Warrior Diaries: Vermin (inspired by the movie "The Warriors")

July 29, 1978

Dear Diary,

Man, I hope the other dudes don't find you. That would totally suck. I would totally get japped if that happened. But sometimes I think they have diaries, too. Oh well, I'll probably never know.

I know I never told you, Diary. Shit, I never told no one, but I never really wanted to be in a gang. All I really wanted to do was to open up a nice Italian deli like my grandfather had. Hopefully, after all the soldierin' and wastin' and wreckin' is done with the Warriors, I'll have enough bread saved up to start my own little place.

And I know I got the big one, but I never really like it when we pull a train on some chick. I still hope to find a nice girl some day, and I just don't think a nice girl is going to want to marry a guy that has been the caboose of dozens of trains. Even if he does have a big one. I guess I'll just have to keep the trains a secret, but then you just open up a whole new set of problems.

Diary, what can I do? How can I cut back my participation in the wreckin' without seeming like a total wimp? I like these guys, and the Warriors is my life, so it would suck if I lost that, but I just feel myself being pulled farther and farther from where I originally envisioned myself at this point in my life. I mean, my brother Fredo has joined the priesthood, my sister Sophia married a nice Italian boy and has started a family, and here I am sitting in the head at a run-down gang headquarters getting ready to go out and bust some heads, do some general soldierin' to protect the turf, and by tomorrow I will probably have participated in at least two trains. After all, I have got the big one. Oh shit, diary, I don't know if I can take this any more! I really am a Vermin, I guess.

Cleon says that Cyrus' big happenin' is still going on. I'm excited! We never get to go into the city! I think it will be fun and good for us as a gang. I've heard there are some all-girl outfits in the city. Maybe I can meet a nice girl who is like me and wants to get out of the life, but who won't hold all the shit I've done against me because she's been there, herself. Ooh, baby, oh baby, I'm beginning to feel my temperature rise just thinking about it!

Well, I guess that's it, diary. It's off to another night of protecting our turf here in Coney. Maybe we'll ride the Wonder Wheel tonight. I love the feel of the mist from the ocean on my face when I'm at the top.

Sincerely,

Francis (Vermin)

P.S. I keep having this ominous dream about baseball bats, roller skates, subway tokens, and clinking bottles. I wonder what it means? Maybe I'll ask Rembrandt. He's pretty smart and probably knows all about that stuff.

In Remembrance of Michael Jackson (10-7-2010)

Being a Michael Jackson fan during the 90's and 00's was an exercise in surrealism that became more painful as time went on.  One year before MJ died, you couldn’t get a person to admit tenderness for the man or his music, although we all saw the die-hards outside of his final go-round through the judicial circus relating to the unutterable nocturnal activities that he had been denying and running from since the early 90’s.  We all saw them, and we all got to shake our heads in unison and say, “Poor silly bastards,” when what we were really thinking was, “Come on, Mike.  I believe in you.”


I fell head-first into the pool of my MJ idolatry at what I am confident was the last great window of time when it was possible to do so, 1991-1992.  In 1991, I was eight years old, and I was too innocent to care much about the face or the crotch-grabbing dance moves.  My eyes were dazzled by glitter and sequins and effeminately masculine pop magic.  (Of course, the irony that this was likely exactly how MJ would have hoped I would react to him had I ever met him in person is not lost on me.)  Such is the wonder of childhood.  You simply accept things.  MJ used to be black, and he used to have an afro, and now he was much different, but does not an MJ by any other physical appearance dance as sweet?


I claim that my window was the last great window for two reasons: I became aware of MJ before the scandal erupted – the last wave of innocence, as it were.  And I also was too young to appreciate the scandal when it did erupt.  So when I saw MJ come on TV one morning from Neverland, looking pale under his shock of black hair and dressed in a scarlet shirt, talking about how the evil lawmen came to his house and invaded his privacy, even taking pictures of his penis (and my, how I did blush when I heard that), I did not recognize a desperate, panic-stricken man trying to beat the press meat-grinder to the punch.  All I saw was my idol looking sad telling me that some judge had given the cops a warrant to search his junk.


While most of the rest of the world exclaimed one giant, “I KNEW it!” I carried on in my joyously oblivious world of preteen fandom.  Worshipping in the privacy of my own Walkman was as easy as it had ever been, but witnessing for the glory of the King in public began to get the few social doors open to me slammed in my face at every turn.  When I was given the responsibility (at 10 years old) of running the music at my elementary school cake walk and I discreetly swapped the cassette in the machine with my discreetly stashed copy of MJ’s “Bad,” (the only reason I miss cassettes was how portable and easily concealed they were, like hidden weapons loaded with bullets of rock and roll), and had the kindergartners cake-walking to “Dirty Diana,” I was swiftly relieved of my duties.


I got older, as did Michael.  I watched as he married Lisa Marie, and I was glad for him because she was so pretty and a real woman who surely wouldn’t marry him if the allegations from a few years prior had been true.  Again, I realize now that this is exactly what MJ wanted us to believe, but I was too naïve to see it that way.  My heart still raced in anticipation every time an MJ special or performance was announced on TV, and I would be there with my finger over the record button of the VCR, waiting to capture it all for posterity.


I hadn’t grown up alongside MJ as my mom had, nor seen him spring into the public consciousness as a member of the Jackson 5 with the wizened eyes of an adult, as my dad had.  MJ burst forth upon me with the weight of his mythology firmly in place.  It was too much too soon and it was too late for me to let reason win out and kick him out of my heart forever, even as I matured into the capacity to understand more of the reality of MJ than I ever wanted to.  As I saw the cracks in the crazy plastic façade of his life, his music, and his face (which I am convinced we will all one day learn the truth about), I turned like so many towards newer, less difficult objects of rock and roll adoration.  But MJ was always there, sitting quietly in the back of my mind, weeping softly about the things he had learned: that love’s not possession, that love needs expression, and that it won’t wait.  All of these things he learned too late, as did I.  “Have you seen my childhood?” he would meekly ask, and I would reply in tones as soothing as I could muster that I had not, but that like so many of us around the world who had not forgotten, I was still looking.


When MJ announced the historic run of London concerts, my ears perked and my heart began to race.  Could it possibly be that he was finally giving his fans something back for the years of torture he had subjected us to?  The veil of MJ fandom shame had been lifted, and people all over the world held their breath in collective anticipation.  It was beautiful to see how quickly all fifty London concerts sold out.  Rehearsals for the massive new show were underway.  There was a band, dancers, an entire production, and rumor had it that MJ was singing and dancing better than he had in years.  That he was energized, excited, and passionate.


And then it was all over.  MJ had fooled us again.


Like it tends to do, MJ’s death seemed to vindicate him of all sins, from his alleged crimes against children to his “Invincible” album.  MJ memorabilia sold out all over the world, as did his music, which you know everyone already had anyway.  I was happy for this outpouring of capitalist support, at least insomuch that it would show his family, both biological and fan, that we all really did still love MJ.  That for those dark years he had been whispering to all of us.


I felt angry and cheated that the world never got to see the actual “This Is It” shows, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the timing was probably good for MJ to go out when he did, just to the left of the spotlight, having reawakened the sleeping leviathan of his legacy and once again taking the reins of his life.  Fifty concerts is a lot for a man who hadn’t done a full show in almost a decade, and there’s no telling how it all would have gone, but MJ’s track record wasn’t the best.  That he never got the chance to mess it all up may be one of the greatest cosmic blessings of his entire long career.


How can I live in a world post MJ?  How can any of us?  The shock wore into awe, which has worn into a dull acceptance.  I have happy memories of my childhood, and MJ is a big part of that.  From signing my autograph as MJ when I was 5 years old to tearing the plastic off my “Dangerous” cassette on Christmas morning 1991 and weathering all of the insanity that came later, when I think about MJ I always feel once more like that wide-eyed boy so blissfully unconcerned with everything but the music, and the magic.  And when I listen to him today, I am still transported back to that place.  That is what MJ means to me: innocence, joy, vanilla hard rock thrills, and a jump-start to the pop culture engine that runs my life even today.  Would it have all come to pass without MJ?  Perhaps, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as meaningful, sparkly, or filled with primal disco beats.  I cannot speak for the world; I can only speak for me.  And, MJ, from me to you, thank you.  May you finally find your childhood, and claim your throne in the lusty pop hereafter.


Forever your fan,
Mark Schuster    

A Conversation With Tom Waits (10-19-2009)

I sat, alone in my house, and watched as a bird flew into my bedroom window. It hit the glass with a thud and then fell to the ground below - its neck broken.

I stood, alone, and pressed my face against the bedroom window. I looked down at the bird; so fragile, so recently a living thing - now a corpse. I closed my eyes and felt the cool kiss of the glass plant itself on the oven of my face.

I heard the crack of a match from somewhere behind me.

When I opened my eyes Tom Waits was in my room. He was lying on my bed and smoking.

There was a question that had been troubling me for some time, and I presented it to the lounging troubadour.

“What’s it all mean, Tom?”

He looked at me with a frown on his face. He took a long, meaningful drag off his cigarette.

“You mean life?” he answered as he exhaled.

“Yeah, that’s my question, Tom. It all seems so random. Is there a meaning to it all?”

“What makes you think I know the meaning of life?” he asked as he tipped the ash from his cigarette into a small metal dish he had pulled from his pocket. He sat the dish on the nightstand next to my bed.

“Well, you’re successful. People respect you - you’ve been around for a while.”

He paused momentarily in thought, and then spoke. “Well boy, so far as I can tell, the meaning of life is a warm bed, a loose woman, and a double shot o’ bourbon.” He sat back and took another satisfied drag from his cigarette.

“Well, sure. I mean, it makes sense you’d answer that way. But are you saying that because you’re Tom Waits, or because it’s the truth?”

Tom Waits sat up a bit in my bed and snuffed out his cigarette in the small metal dish on the nightstand. I seemed to have struck a nerve. He pointed at me as he spoke. “Boy, I seen shit you couldn’t even begin to…”

I cut him off. “Sure, I know. I didn’t mean anything. But after all that you’ve been through - all you’ve seen - that’s all you can come up with; a bed, a tramp, and some liquor?”

Tom Waits laughed. “Well now, boy, what else is there?”

“What about music? What about love?”

Tom Waits lit another cigarette and relaxed again in my bed. “Boy, I tell ya’, they’re one and the same.”

I said, “I know…I know. But I’m not talking about that. Seriously, what about music and love? Aren’t they the meaning of life?”

Tom Waits held up his hand. “Okay, boy, now don’t get all worked up. In regards to those two things you just mentioned, I can say this: one is God, and one is the Devil. I ain’t gonna tell you which is which, but boy, the Devil can’t carry no tune.”

“So, you think music is God, and love is the Devil?”

Tom Waits nodded as he took another drag from his cigarette. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Well, what do you mean, love is the Devil?”

“Boy, there ain’t no single force greater for making people do crazy, foolish things than love. Wars have been fought over it. People have been killed and have died for it.”

I said, “But, don’t you think love can bring out the best in people; the beauty - the untapped potential for good?”

“Boy, I ain’t ever seen it yet.”

“But what about the love of a good woman? Doesn’t a man need a good woman in his life?”

Tom Waits sat up in the bed, and kicked his legs down onto the floor. “I already done told you about the love of a good woman!”

“No, no. Not some one-night stand…in the dark…with a woman you probably couldn’t stand to look at in the light. I’m talking about a deeper love; spiritual - like soul love.”

And at that, Tom Waits laughed. “Boy, what they been teaching you in that crazy, mixed-up college of yours? You’d think all that education would have knocked some sense into you.”

I looked at him. “I’m a romantic. So what? It’s in my nature. You can’t escape who you are!”

Tom Waits took a long drag from his cigarette. “Boy, you said it all!" Then he coughed. "Say, could you get me a glass of water?”

I returned a moment later with the beverage. Tom Waits sipped greedily. “Thank you, boy. Thank you. Say, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I was a little hard on you back there.”

I was taken aback. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean…shit…life can get mighty lonely. And the transient comforts of a one-night stand can almost be worse than spending the night alone. I suppose we are all just searching for that special person; that person whose flaws can mingle with our own and turn two broken halves into a beautiful whole. I can’t begrudge you that. And as far as that other one is concerned - music - it IS God. I wasn’t lying to you about that. But maybe love is, too. Music is the God that fills in the cracks of life. Love is the God that makes life beautiful.”

I had moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. We were separated by the space of two pillows. I sat there silently for several moments. Slowly, I began to nod. “That makes sense to me. Thank you, Tom Waits. Thank you.”

Tom Waits smiled. “Sure, boy. Sure. But listen, that don’t mean it ain’t fun to wallow in the shadows every now and then. Shit, I’ve built a career on it.”

Suddenly, he looked towards the hall outside the bedroom. There was a knock at the front door. I left the bedroom and made my way to the front door.  When I opened it, there was nobody there. I went back to the bedroom, and Tom Waits was gone. On the nightstand, his second cigarette still smoldered in the metal dish he had pulled from his pocket. I held the dish up, and saw an inscription in the small basin. Scooting the ashes aside, I read the message engraved there:

This round’s on me.

I am the Keeper of Lost Dreams

When you are obsessed with flea market culture, sifting through the detritus of society looking for choice nuggets that somehow fell through the cracks, you end up seeing some pretty bizarre shit.  Not "oh wow that is so cool" bizarre shit, but the kind of stuff that defies logic - like, "who donated this, whose decision was it to put it on the shelf for sale, and who in the world would buy it?" bizarre shit.  Things like used underwear and used toiletries spring immediately to mind.  

I've seen a jar of used toothbrushes - 5 cents each.  Maybe the intention was that they be used for engine detailing?  That must have been it.  Right?  I've seen stained panties/briefs next to half-empty boxes of tampons so old the wrappers have yellowed.  Wigs are fairly common - the fake hair of dead women.  But I've also seen false teeth.  Less common.  

Are there really people so hard up for a (dentally intended) toothbrush that they would resort to purchasing one SO used that the bristles have begun to fan out?  Or so desperate for teeth that they'd buy a set second-hand?  And are these stores really so hard up for merchandise that they couldn't afford to just throw this sort of stuff away?

But all of these things pale in comparison to the family photos I have seen during my years of flea market bottom feeding.  Granted, they aren't literally disgusting in the same way that false teeth are, but they are, in their own way, more disturbing.  I get it that, when grandma dies, you give her wig to the flea market so that it may continue to serve its intended purpose, albeit on someone else's head.  But family photos are personal and the ones that end up for sale in a flea market come loaded with subtext.

Take the photo above, a recent acquisition of mine from a small church-sponsored thrift store just outside Eureka Springs, AR.  I was originally attracted to the photo because of the outdated styles of those pictured.  The date in the lower right-hand corner indicates the photo was taken in 1985.  28 years ago.

As I stood there with the photo in my hand, I started to run the math over in my head.  I could ball-park the ages of the women at (clockwise from top left), 40, 14, 16, and 18.  Which would mean that, today, they would be 68, 42, 44, and 46.  Chances are good they are all still alive, out there somewhere in the world.  So how did it come to be that their professional family portrait ended up a country flea market?  Would any of the women want the picture if it were offered back to them today, or did some horrible event shake and then break the bonds of blood forever?  Did it accidentally get dropped into a box of sheets marked "donate," or was it purposefully removed from its place on a wall and tossed into the garbage, only to be plucked from oblivion at the last moment and set on a new path that somehow ended with me?  Is it the last physical evidence of these women's existence?

I'll never know.  

But the questions kept coming, and I began to feel my own emotional connections forming with the women in the photo, and with the photo itself.  I questioned whether I could actually bring the photo to the counter and purchase it, like the woman who had been eyeballing me since I walked in would question my motives as much as I was questioning them.  But I decided that if they could sell it, I could buy it.  And it wasn't nearly as awkward as I had feared.  50 cents later, it was mine.  

I was going to scan it for later use as blog-fodder and then, since it seemed too unceremonious to simply throw it away, I was going to burn it after saying a few words.  But after I scanned it something compelled me to hold onto it.  It was no big deal to hang onto one photo, after all.  One measly little piece of paper.  After all, it really may be the last physical evidence that these women ever existed.  So I took the photo and put it in a box with my own family photos, claiming them by extension as my own.  And I shall bear the burden of their memory, and I shall be the keeper of their lost dreams.  It is the least I can do.

Yeezus? Pleezus!

 

 

The only thing Kanye West does better than building musical bridges is burning non-musical ones.  No rap artist has intrigued me more over the past decade by so cannily blending styles and sounds in the service of hip-hop than Kanye.  And no person has repulsed me so much by their incredibly high-profile temper tantrums. 

 

"Late Registration" was the first Kanye album I anticipated prior to release.  I have always wanted to love hip-hop, and Kanye was touted as a genre-bending artist of highest caliber.  My interest was piqued, and the album delivered.  The unstoppable Ray Charles/Jamie Foxx sample from "Gold Digger" hit me just as hard as it did everyone else in the world.  "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" built upon my love of James Bond movies and Shirley Bassey's haunting theme by building an exceptional hip-hop track around it.  

 

The problem with sampling in hip-hop, especially the sort used in "Diamonds," is that it undervalues the importance of the rap.  There's no doubt I enjoyed the track as much as I did because I already enjoyed the Bassey track.  Does that negate the worth of Kanye's version?  I don't think so.  I enjoy both versions of the song, but in a greater sense Kanye's track helped build a bridge between two disparate musical worlds.  I came to the album because I liked what he did with something I was already familiar with; I stayed because I checked out everything else he was doing and found I liked it just as much. 

 

But holy effing pancakes of Sodom the shit he has pulled in his public life.  Throwing huge tantrums, making an ass out of himself over and over (and always, seemingly chastised, apologizing for his actions, only to replicate them a few months later), and basically acting like, well, an unfathomably spoiled celebrity (read: child).  The kind of celebrity that makes "real people" like me fucking hate celebrities. 

 

Most of the time, I can separate an artist's work from their life.  It is how I am able to remain an ardent fan of Woody Allen, for example.  But with Kanye, the weight of newsworthy jackass antics slowly but surely became commingled with my perception of his work, and began to drag the entire entity that is Kanye West down the drain of my esteem, and even my interest.  By the time of 2010's multimedia corporate megablitz surrounding the release of "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," I couldn't have cared less.  The album, like everything Kanye has done, received rave reviews, but I was so over that fucking douchebag that I barely cast it a second glance.  

 

And then I heard "Yeezus," and suddenly things got complicated.  In all sincerity, the album is one of the greatest things I've ever heard (especially the brutal first half).  The maniacally self-promoting braggadocio and bluster is still there, as is the sexism, racism, and classism that is the sad backbone of most hip-hop, but the spartan production makes the whole thing come across like a horrifying glimpse into the freaky brainspace of a man tormented by his genius.  The words may celebrate the lifestyle, but the music makes it feel like sheer torture to actually have to live in that rarified space. 

 

When I read track titles such as, "I Am A God," I rolled my eyes, expecting another exasperating "I speak rhymes into a microphone - worship me!" delusional rap screed.  And while the track is that, it manages to be much more - almost an indictment of celebrity culture, and a tirade against the value we "real people" place on it.  Could it be that Kanye West actually gets why he turns so many people off?  Is there some actual introspection going on in there?   

 

On the same track, Kanye compares himself to Michael Jackson.  Meaning, I suppose, far more that he has attained the same level of fame, and not that he is disappearing down his own fantasy rabbit hole.  Indeed, MJ could never touch Kanye's level of boldness.  With each new release, Kanye dares you not to listen, challenges, and confronts his listeners in ways MJ never would have dared.

 

And that's what makes "Yeezus" so damned compelling.  It's some of the most acidic, jagged, bleak music produced in any genre.  My mind keeps making comparisons to Nine Inch Nails "The Downward Spiral," although "Yeezus" is a much more unexpected statement.  It has a unity of sonic texture and lyrical theme that transcends popular culture and the time of its creation, and approaches the level of art.  It's also highly addictive and the first album in a very long time that immediately hooked me from first listen. 

 

Kanye West is not worthy of worship, but he is worthy of forgiveness.  Maybe he really is a genius who sees the world differently than the rest of us.  Or maybe he really is just a douchebag.  But a damned compelling one and, once again, one of my favorite artists.  My only hope for the future is that Kanye and other musicians continue to make albums this concise and uncompromising.  I'm sure it won't happen, and Kanye will likely alienate me again sometime soon with his high-profile buffoonery.

 

But at least I'll always have "Yeezus."   



Forever the God of Fuck

 

1997 was Marilyn Manson's year.  He seemed to be on the cover of every single music magazine.  I swear Hit Parader (RIP) literally didn't have anyone else on their cover all year.  The more disturbing the image, the better.  Manson helped sell a lot of magazines that year, and he zonked a lot of young, impressionable minds - mine included.  Every Saturday at the grocery store I'd stand before the racks of magazines and stare slack-jawed at this mutant seemingly sent straight from the bowels of hell to the CD players of young America.  

"Antichrist Superstar" made him, well, basically that.  His follow-up "Mechanical Animals" was a bold step in a new direction (and my personal favorite of his albums).  An eloquent appearance in "Bowling for Columbine" and a legendary stand on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrent" made people realize that there was more to the man than mismatched eyes and a lack of eyebrows.  2000's album "Holy Wood" was his apotheosis, the final piece in a loosely plotted reverse trilogy that included "Antichrist" and "M.A."  

In the earlier days of his superstardom, outrageous rumors swirled: that he had had his lowest ribs removed so he could auto-fellate himself; that he regularly gave away free drugs at his concerts, and numerous reports of his upcoming onstage suicide.  He wasn't just fascinating to a white bread Missouri boy - he was fucking terrifying, but therein lay part of the appeal.  By 2001, he had developed a relatively serious reputation as a social commentator.  His music was no longer mere shock shlock, but a weighty diatribe against the hypocrisies of the world.

His 15-minutes of fame lasted around five years.  I don't know what happened - perhaps after 9/11 people were just too tired - too jaded - to really be shocked by a slender androgyne tearing pages out of the Bible onstage.  Subsequent releases seemed to lose focus - the first lyrics of "Holy Wood's" follow-up "Golden Age of Grotesque" are literally, "Everything's been said before.  Nothing left to say anymore."  That doesn't bode well for a man who had been a bottomless pit of words and opinions up to that point.  

Manson and his rotating crew of band members have soldiered boldly on through the 2000's and even to today, but the "magic" is gone.  Young people have moved on to newer, more savage antichrist idols, and his original fanbase are now minivan driving accountants.  

He has become an antichrist superstar adrift.

It should have been apparent that what he had wouldn't (or couldn't) last forever, and it's amazing it lasted as long as it did.  His impact and influence cannot be understated, but it seems his legacy gets washed further from relevance with each passing day.  I think often about those rock stars that went on to become legends after their sudden, shocking deaths.  What Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain still linger as potently in the public consciousness if they were alive today?  Can you imagine Jimi trying to placate the tastes of the 80's?  Or Kurt guest-judging on American Idol?  Death was probably the best thing that could have happened to their careers, solidifying legend in perpetuity.  

Whether it was all highly cunning rock-star posturing (likely) or not, Marilyn Manson flamed to his zenith, in my opinion, in 2001.  Had those onstage suicide rumors ("he's gonna do it onstage on Halloween...no shit, it's true!  I swear I heard it!") proven true, he would have martyred himself in the eyes of a generation of lost youth.  For a while there, it seemed his artistic resolve was so strong that he may actually be capable of such a thing.  

But in the end, the antichrist was just a man.  Of course he was.  And he will likely live a long life, fading away into the golf-playing "where are they now?" pop-culture back burner.  And he's rich and set.  And I'm glad for him.  I really am.  

I'm not saying Marilyn Manson's continued survival is an opportunity lost (even I am not that morbid), but it is a blow for rock and roll as a concept worth flaming out over.  The world is rarely changed by flashing lights and horror-show makeup alone.  I can see that now, and I suppose I could then, too.  But when you are young it's so much easier to believe. 

"Pitch It"

It's amazing the things you remember about a person, and when you remember them.  I was reading an article on litter when suddenly I was transported back to my childhood, riding around the countryside with my Grandma in her Ford Maverick, gleefully chowing down fast food and, when the food was gone, pitching the garbage out the window. 

This was done at Grandma's command.  We'd stop at some place with tons of wrapping - Sonic was a favorite - and order many different a la carte items.  I'd get a corndog nestled in a cardboard tray and wrapped in paper, fries wrapped in paper, with extra ketchup, and a soda in a paper cup with a plastic lid.  Grandma would get twice as much, and we'd start out on our zany spree up and down country roads, feasting to our heart's content.  When everything edible was consumed and we were left with an armload of trash, Grandma would smile and say, "Pitch it."  "Really?" I would always ask.  "Yes, pitch it!"  "But isn't it bad to throw trash out the window?"  "Oh, it's fine.  There are people who have fun cleaning up the roads.  This gives them something to do." 

So I would roll down the window as far as it would go, and heave a mountain of trash out into the warm country air.  Grandma would laugh, and I would laugh, and we'd head back to civilization, full and pleasantly clutter-free.  

My grandma's house, which she kept neat as a pin, had several trash cans of varying sizes, and I know she paid for trash service, because I remember helping her take the trash to the curb (or at least seeing it there) on a number of occasions.  What anarchist streak drove her to this one particular act of civil disobedience, I'll never know.

"Pitching It" became almost an unspoken in-joke between Grandma and I.  She never told me to keep it a secret, and I never thought to blab.  It was just one of those things.

Until one day, riding around with my Mom in her car, eating some hastily acquired fast food on the run from point A to point B, driving through our small Missouri town, I finished my food and immediately heaved all the packaging out the window and into someone's carefully manicured front lawn.  Mom looked at me like I had sprouted horns.  I immediately knew I had messed up.

"What did you DO!?!"

"I...uh...I pitched it!"

"You WHAT!?!"

"I pitched it!"

"Why would you do such a thing!?!"

"Well, Grandma always tells me to do it!"

"I don't care.  It's wrong.  Even if she tells you to do it, I want you to say no."

"Okay, Mom.  I'm sorry.  I won't do it again."

After circling back around the block and being made to collect the trash I had pitched, we completed the ride in stony silence.  Now I can look back, put myself in my mom's shoes, and realize she was probably more embarrassed than anything else, but at the time I felt like something someone would scrape off their shoe with a flash of revulsion and perhaps a few dry heaves thrown in for good measure.

It's a bizarre phenomenon when you are a child, attempting to live by the dictum, "respect your elders," caught in a situation where not just an adult, but one you are related to, who you are close with and who you love, suddenly throws out a curve ball and tells you to do something that you know is wrong.  In the end, if you are like me, you do it because (on the surface) they told you to, but also (deeper inside) because you know it's wrong and that makes it fun.

Grandma and Mom had at least one conversation.  I wasn't privy to the details, but I'm sure it had something to do with my Mom requesting that my Grandma no longer actively encourage me down the long, dark path of the serial litter bug.  A reasonable request, right?

One thing I remember about Grandma was her sensitivity and how easily she could sometimes get her feelings hurt.  I'm an awful lot like her in that regard.  Whatever her eventual calm reaction to the conversation with my mom, her immediate response was one of rebellion.  I'd get dropped off at her house for one of my weekend overnight visits, and we'd get ready to go get some dinner.  I'd get in her car and notice extra trash - household trash - like she had collected it and brought it outside expressly to "pitch it."  And that's what we would do.

It would be easy for me to lay the blame for this anarchy directly at my Grandma's feet, but knowing that I was breaking an expressly proscribed motherly rule ratcheted the entire enterprise into the realm of pure adrenaline.  I loved it.  I couldn't get enough of it.  I'd laugh and laugh and barely give Grandma enough time to find a suitable out of the way spot to pull over before hurtling armloads of garbage into the ditch. 

Perhaps my Grandma realized she was creating a monster, or perhaps I was eventually plagued by the guilt that has haunted me all my life.  Or perhaps pitching it just lost its luster for us after a while.  Whatever the reason, the adventure drew to a close without discussion or fanfare. 

As I get older, sensations of the past recede into the background wash of memory, gradually becoming fuzzier and less defined.  A few, though, remain etched so deeply into my subconscious that all I have to do is close my eyes and I am living them again.  Some of those events struck me so profoundly at the time that they became branded into my heart and soul in an instant and I knew they would be locked up inside me for the rest of my life.  Other things found their way in there more subtly.  Things such as my anarchist adventures with my late Grandma.

I was conflicted by these experiences as a child, and like so many such memories I enjoy looking back on them as an adult and trying to find an alternate perspective.  What could have led my gentle, straight-laced, church-going Grandma to such random acts of lawlessness?  Surely it wasn't for the sake of those unfortunate souls whose idea of a good time was to "walk up and down the roads picking up the trash," an explanation that now fills my heart with joy and mirth. 

Her biography is filled with tough instances of loss, and of a great number of fairly dramatic decisions in which she had little say and was forced to put up with situations as they presented themselves.  It was a different world in the 1950's and 1960's when she was around the age I am now, raising a family and trying to hold things together.  Women weren't liberated, yet.  Nobody had yet seen the adventage of burning bras in protest.  

In such a climate, one must capture the tiny bits of anarchy that float by and be prepared to act on them.  In the grand scheme of things, there are worse things than throwing trash out the window.  At the risk of twisting my words into pretzels in pursuit of justification - throwing trash out of a window DOES give an opportunity for the adoptive highway parent to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment for beautifying the landscape.  I suppose we helped them with that.  And, oh, the birds - think of how much potential nesting material was to be found in those paper hamburger wrappers!

Even without realizing it is happening, the people around us cannot help but influence the course our lives take and the people we become.  My Grandma was a book-loving Irish Catholic woman who lived squarely in the grasp of tradition while simultaneously remaining free-thinking and open minded.  She was articulate, sensitive, and funny.  And she was given to small acts of defiance, perhaps as a way to help balance her out and keep her sane.  

When she took me to the book store with her, she would not discourage me from the adult horror section, and she would always want to see what I had picked out, but never to censor - rather, she wanted to see if it was something she had already read, perhaps planning to borrow it from me when I was done with it.  She treated me like a grown-up well before I was one, and shared her little secrets with me.  In a world of madness and pain, she retained a joy and a gleam in her eye.  After all, there's only so much emotional baggage one person can carry before it all becomes too much.  Sooner or later, you have to pitch it.