Peace Through Common Enemies

Gigantic bugs would deserve to die because they’d be so fucking disgusting; I think we can all agree to that. Moreover, the presumed culpability of huge, mutant bugs, though certainly an unpleasant subject, is not the terrible problem that so many horror/sci-fi movies would have us believe it to be. Indeed, far from being such a problem, this universal imperative to kill giant, nasty bugs lies, rather, at the heart of a solution.

There’s a bitter debate currently raging in nations where bullfighting is part of the society’s sporting tradition. Animal rights activists portray the practice as torture, and torture it must surely seem to the animals that are forced to participate and so often die in the bullfights. On the other hand, aficionados of the sport argue quite compelling that this time-honored contest between man and beast, though perhaps cruel, is nonetheless a legitimate cultural expression of shared values (e.g., courage, determination), values that people have a right to celebrate. Who’s to say what’s morally correct? Ethics is hard.

Science, by contrast, is easy. Why can’t the R&D people at Monsanto (or Raid or Hormel or wherever) cook up some genetically modified superbugs for the bullfighters to fight? The bugs wouldn’t have to be enormous. In fact, considering the proportionate strength and speed of insects, a bug the size of a bull would probably be much too deadly. I’m guessing that bugs the size of terriers would be plenty formidable – challenging enough, at least, for your typical matador. Personally, I’d very much enjoy watching 30-lb killer bugs chase some Spaniards ‘round a bullring like a bunch of goddamn rodeo clowns. And vice versa. Throw some fancy stretch pants into the mix and that's one hell of a ticket. Perhaps the bugs could even be engineered to have horns and fur, taught to stomp and snort like bulls. Bugfighting would rival bullfighting in terms of both spectacle and glory but with none of the stigma that attaches to blood sport. I don’t even think bugs have blood. It’s mostly goo.

For millennia humankind, as if cursed, has used its technologies to forge weapons of war. Must we continue devising means by which to devastate and destroy each other and ourselves? Maybe it’s about time we all shook hands and started using our petards to hoist some giant fucking bugs.

A Few Minutes In Paradise

I’m lying on a tropical beach. I wiggle my toes in the warm sand, and I listen to the gentle rhythm of the water lapping softly against the shore. I inhale slowly though my nose, and I exhale through my mouth. I focus on my breathing, but soon there’s no need for concentration as my breaths come steady and deep of their own accord.


I close my eyes. I direct my attention to the top of my head. I gradually relax my scalp until all of the tension there dissipates and moves elsewhere. I do not concern myself with where that tension has moved. When my scalp is completely at ease, I turn my consciousness to my forehead. I relax my face – my brow, my temples, my cheeks. I slacken the muscles of my jaw, then my neck, then my shoulders, calmly ushering the stress away and down through my body. The loosening continues, an easy wave rolling lazily on through my torso. The tightness in my chest, the stiffness in my back…it all seems to melt and flow through my belly and hips and buttocks and into my thighs. I feel now as though I exist entirely in my thighs. I let myself gather there; I allow all of my awareness to collect in the blood that feeds the tissues of my quadriceps. Eventually that awareness drifts down behind my knees and into my calves. My energy finally trickles on into my feet, and it tingles there briefly before it seems to escape from my toes and into the warmth around me. I am serenely bereft now. The turmoil I once housed has left me; it lies scattered, atomized among the billion grains of sand in which I lie. I rest peacefully at the edge of a doze.

I am startled by the shriek of a gull, and I jerk my palms down into the sand in a spasm of alertness. A stabbing pain shoots out of my left wrist and toward the fingers of my left hand. It’s my carpal tunnel syndrome. (About a year ago the chronic pain in my right wrist became intolerable and so I switched to mousing with my left hand. This tactic bought me some relief, it’s true, but comfort is a creditor without pity.) I suddenly realize that I have no idea how to relax my arms or my hands. What had that audiotape that they played at the anxiety workshop said about arms and hands? You’re at the beach, then you do your head, then you do your neck, then you do your shoulders…. Do you do the arms and the hands after you do your shoulders? But then you’d have to come back up through the arms again in order to get to the chest. That can’t be right. The whole point was to go downward through the entire body in one slow, sweeping motion. Maybe you’re supposed to do the arms at the same time as you do the torso? But then your arms would have to be laid flat against your sides. The tape never said anything about your arms needing to be flat against your sides. I think back to the voice. What had the voice said about my arms and my hands?

Nothing! I’m sure of it: the tape never mentioned arms or hands. What the hell? How do you make a tape demonstrating a physical relaxation technique but not mention the hands? They’re the busiest parts of the body, the prime utensils of a hectic, stressful lifestyle. Jesus Christ…fucking HMOs.

I hear the raucous calling of more gulls, and I look up to see them swooping in their frantic, graceless circles. Their cries grow ever more incessant, more desperate, as they jockey for some unseen carrion. In their mindless screeching I sense a universal pang of hunger and an instinctual fear of death. Oh, the madness, the senselessness of it all! For what more could life be to these wretched seabirds than a futile bid to defy the inevitability of death? The irony of their frenzied will to live is that death will obviate life’s purpose, and so there is no urgency. In reality there are no stakes. There is no pressure. Yet the gulls do not calm themselves; they cannot.

I raise my hands to shade my eyes from the sun’s burning glare. I wish I had sunglasses. It occurs to me that I’m not wearing any sunscreen. (It’s not that I forgot to bring sunscreen; I just hate the greasy feel.) My lips are chapped, cracking badly, and my Blistex stick has worn down to a concave nub. I'm so thirsty. I think I'm getting a migraine.

Things Can Be So Hard Sometimes

I was riding the bus and eavesdropping on two orgiasts who kept peppering their conversation with "that's what they said" jokes. It was virtually nonstop. It was as though they were having a contest to see who could throw the punchline most often and who could do it most wildly. No set-up was too flimsy, no context too tight for maneuver. These guys were willing to stretch things as far as things needed to go. It was fairly amusing at first, but after a certain point it started to seem just juvenile.

A Recipe For Tough Times

Undernourishment isn’t funny, but nobody ever said it couldn’t be spicy. If you have (access to) a saucepan, a hot plate, and some water then you can make taco soup.

Find your local Taco Bell (they’re everywhere) and grab some packets of hot sauce. The condiments are at the service buffet with the straws and the napkins. Take as many as you can. I don’t think you’re technically stealing but, still, you should try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Empty 8-10 packets into a saucepan, add 2 cups or so of water, and heat up, stirring occasionally. Thin the broth to taste by adding more water.

Nutrients aren’t taco soup’s strong suit, let’s face it, but the price is right. And there’s definitely something in there: various salts and sugars, little bits of pickle. Plus it’s truly satisfying in the sense that you probably won’t want any more taco soup once you’ve finished.

For cream of taco soup, follow the above recipe but sprinkle in some Coffee-mate as you stir. Packets of Coffee-mate can often be found at donut shops, at 7-Eleven, and at gas stations that serve coffee.

The Interrelatedness Of All Things

In my efforts to affect how events unfold in China I've been killing a lot of butterflies lately. I don't mean to kill them. I simply catch them and make them flap their wings, but they almost invariably end up dying. I'm not really attempting to influence Chinese situations in a particular direction at this point. I just want to see if there's any potential for making a difference.

The Worm Is Very Busy

The Worm remains in its latibule, not in hibernation or repose but squirming, conscious and hungry. It coils forth from its own rotting corpse and then turns back toward the fleshy, dead womb from which it sprang. It twists into its putrefying meat until nothing but digested filth is left of that meat, and then it consumes the filth in order to sustain itself in the squalid privacy of its pit. It waits in vain for the morsels of others, something new on which to feed, but no scraps fall down into The Worm’s lonely lair.

Apparently nobody wants to share. Apparently no one needs advice. I guess everybody’s got their problems all figured out.

But whatevs. The Worm doesn’t care. It’s got troubles of its own to deal with. Plus, it’s been meaning to spend more time on itself lately anyway…take some yoga classes or Pilates, go to farmers’ markets, maybe get a juicer. It’s not like The Worm’s sitting around checking its in-box to see if you need help. The Worm’s schedule is quite full as it is, thank you very much. There’s plenty enough on that plate already, that’s for sure.

Maybe if you need some advice you should go ask Dan Savage. He’s always got something interesting to say. He’s a genuine font of wisdom, that Dan Savage. Yes, sir, he's probably got a whole team of assistants just to help him sort through all his mail. Oh, he’s heavy traffic alright, a real go-to guy, Mr. Dan Savage…maybe you should ask him.

Someday, though, you're going to have questions and difficulties that aren’t of a sexual nature. Someday Dan Savage is going to be completely stumped, and then…well, let's just say I wouldn't necessarily assume you can just come crawling to The Worm’s hole for help. (I mean, you can ask. It’s not like there’s any harm in asking, so you might as well ask. You should definitely ask. But I wouldn’t expect The Worm to get back to you right away – at least, not immediately. Probably soon, though. Maybe a couple of days, something like that. I suppose that if you were to label your inquiry as being urgent then I'm guessing The Worm’d probably be able to turn it around in a day or so…but you know what? The Worm really isn’t making any guarantees right now. It’s got a lot of priorities at the moment. There’s a ton of stuff going on these days, and you’re not necessarily at the top of the list. So, you know…whatever. I imagine The Worm will just have to get to your issue whenever The Worm can get to your issue, that’s all. Like I said, it’s been very busy lately. Things have been super hectic.)

Zimbabwe Bird

The man and his son sped north through Kruger National Park toward the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. The man focused on the highway ahead, occasionally taking off his sunglasses to squint at the waves of summer heat that danced above the asphalt. The boy lay reclined in the passenger’s seat, his eyes closed, his bare feet resting on the dashboard of the rented Ford. The boy wore headphones and was oblivious to the noise of the wind that rushed through the open driver’s side window. The man pulled his sunburned left elbow in from where it lay on the sill, and he rolled up his window. Grabbing the steering wheel with his left hand, the man reached with his right hand over to his son’s thigh and began shaking it. “Hey, Dom…Dominic….”

The boy looked up at his father and took off his headphones slowly as if he’d been napping. “Huh, what?”

“What are you listening to?” the man asked.

“Nothing…the radio. What?” asked the boy, looking for the off switch on his new walkman.

“We’ll get to the border in a couple hours,” said the man. “After that, it’s about an hour and a half to the ruins.”

“Oh,” the boy replied absent-mindedly. They were on holiday, and the goal was to see as much of southern Africa as they could in the two weeks they had together.

Three days earlier, they had spent Christmas at the home of the man’s old college buddy who had settled in Capetown. Christmas had been pleasant enough. The father’s college friend and his family were gracious hosts, and they had a son about Dominic’s age. When not eating, the two boys had spent most of their time playing ping-pong while the adults discussed financial matters and played bridge. Capetown had been cool, fanned by ocean breezes, but Pretoria had been hot and now the heat seemed to be getting exponentially more oppressive with every inland mile.

They were scheduled to see Great Zimbabwe today and to stay in Harare tonight. Tomorrow they were due to reach Victoria Falls, one of the world’s seven natural wonders, and then it was on to a three-day guided tourists’ safari in Zambia. After that, the plan was to head back to Pretoria and Johannesburg and to see as many attractions as they could before the boy had to fly back to Sydney for school and his father had to return to his work in Riyadh.

Dominic adjusted his seat to its upright position and looked around at the vast plain through which they were driving. Summer was usually the rainy season, but the region was into its second year of draught and the grassland was parched, the grass more yellow than green. The highway was straight as a vector, and the savannah almost perfectly flat, punctuated only by the occasional shrub or dying tree. Kruger was famed for its wildlife, but they had seen none of it. They hadn’t even seen another car in more than an hour. The mid-morning sun burned in the cloudless sky, and the boy put on his sunglasses to better survey the scene. Still nothing, only now less bright.

“You hungry?” the boy asked.

“Not yet,” his father answered. “It’s not even eleven yet.”

Dominic re-reclined his seat, rolled over on his side, and stretched his hands back toward the cooler that sat on the backseat. After struggling a bit with the cooler’s latch, he fumbled inside for a Coke, found one, and managed to close the cooler lid again. As he turned back around with his soda and raised his seat back upright, he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye.

“What was that?!” They had raced past what looked like a stone marker sitting about 25 feet off to the right hand side of the road.

“Yeah,” said the man. “I don’t know. It sort of looked like a tombstone.”

Dominic swerved around in his seat and looked back through the rear of the car, but the thing was gone and he could see nothing but dry grass.

“Let’s go back,” the boy suggested excitedly.

“It was nothing,” said the man, “just a milestone. It’s not worth stopping for.”

“Come on, Dad,” Dominic implored. “We’ve been driving all morning and there’s been nothing. Let’s check it out. It’ll be fun. We could stretch our legs.”

“It wasn’t anything, Dom. If it were important the guidebook would’ve mentioned it. Besides, we’re only supposed to get out of the car at designated stops, you know. Wild animals.”

“Oh, come on, Dad. You can see forever in every direction. There’s nothing dangerous out here.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s what whoever’s buried in that grave said.”

“Come on…it could be interesting.”

The man sighed in exasperation. He looked in his rear view mirror, took his foot off the accelerator, and brought the car to a halt. Making a three-point turn, he headed back south. “Let’s make this quick,” he said. After a minute, he slowed the car down to about fifteen miles per hour so that they could more easily find what they were looking for. The boy was delighted, practically bobbing in his seat as he looked out to the left, searching for the marker.

“There, there!” Dominic exclaimed. The man pulled to the shoulder and stopped the car, and Dominic slipped on his tennis shoes, leaving his unopened soda on the car floor. “Careful,” the man warned as Dominic threw open his door, but the boy was already jogging across the highway.

Once off the pavement, Dominic realized that what had seemed like an even coat of grass was actually a series of giant, intermittent tufts, spreading out each to each, creating the illusion of constancy. Crossing over the tufts of grass was clumsy business, and it was easier to walk around them than through them. The boy approached the stone marker in zigzag fashion, using the narrow dirt trails that occupied the interstices of the grass tufts. The marker’s inscription soon became legible: Tropic of Capricorn.

It took a moment for Dominic to process what he’d read. He’d fully been expecting to find a gravestone, a lonely memorial to some explorer of yore, gored on this spot by savage beasts…or maybe boiled alive in a huge pot, encircled by hungry natives undulating in wild, ecstatic thanks to their primal gods. But despite his teenaged predilection to bloody fantasy, he quickly decided that this stone, though somewhat staid and dryly academic, was nonetheless monumental enough to satisfy his thirst for adventure. “What’d you see on safari?” his mates would surely ask him. “I saw the Tropic of Capricorn,” he’d say. “Not much to it,” he’d tell them, “wouldn’t even know it was there if it weren’t for this stone marker,” he’d say.

Dominic’s father came up and stood beside the boy, arms akimbo, studying the inscription and nodding his head. “Hmm,” the man said, indicating that he too considered this discovery sufficiently interesting, that their back-tracking had indeed been worth their while. “Let’s have lunch here.”

They went back to the car to fetch their food and gear. The man threw a large picnic blanket over his shoulder and took a bag of utensils from the rear of the car. Then they grabbed the large cooler from the backseat, each of them holding one of its handles. The man kicked the backseat door closed, and together they carried the cooler over toward the marker. They spread the blanket out and laid it over the large tuft of grass closest to the stone. They set the cooler onto the blanket, knelt, and began to take out their lunch supplies. Bread, ham, cheese, mustard, a chocolate bar with almonds. The boy drank soda from a can, and the man drank iced tea from a thermos. They used paper towels for plates. They prepared their sandwiches in silence, on their knees. Once their food was ready to eat, they switched to their buttocks and sat facing the marker. “Here’s to the southern Tropic,” said the man, raising his thermos in salute, and the boy raised his Coke to complete the toast. They began to eat.

“How come there weren’t any blacks in Pretoria?” Dominic asked as he chewed.

“They were there,” his father answered. “They don’t mingle that much outside of Capetown.”

“Oh…you mean mingle with whites?” asked the boy, considering. “So what would I be here?”

“Well, you’re American and you’re a tourist, so you’re white,” said the man.

“But what if I lived here?”

“You’d still be white so long as you were a U.S. citizen. You might have some trouble, socially, ‘cause of how you look, but legally you’d be white. It’d be as though you were Portuguese, I guess.”

“What if I was all Vietnamese? I mean, a Vietnamese citizen.”

“American citizens are basically white unless they’re obviously black. If you were a Vietnamese citizen…well, I can’t imagine you’d live here. But if you did, I suppose you’d be colored. You’re either white here or you’re black or you’re Indian or you’re colored. If you’re not white or black or Indian, then you’re colored.”

“So Asians are coloreds?”

“Well, Indians are Asians, but other than that, yeah. Actually, the Japanese are sort of honorary whites here.”

“Why’s that?” asked the boy.

“I’m pretty sure it’s ‘cause everybody likes Toyotas,” the man answered with a laugh in his voice. “And Sony.”

Dominic put his sandwich down and started opening the Cadbury bar. “Finish your sandwich first,” his father told him.

“So there’s no apartheid in Zimbabwe?” the boy asked, knowing that there wasn’t but wanting to keep the conversation alive.

“Not officially,” the man said. “You know it used to be Rhodesia?”

The boy nodded as he chewed to show that he knew. “There was a revolution,” he said, swallowing. “Bob Marley played at the opening ceremony.”

“Yeah…I guess. About five years ago Rhodesia sort of broke with South Africa. It changed its name back to Zimbabwe and abolished apartheid. It wasn’t much of a revolution, though…hardly anybody died, property didn’t really change hands. White people still own everything. Blacks can vote now -- the President’s black, Mugabe -- but all the rich people are still white. Nothing really changed.”

The boy thought about this. “Are we rich?” he asked.

“Not yet,” his fathered answered, “I’m working on it.” Then, after some chewing, he wiped his mouth with a paper towel and added, “We’re affluent. I’m hoping to be rich by time I die. If we’re not rich by then, it’ll be up to you to finish the job.”

The boy wondered how his life might be different if they were rich, he and his father. Dominic’s mates at boarding school all assumed he was rich, largely because he was American and partly because he traveled so much between terms. He thought it was fine for people to assume he was rich, but he did not think it was actually the case (his father seemed too concerned about minor expenses to be a rich man). The boy knew that they weren’t poor, but he had no idea how close they were to being rich. In fact, the boy only vaguely understood what his father did for a living.

He told people that his dad was an engineer and sort of an architect but not really an architect. Dominic knew his father had studied engineering in college and that he had an MBA, but the boy wasn’t too clear about what an engineer was or what a businessman did. He knew that his father was a “contractor” and that a contractor, unlike an “employee,” was his own boss (he’d often heard his dad boast that he hadn’t been an employee since he’d been 22). He knew that his dad often contracted for oil companies, that he currently worked for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia, and that his father had met his mother while contracting for the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. And he knew that his father built things or designed things – platforms, bunkers, storage facilities. His father rarely talked about his work, but he had once said he was like an architect but that he never designed big things like office buildings or bridges or even proper houses but, rather, only smaller structures, things for temporary use. His father had once told him that he could design whatever was needed if the job paid enough.

They finished their sandwiches, and Dominic opened the chocolate bar and broke off a piece. As he ate the candy, he got a plastic bag out of the bag in which they kept their cutlery and began gathering up their trash. He put the plastic trash bag back into the utensils bag, broke off another piece of chocolate, and got up to walk over to the stone marker. His father remained seated and ate chocolate as he watched his son approach the marker.

The northern face of the stone was identical to its southern face, reading simply, “Tropic of Capricorn,” plain but weighty testament to the factitious line announced. The boy pressed down with both hands on the top of the marker, trying to lift his feet up off the ground, but the marker was not quite tall enough for him to get the right leverage. He looked at his hands, now filthy from the dust on the marker. How long had this stone been here, how many years of dirt had it accumulated? Dominic wiped his hands off on the legs of his trousers. He realized that, assuming that the marker was accurately positioned, he was straddling the Tropic perfectly. He began hopping, slowly and deliberately, from side to side. “I’m tropical…I’m subtropical…I’m tropical…I’m subtropical…” he began to sing out as he jumped.

The man put the remnants of the chocolate bar into the cooler, latched the lid, and stood up. “Dom, come on…let’s go.” The boy stopped his hopping. They gathered up the blanket and the rest of their supplies and carried the cooler back to the Ford.

The man turned the car back around, and they continued north. “Okay…heart of darkness,” the man said, “you and me against the world, kid.”

Dominic thought about putting his headphones back on, but he knew that his father was going to want to talk now that they had eaten. This was where and when they communicated best, it seemed, inside of cars while driving. For almost as long as he could remember, the boy had spent holidays on road trips with his dad – the American southwest, Mexico, the Pacific northwest up through Canada to Alaska, southeastern Australia, Iran, northern Africa – and the plurality if not the majority of their waking hours together were spent in the cab of rented vehicles.

Dominic felt a certain comfort – not exactly a sense of contentment, but one of normalcy – when sitting at his father’s side, heading for places his father expected to be somehow enriching, destinations of cultural interest or scenic beauty. They spent a couple of weeks together several times a year, and the man felt it was his obligation to do his best to spend this time broadening his son’s horizons through travels. Between stops, they shared what they could about themselves with each other. Indeed, if the boy were asked to draw a picture of his father from memory, the image he would surely conjure would be one of his father’s profile, his father’s hooked nose and grey temples, as he sat in a driver’s seat concentrating on a road ahead.

“Did you finish the reports?” the man asked.

“Yeah.” Three times a year Dominic’s masters sent his father the boy’s academic ranking in each subject along with narrative reports on his progress during that term. The man would read the reports and would then give them to his son to read also.

“Good job in English,” the man said.

“Thanks,” the boy answered. “Mr. Partiss always yells at everybody for letting a Yank beat them.”

“What’s going on in commerce? And in biology?”

“Falconer hates me,” the boy protested, referring to his commerce teacher. “The exam was mostly essay. I did alright on the multiple choice, but most of the points were on the essays, and he’s got it in for me. There’s no right answers. I don’t know what he wants.”

“Well, your job was to figure out what he wanted and give it to him. What about science? Has he got it in for you, too?”

“No,” said the boy.

“Biology’s pretty objective,” said the man. “Look…commerce is over. I guess biology is too, but chemistry and physics are coming up. You need to improve in science. English is great, and I’m happy with math, too, but you have to do better in science. Aren’t you embarrassed to be in the B class?”

“I’m dux in that class,” the boy said sullenly.

“It’s the B class, son! There’s no duxes in a B class! I want you to move up in science by the end of next term. You’re at the top of the B class, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Spend all your prep time on science if you need to. Don’t sacrifice math, but other than that science needs to be your top priority. You might think school doesn’t matter, but you’re 15 now. These grades are going to have a direct impact on your life, your college, career, everything. You can’t be playin’ around, Dominic. You should be top ten in everything. And you definitely need to be in all A classes, for Christ’s sake!”

Dominic nodded quietly. The man remained silent also so as to give his scolding some time to sink in.

“Hey, great job with the diving, by the way,” the man said after a few minutes. “I don’t know where that came from.”

“I’m just good at it,” replied Dominic, relieved that the discussion had turned from academics.

“You’ve never been a very strong swimmer, though,” the man observed.

“They’re different,” the boy said matter-of-factly, vaguely pleased that he could understand so plain a fact more clearly than did his father.

[to be continued]