from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, Paris
HHaving seen the deceptively simple movie “Happy-Go-Lucky”, in which a thirty-year-old Londoner’s effervescence makes you feel giddy (or shitty, as you please), you might be struck by any one of its gems: the realistic depiction of adult female friendship (a gift of the director, Mike Leigh), the delicate portrayal of indefatigable courage bordering on stupidity, or perhaps the simple telling of a story in which women are not tangential. These things are thin in the air of a movie theater, or they exist in so-called “chick flicks” (pet-peeve term alert!) which do not garner much attention.
As for me, I can’t stop thinking about the characterisation of Scott, an eccentric driving instructor with bad teeth who teaches Poppy, the protagonist, how to drive. (I have been to London; driving in that city is No Joke.) If, like some people, you are annoyed by Poppy’s buoyant attitude, Scott is your spokesman –until you realise that things are not quite “okay” in the “head” of this quirky fellow. Reportedly, Leigh studied the jargon of driving instructors, phrases like “peep and creep” and “if there’s a van, there’s a man”…these useful aphorisms take on an eerie mantra-like effect when intoned by Scott, who adds the flourish “EN-RA-HA” to remind Poppy about the “ever-seeing eye” at the top of the windshield. It’s hilarious and sad.
How does the ego, that deeply-lodged menace inside each of us, present for one man a small matter of keeping the lawn cut, and for another the slippery-slope descent into crazyland? My connection to mental illness is very personal: bipolar disorder, manic depression, paranoid schizophrenia and schizoid personality disorder have afflicted various people in my life… but there is a story that haunts me the most.
She was strong, tall, of Teutonic stock, shorn hair, long lashes. Her thick voice said to me, “den Himmel so Fern” when I asked what she was doing in Thailand. Though I had no German then, I understood. In the way that we glorify our lovers and overlook the presaging signs of weakness in them (a peculiar odor, a facial tick), I did not pay attention to her rants against the Catholic Church. Who doesn’t have a mild grudge against the Catholic Church? To hear her voice, the sensual sound that emanated from her throat and intermixed w’s with v’s, comfortable with consonants and very long words, I fell under her spell. “The number for the Catholic Church is six-six-six,” she would say, “and the number for Satan is five-five-five. The number for mankind is seven-seven-seven. If you look at all religious texts, the total sum of their pages is…” and so on. I didn’t hear the words, so transfixed by her was I, so helpless at the sound of her voice! Had I any sense then, or any sense of mercy, things might have turned out differently.
But what’s a girl to do? We were in love. We wanted to have cats together. Three years later, she accused me of selling transcripts of our phone calls to the German Deutsche Welle airwaves. Because, Schatz, I can see in the faces of people on the street, they are knowing my private business. How much have they paid you?
I pleaded with her to seek help, I tried reasoning. I tried coercion. I even appealed to her superstitions and “saw signs” that she should get help. These attempts only made me suspect. We broke off contact and for years I wondered about my beautiful friend. Did she ever find her heaven? Was it so far away?
To this day, I get the heebies whenever someone starts to talk about the intrinsic meaning behind numbers, or the sneaky presence of Satan vibrating within certain colors. I’ve all I can do to keep the zombies at bay…so please, Scott, keep your EN-RA-HA to yourself.
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