THE CAPED STAR OF DAVID
*LANGUAGE ALERT*
this one’s rated PG. and i dunno if the paragraph spacing is right, so deal with it. when you see "III" thats the end.
I’ve never written about this particular happening, but it is true as the grass is green.
It happened years ago when I was plastered drunk, yet dare I say it blacked out, but in fact no. I was close, but I remember doing it so I guess it was before those last stages of vodka entered my liver for the blood-alcohol version of ethnic cleansing.
And it hit on why one guy I know hated me for years until this life lesson came running back to shoot me in the face… I tend to find things out the hard way. And since this happened that guy and I still aren’t BEST friends, rather, "good-to-see-you" cordial acquaintances, but I have a better understanding of him now that it is in the forefront thanks to my own hypocritical actions…
One day I was drunk (really?) and it happened to be December 24th. My buddy Mike was having a xmas eve party with friends so my friend Doug, his then girlfriend Kelly, and I went out to celebrate xmas eve with mike and Jennifer, his wife. It was great. Their townhouse was decorated beautifully and it turns out they had a spread of food and a few more bottles of alcoholic goodness so I was ready to rock.
[An aside to digress about: One thing. Mike is, dare I say it, atmospherically challenged. Great dude, but if you’re a hair shorter than me, you get the short treatment. And he’s beyond successful. He has it made in the shade, has a beautiful wife, a sweet toddler, and a house some of us would die for. No picket fence due to their maintenance. Yet I’ve known him since we were high school age, so it’s been now around 20 years. He’s heard it all and once in a while a new short joke is tossed in the air too high so he can’t see it and sometimes it sticks, most though do not. He needs a ladder to get some of them down. Its just something we do. And since I am socially awkward, for whatever reason I do it more when we’re around other people. I dunno why. I’m weird I guess… - Can you digress your own digression? - He’s never told me to cut it out, probably because he has enough ammo on me to finish a war, yet when we do our thing other people think they can get in on it. And believe it or not it offends ME when people say short jokes about him, because they don’t know everything about the guy. They just say these things cause they see me doing it, and that’s the life lesson. And don’t get me wrong. If I said I loved the guy to death it would be an understatement. He’s been there for me through all aspects of my life and one couldn’t ask for a better friend. End of digression and on with the show…]
We were sitting around conversing and I was introduced to one of mike’s friends and her boyfriend. They seemed like cool people and due to my inebriation, or due to the fact that I was breathing and nervous to be around people (social anxiety is a problem) I threw a few jabs of one liners at mike and he countered with a few right crosses of his own. The norm, if you will.
But this girl’s boyfriend decided to get in on it.
Now, I am a seasoned veteran of jabs and insults from family to friends to enemies… giving, taking… I’ve heard or said it all. but this guy was a rookie’s rookie, in fact someone we’d never met, was drinking and eating the food and libations to be had, and in fact was insulting the party thrower… all of these a “no no” in social exchanges in our world.
So I decided to have a smoke with mike. He seemed to be overtly perturbed and in fact had a hit or two off my cig to calm down. We went out on the back deck and mike confided in me that he wanted to be done with this guy. Throw him out. He wanted to make him leave cause he felt like this guy was infringing on his party, and the fact that they never met made it worse. But he didn’t want to hurt his friendship with the girl.
But you don’t just walk in and break balls over the (guy you don’t know) party host’s broken bread.
I told mike not to worry, i didn’t know either of them so if I can insult them enough to leave it wouldn’t matter to his friendship to the girl, to the insulter, and since I was drunk there were no walls or limits to what I would say. Long and short of it, I had mike’s back, and this dragon was about to eat fire.
So I sat down. I had a sip of beer, liquor, whatever. I grabbed a clothespin and hung out my fourth sheet to the wind…. and I started in on this guy. Didn’t matter what he looked like or what he practiced, at the end of everything I said I called him “superjew”. Don’t know how or why it came out, but in my drunken thought, not racially motivated at all, (I’m no Mel Gibson), everything included “superjew”.
“hey hottie, wattya doin with this superjew?”
“hey Doug, hand superjew a beer.”
Light, but noticeable insults. And the insults went on and got a little worse…
“Merry xmas… Did the Romans kill jesus or was it superjew’s ancestors?”
About a half hour into it the rest of the partygoers were getting obviously uncomfortable… yet mike knew what I was doing in our corner of the party and understood it was getting ugly but let it happen.
“Superjew needs a ride home, maybe its time honey to do so ehh?”
And so they said “hmmm, well, maybe it IS time to go.” And they did.
The millisecond that screen door closed mike and I busted out laughing, high fived, and let the rest of the party in on the fun. It was one of those things that we can still laugh about today.
But as they left I sortof remember going outside to wave them off. And the guy looked at me and said “dude, I’m not even Jewish” and I retorted “well, when you come into a man’s house eating his food and converse with his friends, insulting him is not the way to have a good time. I’ve known him for years, you’ve known him for minutes. Now that you were on the receiving end of it you know how it feels… So remember that for the rest of your life… Superjew.”
A few months later it hit me. The life lesson boomeranged back into my face:
A friend of my cousin’s we call “B” comes around once in a while and he happens to be atmospherically challenged as well. B’s friends hit him as I would mike, and in fact, so would I. Not knowing him for 20 years, not having the friendship they had with him, etc etc… It turns out I was “superjewing” him.
I threw a jab or two in B’s direction one day on the patio, and he got out of his chair and said “listen asshole if you don’t stop it with me I’m going to kick your ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
-seriously? Dude are you serious???????
“y’all better hold me back!!!”
And they did.
He wasn’t kidding.
I started inwardly crying. I knew I hurt B to the point of no return and he couldn’t take it anymore. And that hurt me more than he’ll ever know. For him it was the last straw. For me, a life lesson that apparently I was better at teaching than understanding...
When I saw him next, I deeply apologized to him and explained to him that an incident happened not too long ago that made me realize where he was coming from. I was just some drunken jerk he knew and despised. Yet he was a friend - to me - and I thought I was having a good time with. But since we didn’t know each other too well, it wasn’t funny to him. I didn’t have the history he had with his own friends and so his friends could do or say that all they want, they’ve spent years building that friendship and they know they have each others’ backs in the long run. He allowed the apology to happen and I think eventually when he realized I knew what I did to hurt him and changed my actions and words, eventually he accepted it. He’s a great dude, and hilarious. I just wish I had the relationship he has with his friends, but I don’t. And that’s ok.
Since then when we come across each other, which is few and far between nowadays, he puts his hand out for a handshake, which I appreciate, again, more than he’ll ever know. I dare not insult him because that would tarnish the minute friendship we have now anyway. But he understands I “get it” and in fact when someone else makes fun of his height I defend him to the hilt. “You don’t know the guy man, chill out with the insults.”
I have yet to see superjew again, nor do I know if I have ever seen his then girlfriend again. But I thank him for the lesson he taught me to be a better man to people I am just acquaintances with and try to (how do you spell it?) r-e-s-p-e-c-t them a little more. To a socially inept person who only knows comedy and tries to make people laugh at their own faults, not feel bad about them… That’s a hard thing to do.
Plus with the current of sobriety running through my veins, there’s no excuse.
Damn it!
III
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