Ice Cream Boy

Istanbul, Turkey

The boy was standing under an awning just off the sidewalk, which sloped uphill toward the Blue Mosque. Short, and looking neither old nor young, the boy was holding an aluminum utensil that looked like a crowbar. Although it was December, the weather was sunny and mild and Takayo and I had talked about getting some ice cream earlier. As we approached the boy, he immediately began stirring one of the three holes in the big, metal box.

"Where you from?" he said. 

Since arriving in Istanbul three days earlier, I’d been asked that question at least 50 times. It was mostly slick-haired vendors waiting outside rug shops or restaurants. As a conversation starter, it has a singular knack for stating the obvious. Yes, we may be strangers on the street. But before I try to separate you from your money, let’s discuss race, shall we.

“I’m from the States," I said.  “Do you have chocolate?” 

“You from England?"

"No,” I said, “the States. Chocolate?”

“Australia?”

I’m pretty sure I would have kept walking if he hadn’t looked so peculiar. I mean, nobody has ever stopped me in the street in, say, Frankfurt because they were dying to know where I was from. Then again, so long as I don’t open my mouth, I’m pasty enough to pass as German.

“No,” I said. “Not Australia.” I should have just lied and said yes, but instead, I uttered the one word I was trying to avoid:  “America." 

I don’t remember when it started, probably after moving to Suzhou, China, but if a salesperson asks where I’m from I’ll say “the States” instead of “America.” It’s not that I’m ashamed to be an American – far from it. I prefer saying America, but the fact is I’m tired of getting stuck with the America price.

In Istanbul, much like China, unless there’s a barcode, price is negotiable. A pair of underwear might cost as much as a tee shirt. And, depending on the mood of the shop keep, a tee shirt might cost the equivalent of a week’s worth of groceries. I don’t know why, but saying “the States” is anticlimactic. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “America.” Coincidently, it’s the same sound a cash register makes.

The boy’s eyes lit up as soon as I said it. "Ohhh,” he said. “Ameeeerica.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Obaaamaaa."

Because there’s no single person to blame, I blame television. After all, TV shows are dubbed into every language. It seems silly to think that all Americans live like they do in sitcoms, but, when we hold up the mirror, is it much different than the belief that all Asians know karate? I’ve seen street fights that would have made Bruce Lee turn in his grave, but I haven’t stepped foot on American soil since Obama’s been president. Nothing against him or his politics; it’s more a matter of logistics.

            “Yes,” I said to the ice cream boy. “Obama.”

“Obaaaamaaaa,” he repeated, reverently. 

“Yes, Obama. Now make me a Chocolate cone.”

He used the crowbar and began dipping the ice cream onto the cones. He handed Takayo hers first, and then held out mine. When I reached for it, as a joke he pretended to drop it. The boy had a singular talent for making me feel uncomfortable. I stared at his hand. He had dirt under his fingernails. 

Next, he stuck the ice cream in my face like a microphone and said “here, taste it.” Perhaps this was some kind of ancient Turkish custom. Here, my brother. Let us lick each other’s ice cream.

In spite of tradition, I took my cone and paid him the equivalent of seven dollars. As we walked away, above the sound of passing cars and his crowbar clanging inside of the ice chest, I heard the boy softly chanting "Obama...Obama…Obama."

**

They Came from the North Pole

There were no chestnuts roasting on an open fire, or quivering bowls of figgy pudding in our home.  We simply took the food-based Christmas carols at their word.  Instead, each season my mother would prepare what she called “Cajun Christmas.”  Ham hocks were lowered into giant pots of collards, Dixie beers were chilled, and shrimp heads were pinched off into vats of boiling gumbo.  The downside to living in what was essentially Paul Prudhomme’s kitchen was that I had to lie whenever someone asked “Did you eat enough turkey?”  Rather than trying to explain Cajun Christmas in the checkout line at Kmart, I made up tryptophan antidotes.  

“Oh, sure,” I’d say.  “We all woke up with mashed potatoes in our hair.”

High school provided me with another unique holiday tradition.  I knew a girl named Nicole.  Both friendly and attractive, she stirred the sort of thoughts that earned me a lifetime membership on the naughty list.  No matter how cold it was, each year she’d come to school dressed in this Mrs. Clause getup – or was it Mrs. Clause’s naughty niece?  It might have just been the sleeve off a regular-sized Santa suit.  Anyway, she completed the outfit with an elf hat and a pair of white patent leather high-heeled boots.  In the school yearbook, she was voted most likely to be shown a mistletoe belt buckle. 

            I was walking behind Nicole one day when she was wearing the outfit.  The hallway was packed, and two girls walking next to me were talking about the Nicole. 

“Where does she think we are a strip club,” said the one in flannel.

The other girl said “Looks like Santa’s Little Slut left the North Pole.”  

Considering where we were, I thought the comment was well aimed.  However, the girl that said it didn’t have a whole lot of room to talk.  She was wearing black lipstick, and had a large permanent marker X drawn on her forehead.  Flannel girl was laughing now, but Doom Girl’s face was scrunched up as if Rudolph took a shit in her cornflakes.  It’s funny the things our brain chooses to remember.  I haven’t seen Nicole since high school, and I can no longer quote Shakespeare, but for whatever reason, that girl’s comment has stuck with me ever since.  

 Last year was my first Christmas overseas.  In a spirit similar to Cajun Christmas, my wife and I celebrated Tropical Christmas in Ko Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand.  A political protest had shut down Bangkok’s airport the week before, causing many tourists to cancel their plans.  Locals tried to make Westerners feel at home by decking the bars with red and green tinsel, fake trees, and cardboard Santa faces.  While walking to the beach one morning, we stopped to watch a hotel employee risk his life by climbing a full-grown palm tree to string some colored lights. 

            I woke up early Christmas morning and placed our presents under the tree, a short, potted palm on the communal patio.  A Thai maid stared at the presents as she passed by, and it made me wonder if folks wrapped presents here.  When Takayo woke up, we got dressed – bathing suits and flip-flops – and opened our presents under the tree.  Hers was a cashmere sweater.  Mine was a wool shirt.  

            “This is like a bad joke,” said Takayo.”

            “That Santa has some sense of humor,” I said.  Both presents were from my mother.

            At a suckling pig restaurant in Lamai Beach, our Christmas dinner came out clenching an apple between its jaws.  We walked to an Aussie bar after dinner and took a table overlooking a side street.  The pink neon signs down there read Huggies, Boom Boom, Backdoor something-or-other…  Half of that sign was missing.  There was a lot of scooter and foot traffic.  Three Thai women stood outside Huggies.  They watched the passing traffic, and occasionally cat called “Hello!” or “Yoo-hoo!”  The women all had black hair to their waists, and wore tight red dresses, red high heels and red elf hats with a furry white ball on the end. 

A silver fox with a little round belly pulled his scooter over.  A working elf walked over to him, whispered something into his ear, and then jumped on back.  Her hair waved goodbye as they drove out of sight.  Another elf came out from the bar to replace her.  This one was dressed all in satin from her breasts to her thighs.  Because she was so tall, I pegged her for a ladyboy.  I had to laugh like hell when the next silver fox pulled up. 

“It’s like a feeding frenzy out there,” said Takayo. 

I was taking a sip of beer at the time, so I couldn’t answer.  But what could I have told her?  That I was flooded with Yule-time memories?  That it actually felt like Christmas for the first time since we’d arrived?  Rather than trying to explain some distant teenage infatuation, I leaned toward her and said the first thing that came to mind. 

“Looks like Santa’s Little Sluts have left the North Pole.” 

Making Logos

My sister lives in Cairo, Egypt. I spoke to her on the phone recently. She said, amongst other things, that when books and movies are imported into Egypt, someone edits out the pigs. The government actually pays someone to do this. She is a teacher, so they may be especially thorough with nursery rhymes and children's stories.

What does this mean?

Old MacDonald had a farm e i, e i, ooo
and on that farm he had a --- e i, e i, ooo
with a --- --- here and a --- --- there,
here a --- there a --- everywhere a --- ---

In movies such as Charlotte's Web and Babe, she said, the entire movie plays out with the pig pixelated or blurred out. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems like a talking pink blob would somehow be more obscene.

I must admit, my first instinct was "If they blur out the pig, isn't that like saying Allah made a mistake?" I don't necessarily believe that's true, though. People make mistakes all the time. You can add that to my growing collection of Famous Last Words.

My sister went on to tell me they cut out kissing scenes between non-married couples in movies too.

"You think Babe was bad? I tried to watch Love Actually -- didn't understand anything."

Sure, it might disturb the plot a little, but in this respect I understand where they're coming from.

For more Unnecessary Censorship:

Unnecessary Censorship Sesame Street Edition

Glen the Butcher

When I was twenty, I made a terrible mistake and wound up working as a butcher’s assistant in Marlton, New Jersey.  It was my firt time abover the Mason-Dixon Line.  My friend Fran arranged something with the manager.  I'd get paid under the table.  The manager introduced me to Glen the Butcher.  From the moment he opened his mouth, I already knew I hated him.

 “So, what ’cha know ‘a, Noah?”  

Glen the Butcher laughed.   He was squat and round like a deer tick.  The manager and I nodded like oh yea, that’s the stuff.   

Glen the Butcher kept on.  Glen the Butcher wheezed.  Glen the Butcher hacked.  Squishy coughs.  He doubled over now, gave it all he got.  He had purple veins on his head. 

The coughing fit ended as quickly as it begun.  He stood up with a lit cigarette dancing below his mustache. 

“Come on then.”  Glen the Butcher was on the move.  A seductive finger of smoke lingered, pointing that ‘a way. 

                I met him at the swinging door.  The walls around us were plywood, had a row of heavy white aprons with orange-pink stains hanging.  “Now, all joking’s aside,” he said in a thick Jersey accent, “you never worked in a meat shop before, right?”  I said I hadn’t.  He stepped closer, still smoking.  “Let me tell you’s something.  People’s get fingers cut off ‘n hands chewed the fuck up in tha meat grinder all the time.  All kinds of stupid shit happens ‘n here.” 

I bowed my head, considering what kind stupid shit would happen to me. 

                “That said,” he continued.  “I don’t want’s no silly shit going on like those fuckhead friends a’ yours over in tha deli.”  I nodded, but he wasn’t quit finished. 

“Now, I don’t know’s why they keep giving me people that don’t know nothing, but that’s what they do.  So, from now on, your name isn’t No-ah.  I’m gonna call you No-Nothin because that’s exactly what you know until I tell you what to know.  You don’t do nothin.  You don‘t know nothin -- Until I tells you.  Got that?” 

With this sparkling introduction out of the way, I slipped into one of the stiff cotton jackets.  A blue insignia on the left breast read:  Frank

                The meat room air was cool, left a metallic taste in the back of my throat.  Glen the Butcher showed me the meat grinder and meat locker.  The meat locker was almost empty.  Meat hooks hung from chains.  They looked like Spanish question marks; sounded like wind chimes.  I imagined Glen hanging from one, his legs kicking like a swimming pig.    

                For my first task, I stood at the business end of a bone saw catching meat in a plastic tub.  The job was menial, and required complete attention.  I kept my meat coat clean.  Glen worked quickly, and to my surprise, quietly.  But then someone rang the assistance bell.  It drowned out the blood-splattered radio in the corner.  It wasn’t so much a ring as a grinding clatter.  The meat room became a Pavlovian experiment.  

The bell did not make Glen the Butcher salivate, however.  It made him curse, curse, curse.  He stabbed his carving knife into the chopping block.  He turned to the window overlooking the grocery store.  An attractive housewife had rung.  Glen stormed over in these black rubber boots and dropkicked the door. 

“Today, a Marlton butcher was arrested after bludgeoned a woman to death with a T-bone steak.  Details at eleven.”

That’s what I thought I would hear.  But stepping onto the sales floor transformed Glen the Butcher.  He greeted the woman, listened and reciprocated.  He even engaged in light banter.  He brought a twin-pack of steaks back into the meat room.  The smile quickly melted.  He was seething again, mumbling.  Bits of his psychotic rant tangled with the music on the radio:

“Gold bricking…”

     DON’T STOP

“…maggot princess…”

           BELEIVING

“…spoiled little bitch”

               HOLD ON TO THAT FEELING

Glen the Butcher packaged two individual steaks, and brought them to the swinging door.  Glen the Charmer walked onto the sales floor, placed a single steak in the woman‘s cart, and waved good-by. 

After Glen the Butcher’s bi-polar escapade, I slipped on a kidney and dropped a tray of ground beef.  I was scooping it into the pan when Glen the Butcher caught me.  I thought he would unload a case of knives, but he just told me to run it back through the grinder.

I spent New Year’s Eve morning labeling 50 pounds of steak.  But I entered the wrong code into the labeling machine.  Top round sirloin was ringing in the New Year.  It cost as much as pig rectum. 

That afternoon, the real butcher’s assistant -- the person whom I’d replaced -- showed up.  He was Glen the Butcher’s son.   He hadn’t come to work in four days.  He looked like hell.

Glen the Butcher looked at him as if he’d just pushed the bell.  “Where ’da hell have you been?”  

“I had some things to take care of,” said Butcher Jr. in a backwoods Jersey accent.  “Who the hell is he?”   

I’m the guy they pay under the table to pick up your slack.  Surly Glen the Butcher would stick up for me. 

                “Who, this guy?  He’s nobody.  And neither is you.  Now re-price this meat.” 

                Although Glen the Butcher had placed me in the same category as his drug addict son, I decided nobody was a step up from No-Nothin.  I slacked off a bit after Butcher Jr. showed up.  By the end of my shift, Frank’s meat coat was still spotless.  However, before I left, in what felt like a gruesome rite of passage, Glen smeared his bloodied hand across my chest. 

“There ‘ya go.  Get some blood on ya.  Now you’s a real butcher!”  

I walked into the deli to see Fran, trying to pretend like I wasn’t swathed with blood.  He couldn’t stop laughing.  The straight-laced woman waiting for cold cuts looked apprehensive.  Maybe she’d never seen a real butcher before.  

Notes on Going to See Mao Zedong

If you haven't checked out my latest story on Matador Network, Notes on Going to See Mao Zedong, you can read it HERE. 

"With a half-mile of folks standing side to side and butt to loin, a woman in a plaid shirtdress filed me back with her cane. It seemed unintentional, and at the time I thought nothing of it. But the folks behind us smelled blood in the water."


Big ups to the sultan of stoke, David Miller, for his fine editing work. 

Noah

A Preview from: My Moving Diary

2 January, 2008.  Raleigh, NC:  “I don’t think you can fly into China on a one-way ticket,” the woman at the Delta check-in counter says.  Her vest has these sad plastic wings pinned on. 

            “Are you saying that I can’t get into the country, or that I need to buy a return ticket?” 

            She thinks for a second.  “I don’t know,” she says.  “How long do you plan on staying in China?”

I'm actually moving to China, but two different people told me not to say that.   This is what I say instead:

“I’m just going to roam around the country for a while.”   

“Um, OK, you can figure this out when you get to JFK.  Have a good flight.” 

JFK Airport:  I check into Air China, get my boarding pass, and keep my mouth shut.   

Air China:  I’m the only White person boarding the plane.  Oops – there’s one more.  The plane is a double-decker.  I’m downstairs.  Everyone around me is speaking Mandarin or shouting Mandarin.  I have a window seat.  I sit down and watch people in the aisle shove each other from behind. 

There's an impulsive air onboard.  As we taxi down the runway, a man stands up to rummage through the overhead compartment.  The stewardess storms over and berates him.  I mean she lets him have it.  She points to his seat, and yells at him like a dog.  The man looks away like a dog, too.   

     “No!  Bad!”  I imagine her saying.  “You know what you’ve done.  Now sit!”   

I half expect her to bust out a choke collar.

The man behind me has his knees in the seat, talking to the man behind him.  They’re using ‘outside voices,’ even though they’re close enough to play patty cake.  The captain comes over the speakers and speaks Chinese.  I look out the window to make sure we’re still in America.   

I eat a Xanax.  We are prepared for takeoff. 

Somewhere over the Arctic Circle:  I wake up feeling naked.  The overhead lights are off.  My wedding ring is gone.  I use my iPod as a light and search the floor.  A knot tightens in the pit of my stomach. 

I search my immediate area before hitting the flight attendant CALL button.  I still have a pretty good buzz on; otherwise, I don’t know if I would have done that.

The girl comes over.  “I lost my wedding ring,” I say.   

She shakes her head.  She doesn’t speak English.   

At this point, I don’t know why this surprises me.  I point to my finger, tapping the spot where my ring used to be.  No luck.  I point to the ring of the man beside me.  He’s asleep.  Everyone’s asleep.  She’s trying real hard to understand what I’m saying. 

In a last ditch effort, I point to my ring finger again and say “Poof!” 

Poof is a magical word to this flight attendant.   It gives her clarity.  And not only that, it gives her the power to disturb sleeping passengers without remorse.   

The woman in the aisle seat gets it first.  The flight attendant prods her on the shoulder.  She comes to with a jolt.  I’m standing.  The flight attendant’s standing.  We’re both looking at her.  Before she can figure out what’s happening, the flight attendant launches an interrogation on missing jewelry.  The woman looks around like a chameleon, muttering the Chinese equivalent of “No, no, no.” 

I feel awkward about unleashing this flight attendant, but it’s out of my hands. 

She’s jostling the passengers in the row behind me now.  Their reading lights are turned on for them.  Their faces recoil.  They’re ordered to search the floor.  The man in the window seat is still asleep.  When he comes to, he is very confused.  The passengers beside him have their heads between their knees.  This, coincidentally, looks like the crash landing position.  The man looks to the flight attendant, but she offers no relief.  She is using her outside voice in a dark plane somewhere over the Arctic Circle. 

By this point I am freaking out.  What will I do, I think, wait until the plane lands? 

The nervous man doubles over now.  There is a commotion.  He comes up, pinching my ring between his fingers.

Getting Even

So here I am, again, standing across from the mailman.  Actually, it’s a mailwoman.  The woman’s in her fifties, fair skinned with a curly, round head of hair.  She’s not looking at me, but I’m looking at her and thinking This is a broad who’s played life by the rules.  I’d never say that of course.   

Maybe it’s just the uniform rubbing off on me.  It’s one of those sky blue, Government Issue two-pocket oxfords.  What a mouthful, and for what?  The thing’s practically wearing her, and yet, I can’t stop staring.  There are four plastic pens in the left pocket; three blacks, one blue.  The blacks are crammed into a corner, but the blue one, the misfit, is hovering over Nipple Territory. 

The mailwoman lets out a sigh.  It’s for me.  Her colleagues look over, but they know the score.  Beads of sweat are rolling down my back.  After seven minutes, she’s still counting the three-pound-bag of change I tendered as payment.  There was some regular change on top, a few 10 and 20 cent pieces, but now it’s down to the nitty-gritty:  The 1 cent pieces.  Back home we call them pennies.  The European ones are even smaller.  You can’t spend them as fast as they come in unless you’ve got a motive.

I found a motive two hours earlier.  I rode my bike over to pick up the package my mother sent from the States.  She sent it two weeks before my birthday, and now, a month later, I get a memo in the mailbox.  It’s in German.  I don’t know what it says, but something about the layout seems to communicate:  It’s your lucky day.  I left my apartment and cut through the park, taking the cemetery trail to the 704 line.  The Deutsch Post is further up on the right. 

There were only two people in line.  When I reached the counter, I handed over the memo and the woman went back and found my package.  I asked her if she spoke English in German.  She said “yes,” in a way that reminded me of rainbows.  “Great!” I said.   

She asked for my ID.  I told her sorry, I didn’t bring it, and recited my mother’s address instead.  She looks carefully at the package, which she hadn’t handed over yet.  She raised an eyebrow.  It was good enough for her. 

She scanned the package and gave me another test.  I wouldn’t be able to charm my way out of this one.  To take home my package, my birthday present, I would have to pay 33 Euros and 56 cents.  The package, it seemed, contained items the German government wished to profit from.  It was a business tactic based upon the popular model of consumerism:  I desired the package more than the money. 

This tactic was also, coincidentally, based upon the model of ransom.  Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money to secure their release.  Most cases of ransom involve kidnapped people, but not always. 

I am reminded of an incident where thieves broke into the tomb of Argentine president Juan Perón.  They weren’t looking for gold or jewels.  They wanted the president’s hands.  This was no arbitrary detail, however.  Perón's hands were viewed as a symbol of national power.  The thieves sawed them off.  Newspapers worldwide ran stories on the Hands of Perón, as the incident became known.  As the story unfolded, it was also made public that the thieves removed another type of symbol:  The president’s genitals.  They requested $8 million to return the hands.  It wasn’t made clear whether or not the genitals were included in this deal.  It didn’t matter.  The government refused to pay the ransom, and the items were never recovered. 

My situation was a matter of ransom disguised as customs charges.  Be that as it may, I wasn’t going to react as the Argentine Republic had.  I was willing to pay the Post’s ransom. 

But I was not able.  I had 20 Euros on me.  When I told the mailwoman this, she understood.  I had never incurred customs charges on a package before.  I made it quite clear that this charge was unexpected.  She whisked my present back into the bowels of the Deutsch Post.  I walked out to my bike empty handed, ruing my ill preparedness.  While peddling home, however, those feelings of self-pity turned to anger.  I would, amongst other things, plot revenge on the post office.  

The only question now was "how?"