American Obscenity

First and foremost, I'm an idealist. Well, not in the generally accepted usage of that word. Really, I'm more into the idea of something over the reality of it, especially if I find it funny. Because of this characteristic, I will do many a strange thing (eg. Act like a gun-wielding psychopathic self-help instructor/kidnapper to an adolescent boy; break out the Vanilla Ice Super-dance in a crowded bar or, better yet, debutante party; walk across the country; join the Army; etc.). Seeing as how I've already been on this marble for twenty-six years, I doubt that this is going to change.

While I'd had my latest humdinger of an idea stuck in my head for quite some time, when I was in Iraq I finally promised myself that I was going to do it when I got back . Today I finally followed through and did it. I bought into the "American Dream".

Now, when I say the "American Dream" I don't mean to say the ideal of the Norman Rockwell/John Steinbeck American Dream but, rather, the 21 ^stcentury reality of it. Thus, I'm not talking of the farm out in the countryside. I mean the American Dream in all of its amazing excess and unnecessity. I mean the American Dream in all it's blazing garishness. I mean the American Dream in all it's, frankly, obscenity.

You know what I'm talking about. Trust me, you do. It's the American Dream that made John Walker Lindh go scruffy and Afghani. It's theAmerican Dream that sends well-meaning kids off to European universities (or ones in California ) where they bitch about the way the country used to be. But you see, I'm not taking the traditional stance AGAINST this real American Dream. Oh, no. I'm mocking it by embracing it.

"How did Andre buy in?" one might ask. Well, I had to find the perfect example, first of all. What exemplifies the real American Dream, then? The King-sized value meal with a half-pound of French-fries, half-gallon of syrup, and chemical concoction masquerading as a sandwich? The two and a half ton behemoth Sport Utility Vehicle driven by the bored housewife so that she can fit in the groceries, the kids, platoon of Infantry, and still run over hapless commuters while talking on her cell phone and never once straying from asphalt?

Nope, I bought a Desert Eagle. That's a Desert Eagle .50. That's a Desert Eagle .50 hand gun. I mean, really, is there any greater symbol of America than a handgun? The Desert Eagle is so monstrous and impractical it can't help but be perfect (.50 means that the bullet is half of an inch in diameter). The fact that it's made by Isrealis is icing on the cake. The ultimate American Dream, delivered by foreigners.

How can I be sure that it's the ultimate symbol of American Obscenity? Easy. Look at movies. When a director needs to make sure that he's being cutting edge in films, everyone is blithely spitting lead from a Desert Eagle. The best part is, it's not even just the American movies. For example, the British gangster film Snatch (not a blue movie despite the title) prominently features a Desert Eagle and the awe that it inspires. The baddies from The Matrix? They're blazing away with them too. I could go on, but just trust me. When movies want to be ultra- Americanly extravagant, they do one of two things. Either, they destroy unbelievably expensive things (Notre Dame's Rose Window in Van Helsing, Paris and New York in Armageddon, a dozen Lamborghinis and Ferraris in Bad Boys 2 ) or they shoot Desert Eagle .50s.

I'd done all the research necessary for such a momentous purchase on the internet. Yes, the money it takes to buy a used car was a bit daunting to let go of, but I'd promised myself and thus was willing to jump in. After ascertaining which shop had my beauty I made a bolt for it, dragging cousin Elizabeth along in tow.

We got there and there were three different models of the Desert Eagle. Now, one might think that, in order to achieve my little joke, I would have bought the chrome or the golden tiger-striped titanium model, but that would be wrong. The American Dream isn't simply tacky. It's tacky masquerading as indispensable. Thus, I got the matte-black, "refined" finish.

Now, for those that haven't handled one, the gun is damn huge. Besides weighing in at well over four pounds, empty, the grip is big around as a redwood sapling. I've got large hands and it still felt like I was squeezing hold of a paint can. Also, it doesn't come in a nice, little gun-case. It came in a foam lined briefcase. Undaunted, I purchased it on plastic (When I go ultra-American, I go all out), along with twenty rounds of ammo. All told, I paid $1350.

We went next door to the firing range after I'd gotten my other pistol out of the car for Elizabeth to try out. After putting on the ear plugs, head phones, and clear glasses, we got on the indoor range. I set up the target and sent it out five yards. I gave Elizabeth a hand-gun firing 101 and she let rip with three shots from the 9mm. The target, I'm sorry to say, lost both kidneys and at least one testicle.

Then she stood aside and I unsheathed my new symbol of phallic inadequacy. I took the bullets and gingerly tried to load them into the magazine. That didn't work, so I huffed and puffed and banged and contorted and managed to get all seven of the rounds in there five minutes, and several bruised fingers, later. I then set my feet and pulled the slide back to chamber the first round. Actually, that's what I tried to do, but the slide was so hard to draw back that I had to do some crazy looking maneuver that looked an awful lot like trying to pull Odysseus' bow string. At any rate, I managed to get a round chambered.

I took sight and BOOOOOOOOM! I missed the silhouette by two inches off to the left. BOOOOOOOOOOOM! I hit the same spot. I readjusted my stance. BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! I'd coated his heart with $6 of good ole lead.

Firing the pistol wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd thought it would be. The kick wasn't hard to deal with. In fact, it felt like catching a high-schooler's fastball with a catcher's mitt. After setting the gun down, I turned to look at Elizabeth. She was bleach- white and there was a trickle of blood on her thumb where she'd squeezed herself so tightly with fright. "It was so loud! I thought it was a cannon! And the worst part was the flame that shot out of it!"

After I fired off a few more rounds, we packed up and headed off. I was so thoroughly pleased with my success that I had to share it with someone. I called a friend and delightedly told him all about it. As I was waxing orgasmically, Elizabeth mocked me by telling me to make sure that I told him that "it's so macho, when you fire it, your chest hair grows."

So, there. I've accomplished the first part of what I must. To finish my personal little joke I merely need get a concealed weapon permit for it. God Bless America.

The Keys

My brother, Wyman, and I have what I like to consider a complicated relationship; complicated by the small happenstance that we have virtually nothing in common (not even mothers). Indeed, I often posit that the only way for us to be any more different would be for one of us to be blue. All that aside, we do have some things in common; the most blatant of which would be the ability to drive each other to the brink of irritation-fueled insanity. Nonetheless, we are brothers, and so the getting on each others nerves and bringing out the worst in each other is perfectly normal. I mean, haven't any of you ever loved some one so much you'd just like to beat the living hell out of them? (Hands down, Ike Turner)

When I was in Iraq, in one of my weaker moments, I told Wyman that we were going on a vacation when I came back. It was one of those things you do in a war zone: making plans for a future that at the time seems more conjectural than inevitable. Time dragged so slow that I didn't realize that it catches up in one hell of a hurry. And so, after cavorting around Peru, lounging around the mountains, bumming around the Inner Banks, shooting down to Savannah, making a brief appearance in Beaufort, going to a funeral in Columbia, and taking an adolescent cousin on a 3500 mile road trip, I found that there almost wasn't time for a trip with Wyman this summer, particularly since I'm preparing to begin my walk next month.

So, the Carpenter boys were going on a road trip. The adventure was only moderately delayed by a few days of Wyman getting ready and my thirty minutes of cleaning out the car and putting my one bag of clothes in the trunk. We also were delayed a day to wait for our fellow traveler, the inestimable cousin Elizabeth, who'd forgiven me for (moderately, mind you) beating a semblance of sense into her boy. With all of that accomplished we crammed ourselves in the car and headed South.

The plan, if it can be called such a thing, was to go to the Florida Keys. The Florida Keys in August. Brilliant, I know, but I figured that it sure wasn't going to be any hotter than SC, of which one enlightened soul once said, "In the summer, the only thing separating South Carolina and Hell is a screen door."

The first day was nothing to write home about, so I didn't. We drove a long damn way and ended up just north of Boca Raton. At a cheesy restaurant we ate deep fried alligator tails, which thus tasted like everything else that is deep fried, with the exception that they were chewy.

The next day we drove through Miami, taking the time to drive down the A1A Beach Front Avenue of Vanilla Ice fame (for you ancients, V.I. was an horrific one-hit-wonder in '91 with his masterpiece, "Ice, Ice, Baby!"). South Beach, just like everywhere you expect to see scantily clad, hard-bodied babes, was really filled with plump women (that's being kind) shoe-horned into string bikinis fooling themselves that a location could somehow make being fifty pounds overweight in a thong not only acceptable but attractive.

We slid into Key Largo ("Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go…"- Beach Boys) just around sunset and found a cheapo motel. After watching the remnants of the sun's daily death and sipping on ludicrously expensive, but ludicrously smooth, rum we'd bought in Miami, we headed off to get something to eat, and, to be frank, to get trashed. I am happy to report that we accomplished both objectives with startling celerity as we merely went to a dive bar 200 yards from the motel.

I'm not quite able to say what went on at the dive bar since a) for the first time since my 21 ^st birthday I can't remember portions of the night and b) what I've been told I don't want to remember and particularly don't want to pass on. Nonetheless, I can relay that the night finished with me being hoisted back to the motel and then spending some quality face-to-bowl time before I stayed down for the night.

The next day, Sunday, I can quite honestly say was the worst hangover I've had in memory. Maybe there were worse before, but I've thankfully forgotten them. It was just horrible. Hung over and in a diner for breakfast seemed like a good idea at the time. Then the sunlight from car windshields, smell of pig-flesh cooking, everyone talking with bullhorns thing kinda got to me and I went to worship the porcelain god again.

Finally, after a visit to the Dolphin Research Center (their dolphins were "Flipper") we made it to Key West and I collapsed in the room while Elizabeth and Wyman went traipsing (ie. Boozing) along the famed Duval Street. Eventually, I woke up and, after they called to tell me where they were, made my way to meet them.

Key West, we had been told, is big with gays. I mean, BIG. As I already find that I've a bit of a problem being hit on by gay men, I did my best to just walk (not sashay) down the street and not look anyone in the eye. Some things just aren't fair though. I mean, how the hell are you not supposed to look when there's a 6'7" drag queen with hoo-hoos the size of basketballs talking to a six foot drag queen with arms like Lou Ferigno (TV's Hulk)? I thought I hadn't been spotted gawking, but apparently my jaw scraping the ground as I walked by was a big clue that I wasn't a local. The giant exclaimed as I went by, "Those are fifteens, aren't they?" Startled, I mumbled, "sure" and skidaddled. I didn't, and still don't, want to know how the hell he/she/it could nail my shoe size on the stroll.

Other than that, Key West was mostly just eating food, drinking moderately, and sleeping in. Until last night, that is. Apparently, I'm an idiot (I know that's been apparent to y'all for the duration of knowing me). I told myself that I wasn't going to go hard at it again, and I moderately believed myself since it had taken two days for me to consider putting more than a beer down my gullet, but as it was our last night, Elizabeth said she was buying. In halves, I'm Irish and French and quarters I'm English and German too. I'm damn near designed to have a drink, and I'm definitely designed to if it's free to do so. Thus, I got a bit inebriated. Fortunately, I can remember my exploits and I'm proud of them.

Once I'd been properly fueled, I hit the dance floor with Elizabeth. Dancing to rock and roll is, or should be, impossible, but we were cutting a rug to the band's cover of Van Halen's "Jump". Somehow, I decided that since no one else was out there with us, other than a monumentally goofy dude on the fringe of the dance floor, that it was time to pull out the cartwheels. So I did. Lord knows I try to be bashful (stop snickering), but I have to say, that to that point, that was obviously the coolest thing anyone in that bar had ever seen. I mean, I didn't even fling a flip-flop. I was SO the party star. As the song finished, I attempted to one-up myself and flung myself on the ground to do "the worm."

Ow! Doing a face-plant on a tile dance floor hurts. I caught myself, so it wasn't a proper face-plant, but I jammed the bejesus out of both of my wrists (I knew that if I could feel pain in that state, I was in trouble) and just laid there stunned for a split second. Then I just had an epileptic seizure. Well, I'm sure that's what it looked like at least since I quickly discovered that the worm is damn hard to pull off. I took a second to readjust, flopped on the ground like a fish out of water, dusted myself off, and booked it back to our table. Elizabeth and I sat down for a second or two with Wyman, downed another drink, and then hit the floor again. I tell you, SO the party star.

Then it happened. My moment had arrived. The second I heard the drummer tapping on the symbols and the lead singer mumble, "Yo VIP! Let's kick it!", I told Elizabeth to stay put and I booked out to the empty dance floor. In the annals of history, there are few performances that can hold a candle to my lip-synching, highly choreographed rendition of "Ice, Ice, Baby!" To say that people were stunned that the drunk dude with the filthy shirt and swollen wrists could rock that hard is an understatement. I tore the roof off that mutha solo for most of the song, but then a freaky red-head came out to share the magic and I rocked her world too. I waddled off the floor at the end of the song to cat-calls from the women and nods of silent approbation from the men.

The two couples at the table next to us offered to buy me whatever the hell I wanted, but I couldn't, in good conscience, lead the ladies along like that, as they were obviously anxious to ditch the schmoes they were with. I smiled at them (making them swoon in the process…thank you Vanilla Ice), told them, "my job here is done," and walked out with my right arm triumphantly in the air, my index finger thrust out to let every one know that I was, indeed, a bad mamma-jamma.

Counterpoint: Cousin Shay's Version

"Andre is a fun-sucking, un-loving, horrible person to be around. With him around, the most perfect day of your life can seem like ----. If you think spending 2 days even 3, god forbid you don't, try spending a whole week with him!!!! The one thing that I never got though is how his brother, Wyman, can be around him so long without going terribly mad, I mean ever since he got back from the Army all he says is suck it up when you complain and think before you speak, gosh, oh and he thinks his hair looks sexy, yeah right, not even in his dreams!!!! If you do not believe me, ask my mom; in my opinion, I think he spends too much time around my mom sometimes it gets a little annoying, and if you need any proof of child abuse he made me put my hands up on a roller coaster even though he knew that would make my back hurt for about 2 weeks!!!! Once Andre reads this I know he will want to beat me up but I'll be ready, and if that does not work I'll pull Uncle Sam on his butt, I bet that will be embarrassing!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I will probably be laughing so hard my gut will explode!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha !!!!!!!!!!!! Or even worse......... His own father!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I know that will be even more embarrassing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Final Leg

After we left Niagara Falls, we drove on into the night and finally stopped at a Bates-like motel in northern Pennsylvania. I made sure to take the pistol into the room with us. The next morning we got on the road, with the hope that we could make it back down to King's Dominion. Unfortunately, rain and an horrific bout of rush hour traffic around Harrisburg, conspired to keep us from our goal. Since we weren't going to make it down to Virginia, we stopped in Baltimore and caught another baseball game, this time between the Orioles and the fearsome Tampa Bay Devil Rays. We sat out in the right field bleachers and were entertained by the drunk guys heckling the Devil Rays right fielder.

After the game we got back in the car, made it down to King's Dominion, and stayed at a hotel next door to the park. We got up and made it over to the park in time for opening, which was the plan because I wanted to make sure that we got on the roller coasters as soon as possible and then got the hell out before the crowds got there.

There's a fine art to riding roller coasters when a park opens. The first rule is that you must run to make sure you get to the head of the lines. Shay runs like a wounded chihuahua but I was able to get us to the front of the line (with an outstanding display of flip-flop running, if I do say so myself) for the newest, baddest roller coaster at the park, VOLCANO. A pimply-faced employee informed all us panting enthusiasts that the ride would be down until noon so I grabbed Shay and ran him over to the Tomb Raider: Free Fall ride. He took one look at the ride, which was a row of seats that swung on a pendulum and spun around rapidly on an additional axis, and announced that he wasn't going on it. I then had to begin a pattern of coercion that I discovered I would have to use on every ride during the day: telling him to come on, yelling at him to come on, calling him a chicken or pussycat, pointing to the little girls who were gleefully getting on, and, finally, yelling some more.

Amusement parks are built for twelve-year- old boys. They're loud, there are garish colors, and the rides beat up anyone who isn't pliable or is over five foot eight. I felt I shouldn't have to force a boy to have fun there, but, if I didn't, we would have just turned around and gotten back in the car. Every single ride was the same thing: "I'm not going on that!"; "Yes, you are!"

Roller coasters are a dime a dozen to me, so I was actually excited to get on the drop ride. It was a three hundred foot tower and the ride consists of sitting in a seat that gets hoisted up to the top before it drops into a free fall for two hundred feet. When we were waiting in line, after the seats had gone up for their plummet, I pointed to the brown stains on the concrete underneath and asked Shay what they were.

"Rust?"

"Nope, blood from the last time the brakes didn't work on this ride...Yeah, I think I read that they've had three or four mechanical failures this year...Talk about a bloodbath...Okay, ready to get on?"

Other than that I had to yell at the boy to keep his eyes open and his hands raised when we were on the roller coasters. When he refused to listen on the wooden roller coaster, since there wasn't a line at the ride, I made him stay put and we rode it again. He kept his eyes open all right; he glared at me with unadulterated hatred in his eyes as he screamed and tried to slap me with his raised hands. Yes. It's hard to be forced to have a good time.

On the last ride, Shay had his pouty look firmly entrenched on his face. As we were being strapped in, I looked at him and said, "You know when we're in the car, you're going to thank me for bringing you here and tell me that you had a good time. Why don't you just let yourself have a good time while you're actually doing this stuff?"

He glared at me some more, but, sure enough, on the walk back to the car he said, "I know it didn't look like it, but I did have fun. Gosh, I wouldn't have gotten on any of the rides if you hadn't made me."

At any rate, we got in the car, and drove the four hundred thirty miles back to Charleston. As the boy is thoroughly sick of me and my tormenting him, he's gone over to his father's house.

Shay, if you get anything from the week of horror with cousin André, remember these, which I tried my damndest to get into your head:

1. Life isn't fair.

2. Be Strong. Overcome fear.

3. Think. Think before you speak. Think before you act.

4. Don't whine. No one cares; they'll just think you're weak. Suck it up.

5. Do for yourself. Children and the weak have people take care of them.

6. Have terrible, hard vacations so that day-to-day life seems easy.

Driving Day

Simply put, the day was long. It was long and spent in the car, as we had to drive nearly five hundred miles across NY to get to Niagara Falls. Now, most have not had the pleasure of being trapped with me for the majority of a day in an automobile, so I should let y'all know that it's an experience. It's not an experience in a carefree, fun sorta way, but rather experience in a "when will he shut up" or "dear God, we're all going to die" sorta way.

The boy was smart; I'll give him that. He napped for a few hours at the beginning of the day, but as soon as he woke up I gave him both barrels and hit him with the biggies. "Do you believe in God?"; "Because you want to, or because people tell you to, or because you feel like you should because your dad is a preacher?"; "What is God for you?"; "What about Jesus?"; "What was his message; what did he talk about?"; etc.

I wasn't about to let him off with his usual "uh-huh"s and "uh-uh"s on these. Shay's father is an obscenely intelligent Episcopal minister and his mother, cousin Elizabeth, while dopey in a fun sorta way, has her moments where she can string polysyllabic words together instead of giggling. Thus I was not going to let Shay, who's been to church and Sunday school more in his twelve years than me in my twenty six, tell me Jesus talked about "stuff" and "God's Word." It took a while of intense Socratic-ing to finally pull out "Do unto your friends, as …." before I put a kibosh on the give and take and just lectured him. I have to remember to write his parents a nice thank you note when this is all finished for giving me the opportunity to exercise my (not so) little god- complex.

I'll also give Shay this, he's an extremely good natured guy. Most people, let alone twelve-year- old boys, would be pulling out their hair being in a car for so long. Nope, he stayed buoyant and happy, pretty much the whole trip, even during the parts that terrify everyone else. I don't know why, but, apart from the rest of humanity, I feel extremely comfortable in a car. Driving itself is nothing to me; there's no challenge. I usually like to mix it up and see how many different things I can do while driving. Eating, changing out the CD changer, singing, or fiddling with things in the backseat are things that some other brave souls will attempt to do in the car. I like to go the extra mile by doing all of those things, usually at the same time, plus typing or reading. So, I read two-thirds of a book by my favorite contemporary author, Tibor Fischer, as we weaved back and forth over several lanes of rural northern New York; I also typed out the previous day's email (Hell, I'm typing this one in the Adirondacks during a horrific rain storm). Later, when I'd finished that, I started reading the comic book, Watchmen, I bought Shay, before I set it down and he and I played slap-fight in the traffic on the outskirts of Buffalo. When we got out of the car at the Niagara Falls national park, we wrestled a bit before I won conclusively by picking him up and putting him into a fifty-five gallon drum serving as a trash can.

Niagara Falls biggest impact on Shay was that, once we had seen it for four seconds, he really had to go to the bathroom. Besides being ready to go, he was ready to go. I asked to make sure that he didn't want to walk to another point to have a different perspective, but, nope, he was done. He wanted to hurry up and get moving back toward the King's Dominion roller coasters.

At supper that night, we stopped at a Bonanza restaurant, where we got the buffet. The meal was quite pleasant and the boy ate his two helpings of green beans without a problem. For fun, I fetched a piece of lettuce from the salad bar and made him eat it, to which he said, "See?! I didn't make the face!" thus accidentally revealing what I already knew, that all the retching yesterday had been a ploy. When he finished his meal and got ice cream, he took one bite, looked up dreamily, and said, "Ice cream is the food of the angels." 

Battle of Wills

After a lazy morning we left the motel and drove back into town. We left the car at a parking garage and set off on foot to explore the city, which we knew next to nothing about. Shay and I quickly decided to stop at one of the bustling sidewalk cafes for lunch. Much like Chicago, Montreal is ludicrously windy. We made up our minds as to our choices and then used the various table accouterments (ashtray, salt, pepper, etc) to weigh down the menus. While we waited for the waitress, we read, since I had made sure to bring along our books (he's got one left for summer reading for school), and that was where the unpleasantness began.

I vaguely remember being twelve and then, much as now, I knew everything. Shay, too, believes he knows everything and thus my attempts at "bossing him around" were met with much resistance, namely mocking facial expressions and poorly-executed sarcasm.

After I'd seen him staring off into the great beyond, having looked at his book for a minute and a half, I tried to be pleasant. "Shay, c'mon. I'm not telling you to eat babies. Just read your book."

"What?!! I read TWO pages!"

"Yes, well, that's pathetic. Keep reading," I sternly intoned as he pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. "Boy, you don't want to do that."

"What?!!!" he exclaimed and then rolled his eyes.

"You don't want to challenge me."

"You can't do anything here," he said confidently, looking around at the various other patrons.

"Wanna bet?" I asked menacingly, before pulling out the trump card for ensuring adolescent compliance, "I have no problem with embarrassing you in front of all these people."

He looked startled and then picked the book back up. As I was wearing sunglasses, he couldn't tell if I was reading or watching him so he was forced to read. Fortunately for the little librophobe, the food came out soon thereafter and he could put the book away. Unfortunately for him, he still hadn't gotten all the uppity-ness out of his system. He'd taken approximately two bites of his pizza when I told him, yet again, to close his mouth while he chewed. He ignored me and continued to smack away.

"Boy, I'm not going to tell you again. Don't chew with your mouth open. You come from too good parents to be acting like white trash."

"Wuh?" was all he could manage to mumble through the mouthful of food.

"Stop chewing with your mouth open."

He closed his mouth and chewed civilly for a few moments but then was right back to smacking again.

"Close your mouth."

He chose the tactic of ignoring me, so I reiterated my directions, which he ignored again and tried looking off at another table. I set my knife and fork down (I wasn't eating pizza), reached over, took him by both arms as he tried to back a way, a look of horror on his open-mouth chewing face, and growled, "Close your mouth when you eat. I'm not going to tell you again."

"Ow! You need to cut your fingernails. Jeez!" he said as I let him go and went back to eating my lunch.

When he thought I wasn't looking, he took another bite of his pizza and silently opened his mouth as wide as he could, so much so that I could just barely make out his uvula trying to stay afloat against the tide of masticated greasy cheese and dough.

I set my utensils down, stood up, and told him, "Let's go. You and I are going to have a little talk."

The immediate look of "Oh crap!" was quickly masked with feigned indifference as he got up and followed me into the building. Instead of going all the way in, I stopped atrium and wheeled on him, putting both of my hands on either side of his face so that his cheeks were in my palms. The surly look vanished and fright took over as I began.

"Stop this right now. You want to be treated like an adult, then act like an adult."

He again tried to assert some control over the situation by rolling his eyes and then turning them away, as though he weren't listening to me. I increased the pressure on his cheeks, so that he looked like he were trying to squeeze his face into jar. That got his undivided attention.

"Stop. You're not going to win. Grow up. I don't like doing this. I don't like having to be unpleasant. It's ridiculous that I have to. I'm not the bad guy here. I'm just telling you to eat with your mouth closed. You got that?"

I shook my hands at the last part for emphasis. It seemed to work so I let him go and we walked back to the table, where we finished up our meal. While we ate, in silence, I longed for what my father strove for (and sometimes achieved): obedience with nothing more than a stern look and a pointed silence. After just a few days I can see how people get tired of having to keep up telling kids to do the right thing and disciplining them, and, instead, just let them run wild.

Afterwards we went to a local bookstore, which I can't resist doing when I travel, and purchased a guide to the city, among other things. From there I took him to the staple of foreign city vacations, churches. By the second cathedral, his eyes had glazed over and I was losing him. Thus, I did what any concerned chaperone should do. I ushered him out after the tour and we sat down in the local park and I went over the Reformation with him. Yes, whether he wanted it or not, he got a nice overview of plenary indulgences, Luther, the Theses, Protestantism, the counter-Reformation, and the Huguenots (from whom he is named "Porcher"). He was prepared for the lecture though. Earlier, when we'd passed a "Rubicon" Jeep, I told him about Julius Caesar and his momentous decision, the collapse of the Roman Republic, the rise of the Empire, why the Tsar and Kaiser were named thus, epilepsy, Dostoevsky, and alternative birthing methods. What twelve- year- old wouldn't be enthralled.

Despite walking him all over creation and then getting kinda-sorta lost in the subway, he didn't appear to be thrilled with Montreal. I posed to him the option of staying another day in Montreal, going out to the Canadian countryside and camping and hiking, or going back to the States and going to Niagara Falls . He jumped at Niagara Falls.

On the way back to the car he told me how much fun he was having even though everything was going badly. Finally, I had gotten through! "Yes, Life is pain and suffering and not getting what you want. If you can get used to that and even look forward to it, enjoy it, then you're going to be fine." Later on I'm going to have to go over Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Cynicism with him.

On the way out of the country I decided to stop at a restaurant so that I could burn up the rest of the Canadian currency I had and make sure that he got some form of vegetable in his system. I took along my book, having learned my lesson with Mr. Takes-An-Eternity-Eating. The menus were in French so I ordered Veal Parmigiana for him, since I saw that it came with a caesar (!) salad.

He tore into the veal and the spaghetti, but didn't touch the salad.

"Shay, you've got to eat the salad. You haven't had any vegetables for two days."

"I don't like salad."

"That's fine, but you're going to eat it. And don't think you can pull the trick where you eat the rest of it and claim you're too full to eat the salad."

He crinkled his nose, but then went back to eating the veal and spaghetti. I figured that he'd understand. By the time I'd finished my meal, he still hadn't touched the salad.

"Alright, hero. Time to eat some salad."

With a look of utter disgust he forked a few pieces of lettuce and put it in his mouth. A look of extreme nausea washed over him and he lurched his head and neck as though he were going to vomit. I smiled at him, which confused him, put a piece of bread in my mouth and reproduced the exact same performance as his.

"Oh, look. I'm allergic to bread just like you're allergic to lettuce!" Apparently he didn't find that very funny, but looked at me with pleading eyes.

"Shay, you can just stop it. I know exactly what you're going to do before you do it."

He gulped down the wretched lettuce, gasped, and then retorted, "Uh-uh! You don't know what I'm going to do."

"Yes I do."

"No you don't. You don't know what I'm going to say."

"Yes I do. I knew you'd say that." I love teasing this kid. "I was where you were before. I know all the tricks. Pretending that lettuce makes you vomit isn't going to get you out of eating it. It's just like that time when we hiked up the mountain: you dragged your feet and complained and all that happened was that it took you a lot longer to get back to the car than if you'd just sucked it up and walked normally. You're going to eat the salad. You can either eat it quickly and then eat the rest of the meal, or we can stay here until they close while you pick at it."

He gave me the defiant look again. "I just won't eat."

"Well, then I promise you that your next meal will only be a salad."

"You can't do that. You can't boss me around. You're not my parents."

"Nope, I'm not your parents. As far as you're concerned, I'm a god."

"Uh-uh."

"Well, you're my responsibility; I control when you eat and sleep and all your movements, and, most importantly, you're 1500 miles from home in a foreign country where they speak a language you don't. So, eat the salad."

He sullenly picked up the fork and went back to the distasteful chore, continuing the ruse of nausea. Nonetheless he nearly finished before he figured out his masterstroke. He forked nearly all of it into his mouth and then made extra special with the lurching and gagging.

"Ah haffa bomih (I have to vomit)," he said with his best sincerity.

I pushed him my empty pasta bowl. "There you go. Try not to miss the bowl."

He lurched a few more times, and, since I'd had an experience where I wasn't believed when I really did have to throw up (I still hate fried okra), I thought that maybe he wasn't faking. I told him to go to the bathroom. When he wasn't looking, I followed him to the restroom, just in time to hear him calmly spit, not vomit, the majority of the salad into the toilet. His content face tried to go back to looking sick when he opened up the stall and saw me standing there.

"Good trick. Now you're going to eat salad the rest of the trip."

"I really did spit up!"

"Right. Get back out there and finish the salad."

Well, I'm pleased to say, with only a minor flourish of cunning (he tried to bury the salad under the spaghetti when I wasn't looking), he managed to eat the salad and we were on our way, one hundred pages and two hours after we'd sat down. He did manage to say the following with a straight face as we were walking out of the restaurant, "I'm going to get you back for this!"

"Oh yes, I'm so terrible for making you learn basic geography, telling you to eat with your mouth closed (earlier, when I'd corrected him yet again about eating with his mouth open, he'd said, "It's not like we're eating with the queen." "No, but you're eating in front of other human beings."), and making you eat vegetables."

We crossed back into the US with no problems. I retrieved my pistol and we camped out near the Vermont/NY border. 

Not My Day

Things started out well enough. As we'd gotten to the campsite in Connecticut at about 1am, the office had been closed. I think the guy running the place was surprised in the morning when I came to him to settle up. Perhaps his pity for honesty was why he only charged us half-price, since he knew full well that he never would have known we were there.

We made our way to Boston and on the way I had the boy finish up the rest of the states and capitals. I also have found that I need to get him caught up on music. He had no idea who Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, and a host of others were, not even Metallica and Guns N' Roses. He knew who Ozzy Osbourne was but didn't know about Black Sabbath; he wanted to hear "Paranoid", but when I played it for him he didn't like it since it didn't sound the same as the fifty- year- old Ozzy that he has on the "Ozzy's Greatest Hits" CD he took from his older brother. Dear Lord! I have so much work to do.

Boston was where it all went downhill. I never thought I'd say this, but driving in New York is a downright pleasure compared with Boston. I hate Boston with every ounce of my being. I got into town easily enough, taking the interstate into the heart of the city, but it was when I tried to get to Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox, that I started to lose it. Every other city in America has signs for major landmarks, but apparently the field where the world champions play is a big secret. I mean, I passed it on I90 well enough (within 200 feet), but there was no exit within five miles of it. I turned off at the next exit with the thought that I'd skirt the interstate on side roads until I got back to it. No dice.

Forget Knossos. The boroughs of Boston are a labyrinth. Shay and I got the unintentional scenic tour as I burned up gallon after gallon of precious gasoline in my foolish quest for a baseball game. I was sure that I'd seen people in the stands when we'd passed the stadium and it was about the same time that the game had started in Philly the day before. I was a man on a mission. Come hell or high water, I was going to get us to that damn game.

It would be one thing to hate Boston simply because it was apparently laid outby a drunk guy on a donkey, like San Antonio is claimed to be, but the real reason I despise it is the people. I asked no fewer than six people how to get to the stadium. Two of them looked at me as though I had a digit growing out of my forehead and walked away, the gay guy wearing the frilly flip-flops sent me to the outskirts of the city, the postman sent us up near Harvard and MIT, the woman was clueless, and, finally, the plumber, replete with butt hanging out of his pants when he leaned over to get some PVC out of his truck during the conversation, mocked me for being so lost and then gave us good directions. Even then, when we finally got to within sight of the stadium again, I took what I thought was the most straight- forward route and ended up having to double back five miles.

I finally parked the car, having expended nearly every cussword known to man as I ran the gamut of foreign ones I know, and we walked to the stadium. The game should have only been about halfway done as it had only taken me nearly two hours to get to the stadium, but there didn't seem to be much activity in the park and the entrances and exits were all shuttered. The uneasy feeling of gross stupidity that I get from time to time (most of the time…my little secret) struck me as I went to a hot dog vendor to find out what was going on. When he told me that the game wasn't until 7pm, I let out a laugh, turned to Shay and told him he got two free punches for my being an idiot. He gleefully slammed me twice in the left shoulder and I told him to add one more for good luck, which he did, right on the same spot as the other two. Now we both have sore left shoulders. Yes, I'm definitely teaching this boy how to find the humor in having a bad time.

We got back in the car, as we didn't feel like waiting any longer in that cesspool, and made our way to Canada. On the way I made sure to stop us in New Hampshire (he forgot Concord again! I've started punching his leg so that the bruise on his arm can heal. Oh, and don't call the cops, when I'm saying I'm punching him, I only mean full strength…I mean, barely tapping him), so that I could show him the state landmark, the Old Man on the Mountain. If you want to see it, look at a NH coin. Of course, considering that the rock formation collapsed two years ago, which I remembered reading about in Germany, I thought that it would be funny to make him look at something that wasn't there. It was.

Canada was interesting for the hour we were in it. We crossed the border into the customs and inspections site and, after an hour of a very gentle but thorough full body cavity search (okay, they just tore apart the car), they politely informed us to get the hell out of the country, since I had a pistol in the glove box (which I'd told them about). I was actually thankful for them letting us go without arresting me since the immigration officer was a bit wary of me transporting a minor across international boundaries without written permission from his parents (I didn't even know if Elizabeth had told Shay's father).

Returning to the US was worse as I was mocked by the Department of Homeland Security Officer. After hearing why we got turned back and finding out that I used to be in the military, he said, "You used to be a captain in the Army. Don't you know you can't take firearms into a foreign country?"

"We were allowed to take them to Germany. You just had to register them."

"That's Germany. We're talking about Canada."

"Yeah, but they have guns there. I just thought I'd have to register the pistol."

"Is the pistol registered here?"

"No." (Keep that in mind, any of you who cross me)

He took my expired military ID (for what reason I don't know), gave me a look of disgust and then went inside to stroll the lobby (which I watched him do from the car) before he came back, handed me the ID and told me to go away.

We actually did manage to make it into Canada because I dropped off the pistol, for safekeeping, at the police department of a local town. I showed the Canadians the receipt that the Newport, Vermont Police had given me and they let us roll right in.

Canada, after all that hassle to get in, is actually a let down. I don't know about the other provinces, but Quebec is just a pain in the butt. I thought I had seen the end of the metric system when I flew back from Europe, but, sure enough, there we were, now traveling in kilometers again.

I also thought that speaking French here would be like people speaking Spanish in Miami or El Paso, in that everything was still basically in English. Nope. We stopped to get something to eat and I had to open up my repertoire of five French phrases to try to accomplish that. As usual, my brain threw out German, Spanish, and Italian, which only confused the living hell out of the waitress and me. I ended up getting a chicken wrapped in a flour tortilla and Shay got a piece of barely cooked chicken with no flavoring. Basically, the ripped they leg off the bird, stuck it on a stick, let some flames lick it for a few seconds and served it.

After a fun hour of getting monumentally lost in Montreal, which is really difficult to do considering that we weren't looking for anything specific, I finally found a cheapo motel, where we crashed for the night.

Unabashedly and Unapologetically My Day

When sending out my missive yesterday from the wireless connection at the Maryland campsite, I was able to scour the internet for the information I needed and devise my plan. We headed to Philadelphia through severe rain that fortunately missed us once we got to the city.

We got there just in time to get bilked for parking, to the tune of ten bucks; get bilked for tickets, to the tune of thirty bucks; get supremely hosed for a cheesesteak, nachos, a sprite, and a beer, to the tune of twenty-one bucks; all in order to catch the national anthem and what turned out to be Shay's first Major League Baseball game, between the hometown Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers.

Apparently, while I was overseas, the Star Spangled Banner went through some revisions; either that or "o'er" had been removed from the lexicon, as the presumably acclaimed singing duo, "FAVOR", replaced all instances of the word with "for". I have no doubt that FAVOR didn't make the change themselves, nor, as accomplished singers, could they not realize that for metric harmony sometimes one must excise a pesky consonant. Yes, it made much more sense to hear, "FOR the ramparts we watched/ were so gallantly streaming".

During the ride before and after the game, I took the opportunity to practice what I like to think of the "Andre" method of educating. I made Shay pull out the atlas and had him start studying the states and the capitals; then I quizzed him. When it got to the point that he seemed bored and wasn't paying attention (approximately .3 seconds after I handed him the atlas), I introduced what makes the Andre method so darn effective: violence. It took him awhile of being punched in the same shoulder, but eventually he stopped forgetting that Boston was the capital of Massachusetts and that Detroit was in Michigan. Pain is the greatest educator. Thanks for teaching me that, Dad.

Shay tolerated the game, which was won by the Brewers, solely because there had been a promotion where all kids under 14 had received a Phillies batting helmet. I suppose that's a difference between me and Shay. I would rather read an atlas than figure out myriad ways to wear a batting helmet for three hours.

After the game, on the way out of town, I was resolved to fix the odor problem. After an afternoon baking in the Philly sun, the boy was ripe. In addition to the feet, we had a new underarm stench. That was not going to stand. We got out into the suburbs and I pulled into a K-Mart.

My first move was to go directly to the shoe department. Shay's shoes are beyond saving, so, though I know that there's no way in hell that a kid who can afford to will wear K-Mart shoes (I wouldn't at that age), I bought him a pair of cheap shoes, which I told him he only had to wear on this trip and then could set on fire as far as I was concerned. That was just the initial barrage against the wretched smells as I figured there was no reason to take any chances and bought the economy size of foot powder. After getting that and a few other things for the trip, including anti-perspirant for the boy, I made him change shoes and socks in the parking lot and dumped half the foot powder into the old shoes and socks, as well as the new socks before he put them on.

The drive to New York was relatively pleasant, for me at least, as we continued to work on US geography. Actually, that's not quite true. When he'd called the capital of New Hampshire "contour" and "condor" for the eightieth time, I punched his shoulder so much that I hurt my hand and had to switch to knocking and slapping. Since then still hasn't forgotten Concord, though he does wince when he's saying it.

I was brilliant enough to gauge my fuel consumption so that we would be nearly on empty just as we hit Manhattan. I exposed the boy to some grade-A soldier speak, expletives, as we fought traffic to get to Queens. Why would we be headed to Queens one might ask? Easy, we were pulling off that rare gem, the double city Major League doubleheader. My Cubs were playing the Mets, so there was no way I was missing that if I just happened to be within a few hundred miles. I didn't spring the idea on Shay, until we were nearly in the parking lot of Shea ("your stadium," I said to placate him). Surprisingly, he thought the idea of going to two games in two different towns was cool, even if his eyes glazed over once we sat down in our seats.

I resolved to not spend as much money on the game, so other than the thirty for tickets, which I bought from a stereotypically obnoxious New Yorker ("Gimme a break, buddy; you're bustin' my balls… alright, tell ya what? How's about yous gimme thirty? They're good seats. Swear to God."), and the twelve for parking, we didn't buy anything. Shea was yet again given a "toy", this time a Pedro Martinez bobble-head doll, so he was as entertained as ever. I was thoroughly annoyed to watch the Mets beat the Cubs like red-headed step-children and glumly trudged back to the car.

Shay was thrilled that there was a homerun hit (by the #@#!ing Mets), though he hadn't seen when the guy hit it, merely watched it clear the fence. I'm going to have to teach this kid that you have to earn the big payoff, otherwise it's just like paying a woman of ill repute instead of making sure to do all the fake-smiling, dinner-buying, door-opening, and false-compassioning that it takes to do the job right.

P.S. The main reason I don't like it up north? It's cost us $29.00 in tolls so far (to Boston).

Kidnapping (Par for the Course)

I had sworn to my knuckle-headed, twelve- year- old cousin, Giles Frederick Porcher Tompkins (otherwise known as Shay), earlier in the summer that I was going to kidnap him for a few weeks to drill some sense into his head. At the time, the hopeless momma's boy had looked to his mother, cousin Elizabeth, for protection and quickly saw that she was more than ready for him to go off on an adventure (not that I claim that she thought that I had any sense of my own). The boy thought he had gotten off the hook, what with me going off to Peru and him going to Hertford, NC.

After returning from Peru I have been on a rather leisurely schedule of driving and drinking, by which I mean that, being homeless, I travel to a relative's house, stay a few days and wear out my welcome, and then move on to the next poor cousin (or brother). Nonetheless, I felt it was high time that I got on another trek so I worked out with Elizabeth to kidnap Shay. It took a bit of finagling, but we got it worked out.

Fortunately, the kid is nothing if not gullible, so he completely fell for it when I showed up in NC to pick him up instead of his mother, whom I told him was too sick to make the five-hour drive. Once I'd filled up the car with gas and we'd gotten on I95 North, I asked him if he wanted the good news or the bad news. I told him, "The good news is that the cooler (I brought one to lessen expenses) is full. The bad news is that I'm a man of my word. (He looked at me strangely.) I'm kidnapping you. We're going to Canada."

Suffice it to say that the boy wasn't pleased. Visions of me marching him through the Canadian wilderness apparently didn't appeal to him. He perked up a bit when I told him that our first stop would be to King's Dominion, the Paramount Theme Park.

I couldn't have asked for a better first experience for this little week-long trip. We got to King's Dominion just ahead of a storm. Though they have a no-refund or rain make-up policy, we were gambling that either the storm would miss us or that it would pass through. The roller-coasters (he's never been on one before! What the hell is wrong with Elizabeth?) were shut down due to lightning so we did the bumper cars and wandered the park while waiting for the storm to pass. It didn't.

Ah yes. That will be a memory for the boy, to be that close to his first roller-coaster ride and not be able to get on. Hahahahaha!!!!! He'll remember that, I promise. At least, he'll remember that moreso than if he'd just gotten to ride the nine roller-coasters. Yes, as many of you well know, I'm a firm believer that one should strive to have a bad time, to be miserable, because those are the memories that truly last, and, since life is but a series of fleeting memories, you should try to ensure that the ones you make stick. I can't wait for a gut-wrenching divorce or two!

After that first failed experience we drove on towards DC. I stopped in Manassas and called my various friends who live in the DC area but the only one who answered his cell was in California. No worries, though; I brought a tent anyway.

We went to eat at a restaurant and while we waited on a table to open I figured I'd see just how much work I'd need to do with the boy. First I asked him what the capital of Virginia was and he didn't know. When he was iffy on Columbia being the capital of SC and flat-out didn't know the capital of NC, where he'd lived for three years, I started grilling him. I was shocked to discover that he didn't know the states. His various claims were that Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Canada, and Mexico were states. When I tried to guide him through it and asked him what states were on the west coast, he told me that there were 20 states on the Pacific and that Nebraska was one of them. When he didn't know where California was, I asked him, straight-up, if he was $@#!ing with me. He wasn't, so I made him get the atlas out of the car.

He was saved from my impromptu geography and US history lesson (I discovered from him that Samuel Adams and Andrew Jefferson were presidents) by our meal. I, as is my habit from the Army, inhaled my food. He took an hour to eat two-thirds of his plate. When I told him to speed it up, he casually told me, "I like to enjoy my meal," and then proceeded to chew his bite another two hundred times.

We finally made it to a campground in Maryland and I was punished for all the odoriferous torment I'd bestowed on others during my smelly-foot life. I'd already made him put his socks outside of the car when we'd changed in the parking lot of King's Dominion (thankfully, as we were running back to the car through the rain, we forgot and left those in the parking lot), but when he took his shoes off for the night, I nearly wretched. I've decided to put him on an intensive sock-changing, sole scouring, foot powdering regimen. I will not be subjected to that again.