Monkeyshines
epilogue
Sam called a few days after Ma died. She'd been an extra mom for him since he was five. I hadn't called Sam, because I knew he was already suffering badly. His second marriage had soured two years earlier, and he'd lost two kids as well as a wife. The light went out of Sam's eyes when he lost his place as a dad. His ex-wife remarried to a guy Sam thought abused the kids. Cigarette burns on their arms, he said. He wanted to shoot the guy. My worried counsel was restraint.
Sam medicated himself with cocaine and kept it from me. After a year of this, he called, “You said cocaine was alright, Michael, but it's the worst drug in the world. It's ruined me. I've lost everything.”
“No,” I defended, “I said cocaine itself isn't the problem. It's like that .357 magnum you carry in your car.” Duke had convinced me that guns didn't kill people, people kill people, and I felt that idea applied equally to drugs. “And I said that some people shouldn't do coke, the way some alcoholics shouldn't drink. It's a very personal matter that our drug laws make worse. I never said it was alright.”
Sam sounded desperate, and said his medical license was hanging by a thread. I asked him to consider going to Africa to help build a clinic, and he said, “I'd like to, but it wouldn't fool anybody. They'd know I was just doing it to be accepted.”
So, he entered a drug rehab program for doctors. He called to say, "It's tough here, man; they're forcing me to look at reality. This cocaine's really bad. I think Reagan's policy is right; I mean, this stuff has to be stamped out. It's the worst addiction there is. The top doctor here says if he had to choose, he'd rather his kid use heroin, because cocaine's so much harder to kick." Sam sounded like Winston in 1984, after his head was put in a cage facing rats.
I said, “Yeah, well, whatever they tell you, don't forget you're a doctor, Sam. That's a terrific thing, and your skill will remain. I wish I had your skill, Sam. And don't worry, somehow you'll be able to work again.”
“I don't know,” Sam said, “I might get prosecuted, and I don't know if my insurance will pay for this, and I can't pay my child support.”
“How long will you be in there?”
“They figure two months,” he said.
“Listen,” I said, “After Viet Nam and medical school, you can handle anything, Sam, I'm confident. I'll come down and see you in a month or so.”
Sam's sister, Carole Lee, called a week later to say Sam was dead. He'd looked at reality, then hung himself with his belt. I went to his funeral. I sat on one side of the church; his family and friends sat on the other side. I didn't want to talk to them or even look in their eyes. I felt they were all part of a giant conspiracy that had destroyed Sam.
The priest, who’d never met Sam, said some general things about death, then asked me to speak. A suffocating cloud of judgment hung over the congregation, and I felt like shouting, “You can all go fuck yourselves.” But I saw Sam's nieces and nephews sitting in their pews, kids who'd hear Sam described as a drug abuser, and I felt a personal debt to Sam. I made a long walk up to the pulpit, and with great difficulty said, “It's hard for me to talk about Sam. He was my oldest friend. For 36 years, he never belittled me, and he never turned away from me. He had less bitterness in him than any person I ever knew, and I'm going to miss him. That's all I can say.”
After the service, relieved people thanked me, and said I’d described Sam perfectly. He was odd and a softy, but he'd always accepted us.
“Oh, thank you, Michael,” his mom said, “I'm so glad you could get up and say such good things about Sam. Not everyone has loyal friends for 35 years. You know, when Sam Sr. died, your dad came over to me at the funeral, when nobody was around and put $50 into my hand, and never said a word. That was a lot of money then. Thank you so much, Michael.”
As we were driving to the cemetery, I said, “When we were kids, Sam didn't figure to make elevator operator. He fought in Viet Nam, and became a doctor just to make everybody proud of him. He was Babe Ruth in my eyes, and every time he stitched up a wound in the emergency room, he was hitting a home run. I don't want to hear people write him off as some stupid drug abuser. If Babe Ruth were alive today, he'd be run out of baseball as a drug pig. Sam died of a broken heart. He died when he lost his kids, and we can't be sure who did what to whom, so there's nobody to blame. There was no way to fix it. Sam knew that. I'm angry that he left, but I understand the pain he felt, and I'm not going to second guess him.”
“That's right,” said Carole Lee, “He lost that spark when his kids were taken away. He never really smiled after that. He could have beaten the drug thing, but he didn't have any strength left.”
“The cocaine was just a streetcar,” said his brother-in-law, “If it wasn't that, it would have been something else. Sam wasn't hard enough. He was too gentle, and the road back looked too long.”
I said, “And he thought he'd be prosecuted, and made an example. He was politically isolated and vulnerable. They'd have picked his bones.”
Instant agreement gushed out of everyone.
Later, his mom said, “Oh, Michael, our children are supposed to bury us; we're not supposed to bury them. I feel so guilty. I pushed Sam so hard for material success. I'll never forgive myself.”
“Well, Sam wouldn't want you to feel bad,” I said as I left.
I didn't say that people's fear of drug abuse had been manipulated, and used to authorize a new Inquisition, and that Sam was just one of millions put on the rack. I didn't say that I felt Jonathan Swift was right when he described humans as ‘an odious race of pernicious little vermin,’ scapegoat artists who regularly look at the surrounding population, and think, quite literally, if unconsciously, Who can we slaughter today?
The same people who gave us Viet Nam, and destroyed villages to save them, also gave us Draconian drug policies that were nothing more than rituals of human sacrifice. Sam got too close to the edge. He’d become a tempting target.
And I didn't say that I thought Sam had used up his hardness being a soldier for the same government that later ate him up. He'd told me about a dark night in the jungle when North Vietnamese over-ran his ARVN (South Vietnamese) unit. The ARVN XO(executive officer) shot the ARVN CO (commanding officer). Figuring the ARVN XO must be an infiltrator, Sam shot him. People fired weapons in every direction, and Sam said it was the longest, scariest night of his life.
In medical school, he actually spit blood learning stuff that was over his head. He specialized in emergency room work. He was used to seeing people torn up and bleeding, and he got good at stitching them up.
But he walked right out into the middle of the street when he used cocaine. Harry Anslinger, the Democratic party and Richard Nixon, all cruising the streets in a bullet-proof bus full of well-paid civil-service-protected, ladder-climbing monkeys, put the pedal to the metal when they saw him.
And I didn't say that a worried Sam had called me just before he left for the drug program, (after I'd told him to replace the hardness he used up in Viet Nam by going into human service work and forgetting about profits), and he'd asked me to go to Jamaica with him for a big coke deal.
At eleven, Sam and I had drilled a hole in the wall next to the hot water faucet in Sam's bathtub. We’d stood on tip toes on the basement stairs to peek through that hole at Carole Lee and her friends when they bathed. At fourteen, we decided to get drunk. Mike the Bum got us a pint of Jim Beam, and we sat on Sam's living room floor with two glasses of water for chasers, got drunk, and then sick. (I went home from this event at three in the morning to find Ma sitting at the kitchen table reading a bible. I fell flat on my face at the sight of her, and woke up fully clothed in a tub of cold water.) Sam and I shared a lot of history; when he asked me to do a dope deal, it was a first.
“There's no way I'll get into a dope deal, Sam,” I said. I felt the cold steel jaws of a trap. He had to find someone who'd trust him enough to do a dope deal with him, like an old friend, or he could kiss his kids and medical license good-bye. A better friend than a liar, Sam said, “Did you hear the one about the two guys who were out camping in the wilderness?”
“No, tell it,” I said.
“One of them looks out of the tent and sees a grizzly bear running straight for them, and he says, 'Oh, shit! There's a grizzly coming right this way.' Then he hurries to get his running shoes on.”
“The other guy looks out of the tent, sees the bear, then says, 'What are you doing, man, you can't outrun a grizzly.'
“The first guy, just about finished tying his shoes says, 'I don't have to outrun that grizzly, I just have to outrun you.”
“That's funny, Sam,” I said, “Thanks.”
He was setting me up for a bust. He knew I knew. . .and he knew I instantly forgave him. . .but that didn't free him. . .or me, as I worried that maybe I had contributed to his cocaine problem with some intemperate words.
The guys who ran Sam down in that national security bus might see him again. . .maybe for the first time. . .they had probably thought that they were doing a good and necessary thing when they‘d run Sam down.
Harry Anslinger was an early 20th-century bureaucratic Dr. Frankenstein. Like Dr. Frankenstein, like everybody, Harry wanted to do good. He’d managed Prohibition agents, and when the alcohol Prohibition was repealed, Harry found new jobs for his men by helping to enforce new Prohibition laws against other drugs. In his diary and speeches, he told about the need to protect American youth from the contagious amorality of Negro musicians. He said he'd watched these musicians closely and seen their amorality passed to young Whites by marijuana smoking. Coincidentally, psychiatrists of that time, fully-accredited guys with Pd.D's, were still writing textbooks that said that women who had orgasms (women who enjoyed sex) as ‘depraved.’
It was the Democratic party that first fostered the new drug prohibition.
Richard Nixon was a Cold War politician who served as Vice President and then resigned with a pardon from the new President. In the 60's, he helped confirm a confusing 11th Commandment, "Thou shalt not use drugs, (except as provided in sub-paragraph b, party of the first part, depending on the pharmacological particularities, and how much money you earn, and miscellaneous addenda in the fine print, etc., etc.), because it's a threat to National Security. His rhetoric convinced many citizens that people who used drugs, (other than the ones he used), were depraved dopers who didn't deserve due process of law. Now, when I want to use a drug; I call my lawyer as well as my doctor. Gradually, dopers were made to appear less and less human, and they became a new kind of germ, like "gooks" and "fags," etc.
*****
monkeyshine #22, pseudo-speciation, a precondition for modern cannibalism.
*****
Adam, between Viet Nam and this red herring drug baloney, most American families suffered painful schism which kept their minds off other issues.
I asked Mitch Corey what he thought about this. . .in fact, I asked him if he wanted to help write a book about drug realities. He said, “I can't even talk to you, man, it's too dangerous. I'm being watched all the time.”
Mitch grew up with Sam and me, and I'd always liked him. He was an avid card player/gambler, like me. We'd played countless hours of poker and showdown at his house after school. Mitch became a narcotics agent, and stayed one for fifteen years. During that time, dope dealers changed. They became Narcotics Traffickers. . .more organized, wealthy, and monster-like. . .more like they'd always been officially pictured. Give a dog a bad name?
*****
monkeyshine #2a, the self-fulfilling prophecy; we create a reality that conforms to our expectations and propaganda.
*****
Mitch had been savagely beaten, shot at, and reviled during his years as a narc. . .all that time trying to hide his alcoholism and homosexuality. In a Chicago tavern one night, with only the bartender and himself present, Mitch pointed his pistol at himself and pulled the trigger. He splattered goo on the walls, but didn't die. Doctors put a plate in his head, and the government retired him. Then he got in a legal dispute over his pension. If shot in the line of duty, he'd get $18,000 a year, if he’d shot himself, he'd get $9,000. . .so he claimed the bartender shot him. He was having trouble making this stick the last time I looked. . .most of the customers of that bar were police and they believed the bartender. My heart went out to Mitch, even though he'd ridden with the bad guys by my reckoning. But we’d been like brothers once. . .and still were, despite his actions to the contrary. He made it seem true that we die by the sword we live by, that some hidden psychological mechanism cancels out all our apparent advantages, and makes us equal.]
dry bones (a political appendix)
“Listen,” Doctor, “Everybody I meet is just like me; I.e., a bag of meat full of fishhooks. If you look right, they'll appear to like you, and keep an open mind until they get a fix on you and see where you fit. . .always the hidden cunning. . .eventually they pick a strategy for playing you in their life game. . .maybe as an ally, maybe as a dupe, but either way, the game's so hidden, they aren't really aware of it themselves.
“That's why I'm nomadic. At least, that's the idea I have about it, adding the condition that I don't really know anything, not really, not like I used to think. Reality is a motion picture; human knowledge is a collection of photographs, black-and-white, stop-action.
“Even science depends on interpretations that leave out remote possibilities, and fix on probable realities. Understandable, but blind to idiosyncracies that connect everything. We know that praying to trees is foolish, and we think we're not cannibals just because we don't munch on people's bodies, but only exploit their energy and consume their spirits.
Scientific Knowledge about generic humans is awesome, but about individual humans, it sucks. I think the point in the biblical story about Adam and Eve eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil refers to a tragic flaw in humanity, one described by the Greeks as central; I.e., hubris, an excess of pride and arrogance. Whether from the fruit of a tree, science, a sacred religious vision, political experience, or whatever, when we believe seriously that we're handling KNOWLEDGE, especially knowledge of good and evil, the only serious thing we're doing is strolling onto thin ice.
Anyway, I think I'm nomadic because of this feeling that I've only got a short time before the ax of knowledge falls. I enjoy the honeymoon time in a relationship, the time before I'm known. Once a person knows you, their mind sort of closes, and you and the relationship start to shrivel up. Like the old adage says, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ in the form of pressure to play into subconsciously assigned roles. It might look like anything from bullying on the one hand to invisibly subtle manipulation on the other. Anyway, once I'm known, and before the pressure gets too intense, I move on.
There are exceptions, I mean, there are integrated people who don't squeeze you into their knowledge. . .people who understand that their knowledge is just transitional imagination. . .and I think there are people who offer serial honeymoons, but you need to be away from them for periods of time in order to get to the next honeymoon.
Doctor Gottlieb said, “Have you considered the possibility that your explanations serve to mask your fear of criticism and rejection?”
“Of course.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“How do you dispose of that analysis?”
“I don't. It goes into the maybe file. . .along with malignant suspicions, morbid self-doubts, and all the other possible guilts and fears that clutter the mind. . .and that brings me back to what I was saying about knowledge, I mean, our culture, our history, our very language presses us to see ideas and things intellectually as A OR not-A; they must be true OR false. I feel they are A AND not-A, the yin-yang idea that everything has within itself the seed of its own opposition. It's more accurate, I think. But I don't know. Maybe I'm bullshitting myself. Self-delusions can get pretty complex.”
Gottlieb said, “Well, you came to the clinic to get help clarifying your feelings as the child of an alcoholic. Commonly, such children feel isolated and overly afraid of criticism. You knew that when you came in. We've met eight times, and you've told me a long story about your life, but with all its unusual and interesting details, it still fits easily into the conventional model. As a child of a compulsive personality, doubled in this case, with alcoholism in your father and religious hysteria in your mother, you started early to posture as a victim, and it's continued all your life. You avoid taking responsibility for your problems and look for ways to blame others. If all you want from me is agreement that you were put upon, I can do that now and save you time and money.”
“You mean I set myself up for all the crap I've gone through?! None of the issues has a reality of its own?! I should just stop worrying and learn how to make commitments?!”
“No, I don't mean that. But when you identify with the White Seal, imagine yourself to be a Love Commando, and compare yourself to Shakespeare's Prince Hal, a character who hid his positive qualities; well, I have to suspect you've been functioning as an injustice collector.”
“If I was an injustice collector, does that mean that the injustices I collected weren't really injustices?”
“No, but it might mean that you missed opportunities to create different outcomes for yourself,” said Gottlieb.
I said, “Well, I don't know. Maybe I set myself on fire just to show people I’d been burned. One of my kids told me it had become clear to him that he got in trouble in order to show his anger and frustration. He had an argument with a staff person once, then went out and stole a car. After he'd wrecked the car, he saw the knee-jerk element in what he'd done. He saw it clearly, and it changed his life. But I can't accept that my life's just been one long self-inflicted wound, I mean, that wastes a lot of wonderfully heroic images I've nurtured over the years.”
“Well, let me say again that the hidden agenda, which is likely victimhood in your case, as it often is with the children of psychologically desperate people - which in truth is everyone - but it's a separate issue from the vehicle. Let's say you confront a mugger. He's beating up on someone you think is your mother. The mugger turns and beats you up, and afterward you see that the victim you saved wasn't your mother. You've saved a stranger. How could it matter that coincidentally you're an injustice collector who's predisposed to getting beaten up? One of our trade secrets is that nearly everybody is an injustice collector. We're all victims of victims. Unconsciously, we're all seeking compensation. The process of documenting our injuries, however, does become addictive.”
“Wait a minute; wait a minute. You're taking away my argument. I come to you saying I'm not sure what the hell my motivation has been, or is, and now you say my motivation doesn't really matter.”
Gottlieb shrugged slightly, exhaled audibly, raised his eyes as if looking through the ceiling and toward a distant heaven. He took a deep breath, then continued in a vigorous voice, “Let's not beat this dead horse anymore. Tell me what you did today.”
Monkeyshines
warlife
The City After the War
wind through the open windows
of an empty city bus,
yellowed sheets on sagging lines
brush the tall weeds of silent yards,
skyscrapers drop flakes of rust
over cracked concrete,
doors open and slam
in the dust-filled breeze,
like the broken toy
of an unhappy child. (Robert Tokarsky)
*****
My parallel code is Ansarbak. It is l986, and these notes are for my son, Adam. We were separated by the Cap-Com War. He was caught behind the lines in North America. His mother and I can get out. We have an escape tunnel; an old-fashioned astral projection type that Adam, who is only nine, is not yet able to use.
When we're all together in North America, we must live according to the Cap's anti-Com life program. We must be circumspect and discreet. Informants are everywhere and watch us constantly. Any expression of personal idiosyncrasy can be very dangerous.
Adam may lose some of his ability to be honest and intimate if we don't act soon. He needs to be exposed to vigorous group singing, silence, casual nudity, dancing, elder story-telling and many other human behaviors that are nearly extinguished in North America. Emigration would be a dangerous gamble for us. The Caps and Coms have stretched tentacles to the remotest parts of the planet, and in most places, life is even more desperate and rigid than it is in North America. The best place to hide is here, where we grew up.
While we consider alternatives, one thing we can do is pass along this book of notes. The operating instructions for the old escape tunnel are encoded within the text. It's a Level Three, subliminal cypher that can’t be decoded by any analytical method. The instructions will only be visible the way Adam's magic dagger appeared to his parallel uncle, Terry.
These notes will also function as an anti-toxin for the personal isolation contaminants absorbed through contact with Caps or Coms. Personal isolation is their main control technique. We use it in the parallel worlds, but only as a meditation device. Each reading of the text from beginning to end provides additional innoculation.
*****
The Cap-Com War escalated after the Russian Revolution in 1917. In 1917, the Coms gained control of Russia. Their condemnation of the Cap's plan for global development ceased to be an academic one. The Caps blockaded Russia, and lots of children starved to death. A blood feud commenced. Each side became totally preoccupied with the maintenance of its chain of command and military capacity. Every social, economic and personal issue, however peripheral or irrelevant, henceforth resolved according to its imagined impact on the War.
The Cap-Com War recessed during World War II, 1939-1945. The Caps and Coms became temporary allies to fight the Axis powers, Germany, Japan and Italy. Vast armies were decimated. Whole cities full of people were incinerated. Millions of non-combatant civilians were exterminated.
I grew up in Chicago during the manic period after World War II, during a sliver of time when people thought the world was at peace. Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini had been defeated. Fascism was dead. The tremendous blood sacrifice was seen as the purchase price of peace, freedom and prosperity. The final irony of WW II was a judgment issued at the War Crimes Trials at Nuremburg, Germany. This judgment confirmed that each individual person on the planet was obliged to exercise personal conscience even against the legal demands of the state. Many people reveled in optimistic hopes for the future.
The military vacuum created by the collapse of the Axis armies was invisible to the general public. A renewed Cap-Com War immediately began to fill that vacuum. It was called the Cold War. It was merely an intermission, a period of reorganization during which many people in North America tried to slip their military leash.
The American Cap's dominated the world's economy and held all the atomic bombs. They began to implement a global Pax Americana. The Russian Coms then shocked the world by developing an atomic arsenal of their own. They pursued a Russian kind of justice. The leaders of the world, trapped in a dogmatic mind-lock, committed humanity to a perpetual Cap-Com War.
As of this writing, the last world leaders who knew a world at peace has died. The Cap-Com War has evolved into a bureaucratic process and growth industry. It is the status quo. It may last for the life of the human race. It may destroy the human race. The only way out is through the parallel worlds.
*****
A fantasy of lights and shadows,
Only clear to frozen travelers who haven't been to Jupiter.
I've been there, and I know--
There are no words to penetrate the ice;
The many speakers trying, lying, fail.
A finger points at me and says, "Ha! Now I've got you by the ego
With your icy going and knowing."
That finger is my own.
******
Adam, I am Ansarbak. I address you at the request of your father. I'm his soul, his counselor, and his guide. I showed him how to survive with joy in the love commandos, and I helped him weave truth into the fabric of his personal story. . .so it was incomprehensible to the Herodites. The Herodites will insist that they understand, but they will not.
Your father doesn't have my constant wisdom, but he had memories of events and feelings that he wanted to share with you. He wrote about them as monkeyshines, a hidden agenda of humanity, because that word and concept communicate his feelings about ‘the down-side trash that litters life on Earth, and it's not normative. It lets everyone off the hook.’
I'd tell you clearly about the Caps and Coms, and thereby guide you to the Parallel Worlds, but it would be dangerous for you to possess such writing. The truth still destabilizes humans, and it's considered seditious even to imagine. Peace seekers are still hunted and destroyed.
So, while you've learned something here of your father's mind, don't be deluded. He's still his father's son. He put many important notes on blank sheets which he tucked carefully into his mind. . .some painful things, and some joyful. . .but you now have enough information to protect you during the war years ahead.
The Caps and Coms will rake the world with fire as they always have, and they will be consumed in that fire. You'll be threatened, lied to, and ridiculed, and you'll lose friends to death and madness. You'll see mistakes, and judge them terrible, and a time may come when your heart aches so deeply, you'll fear you can't stand any more. You'll also find love, beauty, insight, and achievement. Strengthened by these, and by what you've read here, you'll survive. You'll go forward, fear no evil, and make a joyful noise.
Don't worry, little Adam, it's only Rock and Roll. ***
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Monkeyshines
chapter 20
“Adam, put your hat on your head! Don't just carry it around in your hand,” I said gruffly, as you went out the front door on your way to school. I called after you in a milder tone, “Have a good day.”
“Okay,” you said softly, as you walked on down the gravel driveway.
The tone in your voice said my gruffness hadn't quite ruffled you. The ‘have a good day’ had apparently retrieved the situation, and avoided a bad start to an otherwise innocent day.
I closed the door and said to Chris, “I can't believe my ears when I talk to him like that. I'm the guy who was always going to say positive upbeat things to my kid, like the Mormons in those TV ads of theirs. Jesus!”
“Don't forget your own preaching.” Chris said, “'Talking to kids is like going to bat; sometimes you get a hit; usually you don't.' Don't put unrealistic expectations on yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said wistfully, “But I was talking about disturbed kids. Adam's a pussycat.”
The telephone rang. I answered.
“Hello, Michael?” said my brother, James, from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’d been expecting a call from him. Ma had flown down there four days earlier for a visit. After she’d arrived, James called to say she didn't feel well. He was supposed to call today to say if she was coming home early. Chris and I hoped she didn't. We lived with her in a two bedroom house, and we'd been getting under each other's feet lately. We needed a break from each other.
“Ma died in her sleep last night,” James said in a flat, tender voice. It was November 8, 1985.
“What! Son of a bitch,” I howled. “God damn it! Shit! God damn it! Isn't life ever going to cooperate?”
“What?” James asked.
“Isn't life ever going to cooperate,” I repeated loudly. “Damn! What happened?” Ma suffered from emphysema and post-surgical depression from a recent operation. I'd told James she should see a doctor about a prescription for an anti-depressant. “Are her physical problems ruining her morale, or is her low morale aggravating her physical problems?” we'd asked each other.
James continued in monotone, “I don't know. I just went in to get her up for her doctor's appointment. Ten minutes ago. She was cold.”
“Son of a bitch!” I said loudly as I paced by the phone. I looked at Chris, and saw curiosity and concern in her eyes. I covered the mouthpiece and said, “My mother died.” Chris' eyes and face went blank.
“I guess I should call the medical examiner, or an ambulance or somebody,” James continued in monotone.
“Aw, shit!” I said angrily.
“There's nothing to get upset about,” James said, “It's over.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, “But I feel terrible that I encouraged her to take the trip down there.”
"She was worn out, Michael. There was nothing you could do about that. It fits that she should come here and die. I've been dealing with death a lot in our Viet Nam Vets group. I'll start doing what I've got to do here. You want to call Peter and Barbara?”
Barbara was the eldest, and lived in Berkeley. Peter was 42, a year younger than Barbara. He lived on a farm in southern Wisconsin.
“Yeah, I'll call them. I'll tell Barbara to call you to divide up the names in Ma's phone book, the white one she kept in her purse. I'll call aunt Gertrude and Richie. I think Mildred's dying the day before Ma left, I think maybe Ma took it as a message.”
“Yeah, I know it was on her mind, but she blue when we got her at the airport. She had no strength at all. She couldn't say a whole sentence.”
“You have things to do,” I said, “I'll talk to you later.”
I dialed Peter. “Hi, Maggie, is Peter there?”
“No. He's out on the route.“ Peter had a cutlery business like my father and grandfather. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Well," I said, my voice starting to labor as emotion piled on, “My mother died.”
“What!” Maggie said, sort of semi-shocked.
“Ma died in her sleep at James' last night,” I said, almost crying.
“Oh, no. Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I'm alright, but I feel like I killed her, sending her to visit James.” Sobbing now, tears ran down my cheeks. I was surprised. I didn't think words from a phone could do this, and I was surprised I'd cry to Maggie. We hadn't been close for years. After Indiana, the family spread out geographically, and feelings hardened. We allowed it, maybe partly, I sometimes think, just to keep any new pogroms from bagging us all at once.
“You did everything you could for her, Michael. The trip was her decision. You didn't kill her.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, she's at peace now,” Maggie's voice was starting to crack. “I'll tell Peter when he gets home. Let me know what I can do.”
“OK, thanks.” We said good-bye and hung up.
I rang up Barbara. “Ma died last night at James',” I said.
“What?” Barbara gasped in amazement. In a quiet shriek she said, “My mother's dead? Mom's dead?”
“Yeah, and I encouraged her to go.” I was crying again.
“Oh, Michael, don't do that to yourself. You did more for her than any of us, and she was in pain. She's been in so much pain for so long. Ma's at peace now. She could have died at home, too. Oh, my God! Did you tell Peter.”
“He's on the route. I told Maggie.”
“Well, I better call James. Oh, my God.”
“Yeah, I told him you'd call and split up the phone numbers in Ma's book. I'll call Gertrude and Bob, the Hillenbrands, and Richie.”
“When did this happen?”
“James just found her a few minutes ago. She was cold in the bed.”
“Oh, my God; I have to call my kids, and, oh, I'm supposed to work today.” Barbara drove a super modern train for BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah, I'm OK.” We said we'd talk later, and hung up.
I turned to Chris, and we hugged.
After you got home from school, Chris and I waited for a quiet moment, then we sat down with you to explain that ‘Gralma’ had died. We said her body had gone back to the earth, but that her spirit would come to visit in our memories. You wrote in your diary the three things you liked most about Gralma. On a separate sheet you wrote the three things you liked least, then you crumpled up the separate sheet, and threw it in the fire. We sat together in front of the fireplace and thought good-byes.
The next ten days made me numb with unending reflections, conversations, and arrangements. I told people my mother died like I was talking about dead fish. She'd been a devout Catholic, so we consulted her priest and learned that cremations were no longer banned. Ma's sister, Mildred, had just been cremated, and Ma put great store by her, so we planned cremation for Ma, too. We scheduled a memorial Mass for the next Saturday. Each ring of the telephone became a dreadful sound, but there was no way out. Each conversation had a part to play in resolving our feelings.
My brain overworked for some days. I wanted to sue the airlines for not warning people with pulmonary disease about the dangers of flying. Ma had turned blue on the plane, and I remembered a TV show about how airlines re-circulate foul air to save fuel. I was convinced that something had happened to Ma on the plane. But it wouldn't wash. You remembered that she looked gray (a sign of hypoxia) when she’d boarded the plane when she was leaving, and the doctor said, “Foul air could make a person sick, but they'd be recoverable. She may have needed oxygen when she got off, but maybe she needed it more as regular therapy.”
“Ma had refused to keep oxygen in the house,” said Barbara, “And she’d told me, after her last trip to Albuquerque, that she'd never fly again, it was so terrible.” Slowly, I accepted the likelihood that Ma was tired of sitting on the sofa wheezing, and that she didn't want to live like that.
My brain ran in new circles hunting the causes of this, the disappointments that had hurt her, from the distant past to recent times. Her mother, Mabel, my grandma, had disappeared into Alzheimer's disease for her last ten years of life, and Ma had taken care of her. Mildred and Ma both were horrified at the prospect of a similar fate. We called it old-timer's disease in the old days.
Also, Ma's kids seemed to be bickering along on separate paths. And Social Security had been sending Ma bureaucratic letters every month that babbled about rule changes, and even accused her of accepting more money than she should have. Each month, they notified her of what she had coming minus what she had to pay back. This was maddening to her.
Her marriage had been very painful, and she'd never quite resolved that.
The state had prosecuted her sons in a way that broke her heart and maybe her health as well.
Another loss tied to an angry priest. Watching the '68 Convention on TV in Ma's basement, this priest said of the demonstrators, “They ought to be taken out and shot.”
Ma said, “My kids could be out in that street!”
This didn't matter to that priest, so she threw him out of the house, and she stopped going to his church. She never replaced religion, and she seemed to miss her involvement with a congregation.
Lots of places to lay blame. . .no one had to bear full responsibility for killing this tired old woman.
After more reflection, I changed my feeling that Ma had been killed by long-term abuse with the sense that time and life overload each of us in turn. Like the guy said, “None of us is going to get out of this alive.”
A dangerous time, friends warned, is after the funeral. . .when the family gathers. Potential heirs are particularly vulnerable then. I heard horror stories of fist fights by the coffin, etc. We were advised to let the dust settle before pursuing questions of wills or property, lest people confuse grief with dollars and bric-a-brac. Our family gathered in peace and harmony.
There was actually a lot of good stuff to remember. Ma was a born social worker always willing to help. If a neighbor family was in crisis, we'd get a new brother or sister. Letters came from people all over the country who loved Ma, and remembered how she'd helped them. Ma was always ready to help, always willing to listen, and always able to talk. Her interpretation of the world was intensely religious. Her unifying principle was to love the children, love all the children. This kept her sane. I actually think she left this Earth to avoid getting senile and causing problems. And, like Mildred, she wanted to leave with a full deck. You can never be sure whom you might run into.
THE END
chapter 20
“Adam, put your hat on your head! Don't just carry it around in your hand,” I said gruffly, as you went out the front door on your way to school. I called after you in a milder tone, “Have a good day.”
“Okay,” you said softly, as you walked on down the gravel driveway.
The tone in your voice said my gruffness hadn't quite ruffled you. The ‘have a good day’ had apparently retrieved the situation, and avoided a bad start to an otherwise innocent day.
I closed the door and said to Chris, “I can't believe my ears when I talk to him like that. I'm the guy who was always going to say positive upbeat things to my kid, like the Mormons in those TV ads of theirs. Jesus!”
“Don't forget your own preaching.” Chris said, “'Talking to kids is like going to bat; sometimes you get a hit; usually you don't.' Don't put unrealistic expectations on yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said wistfully, “But I was talking about disturbed kids. Adam's a pussycat.”
The telephone rang. I answered.
“Hello, Michael?” said my brother, James, from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’d been expecting a call from him. Ma had flown down there four days earlier for a visit. After she’d arrived, James called to say she didn't feel well. He was supposed to call today to say if she was coming home early. Chris and I hoped she didn't. We lived with her in a two bedroom house, and we'd been getting under each other's feet lately. We needed a break from each other.
“Ma died in her sleep last night,” James said in a flat, tender voice. It was November 8, 1985.
“What! Son of a bitch,” I howled. “God damn it! Shit! God damn it! Isn't life ever going to cooperate?”
“What?” James asked.
“Isn't life ever going to cooperate,” I repeated loudly. “Damn! What happened?” Ma suffered from emphysema and post-surgical depression from a recent operation. I'd told James she should see a doctor about a prescription for an anti-depressant. “Are her physical problems ruining her morale, or is her low morale aggravating her physical problems?” we'd asked each other.
James continued in monotone, “I don't know. I just went in to get her up for her doctor's appointment. Ten minutes ago. She was cold.”
“Son of a bitch!” I said loudly as I paced by the phone. I looked at Chris, and saw curiosity and concern in her eyes. I covered the mouthpiece and said, “My mother died.” Chris' eyes and face went blank.
“I guess I should call the medical examiner, or an ambulance or somebody,” James continued in monotone.
“Aw, shit!” I said angrily.
“There's nothing to get upset about,” James said, “It's over.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, “But I feel terrible that I encouraged her to take the trip down there.”
"She was worn out, Michael. There was nothing you could do about that. It fits that she should come here and die. I've been dealing with death a lot in our Viet Nam Vets group. I'll start doing what I've got to do here. You want to call Peter and Barbara?”
Barbara was the eldest, and lived in Berkeley. Peter was 42, a year younger than Barbara. He lived on a farm in southern Wisconsin.
“Yeah, I'll call them. I'll tell Barbara to call you to divide up the names in Ma's phone book, the white one she kept in her purse. I'll call aunt Gertrude and Richie. I think Mildred's dying the day before Ma left, I think maybe Ma took it as a message.”
“Yeah, I know it was on her mind, but she blue when we got her at the airport. She had no strength at all. She couldn't say a whole sentence.”
“You have things to do,” I said, “I'll talk to you later.”
I dialed Peter. “Hi, Maggie, is Peter there?”
“No. He's out on the route.“ Peter had a cutlery business like my father and grandfather. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Well," I said, my voice starting to labor as emotion piled on, “My mother died.”
“What!” Maggie said, sort of semi-shocked.
“Ma died in her sleep at James' last night,” I said, almost crying.
“Oh, no. Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I'm alright, but I feel like I killed her, sending her to visit James.” Sobbing now, tears ran down my cheeks. I was surprised. I didn't think words from a phone could do this, and I was surprised I'd cry to Maggie. We hadn't been close for years. After Indiana, the family spread out geographically, and feelings hardened. We allowed it, maybe partly, I sometimes think, just to keep any new pogroms from bagging us all at once.
“You did everything you could for her, Michael. The trip was her decision. You didn't kill her.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, she's at peace now,” Maggie's voice was starting to crack. “I'll tell Peter when he gets home. Let me know what I can do.”
“OK, thanks.” We said good-bye and hung up.
I rang up Barbara. “Ma died last night at James',” I said.
“What?” Barbara gasped in amazement. In a quiet shriek she said, “My mother's dead? Mom's dead?”
“Yeah, and I encouraged her to go.” I was crying again.
“Oh, Michael, don't do that to yourself. You did more for her than any of us, and she was in pain. She's been in so much pain for so long. Ma's at peace now. She could have died at home, too. Oh, my God! Did you tell Peter.”
“He's on the route. I told Maggie.”
“Well, I better call James. Oh, my God.”
“Yeah, I told him you'd call and split up the phone numbers in Ma's book. I'll call Gertrude and Bob, the Hillenbrands, and Richie.”
“When did this happen?”
“James just found her a few minutes ago. She was cold in the bed.”
“Oh, my God; I have to call my kids, and, oh, I'm supposed to work today.” Barbara drove a super modern train for BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah, I'm OK.” We said we'd talk later, and hung up.
I turned to Chris, and we hugged.
After you got home from school, Chris and I waited for a quiet moment, then we sat down with you to explain that ‘Gralma’ had died. We said her body had gone back to the earth, but that her spirit would come to visit in our memories. You wrote in your diary the three things you liked most about Gralma. On a separate sheet you wrote the three things you liked least, then you crumpled up the separate sheet, and threw it in the fire. We sat together in front of the fireplace and thought good-byes.
The next ten days made me numb with unending reflections, conversations, and arrangements. I told people my mother died like I was talking about dead fish. She'd been a devout Catholic, so we consulted her priest and learned that cremations were no longer banned. Ma's sister, Mildred, had just been cremated, and Ma put great store by her, so we planned cremation for Ma, too. We scheduled a memorial Mass for the next Saturday. Each ring of the telephone became a dreadful sound, but there was no way out. Each conversation had a part to play in resolving our feelings.
My brain overworked for some days. I wanted to sue the airlines for not warning people with pulmonary disease about the dangers of flying. Ma had turned blue on the plane, and I remembered a TV show about how airlines re-circulate foul air to save fuel. I was convinced that something had happened to Ma on the plane. But it wouldn't wash. You remembered that she looked gray (a sign of hypoxia) when she’d boarded the plane when she was leaving, and the doctor said, “Foul air could make a person sick, but they'd be recoverable. She may have needed oxygen when she got off, but maybe she needed it more as regular therapy.”
“Ma had refused to keep oxygen in the house,” said Barbara, “And she’d told me, after her last trip to Albuquerque, that she'd never fly again, it was so terrible.” Slowly, I accepted the likelihood that Ma was tired of sitting on the sofa wheezing, and that she didn't want to live like that.
My brain ran in new circles hunting the causes of this, the disappointments that had hurt her, from the distant past to recent times. Her mother, Mabel, my grandma, had disappeared into Alzheimer's disease for her last ten years of life, and Ma had taken care of her. Mildred and Ma both were horrified at the prospect of a similar fate. We called it old-timer's disease in the old days.
Also, Ma's kids seemed to be bickering along on separate paths. And Social Security had been sending Ma bureaucratic letters every month that babbled about rule changes, and even accused her of accepting more money than she should have. Each month, they notified her of what she had coming minus what she had to pay back. This was maddening to her.
Her marriage had been very painful, and she'd never quite resolved that.
The state had prosecuted her sons in a way that broke her heart and maybe her health as well.
Another loss tied to an angry priest. Watching the '68 Convention on TV in Ma's basement, this priest said of the demonstrators, “They ought to be taken out and shot.”
Ma said, “My kids could be out in that street!”
This didn't matter to that priest, so she threw him out of the house, and she stopped going to his church. She never replaced religion, and she seemed to miss her involvement with a congregation.
Lots of places to lay blame. . .no one had to bear full responsibility for killing this tired old woman.
After more reflection, I changed my feeling that Ma had been killed by long-term abuse with the sense that time and life overload each of us in turn. Like the guy said, “None of us is going to get out of this alive.”
A dangerous time, friends warned, is after the funeral. . .when the family gathers. Potential heirs are particularly vulnerable then. I heard horror stories of fist fights by the coffin, etc. We were advised to let the dust settle before pursuing questions of wills or property, lest people confuse grief with dollars and bric-a-brac. Our family gathered in peace and harmony.
There was actually a lot of good stuff to remember. Ma was a born social worker always willing to help. If a neighbor family was in crisis, we'd get a new brother or sister. Letters came from people all over the country who loved Ma, and remembered how she'd helped them. Ma was always ready to help, always willing to listen, and always able to talk. Her interpretation of the world was intensely religious. Her unifying principle was to love the children, love all the children. This kept her sane. I actually think she left this Earth to avoid getting senile and causing problems. And, like Mildred, she wanted to leave with a full deck. You can never be sure whom you might run into.
THE END
Monkeyshines
chapter 18
Ethiopia
"Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Answer Back program, I'm Sandy Lyon, and today, I have a new friend in the studio with me. Welcome to the program, Michael."
"Thank you," I mumbled.
"Michael just spent a few days in Ethiopia, and after coming back, he wrote down his feelings for friends who asked what it was like there. So join our circle of friends, and share with us Michael's impressions of Ethiopia. It will change your day."
"It's been two days since I left Ethiopia, and these are my impressions. If you want a good cry, go to Ethiopia. You'll meet a woman there. When you walk out of the hotel Wabe Shabelle (or the Hilton, or the Ghion, or the Afrique) in Addis Ababa, she'll be walking by very slowly. Shaded by twilight, she's a pretty 18 year old suddenly gone 50. She's barefoot. She's dressed in one of those beautiful, white, wrap-around kind of native garments, that has become a filthy rag. Some of the cloth wraps around to secure a baby on her back. The baby is emaciated and motionless. Fresh dark stains mark the fabric just below the baby's seat, probably from the chronic diarrhea that indicates cholera.
“The woman has a radar that picks up your awareness of her. She interrupts her dusty pilgrimage to find out if you're there for her and her baby. I looked into her eyes. Maybe I shouldn't have. I fell into her eyes, down 5,000 feet, crashed and burned. I was smart, tough, healthy, and had a pretty clear conscience. I thought I could look into anyone's eyes. In the brief second that I could look into this woman's eyes, I saw the perfect humility of a gentle woman who didn't know how to demand. I saw the desperation of a mother whose baby was dying on her back. And I saw the forgiveness Jesus gave from the cross.
“She spoke to me in a soft voice, her tone touched with apology for being so forward, ‘Please, Mister, baby hungry. Good baby, Mister, just for baby.’
“Already, I've torn my eyes away. My throat clutches, and I concentrate on stopping tears from forming. I want to hug her, and take her and the baby into the hotel. I could clean them up, feed them, comfort them. I can't. The soldiers would stop me. There are starving, dying people everywhere. They can't all come into the hotel. And they can't be robbed of their last strength by false hopes or sentimental displays. Tears would work on her like raindrops on a flickering candle.
“In America, I would have rushed them to a hospital. Anyone would have. They’d have dropped whatever they were doing and, at least, called an ambulance. Here in Ethiopia, I focus my attention on the first star I can locate in the darkening sky. She lingers. She senses the struggle in me. She whispers her prayer once more, ‘Just for baby.’
“I focus harder on that star, and the woman and her baby disappear from my mind. She drifts away, merging with the stream of wretched people floating by. I tell myself that I had no solution for her. I feel helpless and stupid.
“What this woman needs is rest and nutrition. Then she can return to work in her village that needs a well and a structure for storing grain. She needs the help of the men who are off soldiering. She needs Russia and America to tell the men to stop soldiering and go home. She needs all of us to understand this, and to help however we can.
“Tuesday, on the plane out of Ethiopia, I spoke with Dick Gregory about the nutrition formula he just had tested at a hospital there. Severely malnourished children were gaining weight within two weeks, and were able to start utilizing other kinds of food. As soon as possible some of this formula will be sent to the Medical Missionaries of Mary, a ferociously dedicated group who work in the feeding camps.
“The feeding camps are places where procedures are laid down and strictly adhered to. In order to gain entry, one must be determined to have lost at least 25% of their minimum body weight. This is the threshold where death is very close. If one has lost only 20% of their minimum body weight, they sit with the crowd outside the compound and wait. Soon they will have starved enough to get in. No one knows if there will still be food then. A few people, like Dick Gregory, know the needed nutrition probably won't be there. Hundreds of thousands of people, exhausted and helpless, will gradually slip into blindness, deafness, cholera and a host of other diseases. The wheat flour will help them hold on a little longer. The knowledge that healthy people are working on the problem will help them hold on a little longer.
“There were some donated items being sold in the local market, but not a worrisome amount. A hundred agencies are presently working in Ethiopia, with the Red Cross being by far the provider of the most supplies. I heard and saw only good things about World Vision, the Swedish, British and American Save the Children organizations, UNICEF, Catholic Relief and Christian Aid. I could not even find rumors of any mismanagement. Even the government Relief and Rehabilitation Commission gets praise for their effectiveness. In the face of all I'd heard about the bureaucratic obstacles in Ethiopia, I was continuously surprised by the positive way government people conducted themselves.
“I got a visa from the Ethiopian Embassy in London although I could have been denied on technicalities. On the plane to Addis I linked up with a Japanese news team and accompanied them to the Ministry of Information where their permits to travel and film were processed. Filming in the city and general expeditions into the country were forbidden, but permission to fly or drive to almost any specific place was nearly automatic. Refusing filming in the city seemed natural enough given the potential effect on the population of having their ghastly circumstances constantly studied, composed, and recorded by well-fed visitors.
“A Swedish fellow told me that sometimes Addis was worse than the feeding camps. There are no feeding centers in Addis, but there are many starving people. They look incongruous, blended in as they are with the suits, ties and Mercedes taxis. There is, nevertheless, no discernible hostility or sense of danger. It's assumed that it would be unwise to go some places alone at night, because of the temptation you'd present. I knew of one fellow who was robbed, but he thought it was a very gentle robbery, and they only took his money. Even the soldiers posted everywhere seem serious but not menacing.
“The Franciscans are new to Africa, but seem to be on the right track. Their ‘Project Africa’ is donating a well to a village. Contributions will be accepted by Fr. Philip Marquard, OFM, St. Peter Friary, 110 W. Madison St., Chicago, IL 60602. Tel: 312/372-5111
“VMM, the Volunteer Missionary Movement, who have a center in Yorkville, IL, have invited the filming of their operations in Africa. The film would double as a training tool. They invite donations and recruits, but require a two-year commitment to the program. VMM is at 7320 Route 71, Yorkville, IL 60560.
“Observers in Addis worry that the situation may get much worse next year as the Sudan becomes more affected. It's essential that the African famine not become yesterday's news. We must imagine a solution, and then do what we can to apply it.”
“And thus,” said Sandy, as I finished reading, “You let your friends know a bit of what you experienced there. Michael, what was it that took you over there? Why did you go?”
“Basically, self-interest. I have a son, and I think that if any children anywhere are allowed to starve, then mine could be next. And I had a spiritual sense that there might be some cosmic retaliation coming my way if I ignored what was happening to the children in Ethiopia. I felt that, since I'd been to Africa twenty years ago, had my health and some time I could take from work, I could actually go there, and see for myself what an ordinary person could do.”
“Um-hum. So you take yourself to be an ordinary person and you put yourself in front of that starving woman and her baby; ah, you look healthy, physically, I mean you're not fat, but you're certainly not skinny either; you must have felt quite well-fed in front of her.”
“I did.”
“Do you think something took you over there to see that woman's face?”
“I'm not sure what mystical interpretation might be given to it. I think any person, seeing a neighbor in tragedy, responds as they can. This crisis needs a lot of little people to respond.”
“Even though you couldn't take her out to lunch or…”
“I thought I'd get off the plane in a city, and find my way to a feeding camp. I was amazed to find so many dying people so close to the plane connecting to Rome, London, Chicago. There was awesome dignity and intense consciousness in these gentle, dying people that made me consider my actions very deeply. A wretched-looking fellow leading a blind man stood nearby. They'd have come over to me, if I’d tried to help the woman, as would others. Then soldiers might intervene. Begging was discouraged, and the city lives in such a grave context, I chose to keep my wits, sense how the people were operating, and look for an opening.”
“Did you feel like coming back to the U.S. and emptying out the grocery store, and shipping it over there?”
“Sure. I thought of emptying the bank account, but that... .” The interview went on for over an hour. It was interesting listening, but not good reading. I felt I had to be so careful of everything I said. Much was in the tone instead of the words. And much was absent altogether.
One caller asked, “I was wondering what you ate each day as a visitor in Ethiopia, and how you felt about that?”
“I had a hard time eating. I told myself I wasn't hungry as long as I could, then I went to a restaurant, and ordered a cheese sandwich and a beer, because they're relatively safe. The sandwich was enormous, and I remember wondering if it was some kind of joke or test, I mean, there was no way I could eat the whole thing, so I wrapped up half of it and ate it for the next three meals. I couldn't even go in those restaurants where you pay big bucks and get a fancy meal, which there are some in Ethiopia, but I don't mean to belittle those who could. I was a novice in that kind of situation, and I wasn't there long enough to develop a surgeon's stomach.”
Another caller asked, “What would you do, if you were in charge of the relief effort in Ethiopia?”
“Well, I'd get experienced rock festival roadies and stage a show. We'd provide food, water, music, toilets, and audio visual instruction on well drilling and water pump maintenance. And I'd get helicopter crews to ferry supplies into the countryside, but that doesn't connect to the real world, in a sense. You have to work through organizations; you have to use conventional means; and you have to take into account the geopolitical stress on every situation. There's a kind of envy, and some people don't want certain others to succeed at being the helpers. In the competition for power, everybody wants their God seen as the best and most powerful, and this weighs on each transaction, so local authorities must, blah, blah, blah.”
I was reluctant to say that I'd ask people to form very long lines, like bucket brigades to pass supplies hand to hand from the port to the drought areas. It sounds crazy, but that's what we'd do in Wisconsin if we had to. If we had no supplies or transportation of any kind, we'd make lines all the way to Lake Superior if we had to.
And I was reluctant to say that the whole problem could be solved overnight by helicopters if politics permitted. It seemed to me that the picture of Black communists starving might even look like okay publicity from a short term, Capitalist point of view, the way herpes and AIDs seemed to cheer up some Capitalist leaders by validating their moralistic preachings about sex.
I was reluctant to admit that, as a middle-aged, White American male, I felt very exposed in Ethiopia, because ‘my group’ was perceived to be singularly preoccupied dominating the pecking order in the life boat. I bumped into Bulgarian and Cuban soldiers, East Germans, Marxist students, conspiratorial Capitalist sympathizers (or so they claimed), and Ethiopian graduates of Moscow's Patrice Lamumba University. (who seemed to have traded much of their delicate Ethiopian personalities for the hard boiled Communist attitude so useful in competing with hard boiled Capitalists.)
When I got my visa in London, I spoke with Teshome Teklu at the Ethiopian Embassy. He’d attended Ohio State University in the early '70s, and he remembered the Kent State shootings. He was easy to talk to. (A Swedish guy told me later that many western educated Ethiopians were recently released from or were barely staying out of prison as the government was torn between utilizing their skills and resisting their western bias.)
Teshome said, “This is a most difficult post. There is so much publicity. Tell me, will you, America has all the technicians in the world; they're stacked up like cord wood, but when you were in Ethiopia, you never showed us how to build even a single road. What is wrong with America?”
I said, “I don't know. I think a lot of my people are starving psychologically, the way your people are starving for food. Sometimes I think they're crazy. When I saw the films of the children, I was sick.”
“My wife,” Teshome said, “She yells at me because I don't want to eat. I go in my room and cry, because of what's happening to my people. We aren't beggars, but we must accept what is offered. It's embarrassing, even to the starving. Why do you want to go to Ethiopia? Are you a spy? We have them all the time. Or are you crazy?”
“I think of my own son, and of the Ethiopian fathers and, well, I'm not sure of much in this life, but I'm sure that if I was one of the Ethiopian parents whose child was starving, I'd want someone, anyone to help me.”
*****
Adam, I thought this was a valid exception to a wise rule against elliptical contracts (a communication monkeyshine #3) where people ‘help’ someone without having an invitation or specific agreement, then hold future transactions hostage until the ‘help’ is repaid.
*****
“You have children of your own, then?” asked Teshome.
“Yes, an eight-year-old boy.”
“And you have left your family to travel to Ethiopia?”
“Yes. I talked to my friends about it. Some thought it was a good idea, some didn't. Do you think it's foolish for me to go there?”
“No, not foolish, but you must not expect too much. We have spent a lot of money providing airplanes and tours to visitors. They go to the feeding camps, they cry, then they go away. They say they will send help, but often the help doesn't come. So there is some backlash from this, and you must not expect too much.”
“I'm good at staying out of the way. I'd like to help if I can, or just see the situation so I can tell my friends what's going on there.”
“You're supposed to have a letter from an organization that will take responsibility for you, and you don't. Do you have enough money?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you don't have the shots for cholera.”
“Well, I talked to Public Health people in Minneapolis, and was told the cholera immunization only works half the time, and only on a couple of the many kinds of cholera. Cholera is treatable with antibiotics, and you can get sick from the vaccine; so, the nurse said she'd carry antibiotics, and not bother with the vaccine.”
“OK, I will give you a visa, but don't tell them I promised you an airplane or anything, and be very careful what you do.”
“Thank you,” I said. We shook hands and parted. On my way out through the sparsely decorated lobby, I met the woman with whom I'd spoken when I first arrived. She seemed stalwart and businesslike, and had told me, when she first learned that I had no letter of authority from an organization, “You cannot go to Ethiopia. I'm sorry. Next.”
Now she looked at me, her eyes so dark and deep I felt I'd never understand her full meaning as she said, “You're lucky. You can pick up your visa tomorrow.”
I checked the price of double deck buses at London Transport, then booked a flight to Addis on Aeroflot via Moscow. It was the cheapest way. But I got bumped off the flight, because they couldn't confirm a seat past Moscow, and I had no visa for Russia. Aeroflot's director had been ejected from England that day, and the flight to Moscow had suddenly filled up. I flew on Ethiopian Airways instead, one of Africa's premier carriers.
It rained that day, and people started talking about how to get seeds to the farmers. I made contacts much faster than I'd expected, and in two days, I began to feel like a voyeur. I thought I should commit six months or leave immediately. The plan I'd imagined when I began the trip was both validated and stymied. I saw the Sahara and the Sahel as a huge piece of flesh without enough capillaries for circulation, and from the moment I saw the films of the children, I imagined driving a double-deck bus around there dropping supplies, establishing a service garage, a hotel, a school. If one bus worked, I'd get another on the road, then a third, and so on. This wasn't the sort of plan that got quick support from suits-and-ties, so I decided to scout it out on my own, then do it with friends, if and when economics permitted.
The problem, however, was geopolitical, and more severe than I'd imagined. To hard-core politics players, Ethiopia seemed nearly business as usual. Any little hand I might play had to be well cased if I was to avoid getting sandbagged or Mau-Maued. I flew home, and wrote letters offering the services of myself and some willing friends with relevant skills… a high powered group with the necessary experience to operate a small transport system, open a school, build a road, dig wells, and such. I sent a little money, wrote more letters, and waited.
The U.S. government made it illegal to provide developmental aid to Ethiopia, and that was chilling. They came up with one story after another to explain why children starved, each seeming calculated to show Ethiopians botching America's relief effort. Then came Live-Aid.
Cued by Bob Geldof and Harry Belafonte, more human beings turned their eyes and ears to Live-Aid than had witnessed any other single event in history. Grass roots empathy poured from little people all over the world. In America, it competed with TV coverage of President Reagan's colon surgery. I watched both, and I was glad Reagan made it. His constituents seem insecure, and in need of his personal guidance.
Colleen worked for Bill Graham, the legendary rock promoter who staged Live Aid, and she asked him about the letter I sent them. His office wasn't involved in disbursing funds, and was in chaos from a recent fire, but he knew who did handle the money, and he said he'd check it out. It turns out there were lots of letters like mine.
chapter 18
Ethiopia
"Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Answer Back program, I'm Sandy Lyon, and today, I have a new friend in the studio with me. Welcome to the program, Michael."
"Thank you," I mumbled.
"Michael just spent a few days in Ethiopia, and after coming back, he wrote down his feelings for friends who asked what it was like there. So join our circle of friends, and share with us Michael's impressions of Ethiopia. It will change your day."
"It's been two days since I left Ethiopia, and these are my impressions. If you want a good cry, go to Ethiopia. You'll meet a woman there. When you walk out of the hotel Wabe Shabelle (or the Hilton, or the Ghion, or the Afrique) in Addis Ababa, she'll be walking by very slowly. Shaded by twilight, she's a pretty 18 year old suddenly gone 50. She's barefoot. She's dressed in one of those beautiful, white, wrap-around kind of native garments, that has become a filthy rag. Some of the cloth wraps around to secure a baby on her back. The baby is emaciated and motionless. Fresh dark stains mark the fabric just below the baby's seat, probably from the chronic diarrhea that indicates cholera.
“The woman has a radar that picks up your awareness of her. She interrupts her dusty pilgrimage to find out if you're there for her and her baby. I looked into her eyes. Maybe I shouldn't have. I fell into her eyes, down 5,000 feet, crashed and burned. I was smart, tough, healthy, and had a pretty clear conscience. I thought I could look into anyone's eyes. In the brief second that I could look into this woman's eyes, I saw the perfect humility of a gentle woman who didn't know how to demand. I saw the desperation of a mother whose baby was dying on her back. And I saw the forgiveness Jesus gave from the cross.
“She spoke to me in a soft voice, her tone touched with apology for being so forward, ‘Please, Mister, baby hungry. Good baby, Mister, just for baby.’
“Already, I've torn my eyes away. My throat clutches, and I concentrate on stopping tears from forming. I want to hug her, and take her and the baby into the hotel. I could clean them up, feed them, comfort them. I can't. The soldiers would stop me. There are starving, dying people everywhere. They can't all come into the hotel. And they can't be robbed of their last strength by false hopes or sentimental displays. Tears would work on her like raindrops on a flickering candle.
“In America, I would have rushed them to a hospital. Anyone would have. They’d have dropped whatever they were doing and, at least, called an ambulance. Here in Ethiopia, I focus my attention on the first star I can locate in the darkening sky. She lingers. She senses the struggle in me. She whispers her prayer once more, ‘Just for baby.’
“I focus harder on that star, and the woman and her baby disappear from my mind. She drifts away, merging with the stream of wretched people floating by. I tell myself that I had no solution for her. I feel helpless and stupid.
“What this woman needs is rest and nutrition. Then she can return to work in her village that needs a well and a structure for storing grain. She needs the help of the men who are off soldiering. She needs Russia and America to tell the men to stop soldiering and go home. She needs all of us to understand this, and to help however we can.
“Tuesday, on the plane out of Ethiopia, I spoke with Dick Gregory about the nutrition formula he just had tested at a hospital there. Severely malnourished children were gaining weight within two weeks, and were able to start utilizing other kinds of food. As soon as possible some of this formula will be sent to the Medical Missionaries of Mary, a ferociously dedicated group who work in the feeding camps.
“The feeding camps are places where procedures are laid down and strictly adhered to. In order to gain entry, one must be determined to have lost at least 25% of their minimum body weight. This is the threshold where death is very close. If one has lost only 20% of their minimum body weight, they sit with the crowd outside the compound and wait. Soon they will have starved enough to get in. No one knows if there will still be food then. A few people, like Dick Gregory, know the needed nutrition probably won't be there. Hundreds of thousands of people, exhausted and helpless, will gradually slip into blindness, deafness, cholera and a host of other diseases. The wheat flour will help them hold on a little longer. The knowledge that healthy people are working on the problem will help them hold on a little longer.
“There were some donated items being sold in the local market, but not a worrisome amount. A hundred agencies are presently working in Ethiopia, with the Red Cross being by far the provider of the most supplies. I heard and saw only good things about World Vision, the Swedish, British and American Save the Children organizations, UNICEF, Catholic Relief and Christian Aid. I could not even find rumors of any mismanagement. Even the government Relief and Rehabilitation Commission gets praise for their effectiveness. In the face of all I'd heard about the bureaucratic obstacles in Ethiopia, I was continuously surprised by the positive way government people conducted themselves.
“I got a visa from the Ethiopian Embassy in London although I could have been denied on technicalities. On the plane to Addis I linked up with a Japanese news team and accompanied them to the Ministry of Information where their permits to travel and film were processed. Filming in the city and general expeditions into the country were forbidden, but permission to fly or drive to almost any specific place was nearly automatic. Refusing filming in the city seemed natural enough given the potential effect on the population of having their ghastly circumstances constantly studied, composed, and recorded by well-fed visitors.
“A Swedish fellow told me that sometimes Addis was worse than the feeding camps. There are no feeding centers in Addis, but there are many starving people. They look incongruous, blended in as they are with the suits, ties and Mercedes taxis. There is, nevertheless, no discernible hostility or sense of danger. It's assumed that it would be unwise to go some places alone at night, because of the temptation you'd present. I knew of one fellow who was robbed, but he thought it was a very gentle robbery, and they only took his money. Even the soldiers posted everywhere seem serious but not menacing.
“The Franciscans are new to Africa, but seem to be on the right track. Their ‘Project Africa’ is donating a well to a village. Contributions will be accepted by Fr. Philip Marquard, OFM, St. Peter Friary, 110 W. Madison St., Chicago, IL 60602. Tel: 312/372-5111
“VMM, the Volunteer Missionary Movement, who have a center in Yorkville, IL, have invited the filming of their operations in Africa. The film would double as a training tool. They invite donations and recruits, but require a two-year commitment to the program. VMM is at 7320 Route 71, Yorkville, IL 60560.
“Observers in Addis worry that the situation may get much worse next year as the Sudan becomes more affected. It's essential that the African famine not become yesterday's news. We must imagine a solution, and then do what we can to apply it.”
“And thus,” said Sandy, as I finished reading, “You let your friends know a bit of what you experienced there. Michael, what was it that took you over there? Why did you go?”
“Basically, self-interest. I have a son, and I think that if any children anywhere are allowed to starve, then mine could be next. And I had a spiritual sense that there might be some cosmic retaliation coming my way if I ignored what was happening to the children in Ethiopia. I felt that, since I'd been to Africa twenty years ago, had my health and some time I could take from work, I could actually go there, and see for myself what an ordinary person could do.”
“Um-hum. So you take yourself to be an ordinary person and you put yourself in front of that starving woman and her baby; ah, you look healthy, physically, I mean you're not fat, but you're certainly not skinny either; you must have felt quite well-fed in front of her.”
“I did.”
“Do you think something took you over there to see that woman's face?”
“I'm not sure what mystical interpretation might be given to it. I think any person, seeing a neighbor in tragedy, responds as they can. This crisis needs a lot of little people to respond.”
“Even though you couldn't take her out to lunch or…”
“I thought I'd get off the plane in a city, and find my way to a feeding camp. I was amazed to find so many dying people so close to the plane connecting to Rome, London, Chicago. There was awesome dignity and intense consciousness in these gentle, dying people that made me consider my actions very deeply. A wretched-looking fellow leading a blind man stood nearby. They'd have come over to me, if I’d tried to help the woman, as would others. Then soldiers might intervene. Begging was discouraged, and the city lives in such a grave context, I chose to keep my wits, sense how the people were operating, and look for an opening.”
“Did you feel like coming back to the U.S. and emptying out the grocery store, and shipping it over there?”
“Sure. I thought of emptying the bank account, but that... .” The interview went on for over an hour. It was interesting listening, but not good reading. I felt I had to be so careful of everything I said. Much was in the tone instead of the words. And much was absent altogether.
One caller asked, “I was wondering what you ate each day as a visitor in Ethiopia, and how you felt about that?”
“I had a hard time eating. I told myself I wasn't hungry as long as I could, then I went to a restaurant, and ordered a cheese sandwich and a beer, because they're relatively safe. The sandwich was enormous, and I remember wondering if it was some kind of joke or test, I mean, there was no way I could eat the whole thing, so I wrapped up half of it and ate it for the next three meals. I couldn't even go in those restaurants where you pay big bucks and get a fancy meal, which there are some in Ethiopia, but I don't mean to belittle those who could. I was a novice in that kind of situation, and I wasn't there long enough to develop a surgeon's stomach.”
Another caller asked, “What would you do, if you were in charge of the relief effort in Ethiopia?”
“Well, I'd get experienced rock festival roadies and stage a show. We'd provide food, water, music, toilets, and audio visual instruction on well drilling and water pump maintenance. And I'd get helicopter crews to ferry supplies into the countryside, but that doesn't connect to the real world, in a sense. You have to work through organizations; you have to use conventional means; and you have to take into account the geopolitical stress on every situation. There's a kind of envy, and some people don't want certain others to succeed at being the helpers. In the competition for power, everybody wants their God seen as the best and most powerful, and this weighs on each transaction, so local authorities must, blah, blah, blah.”
I was reluctant to say that I'd ask people to form very long lines, like bucket brigades to pass supplies hand to hand from the port to the drought areas. It sounds crazy, but that's what we'd do in Wisconsin if we had to. If we had no supplies or transportation of any kind, we'd make lines all the way to Lake Superior if we had to.
And I was reluctant to say that the whole problem could be solved overnight by helicopters if politics permitted. It seemed to me that the picture of Black communists starving might even look like okay publicity from a short term, Capitalist point of view, the way herpes and AIDs seemed to cheer up some Capitalist leaders by validating their moralistic preachings about sex.
I was reluctant to admit that, as a middle-aged, White American male, I felt very exposed in Ethiopia, because ‘my group’ was perceived to be singularly preoccupied dominating the pecking order in the life boat. I bumped into Bulgarian and Cuban soldiers, East Germans, Marxist students, conspiratorial Capitalist sympathizers (or so they claimed), and Ethiopian graduates of Moscow's Patrice Lamumba University. (who seemed to have traded much of their delicate Ethiopian personalities for the hard boiled Communist attitude so useful in competing with hard boiled Capitalists.)
When I got my visa in London, I spoke with Teshome Teklu at the Ethiopian Embassy. He’d attended Ohio State University in the early '70s, and he remembered the Kent State shootings. He was easy to talk to. (A Swedish guy told me later that many western educated Ethiopians were recently released from or were barely staying out of prison as the government was torn between utilizing their skills and resisting their western bias.)
Teshome said, “This is a most difficult post. There is so much publicity. Tell me, will you, America has all the technicians in the world; they're stacked up like cord wood, but when you were in Ethiopia, you never showed us how to build even a single road. What is wrong with America?”
I said, “I don't know. I think a lot of my people are starving psychologically, the way your people are starving for food. Sometimes I think they're crazy. When I saw the films of the children, I was sick.”
“My wife,” Teshome said, “She yells at me because I don't want to eat. I go in my room and cry, because of what's happening to my people. We aren't beggars, but we must accept what is offered. It's embarrassing, even to the starving. Why do you want to go to Ethiopia? Are you a spy? We have them all the time. Or are you crazy?”
“I think of my own son, and of the Ethiopian fathers and, well, I'm not sure of much in this life, but I'm sure that if I was one of the Ethiopian parents whose child was starving, I'd want someone, anyone to help me.”
*****
Adam, I thought this was a valid exception to a wise rule against elliptical contracts (a communication monkeyshine #3) where people ‘help’ someone without having an invitation or specific agreement, then hold future transactions hostage until the ‘help’ is repaid.
*****
“You have children of your own, then?” asked Teshome.
“Yes, an eight-year-old boy.”
“And you have left your family to travel to Ethiopia?”
“Yes. I talked to my friends about it. Some thought it was a good idea, some didn't. Do you think it's foolish for me to go there?”
“No, not foolish, but you must not expect too much. We have spent a lot of money providing airplanes and tours to visitors. They go to the feeding camps, they cry, then they go away. They say they will send help, but often the help doesn't come. So there is some backlash from this, and you must not expect too much.”
“I'm good at staying out of the way. I'd like to help if I can, or just see the situation so I can tell my friends what's going on there.”
“You're supposed to have a letter from an organization that will take responsibility for you, and you don't. Do you have enough money?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you don't have the shots for cholera.”
“Well, I talked to Public Health people in Minneapolis, and was told the cholera immunization only works half the time, and only on a couple of the many kinds of cholera. Cholera is treatable with antibiotics, and you can get sick from the vaccine; so, the nurse said she'd carry antibiotics, and not bother with the vaccine.”
“OK, I will give you a visa, but don't tell them I promised you an airplane or anything, and be very careful what you do.”
“Thank you,” I said. We shook hands and parted. On my way out through the sparsely decorated lobby, I met the woman with whom I'd spoken when I first arrived. She seemed stalwart and businesslike, and had told me, when she first learned that I had no letter of authority from an organization, “You cannot go to Ethiopia. I'm sorry. Next.”
Now she looked at me, her eyes so dark and deep I felt I'd never understand her full meaning as she said, “You're lucky. You can pick up your visa tomorrow.”
I checked the price of double deck buses at London Transport, then booked a flight to Addis on Aeroflot via Moscow. It was the cheapest way. But I got bumped off the flight, because they couldn't confirm a seat past Moscow, and I had no visa for Russia. Aeroflot's director had been ejected from England that day, and the flight to Moscow had suddenly filled up. I flew on Ethiopian Airways instead, one of Africa's premier carriers.
It rained that day, and people started talking about how to get seeds to the farmers. I made contacts much faster than I'd expected, and in two days, I began to feel like a voyeur. I thought I should commit six months or leave immediately. The plan I'd imagined when I began the trip was both validated and stymied. I saw the Sahara and the Sahel as a huge piece of flesh without enough capillaries for circulation, and from the moment I saw the films of the children, I imagined driving a double-deck bus around there dropping supplies, establishing a service garage, a hotel, a school. If one bus worked, I'd get another on the road, then a third, and so on. This wasn't the sort of plan that got quick support from suits-and-ties, so I decided to scout it out on my own, then do it with friends, if and when economics permitted.
The problem, however, was geopolitical, and more severe than I'd imagined. To hard-core politics players, Ethiopia seemed nearly business as usual. Any little hand I might play had to be well cased if I was to avoid getting sandbagged or Mau-Maued. I flew home, and wrote letters offering the services of myself and some willing friends with relevant skills… a high powered group with the necessary experience to operate a small transport system, open a school, build a road, dig wells, and such. I sent a little money, wrote more letters, and waited.
The U.S. government made it illegal to provide developmental aid to Ethiopia, and that was chilling. They came up with one story after another to explain why children starved, each seeming calculated to show Ethiopians botching America's relief effort. Then came Live-Aid.
Cued by Bob Geldof and Harry Belafonte, more human beings turned their eyes and ears to Live-Aid than had witnessed any other single event in history. Grass roots empathy poured from little people all over the world. In America, it competed with TV coverage of President Reagan's colon surgery. I watched both, and I was glad Reagan made it. His constituents seem insecure, and in need of his personal guidance.
Colleen worked for Bill Graham, the legendary rock promoter who staged Live Aid, and she asked him about the letter I sent them. His office wasn't involved in disbursing funds, and was in chaos from a recent fire, but he knew who did handle the money, and he said he'd check it out. It turns out there were lots of letters like mine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)