Day 247 -Schmutz vs. Drek
I can’t resist the above title, considering how it evokes our recent Presidential debate match up. (I jest, or course; I like Kerry, I think he’s a real mensch, unlike Shrub.)
I had an unlikely Yiddish-related moment the other day. I was in the restroom, rinsing out a plastic bowl of soup remains from lunch. I was being particularly conscientious, as I had just cleaned the bathroom that morning as part of my porter duties.
The inmate to my left mistook my concentration on the task and joked “Don’t fall asleep, now!” I quickly explained “Just trying to get my schmutz out of the sink.” As I looked up, my gaze was met with a decidedly fixed stare.
“Schmutz?” he echoed. I mistook this response for a lack of comprehension, so of course explained. “It’s a Yiddish word, it means a bit of icky crap.”
“I know what it means,.” he responded, in a way that indicated we had taken an abrupt exit off the Banter Freeway. Almost grimly he explained: “It means the smegma underneath the foreskin of a gentile penis.”
“Really?” I responded, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know that.” Within moments he just turned on his head and walked out of the bathroom. I had the distinct sense I had said something offensive to this inmate, who was in his late 30’s and right on that dividing line between good-looking and ugly. A small shift in his features, and he could go either way.
Later at breakfast, reading my Mother Jones Magazine while eating (I was, of course, the only inmate reading anything at breakfast), I looked up to see Mr. Schmutz a few tables over, eating with an inmate who coincidentally had stiffed me on a can of tuna, though that’s neither here nor there.
Mr. Schmutz, as many of the prisoners do here, had his eyes closed in prayer. He was saying grace before eating.
I may not have even noticed this, had his eyes not been closed for more that the typical five seconds. But he prayed for ten…fifteen…twenty seconds at least, maybe more. This said to me “Christian,” as in Aryan-supremacist-whites-are-the-real-chosen-people-sort-of Christian. I got the distinct feeling this guy takes his gentile penises (peni?) very seriously.
I maybe should have said “Drek?”
MCO 2004
