about mini monkeys who magically morphed into
mammoth massive Capuchin Mastodons, then

mated and multiplied ‘til they took over Manhattan.
Madly miffed mad hatter Manhatteners thought the
production was merely a mockery, mainly because the
Manhattan monkey accent was mumbly, marble mouthed
and mediocre at best.

“The gun?”

(Spit.) “No, snot. A honker. Discharged phlejim?”

“Looger.”

“Mucus from out the mouth. Look it up in Webster’s.” (Spit.)

“You killed a man with snot?”

“Not killed. Injured.” (Spit.) ”And yeah, he don’t have much of a life these days, but he ain’t dead. Technically.”

“Is looger really in the dictionary?”

“No.” (Spit.) ”But it should be.”

***

“Phlejimalitonitis. Had it since I’s born.”

“Spell that.”

(Spit.) ”No.”

“It makes you, what, hock loogers all day?”

“That’s the long and short of it, yeah. I spit a lot.” (Spit.) ”So I have practice. A superior technique.”

“And you spit on this guy?”

(Spit.) ”Not just any spit. You know how with a cold you get that snot up in your nose what’ll bubble and growl but don’t no way come out?” (Spit.)

“Nasty green rubbery stuff?”

“Bingo.” (Spit.) ”The cold was about gone and I’m out on the balcony and somethin’ clicks up in there, so I suck with my tongue and down it comes, a big kind of cork or plug that didn’t change shape after.”

“Ew.”

(Spit.) ”Right. So I’m on the balcony and got this huge, nasty, like, calamari-type thing in my mouth and I need it out ASAP, right? So I run to the railin’ and spit real hard and not lookin’ cuz I’m so grossed out, and it hits the guy down below, spang in the head.” (Spit.) ”And cuz of my superior technique and extra-hard disgusted spit, it did damage.”

“Bet he wadn’t expectin’ that.”

“Nope. You heard of the perfect storm? This was the perfect looger. The mass, density, shape — nothin’ less than a bullet.” (Spit.)

“I hope I don’t go out like that. Death by looger. Or anything spit out.”

“Personally, I think it was God’s work.”

“Peggin’ the guy with the looger?”

(Spit.) ”Yeah. I mean, what’re the chances that me, with phlejimalitonitis and a superior technique and a cold, would send down a nose-plug like that, just precisely into the guy’s head?”

“None too high.”

“Exactly.” (Spit.) ”It’s like God, like, gifted me the condition and the superior technique, all just to off the guy. Like the guy was an evil genius, the bomb-making kind, doomsday devices and ransoms to world governments. Chained-up superheroes?”

“Ransoms.”

“I’ve gone and visit him at the home, the guy. Told him I’s sorry and it was an accident, and the cold and my phlejim issues. I think he understood. There’s this way he blinks his good eye.” (Spit.) ”Anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

***

“Cannot.”

(Spit.) ”Can to.”

“You’re a liar. Phlejima-whatsis my foot.”

“I told you, it’s dangerous. You could wind up like the evil genius.”

(Smacks a five-dollar bill on the bench.) “Abe says you can’t spit a apple off my head.”

(Spit.) “One, Abe’s been dead a thousand years. Two, he ain’t the one riskin’ house slippers and a drool cup like Clinton’s.”

“Bill Clinton has a drool cup?”

“Clinton’s the guy I pegged.”

“Bill Clinton took the looger in the head?”

“No, the guy’s first name is Clinton. He’s got white hair, though, and his nose ain’t so small — can see veins and things crawlin’ through.”

“. . .”

“. . .” (Spit.)

“You still can’t spit a apple off my head.”

***

“Ready?”

(Spit.) ”No.”

(Spit.)

(Spit.)

“Ready?”

(Spit.) ”No.”

(Spit.)

(Spit.)

“Read—?”

“No.”

“Well, what’s takin’ so long?”

“Is like I said.” (Spit.) ”Gotta get one the right mass and density, otherwise it won’t knock it off.”

(Spit.)

(Spit.)

(Spit.)

“Does he have to wear a diaper?”

(Spit.) ”Who?”

“The guy. Clinton.”

“Don’t know.”

“Oh.”

(Spit.)

(Spit.)

(Spit.)

(Closes eyes.) “Okay.”

(Pause.)

(Opens eyes.) “You ready?”

“Uh sid uh wuz.”

“Then do it.” (Closes eyes.)

(Head cocking back, lining up, shooting forward — spit. Too low.)

“Daryl!”

(Daryl sliding supine, the apple rolling away.)

“Daryl.”

(No answer.)

“Daryl?”

(A foot jumps, flickering fingers.)

(Spit.)

***

“What happened to him?”

“Spit on.”

“Spit on?”

“Yes, ma’am.” (Spit.)

“Hey, you can’t do that in here.”

“I have a condition.”

“Condition.”

“Yep.”

“Use a cup.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

(Swallows.)

(Daryl twitching doglike on the linoleum.)

“He got insurance?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You have money?”

“Um.” (Swallows.) “I got five bucks.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

(Narrowing eyes.) “Haven’t we met before?”

“We?”

“Yeah.”

“Me and you?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Don’t think so.”

(A pointed finger.) “Yeah.”

“Uh-uh.”

(The finger jabbing.) “Oh yeah, I remember you. You’re that guy with the phlegm thing — hey!”

(Running, running, slapping footsteps, people sidestepping.)

(Outside.)

(Spit. Spit. Spit.)

***

“Daryl?”

(Fluttering eyes. Open mouth. Hasidic nodding.)

“Awww, Daryl.” (A soda bottle; spit.)

“. . .”

“Can you hear me, man?”

“. . .”

(Spit.) “Can’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

“. . .”

“Slippers and drool cup and all.” (Spit.) “What’d I tell ya?”

(Flatulence.)

“Just wanted to drop by and say I’m sorry for ditchin’ ya at the ER.” (Spit.) “If you’re in there.”

“. . .”

“The reception lady, she was the same from when I pegged the evil genius.”

“. . .”

(Spit.) “You’re not an evil genius, are you, Daryl?”

(Burp. Drool.)

“Awww, Daryl.” (Towelling.)

“Here.” (A crumpled five-dollar bill.) “This is yourn. Since I didn’t hit the apple.” (Spit.)

(The bill falling like a dead leaf.)

(Picks it up.)

(Falls.)

(Again.)

“Awww, Daryl.” (Spit.)

(Head dropping back, mouth gaping, a chick being fed.)

(Spit.) “So, um. You meet Clinton yet?”

(Volcanic strings of drool, a strangled groaning.)

“Oh, um. Hmmm.” (Spit.) “Well, I guess I’ll . . .”

“Hey, you!”

“Gotta-go-bye-Daryl.”

“What’d I tell you about — get back here!”

(Running, running, running.)

(Spit.)

***

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.” (Spit.)

(Movement from behind the grate.) “Did you just spit in the booth?”

“Um. No.”

“Cause I could’a sworn . . .”

“May I confess?”

(A calculating pause.) “How have you sinned?”

“Spit two men into vegetables.”

“Spit . . . into vegetables?”

“Yep.” (Swallow.)

“Who were these men?”

“Well, one was an evil genius, but the other was my friend.”

“What kind of vegetables?”

“The drooling kind, father.”

“Drooling vegetables.”

(Swallow.) “They have cups, like.”

“Cups.”

“Cups.”

(Swallow.) “It’s the phlejimalitonitis what did it.”

“Phlejima-whose-its?”

“My condition. Makes me spit.”

“Like you did to the men?”

“Yeah.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“Twenty Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers.”

***

“Phlejimalitonitis, sir.”

“And you’ve been diagnosed with this condition?”

“Yes, sir.” (Mouth filling.)

“By whom?”

“My last doctor.” (Filling, filling.)

“And who was your last doctor?”

“Should be in my records there.” (Mumbling, cheeks puffed.)

(The doctor looking down, riffling a folder.)

(Spit.)

(The head shooting up.) “Did you just . . . ?”

“You find his name?”

(Pause.) “Doctor Miyoto?”

“Doctor Miyoto.”

“You do realize there’s no such ailment as you describe?”

“Not according to Doctor Miyoto.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“What exactly can I do for you?”

“Treat me.”

“Treat your . . . phlegm-a-li-ton-it-is . . .”

“Phle­-jim.”

(Smiles.) “Jim.”

(Smiles. Mouth refilling.)

“Might I ask if you’ve ever considered psychiatric help?”

“Psychiatric. Like crystal balls and . . . ?”

“Like a psychiatrist. A doctor for your head.”

“But my head’s fine. It’s my spitter.” (Mouth refilled.)

(Looking away, hunting in the desk.)

(Spit, furtively.)

(A business card.) “I’m afraid I cannot help you, sir.” (The card sliding over.) “Try Doctor Daryl. He’s the best.”

“My friend’s name is Daryl.”

“Is that so?”

“I spit him into a vegetable.”

“Oh my.”

“Like Clinton.”

“Fascinating.”

“He has a bracelet with numbers on it.”

“Great.”

(Smiles.)

(Smiles.)

***

“There, there. I saw it that time!”

“Saw what?” (Speaking clearly now.)

“You just spit on my floor. See?” (Pointing.) “Big glob of spit on my floor right there.”

“Hmmm.”

“Don’t you do it again, you hear? This is a doctor’s office, not a sandbox.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .”

(A big sigh.) “Now, what’s your condition?”

“Um.” (Swallowing, but not from spit.) “My head. It needs doctorin’, like.”

***

(A windy fall day. Biting, savage gusts.)

(A click up in the nose, a looger coming down, like that one that time.)

(Spit, into the wind.)

“Ah!”

(Falling; supine.)

***

(Eyes cracking to hospital white, dormitory beds, monkey-house odours.)

(Can’t talk.)

(Can’t move.)

(Slippers.)

(Something in the mouth: metal, shiny. A cup, drool inside.)

(Soft warmth underneath. A diaper.)

(Drool. Drool. Drool.)

>>>

In elementary school, an alcove formed by two giant spruce trees was our Hogwarts. With Popsicle sticks and rubber bands fashioned into triangles, we made weapons called badachyus, and we’d fling them across the playground to defeat the werewolves — that is, if the fairies weren’t allied with them for the moment. The other kids, the ones who played football on the blacktop, called us weird. In our Zapdos T-shirts, we would beam. Weird was a wonderful word, elongated and wise. We elongated the vowels: weeeiiiird. Were we? We had no idea, but hey, we didn’t want to be normal, whatever that was. Such a clipped, compressed word. No room in it. Nothing to expand upon.

<<<

Weird had a moonstone dropped on its head and evolved into quirky. It took about ten years, at least that’s how long it took from elementary-school weird to my first description as said word. Perhaps it was also conveyed through politeness, imagining politeness as a gigantic homogeneous factory with conveyor belts and machinated razor blades to chop off any bits that stick out. We are now a word with stranger letters, yes, but it fits more neatly into resumés and the three-word test (describe yourself in three words or less — you better not lie) along with zany and unique. As a quirk, you are not quite sure whether you’re a line of newfangled clothing shops or the 123rd element on the periodic table.

>>>

Quirk is an equivocation. It’s hard to rail against a euphemism — especially one that drips with such mystery. After all, euphemisms make everything better, don’t they? Or else they don’t work. You are a pane of glass, transparent to display the quirk to full effect. Space set aside for a courtyard so the quirk can roam about unrestricted, occasionally peering into windows with a delighted smile. A one-liner on Craig Ferguson’s show — Jay’s way too commercial for this market. A bird’s neck. A sudden twist, turn or stroke, as a flourish in writing.

<<<

It’s not just what you think it is. Slippery, quicksilver — quirksilver. The opposite of defined is encompassed by too much. Quirk has eight definitions in the dictionary. No one really knows what he or she means when they drop the quirk bomb. Have you ever heard of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Do you know what Mary Poppins says about that? It’s something to say when you don’t know what to say. But you don’t know what it means. No one knows what it means until you look at each little word root and discover that all along, when you didn’t know what to say, you were “atoning for educability through delicate beauty.” If you were a quirk, you’d do the same. You could be anything you want. Isn’t that exciting? If you say it loud enough, you’ll always sound precocious.

<<<

Quarks come in flavours. Humanity is a rainbow. I like lime. Quarks are subatomic particles, the parts of sum. They are found in atoms, which are found in matter, which is found in constellations. Every quark is part of a highly functioning swarm. We don’t know exactly what they do, but that’s okay, right? Everything revolves, and you can never find speed and position at the same time. It’s all quantum.

>>>

You meet someone who stares at you with an intentness borne of lack of understanding. She stares at her math homework the same way. You speak, perhaps for five minutes. Perhaps for weeks. You can see forming in her pupils a sort of squiggle, the interrogative mark of cartoons. You were supposed to interview her in class, some sort of get-to-know-you project. She’s wearing a blue sweater with black pants, ugg boots. You are wearing a leather vest and skirt emblazoned with orange and red hibiscus. In January. She told you she liked Ryan Cabrera. You told her you liked Arcade Fire. Also Patti Smith and the Wombats. Now it’s time to read back your reports, your mini-interview. She takes a deep breath through cotton-candy-painted lips, and sighs, “Liz is . . . quirky.”

>>>

What’s to be done about the quirk epidemic? Antibiotics? Round up all the quirks and gas them? Outlaw the word, or create a new term even more definitive? Anything but to be trapped in that endless collider, shot around and expected to splinter, then coalesce into some broad category. But that’s not really happening. They’re not really looking for the top quirk, you know, even though Top Quirk would make a really good reality show. It’s just a conspiracy, and maybe you’d prefer to remain suspended in shards in a sort of centrifuge. After all, that way they can tell what you’re made of, be forced to examine subatomic particles for brief seconds. No one is created equal.

<<<

Here’s a list of characteristics that might possibly lead to a positive identification of quirkiness:

• Wearing Pac-Man T-shirts
• Talking out of the side of one’s mouth
• Reading when you could be dancing
• Dancing when you could be walking
• Owning more than five fedoras
• Writing poetry
• Reading poetry
• Understanding poetry
• Appreciating poetry
• INTP
• Tape-recording conversations as you have them
• Everything is a song, including history essays
• Monday means green underwear
• Honey and ketchup; baloney and whipped cream; pineapple pizza
• Private dialogue with deceased Beatles
• Purposely mismatched socks
• You still like Pokémon
• Mr. Humphries on Are You Being Served?
• Knitting
• Knitting Technicolor moustaches
• Humming “Here Comes My Baby” while skipping down snowy Chicago sidewalks
• Shredded cheese = “sprinkle cheese”
• Liberal Ayn Rand fans
• None of your food can be touching on your plate
• Discussing your homework with yourself
• Wizard of Oz obsession
• Smiling at strangers
• Edith Wharton wrote The Age of Innocence and you know it
• Playing the bulbul tarang, an obscure Indian instrument whose name means “waves of nightingales”

If you have seven or more of these symptoms, please contact the Department of Health and Human Services for an application to be covered under the policy of the word quirky. This entitles you to nothing, but they would like to keep track of you anyway. You know, just in case they get a report next Monday of someone in green underwear, a fedora, and a Technicolor moustache skipping down the sidewalk muttering to themselves about The Fountainhead in epic verse. You know, like you.

Mommy and Daddy had a great fight,

Mommy and Daddy yelled all night.

They bought me toys, they told me to choose,

Each said if I chose them, I couldn’t lose!

***

Bang, bang, black rifle

Bang, bang, black rifle, have you any kill?

Yes sir, yes sir, three traps full.

One for a mink coat and gloves in the fall.

One for the leather pants I find at the mall.

***

Leggy Patty Brown

Leggy Patty Brown

loved to go out on the town.

She wore a short skirt,

and loved to flirt

‘til she was caught with her panties down.

***

Rub-a-dub-dub

Rub a dub dub,

Three girls in a tub,

and who do you think they be?

The hot nurse, the schoolgirl

The French maid,

What a ménage a three.

***

Larry Larry was so hairy

Larry Larry was so hairy,

People thought he was quite scary.

But with fur covering his hands and feet,

He was so good for conserving heat.

Larry Larry was so hairy,

Had a girl he asked to marry.

A diamond ring to her he gave,

But first, she told him, he must shave.

***

Little Sally

Little Sally went to the shop,

Sally wanted a new top.

Had no cash, she didn’t fail,

But she spent the night in jail.

It’s embarrassing having less to report than my stateside sources. Even my parents are disappointed by my anticlimactic testimony. No, I have not been hurt, nor seen anything. My children haven’t been endangered. I explain that the media has a way of blowing up specks of trouble into whirling sandstorms of turmoil. Moreover, Paris is a large metropolis, so that a crisis in one area doesn’t necessarily register in another arrondissement. And demographically speaking, my stomping grounds don’t coincide with those of Génération Anti-This-or-That.

There are near misses. One category of these is Wrong Place. A colleague at the Institute informs me that a melee has occurred on the Invalides Esplanade in front of our building. Cars burned, tear gas canisters lobbed, CRS riot police truncheons swung. Worst of all, demonstrators assaulted other demonstrators — not out of racial hatred, or class hatred, or even political one-upmanship, but for their cellphones. I’m not working there that day, so I miss this revolutionary action.

Then there’s Wrong Time: I walk my children up the Cours de Vincennes to the Printemps department store. My daughter has insisted on finding (i.e. buying) a beret. Given the revolt in the air I think of Che, Huey Newton in his bamboo chair, or at least Tania Hearst. My daughter hasn’t heard of any of them. On the way to the Place de la Nation we weave through riot squad buses, police vans, unmarked cop cars. Crowds of riot police mill menacingly. I thrill at the idea of trouble, but there is none. The processions which historically begin at Place de la République end at Place de la Nation, where scores were guillotined (talk about preaching to the converted). But either the demonstrators have already come and gone, or are not there yet. (We find a beret, but it isn’t the right brand.)

If I’m going to find trouble I’ll have to look for it. I go a-looking, and I’m not disappointed. During this period a working-class Jewish boy was kidnapped, tortured and savagely killed by working-class youths of mixed background. The gang called itself the Barbarians, and the French media relished shouting this epithet over and over: les Barbares! The perpetrators are caught, but this isn’t enough. This is Paris, and so a demonstration is called, to denounce racism and anti-Semitism and to foster tolerance. This is yet another march that ends up at Nation. I head there in time to catch the tail end.

Some folks (young and male, as always) don’t appreciate the demonstration, and so blare Middle Eastern music out of their car stereos. I witness a fight between Jewish kids and Arab kids. Bitter words, fisticuffs, a police car screaming by. Politicians, the media and NGOs consider the march a great event. So what’s with these kids? As I walk by I pass two Arab boys chattering in an agitated manner. Dark-skinned, black-haired, sloe-eyed, speaking in guttural accents. But, wait a minute — is one of them wearing a yarmulke?

Not long after that, there’s a commotion at my local post office. Normally, at closing time the employees have a hard time keeping latecomers out. As I’m returning home one evening, they’re keeping somebody in. I never do figure out why. But friends and family of the man are banging and kicking at the door, trying to get him back out. The police come and handle the situation in what seems a heavy-handed way.

Some of the police go inside to deal with the troublemaker. Tear gas soon wafts out to assault the eyes and noses of us ogling bystanders. A woman — spouse or partner of the man inside — begins shrieking and trying to enter. The stress roiling the forces d’ordre these past weeks shoots to the surface with a fury. The two police officers outside happen to be a black man and a white man, and I bear witness to these brothers in arms transcending their racial differences, joining under pressure and helping one another to beat up a small woman. That isn’t what irks me, though.

A little old man, who I recognize as the neighbourhood bum, or clochard, goes up to the police and screams at them to cease and desist. When they tell him to shut up and mind his own business he redoubles his screaming, proclaiming that he’s a citoyen. The police don’t touch him, out of pity or distaste. I admire the clochard for his guts. Admire him, but am royally irked. As I go home, I’m burning up at not being part of the action.

Just inside my building I come across an armchair. It’s been sitting there for a week. One of my neighbours hasn’t been able to make up his mind whether to keep it, give it away, or throw it out. So the residents are compelled to walk around the overstuffed monster. Now, without thinking, I take hold of the fauteuil and drag it onto the sidewalk. I take out my keys, and wielding them like razor-sharp stilettos, I slash the pompous upholstery. If that isn’t enough, I plan to set fire to the thing. But I don’t smoke; ergo I have neither lighter nor matches. In a wild, uncontrollable rage I flip its damask cushion onto the pavement.

Finally feeling justified, I enter my apartment. I feel slight unease at being found out, but the next day the incriminating evidence has disappeared. Have the Ville de Paris men in green lived up to their chanted slogans about le service public? Or was it the private sector, in the form of Paris’s intrepid junk collectors, who’ve done their vulture-like duty, picking the sidewalk clean? In any case, all traces of my own private French riot are gone.