Better is the Enemy of Good

A hiatus due to a dead computer and my own laziness has left me with a lot of events to cover, the most relevant among them being the story of how I killed my computer.
That story, very briefly, involved a pint of Old Rasputin Imperial Stout and an attempt to capture a couple of lesbians making out. I just can’t get into writing about it. As for the other big events; the week I spent hiking the Appalachian Trail with my aunt, my discovery that advertising is a form of begging, finishing Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion, and catching glimpses of b-list celebrities in downtown Boston like Gary Bussey and Rob Schnieder, well, they aren’t worth getting into either. I’ve got something more immeidiate to report.
I’m going home!
It’s great news. Incredible even. But against all the marvelous things I’m looking forward to upon my return there is one obvious down side. I have to give up, at least for a while, on getting better. This decision was recently made by my (former) surgeon in-person in conjunction with my in-high-demand GI specialist over the phone. Yes, Dr. Bootsie himself had looked at me with his cool Republican doctor eyes and declared in reference to the possible operation that “better is the enemy of good.”
Good, of course is quite relative in this case. I’m still going to be in discomfort and at risk of that god damn Barrett’s shit but to explain without getting into a painfully irrelevant repetition of details the possible benefits of the surgery apparently do not out way the potential danger of further damage of my esophagus.
I’ll leave what this might mean for the future for a later blog so I can focus on Dr. Bootsie’s statement, which at the time struck me as very relavent and true. Now, before I get into why I don’t exactly think that anymore, let me say that I truly think of Dr. Bootsie with the utmost respect regardless of any difference in political and philosophical positions. He always gave the impression that he had a genuine concern for my health as well as an honest curiosity about the particulars of my situation. He even insured me that down the road surgery could still become a solution.
So, despite the major downside I considered what the doctor had said and found some happiness with my situation. Just having an answer of some kind, knowing exactly what I had to face helped my health. Even if it was only in a small way. Then there were the thoughts of seeing Sarah and my friends again, which will be another small cure from despair over my health. Dr. Bootsie’s statement was soon pushed to the back of my mind as I began to look forward to long walks and talks and maybe a joint or two (something I’ve avoided completely for over two months). But in the time between now and actually getting home there are still things to deal with such as the transfer of my medical records, sorting out some issues in regards to my new medication and most tedious of all, finding time to spend with relatives.
The first to officially say good-bye was a friend of the family, the brother of the uncle (don’t ask) I’ve been living with for these last eight ardous months. As soon as he found out I was leaving Dave asked me to go out with him for a couple of beers at the IA Club. It took me most of the short ride down to figure out what “IA” meant. Only moments before I saw the big green letters painted on the side of this building next to a baseball field did I realized it stood for “Irish American Club”.
Before I get into the many things that I perceive as wrong with such a place let me first say that “Irish American” is, as America now supposed to exist, a kind of contradiction of terms. This concept includes other compounds. Specifically the “African” and “Mexican” ones. When compared to the non-existant concept of “Canadian American” this becomes more clear and being something of a Canadian-American myself I have thought on these terms before. What I’m driving at is that none of these compound identities with the exception of Canadian-American (because it’s a term you will soon understand as redundant) are in any way meant to denote a country of origin. They’re for labeling skin colors. Examples of less transparent terms would be black-Americans, white (sometimes red-headed and freckled)-Americans, and not-quite-black-not-quite-white-Americans.

When I walk into the bar I am made to sign this registry book. I can’t remember the exact number of members but it’s some number between one and two thousand. If the two dozen guys in there this past Saturday could be taken as a sampling (not that it needs to be) there was not a single Irish-American among them who was not also a white-American. But that quick tally was not nearly as much of a surprise as the six or seven guys hooting away on cigarettes and cigars at the bar. Now, personally I haven’t got too much problem with the idea of smoking bars. I would avoid regular visits to places that allowed it but a night here or there isn’t going to give you cancer. I was still surprised that they managed to be allowed to smoke anything in a bar in this world of strictly regulated . . . well, regulations.
Dave picked us up a couple of Budweisers and we sat down in a booth. At a quick glance Bud or Bud Light were the only two choices of beers. Commercials do wonders (good and mostly bad) on the human mind. One sip of that bubbly nonsense causes me to reflux – its excessive carbonation a clear ploy to sell the product on the basis of that omnipresent advertising word “refreshing” (the consumable cousin of advertising words like“super”, “ultimate”, and “one-time-only”). (Doubters should note that Iceberg Lettuce, orange juice and mountain air, for example, are all sold using the same word, which oddly enough also share the quality of coldness; coldness being one possible origin of the concept of refreshing.) Regardless of the beers’ contrived qualities I still did appreciate at least Dave’s intentions.
Not thinking at the time on the racial (and gender) specificity of the place even though it is located just outside the racially diverse hub of Boston I just sat there listening to Dave’s stories about being a security guard at the Boston Public Library. Dave really is a great story teller. (And before I go on I have to say that regardless of his short comings I am fond of him. We share a love of nature and I could tell that he really appreciated my Appalachian Trail stories.)
The meat of these security guard stories he was telling focused on the job’s persistent exposure to mundane sorrows, something I could personally relate to having been a security guard myself. This didn’t help me though with the difficult time I was having ignoring all his contempt filled comments about the “faggots in the bathroom stalls”. He had all the sympathy in the world for the homeless he encountered (save for one short-sighted comment about how he doesn’t understand why they just don’t get a job) but none what so ever for the homosexuals and the “disgusting” things they did. I had to resist the urge to point out that maybe they met in dirty old bathrooms because people like him think that their natural born sexual tendencies are abhorrent.
Towards the end of our second Bud his stories started focusing on this black female security guard that he referred to as “one of those feminista types”. Apparently she was always causing trouble or something but before he expanded on the thought we decided to leave. This was a relief. I dropped the empty bottles off at the bar and received a very serious nod from an old guy in a fire-engine red ball cap with the American flag on it and the words “God Bless America”. I had to hold back impulses again, this time resisting an eye roll.
The beers began to take their intended effect as we got into Dave’s car. I forgot about where the conversation had been heading and gave him a very appreciative hand shake to thank him for getting the rounds. It was then that I found myself being told about how a couple of black guys used to hang around the club for but that they didn’t stay around for long (obviously). With more than a little pride he stated that there wasn’t a single black person or Hispanic person in the club.
I wasn’t shocked; not by the statement’s matter of fact nature or that Dave said it. I was introduced to American racism years ago (still alive and from a skewed point of view, well). During my first stint working a meaningless job in the good old US of A I was employed as a broom maker in a broom factory. Apart from one equally marginalized Wiccan lady my co-workers were all what is commonly referred to as immigrants, either Hispanic, African or Jamaican. Broom making, a job that requires endless hours of standing, smelling plastic, and breathing in dust and chemicals as well as a slow deterioration of one’s soul is also one that is completely thankless. (To my knowledge there are no bumper stickers that say, “God Bless our Broom makers” even though countless backs of American women and a few backs of men are saved by well crafted brooms and convenient long handled dust pans also assembled by myself and other tireless foreign broom makers.) Some of the guys I met had been there for ten years without much of a raise and certainly no promotion save for one -- Clayon.
Or Klingon as most of the guys in shipping called this Jamaican who had nothing but an abundance of kindness. I had been promoted to shipping and began driving a forklift (which was like getting a Rolls Royce in a country where almost no one has a car) after only three weeks. Nearly every other guy in the shipping department, except for the manager, who was also very kind hearted, referred to Clayon as Klingon – and not at all playfully. It was not only derogatory but whether they meant the connotations or not it completely alienated a guy who was painfully aware of its other meanings. I was nineteen at the time and completely shocked then that there were less-than-backwater racists still walking and working amongst what I then thought of as regular people.
A few years later after being laid-off from the broom factory and regrettably losing contact with Clayon I got that job as a security guard. It was post 9/11. By then I wasn’t the least surprised that one of my co-workers, a mostly devote Muslim from Morocco named Mohammed Ahmar, was also isolated through cowardly behind-the-back comments and a few some what shrouded ones to his face. Of all the people that I got to know in my year at the former Fleetcenter Mohammed was the only one I actually considered a friend. We spent many hours in amiable debate over the existence of God, even his specifically. Not once did I feel threatened. The firmist thing he ever said to me, and he said it with one of the biggest toothiest smiles that I can remember, was “God knows.” Of both Clayon and Mohammed I have fond memories but these stories are what the Irish (I’m guessing) call small potatoes. In neither case was I, nor did I feel I was, breaking new social grounds. Social awareness since the time of that so called “Greatest Generation” has been nothing but improving. Which is to say -- it has gotten better.
Unfortunately, for some, that kind of better is the enemy of their good. Dave’s Irish American Club has changed with the times but only in a very slight degree (it has a women’s auxilliary now welcome during special events on Saturday nights, for example). However timidly, the members still stand by the idea that where ever a woman’s place is it is not in a bar and that black people should have their own clubs (and hell, why not water fountains while they’re at it).
Reflecting on all this and Dr. Bootsie’s statement (let’s not extrapolate here to the point that I am calling the guy a racist because I’m not) I have come up with what I think is an accurate translation to ignorant people speak (or thought). That is that things different are the enemy of things the same.
How does this ignorance-based manisfestation of the idea effect my situation? Well, the truth is I’ll never be able to think in any kind of absolute manner that Dr. Bootsie couldn’t have possibly pulled the surgery off and that I might just have come out a little better. But as he stated, sometimes change can be bad.
One of the hardest things in life can be determining what things are worth altering. This time I went the safer (yet still physically difficult) route. But that doesn’t mean that I think miracles (not of the Jesus sort but just those of a not quite impossible nature) aren’t worth dreaming of. Sometimes one has to be cautious not so much about what promises to be better but of what they consider good.