You know I don't think I minded being left alone. I didn't. Maybe you're one of those people who just wants you to walk past and not say anything. You know... like when you stub a toe... and that hot wave of endorphin rich pain washes over you? I'm one of those people. Id much prefer not to be noticed. If you tried to help me now I would bite your arm off at the elbow and then spit it at your mother.
I've heard from people from back then... the Senators. They've contacted me since... apologizing. Offering 'sorrys' for being 'immature'. Some sent long long emails, some through Facebook. And days after a house fire... they would likely bring me water-balloons and salt water taffy. We went from spending hours in a big group laughing in the big empty dinning common to nothing. I couldn't speak to them. I couldn't look at them. Don't get me wrong I was mad at them for me... but ever so much worse. I was shocked stupid. I was shocked silent because they brought danger to us. Some consolation all those late dinners together were now...our jokes and snickering catching the attention of the hostess staff in the building, who on occasion would waddle over to make sure we weren't actually enjoying ourselves. Things change. Let's just say if they ran for an office now, I might do some campaigning against them. Not just because they were selfish.... it was because of what they nearly did. They nearly took my family.
Do you know though... I hit upon a little stroke of luck in those nasty times. A gift you might say. I discovered something. The fatal flaw that saved us in the end. Or at least saved us for the time being.
Work was a fuckery. I had a headache that was bearing patiently into the back of my eyes. My eyes were watery from it and I could feel the edges of them burn when I closed my eyes. I didnt have any advil, and there was none at the store. I wasnt shifting that day. Drive through had been steady. It may have been a thursay. It feels like it was that or a Tuesday. As the memory of it simmers in my mind. Either way much lunch break finally lumbered around. I had thirty precious minutes to get to publix, and buy some pain killers. Maybe something to eat and then storm back into work in time to mop the lobby. That was plan anyways.
I had located the pills I needed and was looking for something in a jar, or maybe some soup... ah that was it. I hit on a sub. That'll be fine. Someone was calling. The name on the phone was Laura Thompson. It was rare that she called. I mean she and I were friends, but we only hung out tangentially... whenever I ran into her or saw her at church. She was a very pale skinned girl with big watery blue eyes. Dark wet looking brown hair that always had just too tight of a curl to it. Or perhaps rather a shade too tangled. Some call it the natural look. I do not. She was most notable to me because she was emotionally sanguine and chiefly concerned herself with every lost cause that was just so lost as to be time wasted. She prayed a lot from what I can tell. Im sure she meant it a lot too. She dressed like an English teacher who desperately wanted to be an English person. Alac.
I picked up the phone.
"Hi."
"Josh! Where are you right now...."
"Im at publix... I cant get rid of this headache... Im getting lunch what's up?" I was baffled as to why she would have called me at that hour.
"Josh... we need to talk like right; right now." There was something itchy in her voice it sounded like panic.
"Oh... well we are talking... aren't we? Whats wrong?" I prompted. I had 30 minutes. I could eat or then not eat. I was going to eat.
"Sooo.... Ive been talking with Chris and Ray..."
My pupils narrowed.
"And Josh I cant believe it! You're totally gay... Like you're a homosexual!" She spat into the phone. Her words were making the same sounds children make when they're eating pudding.
"Huh?..." I stood still on aisle 5 at the publix on pelham rd.
" Where are you right now?"
"I just... like I said Im at publix. Ive got thirty minutes to my meal break. I dont know what you're talking about. I have to go."
"OK ok... WAIT... Josh hear me out. Im on the way to where you are stay there. Im coming."
"I uh. Ok..... "
She hung up. Undoubtedly she and her clan of other natural looking people had simply been riding around... guessing where I may be. I mercifully made it to the end of the line at check out and was on my way to the car... Maybe I'd luck out maybe she wouldnt be there.
She was. She called me in the parking lot. I saw the name on the phone but just slid the bar to ignore. She stalked up behind me in the parking lot. Eyes so much the more than watering.
"Josh! I cant believe this!... Why didn't you tell me?" She squared her shoulders at me. This other girl that was with her hung back like back up. Perhaps its a HAZMAT thing... 2nd stage protocol, in case I escaped.
"Why are you here right now?" The pain in my head was melting away, and I could feel a strange black coldness growing in me. Swelling quickly like a summer thunderstorm. I could feel that behind my eyes now quickly wiping out what was apparently just an imagined headache.
"I have thirty minutes to eat and try to get this headache under control and go back to work. What were you hoping to accomplish here."
"Josh! You're not listening. Ray and Chris... they told me everything. They told me how you and x were together! I'm here because I don't know what to do. I mean I cant just not tell people...You have to know it's wrong right?"
You know those scenes from action films. The ones where a protagonist watches as a large structure falls. The camera pans around and the score drops out... no sound at all. In some cases just a single high pitch is audible in the back ground. This happened then. And just as quickly I knew what must be done.
"What exactly, in as few words as possible did Ray and Chris tell you?" I said quietly, hawk-like.
"Well um.... " She started forming tears. "They said that you two were like together... that you had been for a while, and nobody knew about it. They said that they couldn't be involved with it anymore because... because Ray said that he knew that it was wrong. It's true isnt it!? I mean... It has to be right? Does Amanda know about it? I want to help you!... But i dont know how....Let me help you!"
I stared at her. Remorseless. Feeling out the play. Like I was playing a game of pool. This must strike that. This angle must strike that. A little chalk... a little luck. Go.
"Laura. Im not sure what all people have been saying about me. But to be honest I don't really have time to chat with you. I don't know why Ray or Chris would have said any of that. I have to go to work now. Your concern is appreciable. I have to go now."
All of the was delivered with a succinctness nearly absent in my other talks with anyone.
I got into my car and drove the less than a mile back to work. I wasn't hungry anymore. I wasnt anything anymore.
I carbon copied three people to a text and pressed 'send.'
Something has happened. Dont speak with anyone. We need to meet tonight. 10:30 I'll come to you.
Showing posts with label Bullying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bullying. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Collusion: Part XXXII
She was trying to stay calm I think. To slip past them... That's what she had been trained for... But in the deadness and the silence... in that black tension, now we would see what would come of the training. She was hiding in the thick evergreens. The trees had begun to clear as she had made her way out of the deeper woods... I felt the fear with her. I sensed instinctively she was being followed.
The moonlight was weak. The clouds above, skeletal and fickle. I had no idea how long she had been running, but she wasn't breathing very hard. I caught a little glimpse at her, pale and thin in the blue light from the sky. She had a decidedly angular face. A thin nose that turned up ever so little at the end... and her eyes were a kind of black that ate in all the light around them.
Black hair hung to her shoulders and she was dressed for running and hiding.
Then before I knew what to think about it... they were around her. The smallest of rustlings back towards the woods and my glance darted towards it with her. Then two of them shot across the clearing towards her.
Dogs... no wolves. They bolted forward. Quick and silent like fish. The woman made no sound herself but dashed from her hiding place and began running. I followed them... Trying to hide myself... I was terrified of the wolves. I had to help this girl though. I ran after the group.
We ran for some minutes... the trees got more and more sparse... And then I stopped quickly, noticing that they had as well. Because there was no longer any land to run on. We had come to the edge of a cliff.
The woman was being yanked around by the two hounds. It was no where as clear an image as I would have liked. The shapes became vague in the half light. They were as big as I was and bent with all sorta of blood lust on killing this girl. I looked on horrified... I looked around for some way to help her. A stick. A stone. Something. But I was forced to look back as I heard a scream. From her. This girl. She had pulled out a little short knife from a boot and stuck one of the dogs in the neck. And kicked the other off of her. But there were more of them... I felt the breath of one of them on the back of my neck and yelled out as it brushed past me into the clearing towards the girl. It didn't hear me. It didn't stop. It made no sign it had noticed me at all. Now it was five of them darting her way. Swift and silent as shadows across the white sand of the clearing. This time I ran out with them. There were too many. She couldn't get them all.
As I looked on though she had kicked the first two approaching in the face. Kicked them down flat. They struggled to get up. But then as if frightened... the others began to back away from her.
They whimpered and growled and backed away back towards the woods.
I stopped running towards them... and watched the cowering back, wondering at this odd and fortunate chain of events. The growled low... and sat down on their haunches menacing. The stricken ones staggered to their feet and joined the others in a wide circle around the girl... Who... oddly was smiling.
Ha ha ha! She laughed a laugh that sounded as careless as a teenagers. "I saw you running with them... Always sending out the boys after me... How many of them have I killed?'
Her smile was galvanized by the blue black moonlight.
I couldn't see who she was talking to until a moment later. A small thin man... barely as tall as me and much thinner stepped out of the shadow of the woods. He could have been a child for all that I knew... but he was dressed so perfectly as to be unrealistic of his jaunt through the woods just now. A tiny black suit. White french cuffs and a stiff white collar.
"Well this time you took it... Congratulations..." The man said. His voice was cracked and deep and completely disturbing for such a small child like person. "We'll have it back now though, thankyou."
He said this with absolutely no emotion. No inflection. And his voice sounded so familiar. Like someones that I had always known.
The woman did not respond to this except to spit on the ground in contempt. "Ill do what I came here for she said... and with that she flung her little boot knife at the boy... flink. As it nearly struck him in the face he flicked it to the ground....
The wolves grew vocal and angry at this... As if it were an affront to the entirety of their religion and made for the girl once again... And this time they were not alone. The little man rushed the distance between him and the cliff and quickly caught the girls neck making it there before the dogs. Jumping up on her knees to make the distance and then pulling her down with him to accommodate his shortness at the ground.
"What now girl?" Impish boy called to her sweetly as he was crushing her neck... "Give me back what's mine? Ill let you go?" The intensity with which the boy was crushing her neck was devastating to watch... The once gloating smile and taunting look dropped from her face leaving a blank white knowledge in her eye. She had chanced too much. She hadn't run fast enough.
Then there was something else. Something foreign that I'd never seen a human express.
A fastness. A calmness.
A quick snatch and now she had him by his throat as well... She pounced and pushed him onto his back using her height as an advantage. The wolves stood around taught as a drawn bow, but would not apparently challenge the contestants...
"And what of your family? You sister? What of them?" The little man asked his face rigid with the struggle...
The girl pulled out of his grasp and looked down on his as struggled wildly. "I know where they've gone."
"Then you must arrange to see them again! You must arrange freedom for them!" The little squealed at her.
The girl smiled at this, to my surprise, and said..." I'd much rather you visit them for me."
Little man snapped his finger and the wolves shot forward. Just then, though, my mouth fell open as slick black wings opened from the girls back and beat down once and quickly, just diving over the heads of the charging dogs, and over to her little knife in the sand...
She quickly pulled little man by the hair of his head and beat those wings three or so times more to hover over the dogs who were below her now yapping and whining for the leader to be returned.
"Remember this!" She screamed at the dogs. "Remember how there was nothing you could do!" Remember ... remember when you begin to feel safe again!" She laughed a little... I couldn't tell who was evil any more... I couldn't tell who I should help.
She fingered the tiny knife in her right hand and then quickly pulled it across little mans throat...
He en-hailed with a slight chug as she dropped him to the ground and made the smallest of thuds in the dusty sand.
The wolves looked up angrily and she flew off.
I bolted up sweating as my alarm rolled pleated out its tell tale fog horn sound.
Blink. Blink.
"DAMMIT!" Churned through my head like a track on a CD skipping as I jumped down from my top bunk to look for clothing and shoes. It can not be 7:50... It just can NOT BE! Kakis. Check. Ok. Teeth... NO! no. You have 10 minutes! It takes you 6 to make it across from your room! Shirt. Books. .... Tie.
Grrraaaaah! I was mad as hell. How could I have hit snooze that many times! I was stepping out of the room as I noticed and odd sensation... "The carpet is very short here... i thought." Gah! Shoes... I slipped some on and snatched at a very large, very ugly scarf on my way out the door.
:slam!: I passed boys in various stages of un-dress through the hall as I dashed madly for the side door of the dormatory.
"Hi josh!" My hall leader called out brightly. He'd obviously been slowly sipping Turkish coffee for hours.
"GrumN pEeh. Rah." I said as I zipped past him. Tucking my shirt in in the mean time.
I skipped down the stairs to the first floor exit two at a time glancing at my MOTOrazor the whole While. 7:54.
"OK. Alright Mr. Medlin. You're gonne be just fine.... just fine!" I heard in my head.
I shot out of the building forgetting all social graces and a bumped past two senior 'handsome soccer players.'
"Sorry! Sorry!" I offered as they shot me looks of disgust.
"Late... I'm Sorry!"
And then as the fates must have decided. There was Amanda. Even now as I type the name, it brings an utter revolt. So much so that I was required to look away from my typing and stare at a dark corner of the room.
Amanda Huss. Be mindful reader, it was not so then. 'Then' it hardly made a difference when I saw her. But.... the time would come... let it be known.
She wandered past with a group of acads.
"Josh!" She called out from the fray of them.... "Josh! Hi!"
I turned and greeted her happily.
"Hey Manda! Hey nice to see you." I said... Walking backwards away from her towards my classroom.
"Hey... you commin to church tonight?" She asked smiling at me all red haired and jolly.
"Yeah!... yeah... Ill see ya. I've gotta run. Late for Doctrines..." I turned and jogged towards lecture B.
I made it at the sound of the bell. The kids in the seats next to me all seemed rather perturbed at the size of my book bag; but it couldnt be helped. I didn't have time to stroll back to my room to change and fraternize with my friends on the hall between classes. I would be going till 1PM. And then work. So I squeezed in between peoples twice my size. I must have looked like a pack mule.
"Alright students" said the withered old man at the head of gray room.. "Would you please all take out a pencil and some notebook paper... and write for me todays quiz. Word perfect... John 4:24. You will have ten minutes to complete this....
Ok. Ok. I don't have to worry about this... but I did. Amongst all the things that Id gathered from my room on the way out, none of them were either pencil, nor paper. I whispered and annoyingly borrowed them from other students in my row... and began to write.
"John 4:24"
"God is spirit, and they that worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth."
I signed my name, and passed my paper to the end of the row for grading and then promptly fell asleep. I wandered if I could find out where that girl had flown off to... I wondered if I should follow her.
The moonlight was weak. The clouds above, skeletal and fickle. I had no idea how long she had been running, but she wasn't breathing very hard. I caught a little glimpse at her, pale and thin in the blue light from the sky. She had a decidedly angular face. A thin nose that turned up ever so little at the end... and her eyes were a kind of black that ate in all the light around them.
Black hair hung to her shoulders and she was dressed for running and hiding.
Then before I knew what to think about it... they were around her. The smallest of rustlings back towards the woods and my glance darted towards it with her. Then two of them shot across the clearing towards her.
Dogs... no wolves. They bolted forward. Quick and silent like fish. The woman made no sound herself but dashed from her hiding place and began running. I followed them... Trying to hide myself... I was terrified of the wolves. I had to help this girl though. I ran after the group.
We ran for some minutes... the trees got more and more sparse... And then I stopped quickly, noticing that they had as well. Because there was no longer any land to run on. We had come to the edge of a cliff.
The woman was being yanked around by the two hounds. It was no where as clear an image as I would have liked. The shapes became vague in the half light. They were as big as I was and bent with all sorta of blood lust on killing this girl. I looked on horrified... I looked around for some way to help her. A stick. A stone. Something. But I was forced to look back as I heard a scream. From her. This girl. She had pulled out a little short knife from a boot and stuck one of the dogs in the neck. And kicked the other off of her. But there were more of them... I felt the breath of one of them on the back of my neck and yelled out as it brushed past me into the clearing towards the girl. It didn't hear me. It didn't stop. It made no sign it had noticed me at all. Now it was five of them darting her way. Swift and silent as shadows across the white sand of the clearing. This time I ran out with them. There were too many. She couldn't get them all.
As I looked on though she had kicked the first two approaching in the face. Kicked them down flat. They struggled to get up. But then as if frightened... the others began to back away from her.
They whimpered and growled and backed away back towards the woods.
I stopped running towards them... and watched the cowering back, wondering at this odd and fortunate chain of events. The growled low... and sat down on their haunches menacing. The stricken ones staggered to their feet and joined the others in a wide circle around the girl... Who... oddly was smiling.
Ha ha ha! She laughed a laugh that sounded as careless as a teenagers. "I saw you running with them... Always sending out the boys after me... How many of them have I killed?'
Her smile was galvanized by the blue black moonlight.
I couldn't see who she was talking to until a moment later. A small thin man... barely as tall as me and much thinner stepped out of the shadow of the woods. He could have been a child for all that I knew... but he was dressed so perfectly as to be unrealistic of his jaunt through the woods just now. A tiny black suit. White french cuffs and a stiff white collar.
"Well this time you took it... Congratulations..." The man said. His voice was cracked and deep and completely disturbing for such a small child like person. "We'll have it back now though, thankyou."
He said this with absolutely no emotion. No inflection. And his voice sounded so familiar. Like someones that I had always known.
The woman did not respond to this except to spit on the ground in contempt. "Ill do what I came here for she said... and with that she flung her little boot knife at the boy... flink. As it nearly struck him in the face he flicked it to the ground....
The wolves grew vocal and angry at this... As if it were an affront to the entirety of their religion and made for the girl once again... And this time they were not alone. The little man rushed the distance between him and the cliff and quickly caught the girls neck making it there before the dogs. Jumping up on her knees to make the distance and then pulling her down with him to accommodate his shortness at the ground.
"What now girl?" Impish boy called to her sweetly as he was crushing her neck... "Give me back what's mine? Ill let you go?" The intensity with which the boy was crushing her neck was devastating to watch... The once gloating smile and taunting look dropped from her face leaving a blank white knowledge in her eye. She had chanced too much. She hadn't run fast enough.
Then there was something else. Something foreign that I'd never seen a human express.
A fastness. A calmness.
A quick snatch and now she had him by his throat as well... She pounced and pushed him onto his back using her height as an advantage. The wolves stood around taught as a drawn bow, but would not apparently challenge the contestants...
"And what of your family? You sister? What of them?" The little man asked his face rigid with the struggle...
The girl pulled out of his grasp and looked down on his as struggled wildly. "I know where they've gone."
"Then you must arrange to see them again! You must arrange freedom for them!" The little squealed at her.
The girl smiled at this, to my surprise, and said..." I'd much rather you visit them for me."
Little man snapped his finger and the wolves shot forward. Just then, though, my mouth fell open as slick black wings opened from the girls back and beat down once and quickly, just diving over the heads of the charging dogs, and over to her little knife in the sand...
She quickly pulled little man by the hair of his head and beat those wings three or so times more to hover over the dogs who were below her now yapping and whining for the leader to be returned.
"Remember this!" She screamed at the dogs. "Remember how there was nothing you could do!" Remember ... remember when you begin to feel safe again!" She laughed a little... I couldn't tell who was evil any more... I couldn't tell who I should help.
She fingered the tiny knife in her right hand and then quickly pulled it across little mans throat...
He en-hailed with a slight chug as she dropped him to the ground and made the smallest of thuds in the dusty sand.
The wolves looked up angrily and she flew off.
I bolted up sweating as my alarm rolled pleated out its tell tale fog horn sound.
Blink. Blink.
"DAMMIT!" Churned through my head like a track on a CD skipping as I jumped down from my top bunk to look for clothing and shoes. It can not be 7:50... It just can NOT BE! Kakis. Check. Ok. Teeth... NO! no. You have 10 minutes! It takes you 6 to make it across from your room! Shirt. Books. .... Tie.
Grrraaaaah! I was mad as hell. How could I have hit snooze that many times! I was stepping out of the room as I noticed and odd sensation... "The carpet is very short here... i thought." Gah! Shoes... I slipped some on and snatched at a very large, very ugly scarf on my way out the door.
:slam!: I passed boys in various stages of un-dress through the hall as I dashed madly for the side door of the dormatory.
"Hi josh!" My hall leader called out brightly. He'd obviously been slowly sipping Turkish coffee for hours.
"GrumN pEeh. Rah." I said as I zipped past him. Tucking my shirt in in the mean time.
I skipped down the stairs to the first floor exit two at a time glancing at my MOTOrazor the whole While. 7:54.
"OK. Alright Mr. Medlin. You're gonne be just fine.... just fine!" I heard in my head.
I shot out of the building forgetting all social graces and a bumped past two senior 'handsome soccer players.'
"Sorry! Sorry!" I offered as they shot me looks of disgust.
"Late... I'm Sorry!"
And then as the fates must have decided. There was Amanda. Even now as I type the name, it brings an utter revolt. So much so that I was required to look away from my typing and stare at a dark corner of the room.
Amanda Huss. Be mindful reader, it was not so then. 'Then' it hardly made a difference when I saw her. But.... the time would come... let it be known.
She wandered past with a group of acads.
"Josh!" She called out from the fray of them.... "Josh! Hi!"
I turned and greeted her happily.
"Hey Manda! Hey nice to see you." I said... Walking backwards away from her towards my classroom.
"Hey... you commin to church tonight?" She asked smiling at me all red haired and jolly.
"Yeah!... yeah... Ill see ya. I've gotta run. Late for Doctrines..." I turned and jogged towards lecture B.
I made it at the sound of the bell. The kids in the seats next to me all seemed rather perturbed at the size of my book bag; but it couldnt be helped. I didn't have time to stroll back to my room to change and fraternize with my friends on the hall between classes. I would be going till 1PM. And then work. So I squeezed in between peoples twice my size. I must have looked like a pack mule.
"Alright students" said the withered old man at the head of gray room.. "Would you please all take out a pencil and some notebook paper... and write for me todays quiz. Word perfect... John 4:24. You will have ten minutes to complete this....
Ok. Ok. I don't have to worry about this... but I did. Amongst all the things that Id gathered from my room on the way out, none of them were either pencil, nor paper. I whispered and annoyingly borrowed them from other students in my row... and began to write.
"John 4:24"
"God is spirit, and they that worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth."
I signed my name, and passed my paper to the end of the row for grading and then promptly fell asleep. I wandered if I could find out where that girl had flown off to... I wondered if I should follow her.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Collusion: Part XXVII
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. What a curious phrase. Are we to suspect that all Romans behave in roughly the same manner? Are we to emulate these toga wearing hive- minds only when we can amass the small fortune which it now requires to make the pilgrimage to Rome? Is it meant to suggest that what happens in Rome, like things that happen in Las Vegas, stay in Rome? I can't be certain. I do not know the origin of the phrase. But like most things that become cliche phraseology, I am certain that there is some sliver of wisdom down deep in its origins... and that should we wander down the old paths to Rome, we would surely find the thing that inspired such a phrase and we would doubtless agree with the wisdom at its root.
And why do I mention? Well you see. In a sense, Bob Jones is... as I had come to see it, Rome. With architecture no less idiomatic and a populace no less united. I came to see as well that I, like Caesar... in forging a relationship with X, had made new and dangerous enemies in the Senate... and soon by degrees they would join and make a calculated effort to end me. The floor of the Senate however would look remarkably like the Dean of Men's office, and the little daggers that my former friends the Senate would make use of... were short but no less quick little tongues. Sharp. Wet with truth... with one simple desire. My blood. Et tu Jesus? Et tu?
As that small little coven of my friends washed frenetically through their own irrelevant schedules summer was at the front of everyone's mind. Expulsion was happening at a rate that might have alarmed me had I not experienced it's reality in the years past. Like pop corn that you cook on the stove... one might draw a correlation between the ambient heat of the burning season change and a witless students demise.
I couldn't make it to a recital. I didn't really have time to meet them for lunch. I couldn't have been less interested in their final project for Interior Design 101... Congratulations, you have successfully furnished a dolls house. Certainly this means you were born to win? I could feel it in the looks that I got. Those friends that I was unwittingly making into the ghouls from an espionage film. As I think on it though, I wasn't making them into anything at all. My decisions were simply the catalyst... the one true chemical, the acid that would burn away the charming tarnish of their exteriors and leave them bright and shining... and... a vulgar sort of ugly.
Melodie was taking a class with me called "Story Telling," the main goal of which I think was for her to eventually ensnare me firmly in the vice like grip of the lips of her vagina. A concept which had all the appeal of being thrown down a flight of steps. We spent hours non the less, in a large conference room high up on the third floor of the Gustafson Fine Arts Center. The room looked like the kind of place where you might be called in to do a presentation on global warming or some other mind numbing pig shit.
MC: "I know, but do you think my interpretation of the witches voice might be a little too... scratchy?"
ME: ... I was responding to a text from X and could hardly remember what story she was referencing. Oh.. right Hansel and Gretel. "Uh... well. I thought it was fairly accurate. I mean... I was really convinced that you sounded like a witch." M took this as a compliment, and I'm afraid did not get the sense that I could have been remotely back handed.
MC: "The only thing is... I don't want to go hoarse. If I talk like that for too long.... Maybe I just need to bring a bottle of water to class." She chewed the end of a ball point... distressed.
I've been rather straight forward in my descriptions of Melodie, in the interest of honesty. To be fair, she was unflappably kind to me and I had begun to think about our little practice times as sort of vacation. Up here in the conference room I was mercifully free from prying questions and suspicious member of the Senate. Namely, Ami Jasperson, Eric Inafuku, Christine Dodd, Raymond Swope, Louretta and David Landon... and arguably Tim Johnson. These people are as real as oxygen, and at the time seemed just as dangerous as trying to live without it.
MC: "Joshie! Im just nervous about all of this! I mean, I can talk... you know that! (laughing) But I want to really move people... ya know?"
ME: "You are moving though... Like, I think in a sense.... the goal should be to disappear... and let the story tell itself... right?"
MC: She gave momentary thought to this and then gushed... "You're so right Joshie. I hadn't even thought about it like that."
The conversation bore on... and I was looking forward to getting back to my room and jogging to the Field House for a run on the rubber track up stairs there. Mel started putting away her note books and binders into her big snake skin bag. I noticed she wasn't chitting away like she usually was. I asked her what was on her mind...
She pranced on those ubiquitous black stilettos of hers over to the head of the long dark wood table at the center of the room and firmly gripped the edge of the table as if to brace herself.
She ran her nails through her shiny long hair and tossed it back looking me dead in the eye.
MC: "Well, you know joshie... how you're really my best friend in the whole world. I mean we spend pretty much a lot of time together every day. There's no one that I've been quite so fond of in a while."
ME: "Well I feel the same about you Melly..." I hadn't a clue where she was going...
MC: "Well... seeing that you're not dating anymore... ya know and Im glad about that. That silly Christine was just no good for you..." She was smiling with just a hint of malice...
ME: "Well... that's true..."
MC: "I was just.... I think that there's something between us... Ya know?"
ME: ".... .... (blink) like... the table?"
She laughed at this. Rather cloyingly.
ME: "I guess I don't really see what you mean..."
MC: "There's something really sweet about you! And you're so clever and funny... I've started to have a crush on you... (hair toss) and... I just know you feel it to!"
ME: "I... I. (I was at a loss) I really guess I don't feel the same way. I am... Flattered, that you could feel that way about me, and honored even... but I don't think I can return the sentiment."
There was a silence, and I felt intuitively that I had somehow wounded her. errrrr. uh.
MC: "You're sure... there's like... nothing there? Nothing at all?"
ME: "Yeah... Im sorry... but yeah."
I left the room without ceremony. Congratulations Medlin. Look what you've done. Yet another log on the fire. Yet another sharp knife. At least, I thought as I started my run, when you're on the floor bleeding out... you'll simply have to roll your head to the side to see your own blood pooling ironically around the heels of her gorgeous shoes.
And why do I mention? Well you see. In a sense, Bob Jones is... as I had come to see it, Rome. With architecture no less idiomatic and a populace no less united. I came to see as well that I, like Caesar... in forging a relationship with X, had made new and dangerous enemies in the Senate... and soon by degrees they would join and make a calculated effort to end me. The floor of the Senate however would look remarkably like the Dean of Men's office, and the little daggers that my former friends the Senate would make use of... were short but no less quick little tongues. Sharp. Wet with truth... with one simple desire. My blood. Et tu Jesus? Et tu?
As that small little coven of my friends washed frenetically through their own irrelevant schedules summer was at the front of everyone's mind. Expulsion was happening at a rate that might have alarmed me had I not experienced it's reality in the years past. Like pop corn that you cook on the stove... one might draw a correlation between the ambient heat of the burning season change and a witless students demise.
I couldn't make it to a recital. I didn't really have time to meet them for lunch. I couldn't have been less interested in their final project for Interior Design 101... Congratulations, you have successfully furnished a dolls house. Certainly this means you were born to win? I could feel it in the looks that I got. Those friends that I was unwittingly making into the ghouls from an espionage film. As I think on it though, I wasn't making them into anything at all. My decisions were simply the catalyst... the one true chemical, the acid that would burn away the charming tarnish of their exteriors and leave them bright and shining... and... a vulgar sort of ugly.
Melodie was taking a class with me called "Story Telling," the main goal of which I think was for her to eventually ensnare me firmly in the vice like grip of the lips of her vagina. A concept which had all the appeal of being thrown down a flight of steps. We spent hours non the less, in a large conference room high up on the third floor of the Gustafson Fine Arts Center. The room looked like the kind of place where you might be called in to do a presentation on global warming or some other mind numbing pig shit.
MC: "I know, but do you think my interpretation of the witches voice might be a little too... scratchy?"
ME: ... I was responding to a text from X and could hardly remember what story she was referencing. Oh.. right Hansel and Gretel. "Uh... well. I thought it was fairly accurate. I mean... I was really convinced that you sounded like a witch." M took this as a compliment, and I'm afraid did not get the sense that I could have been remotely back handed.
MC: "The only thing is... I don't want to go hoarse. If I talk like that for too long.... Maybe I just need to bring a bottle of water to class." She chewed the end of a ball point... distressed.
I've been rather straight forward in my descriptions of Melodie, in the interest of honesty. To be fair, she was unflappably kind to me and I had begun to think about our little practice times as sort of vacation. Up here in the conference room I was mercifully free from prying questions and suspicious member of the Senate. Namely, Ami Jasperson, Eric Inafuku, Christine Dodd, Raymond Swope, Louretta and David Landon... and arguably Tim Johnson. These people are as real as oxygen, and at the time seemed just as dangerous as trying to live without it.
MC: "Joshie! Im just nervous about all of this! I mean, I can talk... you know that! (laughing) But I want to really move people... ya know?"
ME: "You are moving though... Like, I think in a sense.... the goal should be to disappear... and let the story tell itself... right?"
MC: She gave momentary thought to this and then gushed... "You're so right Joshie. I hadn't even thought about it like that."
The conversation bore on... and I was looking forward to getting back to my room and jogging to the Field House for a run on the rubber track up stairs there. Mel started putting away her note books and binders into her big snake skin bag. I noticed she wasn't chitting away like she usually was. I asked her what was on her mind...
She pranced on those ubiquitous black stilettos of hers over to the head of the long dark wood table at the center of the room and firmly gripped the edge of the table as if to brace herself.
She ran her nails through her shiny long hair and tossed it back looking me dead in the eye.
MC: "Well, you know joshie... how you're really my best friend in the whole world. I mean we spend pretty much a lot of time together every day. There's no one that I've been quite so fond of in a while."
ME: "Well I feel the same about you Melly..." I hadn't a clue where she was going...
MC: "Well... seeing that you're not dating anymore... ya know and Im glad about that. That silly Christine was just no good for you..." She was smiling with just a hint of malice...
ME: "Well... that's true..."
MC: "I was just.... I think that there's something between us... Ya know?"
ME: ".... .... (blink) like... the table?"
She laughed at this. Rather cloyingly.
ME: "I guess I don't really see what you mean..."
MC: "There's something really sweet about you! And you're so clever and funny... I've started to have a crush on you... (hair toss) and... I just know you feel it to!"
ME: "I... I. (I was at a loss) I really guess I don't feel the same way. I am... Flattered, that you could feel that way about me, and honored even... but I don't think I can return the sentiment."
There was a silence, and I felt intuitively that I had somehow wounded her. errrrr. uh.
MC: "You're sure... there's like... nothing there? Nothing at all?"
ME: "Yeah... Im sorry... but yeah."
I left the room without ceremony. Congratulations Medlin. Look what you've done. Yet another log on the fire. Yet another sharp knife. At least, I thought as I started my run, when you're on the floor bleeding out... you'll simply have to roll your head to the side to see your own blood pooling ironically around the heels of her gorgeous shoes.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Untitled.
Five hours a day,
That's the way,
A week to lift the spirit,
Sit in Green or Red or Blue,
That gum, you must not chew it.
This way that,
Don't wear a hat,
Please "Get in the building."
Sing with the rest,
and you'll be blessed,
Your morals need the gilding.
Please, please come in,
and let's be friends,
Fear God. Give us your money.
And laugh and laugh at all our jokes,
Though they're not all that funny.
Fundraiser for the Christian right...
Loan us your bleedin' pennies.
It's a spectacle of majesty,
Are not our splendors many?
Save your lofty rhetoric,
I'll wait until you live it,
The ushers reek of razor-speak,
Push and demand and pivot.
Believe! Believe! and
Follow us to metal euthanasia!
No thanks....
I'm good.
I'll see ya.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Collusion: Part XIII
Going back to school was no where near the tooth pulling-experience that it had been when i arrived at the campus for fall term. Everything got boxed or shoved into a suitcase and thrown into the Suburban.
I was no were near ready to return but filled with an unadulterated desire to survive and maybe come out on the side of it with a piece of paper with my name on it. A piece of paper that mentioned just how fantastically talented I was. Preferably in gold calligraphy.
I was mute for most of the return trip.
My mother is a delicate, and quietly passionate woman who is just a hair over five feet tall. She has deeply brown hair that will probably stay the same shade of mahogany forever due to a brigade of chemicals at her employ. She enjoys pruning roses, playing the flute, reading the holy word, and taking exhaustive bubble baths. I have always thought that she was beautiful. But then again, I suppose that anyone who's not a sociopath probably thinks the same thing about their mother, and perhaps in that I'm not significant. Mothers are the link in the chain that connects us to the rest of our culture... right back to where time began....
MOM: "What are you taking this semester?"
ME: "Oh something about Harmony again. Something about another Bible class."
I sat listless in the back seat...
MOM: "Well are there any of them that you're excited about?"
The questioning was well intended, but not exactly helpful. Dad was driving. He drives with his knees and elbows and this is reason enough for a healthy prayer life. By ways, or die ways.... from my vantage point it was a little un-decided.
ME: "Well. I guess so."
I was developing a bit of a persona with my parents. I wouldn't even consider telling them about some of the initial bullying and hostility. For one thing, there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it... and on the other hand if i were being marginalized, there was something clearly wrong with me. I wasn't working hard enough on making influential friends. Perhaps there was a certain smell about me that i hadn't worked hard enough to mask... that was no doubt the reason. Expansive orchestral arrangements of hymns were playing in the cassette deck as we made the drive. It was one of those days in January when it's brisk and clear out... and all the scenery was brown and forlorn looking.
I arrived. This time there were no tearful goodbyes... no heartbreaking feelings of being set adrift without a clue of how to carry myself around. I unloaded everything and set about the business of setting my things in order in my little nook in the ant hill. I returned my alarm clock to its precise place on the head board on my bunk and flipped out my silver MOTORazor to find out which of my friends might be back in town. There was a knock at the door as i was re-filling my drawers with my clothes.
The door swung open and un-ceremoniously; in barged Roland.
ROLAND: "Hey man! (beaming) "How was Christmas break!?
I never quite understood the continual vigor which this person poured into every mundane conversation; nor did i understand why he would want to talk to me at all. We have nothing in common! Why are we talking!?
ME: (not looking up from my unpacking) "It was good. It was nice to be away from here for a while."
ROLAND: "Ha ha! I know what'cha mean dude! It's nice to kick back and relax for a while."
I hate being referred to as a 'dude.' Absolutely hate it. I am not a stoner... and i would appreciate it if everyone would just try and respect that.
ME: "er.... right. Well what did you do for Christmas break?"
ROLAND: "Me and the fam went skiing in Vale. It's like an hour away from where we live."
(Why do popular people feel the need to abbreviate words that do not require abbreviating? Isn't the english language deteriorating fast enough without all of us trying to sound like a valley girl?)
ME: "oh wow? really... that sounds like a lot of fun actually." (compared to chopping wood to keep from freezing....)
ROLAND: "Yeah its pretty awesome." (eyebrow raise. general look of self appreciation. he stares off for a second as if to calculate just how wonderful he really is.) "Did you get anything cool?"
ME: "I got some money?.... Yeah. That was about it."
ROLAND: "Sweet dude! I got, like, three different Bible concordances that I was asking for.... a bunch of cash.... and.... hm.... like a bunch of small things. Socks and stuff."
Bible study tools and undergarments. Thankyooou Santa, I thought.
ROLAND: "Did you get a chance to witness to anyone over the break? What's god doing in your spiritual life lately." He asked, as if it were a question about the weather.
ME: "oh..... uh..... witnessing? Yeah... yeah. Seems like I did some of that. I actually got to spend quite a lot of time working in a local soup kitchen, and rescuing tiny kittens from trees for old ladies." I said remembering to add a little smile that i tried to make look honest.
"Oh... and I've been reading an aweful lot of the Bible! In.... James!" These statements seemed to relieve him of his concern for me... as he began checking for particulates in his teeth in the mirror over the sink, and pushing his super man hair-cut around.
ROLAND: "Yeah man, I been thinkin' that it would be great to start a little Bible study after light bell with any of the guys on the hall that might wanna join. Yeah know... to support hall unity and help us get to know each other a little better."
I stopped putting things in their places for a second to give him a blank look.
ME: (catching myself) "Oh! uh..... that could be good.... . . . . . . . . . . " (wondering how long i would be able to continue this line of conversation without laughing hysterically.)
Roland was now flexing his biceps in the mirror and admiring his profile. I sighed. Yes... what a wonderful idea. Let's start a Bible study. That's going to make my life soooo much easier. Heck.... my room-mates could even stop calling me 'the faggot' in their devil language. This was clearly the next rung I would need to climb in the fame ladder. Look out Ryan Seacrest.... Here. I. Come.
I would realize somewhere in those next few months... that Roland's mind was filled with cotton candy. And he's from a place were smurfs and dolphins are our friends.
ROLAND: "Hows everything going with the room? You guys getting along?"
ME: "... . . . . . . why yes. We are developing into quite the little family." I said flatly enough that i think he finally understood what I actually meant.
ROLAND: "HAHA! DUUUUDE!! I love your sense of humor! its like.... so dark!"
I sighed again. This person was intended to enforce light-bell... not to engage in meaningful conversation.
Thankfully the silence was broken just a few seconds later by one of my friends popping his head into the room. Eric Inafuku. I had met Eric back in first semester... friends of Amy and Christine. He was the first thin Hawaiian that i had been introduced to here. A willowy snarky thing who had changed his major no less than 23 times during first semester. He and I had similar views about school and Handsome Soccer Players such as Roland, and thus got along swimmingly. He was passionate about asian independent films, learning Cantonese....and origami. He also seemed to like photo shopping photographs.... though I have yet to discover why. He always had a way of lightening the mood in a room. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was so outspoken... and that he was so thin, but always always wore black boots with very thick soles.
ERIC: "MERRRRY CHHHHHRRRRRRRIIIIISTMASSSSSS!" he screamed... landing in the room as if he had just dismounted from a pommel horse. "MELE KE IKE MAKA! Hi ya Roland!"
ME: "hey eric."
ROLAND: "Hey." (still looking in the mirror.)
ERIC: "Wanna go to dinner? Everyone's meeting at 5. Tonight's chicken patties!" he exclaimed with mock excitement.
ME: "Sure, yeah.... Christine and I were going to meet anyways I think."
ERIC: "Well it's nearly ten till! Let's go.... we're gonna be late!"
ME: "Ok.... " grabbing a jacket and heading out the door.... leaving Roland alone with his reflection. They deserved one another.
Eric and I made our way down the hall of the dormitory, and across the long walk to the Dinning Common. Chattering and laughing about Roland, Christmas happenings and whatever else we could find to chatter about. Dinner was to become a little ritual for the group. We would work out our class schedules so that we could eat together... enduring the vegetables that had been boiled silly, and the swarm of other students that would crowd the gigantic room. We shared stories from how we spent our Christmases... I didnt have a whole lot to add... but everyone else's stories were funny and touching. These people were my family now it would seem. These people made me feel a little bit like i wasnt so abnormal. We were the loudest group in the football field sized room. Quirky. Nerdy. Mal-adjusted. Those were the days. We created sculptures out of mashed potatoes that were thick enough to glue a glass to a plate. No lie.
Work and class would begin again soon and there were new adventures to be had. Oh, yeah.... and i would have to find a way to punish my room-mates for their behavior. It was way over the line. If the Authority wasn't keeping them in check, I'd have to do it all by myself.
I was no were near ready to return but filled with an unadulterated desire to survive and maybe come out on the side of it with a piece of paper with my name on it. A piece of paper that mentioned just how fantastically talented I was. Preferably in gold calligraphy.
I was mute for most of the return trip.
My mother is a delicate, and quietly passionate woman who is just a hair over five feet tall. She has deeply brown hair that will probably stay the same shade of mahogany forever due to a brigade of chemicals at her employ. She enjoys pruning roses, playing the flute, reading the holy word, and taking exhaustive bubble baths. I have always thought that she was beautiful. But then again, I suppose that anyone who's not a sociopath probably thinks the same thing about their mother, and perhaps in that I'm not significant. Mothers are the link in the chain that connects us to the rest of our culture... right back to where time began....
MOM: "What are you taking this semester?"
ME: "Oh something about Harmony again. Something about another Bible class."
I sat listless in the back seat...
MOM: "Well are there any of them that you're excited about?"
The questioning was well intended, but not exactly helpful. Dad was driving. He drives with his knees and elbows and this is reason enough for a healthy prayer life. By ways, or die ways.... from my vantage point it was a little un-decided.
ME: "Well. I guess so."
I was developing a bit of a persona with my parents. I wouldn't even consider telling them about some of the initial bullying and hostility. For one thing, there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it... and on the other hand if i were being marginalized, there was something clearly wrong with me. I wasn't working hard enough on making influential friends. Perhaps there was a certain smell about me that i hadn't worked hard enough to mask... that was no doubt the reason. Expansive orchestral arrangements of hymns were playing in the cassette deck as we made the drive. It was one of those days in January when it's brisk and clear out... and all the scenery was brown and forlorn looking.
I arrived. This time there were no tearful goodbyes... no heartbreaking feelings of being set adrift without a clue of how to carry myself around. I unloaded everything and set about the business of setting my things in order in my little nook in the ant hill. I returned my alarm clock to its precise place on the head board on my bunk and flipped out my silver MOTORazor to find out which of my friends might be back in town. There was a knock at the door as i was re-filling my drawers with my clothes.
The door swung open and un-ceremoniously; in barged Roland.
ROLAND: "Hey man! (beaming) "How was Christmas break!?
I never quite understood the continual vigor which this person poured into every mundane conversation; nor did i understand why he would want to talk to me at all. We have nothing in common! Why are we talking!?
ME: (not looking up from my unpacking) "It was good. It was nice to be away from here for a while."
ROLAND: "Ha ha! I know what'cha mean dude! It's nice to kick back and relax for a while."
I hate being referred to as a 'dude.' Absolutely hate it. I am not a stoner... and i would appreciate it if everyone would just try and respect that.
ME: "er.... right. Well what did you do for Christmas break?"
ROLAND: "Me and the fam went skiing in Vale. It's like an hour away from where we live."
(Why do popular people feel the need to abbreviate words that do not require abbreviating? Isn't the english language deteriorating fast enough without all of us trying to sound like a valley girl?)
ME: "oh wow? really... that sounds like a lot of fun actually." (compared to chopping wood to keep from freezing....)
ROLAND: "Yeah its pretty awesome." (eyebrow raise. general look of self appreciation. he stares off for a second as if to calculate just how wonderful he really is.) "Did you get anything cool?"
ME: "I got some money?.... Yeah. That was about it."
ROLAND: "Sweet dude! I got, like, three different Bible concordances that I was asking for.... a bunch of cash.... and.... hm.... like a bunch of small things. Socks and stuff."
Bible study tools and undergarments. Thankyooou Santa, I thought.
ROLAND: "Did you get a chance to witness to anyone over the break? What's god doing in your spiritual life lately." He asked, as if it were a question about the weather.
ME: "oh..... uh..... witnessing? Yeah... yeah. Seems like I did some of that. I actually got to spend quite a lot of time working in a local soup kitchen, and rescuing tiny kittens from trees for old ladies." I said remembering to add a little smile that i tried to make look honest.
"Oh... and I've been reading an aweful lot of the Bible! In.... James!" These statements seemed to relieve him of his concern for me... as he began checking for particulates in his teeth in the mirror over the sink, and pushing his super man hair-cut around.
ROLAND: "Yeah man, I been thinkin' that it would be great to start a little Bible study after light bell with any of the guys on the hall that might wanna join. Yeah know... to support hall unity and help us get to know each other a little better."
I stopped putting things in their places for a second to give him a blank look.
ME: (catching myself) "Oh! uh..... that could be good.... . . . . . . . . . . " (wondering how long i would be able to continue this line of conversation without laughing hysterically.)
Roland was now flexing his biceps in the mirror and admiring his profile. I sighed. Yes... what a wonderful idea. Let's start a Bible study. That's going to make my life soooo much easier. Heck.... my room-mates could even stop calling me 'the faggot' in their devil language. This was clearly the next rung I would need to climb in the fame ladder. Look out Ryan Seacrest.... Here. I. Come.
I would realize somewhere in those next few months... that Roland's mind was filled with cotton candy. And he's from a place were smurfs and dolphins are our friends.
ROLAND: "Hows everything going with the room? You guys getting along?"
ME: "... . . . . . . why yes. We are developing into quite the little family." I said flatly enough that i think he finally understood what I actually meant.
ROLAND: "HAHA! DUUUUDE!! I love your sense of humor! its like.... so dark!"
I sighed again. This person was intended to enforce light-bell... not to engage in meaningful conversation.
Thankfully the silence was broken just a few seconds later by one of my friends popping his head into the room. Eric Inafuku. I had met Eric back in first semester... friends of Amy and Christine. He was the first thin Hawaiian that i had been introduced to here. A willowy snarky thing who had changed his major no less than 23 times during first semester. He and I had similar views about school and Handsome Soccer Players such as Roland, and thus got along swimmingly. He was passionate about asian independent films, learning Cantonese....and origami. He also seemed to like photo shopping photographs.... though I have yet to discover why. He always had a way of lightening the mood in a room. I think it had something to do with the fact that he was so outspoken... and that he was so thin, but always always wore black boots with very thick soles.
ERIC: "MERRRRY CHHHHHRRRRRRRIIIIISTMASSSSSS!" he screamed... landing in the room as if he had just dismounted from a pommel horse. "MELE KE IKE MAKA! Hi ya Roland!"
ME: "hey eric."
ROLAND: "Hey." (still looking in the mirror.)
ERIC: "Wanna go to dinner? Everyone's meeting at 5. Tonight's chicken patties!" he exclaimed with mock excitement.
ME: "Sure, yeah.... Christine and I were going to meet anyways I think."
ERIC: "Well it's nearly ten till! Let's go.... we're gonna be late!"
ME: "Ok.... " grabbing a jacket and heading out the door.... leaving Roland alone with his reflection. They deserved one another.
Eric and I made our way down the hall of the dormitory, and across the long walk to the Dinning Common. Chattering and laughing about Roland, Christmas happenings and whatever else we could find to chatter about. Dinner was to become a little ritual for the group. We would work out our class schedules so that we could eat together... enduring the vegetables that had been boiled silly, and the swarm of other students that would crowd the gigantic room. We shared stories from how we spent our Christmases... I didnt have a whole lot to add... but everyone else's stories were funny and touching. These people were my family now it would seem. These people made me feel a little bit like i wasnt so abnormal. We were the loudest group in the football field sized room. Quirky. Nerdy. Mal-adjusted. Those were the days. We created sculptures out of mashed potatoes that were thick enough to glue a glass to a plate. No lie.
Work and class would begin again soon and there were new adventures to be had. Oh, yeah.... and i would have to find a way to punish my room-mates for their behavior. It was way over the line. If the Authority wasn't keeping them in check, I'd have to do it all by myself.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Collusion: Part XII
Words. Powerful words. They take shape and leave our mouths. Such harmless little things made out of carbon dioxide. Little puffs of a toxin and a bit of vibration made with teeth and tongue. Or little symbols on white paper. These are the tools that we use to fabricate community. How odd that stubby doses of poison should give us so much... should become a deity of sorts making so many choices for us.
Collusion celebrated 1,000 page views this week and I cant think of a better way to slide into Christmas than by inviting my friends and my foes to collude with me. To follow the pied piper. To admit to ourselves if only for those moments that we share with our thoughts and a computer screen that corruption is everywhere. It is who we are. It's the one thing that you can be sure of in any new person that you meet. And why is corruption so pervasive, you might ask? That's simple! because its so delicious.
Christmas break droned on. We chopped wood for the fireplace. A great hulking thing that's the centerpiece of the largest room in my house. Enormous 13 and 15 foot logs my dad had chainsawed into submission were piled up in my back yard at the edge of the woods; and every other day or so my brother, or my dad or myself would take an axe and cut away enough wood for the next couple of cold nights.
I'm from a very close-nit community. In a town that cant have a population of more than 3000 people. Its so rural as to be cliche. As ive mentioned before, people farm there. They have all their lives. Their fathers did, and their father's fathers did. Our neighbors all came to church with us. A church which my father had left the sins of his wild youth to found, and one which he continues to lead to this day. As i consider it, most of my early musical training was intended for use in worship. As a result, I have a mental database of hundreds of hymn tunes that I can play with my eyes closed, in any key. When I was home over Christmas break I fell neatly back into the roles that I had played before. At home and at church as well. All told it was a congregation of about 40 people. The number changed from season to season as southern people tend to have disagreements about such highly important religious matters as women who wear pants and those obviously diabolical members of the congregation who attend movie theaters. No joke. Anyways, our church services met twice on sundays and once on wednesday nights. We all met in a beige corrugated metal church building in the middle of a seven acre field of green lawn, behind one of those stone and metal church signs that you can rearrange letters on. You can make them say whatever you like...
My dad was mostly responsible for these messages. One could always rely on them to be inspiring. The members of the church were the most fascinating group of people on the planet. All ok, plain folks with thick syrupy accents. Loud women who wore too much mascara, and ate too much red meat. And quiet men who sat beside these women.
I liked church. I loved the routine of it all. The ritual. We gather... sing old old songs about christ's blood and its power to make us perfect. We'd pray, or be lead in prayer... and then my father would preach a message about sin. Faith. Or the evils and destructing force of extra marital sex. His sermons were all peppered with his own brand of gawdy obvious humor. I have so memorized the lilting pace of my fathers sermons that i can predict what he's going to say next. It's a type of relationship that not many people have the opportunity to experience with their fathers and as such I feel quite lucky to have grown up that way. Each facet of my fathers belief system was made plainly evident written out in hour after hour of monologue. Layers and walls. A labyrinth of hedges looping and twisting into a maze of 'do' and 'do nots.' Sermon after sermon I received a powerful view of this bank of rules.... Fascinating and complex.
The music leader at my church is named Charles. Charles McMillan. He's a man of colossal girth. I estimate that he weighs very close to five hundred pounds, and oddly enough is still mobile. He's been a friend of the families for as long as i could remember. Apparently at one time he was quite average size, but from what ive been able to gather; a love interest in college left him with emotional scars that he had tried to patch up with lots and lots of brisket. Charles is roughly 46 years old. He has been in charge of all the songs sung, and all the notes played at our little community church for very close to 10 years i suppose. Charles and I had been cordial to one another since I had met him until one day when I had prepared a little piano piece for church, he told me that i was "never going to be a good pianist unless i learned to read music." As you can imagine... the comment did very bad things for a cordial relationship. My playing from sight was remedial at best. Lessons had been cast away patch work things with hit or miss training from country bumpkins who owned pianos. Ah well.
From that moment however Charles and I became mortal enemies. If the both of us were in a room you could feel the temperature drop. The water vapor in the air would instantly crystallize. Charles was part of the reason for my pursuing piano so decidedly throughout highschool... and undeniably had something to do with my two year stint with bulimia when I was 17 and 18.
During holiday services Charles and I danced our icy dance of cordiality and hatred like two quiet little pageant queens; needing attention much as daisies need sunlight. And so i passed away the few days that remained of my break from school. In a very few days i would return to what was sure to be hostile environment. I would be stronger than those boys at school though. They'd see. They wouldn't break me.
Collusion celebrated 1,000 page views this week and I cant think of a better way to slide into Christmas than by inviting my friends and my foes to collude with me. To follow the pied piper. To admit to ourselves if only for those moments that we share with our thoughts and a computer screen that corruption is everywhere. It is who we are. It's the one thing that you can be sure of in any new person that you meet. And why is corruption so pervasive, you might ask? That's simple! because its so delicious.
Christmas break droned on. We chopped wood for the fireplace. A great hulking thing that's the centerpiece of the largest room in my house. Enormous 13 and 15 foot logs my dad had chainsawed into submission were piled up in my back yard at the edge of the woods; and every other day or so my brother, or my dad or myself would take an axe and cut away enough wood for the next couple of cold nights.
I'm from a very close-nit community. In a town that cant have a population of more than 3000 people. Its so rural as to be cliche. As ive mentioned before, people farm there. They have all their lives. Their fathers did, and their father's fathers did. Our neighbors all came to church with us. A church which my father had left the sins of his wild youth to found, and one which he continues to lead to this day. As i consider it, most of my early musical training was intended for use in worship. As a result, I have a mental database of hundreds of hymn tunes that I can play with my eyes closed, in any key. When I was home over Christmas break I fell neatly back into the roles that I had played before. At home and at church as well. All told it was a congregation of about 40 people. The number changed from season to season as southern people tend to have disagreements about such highly important religious matters as women who wear pants and those obviously diabolical members of the congregation who attend movie theaters. No joke. Anyways, our church services met twice on sundays and once on wednesday nights. We all met in a beige corrugated metal church building in the middle of a seven acre field of green lawn, behind one of those stone and metal church signs that you can rearrange letters on. You can make them say whatever you like...
"POT LUCK THIS SUNDAY!"
or
"DO RIGHT 'TIL THE STARS FALL"
or
"CHCH. WHAT'S MISSING!? U R!"
My dad was mostly responsible for these messages. One could always rely on them to be inspiring. The members of the church were the most fascinating group of people on the planet. All ok, plain folks with thick syrupy accents. Loud women who wore too much mascara, and ate too much red meat. And quiet men who sat beside these women.
I liked church. I loved the routine of it all. The ritual. We gather... sing old old songs about christ's blood and its power to make us perfect. We'd pray, or be lead in prayer... and then my father would preach a message about sin. Faith. Or the evils and destructing force of extra marital sex. His sermons were all peppered with his own brand of gawdy obvious humor. I have so memorized the lilting pace of my fathers sermons that i can predict what he's going to say next. It's a type of relationship that not many people have the opportunity to experience with their fathers and as such I feel quite lucky to have grown up that way. Each facet of my fathers belief system was made plainly evident written out in hour after hour of monologue. Layers and walls. A labyrinth of hedges looping and twisting into a maze of 'do' and 'do nots.' Sermon after sermon I received a powerful view of this bank of rules.... Fascinating and complex.
The music leader at my church is named Charles. Charles McMillan. He's a man of colossal girth. I estimate that he weighs very close to five hundred pounds, and oddly enough is still mobile. He's been a friend of the families for as long as i could remember. Apparently at one time he was quite average size, but from what ive been able to gather; a love interest in college left him with emotional scars that he had tried to patch up with lots and lots of brisket. Charles is roughly 46 years old. He has been in charge of all the songs sung, and all the notes played at our little community church for very close to 10 years i suppose. Charles and I had been cordial to one another since I had met him until one day when I had prepared a little piano piece for church, he told me that i was "never going to be a good pianist unless i learned to read music." As you can imagine... the comment did very bad things for a cordial relationship. My playing from sight was remedial at best. Lessons had been cast away patch work things with hit or miss training from country bumpkins who owned pianos. Ah well.
From that moment however Charles and I became mortal enemies. If the both of us were in a room you could feel the temperature drop. The water vapor in the air would instantly crystallize. Charles was part of the reason for my pursuing piano so decidedly throughout highschool... and undeniably had something to do with my two year stint with bulimia when I was 17 and 18.
During holiday services Charles and I danced our icy dance of cordiality and hatred like two quiet little pageant queens; needing attention much as daisies need sunlight. And so i passed away the few days that remained of my break from school. In a very few days i would return to what was sure to be hostile environment. I would be stronger than those boys at school though. They'd see. They wouldn't break me.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Collusion: Part XI
6 or 7 thousand of us students and faculty piled row upon row in Founders Memorial Amphitorium. 'Amphitorium' is a made up word...Perhaps it was invented in an attempt to convey the idea that this was a building like no other. I know not. Either was its what the mammoth building is called. Its roughly 6 stories high and wide enough that it would take you 6 minutes to walk from one end to the other at a normal pace. There are hundreds of rows of rainbow colored fold down theater-style seats that follow a gradual decline in the floor towards a grand stage. A balcony seats about two thousand more. I've been in the building at night before... when the lights were out and no one else was there. The space can give you the feeling of being in the largest cave imaginable. One could very easily play baseball here and not feel like they were lacking space.
The building was used every day for something or another. At eleven a.m., Monday through Thursday everyone is required to attend 'chapel' here. All students report here from the far reaches of campus, which may require a bit of running or brisk walking to get there in time. You must be in your seat at precisely 11 a.m.. If you're late you will be given demerits.
The service begins and a chorus master walks onto the stage. He instructs the mass of students to find one hymn or another in the blue hymnals that can be found in little brown wooden cubbies on the back of each seat. The gathering raises quite a lot of sound, filling the august space with a rich albeit somber music. Precisely we praise mystic hebrew god. In less clinical metrics... all together. After two hymns another speaker emerges from the row of ancients that find their seats lining the back of the stage. (Theses are all the highest member of the authority... many of them of a great age.) He would make a few remarks on the day and the lead us in chanting the university creed. A monologue that all first years had to memorize within the first three weeks at school. Together we stood and recited.
The chant had become such an integral part of campus culture that it was often spoken in a hollow and conviction-less tone. No matter. Conviction or not... when seven thousand people chant something everyday... it has a tendency to stamp itself into your mind. It becomes the sediment and silt of your thoughts.
The day that we were all set to be released for Christmas break there was one of these such services. We sang Christmas tunes and chanted our chant. And Dr. Bob Jones III took the stage to wish us well and safe travels to our homes. And that was that. Semester over. All my exams had gone well.
I said my goodbyes to my little group of friends and of course thought the better of saying anything at all to my brown skinned room-mates. It's such a burden being Caucasian.
Mom and dad picked me up at the appointed hour. All my bags and things that i was taking home were waiting expectantly in a neat little pile on the sidewalk in front of my dormitory. The two hour drive home was as quiet as a funeral. My brother and sister had tagged along. Mom and Dad offered questions about how I was and how my final test scores had gone. I was at best non-committal about it all. I would not complain about how things had been. This was a choice that i had made. I would present the bucolic ideal of my introduction to college as best i could. I began a collusion of sorts with my family. That is what this story is about after all; isnt it? I would only let them see what they needed to see. Besides... it would be nice to put everything away and just have a nice Christmas. I sat in the back seat of the suburban and stared out the window as the city retracted and trees and fields began to fill up the space left by buildings and parking lots.
That first Christmas was so welcome. It was nice to take a look at my family dynamic in comparison to the building full of testosterone driven repressed cave dwellers that i had been living with. This Christmas was a new one. A different one. I savored the relics of my childhood and yes even mourned their loss.
I baked cookies and wrapped the gifts that I had saved and bought for my parents, brother and sister. My carefully controlled existence had begun to reveal itself to be far from my ability to govern. So that Christmas i learned perhaps the most valuable of life lessons... that we are but the students of life's changes. That adaptation is to be considered our greatest strength. That true godliness could be found in the simplest of acts of kindness, one person to another.
Three weeks of yule therapy had got me into a better state of mind. I had plans for these who opposed me at school and they would suffer the consequences of standing in my way. My optimism was no where near weakened. I would return to the kitchen, and the piano, and my books.
My sister and i were very close then and many nights during the break we would spend out in the night time chatting on the trampoline... Talking about everything. It was nice to know that some bonds stayed strong no matter what... and would never need mending.
The building was used every day for something or another. At eleven a.m., Monday through Thursday everyone is required to attend 'chapel' here. All students report here from the far reaches of campus, which may require a bit of running or brisk walking to get there in time. You must be in your seat at precisely 11 a.m.. If you're late you will be given demerits.
The service begins and a chorus master walks onto the stage. He instructs the mass of students to find one hymn or another in the blue hymnals that can be found in little brown wooden cubbies on the back of each seat. The gathering raises quite a lot of sound, filling the august space with a rich albeit somber music. Precisely we praise mystic hebrew god. In less clinical metrics... all together. After two hymns another speaker emerges from the row of ancients that find their seats lining the back of the stage. (Theses are all the highest member of the authority... many of them of a great age.) He would make a few remarks on the day and the lead us in chanting the university creed. A monologue that all first years had to memorize within the first three weeks at school. Together we stood and recited.
"I believe in the inspiration of the bible. both the old and the new testaments. the creation of man by the direct act of god. the incarnation and virgin birth of our lord and savior jesus christ. his identification as the son of god. his vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind by the shedding of his blood on the cross. the resurrection of his body from the tomb. his power to save men from sin. the new birth through the regeneration by the holy spirit. and the gift of god, which is eternal life."
The chant had become such an integral part of campus culture that it was often spoken in a hollow and conviction-less tone. No matter. Conviction or not... when seven thousand people chant something everyday... it has a tendency to stamp itself into your mind. It becomes the sediment and silt of your thoughts.
The day that we were all set to be released for Christmas break there was one of these such services. We sang Christmas tunes and chanted our chant. And Dr. Bob Jones III took the stage to wish us well and safe travels to our homes. And that was that. Semester over. All my exams had gone well.
I said my goodbyes to my little group of friends and of course thought the better of saying anything at all to my brown skinned room-mates. It's such a burden being Caucasian.
Mom and dad picked me up at the appointed hour. All my bags and things that i was taking home were waiting expectantly in a neat little pile on the sidewalk in front of my dormitory. The two hour drive home was as quiet as a funeral. My brother and sister had tagged along. Mom and Dad offered questions about how I was and how my final test scores had gone. I was at best non-committal about it all. I would not complain about how things had been. This was a choice that i had made. I would present the bucolic ideal of my introduction to college as best i could. I began a collusion of sorts with my family. That is what this story is about after all; isnt it? I would only let them see what they needed to see. Besides... it would be nice to put everything away and just have a nice Christmas. I sat in the back seat of the suburban and stared out the window as the city retracted and trees and fields began to fill up the space left by buildings and parking lots.
That first Christmas was so welcome. It was nice to take a look at my family dynamic in comparison to the building full of testosterone driven repressed cave dwellers that i had been living with. This Christmas was a new one. A different one. I savored the relics of my childhood and yes even mourned their loss.
I baked cookies and wrapped the gifts that I had saved and bought for my parents, brother and sister. My carefully controlled existence had begun to reveal itself to be far from my ability to govern. So that Christmas i learned perhaps the most valuable of life lessons... that we are but the students of life's changes. That adaptation is to be considered our greatest strength. That true godliness could be found in the simplest of acts of kindness, one person to another.
Three weeks of yule therapy had got me into a better state of mind. I had plans for these who opposed me at school and they would suffer the consequences of standing in my way. My optimism was no where near weakened. I would return to the kitchen, and the piano, and my books.
My sister and i were very close then and many nights during the break we would spend out in the night time chatting on the trampoline... Talking about everything. It was nice to know that some bonds stayed strong no matter what... and would never need mending.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Collusion: Part X
And so it began. It was written out in red letters. I had my suspicions confirmed. Not everyone here was my friend. I was a rogue program... The others that fit more perfectly into the matrix were taking notice... they would find a way to have me deleted.
I should not have been surprised. I had seen this type of behavior before. The data was already part of a working map.... a grid that exists in all societies. It is part of our genetic programming to instinctively isolate the weakest member of our group. To chase them out of our social network and prevent their weakness from infecting the gene pool. We instinctively consider the disabled, blind, weak and ill less a part of society... and for thousands of years this instinct has taught us to put our best genes forward.
Flash backwards ten years:
My family had gotten the idea that we should raise chickens. We should have fresh eggs that we wouldn't have to drive thirty minutes to the nearest large town and buy them. It was that convenience and the fact that my dad was overly fond of the idea of housing animals. My house was well situated off of a major highway.... thirty minutes south of the capitol of South Carolina. It was the largest agrarian county in the state. You could drive for miles and miles and see nothing but fields of cotton... soy beans and fields where the stubble of corn stalks remained from the year before.
12 Rhode Island Reds. We had raised them from chicks.... bought them from the seed store. I know what you're thinking... Laura Ingalls Wilder.... "oooooh paaaaaaw!" and all that. Not exactly. We didn't have horses. Either way we raised the chicks to adult hood... and even though i had taught them to behave, they were not so different than human beings. We kept them all together in a rather large coupe with little wooden boxes affixed to the wall where they could have a little privacy to lay their eggs. Much to my 13 year old horror.... I learned that these creatures looked out for not only their own interest... but apparently also the genetic health of the whole species. If one of the hens was discovered to be wounded... the others would mercilessly attack it... pecking at it to drive it away from the group and the food sources. It would seem that regardless of brain size; some tendencies stay the same cross species. The wounded hen would have to be guarded. Kept separate from the flock... otherwise the bullying wouldn't stop. And eventually the other hens would kill her.
I should have remembered these observances. And in truth i hadn't forgotten them... I just didn't realize exactly how helpful the memory would be. Alright... back to the story.
The end of the semester wash rushing nearer and I couldn't be more thankful for the fact. I pushed past Ramon on the way out of the room to dinner. Ever since Devin had taken such an interest in terrorizing me (he and his genitals had become a recurring late nite show) Ramon and Chester had taken it to mind that they would follow suit. But not in such a violent or dramatic way. I would over-hear an insult or two; or part of a funny story involving me and gang-rape. I couldn't make it all out... Even though i was picking up Spanish quickly; I wasn't what you'd call fluent. Of course it was embarassing... but i just thought that the best way to deal with it was to ignore it. Id never been bullied before. I always pretended not to hear... and left the room.
The group was getting together for supper... it had become a little ritual. We had made a little family. Me. Christine. Ami... Richard; Tisha... who by now were a lot more like Richard/Tisha. Gross. Affection. Christine and i had become good friends i would say. She and i were regulars to all the required campus events. We were both odd... and a good match as friends. I hadn't let any of those in the group know about the bullying. After all, if i showed weakness in either group... wouldn't it just incite more aggression? I was new to the game. So very new.
In a very few days the school would hold its annual lighting ceremony. One of the biggest cultural events of the Christmas season. Thousands of people would pile onto the front lawn of the campus. Choirs would have been in place on a stage and some figure head would lead the masses in prayers and songs.You know those obnoxiously feel good Christmas choral works? The ones that stores play all December in efforts to have you buy everything in the store? Those. Huge speakers everywhere. And and chunky mezzo soprano would eventually sing 'Oh Holy Night.' When she reached the most painful highest note.... some one would flip a huge switch and release millions of mega watts into the lights strung all over the place. Thousands of people would gasp... either from electrocution of because the combination choral music and intense lighting gave them the experience of communing with the divine. It was a spectacle. It was an event... The school had opened its arms to thousands of the unsuspecting public. Baked them cookies; gave them a show; and then told them how to go to heaven. It was marvelous to behold. It was fantastic. It was a colossal bear trap made out of fairy lights and guilt.
The group went and more or less had a good time. It was fun weaving through and around the crowds. Taking photos together and laughing about the goings on. The diversion was much needed. Finals were very soon approaching...
I was academically gifted. I guess that's what you'd call never studying. Maybe it was just that I really didn't have time to study. Meh. Either way i was looking forward to getting away from here for a while and returning to my little house in the big woods... it was so quiet there. I wanted the quiet for a few weeks.
Tensions in the room were getting higher and higher. I was getting closer to having a pretty nasty blow up. I try to steer clear of violence, but sooner or later you get tired and angry about a jack-ass swinging his dick around at you whilst flickering the lights at 1 am. I looked for ways to make peace. I tried talking Ramon, and less often Chester. I tried to discover personal interests and goals.... hobbies even. Chester seemed to enjoy lifting weights. But lets be honest... that's really not a conversation point. Ramon had more than enough to say about himself... but i found it difficult to be interested. The two had affectionately taken to calling me 'el pato.' Which i could only translate to meaning 'the duck.' There were worse things to be called i reasoned... and was too busy about my own business to give much thought to it. I just assumed that was their way of accepting me. Ramon had a birthday on the way. He'd be twenty soon. Kinda old to be a freshman i had thought. Ah well. Maybe they get a later start down mexico way.
My mother has the most beautiful hand writing. Really i'll have to show you a sample of it sometime. She writes in perfect, unbroken cursive. She always had a stash of stationary on hand... and never every misses a chance to send a birthday card or thank-you note. This was a habit that she had tried her hardest to pass on to us children. She had always stressed the importance of letting people know that you're thankful for what they've done for you. There was an elegance to it. An old-world gentility. Its one of the things that I love about my mother. She will always be a graceful thoughtful thing in my mind.
I decided that I could try and bridge the gap in the room a bit. I would get Ramon a birthday card. And so i did. I wasn't anything fussy. It was simple and plain. It mostly wished him well in black ink.... It congratulated him, I imagined, for making it thus far without having been killed in drug related violence in puerto rico. That was something he deserved to be congratulated for. My spanish skills at that point were ever so limited... but in an attempt to further bridge build.... I signed it.
"El Pato Magnifico"
-the magnificent duck-
I handed him the envelope. He looked at it suspiciously... but tore into it. He read it quickly... and read the signature. I was smiling. Hoping to see a thread of friendship being made. But I didn't understand. Something wasn't right. There was a black and serious look on his face...
He said thank-you. But that was it.
Ah well. A hit and a miss i thought.
I would later learn that 'pato' was a slang term used in puerto rico. It meant something akin to our english word 'faggot.' I was mortified. But by the time i had garnered this information it was something that the latino members of the room had been laughing about for weeks. They had no souls, i decided. Their hearts were black and loveless. I was beginning to understand genocide.
I never spoke of the incident again. I stayed to myself... in a very few days everything was over. I had Christmas to look forward to. Home. The home that i had taken for granted until now. I returned to the little house in the big woods and thought about all these things. There in the dark, in the wind in the pine trees i grew stronger. I vowed to make fewer mistakes.
I should not have been surprised. I had seen this type of behavior before. The data was already part of a working map.... a grid that exists in all societies. It is part of our genetic programming to instinctively isolate the weakest member of our group. To chase them out of our social network and prevent their weakness from infecting the gene pool. We instinctively consider the disabled, blind, weak and ill less a part of society... and for thousands of years this instinct has taught us to put our best genes forward.
Flash backwards ten years:
My family had gotten the idea that we should raise chickens. We should have fresh eggs that we wouldn't have to drive thirty minutes to the nearest large town and buy them. It was that convenience and the fact that my dad was overly fond of the idea of housing animals. My house was well situated off of a major highway.... thirty minutes south of the capitol of South Carolina. It was the largest agrarian county in the state. You could drive for miles and miles and see nothing but fields of cotton... soy beans and fields where the stubble of corn stalks remained from the year before.
12 Rhode Island Reds. We had raised them from chicks.... bought them from the seed store. I know what you're thinking... Laura Ingalls Wilder.... "oooooh paaaaaaw!" and all that. Not exactly. We didn't have horses. Either way we raised the chicks to adult hood... and even though i had taught them to behave, they were not so different than human beings. We kept them all together in a rather large coupe with little wooden boxes affixed to the wall where they could have a little privacy to lay their eggs. Much to my 13 year old horror.... I learned that these creatures looked out for not only their own interest... but apparently also the genetic health of the whole species. If one of the hens was discovered to be wounded... the others would mercilessly attack it... pecking at it to drive it away from the group and the food sources. It would seem that regardless of brain size; some tendencies stay the same cross species. The wounded hen would have to be guarded. Kept separate from the flock... otherwise the bullying wouldn't stop. And eventually the other hens would kill her.
I should have remembered these observances. And in truth i hadn't forgotten them... I just didn't realize exactly how helpful the memory would be. Alright... back to the story.
The end of the semester wash rushing nearer and I couldn't be more thankful for the fact. I pushed past Ramon on the way out of the room to dinner. Ever since Devin had taken such an interest in terrorizing me (he and his genitals had become a recurring late nite show) Ramon and Chester had taken it to mind that they would follow suit. But not in such a violent or dramatic way. I would over-hear an insult or two; or part of a funny story involving me and gang-rape. I couldn't make it all out... Even though i was picking up Spanish quickly; I wasn't what you'd call fluent. Of course it was embarassing... but i just thought that the best way to deal with it was to ignore it. Id never been bullied before. I always pretended not to hear... and left the room.
The group was getting together for supper... it had become a little ritual. We had made a little family. Me. Christine. Ami... Richard; Tisha... who by now were a lot more like Richard/Tisha. Gross. Affection. Christine and i had become good friends i would say. She and i were regulars to all the required campus events. We were both odd... and a good match as friends. I hadn't let any of those in the group know about the bullying. After all, if i showed weakness in either group... wouldn't it just incite more aggression? I was new to the game. So very new.
In a very few days the school would hold its annual lighting ceremony. One of the biggest cultural events of the Christmas season. Thousands of people would pile onto the front lawn of the campus. Choirs would have been in place on a stage and some figure head would lead the masses in prayers and songs.You know those obnoxiously feel good Christmas choral works? The ones that stores play all December in efforts to have you buy everything in the store? Those. Huge speakers everywhere. And and chunky mezzo soprano would eventually sing 'Oh Holy Night.' When she reached the most painful highest note.... some one would flip a huge switch and release millions of mega watts into the lights strung all over the place. Thousands of people would gasp... either from electrocution of because the combination choral music and intense lighting gave them the experience of communing with the divine. It was a spectacle. It was an event... The school had opened its arms to thousands of the unsuspecting public. Baked them cookies; gave them a show; and then told them how to go to heaven. It was marvelous to behold. It was fantastic. It was a colossal bear trap made out of fairy lights and guilt.
The group went and more or less had a good time. It was fun weaving through and around the crowds. Taking photos together and laughing about the goings on. The diversion was much needed. Finals were very soon approaching...
I was academically gifted. I guess that's what you'd call never studying. Maybe it was just that I really didn't have time to study. Meh. Either way i was looking forward to getting away from here for a while and returning to my little house in the big woods... it was so quiet there. I wanted the quiet for a few weeks.
Tensions in the room were getting higher and higher. I was getting closer to having a pretty nasty blow up. I try to steer clear of violence, but sooner or later you get tired and angry about a jack-ass swinging his dick around at you whilst flickering the lights at 1 am. I looked for ways to make peace. I tried talking Ramon, and less often Chester. I tried to discover personal interests and goals.... hobbies even. Chester seemed to enjoy lifting weights. But lets be honest... that's really not a conversation point. Ramon had more than enough to say about himself... but i found it difficult to be interested. The two had affectionately taken to calling me 'el pato.' Which i could only translate to meaning 'the duck.' There were worse things to be called i reasoned... and was too busy about my own business to give much thought to it. I just assumed that was their way of accepting me. Ramon had a birthday on the way. He'd be twenty soon. Kinda old to be a freshman i had thought. Ah well. Maybe they get a later start down mexico way.
My mother has the most beautiful hand writing. Really i'll have to show you a sample of it sometime. She writes in perfect, unbroken cursive. She always had a stash of stationary on hand... and never every misses a chance to send a birthday card or thank-you note. This was a habit that she had tried her hardest to pass on to us children. She had always stressed the importance of letting people know that you're thankful for what they've done for you. There was an elegance to it. An old-world gentility. Its one of the things that I love about my mother. She will always be a graceful thoughtful thing in my mind.
I decided that I could try and bridge the gap in the room a bit. I would get Ramon a birthday card. And so i did. I wasn't anything fussy. It was simple and plain. It mostly wished him well in black ink.... It congratulated him, I imagined, for making it thus far without having been killed in drug related violence in puerto rico. That was something he deserved to be congratulated for. My spanish skills at that point were ever so limited... but in an attempt to further bridge build.... I signed it.
"El Pato Magnifico"
-the magnificent duck-
I handed him the envelope. He looked at it suspiciously... but tore into it. He read it quickly... and read the signature. I was smiling. Hoping to see a thread of friendship being made. But I didn't understand. Something wasn't right. There was a black and serious look on his face...
He said thank-you. But that was it.
Ah well. A hit and a miss i thought.
I would later learn that 'pato' was a slang term used in puerto rico. It meant something akin to our english word 'faggot.' I was mortified. But by the time i had garnered this information it was something that the latino members of the room had been laughing about for weeks. They had no souls, i decided. Their hearts were black and loveless. I was beginning to understand genocide.
I never spoke of the incident again. I stayed to myself... in a very few days everything was over. I had Christmas to look forward to. Home. The home that i had taken for granted until now. I returned to the little house in the big woods and thought about all these things. There in the dark, in the wind in the pine trees i grew stronger. I vowed to make fewer mistakes.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Collusion: Part IX
First semester barreled on. Time is contagious. In the first few months at school i had begun to re-tool myself. Each new day had been scheduled and designed by people who sat in desks... People of devotion. Wholesome men and women who had given their lives to follow a beautiful collection of rules designed to save the masses. Rules that were meant to preserve order. Truth. Beauty. Chastity. It was the perfect place for me to be. I longed to control myself.
Through years and years of teachings as a child my parents had taught me that the heart was unruly. A wickedness above all things and not to be trusted. I remember fondly that always was my instruction taken directly from the hebrew Bible. My thoughts wander back to an every day scene from those days.
Me, my brother and sister sat around the breakfast table. Mom would put the finishing touches on scrambled eggs and bacon... toast. After we had prayed over the food, and eaten Dad would turn to a passage in the 1st John. He read about wisdom, justice, and lust.
What is lust i thought? I pushed the last of the scrambled eggs around on my plate. Lust seemed like a word filled with dark foreboding. It was the dark messenger. The bringer of death and destruction. As a child i hadn't remembered feeling anything quite so powerful as what lust must be like. I imagined that it must be alot like the feeling of falling from a great height. I was afraid of falling.
I thought of these things as i waited outside an office on the second floor of the fine arts building. The hall stretched from one end of the building to another and was lined with gray textured wallpaper, and a low nap gray carpet. I fiddled with my book sack and waited on one of the wooden benches that were placed up against the walls here and there for just the purpose that I gave it now. Tom Grimble. My piano teacher. His name was cut into black plastic with white lettering.... with a little cork board by his door.
The door swung open and the previous lessons student walked out. Thankyou! see you next week!
Ah. Here we go.
Tom Grimble is a plump man. My height and very fond of wearing navy blue blazers and maroon ties. He always has this way of speaking to you where you feel both like he's listening intently to you.... and like he's not listening at all. Like someone that sees all of you... but is perhaps so far seeing, that he might be able to see right through you. I wondered what he was able to see beyond me. His office has two pianos. A baby-grand, and an upright. Both black. There's his desk. A window. Built in shelving. And always the very delicate scent of floral candle wax. Tom carried himself with an air of dignity that one would associate with a collegiate level piano professor.
Tom sits at the desk:
Tom: Hey. Come on in. (Phone rings) Do you mind if i just take this for a second? It's my wife.
Me: Oh no.... go ahead. (I never protested his taking phone calls.... it wasn't like i was paying for his time or anything)
He would discuss something that sounded very very dire and then end the conversation seriously, and politely.
Tom: How is everything going? How are you settling into your room? (This was accompanied by that intense and benign knowing stare.)
Me: Oh... everything's fine. Going well i suppose. (Happy face. Fake happy face)
Tom: What are you roommates like?
Me:.... er. hm..... well. They're puerto rican. (As if that should explain away all these questions.)
Tom: Do you like them? Are you all getting along?
Me: ... ... ... well. Yeah. Everything's fine i guess. I don't really talk to them much and they don't talk to me.
Tom: How's work?
Me: Oh its fine... it's hard work.... but i don't mind.
Tom: Where is it that you work again?
Me: Oh, i work in the Dinning Common. Im a cook. (Brightly)
Tom: (Eyes widen) Oh... Oh right. I don't know how i could have forgotten that. Do you.... enjoy it?
Me: (I thought for a moment before answering.) Enjoy it? No i don't guess that would be the best word for what im doing there.
Tom: Well. I just worry about my students who work around heavy machinery. It's not safe. I just think about all those grinders and mixers. They could end a career.
Me: (blank look.... eyes widen... Im silent. I hadn't thought about the possibility of getting my hand stuck in a hobart. I scream. The other cooks look on in horror.... Blood everywhere.)
Tom: (Seeing the little scene playing in my mind) Well! Why don't we have prayer and then start!
"Father... we thank you for your unfailing love for us. I pray that here in this time you've given us, you would help me to be instrumental in Josh's learning... I pray that you would help him with his 'room situation' that you would show him ways to be helpful to those around him... I pray for Kendra that her Aunt would be able to find an apartment quickly... and for all of those that are without you today... that you would bring them to yourself. Amen"
OK.... what should we start with. How's the Bach coming?
Me: It's going well. I'm making headway. The reading is difficult, but I really like the piece.
Tom: Ok. Have you marked the theme throughout? All four voices?
Me: Yeah.... they're all marked. But i wasn't sure about the inversion of the theme here... if that was something you wanted noted as well.
Tom: That's fine. I don't think that's essential. Let's hear what you have.
Me: Alright. (I find my bearings. and begin playing.)
It wasn't a perfect performance by any means. There were misread notes. Rhythms that were a hair short or long. And it has always been difficult for me to be emotionally involved in such a precise type of music. Bach is clinical and elegant. Bach never had a shouting fit in his kitchen with a jealous lover in which china was thrown.
The rest of the day continued as scheduled. I thanked Tom for his help. I had also begun to refer to him as 'Mr. G.' How highschool. How 'Mr. Holland's Opus' of me, I thought.
Night fell and I was looking forward to sleeping. I would get up early... I would shower and start studying for the Introduction to Music Lit. test that i had coming up in two days. Christmas was getting closer and closer and i didn't have enough seconds in the day. I'd had dinner with the gang... The same old gang from when we had picked up trash. And there were a couple of new members that I'll introduce you to soon.
All the last bells had rung and it was starting to settle down in the room. It's nearing midnight and I'm starting to drift off.
The door swings open with a THUD, and light from the ever-florescently-bright-hallway pours in. In stalks Devin. Crap. All sleepy feelings are tossed away. Devin was yet another puerto rican... and some back wards relation of Ramon. I will not attempt to describe him physically, as I will be un-kind. He stalks into the room with gaucho swagger. He's dressed in nothing but his boxers. He flicks the room light on.
Devin: (Grasping his genitals and shaking them violently.) "Oy! Mira! Mira Pato! (He does a little dance and laughs as if he has been named the Anit-Christ.) He does all this while glancing out the door and down the hall to make sure he isn't alerting the attention of Roland.
He continues making noise and flickering the lights until he gets a response.
As fortune would have it... i was the only one who flickering the lights actually affected. I slept on the top of the double bunk.... there was no way for me to build a protective light barrier out of sheets and blankets. My blood pressure had almost instantly reached boiling. I yelled at him to get out of the room. His response was to play with himself, and the light switch a bit more.... Laugh and chatter at me in puerto rican. Then slam the door as the Authority approached.
The experience left me a bit rattled. This was my first experience with what i would come to learn was called 'hazing.' I wasn't fitting into the social fabric well enough. And this was my punishment.
This wouldn't be the last of Devin's little dances. This wouldn't be the last time he prattled himself around like a little brown gay dolphin.
This was only the beginning. And no one flicks on the lights and shakes their genitals at me. No one. I have a schedule. I have goals. I will not be toyed with.
This would be the beginning. I would burn down whatever village he had crawled here from. I would raid the filthy streets and allies he had played kick ball in.... His mother would beg for mercy... but would have none.
Through years and years of teachings as a child my parents had taught me that the heart was unruly. A wickedness above all things and not to be trusted. I remember fondly that always was my instruction taken directly from the hebrew Bible. My thoughts wander back to an every day scene from those days.
Me, my brother and sister sat around the breakfast table. Mom would put the finishing touches on scrambled eggs and bacon... toast. After we had prayed over the food, and eaten Dad would turn to a passage in the 1st John. He read about wisdom, justice, and lust.
For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
What is lust i thought? I pushed the last of the scrambled eggs around on my plate. Lust seemed like a word filled with dark foreboding. It was the dark messenger. The bringer of death and destruction. As a child i hadn't remembered feeling anything quite so powerful as what lust must be like. I imagined that it must be alot like the feeling of falling from a great height. I was afraid of falling.
I thought of these things as i waited outside an office on the second floor of the fine arts building. The hall stretched from one end of the building to another and was lined with gray textured wallpaper, and a low nap gray carpet. I fiddled with my book sack and waited on one of the wooden benches that were placed up against the walls here and there for just the purpose that I gave it now. Tom Grimble. My piano teacher. His name was cut into black plastic with white lettering.... with a little cork board by his door.
The door swung open and the previous lessons student walked out. Thankyou! see you next week!
Ah. Here we go.
Tom Grimble is a plump man. My height and very fond of wearing navy blue blazers and maroon ties. He always has this way of speaking to you where you feel both like he's listening intently to you.... and like he's not listening at all. Like someone that sees all of you... but is perhaps so far seeing, that he might be able to see right through you. I wondered what he was able to see beyond me. His office has two pianos. A baby-grand, and an upright. Both black. There's his desk. A window. Built in shelving. And always the very delicate scent of floral candle wax. Tom carried himself with an air of dignity that one would associate with a collegiate level piano professor.
Tom sits at the desk:
Tom: Hey. Come on in. (Phone rings) Do you mind if i just take this for a second? It's my wife.
Me: Oh no.... go ahead. (I never protested his taking phone calls.... it wasn't like i was paying for his time or anything)
He would discuss something that sounded very very dire and then end the conversation seriously, and politely.
Tom: How is everything going? How are you settling into your room? (This was accompanied by that intense and benign knowing stare.)
Me: Oh... everything's fine. Going well i suppose. (Happy face. Fake happy face)
Tom: What are you roommates like?
Me:.... er. hm..... well. They're puerto rican. (As if that should explain away all these questions.)
Tom: Do you like them? Are you all getting along?
Me: ... ... ... well. Yeah. Everything's fine i guess. I don't really talk to them much and they don't talk to me.
Tom: How's work?
Me: Oh its fine... it's hard work.... but i don't mind.
Tom: Where is it that you work again?
Me: Oh, i work in the Dinning Common. Im a cook. (Brightly)
Tom: (Eyes widen) Oh... Oh right. I don't know how i could have forgotten that. Do you.... enjoy it?
Me: (I thought for a moment before answering.) Enjoy it? No i don't guess that would be the best word for what im doing there.
Tom: Well. I just worry about my students who work around heavy machinery. It's not safe. I just think about all those grinders and mixers. They could end a career.
Me: (blank look.... eyes widen... Im silent. I hadn't thought about the possibility of getting my hand stuck in a hobart. I scream. The other cooks look on in horror.... Blood everywhere.)
Tom: (Seeing the little scene playing in my mind) Well! Why don't we have prayer and then start!
"Father... we thank you for your unfailing love for us. I pray that here in this time you've given us, you would help me to be instrumental in Josh's learning... I pray that you would help him with his 'room situation' that you would show him ways to be helpful to those around him... I pray for Kendra that her Aunt would be able to find an apartment quickly... and for all of those that are without you today... that you would bring them to yourself. Amen"
OK.... what should we start with. How's the Bach coming?
Me: It's going well. I'm making headway. The reading is difficult, but I really like the piece.
Tom: Ok. Have you marked the theme throughout? All four voices?
Me: Yeah.... they're all marked. But i wasn't sure about the inversion of the theme here... if that was something you wanted noted as well.
Tom: That's fine. I don't think that's essential. Let's hear what you have.
Me: Alright. (I find my bearings. and begin playing.)
It wasn't a perfect performance by any means. There were misread notes. Rhythms that were a hair short or long. And it has always been difficult for me to be emotionally involved in such a precise type of music. Bach is clinical and elegant. Bach never had a shouting fit in his kitchen with a jealous lover in which china was thrown.
The rest of the day continued as scheduled. I thanked Tom for his help. I had also begun to refer to him as 'Mr. G.' How highschool. How 'Mr. Holland's Opus' of me, I thought.
Night fell and I was looking forward to sleeping. I would get up early... I would shower and start studying for the Introduction to Music Lit. test that i had coming up in two days. Christmas was getting closer and closer and i didn't have enough seconds in the day. I'd had dinner with the gang... The same old gang from when we had picked up trash. And there were a couple of new members that I'll introduce you to soon.
All the last bells had rung and it was starting to settle down in the room. It's nearing midnight and I'm starting to drift off.
The door swings open with a THUD, and light from the ever-florescently-bright-hallway pours in. In stalks Devin. Crap. All sleepy feelings are tossed away. Devin was yet another puerto rican... and some back wards relation of Ramon. I will not attempt to describe him physically, as I will be un-kind. He stalks into the room with gaucho swagger. He's dressed in nothing but his boxers. He flicks the room light on.
Devin: (Grasping his genitals and shaking them violently.) "Oy! Mira! Mira Pato! (He does a little dance and laughs as if he has been named the Anit-Christ.) He does all this while glancing out the door and down the hall to make sure he isn't alerting the attention of Roland.
He continues making noise and flickering the lights until he gets a response.
As fortune would have it... i was the only one who flickering the lights actually affected. I slept on the top of the double bunk.... there was no way for me to build a protective light barrier out of sheets and blankets. My blood pressure had almost instantly reached boiling. I yelled at him to get out of the room. His response was to play with himself, and the light switch a bit more.... Laugh and chatter at me in puerto rican. Then slam the door as the Authority approached.
The experience left me a bit rattled. This was my first experience with what i would come to learn was called 'hazing.' I wasn't fitting into the social fabric well enough. And this was my punishment.
This wouldn't be the last of Devin's little dances. This wouldn't be the last time he prattled himself around like a little brown gay dolphin.
This was only the beginning. And no one flicks on the lights and shakes their genitals at me. No one. I have a schedule. I have goals. I will not be toyed with.
This would be the beginning. I would burn down whatever village he had crawled here from. I would raid the filthy streets and allies he had played kick ball in.... His mother would beg for mercy... but would have none.
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