Chapter 3: Lauds
I eat well; I exercise; I do Yoga; I meditate; I am peaceful; I sleep eight hours a night or more; I care for others; I cook my own food; I earn my own money; I use customized orthopedic supports in my shoes; I go to a chiropractor; I visit the dentist; I do stomach exercises; I walk; I laugh; I love my mother; I eat my vegetables.
And yet: I have always had problems with my back. Since I was young my back has bothered me relentlessly. I have my theories (too much juggling in the circus, too many evil and negative thoughts about my father) and other people have theirs (that I am a sissy-la-la). But the fact remains: I have an old man’s back. I went to the chiropractor at sixteen and he said my back looked worse than a typical eighty year old’s. I have stopped complaining about back pain, except to my closest friends, because most people respond by saying: a bad back? You can’t have a bad back! You’re too young! Who are you fooling? Stop limping and grimacing you silly thespian! We all know you aren’t really in pain — that’s absurd!
I nod my head because from what I have heard this seems to be true of other people: one gets a bad back when one becomes old and fat and lazy or is hit by a train or has osteoarthritis. I, however, am working a new angle.
And this is one of the few things Ben is able to hold over me, one of the few things he can dangle in front of my pain-stricken face, one of the few things he uses to completely ignore any suggestion or opinion I have about anything. He flaunts it and taunts me with it. When he asks:
“So, Damon: why are you eating fennel root mixed with flax seeds and sleeping on a Tempurpedic mattress with a buckwheat pillow after a four hour session of Bikram Yoga and an $80 Rolfing session with a Ayruvedic Monk?”
And I say:
“Why, Ben, of course you should know: it is good for me and keeps me healthy and strong.”
And then he says:
“But your back still hurts. I eat Ben and Jerry’s ice cream spread on an Angus steak while sleeping in a craggy windswept hole and pissing on nuns and little children as they clean up litter from the street — my back doesn’t hurt.”
And then he skips away, clicking his heels and humming the well-known tune: Eat My Shorts Punk-Ass. This all is meant to prove the universal truth that nothing anyone ever says has any validity whatsoever and, no matter how many Thai Foot Massages I get (and I am not complaining if they are quite numerous), my back will always hurt.
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