Say Uncle

by Benjamin Laskin

  “Hey, I know her!” I blurted.

  “Of course you do,” Debra said. “You probably had a wet dream about her. You and every other man on the planet…”

  I flipped the magazine over and checked the cover. There she was again! I went back and rifled through eight pages of photographs.

  “So she really is a model…” I thought out loud.

  “What?” Debra said, incredulous, even irritated that I could be so ignorant. “This chick is probably the hottest model in the world right now.”

  “Wow, no kidding…?”

  “Boy, where have you been?”

  Only to breakfast with her, I nearly replied. “What else do you know about her?”

  “Only what I’ve read in People Magazine, and that she’s a real snob. She keeps to herself and never gives interviews. Never, not once. She’s never seen hobnobbing with any other celebrities either. I mean, come on, what’s the point of being rich and famous if you don’t use it to meet other rich and famous people? The chick is one of the highest paid models in the world and lives like a gypsy. What a waste. They say she donates half of her money to charities—orphanages, animal shelters, microloans to third-world countries, whatever the hell that means. But even then she’s a snob, as she only supports groups that have no political agenda. I read once that she helps build little schoolhouses and health clinics in places like Thailand and Cambodia where she’ll hole up for weeks living with the farmers and their families. A self-righteous little bitch, if you ask me. Man, money is wasted on the rich…”

  I was flabbergasted. I had breakfast with her? She kissed me! I leaped out of Debra’s clutches and charged out of the room, the magazine rolled up in my hand.

  I showed Noriko’s picture to everyone in the house. They all knew who she was but could tell me no more about her than Debra already had. I didn’t mention anything about our encounter. Instead, I spent the next hour on the couch in the den staring at her pictures in the magazine, replaying over and over in my mind the conversation that we had had. I couldn’t get over the fact that we had actually met; moreover, that it was just a meaningless coincidence. Again I had the eerie feeling that a mirror was being held up to my face and that I was not seeing something that I should.

  Around ten o’clock I drove some of my aunts and cousins back to their respective hotels. I went out of my way and dropped my Aunt Sylvia and Cousin Debra off first so that I wouldn’t be left alone with Debra. I could tell that she was sore, because when leaving the car she threw the magazine at me, saying, “I hope you grow hair on your palms!”

  Glitches

  When I got home my mom and sisters, Aunt Paula and Cousins Angie and Stella were still up cleaning and doing dishes. I asked if they needed any help and to my relief they said no. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, went into the den, turned on the TV, and sat on the couch again with my magazine. I could hear the women chatting about this and that from the kitchen over the sound of CNN, but I paid no attention to either. Instead, I thought about what Noriko had told me of her childhood and growing up, her long summers with Johanna and the other two, what they talked about, and ishin dotai. I felt privileged. I probably knew more about her than most people did, more than People Magazine even.

  The house in good order again, my family trickled into the den to join me. My sisters drank eggnog from the mugs that I had given them. They held them up to show me. I was touched. I put the magazine down and availed myself to some social intercourse.

  My mother and her sister, Paula, sat down with some hot tea and continued a conversation that had begun in the kitchen concerning my grandmother on my mother’s side, Teresa Blake, who had died the previous summer. My mother was her youngest daughter, and Aunt Paula was the eldest. I never met her. My family was the only branch of the clan to have moved west, and because my grandmother was afraid to fly she never came out to see us. Instead, once a year my mother, accompanied by one of my sisters, visited her. For one reason or another it was never my turn.

  I had heard plenty of stories about my grandmother. She was a tough cookie, the eldest of four sisters and the last to sign off. As far as I knew, I was the only male to emerge in three generations. I figured it out once—eighteen women and one Guy. I was a freak. I wasn’t sure if I should feel honored or cursed.

  My aunt finished recounting an amusing anecdote about my grandmother’s Puritanical will, and with a sigh she lamented the end of her glorious reign as the grand matriarch. “No more Channings,” she bemoaned, as if she had just read the final sentence of a fat book. Channing was my grandmother’s maiden name.

  My sister Kathleen, who was painting her toenails with one of her presents, said casually, “We don’t know that for sure.”

  I saw my mother beam a censuring eye at Kathleen, and noticed that the others looked slightly uneasy too. Kathleen shrugged. “Well, it’s true. We don’t know for certain.”

  “It’s as good as certain,” said my mother with conspicuous finality.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, curious and ignorant.

  “Nothing,” came the unanimous reply.

  “Come on,” I chuckled, all the more curious. “What’s the big deal?”

  I felt certain that some joke was involved. But nobody laughed. Instead they glared at Kathleen, who shook her head and went on painting her toes.

  “Hey, tell me,” I said again, the gravity in the room turning my chuckle into a slightly nervous titter.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, honey,” my mother said with a dismissing wave of her hand. “Just a piece of ancient history.”

  “I like history.”

  “It’s not important,” Kathleen said. But I knew she said that only to make amends.

  “If it’s no big deal, then why don’t you tell me? Everyone else seems to know. I’m family, aren’t I?”

  “You’re right, Guy,” my mother said with new alacrity. “It’s just some family gossip I never figured you’d be interested in. You see, your great grandfather Channing didn’t stop with four daughters. Late in life he had a son too. Unfortunately, however, this boy turned out to be—”

  “A real loser,” Aunt Paula interjected, never one to mince words.

  “Well, anyway, he brought a lot of misery and shame to his family. He was kind of a troublemaker, rebellious, and full of—”

  “Crap,” Aunt Paula stated.

  “His own self-importance, you might say,” continued my mother. “Your great grandfather was a wealthy and highly respected lawyer as you know, and his son’s behavior was an embarrassment to him.”

  “Was he a criminal?” I asked.

  “No, nothing like that. He was—”

  “An anarchist,” Aunt Paula inserted.

  “Controversial,” said my mom. “Remember, this was decades ago and people weren’t as liberal-minded as they are today. Anyway, to make a long story short, his father went to much trouble to get him into Harvard but—”

  “The ungrateful bum got himself thrown out,” Aunt Paula said.

  “World War II had just started so no longer a student, he was drafted—”

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Aunt Paula said.

  “Everyone hoped that the army would help to straighten him out but he proved incorrigible even for the army.”

  “They threw him in the cooler and gave him a dishonorable discharge,” Aunt Paula elaborated.

  “No one has heard from him since,” my mother added. “That’s all. I suppose every family has a skeleton in its closet. He is ours.”

  “So why all the secrecy?” I asked. “Why not tell me this before?”

  “No reason,” my mother replied. “It’s just some family trivia that has been long forgotten about.”

  “So is he alive or what?” I asked.

  “Nobody knows,” Aunt Paula answered. “And frankly, nobody cares.”

  I wasn’t satisfied with either their story or their answers. I found their degree of animosity too severe for a man they n
ever met, and for events that had happened so long ago. I felt a little sorry for the guy. If he was still alive he must have been pretty sad and lonely having been cut off from his family like that.

  “Well,” I said, “what was his name?”

  My aunt and my mother exchanged absentminded expressions. “Goodness,” Aunt Paula said, “I can’t even remember.”

  “Ellery, wasn’t it?” pronounced my Cousin Angie, a gentle, slightly slow-witted woman with frizzy, curly brown hair and a childlike smile.

  “No, dear, I don’t think so,” my aunt said, fixing her with an admonishing eye.

  “Yeah, it was,” Cousin Angie said, encouraged by the fact that perhaps for the first time in her life she knew something no one else seemed to know. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Ellery Channing,” I said. “Like the poet. So, how old would evil Ellery be if he were still around?”

  “He’s probably long dead,” my mother said solemnly.

  “Not a word from him in all those years?” I asked.

  “Well, the youngest of his sisters, Candice, was said to have received an occasional postcard from him, and that she knew him to be floating around Europe after the war. But that was a long time ago. After she died there was never another word from him.”

  “When did she die?”

  “About twenty years ago,” my mother answered. “Car accident, wasn’t it, Paula?”

  “Yes, poor thing. While vacationing in Greece the brakes on her rental car went out and she drove over a cliff. Just awful…”

  I said, “So the dude was bopping around the world for decades—doing what?”

  “God only knows,” Aunt Paula said. “From what your grandmother said of him you could be sure it was of little importance. He was too lazy and irresponsible to hold down a regular job.”

  I found this all very interesting. After all, we both had a lot in common. I too was lazy and irresponsible, an only male among a sea of females, incorrigible and ungrateful. And wasn’t I about to be kicked out of college too? I had the delicious feeling that perhaps some renegade gene had wandered for a generation to reappear in the likes of me. It made sense and explained many things. My so-called learning disability may have been nothing but a warped, springy strand of DNA up my butt. It was the best news I had heard in a long time.

  “Oh look,” Doreen blurted, pointing at the television. “The Glitch! Turn it up!”

  “Who?” Aunt Paula said.

  “The Glitch. Shhh!”

  CNN was reporting on the rock band, Regina Brodie and The Glitch, one of the hottest new groups around, a kind of folk-rock-western-bluesy thing. Their first album came from nowhere and sat near the top of the charts for nearly a year. The group’s catchy, toe-tapping songs were mainly about stuff like political stupidity, camaraderie, conscience, and the mocking of political correctness and the media—music with a message, but one they would allow no political party to hijack. The musicians were talented, and the lead singer, Regina Brodie, a pretty cowgirl, had a distinctive and versatile voice. In fact, it was their new CD that I had bought for myself a couple of nights earlier on my ill-fated, last-minute shopping spree.

  CNN was covering the group because the band had a habit of showing up in places where they weren’t welcome, inevitably drawing huge crowds and causing a scene. This time they were playing in front of the headquarters of the SEIU in Washington D.C. A few months earlier they had also dropped in on the headquarters of the AFL-CIO. But being equal-opportunity rabble-rousers, they also targeted various major corporations that they accused of “crony capitalism.” Nor did they stop there. The United Nations was a regular recipient of their indignation, as well as several NGOs that The Glitch had exposed as front groups for different terrorist or radical organizations. A number of so-called non-profit groups folded because of the attention that The Glitch had brought to them, and more than a few individuals ended up going to prison. People wondered where The Glitch got their information, but they refused to reveal their sources. They never announced beforehand where they’d be until they got there. Then all the rock stations in the area would be notified that Regina Brodie and The Glitch were performing free, and soon hundreds, often thousands of fans would appear.

  Their critics, which were legion, charged that these demonstrations were just cheap publicity stunts, but the band’s fans either didn’t agree or didn’t care. The group had been arrested numerous times and had paid thousands of dollars in fines. Another quirk was that they never gave interviews. Clearly, they mistrusted the journalists as much as they mistrusted politicians, big banks, certain corporations, Hollywood celebrities, many of their fellow rock and hiphop stars, and a long list of special interest groups. The Glitch didn’t go in for fancy benefits and big stadium fundraisers, like other do-gooder bands. They believed in direct action, and didn’t think that buying a ticket and a T-shirt did anything but make people feel self-righteous, and give them a sense of “their own unearned moral superiority.” They wrote a hit song about it called, Aid In The Shade.

  So there they were again, making trouble with a thousand people clapping to the beat. The short clip showed ten outraged union thugs—not a pipsqueak among them—come charging at the slim, comely cowgirl. Melody, and a big bruiser of a guy, who I assumed was Regina Brodie’s personal bodyguard, intercepted the union goons.

  Melody?

  I sprang from my chair for a closer look. It was Melody all right, and man could she fight!

  “Look at that chick go!” Doreen said.

  “You go girl!” My cousins and sisters cheered, as we watched Melody slam one after another attacker to the ground using some kind of Steven Seagal-looking Fu. The titan bodyguard knew how to kick ass too, and throttled senseless a good three or four union thugs, tossing them into a heap on the stage. The band never missed a beat. Then the clip switched to the police and helicopters showing up and the band quietly putting down their instruments. The band members were cuffed and hauled away. I didn’t see Melody among them.

  “I think that’s silly,” Aunt Paula said.

  “What is?” Maureen asked.

  “Those Glitches. Why do they have to be such a nuisance?”

  “They are just doing what they believe is right, mother,” said my cousin, Stella, my Aunt Paula’s eldest daughter, who was unhappily married to an unfaithful real-estate broker. She looked like my aunt—smooth-faced, red-haired and stout.

  “That’s no reason,” my aunt said. “They just want attention. What if everybody did what he believed was right? It would mean anarchy. If I did everything I believed was right, that lousy husband of yours wouldn’t have any testicles!”

  Doreen and I exchanged amused glances, and tried not to laugh.

  “This is a democracy,” my aunt continued. “You can’t have people running around making their own rules. That’s why we vote. If those Glitches really cared they would be singing nice little songs about voting. That’s how we change things in a democracy!”

  “Maybe voting isn’t enough,” Cousin Stella said.

  “It’s hardly anything at all these days,” Doreen observed. “The world is falling apart faster than the votes can be counted. I’m glad some people out there aren’t afraid to stand up for what they believe. Some things can’t wait.”

  I had never heard Doreen espouse anything remotely political before. She surprised me. Maybe I didn’t know my sister as well as I thought. You tell ‘em, Doreen!

  “Youthful nonsense,” Aunt Paula squawked. “People have been spewing that kind of rubbish for a thousand years. There’s nothing wrong with the world that a little voting can’t cure.”

  But Doreen was also smart enough to know that you can’t argue with Aunt Paula. She shrugged. Besides, none of us were anything but armchair critics and crybabies anyway. If we thought too much about the world and all its many troubles we only got depressed, and who wanted to be depressed, especially on Christmas? My mother hit the button on the remote and changed the channel, a
nd so our mood. We all settled back into our sofas and recliners and rocking chairs and enjoyed Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, and went to bed warmed and teary-eyed.

  The Übermensch

  I made a New Year’s resolution. Noriko had put the idea in my head. She said if I did not like my life I could change it. She made it sound so simple. I resolved to change my life.

  My life, however, had so many things wrong with it, and so much room for improvement, I wasn’t sure where I should begin. The answer came when my sisters pinned me to the ground and humiliated me in front of my entire extended family.

  I shall maketh me big muscles, I said unto myself. I shall becometh as stout as an oak tree and sayeth uncle no more!

  How hard could it be? I remembered a scrawny nerd in high school named Ricky Siegalbaum who, after the summer of his junior year, returned to school looking like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky II. I was astounded by his metamorphosis. And to accomplish that all he had to do was push and pull at heavy objects? He was still a nerd, but a muscular one.

  Against all Doreen’s warnings and jokes, I continued to idealize Melody, Johanna, and Noriko until they grew to mythic proportions in my mind. I knew that I would never be content with anyone less than the likes of them. Not completely insane, I also knew that my chances of ever winning over any such woman were nil. I wasn’t worthy. Such a woman would never take a guy like Guy seriously. Not the old Guy, anyway. But the new and improved Guy clutching his New Year’s resolution firmly between his teeth, he might have a chance. I had to—no, I would, become worthy. I was still young. It wasn’t too late. Given a year I could transform myself into, well—a good Guy, a great Guy, a Superguy!

  Every day until midnight New Year’s Eve I psyched myself up by meditating on the Übermensch that I would become. Each morning I rose before the dawn and hiked the forty-five minutes to the top of Piestewa Peak and watched the sun rise from my barren and rocky pedestal. I made it a metaphor for my rebirth. Up there I met an eccentric assortment of fellow Aurora worshipers. They included a head-standing yoga lady, a pot-smoking accountant, a guy who played two flutes at the same time, one out of each nostril, an elderly man with an old, sweat-stained Apple Computer ‘Think Different’ cap who had planted a little pine tree and boasted that he was going to make the parched, desert mountaintop “say forest,” and a bunch of other Looney Toons.