Sharpen to a Point

Several years ago I auditioned to be a contestant on the Game Show Network’s family-friendly program, “Lingo.” I came across their ad in an industry trade publication and picked up the phone. A production assistant instructed me to procure a partner.

Having been in LA just shy of a year my social circle spanned a hula-hoop’s circumference. My days were spent juggling two jobs and my nights commuting to open mike nights across Southern California. Don was a new hire at the hotel. In a department that is 90% middle-aged Mexicans it was only natural that two young “jueros” would gravitate towards each other; However, I knew nothing more about him than his name and age when we partnered for the aud.

The studio was located on Sunset walking distance from the CNN building. Don and I ascended a flight of stairs into a spacious, rectangular room furnished with several picnic tables. Six two-person pairs that had arrived before us were well into their paperwork. The Production Assistant gave an orientation spiel. Moments later the Casting Director emerged from a door marked private.

The game basically consisted of solving a quasi crossword puzzle before the buzzer. Each puzzle contained five words all beginning with the same letter. Teammates were subjected to a short, joint interview before playing. Don and I were the last up. We gave our names, our hometowns and our employer. The Casting Director inquired what specifically we did for work. I explained that Don and I were Banquet Servers, our hotel’s tuxedoed, fine-dining servers. Our interview had been chugging along nicely when Don abruptly derailed it. The CD asked what we dislike most about our job and Don reflexively replied, “Jewish Weddings.” What he meant was Orthodox Jewish weddings because they require hours of preparation and their use of outside caterers diminishes our gratuity, but what came across was, “The worst thing about our job is working for Jews.” Before I could open my mouth to clarify Don added, “They’re a real pain in the ass.” While I am capable of explaining away his Anti-Semitic sounding remark I cannot even venture a guess as to why he followed it with an expletive. A palpable bad vibe filled the room. Don was the only person who did not notice. I implored him to “Shut the fuck up!” with my eyes but his attention was fixed on the Casting Director. Just when I thought the worst was over Don huffed, “And they never tip.” Our previously vocal fellow auditioneers now sat stone silent. The CD soldiered through the remainder of our audition in a tone confirming that she was as put off by Don as the rest of the room. As for me, well, I was so vexed by the incident that I forgot the game’s rules. I stood mute and motionless until our time elapsed.

Outside of the studio I abruptly bid Don adieu. I ran to my car and dove for my cell phone. I dialed the Lingo hotline as fast as I could. It was now late in the afternoon and my call went unanswered. I left a protracted message fervently apologizing for recruiting a bigot as my teammate. My call was never returned. Needless to say the Don and Chris duo did not make the cut.

Sharpen to a Point

Michael Caruso was different. For starters, he knew things that he didn’t learn in class. He read books at home, which, where I’m from, is a crime that carries a minimum mandatory sentence of ostracism. In all fairness, Caruso’s manner did not lend itself to making friends. Even at eleven he had a put-upon, condescending way about him. He was the quintessential know-it-all, and though I have no clue what became of him my guess would be that he works in tech support and sighs dramatically every time he’s asked a question.

One day, midway through the school year, Caruso announced that he was moving to Arizona, which was met with our then standard reply of, “So? You think you’re cool? You’re not.” As best I can recall, his mother had already relocated to the Grand Canyon State and he and his father were scheduled to rendezvous with her in a few short weeks. Fast-forward a few, short weeks. Minutes before he was to board his flight, a distraught stranger randomly chose Michael to hold hostage at gunpoint. In the end the gunman surrendered peacefully and no one was harmed.

A few days later, out of left field, our teacher announced that Michael would be paying us a visit, his move having been postponed for obvious reasons. Her announcement was met with shrugged shoulders, until she revealed that a local news crew would be dropping by to shoot an expose about him. With that, Caruso’s approval rating rocketed from the depths of the red to the heights of the black. See, back then, American children worshiped their TVs the way American adults worship them today, and in a pre-YouTube, pre-American Idol era, news was the only medium for anonymous imbeciles to become instant celebrities. I immediately set about increasing my odds of being chosen as an interviewee. The moment my teacher resumed pedagogy I stealthily withdrew my markers and surreptitiously whipped up a colorful sign reading, “Good luck Caruso!”

When the news crew arrived they shot some B roll, interviewed our teacher and randomly chose three kids to comment on Caruso’s character. I was one.
Suffice it to say that my characterization of our class pariah sounded like those press junkets for summer blockbusters where the actors jockey to one-up each other in a ego stroking orgy, “Insert director’s name here is so brilliant he should be perched atop a mountain in Tibet!” What I said about Michael that day was to hypocrisy what Michael Phelps’s performance at the last summer Olympics was to sport swimming. What I wouldn’t do to know what went through Caruso’s head when he arrived at his old stomping grounds to find a welcoming family where an angry mob once stood. If he was surprised he never let on, he was far too busy basking in the spotlight. From the moment he arrived he was subdued yet ebullient, as if he’d lived one thousand lifetimes since we last saw him. His recitation of the narrative was pure pretense: He had not been the least bit frightened, as his kidnapper had confided early on that the gun was not loaded. According to Caruso, he simply bided his time. In fact, as he told his tale, he actually strolled past our desks tipping nods as if to say, “I remember when I was but one of you, a mere groundling.” I’m certain that, despite their cherubic smiles, the same thought was running through every kid in that classroom’s head, “Me too, it was one week ago.”

Tomb Raider Wii

I once had a roommate named Charles. Charles loved video games. While most college students were spending their time discovering their favorite drugs, drinks and sexual practices, Charles spent his nights playing video games. He didn’t drink. He didn’t use. He didn’t need to. Charles was the kind of person everybody just assumed was as high as a plane over Amsterdam. Everything he did was high. The way he talked was high. The way he moved was high. The way he played video games, well you get the idea. He liked Tomb Raider – a lot. He played it – a lot. He beat the game 67 times but would continue to start it over and beat it again. I used to tell him that the only reason he played that game was because he was in love with Lara Croft. She’s the main character in the game for those who don’t know. I guess, with computer graphics the way they are these days, a man could fall in love with a video game. People obsess about celebrities all the time. Obsessing over a realistic looking video game celebrity is no different. But this was 1996. Graphics were just starting to develop. As big as her tits were in the game, they were still just polygons. As far as I was concerned, anyone who could be aroused by geometric shapes had real issues. So it made it especially weird when I came home from class one day to find Charles on his knees in front of the TV, controller in one hand, Charles in the other.

Walking in on somebody playing with himself is never a comfortable situation; for both parties. Notice I wrote, “himself.” The only time girls get walked in on playing with themselves is in porn and even then it is unbelievable.

I wish I could say that he was just playing with himself to a video game and it was awkward. I wish I could say that. Unfortunately for me, he was not just doing that. He was also singing; beautifully. I had no idea he could sing so well. How could I? We did not go to karaoke bars back then. Unless your friend was in a band or in a choir or something, you had no way of knowing if he could sing. These days, everybody sings. People aren’t bashful anymore. Everybody wants to be the next American Idol. It’s 10:15 in the morning as I write this and I’ve already heard 7 people sing today. Back then, even if you could sing, you kept your mouth shut until somebody gave you a microphone and a stage; or in Charles’s case, a controller and some alone time.

I don’t know if it was shock from witnessing the masturbation or shock from witnessing the angelic a cappella but I stood there silent. I was trapped. What the hell was I supposed to do? If I turned and walked out, he would hear me and it would be awful. If I said something like, “Would you please not masturbate to a video game?” he would hear me and it would be awful. Either way it was going to be awful. I had the kind of dread felt only by the insanely drunk and nauseous. Didn’t want to throw up, couldn’t close my eyes. I don’t know how much time had passed but suddenly I had a thought. What’s weirder here; a guy kneeling in front of the television, jerking off to a video game and singing Journey’s ‘Open Arms’? Or the guy watching it? By the way, he was singing Journey’s “Open Arms.” I know.

“We sailed on together. We drifted apart. And here you are by my side…..So now I come to you, with open….”

“I got next game,” I said as I sat down on the couch. It was all I could think to do. I couldn’t let him go into the chorus. That would be pathetic. Charles, clearly stunned by my presence and my reaction, wheeled around like, well, like a guy getting caught jerking off and belting out Steve Perry tunes. He must have been there “playing” for some time because the sweat shot off his spinning head like a lawn sprinkler. It reminded me of my childhood summers. “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE TIL SIX!!!” Charles screamed. “You’re not supposed to masturbate in public…” I answered. “…and it is six.” Day light savings time really can be an inconvenience when forgotten. “Put your pants on before Dean gets here. Resident Advisors tend to freak out when convicted sex offenders pound their pud in a fucking rec center.” Did I mention Charles had a history? And we lived in a dorm?

Dinner that night was weird. Usually, Charles would spend the entire meal in a tirade about some uncontestable topic, like how important water is for all of us. But on that night, he said nothing. He just sat there, eating his salisbury steak in an uncomfortable silence only a guilty man can know. He did not know it at the time but I really did not care. What was the harm? Everybody masturbates and everybody has fantasies. Many of which are much more perverse than a 32 bit serenade. But I said nothing. Something sadistic inside me enjoyed watching him writhe in the shards of his own broken ego. The entire night was spent in silence.

I worked most afternoons at the student copy center; a hole at the end of a hallway in the basement of the medical center. The money sucked and the hours were terribly insufficient but it was the best I could find at the time. The fact that it was in the medical center wasn’t bad either. You never knew when some stressed out, over worked, under slept med student was going to have a nervous breakdown and do something newsworthy you just had to see. Believe me, it happens more than they want you to know. The copy center is really only busy for two weeks; the first and last weeks of the quarter. That is when the students get the lecture notes. The smart ones do it at the beginning of the quarter. The super smart ones do it at the end because one week and a photographic memory trump a work ethic in school any day. During the middle of the quarter, things would get so boring I would have to huff the compressed air dusters just to keep my sanity. Word to the wise; don’t inhale it directly from the can. When air molecules expand, they cool and nothing screws up a buzz faster than frozen lungs.

It was a Wednesday in the middle of fall quarter when I first met Candace; a second year med student who looked like a huge female version of Johnny Depp. She stood almost six feet tall and looked like she could play nose tackle for the football team. She was interning in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of the medical center and was given the esteemed task of photocopying a textbook titled, “The Epidemiology, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment for Sexually Transmitted Disease.” It was a 700 page educational document with more disturbing images than a concentration camp donkey show. She slammed the book down on the counter. “I need pages two hundred fifty through four hundred seventy eight copied and I need it by the end of the afternoon,” she said. For a moment I just stared at her, fantasizing about punching her in her massive man-pretty face. Copy center work is easy work; until you have to copy a book. The monotony of copying one page at a time over and over can bring a man to madness and this bitch just asked me to do it two hundred twenty eight times. “Hello? Did you hear me? I need this copied by the end of the day!” she bellowed. “You’ll need to get a release form signed by a department head,” I answered as I slid the form across the counter. “That book is copyrighted and copying over twenty-five percent of copyrighted material is illegal without signing a copyright release form.” She stood there a moment, her eyes oscillating down to the form, up to me, back down to the document, back up to me. “Are you serious?” she asked. “No, I knew you’d come down here one day asking me to copy hundreds of pages of herpes and gonorrhea photos so I drew up this phony document to buy myself ten more minutes of my life. Yes, I’m serious.” I slid the document farther across the counter until it pushed up against her swollen belly. She snatched the piece of paper, turned and made her way back down the hall from which she came. To this day I can’t tell you why but for some reason I leaned out over the counter to watch her leave. Maybe it was to savor the personal victory one so rarely gets to tell someone to fuck off right to their face. Maybe I have a thing for big chicks. Who knows. All I know is that she inexplicably turned right as I was focused on her khaki wedgie and before I could retreat my leaning body back into the copy center, I made eye contact with her. In one instant, my victory in a personal battle of wits was shattered by the satisfaction I gave a snotty overweight transvestite looking med student who thought I wanted to fuck her. She rolled her eyes and continued down the hall adding a little bounce in her wobble. Shit.

Two hours had passed and Candace had not come back. I only had ten minutes before the copy center closed and seeing that I had not had a customer since Candace, I decided to start closing early. Aside from the large solid core door which was to remain unlocked during business hours, the only opening to the outside world was the counter window. Campus copy centers are always designed so that they are either in basements or back corners of libraries and the ONLY windows are the counter windows; probably to squelch any impulse to daydream; or jump. I counted the modest stacks of one and five dollar bills in the register, wrapped a rubber band around them and inserted them in the “Billbo Bag.” That was the creative name my socially challenged manager, Dennis, gave to the locking zippered canvass bag with which we deposited our daily earnings. I put the Billbo Bag on the counter and pulled the heavy chain connected to the metal shade which sealed off the counter window. I never understood why securing copy centers involved such heavy duty protection. Even if somebody was to knock off a copy center, what were they going to take? The $34 cold cash in the Billbo Bag or the 3000 pound color copier which would have to be broken down to 1000 parts before it could fit out the door? I stared at the clock. Three minutes to clock out. I took a breath and held it. It was a game I often played with myself. Holding your breath for three minutes is tough, even if you first hyperventilate. Try doing it on only one breath.

I always felt it important to test myself with strange feats of endurance and pain tolerance. A childhood spent watching bad movies on HBO developed an obsession of never being caught in a situation where I would have made it out of the sinking vessel alive if only I could have held my breath a little longer. Two minutes thirty seconds. The trick is to relax and think about something pleasant; like sitting in a raft on a still pond in September. I closed my eyes and listened to my heartbeat. There are stories of people who can use their mind to slow their heartbeat to less than a few beats per minute. I don’t know how these people learned to do this. I could never get mine below 40. I glanced up at the clock. Don’t ever glance up at the clock. One minute thirty seconds. Shit, I broke my concentration. My chest started to twitch as my body’s breathing reflex began to say, what the fuck? I closed my eyes. This shall pass. I could feel my nasal passages, clogged and congested from the allergic reaction of copy center dust, begin to clear and expand. People spend billions of dollars a year on anti-histamines to clear their sinuses. All they need to do is hold their breath. Their bodies will do it for them. One minute. I was not sure if I was going to make it. My record, up to that point, was two minutes forty five seconds on a single breath. I still had forty five seconds to go and my chest was convulsing faster and faster. Looks like I might go down with the ship this time, I thought. Thirty seconds to go. Time does fly when you’re having fun. But it grinds to a fucking stand still when pain is involved. I once read about a plane crash that inverted a commercial airliner and sent it into a dive from 36,000 feet. It took only one minute thirty seconds to hit the ground but upside down and at a sixty five degree angle, it must have felt like a decade for the passengers. Fifteen seconds. I was almost home. It was just a matter of concentration and will at this point. I had tied my record and was going for glory. Just hold on for ten more…..BANG BANG BANG! I turned to see the metal shade of the counter window violently waving. Hallucinations are common when you deprive the brain of oxygen. I looked up at the clock. Five seconds. BANG BANG BANG! Four seconds. BANG BANG BANG! Three seconds. I was there. Two seconds. “What is the matter with you!?” I heard coming from the doorway behind me. “HHHUUUUGGHHH!!!!! I gasped as I turned to see fat assed Candace standing in the doorway which was to remain unlocked during business hours, holding her herpes book and a copyright release form. “Enjoying yourself?” she quipped. I couldn’t speak. I stood there heaving. When starved of its essentials, your body chooses your priorities for you. “Well, I got this formed signed by my department head so I’m going to need those copies before you leave today,” she said. I could not believe the nerve of this girl. Not only did she interrupt me one second short of greatness, she actually expected me to pull overtime for her. I waited a few more seconds to get my composure. “Sorry, we’re closed now so it is going to have to wait ‘til tomorrow,” I said. “It can’t wait. These copies are for Dr. Schoenfeld. Do you even know who that is? You’re just going to have to stay late today.” She replied.

Now I know that they say that business has lost its sense of customer service in the modern era. People always complain that in the race to do everything better, faster and more efficient, companies have forgotten that the customer is always right. To this I say go fuck yourself. Although I do agree that the quality of work has atrophied since the days of ma and pop, I believe that it is the customer who has really changed. People have been conditioned to believe that they are truly special and that their special needs are to be met at any time, in any place, by anybody. A sense of entitlement has descended on the populous like a flu pandemic. In the point and click, microwave, drive thru world we live in, people have forgotten that they too play a role in the customer merchant relationship and that role is to respect the rules and policies of the companies with which they chose to do business. And if the hours of operation posted say that the business closes at 5:30 and they arrive at said business at 5:30 with hours upon hours of work in their chubby little hands, then they need to turn their fat ass around, walk back down the hall from which they came, tell the department head that they fucked up and come back tomorrow like every-fuckin’-body else. But that is just my opinion.

“Sorry. We’re closed.” I said. Then I smiled and closed the door in her face.

Usually, my walk home after work was the best part of my day. I would smoke a joint and think about things that did not matter. The copy center was located on the opposite side of campus from the dorms so I would take my time, stoned and content, walking in the shadows of the gothic architecture. On a cold autumn night, it reminded me of London. I had never been to London but somewhere deep in my psyche was an image of long shadows, dried wind blown leaves and Jack the Ripper. The solitude of those walks granted me the only real time to think during my days. That night, however, felt different. I don’t know if it was the extra ten minutes I had to wait in silence behind the locked copy center door waiting for Candace to leave or the anxiety from waiting to find out if I would come home to another disturbing solo act from Charles but something felt off. I don’t believe people can be psychic but I do believe in intuition. There is a difference. Psychics claim they can foresee events in time like a movie. Like we are all part of some sort of cosmic Netflix network where every person’s movie is shown throughout all time yet only a handful of gifted psychics have memberships. Even the NBA is more inclusive. Intuition, on the other hand, is plausible. Our brains perceive and file subtle clues, indistinguishable to the conscious mind yet real and historic, to elicit a gut feeling. Like the feeling one gets when they are about to inherit money or get stabbed. The feeling is often the same.

To be continued…