We are in a Barnes & Noblebookstore in San Jose, California, early 2004. A dark-skinned andgray-haired man in traditional Sunni garb and a long black beardwalks up to a college-age Nordic-looking femaleclerk. He speaks in broken English with aheavy accent, his words all strung together without parsing orstress, "Excusemesiryescanyoutellmewhatis 'harrowed'?" (He calls her"sir" because he learned this entire phrase by rote from a phrasebook and didn't learn, along with the phrase, the grammatical conceptof gender differentiation in forms of address. Why he throws a "yes"in the middle of the phrase is a mystery. Your guess is as good asmine.)
"I'm sorry, I didn't understand."
"Whatis 'harrowed'?" He points to the word in aFarmer's Almanac. (He pronounces the word with three syllables, "harrow wed.")
"Um, let me get my manager. He'll be righthere." She calls the manager over the intercom. As the managerapproaches, the girl walks over to him to explain the situation. Shewhispers, "That guy in that outfit there is ranting about somethingand pointing to a Farmer's Almanac. I can't understand what he'ssaying."
"You're shitting me!"
"No, I'm not." She looks perplexed."Why?"
"The FBI has just issued an alert to alllaw-enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for terrorists withalmanacs, they may be planning something."
She squeaks in terror then covers her mouth,politely rendering the obligatory shibboleth of her age, race, class,and gender: "Oh…my...God…." Then, "Do you think that'shim?"
"I don't know, but we can't take any chances."He puts his hairy arm on her creamy white uncovered shoulder. "Wecan't afford to take any chances. I'll be right back."
She returns to the counter and stands againacross from the Arab man.
He laughs nervously."Excusemesirnowyoutellmewhatis 'harrowed'?"
"Now I tell you what?" she asks.
"Nowyoutellmewhatis 'harrowed'."
A light bulb explodes above her head. Shescreams. "Ahhhh. Help."
The security guard comes over. He walks behindthe counter. He puts his hairy arm on her creamy white uncoveredshoulder. "Are you O.K.?" She starts crying. The security guard putshis arm around her more. The customers are sighing and looking attheir watches.
"Something is…" she starts. "Something ishappening."
The security guard pries further, "What is it?What is happening?"
She looks up from her hands. Her face is red.She stares in disbelief at the stubborn ignorance of the securityguard. It's his job to get to the bottom of things, after all, nothers; she just took this job so she could make a little extra moneyand put something on her resume, and help people, of course, helppeople. "I don't know."
"O.K., honey, don't scream. Just tell me whathappened."
"This man here." She points rudely. "I can'tunderstand what he's saying."
"O.K. Now we're getting somewhere. Now whathappened to the light bulb? Did somebody break it?"
"I don't know." She is calming down. "I think itjust exploded. The glass is all over the floor." She seems to benoticing the actual chain of cause and effect for the firsttime.
The security guard still has his arm on thegirl. He squares off at the customer with the Almanac and, in agruff, accusatory voice, demands, "May I help you, sir?"
"IamverysorryI…don't…know" He doesn'twant to appear rude by asking such a trivial question in the midst ofwhat seems to be a personal crisis, but he doesn't have the words inEnglish to excuse himself, so he just repeats,"IamverysorryI…don't…know."
"Sir," the guard asks quite loudly andemphatically, his words parsed clearly, "WHAT DO YOUWANT?"
Believing it's not worth the trouble anymore,the man raises his hand in a culturally non-specific gesture as if tosay, "Sorry to have bothered you but I don't know how to say 'Sorryto have bothered you' in English and everything I am saying seems toaggravate things more so I think I'll just leave." He turns around togo back to the bookshelf where he got the book.
Three police cars pull up outside the entrance,their sirens flashing. On their way in the door a woman spills coffeeon her baby in order to make way for them.
Yep, you guessed it: "FREEZE! DROP THE FUCKINGALMANAC, SCUM!!!"
Luckily, the word "Almanac" is of Mid-Easternorigin and so he understands that they must be talking to him and heknows what he must do. The context and the comprehension of a singleword together (and also his awareness of his threatening skin colorand appearance) enable him to comprehend the entire phrase. He dropsthe Almanac. An officer rushes over to scoop it up. The otherofficers knock the man to the ground. Because the man is elderly andis wearing traditional garb, he stumbles as they take him down, butthe officers turn him over, like a turtle, on to his stomach and cuffhim.
"Ijustwantonlytoknowwhatis 'har rowwed'."
"I can't understand you, your lips are movingbut ain't nothing coming out. You wanna try that again?" Strangelyenough, this is the precise real-world impetus that enables the manto acquire a critical piece of linguistic competence: parsing. Inother words, in a perfect caricature of Social Darwinist adaptation,the man learns how to parse his otherwise quite comprehensibleEnglish, because he has to parse it. From this point on in the man'slife, he will parse his words and his English will be understood.
"I just wanted only to know what is 'har rowwed'."
"Whaddya mean, 'What is "har rowwed"?'?"
The girl bounces up to the scene. "Oh, God, whatis going on here. Why is this happening to me, why, why, why!!!" Anofficer puts his hairy arm on her creamy white shoulder. "Listenclosely, now, sweetheart. Everything is going to be O.K. What I'mgonna need you to do for me is to get you to go back around behindthe counter. (He accompanies her a few steps in that direction as ifto get her started.) Can you do that for me?" The customers arestanding in line, tapping their feet and looking at theirwatches.
After calming the girl down, the officer returnsto the scene where the man clad in a white robe lies on his belly andstares at the carpet in front of a bookshelf labeled "Reference."
"Is he an American?" the captain asks one of thepolicemen.
"I don't think so, sir."
The captain looks down at him, "Wheryou from,Buck?"
"I from Bahrain."
"Hmmmm, Bahrain. Where is that?"
You can imagine the rest. The man tells thepolice if they give him an Almanac he can show them where Bahrain is.Of course, when he asks for the Almanac, San Jose's finest give thesmart-ass just what he deserves: a kick in the neck. And of course, aman comes over claiming to be a doctor. "I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor,etc., etc." Turns out he is not a medical doctor, but has a PhD. incultural anthropology. He mediates between the two parties and, afterabout 45 minutes of intense questioning in the Barnes and Noble breakroom, it turns out all the poor guy wanted was to know the meaning ofthe word, "harrow" because he had come across the following oldproverb while browsing through the Farmer's Almanac: "The father saysto the boy, 'when you've harrowed and plowed as much as I have,you'll understand a thing or two about the world." Once the culturalanthropologist explains the meaning of the word and the proverb aswell as the sexual innuendo in the proverb, they all have a goodlaugh. The Arab man says it reminds him of a proverb in his ownlanguage involving sheep and goats. When he tries to translate, noone laughs but him. His parsing is O.K., but no one, not even thedoctor, or "doc" as they now all affectionately call him, understandswhat part of it is supposed to be funny. The captain rescues theembarrassing moment by telling everyone of a joke involving sheep andgoats that his Irish uncle used to tell him. Everyone laughs exceptthe Arab man. The Arab man rots today in a cell with no legalrepresentation and no hopes for ever being charged with a crime letalone being released.
And the customers are still standing thereexhaling, looking at their watches and dreaming of placing theirhairy arms on the clerk's creamy white shoulder.
Copyright 2004 West-Art, Prometheus 92/2004