SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME – the book

—HONG KONG, CHAPTER TWO—

The setting was simple enough. I was sitting on a folding chair by myself in a church. In the middle of the most deranged and lawless city I had ever visited. The woman who corralled me had stepped away. I believe her name was Jackie. Or, Janey. I sat alone while Gary went upstairs to buy some allegedly top-shelf cocaine and wondered what Jackie (or something) had on her mind. 

Other than no altar, stained-glass windows, carpet, pews, enormous crosses, drapes, or religious statues, this looked like any other church.

It was a rectangular space around the size of a two-car garage with some ancient folding chairs. The total lack of froo-froo scored some points with me. The walls had some torn posters of Jesus in happier times. Otherwise, the place looked like shit—definitely, Better Trailer Homes and Gardens material. The room was at an angle and looked ready to collapse at any moment, but so did the rest of the Walled City.

Everyone in this church seemed unusually happy and friendly, a sight I had never encountered in a church before. I was used to overdressed people looking highly annoyed. Folks came over to speak with me about what I had no idea because they only spoke Chinese, but they were smiling simultaneously, so I figured it was all good.

I felt welcomed there; more than I could ever say I had felt in a church. At least these church folks were thrilled to have this time together. I hit my head on the ceiling six times when I stood to greet one of them. They found that very amusing.

The other round-eyed lady approached me. Jackie had an urgent issue to tend to. She went with the duck sauce on her dogmeat taco and had the runs.

That’s a guess. 

Anyway, I stood to greet the replacement round-eye and, for the seventh time, hit my head on the ceiling before following up with a resounding, “Jesus Fuhhhhh….uh. Sorry. I mean, Heavenly Father, forgive this ceiling, for it is low.”

The RREL (Replacement Round Eyed Lady) frowned while looking me over. It tried to look composed, but I had hit my head hard enough to see stars and had some balance issues. I must have looked drunk. She asked if I was okay.

“Me? Uh, yes, right, well, once I get my bearings….gotta cut out the vodka martinis before 9 am.”

I was hoping she’d find some amusement in my reply.

She didn’t. 

I was so tempted to ask her, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?” If I had, then she would have, with ample justification, pimp-slapped me upside the head.

I said, “I really didn’t mean to stare. The noise and….activity….threw me for a loop. Sorry. They are a spirited bunch of folks. Couldn’t help but notice. And couldn’t help but wonder….well….I mean….wha’ ‘appened? Uh….a church? Here? Sorry. I mean, this place makes Vegas look like Vatican City.”

She gave me a look to indicate she thought I was a moron clearly and said, “When was the last time you saw a Meals-on-Wheels truck in Beverly Hills?”

“Point.” I’m not too fond of rhetorical questions.

She mentioned that people in this walled city came to this church as a last effort to overcome their drug addictions. The goal was to break these addictions through faith and by communicating with God, which is the purpose of all the yelling and screaming. Before I could say anything to pooh-pooh her, she wanted me to tell her what I knew about God and Jesus—got downright pushy about it when I tried to disregard the question.

Out of annoyance, I said, “You don’t want to know.”

Oh, yes, she did.

So, I told her the cold, hard truth.

For a couple of years, when I was a child, I was shoved out the door every Sunday morning to attend church. My parents had no interest in going, but since all the other kids in the neighborhood went to church, they felt it was in everyone’s best interest to keep up appearances.

All the kids at school talked about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which they learned about in church. I didn’t have clue-one who these three were.

Besides, I was interested. It looked communal. Being part of a community was something I hadn’t experienced in my life. I wanted to belong somewhere.

That’s a guess.

It was not a sentiment shared by anyone else in the entire church. The adults were all too busy trying to manufacture facial expressions to show they were severe and holy people of God. To me, their sour looks made them appear like a bunch of people sitting on the toilet, and whatever they were trying to accomplish while sitting there wasn’t working out well. They were not friendly at all. Mean, in fact, in all their holiness.

Constipation will do that to you.

The priest-type guy wasn’t much better. He’d glare at me with a look that said, “What are YOU doing here?” I never got too close to him, anyway, because he had the worst case of dog breath on the planet. It was horrifying. You could smell it from twenty feet away. He could remove all the wallpaper in a 5,000-square-foot house with a single burp.

As I learned years later, there was a reason all these church people were so pissy. It seems my father angered a couple of members of this church. I don’t know the circumstances, but their conversation went south one day. Now, my father had a frightening ability to figure someone out in under thirty seconds completely. And he was never wrong. I’m serious. He knew you better than you knew yourself.

If Dad’s assessment was negative, then he’d never let on. He’d continue a conversation without giving you a hint of what he thought of you. He’d keep it to himself UNLESS you were stupid enough to commit the following act:

Piss him off.

If you managed to get him to that stage, there was no going back. You were not going to put the toothpaste back into that tube. Reconciliation was not in the cards. 

These two yahoos said something because my father told them their major character failings. Succinctly put, he body-slammed them. He undoubtedly included all the words and phrases below when he described their distinguishing characteristics: hypocrite, vacant, limp, flatulent, parasite, and pathetic.

Regarding arguments, you didn’t stand a chance against Dad because he was bigger, louder, and more intimidating than you’d ever be. I am confident he was bang on target with these two, and they must have cringed hearing it. I’m guessing he hit too close to home for their comfort.

Well, word got around, so when the congregation saw me coming, everyone remembered I was the son of an EHSM (Evil-Heathen-Sinner-Maggot), thereby making me an EHSM-in-Training and highly unfit to attend their very exclusive church. So, they decided not to roll out the welcome mat. 

Another significant challenge was the priest-boy’s sermons. They flew well over my head. Plus, the Bible isn’t the most child-friendly reading material. Passages the priest-dude would quote made no sense to me. He’d stand up there and say something like:

“Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, ‘Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.’”

I’m not sure what an eleven-year-old is supposed to do with this information, but the guy wanted me to solemnly consider how that passage applied to my life. I might have spent some time in deep reflection wondering who put joints in the guy’s loins, but that was the extent of my contemplations on the subject.

Still, I tried to be in their club.

Priest-dude had a horrendous fixation on sins. Everyone had to cut it out with the sins. And, if we kept up with this tacky sinning, we had to confess them to God before asking for forgiveness, and we had to sound convincing or else. The problem was he never really told you what qualified as a sin that required this request for forgiveness. I finally concluded that everything I did was a sin. That message was directed at me because, while the rest of the congregation nodded in eager agreement, I just thought about the massive lifestyle change I’d have to make to catch up with everyone else.

I mean, this wasn’t a “think I’ll cut down a little on the booze” or “I’ll stop being so mean to the kids” lifestyle adjustment. If I was going to make the cut, I would need to climb a very steep hill, which was only made more difficult by priestly-type-dude not telling me what I was doing that was so sinful. This meant I had to ask God for forgiveness for actions that may not have qualified as sins which, for all I knew, was a sin. Either way, I was screwed.

Getting right down to it, the total message, the overwhelming message I received over the two years in the church, was that, as far as God was concerned, I was a class-A loser. Highly unworthy and, based on the behavior of all these church people, unwanted. Plus, I’ll be going to Hell because I wasn’t working hard enough asking for forgiveness properly for all the sins I wasn’t aware I committed, which were so bad that Jesus had to suffer and die thanks to all this sinning on my part that, chronologically speaking, hadn’t occurred yet so I must suck. I could do a better job praying, but it wouldn’t help because my going to Hell was a done deal. PS, I should stop staring at girls, wondering what they look like naked on account of covetousness.

That was the extent of my Christian education.

Judaism made my head explode. I say this because my exposure was limited to two events I attended when I was 12 years old:

1) A Bat Mitzvah

2) A Bris

Becky was a classmate and the center of attention at the bat mitzvah. She was obsessively shy and barely spoke to anyone during school. However, as I found out, she would not shut up once Becky felt comfortable around you. Anytime she saw me, I knew I was in for a twenty-minute deeply disturbed monologue about being the victim of some recent atrocity, such as her mother being five minutes late to pick her up from violin practice.

As we drove there, my father elegantly explained what a bat mitzvah was. He said this was a “coming out party….or…..some damn thing.” Still, it was just another way to make people give money to Jewish families because, as he assured me, “Jews make a federal case out of everything, including the fact that blood is coming out of your friend’s vagina periodically. Then there’s a party where a bunch of drunks dance in a circle. Probably have some nice kosher fruit juice and kosher pie at the party, so it won’t be a total loss.”

Now, I was young at the time, and this new fun fact about Becky and her bleeding vagina caught me way off guard. I wondered how he knew about this issue. I thought that might be information she’d want to keep to herself. I considered asking him how badly it was bleeding, but I figured it was a detail I could live without. I thought I should ask her if she was okay but quickly overruled that idea. As conversation starters go, “How’s your vagina doing?” just sounded wrong. Besides, if I did ask her, I’d get a twenty-minute rant about all the blood everywhere.

Hopefully, it was just a paper cut.

Does this not seem like a feeble excuse to have a party? (“Oh, look! Someone’s vagina is bleeding! Let’s put the guest list together!”). On the other hand, I mean, whatever flips your pancake. At the time, I had the impression Christians never had a party, so this was a step in the right direction.

Before I got out of the car, my father gave me an envelope with money in it. “Here, give her this. A little something for the college fund or abortion, whichever comes first. But don’t tell her that. If they try to give you gefilte fish, run. Call me whenever you want to get the hell outta there.”

The ceremony was weirder than the church. Becky came out with something that initially appeared to be bagpipes but turned out to be a large roll of wallpaper with words. Becky looked about as comfortable as someone sitting in the electric chair. She read the wallpaper for a while and then started to sing. Or tried to sing. The noise coming out of her mouth sounded, at the time, like someone who either was intentionally singing as poorly as possible or like someone trying to sing correctly but was unable because of the blood coming out of her vagina. I checked the floor for blood splatter but didn’t see any, so I figured she was singing like that on purpose.

The party wasn’t very enlightening, either. It was true that many adults and children were joyfully dancing around. Laughter certainly filled the dance floor. I was amazed at how one tiny vagina could bring so much happiness to so many people.

I stayed on the boy’s side of the room. It just seemed safer. Across the way, Becky appeared fine except when some adults would descend and talk at her all at once. Sometimes, some parents would take her aside for an earnest conversation. (“Listen, Becky. If you ever, ever need anything at all….for your vagina… then you can call us anytime. Day or night. Just remember we’re always here for you….and your vagina.”)

While the bat mitzvah seemed weird, the bris was just downright wrong. I mean, talk about pulling a reason out of your silo to have a party. Circumcising an infant didn’t sound party-worthy to me. 

It was a month after Vagina Gate. The scene of this crime was about a half-mile away from my house. Eddie lived a few doors from me. We walked together to the poor little fella’s home with various adults twenty yards ahead of us.

Eddie’s father ran a trash removal company during the week and was a preacher on weekends. He conducted Saturday night revivals in a big tent where you could buy fireworks during the week. Eddie’s father gently and kindly helped Eddie in seeking God by repeatedly beating Eddie to a pulp until he got with the program. Eddie decided, as I would’ve, that it was in his best interest to follow his father’s footsteps by using his classmates as his test market for spreading the Gospel, thereby making himself insufferable.

Eddie’s father declined the invitation to attend, of course.

Just before we left, I asked my father what this shindig was about and why we had to get all dressed up for the occasion.

He explained it was just another way to make people give money to Jewish families because “Jews make a federal case out of everything, including having someone stop by to cut a little skin off a baby’s dick. Probably have some nice kosher soft drinks and cupcakes at the house, so it won’t amount to a total loss.”

“Why would they tell people to come over and.…”

“First thing’s first. Particularly important. I’ll never survive this without a little medicine.” He grabbed a bottle of scotch, slammed two large gulps, and released a very expressive, “Ahhhhh….., whoa. Jesus. That should do the trick.”

“So, why does everyone have to be there?”

He pondered this question. Staring out the window, he said, “Something about Abraham….and a covenant…some damn thing…so you can claim more descendants, which is useful knowledge for estate planning purposes, I suppose….but if you don’t have it done, then you can’t have Passover dinner. Makes a lot of sense to me, too.”

“Does blood come out of anyone’s vagina at these things?”

“Hell, you never can tell. It wouldn’t surprise me. We can ask around to make sure. Probably be a little blood on the kid’s dick. Good question.”

The event involved a strange little man who marched into the house, did the deed, muttered something, and left. Everyone was so thankful for his presence. I’d have had him arrested. Then, everyone congratulated the parents and told them how happy we were. You’d have thought condolences would be in order. (“Gosh, David. Sorry about your kid’s penis. Just remember, if there’s anything… ANYTHING….Gladys and I can do for you….and your baby’s dick….then let us know.”)

Back to Christianity, I walked with Eddie to the penis-slicing. Eddie was confident about two things:

1 When he dies, he will go to Heaven.

2 The rest of us won’t.

Eddie was never subtle.

“These Jews have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and they will die and burn in Hell for all eternity.”

“Do they know that?”

“I told the Coleman’s like 20 times they got to get their minds right and either accept Jesus with all their hearts or end up in agony forever.”

“What’d they say?”

“They got a lawyer.” 

Eddie didn’t seem like the best person to attend a bris.

I told him, “I don’t want to go to church anymore. They don’t like me there, and I don’t think I can be mean enough to join their club.”

He spewed out a ten-minute reply. His monologue ran something along the lines of the fact that my parents didn’t go to church. They weren’t believers, so I couldn’t be, either, because faith is hereditary, so that’s why he [Eddie] would be going to Heaven, but not me. Plus, people in the congregation didn’t like my parents because they were all sure that they didn’t have the correct values, so I must have been sent to bring Satan into the church, and only Godly people should be allowed in church. I was bringing impure thoughts to God’s House, as evidenced by the fact that I wondered what girls looked like with their clothes off, and if I wasn’t allowed in church, then I’d be going to Hell because I didn’t go to church.

I knew he had no idea what he was talking about, and I didn’t blame Eddie for saying any of this because it was a matter of survival in his case. But, he did sum things up rather well by confirming for me that Christianity was a game I stood no chance of winning, and from the moment I stepped into the church, everyone knew it was just a matter of time before I’d throw in the towel which would verify what they believed all along:

Regarding my strength of character, I didn’t have enough to join their club.

The priest-guy, the church leaders, the congregation, the church staff, the janitorial department, and the accounting department unanimously agreed that I was well below the standards to which they had become accustomed.

Their strategy to remedy this problem (me) was three-fold:

1) Treat me like a low life.

2) Pretend I’m invisible.

3) Hope I go away.

With Eddie’s clear and logical message ringing in my ears, I went to church that following Sunday for the last time. The people around me were no longer the clergy, the choir, and the congregation. 

They were the enemy. 

I glared at them as they prayed and sang. I thought, “I hate you. I hate your club.”

Then, I gave up. I got up and left halfway through the service. 

When I got home, I told my father I didn’t think the church was working out for me. 

He shrugged as he rummaged through the pantry. “Hell, run these things up the flagpole. Sometimes, they salute. Sometimes they don’t. No great loss. I wouldn’t give anyone in that dump the sweat off my balls. Give us more time to get ready for football. Where the hell does your mother put the popcorn? Nothing is where it was two days ago. No more church? Good. Fine. Their loss. Not sure I remember why the hell we wanted you….A-HA!!! What hath God wrought?!? Finally! Some popcorn. What was the question? Oh, church. Right. Hell with them. They are a bunch of losers. Speaking of losers, when are the Cowboys playing?”

I was glad. He summed it up perfectly. 

I relayed all this, with significant editing, to the round-eyed lady whose name, for the life of me, I don’t remember, as a way of explaining how I lost interest in Christianity and wasn’t entertaining the idea of revisiting it. I was glib. And casual.

The first sentence of her response got my attention. 

“That was not a church. Tell you why. Want to know why? I’ll tell you why. I will. When those people rejected you, do you want to know who else they rejected?”

“Pat Boone? The guy has ‘Satan’ written all over him. Sorry.”

Nothing. No chuckle. No smile. Nothing.

I started feeling very itchy to get out of there. She was making me uncomfortable. Plus, I wasn’t ready for a religious lecture on how I was an evil heathen sinner boy.

“Jesus. They rejected you. They rejected Jesus. That was never a church. What kind of church rejects Jesus?”

“A synagogue?”

“You know what? I’ll tell you. Think of a raft with people in it. Floating in the middle of an ocean with no sails and no rudder. And, you know what? That’s where you went instead of church. And do you want to know something else?”

“Not really.”

“There’s no humanity in a church without Jesus. That place you went to was inhumane. You stayed human. And I’ll tell you something else. You want to know something?”

“I think I need to flush the car radiator. It’s urgent. Sorry. So, I’ll just be….”

“You’re angry.”

That was news to me. I thought I had made it clear this was something I dismissed with bemused scorn long ago. 

But she wouldn’t let up. “Let me tell you something. You want to know what?”

“Well, next time. You see, I need to go back to the island to get my medication. It’s urgent….”

“I’ll tell you something. I will. Let me tell you…”

“It’s just that I have acute Twenty-Four-Hour-Tourette’s-Syndrome and if I don’t….”

The Replacement Round Eyed Lady refused to relent. “You try to be funny, but that bitterness won’t go away….”

“Uh, oh. The Tourette’s. It’s coming back. I really….”

She kept at it. “You’re taking on all that shame. It’s taking a toll….”

“NippleScrotumCunnilingusOrgasmDogMeatTaco. I’m sorry. It’s the Tourette’s talking. I wish I could….”

“But you won. Want to know why? Let me tell you why. It’s elementary, you….”

“La-la-la-la, I can’t hear you….”

She wasn’t about to stop. “You kept your humanity. They couldn’t take it from you. Your soul. You wouldn’t let them…..”

“No speak-uh de ingless.”

“Because you knew you didn’t want to become one of them. Know what? I’ll tell you. You rejected them more than they rejected you. Want me to tell you why? It’s….”

She finished her lecture. “Jesus didn’t play their game. Neither did you. You kept your humanity.”

Well, she had a point. I always kept myself from playing their game. I had plenty of opportunities to integrate with them, but I didn’t. I rejected them, too. It wasn’t a one-way street. 

It was her mention of my humanity that hit me. Humanity was something I thought I had lost long ago, probably in a custody dispute. I was always the aloof, semi-amused, cavalier hiding behind my mask of light-hearted disapproval aimed towards…well, humanity. She was still talking while I zoned out. 

Humanity. That could be the subtext of the message the old boy was trying to convey before getting crucified for his trouble. He kept his humanity under circumstances you could mildly call inhumane.

My conclusion was I had no reason to have faith in someone else’s humanity. 

But I just needed faith in mine. 

Gary barged in and said, loud enough to be heard by everyone in the church, “Let’s get the fuck OUTTA HERE! Come on, Dude. This shit ain’t gonna snort itself.”

I stood up without hitting my head on the ceiling and shook the woman’s hand. I stared at her briefly before saying, “Thank you. Sorry about my friend.”

It was at that point I turned away and took one step before hitting my head on a crossbeam that was holding the ceiling up. Big time. Drew blood and everything. Everyone there laughed. I shrugged, took a bow, and left.

Gary and I finally got out of Dodge and back on the island part of Hong Kong where, for about two and a half days, we partied like it was 1999.

Before Gary and I went on our little two-day debauch, we decided the allure of the dog meat smell at the Walled City made us a bit hungry. So, Gary insisted we have some authentic Hong Kong cuisine.

He decided on the perfect place for me. He told me that while suppressing an undeniable urge to start giggling. I knew I was in trouble.

Please don’t ask me where we ended up. I have no clue. The best I could understand was that we were along the coastline to a body of water called “Junk Bay,” which gives you an idea about how dinner went.

Do you know those hole-in-the-wall diners you occasionally see in small towns with a beat-up sign outside that says “Eat”? Because the owner didn’t have the cash for a sign with the name on it or didn’t care enough to make up a name at all? That was this place. 

I was in for a real treat when I stepped into the restaurant and hit my head on the door frame. However, I felt better once we got inside. It looked much nicer than expected and was close to a packed house.

The ceiling in the entire place was six feet high, which was done to ensure that all tall American half-wits would hit their heads on EVERYTHING. Every time I stood up, my head went through a ceiling tile. It didn’t matter where I walked. My head would periodically hit something strategically placed by management as revenge for a history of ancestral round-eye indiscretions. As we stood waiting for a table, the customers kept glancing at me briefly before discussing the various aspects of my inferior white-round-eye-running-dog heritage among themselves.

There was a large fish tank ahead of us, which I guessed was management’s idea to add a little atmosphere. The maître ď, looking too happy to see us, started making excitingly odd gestures while pointing to the fish tank, indicating that whatever we wanted for dinner was swimming in it.

The idea was to identify one out of fifty fish frantically swimming in the tank for the honorable chef to prepare and for me to eat. 

Now, we’re not taking any fish. These fish were considered delicacies. Delicacies, in the fish world, are fish caught at the sewage treatment facility right next to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.

These were some hideous fish: eyeballs in various places, thorns sticking out, horns, and fluorescent-colored skin with significant deformities.

Quasimodo-type-fish.

I asked for suggestions from Gary.

“Like I care. It’s fish. Pick one.”

So, I looked around for the least offensive-looking one and selected it before being guided to our table by a stunning-looking woman. I stared at her while we walked before hitting my head on a piece of wood protruding from the ceiling, much to the amusement of the other patrons.

The woman gave us menus, and I prayed they would have anything I could eat. They didn’t. I knew this immediately because the first item on the menu was FISHLIP CASSEROLE. 

You think I’m kidding. 

I am not kidding.

The other appetizers didn’t look much better. Fish balls. That was next on the menu. The house’s specialty was Chicken Feet. If chicken feet weren’t bad enough, they could’ve always rustled up a basket of chicken testicles. We could always have gotten some Stinky Tofu. What could be better than some good old Stinky Tofu and spending hours beside a guy cooking dog meat? I was advised by the waiter that I wouldn’t care for the Turtle Jelly as it was a bit of an acquired taste. We went with Snake Soup, which smelled like wet mulch. It did not taste like chicken.

It tasted like shit.

We ordered a couple of rounds of the stiffest drinks they had. I was hoping there’d be enough alcohol to kill my taste buds. I could only manage two drinks because, even though they put in plenty of grain alcohol, the flavor was an unfortunate blend of Diet Mountain Dew and formaldehyde.

“Dinner” consisted of something that may have been the disgusting fish all cut up but looked no less horrifying than it did in the tank. Some weird things looked like oysters but were so slimy that I couldn’t transfer them from plate to mouth without putting my mouth on the edge of the plate and shoveling them in. There was also some sinister-looking yellow, grainy mass. The idea was to put a little of this yellow crap on your fish before eating to give it a kick. 

Eating the yellow crap is something you must never do. 

I’ve had spicey food in my life, but nothing like this. It was so hot I jumped to my feet (putting another hole in the ceiling), much to the amusement of everyone in the place who enjoyed watching Loser-American-Maggot explode into little pieces. This stuff made my toes hurt. I was drenched in sweat within two seconds.

Once I got off life support, I had to eat the rest of it to show I wasn’t some stupid American who couldn’t handle local cuisine, which, as it later turned out, I couldn’t. 

Oh, yeah, desert. The dessert was the restaurant’s take on flan. You’ve heard the saying there’s no difference between good flan and bad flan. Oh, yes, there is. You don’t know for bad flan until you’ve tried their flan. Their flan looked like someone with a horrendous sinus infection sneezed into a bowl a half dozen times, and someone with a sense of humor put a cherry on top of it. 

It wasn’t long after we left the place that I threw it all up. Dinner didn’t taste any better the second time. 

It didn’t taste any worse, either.

We returned to the island, where we partied our blues away for the next couple of days with twenty or so of my new best friends.

But, during that whole time, all I thought about was my humanity. The one I assumed I had lost a few lifetimes ago.

—THE END—

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