By Simon Rich
so a guy walks into a bar one day and he can’t believe his eyes. There, in the corner, there’s this one-foot-tall man, in a little tuxedo, playing a tiny grand piano.
So the guy asks the bartender, “Where’d he come from?”
And the bartender’s, like, “There’s a genie in the men’s room who grants wishes.”
So the guy runs into the men’s room and, sure enough, there’s this genie. And the genie’s, like, “Your wish is my command.” So the guy’s, like, “O.K., I wish for world peace.” And there’s this big cloud of smoke—and then the room fills up with geese.
So the guy walks out of the men’s room and he’s, like, “Hey, bartender, I think your genie might be hard of hearing.”
And the bartender’s, like, “No kidding. You think I wished for a twelve-inch pianist?”
So the guy processes this. And he’s, like, “Does that mean you wished for a twelve-inch penis?”
And the bartender’s, like, “Yeah. Why, what did you wish for?”
And the guy’s, like, “World peace.”
So the bartender is understandably ashamed.
And the guy orders a beer, like everything is normal, but it’s obvious that something has changed between him and the bartender.
And the bartender’s, like, “I feel like I should explain myself further.”
And the guy’s, like, “You don’t have to.”
But the bartender continues, in a hushed tone. And he’s, like, “I have what’s known as penile dysmorphic disorder. Basically, what that means is I fixate on my size. It’s not that I’m small down there. I’m actually within the normal range. Whenever I see it, though, I feel inadequate.”
And the guy feels sorry for him. So he’s, like, “Where do you think that comes from?”
And the bartender’s, like, “I don’t know. My dad and I had a tense relationship. He used to cheat on my mom, and I knew it was going on, but I didn’t tell her. I think it’s wrapped up in that somehow.”
And the guy’s, like, “Have you ever seen anyone about this?”
And the bartender’s, like, “Oh, yeah, I started seeing a therapist four years ago. But she says we’ve barely scratched the surface.”
So, at around this point, the twelve-inch pianist finishes up his sonata. And he walks over to the bar and climbs onto one of the stools. And he’s, like, “Listen, I couldn’t help but overhear the end of your conversation. I never told anyone this before, but my dad and I didn’t speak the last ten years of his life.”
And the bartender’s, like, “Tell me more about that.” And he pours the pianist a tiny glass of whiskey.
And the twelve-inch pianist is, like, “He was a total monster. Beat us all. Told me once I was an accident.”
And the bartender’s, like, “That’s horrible.”
And the twelve-inch pianist shrugs. And he’s, like, “You know what? I’m over it. He always said I wouldn’t amount to anything, because of my height? Well, now look at me. I’m a professional musician!”
And the pianist starts to laugh, but it’s a forced kind of laughter, and you can see the pain behind it. And then he’s, like, “When he was in the hospital, he had one of the nurses call me. I was going to go see him. Bought a plane ticket and everything. But before I could make it back to Tampa . . .”
And then he starts to cry. And he’s, like, “I just wish I’d had a chance to say goodbye to my old man.”
And all of a sudden there’s this big cloud of smoke—and a beat-up Plymouth Voyager appears!
And the pianist is, like, “I said ‘old man,’ not ‘old van’!”
And everybody laughs. And the pianist is, like, “Your genie’s hard of hearing.”
And the bartender says, “No kidding. You think I wished for a twelve-inch pianist?”
And as soon as the words leave his lips he regrets them. Because the pianist is, like, “Oh, my God. You didn’t really want me.”
And the bartender’s, like, “No, it’s not like that.” You know, trying to backpedal.
And the pianist smiles ruefully and says, “Once an accident, always an accident.” And he drinks all of his whiskey.
And the bartender’s, like, “Brian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
And the pianist smashes his whiskey glass against the wall and says, “Well, I didn’t mean that.”
And the bartender’s, like, “Whoa, calm down.”
And the pianist is, like, “Fuck you!” And he’s really drunk, because he’s only one foot tall and so his tolerance for alcohol is extremely low. And he’s, like, “Fuck you, asshole! Fuck you!”
And he starts throwing punches, but he’s too small to do any real damage, and eventually he just collapses in the bartender’s arms.
And suddenly he has this revelation. And he’s, like, “My God, I’m just like him. I’m just like him.” And he starts weeping.
And the bartender’s, like, “No, you’re not. You’re better than he was.”
And the pianist is, like, “That’s not true. I’m worthless!”
And the bartender grabs the pianist by the shoulders and says, “Damn it, Brian, listen to me! My life was hell before you entered it. Now I look forward to every day. You’re so talented and kind and you light up this whole bar. Hell, you light up my whole life. If I had a second wish, you know what it would be? It would be for you to realize how beautiful you are.”
And the bartender kisses the pianist on the lips.
So the guy, who’s been watching all this, is surprised, because he didn’t know the bartender was gay. It doesn’t bother him; it just catches him off guard, you know? So he goes to the bathroom, to give them a little privacy. And there’s the genie.
So the guy’s, like, “Hey, genie, you need to get your ears fixed.”
And the genie’s, like, “Who says they’re broken?” And he opens the door, revealing the happy couple, who are kissing and gaining strength from each other.
And the guy’s, like, “Well done.”
And then the genie says, “That bartender’s tiny penis is going to seem huge from the perspective of his one-foot-tall boyfriend.”
And the graphic nature of the comment kind of kills the moment.
And the genie’s, like, “I’m sorry. I should’ve left that part unsaid. I always do that. I take things too far.”
And the guy’s, like, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just grab a beer. It’s on me.” ♦
Yasser Abu Jamei, the director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (G.C.M.H.P.), was not with his extended family when, around dinnertime, an air strike leveled their three-story home in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. Three stories might sound lavish for a single family, but more than two dozen relatives shared this house. Arrangements like this are typical in Gaza—usually one floor for each adult sibling’s family. A number of members of the extended Abu Jamei family had left for the southern Gaza Strip earlier that day. It was thought to be safer. From the rubble, the bodies of nineteen children and three pregnant women were pulled out. In total, twenty-eight of Yasser’s relatives had been killed, the most in a single air strike in this war so far.
I know Yasser Abu Jamei well because my father, Dr. Eyad Sarraj, was his manager, mentor, fellow-countryman, and friend. My father was the Gaza Strip’s first psychiatrist and the founder of the G.C.M.H.P. He passed away, earlier this year, after living with multiple myeloma for longer than his doctors expected. I worked alongside him between 2009 and 2014. During these years, he was at his worst, physically, but his optimism was irrepressible. Gaza attracts a broad spectrum of visitors, and my father’s reputation as an “independent” and largely accessible interlocutor led many to his home. Whether it was for breaking the siege with a fleet of boats from Cyprus, planting trees to beautify the Strip, organizing a cleanup of the beach, or providing a dinner and neutral zone for dignitaries to eat fish along with Gaza’s sidelined leaders, he was almost certainly on board. Gaza was his home, the beach his back garden. He wanted Gaza to be, well, nice.
Hearing the news about the Abu Jamei family brought me back to the constant dilemma, for families like ours, of whether to stay or go. If my father were alive today, he would stay put. This is in spite of his possession of a British passport, the only document that might get a Palestinian in Gaza to safety during times like these. The stand that he took in this regard always caused me great distress. Watching Israel bomb Gaza in 2009 from afar—at the time, I lived in England—my brother and I urged our father to leave. By 2012, I was in Gaza and, during Operation Pillar of Defense that November, I would declare to him that, in the case of a ground invasion, the whole family would have to leave. He would never respond, and his silence hurt me deeply. At that point, I would get up from his bedside—the bed which, during his illness, had become his office—trying to suppress my resentment. He finally admitted that he couldn’t leave Gaza; he simply couldn’t. It was unthinkable. I began to wonder about the responsibilities of parents who commit themselves to jobs for money, for ambition, or to provide a comfortable life. Was my father’s case the same? Was it different? Operation Pillar of Defense came to a halt the day before the evacuation that I had organized for the family. The question of a father’s duty was placed on hold.
The G.C.M.H.P. isn’t only a center for providing treatment for the cyclical traumas of Gaza’s society, which has been subjected to three wars in the past six years alone. It has also, from its founding, trained Gaza’s future mental-health practitioners. This was an area that my father—the president of the G.C.M.H.P. until his death, though he retired after the 2009 war—took great interest in, not merely from a professional perspective but also as he considered the future of his land and people. It’s no secret that, on its current course of blockade and occupation, Gaza’s trajectory is bleak. How could he instill hope—hope that he had maintained a particular talent for—in these “rising stars”? Perhaps the hardest part was convincing them to stay. But, of course, Yasser Abu Jamei, like the rest of Gaza, did not stay because of my father. He stayed because, unlike my father but like the 1.8 million Palestinians he and G.C.M.H.P. tend to, he doesn’t have the luxury of choosing to leave.
A few years ago, during a video conference call with colleagues in the West Bank, I was asked if I was related to Dr. Eyad Sarraj. I answered that he was my father. The questioner responded, “He is the father of all Palestinians!” During my time in Gaza, I was always curious to see how my father responded to his reputation, and how he managed his relations with attachés, U.N. chiefs, and world leaders, retired or otherwise. His intuitive analysis of Palestine was filled with the richness of a life lived there—one that the U.N. representatives et al could never quite appreciate, despite their multitudes of official reports and data sets. The world leaders would arrive at our home in armored convoys while their security personnel took up “strategic” positions, straining their necks to talk discreetly into their communication devices. When you are this close to power, it is hard to avoid the seductive impression that you are at the very center of change. Even Tony Blair, the Quartet on the Middle East’s peace envoy and ultimate change maker, was a phone call away from my father. But then the violence would resume. The personal meetings that had gone so well, the ones where visitors listened so carefully and shared our concerns so sympathetically, were quickly flattened into messages calling for all sides to show “restraint.”
Local Palestinians would ask my father what the future held for Gaza. He always answered, often suggesting that Obama would “green-light” something that would lay the groundwork for the lifting of the blockade. My father was right to assign the key decisions to the United States. He was, as it turned out, wrong to place his hopes in Obama. But that judgment misses the point. My father’s was a case of pathological optimism. And his positive regard for visiting activists and researchers comforted and energized not just him but everyone around him, especially his successors at G.C.M.H.P., Abu Jamei among them.
My father was a mental-health professional first and a peacemaker second. The lines he drew between his roles (chosen or not) were naturally blurred. What drew them together and persisted in him, though, was his hope. It was infectious, but above all it was comforting—comforting during a time of absolute powerlessness: a powerlessness felt by all, but perhaps by no one more than the Palestinians of Gaza, something my father understood and, in his small ways, sought to treat.
Even now, after the bombing, Yasser tells me that he will try to steer G.C.M.H.P. on the path that Dr. Eyad, as he was invariably called, set. Some observers might call this typical steadfastness, or samoud: a sort of mystical quality often used to describe Palestinians, particularly at times like these. But it doesn’t seem honest to speak of steadfastness, really. Rather, it’s a question of Yasser and the many other mental-health practitioners who will be so needed in the wake of yet another war, who have no choice but to stay in Gaza and deal with unspeakable tragedies not only in other’s lives but in their own, honoring my father’s mission as they do so. That’s not steadfastness or samoud. That’s life.
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