It pops into my mind, for no clear reason, that sometimes I imagine myself as solid through and through. No bones, no blood. No organs. Rubber perhaps, with a skeleton of metal. It would be an ideal construction for a being. No longer any worry about kidney disease, for my kidneys would be solid rubber and solid rubber is impervious to kidney disease. I have looked this up. Just as when I have dental issues, I consider how much better a world it would be if people had beaks, and I mean instead of teeth, not in addition to them as have Hegel and Schlegel. Beaks in addition to teeth would solve no problems, obviously.
I refocus on my previous train of thought: The old man is still old, however, and, let’s face it, no Alain Resnais. If I am to cozy up to an old man, he must be a certified genius, a poet, an artist. As I in my youth had hoped to be as an old man in my own future and still do in the future from now, but with less time to get there. But as of now, I am simply a celebrator of geniuses, an apologist for great men who are anti-Semites and racists, for brilliant artists who abuse women. These quirks of character must be forgiven in our geniuses is my unpopular opinion. Artists must have the freedom to express and explore the darkest regions of their psyches. As Persephone must spend half the year in the underworld, so must these men delve deep within themselves (and young women sometimes!) to bring us the fruit we so need for our sustenance. The pomegranate—symbol of life, of death, of royalty, of fecundity, of Jesus’s suffering, of virility, and so much more—is of course the fruit associated with Persephone. It chains her forever, albeit intermittently, to the underworld. Do we despise her for this? No, we celebrate her, because when she emerges, she brings us the spring. A field must lie fallow sometimes if we are to have any hope of an eventual renewal. A genius must sometimes be a racist if we are to hope for elucidation. History is generously peppered with geniuses who despised the Jews, who dismissed the blacks, who objectified women. Are we to bury their great works because of this? The answer is a resounding no, we are not to. We are, all of us, human. We are, all of us, imperfect. Prejudice is evolutionarily implanted in our genes. We need to know The Tiger is a dangerous animal. We need not know that all tigers are not. Identifying the personalities of individual tigers does not serve our need to survive. Granted, it might make us more enlightened individuals and friends with some tigers, and I am all for that. I applaud that, but one must recognize that there is a tribal instinct in humans and it is at its base an instinct for survival. So accept that, mourn it, decry it, rail against it, but recognize it is a very human trait and have patience with it. Have compassion. Thank you and good night. This is an impromptu speech I delivered to a great deal of heckling in the Bates College copier room when I was a visiting critic in their film department, where my job was to sit in the back during student film screenings, tap my pen impatiently against my notebook, and sigh.
The old man stares. I am not certain how long we have been in his doorway. I search for clues: Was it light before? It is dark now. I don’t recall. Perhaps it was light before. Certainly it was light at some point today. Of this I am almost certain.
“Anyhoo,” I say.
He asks if I would like to come in. He tells me again that he has spent his life in isolation, brimming with social anxiety, and that he has decided to change his ways at this very late stage. He realizes now that his phobias greatly limited his joie de vivre. Never has he felt the embrace of a woman, shared a beer with a male buddy, seen a football match with a buddy, had a buddy, played pool with a buddy. This is actually, he confides with some embarrassment, the first time he’s even said the word buddy. He likes the word, it turns out, he tells me. It’s friendly, he explains. It’s got a nice nose to it, as they say about those wines with nice noses to them.
I tell him I’m busy.
He nods sadly.
Then I think, Be nice; he’s an old man. Then I think, Not too nice; I don’t want him to think every time I bump into him, I’m going to stop for a long conversation. Then I think, Someday I’ll be old, what if no one wants to talk to me. Then I think, Oh no, karma: What if I’m not nice to him, maybe something bad will happen to me. Then I think of that movie where Meg Ryan turns into an old man. Not that I believe in that sort of magical nonsense, but the movie does make some valid points. And not that Meg Ryan is by any stretch of the imagination old now, but it does make one remember about how she was once the girl next door and how we as a society keep trading in our old models for new ones. Then I think, This old man was once young—as young as Meg Ryan used to be. But no one can see that now. We are stuck in the present. An old man is old. A young man is young. A boy is a boy. We can’t see life as a journey. Where we are now is not where we started. It is not where we’re going. It is essential to see this old man not just as a reminder of my own mortality, but as a person, someone who might have had or might still be having a fascinating life with fascinating thoughts.
“I have errands,” I say.
“OK. I wasn’t sure you were going to say anything. It’s odd the way you keep staring at me for so long.”
“I had fallen into a fugue state,” I say, covering. Then I think, That movie was called A Kiss to Remember. Then I think, No, that’s not it.
“I envy you young people your fugue states and jelly bracelets. Your Eyebobs.”
“Our what?”
“Eyebobs? No Eyebobs yet?”
“I don’t even know what that sentence means.”
“Sometimes I get ahead of things. See, I have these dreams.”
Oh boy, I think.
“Why do you say that?” he asks.
“What?”
“Oh boy.”
“I said that? I thought I thought it.”
“You both thought it and said it, if we are to be completely accurate.”
You cagey bastard, I think (say?). I’d best be off.
I am about to turn and go, am actually in process. I am literally turning, but slowly for some reason, in slow motion it seems, for some reason, very, very slowly, when I notice something.
He massages his temples and it occurs to me that his face might be covered with makeup. On his smudged temples, darker skin is revealed. Suddenly I suspect perhaps he is African American and wearing Caucasian American makeup, more commonly called whiteface or paleface or cracker countenance or trash visage or clown white.
“Are you African American?” I ask.
“No!” he screams and slams his door.
But I believe he is. And now I want to know him. More than anything, I want to know him. I pound on his door.
“I want to visit,” I say. “I’ve changed my mind. Helloooo?”
“Go away, kike,” he yells.
“I am not Jewish,” I explain to the wood between us.
There is no response. He doesn’t believe me. It has been said that people are only really seeing themselves when looking at others. Perhaps because he is in denial regarding his own ethnic heritage, he assumes I am in denial about my own. But I am not Jewish. I am not. I will put together a slideshow for him of those who appear to be Jewish but are not. Ringo Starr will be featured. Ringo Starr is not Jewish even though he has a prominent nose. It occurs to me his name is almost the same name as Ingo’s name, which is Ingo. The difference is the R, which is the first letter of my surname. R + Ingo = Ringo. I imagine it inside a heart on a tree. I explain all this to him through the door.
“R plus Ingo equals Ringo,” I repeat. It feels almost cosmic, somehow meant to be. Perhaps our eventual communion will form a new star in the firmament. I go on to explain that Ringo’s last name is Starr and that is why I suggested our relationship might form a new star.
Damn. I should have agreed to visit with him in the first place.