No Pleasure But Meanness

Robin Hemley

He is a talking asshole on a stick
             He is a walkie-talkie on two legs
             and he holds his phone to his ear
             and he holds his phone to his mouth
             and hears Death death

            --Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "He"

I have a mean bone in my body. In fact, I think I have more than one mean bone. For instance, I hate people who smile all the time. It feels good to say that word, "hate," doesn't it? Would you like to try it? Say: "I hate people who ask rhetorical questions in essays that can't possibly be answered." Or form your own. Start a sentence with "I hate people who..." or even take out the qualifier and just say "I hate people. I wish them all ill." It releases something, though there is always more hate to take its place. Actually, I smile all the time, and that's one of the things I hate about myself, though this is not an essay about self-loathing. Not really. It's just that I'm not above hating myself, and I want you to know that.

Because I know you care.

Constant smiling is a loathsome American habit. Underneath lives a bitter and unhappy person. You can bank on it. Millions of bitter and unhappy people walk around the U.S. smiling all the time (especially in Utah, where I live now and the Midwest where I grew up). This is why Europeans hate us so, or pity us at the very least. How can we be trusted?

You can trust people in photos from a century and a half ago, but not people in contemporary snapshots. A century and a half ago, it was not the habit of people to smile when their photos were taken. What are you smiling at, you idiot? a mother of a century and a half ago might scold her child smiling at the camera. "Life is hard." Smiling for the camera is a recent convention. I do not hate these people of a century and a half ago. They're all dead anyway.

I do not remember the first person I hated, but I clearly remember the first person who hated me. David Roger Biddle. I was ten and he was seven when David Roger Biddle moved into my neighborhood in northern Indiana. On the first day he saw me playing in my front yard, he strode over to me, stood ten paces away, and waved. He was dressed in shorts that puffed about his waist and a red shirt with a wide collar, black shoes and white socks. His light brown hair was slicked down and perfectly parted. “Ha, ma name is David Roger Biddle,” he said.

"That's interesting," I said and ignored him.

The next day, he came over again. "Ha, ma name is David Roger Biddle," he said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"David Roger Biddle."

I told David Roger Biddle to wait for me and I went inside to get my brother.

"Ha, ma name is David Roger Biddle," he told my brother.

For the next two weeks, I tried to see how many times I could get him to say David Roger Biddle. I never tired of hearing him say it. He never tired of saying it and never varied the way he said it. I'm sure there's not another single kid from my childhood whose entire name I committed to memory.

One day, my family and I returned home from an outing to the Indiana Dunes to find our front door open and a line of my toys stretching from our yard to the yard of David Roger Biddle. The line of discarded toys ended at the mouth of the well in the Biddle's front yard. Into these depths, David Roger Biddle had cast most of my toys.

The checkout clerk at Walmart tells me to smile on the rare day I'm not smiling. "Smile," she tells me as though she really cares. "It can't be that bad." How does she know? But I do as I'm told. I smile and I go away hating us both and vow never to set foot in Walmart again, whose mascot, in any case, is a smiling yellow dot. What makes yellow dots so happy anyway?

Tell me your good news. I'll pretend to be, thrilled, delighted, overjoyed. A new car? Your dream house? You sold your novel to the movies? I'm so happy for you! I tell you my good news and I know you secretly hate me, wish me nothing but ill. I know it's a sin, but it's not easy to remember. That's why God had to write it down for us.

No, the first person who hated me wasn't David Roger Biddle. It was my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bell. She went crazy the year after I was in her class and she died in an asylum. Not because of me, of course. She was already headed in that direction. But Mrs. Bell hated me with a passion that even David Roger Biddle couldn't muster. It started because of a report card. We were required to get our parents to sign our report cards, all full of E's and P's and other letters we'd never again see on report cards after kindergarten anyway. I couldn't read, but I was fascinated with this report card and studied it intently in the bathtub that night while playing with my Creepy Crawlers, little rubber animals that were popular at the time. Somehow, a wet rubber lobster found its way from the tub to the report card, and the next day when I handed the card to Mrs. Bell, she had trouble opening it. The card had stuck, so she pulled it apart and out jumped the little rubber lobster and into her mouth.

She screamed and dropped the card and after that I was her sworn enemy. First, she called in my mother and told her that I was going to "grow up to be a thug." Those were her exact words.

After that, I couldn't do anything right. At sing-along, she accused me of mouthing the words, though I sang at the top of my lungs, and made me sit in the corner. When we finger-painted, she said I did it wrong and made me sit in the corner. At nap time, she stepped on my back as I lay on my blanket. The kindergartners had their own bathroom, and we had to line up for it. Every time I stood in line for the bathroom, she'd take me from the front and move me to the back, and so of course, I did things in my pants and got into trouble for that.

Besides Mrs. Bell, I had another enemy, a girl named Virginia who used to taunt me: "I'm named after a state and you're only named after a bird." I hated Virginia, though oddly I can't say I hated Mrs. Bell. I feared her but never thought to hate her. Mrs. Bell loved Virginia proportionate to her hatred for me.

Every day of kindergarten, we had cubby hole inspection and on the last day of class, I did something in my pants and was mortified that Mrs. Bell would find out. We stood at attention in front of our cubbies while Mrs. Bell slid open each door, peered inside, and inspected. As she approached, I was sure she'd find out what I'd done in my pants. I didn't know what to do, so I reached into my pants and pulled out what I'd done which was luckily very hard and dry. Quickly, with the deft movements of a thief, if not a thug, I opened up Virginia's cubby next to mine and stuck what I'd done inside. Then I shut the door again.

When Mrs. Bell approached my cubby, she sneered but said nothing. She opened my cubby and closed it again. I stood stock still, arms at my side, eyes straight ahead. Then she came to Virginia's cubby.

"I hope you have a nice summer, Mrs. Bell," Virginia said sweetly, smiling widely at Mrs. Bell.

"Why thank you, Virginia," Mrs. Bell said. "I hope you have a nice summer, too," and then she opened Virginia's cubby and Mrs. Bell's smile disappeared. Mrs. Bell dismissed us all except for Virginia. I remember looking in the window after I left and seeing Virginia standing there, mortified.

I grew up to be a thug.

I'm Justin and I'll be your server tonight! Can I start you folks off with a drink? How about one of our signature Margaritas? And may I recommend the Nachos Especiale?

Thug comes from the Indian sect, Thugee. They were assassins who killed their prey swiftly and silently. They worshipped Kali, goddess of destruction. They were wiped out in the 1880's, but their goddess survives.

It has become fashionable to hate David Letterman these days, so I do not hate him. Letterman grew up in Indiana, which is also where I grew up. He knows what's behind a Midwestern smile. David Letterman has an ironic smile that people have wearied of. He tells ironic jokes that are as stupid and meaningless as they were twenty years ago, but now people have turned on him, having finally wised up and realized he was making fun of them all these years. Remember Calvert DeForest? aka Larry "Bud" Melman, one of Letterman's original cast members? This was the guy who had a fat face and wore fat glasses and said everything in the same uninspired monotone tinged with a Brooklyn accent. He was the classic Stooge, once removed, as though Curly of the Three Stooges stood stock still instead of spinning on the floor and whooped unenthusiastically: "Whoop, whoop, whoop."

Letterman's humor was always about manipulation. I can make you do this. You can make your dog do that. I can make you do something even dumber than what you can make your dog do. I can make you laugh at something that's funny only because it's so unfunny. What precisely was funny about Larry Bud Melman or the Indian grocers, two "regular guys" Dave liked to talk to from time to time? The underlying idea was that the regular guys were worthless drones Letterman and by extension we could feel superior to. We identified with Letterman, not the drones he was talking to. They were funny precisely because they were so ordinary and Dave was not. He clearly disdained them all as he disdains the rest of us Larry Bud Melmans and Indian grocers. But by making his friendliness towards them so fake, he was acting sincere. He was the kid in the photo who refuses to pretend to be enjoying himself, the one who smiles grotesquely at the camera to ruin everyone else's sham fun. The psychotic woman who kept invading his house convinced she was his wife, was simply responding to the meanness that is the beating bloody heart of contemporary America. She was an overly sincere fool, mistaking his hatred for love, and fools are all too easy to dismiss.

Before there was Larry "Bud" Melman, "there was David Roger Biddle.

Yes, I know hatred is self-destructive. That's nothing new, but this knowledge makes my hatred no less relevant, no less plausible, no less necessary. You expect this essay to turn around, don't you? You expect me to admit that hating others only hurts myself. But no, this essay will not give you the satisfaction. Find it somewhere else.

Last year, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Stuart, told me that he'd discovered that his wife, also one of my oldest and dearest friends, had been having an affair with a colleague for the past two years. This man was not only a colleague of Stuart's wife, Beth, but a friend of Stuart's as well. They'd shared meals, even vacations, had traveled the previous summer to Europe together. All this time, even in Europe they'd been carrying on, and he never knew until one day he picked up the phone extension and listened. Remarkably, Stuart and Beth had stayed together, she contrite, he terribly hurt but as forgiving as he could be.

Do you hate him?" I asked Stuart recently.

"Well, I don't ever want to see him again," Stuart admitted, "but do I hate him? What's hate?"

He proceeded then with a meandering philosophical discussion. He mentioned that this man called him the week before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews are supposed to ask forgiveness for their sins not only from God, but from those they've personally injured, and asked him for forgiveness. "What happens if I forgive you?" he asked the man. "Do you feel good about yourself then?"

I told Stuart I wouldn't have the nerve to do what this other man did, not that I admired him. I might be petty, but I'm loyal to my friends. But it's easy to admit your faults to God. To admit your faults to those you've actually injured? Can you imagine the fallout, the general befuddlement and panic an outbreak of begging forgiveness would cause if such a practice became widespread? How hard it would be to hold on to your hatred, but surely, not impossible.

Did he hate his wife? I asked. No, because there's a shared history between them, and many good things in the past, and many good things hopefully in the future. A certain part of him knew it was biological. Maybe he would have done the same in her situation.

"Do I hate him?' he asked again. "I don't think so. But do I wish him evil? Yes, by all means. I wouldn't mind if someone broke both his kneecaps."

While watching the local news, I watch for the moment before the commercial when the camera, lingering a second too long, captures the weatherman's true countenance. His smile drops, his eyes harden and two zones of high and low pressure converge.

I gave a community writing workshop about ten years ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I used to live. It was in a church basement, and I was wearing my Community Giver face that day, the happy face of the motivational speaker who gives workshops to retired people and tells them that everyone has a story inside them, something valuable to share. Am I an imposter? Sometimes. Are you an imposter? Probably, sometimes.

A recently retired banker was among the twenty or so participants that day, and after the workshop he approached me and said he wanted to ask me a question. I thought it would be about how to get his novel published, but no, he told me that when he was twenty or so in the late 1950's, he'd taken a trip around the world and had spent a month or so bumming around India. There, he'd run into two other Americans, a couple of men a little older than he. The two men were lovers and at first they were friendly to him and they traveled around India together for the next couple of weeks. But as time went on, the two started making fun of him mercilessly, acting so cruel that he came to hate them.

"One of them was a writer," he told me, "and I was wondering if anything became of him." I could see in his eyes what he was hoping that he'd mention the name and I'd say, "Nope, never heard of him."

His name was Allen Ginsburg," the man said.

"Are you kidding?" I asked.

"You've heard of him?" he asked.

"He's one of the most famous poets of the twentieth century," I told the man.

"Oh, well," he said. "I was just wondering."

I felt bad for him, but what could he do? Take all of Ginsburg's poems and throw them in a well?

The clerk approaches like an Irish Setter. If he had a tail, he would wag it. Upon turning one's gaze on him, he might squat and pee submissively.

“If you need anything, just holler,” he says. “My name’s Jeff.”

Ten minutes later, I have a question for Jeff so I saunter over to the counter. He has his back turned to me and he's chatting with some of his coworkers. His voice is not the friendly voice of the Jeff I know and love, but low and mocking.

"Hey Jeff!" I holler like he told me. "I need some help."

Jeff turns around, clearly shocked. His eyes go hard and his voice becomes formal. What? He didn't mean it? None of those honeyed Jeff-ish words? He was stringing me along all this time?

Oh Jeff, Jeff, JEFF! How I hate you!

"I'll be with you in a minute, Sir."

At that same community workshop, I met a man who claimed to be a film producer. He and his wife had recently moved to the area because his wife was in charge of a big studio theme park that had recently opened in the area. He told me he had read my novel and was interested in making it into a film. "But of course the ending would have to be changed," he told me. "It needs to be more uplifting."

"Of course," I agreed.

He had loaned out his copy of the book, he said and he wondered if I might have another. So I gave him the one I had with me. But I had a feeling he would take my book and that would be the last I ever heard from him. He took my book and that was the last I ever heard from him. Perhaps he died in a terrible accident on the way home from the workshop and that's why. One can only hope.

In that same novel, I put the names of people I disliked on gravestones. I thought of it as some clever revenge, but it worked differently. I buried my animus towards them. Or maybe time did that.

It's been our pleasure serving you today. We've truly enjoyed having you on our flight and we hope to see you again in the near future and that you have a wonderful day in Salt Lake City or wherever your final destination might be.

The novel had its genesis as a short story -- an ambitious story told from several points of view. A failed story. I wrote the story while a Fellow at a prestigious arts colony for young writers, and the day I finished it, I ran into a visiting former Fellow, who complained that none of the current Fellows were showing her any of their work.

"I just finished a story," I told her. In fact, I had "finished" it a mere thirty minutes earlier.

"I'd love to see it," she said. She smiled sweetly and so I handed her the story.

That night, I had a nightmare. I dreamed that not only did she hate the story but she thought the story was terrible, wretched, pathetic. In my dream, she berated me mercilessly until I was nearly in tears. But as they say in terrible, wretched, pathetic stories, it was only a dream and I awoke.

But it wasn't only a dream. When I met her, she was worse than the dream. She told me that I had no talent, that it was the worst story she'd ever read, that she was shocked I'd been allowed into the place.

So, of course, I turned the story into a novel and I tried to forget her.

Years later, I wrote a memoir about my sister. By coincidence, she wrote a memoir about her sister that was more successful than mine. Then I wrote another nonfiction book and, by coincidence, she wrote a nonfiction book with almost the exact same title as mine. Hers was on the New York Times Bestseller list for a week. Mine wasn't.

Did I hate her? What's hate? Did I wish her evil? By all means. If someone had broken her kneecaps, I wouldn't have minded.

I'm her David Roger Biddle:

Ha, ma name is Robin Cecil Hemley

Robin Cecil Hemley

Robin Cecil Hemley

Hatred is a place you touch from time to time. Mostly, you forget it's there, but then something reminds you it's there and you touch it again, you worry it with your tongue, poke it with your finger. Why? Why can't you just leave it alone? Maybe it won't heal, maybe it will always be there, but do you have to keep touching it all the time? For heaven's sake, people are watching.

In the life of my rival, the woman who does not even know she is my rival, there is some hatred she is nurturing. Of this, I can be sure. But it's not me she hates. She barely knows I exist. Because we are human, we need hatred. We don't want it necessarily. We don't like it, but it's there, and the more we try to deny it, the more it returns. It's gossip, betrayal, pride. It's the certainty that someone has it better, that life is unfair and that we've paid our dues, which makes us even bigger fools. Dues for what? So we can be happy yellow bouncing dots. So we can live in David Letterman's house. We scream, "But that's our husband, that's where we really live," and still they take us away in handcuffs.

"Smile! C'mon, smile! It won't kill ya!

There ya go! Now, was that so terrible?

This essay originally appeared in Ninth Letter, Spring/Summer 2004.