ABOUT SOLIDARITY & ANGST

                       "Parking machines" by Jacqui Brown, Flickr CC.

I have to begin this short blog entry with a lie, a refusal, and a clarification: "I’ve never had or have used a gun," "I will never own a gun," and "this entry is packed with a good amount of digressions."  That said, I can continue with this brief anecdotal story. A few years ago, while living in Pittsburgh and undertaking postdoctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh, I was with my partner on our way to the City-County Building to apply for a marriage license to celebrate our civil union in a private ceremony in an idyllic mountainous setting in southwest Pennsylvania, a place that we used to call "The Creek." 

As usual, my partner was behind the steering wheel of her crimson Malibu. Since we first met, she argued that I drove a little too fast for her taste, so it was easy for me to allow her to sail through the many highways that we traveled together from South Carolina to northern Pennsylvania, and also when we drove together around Sicily on a Fiat 300 searching for empty shores and the best granita di mandorla with a cup of caffè macchiato. Anyway, I am the kind of guy that prefers to interrogate reality while listening to my favorite Radiohead songs and taking experimental photographs while the car is in motion. 

As soon as we noticed the huge, gray neoclassical building of the City-County Building, we began searching for an empty spot to park the car in order to keep moving forward in our civil marriage process, which by the way, and against all my attempts to avoid it, we ended after five years together. After moving away from Pittsburgh, we taught a couple of years at the same private university in North Carolina. Against the odds, because I honestly adored her and idealized her in ways that only love can understand, she became so insecure and jealous ("Inside And Out" by Feist) that she would get upset even if I interacted with any undergraduate female student during my office hours or while walking around our beautiful campus (or any young woman talked to me at the supermarket).  

Anyway, back into the sociological subject... We drove for a while without finding any spot to park. That's when I noticed an unnerving grimace on my partner's face, a mix of anxiety and mild irritation. I said something like, "Don’t worry, we'll find a spot soon, let's wait a little bit outside this bakery store," while pointing at a glass window exhibiting a wide array of cakes decorated with colorful chantilly creams. My partner ignored my comment and as soon as a spot became available a few feet away from the bakery store, the Malibu slowly moved forward in order to attempt a parallel parking maneuver. 

It came out of nowhere, but all of a sudden, a Prius was right in front of us. We saw the angry gestures of the driver through the rear-view-mirror while the reverse lights were flashing as a signal that suggested that the driver was about to park in that spot. He was also making abrupt movements with his hands to let us know that the spot was only his. Instead of quitting that street parking fight, my partner, refusing with a head movement, drove the Malibu a few feet forward. 

Even though I don't practice formally any religion, I began praying in silence for my partner to quit that ridiculous parking clash. I hadn't finished my prayer, when the driver stepped out of his Prius and with a defiant gesture approached the Malibu. His right hand threatened to pull something from the backside of his denim pants. "He has a gun, let's go," I uttered with a weak tone of urgency, but my partner seemed possessed by the conviction that we had the right to park in that spot. I have to confess that in my mind, when I saw the man standing in the street and the defiant gesture of my partner frozen on her face, without being aware that the character of Mr. Wick existed, in my mind I stepped out of the car and ran straight into the man to kick his balls and then I terminated him with a couple of shots in his nape; but that was only happening in my imagination. If I counted aloud in front of an imaginary judge the amount of times that I had done that same maneuver in my mind, I should be awaiting my electric chair execution (sic).   

Only when the man began shouting, his face covered in red anger, "This parking spot is mine!" My partner looked away, as if an inner voice was whispering in her ear that battles like that are fruitless. However, in my mind I was still shooting at the nape of the man while he was facing down the pavement and countless threads of blood emerged from her head like the roots of an onion. I had practiced both pacifism and humanism since I was a child even without knowing what those concepts implied, but when you see a foreign anger of the kind that the man exuded, you get to realize that there are also boundaries that not even the steeliest Buddhist apprentice can respect.    

At the end, we accepted our "defeat" and drove away, not without my partner glaring at the angry man's eyes while I was still shooting at his nape in my imagination. As the Malibu was going away, I turned around to look at the man. After he parked his Prius, he ran erratically towards the bakery store. Perhaps it was the birthday of his son, or daughter, or wife, or mother, or father, or best friend, or he was going to celebrate his own birthday alone in front of a cake with one candle standing in the middle of his favorite cake. No one knows, as the song by Queens of the Stone Age repeat and repeat along the electric frequency of the sound of the guitars.  

As a corollary and a sociological point of inflection to reflect about the situation, which in retrospective we could've avoided from the very beginning if we had let that parking spot go away without seeking any sort of quarrel. Referring to the concept of solidarity in Emile Durkheim's work, sociologist Harry Alpert says: 

At the end, once we parked the Malibu and were on our way to the City-County Building to apply for a marriage license, my partner candidly said, "that man was a real asshole." So, in solidarity to my partner (ex) in crime and love, I replied, "definitely, my love, that man is a real asshole, but now he has a cake and we are still waiting to buy our wedding cake..."