Donald Weber
Dispatch #17
Today myself and my residency sister Benthe1 presented our works and projects to a small gathering of people. There was an older man in the audience, grey hair, grey beard, who came up to me afterwards with a big smile on his face. He grabbed my hand and thrust it into his meaty palm and began shaking me up and down like I was an axe.
“WHAT IS YOUR NAME!” He shouted. He spoke in shouts; not screaming shouts but shouts of enthusiasm.
I thought it was odd that he asked me my name, because I started my presentation with a slide that had my name in bold Helvetica font: DONALD WEBER, it said. Plus, my name was on the poster and I presume the other marketing materials. But he asked, and I obliged.
“Donald,” I said.
He shouted back: “WHAT IS YOUR LAST NAME!”
“…Weber…?” I hesitantly whispered.
By this point I was wondering if I was correct; maybe it’s a strange Slovak greeting where people ask you your name and you’re supposed to reply with a fake name or something. If anything, I have learned that there are some peculiar customs here, but we leave that for another dispatch.
“THAT’S RIGHT!” He said.
I know, I thought.
“BUT YOU ARE NOT THAT DONALD WEBER!”
No, I’m not I thought. But I could be? Who knows which one I am — all I know is that I am a Donald and I am a Weber. But which one?
So I said: “I am one of them.”
He laughed. A big HAR-HAR!
And then again: “BUT YOU ARE NOT DONALD WEBER!”
Oh, no! Could it be after all this time I have been living under false pretences; does this man know more than I or my mother? Am I really Duncan — the name I was supposed to be until tragedy got in the way of my parents’ plans?
Just as I was doubting my own veracity, he then asked: “YOU ARE NOT AMERICAN! HAR-HAR!”
Har-har, no! I am Canadian. But… forget it, it’s a long story, I thought. And then I recalled: I never did say where I was from; all I mentioned was that I came from Finland, in my car… but nothing about my home and native land. Who is this man? Why does he know things about me, like my name and nation status?
“I KNOW DONALD WEBER!”
Are you peering into my soul, I thought. Do you know me…? How uncomfortable; not sure if you’ve ever had anyone, with your hand still in theirs, pull you forward within intimate murder distance and shout/whisper in hot breath — I know you.
My god, I thought! What does all this mean? Am I in an apparition, or just inside an over-baked room with a few pastries and leftover tea? It was too early for such philosophical shenanigans, and, besides, if I wanted my soul to be dispatched I was planning on that happening in some other environment, not on the second floor of a gallery space in Trenčín (no offence, Trenčín) at 10:30 in the morning of a grey and dull Saturday.
“DONALD WEBER WAS IN THE PEACE CORPS! HAR-HAR!”
Oh?
“YOU ARE A YOUNG MAN!”
Oh!
I haven’t heard that in awhile. Last week while eating Szegedinsky Goulash my chef-host mistook me for being 73. A year prior, out for brunch with my step-father and one of his friends — yes, I am going to name and shame him here: Steve Perkins of Alton Bay, New Hampshire, you know who you are — thought I was my mother’s brother! Reader, my mom is 79 (granted, a youthful and ebony-skinned 79, but still a) my mother! And b) a full 26 years older than I!) As you can imagine, this has rattled me for a year and shaken my already-tentative relationship with my slow-metabolizing body. So when a laughing, shouting man in his golden years does not recognize you as a member of his community and says “YOU ARE A YOUNG MAN!” you perk up.
It’s true, I thought: goddamn you Steve Perkins and Ala the Szegidinsky Chef, I am still a young man! (The goulash was great, though).
In this sweet reverie, he then made a claim that I couldn’t refute: “YOU WOULD NEVER BE IN PEACE CORPS LIKE DONALD WEBER!”
Well, no. I am not an American citizen. But what did he mean, what was the point of this, and where was he headed? Do I have a doppelgänger, another me but a more altruistic one?
As it turns out, sadly, no, there isn’t another me. But in the 1990s, there was another Donald Weber living in Trenčín for a year. A Peace Corps volunteer whom my laughing new friend fondly recalled. When he saw the flyer that said DONALD WEBER is going to be presenting his work, he thought: hot damn, I loved that guy! And he’s back in Trenčín after all this time! May we have some Borovička together! He was thrilled to reconnect with a man with whom he clearly had a fondness for.
“BUT YOU ARE NOT DONALD WEBER! HAR-HAR!”
“Har-har!” It was worthy of such a guffaw. I am not Donald Weber.
Marit Benthe Norheim, a Norwegian artist living in Denmark. Please check her work out: this woman MADE HER OWN BOATS! She made camper vans that are still driving around! Incredible. All of it.