An Ant, A Lesson & A Slipstream Through Time

“I never liked church. It was boring and stupid, and if not for the little wooden dowels you could pop out of the missalette rack with a carefully prizing fingernail, I would have lost my boyish mind altogether. But the one thing during mass that didn’t suck was when the deacons and altar boys came around for the offertory collection. It’s not that I understood what was really happening, but at least we could move around a little bit. Also, because we took religious education classes on Wednesday afternoons, my brother Jay and I had these tiny envelopes into which we would seal two quarters, and then dutifully drop them into the basket when it came around.”—Michael Tallon

Fairly Unbalanced

By Michael Tallon

Editor’s Note: There’s an important, timely, personal Author’s Note at the end of Michael’s December “Hubris” essay, to which I would like to direct our readers’ attention, so please keep reading to the very last full stop, and lend your support to the worthy project being undertaken by one of my very favorite writers.

ANTIGUA Guatemala—(Hubris)—December 2023—When I was a little boy, our family took in a child named Manny for a summer. While I’d like to think that I understood the importance of heroic hospitality at a tender seven or eight years old, I did not. Manny was a jerk to me, and I did not like him. He lied about stuff and got me in trouble—or so I remember it, anyway. Then, one Sunday morning, we were at mass at St. Thomas Aquinas on the West Side of Binghamton, New York. All six of us were there—Mom, Dad, me, my older brother, Jay, and our younger brother, Ed, who was probably under three years old, and Manny.

I never liked church. It was boring and stupid, and if not for the little wooden dowels you could pop out of the missalette rack with a carefully prizing fingernail, I would have lost my boyish mind altogether.

But the one thing during mass that didn’t suck was when the deacons and altar boys came around for the offertory collection.

It’s not that I understood what was happening, but at least we could move around a little bit.

Also, because we took religious education classes on Wednesday afternoons, my brother Jay and I had these tiny envelopes into which we would seal two quarters and then dutifully drop them into the basket when it came around.

But that Sunday, when I got my little envelope from my rigid Sears and Roebuck polyester suitcoat pocket, my mom said, “Give your envelope to Manny today. Let him put it in the collection basket.”

I looked at her with fiery eyes. What the hell did she think she was doing? He was mean to me, and now I was supposed to let him have the honor of dropping my two bits into the coffers?

I refused, so my dad got involved. He leaned over and said, “Listen to your mother, Mike. We’ll talk about it later.” Then he took the envelope from my tiny hands and gave it to Manny, who looked at me with a genuinely contemplable smile of victory. My parents may have been doing good works by bringing him into the family circle for a time, but that dude was a jerk.

Anyway, after the collection, I went back to sulking and trying to pry the wooden dowels out of the rack while boiling away inside at how deeply unjust the world was to me personally. Clearly, no one in the world had to suffer indignities worse than that jerk
Manny.

Later on that afternoon, I was out in front of our house on Orton Avenue mowing the lawn—another indignity—and my dad came out to have the talk. He put his hand on my shoulder and explained to me, as best as he could to a seven-year-old, that Manny didn’t have a lot of fun in his life. He lived in what my dad said was a “slum.” While I didn’t know the world, it sounded awful. He said that Manny didn’t get presents for Christmas because his family didn’t have any money, so we decided he could live with us for a while to get some “fresh air.”

My dad asked me, very seriously, what was more important. Was it giving 50 cents to the church, or was it “letting someone else have a win?”

I got it. I did. But I was still pissed off and didn’t understand why someone else couldn’t give Manny a win. Why did it have to be me?

Just then, a black ant—one of the really, really big ones—walked out of the grass of our lawn and onto the sidewalk, and with the uncontrollable rage of a terrible god, I lifted my foot and smashed it flat.

It was, though against a tiny creature, an act of self-conscious murder. I killed that bug because I could. I killed it to express my power. I killed it to show the world that I could kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.

My dad, who had been loving and gentle until he saw me do this, became stern. Not angry, but stern and lordly. He grabbed my shoulder just firmly enough that I knew I’d done wrong.

When I looked up, he said, with real pain and disappointment in his voice, “What did that ant ever do to hurt you?”

I cried. I cried and knew I’d done something terribly wrong.

Then, my dad put his hand on my shoulder and told me—as he and mom often did when I was bad, “Mike, we’ll always love you. But we won’t always love the things that you do. Don’t do that ever again.”

I promised him I wouldn’t, and while I’ve certainly stepped on my share of ants again in this life by accident, I’ve never again risen up in anger and wrath at a defenseless being. (Mosquitos and venomous spiders excluded.)

I’m telling you this story because, a few weeks ago, I was back home in Binghamton, helping around the house and making sure my folks were OK. Part of the standard routine is, weather permitting, to go out for a few daily walks with Dad. We walk up Orton Avenue to Grand Boulevard and hang a right, making it past Crestmont on a good day, to the Pompis’ house, family friends who have lived in the neighborhood, like us, for over fifty years.

My dad now uses a walker and is on supplemental oxygen to support his breathing. It’s hard for him. He’s in pain most of the time, but he presses on, often leaning hard on the walker handles and fighting to catch his breath under the strain. But he always wants to do it. He is committed to the struggle to maintain his health so that he can be here for me and my mom and brothers Jay and Ed. The walks are slow, as he is no longer fleet of foot—except when the need suddenly arises.

On the walk in question, we’d made it to Pompis’ house and were on the return leg, near the corner of Minerva Avenue, when my dad suddenly veered his walker to the right. Thinking he was falling, I reached for his shoulder to steady him, but then he turned back to the left, skipping his feet a bit in the process. I looked down at the ground to see what had made him jump and noticed a great big black ant hustling away toward the safety of the tall grass. I’m sure that, to my dad, that act of simple human decency didn’t ring with the resonance of the ages. He didn’t want to hurt that little fella on the sidewalk. But for me, it was a slipstream back through time to a Sunday afternoon, half a century before, and the beautiful realization that, down to my very atoms, I am my father’s son.

Your lessons stick, Da. Never doubt that your lessons stick.

So, thanks for everything, and happy 82nd Birthday. I love you more than words can say. Here’s to more years, walks, and more time, side by loving side.

Author’s Note: “I’ve been posting personal essays and political commentary on my social media platforms since 2018. In that time, I have developed a wonderful community of about 11,000 friends and followers who help keep me sane, happy, and focused in this screwed-up, yet resiliently beautiful world. With this webpage, I hope to expand that circle by reaching out to those who have fled Elonville and Zuckerworld altogether. If you’re inclined to join us in this homespun digital outpost, then please pull up a virtual chair and jump into the conversation. 

“The other reason I’ve started this page is entirely mercenary. I’m hoping to draft you into my quest of finding an agent to represent Incompatible With Life: A Memoir of Grave Illness, Great Love, and Survival, my first book. The story details my life and death battle with Hereditary Hemochromatosis, a rare genetic blood disorder that toxifies the heart, liver, pancreas, and glandular system with a deadly overabundance of iron. My condition, undetected for nearly 50 years, was finally diagnosed after I was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. I was in such a disastrous state that the doctors presumed I’d not survive the night—nor the many, many nights on the cardiac ward that followed. Yet, seven years later, I’m still here, grateful for each bonus moment and hopeful to share this mind-bending, body-challenging, soul-inspiring story with the world. 

Navigating the business side of publishing is a real challenge for someone in my position. Before any agent worth their salt signs on to represent an author, they want some reasonable guarantee that an audience exists for the work. If you’ve written successful books in the past, or if you have a salacious sex scandal to sell, or if you sport a Kardashian-sized Twitter following, that’s not a problem. But first-time authors like me are a different story. Those of us without preexisting fame have to rely on dumb luck or personal connections to get our manuscripts off the slush pile. Sadly, I don’t have any connections, and I used up all my luck surviving Hereditary Hemochromatosis in the first place. 

“Which is where you come in. 

“To generate a bit of buzz that might attract an agent, I’m publishing the introduction to Incompatible With Life: A Memoir of Grave Illness, Great Love, and Survival on this webpage for free. My hope is that several hundred of you will read it and leave VERY POSITIVE COMMENTS before you go. If I get enough readers on board, that should convince an agent of my reach, and they’ll put their reputation on the line to stand in my corner. There’s no guarantee this will work, but it’s gonna be fun to try, and so long as I’ve got breath in my lungs and a pulse in my heart, I’ll keep shooting the moon. 

“Why the hell not? I’m supposed to be dead already, so let’s dance. 

“Thanks in advance, and love to you all.”—Michael Tallon