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"'...a man need wish for no more than this: a sword in
the hand, a horse between his knees
and the woman he loves at the battle's
end.'
'By the Gods, Kerbouchard, that was well spoken!' said the Rajput
captain."
First a Few Words About My Tract
We live in degraded times and soiled nests, and I don't mean
that in a bad way. This is home, mi casa, someplace I can get comfortable
putting my feet up on the coffee table. Though by and large content, like
anyone, I'd have a few things otherwise. For example, now in youthful
middle age, I wouldn't mind being able to urinate without requiring rapt
visualizations of water rushing frothily down steep timber chutes, catchy
sing-songy limericks ("One, two, three, four, open up the bladder
door"), or the Black Stallion affirmation my therapist taught me
("I am Black Stallion, Lord of the Herd! Behold my mighty
stream!").
It might be nice to be relieved of the painfully urgent need that grips my
lower region like an angry fist every twenty or thirty minutes. Here it is
the sixth trip to the steamy, loamy, vent-less men's room this morning, and
I'm still trying to keep up the dignified facade of being engrossed in
business planning, crisply striding someplace important - instead of
galloping bent over and grunting like Quasimodo late for the dinner bell.
The end result, of course, even with a tsunami boiling down the imaginary
log chute, is the meagerest of summer rains - a few drops on the hot
pavement - no one could call it a " mighty stream." The real
Black Stallion would be unimpressed and chase me away from the remuda as
defective. My ex-wife felt the same way; they should get together for a
latte sometime.
Napoleon had the identical problem. Even at Waterloo one could glimpse the
tiny Emperor leaning against a distant oak, trying to shut out the
distractions - "Please, merde! Stop with the cannon!" -
dreaming wistfully of the gently burbling, trout-filled brooks of Corsica.
But he'll never see them again.
Maybe that sad time has come - who am I trying to kid? - "To talk to
your doctor about the benefits of Nestle Quik-Flo." As it says on the
cereal box: "When was the last time your bladder jumped up and said, 'Send
me in, Coach!'" Long time. The ruggedly handsome man in the ad
(Pierce Brosnan?) looks positively and indeed smugly ecstatic about the
impossibly heavy cascade - they must have used a hose - he's arching over
the cliff into the ocean sunrise. His head is thrown back laughing; he
might be winking at me. One arm is thrown in the air like a triumphant
broncbuster. He's wearing an expensive Swiss watch. I find myself staring
at him, hungrily, for thirty-forty minutes at a time, munching my Crusty
Bran Kibble.
My friend O sings that broccoli is the best thing for a healthy prostate,
except, that is, for tomatoes. Every time we lunch together, or even drive
past a vegetable stand: broccoli and tomatoes, tomatoes and broccoli. Dear
Sweet Jesus, shut up about it. That's not going to happen: like
virtually all my friends, O has gone around his own obsessive and malignant
bend for a blind date with Medusa. And he won't be coming back.
However, I do find myself eating a lot more broccoli and tomatoes.
Sometimes I perch on the porcelain donut for hours, cell phone off,
voicemail filling up, intercom pagings disregarded, chin on palm, elbow on
knee, staring into infinity (the gray stall door, with its cave paintings
of grotesque genitalia), "letting the river flow" - it's so safe
and quiet in that tiny room. Waiting for the Rapture to raise me up to
heaven (get me out of here, Lord and I'll make it worth your while);
mulling over who I was going to be when I was thirteen.
One of You Guys
At that loathsome pre-pubescent age, I was an eclectic goal
setter, wanting to be Sly of the Family Stone, Little Joe Cartwright, a dharma bum, the Steppenwolf, Ilya Kuriakin of the "Man From Uncle,"
and Walt Frazier of the World Championship Knicks.
Who I should have wanted to be, besides Mr. Frazier, is Mathurin
Kerbouchard: proud Breton, swordsman, scholar, galley slave, cocks-man,
philosopher, druid, mountebank and magnificent hero of Louis L'Amour's
brilliant and meticulously researched 1984 masterpiece "The Walking
Drum." Mr. L'Amour, now deceased and better known for his
lonesome-prairie westerns, here stretches his legs in a fully realized
medieval world, as his Kerbouchard strides, fine Damascus steel in his
hand, from Gaul to Hindustan, Cordoba to Constantinople. He even storms the
Rock of Alamut!
What Women Want
That brings something to mind; indulge me here. There's a
distinguished genre in popular music that has always bemused me. Its
triumphant theme might best be described as "I'm a pathetic loser
who's going nowhere 'cept down the toilet, but baby - I'm holding on to
you with both hands." A bold and fascinating argument, which,
sadly, has never worked for me (women nowadays - cold brutal realists -
catch on to the drawbacks of self-obsessed, minimum-wage, basement-dwelling
anti-heroes pretty damn young in life. Frankly, I blame Vogue).
The most anguished paean of this musical substrata must be the Righteous
Brothers' wailing anthem: "Just Once in My Life." He ain't never
going to rise above that greasy bottom rung - he's just barely holding on
to that, and the sewer water and doggy-paddling ratties are up to his chin.
He's failed at everything he's ever put his slack-mouthed mind to,
but... "Baby, say that you'll be staying." It's not hard
to visualize the panic in one young woman's eyes as she strokes the
sobbing, snot-nosed face squashed against her bosoms. "I need
you baby! Don't you never leave me!"
Just one more night, Kit Kat, just make it through one more long night,
"There, there, my Earl-y-Birdy, Momma's here." Dawn's pallid
light illuminates his gaping, dog-breathed, yellow-toothed mouth-hole on
the pillow next to you ("Come on baby, time to get up"). But when
Earl the Pearl heads off in his orange jumpsuit to sweep cigarette
butts in the subway - "You want to watch Porky's again tonight, babe,
get a bucket of KFC and a sixer of Colt 45? Hey babe? Love you." -
when he turns the fateful corner by the Kut 'n Kurl (wiggle the fingers one
more time, darling: toodles!), Tweety's cage door is left ajar and baby's a
free-range chicken hightailing it for the Rio Grande!
Hola muchachos! Let's lambada!
One of the more delightful aspects of these freakish ballads is the
implicit competition to describe how sorry, wretched, weak, pitiable,
feeble, unattractive and contemptible one hombre can be. Mr. Seger, in
perhaps his most famous lyric, details a woeful litany of one man's slumped-back
(poor fella's plumb wore out from running against the wind), sag-bellied,
shit-faced inadequacies, even lists a few of the lady's (bad tactics, Bob,
if you want to get laid), then peers up blearily, hopefully to the adjacent
barstool, "We've got tonight, Daphne, why don't you stay?"
"Um, gee, wow! Hell of an offer Bobby, I'm flattered, overwhelmed,
you're a sweetheart - but shit! - tonight I've got toenails to clip, the ice tray to fill and, umm, I've got to pull the tuds off my sweater. Damn! Can I take a rain check?"
It's no breaking news that men are a sad-sack lot today. Shallow, needy
uselessness incarnate: Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirts and turned-around
baseball caps. Asking apologetic permission for
everything: " Would you mind if I turned you
over? May I fuck you in the ass? I'm just kidding!... Unless it
sounds good? I'm kidding, forgodsakes!... How about a
strap-on and you do me?" Hair removed here, planted there, or shaved altogether
("I'm not bald; I've made a cutting edge fashion decision!"). Jumping
around the living room like pot-bellied flounders, riffing air guitar to
"Mississippi Queen." The inevitable steamer trunk of shabby,
discount "three pack" porn in the guestroom closet.
And the feeble mid-life makeover! The sporty, new convertible,
the shades and head rag, the single diamond ear stud, the trumpet bumper
and the Hawaiian shirt over the sagging gut. Head bopping to Eminem like a
beatnik, and raising saucy eyebrows at every chick in town - come on
guys! It embarrasses the entire male race. Still, I suppose one has
to admire self-delusion of that order.
You know what women want, ravenously, deep down, body and mind? Kerbouchard!
He's not going to croon some whiny song about the unplumbed depths of being
a comprehensive putz.
Listen:
"The Comtesse of Saone, 'If you come near my bed, I shall scream for
help.'
Kerbouchard, 'Comtesse, if I come to your bed, I won't need any
help.'"
Simple, strong, to the point: soon La Comtesse is as happy as a plump,
frisky pony being hard ridden after a long winter in the stable. This man
has Toledo steel in him! (Damascus and Toledo steel were the two premium
brands of the time - the historical detail in this book is stupendous! It
even has a glossary: "Abu-Yusuf Ya'cub: Succeeded his father in 1184
and ruled for about fifteen years.")
A Flesh & Blood Homme
But, make no mistake: Kerbouchard is no cardboard-cut-out,
Panglossian gigolo. He's a complex,
hard-edged, uber-realist, who keeps his powder dry in a world where people
get their intestines wrapped around the maypole for not tugging their forelocks fast enough, and those
with elbow eczema get whipped out into the desert for the hoo-doos to eat (misidentification with
leprosy, still common in India).
"'Can you see the future, Kerbouchard?'
'Who would want to? Our lives hold a veil between anticipation and horror.
Anticipation to keep the jackass moving forward as a carrot before the
eyes. Horror is what he would see if he took his eyes off the carrot.'
'You are gloomy, Kerbouchard,' said Khatib."
Well, that rings true to me; I keep my eye nailed to the carrot; though
small as it's dwindled over the decades I should buy a microscope.
But it's not that Kerbouchard didn't have doubts. We all have doubts. Let's eavesdrop
once more:
"I was a fool, a paltry fool, a miserable fool, a fool who marched to
the sound of an empty drum he called destiny"
Hey, maybe he should write for the Righteous Brothers after all.
But Kerbouchard got back up on his feet, knocked the heads off a few
swarthy Hashassin, poked the lovely Sundari until she was delirious, drank
a case of Sam Adams, took a long, thundering piss, left the seat up,
and got back in the race!
Why? Because - that's life, Dickless!
Buy this book. In baby steps, pattern yourself on this exemplary man's man.
Get behind the Walking Drum, lengthen your stride, bellow
a manly oath like Yosemite Sam maybe. Make your bold mark in the world like a Great Dane in the virgin snow. And for a hale and hearty prostate: tomatoes and broccoli. Lots of 'em.
All quotes are from "The Walking Drum" by Louis L'Amour, Bantam Books, 1984
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