In the Hall of the Mountain King
Cataract 3 (1967) by Bridget Riley
By Carina Cain
Yesterday I was downtown waiting for the light to change and a man in purple Nike athletic leggings looked me dead in the eyes from across the street and yelled, “Hey you, you look like you hate Rudy Giuliani.” It was too late to pretend like I didn’t hear him—which would have definitely been the best thing to do—because as soon as he yelled I froze on the spot and the prestissimo finale from that one Grieg piece that plays in all the movies during an antagonist’s moment of crisis started pulsating from somewhere just above my left ear, and maybe I made to look away, but ultimately did not. Instead, I maintained eye contact and probably shrugged or something because he started cackling and the piccolos and string section really ramped up and the drums kicked in and then he was galloping over to me through oncoming traffic. I panicked, but what could I do? The cymbals were clanging. Suddenly, there he was not two feet from me saying, “You know, I could just tell. I could tell you hate Rudy Giuliani.”
I did a quick bodily self-assessment to try and determine what might have given him this impression. I had a canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder and was carrying a neon green Nalgene bottle in my right hand, so maybe these two things contributed to my assumed liberal Rudy Giuliani-hating mystique. And, by the way, this happened yesterday, but yesterday was August 2, 2022, and the vaccine proved very successful and people no longer have to socially distance, unfortunately, which is why he was within six feet of me. And sometimes I do miss the masks, in a selfish kind of way.
Basically, this man got really close to my face and I thought, you know what, I think this might be Jim Carrey actually, and I looked around for the cameras but couldn’t spot any, so I stood my ground and forced myself to respond, even though I was extremely uncomfortable, because I had never spoken to a celebrity before about Rudy Giuliani. Who am I kidding? I had never spoken to a celebrity. I said, “Well, I don’t know if I hate him necessarily, but he’s an easily hateable kind of person, that’s for sure.”
And this man who might have been Jim Carrey cackled again, clapped his hands together, gestured to some chairs outside of the Prêt à Manger we were standing next to, and exclaimed, “How interesting! Let’s sit and chat.”
Listen, I won’t go into the controversial elements that lent to this next decision of mine because any analysis would definitely involve words like power, gender, fame, loneliness, influence, irrationality and there would be a big, laminated Venn diagram and all of these words would exist as their own circles of red, yellow, green, blue, orange, pink, and sitting down outside of Prêt à Manger with a rando older man to talk about Rudy Giuliani would be right there in the middle of the overlap as the color of poo. But maybe it was Jim Carrey, so can you understand a little? What would you have done? I sat.
“I’m so glad I ran into you,” said Jim, like we were two old friends catching up on a nice summer’s day. But, as you know, we were total strangers and, although it was summer, it was close to 100 degrees with an absurd humidity index. So, at this point I was stuck to the plastic chair I had just sat down in and wasn’t going anywhere.
I said, “Oh, okay,” and waited for him to keep talking because I do that a lot. I wait for a conversation to happen in front of me so I don’t have to perform. Do you ever feel that way? Like the act of personal interaction is your most consistent and hardest role ever. And there’s some semblance of a script, but most often you’re ad-libbing, or trying to, and your scene partner doesn’t know you’ve been rehearsing your whole life and still have trouble toeing your way out to center stage. Whatever. It was great because Jim, practiced actor and all, didn’t even notice.
“Yeah,” he said and stabbed a finger at me, but smiling. “I’ve been looking everywhere for someone to talk to about this.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “About Giuliani?”
“Of course.”
Jim said this so enthusiastically that, for a moment, the Grieg record skipped and my brain got quiet enough to self-soothe amidst the absurdity of everything and I thought, okay yes, let’s do it. Let’s begin in 2016, or maybe even early 2015, when the nature of truth and accountability began to be challenged at the executive level, by the executive and all of those who endorsed him and made excuses for him and enabled him. Let’s start there and continue all the way through to the end, hitting all of the reasonable markers of wrongness, disbelief, and outrage. Because Rudy Giuliani certainly fits in here, sandwiched between two slices of pitiful and hegemonic. For a moment I was ready to do it.
But this moment was so fleeting because, to be honest, I really didn’t want to talk about Rudy Giuliani. I didn’t want to. Not in that heat, and not in the necessary, rehearsed way—the “did you hear the Mets won last night, oh actually I grew up a Yankees fan and yada yada yada” way you methodically run through conversation with your friend’s friend Charlie who wears a $600 Off-White™ hoodie with half-dead Vans to every function and always invites you back to his studio in Nolita, no matter how many times you politely, then not so politely, decline.
I didn’t want to read from a script. Not even if it was opposite Jim Carrey. For some reason yesterday, I was so tired of doing that.
Tired to the point of opening my mouth and saying, “I know when I said he’s an easily hateable person, that might have sounded like I was ready to have a full-blown discussion about the financially-motivated and morally-corrupt dealings of Rudy Giuliani, formerly known as America’s Mayor, and current inmate at Metropolitan Correctional Center, but really I would rather not.”
Jim couldn’t believe it, and neither could I! We were completely blown away by my transparency. I said, obviously shocked, “That’s the most transparent and honest thing I’ve ever said!”
Jim said, “No kidding! Congratulations!” And it seemed like he was genuinely happy for me, which I really did appreciate.
So I told him thanks and he smiled again and asked, “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
I said, “No, not really. In fact, let’s not talk at all. Let’s just go get ice cream.”
Jim looked at me closely, in his intense celebrity way, and whispered, “Why?”
I said, “Because it’s so hot and that’s what I want.”
I said it with two fingers on the pulse point in my wrist, feeling the way my want, when spoken out loud, pushed the blood a little faster through my body.
“Sure,” Jim replied. “Let’s do it.”
And we did. And I’m telling you this next thing instead of showing which is a creative writing capital CS (Cardinal Sin), I know, but showing would just take too much time and I’m not in the mood for metaphors. The next thing is: this was a rare encounter not because it was Jim Carrey and so thoroughly random, but because it was truthful and unpracticed. I looked at him and told him what I wanted and didn’t feel the need to justify or explain why my reasons for wanting to shut up and get ice cream need not be justified or explained. I usually can’t do that, and I don’t know why wanting and then acting on my wants is so hard for me, but it is. I could probably do an introspective and psychological analysis with another Venn diagram but I don’t want to.
Carina Cain is a Bay Area local who graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a B.A. in English. She is admittedly too fond of the hyphen, and wholeheartedly believes that arts education is fundamental to the well-being of society.
