Blunt Wit

So on a recent flight as I had proceeded to sprawl out in finagled exit row seat luxury, a strange woman of above average looking intelligence saddled into the middle seat next to me and opened up the latest John Grisham novel “The Pelican Boxers” or “The Firm Butt” or “The Wayward Client” or whatever cause after a while all his stories seem to run together and it becomes difficult to distinguish one great tale from the next but then maybe that’s just me cause I just happened to be reading Billy Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Furry” at that very moment and his novels seem to have a very similar characteristic.

Anyway, Liz, which I mistakenly took as short for “Lizard” much to her apparent chagrin, finished the book and laid it thoughtfully in her lap. I personally thought it was an honest mistake.

“So did you like it?”

“Well, actually no, because the bad guys win in the end?” she twanged with and unmistakable English or possibly Australian accent.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“I do believe you just did?”

“Ah, right, well, how many novels do you typically read in a year?”

“52.”

“Wow, so what types?”

“Unthinking pap, like this novel, or sometimes non-fiction … but mostly fiction. I love a good story.”

“And why? What do you get out of these stories?”

“I learn, I stretch, I grow, I see the world in a different light.”

“Ah, so I am writing a story and attempting to craft just such an experience.”

She muffled some laughter.

“So basically anything I say now might end up in your fiction?”

“Hmmmm, good question. Yes I suppose it might.”

“So what’s this story of yours about?”

“Well, the never ending quest for meaning in an absurd world.”

“Brilliant, when can I read it.”

“As soon as I finish writing it and assuming I’m lucky enough to get it published.”

“So you will write me up fondly if you do include me?”

“Of course, I will describe you as an exotic beauty with rare intelligence and the wisdom of a female Solomon.”

“Good!”

Are you playing the part in a story? What is it?

Today I must finally assuage my conscious and confess my inveterate moral turpitude as for years I’ve been harboring a deep, dark secret. In short, I’ve been a bad boy.

The wellspring of my guilt occurred in the yingwo, or hard sleeper section, of a 35 hour train trip from Beijing to Hong Kong some years ago. I was traveling with my mother who had decided to visit China for the very first time and take advantage of the fact that her eldest son had been studying there for a year. He neglected to tell her he still couldn’t use chopsticks or even fly a kite properly.

Ah, and for the uninitiated, the accommodations on the train to Hell are more comfortable than your average yingwo.

Anyway, when we arrived at our assigned cubby hole there were folks huddled around the single fold down table puffing furiously on unfiltered cigarettes.

Ok my memory might be playing tricks on me. Let’s try again.

Anyway these two smokers barely noticed us through the haze as we piled into the upper bunks on either side. The shorter of the two wore black and sort of glared at the world through the shifty eyes of a possible serial killer. The other one had that dull stare of an unwitting accomplice. Together they scared me.

Once the train had pulled away the two men redoubled their smoking. My Mom, clearly in agony, looked across at me and said, “Tell them to stop smoking. I can’t breathe. And if you don’t, I WILL.” (Not that she could, as she only spoke the sliverest of Chinese and they didn’t speak even a wink of English).

Now I had a quandary. I had lived in China for a while and had various run-ins with these lawless types, impervious to any of the decorum that keeps a normal, polite society from falling to pieces. They would sooner kill you as spit on you. And there was the whole ‘face’ issue. You must never, ever cause such ruffians to lose face. So I wavered. And my mother suffered and seethed. She again threatened to take matters into her own hand when suddenly it came to me!

“Cough,” I said to her, “Loudly and often.”
She looked perplexed so I repeated my entreaty with maniac zeal.
“Cough. Cough. Cough.” She hacked.

I approached them nervously. I noticed the smaller man’s yellow, nicotine-stained fingers as he took a long, lazy drag.
“I apologize in advance,” I said in Chinese, “but the woman here is my mother and she has been afflicted with a bad case of Tuberculosis and your cigarette smoke is inflaming her raw, gnarled lungs.”

At that both men’s eyes grew wide with fright as they extinguished their cigarettes and rushed off to find a safer locale. Thus, we enjoyed the entire trip in relative smoke-free seclusion. My mother asked me what I said to them and I told her that I had simply asked politely that they not smoke as it bothered her.

To this day I have not confessed the fact I afflicted her with such a malevolent, spur-of-the-moment imaginary disease. I thought putting the story out there and confessing in the relative anonymity of the blogosphere would start the healing process. Sorry Mom.

Do you have any deep, dark secrets you to want to own up to and assuage your conflicted conscious?