Back in the spring of 1983, Ronald Reagan addressed reporters in New York City about the cresting crime wave. The Daily News had just begun spotlighting ordinary heroes for the “Crime Fighter Of The Month Awards,” and as my family watched his speech over microwaved meatloaf, we were aglow when the president boomed, “And those who say we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they just don’t know where to look… I wish all our people could read, as I have, the accounts of your individual acts of heroism… how Mrs. Keneally, a grandmother, collared a pickpocket by his neck scarf and gave him the back of her hand until the police arrived.” He chuckled, adding, “I liked the picture of that one more than anything.” He was talking about my Nana, who clearly earned her $1000 reward and fifteen minutes the hard way.
This was an early life lesson that suggested the Keneallys, even the very old Keneallys like Nana, were proud Irish folks who batted back adversity with guts, courage, and the back of our hand, if necessary. Take no shit from nobody! That was the hidden message in Reagan’s words, the Keneally way.
However, over the years I’ve discovered that there’s a fine line between an obligatory call to arms like Nana surely felt, and the inherent thirst for confrontation that leads most of my immediate family astray. With one exception - Libby who was a shy and hypersensitive thumbsucker through much of her adolescence – the immediate Keneallys are elitist and impatient, blunt and rude. Pacifism is a recessive gene. Waiters and other service industry types be warned; don’t cross us or you may find yourself starring on the receiving end of a public temper tantrum.
Never is this more apparent than when my family ventures out to dinner. The service or food, or both rarely live up to our unreasonable standards, and the restaurant’s shortcomings often dominate the dinner conversation. It’s almost as if we assume our waiter’s destiny has led up to this incredible opportunity to serve us food. Libby wilts faster than a time-lapsed flower when we start grumbling amongst ourselves about the service. Because she knows what’s coming.
At first someone wonders aloud, “Where are the menus?” or “Why is there no ice in the water.” And then someone points out how “the table over there sat down ten minutes after us and they’ve already received their bread basket. Is the waiter blind or ignoring us?” And what initially begins as hush hushed voices quickly crescendos throughout the meal to blunt force confrontation when one of us finally snaps to the waiter.
“Does this steak look rare to you?” Mom grills. “I said I want it to moo on my plate.”
“This isn’t Diet Coke,” Kelly adds. “I asked for Diet Coke.”
“Didn’t you say I could swap the marinara for vodka sauce?” I complain.
“Maybe you should write down our orders instead of memorizing them, hotshot,” Chris says.
And as if our verbal assault isn’t enough to make any waiter reflect upon his English degree, Dad sees the check as an opportunity to vent. On the tip line the waiter might encounter a note: Your tip is on the other side. But rather than jotting down a dollar amount Dad leaves a narrative: You want a tip? Here’s a tip. Stop by the table once in a while to check on us. Oh, and next time, don’t bring me my entrée after my family has already finished eating. There. That’s two tips for you.
And this is in assuming that we actually have to pay a bill since an uncanny number of family outings climax with the manager being summonsed and checks being waived. I imagine we’ve received more free meals than some homeless people.
But what is most disconcerting is how we treat foreigners, specifically people of Arabian or Indian descent. Every time I call Kelly she is seemingly berating a cab driver: “No, you idiot! I told you to take Lexington. NOT Madison! Can’t you hear beneath that turban?” She says cabbies are “shifty people” and I find myself dreading the day that her strangled body washes up on Coney Island.
And when gas prices spiked up over $3 per gallon, Chris became a sort of petrol-vigilante, pulling into to the most expensive stations just to yell at the serviceman.
“Should I fill her up?” the man might suggest.
“You mean here?” Chris said, pointing to the price on the pump. “What are you outta your fucking mind?”
When the man was sufficiently confused, Chris added, “Don’t you know that gas is fifty cents cheaper two blocks down?” Mission accomplished, he would then shut his window and tear out of the station. Maybe it’s because of the horrific news stories about suicide bombing in the Middle East, but I can’t help but wonder when one of these immigrants will become so fed up that he’ll finally say ‘fuck it,’ and drop a match under Chris’s car.
This is not to say that I’m exempt from these unseemly (and rather racist) family tantrums. My fuse may be longer than most in my family in public, but over the phone, like when booking travel with United Airlines, for instance, all bets are off. Frustration sprouts during the first five minutes of voice recognition futility, and only spirals once the call is beamed to someone in the Third World who can’t understand me any better than the computer software. “No! For the last time I said Newark! Not New York!” I snapped. “Don’t you have maps in India?” And when I’m really at wits end, I demand, “Can I please speak with a Goddamned American who will speak to me in plain English?” Fortunately this horrid side of me rarely rears its ugly head. And this is because I’ve chosen to spend most of my time in the entrancing beauty of Sonoma County, far away from the minefield of city living. Around these parts I find much less to fuss about.
Sure, whenever I take Justice to a toy store and all he wants is a ball, ball, ball! I grind my teeth and consider dragging him by his ear to the LeapFrog Learning Toys aisle. But I think better of it. Fortunately, with the help of California’s Proposition 215 and my medical marijuana prescription, I can smooth out my stress quasi-legally. Unfortunately, however, when I’m in other states my cannabis card is every bit as useful as my maxed out credit cards. And so I don’t travel with the weed. Though I suspect I should, especially when I’m in the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple.
Just ask the “crackhead” that I scolded one winter night on Wooster Street. I was house sitting at a friend’s spacious SoHo flat, and up late writing when the buzzer began incessantly ringing. This person was holding down the button and wasn’t letting go. Who the hell? I raced over to the video door phone to find the fish-eyed image of a middle-aged woman with ratty hair and a dirty hoodie. She looked homeless and I imagined that she was randomly buzzing in hopes that someone, anyone, would let her in so that she could sleep in the heated hallway. The lady was grinding her teeth, glancing around impatiently, talking to herself, and I noticed that she might be missing a tooth. She looked like one of those woodsy chemical freaks that seemed to outnumber grapes in Northern California.
I have to admit that at first, I was rather sinisterly amused by the spectacle. As I watched her fidget at the front door it was a little like being a fly on the wall of flophouse. But this show quickly lost its charm thanks to the buzzer’s blare. I searched in vain for a mute button so that I could continue laughing at her in peace and quiet, but eventually the grating noise overwhelmed me. In an instant she went from funny to grotesque and I considered storming downstairs to confront her. I imagined myself theatrically screaming, “Who do you think you are? I oughta call the cops on you.”
But I thought better of this plan. Why risk confronting an edgy addict up close when I could simply shout her down from the safety of the flat? So I opened up one of the seven bay windows that lined the living room and craned my neck outside like a turtle. I couldn’t see her but I could still hear her. And then I unleashed the beast.
“Hey BUZZ OFF already! I’m not opening the gate, you fucking crackhead!”
The echo batted back and forth between the buildings of the quiet, cobblestone street. That’ll grab her attention, I thought. The buzzing stopped and she stepped back into view.
I didn’t let up, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” This was considerably more confrontational than the initial “Who do you think you are?” approach that I had in mind, but I was without my marijuanxiety medication for two weeks, in a city that prides itself on its hard edge. When in Rome, right?
And then she spoke, “Your music is too loud.”
“Hmmm,” I said. “That’s interesting because I can hardly hear a Goddamned thing over that fucking buzzer.”
“I don’t think you understand,” she said. “I’m your upstairs neighbor. I own the flat right above you and I can’t sleep because your music is too loud.”
Oh. Interesting.
I tried to apologize but it came out wrong: “Well why didn’t you knock on my damned door and tell me to turn it down.” Perhaps I was still clinging to the hope that she was lying, but she had her reasons.
“Because each floor is secured and I can’t get to your door,” she huffed.
Perfect.
Three points for you, Scott.
I considered diving head first down to the street. “I’m sooooooo sorry!” I said, reeling back into the room. I drew the shades and flipped off the music, and then trembled and sweat. I was appalled by my ignorance, especially since my little “crackhead” owned a multi-million dollar flat in SoHo. Who was I to be so judgmental?
I’m a Keneally, I thought. And we don’t take shit from nobody.
Though we sure do dish it out.
posted by Scott Keneally @ 3:45 AM