Grasshopper (1.0)
ah, how good it feels to blog. I have been blogstipated. Ouch. My wife has been off all week and we've been hanging out; now I have some time to myself this weekend and I hope to post every day!
A couple people, Karen and Scott, brought up Grasshopper/Paul. I'm not in touch with him now, but I knew him well for a decade, and his story deserves to be told. This then, is Grasshopper's story, or what I knew of it. There's so much to tell, I can only get half out in the first post. Blogethics.
I met Paul in high school in a creative writing class. From the beginning he needed to do things to stand out, be different (so do many high schoolers) and my girlfriend and I used to call him the sunshine boy because he always sat next to the window in Pikop's English class and pulled the shade up to feel the sun. Cool enough. Soon we learned Paul was into health food. Really into it. Whole grains, natural peanut butter, salads, fruits and veggies. He ate incredibly well and he did it on his own, meaning his parents didn't teach him. I really don't know how he learned so much about health food, but his core personality, his individuality and tenacity, were already well in place.
Another thing Paul did was run. Far. He wasn't on the track team and didn't play any sport. He was even skinnier than me then. But he used to go out into the riverbed behind his house in Lakewood, near Del Amo and Palo Verde (is this the San Gabriel?) and jog, sometimes all the way to the sea and back (this would take him much of the night). He marked his progress by bridges, which overpass he was running under, and I know this because I went with him on occasion. More after high school when I was doing martial arts than before because his physical conditioning was extraordinary. And the adventure of those runs. I can still remember the smell. The anxiety as we approached a bridge: who was under it? This wild fantasy we had that somehow we might meet girls out there, at night, jogging in the riverbed, or run past some house where girls were skinnydipping in their backyard pool. Never happened.
And the wire. We found this cable which ran all the way across the riverbed; it had to be a couple hundred feet, and it hung at least forty feet, or more, above the concrete below. We climbed onto it a couple times, and tried to climb across it, but we never got more than a few feet. I know I never got out to where if I fell it would kill me. But it wasn't much later Paul called me one night to tell me he had climbed all the way across, alone, at night. And that was Paul. No one there to see him; he risked his life just to tell a great story, to overcome a challenge. To prove himself? I don't know, but if he was after that, I suppose he did just that.
His home life was very hard; Paul's father was a complete abusive asshole. He had been some kind of government agent, was retired, and hated Paul even when he was a kid. Paul told me he beat him when he was younger. What I do know is that once when I was at Paul's house I came out of his room, around the corner, I walked almost straight into his father. For a moment his dad thought it was Paul coming and the look on his face was complete rage and hatred and disgust. When he realized it was me, he softened right away, but I'll never forget that look.
It doesn't strike me as unusual that I began to hang around with Paul as a teenager because he was in as much pain as me. He was like a cup, filled with water; only the water was despair and nothing else could get in and not much came out. So he never stopped moving. I was doing the same thing, only in my head. But Paul took his despair and learned self-hatred and channeled into two things: constant talking, and extraordinary actions. He redefined what I thought was possible in American life. Like Thoreau did later. Or Snyder or Kerouac. Only Paul hurt even more than those guys.
After high school Paul said he was kicked out by his father. This seems likely. I know he had already bought a backpack and had a plan; I think he had even cut out the shape of a hitching thumb in glow in the dark cardboard. But that summer Paul disappeared. He hitched and rode trains (having been taught by a hobo) to Alaska to work in the canneries. He'd stay in a town, like Concord, CA for a while, then continue north. He showed me the newspaper clipping where he almost froze to death in the forest in Washington and was taken in, I think by a church. When he came back he flew to Hawaii, one way, got off the plane and just got a job. He lived there for a while, with locals (what his parents later called 'peasants'), learning pidgen and surfing and I don't know what else. Eventually he came back and somehow or other began college.
And this was when Paul began to follow me in a way. He majored in English. And he pledged AGO at CSULB, the Christian fraternity where I met my ex. I think he wanted to live cheap in the house. But this was the mid-eighties, when college students believed in Reagan and the BMW, and Paul was so far from fitting in I can't even tell you. Walking around, constantly telling his stories, not wearing shoes and eating celery. Very non-J. Crew. But he pledged. I think I had already dropped out of college because of my ocd and panic attacks and was living in despair at my mother's, but I know I helped Paul get in. The problem of course was keeping him in! The guys named him Grasshopper because he never wore shoes, and some guys liked Paul, most thought he was okay; some hated him. I really don't know why, except that maybe his pain rubbed on them, reminded them of how fucked up they also felt. But an actual conspiracy arose against Paul his pledge semester.
And in this Christian fraternity, like all fraternities I guess, something is held a few times a semester called a ding vote. The ding is anonymous, and if a pledge's actual name is written on a piece of paper by two (or was it three?) people, he's gone. No discussion. No reason or appeal. I knew Paul was going to get dinged and I knew by whom. How to save him? I came up with an idea I'm still proud of; I wonder now if it wasn't God.
To understand this story, I have to step into fraternity land a bit. Each fraternity in the nation has chapters at different colleges, and of course there is rivalry. Apart from hazing and the active member/pledge division, the prank rules supreme in the fraternal world (well, non-Christian fraternities have a couple other deities, ethanol and the pudenda, but we'll set those aside for now) and to pull a prank against another chapter is the height of fraternalhood. But this is very hard to do. And usually these pranks are small: oh, Alpha (the UCLA chapter) still has our paddle from 1985, like that. The houses exchange contraband like prisoners of war from time to time. I knew Paul was ding dung dead out of that house, where he was living incidentally, unless he did something big.
So he and I went to UCLA. Alpha. The founding chapter of AGO. The monastery on the hill. And we hung out with the brothers. I may have showed Paul the grip or may have introduced him as a pledge, either way we had to be very low profile as of course the guys were suspicious. But Paul and I looked so innocent then. And while we were watching a movie with the Alpha guys I unlocked, barely, one of the windows downstairs. Later, after dark, Paul and I came back and we stole everything. All their trophies, their mugs, paddles, I can't even rememer what all. Stuff they cared about. It filled our car. But at least Paul was ready for his big night now.
Every Monday night the fraternity has dinner. And as soon as everyone sits down the actives start going 'yawn, yawn, yawn,' saying that word, loud. Because they're bored. Then the president of the house will say 'pledge so and so (every pledge has a name, mine was shut-up) please entertain us.' They called on Paul or maybe he volunteered, and he had stashed all that stuff someplace in the house (I don't think I was there) and for his pledge entertainment he began bringing out Alpha's trophies and mugs and paddles and stuff one by one. The house went berserk. It was the single greatest coupe in AGO history that I know. And astoundingly, despite the hatred against him, Paul wasn't dung out that night, though I think he came close and the same guys tried to kick him out later. If I may say so, he was a good guy and deserved to be active. Really, we were just a bunch of kids in sportcoats and ties.
I'm still proud of that story. Eventually Alpha came wimpering for their stuff, which I guess was all given back. But what a night. Me and Grasshopper. It was a time. Part two in another installment.
t
A couple people, Karen and Scott, brought up Grasshopper/Paul. I'm not in touch with him now, but I knew him well for a decade, and his story deserves to be told. This then, is Grasshopper's story, or what I knew of it. There's so much to tell, I can only get half out in the first post. Blogethics.
I met Paul in high school in a creative writing class. From the beginning he needed to do things to stand out, be different (so do many high schoolers) and my girlfriend and I used to call him the sunshine boy because he always sat next to the window in Pikop's English class and pulled the shade up to feel the sun. Cool enough. Soon we learned Paul was into health food. Really into it. Whole grains, natural peanut butter, salads, fruits and veggies. He ate incredibly well and he did it on his own, meaning his parents didn't teach him. I really don't know how he learned so much about health food, but his core personality, his individuality and tenacity, were already well in place.
Another thing Paul did was run. Far. He wasn't on the track team and didn't play any sport. He was even skinnier than me then. But he used to go out into the riverbed behind his house in Lakewood, near Del Amo and Palo Verde (is this the San Gabriel?) and jog, sometimes all the way to the sea and back (this would take him much of the night). He marked his progress by bridges, which overpass he was running under, and I know this because I went with him on occasion. More after high school when I was doing martial arts than before because his physical conditioning was extraordinary. And the adventure of those runs. I can still remember the smell. The anxiety as we approached a bridge: who was under it? This wild fantasy we had that somehow we might meet girls out there, at night, jogging in the riverbed, or run past some house where girls were skinnydipping in their backyard pool. Never happened.
And the wire. We found this cable which ran all the way across the riverbed; it had to be a couple hundred feet, and it hung at least forty feet, or more, above the concrete below. We climbed onto it a couple times, and tried to climb across it, but we never got more than a few feet. I know I never got out to where if I fell it would kill me. But it wasn't much later Paul called me one night to tell me he had climbed all the way across, alone, at night. And that was Paul. No one there to see him; he risked his life just to tell a great story, to overcome a challenge. To prove himself? I don't know, but if he was after that, I suppose he did just that.
His home life was very hard; Paul's father was a complete abusive asshole. He had been some kind of government agent, was retired, and hated Paul even when he was a kid. Paul told me he beat him when he was younger. What I do know is that once when I was at Paul's house I came out of his room, around the corner, I walked almost straight into his father. For a moment his dad thought it was Paul coming and the look on his face was complete rage and hatred and disgust. When he realized it was me, he softened right away, but I'll never forget that look.
It doesn't strike me as unusual that I began to hang around with Paul as a teenager because he was in as much pain as me. He was like a cup, filled with water; only the water was despair and nothing else could get in and not much came out. So he never stopped moving. I was doing the same thing, only in my head. But Paul took his despair and learned self-hatred and channeled into two things: constant talking, and extraordinary actions. He redefined what I thought was possible in American life. Like Thoreau did later. Or Snyder or Kerouac. Only Paul hurt even more than those guys.
After high school Paul said he was kicked out by his father. This seems likely. I know he had already bought a backpack and had a plan; I think he had even cut out the shape of a hitching thumb in glow in the dark cardboard. But that summer Paul disappeared. He hitched and rode trains (having been taught by a hobo) to Alaska to work in the canneries. He'd stay in a town, like Concord, CA for a while, then continue north. He showed me the newspaper clipping where he almost froze to death in the forest in Washington and was taken in, I think by a church. When he came back he flew to Hawaii, one way, got off the plane and just got a job. He lived there for a while, with locals (what his parents later called 'peasants'), learning pidgen and surfing and I don't know what else. Eventually he came back and somehow or other began college.
And this was when Paul began to follow me in a way. He majored in English. And he pledged AGO at CSULB, the Christian fraternity where I met my ex. I think he wanted to live cheap in the house. But this was the mid-eighties, when college students believed in Reagan and the BMW, and Paul was so far from fitting in I can't even tell you. Walking around, constantly telling his stories, not wearing shoes and eating celery. Very non-J. Crew. But he pledged. I think I had already dropped out of college because of my ocd and panic attacks and was living in despair at my mother's, but I know I helped Paul get in. The problem of course was keeping him in! The guys named him Grasshopper because he never wore shoes, and some guys liked Paul, most thought he was okay; some hated him. I really don't know why, except that maybe his pain rubbed on them, reminded them of how fucked up they also felt. But an actual conspiracy arose against Paul his pledge semester.
And in this Christian fraternity, like all fraternities I guess, something is held a few times a semester called a ding vote. The ding is anonymous, and if a pledge's actual name is written on a piece of paper by two (or was it three?) people, he's gone. No discussion. No reason or appeal. I knew Paul was going to get dinged and I knew by whom. How to save him? I came up with an idea I'm still proud of; I wonder now if it wasn't God.
To understand this story, I have to step into fraternity land a bit. Each fraternity in the nation has chapters at different colleges, and of course there is rivalry. Apart from hazing and the active member/pledge division, the prank rules supreme in the fraternal world (well, non-Christian fraternities have a couple other deities, ethanol and the pudenda, but we'll set those aside for now) and to pull a prank against another chapter is the height of fraternalhood. But this is very hard to do. And usually these pranks are small: oh, Alpha (the UCLA chapter) still has our paddle from 1985, like that. The houses exchange contraband like prisoners of war from time to time. I knew Paul was ding dung dead out of that house, where he was living incidentally, unless he did something big.
So he and I went to UCLA. Alpha. The founding chapter of AGO. The monastery on the hill. And we hung out with the brothers. I may have showed Paul the grip or may have introduced him as a pledge, either way we had to be very low profile as of course the guys were suspicious. But Paul and I looked so innocent then. And while we were watching a movie with the Alpha guys I unlocked, barely, one of the windows downstairs. Later, after dark, Paul and I came back and we stole everything. All their trophies, their mugs, paddles, I can't even rememer what all. Stuff they cared about. It filled our car. But at least Paul was ready for his big night now.
Every Monday night the fraternity has dinner. And as soon as everyone sits down the actives start going 'yawn, yawn, yawn,' saying that word, loud. Because they're bored. Then the president of the house will say 'pledge so and so (every pledge has a name, mine was shut-up) please entertain us.' They called on Paul or maybe he volunteered, and he had stashed all that stuff someplace in the house (I don't think I was there) and for his pledge entertainment he began bringing out Alpha's trophies and mugs and paddles and stuff one by one. The house went berserk. It was the single greatest coupe in AGO history that I know. And astoundingly, despite the hatred against him, Paul wasn't dung out that night, though I think he came close and the same guys tried to kick him out later. If I may say so, he was a good guy and deserved to be active. Really, we were just a bunch of kids in sportcoats and ties.
I'm still proud of that story. Eventually Alpha came wimpering for their stuff, which I guess was all given back. But what a night. Me and Grasshopper. It was a time. Part two in another installment.
t
Comments
every time I do that, coin some silly term, I'm aiming for the greatness you and Cheri achieved in your list! Blog on.
t