Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4140)

Sitting Thirty-Three

Wednesday night in the desert, although the unforgiving wasteland knows no season or hour.

Iz and Pal sat and watched as the sun set behind the hill. A burgeoning, chilly breeze whizzed its way past their ears, tingling their spines, causing them to draw closer to one another. It was the night before the day when everything…

Well, it seemed that everything would happen.

Wednesday had been a glorious day, chock-full of soccer, food and laughter, wrestling with each other, and questions designed to “stump your friend.” It was an ongoing Olympian marathon, trying to outdo the other fellow—gleefully making fun of each other—short of humiliation.

They had come to terms with one realization. This would be their last night in the desert, one way or another. Tomorrow they would either be overtaken by the brute force of the interfering mob, forced to return to their homes, or they would select their final option of dying together in the sand.

Emotions were colliding—joy desperately trying to keep its head up as sadness was tugging away.

Iz suggested they take this last night to eat up all the remaining food. He posed a provocative question. “Is it possible to eat until you puke?” he asked Pal, sporting a grin, but trying to maintain a certain decorum of scientific intrigue.

Pal did not know.

So the two boys were on a mission. They ate and they ate. It was not long until they were full, stuffed to the top of their eyebrows. Further eating was becoming painful. Actually, the sight of food began to make them sick. But still—they pressed on.

They devoured.

At length their throats were reluctant to swallow so they drank until their bodies sloshed. Managing some huge burps, they tried to eat some more. There were cramps, and attempts at laughter, which quickly turned into moans of pain from stomachs that were bloated from overuse.

Food supplies were lessening, and they were down to cans of provisions which were unidentifiable or deemed distasteful. At this point, Iz dug into the pile, pulled out a can of sardines, peeled back the tin lid and held up one of the yellow, drippy fishies. Reading the can, Iz proclaimed, “This one is in mustard sauce!”

That’s all Pal required. The thought of a fish swimming around in mustard was enough to cause him to unleash the burden lurking in his entrails. He threw up, laughed, coughed, threw up again, giggled—and went for a third round as Iz dangled the nasty little fish in front of his nose.

Yet it was when Iz actually ate the sardine that Pal exploded with what would be his final deluge of urping. This prompted Iz—overcome by both the scene and the smell of the fish—to join in the party, uncapping his own barrage of bellowing bounty from below.

It was a sight that would cause a mother to weep, a priest to fast and pray, and anyone feeling the least little bit queasy to join up and join in.

But to Iz and Pal, the brothers in the desert, it was the greatest fun in the world.

Regaining their composure, they shoveled sand over the remains and lay down on the desert, trying to recover from the ache of regurgitation. Breathing heavily, staring at the night sky, they still managed an occasional giggle.

This was their moment. They were desperately grasping onto it with all their might.

 

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Untotaled: Stepping 46 (February 14th, 1969) The Pain in Pleasure… December 20, 2014

  Jonathots Daily Blog

(2449)

(Transcript)

Her name was Belinda.

She was about two rungs down the ladder of popularity from me, promoted by the horrendous high school caste system.

She liked me a lot.

I liked her, but of course, I would never go against the feudal structure of High School U. S. A., to ask her out on a date. I would never survive the ridicule and humiliation.

But I got lonely around Valentine’s Day.

My dad was sick and dying. One of the guys in our music group quit because his girlfriend thought he was taking too much time with us, and I had no idea whatsoever on what geometry was all about.

So I quietly asked Belinda out on a date, hoping that because she was so devoted in my direction, there might be some necking involved. She was one of those farm girls, raised on Bible principles, but was willing to renegotiate some of the terms on a Saturday night.

I wanted to neck.

I had kissed girls, but had never sustained long sessions of smooching and my curiosity had overtaken me. So I selfishly decided to take advantage of poor Belinda.

She was thrilled and promised not to tell anybody about our date because I told her we “needed to see how it worked out.”

I took her to a drive-in movie, which in 1969 was code for “we’re gonna mess around.”

It took me nearly thirty minutes to work up the courage to put my arm around her, and then I was afraid to move it and therefore contracted some horrible cramps in my muscles, which continued through the entire evening.

It was easy to get her to start kissing. She had thin lips so the first couple of times I got mostly teeth. But after a minute or so we got the hang of it, and she started slipping her tongue in my mouth, which was relatively new to me.

Adapting the phrase, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” I concluded, “When in France do as the French do.”

We were about ten minutes into the session when I realized that one of us had really stale breath. It wasn’t really horrible–that dried smell of garlic baloney and over-chewed gum.

I persisted.

She really got into it–so much so that she unbuttoned her blouse, inviting me to see how “alive the hills really were.”

I thought about it. After all, I was a teenager. Morals were something to discuss at church and feverishly avoid in your everyday life.

But something stopped me.

Maybe it was the ache in my bicep. Or it could have been the halitosis.

But I backed out of the encounter, tongue first.

I took her home. She wondered what was wrong. She practically pleaded with me to see her again. And rat that I was, I went mousy and never spoke to her.

It was an odd night.

Rather than feeling fulfilled, I felt like I had used another human being, who would suffer some pangs from the experience.

It sucked.

I did learn, though, that there is some pain in pleasure.

The reason most people never pursue their goals is because along the way, there are some shards of glass strewn in the pathway which either need to be avoided or walked over.

If life was easy, dumb people would rule the world.

Well, maybe they do.

But life isn’t easy. With every pain comes some pleasure, and the pleasures that arrive our way do require that we survive a bit of discomfort.

 

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