This is a story about Gordon and The Tattooed One. Gordon is a new friend of mine, actually an acquaintance; we met because of the coincidence of uni-manualism. I am short one arm — he has a withered arm. Otherwise, I make about three of Gordon, who most resembles a Goth elf. The last time we chatted, Gordon had been up for about 48 hours straight; he and his friends had been picketing, ahem, a certain fast food restaurant chain, whose name rhymes with Lenny's. And why they had chosen to go without so much healthful slumber is a story that has to do with The Tattooed One.
The Tattooed One is a tall, amiable drink of water, who wears enough ink to print a longish book, and who is pierced through the lip, the nose, the eyebrow, and various other places that encourage the display of the jeweler's art. He is also friendly, decent, cheerful, and in so many ways a vivid exemplar of the Scout Code, that his friends are willing to walk through fire for him. Which is how the trouble started.
Last week, The Tattooed One tried to have lunch at ... hmm, Menny's. He was summarily informed by the manager that his patronage was neither required nor desired; apparently with all manner of embellishments. Being a reasonable cuss, he left. Now, I should interpose here that the manager is no monster; in the last year or so several persons my own age have gone out of their way to tell me how hideous the pierced population is.
MJ, a teacher of twenty-years said: "Bill, you don't know how awful the students of today are. They are covered with tattoos and have all these dreadful pins through their lips and things." All of us sitting around the room nodded ponderously; we had all been some flavor of hippie, that we understood. This, however, was Mad Max territory, Lord of the Flies ; kids as barbarians, kids as the other . We also understood fearing and hating kids; it's how we've been trained. I remember walking down the street in 1968, on a bright, sunny day, when an old guy snarled at me: "Cut your goddam hair." I was so surprised I actually asked him to repeat it; thoughtfully, he did.
We told ourselves, my generation, that we would be different; we wouldn't despise our kids — after being told for years that we were lazy, spoiled, unteachable, dangerous louts, we knew how easy it was to slip into the trap of fearing the youth of today, and remembering the youth of yesterday as the acme of God's perfection. Of course, it's unpleasant to be replaced; its difficult to have kids come along with the opportunities, youth and idealism we wish we still had; fortunately for us it turns out we really were the acme of God's creation; and today's kids really are lazy, spoiled, unteachable, dangerous louts — at least the ones we don't know. So we never had to keep our promise.
These things kept hammering on me as Gordon told me about The Tattooed One; when he heard that his friend had been denied access to the synthetic, rubbery joys of a ... Fenny's meal, Gordon marched in there, all five foot two of him and confronted the manager. At first she denied it; the Tattooed One was lying; then she spoiled a perfectly good denial by saying: "these people with tattoos and piercings, they shouldn't be allowed to talk around free — they're all degenerates." So Gordon walked back out and organized a demonstration; a lost art, according to many of my contemporaries, — and went without sleep to help a friend.
The last time I was in Canada, a local newspaper pundit was in full gloat mode because local businesses were firing anyone with tattoos or piercings; of course they should be fired, he explained — the only reason they wear body art is to be repulsive; they shouldn't object when folks are repulsed. It's a choice, dammit! It has nothing to do with discrimination!! It's not anything like racial or religious persecution. Jews and Blacks don't have the choice.
Funny thing about choice; in Victorian England, if Jews made the choice to be baptized as Christian, they could stand for office, and even be elected prime minister — that was how Disraeli got in.
When I was growing up in the South, nobody was against Blacks, it was their attitudes; if they made the choice to keep their eyes down, to not swagger, to not push in where they weren't wanted, why everything would be fine. It wasn't race; it was a choice.
I think I mentioned once that in Middle School, a couple of friends and I were considered Untouchable — and because of that, every morning a delegation of our fellow students would come into our section of the bleachers and beat the crap out of us. What I don't think I told you, was that it was our choice; if we were willing to come after school, repeat a little verse of abasement, get down on our knees and lick the shoes of the head tormentor, — why we wouldn't have to be untouchables any more. It was our choice.
Finally, after a year of interacting with the fists of our compadres, one of my friends, Mike, opted to go through with the ceremony; he said the words, he got down on his knees, he tasted the shoe leather. And mystically, it worked; he was no longer untouchable. All the others smiled, shook his hand, welcomed him into the fraternity of human beings; then they beat him up.
So if you happen to be cruising down Washtenaw Avenue in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, and you see a group of oddly dressed and oddly colored individuals picketing a ... a Tenny's, give them a supportive little honk, will you? Because Gordon and his friends are making a choice, the same choice each member of each new generation has to make; whether or not to live on their knees.
