A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Author’s Forward

I’m not big on preludes but the reader will probably want to know about the title of this, my first book. It’s actually a simple story that came about because I started snooping in on my parents’ conversations through what Big People call the womb, though I just call it my First Home. Daddy was so excited that I was coming he began singing, off-tune like one of those wild cats in our neighborhood, Lou Reed’s “Start of a Great Adventure,” and while I am a big fan of Reed and especially his  Velvet Underground days — his melancholy “Femme Fatale” and the tender “I’ll Be Your Mirror” are about the best examples of proto-punk I know — I’ve opted for “A Walk on the Wild Side,” first as a tribute to Maurice Sendak זכרונו לברכה, but mostly because those glorious words I was already crooning while ensconced in the First Home: Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

(Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doooo)

Josephine (“Shmo”) Cecile David Radding

Since I don’t know the word “conception” and don’t believe in storks — I believe in angels but most of my readers probably don’t — I’ll begin my story at the beginning: up in the soaring Andalusian peaks.

I thought I made a good choice of parents; that wasn’t the issue. The way life began was a sure sign they would meet my basic requirement of folks with an adventurous spirit.  Who else would head up to the Sierra Nevada range during a blizzard?

Talk about a walk on the wild side! Readers can use their imagination to fill in the details of what was going on during the three days Mom and Dad were trapped in a refuge with only a roaring fire, and each other, to keep them warm.

JUST GETTING GOING

On a crystalline spring morning, temperature more like Minnesota than Spain, they plowed their way by foot down the mountain to the Hotel La Fragua in Trevélez. Little did they know Rebbe had a passenger, dividing herself in two, and then doing it again, performing all sorts of mind-boggling genetic feats.

A SECRET PASSENGER

After a night in a creepy hotel room in Granada and a stroll past the Alhambra to the flamenco bars, we were off to Tangier, my new home.

In the coming weeks (I was hiding out incognito — Mom thought she had the flu!), I hung out with my parents in Tangiers and into the Rif Mountains for their final adventure before they found out about me.

Back home they moved into the new digs near the fish market.

Little did they know what was in store for them when they got the pregnancy test from the guy across the street. That was when Daddy began singing the Lou Reed song.

Like I said, I never doubted my choice in parents. My doubts were more about timing. It all started in Sacramento at my grandparents house. According to the Mommy’s schema, I was now the size of a fig.

I remember overhearing my grandfather Joe — my name’s sake — swapping interminable complains with Daddy about a man called Agent Orange living in a place called the White House. It didn’t take long for me to ask Do I really want to head to such a crazy, scary place of wild and vicious weirdly colored beasts?

Daddy and Grandpa Joe spent the entire month watching reruns of Casablanca. How many times did I have to listen to Daddy say “Play it again Sam!” or Grandpa’s imitating Peter Lorre say, “Rick … Rick …”

The gunshot I heard at the end of the movie was scary enough. A lot worse was what happened when Daddy and Joe got onto a Godfather I, II, and III kick.

  They were making these awful roars and gnashing their awful teeth and rolling their awful eyes and showing their awful claws all in imitation of the Godfather but in truth making fun of Agent Orange, till Mommy and wise Nanna Janet said “SHUSH YOU TWO!”

That very night, with lines like “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” or “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” or “Make America Great Again,” that I imagined the world to be a dark jungle world with assassins and men in back rooms with cigars denying climate change, and all kinds of other evil specters.  I was tempted to get in my own private boat and sail off to more pleasant shores. Maybe I should have chosen the dentists in Montenegro for parents?

It was Mommy who brought me around.

From Sacramento my parents took me to France, the “center of civilization” to use Daddy’s hifalutin words. He gets like that — sometimes he needs to just “chill the x#!* out,” as Mommy says.

Mommy aka the Rebbe reveled in the food and the people and the language.

With my ear close to the surface, I loved the way Mommy said in French, Vivre sans aimer n’est pas proprement vivre.

How I got the moniker Shmo! Now that’s a story. Goes like this: this doctor in Toulouse, see, makes Mom all teary. She’s crying her eyes out, just like I do ten times a day. “Mom,” I’m shouting as loud as I can.  “Ignore the jerk. I’m not too big. Long, sure, but if anything a little on the light end.” The moron is ruining the party. Mom and dad had these great plans to tell Granddaddy Joe and Nanna Janet that I’m a girl — and my name is Josephine. After Joe. And now this doctor, who looked like Dr. Who in the original BBC series, is screwing things up. It even got worse when he started talking about some poet named Paul Celan who jumped off a bridge into the Seine.  “Ignore the Shmo,” I kept saying over and over, but Mommy only hears the Shmo part. She stops right in front of this boulangerie with the chocolate croissants she likes, and says, “Is that you, Shmo?”

Convinced that I had made the right choice, not least because in Toulouse my parents found out I was a girl and named me after Papa Joe, I was ready for the final slog into life. I was the size of an orange. So instead of getting into my private boat and going elsewhere, I headed back to Tangier.

“And now,” I cried, “let the Walk on the Wild Side begin!” How does the song go:

“Little Joe never once gave it away

Everybody had to pay and pay

A hustle here and a hustle there

New York City is the place where they said

“Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side

I said hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side.”

I know how much Mommy likes surprises, so I chose a good time. Daddy was off on his mountain bike, up in the hills with all the windmills like Don Quixote because when he’s not droning on about Agent Orange he can’t stop reading Treehugger and all those other boring blogs. Mommy was on the boardwalk, strolling and enjoying the sun.

Then Bang!

“That can’t by you, Josephine. Much too early.”

I knocked on the door a couple more times.  “Yep, it’s me, Mommy. The Shmo is on her way.”

I have to say that Daddy takes some weird pictures.  But on the whole, he’s OK.

But Mommy remains the Rebbe.  She’s the main reason I’m here, and to her I’m dedicating my book.  Also to Nanna Janet, Pappa Joe, and Grandma Cecile; oh, and Betty and Ken, too. They’re just as cool as Mom.