Can I see some ID?
I bought a pack of cigarettes for my sister a few weeks ago. The girl at the checkout counter, who was just a girl, likely still in her teens, looked at me sideways for a bit longer than is normal for that kind of transaction, so at looked at her back, waiting. She finally scanned the pack and said, “I almost carded you there….” Somewhat flattered and somewhat shocked, I said, in my attempt at charm, “Well, you got it right. It’s been a pretty long time since I was too young to buy cigarettes.” And she quickly replied, as if to immediately shoot down any confusion, “Oh, yeah [clearly meaning: obviously]. But we’re supposed to card anyone who looks under 40.” No longer flattered, and somewhat crushed, I said, “Oh,” looked away, and started to pretend something else had caught my attention as she finished ringing me up.
God damn you, father time.
Carver and Zoë
My immediate family came to visit this weekend. That includes my grandniece Zoë. Zoë and Carver love each other. It’s interesting, as a parent, to see. Carver thinks Zoë could walk on water. If she likes something, he’s almost set on liking it himself. When he sees her, he lights up. And it is just obvious to someone who has spent a huge amount of time around Carver that he thinks about her in a different way than he thinks about anyone else.
I’m not trying to say something ridiculous, like they are bound to get married, or something. First of all, they are first cousins once removed. Second, Carver is two and Zoë is six, they don’t think that way yet and we don’t think about them in that way. And when it comes right down to it, Carver would miss either of his parents more than he’d miss Zoë, but the friendship is special. There’s something about how kids relate to other kids that adults, no matter how fun and cool, just cannot match. And that’s better than fine.
The Road
(1) It was a pretty faithful adaptation of the book. With a few minor issues, some of which could be considered major depending on your viewpoint.
(2) Viggo Mortensen is a badass. He is the epitome of hardcore when it comes to acting. I love that dude.
(3) Anne thinks she’d take the route the mother did [SPOILER ALERT], which is to kill herself after the point when things get really bad. I like to think I’d stick it out and follow “the road,” clinging to hope. But who knows what one would do if things got really, really bad.
(4) Anne says she wouldn’t eat our dog. I say, you know, if you’re starving…
(5) Anne and I listened to the audio book of The Road when we took a road trip to South Carolina when Carver was a month old. During the movie Anne and I had a quick conversation about how the story is harder to bear now than it was then, because we have a child. We had a child then, but it was different. I figured that then the reality hadn’t really set in, and/or that it’s harder now because Carver is more of a person, with his own personality, than he was then. Either way it is true, and tells me something about love.
I love my son more than anything. Not to be flip, or silly, or spout some sort of cliché, or whatever, but I didn’t know what love could mean until Carver came along. I love my wife, and my family and dear friends, and have loved past girlfriends, and (particularly with my wife and past girlfriends) at various times I’ve felt I’ve loved them so much that I’d die if something ruined that relationship. But seriously it doesn’t even compare to how I feel about Carver. While it’s hard to think about and accept, I think if anyone I cared about other than my son died I’d be very, very upset, but I think I’d recover eventually. I’ve suffered that kind of loss before, and it’s awful but I can take it. But if something happened to Carver…I seriously, from a very informed perspective, cannot even imagine being able to go on.
And all of this informs my reading/listening/viewing of The Road. And let’s just say that the story is hard to take.
Also: I don’t think I ever fully appreciated what my parents felt about my sisters and me. When I think about how they probably think (or at least thought) about me the way I think about Carver, it makes me wish I were much, much nicer to them.
(6) The story also, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit, makes me think that maybe those survivalist crazies aren’t so crazy. Of course I don’t mean those who think our government is out to get us, or those in the town I grew up in who thought they needed to arm themselves to the teeth during the LA riots because all the brown people from the city were going to storm our fair (literally, in one respect) enclave of privileged racists. But if something horrible happens and you want to protect those that mean more to you than everything else in the world, how frustrating would it be to not have an extra $10 in ammunition when you’re left with two bullets in your revolver?
Re (6): I'll disagree with your label of privileged racists as being rather broad. Sure, there are racists there--but certainly not a majority and probably not even a very strong minority.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Would you like your .45 back? Too bad, it is not for sale!
It depends how broadly you define racists, which I define pretty broadly (but not unreasonably, I don't think)? Do you not remember the absurdity in that town around the time of the King riots? And that, of course, is just one example. I'd say a majority, though a small one. Certainly a strong minority.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I do. I think about it often. How much do you want for it?
I think of these things in two levels: first, you have garden variety prejudice. Prejudice includes folks who simply don't like a particular group of people--be it for race or whatever reason. These folks just don't approve, don't want to associate, or don't want to live next door to whatever it is they don't like.
ReplyDeleteSecond are racists. They are the folks out there wearing the Klan sheets and burning crosses; the idiots killing people in the south; and the genocidal types.
I don't dispute that there is an abundance of prejudice in our home town and in most places in the world, for that matter. But I don't see them all as racists. Misguided just the same, but there is clearly a difference.
Like you said, it depends on how you define it--but I really think there should be a distinction between the two.
If I were to adopt your terminology, I'd agree our town would have only a small number of racists. I understand the distinction you're making, but I don't think it's the distinction between racism and prejudice. As far as I can tell, the most common definition of racist (as we're using it here) is one who is prejudiced on the basis of race. I think what you're talking about is the distinction between nonviolent, perhaps not-seriously considered racists, and fanatical and perhaps violent racists. I think they're both racists though, one's just as close to innocuous as a racist can get and the other is absolutely not.
ReplyDeleteLook, I know plenty of racists who are otherwise perfectly nice and good people (and you do too, because some of these people are people we both know). I think that's partly, at least, the "not-seriously considered" aspect of what I'll term for now the sort of very-low-level racist. We know people who are racist because we grew up in an area where we were essentially taught to be racist (if not at home, then by our peers), but it was a very superficial kind of racism, it was not seriously considered. Some of us have grown out of it, probably after seriously considering it, and others haven't yet.
I think perhaps the most unfair part of what I wrote in the post was the "privileged" part. There are definitely, I think, more racists (even if just superficially) there than there are truly privileged people.