Talking to Yourself

Talking to Yourself

about yourself-try it

Aberdeen is in South Dakota. It is extremely hot in the summer and exceptionally cold in the winter. It is nobody’s fault, God made it that way for some reason biblical historians have yet to determine. They are not convinced God had not made a mistake; He is after all getting up there in years; which is what they all believe when being honest with themselves.

The reason I raise this point is that Michael Shanahan, my son’s barber, had decided he did not want to cut hair for a living. He was a bartender, and according to all counts an exceptionally good one. When most people were lying about their age to get into the armed services and avenge the disgrace they perceived to be 9/11, Michael Shanahan lied about his age in order to become eligible to obtain a license and become Boston’s best liquid confessor.

He had not come from a long line of bar tenders; in fact, he would be the first. His parents, although proud of him, could not openly show their pride, family values no doubt. They lived in a neighborhood of habitual politicians, while the remainder of the family, aunts, uncles, brothers, grandparents, and cousins, all lived on what was called, Teetotaler Alley; the other side of the freeway.

The majority of Teetotalers had at one time been in the exact same place the 5 O’clock politicians now occupied. I should mention that the 5 O’clock club was an exclusive collection of those who believed it was always 5 O’clock somewhere. They understood wanting to forget, wanting to disappear, but most of all not caring if they lived or died. It was a miserable existence because they cared only about themselves. The trouble was, they cared too much.

Michael Shanahan grew up in the midst of many conversions. He saw addiction withdrawals cause people to jump off bridges, climb electric towers on a bet, and destroy their families and alienate their friends. Michael believed himself to be fortunate in that he had a Christian Brother in high school who understood how life could become a living hell, and the fact that there was no end of devil’s helpers ready to spring into action at the sound of a beer bottle cap hitting a peanut shell covered floor.

Brother Amos had cautioned Michael and his classmates, “be leery of false profits, alcohol being the greatest temptress of them all. It promotes washing away your sins; while helping you plan a robbery.”

Michael, like all the children growing up in an atmosphere of drink, had ample opportunity to emulate those he saw change from mild mannered men who respected everyone and would not hurt a fly, as the saying goes, into someone that would stick an icepick in your ear and claim he was doing you a favor; he thought he saw something move. But that was only one known response to the bottled demons presence.

Some men turned into bowl of cabbage and ham bone scrapings. Tears running down their face as the first notes from a fiddle, pulled from shaped wood, strings, and pegs. The melodious sounds of “I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me, emanating from it like effervescent water.” A Polish Poka that on many a night, when only one light bulb remained, the tavern door still closed, and people had run out of quarters, danced in the heads of those who could still pretend to walk, the ground having turned to the sea they only dreamt about so had left their sea legs at home. The tune was internationally acclaimed; the words were not.

Michael Shanahan lived through the Christmases, Easters, Saint Patrick Days parades, communions, confirmations, and wakes, watching those he cared about most disappear one at a time.He spent many sleepless nights wondering why. He knew how, it was the why that had him stumped. They had all awakened kind and generous souls, and by bedtime had become unrecognizable to everyone but the police, who understood and often looked the other way in hopes of a conversion they knew would never come. Just another drunk, just another death, just another destitute family; life being replaced by its competitor.

As often happens when you attempt to do your best, the worst steps from the shadows and turns a dream into a nightmare. Michael had been witness to the changes for 15 years, yet could not understand how it continued to consume those he knew, and those he only read about in the paper.

One night he helped a neighbor climb the rickety stairs to his tenement apartment. He was unable to walk steadily and was cursing those that made him who he was. That night, Michael lost his faith, buried his religion, but vowed he would help those that could not help themselves.

He would imbed himself in peanut shells, pickled eggs, dart boards, juke boxes, and a humanity that consisted of those who had forgotten who they were and no longer cared about who they had become. He would become a bar tender, the confessor of crunched shells, broken bones, and blackened eyes; he would save those who could not be bothered to save themselves.

#

Israel Komorowska was a flawed politician, one of many, but one all the same. He had been a bar tender at Modest Mikes, an uptown establishment that had gone out of its way to entice the political elite, or the party in power. Israel was only interested in what power could do for him, not directly, but through information and what it exposed; a serum they distributed at significantly reduced rates to the particularly talkative.

Israel was appointed a state senator after his predecessor suffered a fall on his way to a weekly poker game, where rumors were anted, and legislative suggestions bet. Having been privy to the conversations that occurred, Israel had a basic knowledge of who ran the government, not who fronted for it.Israel took Stephen Kanes seat after his untimely accident and never looked back until the day he found himself under the scrutiny of Michael Shanahan, the bar keep recruited to replace him. Michael's reputation as a see, hear, and speak no evil zealot had preceded him.

Where Michael Shanahan was a believer in law, justice, equity, and inclusion, Israel was not. Israel considered the phrase, “the more the merrier, the assured way of finding yourself in his words, “hung out to dry.” Where Michael saw himself as the protector of peoples basic dignity, Israel saw himself as a confiscator of that same dignity.

Israel saw people as pawns in a game they could not afford to be a part of. He saw them as obstructionists to a movement they were not equipped to understand, and not having the will necessary to do what needed to be done. Israel found that if the game was to be played correctly, nothing was exempt as far as influence was concerned. A sign hung on the wall behind his desk, “He who is willing to do what others won’t, become God’s.”

Israel kept a ledger with names, and comments attributed to them. Weakness, socially and financially, that could be used to sway self-interest in a particular direction, is what he coveted. He had risen from obscurity to prominence on the wagging tongues the elixir encouraged.

Israel knew from his years of listening to others complain, that all complaints were based on the inability to persuade others to agree with your assessment of facts, better known as common sense. Changing their minds by producing facts and applying logic to them did not work; leverage on a persons’ ability to appear trustworthy and of the same fabric as the people they pretended to represent, did. He scoffed at the idealism behind being a servant of the people, a guardian of their freedoms, and a promoter of their well-being.

When Michael was asked to become the new bar keep at Modest Mikes he understood the potential the position presented. He had been the recipient of taxation without representation, and his legal recourse, which was the legacy of time, that money, and influence were tied to, was dependent upon the ethical persuasion of those in power. Money was time, the more money, the more time you had to erode the fabric of the law and become its sole interpreter, as well as its administrator.

Where Israel saw the law as the road to power and wealth, Michael saw it as the arbiter of justice for those that provided the impetus for wealth through their labor and yet received no compensation ethically or financially for their diligence and perseverance. Michael saw that the divide, the mote that made government impenetrable, was stocked with the allegators of deceit, selective laws, and manufactured personalities, more in tune with self-preservation than with truth. The idea that truth and justice were designed to be equal was a myth he intended to shatter, even if it meant his own fall from influences grace.

Michael saw the opportunity to use knowledge to undermine the towers of self-interest and awaken people to the dishonesty built into a closed system that produced clones of itself, in an effort to insure an impenetrable status. Michael had also learned from tending bar for six years, that arrogance, and its counterpart intimidation, were the main tools of those who wished to advance on lies and deceit.

All the politicians he knew that were successful, had graduated from the Warton’s Political Advocacy College, where everyone graduates with honors, and is in the top 95% of their graduating class. Michael wonder how that claim was achieved, so he asked. The answer he received made perfect sense to him; “we graduate our students one at a time.” The graduation ceremonies, depending on the number of graduates, commencement speeches, and dedications, not to mention the weather, could go on and often did, for three to four days. It was held on the party’s website, and by appointment only.

Michael had made it his mission to endear himself to the politicians who were refused service at Mystic Mikes for various reasons. It usually had to do with speaking directly and frankly with reporters, giving the entire party a tarnished look, as though all its members had just been released from prison on good behavior.

It was, however, proven to be a stroke of genius on Michael’s part. It was their votes that secured his employment when he was promoted. Israel realized after it was too late, that he held the secrets that had rocketed him into the exalted ranks, but that his bargaining chips were aging rapidly, their potency diminishing before his eyes. It was his replacement who had access to new and exciting activities, some even legal; that was where the leverage lay. He would approach Israel and tempt him with the success he assumed would be his promise of, a “new rope” at every hanging.

The meeting he had arranged did not go as planned. Israel had made the mistake of assuming a bar setting, where elixirs of choice flowed like Thunder’s tears, he would be able to manipulate Michael into a position where Michael would sell his mother for an opportunity to join the ranks of power. He could not have been more wrong. Michael having been addicted to elixirs before he was born, had developed a tolerance where the stupor no longer affected him, so he no longer drank. His hair of the dog was his environment of temptation.

Israel asked Michael Shanahan to meet him at the Hungry Horse, a neutral establishment, with neutral drinks, neutral food, a very neutral environment. Even the dimmed lights were neutral. Israel did not know however that Michael owned the Hungry Horse, it was where he experimented on those casual drinkers who found unaltered drinks to be a novelty and were appreciative by telling their friends. Michael was amused.

They were to meet at 6 pm on a Tuesday night, a safe night, long enough after a fling of televised sport excesses, and far enough from the following weekend to forgive yourself and promise to never spend a dysfunctional Sunday in the company of sport worshipers again.

Michael did not plan to prove anything, but to teach Israel, the newly anointed leader of the pack, a lesson in piousness. Michael discovered that humiliation was an effective tool against arrogance, if for no other reason than it disrespected the respect that advocates of arrogance and intimidation rely on.

The bar was packed on the evening of the meeting, which should have raised the red flag of suspicion, but it was ignored by Israel, who was so convinced he would be able to massage Michael like putty into the traitor he knew he could become. His predecessor did, and now it was Michael’s turn.

Israel approached the table Michael was seated at, he held out his hand as was the custom before the battle began; ensuring your opponent that hair pulling and eye gouging were not acceptable, unless you felt you could get away with it. There being no appointed referees, therefore the need to self-regulate your actions was understood.

As Israel forced his hand toward Michael, Michael excused himself without explanation and walked toward the bar. Israel assumed he had ordered drinks for the two of them, another custom meant to lubricate anxiety into submission without your consent.

Michael pulled a bar stool from the bar as the patrons surrounded Israel’s table. He looked surprised at first but remained undaunted by the aggression he had come to thrive on. They were not going to physically attack a sitting senator. Intimidation he was familiar with, Michael will have to do better than this.

It was in that moment as the circle tightened, that their eyes met. Israel smiled his all-knowing smile; Michael smiled the smile he reserved for returning overdue movie rentals; both contrition and the implied look of one who would never succumb to intimidation if the fines were forgiven, just this once.

It was in that moment when Israel’s lip began to quiver, ever so slightly, but quiver nonetheless, that the peanuts began to assail their target. Hornets attacking like drones, their shells exploding in a drifting fog of uncertainty as Israel attempted to protect his newly altered nose and refurbished Hemmingway ears. Despite his best efforts, the stings of peanuts became intense, and he found himself slipping toward the floor that now looked like a three-dimensional hand-woven Turkish rug.

Israel found himself in a fetal position on the rug, his hands covering his trademark face and whimpering like an abused dog, while Michaels smile, now etched on his psyche, glowed like an Olympic medal in the spotlight of the stars.

It was then Israel woke. His clothes were covered with the remnants of his pillow and the dampness that accrues while running a marathon. He felt his nose and ears, peered at his reflection in the gold flag pin he habitually wore; no damage that he could tell. The now empty bottle of scotch lay beside him, the bedspread soaked with the odorous stench of roadkill. He forced himself up and looked in the mirror, he no longer saw the cocky self-assured man he was.

Israel rummaged in several drawers of his dresser until he was satisfied he was not dreaming. The smooth glass and curves of the bottle, provided the affirmation he needed. He looked at who he was and thought about who he had been. As he stared at himself in the mirror his mouth began to move without his consent. A newly hatched Israel bidding farewell to his old friend and vowing to never drink again. He will start tomorrow.