globe sniffing out business leads in natural resources.
And everywhere he went, CIA covert operations happened at the same time.
He married his first wife in ’42 when she was only 18, and though they had one daughter, the marriage ended in eight months, with just enough time for him to kick her in the abdomen and hit her on the head with a hammer.
He claimed she was jealous of his dog.
In ’48 he married a woman named Fifi, but again the marriage lasted less than a year, ending when she attacked him with a knife.
He hit her so hard, Fifi needed facial reconstruction surgery.
His third marriage, to a woman named Didi, lasted five years, but he did try to run her over once.
They had two children, both of whom died of cystic fibrosis.
In ’59 he married his last wife.
They didn’t divorce until ’73.
GDM’s brother—Pops’s best friend’s dad—worked at Time magazine.
And that guy’s son—GDM’s nephew—was Pops’s roommate at prep school.
And then Pops and GDM’s nephew served as pilots in The Navy together.
Pops was in his wedding.
And though Pops endlessly gasconaded about his bounteous acquaintances, many of whom he’s never actually been close to, he never uttered a peep about this friendship with GDM’s nephew.
In ’67 GDM’s nephew died of an apparent heart attack at only 43 years old.
Pops was a pallbearer.
CHAPTER 9 The Grocery Store Snub
Between The Diner and The Club that afternoon I’d stopped at the grocery store to replenish my Jell-o.
Though I keep very little other food at home, I often browsed to confirm that nothing else looked good.
The Barbarians’ pride for their local cream made me embarrassed for them.
And their fish tasted like an oil spill.
It rained as I headed over there in my minivan.
The bare trees, the fences, and the telephone poles all the same color as my breakfast, between pale brown and gray.
Each discrete object faded to a matching hue, obscuring the distinctions between branch, wire, and twine.
The landscape existed as if only to demonstrate the small gestures of fencing that adjacent property requires.
A pigeon-toed young father pushed a stroller uphill.
Someone had invested great energy into covering the entirety of a boxy car in spray-painted flames, each flame’s edge fanning and fading perfectly.
The Barbarians adapt to the violent squash on crowded buses.
You never don’t feel like a stranger walking those streets, stepping over corpses, constantly anticipating a boy will rush from any doorway to walk alongside you, imitating your walk to amuse his friends.
Did you know, Noble Reader, the posh section of Auschwitz was nicknamed Canada?
In the grocery store I pawed gummy tomatoes.
I shook a can of nuts and stroked bendy celery.
Some young Barbarian-ette bargain-hunting with a baby thrown over her shoulder made for an awk flirt indeed, Maiden.
She thought I’d buy her groceries?
And that aloof look obese people cultivate to return every innocent glance, I was sick of participating.
Hands on hips, pondering all kinds of colors excluded from my breakfast and the landscape, I imagined how sticky ketchup feels on the hair at your wrists, and how sticky maple syrup feels there too, and ranch dressing even after wiping it clean.
Then whom should happen to turn the corner at the end of the aisle but That Mike.
I didn’t recognize him without the apron tied around his waist.
He held a little girl’s hand, and they shuffled toward me, him hunched low to hear her murmur.
It pleased me so to saunter over.
He glanced up, and I thought he didn’t see me.
She was a beautiful, blonde little princess gripping a plastic toy horse in one hand, looked nothing like That Mike, who looked and talked just like Bruno Kirby, the talkative limo driver in Spinal Tap who was also in Good Morning, Vietnam last year.
He stood up as I arrived next to them.
All smiles, struggling to bend low, my voice popped up an octave to address the little girl: “Duh, unga-bunga?”
That Mike straightened his back, and, looking down at me bending low, he sighed, “How you doing?”
I nodded and smiled. “Duh, unga-bunga.”
Then I turned my attention back to her, “Duh, unga-bunga?”
“She’s a pony,” she said.
That Mike pulled her by the hand. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go.”
And he walked off, leaving me bent down in the middle of the aisle.
Taken aback, I chuckled and stood up straight to watch him walk off.
“Duh, unga-bunga,” I called out sarcastic, truly surprised to see that he exists before four o’clock.
He glanced back. “Yeh, well, I’ll see you later at The Other Greek Place, OK? See you later.”
Moving quick, he pivoted at the end of the aisle and nodded to Aaron.
CHAPTER 10 Re: Pizza and Cartoons
The simple trust between Barbarians softened me.
You absorb how they tolerate domineering bullies and come to sympathize with the long silences of hostages tied side-by-side.
There are always shots fired at the prom, and still every time, everyone laments the shock.
Their noses pushed to glass, teary-eyed for sweets or footwear.
You learn to always stand prepared to hand over your watch to a petty official.
Meaninglessness, of course, begets meaninglessness.
Obviously it’s funky and puzzling to ponder all the corpses.
Bodies break so easy, dismantling into so many small tearing parts, it’s weird we don’t all get killed every day. But it’s equally funky and puzzling to ponder that we might live another day at all: with opposable thumbs to pinch, ears to buzz and muffle, eyes to keep closed, knees to lift tall over all the corpses rotting in the rain.
The Barbarian’s life is lousy crowded with pizza and cartoons.
All that pizza and cartoons may block out their books and dreams, but at least they don’t have to look at all the corpses.
Corpses piled tall along the train tracks that cut across the small downtowns; corpses melting into every curb, their stench on the breeze while you unwrap a sandwich.
I hate how a corpse’s weight falls when it’s propped up.
Its muscles locked in place, its final facial expression fixed.
And whatever that expression, it’s always coupled with confusion: content and confused, terrified and confused, surprised and confused.
Makes you realize how quickly the flip from dimly sentient blob to corpse really happens.
An