September 25, 2010
I went hunting for pheasant today. It was my first time hunting - roughing it through fields of weeds and tall plants with a majority of the males at the compound. I was given a shotgun (a 12 gauge) and plenty of ammo. At the day's start, mid-morning, we all stood lined up outside the field 8 feet apart. The sun was beating down, and my flesh could feel the searing, invisible solar flares lashing my arms and face.
Our two guides unleashed the hounds, and we marched in a line. It was like the Odessa staircase scene from 'Battleship Potemkin' as we trudged forward, silently, clenching our shotguns and ready to blast at any aerial movement. The pheasants were the civilians massacred on the concrete steps, and slaughtered they were. It wasn't much of a challenge as the hounds flushed them out, and our hunters put gun to air and blew them sky high, decapitating some with sinister grins and joyous howls of orgasmic pleasure.
I missed at every opportunity. I may have grazed one bird, but I failed to kill anything. However, my crew mates slaughtered 33, gutting them and wrapping them afterward like delicious take-out. I just joined in the fanfare to look like the capable hunter when we returned back to the women at the compound. After all, I have an image to maintain.
I did have fun today though. I've never fired a shotgun, and I find it exhilarating, especially when blasting away at clay pigeons and feeling the kick of the gun against the shoulder. It's a taste of freedom that, back in Illinois, is too tedious with paperwork to enjoy. In Utah, one just has to sign a waiver, grab a gun, and go to town, so long as you don't hit another human or a hunting dog.
This was just a minor thought of the day.
For the entirety of this weekend, being a total of two days thus far, I have been the outsider to this relatively Mormon shindig. I drink. I smoke cigars. I gamble. I have had premarital sex. I do things Mormons can't and won't do (most of the time) - things that are heavily frowned upon by their mythological "Heavenly Father".
Yet, as I sat around at dinner, I felt more comfortable in my outsider status. These people were, as I saw, normal screw-ups. They were just a bunch of people (most of them my age) in dysfunctional families and relationships. They graduated high school, married, fucked, and led mediocre, argumentative lives (just without booze, gambling, and all around good American fun). One wife seemed to come on to me the more I talked to her. I was just being friendly and trying to get to know people, and she was looking for male attention outside of her "lazy husband" as she hinted at. Her disagreement was with the fact that he left her in the morning to go hunting and then returned back just to sit in front of the television and watch college football.
This led to a heated outburst, which was one of many for today. As I ate dinner, I just sat there quietly, chewing on garlic bread, and listening to all these rages of "cabin fever" as various couples fought and fought and fought. In some way, it was satisfying, knowing that not only was I an asshole, but they were vicious assholes too. Many of them were severe control freaks, and these control freaks tormented the others like the sick, delusional monsters they were deep down. A twisted grin found its way scrawled across my face as this sanctity of marriage suddenly became a sick joke. The men married early on because their loins burned with passion, because they were told to, and their wives, while sexually giving, were not the painted pictures they dolled themselves up to be. It reminded me of the film 'Bordello of Blood'. I was Dennis Miller in a den full of ravenous, soul-sucking dominatrixes, and I was watching my vampire-hunting compatriots succumb one-by-one to the garish organization of these Orwellian calendar freaks.
Not all are like this. There are some great, fun people here - some of which are creative individuals with unmatched talents.
Yet, like all of us on this big globe - they are merely human. These "Mormons" have the same issues and flaws as any other, the same motivations and personality issues, and that gives me a peace of mind and ease to really let loose and go to town. Once I heard these dysfunctional, Orwellian character setbacks, I opened my damned floodgate of jokes and worked the room. Nothing like a hyperactive jokester with nothing to lose and self-depracating (yet egotistical) humor to raise spirits.
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I should have waited to write, so I could include all of this in one coherent rambling. However, an hour or two after writing my initial post, one of the clansmen suffered a severe back injury. He couldn't move. He had to be dragged by his relatives to a room with more space to help him. The man had guts. The whole time he said not a word. He just looked stoic, biting down the surging pain within - fighting that popped disc in his back or whatever it was.
Another one of his relative, an uncle, ran upstairs after a while of trying to help him unsuccessfully to grab a small tube of something - anointed oil. It was blessed, of course - olive oil taken to a holy man. All the others were in the room at this time, watching silently. Some were holding their babies.
As the uncle opened the tube of anointed oil, they all lowered their heads and prayed silently. I watched on from afar, feeling great, sweeping compassion and sympathy for this young man, but I was compelled to leave the room by a disruption in the air. One of the babies began to speak during their silent prayer. He repeated the same word in monotone over and over again. "Milk. Milk. Milk."
I lost it and started laughing.
"Milk. Milk. Milk," the baby continued.
I left.
