BOYS AND OLD MEN

Even the president is now interested in the black box of our brain where things happen whether we want them to or not.  Or whether we even know they just happened/are happening, which could be an advantage.  I wanted to speculate a bit about “ethology”, the study of animal behavior, and I wanted to focus on young males in the transition between childhood and sexual maturity -- not complete maturity because I’m not sure that’s a state that’s ever reached in humans.  

The latest twist on that category is that these days we are said to have two middle-ages:  early and late.  (They always choose inspiring names, eh?  At least they’re easy to remember, unlike the 19^th century practice of using Latin.)  I guess it’s a recognition of something like mid-life crisis, in which some men have either earned the basics or have passed their physical prime -- or given that they are human, the culture around them has changed enough that they may have to change jobs or the way they do them.

Let’s go back.  When male children of any species begin to be sexual, their behavior is not yet useful to the group because they can create progeny that they can’t defend, so they’re in a sort of limbo, a drain on the rest.  In most species, including humans, they will clump up into a group of young bachelors, who have adventures while they learn skills and try to dominate each other until a pecking order emerges.  For males, pecking orders are emotionally crucial.  For evolution, pecking orders are key.

Let’s go back again.  Plants are the ultimate prey, the base of the food chain -- algae and grass.  But next up the food chain is the animal prey: the grazers who always form groups and herds and prairie dog villages, which have populations that turn over all the time as some are devoured and others mature.  They don’t usually die of old age. The weak or ill or malformed or simply different (white crows) sometimes get thrown out or at least crowded to the edge where they are easy to stalk.  The ones that are speedy, stick together, eat-fast/digest-later, and sleep in the middle of the day in some secret place, survive longer.  But their real secret of success is to breed and breed and breed until they have eaten Australia.  Also, they have bulgy eyes and look out the sides of their heads like birds.

Now the predators who eat other animals.  They tend to be loners (big cats) unless they are hunting herds on grasslands where it helps to have a pack (canines and lions) that can cut individuals out of the mass.  Cats have binocular vision because their eyes are in the front of their heads like apes, which helps to climb trees and judge distance, so they can drop on their prey.  Lions are whole families and cheetahs are fast.  You could build a workshop for humans around that.  ("What’s your cat type?")  Because humans, like grizzlies and pigs, will eat anything and so it helps to have a variety of types within the species.  The more animals can exploit a variety of prey-niches, the more the species is likely to succeed.  In fact, under some conditions, predator animals will eat each other.  Hoofed animals do that only when they have given birth and are ingesting a placenta.

But prey animals, like horses or buffalo, will kill their rivals without eating them.  The rivals who suffer are those that are lesser endowed. (However that’s defined -- always remember that gorillas have small “packages” and their work is protecting the group, which they do mostly by making an intimidating hullabaloo.) Youngest males and oldest males are easily discarded by the group.  Old males often become solitary and hide out for their own protection.  Cassowaries in the New Guinea jungle and bison on the federal Moiese, Montana, bison range both do this.  On the buffalo roundup, riders are told to use caution around the brushy coulee bottoms and, if they see an old bull there, just note him and leave him alone. They’re bad tempered -- what do they have to lose?

Old male humans also find places to lay-up and can be cranky if disturbed.  My great-grandfather, widowed, tried to live with my grandfather’s family but made so much trouble he had to be asked to leave.  He died in an SRO hotel in Minneapolis as though he were alcoholic or an ex-felon when his only crime was a bad temper.  He was a skilled and educated man.  His wife, when she was diagnosed with cancer, had gone to her sisters in Oklahoma who took care of her and tolerated him.   I don’t know why it is almost comforting to think about family matters in this abstract, analytical way.  Nor do I understand why there is a strong taboo in most families about ever admitting anything of the kind when the patterns are clearly so natural in the most literal sense.  

Much of modern urban human vulnerability seems to come from the loss of the extended family that was natural in previous economic arrangements.  It’s a loss of social habitat.  Often extended rural families had room for immature boys and troublesome old men.  There was space on land for them to keep busy away from each other.  I’m impressed when I stop at a Hutterite colony to buy vegetables.  The communities have a strong sense of order and roles.  When you park, an old man or two will come out to meet you, to see what you want.  Always there are satellite boys who might boldly accompany the old man, or might be hanging around the edges of buildings so they can step back to be hidden.  Evidently it depends on the personality of the old man and how much your appearance makes the boys curious.

Once one of these boys took refuge with two alcoholic old men in my neighborhood but the boy’s father came to try to make him go home.  The ruckus of shouting and slamming attracted me and I went to see what was happening the way a cat will attend any commotion in case of mice running out.  The mice were emotions between the boy and his father -- there was no violence -- waves of desperate defiance and accusation on the part of the boy and helpless yearning on the part of the father.  The deputy sheriff came and took over so I don’t know what finally happened.  I suppose I can make it into a short story, because writers are always predators.  (Sometimes prey.)

If I were writing it as a short story and wanted to make it realistic, I would tell how the boy left walking on the highway, ended up in the underworld of Denver, got hooked on drugs, was killed in a holdup at a convenience store where the clerk was not much older than he was, but the clerk was from a foreign country where waves of war had taught children about lethal defense. So he was alert and armed.  Neither boy would ever have a middle age, let alone two middle ages.  Who’s fault is it?  Why is that relevant anyway?