The Native Iowan

DISCLAIMER: All my stories are purely fictional. And, as usual, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Being raised in a family of women leaves one with a strange sense of proprieties. Being raised in an old fashioned family filled with women leaves one with a profoundly warped sense of proprieties. I was raised in such a family. In a very old-fashioned and Matriarchal family.

There was my proper and prim Grandmother. In her eighties she was the very essence of a mature matron. Erect if not stiff. Tender but very firm. She never swore. Had a small glass of schnapps on “special occasions”. Took a nap every afternoon. And wore a large hat and clean white gloves when she worked in the garden. She always smelled of roses.

There was my forceful and loving Mother. In charge of everything. She ran her world as a Master Sergeant would run an army. She knew what was happening before it transpired. She was able to see through walls and hear across large distances. She was omnipresent and clairvoyant. She was a force to reckon with.

There was the gaggle of sisters I called “mine”. I was never sure how many there were. I know there must have been better than half a dozen. Yet they changed so quickly I could never tell. They also tended to bring home friends whom they looked alike thus one could very seldom tell one visiting female from one in residence.

Within this mess of female functions existed my Father, my elder brother, my younger brother and me. We “men folk” tended to live within this flurry of the female lives that we were little more than satellites to.

I am not sure if I learned about women from my Father or the females around me. There were many, many rules pertaining to a life ordered and operated by women. Perhaps I followed my father’s and the elder brother’s lead in some things but I think that I learned most of the rules from the women themselves.

Women were to be respected. Failure to show respect could result in Mother rapping you on the head with a four-pound wooden spoon, direct and still hot from the pot of simmering stew on the stovetop. Grandmother was adept with the backhanded dishrag. Take a step away from the accepted and Grandmother would snap you about the face with a greasy and hard worked dishrag fresh from the sink. My various sisters, being younger and less trained in the ancient female arts of inflicting pain, would simply punch, bite, scratch, kick or other wise render you delirious with pain and humiliation.

Women were to be treated with honest attention and decorum. Failure to pay proper attention to a female was in direct violation to most civilized rules. One was expected to be as telepathic as they were. Failure to anticipate the need to hold a door open was a misdemeanor. Yet failure to anticipate the need to open a door – when her arms were full of something- was a hanging offense.

Women were made, came off the assembly line, equipped with the tools to investigate, try and judge any crime. They can worm answers out of you with little more than a raised eyebrow. A stern glare is enough to make a “big boy” wet himself. A smile and a bit of kindness can make even the worldliest man fall over him self to please. Women may well be the perfect creatures. They know all, see all, and understand all. They can work better than most men. The females I was raised with were always stronger than I. They could clean, bake, sew, hammer, build, paint, tend, plant, dismantle and think (so I was raised to believe) better than men.

The one thing they could not do was fart.

I was raised with the belief that women did not need to fart. I always thought they were above it. That men, being the crude and semi-domesticated creatures we are, abased themselves by “passing gas’ whilst in a communal setting. I was raised allowed to laugh and make light of the male ability to “pass gas”. My Grandfather would hold his finger out to small children and tell them to “pull it”. The result would be a startled child and a Grandfather roaring with laughter.

In the warped upbringing of the matriarchal household I felt as though it was a fair trade. I could fart and they could rule. I learned from my father that I could cock my cheek and let a “good one” rip. Grandmother would simply state that “You’re too much like your granddad”. My mother would ignore it completely. My sisters would move without comment.

I spent little time pondering this difference between the genders. There were so many differences that something as simple as – guys fart, gals don’t – made a perverse kind of sense. This sense was enforced by my strict private school education where then nuns and the “young ladies” in the school enforced rather than dispelled this belief. I actually believed that either women could not or did not need to “pass gas”.

I was sixteen. I had hitched a ride to a near by city to see a popular rock band in concert. A gal I vaguely knew from “around town’ picked me up. She was several years older and, at that time, living a “Hippy” life style. As we were tooling down highway 20 in her beat up corvair she looked soulfully at me and said “Mike, I need to ask you something very serious”.

My heart went into my mouth. My imaginations ran wild. She, this older gal, a hippy gal, was going to ask me “something serious”. Sweat broke out on my palms. I was tongue-tied. I simply nodded for her to go ahead.

“Mike”, she said, “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression but… I really need to let a fart”. And with that short introduction she cocked her cheek to the left and let rip with a prize-winning rumbler.

At the same time, as she filled the small car with noxious fumes, my life forever changed.

I was dumb struck. I am certain that my mouth hung open like an idiot’s. I am certain that I stared at her in disbelief. I saw her blush under my stare. I assume I made her feel uncomfortable. All I could do was stare. I was experiencing an epiphany.

Epiphany is the right word to use. It is defined as: a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.

Ordinary and striking are so very right.

Females had been lying. All this time. In many, many ways. I saw it clearly. My epiphany, my revelation allowed me to see it all. The hallucinogenic tab the hippy gal had given me before she farted was not required for me to see through the smoke and mirrors of this small mystery of life. No, it had not taken effect yet. I was still sober. And I would remain sober through the course of the night. The tab had been a waste. As the bands came and went on the stage. As the decibels pounded my eardrums. I kept running the scene through my mind. My epiphany had irrevocably damaged me and made me unconditionally stronger at the same time. My world had changed.

I remember thinking about the childhood story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. How everyone went along with the farce simply because everyone went along with the farce. I saw this scenario in so much of my life. It applied to everything. In the religious dogma I was spoon fed each day. In the pseudo relationships I saw others foster and yearn for. In the horseshit propaganda trickled down through the media.

I think my youthful rebellion in life began at this time. I knew now that women were not infallible and that I did not have to spend my days worrying about their superiority. The agreed farce of life became clear to me. If women need not be feared then all else was 100% unadulterated boloney.

I started my rebellion by no longer listening to the nuns in school. I went out of my way to challenge them. I began to stand up for myself and to argue with these women who ruled our academic lives. And every turn I took, every challenge I instigated, they would back down.

I do believe that I got lost in this heady world of rebellion. I know I was perverted by this revelation. It was like learning the secrets of the ancients. Like learning something mortal man was not fit to know. It was information far too serious and dangerous for a 16-year-old, testosterone poisoned punk like me.

I became a jerk. I lost my respect for women. My elder sisters would attempt to dominate me and I would pop them in the chops. All this “thou shall not hit a woman” crap was expunged from my psyche. I would argue the nuns into tears of frustration. I am certain my grandmother spent time praying especially for my salvation. My poor mother never realized what hit her.

And the years rocked by. The youthful rebellion was replaced by the need to feed a family. My wife dispelled any doubt in my mind that women did not require the release of abdominal gases. My grandmother passed away. My mother got old and my many sisters learned to never screw with me. I would still pop them in the chops.

It was a quiet winter’s eve. We were sitting at my parents’ house in rural America. My father had a nice fire going. Mother had just cooked an expansive meal. My wife was finishing the dishes. My teen-aged children were fighting over which video they would watch. We decided to play a couple hands of cards before we called it a night. The table was shifted. Chairs were carried in. The cards were brought out and shuffled. I made a pot of fresh coffee.

The general confusion that occurs at the beginning of a game of “friendly” cards was taking place. The general arguing over who kept score, (if my daughter keeps score she always wins) the vying for positions at the table (don’t sit next to my wife, she’ll look at your hand) and the establishing of the basic ground rules for the game (grandfather could not fall asleep in the middle of a hand).

I was waiting for the coffee to percolate. I had chosen a seat between the living room and the kitchen. My father was on my left. My mother was on my right. My daughter had the pad and pencil and was preparing to keep score. My wife was positioning her chair so she could see the hands to the left and the right of her. My father was taking a quick nap.

We were playing a two-decked game. Two decks were combined to allow everyone to play at the same time. It was a quick paced game like gin rummy but with more cards and more people. The deck was being split up and handed around for shuffling. My mother fumbled with her share of cards to be shuffled. A card fell on the floor. She leaned out of her chair to pick it up.

As a youth with little to do we would discuss the best farts and the best farting situations. The old oak pews in church were pretty good. The plywood seated folding chairs at the VFW were ok. But the consensus was that hard seated, straight-backed wooden chairs were the best. These old style chairs with the carved out places for your cheeks gave you a chance to “play” the chair. You could let a winner rip with out too much effort. The hard wood had a nice tonal quality. For the farting aficionado these chairs were the epitome.

I was about to stand up and get a cup of coffee. I had half turned in my seat. My father was chin on his chest napping in his chair. My daughter was laboriously writing our names on the score pad. My youngest son was arguing with his brother over who would sit next to my wife. My wife was getting the cards ready to deal. My mother was in the act of retrieving the card she had dropped.

She would have won a prize at any fart fest. If there were medals awarded for farting this would have won the platinum with diamond trim. It was possibly a world record. It started as she was in decent, hand stretched out for the card. Mother’s age and her arthritis could not allow her to cut it short by quickly sitting straight. She was committed to touching the floor, retrieving the card and pushing off the floor with her hand to gain her upright position.

It started and it lasted. For the entire duration it took her to bend over in her chair, touch the floor with her hand, grasp the card then push herself upright. I estimate it had a complete duration of something near twenty seconds.

The divergent tonal qualities achieved through the variation of the “angle of attack” through the changing of the position of the stationary cheek would have left a master in awe. It was a virtuoso use of the old fashioned hard-seated chair. I have never seen a better performance.

My father’s eyes popped open. He held his face in a noncommittal and non-commenting demeanor. My wife blushed. My daughter held her hand to the perfect “O” her mouth had become. My sons were looking around the table for a clue as to what their reaction could safely be. I fell out of my chair.

I rolled into the kitchen. I choked with laughter. I held my ribs. I was in pain. I was in awe. I could not breath for the convulsing air erupting through me. The memory of that epiphany came shattering into the light of day. It took me ages to compose myself enough to get up off the floor. I returned to the card table with my coffee.

My father had not changed his countenance. My daughter was politely smiling at a distant spot in the air. My wife was patting my mother’s hand telling her to ignore me. My son’s were following my lead and making a bit too big of a deal about it. My mother was glaring at my father. Was giving him the hard look. I had gathered myself up off the floor in time to see her point a finger at him and say. “Not a word from you. Not a damn word.”

I was distracted in my card playing. I kept falling into fits of laughter. My father had managed to not crack a smile over it all. I was impressed by his self-control. By his sense of self-preservation. I ended up losing the game. It made my mother feel better. She had been embarrassed. She deserved to win. I was caught up in the revelation type memory of that trip with the hippy girl all those years ago. I saw a story coming together.

A story about the night we had played cards and mother farted.