Stay White

Today, work was slow in the w, so Billy and I fell into trivia. We always listen to Mike FM, the local mix station, and this gives us the opportunity to do a lot of "name that tune" and other such games.

Mike was kind enough to play one of my favorite songs, the duet "Stumblin' In" by Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman, and I let loose with questions about the Runaway's former members, Smokie's minor hits, and Happy Days.

An Irish kid, known for his love of hip-hop and ganja, was at the counter. Before he left, he turned around and said, "Hey guys, stay white."

And he walked away, without smiling.

It had been months since I'd heard whiteness used as some rough equivalence to uncoolness or awkwardness or whatever it was he meant. And that's mostly because I work in what is largely a white industry: Boston Irish Catholic, really. Sure, there are Columbians and blacks and Puerto Ricans and Brazilians who come through our doors, but they are somewhat outnumbered by the Irish. We even have regular customers who are Irish Irish.

Billy doesn't care about being cool, and he doesn't need to. He's 280 and can clean two-hundred pound cubes over his head effortlessly. He can still listen to Creed and admit to crying when he hears Sinatra. Who cares? Not much to prove.

I mean, I'm not that attune to hipness. Not that I would ever listen to Creed without an instinctual shudder.

But these things are inconsequential.

The Irish kid left and Billy turned to me, thoughtfully. He knew we were just made fun of. Darkness crossed his brow.

"Dougie," he said.

"Yes, Billy?"

"It's time for an old-fashioned."

*

An old-fashioned is not short for a plain friend donut, but a handjob. And over a year ago Billy and I realized that we both found the notion of a handjob inherently funny. I'm not the only one: check out the movie Rushmore.

All day long, Billy sends me messages on the terminal: "Dirty Dave would like his handjob now." "I'll trade you your lunch for an old-fashioned."

There is a difference in kind between crude humor that comes down on the side of humor and that which comes down on the side of crude. Dirty Dave? His humor is about enjoying the suffering and humiliation of others. He's not alone.

I guess what makes me connect to Billy in this way, aside from our ability to riff on the same topic for months, is this sense of it being not just because it's funny, but because we know exactly how unfunny it is. It's a sort of metahumor: transcendental! Humor in the w must be cyclical. It's a stay against the endless patterns of pulling orders and stuffing boxes.

"When my nephew asks me what I do for a living," Billy once told me, sorrow on his face, "I tell him I put stuff in and out of boxes."

*

Our water heater is still out. I went to my mother's on Saturday to shower, but had to go without yesterday. I was so self-conscious today that I went into the women's room at w, wetted a handful of paper towels, and tried to sponge myself down in the stall.

I generally opt for the women's room in the W. It's cleaner and there's less of a likelihood that someone will walk in on you. I'm not the only one. Eddy and the Boss use it, too, and I can usually get in a good read of the Manchester Union-Ledger while dropping a deuce. Since it is perhaps the worst newspaper published in a major city, it's almost always a sure bet for an unintentionally funny food review where the critic is more keen on portion size than technique.

Lots of murders, up there in Manchester, it seems, and lots of food festivals. Sounds like a fun place.

*

My knee hurts enough so that I'm taking a serious vacation from BJJ. Well enough. Of course, I miss it, but, over time, you find that the experience of training holds as much futility and disappointment as it does revelations and progress and I mean this in a broad sense. But I'm in for life, still. It is, after all, tattooed on my arm.

*

Listmania:

Ten songs that just played on my iTunes party shuffle:

1. "The Cowboy Trail" anonymous song on compilation cd of early cowboy music
2. "Vito's Ordination Song" Sufjan Stevens
3. "Heat Wave" Linda Rondstadt (I am a closet fan.)
4. "A Big Hunk O' Love" Elvis Presley
5. "Eyes of a Child" Mark Lanegan
6. "Taxi Driver" Guitar Wolf
7. "Death of a Disco Dancer" The Smiths
8. "Warden in the Sky" Woody Guthrie
9. "The End of the Summer" Frank Black
10. "The Thing that Should Not Be" Metallica