You Don’t Say!

I DISLIKE speaking with strangers. In fact, I resist speaking with almost anyone, but circumstances rarely allow such silence. Pandemic isolation was glorious, as most of my conversations were conducted through electronic means and allowed time to reflect and time to answer or ignore. Two problems typically arise: I have no wish to engage in a conversation about trivialities – weather conditions, sports scores, Presidential indictments – and, when you get right down to it, I usually have nothing worthwhile to say.

I recently wrote and performed a one-man show as Sydney Greenstreet, the brilliant stage actor who made his movie debut in 1941 in “The Maltese Falcon” and had eight more years of film stardom. Many of the lines I put into his mouth resonate deeply with me. For example: “At heart, I am a bashful man. I approach social gatherings with trepidation. My thoughts, my emotions, are wont to gallop into untoward areas. To speak without forethought brings the risk of betraying myself.”

In the company of my wife, with whom I’ve lived for forty years, I have a chatty buffer. She loves to talk. She offers herself, fully and honestly, to friend and stranger alike. Where some are tongue-loosened only after a couple of potent cocktails, she’ll be the life of the party after only a single cup of tea. This gives me the chance to fade into the background, to hide in an armchair and silently study the fireplace.

But I don’t. The panic that sets in when others are nigh causes my suprarenal glands to squirt enough adrenalin into my system to cause my brain to whirr and my wit, such as it is, to flourish. I go into Performance Mode, as I think of it. I am a tuxedo-clad flâneur, pince-nez gleaming, cigarette burning in its holder. Not quite out of Oscar Wilde, but certainly at home in a Coward. The brain is now seething, ready to fire off the fancy comeback. The mot juste. The devastating riposte.

As when I encountered a friend at a gathering and was forced to be first with the greeting. “How are you?” I asked. She paused, world-wearily taking in the surroundings. “I am,” she replied. “Therefore I think.”

In no time at all, I told her, “Sounds like you’re putting Descartes before the horse.”

Where did that come from? I have no idea. A word-association mechanism pinwheels in my cerebrum and issues such statements autonomically. As when I served as Best Man at a wedding many years ago, the union of a pair of musician friends held at a posh Long Island estate. I was given a place on the receiving line and there performed the mindless function of offering a quick hello to people I didn’t know before urging them along to the groom’s father, next in line, whose name I offered as I indicated that the person in front of me should keep moving.

One woman would have none of that. She planted herself before me and eyeballed me with suspicion. I didn’t know her, but I knew who she was: a well-placed, high-powered artists’ manager who was working to advance the bride’s career. Not someone with whom I should at all engage. And yet, when she eventually declared, “You must be on the groom’s side!,” I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t even think before replying, “Actually, I’m rooting for them both.”

The glare she gave me indicated that she was not one who tolerated being on the receiving end of jokes – after all, this wasn’t the purpose of this receiving line – although it did no damage to the bride’s performing schedule, who has long since achieved well-deserved international fame.

It would seem, then, that pushing past my glossophobia results only in excellent jokes. Not true. I also make some pretty terrible ones, and those emerge far more often than the good ones. But the stuff that lies between, what you might term “normal” conversation, eludes me. I fear I have nothing to contribute. Facts that truly are factual need no enhancement from me; pseudo-facts typically are supported by conspiracy-theory platitudes that defy scrutiny; speculation is too often rooted in fear. And the weather is a cross between fact and speculation, which is exhausting to follow

So I stick to being the smartass in the room. A smartass with self-discipline, resisting joke after joke until one that stands a chance of being funny presents itself. I draw from three major styles. First is the double-meaning joke, which doesn’t ends up being clean now and then. (Not that I mind dirty – heaven forbid! – but that’s a topic unto itself.)

For example: I’m hosting a party at my house. There’s a significant number of guests. My wife and I have labored to present a nice meal, and we’re excitedly anticipating reactions. So when an imperiously health-conscious friend of ours enters, my wife and I exchange a cautionary look. “She’s going to make trouble,” I whisper to my wife. “Be nice,” are the instructions in response. Sure enough, this too-thin, too-upright citizen strides to the food table, turns to me and says, “Are there any nuts in here?”

I indicate the rest of the guests with a sweep of the hand. “Just look around you,” I say calmly, gliding away to avoid recrimination.

Second is the ambiguous assumption joke, more easily exemplified than explained. This could occur when I’m out with a friend. Drinking. On the prowl. Looking for distaff companionship, which already places this in an antediluvian era. “Don’t you think you’ve been a complete failure?” my friend asks as we stagger out of the sixth or seventh bar. “Not at all,” is my reply. “The night is young!”

Finally, the put-down. In this case, a subset of the double-meaning joke, as above, but with a more obvious thrust. It’s a response to unwarranted criticism, particularly when proffered in public, more particularly still in a tone of voice dripping with an assumption of superior knowledge.

You’re never more vulnerable to this kind of comment than when wheeling a toddler through a public space like a shopping mall. The scene: a bench near the food court. The cast: myself as a newish dad, my young daughter, and an elderly woman unable to find any place else to sit. At rise: I am sharing a so-called meal consisting of fried bits of chicken, french fries, and a milkshake. Because of my daughter’s high-energy dining style, she is adorned with food spatters. This cuisine is designed to be addictive, and my three-year-old is a junkie. She grabs at the morsels of chicken, forcing them to share mouth-space with the fries that seem to perpetually occupy that cavern, then floods it with a thick layer of white vanilla-flavored sludge. Soon enough the milkshake supply is exhausted, as signified by the sucking, grinding noise she achieves with the straw.

My daughter glowers at me and says, “Get another! Get another one!” as she thrusts the cup at me. “Calm down,” I tell her. “I’ll get you one.”

This is when the elderly lady rises turns on me an expression of contempt. Contempt laced with superiority, with the ineffable, incurable mouth-sneer of one whose personal space has been severely violated. She clutches a carpetbag to her midriff, peers over a pair of thick eyeglasses and declares, “That child is spoiled!”

I give her a warm, understanding smile and reply, “They all smell that way at her age.” Then put her back in her stroller as we prepare to find another milkshake.