Damien Galeone

I am sitting in a lounge chair in front of a large group of people wearing a gown and mortar board. The academics file past wearing their own get-ups which make them look to be Vatican Guards. There are no people flying through the air playing a ball game, nobody has a wand and Alan Rickman is not sneering at anyone, but I still look and feel like Harry Potter. (NB: It occurs to me that this is the fourth of fifth Harry Potter reference made on this site. I assure you reader that I am as uneasy with that fact as you are either irritated or delighted).

Music starts and I yawn and stretch, pull a paperback out of my robe and start reading. I assume my fallback position: too cool for school.

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The only free seat on the tram is being guarded by a dog that is roughly the size of the entire interior of the tram. In true ironic form, I am sure his name is something like Daisy or Sally. I climb over the snouted Yeti and sit in the seat. Shamu, acting on the hopes that my crotch is covered in bacon, buries his nose into it. As with many of my bedmates, my genitalia has a sadly soporific effect on the beast because he releases a disturbingly pleasing breath and falls asleep.

This is not a surprising interaction. I open my book.

The Czech Republic is astoundingly open to dogs.  Dogs are allowed in pubs, restaurants, supermarkets and on public transport. A side effect of this openness is that I have had several unusual interactions with our canine friends. I have been licked on the arm by a tiny dog sticking its head out of a bag on an old woman’s shoulder. I have been trapped against a statue in Old Town Square by a Yorkie terrier as I continuously shouted the only two words I knew in Czech at him – Nerozumim (I don’t understand) and Pivo (beer). Like every other resident of Prague, the bottom of my shoes have hit dog crap so many times that it’s like a brand of shoe polish.

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“You will hear an interview…”

And for the fourth time in six minutes, I slam my face against the keyboard to my office mate’s consternation. Surely, the words themselves do not elicit ideas of horror-craven shit-filled nightmare of hate, agony and endless torture. But there are several factors why this is so.

First, the voice is mine. Second, it is pouring into my ears via earphones. Third, I am creating a listening exam for the university so I am forced to listen over and over again in order to create questions. Creating a test, however, has become secondary to finding every flaw with my voice. I hear every accidental lip, tongue smack and lisp, every misarticulation and tooth click, every over-aspirated P, speech disfluency (uh, um) and every stutter. In six minutes I have become a heavy breathing, sexually predatory forest troll.

This is pure torture.

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Johnson gave the Injun a kick that must have crippled him, then he gave him a blow as of a sledgehammer between the eyes. Johnson knew he had little time. Seizing the guard’s own knife, Johnson lifted his scalp and tied it to his own belt. Next he slit the buckskin down from the guard’s left leg, felt the flesh, ran the knife’s keen edge around the hip, and cut to the bone socket.

Seizing the knee with one hand and the ankle with the other, he twisted and snapped the whole leg from the body. The victim lived. Johnson stepped into the shadows of the night with the bleeding stump over his shoulder. 

Frontier take out food.

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It all starts while looking through my bookshelf for a book on European birds. At one moment, I realize that I have not read any of the books on a particular shelf. This gets me to counting and I eventually procure a pen and a notebook. In about twenty minutes I have run into and from every room in the flat.

A dilemma is afoot; action needs to be taken. I adjourn to the bathroom.

I always do this sort of thing while writing. I’ll be sitting alone in my office typing at a steady and respectable four words an hour, when I get a bee in my bonnet, or in tonight’s case a European Thrush in my bonnet. I‘ll start pacing around looking at once for everything and nothing in particular. It’s how I imagine the average meth addict to spend an evening at home. I randomly focus on something and that becomes my project for the night.

Tonight it’s books.

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The linebacker (prop/Hagrid/big) sized woman hands me a bubblegum sized package. “Tanga!” she shouts. She can’t mean thong, I think. I think wrong. She has used a noun to create an imperative command. I unravel the tiny package to produce a, frankly, confusing puzzle of string and cloth that claims to be an undergarment. She and her (equally large) male colleague leave the room so I can savor the embarrassment of dressing in a thong for the first and, God willing, only time in my adult life. I slip it on incorrectly three or four times, holding it out in front of me after each miscue to analyze it as though it is a stingy map I am trying to refold.

Unless you are punching another man in the throat on the canvas of a ring or an octagon, wearing a tanga should probably make a man feel decidedly unmanly. I am no exception to this probability. I counteract this discomfort with a mixture of manly giggling, self-deprecating jokes and praying for the woman masseuse.

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I am doing math in my head.

Meanwhile, twenty-two teenagers awaiting entrance exams are staring at me in terror. Since there is nothing more enjoyable than having some fun with terrified teens, I put on my most stern look of disapproval and glare into the ranks. However, I don’t have the heart to be mean to kids, so I do (simple) math in my head. This produces the Neolithic furrowed brow which marks confusion, anger at confusion and, often, hunger.

I sense that they are approaching the breaking point, so I stop math, drop the caveman act and crack a joke about dogs and CPR. They don’t understand, but I smile so they laugh with giddy relief. This is a universal examination law: A teacher before an exam is the funniest person on Earth. I could describe an autopsy to them in detail, and they will laugh at it.

I hand out the tests. They begin. I am no longer funny.

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We are eating at a meat restaurant in Český Krumlov, the historic town where a year ago my brother and I convinced vampires to get into a picture with us sans pantaloons (see: Pantless in Krulmov, Aug 25, 2011). This time, I am here with my sister and my friend S. A current ban on spirits in the Czech Republic pretty much guarantees remaining in pants, as does the fact that I’m with my sister and not my brother.

My sister has an interest in languages; she speaks French, some Italian and got one of the highest scores on the city Latin test when she was in high school. So she’s observant and questioning about pronunciation, grammar and vocab. S has just moved here to teach ESL so he is fully interested in this linguistic discussion. Trying out a question for the waiter, my sister announces to the table: Dobrý den, mám máslo = Good day, I have butter.

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There were five of us in the pub last Friday on Jindřišská Street. It was a classic Czech pub, meaning sheets of smoke in the air, grumpy waitresses and food that reenacts the gunfight at the OK Corral within your colon.

One of us was celebrating a birthday; whose birthday was not really material, as we had planned to damage ourselves that evening in celebration of another number being added to the backside of a 4. This plan involved an evening of Gambrinus and Becherovka to cheer another year without major health problems, while tempting the fates.

We ordered five shots of Becherovka and the waiter shook his head. Assuming they were out of Becherovka, we ordered Slivovice. He shook his head again. Panic ran through the once riled ranks of our group.

I could almost hear every member’s balloon knot tightening up with the waiter’s gesture.

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I am sitting at my desk, eating a hotdog. There is a Snickers bar waiting for dessert. Normally, a hotdog with Snickers chaser elicits a joy that is not often seen in a post thirty-year-old man without a wad of ones in his hand and women wrestling in pudding nearby. But not today. Today, I have been thinking about Chicago, the place where I enjoyed, for one brief moment, the life of the 1%.

For no particular reason, I throw the remainder of my hotdog in the trashcan.

Three weeks ago I was in Chicago and, though it was fantastic, it has ruined my life. We stayed with Collin’s friends Amy and Dan, who both work at upscale restaurants in downtown Chicago.

Having stayed at campsites and motels for much of the previous two weeks, we were stunned by their beautiful downtown apartment. Welcomed with bourbon Old Fashioneds and snacks, our awe was progressed by breakfast of bagels, coffee and donuts. In the afternoon we feasted on gourmet hotdogs. I had a rattlesnake dog and Collin had an alligator dog, and fries dipped in duck fat lard.

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