing in my ears.
This was one of life’s turning points. I could have gone the one way or the other. I chose to go with the intellectual alternative, coldly suppressing my inclination to give in to my emotions. I just couldn’t trust Peggy Sue and me, myself and I to provide any kind of a life for the two of us. I suspect everything would have ended up a mess, with us hating one another.
It’s one of those moments I think about when contemplating the road less traveled.
Yeah, I’m a control freak. I like to know where my next meal is coming from. Nor do I think this requires any apologies on my part.
Date: Monday, May 7, 2012
Subject: Re: Mem Weekend Out
Okay, Kevin. I thought you were more of a man than that. No biggie. You can’t stand the hustle and bustle of a busy airport. Life goes on. Maybe we’ll stay in touch. I can not go to Atlantic City, I already told Maria and Sven “no” and they have made other plans. Ho hum. I see them another time! Meanwhile, I am in Arizona. I serve meals to, like, 400 illegals who all got to eat. That’s what I do, baby! While you enjoy yourself, I am working! Diligently, Filippa
It’s definitely starting to piss me off that Filippa won’t admit that Maria and Sven Jakobsson bailed on her. It’s obvious they told her not to come. They have other plans. Instead of forthrightly admitting this, even to herself, Filippa emails me, claiming to be concerned about the crowds on the boardwalk and in the hotels. So it becomes my fault that Atlantic City fell through. I promised to join her in camp! So she cancelled Atlantic City. It says here. In the small print. And I ought to be held to my promise. It says here.
I don’t think so. And I definitely don’t like being put in the wrong.
Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Subject: Ships Passing In the Night
Hello, Filippa! I finally GET it. You are running a refugee camp for Mexican illegals caught crossing the border into Arizona. You feed them, that is what your food provider business does. You get paid by the NGO running the show. When you’re not in camp working, you travel. This is all news to me! Sorry it took me so long to fit the pieces together. K
Yowl ! This time I really stamped on the cat’s tail! “If you wanted to know about my business, why didn’t you open my invitation to Linked–In,” she writes back, furious. “Are you an idiot? My business description very succinctly tells you everything you might want to know. Linked–In. That’s why I sent you invitation!!!!!! Cretin!!!!!”
Shit! That stings! Anyone who’s spent a few years soldiering through war zones feels a little trepidation over having their face and/or curriculum vitae on-line for all to see. Facebook. Twitter. The social media. Not too bright a prospect. The world wide web. My face. My particulars. There are perfectly justified, angry refugees who can swear that U.S. Army Field Officer Kevin should have
a) saved their village
b) gotten the wounded onto a medevac
c) negotiated a truce with the rebels
d) all of the above.
Broadcast my existence? No thanks!
“Why do I have to subscribe to a website to get a simple, one-sentence description of what you do?” I write back. “Just asking and all.”
Subject: Take yourself in your backside!
Du gör mig så förbannad, din jävla typ! Glöm det! Dig vill jag aldrig mera höra talas om!
Hejdå! Filippa
( “You make me so angry, you fucker! Forget it! You, I never want to hear about, ever again!
Goodbye! Filippa” )
So, I fucked it up! If I had signed up for Linked–In, we would not have been ships passing one another in the night.
Different strokes for different folks, I never have this problem with my little bro’ Timothy. We’re super-careful to stay on the same page, and if we get out of kilter, we make damn sure to straighten things out. My mom and I have had some humongous misunderstandings. We’ve had shouting matches that left us both hoarse for a week. I apologize and we get over it. Or she doesn’t and we let time heal the wound. But we’ve known each other all my life.
Filippa and I spent an hour together on an island beach and have exchanged 24 emails— a dozen apiece— over an eight week period of time.
“Okay, don’t get excited, man,” I’m thinking. “Just because I’m sure, I know.”
Monkee-speak.
Davy Jones says this at the beginning of the pop song “Daydream Believer,” The Monkees’ second biggest hit. This 1967 smash did something else, as well. It introduced into the vernacular the expression “7A.” Some squads in Vietnam began to use this as a synonym for “Excellent!” If something was conspicuously better than anticipated, you marveled, “7A, man, 7A! ” As far as I can tell, the expression evolved from the pop song. We had “receiving you five by five” on the radio— five points of amplification, five points of modulation. That put the needle in the dead center of the grid = max reception. So we added a bit of slang of our own. Happens all the time. In 1980’s Germany, a prostitute who actually enjoyed sex was called “an REO Speedwagon.” Soldiers need to make up their own definitions to explain their existence.
In this situation, the “don’t get excited” part just seems to fit. An earworm.
“Okay, don’t get excited, man. Just because I’m sure, I know.”
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