Steve Katz - Kissssss - A Miscellany

Not so long ago I began to notice another sound, like an unamused hah , coming from certain of the dwellings. At first it was just an occasional burst, but then it became so frequent that it sounded like the rattling of an automatic weapon, or the Kec!cac of the Balinese monkey chant. From my informants I discovered that this curious noise, this static, was due to an alarming practice that had manifested among the people in this age group. It spread there like grease on a griddle. What the kids called date-biting, and themselves express as harmless nibbling has evolved in these adults into a practice of biting off small hunks of their partners and swallowing them in a spasm of gullet rapture. The interference of the swallowing with the sound of the voice produces the hah hah hah hah I keep hearing. The practice, I hear, has spread into the nightlife where the younger adults mark themselves, or have close friends mark them where they can't reach, to indicate what they are willing to offer to a potential mate. As I understand it, the practice is not to chew, but to swallow as if you are taking an oyster down the throat.

Perhaps this is the explanation for what I have noticed of late in pharmacies, that there has appeared a great variety of do-it-yourself wound-stitching kits. After making love these people don't spend their time as we once did, lying back and relaxing in the wet spot, or smoochily conversing, or lighting a cigarette, but they now busy themselves cleaning the datebites, and suturing. The attractions of this whole gestalt might explain why the teenagers are sharpening their teeth — in anticipation of their maturity.

For whatever it is worth, this practice has limited itself thus far to North America, and there, mostly to the United States. It does show up a bit in Canada, where people have become less likely lately to follow American fashion. In Mexico, at popular vacation venues like Mazatlán, Cancun, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, the resorts are happy to accommodate the practice, but it is not attractive to the Mexicans themselves. At Playa Carmen it is forbidden. In general, the Europeans don't do it. They are content with the time-tested more traditional modes of exacerbating their pleasures. In some places in the Orient this practice is punishable by death.

I use the “D” word cautiously, because this outcome is not likely, though not impossible. A heads up is in order, because the human mouth is rife with toxins. The bite of a human can be deadly, either from a transmitted disease, or, as we have already seen, the careless snipping of a jugular. So far there have been recorded few serious injuries, and far fewer fatalities. For the sake of freedom, adults should not be prohibited from following their passions in the privacy of their own boudoirs. In service to the general good, myself and my friend Mathilde Al-Sarhan ben Gorsky are keeping our eyes and ears peeled, and will inform of any serious developments.

THE WHITE PAGES

It was Wing Night at the Hoff. In the first two weeks of August the pub is always packed. Many people visit from away. Some come home for family gatherings, some are back in Inverness for the first time after many years, back at the shores where their grandparents once homesteaded. Some casual tourists, as well, add their bulk and appetites to a crowd of local regulars who suck on chicken wings every Thursday, regular or spicy or honey-garlic. This is the notorious Inverness Saloon, fixed above the former coal mines as asylum for the lonely and the parched on the western shore, the sunset shore of Cape Breton Island. Many come to observe friends perform, or to perform themselves in the karaoke MC'd by Elaina Brody. Several regulars malinger in the Paddock, to shoot pool, or sit themselves down in front of the poker machines to lose their money. Earlier in the week two American women who have summer homes at the Broad Cove Banks advertised in the local weekly that they would be performing their special karaoke this very Thursday night, and they challenged all comers, as if they understood karaoke as a game, a zero-sum competition. One is Wren Queasy from California, the other Molly Plumpt from Pennsylvania. They hover near the stage and comment to each other that the crowd is even greater than they had anticipated, and agree that this is a terrific response to the notice of their appearance.

Candy and Colin sit close to the bar, on the far side of the partition away from the stage. Candy sips a Captain Morgan and Coke, slowly getting soused to catch up with her boyfriend. She runs her right pinky down the pages of Elaina's song list.

“I can do ‘Sixteen Tons,’” she declares.

“A man sings that one,” says Colin, leaning like a sapling against the wind of a three-day drunk.

Emily Klusziewski delivers their chicken wings and another round of drinks. She is the daughter of Harry Klusziewski, son of Polish immigrants. Her grandfather had a small farm near the ocean on Broad Cove Marsh. Now someone else owns the farm, and raises bison, and occasionally slaughters one to sell the good meat at MacLellan's Grocery. She is back to work for the summer even though her family has moved to Manitoba. She hopes to save enough money to go back for her sophomore year at St. Mary's in Halifax.

“What do you think?” Candy asks her. “‘Sixteen Tons’ or what?”

“Why not?” Emily smiles then rushes away.

“You gotta have the do-jigger down there to sing ‘Sixteen Tons,’” Colin shouts after her.

“I beg your pardon.” Candy fends him from slumping against her with the forearm of her hand that holds the pages. “I'm not gonna grow any little winker just so I can sing my song.”

“Tons,” Colin mumbles.

On the verandah looking out to sea across the old slag heaps of the coal mine — that have recently been covered with topsoil, and planted with grass — Alice sits with a vodka and cranberry, and her husband Kevin, with a beer, a Keith's. “I can't get used to looking at this grass. It's not normal. I don't think it looks any better.”

“I never look at it.”

“Whoever thought I would miss the old dump? At least you could remember there were jobs here once. And how pitiful is golf? What's golf got to do with our Inverness? Too windy here, anyway. Not enough calm days to make a golf course.”

“I'll buy some clubs.”

“With what?”

“A little putter. A little driver. I would go out and fish for a living if there were some fish left. The fish is gone, probably forever. No more cod, by God. And my grandfather Beaton was a farmer. I'll get me a little nine iron.” From his seat he does a cramped golf swing, then he tips the bottle over his lips, and beer spills down the sides of his mouth.

“I need something.” Alice slides slowly off the edge of the bench. She's a big, soft woman, several folds of flesh over the belt of her grey jeans. She rises with a sigh and heads towards the door, stops and turns back to her man. “Spicy, or regular?”

“Keith's,” Kevin says.

A gaggle of young men, a few years past drinking age, home from college in Antigonish, or Halifax, or Quebec, or Ontario, reminisce with slaps on the back, and hugs, and stories of great drinking bouts at school, fights that broke out, girls that were out of control. “He hit me so hard I folded over, but then I straightened up and caught his jaw with my skull, and he flew over the table.” He slaps his temple. “My head is good for something.” The young women talk animatedly among themselves, but keep an eye on the guys. They talk wedding preparations, printed invitations, supper in the fire hall, wedding gowns. Some say they can't think about marriage yet, not until they finish school, settle on a career and a job. Katie, whose father has an alcohol problem and is abusive, will never marry, not to some guy. She looks over at the men with an expression of disgust. Later she will sing at the karaoke. Each will sing a specialty, the song for which she is famous in their group.