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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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C'mon, Entertain These Demons!
The Demon Who Always Does The Right Thing, The Grrlfriend, and I all trooped down to the local martial arts festival last night. The Grrlfriend was volunteering�she helped time and keep score for the night�s big event, but The Demon and I had nothing to do but wander around and smile stupidly at random people who could kick our asses handily and so therefore smiled back confidently. Actually, we got there waaaay too early. The main event didn�t start until 7:00, but we arrived a little after 4:30 as The Grrlfriend had been asked to be there at 5:00. After doing the most exciting thing in the room (that is, buying raffle tickets for a $1), The Demon and I decided to go off and return closer to 7:00. I had mischievously informed The Demon that Old Navy had put their sweaters on clearance for $10 each. And Old Navy sweaters? Demon Kryptonite. So we went off to Old Navy and annoyed the fitting room girl by, you know, wanting to try on clothes. (And why, why do they always stick the snottiest teenaged girl with fitting room duty? I mean, is it to keep her from infecting the other teenaged girls who work the registers with her snottiness? Because if I had known last night�s particular fitting room girl in high school, I would have made it my personal mission in life to kick her ass. She was just the snottiest little creature. You just know that in a couple of years she�ll be manning the Chanel counter at Macy�s, she was that snotty.) The Demon truly revealed her demonic side and exasperated the fitting room girl by carrying in armloads, but armloads, of clothes into the fitting room (and then walking back out onto the sales floor in the middle of her trying on binge to retrieve yet more articles of clothing) and then leaving with a single item (a blue button-down men�s oxford shirt that made her blue eyes look amazing). I left with two things: a black button-down men�s poplin shirt and a black long-sleeved t-shirt). On the way out, we had a conversation with the friendlier check-out teenaged girl about the weights on our driver�s licenses. My current license lists the actual weight I was at the time I got the license, which was the first time in my life I had ever done such a crazy thing as tell the truth about my weight to some uninterested DMV employee. The Demon pulled out her license and we looked at her weight. �One-sixty,� she read and laughed. �Yeah, right.� The check-out girl said she had never told the truth on her license, but I don�t even think she was old enough to have a license. But she was friendly enough, so I�ll leave it alone. We had a few errands to run after our little shopping excursion, The Demon and I. The Grrlfriend had asked us to get her homeopathy kit (in case any of the competitors got hurt), her camera, a shirt for her to change into, and some water and perhaps something for her to eat. (The poor Grrlfriend calls herself �grounded in a scattered sort of way,� which I have to admit seems to be true sometimes). Most of this stuff was easy enough to retrieve as it was already in The Demon�s car. Only the shirt and food were problematic and The Demon solved that problem by changing into her new shirt and bringing along her old stinky shirt for The Grrlfriend. For food, we stopped at the Co-Op for sandwiches from the deli. My half turkey sandwich was made rapidly and with only one mistake by a young cutie of a sandwich maker. (One mistake per sandwich is an all-time Co-Op low.) However The Demon�s sandwich maker, a fine young angel by the name of Raphael, though easily as cute as my own sandwich maker, seemed to be unclear on the concept of sandwich making. Not only did it take forever for him to assemble the sandwich, but he kept turning around and giving us the most beguiling smile, as if to say, �You can have faith in me. I�ve never done this before, but I�ve seen it done, and I�m sure with your support that one day I�ll make a fine sandwich maker.� About three-quarters of the way through this great sandwich-making journey, The Demon turned to me and whispered sadly, �I don�t have very much confidence in my sandwich maker�s abilities.� She finally got her sandwich, and we picked out some chips and cookies and a couple of bottles of water and got through the registers without incident. We had ten minutes to make it back to the martial arts festival so I offered to drive. The Demon just chuckled at me and then proceeded to teach me a lesson. She didn�t drive any faster than she normally does, but when we got to the venue, she proceeded to ignore the frantic hand-wavings of the parking minions and pull just about right up to the building where the event was being held and where we were distinctly Not Allowed To Park. We rushed in just at the stroke of seven�and then proceeded to wait for forty-five minutes while the competitors, many of whom were stuck in traffic or trying to find parking apparently, arrived in a more leisurely fashion. The Demon fed her Grrlfriend, already at the front of the room, stopwatch in hand, a cookie. And we sat. And sat. It was like waiting for an airplane. There were intermittent announcements about sponsors and competitors and so on. There were other announcements that made excuses and promised that the event would begin soon. There were other announcements that explained what we might eventually see (full-contact Tae kwon do). And then finally, finally, as The Demon and I were retrieving iced Vietnamese coffees from the Chinese food stand in the farthest corner from the ring, the event began. I ran over and got my camera ready. The referees and judges were announced. One judge looked a lot like Sid Vicious. Another judge looked like he maybe spent his days off making balloon animals for small children. Only one judge was Asian. The ref was a tall guy who looked a bit like Clint Eastwood�s younger, perhaps more marginally underfed brother. He had a long ponytail and was dressed a bit like a flashy Mormon missionary. (The Grrlfriend told us later, �Did you see that white cup he kept drinking from all night?� We nodded. �It�s filled with beer.�) And then the fighting began. It made me sick to see these boys trying to hurt each other. (�I didn�t know you were so sensitive,� The Demon said as I turned my head away from the ring. �It doesn�t hurt,� The Demon tried to tell me as one boy landed on his knees on the concrete. �They learn how to fall.� I told her,�This reminds me of the last year of my parents' marriage.") At first the crowd was quiet. The fighters were visibly nervous. They hesitated to engage one another. One man, a very tall man with long braids and a Jamaican accent, yelled, �C�mon. Entertain these people.� Everyone laughed. The crowd grew noisier, yelling, �Hit him! Fight him! Come on!� and by the end of the night were actively favoring fighters. (The Demon explained how she chose which fighter to cheer for: Her father was 5�6� and had been a featherweight boxer �and president of his class in high school,� and so she always favored the shorter guy.)
Instead of focusing on the fighting, I focused on trying to take good pictures. I didn�t get many The event lasted about an hour and a half. We stayed until the end, waiting out the crowd that left just after the fighting ended and before the medals were handed out. Meeting up with The Grrlfriend, we left the venue. I woke up this morning thinking about Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff�s novel about the Maori people who were once warriors but who have now been pushed to the fringes of their own country where they ride out waves of alcoholism, poverty, and domestic violence. I don't mean to imply that the event reflected this mindset, but rather that the violence seemed personal to me. That is, it wasn't the kind of stylized movie or television violence that we've all become addicted to. But it was still entertainment to the assembled crowd. It crossed a line--or made me cross a line--between compassion and...and...and something else. (I'd say bloodlust, but that'd be such a fucking cliche, wouldn't it? I won't say it then.) Maybe I�ll post the pictures I took tomorrow.
More lies:
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