Crestabula

Tristan was an asshole, let's be honest about it.  A womanizing, cheating asshole.  I hate to use foul language like that, but I realized after trying to edit it several times that there were very few words that could convey the weight of the eloquent and poignant "asshole."  The hole of an ass.  OK.  We are clear on that.

Tristan used to look at the dock workers and say stupid things.  He would chide them for their hairy forearms.  He would ridicule their lunches.  Worst of all, he would imitate their underbites - he would walk around with his jaw jutted out and saying things like "heck yeah," and "ayup."  What an ass.  The veritable hole of an ass, at that.

When Tristan was struck down by the moving van, there was not a single one of us who was inclined to shed a tear, I can assure you.  His bloodied shirt notwithstanding, we were not moved to emotion.  We were more likely to use words such as "relief" and "justice" than we were were "tragedy" and "sorrow."

The thin, blond-haired girl at the convenience store, though...the one with the stud through her lip...she cried a single tear and shouted at the heavens.  At the top of her lungs she shouted at the heavens when she heard the news about Tristan and the moving van.

"Patience is a lie!!"

Salt Lick from the Old Country

David Trzebiatowski was a skinny, oily little Polish-American kid growing up in the 1970's on the south side of Milwaukee.  That describes me pretty accurately, as well.  Strangely, that describes about 2/3s of my second-grade class, too.  Anyhow, David T. was a strange little kid (there's the pot calling the kettle black), and I distinctly remember a very strange morning of show-and-tell that involved my oily little acquaintance.

David had recently traveled back to the "old country" with his family over some holiday or something, and while in Poland he managed to visit a salt mine and come back with the most interesting souvenir - a small model of a mining car with a tiny block of pure salt in the back.  Use your imagination - a little four-wheeled cart with railway type wheels and a one-inch square block of salt in it.  What fun.

David stood at the head of the class and beamed as he told about how his uncles and cousins worked in the salt mines (and we all thanked God that our ancestors had had the presence of mine to LEAVE those God-forsaken salt mines in Poland), and he showed us the little mining car model with the salt in it.

"Should I pass it around, Mrs. Anderson?" David asked.

"That would be fine," said Mrs. Anderson.

"Should everyone take a lick?" David asked.

Mrs. Anderson paled.  "No David, I think just passing it around would be fine."

I always kind of wondered what that little block of salt tasted like, but I was always glad that I was not given the chance to find out.