Notes From the Road 2: More Guzman Character Assassination

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Of course, the big question vis-à-vis Guzman is: how disingenuous was I being anyhow?

Honest answer? Quite a bit.

But here's the thing. I got out of that car in Vancouver, walked into his apartment and almost passed out. The entire place was covered with a quarter inch of cigarette ash! Walls, chairs, computer monitor, computer keyboard, the flickering newscast on the flat screen TV that he never, ever turns off. It was like some crypt that had miraculously survived the explosion of Pompeii or I guess – given the local geography – St. Helen's.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. And walked me to his refrigerator.

Which was filled to bursting with decaying food! In successive strata. Healthy, wholesome food which he'd taken two nibbles of and then pushed into the refrigerator to rot, presumably so he could continue his customary diet of cookies, candy and Diet Pepsi with a clearer conscience.

It smelled awful.

"Guzman," I said. "I mean – you're leaving for a six week trip tomorrow. You can't leave with a refrigerator filled with food."

"It's fine," he said. "I'll deal with it when I get back."

"I mean, Guzman, I'm happy to help you clean it out –"

"It's fine." Testy this time. "Here. Have some fruit."

I was intensely nauseated but managed to gobble down a handful of grapes.

"Guzman, really. It would only take an hour if we both helped. Do you have any trash bags?"

"I said, drop it," he told me irritably.

This was an inauspicious beginning to our traveling partnership. Really, I couldn't look at him after that without thinking about the rotting contents of that refrigerator and wanting to throw up.
###

And of course in Boston I started buying cigarettes again. I didn't really want to smoke. It just seemed like a necessary thing to do. Now that I'm back in Monterey, I've weaned myself back down to five a day. But it was a hard habit to kick the first time, and it hasn't gotten any easier.

###
The anti-American feeling throughout the places I traveled – Asturias, Switzerland, Italy – was very strong. Patrick – whose avocation and livelihood is speculative fiction, a peculiarly American literary form – didn't share it. (I mean, it can be argued that "speculative fiction" as a marketing category was invented by Jules Verne, a French man. But Americans certainly picked up that ball and ran with it in the 1930's.)

"I tell them that two-thirds of all Americans are against the war, but it doesn't seem to make much difference," says Patrick, picking at his green curry. He's a fastidious man in terms of table manners, dress etc but has a l'esprit de l'escalier humor that is most endearing. "They ask, 'Well, then, why don't the Americans vote Bush out?'"

"They did," I said. "And, of course, it should be pointed out that they didn't really vote him in in the first place."

Patrick slips me a droll sideways glance. "American electoral politics are most confusing."

"Yeah, well, the average American is just fucking dumb, man," says Guzman. "I mean, really. Being here has opened my eyes. It's all about generating McFeelings via the 24 hour news cycle." He chuckled and repeated "McFeelings!" Proud of his catchy new phrase, Daddy was!

Patrick shrugs. "It's about selling advertising. That's not a purely American phenomenon."

"No, but the Americans have developed it into an art form," says Guzman. "Like what happened around 9/11. Nobody needs a solid week of watching the two towers explode on CNN. After a certain point, what's left to say? Nothing!"

Of course I know Guzman is not a particularly smart or sophisticated guy. He's a talented and sometimes insightful writer, I will grant him that. But it's almost as though he's an idiot savant in that regard. Verbal finesse and observational abilities are very much lacking in his outward persona.

Still. Even for him, this struck me as a remarkably ignorant thing to say.

"It wasn't about reportage, Guzman," I said. "It was about the collective grieving process. It was the first time Americans had been attacked on their own soil. The shock was overwhelming. I mean, I suppose you could argue that it's pathetic that Americans had to rally around their television screens – "

"Not really," Patrick interjected mildly. "It is an electronic age we live in. The church pulpit is dead."

"— but the emotions we felt collectively as a nation were certainly genuine. We needed to grieve."

Guzman glared at me. He was hacking his way through half a roast chicken and several remnants of partly masticated dead fowl had ended up in his beard. "Fucking overkill is what it is. Nobody needs a solid week of watching planes crash into dead buildings. But, hey! Excess is the American way."

There were several snappy rejoinders I could have come up with at this point including –

a) It's a pretty simple operation, turning your TV off. People do it all the time. You should try it some time.

– and –

b) You fat fuck. You weigh 400 pounds if you weigh an ounce. You're a fine one to talk about excess.

But I contented myself merely by observing, "We will have to agree to disagree on that point." And let Patrick to change the subject.