I AIN’T SHALLOW
People are constantly misunderstanding the things I say. I only have the best intentions. Levi and I were walking near one of Toronto’s little Italy neighbourhoods, the main one in the west end, and our paths crossed this pretty girl working hard in a grocery store organizing shopping carts. She didn’t look as if she was having any fun, and as Levi and I were off to enjoy a night of frivolity, I was anxious to spread the anticipation of our merriment. I winked at her as we passed and said to Levi,
“I just made her day.” I was hoping to open a dialogue of the transformative power of small intimacies. Any other time we would have dodged through oncoming traffic, as we were in a rush to get some liquor or drugs or food or whatever, but on this day, Levi stopped at that intersection with the red light and turned on me. He was freaking out about how arrogant I was.
“What the hell did you think you are god’s gift or something?” I froze in a cross eyed stare set above the speeding cars in street as he continued to give me shit. That was not what I meant at all. I began to wonder, ‘is that how I come off to people?’ Lawd have mercy, that was not at all how I intended the wink to be received. The day before I was in a shittiest mood and it was the simplest gesture, from some lovely lady on the subway, that had me forgetting my troubles. I was just trying to pass this gesture forward. Like seriously negro? How the hell does it make you feel when a strange woman, out of the blue, shows you some random affection? I know for a fact, this motherfucker wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks. Listen man she’s in the middle of a shitty shift, we’ve both done dirty jobs before. I was just trying to distract her, you know, send her mind somewheres else for a while until she’s free to live her own story again; that would have been my argument if I chose to engage. Instead I told him to get fucked or something the like. I was sick of being judged but it was too late. The worst critic, the one in my own head, was already on a tangent fuelled by the idea of me being a maniacal megalomaniac, compulsively stuck on a mirror masturbating to my own douche bag reflection. That judgmental voice, nobody else can hear, wouldn’t release my bruising, dynamic soul. Could it be true, was I still the kind of person always screaming, ‘I AM KING OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE?’
This had been an on-going struggle. Fighting to unlearn the poisonous style of interpersonal connecting, the family here in Canada impressioned me with. Was this an unwinnable battle that I was left to always struggling against? That ugly art of signifying? The one art they truly mastered. I was ever so young when I realized I also was inflicted with these same toxic mannerisms. Sitting and reminiscing about a cute little brown girl, I met in Panama, who let me hold two dimes for a closer look. She could have been offering to share some candy with me. Oblivious to the exchange rate between Canada and the third world, most likely was feeling all greedy. While here in class, in Canada, I was enduring another lecture about my incurable, rabid habit of day dreaming. I was embarrassed, recounting the words of my six year old self, explaining of how I was pretty sure I know every word there was to know, pausing for effect struggling to find these missing words my young self hadn’t ran across yet, content as I continued clueless, of my mastery of the English language. The failed spelling test in front of me was proof that I was an idiot. Thank god she didn’t speak English as she stared at me, her cute little brown girl eyes warning, ‘If you don’t give me back that 20 cents carbon, I’m going to cut your head off like we did that chicken we ate for dinner yesterday,’ Oh my god the extreme and eternal egotism, why do you always plague me? I have made great efforts to fight against the power you have over me, but it is always too late. Just after I have realized I have articulated like a total ass. I was glad I was too young to remember how mother and my father used to fight, but with all that knowitallic superiority we’d wielded at each other in the years, I do remember fighting with them, I can’t help but wonder if all their self-perceived perfection burrowed itself into my baby subconscious. The two of them were married quick and man, it didn’t last long. I have no recollection of my father and mother living together, only the balcony of the apartment they may have shared. There was the rare commotion of cooperation as my brothers were helping mother pack all their things for the move to a new town house. My baby ass was mad as hell, because they were forgetting the only real thing I cared about. A peddle drive replica, of a white race car my father gave me that Christmas. I sat by the doorway trying to gesture to the towering people, that they can’t forget my wheels. With eyebrows raised and avoiding eye contact, they all ignored me. I didn’t care about the red, ride on tractor with the blue steering wheel, they kept pushing me toward. I was going to be a race car driver not a farmer when I grew up. My parents didn’t argue when my father would pick me up for weekend visits, he was too busy chasing mother around the furniture, with her giggling and her protesting. Can all these arrogant, obstinate behaviours be genetic, or did they embed, into awareness, with one parent linking me with an undesirable trait of the other? Whether the comparison came from mother with ‘you’re just like your father, you can’t fight your way out of a paper bag’, or the association rolled out of father with something like, ‘you get all that extra hair, from your mother side of the family’, I hated to be set beside any of the others bad opinions. Naturally I was never commended with any good traits the other parent passed on, those just didn’t exist.
I have felt the bliss of ego death twice during experiments psilocybin, feeling the illusions of superior melt away, landing me in my intended place in the universe. Understanding and appreciating my own insignificant conscious view of this world. How does one make this permanent? After those experiences, I wished to get to the roots of these obnoxious behaviour. Rip them from my personality’s foundation forever. Man, but there are so many examples of anti-social seedlings, where do I start?
I learned not to repeat the declarations my eldest brother would make, as they always made me look stupid. Do you remember Snapple, they used to have a K in a circle on the label? One time Michel told mother and I that it was the mark of the Ku Klux Klan. ‘They owned that company’ he said as a matter of fact. The very next time I saw my boy Levi, drinking a Snapple I repeated,
“Yo man you can’t drink that, the Klan makes them, do you see this K.”
“THAT STANDS FOR KOSHER YOU DUMBASS.” Sheet I stand corrected forever. This brother, the first, was always saying shit like that. People wonder why this man was not among my favourite people.
My sister in-law phoned me once, after the death of brother number two. She was really upset. My beloved brother and I didn’t always agree, but the one thing we always saw eye to eye on, was how randomly evil, the eldest brother could be. She simply disregarded these ideas as homophobia. I was never effective in expressing, the animosity for this man ran way deeper that some simple small minded hate crime psychology. She shared with me the details of a conversation she had with this fucker, that left her feeling completely sick. When I asked her what he’d said, she relayed the craziest idea. During a separation from the father of those two brothers, mother had an affair. That affair was the reason for all the hostility between mother and John. My beloved brother was the result. This was his story. The son was illegitimate. Nobody knew who the father was. I could almost hear the tone of eldest brother’s voice, maliciously repeating these grinding words over and over. He had this entire elaborate fiction cooked up, and it killed me. Instantly, I was ashamed to be related to this man. It wasn’t the first time. I sigh and asked my sister in-law to take assessment of this one picture which had both the son and the father in it. I described it perfectly. I asked her to observe every detail. I asked her to examine their noses, look at their eye’s. They are the same. Look at the eyebrows, the oldest may look like his father, but I’ll be god damned, if it wasn’t for the age difference between father and son number two, they could be twins. I hoped I could ease the suffering this psychopathic parasite cause a person already in pain. Mourning the loss of her life partner. Why? What was his reasoning? Pure putrid sinning. For the single joy of knowing you ruined somebody’s day? What other reason could there be? He once gave me a dog. It was to help make my stay with him in a tiny town in Ontario more tolerable, but it was not enough stop the inevitable. To ensure I would not fail the seventh grade, I would return to Scarborough. I have a 90% in math and art classes, but those marks wouldn’t balance a passing grade, not with my overall average, of all the zeros, all the others. I wasn’t a stupid child I was a heartbroken one. The next time I saw the oldest, I asked about the dog. He smile evil and told he put the poor unfortunate puppy into a garbage bag with a bunch of rocks and threw him off of the skyway bridge, using a gesture one would make in pitching an outmatch game of softball.
This type of behaviour was his modus operandi. This man was a master in the German art of schadenfreude, joyful maliciousness. Before I learned this word, I simply referred to him, and others I’ve met sharing this quality as necrophiliacs. I was seeing this girl who was also a writer. Professionally she was a technical writer but she had inclination for writing fiction. I really liked her at first but she was selfish to her core. She believed it was a virtue once asking me, ‘what is wrong with being selfish?’ We didn’t last long. She had a very literal mind and I used this term for a person she once described to me,
“No, he didn’t want to fuck dead people.” She laughed at me, full of condescent.”
“Sure he doesn’t, I understand that, but he feels the need to hurt people like a sexual motivation, like the need to eat. He enjoys witnessing and causing another person’s slow deterioration.” My ideas always surprised her, not believing them at first, but once they sunk in she would have a wow moment. My aunt could be catty in this same flavour never resisting the urge to spitefully ridicule anyone, at every chance. We were attending a funeral for my crazy Uncle Gus, and Therese started spouting of about a second cousin’s issues. She looked to me to join in on the ridicule, but I refused explaining, ‘with the debt I already owe, I don’t want to spread that kind of evil karma into the universe.’ She was dumbfounded, simply couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to play. People are not fucking games. What I wanted to do was emulate my Uncle Gus, and his strong sense of empathy. Even though he was a clinical schizophrenic, he showed an outstanding consideration for his fellow man. One morning he was visiting, and found me being attacked by psycho son one and mother. I made the mistake of finishing off a quart of absolute vodka between the subway stops of Kennedy and Yonge St. Station, so about 20 minutes. I might have had three hours sleep and was completely drunk sick. The immediate family show no remorse, making extra noise and complaining about me still sleeping. This was a sin in my Uncles eyes. His crazy ass was appalled as he made me the sweetest cup of cinnamon coffee I ever tasted, and whispered about the particular calibre of asshole, that would attack a person in my condition; explaining further how it was completely unchristian, as I tried to share an ironic giggle. He didn’t believe he would stay in fear of that kind of apathy rubbing off on him. I was grateful for his gesture. He died of a broken heart. His daughter also fought her own battles with mental illness, and they had an argument about her taking some medication. I came to find that she was also being stocked by a stranger and causing her further anxiety. Beautiful little Monique took her own life just before the Luminous Veil was erected over the Prince Edward (Bloor) Viaduct. My Uncle Gus lived two weeks after that tragic event, literally drowning in the guilty idea of him being too frivolous of his daughters feelings and overdosed on water. God rest their souls. They were two beautiful, innocent people trapped in the evils of a callous world, that has no patience for uniquely sophisticated minds.
All charity of words, but callus in action was what I witnessed in the members of the two different Roman Catholic churches I was dragged to as a child. Every Sunday I would to listen to all the baby boomers drone on about Singing new Songs on to the Lord, in the same monotone, unenthusiastic voices they returned with every Sunday, looking all annoyed with Mother; who actually had a good voice, as she professed her worship for her saviour with her own grace. As a child I didn’t trust these people, every week you would turn to, shake hands with and say ‘peace be with you’. I always looked into their eyes to see if they meant it. I didn’t trust this God I would see every week hanging above on a cross bleeding to death, repeating this message of turn the other cheek. Motherfucker I may be young but I ain’t stupid, that’s the kind of thing you tell slaves to keep them down. Contradiction man, just too much contradiction.
“Mom what does that mean, turn the other cheek?”
“When someone hits you be like Jesus and turn the other cheek”
“What? And let them slap you upside the other side of your face?”
“That’s right. It is the Christian thing to do?”
“Then do they stop?
“Jesus said to turn the other cheek seventy times seventy.” With my face all crinkled in curiosity, I would think five times seven is thirty five, seven twice is fourteen carry the zero,
“THAT’S ALMOST 500 TIMES, MAN.” HELL NO, my young heart testified next time I was alone. Ah Christianing I will not go. That there religion is a religion for suckers. Water into wine, Fishes for ever, I mean I was young, but I knew the Easter bunny, Santa clause and tooth fairy where all women, one woman really, a woman I called mom. And if your big feeling ass gets beat, which is what happens to big feeling people, when they’re big mouths start contradicting everybody they see, and you come crying to your mother about turning the other cheek, watching her laugh at you, using all those comparisons that you hate. ‘Just life your father . . .’ Leaving your young ass super confused, with an angry face, grinding your teeth thinking, I just did what you told me to do? (and my father survived Vietnam motherfucker so that says something, and after setting me up in this riddling paradox of a snake eating his own tail, your trying to lock me into, what does that say about you?) Not that I would ever play favourites, they both scared me in their own special ways.
Too much contradiction, this was the lessons Sunday mass would leave me with. Oh so young I understood why believing in the Roman Catholic Church required an outrageous amount of faith. I mean seriously, if at the top of the seven cardinal sins is vanity, a trait no human can escape, how is it that the perfect god the father’s first governing law in the ten tenets passed to children, for entering his kingdom of heaven is his eternal egotism:
“Thou shall have no other gods before me.”
After mass my head always hurt with the weight of that mental horse tack I was forced into, but all those hours of brainwashing did lock hold of a mind. Religion forces you to see the world with blinders on, like you’re a horse pulling a tremendous a coach filled with bullshit, peripherals blocked to all other ideas. The first time I attended a school that wasn’t Catholic the topic of abortion came up in a health class. The teacher asked, 'what the first emotion that woman would feel after leaving the clinic?' My mind screamed grief, shame, embarrassment all the things a good Christian boy is taught. When I heard the answer I was shocked but not surprised. Whether I believe in pro-life movement or not, the answer to his question couldn’t be denied. A woman directly leaving a clinic after a procedure like that would feel nothing but relief. It wasn’t so long ago that finding out you were pregnant out of wedlock, were met with deadly consequences. It was enough to make me stop and think. How many times have I insulted people because of beliefs, which I don’t necessarily share, but have spread because of the Christian conditioning of youth? The odds of ever ceasing this never ending cycle of encouraging animosity toward me was beginning to over whelm, I mean where do you start at an attempt to recolonize your mind?