Always Right

 

I walked into the restaurant during the cold, dark, depths of the lunch rush. I was immediately struck by the service staff’s performance, which in the midst of a zebra stampede would have stood out as particularly frenzied and unprofessional. The host stand was unattended. It’s always that way with restaurants.  The panicked staff will abandon their posts when discipline and calm are most needed. I saw the blighted girl, Molly the hostess, rushing from table to table helping the bussers and waiters clear plates and glasses. I had been standing there, unacknowledged, for what was approaching a full minute. It was a complete breakdown of order.

There was no little bell to ring, like at a hotel front desk, to indicate a customer in need of assistance. Restaurants almost never employ those little bells. I am not the sort of man to allow an establishment’s negligence in supplying the proper bells effect me one way or the other. I began slapping my palm firmly onto the spot on the host stand where the little bell ought to have been.

“Excuse me! I need assistance! DING, DING! I’m waiting to be seated! This is ridiculous!” I shouted.

The hostess’s arms were loaded with dirty dishes. She was helping the waiter Pablo, the Sphinx of the Daily Specials I call him, clear one of his tables. They glanced at me, no more than a glance, and she sneered, “We’ll be right with you Mr. Rainsford.” I felt raped.

“We?” I objected. “YOU are the hostess! Put down those dishes! Why are you walking toward the kitchen? Your post is abandoned!”

I could feel the seconds tick by as I stood waiting. 

“You are a very bad hostess.” I said when she returned.

“We’re very busy, Mr. Rainsford.”

“Consider your argument, Molly.” I said calmly, “You are employed at an establishment that, despite your best efforts to undermine it, is somewhat successful. This success is owed to customers, like me, who patronize it regularly despite your presence and the daily dose of nonsense and aggravation your presence assures. Are you following this?”

She was disorganizing a stack of menus. Ignoring me completely. 

“Our reward for making this business successful can only be, according to your reasoning, worse service? And further, according to your Heckle and Jeckle logic, the more successful we make this business, by more and more of us coming here, the more we will be repaid with worse service? Do I misrepresent your position?”

“Would you like to be seated, Mr. Rainsford?”

“Square!” I demanded.

“The square tables are reserved for parties of three or more. You may have a circle.”

“I will NOT have a circle! The circles are ill suited for an inmate. My elbows fall of the edges. I will take a square!”

“Circle or the bar.” She insisted.

“The bar! With that behemoth lurking back there like a caged bear. He spits when he speaks.”

“The bartender’s name is Sam.” She said.

“He should be in chains. I’ll take a circle. However, as compensation for being treated in a manner befitting a war criminal I insist on choosing which circle I’m to be punished at.”

“You may choose your circle.” She said.

I pointed at a square. It was worth a try. It would have been less than shocking to discover this girl did not know her shapes. Unfortunately, someone must have gone over which shape is which with her many times because she marched right to a circle and slapped down a menu.

“I was testing you.” I said.

“How’d I do?”

“For a preschooler you did very well. Send the manager over immediately. There is an open vent somewhere pumping air conditioning directly onto my face with the force of the gods. It must be turned off immediately to assure I’m not dead by the time my tuna fish sandwich arrives.”

“Would you just like to move to a different table where the air conditioner isn’t blowing on your face?” She provoked.

“Manager.” I said.

The manager approached my table with the easy manner of a man who has suffered a brain injury. I had dealt with this walking corpse many times in the past. His capacity as a problem solver seemed limited to the most highly specialized sorts of dilemmas. For example, if you, for some reason, were in immediate need of a man standing by your table in order that you could watch him blink - he would be an asset. If you required anything more complicated, like a napkin, he would continue to provide you with the blinking as you wiped your hands on your pants.   

“How are you today Mr. Rainsford?” The manager mocked.

“Doing poorly.” I admitted. “Interrogation experts would struggle to devise a method of agitating the human nervous system as insidiously effective as the act ordering a tuna sandwich in your restaurant.”      

“Specifically, what can I do for you?” He said.

“Well, I will think of it as a personal favor if you see to it that I am not decapitated by your air conditioner at some point during my lunch. Any setting lower than 'gale force' should be fine.”

“I will turn the system down.”

I could tell by the look of simpleton terror on his face he wasn’t even sure where the air conditioner was, let alone how to turn in down.

“I would also appreciate it if, at some point in the next few minutes, some member of your team decided to go out on a limb and assume that the reason I’m sitting here is in some way related to the possibility that I'm hungry.”

This confused him to the point of labored blinking.

“Lunch!” I said. “I would like to order my lunch! Send my waiter immediately. But, do not even consider sending Jake, Pablo, or Debra. They have all proven second rate. I believe Debra suffers from some sort of cognitive disorder. I once ordered a tuna sandwich and she brought me the prime rib. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I want a server who is alert and speaks English as a first language. Pablo explains the specials by way of the riddle. I am in no mood for his tricks. If anyone dares mention this system of “sections” you all seem fixated on I will empty this bottle of ketchup onto the table and smear it around with my hands. I will be pushed around by you incompetents NO MORE!”

Close to a minute later I was still waiting for my server to arrive. When the volume of the music in the restaurant was suddenly lowered I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck and, in some small way, found myself appreciating the manager for trying his best. I decided to close my eyes and start screaming until someone came over to take my order. A few minutes later I opened my eyes to find Pablo the Trickster with his pen and pad at the ready.

“Pablo, go away! I’m trying to have a nice relaxing lunch? I won’t deal with your puzzles and mysteries!”

“Buenos dias, Senor Rainsford.”

“WHAT? What are you saying? My name isn’t Seymour! Please, someone help me!”

“Today – especial – halibut – Uh- brown butter sauce…”

I closed my eyes, resumed screaming, and banged my hand on the spot on the table where the little bell ought to have been.

 A Bad Day to Be Born

 I was born on December 27th. As those born on that same day can attest; we do not receive birthday presents. We, the wretched luckless, do no not receive presents because, as most of you know, December 27th is also Gerard Depardieu’s birthday. Six months ago, I started writing the French acting legend letters informing him that he ruined my childhood.   

Dear Mr. Depardieu,

For most children the holidays are a joyous time of year. I, however, was born on December 27th 1975; twenty-seven years to the day after the curtains were first raised on your own existence, and only a short thirteen months after your breakout performance in Bertrand Blier’s Going Places. In life it is generally agreed that timing is everything. Timing, as you can see, has cast me in the unrelenting, unyielding, unpitying shadow of Gerard Depardieu.

I am not alone. I am only one of thousands who has been subjected to the annual pain of that well known holiday cost-cutting tactic employed against children by their parents. The scene is the same the world over. You are handed a single carefully wrapped present and casually told: “This is your present for your birthday and Gerard Depardieu’s birthday.”

For me (I mentioned others born on December 27th out of a much needed sense of solidarity, but do consider my situation to be unique and particularly traumatizing) the injustices did not end there. With my sister’s birthday safely in April she has received twice the presents that I have throughout our lives. Add this to the fact that my parents always take her side and that, despite being a year my junior, she is now a homeowner while I still use a flip phone, and you can picture a developmentally stunting home life out from which few could climb.

It seems to me that the only fair way for this situation to be resolved, and I want you to know I’ve toiled over the details of this, is for you to reimburse me for the thirty-six birthday presents you have cost me. You may notice, and I count this as evidence of my pure motives, that thirty-six is a strictly symbolic number. If you consider all of the aunts, uncles, cousins, and girlfriends who, thanks to you, repeatedly gypped me, you owe me an incalculable number of presents. But I am not in search of a windfall. I only desire closure and the ability to move on with my life.

As this is the ninth letter I have written you, I’m beginning to suspect that we stand divided on where your moral responsibilities lie. You’re forcing my hand here, Depardieu. I may not have put things strenuously enough in my first eight letters (although it seems to me that a person as perceptive as a piece of French oak probably starts to sense a man means business around letter five or six). So, let me put it plainly - I want those presents! I’m serious. If you think I’m bluffing, allow me to quote the immortal words uttered by Marquis De Sade during a little revolution you may remember: Try me.

 I live at 346 Thomas Drive, Paramus, New Jersey, also known as my parent’s house. A 1950’s style Cape Cod. I’m still there as a result of dropping out of college, mishandling a few credit cards, and being such an emotional wreck over this birthday present business. Mail my presents there. Make sure to address the packages to me or else, as sure as I’m unemployed, my parents will open them, give them to my sister, and then we’re back where we started.

  That’s all for now. Bidding you a Happy Holidays would seem beside the point.

Expectantly,

James Scott Patterson

A Supposedly Insufferable Thing I’d Probably Do Again: German Opera and the Problem of Free Will 

I saw my old friend Commander Gomez marching toward me from across the Lincoln Center plaza. Gomez is the lead singer in a heavy metal band that, according to him, has been “a bass player away from superstardom” since the late 1990’s. He was wearing his customary black leather jacket. Friday night at The Met be dammed. His head was shaved close to the scalp in what could easily be mistaken for the neo-Nazi tradition. His tattoos were creeping up past his collar on his neck. He was walking fast - too fast. I could tell from fifty feet away he was wired out of his mind on drugs. I had half a flask of whiskey in my jacket. The other half was winding its way through my veins. We were there to see Die Walkure, the second of the four operas that make up Wagner’s cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. It’s long been one of Gomez's favorites. I was just there for the kicks. 

We ordered two glasses of water at the bar. I dumped the water into a plant and filled the glasses with whiskey. A little kid wearing a bowtie watched us. Gomez cursed the kid a busybody and said he wanted to smash his skull in. The small talk ended there. He launched into a detailed account of a psychological breakdown he suffered a few years back while studying existential philosophy and discovering that Free Will is an illusion. The notion that we our not the conscious authors of our own thoughts and motives, combined with enormous amounts of illegal drugs, pushed The Commander’s nervous system to the brink. He lapsed into an alter ego who called himself The Karaoke Navy Seal. The Karaoke Navy Seal would perform flawlessly executed “karaoke missions” around New York City. He had the sleeves cut off his heavy metal concert T-shirts by a professional tailor at thirty-five bucks per alteration. He added a few more tattoos to his already cluttered arms and back. He was ready to work. After he kicked ass on the karaoke stage the KNS would accost everyone in the bar insisting that they play bass in his band. Somehow, it was during one of these “karaoke missions” that he met his future wife. She, combined with enormous amount of legal drugs, cured him of his Free Will panic to the point where he could start going outside again.

 “I just read a book by Sam Harris about Free Will.” I said cheerfully. “Don’t tell me anything about it!” Gomez ordered. “That shit makes me nuts.” “Free Will doesn’t exist.” I said. “Total illusion. The facts are in. It’s as close to settled as a matter can be.” Gomez covered his ears and sang War Pigs by Black Sabbath at the top of his lungs as I explained the facts. Now everyone was staring at us. “What about quantum indeterminacy?” Gomez said once he calmed down. “There’s room for Free Will in quantum mechanics! A lot of smart people think so!” His eyes were desperate. He was pleading with me now. I laughed hard in his face. Quantum indeterminacy is the last stronghold for the serious Free Will fanatics. It’s a dead end street like all the rest. I explained it to him thoroughly. “Quantum indeterminacy is bullshit.” I said. He shot down his whisky and I shot down mine. He took a small amount of white powder out of a little container and snorted it right in front of everyone. He put the container back in his bag and took out two pairs of opera glasses. He handed me mine. “Do. Not. Fucking. Break them!” he said. We went to find our seats.

The Met's production of Die Walkure is dominated by an enormous set “machine” made up of twenty-four movable planks that, with the help of video projections, can twist and bend to form a number of spectacular visual designs. The first act opens with Siegmund, a fat man, fleeing through an eerie gray forest. Exhausted, he enters a strange house and collapses near the fireplace. Sieglinde, also fat, enters her kitchen and finds the unconscious stranger. She revives him and offers him a cup of water. Siegmund refuses the water out of some misguided principle. She tells him to just please take the water. He tells her he feels as though he really shouldn’t take the water. These two continue to go in circles over this cup of water for the bulk of the first act. Eventually, sanity prevails, he drinks the water, and something masquerading as dramatic tension is released.

Toward the end of the first act Gomez leaned over and told me everything he thought the director was doing wrong. He said the singers, thanks in large part to “the Machine,” were missing a lot of the best sound spots on the stage. Placing the singers behind the planks was garbling the acoustics, he said. He said the costumes were cartoonish, but an improvement over the down right silliness of the costuming in Das Rheingold. He also said he was having major problems with the “stupid old cunt” to his left  who was putting her elbow on his armrest. I was having my own ordeal with the pretentious opera buff to my right. The entire performance he couldn't contain his opera seria ecstasy. He was enraptured with every note. With his hands clasped over his heart, he sat edged out on his seat, almost genuflecting; his anguished whispers never stopped: Wonderful! Wonderful! Simply splendid! Bravo! BRAVO!  
"Look at this bitch!" Gomez whispered. "Her elbow is all over my rest!"
"Don't tell me your problems!" I said. "The guy next to me is a raving psychotic."
"Should I do something?" he asked.
"Yes," I lied.    
 He knocked her arm off the armrest and I heard him whisper loudly, “That one’s yours, this one’s mine!” It was drugs talking, but the drugs happened to be right. The first act curtain came down and we shouted “coming through” as we fought our way back toward the bar.

This time we didn’t even bother with emptying water glasses. We just drank right from the flask in the middle of the lobby. You’ve never seen so many heads shake. I was just about to subject The Commander to a little more Free Will torture when two security guards approached us. A complaint had been filed that Gomez assaulted an elderly woman in the audience. Gomez explained that he accidentally knocked the woman’s elbow off his armrest, but that was it. I corrected him. “It was no accident.” I said. “But, the woman did have her arm on his armrest, so it’s a bit of a gray area. Very complicated.” The security guard pointed at the flask in my hand. “What’s in that?”
“Juice.” I said.
He nodded and radioed for back up.

We were brought down to the security office and detained in a small meeting room. Now I had Gomez right where I wanted him. I explained some of the latest experiments neuroscientists have conducted demonstrating that there’s no Free Will and that life is a horrifying nightmare. Harris' book is full of them. The physiologist Benjamin Libet used EEG to show that activity in the brain’s motor cortex is detectable 300 hundred milliseconds before a subject “feels” he has decided to move. A different lab built on Libet’s research using FMRI. The researchers were able to predict which button a subject would push a full 7 to 10 seconds before the subject claimed to have “chosen” which button he would choose. The case is closed. We aren’t free to make choices. Choices are made for us in a place in our brain that our conscious minds cannot reach. After our brain decides on our next move, our “conscious minds” are informed of what that move is. Even if you then “decide” not to make that move, the decision not to move sprung into your mind in exactly the same way the previous decision to move did. “You” were not the author of either choice. In other words, if your life were a book, "you" are just reading it, you’re not writing it. Gomez was shaking like a drugged up leaf.

 They kept us in the room for what seemed like a long time. Gomez said he was hopeful that we could get everything straightened out by the start of the third act so that we wouldn’t miss the famous Ride of the Valkyrie scene. A minute later one of the guards came in and told us we were kicked out and couldn’t come back to The Met for a year. The Commander started to protest, but I shot him one of those looks that clearly means if these people search you and find the ‘with intent to distribute’ amount of drugs you’re holding then we’ll really have problems. He nodded in agreement and three guards escorted us out. They were sort of joking with us about being thrown out of the Opera. Not bad guys. They opened a set of heavy double doors to the outside. They said they just had to watch us leave the property. We walked through the plaza. It’s about fifty yards to the street. We could hear Ride of the Valkyrie booming behind us. When we hit the sidewalk I turned and waved to them. I couldn’t resist. “You guys can go fuck yourselves!” I yelled. They were the final three shaking heads of the evening. They slammed the doors and went back inside. Gomez was a little annoyed with me. “Those guys were alright. Why’d you do that?” He asked. I gave him a few seconds to regret the question.
 “Who knows?” I smiled.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He said.