Whirl

In the six months I’ve been riding the bus I’ve sat up front only twice. But for some unknown reason, this morning I chose to do just that. On a near-empty bus, I took a bench seat about 3 places back.

Within a block, I melted into my email. We rode for a while in pleasant, bumpy silence. Lost in email, I didn’t bother looking up until I felt someone brush my knee. We were just south of North Broadway and starting to take on ballast-college students headed for OSU.


The knee bump came from a tired looking lady, maybe faculty or staff. She takes a seat across the aisle from and gives me a disapproving glance. She’s about 30 with short, dark brown hair. She’s dressed well and looks good in her professional cloths. It’s apparent she knows that.


Returning to my phone I see that Yahoo is still fighting with Microsoft. There was a day when no one dared such a thing. I’m a Microsoft bitch, and so the idea seems inconceivable to me-biting the hand that feeds you. But of course, I don’t really code anymore and the people who work for me are java guys. I decide to keep my Microsoft days under wraps.


The kids are really piling on. One of them is DreadlockJunkie. I’ve been watching him for weeks. He’s not really a student, at least not anymore. His messenger bag is still in good shape, so he can’t have been in this state for long. Just a suburban kid who fell off a cliff. He’s very skinny, of course. His dreads are long and blondish brown, falling well beyond his shoulders. He’s really young and very strung out. He plops down next to me and buries his head in his hands. I hardly feel him take his seat, he can’t be over 100 pounds. I turn back to my phone but I can’t get into it. I wonder about my son. He’s about the same age and I haven’t seen him in a while. How thin is the line between his comfortable existence and DreadlockJunkie’s troubled morning? Or between DreadlockJunkie’s troubled morning and my sleepless nights?


I return to my news feed. The bus is my chance to catch up with industry reading and my phone is my enabler. I love my enabler.


A bright yellow flash hits my peripheral vision. It’s LakerMan.


Today he’s in full trademarked, Rodman regalia: Elton John Glasses (star shaped with glitter borders), bright yellow canary shorts, the LA Lakers jersey and a matching yellow felt fedora. I call him LakerMan because of this outfit. But he has others.


He’s a very tall, thin, middle aged man. He’s too big to fit in the narrow seat beside me so he stands just across the aisle. Casually hanging onto the pole, he places himself at an oblique angle which faces me, DreadlockJunkie and the driver. He takes a deep breath and launches into a stream of conscious ramble, directed in the general direction of the driver, but clearly fishing for a response from us as well.


We have the good sense to return to our own respective miseries. Actually, DreadlockJunkie never surfaced anyway. I’m tempted to reach over and check his pulse.


As always, LakerMan starts with b-ball: “You know you never talk trash before the game, especially when they got someone like LeBron on the team.” He says. “Now they going to be sitting at home, watching the playoffs and eating cookies.”


The role of listener falls to the driver by default. He takes it in stride. It’s clear he’s been here before. He seems to have a knack for it. He’s a professional.


“Yeah…uh…huh.” He says, his eyes never leave the road ahead.


Now I remember why I don’t sit up front-random talkers. They like the front of the bus for some reason. I look around for an escape but the buss is packed. Thankfully this is LakerMan and not ReligiousDuo, those two could push me to homicide. But LakerMan is harmless. FacultyLady doesn’t seem to think so, she’s now split her disapproving glare between the two of us.


The gentle melody of LakerMan’s ramble harmonizes well with the metallic whine of the gear box. He seems to allow his voice to ebb and flow with rumble of the street. Together, it’s a smooth, almost comforting effect.


“It’s not a cash problem, you understand I’ve got plenty of green” he tells the driver, “I’m just biding my time and waiting for someone with those deep pockets.”


“hmmmmm.” says the driver.


A young lady takes the final seat to my right. A couple of other students are now standing behind LakerMan. I’m starting to pay attention to him. The man has a story to sell.


“I sent Oprah her package, talked to Connie Chung too”, he continues “I’m just checking it all out, looking for the deepest pockets”.


My reverie is broken by the pungent smell of sulfur and methane. It comes suddenly; rising from the floor. I look across at FacultyLady and by the look on her face, I can see it’s moving fast.


My first suspect is DreadlockJunkie. But I quickly rule him out. These are not the emissions of a young man. These are day openers, morning farts. And morning farts cannot be rendered from a young digestive track. This is the output of ancient, established, bacteria-village elders of the microbial world. The booze washed intestines of a college student are too spastic for these guys. They expect to be treated with respect; preferring a comfortable home with room to grow. No, morning farts are the primordial stew of a middle aged, male gut.


Excluding me, there are only two men on the bus who could accomplish such a feat-LakerMan and the driver. FacultyLady dam sure thinks I did it. Why she’s zeroed in on me I’ve no idea, but now I’m making it worse. I can feel my face growing red. Partially from holding my breath, but also because I’m embarrassed she thinks it’s me.


We hit the first stop on campus and FacultyLady bails. In fact almost every student up front bolts for the door. The vehicle is disgorging.


LakerMan takes a seat facing me. He’s to the left of the seat abandoned by faculty lady. He keeps talking. Both men appear to be oblivious to the poisonous fumes.


Who is doing this? The back of the bus is still full and I’m late to work so I can’t duck out and wait for the next ride. I have to stay. I resolve to solve this mystery.


The rhythm returns. Only now the sing song of LakerMan’s voice is punctuated by the occasional olfactory assault. Someone is playing rhythm with nary a sound.


“Now McCain he done started taking shots at Obama.” LakerMan continues, “You know you never talk trash before the election.”


At the next stop, a young woman boards. She pauses at the front. “She smells it” I thought, “now she’ll blame me”. My face starts to redden even before I get the stare. But the stare never comes.


She’s running her seating algorithm. “Should I take the seat next to the basketball player, or beside the fat guy with a red face.” She goes with LakerMan, demurely taking FalcultyLady’s seat.


I construct a little experiment. I’ll watch the girl’s face-concentrating on her nose. If I smell it first, then it’s the driver, if she gets it first, it has to be LakerMan. This experiment would not have worked with FacultyLady because LakerMan was standing at the time; thus his ass was equidistant from both of us. God I love science!


My eyes are fixed squarely on her cute button nose. I dare not even blink. In a few seconds I feel the familiar burning of my nasal hairs. I wait for her reaction but it never comes. Maybe it’s the driver. But the guy two seats behind her is now turning blue and coughing. She hasn’t even wrinkled her cute little brow. She’s either completely without smell or a very, very controlled person.


My mind stretches back to NATO exercises in the Air Force. The alarm would sound and we’d have to don our gas mask. I’d have to work at the keyboard, sometimes for hours, wearing thick rubber gloves and gas mask. The only advantage was that you could fart with impunity-our worls was carbon filtered.


Deep in thought and half conscious from oxygen deprivation. I notice the young lady is turning red. She can smell!


But why is she blushing. Then it occurs to me, I’m still staring at her nose. She must be interpreting this as accusation. She thinks that I think she did it!


Imagine that.


My stop is next. The case no longer intrigues me and I need air. Stumbling to the door, I mutter my thanks the driver as I fall through.


“Uh…huh”, he nods.


LakerMan pauses, and takes a deep breath.

© 2008 by Rodney Gleghorn. All rights reserved.

I spent 4 years working in this environment. This was the result of a long weekend, at work, with only Visio to entertain myself: Product Development in an Excess and Surplus Insurance Carrier © 2007/2008 by Rodney Gleghorn, all rights reserved.

I guess I’m slow. At least too slow to keep up with redneck culture—as an Arkansas boy, I should be up to speed on these things. But I’ve obviously fallen behind. That’s why I was so surprised to learn about truck testicles.
Last week, while on a business trip in Cleveland, one of my colleagues spotted a pair of these (lovingly rendered in chrome) swinging from a trailer hitch. It took us all a while to stop laughing. Then the opinions started. Since we were co-workers and relative strangers we were perhaps somewhat reserved in expressing ourselves. But I could sense a fairly normal range of reaction within the car.
First it’s not all that startling. As adults we’ve all seen plenty of this type of product before—think mud flaps and rebel flags. And for most of us, it’s not that unusual to have mixed feelings about it. For our little group, I think those feelings ranged from amusement and a general sense of harmlessness, to a legitimate sense of offense and dismay.

For me it is a just a small symptom of a much larger issue. It’s a perfect example of our testosterone driven, global society. This was not the work of a single hobbyist with a couple of rocks and a burlap bag. These cojones were obviously manufactured products. And these days manufacturing is rarely a local endeavor. To get from the original idea to this point probably required a small army of people: designers, engineers, business managers, and the requisite host of lawyers (all, my wife reminds me, likely male).

Think about it. Somewhere on this planet, an underpaid worker is supporting a family by cranking out boxes of plastic testicles in various colors (I’m assuming only one size). I wonder what she thinks of it?

Such is the power of money and male insecurity. Our need to define ourselves in terms of our own masculine self image has driven business decisions—large and small—for millennia. Birth control is a good example. Why is there no male pill?

It’s not medical. The medical obstacles could have been overcome had we applied the same degree of money and effort as we did to female contraception. The basic reason we do not have a birth control pill for men can be summed up in a few simple words: if you made it, no one would come.

Sure, men would get prescriptions. We’d wear strings of pills around our necks in singles bars and decorate our apartments with empty bottles. But would we use them? Would any woman in her right mind ever, ever, trust a guy to really take them?

A few days ago Katharine and I were working our way north through heavy traffic. I could hear a fire engine roaring up behind us, but it had not yet crept into my field of view. When at last the truck overtook us, I remarked that it must be a thrill to drive one of those things through traffic at high speed.

“Make way, penis coming through” she said.

There is a funny side to all of this. And we—men and women in all cultures—enjoy the banter that comes with it. Truck balls certainly feed this little fire.

But testosterone rules my basic wiring more than I care to admit. My not-so-unique version of suburban masculinity requires me to maintain the greenest yard, fix the family vehicle, and be able to repair anything about the house with absolute confidence and competence. I suck at all of these things, but I like to…no I need to…pretend I’m in control. As a result, the person I love most has to bear the burden of my male insecurity and subtly use my cluelessness to get things done. I cannot blame her if it pisses her off.

But most women have developed this skill—southern belles are not accidental. It is an instinct born less because of tolerance than the necessity of survival.

That’s because our male insecurity is much more about power and dominance than it is about sexuality, and it lays claim to countless acts of violence, rape, murder, and even war. The myths are so ingrained into our behavior that we’ve adopted whole sociological frameworks to contend with them. Think of stoning, female circumcision, sodomy laws, and the ten commandments. Today a good measure of international diplomacy revolts around soothing the fragile male ego of megalomaniacs such as Kim Jong-il and George W Bush.

Compared to war, truck testicles are just minor expressions of free, albeit immature speech. Some have proposed we should ban them. I think the better answer is to change the gender of our leaders. I cannot believe a world run by women would be the same. And I’m ready to give it a try. Please join me. Before we all wake up to see a giant pair of gilded testicles hanging beneath Air force One.

© 2007 by Rodney Gleghorn. All rights reserved.