I have absolutely no problem telling you, potentially psychopathic and murderous reader, exactly where I live. Well, no, not exactly. I’ll keep the exact house number to myself, because if you really are all that pscychopathic and prone to extinguishing human life at the mere mention of an address, ? la the Terminator (I probably should have cleared this with J?rgen N. Cleemann and J?rgen Louise Cleemann first), then your craziness extends well beyond my cockiness. But if you’re of the garden-variety, definitely-mouth-breathing-but-not-necessarily-masturbating-publicly kind of psychopath, I think I’m still OK. I might also draw the line before telling it to somebody who compulsively masturbates privately (>24 times/day), but if you’re just a nominally-crazy, masturbating-ten-or-twelve-times-a-day kind of guy, then I’m still pretty safe. Basically, I’d like you to consult one of those new “masturbatory indeces” that are all over the web these days before you read any further.
So, to all you mildly-crazy people who remain, here comes the big news: I live at 40th and W streets. Yeah, that’s right, 40th and W. Now I know there’s probably a bunch of New Yorkers who are out there saying, (cue stupid accent, beeping and other various traffic noises) “Hey, I’m from New York. Is that supposed to be far or something? I’m from New York.” On the other side of the coin is the L.A. crew, who have all assumed by now beyond a shadow of a doubt that I own a car. Both of these groups are entitled to their opinions, and I’m definitely not one to stand in the way of multiculturalism (just as long as the crazies are siding with the Westside camp). But we are currently all at Georgetown, which, with the completion of this mining operation where the parking lot used to lie, will soon be the most compact little campus community of any significance in the Lower 48. And where there are compact communities filled to the brim with the overpriveleged, there is a majority that does not enjoy that time-honored physical activity that I, denizen of the mythical “Glo-vers Parke,” like to call “walking.”
And it really is mythical to a lot of people. The letter and number combination are close enough to things that are within the reasonable Georgetown sphere to be believable, and yet just freaklishly unfamiliar enough to be unsettling. Many a friend has turned away clutching his or her stomach at the mention of the bizarre intersection. Still others were found to have even weaker constitutions, and emptied an intestine of vomit onto my person. I quickly learned the lesson and decided to keep the hideous secret to myself.
But the mythic quality of my locale would not be erased just because I would not share it. Instead I swallowed it, digested it and sent its nutrients to the farthest reaches of my body. So now, every morning as I’m coming to class, and every evening when I return, I find myself pulled into a world of fantasy on par with the myth of my address. Sometimes I find myself escorted by three Irish Wolfhounds, the tallest of, and arguably king of, all dogs. I’ve always been sort-of obsessed with the Wolfhound, possibly for no reason other than that it’s so damn big. I’d like to step back now and ask all Psych majors to wipe the obnoxious, I-can’t-believe-this-guy-is-so-blind-to-the-workings-of-his-own-unconscious grins off their smug faces; it’s nothing I haven’t considered myself.
At other times I’m Jake LaMotta breaking the nose of Tony Ginarro as it manifests itself in the form of a branch that’s hanging lazily over the sidewalk. The whole boxing thing has actually carried over into the sane portion of my life, as well, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s going. My routine basically consists of punching a series of friends who are successively less good-natured until one of them puts an end to the fun. I haven’t yet worked my way up to that person, but given the reactions I’ve been getting of late, the Valentine’s Day Massacre should be right around the corner.
But the most recurring fantasy, and maybe this is just a plea from the hurt little boy within, is that I live in a world free from address discrimination. When I’m in this state?it’s certainly the high point of my day?I’ll pass a fellow traveller sporting knapsack and cigar-on-a-toothpick, and address him thusly: “Hello, friend, how goes it?”
“It goes well, verily. Tell me this: From whence do you hail?”
“My voyage began at 40th and W. Where it ends, well, only Providence can know. And your quest? From which part of this District might it have begun?”
“Mendacious would I be if the coordinates that escaped my lips were any other than these: 63rd and Y.”
“Very well, very well. Have a journey fair!”
“And may my soul depart from this mortal coil if I am not totally sincere when I wish those same tidings back upon you! Only doubled!”
And so on. Never once would vomit be sprayed. The only tears that would cloud vision would be tears of joy, not those of confusion and contempt for a world of such unending complexity as to contain an address as awful as my own.
But if you must deride the placement of the home?even if my boxing career has been ended as it certainly should?I would be remiss in my duties as a human being if I did not inform you of this: my calves are much bigger than yours. I’m not going to go into it right now, so just do what you can with the following elements: 30 minute walk, big hills, backpack, pole-vaulting. You’ve been warned.
