Damien Galeone

One thing is certain: The B Monster is upset.

I can’t blame her. I have just squeezed her into a carrying box and whisked her out of my friend’s flat, which has been her home for August. And then I carried her down a long flight of steps and onto a bus full of Czechs and me.

Her unhappiness is exemplified by several sounds coming out of her mouth. None of these sounds resemble anything close to the meow (Cz: mňau) of a cat, which, if you don’t know, the B Monster is.

The first sound is something like that of a tiny engine revving, as though a hobbit is gunning his crotch rocket in preparation for a ride through the shire. This morphs into her shouting like a deranged old Jewish man with croup and possessed with the ghost of another old Jewish man. Then the B Monster begins panicking in her carrying case, emitting the frenzied sounds a wild animal might make several seconds before chewing off one of its limbs.

She is like Harrison Bergeron’s faceless, evil antagonist, changing her pitch whenever the people around me might have become accustomed to it, thereby rendering them incapable of blocking it out.

My attempts to quell the animal go like this:

Please go to sleep.

I’ll buy you ham.

Please lick yourself.

I’ll put a Valium in the ham.

Not only do my attempts fail, they exacerbate her desperation and as an added bonus the carrying box acts as an amplifier of sorts. By the time she hits the fever pitch, I essentially have a Yeti in a box.

As I stare around in exasperation, two things go through my mind.

First: please stop looking at me!

I haven’t been this aware of ‘the Czech silence’ since my brother and I drank a bottle of Becherovka and then went into the Týn church. Other than the cat of the Baskervilles in the box on my lap there is not one other sound coming from within the bus. When the bus is in motion, at least the motor drowns her out a little bit, but otherwise it’s just the B Monster and her ever surprising and continuing levels of dementia.

I am wishing for ridiculous things. I would give anything for a music system on the bus, a drone missile to hit the bus, a shoot out, or a conversation to break out.

All of these things are obviously out of the question.

Second: I recognize this situation.

It takes a little time to figure out the reason for this déjà vu. My temperature is high, my vision is blurred due to increased blood pressure, and I would watch a Michael Bay film to end this ordeal. Three emotions are exhibited on the faces of the people around me: pity, annoyance, woe.

And then it dawns on me that I have experienced this situation from the other side. Every time I have worn one of those expressions on public transport, the person in my position has had a loud child. Running through my head as I don a sheepish grin and shrug, are the countless times I have sat groaning into my shirt, grumbling under my breath, and promising that I’ll wear two condoms during any future coitus.

And now I feel like a jerk. As we continue along, the B Monster going into her apparent Bjork phase, I make a promise to myself. At this moment of embarrassment, I promise that I will never scorn a parent again, I will never shoot them a bad look, and I will surely never wish impotence upon them and buck teeth on the kid.

After similar performances on the metro and the walk home, the B Monster and I return home. I am a little wiser, having been fed a dose of medicine called perspective. She is a little hoarse. I fill up her water and food bowls. I grab a chunk of ham from the fridge and her mood instantly improves.

And that’s a good thing, because I am getting the Valium.

Any similar experiences, with kid or animal?