The Unthinkable

by SirWilho

I am going to go places with this story that no man should go.  Great fear of retribution from my fellows might ensue but since this is my story I’m writing it.  To me, this is like self-help medicine or a purging of shame I felt in the past.

Today I am going to write about the dreaded MANCRY.  Already getting squeamish?  You should be since we’ve all been there, some are worried I might even mention names.

Generally it starts out like this; You make some plans with buddies, buy enough beer for a weekend, throw in some Boone’s Farm to pass around and maybe even a fifth of your favorite spirit.  You are all excited because it’s Friday night and you have the whole weekend in front of you.  Soon, things start to happen when three quarters of the beer you bought is gone, the Boone’s Farm has been passed around and drained and of course it was necessary to take a couple shots from the fifth, since you told yourself you hardly even had a buzz.  Then it happens and it ain’t pretty.

Wando Maki, one of my best friends, had one of these days.  You wouldn’t even think Wando and crying could be uttered together because he is about six foot five and close to two-seventy.  The man also keeps his hair cropped short, like Skeeters, but Wando could gobble up Skeeter in one bite. Some might say he is big enough to eat hay but I think he would prefer potatoes, and he’s a good-looking sort in a self-proclaimed type of way.

You could almost see it coming just by the look in his eyes, kind of glassy, almost misty, half in part from the drink, and half from the mood you see approaching.  Wando’s big mitts dropped on my shoulder and it looked like the weight of the world was on his mind, he pulled me in close enough to smell the emitting last drink.  Out came a series of life changing words,  “I gotta tell you something and I’m serious.”  Huh? What’s this all about as I panicked.  And then, “You know, I love you.”  Huh?  What just happened here?  Discomfort is what you feel at this moment and since you aren’t as drunk as he is and you can’t just say ‘me too’, YOU have to say it back “I LOVE U TOO.”  Instantly you look around to see if anyone heard or saw this breech of manhood.  You feel like you just kissed your cousin for God’s sake.  How can I look him in the eye tomorrow morning?  Are we going to have to talk about this too?   There was instant anxiety as these thoughts shot between my ears.  Oops, sorry this story is about crying and not about man love so I best get back to the topic.

Wando has cried in public before and I was a witness.  We were at a country music festival and a famous singer took a young girl out of the audience, sat her on his lap and sang a pretty song for her.  Huge, alligator tears dropped from his head pounding the ground like a summer storm.  I thought about crying too, after that little episode.

I’ve cried, I’ll admit it.  Remember the last episode of MASH, where BJ wouldn’t say goodbye to Hawkeye?  Then off goes Hawkeye in the helicopter and BJ spelled out goodbye with those white rocks, cried like a baby, I did.  But at least I hid it.  Gotta put down ‘Ol Yeller?  Noooooo, I cried.  What?  Half-Pint’s sister Mary goes blind on Little House on the Prairie?  I cried then, too.  There I sat, Heemping like no tomorrow.  Heemping, by the way, was coined by the columnist John Kass who said it was the sound men make when they see old Yeller die.  Like trying to hold back the wave of emotions only to let it all go and have to suck air back rapidly.  I’ve seen it, heard it, and a good Mancry definitely has some heemping in it.

My brother, Bishop, and Ducky Andrews cried together before.  They jumped to even worse levels because they were equally buzzed and included hugging with their Mancry.  Turns out drinking almost a gallon of homemade dandelion wine can pull out tears from the depths of your soul.  He told me that it wasn’t your typical boo-hoo type of cry but almost a wail of despair.  ‘Mental note: No to any homemade wine for fear of gross displays of hysteria’.  Brother Bishop did say he felt better afterwards.  Who needs a shrink when Dandelion wine is available?

My Pappy always used simple reasoning .  “Remember,” he would say, “what we say and do when we have a few cocktails are to be forgotten”, kind of like ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’  Seems like a good way to deal with the shame, knowing your fellow man watched as you blubbered on about everything from baby seals being clubbed to how you were misunderstood as a child.

Maybe I’m all wrong about the MANCRY, maybe it’s OK to have public displays of emotions, maybe the world would be a softer place and we could all cry together.  Then again, maybe not, since if we’re all crying, when are we going to be laughing?