Me Three

Madman

By Mark Grueter

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It was around midnight; we were fleeing Dunkin’ Donuts after my accomplice Nathan Wind had what I thought was just another trivial exchange of unfriendly words with some proud, red-faced local. Now we were looking for a place to finish off the unsafe amount of malt liquor we’d managed to procure. On this particular occasion, I was designated to do the driving, and this would prove relevant - apparently the troll-like DD clerk (evil bastard) called the cops on us. Two cruisers came up on my rear - I was fucked. It all happened very fast, but the string of events that followed will never be purged from my pixilated memory.

There were four of us in the rig and as Officer A approached the vehicle, Wind, with astonishing suddenness, jumped out of the car from the back seat. Ostentatiously holding up a cell phone, he announced to the world, “I’ve got the ACLU on speed dial!” They might have shot him. He did not hesitate, strutting around the car and demanding that both Officers A and B provide their “name, rank and serial number,” while emphatically declaring that we were being wrongfully harassed. The next thing I knew, I was being told to have a good night and to drive safely. The madman Wind had evidently scared the poor amateurs away from the scene, and thus bailed me out of a certain DWI, almost as soon as he had thrust it upon me.

This is not an atypical episode in the vertiginous career of Nathan Wind. And there can be no worthy account of his life without a survey of his notorious confrontations with the authorities. He has been arrested on numerous occasions and has spent at least one night behind bars. His main complaint about arrests is that they are “arbitrary.” We were young men when most of this occurred; Wind was 18 or 19 and I was 20 or 21.

During ‘Spring Fling’ at Plymouth State College (the “communications vacuum” where Wind attended school for awhile) in 1997, he fomented a spontaneous riot against campus and community police forces - political reasons were cited. Furniture was set ablaze and tossed out of windows, bottles were launched into the abyss of uniformed stooges, and a standoff ensued. I recall the enemy closing in - Wind ferociously imploring his comrades to “hold the line” - but we did not, and a cop whacked him on the head with a Billy club. Maybe we didn’t believe in the cause as much as he did. This fracas was actually reported nationally; the administrators, the politicians, the citizenry, the press and the parents all sided with the cops.

Equipped with pure Irish blood, a butt, a beer, a bag of weed, a brain and a big mouth, the 6-foot-3, 230-pounder is a walking anachronism, and the embodiment of controversy. Wind’s appetite for everything is insatiable. He gets through doors with his rugged good looks, beaming personality and seeming intellect. Once inside, though, unassuming people begin to realize that Wind is not your average guest; there is something impish and affected about the way he talks that invites suspicion - and this is when he’s being real. When he is intending to mock, ridicule and/or entertain, the absurd energy and enthusiasm Wind puts into his hysterical performances make it impossible for an on-looker to miss Wind’s lack of seriousness.

He bellows out a vision unparalleled in confidence and optimism. He has endless plans, and he details them as if their imminent fruition were certain. Recently, Wind aborted his aspirations of becoming a naval officer and instead spoke matter-of-factly of attending Harvard graduate school. One week later he abandoned this idea and was slated to begin his studies at Andover Law School.

By the end of that week, Wind was talking earnestly of running for Congress. His platform called for the construction of a casino (primarily for “high-rollers”) to be built in the Balsams, an opulent and famous New Hampshire resort that hosted the 1944 Bretton Wood meeting. Jetsetters will flock in droves, he says, because of both the superlative culinary skills of Balsams’ chefs and the gorgeous New Hampshire scenery. If we tax the casino at 10%, the state will pull in “700 million dollars annually, according to my figures.” These revenues would be used to save the public school system by obviating the need to institute a statewide income or property tax. Or so Wind would have us believe.

In many ways, Wind is the quintessential vulgar American. He wastes little time feigning superiority to the opposite sex - he used to describe loose, fat girls as “slam pigs” and he talks casually of “annexing trim.” But alas, Wind assures me that girls secretly like this sort of thing.

He dismisses all contemporary European music as “Euro-trash” and will slide into a burlesque impersonation of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke if he senses any fans in the room. He has never traveled abroad (unless we count Montreal strip clubs) and almost never leaves New Hampshire or Massachusetts. After once visiting Louisiana, he swore off the south, wishing that they had indeed seceded. He thinks America (particularly the northeast and California I presume) is, quite simply, the best country ever, while emulating Mark Twain’s attitude toward Europe - a bunch of snobs with a phony high culture. He has a folksy disposition; Wind loves to engage strangers directly and I have no reason to doubt his intentions aren’t genuine: “I’m a man of the people,” he asserts.

Yet he eventually repulses (and is repulsed by) most of the people he comes into contact with. Wind’s coarsely philistine and populist persona contrasts interestingly with an elitist contempt for “rubes,” “Bible thumpers,” and the “average American slob.” He will rail with eloquence against the decrepit state of American politics/culture and the evils of unfettered capitalism, or laud the wonders of jazz and classical music, along with esteemed literature: “Most Americans think Shakespeare is a golf club,” he sighs. He can improvise profound historical and political analysis (nobody knows where he finds time to read between benders and rabble-rousing) and, almost single-handedly, he converted me from conservative to radical politics during college - a feat accomplished in the course of marathon evenings, arguing over 30-packs of Busch “Heavy” and an occasional joint. Wind is a Massachusetts liberal, aligning himself with famed politicians like Tip O’Neill, the Kennedys and even the eccentric crook James Michael Curley.

He has a boozy, confrontational style that turns most observers off. But this style is not without merit - it has the capacity to upset and unmask poseurs, like the ones that inhabit our hometown of Londonderry. These types of people typically react to Wind’s antics with a sheep-like silence, before roaming off to an easier conversation. They deserve Wind though (and perhaps he deserves them). A dose of conflict and disruption is precisely what some people need in their otherwise complacent lives. They try to isolate themselves from all the problems of the world - they just want things to be nice and pleasant. They hope characters like Wind would just die off, so that they’re not reminded of the aspects of life that threaten the status quo. Stability, order, settling-down, agreement, compromise and conformity (essentially, all the things that Wind and I have come to hate) are values that triumph in claustrophobic suburbia.

I can scarcely forget St. Patrick’s Day 1999. After fortifying ourselves with a few Guinness Drafts here and a couple of Jameson shots there, I thought it might be interesting for Wind and I to drive over to Thomas More College (a religious school that is “not even accredited” according to Wind) - Patrick Buchanan, part-time resident of New Hampshire since late 1991, was scheduled to make a speech there. Buchanan was promoting his latest book on US foreign policy, and campaigning for President.

Wind kept his cool during the talk, but things took a painful turn when the Q and A began. After being jeered at by the other 30 or so members of the audience for sparring with “Pat” over Strategic Defense Initiative, Wind sat impatiently as we listened to the next two questions: a high-school aged lad asked Buchanan if he had read The Federalist Papers, and then an elderly woman asked Buchanan what he would do about the damn illegal immigrants coming up from Mexico (as if everybody in the room didn’t already know the answer).

Immediately following the inquiry, Wind sat bolt upright and, in one of those painfully breathless, touch and go moments, asked the woman why she cared so much about Mexican immigration, seeing as how it did not affect her own life in New Hampshire. After a series of boos and some animal sounds from the mob, two thugs came over to escort Wind out of the place. As he was being dragged out, Wind shouted and pointed, “This is a farce. Dummies. You people make me laugh. Grueter, let’s get the hell out of here.” We got the hell out of there, fast.

Again with a touch of irony, Wind invokes Sam Rayburn (“nobody ever learned nothin’ from talkin’”), and he dismisses commentators that mirror his own style as “blowhards” or “loud mouth malcontents.” Upon reflection, this attitude fits in well with our subject’s contradictory disposition. By lashing out on those who seem familiar to him, he is, in a way, criticizing himself and effectively recognizing the limitations of his own obnoxious approach. It is Wind’s version of catharsis, triggered by self-loathing. When I consider this, I sometimes think I appreciate Nathan Wind - and all he represents - more than he does. Perhaps it is more enjoyable to be a spectator to this type of lifestyle than to actually live it.

Wind’s relationship with his family is remarkable because it is both highly dysfunctional and oddly endearing. One night, as I entered his parent’s house, I ducked a flying chicken-bone, thrown by Wind and meant for his father. As I shunned the airborne remains, Wind yelled to his dad, “You don’t have a bone of class in your whole body!” Fights like these are the norm in Wind’s family. These people are alive though. They can call each other every name in the book and then sit down for supper and conversation. For better or worse, it is a sign of the strength of their bonds. What matters is that they communicate. I think I’d prefer it to my relations with my own folks, where things are usually kept at an unbearable room temperature.

These days, Wind is enrolled in a third-tier MBA program (the same guy that used to ruthlessly deride “busyness” majors), but he says he is moving to LA soon “with a few Plymouth State College pacifists.” This latest development came after he was fired from his job at a hardware dock for sabotaging equipment and faking a shoulder injury to receive workman’s compensation. (He is further rumored to be writing a novel on the plight of the American worker).

In the end, it is fascinating to watch Wind, often unwittingly, shock and offend the more reserved and pretentious elements of our society. Some say he is nothing more than the asshole that yells “fire” into a crowded theater. But I prefer to think everybody else at the show is asleep, and the theater really is burning to the ground.

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Mark Grueter lives in New York City, where he is pursuing his Masters in Liberal Studies at the New School University's Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science. He can be contacted at [email protected].