Massage Heresy
Riding my cross-country mountain bike down the hill to the former mill that’s now a co-working space. No hands on the bars, contemplating if the front suspension is doing anything. A car behind me lays on the horn. I’m unphased. They pass. They’re fat. So it goes.
I’m in the office on a Zoom call for a co-writing cohort class. The organizer says, “focused, structural, tactical plan and vision for what you’re going to be writing about.”
I leave the call.
This cost $400. It’s yet to prove itself. The value, for me, is not in the how-to instruction, nor in listening to the others complain or boast, or share what city they live in, the value is in the feedback from those who read, contemplate and criticize my work.
I should print my work before it’s gone. No internet would mean 99% of my writing disappears. An anonymous decision-maker at Google, perhaps a pure silicon algorithm, could zero out years of thinking. Or the data center could be bombed, flooded or unplugged, and it’s all gone. It’s inevitable.
Google is a footnote on granite tablets that carry humanity’s stories. My stacks of stone tablets are 8 feet high. My laser engraver is red hot. I can wait to die because my writing is not all engraved, yet. The laser will be done soon enough.
The old mill office has a brick arch door and 18-foot-high wooden ceilings, supported by thick, old-growth beams. The 10 foot tall arched window faces downstream of the river that powered the world’s textile manufacturing hub for 100 years. A highway overpass blocks most of the river view.
My back is loose today. There’s still a bit of benzo in my blood. Yesterday I took 1 mg of Ativan before a back massage. I drove down the street to meet Molly at Rest & Revival. Molly is husky which is good because I like heavy hands on my muscles. It’s our first session together. I will note, I am not interested in having a stranger jerk me off, I can do that myself, but I am curious to know if that’s a service that’s actually offered in this business.
“Every time I go for a massage it’s because I have a problem,” I inform Molly.
“Do you get massages often?”
“Many times last year.”
“Did anything happen? … like . . . deep tissue or sports massage? Do you have a preference?”
“I like deep tissue. No limits. On the pressure.”
We’re on the table and she’s hiting all the spots on my back, neck and shoulders. There’s more tension than I thought.
I get bored and say, “I’ve heard a stereotype that an Asian massage parlor is like where other stuff goes on. Is that true?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” she says.
“It was just a stereotype that I heard, almost like a joke but maybe there’s some truth to it, that there’s massage parlors where you can get a happy ending. . . It’s a funny joke but do you see that in your industry?”
“Actually yes, I do know two massage places that do that, and they’re both Asian. But it would be inaccurate stereotyping to say that Asians all do happy happy endings. But as with every stereotype, there’s always a little smidget of truth.”
“Do you get anyone coming in here thinking that’s an option on the table?”
Pun intended.
“No, not really. Maybe once.”
“Just once? That’s not bad.”
“We don’t take walk-ins, so that helps.”
The cool hour was over in what felt like 20 minutes. That’s a good sign. She said she didn’t have enough time to get to everything she wanted to get to and she would have extended it longer if she didn’t have another client coming in soon.
I don’t think she’s down to jerk me off. Good. I didn’t want it anyways.
“So do you work for the owner?”
“Yeah, Audrey owns it. She’s been doing it for 12 years.”
Massage with Audrey
I’m lying face up, as she told me to. I’m waiting for her to come back in. At first I had the blanket pulled up to my chin but I pulled it down to my waist, which feels more natural. I have a beautiful upper body.
Metal pipes hang down above me. They can’t be for water; these bars are for hanging on.
Audrey comes in and starts massaging.
I think for 10 minutes, considering saying, “How long have you been doing this?” but I know she’s been doing this a long time by the way she’s touching me. Strong hands, swift, confident motions.
“You need to stretch your muscles.” Her voice is cold, like she wishes she were armed but she’s not.
“Which ones?”
”You need to stretch all your muscles a lot more.”
“Oh.”
“Do you stretch at all?”
“I stretch around 20 minutes per day.”
“You may want to re-evaluate your stretching routine.”
This is hot.
I took 1mg of Ativan 15 minutes before the massage. Everything’s balancing out nicely and I don’t feel the drug coming on, but I know it’s there because I’m settled in this space with a stranger touching me. The drug boosts an inhibitory neurotransmitter; it protects against overreacting.
On an intellectual level, I recognize I’m near naked being handled by this strange woman, but on an emotional level, I’m OK.
Now that I think about it, I probably have autism. More on that later.
I settled on, “How did you get into massage therapy?”
She tells me a story about doing gymnastics and helping the trainer.
“Did you build this business?”
“Yes.”
“I know the struggles of entrepreneurship so I respect that.”
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I get close with my clients and learn about their lives. Some make $150k but don’t have time to go to their kid’s soccer game.”
She continues…
“I used to be a fierce capitalist. Then AT&T stole money from my account.”
“How’d they manage that?”
“I requested to disconnect my iPad. They disconnected my entire account then charged me a $900 cancellation fee. I spent 6 hours on the phone to get it back. Then they had the audacity to send collections after me over $20. I said, we can go to court, we can settle, I’ll do $7. I looked into this company AT&T, owned by Time Warner.”
“My grandma got taken advantage of by them.”
“There’s like five mega media corporations. They all profit so much and squeeze for more.” says Audrey with her hands pressed on my back.
Here we go. I have something to say now. “The federal government is the largest corporation and they have unlimited money, which is unlimited debt, and they always want more. More from you and me. I don’t watch the news, but I heard something about raising the debt ceiling and $30 trillion of debt. Where did all this money go? Inflation is taxation.”
“I got an email from a senator saying if we don’t raise the debt ceiling it will hurt small businesses. My business survived 2009, my business survived 2020. I say let the house of cards collapse! Let it burn.” says Audrey.
LET. IT. BURN.
There is nothing dark about this.
“We pay all these taxes and it goes to foreign aid,” she says.
I second the energy, “$40 billion to Ukraine, I don’t want to pay Ukraine. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon we’re talking real money.” I go on, “Our money is spent on old people, military contractors and other countries. We’re never going to get social security. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”
Audrey says, “You know, if we all stop paying taxes at the same time they can’t arrest us all.”
“My grandma hasn’t paid taxes for the past 8 years. She’s not in jail. She just gets angry letters.”
She moves to work on my arms and I continue, “The government is supposed to be the referee. They're supposed to regulate the marketplace and keep consumers safe. Look around, does America look healthy? They totally failed us.”
I go further,
“There’s thousands of chemicals banned from the food supply in Europe, and like 11 in America. How’s that work?”
“I was in Italy and we were eating three big meals a day and losing weight,” Audrey says. “It seems like the European lifestyle is a better way to live.”
“I saw they’re selling houses for a dollar in Italy if you promise to fix em up.”
“Don’t tempt me.” She talks with her fingers on the back of my neck, releasing the muscles that tend to clench my occipital nerves. “It’s depressing that I can’t afford a house. I’ve had a successful business for 15 years and the bank won’t give me a mortgage.”
“The government and the banks choose who has access to capital. They choose the winners. You could save $80,000 of cash and you still can’t buy a house if the bank tells you no. I understand ‘van-life’. I like having a home base, but if you have $80k and you can’t get a mortgage, build a van. It bundles housing, vehicle and travel-lodging expenses. And it gets internet followers.”
She hits a painful pressure point. “Wow, that’s a sensitive spot,” I say.
“If we avoid it, it doesn’t help loosen things up.”
“Are these bars above my head for walking on backs?”
“Yes.”
“Does that cost extra?”
“It does.”
She’s not finished discussing the health situation.
“You know what else, it’s not just the food, it’s the water too. I don’t drink my tap water anymore. It looks gross. I was using it with my espresso coffee machine and it jammed the machine. I couldn’t afford a new one so I took it apart and fixed it. Now I only use purified water and it’s fine.”
Audrey goes on to inform me that “there’s a town Facebook group and people talk about the changes in the water.”
I draw out more of her energy with silence.
“I have a friend who’s near genius. She’s always inventing stuff. She recommended a documentary about water. It said apparently someone in an apartment building added covid to the water supply.”
I don’t know about that; I bring it back to taxes.
“We pay taxes and we don’t even benefit.” I say.
“Taxpayers' health isn’t getting better. It’s not like the public schools are getting any better either.” Audrey adds while pressing on my pectorals.
“One thing I write about is the school system. I worked as a substitute teacher to get a first hand account. It’s the same as what I experienced 15 years ago in another state. It’s the same system all across the country and it sucks. Kids, teachers, parents, they all dislike it.”
I recently learned about Moloch, the lose-lose force that creates a system that everyone hates but no one person can change. We'd all have to change at the same time. If we all stop paying taxes at the same time, they can’t arrest us all, but no one person can organize that without risking their life.
“My daughter has one more year before she’s supposed to go to school… I want to do homeschooling.”
“There’s a big movement toward homeschooling, unschooling, and microschooling. The internet has unlocked many opportunities for learners to connect.”
The 90 minutes flew by.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I feel great.”
Ativan is awesome, that was a great convo. I get up, button two buttons on my shirt, and walk out, to wrap up this adult experience and leave a gratuity.
“It was fun talking to you and good luck with all your projects.”
She’s building a juice bar and converting an RV into a mobile spa. This cat means business. Her entrepreneurial competency gives her the confidence to say “let it burn” because she knows she’ll survive. One way or another. Audrey is a human adult.
