Finally, my Christmas special! I have been waiting with bated breath, else I get the coronavirus and die before welcoming the most wonderful time of the year. There is still a chance Rose and I could succumb before Christmas Eve—we’re breaking our quarantine this afternoon and will sneak into a big building to sing songs and make merry with a friend. This will be our first indoor visit with any person since March 13, 2020. I have done some grocery shopping over the summer and early autumn, and we’ve made a few visits to the drug and liquor stores. But not one social experience indoors since last winter. I agreed to this risk because we needed it real bad (some ice cold water splashed on our COVID fatigue), and Christmas is a time to express openly a renewed brotherhood and sisterhood. The internal suffering of guilt and sorrow is reserved for all the other Christian seasons. Which is why Christmas is special, even for non Christians like myself, the pretend atheist. I say “pretend” because only Jesus can call me a liar when I call out my diarrhea cramps in his name. And I’m not alone. I know some atheists who expect presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Many non-believers are good people and excellent pacifists like Jesus Christ, even if they are hypocrites and hangers on to other people’s faith in the absurd.
Anyway, I promise to secretly record a song or two and post here as my holiday concert. My friend would be mad, but heck, we’re risking our lives for this low-key celebration. He’s the vector. The weak link. Not us. We plan to physically distance 7 paces with the windows open. Rose and I will bring bourbon and hand wipes. He’ll set up a charcuterie and pass out mugs of potent brown beer. We’ll be carefree and merry drunk an hour into practice.
When I was a young man in college I became obsessed by the star-making potential of the written word. An elective in early American Literature shorted some neuron switch in my college brain. I abandoned Business Administration for a degree in History after discovering how even bad writing of the Puritans could last the ages if written in a land of illiteracy. The Wampanoag didn’t need words to survive. They needed less Puritans who used their letters like a Protestant Dick and Jane primer on how to fear an angry God as occupiers of other people’s lands. The natives made oral sport of living. The Puritans literally chewed their fingernails off with the sin of being alive. They wrote nothing of artistic value. Page after page of catechism and historical record to last through the ages. Future History and English professors to pick apart the ONLY writing available in America pre-1680. In class we discussed William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. I could barely get through the assigned passages of glory be to god, and “we are nothing but His faithful servants”, until I realized the potential which unknown writers could gain in an intellectual or creative vacuum. Even a stuffed-shirt, racist, religious fanatic like William Bradford could be disproportionately over-represented in a late 20th century college textbook. All he had to do was publish in a harsh land and keep it protected from the elements unto the next generation.
Voila! Future fame.
If William Bradford could make it into a survey of literature, albeit posthumously, then my chances were pretty good. I lived in an intellectual vacuum too. A sorority tabling in the college union had a banner hanging that read “Nuke Panama!”. On Sunday mornings students recited partially digested pizza and beer prayers to the porcelain God. There was drinking without thinking and enough idleness for the Devil to reach full employment at a Boeing Everett factory. I could become a writer. No one else I knew was taking up the art.
The Puritan fathers wrote for posterity a literature for religion. A Puritan woman, like Anne Bradstreet, could write poetry if themes were about mothering future obedient fathers of the colony. However if she tried publishing a book touting medicinal herbs, the brothers and fathers would burn and re-burn her at the phallic stake. To get my shot at celebrity, I would write 20th century narcissistic confessions like Time Magazine beatnik Jack Kerouac, or the tripping beach bum balderdash of Jim Morrison. I could achieve with words what I knew I would never get with the harder work of rock and roll. My hair was all wrong. I feared girls. I couldn’t play notes on the guitar because practice was for losers. I figured writing, even bad writing, would provide some lasting success. If I didn’t make the grade in my lifetime, at least history proved that, in American letters, death has its advantages for the mediocre.
At the time, my roommate’s Uncle had passed away and left a daily record of bowel movements covering the last twenty years of his life. Even that crap was saved to the next round of word worshipers.
I felt I could do better.
So I took up the college hobby of wordsmithing, and was capable as one would expect any unskilled apprentice to be. I got to familiarize myself with the tools of writing. Attractive journals, sleek pens, deadly sharp pencils, and a state of the art word processing typewriter purchased for under $200 at the Ames Department Store. I was going to be self-taught, forming and sticking with a blueprint of action to last a lifetime—not just in writing, but for all my endeavors in parenting, cooking, image-making, etc.
Enter the Ghost of Christmas Past to guide me back to a more happy and humble time…
I began by mirroring beat poetry mixed in with young Bob Dylan nonsense prose. It was easy doing. No expectations. Just string words around some “cool” subject matter such as hitch-hiking and social drug use. Sneak in allusions to titles of books or inspired passages by third rate authors known more for their romantic lifestyles than the literary ability to communicate. Allen Ginsburg published books. So could I.
For Christmas 1987, I printed my first volume of poems, My Brain is a Can of Worms on Speed, handmade from folded and stapled typewriter paper. I arranged five copies under the Christmas tree as presents to my parents, two best friends and girlfriend. It was a shining moment of success that filled me with immense pride. Something completely new and original, poured out of my heart and mind onto paper. What joy!
By New Years Day I received my first lesson in the power of social scorn/and or indifference. It was like I gifted my loved ones an accounting book of my own poop, and asked for critique.
Yet you, impassioned readers of Friday Freeflow, would never look that gift reindeer in the mouth. You might sense correctly that Ron Throop could not hold a candle to a William Bradford, Jim Morrison or Allen Ginsberg. He is merely a living provincial artist of no consequence. However, tomorrow… Well, that depends on the course which human history will take. What I paint or publish in this lifetime could very well be of some value to future chroniclers of the 21st century, especially if those chroniclers are out seeking a representation of wisdom art and literature that suffered alongside banalities of celebrity. Substance might matter once again to a human world caught up in the bummer of reality. In trying times, young people seek those dead authors who in life objected to the pressures of safety careerism and sought alternative pathways to contentment. In addition, like an untalented William Bradford, they knew enough to document. I still feel as original as I felt that Christmas when I came out of the art closet. The only difference is that, what was original to me then, was just the act of “coming out”—no different from any artist’s first realization. Today I know I am original in the manner all artists yearn to be, because I have yet to discover another person who paints or writes from the same place I do. History will preserve me, even if allocated to some dry historical attic box where great grandchildren hide the family anomaly.
There is my plug for the new year. Dear Friday Freeflow readers, please look under your email trees. I made an original book of writing for you. Because you’re here, I know I can count on you to appreciate the effort of endeavor. Put it away in the attic with your holiday decorations, and who knows? Maybe the next generation can make a buck from it, and allude you posthumously to the delusions of my grandeur.
Merry Christmas!
130 more turns of the earth needed before the soil warms up enough to bust open the buds on the trees. So many more days before the winter coats get hung back up in the closet. Time is too long and drawn out, this waiting day after day to open our windows and doors. Winter begins fast and furious in early November and won’t leave for good until mid May. Such a stubborn thing to kill, winter. A short winter lasts five months. A long one will stretch itself past the half year mark. It is difficult for human beings to remain happy in gray cold for any length of time beyond a weekend. Oswego’s cold is not unique. It’s just cold. That’s all there is to it. Cold.
After Halloween even small static shocks of joy are rare at best. Winter is such an uphill climb. Thanksgiving is happy because nothing is expected of anyone but to eat a grand meal and be lazy after the dishes. The snow is always pretty in November. The smell of no smell is new and anticipated by everyone. Then the cold is a tonic, a welcome change to warm the blood. The leaves aren’t dead. They have fallen. Gourmets feel the most open to experimentation. Now is time for cakes, pies, stews, roasts, crinkle-cut root vegetables... Slow cooking warms the heart and the home. There’s a drunkenness come over the man who can walk out into the new fallen snow and pick fresh thyme as green as it was after an evening rain in May. Wine is not necessary, but if there’s an extra ten dollars a week, it’s a whole lot more cheerful than sautéing with tap water.
These fresh new winter mornings are the reason why the majority are tricked into staying here. But there are endless days and nights to come after Christmas when all is dead quiet or appearing like it’s actually quite dead. Oswego’s face looks sinister to the gourmet after the second or third coq au vin. It sneers at him mockingly, like a delinquent searching for the right button to push, the one to finally send him over the edge. It actually calls him a liar for making a French stew in Burgertown. And then “fool” for spending that kind of money on chicken and egg noodles. Free range chicken, $4.79 a pound? Wild mushrooms? Bottle of burgundy? Unbleached flour? Twelve dollar beef stock? To keep his sanity he learns to speak the language of the car and truck. They won’t tolerate a chicken prepared like that unless he’s got fries and an oil filter to go with it. After Thanksgiving Oswego turns into the land of the automobile. Every man to his machine, the steel block engine calling from the driveway, as it warms up the plastic seat for his or her pallid ass. Salute to the wipers that be! Look proud to the green anti-freeze. Praise for the carpet that exists in the brain to get dirty then cleaned and dirty again. Suck in that air bag belly. Stand as tall as you can sit at thirty-five miles per hour. Signal right to turn right. Or signal left always and drive in circles until you run out of gas. That’s okay. As long as you own a car. Live once. Look silly.
On Friday after Thanksgiving everyone drives a car. You in the car want a new car. And what better time to buy a new car than on the busiest shopping day of the year? Always a sale. Marked down for the Holidays. Why pay $24,000.00? It’s yours for $23,800.00 (pronounced twenty-three-eight to new car buyers). If you get in it now and turn the key, you can be to the mall by 4:30. Turn the two hundred bucks you saved today into Christmas gifts for the kids. They should get a little something too. Two hundred dollars is enough to buy the latest video craze, and temporarily remove any traces of guilt you have for birthing the children into automobile land.
26-6. We know it’s a fix. A new drug every five years. Demanding copper as an alloy might make us men and not boys. But it’s an advisable, encouraged addiction, to be ripped off and not care. Even if the car costs as much as a warm shelter for life, us big boys like our toys. Girls get their thrills. Here is a perfect example why romantic love is dead.
“You look like a big boy Mr. Throop. You must think that you need this new car, or you wouldn’t be here today, would you? These Oswego winters are harsh on the heart. I understand. For 36-6, this one will getcha through snow up to three feet. For 46-9 this one won’t do much more, but with sunglasses on, you’ll look like a movie star! That is our guarantee. We promise. If you’re not entirely happy with this purchase, we will reimburse you up to 3/5 the total cost an hour after you drive it off the lot. And if you try to hound us for mocking your pride, we will call the police and have you arrested. Because it’s legal and encouraged by the corporate charter for us to strip you of dignity, Mr. Throop. It really is.”
“So trust us. This is what we drive. Mine was 29-7. Hers was 28-5. Together we pack the suicidal energy of several thousand shivering elk racing to leap off an ice cliff. Ford or Chevy? Volkswagen or Audi? Buy now before Christmas and we’ll throw in a Barbie doll to take home with you and your purchase. It will be easier to tell your daughter that you traded her education for a car. “Don’t cry, honey. Here. It has a retail value of 7-98,” (pronounced $7.98 to the last man in Oswego who used the last money he had to feed his children).
“You’ll throw in the barbie too?”
“Yup, for 35-5 you can make your daughter feel happy and occupied in the back seat while you day-dream freely about your next purchase, and drive the new car-truck into a tree.
“Yes, but is it safe?”
“Safe? Why Jesus yes. I should hope so. If you’re hit head on, twenty-three airbags inflate immediately.”
“Wow! That’s great, isn’t it honey? And airbags save lives, right?”
“Yes, but only if they’re installed on a tricycle and the tricycle rides into a gigantic pillow at 3 mph. In fact at any speed over 42 mph, upon impact, there’s a 95% chance that all passengers will die painfully... and without their heads attached.”
“Oh. Well heck, but it looks great! And I need something big and warm, like a womb, for me to climb into. It snows a lot in Oswego.”
“Actually, no it doesn’t. Global warming has had its affect on the county, especially in the city of Oswego. Scientists claim the warm-up is due to morons like you spending thousands of dollars to look big and clog the atmosphere. But if there was any significant accumulation... No. It would be wiser to buy a used Chevette for a hundred dollars. But, if I’m going to sell you a car today, I have to lie outright. Company policy. They already know that if you are here, then you’re dumb enough to buy one. It wouldn’t matter if I told you that while you were checking sticker prices, me and the mechanics were sticking your wife on the lift. I could say you have the balls of a cricket and and at the same time hand you a pen to sign the contract. It’s a tiny piece of yellow paper with the three words written on it— “I hate myself”, and a place at the bottom for you to sign.”
“Well okay, it’s a deal. Does the Barbie come gift wrapped?”
“No. And I think you’re making a terrible mistake.”
“No no. 35-5. That’s the price we agreed upon. You won’t get me to pay a penny more. Just roll her up in one of those paper floor mats will you?”
“The Barbie or your wife?”
“The Barbie. I’ll take my wife up front with me.”
Just before Christmas I get a renewed contempt for the new car buyer. Last December that’s all my chef talked about. His Ford Expedition. And every one wonders why I quit my job over and over again. I am one of those few curious Romans who thought Jesus of Nazareth was a smart cookie. I was no Jew about town. I was pagan out of habit and laziness mostly. And I loved being one of several personal cooks for Senator Ipicus. Mornings I got to inspect the fish the minute it was brought up to dock. He also allowed me every expense, which meant I could use however much garum and sea salt I needed to create a supper fit for the gods. So the days of my life were always pleasant and easy. I had a bath once a week and spent my coin wisely. Then one day I met Jesus. What a fanatic! He didn’t like us pagans one bit. “What’s wrong with money,” I asked him on the morning he marched down to the docks with his band of rowdies, cursing and flogging the Hebrew fishermen for selling their catch to me.
“Oh, go get a Ford Expedition. It’s shiny crabapple red with four-wheel drive!” was his answer.
What a queer Jew that Jesus! Ford Expedition? Four-wheel drive? What is a crabapple? It didn’t sound right. Like something out of the frigid northern corners of the Empire. Some curse of the Britons maybe. Nor would he tell me what it meant, either. He just looked up to the sky shaking his head, and then he took out that weird-looking prick and peed all over the Hebrew’s full nets of fine Turbot and Hake.
What a strange bird, that Jesus. They finally arrested him. I knew he would get the cross if he didn’t shut his trap. Each morning during crucifixion week, I’d hike up the hill to where the crosses were planted. “Jesus,” I pleaded, “This is driving me crazy. What the sheep’s dung does ‘Ford Expedition’ mean?”
He’d smile and say, “It’s got four-wheel drive and is crabapple red.”
Every day I made the same determined hike up to Crucifixion Hill to repeat the question. But Jesus wouldn’t budge.
Finally, on the morning of Slave Slaughter Friday I made a last ditch attempt to get my riddle answered. “Look Jesus,” I said, “Tell me now and I’ll get you off this thing. You’ll be back down at the docks in an hour. I am the cook for a powerful senator who’s back from Rome on holiday. A dinner of little lamb a lá verjuice and a bucket of wine to take along to the beheadings tonight, and it’ll be a cinch to persuade him. Just tell me what this Ford Expedition means, and why I should get one. It’s your freedom for a riddle. What’ll it be, Jesus? What will it cost? Please Jesus, I beg of you, how much for a Ford Expedition that’s shiny crabapple red with four-wheel drive?”
“35-5.”
“What? Are you out of your mind? That much? Man, I might be a pagan Roman dog, but nobody, not even the glorious inbred Emperor himself, is that stupid! All this time I wasted and now I don’t even want to know what a Ford Expedition is. If it’s that much, you can go straight down there to Sheol. 35-5! Jesus, you can hang there all day, but I ain’t bringing you a single coin. 35-5. You know Jesus, I got a senator to cook for, and two kids to feed after that. I can walk to the docks... And Jesus Jesus, it doesn’t even snow here. Four-wheel drive for 35-5? Now you’re just pissing me off! Marcus has an ox. Tiberius a trained boar. What the Christ do I need a Ford Expedition for?”
Now for my Jingoes! series from the holidays 2016.
That is a kind compliment! I always wonder who ever reads these things. Encouragement, encouragement! Thank you Stephanie! Et vous aussi (Google translate attempt:))
I've decided that Slave-Slaughter Friday is the perfect day to indenture myself to your masterful artistry! Joyeux Noël, Monsieur Throop! 🎄💜