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CULTURAL APPRECIATION AND TACO BELL

I've been half-heartedly pursuing this Korean girl who said in October she would never see me again. Through mock persistence on my part, her "never again" turned into "probably not," which became "we'll see," which turned into "ok but only as friends." Last week we set a date for dinner.

Since then common sense has got the better of her. She's apparently recalled her very good reasons for not wanting to see me in the first place. So she blew off our dinner date; we rescheduled. Lunch on Thursday? Oops, busy. Coffee this Friday? Oops again. Dinner, then drinks at the bar tomorrow? I'll let you know.

Around noon I check my cellphone. The inevitable had arrived: James. Sorry busy tonight. Have a good day there~~

Which reminds me. Asian women employ a variety of punctuation to soften the blow of written rejection. It's an orthographic tic, like the emoticon, only cuter. Here's a white girl, sticking out her tongue at me, gloating in her Western supremacy and the fact that she's made other plans tonight: Get lost, jerk :-P  The Korean is more subtle than that. Most common is the tilde: Sorry~~  But the double caret, which resembles a pair of eyes, is also common: Take care ^^  In one corner, a Chinese girl is crying that she can't see me tonight: T_T  This Japanese woman is inconsolable: ~~>_<~~

It's Saturday afternoon and I have no plans. The cavalcade of women who occupy my romantic life has wised up to me—almost collectively and overnight, it seems. Good for them. Meanwhile, I have books and a saxophone and a date with Taco Bell (more on this in a moment). What I don't have is the patience or the stamina to meet new people. Meeting women: do you know how tiring this is? I love them to death—I think I do—but they are about as intolerable as they are fantastic. Girls. The good ones are sweet and pretty, and then dull or unintelligent, or maybe not so pretty when you're facing them sober, or else they're already taken. The bad ones are dressed sexy and fun; they'll match you drink for drink; they'll kiss you; they'll press their hands up against you; go home with you, etc.; until your moral outrage kicks in, as it always does, and you flee from them as the angels fled from Sodom in Genesis 19.

Don't think in terms of sex and religion. I'm not. Since I refuse to leave college, I've bivouacked for years with men who bend over backwards for a chance to get their pickles wet. This is a normal if peculiar state of affairs, and one I've never fully understood. Sex with girls at any cost? Really? As for religion, the dark spectre in the room, hullo. I'll face your music sooner or later (preferably sooner than later) but not today. Back to meeting women. If my libido were greater I could brave it. My johnson would carry me through. It wouldn't have this affected quality, "meeting women." For many, however, high school physics was so many lies and falsehoods; the earth rotates on the orgasms of America's college youth. And it does, no? No. Not for me. Last night I took an old flame out for dinner. We get to the restaurant; we eat. She invites me back to her place. By 8 p.m. I'm fast asleep in her bed. She stands above me, confused. Hahaha I'm awesome.

And now a word about sexual relations. I lost my virginity, not too long ago, to a woman I now despise. Within the week I was avoiding her advances and exhausting a stockpile of excuses to keep my clothes on. ("This is an Oscar-winning movie. How dare you!") Odd behavior, I confess. I knew then, as I know now, that sex in your twenties should be privileged above all else. I went on to have sex with many other girls, some of whom I loved, most of whom I didn't. The results were less than satisfying, for me, at least. Even today. Put a woman in front of me. Remove her clothing. The sensation I experience will be that of any man my age. Repeat this experiment with the same woman two weeks later. Probably the most stimulating activity I can think of will be an hour on the saxophone, or reading a good book, or typing funny notes into my computer.

A friend confided in me the other day. He'd enjoyed a college girl for a full two hours the night before. "Two hours?" I asked. "In one sitting?" Yes. "At once?" I asked again, incredulous. Yes. I had no idea what to say. I told him, "Last night I had sex with a woman for thirty seconds and I regret it. One of us is from another planet. I don't know which."

[EXCURSUS: Gosh, that last paragraph sounds gay. It makes me look gay, right? This isn't really necessary, but let me take a second to explain myself. In bold, for emphasis: Complaining about women doesn't make you gay. It means you're paying attention.]

[EXCURSUS 2: I once read Michel Foucault's "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" on a dare from an NYU professor. This professor greatly admired Foucault's work. My opinion, then as now, was that dreadfulness had been exceeded only by influence. Although "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" is beyond bad, I liked the first five pages. There Foucault explained the problem of sexual discourse. We've sought to escape the sexual repression of the Victorians, he wrote. Yet here we are over 100 years later—post-Freud, post-Marx, post-everything—still extending it. Sexual discourse prolongs itself indefinitely; on this point Foucault was essentially right. We just can't stop talking about sex! Sadly, this includes myself. Yech. Enough about sex, I say. Onto brighter topics, like booze and Taco Bell!!]

At this late point in the school semester I have literally thousands of pages of unread textbooks. It's funny. I manage to read a book a week without ever completing my assignments for class. There's this 30+ page term paper. Due after Thanksgiving, it looms, like a Sasquatch, in the distance. I tell myself it's not real.

In related news, my misanthropy deepens by the day. I deserve an award for discovering the unlikeable qualities in everyone. Young urban professionals are self-absorbed, self-serving. Retail employees are cold and unsympathetic. The police are venal. Churchmen are phonies. Businessmen, politicians: most of them buy their influence; the others are already bought. Men are slicks and playboys; women are prostitutes. The poor are covetous; the rich, avaricious. People generally are dishonest and artificial. Minorities aren't from America, which we can indeed hold against them, and then their English is godawful. We have kids all over the place. These little kids. I read once that New Yorkers don't have children—it's a lie! There are hordes of these human vermin. It's a major problem. They have the gall to show up in public where I can see them. They're rambunctious; they cry for attention, for their mothers; they blab on and on, conducting the most picayune conversations with their tinny-voiced friends. How they deserve to be handled roughly! And yet we have laws to protect their well-being. It's an outrage!

I'm a misanthrope—it's been suggested that I seek help for this. If my life were an airplane it would be in tailspin. Only by ejecting from my psychological cockpit, through breathing the rarefied air of our mental health professionals, will a crash be averted. Which of course is bullshit. The best therapy is alcohol.

Barring dinner dates with South Korea, my ideal Saturday night includes drinking alone in my bedroom with a textbook on my lap and as much food from Taco Bell as I can get for $10. And how much food from Taco Bell can you get for $10? A lot.

First to the liquor store. It's a block from my Queens apartment. I walk there. Inside is a small television blasting CCTV, the major cable network of mainland China. Over top of this a couple of women are gabbing in rapid-fire Cantonese. I pick out a large bottle of vodka. This should be big enough. It dawns on me that a great deal of non-English must go down in this liquor store. For a minute I block out the Mandarin and focus my attention on just the Cantonese. What a crazy sounding language. I bet if Cerberus—that polyheaded canine guardian of the underworld—came up to earth to talk to us, he would speak Cantonese.

As I pay for the vodka, I ask the woman if she's from Hong Kong. "No," she says, "I'm from Taiwan." This makes no sense. "But you're speaking Cantonese," I object. "Yes," she replies, "Cantonese, Hong Kong language." I'm confused. "But you're from Taiwan?" I ask. She nods. Ok whatever.

I tell the woman that I've been to China. Then I say some cute touristy things in Mandarin. The woman smiles. "Your Chinese is very good!"  (It's not very good.)  "Thank you," I say, "but that's all I know. I'm just a beginner." The woman motions to an overweight teenager watching TV in the corner. "You speak better than my son." I glance over; the boy looks embarrassed. There's no way my Chinese is better than his. I smile and deflect the compliment. I'm used to it. It's probably the tenth time a Chinese person has told me this.


MURRAY JAMES: I'm sure your son's Chinese is better than mine. Like I said, I'm only a beginner.

CHINA: He is lazy. He doesn't practice.

MURRAY JAMES: Chinese is a hard language to learn.

CHINA: [Smiling] Yes, very tricky.

MURRAY JAMES: ...

CHINA: [Still smiling] Do you like China?

MURRAY JAMES: Yes, very much. I'd like to go back.

CHINA: Where did you go in China?

MURRAY JAMES: I lived mostly in Shanghai. I also visited Chengdu, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Hangzhou...

CHINA: Shanghai is a nice city.

MURRAY JAMES: Yeah...

CHINA: China's economy is growing fast, faster than the US.

MURRAY JAMES: [I smile weakly] Yep, it sure is.

CHINA: Lots of money there.

MURRAY JAMES: Yes, lots. Excuse me, there's something I still don't understand. You're from Taiwan. People from Taiwan speak Mandarin. Why are you speaking Cantonese?

CHINA: Cantonese, language of the Hong Kong people.

MURRAY JAMES: Right, ok... So are you Cantonese?

CHINA: I am from Taiwan. I told you, Cantonese the language of Hong Kong people.

MURRAY JAMES: Right. Nice meeting you. Goodbye.


Only after I leave do I realize that the Taiwanese woman was referring to her friend, not to herself. It was her friend who was "Hong Kong people." As a Hong Kong person, her friend would speak Cantonese fluently; she likely knew some Mandarin as well. The woman, the Taiwanese shopkeeper—her first language would be Mandarin, but apparently she could also speak Cantonese, at least well enough to converse with her Hong Kong friend. And then they both knew English.

Suddenly I feel guilty for criticizing the second and third tongues of women who speak more languages fluently than I do. I don't know why. This bothers me more than it should, I think. I feel depressed. I get home, take my coat off, and immediately pour a shot of vodka.

I drink the vodka. My cellphone rings. It's a friend of mine. He's German.


MURRAY JAMES: Hello.

GERMANY: Hey Murray James.

MURRAY JAMES: Hey man.

GERMANY: What are you doing there?

MURRAY JAMES: Drinking vodka.

GERMANY: Haha, where are you?

MURRAY JAMES: In my bedroom.

GERMANY: Oh! Are you having a party there?

MURRAY JAMES: No, I'm alone.

GERMANY: You're drinking vodka alone?

MURRAY JAMES: Yeah.

GERMANY: Why?

MURRAY JAMES: Many Eastern Europeans and post-Soviet types do this.

GERMANY: Yeah. So?

MURRAY JAMES: Their suicide rates are among the highest in the world. I'm in good company.

GERMANY: [pause]

MURRAY JAMES: Don't you agree?

GERMANY: My English is not so good. I can't tell if you're joking or not.


My sarcasm isn't helping. I quickly end the conversation and hang up the phone, more depressed than I was before. I pour a second shot of vodka. I drink it, pour a third. I drink this one too, put my coat on, grab a textbook, and walk to Taco Bell.

Like the Chinese liquor store, Taco Bell is only a block from my apartment. By now it's Saturday evening. I walk into the restaurant; it's busy. I get in line. Except for me and a table of preteen girls, there are no white people here. Most of the customers are Hispanic; the workers are too. I wonder what makes them so supportive of foreigners who massacre the food from their country. The dinner line moves forward. I wonder: would I eat at McDonald's in Guadalajara if the franchise were owned by Mexicans?

The "Big Bell Box Meal" contains one Volcano Taco, one Burrito Supreme, one Crunchwrap Supreme, one package of Cinnamon Twists, and a 32 oz. soft drink. It comes in a cream-colored cardboard box, on the lower half of which are printed three zingers in bold uppercase: WE TOLD YOU THIS WAS BIG, IF ONLY YOUR MOUTH COULD OPEN THIS WIDE, and ANY BIGGER AND IT WOULD NEED ITS OWN ZIP CODE. The three zingers are hidden beneath the upper half of the box—it's designed so that opening the box will reveal the food and facetious remarks simultaneously, to more pleasantly commit the customer to the enormous ingestive task before him. Imagine ordering the Big Bell Box Meal. Frightened, you think to yourself, "I can't possibly eat this much food." With trepidation you open the box; staring back at you is not only the food but those three zingers in bold uppercase. You laugh. "Alright Taco Bell, you win." I get to the front of the line. I move to the cash register. I order a Big Bell Box Meal plus three beef tacos on the side. Price before tax: $9.20.

The people who work here are comically slow. You can watch them in the kitchen, lowering a gloved hand into a container of diced tomatoes, and emptying its contents into your Chalupa Nacho Cheese; sauntering over to the deep fryers, boxing your Mexican Pizza, reaching for the gun of sour cream. Again, all of this is comically slow. The male employees are faster than the women, though not by much. The difference doesn't matter. A male employee shifts his weight from one leg to the other; it's ridiculous how long this seems to take. The lobby is filling with customers. You look back into the kitchen. It's a vacuum of efficient performance; the kind of lethargy you see only in nature, in glaciers and dying animals, continental drift, that sort of thing.

I've devised a game. Whenever I go to Taco Bell on Saturday, I'll bring my most boring textbook along with me. I pay for my food; then it's a race to see how many pages I can read before my order is ready. (36 pages is a personal best.) This is fun for me. Another game involves the self-service soft drink machine. I'll fill up my cup with Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Taking a seat, I bet myself I won't be able to finish the drink and refill it before my food is ready. This bet I usually lose.

Tonight 32 ounces feels like a gallon. I'm walking to the soda refill station, twenty-three pages into "Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1880-1990," when three shots of vodka and 32 oz. of Mountain Dew open fire on my insides all at once. I feel queasy; I lean against the trash bin for support. A package of Border Sauce tumbles to the floor. My order is called.

I curse my otherwise empty stomach and pick up my order. As I'm putting on my coat to leave, a young voice beside me says, "Mom, I would like to know where the hell my fork is." I look over. It's a boy, of mixed parentage, not more than ten years old. This boy has just cussed his white mother, who scolds him before handing him a black plastic spork. The boy's father, an Indian man, looks up blankly before returning to his taco. I commit then and there to having biracial children. If my son can curse that eloquently when he's 10 years old, consider me a success as a father. Sure, the impudence of a half-Indian boy is unfortunate. But that shit is manageable. Kids can always be taught to respect their parents through discipline (blunt trauma, for example). Good sentence construction is harder to come by.

I feel happy inside. This boy reminds me of myself. "Mom, I would like to know where the hell my fork is" sounds like something I would say, if I were young and resentful like him. I admire his early maturity. In my case, it's taken years of failed relationships and college to become unimpressed with what most other people call a happy life. This kid is ten years old and he's already there. In addition, he's achieved a major goal of mine. He has found a way to be thoughtful, articulate, witty, and suspicious at the same time, through the liberal use of curse words. And for that this little half-Indian boy has earned my respect.

On my way home I call myself a pussy. Murray James, you stumbled into a garbage bin! After drinking what? Three shots of vodka and a cup of Mountain Dew Baja Blast? What a wimp you are! On impulse I decide to forgo my schoolwork for the night, to eat dangerous quantities of Taco Bell and drink vodka and write notes into my computer instead. This is my punishment for having a weak constitution. For having poor dietary habits and a low tolerance for alcohol. For misanthropy. I will hurt my body even more.

Six hours later I'm the drunkest I've ever been alone. My desk is the Red Sea of empty food wrappers; the Big Bell Box Meal is my Promised Land, pillaged, laid waste to, conquered, and now smoldering in the distance. Or, almost—I've emptied an entire package of Cinnamon Twists onto my lap. Oops.

My head is dizzy. I need to sleep. I look up and see "Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1880-1990." The book lies on my bed, unopened. Hahaha I'm awesome. On my computer are paragraphs and paragraphs of text. I read through them; many make surprising amounts of sense. I try to stand up but fall back in my chair. My cellphone vibrates. It's South Korea: James^^ Hi, I'm free for lunch tomorrow~~~
Q(^.^Q)

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