Waiting for the Electricity (25 page)

I preferred not to hula hoop, but filled with
cultural experiences
, my life became so busy, like a workaholic’s. I did not even have time to philosophize about how America was not how I expected, not like a picture by Edward Hopper: a long road at sunset, red dirt, and in the middle of the dirt, a short gas pump.

16.

Deyda, Malkhazi, Juliet, Zuka and everyone else in the neighborhood
,

I am in the library now reading books about Admiralty Law, Evolution and Science of Mankind. Also I have been studying about environmental law and met with the professor who teaches it
.

My emotional content is a little low because I must expend so much effort to understand the people here. All the time in the cafeteria’s buffet line the Americans use the following expression: “You’re in my space.” It is a difficult concept. The only way to translate this in Georgian I think is, “You invaded my dominion
.”

And today something really strange happened. I went to the store to buy beer. So many different kinds of brands! So I choose one named after my favorite Czechoslovakian metal band and went to sit on the steps. I sat there. Such a nice afternoon. I lit my cigarette and cracked open the beer. But what was this? It tasted like a hospital! Malkhazi, have you heard of this strange kind of beer? It was called root beer. I looked in my dictionary and a root means a carrot. Well … why not?

Anyway, a few days ago I had another course with Mr. Tetley, the motivational speaker. He was giving us good advice on global marketing, about emblems and brands. I drew for him my sheep horn design for a Georgian car hood and he was very impressed
.

But the most interesting thing happened yesterday, which I would like to tell you about. My host Merrick took me to a place called Corte Madera mall, which is a big crowded shopping center with a JC Penney’s where I bought a new jacket. Also an Armani tie (handmade in Italy) because we are supposed to look professional. Gocha’s silk shirt will not be able to compete with my new image. My host Merrick told me, “Slims, if you want to buy a jacket that’s okay but the reason we are here is for a different reason. We are here for guerilla activity. We stood outside JC Penney’s in the parking lot and sang a song that went like this. I will try to get it correct: “Buy nothing today
Consider that you might have and be enough
Invest yourself in the ones that you love / Instead of amassing more stuff.” The police came. They said it is illegal to stop people from shopping and told everyone to stop singing. The police really have a lot of power here. I suggested to Merrick that perhaps the police would like a popsicle but he said that wasn’t a good suggestion
.

In Georgia we think the Gurians from our village are funny but people here are even more funny. I read on a military blog about an anticommunist public convention here in America. At the convention, people made speeches like, “The communist is a criminal and we must stop him.” They said that Russian martial arts and Georgian Chidaoba must be banned. Remember Zuka how you were taking Chidaoba classes to learn how to fight without weapons? They were even saying humorous stuff like Chidaoba instructors are secret KGB agents. Some high schoolers couldn’t lift a Chidaoba instructor during a class so they accused him of having scientific crystal-gazer power created by Soviet scientists during 1950s! They don’t need to worry so much! We cannot go back to the USSR. We are not the Beatles!

When I showed Merrick the website about people who are afraid of Chidaoba he told me that only people who have a lot of time to waste write comments on those sites. I had been in the US for almost two weeks so far and I didn’t want to waste my time so I joined Charlie on the couch. He was watching the Larry King show while Merrick played the guitar. The lighting design on the wall behind Larry distracted me so much it was hard to pay attention to what he was saying.

Larry was talking about something serious, about deploying very expensive missiles over an Afghan cave. All his advisers were there with him. Senators and other congress people, everyone nodding their heads gravely. “But how can anyone take this seriously,” I asked Merrick, “with those festival lights, like a New Year’s tree, in the background?” Merrick didn’t answer but only continued playing folk songs on his guitar. “They take it seriously,” I explained to him, “only because they all know it was the work of the most expensive interior designer.” Merrick still didn’t look up from his guitar. “It’s important to notice these things,” I insisted to him. “A designer charged a lot of money to make everyone believe him. But now the Larry King show is like a satire. Our Georgian news is very serious,” I said seriously. “There’s a time for news and a time for satire. It’s important to know the difference.”

“You’re only seeing the outside of it. You need to stay here longer and then you will see a deeper level.”

“How a deeper level?” I asked.

To find this deeper level, I closed my eyes and pretended I was blind.

*

The next Sunday, the day I had free, I went into a restaurant near the marina—the Cable Car Bistro. It specialized in clam chowder in a carved-out bowl of bread. It resembled our
Adjaruli khachapuri
—cheese in a bread boat. I think all cities next to the sea must make their food into boat shapes. The waiter approached a man who was looking over the menu. He waited for him to order. The man finally said, “I think I’ll just have a beer.” It was so funny. America has such fantastic characters. “I think I’ll just have a beer,” became my favorite phrase. But to the waiter I said, “I think I’ll just have a water.”

When I got home I told Merrick about the Cable Car Bistro. He was busy dipping a chopstick in cans of orange and brown paint, and daubing it on a section of PVC piping. “I think I’ll just have a beer,” I said and laughed.

“Slims, why is that funny?” he asked.

“Because, you know. No one would say that in my country. We can’t just drink
beer
. Beer is a capitalist drink, you know. You can drink it all night and still not reveal your true feelings, still have something sneaky in mind. If a Georgian saw me just drinking beer he would think it was some kind of comedy, that I was drinking beer because I was no longer Georgian, and that would be a tragedy, and where there is tragedy there is humor.”

“That is interesting,” Merrick said. He was concentrating hard on something he was building.

“I’m going to make some macaroni. Do you want some?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“What are you building there?” I asked.

“A didgeridoo,” he said. “This design is called a walkabout pattern. I’m trying to get my power back. I lose my power around my sister.”

“Around Susan?” I asked. “I do not understand your meaning.”

“It’s not that I compare myself to her, that I feel bad that she has the big house and not me, because I don’t want that, don’t want the swimming pool and the life insurance policy, or even her boyfriend’s vintage Crown Victoria with the push button gears. I’ve grown beyond
all that kind of envy because that wasn’t the life I chose. I mean I
thought
I was beyond all that. Today I went over to her house to pick up my truck. And, in her garage I saw her boyfriend’s Shop-Vac. That thing can suck up anything! I realized, when I was standing there, that I do really envy her boyfriend’s Shop-Vac. With that thing I’d be able to suck up all these dollhouse pieces that are ground into my carpet. But fine. If her boyfriend wants to own the most expensive Shop-Vac on the market, just for the prestige factor, that’s fine with me. The thing that really gets to me though is that there is so much support for my sister’s dream in this country. This country works for her. She’s not trying to stir up a revolution to overthrow the corporations. When people are worried about their mortgages all the time, they are less likely to stir up a revolution. If people are too stressed with thinking of how to pay their health insurance, who has time for a revolution?”

“But why do you want a revolution?” I asked. “Revolutions aren’t usually successful.”

“I’m talking about an inner revolution,” he said, putting his chopstick down. “But you can’t even find that here. One of my roofing clients just told me that down at the Zen center today the
monk
gets up there and says, ‘The miracle of life is childbirth. To witness it is to take part in your own spiritual evolution.’ Which is true. Which is fine. Which is beautiful. Granted, I give you that. But even he is looking to overwhelm people with childcare expenses. Couldn’t the nuclear family be more
optional
? I mean, most people aren’t listening to some Buddhist monk anyway. They stay home on Sunday mornings to paint their trim instead. At my sister’s house today she was standing there arguing with her boyfriend because he didn’t like the color of paint she had chosen for the dining room. She had ripped off the little doggie wallpaper she had put up and was repainting it. She says to her boyfriend, ‘The people in my seminar’—she was talking about you guys—‘probably only have one color of paint to work with. They would be
delighted
with Malibu beige.’ So I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my sister is changing. She’s waking up a little, recognizing other people’s needs.’ So I tell her, since she’s always so stressed out, ‘You know, you should try meditating.’ But then she
says to me, ‘Merrick, I heard there was
scandal
down at the Zen center.’ That’s her response. But she’s right. This roofing client of mine, thirty-five years she was there. Was the gardener. Didn’t develop any worldly skills. And now they won’t give her the retirement plan she was contracted for. She goes to litigation but she gets so mad and yells, ‘I won’t take your blood money!’ Which is funny because she’s talking to a Zen community. Now she regrets her reactionary response. But what does it all matter when we’re destroying the planet? By the way, Slims, have you heard that people are drilling for oil? I mean, in your
car
? You think you’re safe with a lock on your gas cap but they’ve started to drill right into the metal of your car. Here. In America! Because of gas prices. A thousand dollar repair job. So anyway, it’s not that I feel myself inferior because I haven’t achieved the dream. It’s that I feel myself despairing because I haven’t achieved
my
dream. Here I am in this entrepreneurial country, though these days with the dot-coms they’re calling it
info-preneurial
. Creepy, isn’t it? I mean I have my roofing business which I take some pride in, but in the back of my mind I’m always feeling like I’m doing something wrong, that something’s a little off. I want community. I want a tribe. So what do I resort to? A homeless man and a foreigner. No offense. I really like your company. But I mean I’m thirty-four years old and nearing the grave. I’m no longer a bundle of potential but a bundle of bad decisions. I’m tired of banging my head against the wall asking the question, ‘Who am I? Where did I go wrong?’ Or, is this just the normal human condition? Sometimes I feel like I’m just treading water, over and over, and not getting anywhere.”

“How long have you been treading water?” I asked.

“For years, it feels like,” he said.

“That’s a good skill. You won’t drown. You’ll be able to wait for the coastguard.”

He looked at me and laughed. “It’s not funny. I mean it is. Yeah. I’ve even started watching old people in the street. Some are all hunched over, can barely walk. Others, the same age, have this swing in their step and are whistling. I want to ask them, ‘What is
your
story?’ Anyway. So I’m trying to recreate a new story for myself, in this walkabout pattern, like the aboriginals do, on this pipe here.”

“Do you know the story about the man who is playing his
chonguri
?” I asked him.

“No,” Merrick said.

“All day long he only plays one note. His wife asks him why he doesn’t play music like everyone else and he says that it sounds like music but actually everyone else is simply searching for the note that he found. It looks like you are searching for your right note.”

“Exactly, Slims.”

“But maybe it’s better to just make music,” I said. “Most people in Georgia think they’ve found the right note, that we don’t need to change because we are fine as we are. But then they are only yelling their note loudly, always thinking their opinion is the right one.”

Despite this advice, I could understand Merrick’s point of view because in America I was also was not fine as I was. I did not feel at home. They say it takes a year for the angel of the place to spread her wings and reveal herself to you; I had hoped the process would be quicker. But Merrick had been here his whole life and he still was not at home so I told him, “Sometimes I feel confused too. At home I have two personalities. One is my personality that comes from the city and its high culture. Always I have to polish my shoes and try to speak in an aristocratic way. The other is my village personality of ‘homelessness, horror movies, drink vodka, lalalala.’ But anyway, it’s boring to always talk about our problems so much. It’s better to just tell jokes.” I told him the joke about a man from Svanetia, a mountain man, who was driving on a mountain road and, being drunk, he drove off the cliff and hit his head when his car collided with a boulder. At the hospital the doctors operated. They opened up his head. But his head was empty except for a string. One doctor asked, “What is this string?” The other doctor cut it and the Svani’s ears fell off.

Merrick started laughing.

“Don’t laugh so hard,” I said, “or tomorrow you will be crying. At least, that’s what my grandmother always said.”

But he looked depressed all of a sudden. I tried to remember more advice from my grandmother. “Never feel alone, then the real life begins,” I said. But I wasn’t really sure about that advice. My
grandmother was the milkmaid heroine of the Soviet Union and her main company was cows.

“No, I don’t feel lonely,” he said. “Sometimes, I just don’t feel useful.”