Things
I Love That Have Nothing To Do With Tyranny
1
Sae Ah saw him on the first debate.
She thought he looked funny.
Sae Ah is two.
She bunched up her lips as well as
she could (2-year-olds have really taut skin) and said, “Hmph.”
At first he was the “Hmph Ajoshi”—“ajoshi”
being Korean for “man,” but more polite than that, almost too polite for him,
something almost like “gentleman.”
Then Jane started calling him
Donnie. He’s really Donnie. Donnie, from Queens.
Now Sae Ah, whenever she sees his
face, which is often enough, because there are newspapers still in the world,
and a computer on in our apartment, when she recognizes him, she says,
“Hmph,
Donnie, hmph.”
Sae Ah knows 99% of what’s going on
in any room.
She repeats things that we don’t
intend for her to hear. Like the other day, she said, “Sad and confused.” Then
we realized one of us had just said that.
She responds to questions too.
But when you ask her a nonsense
grown-up question, she’ll either say nothing (a good method for dealing with nonsense)
or go, literally, “Blah blah blah blah blah.”
Hillary should have given him the
silent treatment. Or blah blahed him.
2
Yesterday when the Arctic wind fell
upon North America, it was windy, cold. Sae Ah’d never experienced cold and
wind like that.
We went outside. She squealed with
delight and hid her face on my shoulder. “COLD!” she said.
She comes into the room where I’m
typing. Sashaying, waddling, gracious and unselfconscious, she says, “Hi,
Matty!” No one ever told her that was my name.
Then she plops down next to the
bookshelves and starts riffling through her stacks.
Sae Ah looks at 30 or so books a
day.
With her, I rotate my 5 stories:
the story of her and the raven; the story of her and the chickadee; the story
of her and Little Bear; the story of her and the fish named Samantha; the story
of
us and the yellow boat that goes to Ikea.
She says, “Talk ‘Antha, Appa.” So I
tell her the story of Sae Ah and Samantha, and how every day Samantha swims
around the south island and the north island, and how she gives Sae Ah the
special gift of being able to swim underwater so that they can swim together.
“And when she swam to the beach,
who was waiting for Sae Ah …” I let my voice trail off. “But Mong Mong,” Sae Ah
says. (That’s the name of her imaginary dog in this story.)
“But Mong Mong,” I go on. “He was
wagging his tail back and forth, back and forth, because he was so happy to see
Sae Ah.”
3
Yesterday I showed Sae Ah the Lou Brock
baseball card I use as a bookmark.
I don’t know where I got it. It’s a
1978 card.
I explain to her that he was a
great basestealer, and with Ty Cobb and Rickey Henderson, one of the fastest
players ever.
Sae Ah says, “Sae Ah big boy like
Lou Brock run fast.”
Though she’s sitting, she pushes
her arms back and forth like she’s running.
“You already run fast, Sae Ah,” I
say.
Then this morning she had my Lou
Brock card in hand—“Loubrock, Appa,” she says, making his name into one word,
showing me the card.
Then she starts singing the
“Bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window” song, but substituting Loubrock for
the bluebird.
Loubrock, Loubrock, fly through my window,
Loubrock, Loubrock, fly through my window,
Loubrock, Loubrock, fly through my window,
And bring molasses candy.
4
Lou Brock batted .306 the year I
was born.
Last year, he had to have a leg
amputated because of complications from diabetes.
The NY Times says that Mar-a-Lago will be under water during high tide
by the end of the century.
Mar-a-Lago looks like the castle of
a petty tyrant, a robber baron, or a high schooler from Queens who has suddenly
become a tycoon.
When Lou Brock retired from
baseball, he became a florist in St. Louis. Then he and his wife started a
ministry.
Why can’t Lou Brock be president?
I’d vote for Lou Brock.
I’d vote for a florist over a
tycoon.
I’d vote for a one-legged,
77-year-old ex-basestealer, ex-florist, ex-pastor named Lou Brook over a
tycoon.
Aren’t the humble meant to inherit
the earth?
Does that mean after this election,
or after the world war that will kill everyone at the end of capitalism?
I would have liked to have been
able to vote for Lou Brock.
If he were President, I’d send him
videos of Sae Ah singing songs to him.
I’d enjoy listening to his Arkansas
twang.
I’d be happy, and I wouldn’t have
to wonder why.
One
Idea I Had
If there’s a Muslim Registry, I’m
signing up.
It’ll be like a Wedding Registry—the
one I never had.
If there’s a Muslim Registry, I’ll
say that Matt Reeck is a Muslim name, fool, sign me up.
If there’s a Muslim Registry, I’ll
say that my name really isn’t Matt Reeck—my real
name is Saleem Ahmed, fool, sign me up.
We’ll all sign up.
It’ll be a Registry of 320 million
people.
We’ll all get kicked out, and there
will be no one left.
They’re going to pay for my flight,
right?
And I get to choose which country,
right?
If there’s a Muslim Registry, I’m
choosing Bermuda.
(I’ve never been.)
There are Muslims in Bermuda, and
that’s OK with them, right?
If there’s a Muslim Registry, we
all can’t go to Bermuda.
I call dibs on Bermuda.
You should let me go there. I’ve
never been.
If we all go, there will be no one
to patrol the borders.
That Great Big Wall that we’ll still
be paying for after there’s no country called the US, it will be easy to scale
then.
Or maybe we’ll just swim around it,
right?
A wall doesn’t stretch forever,
fool.
With everyone gone, without the border
patrol, we can all come back, happy.
Then if there’s another Muslim
Registry, I’ll tell them my name is Matthew Stefan Reeck, it’s a Muslim name,
fool, sign me up.
I’ll tell them, no—my real real name is Muhammad Muhammad,
like the most common name in the world. Sign
me up.
I’ve got itchy feet.
I’ll request to go to Canada.
I’d like to go to Canada. I have a
couple old friends that I’ve fallen out of touch with who live in Canada.
In particular, I’ll say that I’d
like to go to Banff, Canada.
I’m a Muslim, I’ll say, and I really
need to be among my people in Banff, Canada.
When the ICE guys look at me with
suspicion, I’ll say that it might be evident from the way I look that I’m not
much of a skier, but for the good of the US, I’ll try to learn, if you send me
to
Banff, Canada, where I can learn with all the other Muslim skiers with Muslim-sounding last names like Muhammad and Reeck.
Banff, Canada, where I can learn with all the other Muslim skiers with Muslim-sounding last names like Muhammad and Reeck.
D/ss.
D.
Sent.
Dis.
Sent.
U/
Cant.
De.
Sense.
I.
Tize.
Me.
Ba.
Ptize.
Me In,
that
Hellwater?
D.
Cent.
Diss.
Ent.
#campaignforpublicdecency
The day after the election I began #campaignforpublicdecency.
I explained it to Jane. She didn’t say
it was a bad idea. But when I asked her to join, she didn’t say yes.
It might have had something to do
with the uncertain nature of decency. Teaching decency is a negative education—an
education of what not to do. What’s active decency?
The days after the election the
café near us rewrote their chalkboard message to read, “We must take great care
of each other.” For example, people took more care of others going in and out
of doors. There were more thank yous and more patience. I spoke to an elderly woman in the line at Chase Bank—a robber’s den among robbers’ dens. She wished us a happy Thanksgiving,
and I repeated the wishes, a greeting that I’ve avoided for years.
of doors. There were more thank yous and more patience. I spoke to an elderly woman in the line at Chase Bank—a robber’s den among robbers’ dens. She wished us a happy Thanksgiving,
and I repeated the wishes, a greeting that I’ve avoided for years.
Within a week, it seemed like the
charm of being nice for no personal reward was wearing off. An old guy on the
bus mumbled under his breath about the incompetent driving of our B68
driver. (It wasn’t that bad.)
driver. (It wasn’t that bad.)
Yesterday, in my neighborhood, a
residential neighborhood, I jaywalked in front of a car a quarter block away.
The car sped up, honking, and continued honking past the intersection and
down the next block. “I just met an angry person,” I said to Jane when I returned from buying apple cider at the farmers market.
down the next block. “I just met an angry person,” I said to Jane when I returned from buying apple cider at the farmers market.
High schoolers in Iowa City sat in
their school’s hallways with duct tape on their mouths. I assume that was to
make sure they didn’t start shouting in pain and frustration. Or it was to show
that being decent sometimes means not saying anything at all.
that being decent sometimes means not saying anything at all.
My mother used to say that, “If you
don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” That worked. Till
now.
I try to imagine a mass act of
public decency. People together being peaceful and not speaking? People
together being visible, in public, and peaceful, and not speaking?
