(Into tape recorder)
Alright. Check. Check. OK. This is Reid Messersschmidt. Hi. I hope this tape recorder works. I got it at the Boys Ranch last minute. It occurred to me on the way here that I might die doing this and should probably record something to specify that this is not a suicide. Also, this is kind of an event, so there should probably be some record of it. If you happen to find me in this undisclosed Red Roof Inn surrounded in blood with a hole in my head, Post-it notes with unintelligible scribbles covering everything, nonsensical notebooks in a pile on the desk, and a hoard of unlabeled non-perishable food products stacked to the ceiling, first of all, sorry for scaring you and making a mess. Please don’t be traumatized and have a terrible life. Second, this is not a suicide. I know this is the kind of place that people like me go to commit suicide, but I swear it’s not. I’ll explain. Um, hold on, I’m going to play some music, so this sounds more dramatic. This is going to be some real Notes From the Underground shit. I’m a little drunk. Bare with me. Just a second.
Today is an historic one. Inspired by my research into Esperanto, I have decided to create my own language, though my intent is decidedly different from L.L. Zamanhof’s admirable dream of bringing the world together through a common tongue. My language will be one of exclusion, not inclusion. A language for one – a language for me. A lexical HAZMAT suit, so I can get some peace and quiet for a change. It will be called Messerschmish, after myself – appropriate, I think, since I will be it’s only speaker.
Happy Birthday Messerschmish! May you exist until my death!
I feel I need to begin by recording for posterity why it has become necessary to create my own language.
Some months ago I was strolling through the labyrinthine corridors of the local mall in search of an elusive pair of mustard colored slacks when I had a hankering, as I often do, for some Jujyfruits. (Flashback music) As luck would have it, I was nearing the plaza’s Walgreen’s Drug Store. Now, I was feeling rather low at the time, as shopping for pants is a real self-esteem assassin for a man with a bit of a muffin top, such as I am, and the cruel eyes of lithe, moneyed teenagers only serve to exacerbate the issue. The Walgreen’s, with it’s rows of medicaments, sick, sad, aged patrons, inexplicable bins of bargain priced socks, and surprisingly ample candy section appeared as a beautiful oasis, the smell of salves and balms a welcome contrast to the pseudo-sexual cologne musk of the various haberdasheries.
“I wish they sold pants,” I thought to myself as my spirits began to rise and I entered the store’s matronly embrace.
Historically, when I’ve visited a Walgreen’s, interactions with the staff and other shoppers are nearly non-existent. No eye contact is made and few words are spoken. I believe two factors are at play here. First, items being purchased are often considered shameful. No one wants to admit that they are ill, or what they are ill with. A tube of fungus cream is nothing to wave around. Condom sales seem to be a large part of the business model, and purchasing those is no day at the beach either, probably because sex is so brutish and absurd. Second, the unnaturally harsh lighting heightens ones self-consciousness. This might seem negative to some, but for the naturally self-conscious, it simply evens the playing field. Everybody feels the way that we feel all the time when they are in a Walgreen’s. Glorious may be too strong a word, but a Walgreen’s is certainly very pleasant.
I picked up my Jujyfruits and stopped by the supplement aisle. These globules of syrup and wax were going to gum up the old meat box, so I thought I’d counteract it with some placebos. As I perused the vitamins B 1 through 12, a haggard man in a NASCAR snap-back and filthy, ill-fitting jeans edged into my peripheral vision, loitered there making copious throat noises, and, with the all the thoughtfulness and grace of a stinking old potato rolled across a gravel road, stepped directly in front of me, crouching down to stare slack-jawed at the products near the floor, blocking my view. While I considered pushing him forward into the shelves of non-FDA approved pills, he turned to me with vague curiosity, looked me up and down, and said, “You look pretty healthy. What ones do you use?”
My heart sank as I glared hatefully down at him, but I am a Midwesterner and obligated to engage if spoken to.
“I don’t know,” I said, disgusted at the cheerful tone of my voice. “I’m pretty sure these things are just a vast pharmacological conspiracy.” Some times if you use big words they leave you alone. He chose to ignore me and continue.
“What’s Nee-a-cin?” he asked, with an edge of contempt. “Should I be taking this?”
This was spiraling out of control. Apparently, the mere appearance of general health made me the equivalent of a doctor to this man, who smelled of cigarettes and day old booze with a little fresh booze on top.
“Niacin. It makes you have to piss a lot,” I replied. Now I was speaking his language.
“Seriously?” He laughed, crudely. “I’ve got to piss enough as it is.” He replaced the Niacin and stood up with a vulgar grunt and alarmingly loud popping and cracking of his . . . skeleton, or something, now blocking my entire view. He turned to face me. His breath smelled of Chicken McNuggets, chewing tobacco, whiskey, tooth rot, and shameful deeds. His eyes were red and unfocussed, like a three-year-old ginger kid up past his bedtime. “Seriously. I piss constantly, I can’t get rid of this cough, I’m always tired, and my dick can’t get hard. My balls hurt. I itch all over. Yesterday I shit blood. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have diarrhea. Can’t remember much of anything ever, to tell you the truth. My toenails are all yellow and cracked. One just fell off last month. My hair is falling out.” He removed his sweat stained cap to illustrate this point. “My back hurts. My knees hurt. My hands hurt. My teeth hurt – what’s left of ‘em anyway. I’m reeeaaally fuckin’ dizzy, pretty much always. I can barely even see the T.V. anymore, ‘cause everything’s spinning. I throw up about four times a day – there’s blood in that too. My stomach feels like I ate a bunch a forks or something. There’s this loud ringing in my ears. I got sores in my mouth. Big sores. What should I take?”
I held my breath, terrified to inhale any of his various danders, and took a step back, my rear coming into contact with the shelving behind me. This was the worst moment of my life. I sidled out of his breath range, and pointed at the men’s multivitamins. Despite the repulsion and desperation I felt, I was bound by North Dakota law to politely answer his question. “Take those,” I said, my cheerful tone never wavering, despite the panicked shrieks that echoed in my skull. “That’s what I take. They’ll make you feel like a million bucks.”
And then I fled. It may have looked like my usual determined saunter, but there was an edge of desperation to it. Only at the last moment did I remember to discard the Jujyfruits in a bin of assorted mittens. I didn’t stop until I’d exited the mall and was safely in the confines of my car. I turned the key in the ignition and was assaulted by the following radio ad:
You’re a man. (YEAH I AM!) A grizzled, swaggering, buffalo wing devouring, beer swilling man. (YOU KNOW IT!) You love sports (SPORTS!) – and sexy ladies (BUT NOT WHEN THEY TALK!) – And Trucks (VROOM!). Men NEED man things. (GRUNTING) None of this foofy, poofy, prissy stuff you find in the soap aisles. (Lady voice: Well, I NEVER!) You’re a man and you need a soap that that smells like a grizzly bear in a leather jacket smoking unfiltered cigarettes (ROAR!) not laaaavender. (I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS!) So tell your wife to get off her fat ass and buy you some Cock Brand Soap – FOR MEN! Cock brand soap for men will clean the oil from your hands (YEAH!), the sweat from your brow (YEAH!), the stank from your diiick (OH YEAH!), and make you smell like god-damned Ghengis Khan (YEEEEAAAAAAH!!) DO it Cock style so know one will think you’re gay!
It was something like that, anyway. I might be exaggerating a bit.
Action was required. I couldn’t continue to live in the world, constantly accosted by the banal ramblings and horrific biographies of the general public. I considered several solutions, including constantly wearing head phones in public, becoming a shut in, going off the grid, and a horrific face scar. My friend Rich often pretends to be deaf. No, these solutions lack finality. It is no longer enough to avoid interaction, I need to make interaction nearly impossible. Not being understood is not enough. I don’t want to understand – literally. I don’t want my brain to be capable of deciphering this aural garbage.
No conclusion was reached that day, but my dissatisfaction percolated for weeks and, in the shower one morning, revealed itself to be the rich, fragrant brew that is Messerschmish.
The idea of Messerschmish, anyway. I still had to sort out the particulars, but the solution was as elegant as it was unheard of. As sole speaker of the language, no one would be able to, or even want to, speak to me. Nothing appalls and repels the average Midwesterner quite like a non-English speaker, and I suspect that non-English speakers aren’t too keen on non-whatever speakers, either. I could just learn Esperanto, I suppose, but what would happen if I ran into a chatty New-Age weirdo while inspecting leeks at the Farmer’s Market? All would be lost. The creation would be made simple with a review board of only one to parse it – no pedantic grammarians to tell me whether I was doing it right.
And I would unlearn English. Messerschmish would be my only means of communication, to myself as well as others. I would be blissfully stranded on an island of my own creation. Extreme? Sure. It was, and is, perfect.
These are the broad steps I laid out for myself:
Create Messerschmish.
Unlearn English.
Become fluent in Messerschmish.
LIVE.
I immediately quit my job as a call center operator for the deaf. The irony that I earned my living helping those with difficulty communicating to communicate did not escape me. These poor, sometimes literally dumb saps, had been bestowed with the gift I desired, and instead of embracing it, chose a clumsy attempt to overcome it, like a fantastically tall basketball player sawing off his legs to reach a low cupboard. Nobody at the center seemed upset to lose me. My delightful way around a simile had always been lost on them.
Next, I began destroying most of my belongings, specifically those with any writing. Books, albums with lyrics, letters from old friends and lovers, important tax documents – it all had to go. I moved out of my dilapidated one-bedroom apartment – good riddance – and chose, at random, a town out of state, booked myself a room in this haggard Red Roof Inn, got in my car, and drove.
I didn’t bother to tell anyone, which was probably inconsiderate, but I’d alienated most of them by this point, anyway, and you try explaining to your mother that you’re moving away forever to physically remove the native language from your brain and invent a new one. I can’t imagine it would be a pleasant conversation. They’d all get over it in time.
I should comment here about continuing to live in this society and other. “Why,” you may be asking yourself, “don’t you just move to another country?” This is something I considered. In another country, though, I would certainly learn the language over time through submersion. Also, you’re missing the point, theoretical listener. I like it here, for the most part. It’s a very convenient country to live in and I’ll have enough on my plate once I no longer speak anyone’s language without having to become accustomed to new foods and culture. And the additional benefit to exclusively speaking, knowing, and thinking in my own language will, hopefully, be a complete restructuring of my mind. There’s also the argument for isolation, but it’s not that I don’t like people. I’m sure that’s not the impression that I’ve given so far, but I’ve had some very nice times with people. Closeness to humanity can be a real comfort. Living completely alone would probably drive me mad, which does have some appeal, but, again, there would be a lot more to become accustomed to and I’m not really a fan of the out of doors. It’s just time for something new and this seems an insane but manageable change. And it’s uncharted territory, which I like. I’m a goddamned pioneer, so get off my back.
Alright, so once I arrived at the town in which I’m currently residing, I pulled into the local Walmart to pick up supplies and remind myself one last time why I was doing this in the first place. I was successful at both. I picked up enough food for two months, several packages of Post-it notes, pens, Sharpies, spiral-bound notebooks, plastic containers, a plastic tarp, a drill, bandages, Neosporin, Migraine strength Excedrin, a 1.75 of vodka, and a book on the human brain. I had done plenty of research and made copious notes beforehand, but figured it would be a good idea to have a picture in front of me for the procedure. I won’t go into detail about the human interactions I endured at Walmart – everybody’s been there and I spent too much time on the Walgreen’s thing, I’m getting restless and my drunk is wearing off. Suffice it to say that the trip strengthened my resolve.
After checking into my red roofed home for the foreseeable future, I laid out my supplies and set about the work of inventing a language.
Now, I am not a linguist and this process wasn’t scientific. I chose a few inspirations – birdsong, early 80’s Michael Stipe, R2D2, and David Lee Roth, amongst others – and made a list of every word I could think of. I then ranked those words on a scale of 1-10 and used the most important to develop some roots. Then I expanded on those roots to create a corollary for every word on my list, making up a few along the way to describe some things I thought English lacked. A word for that feeling you get when you’re sad about something but also kind of relieved, for example. Finally, I translated the entirety of the sole work in English I had not destroyed: a copy of Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein, which I did destroy once it had served its purpose. I used the translation as a grammatical touchpoint and came up with some basic rules and structures. It was easy. As I said before, the review board here is small enough to avoid dissent completely and I felt no need to adhere to any rules that didn’t suit my purpose. And that’s all I’m going to tell you, because I don’t want anybody deciphering Messerschmish and piercing my bubble.
Now I was on to practical matters. Once I rid myself of all previous linguistic knowledge I will have to have a method for learning Messerschmish. I called the front desk and had them take the television from my room. I removed all labels from the food I had bought and wrote what they are on the can in Messerschmish. Any food not in a can was put in a plastic container and also labeled. I put a Post-it note with the appropriate new word on every object in the room. I filled the notebooks with lesson plans, beginning with crude drawings to represent each new word and building from there. I carefully filed off the H and C from the water faucets and replaced them with the first letter of the Messerschmish words for hot and cold. I thought of everything. Hopefully, the procedure will go as planned and I won’t lose something I need to decipher all of this. (Stop music)
So now, here I am, standing in front of the sink – which is not in the bathroom by the way, what’s with that? – staring into the mirror. The tarp is under me and much of the vodka is inside of me. The rest will be used for sterilization. The bandages, Neosporin, Excedrin, book on the brain, and drill are on the counter. I am now going to drill a hole through my skull and into my cerebral cortex, what is known as Wernicke’s area – the language center of the brain responsible for language. I’ve mapped the spot through which I will drill exactly and marked it with a Sharpie. Once I drill into my brain, all of my current knowledge of language will be lost. Everything else will remain intact, theoretically. I’ll still be Reid Messerschmidt. I just won’t really be able to communicate that with the outside world. (Heavy sigh)
And that will be it. (long pause) So . . . I guess I should say a few parting words in English. Um, ok. Here they are: There should be more words like garbanzo – it’s fun. And you should all be much more thoughtful.
Alright.
(Shuffling, drilling, shout, silence, music plays)