Scars

I am still reminiscing, I'm not sure why. Perhaps because spring has wakened the beast within enough to yawn and scratch its hairy hide, wondering what it was doing before the long night descended, brooding as Siegfried's Funeral March plays across its mind.

I was watching "The Deadliest Catch" the other night. It's a show on Discovery about crab fishermen in Alaska in case you've never seen it. At the beginning of the episode, they were talking to one of the captains who had his son on board for the season as a kind of apprentice. This kid was maybe 18. The captain was telling the story of when his son was younger and wanted to prove how tough he was. In the local bars there is a ritual between men where they lay their forearms together and drop a lit cigarette between them. The one who flinches first loses. So that's what this man did with his son. The father flinched first. He said that's when he knew the kid was something special. They both showed the scars to prove it.

I've been thinking about that description a lot since I heard it. The image disturbed me. If your child were to show up at school with a burn like that in Florida, I'm pretty sure you'd have some explaining to do or be up for long conversation with DCF if they were paying attention. That was the first thought that sprang to mind.

But I'm not usually content with the quickest and easiest answer. I felt conflicted, though I couldn't say why. So I thought about it longer. These crab fishermen are tough. I think they have to be to do their jobs in such extreme conditions. The father was obviously proud of his son for besting him at his own game. One way to look at it was that the father was preparing his son for the world he would inherit if he followed in his footsteps. I'm sure the father also looked at it as something voluntary, something that his son had chosen to do. But then, was there some level of coercion in their family dynamic that made the son feel he had to prove himself to his father in that way? Or had he picked it up as a societal norm from the behavior of those around him? I wasn't sure.

Intellectually, I understand the purpose of such rituals. The son couldn't be seen as weak or a quitter or he would never gain the respect of the men he needed to succeed in his father's business. As an apprentice, he had to prove himself to them every day for a long time. Part of that has a practical side. These men's lives depend on each other every day at sea for weeks at a time where no other help is likely to be forthcoming. Bering's sea, like the North plied by his ancestors, is harsh and unforgiving. Men die out there every year. The crews need to know that a perspective addition will watch their backs when conditions are at their worst. It's like basic training in the military: it's better to know whether someone is likely to wash out before you get to combat.

Part of my conflict is that I see many of these rituals as unnecessary, overgrown boys playing at war without ever having experienced one. There is nothing like a mixture of boredom, pressure and a harsh environment to bring out the worst in men. I think we as a gender revel in making each other's lives miserable. Sometimes I think it's the only way we can feel better about our own situations. And shut each other up.

I also know that these rituals can only tell you so much. Until a person is in a critical situation, you really have no idea how they'll react. Seemingly brave men break and cower under fire, while skittish, nebbish types sometimes transform into lions that will eat their own young. You never know until someone points a pistol at your face and is prepared to pull the trigger. That is the harsh reality of this life.

Don't get me wrong; I respect these men. My great-grandfather was shipwrecked twice in the North Atlantic while he served in Sweden's merchant marine. The second time, he quit the sea and settled here, one of only a handful of survivors. My father rode submarines while earning a living as a Lockheed engineer. He knew people aboard the Scorpion and the Thresher when they went down. As a Raytheon contractor, I spent a few weeks at sea on Navy cruisers, including skirting a hurricane on a run from Jacksonville to Norfolk, so I think I understand a little. In college I was pulled from the ocean when our rented boat sank off the Keys out of sight of land. I was the one swimming after the lifejackets that were floating away and throwing them back to the people who hadn't put them on. At least the water off Florida is warm, and we were rescued before we had to stay the night.

Part of my problem is that I never thought I had to prove myself to anyone but me. I don't do fraternities or initiations. I don't do hazing, nor do I tolerate it being done when I have a say. I don't get sucked into stupid actions on a dare. I see such things as pointless and a general waste of energy better spent on getting a job done. If you're competent, you have nothing you need to prove.

It's not that I don't do stupid things. I do. My wife can attest to one involving alcohol, a disparaging remark directed at a female friend, and a challenge to defend her honor that involved a four-story climb in the dark. Since my adversary chose the contest, he had to respect me more when he lost and correct his behavior at least within earshot.

And I'm not afraid to test my limits. Ask Karen about another climb in the dark, this one up a radio tower stone cold sober without a safety line because I wondered if I could. It was worth it if only for the view from horizon to horizon while swaying in the breeze. As someone smarter than me once said, you can't fix stupid.

I do what I do for my own reasons, not to prove myself to others. And I hate giving away any indication of how seriously someone might need to take me. I'd rather have them underestimate me. Perhaps that's because I never developed an abiding sense of trust in people, of being able to rely on them. I have a deeply ingrained self-reliant streak, much to my detriment at times. I don't ask for help doing things that I can do myself. Typical frontier thinking. Lone wolf behavior.

Though I do understand the value of scars. I used to be able to recount the story behind most of the ones I carry across my body. The one where I accidentally gouged my thumb with a pocketknife while whittling. The one where I tried to slice off a knuckle when I slipped with an X-acto and band-aided the flap back on until it healed. The one on my back where a surgeon removed an aberrant cyst. The pattern across my side where he took out my gallbladder. The one on my shin beneath which the bone was cracked and I never realized it. The one where my knee was wired back together. The one on my abdomen that corrected the defect that tried to kill me as an infant. That doesn't count the obvious signs of a thrice-broken nose, the fractured collarbone, the crooked, unset toes and the bevy of invisible concussions.

Then, there is a set of four scars running across my left forearm just below the elbow. I am frequently asked about them, especially when I go to give blood. My usual snide answer is that I cut myself shaving. Or, if I'm in tolerant mood, I'll say that I got them once while camping. Both are true, though technically I wasn't shaving at the time. Most people think a feral cat or a raccoon put them there. The truth is that I carved the first three on a vision quest in the mountains of North Carolina. The fourth I added a few years later.

Each has a name, a real person I associated with an invisible scar as I laid the real one down. People and events I wanted to remember, not that I was likely to forget. One tried to kill me, while another only beat me half to death, though I don't remember much about the incident. The third, well, he believes I am still unproven, my mettle still untested even after he left me with the first two.

For a time, there was only the triad. Then I met a person whose actions against someone I loved required an addition. That one is the widest, the person whose betrayal and lack of contrition remain unforgiven. Harsh, but transforming the trio to a quartet beat the alternative at the time.

Because of the events behind these scars, I guess I never felt the need for any rite of passage to predict whether I'd survive. Most of the rituals people cling to in our modern world strike me as antiquated or contrived. Perhaps I should remember that most people haven't had the diverse experiences I have. Or maybe I'm misremembering, and have retold these tales until they became integrated into the persona I've constructed around myself like a personal mythology. Something to warn others off like a violin on the back of a spider, or a rattle on the tail of a snake. Brightly colored totems indicating danger.

Either way, I guess if I didn't feel the need to prove something, I'd never send this message. The handful of guys who read it will likely chuckle at my braggadocio, thinking, yeah, I could take him, while all the women are just shaking their heads. Men and their narcissistic scars.

None of which settles the original question of right and wrong in my mind. I'm not sure it's an absolute in this case. It's easy to think that everyone's life should reflect our own in all places at all times. We forget that sometimes things are the way they are for a reason, however flawed that reasoning might be. It always helps me to try on those boots and walk around a bit before I get too judgmental.

Ok, my inner beast might have gotten a little cranky from a serious case of testosterone poisoning. I think I should put it down for a nap. Perhaps it will be soothed by the sound of Wagner's adaptation of Nibelungen echoing in my ears.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III