Now this is what I call class - February 6, 2007
The reason I got my first tie was because I had somehow, managed to get a scholarship interview with NASA. I don't know how this happened, but I figured it might be better for me if I looked somewhat decent when I showed up. I was in the process of trying on my suit when I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to put on a neck-tie. I fiddled with it for ten minutes, going through every permutation I could think of before I realized I needed help.
I found my father in the kitchen watching television and eating a bowl of chili and asked "Hey Dad, do you know how to tie one of these?"
Asking my father how to put on a neck tie was stupid for a number of reasons. For instance, I have never seen my father in something other than sweat pants or ripped jeans. Never. All of his t-shirts are at least seven years old and have ripped arm pits. He's barely literate, eats only chili when he can get away with it, and thinks suits are for "fags." Luckily NASA wasn't interested in how well I could function socially.
After several minutes my father tied it on shoe-lace style around my neck and I had to pull it off. I gave him an exasperated look for a moment, which caused him to shrug, pick up his bowl of chili and retreat back into the television.
I quickly walked over to my Aunt Debbie's house, only to find she wasn't home. If I couldn't find someone to help me with this, I was going to be fucked.
"Dad, do you think Jeanie would know how to do this?" My father, his curiosity piqued agreed to come and check it out with me. Some things intrigue old-school men. Learning to make a new knot is one of them. Of course the football game he had been watching had conveniently ended only a minute prior and he needed to go to the store... but... well fuck you.
We arrived at Jeanie's house. She was not home. There was only one place left for us to go. There was only one man in the universe who might know how to put this cheap piece of silk around my neck in a socially acceptable manner:
My Uncle Mike.
My Uncle Mike is a bit of a character. There was a time in his life where no one could have claimed to drink harder or cheat more often than my uncle Mike. He was an on-site manager for a painting firm working out of Seattle and had developed the slogan while there that "if you ain't cheatin' you ain't trying." He didn't steal thousands, he stole hundreds of thousands and developed labor cons into an art form. Do you want to know why the paint in your apartment complex chips off? Odds are my uncle Mike swindled the good paint, sold it to someone else, and then replaced it with some cheap stuff made in Mexico, so that he could skim the difference. Want to know why your baby has lead poisoning? My uncle Mike probably found some lead based paint for cheaper somewhere else. Once through a series of threats, and blackmail he got an architect to take the blame for a mistake he himself had made in painting a building, and ruined the man's career. Like the man says, "if he ain't cheatin' he ain't trying."
Of course that's all in the past, now that he has found Christ, he makes sure to frown and look regretful when he tells these stories. I ask him if he ever feels like he should return the money. He just tells me that he's a "different man now."
In addition to being a crook, he is also one of the most amazing reservoirs of practical information on the planet. Google has nothing on my uncle Mike. If he couldn't put on my tie for me, he'd know someone who could.
We got to his house late in the evening, just after dinner time. My uncle hasn't worked in over ten years and thus logically has a boat, a motor-home, and a sport's car. All of this is paid off with money he gets from the Department of Labor and Industry. Another thing my uncle Mike knows how to do: milk the cow. Claiming a back injury twenty years ago has probably netted my uncle somewhere on the order of four or five hundred thousand dollars. He loves it because he never had to earn one cent of it.
I knocked on the door and my uncle opened, with a cigarette slung low in the side of his mouth, right beneath his mustache. My uncle has the same barrel chest build as I do and I've always secretly feared he is my real father. He slapped me on the shoulder, coughed around his cigarette and said "Oh! The other intelligent member of the family showed up!" My uncle Mike loves me as we're both "intellectuals." I can do epsilon delta proofs, he can talk a blind man into believing he can see. I've walked into hardware stores where my uncle was going to buy something, only to see him convince the manager to just give him what he wants because "he's been such a loyal customer."
Offering no explanation I held up my neck-tie for his inspection. His ham-like hands (very much like my own... I just shuddered) grabbed each end of it and held it up in front of the light bulb. He looked like he was inspecting a filet of salmon.
After just a few minutes he said, "Well... you're fucked if Charlie ain't home."
"Who the hell is Charlie?" I asked. I looked at my dad. He didn't know either.
As my uncle knocked on the door and again coughed around his cigarette I asked him why Charlie could be of help to us. He answered "Cuz Charlie used to be an undertaker."
I felt the blood drain to my feet in a very corpse-like fashion. All of my life I have been struggling to not end up in these kinds of moments, I've wanted to rise above this kind of indignity. But there I was. Eighteen years old, wearing the first suit I had ever owned and the only person who can put on my tie for me is an undertaker my con-artist uncle knows. I sighed and hung my head low with shame.
With every cell in my being, with every photo-receptor in the back of my eye that could read print I have tried to escape my upbringing. I am not cynical. There are good people in this world. There are people whose lives consist of sunny days, long conversations with old friends, and kind-hearted practical jokes. There are places in the world where you Aunt Tabitha isn't getting married to an illegal immigrant in exchange for sex because no white man will have her. There are places where your mother never fucked your Uncle Mike and your sister is someone who can be looked up to and not deserving of murder. When I find out something like "the only person in the world" who can put on my neck-tie used to be an undertaker I feel as if the shiny world moves a little further away and reality saturates my soul a little bit more.
I have made harder decisions than this before. I walked to the undertaker's house. A head with perhaps the thickest pair of coke bottle glasses on the planet, peaked out from behind the door. As well as being a former undertaker, Charlie is also something of a paranoid conspiracy theorist.
"Hey Mike!" His blown-up bug eyes took in the forms of my father and I. "Who're these two stiffs?" Charlie laughed in an uncomfortably taut tone. "Is that your kid?" he said, looking at me. My head sank until my chin rested on my chest. Sometimes I hate myself almost as much as I hate my sister.
My uncle Mike coughed very roughly around his cigarette, until he had to place his hands on his thighs for support. "No... no... Charlie!" he motioned with one hand for me to come forward. "This is my nephew, Brandon. We need you to put on his tie." He continued to cough and I tried to show my neck-tie to Charlie only to have him turn around and walk inside of his house. My father took this opportunity to glare at a wall. I think he suspects as much as I do.
"It's been a lot of years since I done that kind of work, Mike."
"I know Charlie, but you must've put a tie on hundreds of stiffs. You gotta remember how." My uncle Mike told us to follow him into Charlie's house.
Charlie's house was like an enclosed Stonehenge only all the rock structures were made out of oven-bake pizza boxes, and newspaper clippings. I believe a few pamphlets in his possession more than alluded to 9/11 being a government conspiracy.
"Okay Mike, I'll try but he's gotta lie down."
I stopped dead in my tracks. The shiny world I have always wanted to join was suddenly at the top of a great mountain, forever beyond my reach. "EXCUSE, me?!" No fucking way I was going to lie down so that an under-taker could put on my tie. It crossed a line. No. Fucking. Way.
Charlie put his hands on his hips and looked at me impatiently. "Listen up kid, I only ever put a tie on a man in one way before. If you want that fucking thing put on you gotta lie down."
As a man who believed the Loch Ness monster was a British Government agent left over from WWI tried to talk some sense into me, the shiny place in my mind began to gain altitude. If I got on this man's couch, stretched myself out like a corpse, and let him put a tie on me, then I was never going to be able to converse with good and honest people. I would be stained.
"Bullshit. I'll do a google search for instructions." I turned to go. I would walk home if I had to. That's when my father said the magic words. The words that have come before almost every stupid thing I have ever been talked into doing in my entire life. These words will forever keep me from living in the shiny city.
"Brandon, don't be a pussy." I stopped right as my hand clasped the door-knob. My free hand clenched into a fist.
"What was that, Dad?" I turned to look at him.
"You heard me."
I walked right past my father, shoving him to one side with my shoulder and laid down on Charlie's tobacco-smelling couch. "Okay, put the fucker on."
I could no longer find the shiny city, but at least I wasn't a pussy.
Posted by BC Woods at 12:05 AM
Print Friendly · Digg it · del.icio.us · StumbleUpon · Netscape
Comment Policy:
Anonymous comments are allowed. All anonymous comments and comments from those not registered with TypeKey are moderated. They WILL NOT appear until they are read and approved by a moderator.
It is strongly encouraged that you sign up and login with a TypeKey account. Once you do that, your comments will be immediately posted.
Comments
While travelling through Canada, I met my Brother in law for the first time. Consequently I met his brother in law for the first time shortly afterwards. 5 minutes after meeting my Brother-in-law's Brother-in-law, I was tieing a tie for the man.
Shortly afterwards, I was tieing the tie, because I being a normal height, had forgotten that short people need shorter ties.
To date, I think that's the most use I've ever had for my exclusive private school education.
Posted by: Scootah at February 7, 2007 08:24 AM
Thanks for another touching story. Can't wait until next Wednesday. Have you thought about a book?
Posted by: Michael at February 7, 2007 10:25 AM
'Don't be a pussy' has got to be the single most damning phrase any male can hear. No matter how reasonable or educated he thinks himself he's got at least a 50% chance of doing something idiotic, embarrassing, or expensive in answer to the challenge. It's a cheap fucking shot used to draw everyone down to the same primordial level where we fight to prove who deserves to eat this winter and who deserves to be eaten.
Posted by: Friction.50 ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.daddydonthitme.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 7, 2007 01:27 PM
Google?
How long ago was this.
ANSWER FROM BC: I am only 21. This was two years ago.
Posted by: Testify at February 7, 2007 01:48 PM
I did use google.
I prefered doing that than to see my father who still is league above yours.
BTW, love you stories.
Posted by: JF Mcallister at February 7, 2007 03:06 PM
"There are places where your mother never fucked your Uncle Mike and your sister is someone who can be looked up to and not deserving of murder. "
Um, whose brother is Uncle Mike?
Posted by: Crazy Eddie at February 7, 2007 04:52 PM
I had no father. I had to learn from my older brother. Not as weird, but maybe just as sad...
Posted by: Tone at February 7, 2007 05:46 PM
This is like a sitcom, only better, because all the shitty stuff that happens is true. Keep up the good work, I like your style.
Posted by: Beavis at February 7, 2007 06:37 PM
how did the interview go?
Posted by: ryan at February 7, 2007 08:20 PM
What is it McFly-- you CHICKEN?!
This is my favorite site yet. It opens up a world I've speculated a lot about. Love this shit (from a distance...)
[by the way: typo at "you aunt" in paragraph 11]
Posted by: Anonymous at February 7, 2007 08:20 PM
Kinda seems to me that your family really cares for you if they will go to all that effort just to help you...
ANSWER FROM BC: There's a lot of love in my family underneath and there's a lot of good things they have done. Don't get me wrong. I love my Dad. I love my uncle Mike. They are just hilariously awkward some times.
Posted by: Sarah at February 7, 2007 10:28 PM
Did you get the NASA scholarship? Do they give scholarships to men who can't tie their own ties? :) You know I'm just razzing you.
Posted by: Danielle at February 7, 2007 10:39 PM
Pretty crappy this time out..tying a tie, that's the best you could do? Who fucking cares.
Posted by: Anonymous at February 8, 2007 10:35 AM
I'm going to have to agree with Sarah, even fucked up families can love and take care of each other.
Love your writing though, keep up the good work so I can laugh at your misfortune! (Just kidding... sort of?)
Posted by: Sod at February 8, 2007 12:44 PM
I used google to learn what my absentee father and asshole stepfather wouldn't/couldn't teach me.
Posted by: Chris at February 8, 2007 01:03 PM
Can anyone explain what it means to be barrel-chested? I've heard of it before but I don't know of a visual example. I could be barrel-chested and not even know it.
Posted by: Wayland at February 8, 2007 05:35 PM
having a chest like a barrel, i'd say.
my father taught me how to check if there was someone hiding in the roof tapping our phone calls, that was pretty cool. it was empty every time we looked :(
Posted by: missmephy at February 8, 2007 08:33 PM
you know, reading this, it suddenly occured to me, that you are my age.
and honestly, I really don't think having an undertaker tie a tie on you while your lying down is all that wierd, it was just necessary...
but then my life hasn't been close to that "shiny city" either, so what do I know?
Posted by: Mary Liz at September 15, 2007 03:07 PM
Post a comment
