2020 July – It’s unfathomable to think not every person gets the uncontrollable urge to tickle a sullen Japanese stranger on the sidewalk whenever that all too common scenario presents itself. Not that you would have to act on that urge, but to deny its presence in the moment, just seems like you’re lying to yourself. There you are, going for a nice walk on a gloomy overcast day along Dublin’s Liffey river. There are scattered pedestrians around, perhaps just stretching their legs to avoid blood clots from their prolonged home office sittings. Perhaps taking this break to smell something other than their roommate’s laundry or their own breath.
You see all these people walking, some speeding along with a friend, some smoking a cigarette, some stumbling a little bit with a 6-pack of cans swinging at their side. Before the lockdown, people walked with purpose on city sidewalks, commuting in a rush, with the authority they had a grand quest to complete. Now we all seem to shuffle our feet with the air that we’re killing time in the prison courtyard before our fateful return to the cellblock.
And that’s why on my walk, I couldn’t keep my eyes off this older japanese man, looking so somberly out across the water, barely walking at all. He moved his feet just enough not to tip over, like you would on a bicycle moving too slow. You have to wonder what existential dilemmas he could be pouring over? What solace a Japanese man would be taking from an Irish waterfront, perhaps dreaming of his homeland on a similar shoreline, perhaps pondering why he moved here in the first place? And all you can do is think about rushing up to him in a startling way, yelling boogada-boogada-boogada, and tickling him to an uncontrollable laughter.
Perhaps you don’t understand this feeling, in which case, you probably don’t have a sister like mine. My older sister Julie, has always been the one to provoke this type of lunacy. From her trouble making youth as the golden child first-born, she could get away with anything, troll any serious conversation, and prank anyone stupid enough to let their guard down in the family. My father for example was never safe from her surprise attacks to pull his pants down whenever he was getting a little too self-confident. It’s a wonder the man didn’t lose his hair earlier, or else invent a new ‘belts plus suspenders’ fashion trend.
Julie’s the kind of person that would ask the question with an impish grin pushed out by her twisted mischief brain, “Is there really ever enough golden opportunities when you can fuck with somebody good? I mean really good. Then why would you ever waste one?”
I think that’s what she said verbatim the time I surprised her and her husband with a trip down to their home in Clearwater, Florida. It was a surprise, but the rookie that I was, I lingered on decency and called her from my arriving airport to let her know I was in a cab. To me, that was my big “surprise” reveal – “I’m here now, and on my way! Surprise! There you have it, see you soon.” It wasn’t like popping out of an oversized cake that I had wheeled over to them. Or like pulling off a rubber mask to reveal I had been their waiter at a restaurant all night long. I guess I wasn’t much for showmanship, and you can feel her initial excitement slowly fade into a pondering disappointment as she said, “Ok, see you soon”.
On my arrival, again her joy for my visit quickly gave way to some sort of critical post-mortem review. “Oh you should’ve got here first and knocked at my door. You didn’t have my new address? Oh you could’ve said you were going to mail me something. Oh or found my superintendent and ask to be let into my place, that would’ve really scared the shit out of me.” I nodded away vapidly, hoping for the moment to just run its course, with a “sure, sure” dismissal, hopeful to change tact with a not so subtle, “oh yeah, cool, well I’m here now, so…”
But this wasn’t going away anytime soon. We had not gone deep enough into this mind game and her eyes kept darting around, as if I was a student interrupting my university math professor, in the midst of her completing a high level proof at the chalkboard, waving off my unhelpful suggestions. Her eureka moment followed, as she remembered quite fortunately that Adam, her husband, was still at work, and we still had an opportunity to really plan something terrible for him. Now my arrival was merely a rehearsal for that moment and she relished this plot with the enthusiasm of a Bond villain stroking her cat in a swivel chair. This moment will be ours, she seemed to beam!
So the plot was set in motion, and our strange game was afoot. Her plan was for me to dress up in a hoodie and street clothes. She would get on the phone on his ride home and warn him that she saw some suspicious kids roaming around their parking lot and that the rental office had advised her to stay indoors until they called the police. Meanwhile, I would go out and surprise him getting out of his car, while his stranger danger alert systems had been hacked and dialed up to 11.
If you knew my brother-in-law, you would realize immediately that this was a bad plan. Not just because it’s a sick joke, but because he’s not a demented sadist like the rest of my family and it would likely not illicit the reaction we most crave. There was no victory to be had here, because in the best case scenario, he’ll likely get scared shitless for a fraction, and then inevitably just ask, “But, why?” Oh and as for the worst case scenario, you might ask? Probably some combination of us writhing around on the parking lot pavement, him having a heart attack, right after stabbing me with his keyring knife. Hilarious because… you know, comedy.
This seems to be the secret of their happy marriage, Julie gets free-license to play her sick jokes, or twisted games of “Would you Rather” scenarios (most of which are specially tailored to taunt and torment people with no tolerance for the irreverent). Adam sits idly by, enduring patiently with eye-rolls, as Julie asks, “Would you rather be tickle-tortured to death, or have to french kiss every person that says hello to you for the rest of your life?” Adam, just waiting for the energy to shift back to something more logical to talk about, like Elon Musk or Bitcoin. Occasionally the late night Carreo family idiocy can get diffused with a simple, “I don’t see why that’s so funny”, but really that only reinforces to me and my two sisters our belief that we’re part of a secret tribe of funny people that would sooner translate Japanese to dolphins than to explain a joke.
And speaking of which, back here in Dublin, I have now walked along the southside wall of the river twice, been to the store, and completely lapped our Japanese friend in his daze of ennui. He was now just shaking his head and mumbling to himself, maybe he was in fact speaking to dolphins. But more likely, he was ruminating over a bad conference call and the power dynamic that sent him over the edge. Watching his inner monologue playout visually was mesmerizing to me, and I almost preferred to abandon my tickle-attack impulse, in favor of just pulling up a bench, some snacks from my grocery bag, and just enjoying the show. But I’ll return to our little friend from the land of the rising sun a little later.
So back again in Florida, we’re moving forward with Project Heart Attack. I was dubiously armed with my hoodie and sunglasses, but trusting in my sister’s supreme sense for abstract humor, I dutifully marched outside to assume my role. On one hand, I am baffled that her husband takes anything seriously she says at all anymore. On the otherhand, Julie would call “the boy who cried wolf, a fucking amature”. Maybe it’s because she’s really dedicated herself to always upskilling, examining all angles, playing more and more elaborate parts, honing her intuition for bullshit, and knowing how to side-step it deftly. Maybe it’s because she’s an honest to god neuropsychologist, with a license to mindfuck more dangerous than any other mad scientist. Regardless, she proceeded masterfully.
I wasn’t in the room, but I imagine her first phone call to Adam was worthy of the Academy, not overacted, but offering the subtle hysteria of someone not thinking straight and needing a hero. I believe there was a series of these calls, as my dear gentle brother-in-law, probably pressing his foot harder to the accelerator, piling on the additional stress to an already aggravating commute home. Julie was already winning this game, a cat toying with her cornered prey with smug delight.
Her campaign continued, as he peeled into the complex, and I circled around the block. Now she was free-styling like an expert, baiting him with statements like, “I’m just going to walk outside for a little bit to see if he’s still there”. He’d scream his protest and tell her not to move, “Relax” he’d say, “Stay put”, he’d yell. As she probably had to press her face to a pillow to keep from laughing.
I rounded the corner where I saw him walking, cell phone in hand. His pace slowed when he saw the character of me and folded his phone away. And as we do as humans, I can tell his confrontation aversion was kicking in, eyes dropping, and his course veering ever so slightly away from me.
Well, I’m not Julie, but I know the moment of pay-off when I see it, so I mustered up my best hard-sell, and started charging him with a sort of cartoonish arm waving and freakish head bobbing that I feel I’ve only seen in childhood nightmares. I either looked like the attacking Clown from Stephen King’s IT, or like Scooby Doo running in place from a ghost. I can never be sure which, but it must’ve registered high on poor Adam’s ‘fight or flight’ response because he immediately assumed a hovering, crouching Sumo position of readiness that I could only describe as Tai-Chi meets 80’s Dance-Fight intimidation.
I raced up as convincingly as I could until suddenly, my amygdala-jacked brain also got some bizarre wave of confusion. “Are we in a fight?” My psche asked my body. “Is this for real? Should I tackle him? Is he going to actually stab me? Why the fuck am I doing this?”
I imagine all these thoughts going through both our simple caveman heads, while an upstairs window curtain parted to reveal the smiling face of our puppetmaster Julie, savoring the play she so perfectly directed.
Realizing I had no plan for what was meant to come next, I stopped short and just started howling. I mean, I really threw my head back hard on this one. And as expected, on Adam’s sudden clash with the reality, he went through a very rapid macro sequence of reactions that implied, “what’s happening?” “who are you” “oh wait, what? you’re here?” to “Oh gaddammit, fucking Carreos.” As you can imagine, the rest of the evening was Julie trying to retroactively sell the brilliance of the gag back to Adam as his pulse settled down, and he nodded along blankly, “‘yes dear, very funny indeed.”
So I’m back in Dublin thinking about this moment, naturally as the thought occurs to pluck this hilariously anticlimactic joke for no one but myself out of the toolkit. I picture Julie on my shoulder egging me on. I think about the risk versus reward, and I wonder where it could go. There would be no build-up, no script to follow, not even a real punchline moment. I would run up and tickle this poor man in solitude, and then hope it would just occur to him that I was doing it out of joy and compassion, right? Maybe? Sure, let’s go with that.
He’d be scared as I charged, confused for a second, then give way to the levity of the moment. We would both throw our heads back and share a really good laugh, then he’d shake my hand, maybe even pay me the ultimate honor of a bow, and he’d thank me for taking him out of his own dismal head. He’d invite me over to dinner, and I’d meet his beautiful “of age” daughter, and we’d share secret ancient world recipes, and some high reserve Sake. In the end, I would become part of their family, and travel back with them to Okinawa, where I would help them restore their family Dojo against their rival family dynasty. But that would be for another story. Maybe it would play out that way.
But in truth, this daydream is far too complicated, far too outlandish to be my true MO. Like my sister Julie, the opportunity is it’s own reward, and its just too absurd and chaotic to not spend my time thinking about. Oh don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t really do it, it’s far too much effort relative to the reward I would get with no true audience present. I would get no laugh, probably a punch in the face instead. I would get no thank you, probably just the polished pearl of confusion washing across his face.
Oh but that look would be priceless and therein is my motive, because even just thinking about how this would play out and clash with his concept of reality… to me that would be everything. Doing it or not doing it is about the same for me, because either way, it gives me such pleasure to think about a man being so sure of his grasp on normality, then having some goofy American stranger come and steal that from him.
Maybe he’d be more angry than confused, maybe he would never find it funny, maybe I didn’t solve his problems, or turn his sullen mood into laughter. But maybe after he marched away and the dust settled a bit, just maybe that moment would’ve been a story that would haunt him forever, something he couldn’t stop telling his friends every chance he had. That’s the gem I hold onto every time I think about splashing some chaos onto somebody’s day. That’s the gift of absurdity that I learned from my sister.
Paul Carreo 