by Kirsten Koza
Nothing in my social etiquette canon has prepared me for how to cope with a humiliation of this scale. What is the correct recourse? To blush and murmur a demure “Excuse me. Anyone for more Cool Whip?” or pull the carving knife from the greasy pan and end it all, hari-kari style? My mind reels. What would Martha Stewart do? I don’t know, because I’m fairly certain Martha Stewart was born without a sphincter and would never do such a thing in the first place. No, the only reasonable solution I can think of is to slide out of my chair, slip under the table, and then proceed to crawl from the room on all fours, peels of laughter chasing me into the hallway.
Seeking solace, I crawl to the bathroom and pound on the door, where my American friend is using the facilities. “Let me in!” I whimper. “Something terrible has happened!”
My friend opens the door, while she sits upon the toilet, voiding Chardonnay. “What? What happened? Are you O.K.?”
“You won’t believe it…” I moan and crawl to her. I rise before her on my knees, ready to be comforted by her soothing assurances that it was just a silly faux pas…the world is still spinning…life will carry on…
“Get out!” she cries. “Jesus, get out! It looks like you’re trying to blow me!”
Dejected, I crawl backward into the hallway, and she slams the door in my face. And so, my very first Thanksgiving celebration does not end as I had hoped, with sepia-toned snapshots of me and my cashmere-clad friends chuckling over cappuccinos. Rather, the evening closes with me on all fours, outside my bathroom door, a charcoal Dali mustache scrawled upon my face with a cork.
In the other room, the laughter has not died down. In fact, it appears the party has gotten a second wind—a pun I feel almost ordered by law to utilize. Someone has started up the old global anthem again, and I faintly hear strains of Adams’ raspy voice, as everyone once again sing-shouts about standing on someone’s mother’s porch, and thinking, as one sometimes does in life, that certain moments are simply going to last forever.
Johanna Gohmann has written for Salon, The Morning News, xoJane, Babble, and Curve, and she is a regular contributor to Bust magazine. Her essays have been anthologized in A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Adventures Around the World, Joan Didion Crosses the Street, The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010, The Best Sex Writing 2010, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 10, and Every Father’s Daughter.
MEGHAN WARD
If Pigs Could Fly
Warning: story contains a professional clown and may cause involuntary squealing.
I’M LYING ON THE WHITE SAND OF BAGA BEACH IN GOA, INDIA, WHEN A woman approaches me wearing a red sari and carrying a large basket of fruit on her head.
“Fruit, ma’am? Pineapple, banana?”
I’ve just come out of the Arabian Sea, beads of warm water slowly evaporating off my back, and I’m famished. “How much for a pineapple?” I ask her, shielding the sun from my eyes.
“Pineapple ten rupees, ma’am. Banana only two rupees. You want banana?”
“I’ll have a pineapple,” I say, since it’s only 30 cents.
The woman bends down on one knee and deftly swoops the basket—it must weigh 40 pounds—off of her head and onto my blanket. She quickly chooses a pineapple, splits it open with a wide knife and carves the meat out of its shell. Within two minutes I’m devouring the sweetest, juiciest pineapple I’ve ever tasted.
I spend the rest of the afternoon reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History while watching an East Asian man with a ponytail do tai chi as the sky turns from a baby blue to a fiery orange and—as the sun drops behind the horizon—to the lavender-gray it will remain for the rest of the night. It’s my last week in Goa, and tonight I’m heading for Arambol, a beach an hour up the coast. I’m getting a ride from a professional clown named Zou Zou, a 50-year-old New Yorker who occasionally drops into the yoga class I attend on the beach every morning. He’s renting rooms in both Baga and Arambol because they cost just three dollars per night. I’m meeting Zou Zou at a bar in Anjuna, where the flea market takes place every Wednesday. Most weeks I go to buy new clothes—tie-dye t-shirts and Thai fisherman’s trousers—to replace the ones that have holes from being washed too vigorously by the local washerwomen, but today I’m enjoying the quiet of Baga Beach while everyone else is haggling over lungis and silver earrings while getting stoned to the drone of Goan techno music.
At 7:00 P.M. I’m sitting on the back of a Yamaha with my backpack strapped securely across my chest as the taxi driver speeds up a dirt road to Anjuna. Fifteen minutes later, I’m eating a strange combination of fried chicken and aloo matar, a meal you’d only find in Goa, when I spot Zou Zou spinning in circles on the cement slab that doubles as a dance floor. He’s stoned out of his mind. I’m tired of Goa’s hippie travelers, the way they strut around in front of the locals wearing nothing more than G-strings (even the men), smoking hookahs day and night. I’m anxious to get to Arambol, where I plan to take a paragliding class from two British guys I met at Meat and Two Veg back in Baga—the restaurant where I eat dinner when I get tired of Indian pomfret and thali.
Three cups of chai later, Zou Zou and I mount another Yamaha and make off into the night. We catch the last ferry across the Chapora River and speed toward Arambol. When we arrive, everything is dark. Unlike in Baga and Calangute, there are no hotels in Arambol, and the handful of restaurants that dot the beach are closed for the night. I have no place to stay and no interest in sleeping in Zou Zou’s bed, so together we scour the beach for some sign of life. Behind a sugarcane hut we find three teenage boys trading stories and drinking chai and ask if they can help us out. Chattering rapidly in Marathi, they nod their heads in a bobblehead sort of way and motion for us to follow.
A short way up the beach on a patch of dirt stands a one-room wooden structure. Inside, a bed lies in one corner and a drain (the Goan equivalent of a shower) in another. The window’s pane is nothing but broken shards and is covered with the tatters of what once were curtains.
“How much?” I ask the boy.
“Fifty rupees,” he says.
A dollar-fifty. “I’ll take it. Where do I get water?” I’ve learned by now that homes in remote areas like Arambol have wells instead of running water. The boy leads me to a pump several yards across the field.
“Now not working,” he says. “Tomorrow O.K.”
“In the morning?” I ask. “O.K. in the morning?”
He does that bobblehead thing again.
“O.K.,” I say. “Thank you.” There’s no key to the room, but it’s for just one night. I say goodnight to Zou Zou and unpack my things. The mattress, I discover, is nothing more than a double sheet with a few lumps of cotton inside. I lay my own sheet on top of it—I don’t go anywhere without it—and then pile what few clothes I’ve brought to India—a sweater, a t-shirt and a pair of long, cotton pants—on top to create a cushion. There’s no pillow, so I stretch my backpack across the head of the bed and lie down, pulling half of the sheet over me to create a human roti roll.
Just as I’m about to fall asleep, a firecracker goes off outside my window. I’m terrified that these boys who know I’m alone in this unlocked room will try to sneak in and rob me, but I’m not worried about getting raped because I’m too skinny for their taste. The firecrackers continue throughout the night, and I’m relieved when the sun finally crests the horizon. I try the pump across the field, but it’s still not working, so I pack my bag and make my way toward town in search of Zou Zou. I find him showering beneath a palm and ask if I can use his bathroom.
“Sure,” he says. “It’s right there.” He points to a cement structure that looks like a bona fide outhouse. I’m impressed. I take one step up, open the door and enter. After all the pineapple, chicken and chai I had, I desperately need to go. I squat down without touching the seat, which is more of a cylinder than a seat anyway, but I find it difficult to relax. I pull a pack of tissues out of my fanny pack and line the rim with them, then si
t back down. My bowels are beginning to shift when I hear a strange grunting sound between my legs. I glance down and, to my horror, there is a bulbous, hairy pig snout flaring its nostrils at my ass.
“Get out of here!” I yell at the pig. “Scram!” I can’t believe he’s seen my butt. I can’t hold it in much longer, but I’m worried I’m going to shit on this pig, so I yell at him again to move. “Shoo!” I hiss, but rather than move his head, he opens his mouth and flaps his pointy tongue. The shit descends, the pig gobbles it up, and I quickly wipe my ass and get the hell out of there.
“Zou Zou! The pigs are eating my poop!” I yell, pointing at the swine behind the outhouse. Their snouts in a puddle of muddy water (created by my urine), they peer longingly up the hole in the back of the toilet.
Zou Zou, who’s toweling himself off, laughs. “Of course they are. That’s a pig toilet.”
I’m astonished by his nonchalance. “You mean they’re supposed to do that? What in God’s name is a pig toilet?”
“It’s what you see there,” he says, nodding toward the outhouse. “You shit and the pigs eat it. It’s a win-win situation. And it’s good for the environment, too, even better than wiping your ass with your hand.”
“That’s totally disgusting!” I make a mental note never to eat pork in India again.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast—items you can’t find in most parts of India—the owner of the restaurant draws me a map to a home three streets away, where a family has a room for rent. Zou Zou accompanies me to my destination, where I meet the lady of the house, Perpetua Hernandez. My room is simple and clean with a double bed, a cement floor, and a window overlooking the front yard, where a young girl and boy wearing nothing but t-shirts play in the dirt. At one point, the boy squats beneath the lone palm tree in the yard and defecates. No sooner does he stand up than a three-foot pig trots over and eats it. Win-win, I tell myself. Win-win.
Perpetua leads me through the main room of the house, where her husband is watching TV, to a storage room with a drain in the corner. She hands me a towel and explains that when I need a shower she’ll bring me a bucket of cold water, which I’ll pour over myself with a small plastic cup. I thank her and ask where the toilet is. She motions for me to follow her back through the house and out into the front yard.
In the front corner of the yard, opposite the palm tree, is a small hut, the size of a restroom stall, fashioned out of palm leaves. The door, two palm leaves tied together with palm fronds, swings open and we peer inside. On the left, against one wall, are two flagstones, designed to stand on when I squat. Below the flagstones is dirt, just like the rest of the front yard. So basically I’m expected to shit in the front yard like the children, except that I get to do it behind a palm-leaf door. I notice a small cutout at the bottom of the wall behind the bricks—presumably for the pigs.
After settling in to read for a while, my stomach begins to cramp. The eggs are not sitting well with me, and I know from several previous episodes of illness that have occurred since I arrived in India three months ago that I need to get to the bathroom fast. I dread having diarrhea in the front yard, but I have no choice. I grab several packs of tissues and stuff them into my fanny pack. Outside, I open the door to the palm stall and step inside. The door remains slightly ajar when I close it, the leaves drooping to one side, but the yard is now empty except for the pigs. I step onto the bricks and pull down my pants. There’s no depression between my feet, and I’m afraid to defecate on the only shoes I brought to India, so I untie my laces, remove my Converse lowtops, and lay them to the side.
I resume my squatting position, barefoot this time, and prepare for the worst. My cramps worsen and my bowels shift. Then, right when everything’s about to come out, a pig sticks his hairy snout through the hole in the wall and touches his nostrils to my ass. I jump up and scream, then curse him to leave me be. I pull up my pants, step out into the yard, and find a stick. I can’t hold it much longer now, so I hurry back to the bricks and try again. This time I’m armed. When the pig approaches, I whack his nose with my stick, and he squeals in retreat. I stare up at the sky, framed by a beautiful bougainvillea, and beg: “Please God, get me though this. Please get this pig off my ass.”
Just then a second pig pokes his head through the door. I whack him with my stick and, at the same time, feel whiskers on my ankles again. I hit the pig behind me while the other comes through the door, the two of them teaming up in attack. “No fair!” I yell, then make like a ninja and whip my stick around in half-circles, fighting off first one, then the other, all the while squatting on the flagstones. Suddenly my bowels loosen and shit explodes all over the ground. Dissatisfied with their runny lunch, the porcine bullies back off, leaving me to clean up the mess. Two packs of tissues later, I find Perpetua and tell her I need to take a shower. I’m embarrassed that I had diarrhea in her front yard, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. After my shower, I pack up my things and go in search of another room.
Two days later, I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, about to jump off. “Don’t do it,” a guy named Colin says. “It’s not worth it.” I look back at Colin, then turn toward the ocean and step off the cliff. I drop just a couple of feet before the wind catches my sail, and I’m flying. I pull softly on my right brake and the red wing above me does a ninety-degree turn. I glide along the edge of the cliff, peering at the sunbathers below, elated to be soaring with the gulls. It’s amazing up here, high above the world—so peaceful and so beautiful. This is why I came to India, I think, to get some perspective on the world. I can see for a mile in every direction, and there’s not a shit-eating pig in sight.
Meghan Ward is a freelance writer, book editor, and blogger. She is the author of Runway, a short memoir based on the six years she spent working as a high fashion model in Europe and Japan. Her work has appeared in Mutha Magazine, San Francisco Magazine, 7X7 Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the anthology It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style. She lives in Berkeley, California, and blogs at Writerland.com. Follow her on Twitter @meghancward and on Facebook @meghanwardauthor.
PAULA LEE
When the Empire Strikes Back
It’s when you assume that nobody speaks English, that everybody speaks English.
MY BRITISH FRIEND—I WILL CALL HER “LOUISE HELY-HUTCHINSON,” for she is of a class that frowns on getting its names in the papers—lived inside a square doughnut. Her Kensington flat wrapped around a sunken courtyard garden that served as a light well, letting in as much sun as rainy London ever experienced. True to form, she wasn’t home; she was in Barcelona until tomorrow.
“Have to run! Home soon!” she’d chirped over the phone when I’d called to tell her I was going to be in the country to present an academic paper, and then the signal crackled off. The spare keys would be sprinkled in the usual places, assuming the cat hadn’t run off with them.
“Hallo, Mr. Watts,” I waved to her neighbor coming up the gate, a fussy older man who regarded me as a friendly Martian.
“Back for a visit, are we?” he waved back, shifting his groceries to keep the flowers from falling out. “Come on, then, Penny,” he said to the panting schnauzer trotting after his heels. “There’s a good girl,” he nattered absently. “Come ’round later for tea if you like.”
I smiled vaguely in his general direction, as it wasn’t entirely obvious he was talking to me. Amicably, he nodded as he made his way up the stairs and into the graceful building, gripping the railing with his free hand as his dog wagged her stumpy tail.
Once inside, it was a short hike down the hallway, where the final key had been tucked under the sisal mat in front of her door. A few false starts and jiggles later, I was in. Louise’s three-bedroom flat had high ceilings, tall windows, and hefty architectural moldings. Those were the bones. I had no idea how they would be dressed, because she changed the décor more often than some people change their underwe
ar.
Based on the colorful Turkish carpets, oddly shaped floor urns, and antique-ish divans scattered around the living room, it would appear that her decorator was now going for some sort of posh steampunk aesthetic. Pitching my little bag unceremoniously into the foyer, I fumbled around for the lights, kicked off my sweaty shoes and padded into to the kitchen to take stock of her supplies. Her refrigerator held its usual liquid assets: cans of Guinness stout, a formidable assortment of white wines, and an emergency bottle of Veuve Cliquot. Her cupboards held a tin of loose tea, a few snack-size boxes of cereal, a box of Carr’s water crackers, a jar of Marmite, and a canister of instant coffee that I kept there for emergencies. That was the complete inventory. Miss Hely-Hutchinson did not cook, clean, or do windows.
Sighing, I fixed myself a cup of Nescafé, shuffled into the guest bedroom, and promptly collapsed into bed with my traveling clothes still on, dreaming sweet dreams of running after hairy tennis balls and eating giant marshmallows.
The following evening, Louise came tumbling home, a giddy gust of disorganized delight, shedding bags and accessories in random piles all over the living room.
“Kisses!” she demanded. “Goodness, look at your hair! I don’t ever think I’ve seen it so long!” She threw herself dramatically onto the sofa, where for the past half-hour I’d been reading all about Hugh Grant’s teeth in an ancient issue of Tatler.
“You weren’t too stranded, were you?” she inquired formally, a holdover from years of social training, even as she squirmed around like a restless five-year-old in an attempt to achieve a comfortable position. “So sorry I couldn’t be here when you arrived, but every now and then I must pretend to do work.” Her tone was more gleeful than sincere. Abruptly she popped back up on her feet. “Wait, wait, wait.” She began hopping around in an attempt to remove her stockings. “You must tell me everything, but I simply have to get out of these ridiculous clothes. Hang on, won’t take but a second.” She disappeared into her bedroom and returned a few minutes later, carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses, which she set down on the coffee table. Normal enough, except that she’d put on a pair of floppy pajamas that made her look remarkably like the Velveteen Rabbit. “Now, begin,” she commanded, plopping herself back on the sofa and lighting up a cigarette.