PSYCH TEST
A favorite question asked on Army psych tests, tests used to determine your fitness to lead men, went like this: “Do you feel disgust watching a man clip his toenails?” I thought of this for a moment and recalled a writer who wrote, “Nothing human disgusts me,” and answered accordingly. Such are the dangers of literature. Between blocks of military instruction back in the barracks for the break, I sat on the toilet, all toilets open and exposed, and our drill sergeant walked into the latrine, saw me sitting on the stool, and said, “You better snap off that turd, trainee. We got instruction in a few minutes.” Ever obedient I snapped off that turd, not hard after an Army breakfast—bacon half-cooked, oatmeal clumped like coprolite. All the years after I say, “Nothing human disgusts me.” The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Syria, Yemen, El Salvador, Chile, the Balkans, Ukraine. Tibetan monasteries burned and the world watched making excuses. I crouched down behind a car parked in West Philly, police chasing a suspect. Apparently he had run a stop sign, maybe his tail light was burned out. Bullets flew everywhere as in Vietnam. One of the cops rounded the corner of a church, the minister doing yard work, and he was shot and killed, God’s work undone. There were no repercussions for the police. A friend told me of her neighbor down the hall, a young student at the university who allowed the police to enter her apartment, apparently looking through the building for someone they needed to find. The cops told the young woman to strip, searching for drugs I suppose. I was told they watched her stripped naked for a long while, told her she had nothing to worry about since they were both married. Nothing human disgusts me except today, and yesterday, and I imagine tomorrow where everything human disgusts me.
Dale Ritterbusch is the author of three collections of poetry. He recently retired as a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He was twice selected to be the Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of English & Fine Arts at the United States Air Force Academy.