2HLions's Open Salon Blog

Spartacus Roars: Two Takes on Tamed Tigers and Marriage

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 07:09:52 -0400

FRASIER:

Elsa and I took her boy 12, her daughter 9 and my youngest and only daughter 12 to the fair on Labor Day. It was a last minute planned meeting after not having seen each other for weeks. While doing our best not to look like horny teenagers at our age, we indulged rides, slushies, and a few dolls before winding down watching piglet races. The last act of the day consisted of some rare tigers. White ones and whatever the hell the yellow ones are called.

This was no Siegfried and Roy. It was what Single A ball is to Major League Baseball. In other words: Nice Try.

The set consisted of a circular cage about 25 feet in diameter and 10 feet high. Six big cats came out and slowly got up on stools while the pudgy carnival barker issued commands from a head set while working two long poles. He flicked at them with one that had a rope with a small knob at the end. In his other hand he had a pole with a point and would occasionally feed them pieces of raw meat about the size of what gets diced up at one of the tourist trap Japanese steak houses. This, to cats in the wild who would rip apart a Wildebeest for lunch for pete’s sake.

The cats were coaxed out of a cage and directed to their stools with wrist flicks and encouraging words. The first five were pretty well behaved.

Then came Spartacus, the 750 pound big dog of the big cats.

I started laughing. Standing behind Elsa looking over her head at the scene while the girls sat in front of the cage and the boy sat on the railing of the bleachers, I began whispering jokes into her ear and sneaking cheap PDA nuzzles.

“You know that cat wants to rip that guy’s arm off.” I whispered in her ear while playing with her neck and hair. “Here he is, stuck in a circular cage, taking shit from the dim witted son of some family of tamers. Sweet Jesus, the indignity of it all.”

We’d giggle and swap lines while leaning into each other.

Spartacus would get down off his stool and head over to bite the neck of one of the younger female cats. The barker would flick. Spartacus would hiss as if to say, “Ok, I am only putting up with this shit because I want to. Otherwise I would kick your ever loving ass.”

And we’d laugh.

Although Elsa sensed an affinity for me there to this big, caged cat. I felt for him.

They Should Look Like this ...
(Photo Link)

... Instead of this.
(Personal Photo, obviously, from the quality)

Fast forward a week and we’re still joking about Spartacus.

“Honey,” she growled in a low, gentle, guttural voice akin to Marge Simpson that I find incredibly sexy while looking into my eyes with her arms around my neck, “Just how far have you gone with this? You telling others or is this our little joke?”

“Nah, it’s our little joke, why?”

“Well, I am worrying about your mental health, honey.” She said, likely only half joking given my messy divorce, lack of work and a personal injury suit that has 5 lawyers in my pocket at the moment. Compartmentalizing isn’t for the faint of heart. I know it’s hard on her, too.

And as I sat on the front steps of her home the morning after this exchange it came to me why I connected with Spartacus.

Two years ago I was caged.

I was in an office over a garage working out of a house that required too much maintenance in a loveless marriage with limited respect shown between my wife and I and from our kids to us. I was miserable. I sat at a chair staring at a computer screen feeling powerless. Caged in a 20 by 20 office over a garage doing a job I did not like, for a person who did not like me, in a house I hated.

I didn't have boundaries. I was bounded.

It was as if my spouse was the lion tamer flicking at me.

An email would come from work after no communication the night before which likely had me on the couch. “I forget to tell you that you need to take [kid] to the orthodontists.” Flick.

“Before we spend money on your office roof, I need the turnout roof fixed as the hay is getting wet and that costs money.” Flick.

“Oh, I forgot about Tuesday being date night. Do you still want to do something, I am pretty beat.” Flick.

Coming home after several days at a horse show tired and cranky after two days being anxious and agitated getting ready for the horse show, “What did you do all weekend?” Flick.

Or, about a week before finally moving out while readying to put the house on the market after working about 14 hours fixing things on aching knees and seeking a stroking by saying I was pretty beat, “Well, that’s what happens when you let things go.” Flick.

Or not even getting a card on our 25^th wedding anniversary after buying three pieces of jewelry and leaving them around the house at different times during the day that ended with strained dinner conversation and rote, going-through-the-motions intimacy.

FLICK!

Not all the fault of another, but those were the hurts felt on my end.

And so I recalled looking at Spartacus and joking to Elsa that I wanted to break him out of that goddamn cage and let him take off. Get back out into the wilds rather than suffer the indignities of getting flicked at by some manipulative little trainer out to make a buck off his prowess while he sits there caged, coiled, and likely more than a little pissed off.

So I came back in off Elsa’s front step and relayed the analogy. Mentioned watching Spartacus get off his stool, growl at the flicking trainer, and go nuzzle one of the female white tigers.

Later I simply imitated Kirk Douglas saying, “I’m Spartacus.”

And then I gently bit her neck.

It’s fun to roam life’s wilderness side by side with her.

ELSA:

In front of us, a chain-link cage of Illinois bred and born tigers. A lot of misfits and runts doing tricks, and then there’s Spartacus. Spartacus is the big guy, the alpha of his own little fenced-in world, and Spartacus is no longer enjoying the show. Spartacus paces and surges off his stool, but some part of him is so well trained, so…habituated… that when he wants to snarl or swipe or go after the neck of the pretty little white tiger on the next stool, he waits until the trainer’s back is turned. He wants -- you know he wants -- but one little tap of a slender rod pushes his 750 pounds right back onto a tiny stool. We all feel the tension in Spartacus. However, I don’t believe everyone starts purring and yowling and whispering excitedly, “I am Spartacus!” That would be Frasier.

When your date turns into Spartacus, your weekend takes a turn.

I do get his affinity to Spartacus. Without knowing every detail, I understand the rough layout of his marital circus – having a blueprint of my own curled up in my sock drawer. I remember the stings on my nose – and the sorry-ass satisfaction I’d take laying my own stripes on my late husband’s nose (when he was alive, for crying out loud. I quit when he was dead). It’s a mutual taming, swiping at each other in a locked cage, but even so, at its worst, it was a maddening, deadening, infuriating entrapment. And at those times I wholeheartedly wanted to bust loose.

Let Spartacus roam free? For the last four years, there has been little to stop me from doing just that. And freedom is not just excessive wild sex, punctuated by one juicy steak after another– although everyone knows that is the lot of the widow. It’s the release from the endless swiping and stinging. There you stand, single, with a useless rod that you get to finally throw down. And do you swear to never pick it up again? By God and Gum, you certainly do. If there is no other Scarlett O’Hara moment in post-marriage, it’s the oath that you will never pick it up again and you will run like a wild woman if you see anyone else with one in hand.

But this brings us to the dilemma of the chain-link cage. It’s the metaphor for marriage in this instance, in case any of you are asleep at the wheel, and I’m not all that happy about it. Tired, would be the word I’d use. But this is what I got, so stay with me.

Skip to yesterday. Sunday, and the Patriots game is on television. To put it in context, this is the second time in 15 years that the television in my house has been used for football watching. But Frasier is here, he loves football, he’s charmed my son into revealing his own latent love for football, and my daughter is going to glue herself to Frasier’s leg no matter what he does, so he may as well be relaxed on the couch so she doesn’t blow out his knee. The three of them are sucked into the television set on a gorgeous fall day. OK, maybe it was a sucky, cold fall day. And I have a major, wicked flashback to my marriage days: it’s one day out of their lives and the world is out there to be explored, and everyone knows that children who watch too much TV puff up like a microwave-popcorn bag and have nothing witty to say at cocktail parties, and what about reading a fucking book– and lo! the rod is in my hand. On top of it all, I have to go grocery shopping while these three slip blissfully off into tv slumberland – and another rod magically appears. Sweet Jesus, the living room floor is actually covered with them, an explosion of long, sharpened red sticks that I thought I’d chucked years ago.

Wait, we’re still on rods. Where’s the chain link fence? I look around the living room, lift my eyes from the floor, and realize that there is no fence. Oxygen is swirling all around, willy nilly, with plenty for me to breathe. And it is apparent, for a moment, that if Frasier wants to watch football, if he needs to surge off the stool and bite some 350-lb Patriot neck, I am not trapped. And I need to buy food for my kids, which I have to do whether a tv plays or not. It’s not a role. It’s a task. I can breathe. I can toss the rods. So I do.

But the fence. Still hanging out there, my tired metaphor. Because I can’t figure out the answer. When what binds us together also makes us feel trapped, and leads to the stinging and flicking, I can’t bear it. I don’t think. We all want to roam free and have a little meat on a stick, to watch a football game and fly through flaming hoops, to take our kids to a country fair and meet each other like horny teenagers, to run wild and have a soft couch for our old joints, to rip a throat or two and to be kept safe and secure from the hordes of fair-goers gathering to see the tamer shed a little blood. We want. You know we want.

Middle Aged Dating: Watching the Other’s Children

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:03:36 -0400

How Much Longer Til the Lioness Returns?
(Photo from Wordpress.com)

FRASIER:

It is an odd thing, dating after many years in a family relationship. Dating a widow with small children adds a challenge. These little kids have but one parent to whom they have quite rightfully clung tightly. I will not profess to understand that, but I will say my own dad died when I was under ten. I have a few pieces of luggage packed with those experiences.

Dating a widow with young children by definition means interacting with said children. There's no ex with the kids every other weekend. It’s a challenge not to be taken lightly. Children do not need folks blowing in and out of their lives with little regard for them.

It is not talked about much between Elsa and me, but it is understood.

So Friday I headed for pizza with said little ones after which a kid’s movie was watched. There was apparently a grilling of mom as to what this all meant in advance of my arrival. I had mentioned it being a nice day and asked if there was any function that could be done outside to satisfy my inner 13 year-old. (I get called this by Elsa on occasion, usually after uttering something that, had I working filters on my thought, says she, would not have left my mouth.)

So Elsa left the kids in my charge to play basketball while she gathered pizza and a movie. A nice, short test, as it were.

It started out amusing enough. The kids were briefed as to my not having played basketball much. The level of detail offered to me on how to play the game amused. I was given instructions on dribbling, on not being able to carry the ball, and so on. I asked for the time, the adage goes, and they told me how to build a watch. It was cute.

A few minutes into the game, the daughter passes the basketball to her older brother, hitting him square in the face.

Tears.

I try passing the ball to the daughter by putting my hand over her brother and gently letting go of the ball into her open arms. She misses it, and it hits her squarely in the face.

Tears. And a look of shock.

I joke with the boy about making up the rules as he goes along. This is standard banter between my much older sons when playing anything. It wounds the lad, having him believe I think he’s a cheater, and he cries. I speak gently and soothing. Ultimately he shoots from long range, it goes in, and he starts laughing through the tears. I am not really sure how I managed to get the redirect to succeed there, but I am glad it did. I was flailing but simply mindful to maintain a gentle voice.

Success is fleeting, as in the next possession I somehow hit the girl in the face with my hand causing, yep, you guessed it, tears.

In the midst of all this, the ball also rolls into the street in front of a UPS truck that locks up its brakes to let me get it. I come back to the girl telling me the boy has a bloody nose. I tend to this only after delivering a little sermonette on never running out into the street after a ball.

That one would have been tough to explain to Elsa. Smiling and going, "You fucked up, you trusted me" from Animal House would not have been well received.

Somewhere in this I see Elsa turn onto the street, I think it too soon to be back with pizza. I hear her mention to her kids the DVDs were left behind and asking them to go into the house to gather them while she idles in the street.

It gives me a chance to observe a little. This is the life of the single mom with two kids. They come in and out of the house. They find the cases. One case is missing the DVD. She gently instructs where to look for the DVD. They go into the house, coming back empty handed.

I smile and say something about this being pretty much her daily routine. I then ask if she would like me to go in and assist, which I do. I find the DVD atop a pile of debris by the TV and bring it back out. Her daughter insists on giving it to her. She drives off. I return to basketball and bloodying her children. She gets pizza.

Four sets of tears, a ball in front of a UPS truck, and ministering to a bloody nose, all in the time it takes to pick up a couple DVDs and some pizza.

But when she showed up, they were smiling and no worse for wear. Still, I had to confess to the lioness the comedy of errors that was the basketball game.

Cubs talk.

ELSA:

I’m running about an hour or sixteen behind schedule, as usual, and trying to let go of all the things I have to let go of in a day. Pots and dishes welded in an egg and peanut butter sculpture in the sink? Let it go. Floor crusty with dried cat food in which the obese cat has rolled and skidded in a vain attempt to find her own mouth? Let it go. Children look like extras wandering in from the set of “O Brother, Where Art Thou”? Let it go. We had managed to clean the one room where I’m going to force us all to sit, whether we like it or not. And I still have to pick up pizza and DVDs. So when I get Frasier’s text that he wants to play outside when he gets here, I figure – why not? It’ll give me just enough time to get food and entertainment.

The two little widgets, of course, are thrilled. They sit me down before he comes to interrogate me.

“So, how are things going between you and Frasier?” my son asks, in a credible imitation of my father. “Are you still dating, or is he your boyfriend now? Do the chances look good?”

“What do you guess, Mom,” my daughter interrupts. “Are you going to marry him?”

“It’s too soon to know anything like that.”

“But I didn’t ask you if you knew. I asked you what you guess. You can guess yes or you can guess no. What do you guess?”

“I can’t guess honey.”

“Anybody can guess, Mom. Guess!” she commands. Her voice gets more exasperated, more loud, more completely frustrated with my evasions and indecision and my general ineptitude at providing her with another father, which she’s been asking for for ages, along with a slough of American Girl dolls and a shitload of expensive American Girl doll accessories.

I can’t describe completely the vast tornado of desire that my dating Frasier has unleashed in my two beloved widgets. He drives up and they swing their compass points from me to him with such violence I’m afraid they’re going to pop their own springs. I duck out to get the pizza and DVDs. I’m frightened to leave him alone with them. I’m frightened that I’ll come back and find him pinned to the ground like Gulliver. I’m frightened that my 8-going-on-40-year-old daughter will somehow find a preacher and a shotgun…

It takes longer than you’d think to pick out a DVD that satisfy the baroque and exacting demands of the widgets. “It must be funny and not meaningful,” they have decided. Frasier hasn’t discussed Pokemon ever, so before going that route, they need to get a full inventory of which he’s seen and which is his favorite. (Because, of course, he must have a favorite Pokemon movie. Who doesn’t?) They base the whole decision on entertaining Frasier. They don’t want to bore him. They don’t want to depress him with an overload of meaning. They have no idea…

On my return, after a false start, I find the kids happily engaged in some basketball-type activity. Frasier (standing, I note with relief) starts laughing, with what I now recognize is the nervous laugh. He begins a long confession of blows, blood, near death by UPS man – and it takes me a moment to realize that this has been as nerve-racking for him as it was for me, but for entirely different reasons. I know what he doesn’t know: my sensitive son is very literal and easily brought to tears. My daughter is playing basketball, a game she usually disdains, because she’s always getting smacked and crying. Both are working very hard to help Frasier, to connect with him, to teach him this game called basketball and create a little world for the three of them. For them, though, the stakes are way, way too high. Which Frasier and I know, but are helpless to curb.

I look at the kids, and know that the bloody nose, the smacks to the face, the injured pride – these are things that they themselves know that they’ll recover from. They’re after bigger game, they’ll take the small stuff on the chin, as it were. It leaves me breathless. It makes me want to cry. But really, the only thing to do is to eat pizza, one bite at a time.

Stepping On Relationship Land Mines

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:03:24 -0400

Frasier:

As the profile to the left indicates, this blog is a bit of “He Said/She Said” advice for the battle worn middle agers. Think of this as the dating equivalent of “Jackass: The Movie” with “DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME” flashing underneath it.

I mean, you can only light a bottle rocket from your ass so many times before you are going to get burned, right? And once in a while, if you do not pay attention, you open your mouth and seemingly shove a little bottle rocket into your backside. And you don't know why.

It's called baggage, people. Lots and lots of baggage.

Our first example of this was a seemingly innocuous gesture offered by me to Elsa. We were going to a comedy connection. It was a big deal, this adult night out for the two of us. We were out in public, which is a little odd, as whenever we get the opportunity, we typically wind up having a hard time keeping our hands off one another. We have kids, obligations, jobs, job searches, and 90 miles between us. Face time is at an excruciating minimum.

So when we do get together we're horny teenagers in middle aged bodies. How pathetic is that? We have yet to inflict ourselves on our friends. This was a test of sorts. To see if we could behave in public... sort of.

So having picked up the tickets at the Will Call window, I had a flashback to my, uh, previous relationship.

Whenever tickets were acquired, an outstretched hand immediately appeared. There was no verbal communication, typically, just the hand. The snapping of fingers was long ago dispensed with based on the severity with which that hand outstretched. It said enough.

The rationalization for this need to have their ticket in their hand as offered by the “it-can’t-happen-soon-enough-that-she-is-the-former-Mrs.-Frasier” was the need to have the ticket in hand in the event she and I were separated. Now, for many of these it happened to be for professional sports where it made sense given different lines to enter the stadium and the like. But it was a force of habit that showed up for such simple things as movie tickets when the distance between the acquisition point and where the tickets were taken could be measured in feet, let alone yards.

So I figure it is one of those old saws taught young ladies to always have money for a cab ride home out on dates whether with some new interest or your husband of 20 odd years.

Got the context?

So, having picked up the tickets at the Will Call window before Elsa and I headed back out of the theatre to look for something to eat – which in and of itself could be a humor blog post – I turned to Elsa with ticket in hand and said unguardedly, “Here, do you want your ticket in case we get separated?”

Well, Elsa’s (beautiful, big) brown eyes grew wide and, well, not so beautiful looking as she looked at me, startled, and said, “No, you ASSHOLE, if we get separated I don’t want you to head to the theatre, I want you to try to find me. JESUS.”

So needless to say this did not go as I had assumed it would based on what I knew as normal from my marital relationship formed early in the Reagan Administration. I gave out a nervous laugh, which I guess would be akin to throwing chum into a shark tank, as Elsa was on a roll, which I will let her explain:

Elsa:

He laughs a lot, does Frasier, but this is a new relationship, so I don’t always know what the laughter means.

He’s handing me a theatre ticket “in case we get separated.” Now it’s clear that there is some sort of salvageable impulse behind this gesture. For a nanosecond, I try to go with it. But…

We’re in downtown Worcester. The theater itself is a grand affair with your chandeliers, miles o’ carpeting, and brassy staircases. But outside the theater, it’s still Worcester. Surrounding the theater like a sticky old fleece blanket is an array of check-cashing businesses, convenience stores, bail-bond agents, bus stops serving as homeless shelters, and all the good things that a defunct downtown has to offer. The man I’m on a date with has just intimated that we might get separated in this neighborhood. I wonder just what he’s got on his mind.

We have to go find something to eat; we plan to venture out and scavenge a meal. How might we be separated? Well, I guess if we were walking along, and one of us got mugged, the other might just keep walking, thinking to himself “Well, at least she still has her Ron White ticket. When she’s done being mugged, she can just head on back to the theater. We can catch up there. That’s fine. I’ve done my date-ly duty.” Or maybe we’ll be separated because he’ll get hit by a bus. Of course, that might be an awkward turn for a date, but AS LONG AS I HAVE MY TICKET TO A COMEDY SHOW, I’ll be OK. I’ll just lean over his flattened, gurgling remains and say slowly and loudly “Don’t. Worry. I. Have. My. Ticket. I Still Have Time To Catch The Opening Act.”

And then, of course, I’ll be running off, to laugh my ass off at Ron White.

I have no intention of being separated from this man in this neighborhood, but if I do get separated and find out later that once I’d disappeared he took himself to the show, watched hours of comedy, all the while glancing at the empty chair next to his and shrugging his shoulders (Look what she’s missing, the idiot!), when I get unlost I’m going to kick his ass.

I look up at him and see that he’s laughing at my riff, but there’s something underneath that laugh that strikes me as being bewildered. Maybe sad. Certainly vulnerable. Don’t know what it is, but my instinct is to hang on tight. No getting separated tonight.

FRASIER:

Well, there you have it folks. There's the secret. When faced with an unexpected reaction to what you think is a benign gesture, simply explain yourself. Stay open and honest. What could have been a fight or a snit simply became a discussion point with some laughter. Indeed, at one point Elsa looked at me and said, "I'm not sure if I'm dating an abuse victim or an asshole, or both."

Of course, taking your dates to venues in suspect neighborhoods so they will never leave your side is an age old tactic as well.

Do not, however, offer them their ticket in case they get lost.

Lesson Learned? Keep the Ticket Unless Requested ... I think. Right Elsa? Right? Where are You? Behind the Wheel? Elsa? Honey? ...

Next up: When Codependents Collide ... And Have Sex ... Really, How Bad Can It Be?