Mempsis (memp’-sis): Expressing complaint and seeking help.
“I think I’m dying. My feet are swollen. Help me get my pants off!” I yelled. I called it “the old one, two, three.” The “dying” was done to raise alarm and a desire to help. The swollen feet were still pretty bad, but not life threatening, slowing the panic, but maintaining the urgency. Taking off my pants seemed right in light of the feet—to relieve the pressure on my ankles before it was too late. There I was stretched out in my underpants on the couch. What happened next was always a gamble, but it was worth it. It made me realize how providing steps could take people where you wanted them to go.
I learned this from Kenneth Burke. He told me about the appeal of form—how it created an appetite for its completion. That’s how my “steps” worked to keep people involved and get them where I wanted them to go. 1, 2, 3 worked well. It set anticipation into motion, increasing the appetite for the conclusion, and satisfaction, by playing out step 3. Step by step, I got my way through high school, until a few years later I robbed a lunch stand in Wiscasset, ME.
It was called “Blondie’s Eats.” It was at the bottom of the hill, right on the Sheepscott River. Before it was Blondie’s, it was called “Dive! Ice Cream.” The proprietor had served on a submarine in WWII.
I had read an article in the “Boothbay Register” about “Blondie’s Eats.” Blondie came to Maine from Prince Rupert Island, up in Canada. She was 23, unmarried, and filthy rich. Her great-great-great-great grandfather had invented the keyed sardine can. You could put a can of sardines in one pocket and a fork wrapped in a napkin in your other pocket and you were all set for lunch at work. It was revolutionary! No more can opener. There was something about the story rang a weak tinkling bell—something was there, but I couldn’t my mind around it.
I had gone into the Army right out of high school and had just completed my three-year enlistment. I had just gotten back from Viet Nam. When people found out I was a Vietnam vet, they wouldn’t hire me. There were probably wise not to do so. I had suffered a few concussions, one jumping out of a C-130, and the others in Vietnam. I was plagued by headaches, chronic double vision and diminished interpersonal skills. I got angry at nothing and slept with an unsheathed dagger under my pillow. I spent money I didn’t have and drank too much. I was going to “turn myself in” at the VA hospital in Portland.
I was broke and hungry and too proud to ask for a handout. What brought me to Blondie’s was her cash only policy. It would be easy. I parked my BSA about five feet from the stand, got off and went up to the counter. Using the old one, two, three I robbed “Blondie’s Eats.”
(1. This is a stickup. 2. Give me all your money. 3. Close your eyes and count to 100.)
I stuffed the money in my Hannaford’s shopping bag, jumped on my motorcycle and headed for East Boothbay. As I started across the Sheepscott River bridge I felt a burning in my right leg. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Blondie shooting at me from the middle of the road. I was wounded, but I wouldn’t know how bad until I got to the base of the collapsed fire tower over Boothbay I was it calling home. Most days, I leaned against the concrete blocks and thought bad thoughts.
Blondie pulled up in a Jeep Wrangler. She had followed me!
She hopped out of the Jeep with a gun in one hand, and a bullhorn in the other. She spoke into the bullhorn: “I know who you are shithead. We spent our summers here. Fishing for flounder in Little River, hunting for beach glass, picking raspberries, climbing on the rocks, looking for crabs under the seaweed, going into the Harbor for ice cream and candy T Orne’s and a million more things. I didn’t mean to shoot you. I’ve missed you all these years. What the hell happened to you? Let’s go to the hospital and get you fixed up. Come on Johnny.”
“Holy shit!” was all I could say as she helped me into the jeep. She was my first love. I remembered her as Janie. She had disappeared from my memory, pushed out by the hell I had been through. My hell was vivid, and seemed more real than what was right in front of me. But, as I sat there slumped in my seat I saw for the first time since I had gotten home a beautiful shining ray of hope. I rested my head on her shoulder and fell asleep as we drove to the hospital. I had a dream about a bird that had forgotten how to land.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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