I can see Alcatraz: November 2010

Psy´cho`pomp = n. (Myth.) A conductor of souls to the underworld.

At Burning Man this year, I spent some time with my friend Josh. We used to study together, until I moved to my new university. I saw Josh for a drink in San Francisco recently. He told me a story which I found amusing, if also a little dark. I asked him whether he would consider posting it on my blog – a sort of guest blog. He agreed. This is Josh’s guest post:

I’m not a writer, though there was a time when I dreamt of becoming one. But now I’m training to be a clinical psychologist. That is already seen as a risky career choice in my family – they would have preferred me to be a doctor. Even in San Francisco, Jews are conservative. But I’ve never been much of a scientist: dissection and internal organs and so on make me feel nauseous. There is a volunteer group in Israel called ZAKA who go around after a suicide bombing and pick up body parts. They have to reassemble the bodies as dictated by Halakha – Jewish law. That would be my ultimate nightmare.

I am, however, very interested in neuroscience. It is the greatest mystery to me how the material processes of the brain can result in consciousness. Or, if consciousness and neurochemical processes are not identical, then how do the two relate to each other? How is it possible for the material and the non-material to interact? I find this area so fascinating that I didn’t even feel nauseous when our instructor brought a real human brain into class earlier this semester. In recent years, this fascination has also pointed me in the direction of psychedelics, an interest which I share with icanseealcatraz.

There may be some West Coast families who discuss psychedelics over the dinner table, but my family is not like that. My father teaches International Relations at a prestigious West Coast school. In many ways, his success as an academic is related to his openmindedness and willingness to engage seriously with different points of view. However, he came to this country as a young man determined to make the most of the opportunities available to him. The idea that his son might jeopardize his own future by experimenting with drugs would horrify him. Even here on the West Coast, the definition of success is fairly narrow in the Jewish community. Success, at least in the world in which I grew up, is not necessarily about money or materialism, but nor is it about exploring consciousness. How many Jewish hippies do you know?

Having said that, my father did enjoy talking to me about Burning Man. I told him about the art, and the desert, and the absence of money. He likes to think that he’s been there and done that – got the t-shirt – because he spent six months on a kibbutz after he graduated. Maybe there are some similarities. However, I did not tell him that, a week before going to Burning Man, I met a friend of a friend who sold me a 0.5 oz eye drop bottle containing one hundred trips of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in liquid form.

Such a harmless looking little bottle, and yet what galaxies it contains! I spent a day sitting in the middle of the white desert with icanseealcatraz. There was a period when it seemed that we were having the same thoughts. If consciousness is the foundation of everything – a universal quality which is not only instantiated in individual minds but also transcends them – then surely it ought, in principle, to be possible to know each other’s thoughts? And, according to Eastern thought (at least as explained to me by icanseealcatraz), the illusion is not that we know each other’s thoughts, rather that there is such a thing as ‘each other’. Personal identity, individuation – that is the illusion.

One other thing about LSD – tolerance builds up very fast. By the middle of the week, the effects of even four or five trips were barely noticeable. I put the bottle away for another day and enjoyed the remainder of Burning Man without psychedelics. You really don’t have to be high to enjoy the craziness.

One month later, I was once again struggling to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of graduate school. The pressure was all the more intense since I had to keep a week free for my annual visit to Israel. This is a tradition with which I have grown up, and which I do not feel I can break. Ever since I can remember, I have flown to Tel Aviv with my grandmother for the last week of October. We celebrate my grandmother’s sister’s – my great aunt Hanna’s – birthday, but really it’s just a big family reunion. When I was a baby and we all lived in New York, my grandmother would take me. Now the tables have turned – my grandmother needs a wheelchair most of the time and I have to look after her. She still lives in New York, so I fly there first to pick her up, then we continue together. To be honest, it’s really not a lot of fun, but I think it would break her heart if I refused. There are some things you just have to do.

My grandmother is called Bubby. Well, that means ‘granny’, I don’t actually know what her real name is. Bubby is 88 years old, small, shriveled, acerbic and tenacious. She survived the war by hiding with her sister Hanna in a pitch black, rat-infested cellar in Krakow for six months. She lives in an apartment on West 14th Street, one block down from the Beth Israel hospital. She never switches the lights off, not even on sunny days. She has never talked about her time in the cellar. She is growing forgetful with age, though her ability to process information is as impressive as ever. Bubby has always been a competent woman with her feet firmly planted in the real world. Unlike many of her generation, she has never sought refuge in imaginary worlds or fantasies. However, in recent years I have noticed the development of a certain childlike candor which is quite charming.

I left San Francisco’s balmy Indian summer and landed in cold, wet New York. The rush hour traffic clogged the city’s arteries and it was dark by the time I arrived at Bubby’s apartment. I was immediately engulfed by the humid air from the kitchen and the characteristic smell of cabbage. Bubby welcomed me with the habitual fussing which makes me feel like a little boy and very soon breeds a sense of irritation of which I am ashamed, and which consequently only serves to make me feel more irritated. Despite her advanced years and diminishing mobility, Bubby - with the help of a maid - prepares a feast for me every year. Well, a feast for the eyes at least. Jewish, Polish and Austro-Hungarian culinary traditions come together in her cooking to produce a stodgy, malleable mountain of matter – dumplings, matzah balls, knishes, pirogge and the like. I feel like a toothpaste tube which is laboriously having the paste forced back into it. My favorite food is sashimi.

The following morning we took a taxi to the airport. As soon as we got out of the taxi, we were met by JFK’s wheelchair assistance – an astonishingly efficient service. Bubby likes to sit in the wheelchair and brandish her walking stick; she does not hesitate to use it if her path is blocked. It is often quite embarrassing, but our progress through the airport is rapid.

We ‘preboard’ our flight to Ben Gurion. I am happy to see that we have been given seats at the very front of the plane. There is plenty of leg room for me and Bubby just needs to rock forwards if she wants to stand up or go to the restroom. These days Bubby always takes the window seat, though I am sure that used to be my prerogative. Interesting - that must have been the point at which the balance tipped.

Bubby does not like flying. She is not terrified by it, but it certainly makes her nervous. I know from experience that she will be very talkative for the first half hour, then she’ll doze for the rest.

‘Joshua, please tell your father to visit me. He neglects me. You know I could sue him for that. Lottie Baumberger sued her son, and she won.’

‘Yes Bubby.’

My father does not neglect her. He visits as often as his teaching permits, and he pays for Bubby’s maid. There is no need for him to do that – she is a wealthy woman, though you wouldn’t know it. But Bubby is also a kvetch, to use a word of hers.

The other passengers begin to file in. Some of the older ones give me an approving smile. The dutiful grandson escorting his grandmother back to the homeland – it pleases them. And I play my part well – I hold Bubby’s dry hand, although the ferocity of her grip is far from comfortable.

A girl with the sculpted back of a dancer or a yoga instructor steps lithely into the plane. She is wearing a black tank top and has freckles on her nose. She sees me holding Bubby’s hand and briefly our eyes connect. I feel a sudden thrill. She is smoking hot. Then she puts her bag down on the seat across the aisle from me and installs herself.

‘Joshua, it is time you were married,’ announces Bubby. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘Twenty-six! Your grandfather had produced three children by the time he was twenty-six. What have you produced?’

I am unpleasantly aware of the way that Bubby’s voice carries. It is not a loud voice, but it has tenacity.

‘Even your father was married by twenty-six, and he was very bad with girls. But there are many suitable girls here. They tell me that it is not like that on the West Coast.’ Bubby lowers her voice conspiratorially, but still it carries. ‘There are only goyim on the West Coast,’ she says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I think I detect movement from the girl across the aisle. I sneak a look. She appears engrossed in her in-flight magazine – a little too engrossed? Is there a slight tweak of amusement at the corner of her mouth?

A voluminous figure interposes itself between the smoking hottie and myself. I look up and see a woman in her fifties with tight curls plastered close to her scalp. There is an astonishing severity to her features and an intimidating massivity to her limbs. She looks as if she could have been a nurse in a sadistic psychiatric ward in the 50s.

‘My name is Angelina. I will be your purser for the flight today. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call me.’

Angelina!

I nod and thank her. She turns in the aisle with all the ease and elegance of an oil tanker in the Panama Canal.

Bubby is staring at the flight attendant call button, directly above.

‘Joshua, please turn off the fan. The air is drying my eyes.’

I have a momentary sinking feeling. This is Bubby’s obsession – dry eyes. In fact, anything to do with her eyes and her eyesight. And I know I mustn’t blame her for it, but it can be hard when I know that it’s all in her head.

I reach up. Her fan is off, but I pretend to twist it anyway.

‘There, it’s off now,’ I say.

‘No, I don’t think it is. I can still feel the air on my eyeballs.’

I reach up again. Fortunately, at that moment, the captain and co-pilot enter the plane. They both smile at Bubby – that’s enough to distract her, for now. And, grudgingly, I have to admit that they are both handsome men. I sneak another look across the aisle and am relieved to see that the object of my lust appears to be asleep. But why am I relieved? Why does every handsome male make me feel insecure? I make a mental note to discuss this with my analyst.

Bubby is peering into the cockpit where the pilots have already started to check the instruments. Why on earth is it called a cockpit? Not inappropriate, in this instance, but still.

I feel the pressure of Bubby’s grip on my hand relax. I look across and see that she is dozing. Then I look across to the other side. The girl is also dozing. Her posture, even in sleep, is perfect - like a taut bow. And, despite her athletic figure, she clearly has magnificent breasts. But she is not the sort of girl who would be interested in me. She probably has some Israeli Special Forces boyfriend. But she did catch my eye… I wonder if she’ll talk to me. I must look pretty good right now, looking after my aging grandmother. Now’s the time. Or maybe we can communicate without talking? If consciousness is a stream, and we are all just instantiations of it, then in principle there is nothing between us, at least nothing insurmountable.

*

After a while, Bubby opens her eyes.

‘My eyes!’ she exclaims.

‘But you’ve had them closed,’ I say, trying to calm her.

‘That’s the worst! I need my drops.’ Immediately she begins to rummage through her purse. I am not too concerned – I’ve been through this before.

‘I can’t see. Help me.’ Bubby deposits her purse on my lap. I look inside with some trepidation. I’m not sure I have ever looked through a woman’s purse before. I feel something prickly, then something furry. There are hundreds of objects in here. Oh God – I don’t want to find a tampon. Would it be a tampon from the 50s? Did they have tampons in the 50s? I don’t like this train of thought. Maybe the purser should look through the purse? If anything in there was from the 50s, she’d be sure to recognize it.

I remember seeing a bottle of eye drops in my own toilet bag. ‘Wait a moment,’ I say to Bubby as I stand up in the aisle and open the overhead locker. I take out my toilet bag. The bottle of eye drops is hiding in the corner. I fish it out and present it to Bubby. She administers them swiftly, efficiently; not surprising, she uses them many times a day.

She blinks a few times and wipes away the excess. ‘They’re different,’ she says, then she leans back and looks out of the window.

I try to do some schoolwork but I find it hard to concentrate. After a while, I give up and select a movie to watch on the screen in front of me. I choose Avatar, the film about the American soldier who is given the body of a jungle-dwelling blue alien. I’ve seen it before and I like it.

After a while, Bubby grabs my arm. ‘Look at the clouds,’ she says.

I look out of the window. There is, predictably, a layer of white cloud beneath us. ‘They’re very nice, ‘ I say.

‘They’re moving,’ she says. I nod. It looks like a pretty flat layer to me, but never mind.

‘The shapes, like ice cream. A big soft world of ice cream.’

I look again. There’s not much about the clouds that reminds me of ice cream. I return to my film.

‘Delicious,’ affirms Bubby. She starts to giggle. Then she presses her nose up against the window.

‘When I was in the cellar, I used to dream of ice cream every day. A big world of bright light white ice cream.’

I feel a sudden jolt of electricity. Bubby has never ever mentioned the cellar. I only know about that from my father, and even he has never talked to Bubby about it.

‘Such a horrible cold dark place. And the disgusting rats. So shameless! They would try to bite you all the time. What they really wanted was to eat your eyeballs. And their tales, so long and thick and bald.’ Bubby shudders convulsively. ‘That’s why we had to think about ice cream all the time. Hanna and I, how we dreamt of ice cream. And here it is, right underneath us. Wait until I tell Hanna about this. Oh, she won’t believe it!’

Again, Bubby starts to giggle. Then she turns away from the window and toward me and I notice that her eyes are very red. Suddenly the cold hand of horror clasps my heart and I remember – the bottle of eye drops contained the LSD left over from Burning Man.

Bubby’s attention is caught by the screen in front of me. She sees the blue Navi people and her eyes open wide. She squeezes my arm. I plug in her headphones and place them on her ears, but my hands are shaking. I don’t know of anyone who has ever taken LSD through the eye before. Bubby seems ok though, so far. But how many drops did she have? Two or three in each eye, that’s between four and six trips. But will ocular administration be more or less efficient? Should I tell someone? What can they do? And what will they think? She doesn’t seem to be in pain, even if her eyes are red.

A monster appears out of nowhere on the screen and Bubby recoils in her seat and gasps. ‘Run,’ she shouts at Jake in his avatar body. I hear a more youthful giggle and, looking across, I see the pretty girl with her hand in front of her mouth, trying to hide her laughter.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Is that your grandmother?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s totally awesome. My granny would never watch Avatar. I mean, she just wouldn’t get it.’

‘Um, yes, well, Bubby likes to stay in touch with popular culture,’ I say.

‘You’re not from New York, are you?’

‘I was born there but then my parents moved to the West Coast. I go to Tel Aviv once a year with my grandmother.’

‘Oh yeah? That’s cool.’ Then, after a moment: ‘I’m sorry, my name’s Lily.’

‘I’m Josh,’ I say, reaching out across the aisle to shake Lily’s hand. Her smile, as I do so, is dazzling. ‘Are you staying in Tel Aviv?’

‘I’m going to be there all week. Maybe we can meet up sometime?’

‘Sure, I’d love to meet up,’ I say, my pulse racing.

‘I’ll write down my address. You might have to speak to my parents but don’t worry, they love American boys.’ Again the dazzling smile. Lily tears a page out of her book and starts to write her address when, suddenly, I hear a heart wrenching sob from Bubby. Reluctantly, I turn away from Lily.

‘She’s dead,’ sobs Bubby. I look at the screen again. The head scientist is lying on the earth, connected to the tree of souls by hundreds of fine luminous filaments. Another spasm of sobbing shakes Bubby and the tears course down her ancient face. She grabs my hand desperately.

‘It’s ok,’ I offer.

‘She’s dead.’

‘Not really dead, just returning to the source.’

Bubby ponders that for a while. ‘I need the restroom,’ she says, eventually.

‘I can get you a Kleenex.’

‘Joshua, I need to go.’

‘Well, ok, sure.’

I stand up to help Bubby out of her seat. She seems a little wobbly but, considering that she has just taken the equivalent of six trips through the eye, she is in surprisingly good shape. She shuffles down the aisle and lets herself into the restroom.

*

I sit back down again and am about to turn to Lily when a gut wrenching Ur-Schrei tears through the cabin. The restroom door flies open and Bubby appears in the aisle like Oedipus and screams, ‘MY EYES!’ Even a dispassionate observer would have to agree that her eyes are a fearsome bright pink color.

I jump out of my seat and help her back down the aisle. We are almost level with our row when she pulls up short and refuses to move.

‘A rat!’ she exclaims. ‘Under the seat!’

This communication is overheard by the front three rows and every passenger instantaneously jerks their feet onto their seats. Two or three of them immediately press the button for the flight attendant.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘Bubby often sees things that aren’t there.’

‘I never see things that aren’t there,’ insists Bubby. ‘I can’t even see things that are there. Have you seen my eyes? I can’t see my eyes. You need eyes to see your eyes. Eyes to see eyes. Without eyes, how can you see your eyes?’

‘Excuse me Sir, is there a problem?’ I turn around to see the bulk of the purser in the aisle behind me.

‘Um, no,’ I lie.

‘Yes,’ says Bubby. ‘My eyes are the problem. See.’

Bubby opens her bright pink eyes as wide as possible and leans towards the purser. She looks like an albino rabbit with conjunctivitis.

‘My God,’ says the purser. Let’s help you sit down.’

‘And there are rats on the floor.’

‘What?!’ says the purser.

‘Like in the cellar,’ says Bubby, starting to sob again. ‘Rats with fat bald tails.’

At this, I hear Lily emit a little gasp of horror.

I feel I shouldn’t draw this out any further. Maybe Bubby’s eyes are in danger. ‘Look,’ I say to the purser, ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident. I gave my grandmother some eye drops but, as it turns out, there was something else in the bottle.’

‘My God! What was in the bottle? She could go blind!’

‘I am going blind!’ screamed Bubby. ‘Everything is moving!’

‘There was a little LSD in the bottle,’ I whisper to the purser. The purser purses her lips very effectively. She allows an ominous silence to build – her fellow sadists in the psychiatric ward would have enjoyed that. Then she screams: ‘You put LSD in your grandmother’s eyes? Are you crazy?’

This time half the plane falls silent.

‘Sit down,’ she instructs me. ‘Watch him,’ she tells a stewardess who looks nervous and keeps a wary distance.

A few moments later she reappears with a bottle of eye wash. She gives Bubby a sedative, then she bathes her eyes while I prickle with embarrassment.

‘Oooh, that feels so nice,’ says Bubby as the purser presses the eye bath against her eye. ‘It’s like swimming in ice-cream. Eye-cream.’ She starts giggling again.

The captain’s oily voice comes over the speakers: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there is no cause for concern. There are no rats on this airplane. There is a young man here who thought it would be funny to give his grandmother LSD. Possibly, once we have arrived at Ben Gurion, you may wish to share with him your own view of his little joke. He will be sitting in the front row when you disembark.’

Once the announcement is over, I hear the sound of paper being torn to pieces. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lily drop the pieces into the garbage bag.

*

By the time we arrive at Ben Gurion, Bubby has reached a state of zen-like calm. She holds my hand and smiles beatifically. To some extent, this disarms the hostility of the disembarking passengers. It is still embarrassing though.

‘So beautiful, the flight,’ Bubby repeats again and again.

Since moving into the new apartment in the Mission, I have not seen eye to eye with our fridge.

Let me state from the outset that I love American fridges. I love their burnished aluminium bulk. I love their twin doors, like a Wild West saloon. I love the way that they remind me of the tremendous optimism of this country - two cars in every garage, more food than you can eat, tanned limbs and soda fountains and the beach boys, and the belief that there is more than enough for everyone. Yes it was naive and conformist and repressive and frequently untrue, but it must have been wonderful too.

I also love the ice dispensing facility of the modern American fridge. No more fiddly trays left unfilled. And the crushed ice, so useful for making cocktails! If you have ever tried crushing ice manually, you will know what a joy that facility is.

So, I was disappointed to discover, on the day of our Halloween party, that the ice making machine appeared not to work. On closer investigation, I saw that the drawer which ought to have been full of ice cubes was in fact filled by one solid block of ice. I tried to remove the drawer. I had to drag the fridge out from its wooden housing to open the swing door fully in order to gain access to the drawer. Having removed the drawer, I held it under the hot tap for 20 minutes so that the hot water could melt the block of ice. I alternately scalded and froze my fingers, but no matter, the goal was noble.

The process was also educational: it provided me with a visual image of the melting of a glacier. The rivers of hot water formed little boreholes in the surface of the ice, eventually converging in subterranean streams and undermining the integrity of the frozen mass until it finally broke into small pieces.

I replaced the empty drawer and checked on it periodically. The cubes of ice which were coming out of the ice-maker were misshapen. I fiddled around with the mechanism, pushing here and prodding there. I began to obsess, checking the drawer every hour. I didn't understand the mechanism. Why were the cubes only half formed?

Maybe the flow of water to the freezer was insufficient? With much effort, I dragged the fridge all the way out of its surrounding wooden housing. I saw, amongst the dust and fur balls and disintegrating organic matter, that the fridge had been standing on the water feed pipe, reducing the flow. I managed to pull out the water feed pipe, then I pushed the fridge back in.

Confident of success, and desirous of confirmation, I checked the ice drawer at least every half an hour. NO IMPROVEMENT!

Again I pulled and prodded at the mechanism. Still nothing.

What's more, having removed the pipe from under the back of the fridge, it now tilted back at a very unsatisfactory angle. In fact, when both doors are open, it looks as if the fridge is leaning back to hawk up a throatful of phlegm prior to spitting it at whatever sad, fridge-light-illumined figure happens to be standing in front. The interior of this fridge, once a place of cool and calm abundance, has morphed into the mocking maw of my nemesis.

G and I have tried placing a plank of wood behind the fridge and then tipping it forward so that the back will be lifted by resting on the plank. However, the wooden housing means that we can't tip the fridge forward sufficiently.

I am saddened by these developments.

Last night, I resolved to try one more time. I meditated a little, then I opened the ice drawer. I allowed my fingers to wander over the mechanism. Like a zen master, I did not try to guide them. With radiance pure and simple, I allowed them to feel their way. When they encountered resistance, I allowed it to pass through consciousness and then to evaporate like a soap sud or a thought formed by the illusion of selfhood. Eventually, and with my fingers almost frostbitten, I was rewarded. The warmth of my fingers had melted a tiny piece of ice and freed up a part which, up until that point, I had thought was fixed. I moved it and it clicked satisfactorily into place. Then I went to bed.

After a few minutes, the ice machine starting to produce an irritating, clucking sound. Was this the equivalent of derisive laughter? Was this mechanical monster mocking me? It certainly stopped me from falling asleep.

And this morning, no ice.

But a haiku:

American fridge -
Bright doors to rich abundance!
My cold sad fingers.