A Book Review of
Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
By Fredric Jameson
To cover Jameson’s entire text, Postmodernism, is to essentially try and explain one’s surroundings and behaviors in Western culture (in particular the United States) since the Industrial Revolution. That is to say, that Fredric Jameson successfully does this; covering chapter by chapter everything from literature to architecture, and the changing attitudes in everything from Utopia to culture and even film and video (television). Jameson opens the text with an introduction, neither disavowing nor promoting the idea of postmodernism. Instead, Jameson addresses areas in which he sees evidence of a break from the Modernist period, or what he calls “high-modernism.” In an attempt to define what postmodernism might be, and to prove to skeptics that it exists, Jameson has focused on the differences between our own period, postmodernism, and the Modernist period that spans approximately from 1880 to the 1930’s (sometimes referred to the one hundred year period since the Industrial Revolution). This book, although primarily consisting of theory, does have tremendous implications on social behavior, in particular the development of culture under global capitalism. This book, having begun with Jameson’s first essay on postmodernism published in 1984, predicts and sets the stage for what is commonly referred to now as Globalization. In this pre-internet text, Jameson refers to this global system in a few ways: Late Capitalism, Third Stage Capitalism, and Multinational Capitalism. In addressing the symptoms of Late Capitalism seen in Western culture, Jameson’s Marxist point of view becomes clear. Much of the text is spent referring back to “commodity fetishism,” “division of labor,” and a bureaucratic concept of time; the text does this in order to explain how Late Capitalism has affected the psychology of subjects in Western culture. This logic of late capitalism is what Jameson identifies as postmodernism. This review of the book will consolidate, and make commentary, on the social implications of these symptoms, and finally relate the concepts directly to our current state, known as Globalization.
In the introduction, Jameson first informs the reader of the problem in historicizing ourselves within our own period. The problem, he says, is not only that we cannot identify a clear and unique characteristic of our own postmodern behavior, but that we are so obsessed with that idea of encapsulating and labeling ourselves that our past becomes disjointed from us, making our relationship to that past irrelevant to us (xxii). He looks at this obsession of quantifying our time as “schizophrenic” in nature (xxii). This problem is addressed later in the chapters on literature and film, in which the narration of our own history gets projected in those mediums, often affecting social outcomes and society’s perception of reality itself. This problem of how postmodern society views time is addressed throughout the book, occasionally referring back to Marx’s idea of commodity, and invoking in the sociologists mind, Weber’s concern with the work clock.
The first chapter of the book, coming from Jameson’s first essay on the topic in 1984, is titled The Culture of Late Capitalism. This original essay focuses on the behaviors of what might be called a postmodern period. Jameson sees the culture responding to an overwhelming feeling that things are coming to an end. This can, and often does, mean that people become preoccupied with the idea of Armageddon, the End Times, and so on, but Jameson is not limiting our culture only to this symptom. Since the 1950’s, the period in which Jameson begins to see postmodernism emerge, people anticipate the end of Communism, the end of definitive social classes (within the constructs of the American Dream), and perhaps the end of ideology itself (1). The end of ideology is expressed in the artist’s cynicism that nothing new may be created, or ‘it has all been done before.’ The focus on art in culture is important because the any period of literature and art (Romanticism, Victorian, Modernist) has largely been defined by the art that period has produced and the social implications of that art. Jameson’s concern is that in postmodern times, less and less emphasis is placed on these types of achievements (artistic) and more emphasis is placed on technological advancements that increase efficiency of production on the macro scale (Industry) and on the micro scale (the family). Another problem is that the art postmodernists tend to develop is either meaningless or simply too abstract to assign any social meaning to it. Many postmodern artists do this on purpose in order to avoid being pigeonholed into a genre or classification. This in and of itself is a symptom of postmodernism, where the attempt to avoid classification becomes its own classification. Other examples of this will be covered later on. Without larger understandings of how this or that particular work of art situates itself into society, and what it says about society, the image (painting) or idea (literature) can only function on a superficial and surface level—lacking entirely social and historic significance.
Jameson views this “break” from Industrial to “postindustrial society,” as being “designated by consumer society, media society, information society, electronic society…and the like” (3). This transition becomes important in explaining the function of cynicism in the older Modernist period because it feeds the cynicism in postmodernism that prevents us from labeling ourselves definitively within our place in time. As the middle class rose in strength here in the United States as well as in Europe in the Industrial Revolution, the people rejected ideas of master narratives, or state issued accounts of our history (i.e. how we are to represent ourselves). This challenge to the state power is seen in the art and literature throughout this period. Jameson reminds the reader of this, to make apparent the origin of our current postmodern cynicism that prevents us from accepting a master narrative, forever limiting our representation of ourselves in that time (which again, defines us as such). The problem, Jameson feels, with rejecting this all-encompassing description or narrative, is that it is only within a consensus or “hegemonic norm that genuine difference could be measured and assessed” (6). How can we separate our own time/period/era from that of the Modernists if there is no consensus on what it is we are doing and why? This is where Marx’s idea of ideology comes in to play. We do not know what it is we are doing that is any different than before, but we need to attempt to understand our subject position to the larger global system in which we operate, if we are ever to understand our role in a historical narrative.
This envisioning, or “cognitive mapping,” is another problem Jameson sees developing in the postmodern mind. Our obsessional division of time coupled with our need to assign definitive images (simulacrum) to periods and cultures has made the mental filing process difficult in a world economic system (5-6). One hundred years ago, the average person would only need to map in their minds a regional area spanning a dozen or so square miles (if that) and a small economic system (local market and so on). Jameson argues that in an expanding multinational economy and with ever expanding military operations around the world, it becomes difficult for the average person to understand their place in this larger system (5). The result is that revolutions become paralyzed, seen as an insignificant mise en scene, in the larger global system (5). Again, the general sentiment is, ‘it’s all been done before,’ and ‘how cute, another uprising.’ In fact, all movements and ideologies in postmodernism immediately get reduced to fad upon being identified in society. This is a direct result of the “schizophrenic” labeling, quantifying, and reification of ideas. This process essentially makes any idea and/or movement a commodity.
Jameson spends some time in chapter 1 describing the differences in artwork coming from both the high-modernist (Industrial) age, and the postmodern (postindustrial) age (8-18). He compares the paintings of van Gogh to Andy Warhol, when looking and portraits of footwear through the last 100 years. The purpose behind this comparison is to once again give example of how postmodern images are without any social commentary lying underneath. Van Gogh’s painting as well as many others from the Modernist (Industrial) age, used representations of torn and tattered work boots to give commentary of a larger social context (conditions of exploited workers). The Andy Warhol painting Diamond Dust Shoes was merely an interesting look at many women’s shoes, perhaps in a shop window (8-18). An argument can be made that because Warhol’s painting looked just like an advertisement, the painting could be understood as a commentary on advertising. The bottom line is that there is no consensus for this assertion and hence the painting gets reduced to ‘just an image,’ or ‘just a commodity,’ hence ‘just a fetish’ [Marx].
The removal of sociological relevance and hermeneutic relation from these images extends well beyond paintings and into virtually everything in postmodernism. Photography is guilty of removing the sociological implications of poverty, squalor, wreckage, destruction, war, etc. (30-34). These images become respected for their artistic merit and the historical and sociological significance is ignored. This attitude toward the image, is according to Jameson, a direct result of the logic of late capitalism, commodifying everything we see instantaneously. This is precisely what Marx meant when he addressed the problem of “commodity fetishism.”
The book continues to explore the concept of image in postmodernism through experimental video in the 1970’s. Edward Rankus, working at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, produced a video entitled AlienNATION, in which seemingly random images are placed in succession of each other, signifying nothing for the viewer (79). This art piece, for Jameson, captures succinctly the postmodern attitudes toward the image. The interesting thing about Jameson’s interpretation of this video, is not that the images cannot mean anything to us, but rather that the images contain so many immediate connections to brand names, jingles, commercials, family memories, and even historical context (social class, racism, gender etc.), that our postmodern minds get lost, so to speak, in the connections we are making so immediately. Jameson, never assumes that our postmodern minds are ‘stupid,’ and perhaps incapable of making deep connections, but on the contrary he is saying that the Modernist deconstruction of meanings within a text are so immediate, that we dismiss many of those previously made connections (social class, racism, gender, etc) and move on to try and further disassociate the image into all of its infinite factions and connections. These are what Jameson refers to as “deeply embedded” simulacrum (85). This is a prime example of how a subject can ‘get lost’ in the postmodern age and exhibit “schizophrenic” attachments to stimuli, inhibiting larger social significance to solidify in the subjects mind.
The problem of orientation in the “world economic system” is expressed through the architecture of the postmodern period as well. Jameson sees Spatial Equivalents in the World System, in chapter 4. The exemplary postmodern building for Jameson is the house of a postmodern architect, Frank Gehry. Gehry’s house is an old 1920’s house with red Spanish tiles on the roof. When the house was purchased in the early 1970’s, Gehry decided to keep a portion of the old house in tact, while demolishing the rest and rebuilding a modern addition. The modern part of the house has a glass cube over the kitchen and sharp protruding corrugated metal and fencing surrounding it. The older part of the house is kept in its original 1920’s style, including the furniture. This monstrosity can be seen from the outside as quite a disorienting mess, but from the inside is seen as innovative and stunningly beautiful (97-129). Jameson articulates this embodiment of the postmodern problem:
“In a more articulated way it confronts us with the paradoxical impossibilities (not least the impossibilities of representation) which are inherent in this latest evolutionary mutation of late capitalism toward “something else” which is no longer family or neighborhood, city or state, nor even nation, but as abstract and nonsituated as the placelessness of a room in an international chain of motels or the anonymous space of airport terminals that all run together in your mind.” (116)
This impossibility, of situating our mind in a transitional period that seems to make no consolation for its incongruity, creates a disjunction and isolation of the subject from the whole of the system. A resulting speculation might be deviation from social norms, but even worse is the total lack of a norm to begin with. These earlier stages of Globalization lack the meta-narrative needed to understand our subject position to the larger system. Each piece (person, building, idea) making up the larger system must be categorized as separate in order to prevent disorientation. This requires assigning quick referents (images) to our understanding of things, abandoning any attempt to make sociological connections as the Modernists did; it would simply be too much for our minds to handle (or so we may think). The cry of the Modernist was to “make it new” [Pound] but because this very attitude is seen as a dead discourse assigned to a dead period containing old texts and dead men, its useful application in today’s society is rendered impotent (121). “The problem is still representation,” Jameson says (127). Just as in Gehry’s house, unable to fluidly connect the dots from the old to the new, we see people’s difficulty in representing through the image, an overwhelming “complex global network” that appears to swallow any attempt to reify it (127). To summarize, Frank Gehry’s house is the closest thing people have to a representation of the dialectical problem of cognitive mapping and historical placement of two period antagonisms (high-modernism and postmodernism).
The social implications of this dialectic can also be seen in American’s inability to understand world poverty as it relates to global capitalism. If capitalism works and reasonably sustains families, how can third world poverty conditions exist in capitalist societies, ours included? This idea antagonizes the mind’s eye, where America is situated at the center of technological superiority, abundance and comfort, and yet its system can create such exploitive poverty (128). In order to cope with the problem of orientation in such a complex global system, the postmodern mind can simply ignore social consequence and focus on surface meaning, primarily images. The new concern for spatial and cognitive mapping supersedes phenomenological concerns. Generalities are then made about people in certain cultures, generally reacting certain ways to the market—effects of advertising, fluctuations in economy, popular cultural fads etc. (134-135). This of course is the truth behind demographic research done by large corporations, not the academic concerns of establishing universal truths within cultural studies.
The final and most important social implication of Jameson’s concern with postmodern thought is its connection to Marxist “use-value” (231-235). The central connection between postmodern reification and quantification of periods, images, movements… you name it, removes the social connections and implications of these things on the rest of society, creating a mystery of its “exchange value.” If every idea, image and revolution is seen as remote, isolated and insignificant to the whole system, then “the whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden” (231 [Jameson quoting Marx]). An individual with his/her lifestyle or ideology has no “use-value” but when that individual gains enough members in that revolution or ideology, the movement is quickly assigned a “value or equivalence” (231). In this way, any culture or lifestyle, or social movement, can be assigned to a specific image and sold accordingly, turned into a “commodity fetish.” Examples of this can be seen in every teenager’s choice of social dissidence and rebellion against authority. Any and all forms of rebellion that may have happened organically (punk rock and do-it-yourself culture and the ecological movement known as the Green movement) can be purchased as an image at the local shopping mall in the form of commodities. One only needs to purchase a t-shirt of the Cuban revolutionary Che Gueverra, buy spikes for their clothing or simply a reusable handbag for the grocery store. The only unifying principle behind all of these images (reified principles) becomes global capitalism itself.
When words like “man” or “tree” are used to represent a universal, there is a type of “exchange” (Marxian equivalence) taking place (233). The postmodern mind assigns images and labels for all kinds of people and behaviors but has no universal principle to connect with, other than global capitalism as its underlying system. All of the semi-autonomous ways of thinking (Modernist, postindustrialist, poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, etc) then just become commodities with “exchange values,” within this system (235-240). This is how Jameson makes the connection that global capitalism is indeed a Marxist socialism. No one culture, idea, academic discourse, or politics is revered over another, but only seen as having some “use-value” in the global trading system. “The object thus elected has an impossible role to fulfill because it is both a thing in the world, with a potential value just like all the other things, and something removed from the object world that is called upon, from the outside, to mediate the latter’s new value system” (235). This goes for value systems (morals) held by differing cultures as well. What happens is that a value system in one culture now must be situated with some “exchange value” in relation to the dominant cultural power operating within global capitalism (United States). The values held in the Middle East, in regards to women for instance, are now assigned an ‘exchange value” in regards to our own value system (265). There in lies the problem—equivalence of these reified-simplified representations of these differing cultures is made without regard to their historical and sociological origin.
In our constant dissection of concepts and time into new labels and sub-systems, along with their corresponding-representative images, children get integrated and assimilated into this bureaucratic and “schizophrenic” system, losing all concept of free-play in free-time. Play-dates are arranged and organized down to the minute, from birth to after-school soccer practice. The very idea of freedom and equality can only exist (or be understood) in a system that limits or prohibits it (262-263). The commodifying of time, “time is money,” extends into new territory, where reality itself can be assigned an image and sold. Truth, facts, and information all pulled from “reality” and packaged and sensationalized; brands such as FOX NEWS, CNN, and MSNBC, reify and commodify information to a point that reality itself loses its social impact when delivered through this glossy, postmodern, image-obsessed, commodity obsessed, media format. Films no longer attempt to solidify our social struggles through narrative as the rising middle class once projected themselves into the Victorian novel because the image itself is now king (279-283). Jameson could not have predicted something like the Internet as the solution to this disorientation in the world system, but he speculates throughout the book that technology will in fact make attempts to keep track of all our assigned images. His speculation comes from the use of media (primarily television and film) to assign images for us, to all parts of the world and their corresponding cultures. This, he believes, is perhaps our best attempt at orientation in a postmodern world, however ineffective in its ability to contain all sociological implications. Only in a newly emerging virtual reality, or virtual space (the internet), can the postmodern mind begin to situate itself in this ever increasingly complex world system—facilitated of course through images, on a screen.
Work Cited
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism: Or, The Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press. Durham NC, 1991.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
God's Subsidies Contract [first draft]
God’s Subsidies Contract
Jesse Bentley woke from an unimaginable nightmare. This had been the third time in one week he had the same dream. God, had been trying to communicate with him for sometime now, but for Jesse, the message seemed bleak and horrifying. In the dream, God sat at a large wooden desk in an expensive man’s suit. Next to God stood Jesse’s grandson, David. Jesse’s perception of the room would deepen and his head would hurt when David and a briefcase became visible. As instructed by God, Jesse moved forward in the empty echoing room toward the one mahogany desk, a leather briefcase held by David, and a long fountain pen sitting in an empty cup. As Jesse approached, stepping ever gently on the loud hardwood floors, God would turn to his side and whisper something inaudible to Jesse’s grandson. In the dream, David was a grown man of twenty, with a square jaw and austere posture, carrying with dignity, a bright red tie. Eventually, Jesse made his way to the edge of the desk and stopped moving, looking only at David and never into the eyes of the Lord.
“Yes, my Lord. How can I fulfill my duty as your humble servant?”
God always coughed at this point in the dream. David interpreted each cough like a secret language. David would then turn to his grandfather and deliver God’s instructions.
“The Lord understands that you are having trouble with your farm.”
Jesse would then emphatically shake his head up and down to indicate his agreement, but always averting his eyes. God coughed again.
“The Lord knows that you wish to expand your agribusiness, and the Lord knows how.”
Jesse again shakes uncontrollably, but in this dream, he has no voice, and no ability to speak. It is here, always, that Jesse cries and falls to his knees, clasping his hands together, as he turns to his grandson David and begs for help.
“David, David. Please. Please tell the Lord that I will do anything. The farm must grow. How can I make this land produce an abundance only God can facilitate?”
The final scene—David tells Jesse to give his arm to God. Jesse proudly rolls up his sleeves to reveal the healthy blue veins rushing blood to all the corners of his earthly body. David keeps a stern face as he plunges the fountain pen into Jesse’s arm and extracts the vibrant red into the instrument. Jesse cries with enjoyment. Just before Jesse wakes up and is torn from the cold echoing room with a desk, he hears God speak a deafening and terrifying boom.
“SIGN HERE.”
On this day, March 8, 1929, Jesse Bentley abandoned his bed to splash the dry cracks in his face and stimulate his nerves. He washed and dressed and made his way down to see the blooming buds on his new strawberry crops. The buds had already begun bursting into plump red berries, dripping with dew and glistening with sunlight. Jesse touched the berries with his fingertips as his grandson looked down from the storage barn. David had just finished putting in windows, hoping to turn the attic of the barn into a fully functioning office in time for harvest. When Jesse saw his proud grandson staring down and out of those windows, Jesse felt a surge of gratitude sweep through his body, and he fell to his knees thanking God for all that had been given him. When Jesse wiped the tears from his eyes, he turned to get another look at his proud grandson, but David had turned his back.
The sound of a large truck could be heard coming up the dirt road to the Bentley farm. The truck was carrying a new pesticide that David had suggested they try. Jesse met the man near the new and improved storage barn.
“Sign here,” the man said.
Jesse smiled at the man.
“So, uh, God’s really smilin’ down on us now wouldn’ ya say?”
The man crewed a toothpick and poked at the packing slip with his pen.
“How’d ya figure?”
Jesse breathed the air deep into his lungs and grabbed the pen. He waved the pen about in the air and looked at his strawberries.
“Well, ma crops are bloomin’ early, my grandson’s got some new machines in that are doin’ the work of thirty or so…” Bentley stared at the man a second. “The air’s good an’ crisp. Yes sir, it’s a fine year to be a farmer.”
The man pointed again at the papers.
“Sir, sign please.”
Jesse took the pen and took his time signing the documents with the cursive he had meticulously practiced as a boy. The man stuck the pen behind his ear and closed the gate to his truck.
“You know sir, I’m sure if I can bring up the next shipment unless you start orderin’ a little more o’ this stuff.”
Jesse looked at the man, but couldn’t yet think of the question he wanted to ask.
“Well, it’s just that there’s that big factory farm between here Cleveland, and their orderin’ two and three trucks full of the stuff every week. The guy there tells me their usin’ airplanes to drop the stuff over the crops.”
Jesse looked to the sky for evidence.
“Well, can’t say I believe that. They prob’ly figured out a way to use it as a fertilizer and are stockin’ up so’s no one else can have any,” Jesse said.
The man got into his truck and leaned out of the window with his arm grasping the side of the truck.
“All’s I know sir is, if you aren’t pullin’ at least double what you are now, it ain’t gunna be worth my time to keep comin’ all the way out here just for two stinkin’ barrels.”
Jesse looked back at his strawberries as the truck drove away. They looked smaller. In the last two years, Jesse had prayed to God harder than he ever had before. When he first heard about the farm opening just outside of Cleveland he knew that it was too far away to compete with Bentley farms in Winesburg. The transport would cost too much to make them much profit. His prayer in the mornings grew to three times before lunch when he heard that the farm covered almost three miles of land. Jesse prayed a dozen times before dinner when he heard that larger warehouses made of corrugated metal housed enough food for the state of Ohio to eat for one year. ‘Impossible,’ he thought. “Tell me it isn’t true God.” He said this moving through the house as David brought more and more material through house and plots of land, all headed to the new additions of the old barn. “Tell me it isn’t true God, that you haven’t given the abundance you promised me to an undeserving heathen. Tell me God, does this man, this successful man serve you any better? How many times a day does he pray to you Lord? I will double it, triple it…I will do anything.”
In the coming years the Bentley farm had suffered hard losses—drought, tough competition from the farm up the road, and the worst economic collapse the country has ever seen. But the farm survived. The farm survived because David had planned for the worst. David insulated the barn to protect the harvested fruits and vegetables from bad weather. David had hired desperate men to work for pennies after the crash. David had purchased insurance and received enormous tax breaks because his grandfather had built a church on the farm when he was just a boy. The government helped too. The president of the United States had done a lot to keep the Bentleys and other small farmers from disappearing by providing some government money to get them through the tough times. As David became more and more involved in the operations of the family farm, Jesse grew a little sad at the distance the business had created between him and his grandson. Despite this isolation Jesse felt, he still prayed twenty times a day, thanking God for the abundance he had showered them with. The town had steady work on the farm for anyone struggling to get by, the farm continued growing, and Jesse could see his strawberries stretching into the distance nearly any month of the year.
As Jesse got older he spent less and less time near the new barn and more time in his humble little church at the edge of his property. There, Jesse grew a small garden of lettuce and tomatoes, basil and mint, corn and squash—just enough for a thanksgiving dinner. Now and again Jesse heard the trucks drive up the new paved road, each time the engines got louder and trucks got bigger. David stopped greeting the men at the trucks, but instead sent a young man to sign the packing slips. One day, the young man that signed the papers came to speak with Jesse.
“Sir, excuse me sir.”
Jesse looked up at the young man form his garden. He had been pulling off the leaves the bugs had been eating. He played with a ladybug that had crawled onto his gardening gloves.
“Well look at that,” Jesse said. “She’s crawling all the way up my arm. Can you believe that?”
Jesse smiled as the ladybug made her way up and down the old cracked farmer’s skin.
“Sir, I need to talk with you about this set-up you got goin’ here.”
Jesse looked up but the sun hit his eyes. He looked away and at the church.
“What do you need son? David’s the one you need to be talkin’ to, not me.”
The young man pointed to a blinding white piece of paper reflecting the sun’s rays. Jesse moved his eyes back around and saw a pen in the young man’s hand.
“What’d ya need son? My grandson’s the one that ___”
The young man handed Jesse Bentley a firm clipboard with a letter attached to it, embossed with a gold-leaf letterhead reading, Bentley’s Old Time Farms.
“The boss needs this plot sir. We’re expanding the treatment plant and the new drainage pipe needs to go through this plot to get to the river.”
Jesse looked at the young man and stood up. He had little breath in him, but he managed to get out one word, “David?”
The young man pointed once again at the golden letterhead with Jesse’s name on it.
“You can always move the garden and rebuild the church sir. Sign here.”
Jesse Bentley woke from an unimaginable nightmare. This had been the third time in one week he had the same dream. God, had been trying to communicate with him for sometime now, but for Jesse, the message seemed bleak and horrifying. In the dream, God sat at a large wooden desk in an expensive man’s suit. Next to God stood Jesse’s grandson, David. Jesse’s perception of the room would deepen and his head would hurt when David and a briefcase became visible. As instructed by God, Jesse moved forward in the empty echoing room toward the one mahogany desk, a leather briefcase held by David, and a long fountain pen sitting in an empty cup. As Jesse approached, stepping ever gently on the loud hardwood floors, God would turn to his side and whisper something inaudible to Jesse’s grandson. In the dream, David was a grown man of twenty, with a square jaw and austere posture, carrying with dignity, a bright red tie. Eventually, Jesse made his way to the edge of the desk and stopped moving, looking only at David and never into the eyes of the Lord.
“Yes, my Lord. How can I fulfill my duty as your humble servant?”
God always coughed at this point in the dream. David interpreted each cough like a secret language. David would then turn to his grandfather and deliver God’s instructions.
“The Lord understands that you are having trouble with your farm.”
Jesse would then emphatically shake his head up and down to indicate his agreement, but always averting his eyes. God coughed again.
“The Lord knows that you wish to expand your agribusiness, and the Lord knows how.”
Jesse again shakes uncontrollably, but in this dream, he has no voice, and no ability to speak. It is here, always, that Jesse cries and falls to his knees, clasping his hands together, as he turns to his grandson David and begs for help.
“David, David. Please. Please tell the Lord that I will do anything. The farm must grow. How can I make this land produce an abundance only God can facilitate?”
The final scene—David tells Jesse to give his arm to God. Jesse proudly rolls up his sleeves to reveal the healthy blue veins rushing blood to all the corners of his earthly body. David keeps a stern face as he plunges the fountain pen into Jesse’s arm and extracts the vibrant red into the instrument. Jesse cries with enjoyment. Just before Jesse wakes up and is torn from the cold echoing room with a desk, he hears God speak a deafening and terrifying boom.
“SIGN HERE.”
On this day, March 8, 1929, Jesse Bentley abandoned his bed to splash the dry cracks in his face and stimulate his nerves. He washed and dressed and made his way down to see the blooming buds on his new strawberry crops. The buds had already begun bursting into plump red berries, dripping with dew and glistening with sunlight. Jesse touched the berries with his fingertips as his grandson looked down from the storage barn. David had just finished putting in windows, hoping to turn the attic of the barn into a fully functioning office in time for harvest. When Jesse saw his proud grandson staring down and out of those windows, Jesse felt a surge of gratitude sweep through his body, and he fell to his knees thanking God for all that had been given him. When Jesse wiped the tears from his eyes, he turned to get another look at his proud grandson, but David had turned his back.
The sound of a large truck could be heard coming up the dirt road to the Bentley farm. The truck was carrying a new pesticide that David had suggested they try. Jesse met the man near the new and improved storage barn.
“Sign here,” the man said.
Jesse smiled at the man.
“So, uh, God’s really smilin’ down on us now wouldn’ ya say?”
The man crewed a toothpick and poked at the packing slip with his pen.
“How’d ya figure?”
Jesse breathed the air deep into his lungs and grabbed the pen. He waved the pen about in the air and looked at his strawberries.
“Well, ma crops are bloomin’ early, my grandson’s got some new machines in that are doin’ the work of thirty or so…” Bentley stared at the man a second. “The air’s good an’ crisp. Yes sir, it’s a fine year to be a farmer.”
The man pointed again at the papers.
“Sir, sign please.”
Jesse took the pen and took his time signing the documents with the cursive he had meticulously practiced as a boy. The man stuck the pen behind his ear and closed the gate to his truck.
“You know sir, I’m sure if I can bring up the next shipment unless you start orderin’ a little more o’ this stuff.”
Jesse looked at the man, but couldn’t yet think of the question he wanted to ask.
“Well, it’s just that there’s that big factory farm between here Cleveland, and their orderin’ two and three trucks full of the stuff every week. The guy there tells me their usin’ airplanes to drop the stuff over the crops.”
Jesse looked to the sky for evidence.
“Well, can’t say I believe that. They prob’ly figured out a way to use it as a fertilizer and are stockin’ up so’s no one else can have any,” Jesse said.
The man got into his truck and leaned out of the window with his arm grasping the side of the truck.
“All’s I know sir is, if you aren’t pullin’ at least double what you are now, it ain’t gunna be worth my time to keep comin’ all the way out here just for two stinkin’ barrels.”
Jesse looked back at his strawberries as the truck drove away. They looked smaller. In the last two years, Jesse had prayed to God harder than he ever had before. When he first heard about the farm opening just outside of Cleveland he knew that it was too far away to compete with Bentley farms in Winesburg. The transport would cost too much to make them much profit. His prayer in the mornings grew to three times before lunch when he heard that the farm covered almost three miles of land. Jesse prayed a dozen times before dinner when he heard that larger warehouses made of corrugated metal housed enough food for the state of Ohio to eat for one year. ‘Impossible,’ he thought. “Tell me it isn’t true God.” He said this moving through the house as David brought more and more material through house and plots of land, all headed to the new additions of the old barn. “Tell me it isn’t true God, that you haven’t given the abundance you promised me to an undeserving heathen. Tell me God, does this man, this successful man serve you any better? How many times a day does he pray to you Lord? I will double it, triple it…I will do anything.”
In the coming years the Bentley farm had suffered hard losses—drought, tough competition from the farm up the road, and the worst economic collapse the country has ever seen. But the farm survived. The farm survived because David had planned for the worst. David insulated the barn to protect the harvested fruits and vegetables from bad weather. David had hired desperate men to work for pennies after the crash. David had purchased insurance and received enormous tax breaks because his grandfather had built a church on the farm when he was just a boy. The government helped too. The president of the United States had done a lot to keep the Bentleys and other small farmers from disappearing by providing some government money to get them through the tough times. As David became more and more involved in the operations of the family farm, Jesse grew a little sad at the distance the business had created between him and his grandson. Despite this isolation Jesse felt, he still prayed twenty times a day, thanking God for the abundance he had showered them with. The town had steady work on the farm for anyone struggling to get by, the farm continued growing, and Jesse could see his strawberries stretching into the distance nearly any month of the year.
As Jesse got older he spent less and less time near the new barn and more time in his humble little church at the edge of his property. There, Jesse grew a small garden of lettuce and tomatoes, basil and mint, corn and squash—just enough for a thanksgiving dinner. Now and again Jesse heard the trucks drive up the new paved road, each time the engines got louder and trucks got bigger. David stopped greeting the men at the trucks, but instead sent a young man to sign the packing slips. One day, the young man that signed the papers came to speak with Jesse.
“Sir, excuse me sir.”
Jesse looked up at the young man form his garden. He had been pulling off the leaves the bugs had been eating. He played with a ladybug that had crawled onto his gardening gloves.
“Well look at that,” Jesse said. “She’s crawling all the way up my arm. Can you believe that?”
Jesse smiled as the ladybug made her way up and down the old cracked farmer’s skin.
“Sir, I need to talk with you about this set-up you got goin’ here.”
Jesse looked up but the sun hit his eyes. He looked away and at the church.
“What do you need son? David’s the one you need to be talkin’ to, not me.”
The young man pointed to a blinding white piece of paper reflecting the sun’s rays. Jesse moved his eyes back around and saw a pen in the young man’s hand.
“What’d ya need son? My grandson’s the one that ___”
The young man handed Jesse Bentley a firm clipboard with a letter attached to it, embossed with a gold-leaf letterhead reading, Bentley’s Old Time Farms.
“The boss needs this plot sir. We’re expanding the treatment plant and the new drainage pipe needs to go through this plot to get to the river.”
Jesse looked at the young man and stood up. He had little breath in him, but he managed to get out one word, “David?”
The young man pointed once again at the golden letterhead with Jesse’s name on it.
“You can always move the garden and rebuild the church sir. Sign here.”
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Norden-Cambria Conflict
The Norden-Cambria Conflict
I’m here in the center of total chaos. Norden’s economy has collapsed and the people are out of control. I spoke to a college student here in Norden, who discussed with our crew, her family’s struggles over the last few years.
Student: My father owned a bank that has been in the family since his grandfather settled in Norden. My great-grandfather started the first local branch in Larsberg with money the family made from farming when the town was developing its first paved road.
Journalist: And what happened? You said he used to have the bank, so…what hap__
Student: We ended up selling it, and luckily, we have enough money to hopefully keep us safe until things settle down here. What’s interesting is how we ended up with that money—how we ended up getting more than we expected.
Journalist: So how did you manage to sell it when even the major banks couldn’t pay their loans? I can’t imagine how a small, or sorry, modest bank could sur__
Student: Sure, sure. That’s what we were thinking. The loans that were crippling the bigger banks are precisely why we got out of it all ok.
At his time, an enormous bomb had gone off, no more than two or three kilometers from us. That is what the pop was on the audio that you heard. Let us now return to the student’s story, central to understanding the collapse of the Norden economy, and the beginning of the Norden-Cambria conflict.
Journalist: Did your father not have these crippling loans?
Student: Exactly, exactly. My dad needed to sell the bank in the first place because he just couldn’t compete with the major banks, and all that money they were making selling these giant loans to other banks. The majors felt like they could keep buying as long as the loan market kept expanding the way it was. None of them ever thought it would end, or if it did they never wanted to consider when and where it would end. Guys were making millions every week selling these gigantic, unimaginable loans in every sector you can imagine. My dad was too scared to get involved in the buy-up because he couldn’t back it up with the few assets his bank had. He would never be able to repay a 4 billion dollar loan to weapons manufacturers if he had to first get the money from a larger bank. The larger bank would come knocking and our family business would be over, so we struggled. Our bank was doing all right, but it wasn’t worth that much.
Journalist: So, how did you make any money then when you sold it?
Student: The majors were all in the hole millions of dollars. My dad’s little bank was one of the few that had no debts and a handful of assets. Once he put it up for sale, the majors were practically stepping over each other to buy us out. They needed the assets I guess.
This is where my brief interview with the girl ended. Just beyond the Larsberg district, there was gunfire and shouting. The young girl asked me to keep her anonymous because of her father’s wealth. She explained to me that the rioters and looters would kidnap, rape, and ransom her in an instant if she exposed her name to any radio network.
Larsberg, only a few years ago, was considered one of the prime real-estate areas in all of Norden. At one time, her neighborhood had a modest population of only one thousand people, give or take a dozen, but contained 70% of the nation’s total capital. After the invasion of the Cambrian militia, the neighbors were very quickly wiped out, either financially or existentially. Those that were wise enough to anticipate the fall of the Norden economy left early, and moved their wealth to more tropical countries halfway across the globe.
Our crew caught up with the former Norden Director of Warfare in Buenos Aires, two weeks into the Cambrian invasion of Norden. The former director had been staying in a hotel downtown, and agreed to meet us in the lobby over lunch.
Journalist: Director Thordendal- excuse me- former Director, you were recently interviewed by Cambrian journalists in an investigation concerning whether or not you had prior knowledge of the attack. Would you care to elaborate on this issue?
DirectorT: Nothing new. This is nothing new. Every country throughout history immediately looks to the commanders of war as suspects in a coup.
Journalist: So, what do you say to those who point to documents suggesting Cambrian military sent memos to your staff containing coordinates that correspond to the first breaches of the Norden border in the first hours of the conflict?
DirectorT: I will tell you the same thing I told the others. These were coordinates that spies leaked to us in order to put in place the necessary forces.
In between sips of a Corona cervesa, Director Thordendal assured me that his young successor, Director Havenstrom, was more than capable of handling the Cambrian Militia. I asked him about the reasons being discussed, in the opening weeks, for the invasion of the Cambrian militia immediately following the financial collapse of the Norden economy.
Journalist: Mr. Thordendal, many people have questioned the reasoning behind the Cambrian attack following the economic crash in Norden. Can you help our listeners to understand why this happened, and why now?
The whirring sound you hear in the background is a combination of the wind hitting the former Director’s beer bottle and some intermittent whispering between Mr. Thordendal and two men that had brought him his lunch along with a credit card and a few pieces of paper. There appeared to be a short squabble over the bill before the former director reluctantly gave a signature to the waiter while a man in an expensive looking suit waited patiently a few feet away. The former director sat back down and grabbed at his new icy beverage containing two colorful toothpicks and one glass straw.
DirectorT: Look, I don’t have all the answers. That’s what the new guy is supposed to figure out. Now if you please, I have to get back to my lunch.
With only a few days left before our story was to be finished, our crew returned to Norden for some answers from the new Director of Warfare, Tomas Havenstrom.
Journalist: Director Havenstrom, can you tell us what you have discovered about this conflict since you took over Director Thordendal’s position?
Director: Lady, I don’t have time. You know how sometimes a boxing match in Vegas can be rigged so that the guys in the front row can make a killing—and their blonde wives are getting spit and blood sprayed onto their faces—meanwhile their both smiling at each other, gettin’ turned on with all that money, anger, and blood floatin’ around?
Journalist: Are you saying that__
Director: I’m not finished. Well, you know how the suits are sittin’ there lickin’ their lips while the tired black guys are beatin’ the hell out of each other—the same guys that would be rotating their tires, stealing their car stereos, selling them cocaine, or …
Journalist: So, if I can just guess here what you are trying to__
Director: If I can just finish my thought—Look, the boxers know. These half retarded laborers-turned-boxers know. Both of them know. They still gotta fight lady. They still gotta fight. So place your bet, and get the f__k out of my way. Now if you’ll excuse me.
The profanity that was bleeped out at the end was not essential to the story. However, if the listeners are interested in a full transcript of each of these interviews, please log onto our website where you can purchase the full story (credit cards only). This program is made possible by Liberty Mutual and The South American Primary Bank.
I’m here in the center of total chaos. Norden’s economy has collapsed and the people are out of control. I spoke to a college student here in Norden, who discussed with our crew, her family’s struggles over the last few years.
Student: My father owned a bank that has been in the family since his grandfather settled in Norden. My great-grandfather started the first local branch in Larsberg with money the family made from farming when the town was developing its first paved road.
Journalist: And what happened? You said he used to have the bank, so…what hap__
Student: We ended up selling it, and luckily, we have enough money to hopefully keep us safe until things settle down here. What’s interesting is how we ended up with that money—how we ended up getting more than we expected.
Journalist: So how did you manage to sell it when even the major banks couldn’t pay their loans? I can’t imagine how a small, or sorry, modest bank could sur__
Student: Sure, sure. That’s what we were thinking. The loans that were crippling the bigger banks are precisely why we got out of it all ok.
At his time, an enormous bomb had gone off, no more than two or three kilometers from us. That is what the pop was on the audio that you heard. Let us now return to the student’s story, central to understanding the collapse of the Norden economy, and the beginning of the Norden-Cambria conflict.
Journalist: Did your father not have these crippling loans?
Student: Exactly, exactly. My dad needed to sell the bank in the first place because he just couldn’t compete with the major banks, and all that money they were making selling these giant loans to other banks. The majors felt like they could keep buying as long as the loan market kept expanding the way it was. None of them ever thought it would end, or if it did they never wanted to consider when and where it would end. Guys were making millions every week selling these gigantic, unimaginable loans in every sector you can imagine. My dad was too scared to get involved in the buy-up because he couldn’t back it up with the few assets his bank had. He would never be able to repay a 4 billion dollar loan to weapons manufacturers if he had to first get the money from a larger bank. The larger bank would come knocking and our family business would be over, so we struggled. Our bank was doing all right, but it wasn’t worth that much.
Journalist: So, how did you make any money then when you sold it?
Student: The majors were all in the hole millions of dollars. My dad’s little bank was one of the few that had no debts and a handful of assets. Once he put it up for sale, the majors were practically stepping over each other to buy us out. They needed the assets I guess.
This is where my brief interview with the girl ended. Just beyond the Larsberg district, there was gunfire and shouting. The young girl asked me to keep her anonymous because of her father’s wealth. She explained to me that the rioters and looters would kidnap, rape, and ransom her in an instant if she exposed her name to any radio network.
Larsberg, only a few years ago, was considered one of the prime real-estate areas in all of Norden. At one time, her neighborhood had a modest population of only one thousand people, give or take a dozen, but contained 70% of the nation’s total capital. After the invasion of the Cambrian militia, the neighbors were very quickly wiped out, either financially or existentially. Those that were wise enough to anticipate the fall of the Norden economy left early, and moved their wealth to more tropical countries halfway across the globe.
Our crew caught up with the former Norden Director of Warfare in Buenos Aires, two weeks into the Cambrian invasion of Norden. The former director had been staying in a hotel downtown, and agreed to meet us in the lobby over lunch.
Journalist: Director Thordendal- excuse me- former Director, you were recently interviewed by Cambrian journalists in an investigation concerning whether or not you had prior knowledge of the attack. Would you care to elaborate on this issue?
DirectorT: Nothing new. This is nothing new. Every country throughout history immediately looks to the commanders of war as suspects in a coup.
Journalist: So, what do you say to those who point to documents suggesting Cambrian military sent memos to your staff containing coordinates that correspond to the first breaches of the Norden border in the first hours of the conflict?
DirectorT: I will tell you the same thing I told the others. These were coordinates that spies leaked to us in order to put in place the necessary forces.
In between sips of a Corona cervesa, Director Thordendal assured me that his young successor, Director Havenstrom, was more than capable of handling the Cambrian Militia. I asked him about the reasons being discussed, in the opening weeks, for the invasion of the Cambrian militia immediately following the financial collapse of the Norden economy.
Journalist: Mr. Thordendal, many people have questioned the reasoning behind the Cambrian attack following the economic crash in Norden. Can you help our listeners to understand why this happened, and why now?
The whirring sound you hear in the background is a combination of the wind hitting the former Director’s beer bottle and some intermittent whispering between Mr. Thordendal and two men that had brought him his lunch along with a credit card and a few pieces of paper. There appeared to be a short squabble over the bill before the former director reluctantly gave a signature to the waiter while a man in an expensive looking suit waited patiently a few feet away. The former director sat back down and grabbed at his new icy beverage containing two colorful toothpicks and one glass straw.
DirectorT: Look, I don’t have all the answers. That’s what the new guy is supposed to figure out. Now if you please, I have to get back to my lunch.
With only a few days left before our story was to be finished, our crew returned to Norden for some answers from the new Director of Warfare, Tomas Havenstrom.
Journalist: Director Havenstrom, can you tell us what you have discovered about this conflict since you took over Director Thordendal’s position?
Director: Lady, I don’t have time. You know how sometimes a boxing match in Vegas can be rigged so that the guys in the front row can make a killing—and their blonde wives are getting spit and blood sprayed onto their faces—meanwhile their both smiling at each other, gettin’ turned on with all that money, anger, and blood floatin’ around?
Journalist: Are you saying that__
Director: I’m not finished. Well, you know how the suits are sittin’ there lickin’ their lips while the tired black guys are beatin’ the hell out of each other—the same guys that would be rotating their tires, stealing their car stereos, selling them cocaine, or …
Journalist: So, if I can just guess here what you are trying to__
Director: If I can just finish my thought—Look, the boxers know. These half retarded laborers-turned-boxers know. Both of them know. They still gotta fight lady. They still gotta fight. So place your bet, and get the f__k out of my way. Now if you’ll excuse me.
The profanity that was bleeped out at the end was not essential to the story. However, if the listeners are interested in a full transcript of each of these interviews, please log onto our website where you can purchase the full story (credit cards only). This program is made possible by Liberty Mutual and The South American Primary Bank.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Don't forget about My Birthday
Don’t Forget about My Birthday
September 4th, 2009
One more week. One more week and I’ll be 16. I dropped hints for the last two damn years, so they better get it for me. My stupid brother doesn’t think they will but what does he know? He’s a goddamned retard. He got a truck when he turned 16, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get one. His truck is alright. It’s silver, which is stupid, but he lifted it and put some bigger tires on, so at least it looks a little cooler. Last year my retard parents gave me a stupid gift card to the mall. What am I ‘sposed to do with that? I bought some video games but they’re all played out. They’re boring now. One more week. One more week. They better get it. They better get it.
September 5th, 2009
I dropped a few more hints to my mom. Actually, I straight up told that bitch, “Mom, I want a truck for my birthday.” She gave me that stupid parent response, “We’ll see,” as if I don’t know what that means. She’ll get it. She just wants me to think I might not get it so I’ll be surprised. Don’t they know they can’t fool me anymore? My retard brother deleted my blog account today. Piece of shit is gunna pay. He’ll feel like shit when he realizes my truck is gunna be ten times better than his. I won’t even have to customize mine like he did. I bet my dad will do all the work for me so I won’t have to blow all my money fixing it up like Randy did. I changed my blog account password so there’s no way Randy’s gunna crack that shit now. If he does, I’ll crack his goddamned face in! I’ll take that baseball bat of his right and wipe that skinny, pale, peach fuzz, buck-toothed fuckin’ grin right off his face. Then I’ll take his Kansas City Chiefs hat and crap all over it.
September 6th, 2009
My dad picked me up from school today in the station wagon. Why does this whole family insist on making me look like a retard? I hate him. My dad the big goober with his high-water khaki shorts on up to his nipples and those stupid novelty t-shirts of his. One of ‘em says For every animal you don’t eat, I’m gunna eat three. God I hate them all. The worst part is I couldn’t tell him what an asshole he was for embarrassing me like that because I want to make sure I get that truck. What did he think he was doing? They do it on purpose. Always trying to embarrass me and make me feel like a retard. Once I get that truck though, I’ll be outta here. I’ll steal my mom’s bankcard; pull everything I can out of the ATM and go work for EA or Microsoft testing video games. They won’t give a shit that I don’t have a degree when they see how much I know about gaming. Fuck homework. I’m gunna play video games for a living and these assholes are gunna really feel stupid when they realize I played them for the truck and their money. HA!
September 7th, 2009
‘Jack, when are you gunna clean your room? When are you gunna? JACK! JACK! JACK! JACK! JACK!’ SHUT THE FUCK UP MOM!
She comes into my room with that stupid house coat on. The thing is practically a muumuu. I could even see her old flabby titties bouncin’ around in there. Lose some weight Ma! Anyway, she comes in here like it’s her room with that tent of a house coat on and her bleached blonde hair as big as a house, smoking a nasty long cigarette demanding I clean my room. She damn well knows I don’t allow shoes in here and what does she do? She wears those dirty ass flip-flops in here that she just had on outside.
The scene went somethin’ like this.
She opened the door all lazy and tired. She flip-flops into the room with that old-lady cigarette dangling between her long chipped red fingernails practically knocking over my WWF figurines.
“Jack, when are gunna clean up this pig sty?”
She had that glassy look in her eyes like she was hung over again. I shut off my computer monitor, cuz what business is it of hers to look at my stuff?
“Mom, I’m doing stuff right now. I’ll do it later.”
She turned away from me huffing and puffing away on her cigarette staring at my stuff like it was garbage. What would she know? All she likes are stupid ceramic figurines and a bunch of useless crap.
“Well, that’s what you said nearly two weeks ago and I ain’t seen you do shit yet?”
The stupid dirty bitch put her cigarette out in my cup of Dr. Pepper. Can you believe that? This is the kind of bullshit I have to put up with from these retards.
GOD DAMMIT. WHEN IS THIS BITCH GOING TO SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!? I told her like five fucking times this week to pick me up some pizza rolls at the grocery store and she still hasn’t done it so why do I have to clean my room, huh? Give a little, get a little mom. Is it really too much to ask for one stupid thing from the store? It’s all I asked for and she couldn’t even do that. Randy cancelled MY GOD DAMN BLOG ACCOUNT THAT STUPID ASSHOLE IDIOT! I’m gunna kill him. I’m gunna kill him. I’M GOING TO KILL HIM. At the very least I’m bleachin’ his best pair of Levis.
There she is again with that shouting. “Jack, did you clean your room yet?” “Jack if you clean your room I’ll go to the store and get your pizza rolls ok?” Fucking Bitch. I’m tryin’ to do stuff here. Hold on. BRB.
Alright I’m back. Once again I told her I was doin’ stuff. What does she do? Storms right back into my room and treats me like I’m her fucking slave. First of all she slammed my door open and put a fist size hole in the drywall and my god damn Randy Travis poster.
She’s yelling at me from across the fucking house. She’s ALWAYS got to be yellin’. Then she wonders why I’m pissed off at her all the time. Why can’t she come in here and talk to me like a civilized person?
Instead, she storms in here, knockin’ over all my stuff and grabs me behind the ear talkin’ to me through her teeth like a god damn animal with her stinkin’ old-lady breath all up in my face.
“No Jack. No, god dammit. Your father is havin’ people from work over and he’s tellin’ you to do it right now, got it?”
Then she flip-flops outta my room like the fat tard that she is.
----
Finally finished my stupid room. I finished it in like 10 minutes. That’ll show her. She thinks she can get me away from the computer with these stupid chores but how’s she gunna know I just shoved everything in my closet? No one’s allowed in there anyway. I’m gunna play World of Warcraft right now. BRB.
----
FUCKING RANDY! FUCKING STUPID PIECE OF SHIT BROTHER! MOTHER FUCKER CANCELLED MY WORLD OF WARCRAFT ACCOUNT! I’m really gunna kill that piece of shit now.
----
ARRRggghhhh! I tell my mom what Randy did and what does she do? NOTHING! UUUUURRRGGGHHH! She’s pissed at me. Not Randy, me. Just cuz I yelled at her. What else was I gunna do? She yells at me from across the house. Why can’t I do it, huh? Double fuckin’ standard, that’s what it is. So yeah, I yelled.
“Mom! Mom! Get in here! Mom! God Damn Randy! You jerk. You stupid jerk. I can hear you laughing outside the door Randy.”
And I could too. Piece of shit was laughing at me from behind my bedroom door.
“I can here you asshole. I hear you laughing,” I told him.
Then when forever went by and my mom just sat on her fat ass, I yelled.
“UURRRRGGGHHHH! Mom! Fuckin’ do somethin’ already!”
Then I get slapped. Me, not Randy, the real perpetrator. All I did was cuss and I get slapped. Now I’m gunna have to pay for a new World of Warcraft account out of my allowance. No. NO! Fuck that! My mom’s payin’ for it, whether she knows about it or not.
So what’s the one thing my mom does say to me?
“What’s the problem Jack? Your father has people from work over. Do you have to make such a big deal over everything?”
What a bitch.
See? See what I mean? They’re so stupid they can’t even see who’s at fault here. Stupid brother deletes my World of Warcraft account and my blog account and she yells at me instead. RETARDS! They better get me that truck. They better. I’m gunna run right over Randy. vvVVRRROOOOOM! Right over his pimple covered stupid head. SPLAT!
September 8th, 2009
It was so funny. Today in class, people were looking at me like, “Do I get an invitation? Am I gunna get to go to your birthday party?” Pppfffftttt. You wish dorks. I only gave out two. I’m pretty selective. I gave one to Jenny and one to Todd. Of course Todd gets one, cuz he’s my best friend, the only one that deserves one, and Jenny just cuz she’s hot and it would be nice to have a hot chick at my party for me and Todd to look at. She’s kinda stupid, but what do I care? Most chicks are stupid anyways. She actually did not know who Randy Travis was. Can you believe that? I went up to her in the cafeteria the other day when she was sitting with the other cheerleader bimbos. I plopped down next to her to let her know who’s boss. Chicks like it when your authoritative ‘n shit.
“Hey Jenny. What’s up? D’ya get the new Randy Travis cd?”
She flipped her bleached blonde hair over her shoulders and kept her bimbo eyes on her lunch. She practically ignored me. All she said was, “No but my sister gave me an old Def Leopard cd and her Alanis Morissette collection.” She just chomped away at her bubble gum and her stupid friends just giggled and got up to leave. I told her those bands were gay and if she wanted to listen to somethin’ good to give me a call.
When she sees my new truck though, she’ll notice me then. Guys aren’t that shallow but you know chicks are. I see all those cheerleader chicks hangin’ out with all the tough football guys with their big lifted 4x4s covered with mud. She’s gunna shit when she sees mine. Damn she’s hot. I’m gunna go take care of business before I slept. Damn she’s hot.
September 9th, 2009
Bitch totally ignored me in the lunchroom today. I sat down at her table to tell her how cool my party was gunna be. This time I didn’t plop down. I eased in there like a cheetah, right before he moves in for the kill. Real smooth. Just like how I’d fuck her.
“Hey Jenny. Boy I feel sorry for the suckers who aren’t gunna be there at my party,” I told her.
I did this while looking at all the other retards in the cafeteria, but not at her. Chicks like it when you ignore them.
She stood up and left her tray of food behind like I was some kinda disease. Bitch was even wiping her hands off with a wet-nap, as if she’d catch something from me. She used the expensive kind too. I think they were Kleenex brand. Why can’t she just use a regular napkin like a normal person? She made up some bullshit excuse about needing to do some homework before class. If she doesn’t get with me, she’s gunna feel like a retard when I get my new truck on Friday. Then I’ll just go out with her friend Priscilla and make her super jealous. I’ll arrange for Jenny to come to my truck for something when Priscilla’s goin’ down on me. Then she’ll feel like shit. Two more days. Two more days.
September 10th, 2009
Finally got back on World of Warcraft. My mom had to pay for me to get a new account. I told her I’d burn down the god damn house if she was gunna let Randy get away with that. She knows I was bluffin’ though. Hopefully. I don’t want to mess up getting the truck. I did the dishes for her after dinner just to make sure. I tried calling Jenny to remind her about the party but her mom said she wasn’t home. I left like four messages so she better remember. Todd came over and played video games today. Todd’s kind of a dirty S.O.B. but I don’t mind. He’s a hell of a gamer. Even if he is like that kid from those Peanuts cartoons. What’s his name? Pigpen! You know, the one that always had a cloud of dust around him. I told him my plan. He thought it was sweet that I’d be playin’ video games for a livin’. He asked me if I could get him a job when I get to Silicon Valley but I just gave him that stupid parents’ answer, “We’ll see.” One more day. One more day, and I’m outta here.
September 11th, 2009
I did it! I did it! I couldn’t believe how easy it was, but I did it. I couldn’t believe how surprised those fucking retards were. They got what they deserved though. I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel bad at all. I feel great. How could they? How could they have done that to me and not know what was comin’ to ‘em? Cuz they’re RETARDS THAT’S WHY! What did they expect me to do, wheeling out that piece of junk clunker on me? Right next to the garage door, where of course the first thing I would grab would be Randy’s bat. How come they looked so surprised huh? How come they didn’t even move or try to run? Because they’re fucking retards, that’s why. You should have seen the thing. A tiny little S-10. It couldn’t have had more than 4 cylinders. It was a joke. The paint was comin’ off and it was rusted just about everywhere. You couldn’t even tell where I bashed it in with Randy’s baseball bat cuz there was so many dents in it. Good thing Jenny didn’t see this. Chicks don’t like violence. When they see blood they always freak out like it’s a really big deal. She probably would’ve called the cops and told ‘em everything. “Oh my God, Oh my God! You bashed their heads in.” Yeah, well, she wouldn’t say that if she knew what retards they were. How they treated me like I was nuthin’ all the time. Always trying to embarrass me. Always trying make me look like a retard. Todd didn’t come either but it’s probably better that way. He’d prob’ly go to the cops too. He always was a tattletale. Well Randy. You stupid jerk. I got your truck. What now? I guess silver ain’t so bad. Silicon Valley, here I come.
September 4th, 2009
One more week. One more week and I’ll be 16. I dropped hints for the last two damn years, so they better get it for me. My stupid brother doesn’t think they will but what does he know? He’s a goddamned retard. He got a truck when he turned 16, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get one. His truck is alright. It’s silver, which is stupid, but he lifted it and put some bigger tires on, so at least it looks a little cooler. Last year my retard parents gave me a stupid gift card to the mall. What am I ‘sposed to do with that? I bought some video games but they’re all played out. They’re boring now. One more week. One more week. They better get it. They better get it.
September 5th, 2009
I dropped a few more hints to my mom. Actually, I straight up told that bitch, “Mom, I want a truck for my birthday.” She gave me that stupid parent response, “We’ll see,” as if I don’t know what that means. She’ll get it. She just wants me to think I might not get it so I’ll be surprised. Don’t they know they can’t fool me anymore? My retard brother deleted my blog account today. Piece of shit is gunna pay. He’ll feel like shit when he realizes my truck is gunna be ten times better than his. I won’t even have to customize mine like he did. I bet my dad will do all the work for me so I won’t have to blow all my money fixing it up like Randy did. I changed my blog account password so there’s no way Randy’s gunna crack that shit now. If he does, I’ll crack his goddamned face in! I’ll take that baseball bat of his right and wipe that skinny, pale, peach fuzz, buck-toothed fuckin’ grin right off his face. Then I’ll take his Kansas City Chiefs hat and crap all over it.
September 6th, 2009
My dad picked me up from school today in the station wagon. Why does this whole family insist on making me look like a retard? I hate him. My dad the big goober with his high-water khaki shorts on up to his nipples and those stupid novelty t-shirts of his. One of ‘em says For every animal you don’t eat, I’m gunna eat three. God I hate them all. The worst part is I couldn’t tell him what an asshole he was for embarrassing me like that because I want to make sure I get that truck. What did he think he was doing? They do it on purpose. Always trying to embarrass me and make me feel like a retard. Once I get that truck though, I’ll be outta here. I’ll steal my mom’s bankcard; pull everything I can out of the ATM and go work for EA or Microsoft testing video games. They won’t give a shit that I don’t have a degree when they see how much I know about gaming. Fuck homework. I’m gunna play video games for a living and these assholes are gunna really feel stupid when they realize I played them for the truck and their money. HA!
September 7th, 2009
‘Jack, when are you gunna clean your room? When are you gunna? JACK! JACK! JACK! JACK! JACK!’ SHUT THE FUCK UP MOM!
She comes into my room with that stupid house coat on. The thing is practically a muumuu. I could even see her old flabby titties bouncin’ around in there. Lose some weight Ma! Anyway, she comes in here like it’s her room with that tent of a house coat on and her bleached blonde hair as big as a house, smoking a nasty long cigarette demanding I clean my room. She damn well knows I don’t allow shoes in here and what does she do? She wears those dirty ass flip-flops in here that she just had on outside.
The scene went somethin’ like this.
She opened the door all lazy and tired. She flip-flops into the room with that old-lady cigarette dangling between her long chipped red fingernails practically knocking over my WWF figurines.
“Jack, when are gunna clean up this pig sty?”
She had that glassy look in her eyes like she was hung over again. I shut off my computer monitor, cuz what business is it of hers to look at my stuff?
“Mom, I’m doing stuff right now. I’ll do it later.”
She turned away from me huffing and puffing away on her cigarette staring at my stuff like it was garbage. What would she know? All she likes are stupid ceramic figurines and a bunch of useless crap.
“Well, that’s what you said nearly two weeks ago and I ain’t seen you do shit yet?”
The stupid dirty bitch put her cigarette out in my cup of Dr. Pepper. Can you believe that? This is the kind of bullshit I have to put up with from these retards.
GOD DAMMIT. WHEN IS THIS BITCH GOING TO SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!? I told her like five fucking times this week to pick me up some pizza rolls at the grocery store and she still hasn’t done it so why do I have to clean my room, huh? Give a little, get a little mom. Is it really too much to ask for one stupid thing from the store? It’s all I asked for and she couldn’t even do that. Randy cancelled MY GOD DAMN BLOG ACCOUNT THAT STUPID ASSHOLE IDIOT! I’m gunna kill him. I’m gunna kill him. I’M GOING TO KILL HIM. At the very least I’m bleachin’ his best pair of Levis.
There she is again with that shouting. “Jack, did you clean your room yet?” “Jack if you clean your room I’ll go to the store and get your pizza rolls ok?” Fucking Bitch. I’m tryin’ to do stuff here. Hold on. BRB.
Alright I’m back. Once again I told her I was doin’ stuff. What does she do? Storms right back into my room and treats me like I’m her fucking slave. First of all she slammed my door open and put a fist size hole in the drywall and my god damn Randy Travis poster.
She’s yelling at me from across the fucking house. She’s ALWAYS got to be yellin’. Then she wonders why I’m pissed off at her all the time. Why can’t she come in here and talk to me like a civilized person?
Instead, she storms in here, knockin’ over all my stuff and grabs me behind the ear talkin’ to me through her teeth like a god damn animal with her stinkin’ old-lady breath all up in my face.
“No Jack. No, god dammit. Your father is havin’ people from work over and he’s tellin’ you to do it right now, got it?”
Then she flip-flops outta my room like the fat tard that she is.
----
Finally finished my stupid room. I finished it in like 10 minutes. That’ll show her. She thinks she can get me away from the computer with these stupid chores but how’s she gunna know I just shoved everything in my closet? No one’s allowed in there anyway. I’m gunna play World of Warcraft right now. BRB.
----
FUCKING RANDY! FUCKING STUPID PIECE OF SHIT BROTHER! MOTHER FUCKER CANCELLED MY WORLD OF WARCRAFT ACCOUNT! I’m really gunna kill that piece of shit now.
----
ARRRggghhhh! I tell my mom what Randy did and what does she do? NOTHING! UUUUURRRGGGHHH! She’s pissed at me. Not Randy, me. Just cuz I yelled at her. What else was I gunna do? She yells at me from across the house. Why can’t I do it, huh? Double fuckin’ standard, that’s what it is. So yeah, I yelled.
“Mom! Mom! Get in here! Mom! God Damn Randy! You jerk. You stupid jerk. I can hear you laughing outside the door Randy.”
And I could too. Piece of shit was laughing at me from behind my bedroom door.
“I can here you asshole. I hear you laughing,” I told him.
Then when forever went by and my mom just sat on her fat ass, I yelled.
“UURRRRGGGHHHH! Mom! Fuckin’ do somethin’ already!”
Then I get slapped. Me, not Randy, the real perpetrator. All I did was cuss and I get slapped. Now I’m gunna have to pay for a new World of Warcraft account out of my allowance. No. NO! Fuck that! My mom’s payin’ for it, whether she knows about it or not.
So what’s the one thing my mom does say to me?
“What’s the problem Jack? Your father has people from work over. Do you have to make such a big deal over everything?”
What a bitch.
See? See what I mean? They’re so stupid they can’t even see who’s at fault here. Stupid brother deletes my World of Warcraft account and my blog account and she yells at me instead. RETARDS! They better get me that truck. They better. I’m gunna run right over Randy. vvVVRRROOOOOM! Right over his pimple covered stupid head. SPLAT!
September 8th, 2009
It was so funny. Today in class, people were looking at me like, “Do I get an invitation? Am I gunna get to go to your birthday party?” Pppfffftttt. You wish dorks. I only gave out two. I’m pretty selective. I gave one to Jenny and one to Todd. Of course Todd gets one, cuz he’s my best friend, the only one that deserves one, and Jenny just cuz she’s hot and it would be nice to have a hot chick at my party for me and Todd to look at. She’s kinda stupid, but what do I care? Most chicks are stupid anyways. She actually did not know who Randy Travis was. Can you believe that? I went up to her in the cafeteria the other day when she was sitting with the other cheerleader bimbos. I plopped down next to her to let her know who’s boss. Chicks like it when your authoritative ‘n shit.
“Hey Jenny. What’s up? D’ya get the new Randy Travis cd?”
She flipped her bleached blonde hair over her shoulders and kept her bimbo eyes on her lunch. She practically ignored me. All she said was, “No but my sister gave me an old Def Leopard cd and her Alanis Morissette collection.” She just chomped away at her bubble gum and her stupid friends just giggled and got up to leave. I told her those bands were gay and if she wanted to listen to somethin’ good to give me a call.
When she sees my new truck though, she’ll notice me then. Guys aren’t that shallow but you know chicks are. I see all those cheerleader chicks hangin’ out with all the tough football guys with their big lifted 4x4s covered with mud. She’s gunna shit when she sees mine. Damn she’s hot. I’m gunna go take care of business before I slept. Damn she’s hot.
September 9th, 2009
Bitch totally ignored me in the lunchroom today. I sat down at her table to tell her how cool my party was gunna be. This time I didn’t plop down. I eased in there like a cheetah, right before he moves in for the kill. Real smooth. Just like how I’d fuck her.
“Hey Jenny. Boy I feel sorry for the suckers who aren’t gunna be there at my party,” I told her.
I did this while looking at all the other retards in the cafeteria, but not at her. Chicks like it when you ignore them.
She stood up and left her tray of food behind like I was some kinda disease. Bitch was even wiping her hands off with a wet-nap, as if she’d catch something from me. She used the expensive kind too. I think they were Kleenex brand. Why can’t she just use a regular napkin like a normal person? She made up some bullshit excuse about needing to do some homework before class. If she doesn’t get with me, she’s gunna feel like a retard when I get my new truck on Friday. Then I’ll just go out with her friend Priscilla and make her super jealous. I’ll arrange for Jenny to come to my truck for something when Priscilla’s goin’ down on me. Then she’ll feel like shit. Two more days. Two more days.
September 10th, 2009
Finally got back on World of Warcraft. My mom had to pay for me to get a new account. I told her I’d burn down the god damn house if she was gunna let Randy get away with that. She knows I was bluffin’ though. Hopefully. I don’t want to mess up getting the truck. I did the dishes for her after dinner just to make sure. I tried calling Jenny to remind her about the party but her mom said she wasn’t home. I left like four messages so she better remember. Todd came over and played video games today. Todd’s kind of a dirty S.O.B. but I don’t mind. He’s a hell of a gamer. Even if he is like that kid from those Peanuts cartoons. What’s his name? Pigpen! You know, the one that always had a cloud of dust around him. I told him my plan. He thought it was sweet that I’d be playin’ video games for a livin’. He asked me if I could get him a job when I get to Silicon Valley but I just gave him that stupid parents’ answer, “We’ll see.” One more day. One more day, and I’m outta here.
September 11th, 2009
I did it! I did it! I couldn’t believe how easy it was, but I did it. I couldn’t believe how surprised those fucking retards were. They got what they deserved though. I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel bad at all. I feel great. How could they? How could they have done that to me and not know what was comin’ to ‘em? Cuz they’re RETARDS THAT’S WHY! What did they expect me to do, wheeling out that piece of junk clunker on me? Right next to the garage door, where of course the first thing I would grab would be Randy’s bat. How come they looked so surprised huh? How come they didn’t even move or try to run? Because they’re fucking retards, that’s why. You should have seen the thing. A tiny little S-10. It couldn’t have had more than 4 cylinders. It was a joke. The paint was comin’ off and it was rusted just about everywhere. You couldn’t even tell where I bashed it in with Randy’s baseball bat cuz there was so many dents in it. Good thing Jenny didn’t see this. Chicks don’t like violence. When they see blood they always freak out like it’s a really big deal. She probably would’ve called the cops and told ‘em everything. “Oh my God, Oh my God! You bashed their heads in.” Yeah, well, she wouldn’t say that if she knew what retards they were. How they treated me like I was nuthin’ all the time. Always trying to embarrass me. Always trying make me look like a retard. Todd didn’t come either but it’s probably better that way. He’d prob’ly go to the cops too. He always was a tattletale. Well Randy. You stupid jerk. I got your truck. What now? I guess silver ain’t so bad. Silicon Valley, here I come.
Sunny Delight
Sunny Delight
Freshly cut grass dying on concrete was all Joe saw. With his thumbs under the padded straps of his black book bag, he slouched forward-a sharp curve from belly to forehead. Joe moved quickly from class to class, sometimes bumping into others. His shoulder length brown hair fell over his eyes when he scuttled along the sidewalks at his university. It was very spread out, very little grass, mostly concrete, and all of it completely exposed to a blistering sun. Hidden beneath his hair was an over sized pair of silver headphones that blared music nobody else liked. It was a cd his band had recorded in his mom’s garage. He wore black shirts lacking any design, everyday, and black slacks that were a size too small, everyday. His eyes were probably brown but no one ever saw them to confirm it. Joe kept his long, pale and slender limbs close to his body at all times. Joe rarely ate at the University unless his mother had packed him a lunch. Even at 23, his palette never matured and his tastes remained considerably specific, so the common foods available at the university such as pizza, burritos, and sandwiches would not suffice. It wasn’t healthy. Besides, there were way too many people around those food courts making way too much noise. On most days, his mother would pack his favorite lunch. In his backpack would be a brown paper sack, with his name on it and a heart. In the bag was a sandwich made with 12 grain bread, Nutella (chocolate spread), honey, Grape Nuts cereal, banana, and a few leaves of baby spinach for garnish and added nutrients. In the bag would always be a crisp apple, too big for any one person, especially Joe’s size, and a small green canteen with his favorite juice-Sunny D.
On this particular day, Joe ate his lunch behind the newly built computer lab under an old tree on a concrete bench covered in white spots-healthy pigeon excrement. Joe ate his lunch quickly and with the utmost efficiency. First, the sandwich, which was the heart of the meal and had to be eaten first. The apple was considered ancillary but still had nutritional value, so that had to be second. The Sunny-D had little nutritional value so that had to be last. He knew the last thing he tasted needed to be something sweet. After finishing his meal in a record five minutes he neatly wadded up the plastic wrap into the paper bag and tossed the whole of it into the nearest trashcan. He had scoped it out during the feeding process. His mother had itemized his day for him in his pocket calendar the night before. He didn’t need to look at it, but he did anyway. He pulled his bag up over his back rearing his head forward once again to create the momentum needed to propel him toward the south wing of the library-then to the 4th floor. He would then study for one hour and twenty minutes reviewing a chapter in his philosophy book before he needed to be in class. Joe liked the 4th floor. It was quieter than the rest of the library since the installation of the coffee shop downstairs. He drank their coffee everyday but still managed a considerable disdain for the noise it generated. On the 4th floor there were individual study-group rooms he could sneak into, if unlocked, that were virtually sound proof. Some days, he left the lights off. The chairs were perfect. They were made of sturdy wood. They made no sound. He hated the plastic chairs in the classrooms. They spoke even when the class went silent.
With the quick forward pull of his shoulders, Joe left the 4th floor, the library, and continued dragging his head in the direction of the philosophy building. Along the way a shadow passed him, speaking from the blur a familiar voice.
“Hey Joe how’s it….”
There would be no time to inspect this blur for confirmation of its existence. Joe could not justify the slowing of his momentum. Crossing the street he had crossed only an hour and a half earlier, he noticed the freshly cut grass once again just beginning to turn brown. Each blade looked familiar, but how could he be expected to know if they were? He wasn’t about to give any of them names.
‘Susan,’ Joe thought. ‘That’s her name.’
Like the ungodly force of throwing a corvette in reverse on the freeway, Joe turned around. The girl from his previous class was a good twenty meters away from him now but he wouldn’t let her believe that he could be so cold as to pass her without recognition. Now, he remembered her name. Not only that, he had remembered her white and yellow sunflower dress, the way it wasn’t too short, wasn’t too long, had a great big black belt that wrapped around her stomach and waist. He remembered her hair, a soft inviting and unimposing light brown that felt like summer. He remembered that she had freckles all over her body. They covered her face so lightly and gently that they only added to her beauty. She had crooked teeth where vampire fangs might be, just enough to make her interesting.
“Susan!” Joe released a gasp of air spraying a fine mist of sweat from his brow.
“Susan. Susan. Wait up.” He caught up, devoid of breath and ideas.
“Joe.” Susan turned around with her face smirking and contorting in dimples almost making her appear less attractive, but for some reason made her more attractive.
“Joe, what are you doing?”
He had captured his breath and was then beginning to correct his posture, as far as he could, with what little confidence he had.
“It’s that…It’s just that..You, uh. I didn’t see, uh. I forgot to say hi, is all.”
Susan giggled which made him feel a little better. She picked up her backpack and looked as if she needed to go. “OK Joe. Is that all?”
“Um, pretty sure. Yeah.”
She smiled a full smile this time and started to turn.
“No uh, actually. No there, also, I wanted to tell you that, um, well. You know I’m in a band right?” She nodded quickly, putting the odd smirk back on her face.
“Well we're gunna play tonight and,” Joe struggled to pull a flyer for the show out of his bag when all 20 he had printed tore on the zipper.
“Hold on. Let me just..” Joe finally pulled the wad out with a force of frustration. Wrinkled and oily from his sweaty palms, he accidentally handed all twenty flyers to Susan.
“That’s cool Joe.” She handed them back with two fingers, further contorting that smirk on her face.
“Just tell me where it’s going to be and what time and I’ll go ok?” Susan turned around fully and this time with greater speed. “See ya Joe.”
Joe was kneeling down still trying to catch a glimpse of her as she nearly skipped along the concrete, kicking up wisps of dead grass with her brown clunking grandma shoes, sending the blades into swirls behind her, all of it complementing her white and yellow sunflower dress. Joe saw this moving picture for a glorious three seconds before the glare off a rear view mirror in a 1979 Chrysler Le Baron caught the sun and shot white hot heat into his retina. The car had been blaring music Joe couldn’t stand, an incessant thumping shaking his chest.
In class, he looked at his desk. His music played on in his head but it was beginning to be a distraction from the intricate patterns he loved noticing in the veneer covering his particleboard desk. He couldn’t understand why his palms became so sweaty when he touched anything synthetic. He loved that he didn’t know. He ran his fingers over the dark brown lines simulating wood, swirling with each turn. Always something new. Always something interesting. The professor came in and for a brief moment Joe looked up to confirm he was in the right place at the right time. After this was accomplished his head went back down into his book bag and then immediately into his book to the appropriate chapter. By then, the memory of the other faces in the room washed into pastels.
At home his mother bombarded him with hugs and kisses before he had a chance to put down his book bag or even shut the front door. His head stayed down looking at the carpet while his mother ran her fingers through his hair. She was a large, blond German woman in her 50's with kind round cheeks and piercing eyes that were nearly devoid of pupils.
“D'you wash your hair today son?”
If there's one thing Joe hated it was emphatic greetings followed by accusations.
“Don't remember.”
His mother went into her kitchen and began staring into the pot of spaghetti sauce while continuing her attempt at conversation with Joe.
“Dinner's about ready. You wanna wash up and come on in here?”
She added in the apparent choice to give Joe the impression she was backing off. He rolled his eyes in the hallway. He felt perhaps he could have pretended to enjoy those big heavy arms wrapped around his, pressing his elbows into his ribs.
“Thanks mom. I'll be right there.”
Joe left the room looking for the smirk on his mother's face to return acknowledging that she had won this give-and-take game they have always played. The smirk returned and so did a new attempt to connect.
“Mom, I, uh, tonight I have to play remember?” Joe stayed in the hallway pretending to be moving toward his bedroom. His mother stayed silent for longer than Joe would have liked.
“So I can't stay too long. I need to get ready,” Joe added.
“Play what dear?” The sounds of his mother's wooden spoon against the large deep sauce pot increased in volume and in frequency.
“Remember? My band mom. We're playing tonight at DG's.”
The spoon fell against the side of the metal pot and stopped.
“Oh. That's right. The band thing. Well, ok. Don't you wanna eat first?”
The spoon resumed its noise making and soon after, so did the rest of the kitchen utensil orchestra.
Joe took little time to pack his drums into his little Japanese economy car. His mother watched him from various areas of the house, slowly folding laundry. When Joe got to the club he was reminded once again that his body wasn't built for lifting such heavy cumbersome objects. His skinny fingers and slender body would have made for a great guitar player but Joe always liked the anonymity of being behind something. In this case behind three other guys and a wall of drums. On this particular night, Joe left enough space between his equipment and the “Big Other,” the audience, to see if a flash of color and curves crossed this makeshift peephole. For much of the band's set, Joe's eyes stayed focused on the drums themselves. Inconsequential moments passed when his neck was permitted to straighten for a quick glimpse into a neutral blur in front of him. Sweat had infiltrated his eyes. His heart beat increased further and further until his vision reddened.
The song was over. Joe's head and neck rested into that comfortable space where his plain black t-shirt could more closely and lovingly wipe his brow, as his mother would have. In the distance, at the entrance to the club was a figure in white. A familiar black circle wrapped and segmented the figure into two glorious halves. The figure came into focus revealing a longer, whiter, cotton dress, adorned with sleek modern black high heels, hair curled and floating in heavenly arrangements, flowing all the way down to a familiar black belt. The figure moved slowly, looking at each new detail of the room, stepping lightly and with caution in random directions, awaiting instruction, and perhaps preparing for unfamiliar smells. The figure found a face behind a small fortress of wood and steel that directed her movement in a purposeful manner. A smile emerged.
“Joe. Hey, there's someone I'd like you to meet.”
Another figure, in dark clothing, emerging from nothingness, out of “the real,” never fully establishing human shapes and characteristics, barely seemed to exist as it blurred like a rock in the distance, directly in front of Joe.
“Joe, this is my friend Manny. He really liked your band.”
Joe didn’t know Manny, what he was to Susan, or what to say to either one of them. He loved that he didn’t know.
Freshly cut grass dying on concrete was all Joe saw. With his thumbs under the padded straps of his black book bag, he slouched forward-a sharp curve from belly to forehead. Joe moved quickly from class to class, sometimes bumping into others. His shoulder length brown hair fell over his eyes when he scuttled along the sidewalks at his university. It was very spread out, very little grass, mostly concrete, and all of it completely exposed to a blistering sun. Hidden beneath his hair was an over sized pair of silver headphones that blared music nobody else liked. It was a cd his band had recorded in his mom’s garage. He wore black shirts lacking any design, everyday, and black slacks that were a size too small, everyday. His eyes were probably brown but no one ever saw them to confirm it. Joe kept his long, pale and slender limbs close to his body at all times. Joe rarely ate at the University unless his mother had packed him a lunch. Even at 23, his palette never matured and his tastes remained considerably specific, so the common foods available at the university such as pizza, burritos, and sandwiches would not suffice. It wasn’t healthy. Besides, there were way too many people around those food courts making way too much noise. On most days, his mother would pack his favorite lunch. In his backpack would be a brown paper sack, with his name on it and a heart. In the bag was a sandwich made with 12 grain bread, Nutella (chocolate spread), honey, Grape Nuts cereal, banana, and a few leaves of baby spinach for garnish and added nutrients. In the bag would always be a crisp apple, too big for any one person, especially Joe’s size, and a small green canteen with his favorite juice-Sunny D.
On this particular day, Joe ate his lunch behind the newly built computer lab under an old tree on a concrete bench covered in white spots-healthy pigeon excrement. Joe ate his lunch quickly and with the utmost efficiency. First, the sandwich, which was the heart of the meal and had to be eaten first. The apple was considered ancillary but still had nutritional value, so that had to be second. The Sunny-D had little nutritional value so that had to be last. He knew the last thing he tasted needed to be something sweet. After finishing his meal in a record five minutes he neatly wadded up the plastic wrap into the paper bag and tossed the whole of it into the nearest trashcan. He had scoped it out during the feeding process. His mother had itemized his day for him in his pocket calendar the night before. He didn’t need to look at it, but he did anyway. He pulled his bag up over his back rearing his head forward once again to create the momentum needed to propel him toward the south wing of the library-then to the 4th floor. He would then study for one hour and twenty minutes reviewing a chapter in his philosophy book before he needed to be in class. Joe liked the 4th floor. It was quieter than the rest of the library since the installation of the coffee shop downstairs. He drank their coffee everyday but still managed a considerable disdain for the noise it generated. On the 4th floor there were individual study-group rooms he could sneak into, if unlocked, that were virtually sound proof. Some days, he left the lights off. The chairs were perfect. They were made of sturdy wood. They made no sound. He hated the plastic chairs in the classrooms. They spoke even when the class went silent.
With the quick forward pull of his shoulders, Joe left the 4th floor, the library, and continued dragging his head in the direction of the philosophy building. Along the way a shadow passed him, speaking from the blur a familiar voice.
“Hey Joe how’s it….”
There would be no time to inspect this blur for confirmation of its existence. Joe could not justify the slowing of his momentum. Crossing the street he had crossed only an hour and a half earlier, he noticed the freshly cut grass once again just beginning to turn brown. Each blade looked familiar, but how could he be expected to know if they were? He wasn’t about to give any of them names.
‘Susan,’ Joe thought. ‘That’s her name.’
Like the ungodly force of throwing a corvette in reverse on the freeway, Joe turned around. The girl from his previous class was a good twenty meters away from him now but he wouldn’t let her believe that he could be so cold as to pass her without recognition. Now, he remembered her name. Not only that, he had remembered her white and yellow sunflower dress, the way it wasn’t too short, wasn’t too long, had a great big black belt that wrapped around her stomach and waist. He remembered her hair, a soft inviting and unimposing light brown that felt like summer. He remembered that she had freckles all over her body. They covered her face so lightly and gently that they only added to her beauty. She had crooked teeth where vampire fangs might be, just enough to make her interesting.
“Susan!” Joe released a gasp of air spraying a fine mist of sweat from his brow.
“Susan. Susan. Wait up.” He caught up, devoid of breath and ideas.
“Joe.” Susan turned around with her face smirking and contorting in dimples almost making her appear less attractive, but for some reason made her more attractive.
“Joe, what are you doing?”
He had captured his breath and was then beginning to correct his posture, as far as he could, with what little confidence he had.
“It’s that…It’s just that..You, uh. I didn’t see, uh. I forgot to say hi, is all.”
Susan giggled which made him feel a little better. She picked up her backpack and looked as if she needed to go. “OK Joe. Is that all?”
“Um, pretty sure. Yeah.”
She smiled a full smile this time and started to turn.
“No uh, actually. No there, also, I wanted to tell you that, um, well. You know I’m in a band right?” She nodded quickly, putting the odd smirk back on her face.
“Well we're gunna play tonight and,” Joe struggled to pull a flyer for the show out of his bag when all 20 he had printed tore on the zipper.
“Hold on. Let me just..” Joe finally pulled the wad out with a force of frustration. Wrinkled and oily from his sweaty palms, he accidentally handed all twenty flyers to Susan.
“That’s cool Joe.” She handed them back with two fingers, further contorting that smirk on her face.
“Just tell me where it’s going to be and what time and I’ll go ok?” Susan turned around fully and this time with greater speed. “See ya Joe.”
Joe was kneeling down still trying to catch a glimpse of her as she nearly skipped along the concrete, kicking up wisps of dead grass with her brown clunking grandma shoes, sending the blades into swirls behind her, all of it complementing her white and yellow sunflower dress. Joe saw this moving picture for a glorious three seconds before the glare off a rear view mirror in a 1979 Chrysler Le Baron caught the sun and shot white hot heat into his retina. The car had been blaring music Joe couldn’t stand, an incessant thumping shaking his chest.
In class, he looked at his desk. His music played on in his head but it was beginning to be a distraction from the intricate patterns he loved noticing in the veneer covering his particleboard desk. He couldn’t understand why his palms became so sweaty when he touched anything synthetic. He loved that he didn’t know. He ran his fingers over the dark brown lines simulating wood, swirling with each turn. Always something new. Always something interesting. The professor came in and for a brief moment Joe looked up to confirm he was in the right place at the right time. After this was accomplished his head went back down into his book bag and then immediately into his book to the appropriate chapter. By then, the memory of the other faces in the room washed into pastels.
At home his mother bombarded him with hugs and kisses before he had a chance to put down his book bag or even shut the front door. His head stayed down looking at the carpet while his mother ran her fingers through his hair. She was a large, blond German woman in her 50's with kind round cheeks and piercing eyes that were nearly devoid of pupils.
“D'you wash your hair today son?”
If there's one thing Joe hated it was emphatic greetings followed by accusations.
“Don't remember.”
His mother went into her kitchen and began staring into the pot of spaghetti sauce while continuing her attempt at conversation with Joe.
“Dinner's about ready. You wanna wash up and come on in here?”
She added in the apparent choice to give Joe the impression she was backing off. He rolled his eyes in the hallway. He felt perhaps he could have pretended to enjoy those big heavy arms wrapped around his, pressing his elbows into his ribs.
“Thanks mom. I'll be right there.”
Joe left the room looking for the smirk on his mother's face to return acknowledging that she had won this give-and-take game they have always played. The smirk returned and so did a new attempt to connect.
“Mom, I, uh, tonight I have to play remember?” Joe stayed in the hallway pretending to be moving toward his bedroom. His mother stayed silent for longer than Joe would have liked.
“So I can't stay too long. I need to get ready,” Joe added.
“Play what dear?” The sounds of his mother's wooden spoon against the large deep sauce pot increased in volume and in frequency.
“Remember? My band mom. We're playing tonight at DG's.”
The spoon fell against the side of the metal pot and stopped.
“Oh. That's right. The band thing. Well, ok. Don't you wanna eat first?”
The spoon resumed its noise making and soon after, so did the rest of the kitchen utensil orchestra.
Joe took little time to pack his drums into his little Japanese economy car. His mother watched him from various areas of the house, slowly folding laundry. When Joe got to the club he was reminded once again that his body wasn't built for lifting such heavy cumbersome objects. His skinny fingers and slender body would have made for a great guitar player but Joe always liked the anonymity of being behind something. In this case behind three other guys and a wall of drums. On this particular night, Joe left enough space between his equipment and the “Big Other,” the audience, to see if a flash of color and curves crossed this makeshift peephole. For much of the band's set, Joe's eyes stayed focused on the drums themselves. Inconsequential moments passed when his neck was permitted to straighten for a quick glimpse into a neutral blur in front of him. Sweat had infiltrated his eyes. His heart beat increased further and further until his vision reddened.
The song was over. Joe's head and neck rested into that comfortable space where his plain black t-shirt could more closely and lovingly wipe his brow, as his mother would have. In the distance, at the entrance to the club was a figure in white. A familiar black circle wrapped and segmented the figure into two glorious halves. The figure came into focus revealing a longer, whiter, cotton dress, adorned with sleek modern black high heels, hair curled and floating in heavenly arrangements, flowing all the way down to a familiar black belt. The figure moved slowly, looking at each new detail of the room, stepping lightly and with caution in random directions, awaiting instruction, and perhaps preparing for unfamiliar smells. The figure found a face behind a small fortress of wood and steel that directed her movement in a purposeful manner. A smile emerged.
“Joe. Hey, there's someone I'd like you to meet.”
Another figure, in dark clothing, emerging from nothingness, out of “the real,” never fully establishing human shapes and characteristics, barely seemed to exist as it blurred like a rock in the distance, directly in front of Joe.
“Joe, this is my friend Manny. He really liked your band.”
Joe didn’t know Manny, what he was to Susan, or what to say to either one of them. He loved that he didn’t know.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Eating Her Womb
Eating Her Womb
My weak fleshy arms
Transparent and pink
Gripping with tiny instruments
Stubby and delicate
Wrapping new fingernails around my tether
To a blood red abyss
And I am drowning.
I pull at the string
Struggling to reach a shore
Or platform
Safe-haven
Dear God
Give me a breath of fresh air!
I’m not sure it exists
So with soft gums
It takes decades
to chew through
this tough tube
and eat away lining
tissue and sinew
open my eyes
having finally survived you.
My weak fleshy arms
Transparent and pink
Gripping with tiny instruments
Stubby and delicate
Wrapping new fingernails around my tether
To a blood red abyss
And I am drowning.
I pull at the string
Struggling to reach a shore
Or platform
Safe-haven
Dear God
Give me a breath of fresh air!
I’m not sure it exists
So with soft gums
It takes decades
to chew through
this tough tube
and eat away lining
tissue and sinew
open my eyes
having finally survived you.
Monday, July 27, 2009
This is the Story of an Old Man
This is the Story of an Old Man
This is the story of an old man, a very old man. I am not old. I am a college student. I go to a moderately sized university in the southwestern United States. I am in my senior year now and have enjoyed nearly every class I have taken there. My favorite days are those when I don’t have to work and get to spend the whole day at school, sometimes with hours in between classes, which gives me a perfect excuse to go to the library and read things my teachers have not assigned. My life now is not an exciting one. It used to be. It used to be, dangerous. I am happy now. I am content. I am in love. My time is managed, more like a responsible adult. I have seen my friends dwindle and fade into history. My days are quiet. I stay at home and read to avoid getting traffic tickets and rude stares from drivers who can afford to keep their air-conditioned cars running. When my fiancé is at work I watch Hitchcock films and dream of being a director. I don’t know anything about film.
On Wednesday evenings from 6:00pm-9:00pm I have a class at the University. It is a class on Modernist and Post-Modernist fiction. I imagine sometimes when I am reading, that I have befriended the authors and go drinking with them and my professor in old English pubs-odd considering that the authors are all American-and then I have to re-read long passages, trying to find where it was I first began to daydream. At the front of the class, nearest to the professor’s podium sits the oldest student, Helmond. He is 88 years old. No one in the class knows much about him. We all know that he talks more than all of us combined on any given Wednesday. It is difficult to see if the professor appreciates his enthusiasm or is just too polite to show any signs of annoyance.
Helmond loves to give reference to the popular culture of his day, which more than usually is beyond a frame of reference for even our professor. Helmond wears dark colored suits to class along with plaid hats, sometimes with bright feathers sticking out from the side. He has huge coke bottle glasses that sit firm into the deep ridge of his old sagging nose. He looks as if dust might rise up into the air if you were to hug him awkwardly like a grandfather on Christmas day. This was a stark contrast from the typical khaki colored cargo shorts and rock band t-shirts scattered about the room. For many older people that attend the university, there is hesitation in their voices, even in some cases an underlying terror the younger students can sniff out from the obvious fact that something or someone in their room was out of place. For Helmond, this was certainly not the case. He had an air of confidence and a presence in the room that quieted those of us fresh from adolescence. We respected Helmond. We looked at him like we would an animal that gets brought to the zoo only for special exhibits, one whose viewing area sadly displays a plaque of its imminent extinction.
Half way through the semester it occurred to me that because of this respectful distance we all kept from Helmond, he might never get the chance to experience the warmth of those late night study sessions with wayward college students who chaotically call each other for desperate assistance the night before an exam. That would be a pity. Or at least I assumed so. I myself had never had the desire to take part in these. I hated group work almost as much as I hated people in general, but poor Helmond may not feel this way. Should I deprive him of his experience just because I am an obstinate, cynical introvert?
As midterms approached, I came up with a plan. I would befriend Helmond Bender. It would be just like I had imagined in my literary daydreams. We would discuss how terrible music and television had gotten while reminiscing about the swing jazz era over glass after glass of single malt scotch on ice. I would refrain from cursing in front of him, because I have gathered from parental figures that it is only in our reckless generation X world that this sort of language is tossed about so haphazardly.
It began by simply saying “hi” to him as he waited patiently in the hallway, half an hour before class.
“Hello Helmond. How are you today?”
“Well, fine I s’pose. Just finished that weird one last night, ‘Balloon, or The Balloon, something or other.”
I looked at him with a smile, a reassuring smile.
“Right, right. The Balloon. What’d you think?”
Helmond would turn his lower lip out as if to say he was truly giving the story a chance to mean something to him.
“It was alright I s’pose.”
I would return the favor with a turned lower lip as well as if to give his comment the proper amount of time to settle.
“Alright, well, see you inside,” and then I would dart off somewhere pretending to have some very important young-person thing to do in the other direction. I was constantly terrified of screwing up my plan with language that would create barriers between us. This was a difficult task. I could not use language of the 30’s and give my self away as a fraud, a disingenuous little prick that was up to something. I also had to avoid any hip lingo that would put him off, something to the effect of, “right on man,” or “yeah, fuck that story.”
Slowly, my plan began to work. Our conversations increased by a few sentences each time we met. The week before midterms I no longer felt the need to run away from him. Just as I had relaxed around Helmond I became aware of a larger more pressing problem that threatened to destroy my plan. So far, in this class, as well as all of my other classes, I had spoken to no one other than Helmond. Not once did I lend anyone a pencil or pen. Not once did I attempt to exchange phone numbers with anyone who could provide me notes for a day I missed class due to illness or lack of motivation. Who would be worthy of the magical time spent with Helmond Bender? Much work needed to be done.
School days were very busy for me. Although I had only one night class, I spent my days thoughtfully planning “random” encounters with fellow students. In order to explain the difficulty involved in doing this, I feel I must reiterate the deep loathing I have for casual conversation or “small talk” with anyone. I would watch countless students, hours before class started, one hundred yards away from our classroom in all directions with binoculars, waiting for those I recognized to pass in front of my scope of vision. This was done conveniently from the balcony of the student food court. When a familiar face would pass in front of my binoculars I would rush down the stairs into their path, explaining that I was winded because I was late for my next class and had to give a presentation. My false sense of urgency kept the encounters brief and the conversation to a pleasant minimum. In three days time I had produced five possible candidates for Helmond’s study group experience. I knew that more would be needed because at best, only three of the five would actually show up. This was college and people were even less dependable than in what some have dubbed, “the real world.” Running out of time, with only two days until our midterm, I confirmed the date with the others and presented the idea to Helmond on his way to his American history class.
“Hey, Helmond.” I was nearly shaking in anticipation.
“Hey there, young feller.”
He continued walking and after being slightly winded from my excited jog, it was difficult to catch up.
“Helmond, there are a few of us that will be getting together to study for Wednesday’s exam. Would you like to join us?”
Helmond stopped and moved about his lower jaw quite a bit. He stared into the leaves of the elms on campus that had started turning brown. He squinted and pushed a ball of air out of his mouth in a valiant effort to laugh.
“No…heh. Heh. That’s o.k. You go right ahead.”
I was crushed. He had obliterated my plan and after all of that terrible mingling I had put myself through. I was furious but also incredibly sad. How could this old man deprive himself of this very typical life experience and go to his grave so lonely and bitter. I had to act, I had to insist.
“But, sir,” I had dropped my guard and violated basic rules of language exchange I had set for conversations with him. “Wouldn’t you like to experience what it’s like to be with a bunch of rowdy, enthusiastic college kids that have just met but come together joyously for a common cause, laughing hysterically at the mannerisms of the professor, imitating him, drinking beer and bonding?”
Helmond began heaving violently with amusement at each additional comment I had made describing this magical event. He looked like the joy might kill him. I was worried and very, very angry with him. I got closer to him and patted his back to see if he would regain his breath.
“Are you ok Mr. Bender?” All rules were out the window. I was exposed for the young fraud that I was.
“Are you ok?”
He regained his breath, finally straightening his back, eliminating the hump that appeared when he had bent over laughing.
“Shit son. You’ve never been to one of these have you?”
I then watched as he walked with a swagger, laughing at the old fart behind him.
This is the story of an old man, a very old man. I am not old. I am a college student. I go to a moderately sized university in the southwestern United States. I am in my senior year now and have enjoyed nearly every class I have taken there. My favorite days are those when I don’t have to work and get to spend the whole day at school, sometimes with hours in between classes, which gives me a perfect excuse to go to the library and read things my teachers have not assigned. My life now is not an exciting one. It used to be. It used to be, dangerous. I am happy now. I am content. I am in love. My time is managed, more like a responsible adult. I have seen my friends dwindle and fade into history. My days are quiet. I stay at home and read to avoid getting traffic tickets and rude stares from drivers who can afford to keep their air-conditioned cars running. When my fiancé is at work I watch Hitchcock films and dream of being a director. I don’t know anything about film.
On Wednesday evenings from 6:00pm-9:00pm I have a class at the University. It is a class on Modernist and Post-Modernist fiction. I imagine sometimes when I am reading, that I have befriended the authors and go drinking with them and my professor in old English pubs-odd considering that the authors are all American-and then I have to re-read long passages, trying to find where it was I first began to daydream. At the front of the class, nearest to the professor’s podium sits the oldest student, Helmond. He is 88 years old. No one in the class knows much about him. We all know that he talks more than all of us combined on any given Wednesday. It is difficult to see if the professor appreciates his enthusiasm or is just too polite to show any signs of annoyance.
Helmond loves to give reference to the popular culture of his day, which more than usually is beyond a frame of reference for even our professor. Helmond wears dark colored suits to class along with plaid hats, sometimes with bright feathers sticking out from the side. He has huge coke bottle glasses that sit firm into the deep ridge of his old sagging nose. He looks as if dust might rise up into the air if you were to hug him awkwardly like a grandfather on Christmas day. This was a stark contrast from the typical khaki colored cargo shorts and rock band t-shirts scattered about the room. For many older people that attend the university, there is hesitation in their voices, even in some cases an underlying terror the younger students can sniff out from the obvious fact that something or someone in their room was out of place. For Helmond, this was certainly not the case. He had an air of confidence and a presence in the room that quieted those of us fresh from adolescence. We respected Helmond. We looked at him like we would an animal that gets brought to the zoo only for special exhibits, one whose viewing area sadly displays a plaque of its imminent extinction.
Half way through the semester it occurred to me that because of this respectful distance we all kept from Helmond, he might never get the chance to experience the warmth of those late night study sessions with wayward college students who chaotically call each other for desperate assistance the night before an exam. That would be a pity. Or at least I assumed so. I myself had never had the desire to take part in these. I hated group work almost as much as I hated people in general, but poor Helmond may not feel this way. Should I deprive him of his experience just because I am an obstinate, cynical introvert?
As midterms approached, I came up with a plan. I would befriend Helmond Bender. It would be just like I had imagined in my literary daydreams. We would discuss how terrible music and television had gotten while reminiscing about the swing jazz era over glass after glass of single malt scotch on ice. I would refrain from cursing in front of him, because I have gathered from parental figures that it is only in our reckless generation X world that this sort of language is tossed about so haphazardly.
It began by simply saying “hi” to him as he waited patiently in the hallway, half an hour before class.
“Hello Helmond. How are you today?”
“Well, fine I s’pose. Just finished that weird one last night, ‘Balloon, or The Balloon, something or other.”
I looked at him with a smile, a reassuring smile.
“Right, right. The Balloon. What’d you think?”
Helmond would turn his lower lip out as if to say he was truly giving the story a chance to mean something to him.
“It was alright I s’pose.”
I would return the favor with a turned lower lip as well as if to give his comment the proper amount of time to settle.
“Alright, well, see you inside,” and then I would dart off somewhere pretending to have some very important young-person thing to do in the other direction. I was constantly terrified of screwing up my plan with language that would create barriers between us. This was a difficult task. I could not use language of the 30’s and give my self away as a fraud, a disingenuous little prick that was up to something. I also had to avoid any hip lingo that would put him off, something to the effect of, “right on man,” or “yeah, fuck that story.”
Slowly, my plan began to work. Our conversations increased by a few sentences each time we met. The week before midterms I no longer felt the need to run away from him. Just as I had relaxed around Helmond I became aware of a larger more pressing problem that threatened to destroy my plan. So far, in this class, as well as all of my other classes, I had spoken to no one other than Helmond. Not once did I lend anyone a pencil or pen. Not once did I attempt to exchange phone numbers with anyone who could provide me notes for a day I missed class due to illness or lack of motivation. Who would be worthy of the magical time spent with Helmond Bender? Much work needed to be done.
School days were very busy for me. Although I had only one night class, I spent my days thoughtfully planning “random” encounters with fellow students. In order to explain the difficulty involved in doing this, I feel I must reiterate the deep loathing I have for casual conversation or “small talk” with anyone. I would watch countless students, hours before class started, one hundred yards away from our classroom in all directions with binoculars, waiting for those I recognized to pass in front of my scope of vision. This was done conveniently from the balcony of the student food court. When a familiar face would pass in front of my binoculars I would rush down the stairs into their path, explaining that I was winded because I was late for my next class and had to give a presentation. My false sense of urgency kept the encounters brief and the conversation to a pleasant minimum. In three days time I had produced five possible candidates for Helmond’s study group experience. I knew that more would be needed because at best, only three of the five would actually show up. This was college and people were even less dependable than in what some have dubbed, “the real world.” Running out of time, with only two days until our midterm, I confirmed the date with the others and presented the idea to Helmond on his way to his American history class.
“Hey, Helmond.” I was nearly shaking in anticipation.
“Hey there, young feller.”
He continued walking and after being slightly winded from my excited jog, it was difficult to catch up.
“Helmond, there are a few of us that will be getting together to study for Wednesday’s exam. Would you like to join us?”
Helmond stopped and moved about his lower jaw quite a bit. He stared into the leaves of the elms on campus that had started turning brown. He squinted and pushed a ball of air out of his mouth in a valiant effort to laugh.
“No…heh. Heh. That’s o.k. You go right ahead.”
I was crushed. He had obliterated my plan and after all of that terrible mingling I had put myself through. I was furious but also incredibly sad. How could this old man deprive himself of this very typical life experience and go to his grave so lonely and bitter. I had to act, I had to insist.
“But, sir,” I had dropped my guard and violated basic rules of language exchange I had set for conversations with him. “Wouldn’t you like to experience what it’s like to be with a bunch of rowdy, enthusiastic college kids that have just met but come together joyously for a common cause, laughing hysterically at the mannerisms of the professor, imitating him, drinking beer and bonding?”
Helmond began heaving violently with amusement at each additional comment I had made describing this magical event. He looked like the joy might kill him. I was worried and very, very angry with him. I got closer to him and patted his back to see if he would regain his breath.
“Are you ok Mr. Bender?” All rules were out the window. I was exposed for the young fraud that I was.
“Are you ok?”
He regained his breath, finally straightening his back, eliminating the hump that appeared when he had bent over laughing.
“Shit son. You’ve never been to one of these have you?”
I then watched as he walked with a swagger, laughing at the old fart behind him.
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