Sufjan Stevens

An Oboist With So-So Vibrato

When my mother dropped me off at music school in upstate New York,
she said, "Oh Jesus help this kid be something special!" She wanted a child
prodigy, like Mozart and Lizst, but I was just an oboist with so-so vibrato.
When my mother left, I changed my name from Horace to Horatio. It was a
boarding school. You could be whatever you wanted for a year. I told
everyone I was from Argentina, which made things better, since I was last
chair in the orchestra. I refused to speak Spanish since I was in America now
and I wanted to be American.
In truth, I was from Michigan. I wore Izods and stonewashed jeans, tightrolled. I had a Midwestern slang. I said things like hoydie-doydie and naw.
My father was an elder at a Pentecostal church. My mother cleaned our
kitchen for a living. I was raised in a house with more bibles than aspirin
tabs.
No one caught on because in music school you spend so much time
repeating minor arpeggios that you don't notice other people's accents or
skin tone. You only notice embouchure and posture. You envy someone
else's G-sharp major scales and circle breathing. If you were an oboist, like
me, you noticed the shape of a reed, the wood tone and nationality of the
instrument: French Loree or Rogoutat. If you had a plastic oboe, like me, you
were told not to leave your instrument on the radiator since it would melt
and ruin a perfectly good case. I decided to rent an oboe from the music
library; it was made of African balsam. "At least you don't sound like a
saxophone anymore," Heather Wong said after sectionals. She was just
being nice since she was second to last chair.
The other players fondled their oboes like exotic wives, with bulbed bells
and cotton pads and gold-plaited keys. The best players used peacock
plumes to swab. I used an old sock and a piece of string. Sarah Sinigesson
said her father found her oboe in an abandoned Egyptian attic; it was worth
ten grand, she said. I said my plastic oboe cost me two-fifty brand-new. She
said, "Oh Horatio, that's just awful."
We learned to make double reeds with bamboo cane and colored thread.
We shaped them with Vitry knives and a straight edge. I practiced for six
hours every day. There was nothing else to do. I played Marcello, Vivaldi or
Verdi, because Italians knew how to make something sound pretty with just
a triad and some trills. But I was terrible.
"Relax your wrists!" Mr. Blund would say during my lesson. "If I see you
use forked-F again, I will cut off your hands." Mr. Blund said he was very
respected in Belgium. Mr. Blund said he couldn't wait to get out of this Godforsaken penitentiary and tour with a real symphony. He was right. The
campus was stuck in a knot of trees: a row of cinderblock buildings and a
performance hall shaped like a UFO. Every room on campus was sound
proofed with synthetic pads and asbestos. Everywhere you went it felt like
an asylum.

Juries were worse than The Gong Show. Anyone could sit in and offer
remarks about intonation or timing. A bassoonist named Barbara Mushwater
once stopped me in the middle of Wagner to tell me my retardation of the
slurred note before the cadence was bad. I said I didn't know there was such
a thing as good retardation, but no one found it very funny. I said, "Could
you be more specific than bad?"
She said no, that about summed it up.

All The Nonsense of Suffering

Bethany Peters will tell you about the time her daughter crawled into the
sewer pipe at the creek in the backyard and came out the other end at the
waste treatment plant speaking in tongues. Her daughter was three years
old at the time, and Bethany says she has dyslexia. Bethany Peters will tell
you about how Christ came into her own life at a time when she considered
prostitution. No one asks how she would have made such a living in Pickerel
Lake, Michigan population 2,572 where downtown is an abandoned strip
mall hosting weekend flea markets where you can get last year's calendars
at half-price (people collect them for the pictures).
Bethany Peters will tell you about her first encounter with the Devil, at
Morris Street near the P.O., where the stoplight was a stop sign in 1985. She
had her groceries in a paper bag, and a carrot stick in her mouth, when the
Devil (disguised as a house painter in overalls, with a dirty clergy collar)
jaywalked from across the street and said, "Ma'am, can I borrow your spirit
for a minute?" Bethany Peters was as big a woman then as she is now. She
put her weight forward and said, "No sir, I believe I am redeemed by the
blood of the Lamb," and she dropped her groceries and slugged him in the
gut. No one witnessed the event, but Mr. Terry (who'd driven in from the
farm for a quick shave at Sam's) later found Bethany flat on her back on the
crabgrass by the P.O. Her groceries were all over the street: a can of
evaporated milk, six packs of Nilla Wafers, and a jar of sweet pickled ginger
for her daughter, who was six at the time. Bethany gave her testimony the
next Sunday, and pastor Bob made her a church deaconess.
She will tell you she always gets what she prays for. She will tell you she
is part of the royal priesthood of God. She will tell you about the time she
came home from church and found a wolverine in her kitchen, eating the
bread biscuits she'd made for the Christian woman's quilting bee. She'll tell
you how she got him out: by shaking her ceramic chimes from the patio,
singing the hymn, "Christ is made the sure foundation," which scared him
out the front door, since Bethany Peters is tone deaf.
She will tell you, without flinching, how her husband died; she isn't
squeamish. She doesn't mind blood, other people's or her own. She will tell
you he was found crushed by a snow plow, having passed out in a drift near
the Dutch Oven Bakery. His body was found in three equal parts. He was a
contractor and a gambler and an alcoholic and sometimes he hit her in the
face with his Sunday slippers. Bethany told everyone this in open confession
at church many years later. "It really didn't hurt at all," she wept over the
microphone. "But my spirit has never recovered." The other members crept

around her, laying on their hands, praying for emotional healing,

reconciliation, and for Christ's quick return, which will destroy all the
nonsense of suffering, once and for all. Bethany cried and cried. She will tell
you she never cried so much as then.
She will tell you she is dieting, even though she eats what she likes. She
is a big woman. Her body is as wide as a water heater, and her breasts hang
like long water balloons to her middle, concealed in a variety of calico
dresses made at Joanne's Fabrics. She will tell you she has a younger
brother named Guy, a small man with a handsome space between his two
front teeth who is not a believer. He has been married three times, and now
he runs a liquor store in the U.P. Bethany will tell you that we are all held
accountable for what we know, and that God is merciful. She will not say
much more about it, though.
What she will tell you is this: her daughter got accepted to a state
university after three years of community college. She is studying criminal
law, although Bethany was hoping for something less serious: Home
Economics, Physical Therapy, or religious studies. She will tell you that her
daughter is the apple of her eye, as Elijah was the Apple of God's eye. She
will tell you she is glad she didn't have boys, because boys grow up hating
their mothers until they are adults, and then they overcompensate for the
rest of their lives, calling long distance on weekends, or sending gift packets
and coupons for hair conditioners in the mail. Bethany Peters will tell you
she would not trade motherhood for all the hair conditioners of the world.
Bethany will tell you about Joshua and the battle of Jericho; she will tell
you Jesus drove seven demons out of Mary Magdalene; she will tell you the
genealogy of Saul the Benjamite, from memory; she will tell you that Moses
never said to Pharaoh, "Let my People go," because Aaron did. She will tell
you that Jesus' last words were not "It is finished," but "I finally did it!" She
will tell you he died of dehydration, the most natural consequence. "Drink
eight glasses a day," she will tell anyone she meets at the supermarket. She
will tell you about the abundance of mercy or the peace that passeth
understanding. She will tell you about justification through grace and the
atonement of sins. She will tell you she is happy to see you, and God bless.
What Bethany Peters won't tell you is that her mother was Jewish and
her father was a soda salesman, with a head as bald as a baseball who
spent his afternoons at the off-track betting depot in Muskegon. She won't
tell you about the time when she was four and her Uncle Joe took off his
clothes in front of her when getting ready for the bath. She won't tell you
about the time in seventh grade when she broke Melissa Bricker's nose with
her physics notebook. She won't tell you she didn't start her period until she
was sixteen. She never told anyone about that. She never told anyone about
the time she stole money from her husband to buy a wrist watch with a
compass, because she'd always wanted to know where she was going. She
won't tell you she hates black people, at least not in so many words. She
won't tell you she prefers women in dresses and men in hats, or that she
threw a fit the day they let the girls wear slacks in church. She won't tell you
she is diabetic, and that she takes medication before bed. She won't tell you
she has a gun under the floorboards in the pantry. She won't tell you about
her miscarriage when she was twenty-seven or that she gave it a name: Lily

Rose Peters. She will never tell you about the time she caught her daughter
heavy petting on the back porch with Jeremy Keyswater. She will never tell
you about the time she hit a doe with her husband's Jeep, and backed up
over it to put it out of it's misery. She will never tell you that she hasn't
shaved her legs in sixteen years. She will never tell you how she lost her
front teeth when her husband jabbed her with his elbow. She will never tell
you she is sorry but she doesn't have time to talk right now. And she will
never tell you about the two German Shepherds she keeps in the cellar, tied
to the furnace with rope, their mouths shut with duct tape, or how she feeds
them Oleson's day old steaks and tomato juice, hitting them with kindling or
snapping their sides with a hot wet rag, nourishing their tempers, and in the
end times, when the world is one big riot, she will loose them on the
antichrist, once and for all.

Christmas Mysteries of the Chicken McNuggets as Explained by Macrobiotic

Star People and Aunt Harriets Magic Ouija Board
Two weeks before Christmas, my parents read a pamphlet on the
industrialization of food and told us from then on we would eat macrobiotic.
The next day, my father showed us the menu for Christmas dinner: kale,
Chinese lettuce, Shiitake mushrooms, seaweed crackers and a tofu roast. I
was eight years old, my brother was nine, and my sisters were 10 and 11.
All we wanted was a Charleston Chew and a bag of Twizzlers. But these were
now off-limits. My parents read somewhere that food coloring in breakfast
cereals promoted hyper-activity in children; my mother served oatmeal and
salty bran flakes with flaxseed. If we begged for sweetener, she gave us
sliced bananas. My parents joined the natural food co-op and signed up for
colon cleansings. We were no longer allowed soda pop, potato chips, fast
food, or chewing gum. My mother told us that corn syrup caused cancer.
Its in everything! she said, reading from a can of spaghetti sauce. Soon
after that, she stopped shaving her legs. She stopped wearing
undergarments, bras, or anything acrylic. Our Christmas stockings had to be
knit from sheeps wool from Switzerland. My mother was convinced that
tinsel was radioactive. My father bought hemp baseball caps and organic
cotton dental floss for stocking stuffers. We decorated the tree with organic
popcorn and orange peels. My father burned incense and read selections
from Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse.
At night, I prayed to God: Please send me a candy bar! Please send
me Laffy Taffy. I wrote a desperate letter to Santa Claus. Dear Santa: My
parents have become hippies. I dont want ginger gum and miso soup
packets for Christmas. I dont want bees wax hair treatment or a silica face
mask from the hot springs of Iceland. I dont want a home enema kit or a
toothbrush made from recycled newspapers. I just want some Chicken
McNuggets.
I got my wish. After Christmas dinner, my mother had an allergic
reaction to the tofu roast. She had hot flashes, her skin broke out in hives,
and her throat swelled up. My father flipped through the book of
homeopathic remedies and told her to suck on a stick of liquorice root. It
didnt do a thing. He told her to bite the rind of a grapefruit. It didnt do a

thing. He finally took her to the hospital, where they pumped her stomach,
and made her sleep next to a man with dementia. The next morning, when
she came home, bleary-eyed and white as a ghost, my mother broke down
and begged for a milkshake from McDonalds. My father shrugged. We
climbed in the car and got Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets from the drivethru.
The following year, my parents read too many Anne Rice novels and
brought home bags of garlic cloves for stocking stuffers. They put up mirros
in every room, just to be safe. My father watched a TV special on Celtic
myths and superstitions and decided to laminate four-leaf clovers and give
them away as Christmas lanyards. He encouraged us to wear them around
our necks, like ID tags, to usher in good fortune. Each one had our name and
a famous quote from a James Joyce novel. Mine said: Hi! My name is Sufjan.
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. When my mother
accidentally broke the mirror in the coat closet, she made us each wear a
lucky rabbits foot on our belt loops. But on New Years Day, my oldest sister
broke her arm sledding down the hillside gardens and my father was laid off
from his job at the state park. A few weeks later, our dog was run over by a
snowplow and my mother said enough is enough. She asked that we give
back the rabbits foot key chain and the lucky wheat penny and the yin yang
talisman bracelets and the four-leaf clovers. She burned them in the wood
stove. My father took out a life insurance policy and started buying lottery
tickets and my mother used the garlic cloves in her egg frittata.
A few years later, everyone was talking about the Christmas lunar
eclipse. My parents considered this rare celestial phenomenon an important
sign. They had begun to prescribe to the notion that they were Star
People, space aliens from another planet temporarily inhabiting human
bodies. There were millions of Star People on earth waiting for the Universal
Power Source to end all the nonsense of war and suffering once and for all.
There was a paperback book frequenting our kitchen countertops (Are You a
Star People? Am I a Star People? By Curtis Leopard) with illustrations of
crystal shapes, interplanetary objects, illuminated faces with concentric
eyes and first-person accounts of past life experiences on other planets.
There was a description of one man, a short-order cook named Garth from
Cleveland, who recalled having once been a Martian king with a harem.
Santa Claus, the book claimed, was a Star Person with intimacydisplacement issues. He went around giving gifts because he wasnt shown
enough affection by his space mother.
My own mother was certain that, in another life, on another planet,
she had been a witch. She pointed out residuals: her proclivity for sweeping
the floor with a medieval-like broom she had bought at an antique shop; she
also claimed to possess the powers of telekinesis. We had yet to see her
move anything, not even our disbelief. My mothers evidence was an
inventory of rhetorical questions. Have you ever felt out of touch? she
read from the book cover. Have you ever felt restless and homesick for no
apparent reason? She pointed out other symptoms: acne, headaches, an
interest in learning foreign languages. This made me worry. I had just
started high school and my face was breaking out, little ruddy patches
around the flat face of my chin, where I was starting to grow stubble. I was

also taking first year German. My mother gave me a look over her reading
glasses. You seem to fit the bill, she said. Do you ever get migraines?
For Christmas that year, I got a copy of Ray Bradburys Martian Chronicles
and a telescope from Sears, but it was too overcast to see anything through
it, not even the lunar eclipse.
Then there was the Christmas when Aunt Harriet got divorced and
moved in with us for a few weeks. My parents put her up in the living room,
in a cot next to the Christmas tree. Dont bother Aunt Harriet, my mother
warned us. She is going through menopause. I was only seven years old; I
thought menopause was something like a very long vacation you take when
you have been working too hard. Thats about right, my mother said. But
maybe keep that to yourself.
Aunt Harriet smoked unfiltered cigarettes and read Vogue magazines
cover to cover. At night, after a few drinks, she would call us to the living
room and pull out the Ouija board, which she used for spiritual guidance. We
all circled around her, me and my brother and sisters, touching our
fingertips to the heart-shaped pointer as if we were praying in church. Aunt
Harriet asked the spirits if there was life on other planets, was there any
meaning in life, was there hope for Ethiopians starving in the desert, who
would be the next president of the United States of America? After each
inquiry, the pointer would seamlessly slip and slide, spelling out ominous
answers, and I felt my hands turn hot. Go ahead and ask something, Aunt
Harriet nudged me. I racked my brain, rummaging through a catalogue of
the worlds mysteries, unanswered questions, the secrets of the universe. I
decided on something less grand: What will Santa Claus get me for
Christmas? My sisters snorted and snickered, rolling their eyes, poking my
gut with their pointer finger. Santa Claus doesnt even exist! they hollered,
and right then all the powers of the Ouija board had left us.
On Christmas morning, our mother told us the news: Aunt Harriet had
packed up her suitcase and taken a bus to Canada, where she wanted to
teach yoga classes to disabled children. She is having a midlife crisis, my
mother said, passing out gifts from under the tree. God help her! Aunt
Harriet had left a few things next to her empty cot a shoe box of New Age
crystals, a carton of cigarettes and the Ouija board, bent and frayed at the
corners like a dogs toy. After presents, after Christmas dinner, and after our
parents had gone to their rooms to read the newspaper, me and my brother
and sisters tiptoed down to the living room and pulled out Aunt Harriets
things. My brother emptied the cigarettes on the carpet and built a Civil War
fortress out of them. My sisters made earrings out of the crystals using
sewing thread and fishhooks. When no one was looking, I took the Ouija
board to my room and propped it up on the pillows on my bed,
concentrating on the mysteries of the universe. Will Aunt Harriet be OK? I
asked, resting my fingertips on the pointer. Will she ever remarry? Will she
find peace and happiness? Is there any meaning in life? Slowly, the pointer
trembled awake, inching over the alphabet like a slow-motion hockey puck.
Yes, yes, yes, the board assured me after each question. Everything will
be just fine!

Christmas Tube Socks

Christmas was a time of terrible expectation, during which, for one
week prior to the fateful day, our family was confined to the claustrophobia
of our winterized home, forced to spend time together. For a family who
mixed like vinegar and baking soda, this was a cosmic blooper. My siblings
and I were out of school for two weeks, but, unlike summer vacation, (with
the various distractions of summer camp and summer jobs), during
Christmas break, we were snowed in on all sides, cooped up in small, poorly
insulated rooms, and forced, by our father, into the manual labor of
household chores: hauling wood, sweeping the stairs, picking fleas from our
dog Sarah. This was his version of Family Time.
My father survived the holidays through work, taking on multiple jobs,
double shifts, or implementing odd, complicated, time-consuming chores
around the house, such as shoveling two-lane walkways in the snow in the
yard, and an escape route to the creek out back, in case of an emergency.
He joined civic clubs, became a volunteer fireman, attended multiple selfhelp groups, anything to keep his mind away from the notion that his family
was, in fact, a messy, fussy, dysfunctional menagerie of misfits. As for his
children, confined inside, breathing recycled air we fought all day. My
sisters, having more prep time in the bathroom in the mornings, hissed and
yelled over hair gels and curing irons. Did you eat my lipstick? Did you
break my nail file? My older brother and I would find ourselves writhing,
biting, and wrestling under the Christmas tree, overturning bookcases, TV
stands and sofa chairs. My father would jump in, separate us, give us a slap
on the face and ask: What are you fighting about? We could never
remember.
Each year, our mother carried the impossible burden of making
Christmas spectacular, and this often threw her into a psychological state
of mind one could describe, in medical terms, as temporary insanity. She
spent money she didnt have, lots of money, imaginary money, money
based on speculation, future jobs, hopes and dreams, the kind of money
promised by lottery tickets and Amway. Her motives, perhaps, were good:
who could blame a mothers desire to make Christmas perfect for an
otherwise imperfect family. But the results, over time, were incriminating.
Credit cards engorged and then ignored, bounced checks, money borrowed
from distant relatives, great grandfathers, next-door neighbors, train sets
and suit coats and wool vests from J. C. Penney put on lay-away, sometimes
for years. She brought home elaborate Christmas wreaths, scented candle
sets, music boxes, decorative Christmas plates with Elvis, Gene Kelly, and
Winona Ryder, designer snow suits, a family toboggan, a Saint Bernard, a
Jeep Cherokee. Each item brought home, whether big or small, ignited,
between our parents, complicated, colossal disputes as epic as the battles
of the Odyssey or the Iliad, Often resulting in egg salad smeared all over the
bay window or pots and pans thrown about the kitchen with the pageantry
of a Texas high school marching band. In the most heated of arguments, our
mother would run to the tree, grab an inconsequential gift (breath mints, a
paper kite, a gift certificate), and throw it in the wood stove an impulsive,
spiteful, and (most likely) cathartic gesture. She would stand over the
flames like a high priest making a sacrifice, counting down backwards, from

ten to one, breathing deeply between each number, ruminating on the

incineration of an unopened present. It must have been metaphor for
something deeper. But what?
And this is where I began to really hate Christmas. One year, when it
snowed 72 inches in two days, and my sister started her period, and my
mother brought home sixteen pounds of discount jumbo shrimp from WalMart, and my father reminded her that he was allergic to shellfish and his
face would swell up, and our dog chewed up the Encyclopedia Britannica,
and our cousin called and said that Aunt Josie had died in her sleep and my
mother started to cry and declared Christmas was cancelled. Then she
stomped over to the tree, grabbed the first gift she could find and threw it in
the wood stove with a quick flick of her wrist, like swatting a fly.
There, its done, she said. I feel much better. But the gift she
chose happened to be a six-pack of ordinary tube socks, wrapped in plastic.
Which I had bought as a peace offering for my brother. (The week before, Id
cut the toes to all of his socks using my mothers good sewing scissors
after hed told all my friends at school that I still sucked my thumb and slept
with a Care Bear.)
I paid good money for those! I told her.
Oh dear, my mother said, stepping back from the stove. But it was
too late. They were cheap, acrylic, dollar-store tube socks, manufactured in
China, spun out of pliable man-made materials, synthetic fibers, which,
when burned, began to melt, ooze, liquefy, and bubble over, triggered,
perhaps, by some extraordinary and complicated chemical reaction. The
smell was harrowing a dense, bold, toxic aroma, the Smell of Death (as we
later called it) which, when metabolized in the gloomy atmosphere of our
home, spread from room to room in a noxious smoky haze, lilting under
doorways and air vents with the speed and agility of hot lava. We were
being suffocated in our own house. My mother ran out the front door; I
found the nearest window.
What is that smell? My sister screamed from her bedroom. The
Smell of Death!
It forced everyone else in the house to immediately abandon his or
her particular private tasks (for my sister, it was nail polish remover, for my
brother, a home-made fire bomb hed been building under his bed) and seek
immediate egress outdoors. We met in the winter maze of the driveway, feet
stamping, shoulders shuddering, tsk tsking each other, inhaling the icy air of
a blizzard, watching our father leap around inside, leveraging windows,
propping doors, fanning the smoke and fumes with a folded newspaper.
Good going! my sister rolled her eyes.
Next time, buy cotton, my mother suggested.
Why is this my fault? I wondered.
Because youre a cheap-o, my brother said, jabbing my collarbone. I
kicked snow in his face and he punched my ear and my sister screamed

because she lost an earring and my mother started counting backwards

from ten to one, mumbling prayers under her breath.
It took forty-five minutes for the air to clear, and even then, after wed
returned to the chilly reaches of our rooms, there was the faint smell of
burnt tube socks lurking between the walls, behind doors, nestled in the
window curtains and in the bath towels and in the hair on our heads. It stuck
around for weeks, months, years; perhaps it never left us. Even today,
whether Im at home in Brooklyn or in some distant East Asian country,
Christmas still leaves a plastic taste in my mouth, a toxic residue that
reminds me of tube socks.
Is it any wonder then, that after years of enduring the Stevens Family
Christmas Crisis, I grew to despise the Holidays with the kind of deep
antipathy one usually reserves for things like racism and terrorism and
corporate fraud? The sight of Santa Claus at shopping malls, the scent of
candy canes, the insipid singing of carols these things roused in me a
silent, sardonic, patronizing judgment against all of Western Civilization. At
some point, perhaps my second year in college, Philosophy 101, I decided
that Christmas was a social construct, along with dating, fast food, and the
Super Bowl. I made a point of not coming home for the Holidays. I would
have Christmas on my own, entrenched in my reading: Rumi poems,
Descartes, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Ayn Rand. My first Christmas alone
was in a dorm room. My second Christmas alone was at a Holiday Inn. My
third Christmas alone was spent in a dirty little apartment in Bloomfield,
New Jersey, a turkey pot pie in the microwave, Jeopardy re-runs on TV,
Simon and Garfunkel on the stereo. I am a Rock. I am an Island.
My sister called to say, Why arent you coming home anymore?
Because, I told her, our mother is a Christmas Pirate and our father
puts duct tape on his slippers, and the Siamese cat throwing up pine
needles all over Grandmas gingerbread house is not my idea of a family
tradition. Because if I have to carry another load of wood up those stairs I
will file a child labor lawsuit. Because Christmas is for sentimental
psychopaths and if we continue celebrating it we will all spend our golden
years in a mental hospital eating canned peas with a spork.
My sister told me I was irrational and deluded, but very imaginative
and perhaps I should write a novel. That was a good idea, I told her. So I
tried. And failed. And tried and failed. Revenge of the Christmas Pirate, by
Sufjan Stevens. That Was the Worst Christmas Ever, by Sufjan Stevens. I
read some of it out loud to my sister, over the phone.
I like the part about the dead squirrel wrapped in tissue paper that
Dad gave as a stocking stuffer, she said. But you know that never actually
happened.
Yes it did, I insisted. Everythings one-hundred percent accurate.
You need therapy, my sister said. Or a girlfriend.
But what I really needed was time the slow, immeasurable
convalescence that comes with getting older, wiser, more mature, and to
withstand the intellectual conditioning of college and graduate, the

automation of office jobs, numerous cubicles, desk-top publishing, the

morning commute, failed romantic relationships, a nervous breakdown, a
death in the family, a root canal, unemployment, a recurring cold sore,
weekends slouched over the classifieds, wondering how I would pay off my
credit card debt. Over time, in the midst of everyday life, I completely forgot
all about Christmas and how I hated it.

And this is how I came to love Christmas. Through the regular

household task of making pancakes. It was a time in my life in which all
extraordinary privileges had been rigorously swept away, leaving behind
nothing more than the naked underlay of loneliness. I was unemployed,
unshaven, living in a closet in a friends apartment in Brooklyn, delinquent
on my student loans, eating day-old potato bread, Ramen noodles, and on
this particularly apathetic morning in dearly December, I was ruminating on
the dietary constituents of Aunt Jemima pancakes the cheapest of morning
breakfasts (you just add water!). I had accidentally left a spatula on the
stove with the burner on high, and, within seconds, the whole thing went up
in flames with a dripping, oozing, pungent, chemical eruption like a bad high
school science project. I hustled to the rescue, dousing the flames with a
nearby glass of milk, suffocating what was left of the spatula with a dirty
dishrag (oh the trials of bachelorhood). But the residual smell (a plastic,
toxic, peppery aftertaste) was irrefutable and all too familiar the smell of
burnt tube socks. And, for some odd reason, this singular smell sent me into
a tragic-comic-sentimental shock that was simultaneously mundane and
supernatural. I was having an epiphany.
I did not jump up in with ecstatic salutations, shout Eureka! or
levitate like a phantom ghost. But I was overcome with what I can only
describe as That Creepy Christmas Feeling. This pertains to that prolonged,
numbing, out-of-body experience you often encounter after weeks
consuming egg nog, mild chocolate candies, fruit salad, cranberry sauce,
entertaining family and friends, attending Christmas mass, trailblazing
superstores for discount appliances, regurgitating small talk to second
cousins, deconstructing the rhyme schemes on holiday greeting cards,
cutting out coupons, watching animated Christmas cartoons on TV, having
an allergic reaction to pine cones, breaking out in hives, and spending New
Years Day in the emergency room with everyone too hung over to visit you.
The muddy plastic malodor from a melted spatula (prompting that
consequential memory of tube socks) induced all of this at once like a drug
overdose. They say that smells persuade memory more vividly than pictures
or sound, that our olfactory system carries with it a catalog of sensory data
that can, when stimulated, call to mind entire memories, histories, events,
all kinds of valuable information once thought forgotten. What came over
me was not just the inconsequential stench of footwear thrown in the fire,
but a complete recollection of important events in my life, the good and the
bad, the blessings and misfortunes, and inventory of calamities and a
register of lucky breaks, fist fights, bear hugs, overturned Advent candles,
digital wrist watches, chimney fires, ruby earrings, blue jeans, tennis shoes,
mistletoe, my first kiss. And with all these things I came to comprehend the

formation of genealogies, family histories, a genetic superstructure that

could be used describe in microcosmic terms the order of the universe.
And at the very center of the universe I saw the Christ Child, an infant
baby, helplessly crying, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger,
trembling and suckling and cooing and burping and crying and laughing and
giggling and spitting up breast milk all over the place. This was the
mysterious incarnation of God, who came to Planet Earth not as a Divine
Warrior or a Supernatural Sorcerer or an Army of Alien Androids, but as a
helpless newborn baby, probably not much bigger than a six pack of acrylic
tube socks. Or maybe a twelve pack.

Whats in a Name?
After a few years moving in and out of various towns, religious cults, faddish
diets, etc., my parents finally sat me down and apologized for the weird
name they gave me. We were out of our minds! they admitted. We didnt
know what we were thinking! To make up for it, they said, I could change
my name to anything I wanted. Anything at all. Something familiar, normal,
American, easy-to-spell, perhaps? It was totally up to me. What democracy!
What fun! I scanned the possibilities: Benjamin, Jason, Derek, Chad.
Endlessly delightful, perfectly ordinary candidates! I was given a week to
decide, and a Websters dictionary. I scavenged for something conventional,
conservative, and concise: Calvin, Colin, Jeremy, Kenneth. I was drawn to
the monosyllables of Bob, Rob, Don, John, Dirk, Chad, and Chuck. Oh! To be
summoned with one simple, single-syllable sound of the English language.
Dave! Matt! Mike! Pat! Pete! Paul! No more spitballs behind the ears and
getting my lights punched out behind the dugouts. No more dizzying taunts
and esoteric rhyme schemes at recess. No more pokes in the ribs and jokes
in the locker room. I was going to be just like Carl and Scott and Steve and
Rick and Gordon and Aaron and all those other handy-dandy factory premade key-chain-name-tag-button-shot-glass-sticker-greeting-card names
you find at gas stations!
But after a week of fitful sleep, dreamscapes and nightmares of lists and
catalogs, the constant fretful consideration of nomenclature, etymologies,
ancestries, astrologies, and the like, I came up with absolute zilch! Nothing
sounded quite right. Nothing sounded personal. Nothing looked me right in
the eye and said, Hey you with the buck teeth and the feathered hair and
the stitches in your lip and the corduroys tight-rolled in your tube socks,
here I am, first name, middle name, last name, Im all yours! Nothing! What
a cosmic tragedy! What a waste of fate! My parents were baffled: how could
their mouthy, precocious, spiteful youngest child pass up such an
opportunity? I shrugged my shoulders and resigned myself to the same silly
foreign name, a sequence of odd letters stitched together like a crazy quilt,
easily misspelled, misread, mispronounced, teased and squeezed and
tickled and jabbed at during recess, along with Nataki the black girl (my first
kiss), Opie the foster kid (who died in a car crash), and Kiki the Japanese boy
(who didnt even speak English but we played marbles during recess and
communicated with our own form of sign language).

My parents were confused, but also a bit relieved. They later told me they
didnt really have the money (evidently, name changes, like personalized
license plates, come at a cost). A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a
snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names.
Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started
writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford
produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of
the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the
Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of
songs for names. Ode to Sarah (in 6/8). Claras Irish Jig. The ballad of
Benjamin, the bearded one (in rounds). The jumpy Jason number, the waltz
for Walter, Susans smooth jazz. Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical,
musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before
when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh
fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed
doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear.
And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life
dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually,
my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching)
completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And
candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food!
That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name
songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes,
forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a
high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly
cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking? The song for Mary was
seventeen minutes long, with ten key changes. The song for Chris was also
called Song for Cross-Eyes. My older self, glancing back over simple chords
and hazardous poetry, likes to think Im older, wiser, more mature, more
eloquent, more artful, more poignant, more contemporary. But thats unfair.
The concept has changed but the approach has always been the same: to
become so completely entrenched in something that it becomes a great big
clumsy mummy outfit wrapped around all arms and legs: a metaphysical
form of suffocation. Sure, back then, I was young, nave, unenlightened,
untraveled, virtuous, good-natured, and always on time. But the world of
youth was where I tried on new ideas, new outfits, new names, and new
rhyme schemes-a world where the banjo was my journal, where Sofia
Coppola was my imaginary confidant, and where singing out of tune was
perfectly OK!

The Horror In All Of Us

A few of my favorite horror(ible) films.
I grew up on horror films. I saw The Exorcist when I was five. A year later,
Disneys The Black Hole struck me as light fare, even though my older
brother left the theater crying. My father once brought home a VHS rental of
Day of the Dead and we watched it twice, eating take-out Chinese. A few

weeks later it was Ridley Scotts Alien, then Dead Calm, then The Shining. It
didnt phase me one bit. I never had nightmares.
In my imaginary television show, Vincent Price was the host, David
Cronenburg was the director, and Freddy Kreuger played the lead. Ive
watched so much gore that modern horror films look farcical. Im no longer a
fan of the teenage slasher. Its not scary anymore. Its just messy and
tedious. More recently, Ive begun to uncover elements of horror in everyday
life. The cockroach nesting under the sink. The metronome click of the
radiator in the corner. The old woman in her chair on the street next door,
who is always asking for change. In the same way, some horror films arent
horror films at all. But they evoke a particular kind of consternation that
settles under your skin like the flu. You can feel the palpitations of your
heart in your ears. Here is a list of a few my favorites:
1. Night of the Living DeadThis is an obvious choice. Bad acting, cheap
make-up, and clumsy camera work actually contribute to the overall panic
affect. Its so unscripted it begins to feel real. The still frame sequence at
the end, when they burn all the bodies (with its genocidal overtones)that
still makes me sick to my stomach.
2. DecasiaThis is a film that compiles all kinds of old film footage worn
away by the elements, creating a ghastly composition of images that slowly
break apart. The visual distortions create a burning, melting sensation,
evoking the sense that all of life, and art, and culture, and society, the
origins of language, everythingyou, mewill eventually be cremated in the
fires of time, whatever that means. Michael Gordons soundtrack is equally
scarya growling, swirling dirge, the sound of a great orchestra forced to
play with bad intonation for 40 minutes straight. Its a great horror film for a
blind date!
3. An Inconvenient TruthI couldnt sleep for days. Melting ice caps,
receding glaciers, New York City submerged in water, Al Gore and his
gruesome pie charts. Hes like Darth Vader armed with a Power Point
presentation. Yikes.
4. EraserheadIts an art film, horror film, student film, philosophy film,
whatever you call it. I like to think of it as the only horror film that doubles
as a form of birth control.
5. Hell Housea clear, concise, empathetic documentation of an evangelical
churchs tireless undertaking in constructing a theatrical Haunted Housein
which different rooms act as stage sets where church members play out life
or death scenarios meant to scare unsuspecting viewers into repentance.
Its not exactly a horror film, of course. But its horrifying in that other kind
of way, in which ordinary people begin to behave in extraordinary ways so
that all logic is turned on its head and you begin to worry that we are very
near the end of civilization.
6. Glen or Glenda?If you thought Plan 9 was bad, this one is the grand
prixe of b-rate movie making. Whats more horrifying than alien invasion?
Coming home from the beauty salon and finding your husband in drag. To be
fair, Ed Wood looks good in angora. Who doesnt? Whats really horrifying (in
that sad, scary kind of way) is Bela Lugosis rambling, medicated monologue

about the meaningless trajectory of life. Pull the string! He chants to the
camera, like a mad puppeteer! And what about that free jazz number with
the devil dancing around on the couch? What does that have to do with
cross-dressing? Or puppets? Who cares! Oscars all around!

Michigan Stories

Vitos Ordination Song

We have been known from the very start. Our eye color, our hairline, our
jawline, the shape of our big toe, the tone of our voice. These things have
been designed from the very beginning.
What kind of music we listen to. The sort of skirt that looks good. The sort of
cap that fits right. We have been made to find these things for ourselves
and take them in as ours, like adopted children: habits, hobbies,
idiosyncrasies, gestures, moods, tastes, tendencies, worries. We are all
these things. They have been put in us for good measure.
Perhaps we dont like what we see: our shapeless hair, our loss of hair, our
shoe size, our dimples, our knuckles too big, our eating habits, our
disposition. We have disclosed these things in secret, likes and dislikes,
behind doors with locks, our lonely rooms, our messy desks, our empty
hearts, our sudden bursts of energy, our sudden bouts of depression.
Dont worry. Put away your mirrors and your beauty magazines and your
books on tape. There is someone right here who knows you more than you
do, who is making room on the couch, who is fixing a meal, who is putting
on your favorite record, who is listening intently to what you have to say,
who is standing there with you, face to face, hand to hand, eye to eye,
mouth to mouth. There is no space left uncovered.

Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)

Bless our grandfathers and grandmothers. The work of their bodies, the
work of their hands. The homes they built, the swimming pools and picture
frames and wax candles and Christmas decorations put in the window. Bless
their children and their grandchildren, the small faces, the hard faces, the
frowns and eyebrows, the hair braids and aprons and gifts wrapped in
newspaper. Bless their business and their sleep. Their labor, their watching
of TV, their bowls of peanut shells and orange rinds and red grapes washed
with water. Bless the omelettes and the cigarettes and the scotch in the
freezer, the money given away. Put their hearts to rest, their spirits to rest.
Give them sleep. Give them rest.

Oh God, Where Are You Now?

I am never satisfied with just one thing. There is one thing and then another.
My life is occupied with worry after worry. The business of living complicated
with projects, principles, financial matters, bills, taxes, songs to write,
stories to edit, friends to call, family to consider in prayer, letters, lottery
tickets, garbage days, the landlords voice mail, work, doctors, astrologers,

bike messengers, exercise, eating, drinking, book design, door locks,

indigestion, parking tickets.
These things have set themselves on me like a big denim jacket. I am heavy
with the signs of death. I am heavy with the work of the world that is death.
I am not going to make it to the end. I have been put aside by the great big
arm of God. He has gone somewhere else, in a different country, in a
different language. I have walked all over the state, town to town, city to
city, in search of meaning. The empty logging camps, the polluted rivers,
the vacant parking lots, the burned out buildings, the bridges collapsed, the
dysfunctional families, the potholes, the flat tires, the city taxes.
Then there is the devil, with his convincing opinions, his euphemisms, his
friendly chatter, his considerable presence. When all else has left you, he is
waiting: patient, quiet, informed, good looking, articulate. I like this guy. He
looks like me. He talks like me. We agree on everything. We eat the same
foods. We watch the same movies. We think the same thoughts. We are
exactly the same person.

They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For The Homeless In Muskegon)
Children mourners must wear pleated pants or skirts and must not speak
loudly indoors for two weeks. There is to be no talking during meals, and
hands must always be folded in laps in the sitting room for six days. Pets
must be taken to the shelter, or stored out of sight, for a month. Siamese
cats are acceptable as long as there is no shedding. There will be no
drinking of carbonated beverages for eight weeks. The next of kin wear
black, long sleeves, cardigan or wool, and a veil tied at the ankle with a
black ribbon. Shoes with heels are to be avoided. A paper armband is
optional. A black shawl must be worn by the widow for seven moths, after
which a dark blue or green one of the same variety is permissible. Parents of
the deceased are to speak softly and in complete sentences. They are to
arrange the viewing, the visitors brunch, accommodations for the priest.
Thank you notes should be written no later than seven days following.
Mourners are required to observe the appropriate dress colors, as follows:
Mothers and daughters: black. Fathers and sons: black or dark gray.
Grandfathers: maroon. Grandmothers: beige. Second cousins are permitted
to wear summer colors. Great uncles: black. Close friends may go either
way. Loved ones who are not able to attend the viewing may wear what they
like. Those unrelated, or uninvited, are permitted to wear comfortable,
loose-fitting clothes, cotton slacks, a tank top, a tunic, or boxers, perhaps.
Just try to be yourself.

Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie

Long ago a great famine spread over the land. A mother bear and two
famished cubs walked the shore on Wisconsin, gazing across the great lake
at Michigan, the land of plenty. Finally hunger overcame their timidness and
the bears launched out, to swim to Michigan. As they approached the shore,
the mothers words of encouragement urged on the weary cubs. With only

twelve miles to go, the mothers heart was rent as she saw one cub sink and
drown. She struggled to gain the beach with the remaining cub behind her.
After two miles of slow dragging, the second of her beloved cubs also
perished.
The mother reached the beach, alone, and crept to a resting place where
she lay down facing the restless waters that covered her lost ones. As she
gazed, two islands rose to mark the graves of the cubs. The Great Spirit
Manitou created these two islands (North and South) to mark the spot where
the cubs disappeared. The Great Spirit also shaped a solitary dune to
represent the faithful mother bear, where she remains today, watching the
waters.

Alanson, Crooked River

We would steal quarters from our dads pants pockets and go down to
Andys to buy Charleston Chews and Laffy Taffy, which would cost five cents
a piece. If there was no change, we took back cans of pop. You could buy a
pack of gum with two cans. Bobby would play pretend WWF at the
bandstand in the park, doing choreographed body slams, pinning himself
down under the imaginary weight of Hulk Hogan, who was the only wrestler
I recognized by name. We didnt watch TV at our house, except The Smurfs
on Saturdays and MTV the one time we hooked up cable illegally. For a year,
the swing bridge was out of service. Someone spray-painted Zilwaukee Jr.
under the railings. This made it in the papers.
One time my brother got his leg stuck in the docks. He said he was bug
hunting. He said he chased a preying mantis to end of the pier and fell
through. He was pinched between two planks of wood. It started to rain,
then it started to hail. He dropped our sisters insect guide in the river, for
which he apologized later. Then he started to yell. The firemen had to come
and chop him out with an ax. They brought him home naked, shivering,
wrapped in a wool throw, his lips ice-cream white.
There was also the time one of our trees got stuck by lightning. My little
brother saw it happen from behind the screen door. We spent the next day
pulling splinters out of the ground. The papers came and took our dads
picture. When our dog bit our boss we had to put it to sleep. Our mother
cried all day.
Sherry and I picked wild peppermint at the creek and made tea. Sometimes
we played tennis. Even though she was in my class, we never talked at
school. She was in Special Ed. There was some kind of understanding. We
wouldnt even make eye contact. But after school, in the park, or by the
sand bar, we were best friends.

Romulus

Our parents do the best they can, under the circumstances. They do what
they can, and it is always the very best. Whos to say if you were not loved
or touched. There was too much to do, there were too many children, too
many meals to prepare, too many sheets to fold, too many socks to match,
too many floors to sweep. Oh the terrible burden, each of us doing the very
best we could. Try to imagine yourself in their shoes. Living their lives,
mowing their lawns, hanging their laundry, cleaning their clothes, arguing
their arguments. You would do far worse. You would fail completely.

Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)

Oh Detroit, you complicated old man, nearly dead, with your shoulders
arched over the river, polluted and grey, the threads of your shirt worn down
with disease and car exhaust. You have grown fat and thin with industry, car
factories, Motown music, riots, raids, transportation nightmares. You have
eaten Coney dogs with relish and onion. You have built magnificent buildings
only to burn them. Your childrens children have squandered their dowry.
They piss on the streets. They throw trash in the trees and hang their
laundry on ropes fit for hanging.
Oh Detroit, what have you done to the black man, his wife and kids, his
cousins, his music, his hairstyles, his shoes with white tips, his pleated
pants, his elbow slung out the car window, his basketball courts, his officers
downtown, his nightclub, his shirtsleeves tucked over a pack of Pall Malls,
his imagination, his industry, his sense of humor, his home?

Oh Detroit, what have you done to city hall, the public trains, the workers
union, the Eastern Market, Boblo Island, the Ambassador Bridge? Where
have you put your riches, where have you hid your treasure? Your concrete
over-passes, your avenues as wide as rivers, your suburbs bloated with brick
homes and strip malls and discount liquor stores and resale shops. Where
have you hid our grandmothers ukulele, the swimming pool out back, the
lawn chairs, the car seats wrapped in plastic? Where are the rain shakers
and the basketball nets? Where are the full court presses, the sneakers tied
to phone lines, the windows broken in, the crazy old man on his porch
yelling profanities, the old woman with the African statues in the stairwell,
the kids with bikes with flat tires, the stray cats and guard dogs and
prophylactics thrown in alleyways.
Oh Detroit, when you are dead and gone, who will care for your childrens
children. They have run wild with the bastard boys around the streets,
reckless car rides downtown, rigorous dancing, drug taking, knife-stabbing,
pillow-stuffing, tail wagging restlessness. They have been drunk with this for
years. They have been out of their minds. They have been left with nothing.

Holland
This was the summer it got so hot we put a fan in each window. At night we
teamed up with the Palestinian students and stole tulips from Centennial

Park. We used them as garnishes: we arranged bouquets on table ends and

desktops.
We burned a wicker chair on the beach at night. We cooked steaks and pork
chops on sticks over the fire. We went skinny-dipping. We huddled under the
towels. We told stories about our fathers, about our first kiss, about that one
uncle who was always drunk at family reunions.
We bought guitars and accordions and played them under blankets in the
park. We tried to follow the Dutch dancers. We mowed lawns and stole flags
from construction sites and kissed on the lips at the drinking fountain. We
drank Boones Sangria and cried and cried and cried on the couch.
We sewed shirts for our friends, with decorative borders made from ribbons,
with zippers, with billowing collars, with floral patterns. Nothing fit right. We
went around shirtless, even the skinny ones, even the fat ones, even the
ones with terrific arms and shoulders.
We took our time talking things out; we listened carefully, with a serious
look. We prayed. We read Pauls letter to the Corinthians. We tried very hard
to understand this.
We went to a church that was in English and Spanish. We tried very hard to
understand this.
We made omelets on the weekends. We whittled wood. We knitted hats. We
smoked cigarettes. We gave each other gifts. Elaborate, handmade,
complicated passive aggressive gifts.
We were afraid to be left behind. We were afraid to be loved. We were afraid
this would come to an end, as all things do. We sat on the couch and cried
and cried and cried.

Tahquamenon Falls
We went with Cassie to pick pine cones at the falls. She gave us each a
paper bag and cotton gloves. These were the small cones, little burnt rose
bud cones, from Hemlock. We werent allowed to pick them off the tree. This
would be stealing, Cassie said. We were to pick them off the ground, and
only the ones that were symmetrical, round, soft to the touch. Look for
blemishes and knots and deformities, Cassie said.
There were thousands around us in certain places, clustered around each
other like friends at school. I remember thinking this because I had no
friends at school. I wasnt teased. I wasnt disliked. But there was something
about me that kept people at arms length. Sometimes girls flirted, or left
notes in my gym bag, but the boys went down to the IGA at lunch without
inviting me. They planned sleep-overs and fishing trips and weekends
snowmobiling at the tree farm, but I only heard about these things after the
fact.

Behind us, we could hear the falls mumbling something, moving over rocks
and moss and silt. Cassie told us that these trees produce cones only once
every few years. This was a special occasion, she said, and she sprayed bug
spray on our necks and on our arms.
Cassies husband set up the tripod and took pictures, only of natural things
stones, sky, trees, mushrooms, mold never of people. Finally, Cassie had
us line up on a log and pose, one after the other, and he took our picture
too.
When our bags were full, we walked to a clearing by the water and Cassie
put down a sheet on the grass and made our lunches: pastrami with
mustard, lettuce, Swiss cheese, pumpernickel bread, and potato chips.
There were so many bags of potato chips. She had two liters of Faygo pop
and plastic cups. We ate fast. We were always hungry then. But Cassie knew
how to enjoy her food. She would take off her sandals and roll up her
sleeves to get a little sun on her shoulders. She would close her eyes when
she chewed, as if she was thinking about something important. She wore
wicker hats, and reflective sunglasses and denim shorts. For a few years,
she was like a mother to me.

The Upper Peninsula

There is the strange kid in seventh grade who is two years older than
everyone else. He can grow a mustache. He wears shoes without laces, his
back pocket stuffed with Skoal, and a sleeveless T-shirt, even in the winter.
His name might be Mike Wiggleshorts or Judd Zilowski or R.C. Cole. He
smokes between classes. He grows a tail and braids it. One summer he
sketches his girlfriends profile on the back of his hand with a nail file. It
bleeds and scabs over. This is what he does for fun. He throws rocks at the
swing bridge. He makes dirty jokes about the gym teacher, who is
overweight. He says she is a lesbian. He says her left boob is fake. By tenth
grade he is a father, gets married to Andrea Stillwater, quits school, moves
to the U.P., buys a trailer, starts working at the bait shop, counting worms,
or later, at the gas station, counting out change. If anything, he can count.
Later, he steals from the register, just a few bucks for beer or lottery tickets.
He buys biking magazines and leaves them around the toilet.
His wife likes to party. She goes out to the ski resort to make eyes at the
tourists in their ski boots. One night, he is left home alone with his kid, a
boy. (They named him Terrence. They call him Mr. T because he was born
with a mohawk and a harelip, and this gives him a hard look. He is not easy
on the eyes, this kid.) Now this time, his father looks at his son. He gets a
real good look for the first time. He sees himself in his son, his own pointed
ears, his short forehead, his long nose, his double chin. I made this! He says
to himself. I had a part in this! This is my son!
Just then, his wife comes in. She smells of hot cocoa and a sport deodorant.
She is drunk. She stumbles with her purse. She is wearing snow boots and a
hat with earflaps. She has a lighter in each pocket. What are you looking at?
she says. What are you looking at Mr. T for? What is it?

He pulls away the pillows and the babys blanket and the terry towels and
the baby wipes. He makes room for her on the couch, so she can get a good
look at their son. But she doesnt see it. She looks and shrugs and says she
thinks she is starting her period.
Two years later, in the middle of the night, she will leave him, she will drive
all night to her mothers house in Cadillac. Mr. T can talk and walk. He knows
a few cuss words. He has ADD. He is put on medication. He goes to speech
therapy. She will start working at K-mart, doing stock for womens clothing.
She might steal a tank top or a pair of sandals once in a while. She likes nice
things: nail polish and lip-gloss and doilies for the table. She might change
her hair color. She might take a trip to Florida. She is tired of these long
winters.

Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!

Give it a chance! The waterways and waterfalls! The eggplant farms and
cabbage rows and two striking peninsulas bordering four Great Lakes! The
sandy shorelines, the spring-fed rivers, the Mackinaw Bridge! Blissfest!
Henry Ford! Apple farms! Tulip Time! Motown music!
The people are generous, warm, outgoing, helpful, industrious, slightly
overweight, but always willing to lend a hand. They give clear directions to
the interstate. There are no tollbooths. There are only wide highways and a
70-mph speed limit.
Have you been to Frankenmuth? Christmas in July? The Renaissance
Festival? The Renaissance Center? Have you harvested babys breath in
abandoned lots? Have you been on a three-wheeler, a snowmobile, a
hydroplane ferry to Beaver Island?
There are rainbow trout and catfish, beaver dams, raccoons and lively
squirrels taking over college campuses and university yards all across the
landscape! Say YES! to the state that brought you Casey Kasem, Joe Louis,
and cars!

For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti

Who can call us father, who can call us son? If we have regarded ourselves
abandoned by whatever thing (a person, a lover, a parent, a false prophet,
ourselves) then we have lost touch with the great family, ourselves, all of us
together, on this great place called Planet Earth.
Who is your neighbor? He is your brother. Who is that stranger? She is your
mother. The man downstairs hammering on the wall, the woman blowdrying her hair in the bathroom down the hall these people are your family.
Have you lost your mother to death? Have you lost your father to disease, to
war, to alcohol, drugs, a car accident? Nothing can replace them. They have
been made known completely in death, to whatever supernatural landscape
(who can say for sure?). Until then, it is our hard task to welcome the
widows, the children, the orphans, the fatherless into our family. What little

effort it takes a friendly nod at the stranger on the street, giving change to
the vagabond, saying hello or goodbye, opening doors, keeping our mouths
shut. In the small things, the day-to-day gestures, the normal business of
the day, we do the great work of the kingdom, which is to welcome each
unlikely individual into the fold, one person at a time.

All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!

Is it our job to deliver justice to the world? Is it our work to make appeals, to
holler, to raise our banners, our megaphones and microphones and
propaganda posters? Well, yes. At the very least, Americans are entitled to
their opinions, however unfavorable, unlikable, untrustworthy, or unsound.
Something must come of all this kicking and yelling and genuflecting!
Where are the naysayers, the go-getters, the antagonizers, the productive
organizers? Where are the housewives and the church custodians and the
street sweepers and the bathroom cleaners? These people, all of you, take
up your seat on the platform that looks over the panorama of the entire
world. This is your world, your nation, your community of workers!
What is the goal of democracy but to engage the pronunciations of the
people? Our platform is the one of service in all things, for all practical
purposes, we regard the world as worthy of our care. Did we forget we are
the Good Stewards. We are the farmers, the market makers, the
businessmen, the astronauts, the dressmakers, the bakers, the bus drivers,
the foreign students, the sick-in-bed. All of us, putting one and one together,
each word attached to the next, in one gregarious sentence meant to
pronounce all things worthy of our love and our service! Take up your flags
and your posters and your folded flyers! The streets are waiting for your
parades.

Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid)

For many years our family was affected by a procession of economic
burdens: we lived in our grandfathers summer home without heat or
insulation, bats lived in the walls, our father worked at the state park (later,
doing construction, later, at Wal-Mart), there were six children, three
grandchildren, a parade of pets and animals, mouths to feed. Our parents
did the best they could with very little income and a few rolls of duct tape.
In the winter, the windows were sealed with plastic, the house was lined
with wet wood, the upstairs nailed off with sheets and plywood. Sometimes
we slept in one room (after the chimney fire). Sometimes one of us slept in
the hall (there was much fighting and bickering then). Sometimes we boiled
water for baths. Sometimes we shared bath water. I was the youngest
(besides Colin, who was the baby); I bathed last, in lukewarm water as
muddy as Miso soup. But we always had food. My father did the cooking, the
cleaning, the laundry, the shopping. Our mother did the thinking. Our
parents were an industrious pair, at the very least. They managed things
through trial and error.

One week we were washing dishes at the co-op. The next week we were in
Al-Anon. One week we were eating Macrobiotic. The next week we were
given food allowances: we would devise eating lists and do the shopping on
our own. Years later, our parents put a lock on the refrigerator. You eat too
much, our father said. All of you are like one big empty stomach. I cannot
imagine the burden we put on our parents. We were always hungry, we were
always cold. There was very little money; there was so much work to do.
We never lived in Flint, but we had the capacity to empathize with its
economic slump. The industrial scapegoat for the entire state, Flint has not
grown old with fortunate grandchildren.