All I wanted was to get some goddamned antihistamine at the dollar store. That’s it. That is all I wanted. But ofcourse, no matter where I go or what I do, assbags just seem to find me and attempt to shit on me in some way or another. And the kicker is I am really friendly. Like REALLY friendly. I honestly have no problems with anyone other than the usual chum scrubbers we all have problems with (bigots, pedophiles, bad drivers), but in the same breath, I have a switch. And when some ignoramus (yay for sounding like my Grandma) wants to test those limits, it flips my switch pretty quick. Like, for example, the racist old veteran who just told me, and I quote,”A Jap woulda cut my head off…” because of the hat I was wearing. No, really, this JUST happened to me a little under an hour ago. I am so filled with rage that it is hard to type this with shaky hands, but my hands are shaking from multiple revelations, which will reveal themselves over the course of this insane story. And though I say my life is like a movie, I never say from which genre. That is for you, and fate, to decide. I am leaning toward tragic comedy, though.
So the hat in mention, that I was just harassed for, is this:
I took a picture of it in front of my giant donut because I can. ‘Murica!
And yes, that is a Kamikaze symbol. But guess what? This isn’t the fucking forties. Our relationships, both personally and professionally with the Japanese, has never been in a more evolved and balanced place than it is right now, at this exact moment, in our life time. And even if it wasn’t, and we were at odds, as a Veteran, didn’t that very man who insulted me fight for my EXACT freedom to be able to wear that hat, as well as his right to condemn me for that? Truth is, no. Not to him. Just the fact that he casually called the Japanese “Japs” to me in front of a store full of people told me exactly where that man stood. He stood, proverbially, on the corpses of his fallen enemies, wearing their teeth as a necklace, as is the ‘Murican way. Wait, per usual, I am getting ahead of myself.
Let me rewind a bit and give you an honest portrait of what happened to me, and anyone within ear shot of this old bastard, less than an hour ago.
May is a shitty month for me for a multitude of reasons. While the rites of spring remind other people of hope and happiness, I have the anniversaries of many terrible tragedies that have befallen me, and spring reminds me of death. It is a sad and heavy time for me, but I know enough to let it come, rest its head on my shoulder, and leave. But for that reason, I keep a VERY LOW PROFILE in May. My energy is just caustic and volatile, so I just kinda sit down, breathe deep, and get some work done. But this doesn’t mean I just lock myself in my cave and hide, for certain things need to be done. Like, for example, getting antihistamine, because allergies are evil. Knowing I wanted to remain low-key, I didn’t even do my mohawk up, I just tossed on the closest hat I had and went on my way. It’s never that easy, though, is it?
Okay, so it’s not THAT tall, but close.
Fast forward, I get to Dollar Tree, and there is an old Veteran, sitting at a chair, right near the register. I don’t know why he is there, and it doesn’t look like he does either. He tosses me a devil stare when I walk in, but most people hate me for one thing or another, so I laugh it off and go grab my stuff. By the time I get to the checkout counter, the old man is still there, just sitting, staring me up and down. The girl working is sweet, and she is fumbling to put my stuff in a bag when I hear it. It sounds like whispering, so I look around and realize it is the older Veteran, talking to me.
Excuse me, sir? I say quite politely, because I am kind and respectful (to a fault, at times). He says it louder. ” If this was fifty years ago, you would got your ass beaten for that hat.”
Wait, did he really just say this to me? Out loud, no less? Granted, I asked him to, but still, that makes it no less offensive and ignorant. Keep in mind by now there is a line of about five people behind me, and all their ears are perked in our direction. I am shocked he said that, but I laugh and decided to handle it with grace and class. At first.
” No disrespect meant to you in any way, shape, or form by this hat, sir. I just think we have come far enough as a culture that I can wear it without prosecution. I would have been killed for dating a black girl fifty years ago, too. Would you say the same thing to me if I was in line with a black girl?” At this point, a hush falls over the place and I can hear my piece moving into the checkmate position, but what an unnecessary position for ME to be in, trying to one up this racist old coot. He mumbles something to himself (reminding me VERY MUCH of those two old Muppets who would sit in the balcony on The Muppet Show and talk shit), so I insist he share what he was thinking with the rest of us. This is when mine, and everyone around me’s jaws hit the floor in one, collective THUD.
The one who was picking on me is the one on the right.
“The Japs would have cut your head off for wearing that, with a sword this big” and at that point, he held his two hands about fourteen inches apart to show me how long the sword would have been. Are you fucking kidding me? That was not my response to him, that is me asking YOU, right now, like, are you fucking kidding me? Is this really the modern world we are living in? My initial laughter at this turned to rage quickly, and even though I was shaking, I held my demeanor.
” Pretty sure they would still cut your head off for referring to them as Japs, and I can’t say I would blame them.” Now keep in mind, this is me exchanging quips with a really old Veteran. Like, that is as sad as testimony about me as it is him, yet, I was shocked, and my initial response to being attacked (or racism in general) is blind rage. Thankfully, this was well composed rage, but rage none the less. I had to keep going. And please understand, all due respect to all veterans. I know fighting in war isn’t an easy thing, and if you doing that in any way afforded me the freedom to be able to do THIS as my job, I am forever indebted to you, but fuck racism, and fuck ignorant people, veterans or not. So I prodded on. He summoned the audience, and tried to make me look like an ass, and inevitably, I was by reacting, but I was also revealing him as the racist prick he was.
” You, sir, implying I should get my head cut off for this hat is one of the most vile, disgusting things a human have ever said to me, and whether you fought in a war or not, you are EXACTLY everything that is still wrong with this fucking Country. If my hat offends you, I offer utmost apologies, but in the same breath, it is a hat, and I can take it off, and the stain of being an ignorant asshole will follow you to your grave. You just can’t take that off, sir. Ever.”
Yup, kinda like that.
I could see people’s mouths hanging open, and could literally hear my heart beating in my ears. I paid for my shit, and walked toward the door, and just as I opened it, I turned to him one last time and said, I swear to God about all of this:
” By the way, we call it ‘Murica now, and we follow that with a mighty big FUCK YEAH!” and I walked out the door, not looking back. I said that because his ideals are exactly why that phrase was coined in Team America. Blind ideology backed my violence disguised as patriotism. I heard applause in my head when I walked out because I am fucking delusional, but it really felt like a pre-written scene I walked into with all my lines memorized. He looked like a character, planted, with such a cliché caricature of hatred and ignorance, I shouldn’t even acknowledge him, yet moments later, the entire store was in a hushed sense of awe and discomfort. Awe that people like him still existed, and that there were people like me, loud enough to not put up with their shit.
But the story doesn’t end there. A less honest writer would end it there, but more happened.
After I left the store, I sat in my car for a bit, really riled up. I was not only upset that I was the target of that, but upset at what it represented. That was the kind of old man who mumbles the N word when he has a black waitress. That is the kinda guy that thinks the warm, welcoming Middle Easterners who live down the street are terrorists. He is the kind guy who thinks a woman’s place is in the kitchen and bedroom. He was that chunk of pure Americana that somehow NEVER GOES EXTINCT. And for some odd reason, it just really deflated me. Not personally, but in a sense and scope of people as a whole. Though it’s not fair to judge us all against one bad apple, in times like that, it is hard not to.
In hindsight, I should have just ignored him and let him be.
But then I looked up, and saw him, wobbling on his cane, trying to make it to his car. I watched him walk in super-slow-motion across the parking lot that may as well have been twelve miles to him. I watched him fumble with his keys, trying to get his one bag into the car. One bag that looked like it had one thing in it, yet looked, to me, like he was carrying a hundred pound weight in it based on how badly was struggled. As I sat there and watched him, a kind of organic, self-inflicted sadness poured over me.
I wasn’t mad anymore. I saw him for what we has. Just a poor, old man, stuck in a time long gone, yet a time that never let him go.
And in that moment I felt about a foot tall. Wow, good job, you burned a ninety year old veteran, who probably watched half his friends die in front of him, and just sits around now, waiting for the cold, welcoming touch of death’s icy grasp. Not saying what he said to me was okay, because it wasn’t, and no matter how old you are, or what you did in your life, that kind of shit is just not okay. But again, he was just a little old man, lost in a great big world. And next to him, I was just a child, wearing something that had little weight to me, but may have had some serious weight to him. And it just got me thinking. Hell, I am still thinking. Who was worse? The racist old Veteran, or the ignorant kid who had to have the last word?
So like I said, my life is a movie, but I learned today that I don’t always play the good guy.
I hope we both learned something from it, truth be told.
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