Westeast Weblog

SHOP AMERICA

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:06:49 +0000

As usual I was uncomfortable as I walked through the isles of Kmart because I was always worried about whom I would see there. I didn’t like people to know that I shopped at Kmart even though, clearly, if I saw someone there then they would also be guilty. I only went there for certain things like socks and motor oil. Most of the items in Kmart are not worth owning and I liked looking at all the stuff I didn’t want. It satisfied the anti consumer in me to walk around and say, “I wouldn’t take that for free, or that, or that, etc.” Often, even better than stuff I wouldn’t take for free, I would see stuff that you’d have to pay me good money to take. Stuff that I knew would have to go straight to the dump under cover of darkness for fear of someone seeing that I owned it. Anyway, I was walking along being uncomfortable and derisive when I went past an appliance section where a family was standing around a refrigerator. There were four people. A father and mother, their child, and another woman who could have been a sister of one of the parents. The parents were both wearing very large camouflage pup tents for their upper garments and blue jeans that were popping at the seams. They were plump to put it mildly. The sister was not dressed in camo but she was also tubby and had evidently tried to dye her hair and then given up half way thorough the job. She was wearing a sweat shirt that said, “I’m not a fag but my brother is.” They were definitely country but worse than that they were trying to be “hip” country which means adopting the looks of black hip hoppers mixed with hunter/army man. The little girl looked fairly normal since her body had yet to absorb the unpleasant tastes of her clan and the only unusual thing about her was that she was wearing a pink back pack that was large enough for her to live inside. The backpack had a flashlight in a little pocket on one side and and umbrella in a pocket on the other side. On the back it said, “Little Princess.” They were sort of standing there around the refrigerator while the man opened and closed the door over and over again. I noticed that they had one item in their cart. It was a three foot tall plastic deer which was standing on its hind legs and holding a spool of toilet paper between its front paws. “Holy crap!” I thought, “A deer toilet paper holder!” Who in the fuck would come up with such a thing? I mean, could you imagine sitting around in an office think tank trying to come up with new product ideas and coming up with that!
I just can’t imagine! Where would you even start? “Well now, we need to come up with something more retarded than we’ve ever imagined before. How about a toothbrush made to look like a toilet cleaning brush? How about a cereal that looks like gerbil turds? Camouflage Kotexs? No, no, no one would buy any of that junk. What we need is a deer standing there to watch you take a dump and then have it hand you some toilet paper. Hell yes! That’s it!” And they knew what they were talking about because there it was in the Kmart consumer’s cart. I decided to follow the family because I was honestly fascinated by them. They left the refrigerator and the wife pressed a button on a pole to bring a salesman to appliances. A sad looking man came over wearing a way too small vest that was covered with little service medals. One said, “Best Salesman 2004″ and another said, “Kmart Proud.” Some of them weren’t service medals but little Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse pins. He even had a Hello Kitty pin. He was a proud employee but he didn’t like the looks of the family he was about to assist. He asked, “Can I help you folks?” The father said, “Let me show you something.” and walked over to the refrigerator. He opened the door and said, “We need a door for our fridge. One like this. How much is it?” The salesman looked unhappy and he told the man that there was no way he could buy just the door off the refrigerator. “Even if we put it on layaway right now?” Asked the hick.
“Nope. No way.” Said the salesman.
The hick family all sort of turned away in one perfectly choreographed motion that seemed to reflect their familiarity with being shot down quickly and firmly in their propositions. I followed as they made their way over to the children’s clothing section and began picking out things for the little princess to try on. The sister and mother held up coveralls and boots, jumpers and sweatshirts that said things like “Here comes trouble” and “Spoiled Rotten.” But the little princess wasn’t interested in any of it and began batting things out of her mother’s hands. Finally, she got so mad that she took off her book bag and started jumping on it in a full blown temper tantrum. She bounced off the book bag and bumped her head on a rack displaying socks. The display fell over and the girl began howling in fury. The mother started saying, “Mama’s really gettin’ mad at you now. Mama’s really gettin’ mad!” and the father said, “I’m gonna take that little boogie lamp outta layaway if you don’t settle down now.” But the girl kept raising hell and then she got up and took off down the isle like she’d been shot out of a gun. She ran all the way down to the other end of the store where the toys were. “She wants that god damn bike.” Said the sister with the half dyed hair. And sure enough, there came the little girl back out into the main isle way down at the other end of the store on a bright red bicycle. The mom wiped her brow and said, “You go down there and get her Lester.” But the man said, “There’s no way I’m going to chase that girl on a bicycle! I can’t even catch her on foot unless I have the pellet gun to slow her down!” I could not believe my ears and then the sister said, “What kind of store lets a little girl take off on a bike on her own?” The three adults started trudging down the central isle like they were at the base of Mt. Everest, pushing their cart with the deer toilet paper dispenser and the girl’s giant smashed book bag in it. Half way down the isle they stopped and the father took the pink flashlight out of the bag and tried to turn it on. “This god damn thing doesn’t even work.” He said as he threw it back in the cart. Then he took out the little pink umbrella from the book bag and tried to open it but couldn’t. He smacked it on the side of the cart a few times and then got it to open whereupon a bunch of little white things fell out of it. “What the god damn hell!” I heard the father say as he brushed some of the white things off his head. And then the mother was like, “That little whore!” I couldn’t believe it but when I caught up with them I saw that the little white things were packages of condoms from “Playgirl Pleasure.” The mother tried to pick them up in a hurry and the sister was saying “Kaitlyn’s too young to be a whore. Kaitlyn’s too young to be a whore” over and over again. But the father was saying “Old enough to bleed old enough to breed.” to which the mother said, “She’s six years old Lester. Even mama didn’t start bleedin’ ’till she was nine!” I was really thinking that I was not seeing and hearing what I was seeing and hearing. How could these people come into existence? Where did they get their ideas? But there was more. I heard the father say he had an idea how to catch Kaitlyn whereupon they turned down one of the side isles and headed to the front of the store. I sort of hid out in the pots and vacuum cleaner section for a minute trying to catch my mental breath because the hick family had really stretched out my capacity for empathy and sympathy and any other pathy that could abide their world view. After a minute I made my way to the front of the store and found the family standing by customer service. They were trying to get some associate to fill the condoms with helium so that they could make a bouquet of balloons for Kaitlyn which they intended to fly off their cart as a lure to get her back into the clan. The associate wasn’t sure about filling up balloons brought in by customers and wasn’t sure how to charge for something like that. He didn’t seem to have any idea what a condom was but finally he began opening the little white packets and filling the condoms with helium. They didn’t look too abnormal as balloons except for their dull color and the little projections on the ends. They got the associate to give them some string and tied a bunch of the condoms together and then tied them to their cart. Then they got in a minor fight because they told the associate they wanted to put the helium on layaway which was flat impossible. They paid him some money in change the father had in his pocket. I couldn’t believe my eyes really. There they went pushing their cart with the deer toilet paper dispenser in it, the smashed book bag, and their bouquet of rubbers floating along slightly behind them. They acted like everything was as normal as pie even though their daughter was somewhere in the store riding around on a bike and they were setting themselves up to be the laughing stock of Kmart. But what was I talking about? No one paid any attention! They looked like any other shoppers! In fact after about a minute they seemed to completely forget about Kaitlyn and become absorbed in a giant deep fat turkey frying machine that was on sale like everything else. The father opened and closed the lid over and over again while telling his wife that they could cook everything from a chicken to a raccoon in that thing. The wife wondered if they could do deep fried butter balls in it and the sister wondered if they could cook up any sort of carnival food in it since that was her favorite kind of grub. Now this was where the family really made an impression on me. The father said, “Let’s get some oil and fire this thing up.” They went over to the automotive section and grabbed eight quarts of 30 weight motor oil and brought them back to the frier. All three of them pitched in opening and dumping in the oil. I really wanted to tell them that they would instantly drop dead if they ate anything fried in motor oil but I just couldn’t bring myself to interfere with the show. It was unbelievable! They filled the turkey frier with motor oil and then the father took out a Bic lighter and lit some sort of Sterno thing in the bottom of the frier. They could have been out in the middle of the woods standing around a camp fire. They held their hand towards the frier like they were warming up after a brisk hike in the cold wind. I couldn’t believe that none of the store employees came over to interfere but I think they were so trained to avoid their own customers that they didn’t do anything unless addressed directly or summoned by one of the department buttons. After about five minutes during which the family didn’t do a thing but stare at the little fire under the frier the oil started boiling and hissing a little bit. Finally, the father said, “Let’s get something to cook!” and they set off toward the food section. I followed them over to a huge bank of freezers and then stood at the end of the isle waiting to see what they got to fry. They seemed to be very particular about what they were going to choose. They pulled things out and looked at them and then put them back. Some things they smelled and others they shook. Some they held up to the light and licked. Finally they seemed to have decided on something that came in a bunch of boxes. When they went by me I stood there acting like I was looking at some frozen green beans but I glanced over and saw that they had about a dozen boxes of Tofurkey! Tofu turkey! Oh my god! That’s the last thing I thought they’d buy! But then while I was following them back to the deep frier I heard the sister talking and it became clear to me that she thought the turkey was mixed with toffy thus giving it some sort of carnival taste which as I already knew she loved. I have to admit I was dying to see their expressions when they shoveled some motor oil fried tofu turkey in their mouths. But I needn’t have wondered because before they got a chance to fry up their Tofurkey they decided to act like rednecks and see what happened if they inhaled some of the helium from one of the rubbers and tried to talk to each other. It was really horrible and amazing. There they were, three monumental rednecks sucking helium out of condoms in the middle of Kmart and then saying things to each other in very high cartoon voices while they tossed their Tofurkey into the deep fat frier. I have to admit I admired them for their ability to have fun in the middle of a Kmart. They acted like no one else mattered as they called each other high pitched names and said things like quack quack or oink oink trying to imitate high pitched farm animals. They were just having the best time until Kaitlyn came flying by on her bike and knocked over the cart which slid into the deep fat frier and knocked it over. Suddenly the garden and deep fat frying part of Kmart was on fire which was made more frightening by the exploding condoms which were bursting above the tumped over grocery cart. Kaitlyn was crying and holding onto her knees as she rocked back and forth on the tile. Fortunately, she was not in the line of fire but her parents were. They caught on fire along with the sister and ran in a blazing triumvirate of smoke straight back to the lay away section as if their smoldering brains had one last thought which spoke to them. I really felt bad about the whole situation thinking that I should have intervened at some point. But where should I have made that choice? Upon spotting the camouflage? The deer toilet paper dispenser? When they wanted to buy a refrigerator door? You just never know about making that kind of call. Whose business is it anyway?

THE MARK

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:14:31 +0000

Though I tried, and I mean really tried, I could not escape my immediate surroundings. No matter where I went I was where I didn’t want to be and if you think you have problems, try living where you can’t stand to be. In those surroundings there were always the most unwholesome people. Men with striped leggings, women with cowboy boots and terrible skirts, kids who were punctured and scribbled upon, busy bodies trying to recruit me for their self esteem, musicians playing 70s hits for the hundred millionth time, and so forth. And in these immediate surroundings, through the fundamental process of sensitization, I developed an aversion to art. Also, I realized that art was essential human behavior so that I had to conclude that I was averse to people in general and living people in particular. And the closer they were to me the more averse I was. But what did I expect? Having recently done some research into the family tree I discovered that my great great grand mother was a prairie dog. Don’t ask me how that worked! I can only imagine that my furry arms and my unibrow as well as my propensity for digging holes, and my prodigious fangs come from my great great granny. Supposedly, she lived in the era of Sitting Bull and was in fact owned by a minion of that great chief. Evidently, my great great grandfather was an indian hunter of some repute and during a relatively non-eventful raid one summer evening he returned with my grandmother. Several weeks later they were married by a priest who was known for taking a nip now and then. I don’t have the strength to say any more about my great great grand parents and the origin of my line. I do know this though. Since I chewed off a fan’s finger at a show the other night I’ve been more popular than ever. I’ll bet my great great granny would be proud though confused about that. She would never understand my job. I hardly understand it. Several months ago I was recruited into a rock band based on nothing but my looks. I couldn’t sing or play any instruments. I could snarl and spit and when I chewed a hole in my microphone my band mates fell in love with me. They are all girls although one of them might have been something else. They’re not nice like girls are supposed to be and that’s why they are fairly popular on the punk/goth circuit which comprises a fairly narrow range of misbehaving trolls with nothing worthwhile to say. My girls, as I call them, are known for the way they dress and act more than anything they sing or play. I said that I can’t play or sing but neither can they. Listening to us is right near unbearable. In fact I’ve noticed that lots of fans seem to be wearing ear covers or have their ears stuffed with gum or cotton when we play. You really have to wonder about the state of the world when people go to see a band that they don’t want to hear. And that’ s putting it mildly. I think normal people would rather listen to a rip saw cutting a piece of glass than listen to us. When we’re “playing” I’ll look out into the crowd and see them doing all sorts of things like punching each other on the nose and spitting in each other’s faces. They do jump around a lot and swing their bodies to and fro like maniacs which is fine with me since it looks painful and I like the idea of anyone who would be stupid enough to pay for a ticket to see us being in pain. In fact, the name of our band is Pain. Well, last night we were playing in a huge industrial basement where nearly 1200 people had shown up. They were a dirty, disaffected crowd with no sense of anything like dignity or purpose and I longed to see them destroy themselves. As we stood there droning on and on with meaningless notes and spastic rhythms I felt some sort of atavistic nerve pining in my body. I wanted to jump out into the crowd and start chewing people to pieces. The desire grew and grew until I couldn’t stand it anymore whereupon I turned my guitar up full blast to induce a constant feedback screech and then laid it down on the stage floor so it could just play itself. The crowd seemed to enjoy this very much which made me want to destroy them even more. I climbed off the stage and grabbed the first punk I could get my hands on then chewed off his hand and threw it out into the audience. The kids went wild and the dude whose arm I chewed off held his stump up into the air for everyone to see. I couldn’t believe that people were so joyous about such bad behavior. People were holding up their arms for me to chew off and there was a rush to the front of the room which pushed me into the stage. Once I was pinned to the stage by the pressure of the crowd I began gnawing away at those who were pushing me. It was a gory mess which I will have the good taste not to describe. But it did not bother anyone. They were delighted by the mayhem and it was so clear that they loved anything that evoked misery. I don’t know how many kids I tore through but I’m sure the janitor at the venue was one bummed out muther when he came on duty. The next day I read in the paper all about the slaughter that had taken place at our show. “Fans of Pain left in Pain” said the headline. “What crap!” I thought. Those kids loved it. It gave them something to talk about while they sat in their parent’s basements trying to figure out how to microwave eggs. Later on that same day I found myself sitting in a park wondering about the nature of human behavior. “What was driving these kids to self destructive behavior? What was the point of hurting yourself?” Our typical fan had about five pounds of iron pronged through their flesh, half a gallon of ink scorched onto their skin, hair styled to look like a toilet scrubbing brush from a third world prison, and clothing so over layered and cumbersome Harry Houdini couldn’t get out of them. I mean Jesus Christ, why not just get to the point and kill yourself!

I really couldn’t wrap my head around the modern American child. Was it the prairie dog in me that prevented me from seeing some reason behind this human activity? Was I missing something that was obvious to everyone else? I just didn’t know. Nor could I understand why it bothered me so much. Several nights later we were playing a show in an old industrial building that had been converted into a music hall/grooming parlour. I had never even heard of a grooming parlour before. Well, evidently, a grooming parlour was a little place you could go to be made instantly more hideous. It was amazing. You go into the grooming parlour, drop 100 dollars, and come out looking like a troll. They would actually stain some of your front teeth with an indelible ink so as to make it look like you’d had your teeth knocked out. They would irritate you eyes so that they turned red and exuded a snot colored slime. They even had a process whereby they could immediately induce raging acme throughout your face and neck. That night, during a break between sets I went through the audience and picked out people who’d obviously been in the grooming parlour. I brought them up onto the stage and in front of the seething crowd asked them why they went to the grooming parlour. They all stood there with their mouths hanging open showing their ink stained teeth. I asked them why they wanted to look so horrible and again they just stood there. The audience had settled down somewhat and as I asked various questions a few hisses and boos came forth. I couldn’t get so much as a peep from my subjects so I methodically tore off their heads and threw them out into the audience. The kids loved it and began to toss the heads around like they were retarded volley ball players. What a flaming mess! The thing that bothered me though was that I really did want to find out what drove those kids to the extremes of behavior they achieved. It bothered me because by simply wanting to know the answer to that question implied that I had some interest in those kids when in fact all I could do was loath them. Well, after that night’s show, after the heads and bodies were taken home as trophies, after I’d had a strong shot of whiskey, I found myself sitting on the park bench again. I sat with my furry head hanging down while I thought about my great great granny. Imagine a life where all you did was dig holes in the desert, sleep, and eat. Of course you were hunted relentlessly by things that came out of the blue. I guess you didn’t have time to realize that you had no purpose on earth. Did you? I’m not sure. But these kids. These kids have all the time in the world for realizing that they have no purpose on earth whether or not that is a reasonable conclusion. To me, they certainly seemed to have no purpose other than to be frankly obnoxious in every respect and, I guess, strictly speaking, that is some sort of purpose. I was sitting there thinking those things when I heard someone come up behind me. I turned around and recognized a small gaggle of misanthropes from our show. One of them said they would like to have my autograph, which struck me as very quaint and unusual coming from one of their type, and I said that I would give them my autograph if they would answer a few questions for me. They all turned and ran so I jumped over the back of the bench and went after them. It took about ten seconds to have one of them face down on the ground. I shouted out for the others to come back with the threat that I would devour the one I’d captured if they didn’t. One of them came back. It was a girl with a broken bottle tattooed onto her forehead and a spoon through her nose where a bone would have been if she’d been at least as normal as an African tribesman. “I just want to ask you a few questions.” The girl stood there with her mouth hanging open displaying some recently groomed teeth which looked like they’d been blasted by an exploding ink pen. “I want you to tell me why you like to look so ugly and miserable.”

“We don’t look ugly and we don’t want to be like everyone else.” She said.

“Like everyone else?”

“Like everyone else.”

“But you do look like everyone else. You look like this kid on the ground and all those kids who just ran away. You look like those thousand other kids who were at the concert tonight. You look like the tens of thousands of other kids who are at the other mindless, boring ass concerts.”

“We’re different.”

“No you’re not.”

“What’s different about you?”

“Well, I’ve been to a grooming parlor. Most people haven’t.”

“Most people don’t want to spend money to look uglier.”

Just then two wary girls walked by sort of skirting away from where I held the kid down near the sidewalk. They were quintessential yuppie girls dressed in expensive clothing. The girl nodded toward them and said, “They spent money to look uglier.” I looked at the girls and noted their giant handbags, their knee boots, and the mish-mash of colors. I couldn’t really disagree with what the punk girl had said. The kid whose face I was holding down into the grass was blubbering and I asked, “So you want an autograph?”

The girl said yes and so I tore off the head of the kid on the ground and handed it to her. “Here’s a trophy. It’s even better.”

The girl took the head and said, “Umm, that was my boyfriend.”

“Oops.” I said.”

” He just went to a grooming parlor too! And look at him now! He’ll be so pissed!”

“He’ll BE so pissed? I think his days of being pissed are over!”

“He’s not going to believe this happened to him!”

“What on earth are you talking about? He’s not going to believe anything anymore.”

“He’s probably a vampire now. That or a zombie.”

“No he’s not.”

“I can’t believe it! We just went to the grooming parlor tonight!”

“Well, god damn it!” I said. “I just don’t see how he’s any worse off now! I mean look at him! His mouth is hanging open just like it always did. His face is still pale as a dead fish and pockmarked with god knows what scourge. He looks like hell just like he always did! What’s the difference?”

“Well, for one, he can’t dance at the Pain concerts anymore.”

“Dance! I’ve never seen any of you dancing! You look like you’re all being electrocuted or shot with a machine gun. Good god what are you talking about! Dancing!”

“What would you call dancing then?’

I took the head from her and tossed it into the bushes. Then I put my arms around her and began humming an old ballad. I pulled her along in some almost forgotten dance steps and felt her head fall against my chest. “Now this is dancing.” I said gently. I thought she was an incredibly smooth dancer until I heard that she was snoring. “God damn it!” I said. I held her away from me and shook her. “What happened?” She mumbled, “Last thing I remember was I getting bored to death.” I just didn’t know what to say. She stood there for a minute staring blankly with her mouth hanging open. “Can you at least,” I asked, “not have your mouth hanging open all the time.” She told me that she learned to keep her mouth open so that she could breath better and so that her filed down, ink stained teeth, and her forked, pierced tongue were better shown off. It was just so horrible that she had an answer to everything. And such horrible answers! But somehow I couldn’t clamp them down as patently wrong. Just then four black dudes came walking up with their pants hanging down off their asses and giant pajama like clothing draping over their upper bodies. I pointed at them and said, “Look, they’re doing the same thing. What is wrong with you kids?” And then to the black dudes themselves, “What is wrong with you guys? Why can’t you properly wear those pants? Why are you wearing ugly looking pajamas in public? I wouldn’t even where those pajamas in front of the cartoons on TV. Aren’t you embarrassed?” I said all that fully expecting that they would attack me and allow me to tear their heads off which I wanted to do out of pure blind frustration. Incredibly, they were Gangbangers of the Lord and all they did was to whip out very colorful bibles to wave in my face as they made imbrications on my soul. I turned away from the dudes and I asked the girl to come with me which she did with her mouth hanging open again. “Where are we going?” She asked. I told her I wanted to bring her to a bar where we could sit for a few minutes and have a drink and think. “I don’t drink.” She said to which I replied, “Just come with me.” I suppose she wouldn’t have but I was after all a member of Pain which was worshipped by her type. Even just walking along I wanted to excoriate her for worshipping a band but I kept my mouth shut. We walked down some dreary streets where the public was very neatly kept at bay by architectural device and the lights were tuned to illuminate bad thoughts. We walked for several blocks listening to the strange birds that sang at night and were known to no one. Lights were burning up in high rise office buildings and I thought about the business that was transpiring there. What if everything I thought about everything was entirely wrong? What if there was actually a good reason for the behavior that I observed in those kids? What if there was still some groundhog or prairie dog part of my brain that mediated my thoughts in such a way that I just couldn’t connect to the human psychology? I felt uncomfortable as we walked along. I didn’t like doubt or hesitation. I didn’t like wondering about what I thought. Nor did I like layers of thought under which other layers waited to rebound when uncovered thus taking one unawares. I liked a clear horizon and now I was hemmed in by fog. I asked the girl why she went to the grooming parlor. She shut her mouth for a moment as if she had to hold in some thoughts and sum them up then said, “I go to the grooming parlor to change myself.” I put my hands behind my back and clasped them together feeling a fleck of sensibility finally coming out. “So you want to change yourself? I can understand that in the general sense of curiosity, as in making a change in yourself to see what happens. But what about the original you? What was wrong with that? Could it have been worse than what you are now?”

“Well, it could have been that I was worse than I am now.”

“Well how?”

“Well, when I was 14 my mom and dad left me at home alone. It was the first time they’d left me alone and so I found the keys to their Ford Fiesta which I was always dying to drive but my dad said he would let me drive only over his dead body and that I wouldn’t be driving until I was at least 18 because I was so reckless. Well, I went out and used chalk to mark exactly where the tires were in the driveway so that I could park in the exact same spot when I came back and then started the car and took off. I went over to my friend Jean’s house and beeped the horn in her drive way. Jean came running out and asked me how I got the car. I just told her to get in and that we were going over to the pool so we could drive by where Tony Monsupia was being a life guard and drive back and forth so he could see that I wasn’t a little punk girl without a car. Well on the way to the pool I went through a stop sign and sort of hit another car which tore my door and the side of the car off and made both of the tires flat on my side. I was shaking so bad that I thought I could puke and all I could think of was to get away. The guy that we hit got out of his car which had steam coming out of the hood. While he was standing there we took off although we couldn’t go very fast because of the flat tires. I was worried that the guy got our license number because he was looking at us when we drove away but believe it or not he didn’t get our license number. Well we got to my house and I parked the car exactly where it was parked before. Jean got out and told me that she had to go home which made me mad because that wasn’t being a very good friend to leave me when the going got rough. I really though I was going to die while I walked around in the drive way looking at the car and trying to decide what to say. I had about four more hours to figure something out before my parents came home and I was just walking around the car when suddenly there came my mom and dad! I couldn’t believe my eyes! They pulled up in front of the house and my dad got out and said, “God damn it! I forgot my wallet! We were half way their and I forgot my wallet!” And then my mom shouted out the window, “Not that he needs it since we’re just going to the Wren’s house. Since when do you need a license to go to a barbeque?” My father said, “You should never drive a car with out your license! Even to a barbeque!” Well he was just about at the door when he looked at the Fiesta. The destroyed side was away from him so I didn’t think he could be seeing anything that would give me away. But he must have seen something because he stopped, had a funny look on his face, and then started walking toward the Fiesta. “Dad!” I shouted. “I lost your wallet in the toilet!” I don’t know why I said it. I just had to say something but it didn’t stop him. When I looked at the Fiesta I noticed that it was leaning to the side. He walked around to the destroyed side and it looked like his head was going to explode. “What in the god damn hell! Did you drive this car?! What did you do to this car!” He came running around the back of the car like he was going to kill me and fell down where some oil must have leaked out or something. He bumped his head on the fender and broke his ankle. You wouldn’t believe how mad he was. Well once he was pretty nailed down into his hospital bed I told him what happened and told him that the dude didn’t get my license number because no police ever showed up but he didn’t believe me. He thought I killed some people or something so he had one of his shady friends from where he works come get the Fiesta and take it to one of those car squishing places where they squashed it into a three foot by three foot cube. Then he had the cube brought back to the house and put in the back of the garage. Well, believe it or not, when I turned 15 he gave me that car for my birthday present. He said, “As soon as you fix this car I’ll help you get your drivers license and not a second sooner.” And that’s about it.”

I was totally absorbed by her story and forgot that we were heading to a bar. But when she said the last sentence the spell was broken. “What’s about it?” I asked.

“That’s about it.” She repeated.

“I don’t understand. What has any of that got to do with you being a dumb assed goth kid now. You think you were a worse person when your dad gave you a squashed car for your birthday? I don’t see any logical connection there.”

“Well, what it means, is that now that I’ve put all this work into the way I look, why would I want to be hidden in a car where no one could see me!”

I really wanted to pull out my hair. Talking to these kids was just like watching them on the dance floor! They just didn’t make any sense. I sent the girl away with a kick in the ass. But I couldn’t let it go. I wanted a conclusion to my quest for understanding the kids. I had a suspicion that they were driven by a fundamental knowledge of worthlessness. That they hated themselves so much because they had a notion that they were special while at the same time knowing in their hearts they were nothing. These countervailing ideas tore at them and caused them to destroy themselves around the edges. I was coming very close to pitching a new idea to my band mates. I was going to suggest that we start throwing concerts where instead of playing we just summarily kill everyone who comes through the door. There was no doubt in my mind that we would have sold out every show. I imagined it would be a relief. I imagined it would give me pleasure. One night I decided that I was going to tell my band mates that we needed to implement my new idea but before I could they told me that I was kicked out of the band. They said I smelled bad and that they’d been thinking about kicking me out of the band from the moment I joined up. They said they’d been discussing it every night, trying to decide why I liked to smell bad. They said they’d even asked me about it on numerous occasions and my answers were short of the mark. I had no idea. I had no idea!

AMONG THE CLASSES

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:03:20 +0000

The first woman who came out was on crutches. I was surprised when I saw her because I’d just read a note on her door saying that she wouldn’t be able to come see us if we knocked on the door. It said that she was in the house somewhere and that if we needed her we were to call her at the number she’d written down. She claimed that she was incapacitated. I didn’t like her handwriting and I didn’t like the paper she’d written it on. And I didn’t like the fact that she’d changed pens several times even thought it didn’t look like any of the pens ran out of ink. When I saw her coming around the corner on her crutches I immediately thought that she should have stayed inside. There was no possible reason for her to be out there since the work we were doing didn’t really have anything to do with her. She was the tenant and we’d been hired by her landlord. That was that as far as I was concerned and the boarders of responsibility were clear to me. But she came hobbling over anyway to begin her commentary which was extensive. Right off the bat she began telling us about her medical conditions and the limitations they placed upon her life. To me, it just looked like she was too fat. We were slaving away while she stood there on her crutches with steam coming out of her mouth as she talked. She complained about it being so cold in the morning and I wanted to say that it should be cold in the afternoon and warm in the middle of the night so that she would have less to talk about but I didn’t say it. Then she began telling us about how the neighbor’s yard was not graded properly and that that was the reason for all the water running down and ruining the side of the house she lived in. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care why the water came down to her house because I already knew why the water was coming down to her house. I felt like she was standing there telling us everything that any non-dead human being would already know. But it wasn’t enough to know what every non-dead human being would know. Evidently, there was considerably more. There was the reason that the gutters were clogged, the reason that there were a lot of mosquitoes in the summer, the reason that she had books piled up against the windows (insulation), the reason she thought it was so exciting to have men digging outside of her house, the reason she didn’t like dogs, the reason birds flew, bugs crawled, salesmen talked, buildings stood, suns shined, etc… I just couldn’t stand having someone there blabbing on and on while I was working away because I wanted to talk back and tell her how stupid she was but knew I couldn’t breath properly while I was digging or carry on a conversation in a proper way. Every shovel full of dirt made me want to womp her on the head. How could she not tell that we weren’t interested in listening to her? Was she that starved for attention? Was that it? Why didn’t I feel sorry for her if that was the case? I certainly didn’t feel sorry for her because I don’t see how I could feel sorry for her if I wanted to whack her on the head with my shovel. Finally, for no real reason, she hobbled back to the front door of her house. She hadn’t been inside for more than a minute before the neighbors came outside. They were the Finklestiens and the first thing Mr. Finklestien said was, “Did you meet the neighbor? She’s unbearable!” I said that we had met the neighbor. Then Mrs Finklestien asked if we were ok with her dogs coming out. I didn’t see how we could refuse since we were in their yard as that was where we had to be in order to work on the side of the house we were working on. She let her dogs out. There were four of them and one of them was very old. The old one barked at us incessantly even though I don’t think it could see us and Mr. and Mrs. Finklestien cooed at him while he barked his ancient balls off. They thought it was cute that their old deaf dog was so excited about barking at us. They stood there laughing while we slaved away with shovels full of dirt and dogs barking at us. And then Mr. Finklestien said, “Do you know that she hired some Mormons to fix that before? She hired Mormons!” I didn’t know what the point was so I said, “Well there are some Mormon contractors over in the valley.” He laughed out loud and pulled out a pipe. “These weren’t contractors! These were Mormons from the church! They didn’t know what the hell they were doing!” He lit up and smoked his pipe for a minute while his wife put the dogs inside. “You know,” he said, “I couldn’t work today because the building I work in had its power go off.” I kept digging and thought to myself, “I’m surrounded. The Finklestiens on one side and that big mouthed lady on the other.” Finally, the old man went inside and when I walked out the gate to get something from my truck I noticed that his name was Harvey Finklestien. Harvey and Sally Finkelstien it said on the mailbox. My truck was parked by the drive way of the big talker and I was hoping that she wouldn’t be over there but when I came around the corner there she was standing over a pile of wood that was in her driveway. It was a pile of ratty looking wood that we’d torn off the side of her house and it was so shitty I wouldn’t have even taken it home to burn. There were also two young girls standing with her who were looking down at the pile of wood. The girls looked very homely and they were dressed in clothes that definitely looked like what girls would wear to church and so I figured they might be Mormons. The woman said, “Hey, Brick! Can I use your big strong man body for just one second to pull these two boards apart?” The girls tittered and I really thought that the woman was about the biggest cornball in the world. “All right.” I said with an annoyed voice. When I got over to the boards I saw that the ones she wanted me to tear apart were the ones we’d used to test our nail guns on. There were about fifty nails holding the two boards together. I thought, “Well I’ll tear these two boards to pieces getting them apart and that’ll teach her.” I smashed into the boards and in about twenty seconds there was one sort of board with a ton of nails left in it and a pile of splinters which was the other board. The two girls clapped their hands and tittered some more and the lady said, “Thanks! That’s my Christmas present!” I just couldn’t imagine what she was going to do with the boards and splinters. I thought she might have been a pack rat but, honestly, I didn’t want to even look into her garage, although it was right in front of me, for fear of showing any interest in the lady’s life. I went back to my truck without lifting my head from its attitude of looking at the ground. I got back over to where we were digging and saw that Mr. Finklestien was back outside with his pipe. He saw me coming around the corner and and said, “You know, she whips those girls way back inside her house.” I sort of did a double take at the whole sky trying to absorb what he’d just said. I tried to keep walking toward my shovel and pretend that I didn’t really grasp what I’d just heard. But then he said, “She takes their clothes off, ties ‘em to a bed post, and whips them into a frenzy! Way back in the house!” I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was he implying that they were lesbian, Mormon, masochists? Did he just really hate his neighbor? I mean, I could see that she was a pain in the ass but was he just making up stories about her? Then he said, “You know, I saw her eat a bird once.” I kept digging and looked over at my business partner who was also digging diligently. Thank goodness for the shovels. If you were digging a hole you were busy and if you were busy you didn’t have to partake. I was dying to say, “So she ate a chicken?” knowing full well that that wasn’t what he was saying. He then just stood there smoking his pipe and I found myself wanting to ask about eating the bird but I couldn’t do it. After about two full minutes Mr. Finklestien said, “She shot a bird out of our birdbath with a BB gun, climbed over the fence, and shoved it into her mouth.” Then he banged his pipe on the birdbath and went back inside his house. I just couldn’t believe it! God all mighty! What kind of people were these? I had been shoveling so hard that I was panting so I leaned up against the house and rested for a minute. Once my breath had settled down, I started to hear some other panting. Then I heard these little screams and snapping sounds. I couldn’t believe it! I pressed my ear against the side of the house and listened carefully. It was incredible! It sounded like girls were being whipped inside the crazy lady’s house. “God damn!” I said. “She’s really whipping them!” My business partner didn’t even raise his head because he was one of those blue collar people who focused on one little thing at a time and nothing else. I looked over at the Finkelstien’s window and saw that Mr. Finklestien was looking out the window at me. He was clearly implying with his hand movements, which were pantomiming a whipping, that I was hearing his story come to life. What do you do in circumstances like that? Mr. Finklestien was apparently laughing at my discovery. He was laughing with such gusto that he would bend over and disappear from the window. One time he bent over and didn’t seem to come up. I didn’t even want to think about it. I started digging again and tried to think about the trench. I was wishing I could be like my business partner and ignore everything except for the trench. But I just couldn’t really do it. I dug for a couple minutes and then heard a window open a few feet away from me. It was a window on the crazy woman’s house. I concentrated on my digging and refused to look up. I heard the sound of a throat clearing and a cough but they were clearly of the sort that were meant to attract attention to an forthcoming speech. I dug down with more force as I bent over the shovel. Another half minute later I hear, “Brick! You’re going to kill yourself! Do you have any olive oil in your truck? I know you might not but you never know.” I just didn’t know what to think. Who carries olive oil around in their truck? She knows I don’t have olive oil in my truck and I know that she knows that I know. What does she want olive oil for? If she was whipping those girls then maybe she needs olive oil for something pornographic. But what the hell am I thinking? All the sudden she started laughing her ass off. She slapped the windowsill and then said, “So has Mr. Finklestien dropped dead on you yet today?” That made me look up at her but just as I did she shut the window. God! What a pair of neighbors! How could these people live next to each other? Were they both nuts? I was thinking that I was glad I didn’t live in the suburbs and that there was probably some connection to television, the quiet on the street, and the unusual behavior when Mrs. Finklestien came running out the door shouting that Harvey had dropped dead on the kitchen floor. She told us to come inside and help but I didn’t know what to do. According to the crazy lady this death was to be expected and since it had happened before, Mr. Finklestien, clearly, wasn’t dying. But Mrs Finklestien was in tears and appeared to be genuinely frightened out of her wits. My business partner didn’t even look up when I dropped my shovel and walked over to the Finklestien’s front door. Mrs Finklestien grabbed my hand and dragged me in the door and over to the kitchen window where I’d seen Mr. Finklestien laughing at me. He was down on the floor in a heap and he really did look kind of dead with his pipe lying next to him and some pipe tobacco spilled out by his foot. I was just leaning down to put my ear next to his nose when he coughed loudly and opened his eyes. “Thank God!” Said Mrs. Finklestien. I jumped back and stood up. Mr. Finklestien said, “God damn it! I was laughing so hard I had a mini stroke!” I felt like I just couldn’t really be standing in the Finklestien’s kitchen hearing what I was hearing and seeing what I was seeing. When I looked around the inside of the Finklestien’s house I saw what I could only describe as the most extensive collection of knick-knacks I’d ever seen. Every square inch of surface area was covered with little statues, candles, photo holders, ash trays, miniature christmas trees, bronze boots, just every useless thing you could imagine. It was the very thing that I couldn’t stand since I myself was a very minimalist person. “I see you’re admiring my collection.” Said Mrs. Finklestien. “I’ve belonged to the Reader’s Digest’s Collectors Club for 28 years.” I looked down at Mr. Finklestien and he nodded his head in agreement to what Mrs. Finklestien was saying. Mr. Finklestien didn’t look any worse for the wear so I turned to make for the door when Mrs. Finklestien grabbed my hand and said she wanted to show me something. She pulled me over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer. She took out a plastic container and put it on the counter, opened it, and took out a book. “This is my most important scrap book .” She said. “I keep it in here but the rest of them I keep in the freezer in the garage so the paper won’t go bad.” She opened the scrap book and flicked through a few pages. “There are two things in this scrap book that make it my most important. Here,” she said as she pointed to a piece of paper behind the plastic, “is my 25 year certificate for belonging to the Readers Digest Collection Club since its beginning.” Mr. Finklestien, who was now standing up, said, “A quarter century.” Then Mrs. Finklestien flipped the pages by so I could sort of see what was in the book. She said, “I actually scrap booked an entire magazine! The whole thing is in here!” Mr. Finklestien nodded his head approvingly as he leaned against the counter. I couldn’t stand it. “Why,” I asked, “didn’t you just keep the magazine if you wanted everything in it?” Mrs. Finklestien suddenly looked at me like I’d slapped her in the face and Mr. Finklestien grabbed me by the shoulder and started pushing me toward the door. “You can just go back to your hole Mr. if that’s the way you going to be!” I was surprise by his strength but didn’t mind being pushed out of their crazy house. But when I found myself outside the door I saw that the crazy woman was standing over by the trench we had been digging. She was looking down into it and animatedly talking to my business partner. I really didn’t want to go over to my shovel but I was clearly unwelcome on the Finklestien’s stoop so I shuffled over. The crazy woman saw me coming and beckoned for me to hurry up. “Get over here Brick!” She cupped her hands together forming a megaphone in front of her mouth, tilted her head to the sky and said, “We’ve got a problem Houston!” When I got over to the trench she pointed down at a pipe that seemed to come out of her house and head over towards the Finklestien’s house. “I’ve been suspecting this for awhile Brick. They’ve been pumping sewer gasses over to my house 24/7 trying to smoke me out so they could pump me full of lead.” I put my face in my hands and thought to myself that I just couldn’t take any more of these people when suddenly the Finklestiens opened fire on us. They had BB guns and they shouted, “You boys get out of the way! She’s the one we want! She’s been told about trespassing!” But the Finklestiens were probably as blind as their old dog or at the least terrible shots because I was being pelted with BBs which felt like bee stings. I ran over behind a bush and then saw a window open next to me. Two barrels stuck out and commenced shooting at the Finklestiens who would slap themselves and shake their fists when they were hit. I couldn’t take it anymore so I jumped over the fence and got in my truck. Right after I started the engine I realized that my truck was being peppered with BBs. Then the crazy woman was knocking on my window and shouting, “Take me with you Brick! I’ll even marry you if you want!” I leaned over and said, “Are you completely fucking insane!” She pressed her face to the window and said, “It’s the Finklestiens who are insane. You saw it with your own eyes!” I shook my head and said “No! You’re all insane!” And then I noticed that she wasn’t using her crutches anymore. “Where are your crutches? You are a giant fake!” Just then the Finklestiens got up to the fence and opened fire nearly point blank on the crazy lady. The two girls were leaning out the window trying to get a bead on the Finklestiens since there was now a bush between them. One of the girls fell out of the window and into the trench that we were digging. She was clearly naked. My business partner didn’t even look at her even though he was only about eight feet away. I just couldn’t believe it. What focus! What blue collar dedication to the task at hand! And he was completely right! None of this was our business at all! We had a job to do. I couldn’t help it though. I was just not a blue collar person try as I might to be one. In fact, the Finklestien–Crazy lady feud convinced me that I was an aristocrat. There was no way around it.

WORKING INFLUENCE

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:39:46 +0000

Cheryl Duke and I were really inclined to put a bottle between us and see which one of us could kill it first. Our hands would go up the bottle neck like one of those children’s games where you grab the stick hand over hand and see whose hand winds up on the top. But it didn’t matter whose hand wound up on top. All that mattered was who could grab the bottle the fastest and take a giant choking swig of booze. We were a strange drinking pair since we both worked for the Norfolk Southern Corporation in vastly different capacities. She was a lawyer who answered directly to one of the more influential vice presidents and I was a locomotive engineer. We wouldn’t have had a thing to do with each other except that she happened to be my neighbor and one day we both met down by the blackberry bushes in a drunken stupor. It was amazing to realize later how alcohol can melt social differences like butter in a volcano. We just both happened to wander down to the boarder between our yards. I heard something rustling around in the field over on the other side of the black berry bushes and she heard something too. We both crept down in a grey haze to see what each other were. I’ll never forget seeing her face pop up from behind the bushes with a reticent smile that just made me want to reach over and pet her hair like she was a cat or dog. Within two or three words we both ascertained that the other was drunk and we bonded on nothing more than a slight slur backed up by the warm sweet smell of keytones on one another’s breath. Just so you understand how a high ranking lawyer can live next to a low ranking worker. We both lived in Virginia and one of the hallmarks of a southern state like Virginia is that royalty can live about thirty feet away from pure trash. Cheryl lived on a beautiful old farm of about 400 acres and I lived in a trailer home set on about a quarter acre. My crappy quarter acre was, I’m sure, some remnant of a card game gone bad or a whore’s debt from the family that used to own the estate. You couldn’t really see my place from the main house where Cheryl lived because of the prodigious black berry bushes so it just didn’t matter that I was there. Really, the owners of the four hundred acre farm could have just had me shot if I happened to cause any trouble and that’s an end of it. But I didn’t cause any trouble. At least not until I met Cheryl. I swear to god we loved each other like brother and sister within ten minutes of meeting. I had a bottle in my back pocket and when I pulled it out and held it up to Cheryl she beamed like a happy saint and grabbed that bottle in a second and started swigging. I mean, that was that. After that first day we started meeting down there every afternoon that we could. One of us, usually both of us, would have a bottle and we’d go back into the woods where there was an old half rotted shack with a torn out car seat inside it. We could sit on that car seat and look out the door into the woods while we drank. She explained to me about how her husband was a somewhat fickle scion of business who made millions but didn’t know a thing about having fun, i.e., drinking to the edge of consciousness. He would have a glass of wine with their dinner and she would have a glass of whiskey in a wine glass. At first she told me that she was a lawyer for a large corporation and left it at that so I didn’t know we worked for the same company. I told her that I was involved with an industrial job and often had to work at night. Our conversations were of that special kind that can only take place below the haze of an alcoholic umbrella. We’d see a squirrel and start talking about the governor or see a leaf fall off a tree and talk about the soft pretzels at Target. It was just miles of senseless blather but it didn’t matter because we couldn’t perceive disorder.

Well, one day I went down to the blackberry bushes and Cheryl didn’t show up. It wasn’t a real big deal since it had happened before but this time I felt particularly susceptible to her absence. The next day when she didn’t show up I really felt uneasy and the third day I couldn’t stand it so I went to my trailer, cleaned myself up as best as I could and went up to Cheryl’s house. I’d never been up to the place before and was interested in the way things looked up close on the house. I’d only seen it from a distance and found myself looking at little details which appeared to be somewhat different from what I’d imagined them to be like. For instance, I could tell from a distance that there was some sort of big knocker or decoration on the front door. But when I got up to it I was surprised to see that the thing I was seeing was a giant brass rat door knocker. I only mention it because this rat’s head was huge and it looked like it would be heavy enough to tear the door off. Also, on a house that other wise appeared to be very elegant this brass ornament struck me as gaudy and unusual. I mean, who would want to impress some guest with a giant rat face at the stoop? What’s more the tongue of the rat sort of hung out and it was obviously to be moved as a knocker. So I grabbed the tongue and knocked. About ten seconds later the door was answered by a plump black woman who was dressed up in what appeared to be the old fashioned garb of a maid. I told her I was a neighbor and that I needed to see Cheryl on business. She nodded her head and told me to wait on the portico. “Wait on the portico.” I thought. What a strange thing to say. When the maid turned I saw that the back of her apron where it wound around her back said, “Bess” on it. It just so happened that I was familiar with the story Porgy and the character Bess which was what popped into mind when I saw that name on her back. “What an odd thing to have your maid’s name stenciled on her back.” I thought. A minute later the door opened and a distinguished looking gentleman was standing there wearing a nice suit. It was a really nice suit actually so that’s why it was so strange to see that on a patch over the breast pocket was sewn in the word “husband.” It was very odd. Or that is, it would be very odd to a normal person. But you must remember that before I’d gone up to Cheryl’s door I’d had about half a gallon of Jim Beam so I was not a normal person. If you had gone up to the door you probably would have turned around the second you saw the rat. That’s what I would have done had I not had a drink. Actually, looking back on it I guess you wouldn’t have known that I’d drunk half a gallon of Jim Beam if I hadn’t told you but now I’m telling you. The gentleman with the beautiful suit said, “What can I do for you?” and I replied that I was looking for Cheryl. Just then there was a terrible sound like a body tumbling down some stairs and when I looked past the gentleman who was evidently Cheryl’s husband I saw Cheryl lying in a heap on the floor. The husband ran over to her and I followed. Cheryl was lying there with a big smile on her face and her dress bunched up enough so that you could see she was wearing underwear with a Mickey Mouse motif on them which just struck me as unreal. “Cheryl! Are you all right?” asked the husband in a loud voice. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” She replied. I could smell the fumes coming off her breath and my first thought was that I hoped there were no open flames anywhere lest she might cause an explosion. On the front of her dress over her heart was a sewn name tag that said, “drunk wife” on it. I rubbed my eyes because not only was it odd to see name tags on rich people but the fundamental nature of the names was blunt to say the least. The maid and a man who appeared to be a butler came to the bottom of the stairs to see if they could help. When the butler bent over to look more closely at Cheryl I saw that it said in big letters on his back “Uncle Tom.” I couldn’t imagine a more bizarre thing to be written on the back of a modern black man but even as I tell you that you have to understand that my brain was partially capsized with liquor. That’s why I said to Cheryl, “I wanna take you to work with me Cheryl. We can have a drink while I’m working!” This gave her enough energy to sit up and with the help of the maid, stand up. She was wobbly but she could walk and she motioned for me to follow her to the door while her husband just stood there with an baffled look on his face. The maid said, “Now you watch yourself Missy. Don’t take no wooden nickels or drink crappy wine again.” And then she patted Cheryl on the butt like she was child being sent out onto the play ground. When we got down to where my car was parked, Cheryl said her husband was into labels which would have thrown me for a loop if my brain weren’t crooked with drink. Then she got in without saying another word and immediately began reaching under the seats looking for booze. Lots of times we kept a couple bottles under the torn out car seat in the rotting shed so it was natural that she would do what she did. I said, “I keep it in the glove compartment.” So she pulled out a fifth of Jack Daniels and went to it. It felt so good to have Cheryl by my side again and I realized that I really relied on her for good drinking times. It felt just like we were sitting in our shed on the torn out car seat except that the entire panorama was moving as the car rolled down the roads and we looked out the windshield with wonder as we spoke about which bugs bit worse and why the moon was round and other such things like that. That day I was scheduled to run a freight train from Lynchburg Virginia which was near where we lived, to Charlestown West Virginia. Lord knows what I thought I was going to do with Cheryl in Charlestown. We’d never gone anywhere together except into the shack. Well I pulled into the rail yard and parked behind some old cabooses so no one would notice that I had an unauthorized person with me. The railroad was very strict about not bringing anyone onto the property who didn’t work for the company. If only I’d known that Cheryl was a high ranking official for my very own corporation! Really though, it wouldn’t have made much difference since we were both extremely tipsy which was also looked at negatively on the railroad. And then somewhere in the bottom of my brain pan it occurred to me that it was strange that I was worrying about a trespasser but not worrying about operating a 10 thousand ton machine while drunk as a coyote. The train I was to operate was already assembled and waiting. On the way, as we were walking towards the train, Cheryl was looking around her and kept saying, “The railroad. The railroad. Those fuckers!” but I didn’t know what she was talking about and just assumed it was the booze acting up in her. Now before we got onto the locomotives I went in front of the train and threw a switch so that we’d be going down the track I wanted to be going down. Cheryl climbed onto the lead engine and opened the door to the cab like she was right at home and then flopped down into the seat usually occupied by a conductor. She was carrying the bottle of Jack Daniels and put it on the floor next to her. I climbed into the engineer’s seat and flipped a few switches and pulled the throttle to get the thing moving. There were some other things that I should have done before moving the train like communicating with the dispatcher, obtaining a track warrant, waiting for my conductor, etc, but with Cheryl there beside me all those things were subsumed by my lovely drinking mate and I just revved those engines up like I was going to be driving straight to Eden. The locomotives strained to get the train moving and as metal started creaking and vibrating I took the bottle from the floor and downed half of what was left. Goddamn it tasted so good! I looked over and saw Cheryl smiling at me as she slouched back in the seat with one of her legs flung over the control stand. She pointed out the window to some ducks flying over the river and said, “Look! Some ducks! Beep the horn at them!” Well I blasted on the horn a few times and the ducks didn’t seem to notice since they were about two miles away anyhow. Then Cheryl asked me if she could drive and I told her she could sit on my lap and drive away. She came over to me, grabbed the bottle out of my hand and sat on my lap. She said she wanted to run the throttle and I said, “Go to it.” Well she pulled the throttle back to full blast and the engines stated heaving in that way I recognized which presaged them spitting fire and black smoke out of the exhaust stack. This was a very looked down upon practice among the train supervisors because of the damage it did to the engines and the fuel it wasted. I didn’t say anything though because I figured no one would see us even though we were driving through the middle of a city. The whole cab was shaking and it felt good to have Cheryl sort of buzzing on my lap. She turned to me with a big smile on her face and said, “This is fun! Gimmy that bottle.” But she already had the bottle and she was tilting it straight up and into her mouth when there was a jolt like we’d run over something. “Opps,” Cheryl said. “I think we just ran over a car.” We got up and looked back out the side window where sure enough there was half a car hanging down by the side of the tracks. Incredibly, it looked like it was a railroad security car which was really hard to believe. What we’d just done took about a full minute to register in our addled minds but it was amazing to realized how harmonious were our thoughts when we both said at the same time, “We’ve got to get out of here!” I looked at some of the engine controls and then said, “Hell, we’re already going full blast! We’ll be out of here soon enough!” Cheryl looked out the window again and said, “You think they’ll be able to track us?” I had to think about it for a minute and then it dawned on me how drunk we were. “Of course they’ll be able to track us! It’s not like we can cover our tracks!” We were going about twenty five miles an hour towing a mile of empty coal cars and when I looked out the front window I noticed that I didn’t recognize anything. I’d made the Lynchburg–Charlestown run a million times and all the scenery in front of us was completely foreign. “Could they have rebuilt this much of the city since last Monday?” I thought out loud. Then we came around the corner just as my brain went around a corner. In my brain, the corner I went around was the one that lead me to understand that I’d thrown the switch the wrong way and was now lost on the railroad if such a thing were possible. The real corner we went around came out into the middle of an old cobble stoned street. The tracks went right down the middle of the street like they often used to do in the old days and in the middle of this street were about a hundred little stands where there was a farmers market or some sort of crafts fair going on. People started screaming and running as the train ran over carts and tables full of stuff that bounced off the street and rolled all over the place. Dogs and children were crying and people were shaking their fists up at the locomotive. Some tomatoes came flying through the side window and Cheryl said, “We’re being booed off stage!” I shook my head and rubbed my face, “Off stage?” I said. But then I thought, “Yeah, it is like we’re on stage. Look at all those people looking at us.” Then I said it out loud, “It really is like we’re on stage isn’t it? Every one loves to watch a train and wave at it!” Cheryl and I started waving out the windows at all the people looking at us and Cheryl even leaned out the window while she took a giant swig out of the Jack Daniels bottle. Then someone threw an apple at her and it bounced off the side of her head and nearly knocked her out. She sort of slumped down to the deck in the cab but she didn’t drop the liquor bottle. I picked her up and sat her in the engineer’s seat then grabbed her chin and shook her a little bit. Someone was pelting the windows with bottles and rocks but most people don’t know that locomotive windows are essentially bullet proof because of so much hooliganism on and around the railroad. I shut the side window and then laid on the horn. I could see people falling to their knees in front of us and dropping bags and children as they clamped their hands over their ears. Train horns really are extremely loud! Cheryl came to and said, “Hey, let me beep the horn!” I told her to go to it while I got up to look out the rear cab window. It was a real trail of destruction. I was guessing that a train hadn’t been down this street for 50 some years and the people just weren’t prepared for it. I told this idea to Cheryl and she agreed. She said she’d check into it when she got to work Monday. That was when I finally asked her where she worked. She said, “Norfolk Southern Corporation.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “We work at the same place!” I said. “No wonder we hit it off so good! What do you do?” She smiled and took the last of the booze down her throat. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand like a real trooper and said, “I’m a lawyer for the vice president of operations and by God nothing I like more than a drink!” We were just staring into each others eyes thinking who knows what when we went through the side of an old building where the tracks must have entered an old industrial opening. Bricks rained down on the top of the engine and Cheryl said, “They’ll pay for our paint job by God!” I too went on the predictable drunk’s offensive and said, “By God there should have been a red signal there!” We seemed to be going through a mall of some sort with the wheels cutting through the linoleum floor seeking out the ancient buried rails while stunned shoppers fled and threw their hands into the air. Cheryl wanted to beep the horn again and I told her she could do whatever she wanted to do since she was my superior. She laid on the horn and giant windows blew out of the storefronts like a hurricane was inside the mall. Smoke and fire were pumping out of the three poor locomotives obscuring the lights and setting off alarms and sprinkler systems left and right. I think we would have kept going and blasted out the other side of the complex but for the one thing that would get through out muddled brains. We were out of booze! We both looked at the empty bottle at the same time. I “blew the hole” which was train talk for putting the train into emergency braking. It wasn’t really necessary though since we’d been slowed down to about one half mile per hour by all the concrete and linoleum. After about ten seconds we realized that we were sitting still with the diesels clicking and huffing like living creatures oblivious to our crimes. The police showed up along with the fire department. Cheryl and I stood on the front of the locomotive and told the police chief that he was not welcome aboard the train. Cheryl made the legal argument that we were private property an therefore could not be boarded by anyone other than official corporate employees. Then I said that we were like a little piece of America that could move and carry our sovereignty with us where ever we went. Cheryl pulled my head right up next to hers and said “That’s ships you’re thinking of. Naval ships. They’re little pieces of America.” I pulled her head next to mine and asked, “Why can’t we make the same arguments for trains? They’re almost as big a ships and they’re made of metal!” Cheryl smiled and patted me on the shoulder. By then the police had come onboard despite our warnings and handcuffed us. When they had us in the back of the squad car we both looked out at the train sitting there in the middle of the mall with gentle plumes of smoke coming from the stacks. There was a sort of pond nearby with a fountain in it squirting water from the mouth of a fish woman. It was a strange thing to watch because it looked so unnatural next to the train. At least that’s what I thought until I looked at Cheryl’s face. I could see her looking at the train and I knew exactly what she was thinking and so I started thinking it too. What looked like a big mess to everyone else just looked like a real good time to us. A really good time!

IN THE BEGINNING

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:51:54 +0000

In a grim looking basement room with a long folding table up against one wall an old coffee urn bubbles erratically. Next to it is a stack of paper cups and a plate full of stale donuts. There are about fifteen people in the room and they all look depressed, tired, and disinterested. Some of them are doing what appears to be a strange thing. The bring their hands up to their mouths and just when it looks like they’re about to bite their fingernails or something like that they jerk their hands back down into their laps. There is a woman sitting by a podium in front of the group and she has her arms crossed. She points to a disheveled young man and indicates that he should come to the front which he does. He stands there looking about with a bewildered countenance. The woman tells him to go ahead. He starts to speak but the woman stops him and tells him to stand behind the podium. He goes behind the podium and begins again.

“My name is Sparky and I’m a cannibal.”

“Hi Sparky!” Everyone shouts back though in a lackluster half assed way like it’s killing them.

Sparky stands there for a minute and the woman sitting next to him says, “You know what to do. Tell you’re story. Don’t be afraid.”

“Well,” said the young man, “Like I said I’m a cannibal. I’ve been a cannibal for about four years now. It started when I was about halfway through third year in college where I was majoring in Education of Special Needs Personnel. Well I was honing in on exactly the group I wanted to work with which were people who were born without cerebella. Basically these are people who have the mental power of a over baked lizard like you might find in a hollow metal drum on the edge of a desert where it’s essential fluids have been boiled out and the small remnant of its brain has been desiccated to a nut like consistency. I was assured by my college counselor that I would have a job within five minutes of graduating which was encouraging news to me since my college loans were up to about ninety thousand dollars. He said that half the population needed my help and that I would never lack for work. So then what I did was dropped out of school and decided to get some other sort of job. But that was right after the economy crashed so I couldn’t get a job. Then I decided to go back to school only now I wanted to be an artist. It was hard to get back into a program because of some snafu with my loan originator but I finally did get in. I graduated but couldn’t get a job because all the employers said I didn’t really know anything worth a shit. So I decided to go to graduate school which was really scary because now my college loan debt was up to 110 thousand dollars. I decided to get a graduate degree in the history of medieval roofing materials which chalked up another 54 thousand dollars in debt by the time I was done. When I went to get a job all my employers said I didn’t know anything worth paying me more than four dollars an hour which I refused to accept. I couldn’t believe the position I’d been forced into by fate. Now I had 164 thousand dollars in debt and, according to all employers, didn’t know shit from shinola. I decided that what I was going…”

But here the young man was interrupted by the woman. “Didn’t you say that your cannibalism started during your undergraduate work? It seems to me that you’re on a tangent.”

“I really don’t know what a tangent is.” Mumbled the young man.

“Well, that’s understandable since you only have a Masters. But if you had a Phd, I’ll tell you, you’d have problems galore. Anyway, you need to talk about the cause of your cannibalism.”

“Well,” said the young man, “I started my cannibalism because I could not afford to buy food and I couldn’t buy food because I spent all my money on video games which are incredibly expensive. I was really becoming very good at playing video games and some times I would stay up all night which would cause me to miss class the next day and I would just lie in bed all morning anticipating what to do with my plunging grade point average. It really froze me up because I would worry so much about flunking a class that I would be afraid to go in and face the professor which would cause me to just play more video games in order to reduce my stress. But then I would think about my GPA and…”

The woman reached over and tapped the podium with her hand. “Sparky, you need to talk about the cause of your cannibalism. This is Cannibals Anonymous not Video Games or GPA Problems Anonymous”

The young man looked down at the floor and mumbled, “Yes mmm.” He rubbed his hands together down in front of his stomach and then rubbed them on the front of his pants. But then he just stood there staring into space. The woman looked at him and shook her head. “Well!” She said in a loud voice.

“Well,” He said “After I sat in my bed long enough I would get up and start making some food. Usually I would make something like Ramen soup or burned rice. It wasn’t very good tasting but I didn’t have anything else to eat so I would have to eat it. Sometimes I would cook for an hour or two and when I was done I would have some burned rice and really salty Ramen. Sometimes I would almost throw up when I ate this food. But then I would start worrying about my grade point average and my video games. It seemed like every time I was eating really salty burned food I would start worrying about my video games and grade point average…”

Now the woman stood up and grabbed the young man by his lapels. “For God’s sake!” She shouted. “Can you get to the point and talk about your cannibalism? We don’t care about your grade point average or anything else! Tell us about your cannibalism and nothing else!”

The young man was visibly shaken by the woman’s abrasive behavior. He wrung his hands nervously and then wiped them on his pants again. Then he rubbed his face as if her were waking up from a bad dream.

“I became a cannibal when I stopped buying Ramen soups because I was tired of scalding my mouth out. I started buying canned soups. At first I just bought a few cans and then I found myself buying like fifty cans a week. Every time I went down the isle where the soups were I would see the sign saying something about canned goods and I started thinking that I might be a cannibal since I bought so many cans. I didn’t really picture it as a problem…”

The woman stood up and put her hand on Sparky’s shoulder. “Sparky,” she said, “you are not a cannibal. You are more like a dumb ass.” She aimed Sparky towards the door and kicked him in the ass. The half dead members of Cannibals Anonymous were sneering at him as he made for the door. But several other people in the audience got up and followed Sparky. They were all saying, “Gosh, WTF, we’re not cannibals either.” The newly formed group walked out the door, across the street and straight into a park. And thus, this small group of ground breakers, after smoking about five pounds of dope, began the Occupy Wall Street Movement.” Or, at least that’s one plausible version going around the web.

MEETINGS OF THE BLIND

V. FRENCHSTONE — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:03:03 +0000

The Lashburg city council meeting began with the usual mundane matters. A cross walk light tipping over, the paint was coming off the parking lot lines at the courthouse, someone stuck a dead bird in Dr. Dickman’s mailbox, etc.. Shela Mumps took a sip of her water and said that she wanted to talk about the kids who had taken up camp in the park. They were doing their version of Occupy Wall Street except that they were occupying Hood park which was named after the confederate general. All the councilors groaned, first because none of them wanted to talk about the score of punks in the park and second, no one wanted to listen to Shela Mumps who was very activist oriented. The mayor nodded his head for her to go ahead.

“I think we should see about having some money put aside to help these kids live more comfortably in the park.”

Dr. Dickman, who was a large animal vet as well as a city councilor and who was determined to find out who stuffed a dead bird into his mailbox replied, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of those kids who put a dead bird in my mailbox and there’s no way I’d support giving them taxpayer dollars for wasting human time.”

The mayor and the rest of the city council members slumped into their chairs knowing full well how the next hour was going to be spent.

Miss Mumps replied, “You have no idea who stuffed a dead bird into your mailbox. You just don’t like those kids because they’re actually out there doing something about the unfairness of our capitalist system.”

“Every time I drive by there I just see a bunch of dirty punks sitting on their asses smoking cigarettes and listening to that idiot on his bongo drum. All they’re doing is defacing our park by being there. You could empty a manure cart in front of General Hood and it would be more pleasant than the sight of those kids.”

“You really are against any kind of change because you come from a generation that is half dead. You can’t stand it. Change that is.”

“If I turned you over my knee and spanked your ass to a glowing cherry red it would be a change wouldn’t it? Is change inherently good? No it’s not.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Bellowed the mayor, “I’ve told you before about inappropriate comments at council meetings. You keep your barnyard language on the farm if you please.”

“Sorry mayor.” Replied Dr. Dickman. “I’m just trying to make the point that not all change is good.”

Here Shela Mumps cut in again and said, “Yes change is good. That’s what it’s all about. Those kids are going to change the way things are conducted on Wall Street. They’re making a difference.”

“How in God’s name are those kids going to change something on Wall Street? They’re not making a difference in anything except the way our park smells.”

“It’s a public park.” Said Miss Mumps.

“So it’s a public park. If I just brought a bunch of cattle into the public park and decided to stick my arm up their asses to check for gastric lesions would you approve of that Miss Mumps?”

“Dr. Dickman!” Said the mayor. “I don’t want to listen to this!”

“Look,” said Miss Mumps. “We can easily afford to budget enough to set up a small kitchen, a clinic, and some wi-fi in Hood park. It’s our duty to support the democratic process and help these kids make a difference on Wall Street.”

Dr. Dickman pointed his pencil at Miss Mumps and said, “If I called my stock broker right now and got him to connect us to an investment banker on Wall Street I can guarantee you that you could not elicit one flick of concern from that investment banker with regard to the punks in all the parks. They’re just sitting in their offices laughing at all the peasants who have to live with dirty noisy parks full of chanting retards spouting inane nonsense. This is your generation Miss Mumps. They’re so democratic they have to have a vote before one of them can take a dump.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Said the mayor.

“So am I to understand that you’re against consensus Dr. Dickman?” Asked Miss Mumps.

“When it gets to the point these kids have reached then yes, I’m against consensus. I’m against a generation of feckless pussies.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Shouted the mayor, “You needn’t speak like that at council!”

Shela Mumps stood up at her chair and leaned over the table towards Dr. Dickman. She pointed her freckled finger at him and said, “YOU are obtuse!”

Dr. Dickman leaned back in his chair and said, “You know, Miss Mumps, I’ve been behind you several times this week in the Licked Tiger (the town’s only coffee shop) and I’ve noticed that you’re one of those people who stands there staring at the menu board for ten minutes while people who can actually make a decision are dying of old age behind you. I understand your penchant for consensus and democracy. You could happily sit around spending years trying to decide what kind of coffee you want. But what you don’t seem to understand is that there are still some people left on the planet who can make decisions on their own within reasonable amounts of time.”

“What you are implying Dr. Dickman is that you would like to be a dictator. You would like to make decisions for the rest of us?”

“We, Miss Mumps, including you, are making decisions for the rest of them right now. At least we would be making decisions if it weren’t for your idiotic ideas which inevitably wind up wasting enormous amounts of time. It’s like you bring you coffee shop obstructionism with you every where you go.”

“Now, now.” Said the mayor. “Let’s calm down and try to get somewhere on this before the sun goes down.”

“I propose that we allocate 3500 dollars to the Occupy Wall Street via Lashburg Movement.” Said Miss Mumps.

“I will agree to that,” Said Dr. Dickman, “providing we agree to officially recognize the protestors as The Bowel Movement.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Shouted the mayor.

“Mr. mayor.” said Miss Mumps. “I want you to censor Dr. Dickman.”

“You have no sense of humor Miss Mumps. That’s why you support those aimless bird turds in the park. They too have no sense of humor or sense of anything else for that matter.” Said, Dr. Dickman.

“They have a sense of justice just like me which is more than I can say for you.” Replied Miss Mumps.

“Well Miss Mumps if having a sense of justice would make me like you or those protestors then I’m thankful to be without it.” Here Dr. Dickman laughed and said, “Could you imagine sitting around in that park playing a bongo drum and smoking clove cigarettes and thinking that you’re ruffling the feathers of some dude in a New York high rise office building who is making ten grand a minute? It’s a good thing those high rise windows can’t be opened because I guarantee you those wall street bankers would be pissing out the windows onto the heads of the protestors.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Said the mayor. “Can’t we settle down and just wrap this up without foul notions?”

“You know, Dr. Dickman,” said Miss Mumps. “Someday those protestors may just come get you and take you out like those people in Libya did to Colonel Gadafi.”

“Well that’s really terrifying Miss Mumps. Having them capture me that is, because I’m afraid they would never kill me. I do believe they might make me listen to them playing their bongo drum and chanting ‘we all agree to let Jane Tu take a dump today after we wash off all the trees in the park!’ Believe me death would be a luxury compared to that!”

“You’re a philistine Dr. Dickman. You belong in a stall with your face up a horse’s ass!”

“Miss Mumps!” Said the mayor. “Now I don’t want to listen to this.”

“Well, I take it Miss Mumps that when you say philistine you mean that I have a modicum of common sense. Clearly an appreciation of art in this era implies that you are profoundly retarded as made evident by those kids in that park. Can you imagine! I drove by there the other day and one of them was saying. ‘Let’s decide whether or not we should or should not allow smoking during the poetry reading at three this afternoon.’ and then all of them chanted back, ‘Let’s all decide whether or not we should or should not allow smoking during the poetry reading at three this afternoon.’ and then when I drove by nearly an hour and a half later they were still chanting that same sentence back and forth. That’s your democracy and your consensus Miss Mumps. Those kids would be twice as smart if someone whacked them in their heads with a baseball bat. I mean come on. They’re painting rainbows and unicorns on each other’s faces! Can you imagine what all those Arab spring revolutionaries are thinking about these little pussies and their poetry readings? Calling them children would be a compliment! They’re infants! And that’s your generation Miss Mumps. My generation never reached adulthood and I’m sorry for it but your generation is embryonic! I take that back. They’re just sperm and egg not even mixed and growing but rather just sitting there like bio waste!”

“You’re beyond ignorant Dr. Dickman! Without revolution we never would have had this country. These are little George Washingtons!”

“Ha! If Washington acted like these kids we’d still be totting bags of grain for the British and talking like our mouths were full of horse shit.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Shouted the mayor, “I won’t listen to any more of this language.

“And let’s just go ahead and say it.” Said Dr. Dickman “Most of those protestors are gay thespians to start with. Most of them wouldn’t know Wall Street from Meryl Streep. They just want people to think that they are worthy of some sort of attention since they know in their hearts that they are not worth any attention whatsoever.”

“Jesus Christ!” Shouted Miss Mumps. “Could you be any more out of date? Do you live on the current version of planet earth?”

“Unfortunately, Miss Mumps, I do live on the current version of planet earth. You’re a brain dead zombie.”

“I’d rather be a brain dead zombie than a right wing fanatic dick head!”

“Miss Mumps!” Hollered the mayor. “We can’t speak like this at council.”

“Miss Mumps,” Replied Dr, Dickman, “Zombies have become very popular in the culture lately. Don’t you think it’s interesting to see so many young adults obsessed with zombies? What is so alluring about decomposing, brainless creatures? I’ll tell you Miss Mumps. I believe that these kids look up to zombies as paragons of intellectual leadership. And doesn’t that make a great deal of sense? When I’m standing behind you in the coffee shop waiting for the broken down gears of your brain to grind out a decision for the barista I definitely think of you as a zombie. And honestly, if you didn’t have such a nice ass to take my attention off your deficient brain I would pummel you to the ground like a dog.”

“Dr. Dickman!” Shouted the mayor. “That kind of comment is just entirely inappropriate during a city council meeting. Please conduct yourself in a tolerable manner!”

“He can’t help it mayor.” Said Miss Mumps. “He’s an underdeveloped primate expressing himself in the only manner he knows how. Notice the overbearing brow and the abundance of hair between his eyebrows. Notice the growth of hair coming out of his nose and ears. He simply doesn’t possess the capacity for more sophisticated thinking and to listen to him is an act of kindness that we have to bear.”

“Good God.” Said the mayor. “What kind of people are you two? We haven’t gotten a thing done here and I think I speak for everyone when I say I’m about to die of boredom. The only think keeping me awake is Dr. Dickman’s foul language and my responsibility as moderator. Now let’s take a vote on this proposal of Miss Mumps.”

“Hold on mayor.” Said Dr. Dickman. “I have a proposal too. I propose we set aside one thousand dollars to put up a plaque in the park memorializing Miss Mumps and her idiotic ideas.”

“That’s enough!” Shouted the mayor. But it was too late. Miss Mumps had jumped across the table and knocked Dr. Dickman out of his chair. No one else stirred from their seats but watched with great satisfaction as the two council members fought like badgers and rolled around on the floor. The mayor nudged council woman Blake, leaned over and said, “They couldn’t live without each other.” He was correct.

VALLEY PRANKS

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:44:57 +0000

Jean and Bess received a grant from the small business administration in order to start their business. I don’t know how they did it but sure as shit they did and on the first day they opened shop I stopped by to wish them hell and this is what happened.

The shop was called Hope Teddies. And I swear to god my first thought was that it was going to be a shop with nice looking manikins all standing around and hopefully lying around in those skimpy things called teddies. I mean, they hadn’t told me what they were going to be doing and every time I asked them they acted very secretive and mysterious. Well as it turned out their shop was one that re-stuffed teddy bears and other un-stuffed animals. I just couldn’t believe anyone would come up with such a stupid idea and I REALLY couldn’t believe that they were able to get a loan for it! But, incredibly, while I was visiting them about ten people came in to drop off animals to be re-stuffed. True, their shop was in Basic City which was a suburb of Waynesboro and therefore there were many many cars with even more stuffed animals on their rear and front dashboards. And I guess there was this problem that I was unaware of whereby many children who had been hatched around the Dupont plant seemed to be persistently tearing the crap out of their parent’s stuffed animals. Well seeing the instant gratification that Jean and Bess were enjoying lead me to think that maybe I could come up with a business or something. I mean, stuffed animals! Who would have ever imagined? I wanted to congratulate Jean and Bess, even though it was killing me, but they were too busy piling up the money. I leaned up against the wall and listened to the heavy metal coming out of their little dock while I looked at the customers come in with paper bags full of animals. It really struck me as unbelievable. I took a couple of cheese crackers from the bowl which they’d set up on a table for their grand opening spread. There was a stack made of cans of Mountain Dew which, I suspect, was met to be a model of some noted architectural object. I really wanted to knock it down. God damn! Those girls were so smart! I mean they wouldn’t eat a cheese cracker or drink a Mountain Dew if you held a gun to their heads! But they knew their customers! I was looking at the can monument and shaking my head when Jean came up to me and asked me what I thought. “Well, I have to hand it to you. It looks like you’ve hit the nail on the head.” She patted me on the shoulder and went back to the counter. I knew what she was thinking. I had told them that their idea, what ever it was, would be beyond retarded and that I would eat a dog turd if they made a penny. Now three people came in the door all carrying bags full of stuffed animals. I shook my head. Bess came out from behind the counter and put down a small plate and a fork with a napkin wrapped around it. She set them on the display table right in front of me. I had to laugh. Well, that night I had them both over for dinner and we started talking about how they came up with the idea of a re-stuffing shop. To my surprise they told me that they got the idea from Facebook. “How’s that?” I asked. “Well, as you know,” Replied Bess “Arlene, our friend from India…,” I broke her off, “You mean your friend from India whom you’ve never met or seen in person?” Bess made a face and then said, “What’s it matter if we’ve ever seen her? Do you think someone’s effect as a person is only transmitted by skin and arm lengths distances? Do we have to smell her skin and see small imperfections in her skin to apprehend some essential component of her being?” I told her that I just didn’t see how you could call someone you’d never met a friend, but I understood her point and had no decent response which, as usual, reminded me of how the entire thought process of my contemporaries had morphed into something different. “So, our friend in India, Arlene…,” Began Bess. “Arlene doesn’t sound like an Indian name.” I said. This time Jean spoke up and said, “Who cares if it’s an Indian name or not? What has that got to do with anything?” Well I realized she was right and it irked me that I was so inclined to bring up these points which were essentially pointless. “So,” continued Bess, “our friend Arlene from India turned us on to the underground version of Facebook which is called Disgracebook. The idea behind Disgracebook is that you’re not allowed to use it unless you can prove that you have an IQ below 50.” I looked at Bess and then turned to Jean. “What,” I asked, “is the point of having a social network of retards? And how on earth do you prove that you’re retarded?”

“That’s the beauty of it.” Said Bess. “Everyone on Facebook had already proved that they were retards. They were automatically signed up for Disgracebook, based on their history of comments, the gravity of their political convictions, and the lability of their emotions.

“I really don’t understand.” I said. “What’s the point of having a social network of retards? And, am I hearing you right? Are you admitting that you are retards?”

“No, we’re not admitting that we’re retards!” Snorted Bess. “There really may be a bunch of retards on Disgracebook but not us.”

“That sounds just like Facebook to me! Everyone thinks that everyone else is retarded.”

Jean reached into her back pocket and pulled out a deposit slip which she laid on the table before me. I picked it up and saw that it was for 1900 dollars.

“Does that look retarded to you?”

I had to admit it didn’t.

“Now,” said Bess, “We got this idea from Arlene, our Indian friend. She works for a company that comes up with ideas. The company is called Indian Inscrutable and they cater to Americans. We paid one hundred dollars for an idea that has already, in the first day, made us 1900 dollars. This is the future.”

“How pathetic.” I said. “So the most powerful country on the planet has been reduced to buying ideas from India.”

“What is wrong with you? Why can’t you see things properly. I mean Bess and I had the IDEA to buy an idea. We thought of it. It’s not like some magical person came to us and said you need to have an idea about buying an idea. WE came up with the idea of buying an idea when WE got the notion to take advantage of Disgracebook. It was our initiative all the way.”

“God damn!” I said. “It just seems so wrong to me. What if we become dependent on buying ideas from foreign countries and then for some reason they decide that they’re not going to sell us any more ideas. Are we just going to sit there with our fingers up our noses waiting to be taken over by the Asiatic hordes?”

“What do you mean taken over? Are you completely obtuse? Remember, we used to come up with ideas and make things. Then we moved to just having ideas while China made things. That was a good move because it shifted all the industrial pollution to the Far East. Now we let them make things AND come up with the ideas. We don’t have to waste our time coming up with ideas.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. They were right of course. They had the money to prove it. I went home and flipped my Facebook account to a Disgrace book account (they said I’d thoroughly proved that I was retarded by “Liking” Red Lobster, Regis Philbin, 7-11, etc.) and contacted Arlene at Indian Inscrutable. I wired her one hundred dollars and she sent me an idea. Well the idea was to start a stuffed animal porn site. Stuffed animal porn! What a rip off! I immediately called Indian Inscrutable to complain but instead of talking to an Indian I seemed to be talking to a hick. “Who am I talking to?” I asked.

“My name is Lee Calhoun.”

“Where are you Lee?”

“I’m in Algonquin Idaho.”

“At a call center?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, God damn it Lee. I can’t believe this. I just got so ripped off by Indian Inscrutable.”

“How so?”

“Well I sent them a hundred bucks for an idea and the idea they sent me was to start a stuffed animal porn site. Now doesn’t that beat all?”

“That sounds like a damn good idea to me.”

“Stuffed animal porn? Who in the hell would want to watch stuffed animal porn.”

“I can think of a lot of people.”

“Well now Lee, I just don’t believe you. I think you’re taking the company line. I want to talk to your supervisor.”

I was put on hold for about three minutes while they did whatever they did. The muzak was awful. The supervisor came on the line and he sounded like even more of a hick than Lee.

“Who am I talking to?” I asked.

“I Lee’s supervisor. My name Cooter Jackson. What the problem?”

“The problem Cooter is that I have been totally ripped off by your company, Indian Inscrutable.”

“How ripped off?”

“What do you mean ‘how ripped off?’ Do you mean to what extreme have I been ripped off or are you speaking like an American Indian?”

“I mean both.”

“God damn it! I want to talk to YOUR supervisor!”

I was put on muzak again and this time it was a horrible sort of operatic rap if you can imagine such a thing. The next person to come on the line was very difficult to understand.

“What be problem?” They said.

“What? Who am I talking to? Is this Cooter’s supervisor?”

“I president. President Indian Inscrutable.”

“Now this is just ridiculous. You can barley talk English. How could I go from Cooter to the president? Is this just the biggest scam in the world?”

“Me president.”

“I don’t give a god damn who you are! You guys ripped me off and the second I get off this phone I’m calling the FBI and I’m going to have you hunted down and arrested for committing fraud.”

“You buy stuffed animal porn idea. You go jail if call FIB.”

“What! Are you insane? Are you threatening me?”

“No threaten. Tell truth.”

Well I slammed down the phone and thought I was going to have a coronary I was so mad. I called Bess and Jean to tell them what happened and they told me to calm down. They told me that the entire thing was a joke that they’d played on me for a birthday present to Jean. I couldn’t believe it! They made the whole thing up! They staged the whole business plan and got some cheap actors to come into their shop looking to have animals re-stuffed. They used their formidable computer skills to manipulate Facebook into Disgracebook, (at least as far as I could tell) and they just tricked me right down the line. They also documented it so as to blackmail me into taking Jean to the movies for her post birthday party present. We saw Seabiscuit. It was horrible. I didn’t talk to either of them for a week after that.

OUR FIREWOMEN OF YORE

V. FRENCHSTONE — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:38:27 +0000

One of our most intractable problems as nine year old children was obtaining cigarettes. It wasn’t hard to steal a few individual cigarettes from our dad but we didn’t like his Lucky Strike brand and we didn’t just want a few cigarettes but whole packs because having whole packs added significant flavor to the whole operation. Opening a pack of cigarettes was like feeling pure sin in your hands and since our senses of smell were acute due to our age we not only smelled the tobacco but the tin foil, cellophane, paper, and filter material. What a treat to just decide out of the blue one day along with your pals, “Let’s buy a pack of cigarettes.” The first thing we had to figure out was whether we were going to go the fake note from our mom route or the more gutsy “I’ll just have a pack of Winstons with this four pounds of candy.” I don’t know why we had to think about it because the note from our mom technique absolutely never worked due to atrocious spelling and the retarded looking print not to mention the absurd content. We just couldn’t get a look of authority in our notes but for some unfathomable reason we had to try it nearly every time we bought cigarettes. How could we even imagine it would work? Usually a couple of us would be outside the little store looking through the window at our pal who would be standing at the counter. He’d hand up the note to old Mrs. Speaks who’d pull down her glasses, read the note, raise her glasses back into her hair and kick the kid out. Behind the store in the alley we’d examine the note for clues as to why it failed. A typical note would be:

Deer Misses Spekes,

I am stuk at home with a brokin foot. Donny is alowed to bye a few packs of cigeretes for me. I wold not be lettin him bye any cigeretes sinse I am a good mom. But sinse my foot is brokin I really must.
Sinserly,
Misses French
PS I am donnys mom.

Of course, we couldn’t see a thing wrong with it. So we’d go to another little store in a slightly rougher part of town. One of us would go in and just walk up to the counter and ask for a pack of Marlboros and there was a fifty fifty chance we’d get them. Once we had the cigarettes we’d go up onto the hill behind our neighborhood and start smoking. What fun seeing how much we could make ourselves look like grown ups by using various puffing techniques and cigarette holding methods. We’d smoke one after another while burning small fires made of twigs and throwing bugs into the flames. When we were done smoking we’d dig a hole in which to put the packs of cigarettes. It was the perfect way to spend a few hours with your pals. Well one day we’d obtained two packs of Parliaments which were a new brand to us. We marched up onto the hill, dug our hole, fired up some cigarettes and some small twig fires. Everything was going well until we saw Ricky Shell’s mom coming up the hill straight for us. It’s pretty amazing how oblivious we could be when we were busy smoking and burning things. She was on top of us before we knew it. She must have seen a flurry of cigarettes flying through the air all at once as we tried to get the incriminating evidence away from us. But of course smoke was still coming out of our faces except for Dave Wright who tried to hold it in until he almost passed out. Mrs. Shell was a really mean Catholic with a bunch of children and we were all afraid of her because she was just always mad at all of us children. It’s funny now. Looking back on it she had a pretty good reason to be mad but at the time we just didn’t understand what was wrong with her. She had short dark hair and a fat butt. She was fast and strong from chasing and beating children all the time. Well this time I think she had trouble deciding which one of us to beat first because she wound up missing all of us. She was like a wild bear but instead of being offended by someone molesting her cubs she wanted to molest them herself. We headed off in all directions leaving our cigarettes, our matches, our burning twig fires, and our open cigarette stashing hole. Thank goodness there weren’t digital cameras back in that era. Imagine the pictures she could have taken for our parents! What were we thinking when we ran off into the woods on the hill? Did we think we were never going home? Did we think that Mrs Shell would be more calmed down after stomping out ten or twelve brush fires in her white sneakers? Well we were sort of all hiding behind various trees a few hundred feet away from Mrs. Shell. We watched her stomping out the fires. Donny French came over to my tree and said that we really might need to run away for real. We were always plotting various running away scenarios for obvious reasons. We were standing there with our children’s brains slowly but inexorably rationalizing the immediate future when Mrs. Shell suddenly bolted up towards the tree that supposedly hid Ricky Shell. She had him by the collar in a split second and was dragging him off down the hill while he cried and hollered. It reminded me of a badger catching a dumb baby chicken or something. A few hours later we went down to our respective houses for dinner and a beating. Mrs. Shell had told on all of us. We never ever talked about it but I know we were totally awed by the fact that when they applied themselves ever so slightly the adults were able to pounce on us with precision as if we were shitty little huts in China and they were modern fighter jets. But somehow that awe always receded in well less than 24 hours. Probably more like less than two hours. The only thing we changed was our brand. I think the next ones were Kools.

THE VIRILE MYSTIQUE

V. FRENCHSTONE — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:36:57 +0000

Now, I’m just going to fess up to something. Pay close attention because what I’m about to tell you is something that will change the entire world. Yes, I’ve drunk a bottle of booze. That’s what brought me to this decision. I’m going to be the one man, and I say man because as you will see, that’s important. I’m am going to be the one man to tell the truth because I am tired of shouldering the responsibility of war and destruction. From time immemorial women have been complaining about our war making ways. They view us as hardly much better than baboons going out into the field with sticks and stones beating the crap out of each other. Well, I’m going to tell you women something. Now prepare yourselves because this is going to shake you to the core. The ONLY reason we start wars is because we are jealous of your periods! There, I’ve said it. One of the greatest secrets of human kind! You women get to bleed every month and what do we get? Well we don’t get to bleed that’s for sure! I’ll bet you never thought of that! Every month we get to hear about your bleeding and how your tummy hurts. We hear graphic descriptions of pain and utterances such as, “I’m going to have it ALL ripped out!” How do you think it feels to be laying there in bed reading about Cathy and Heathcliff, all comfortable with a skin full of booze coursing through your body and then someone next to you says, “Goddamn, there’s knives in my gut. Can’t I rip all this out?!” Well I’m here to tell you that a man is not going to take that lying down. How do you think it feels to know that someone nearby is having their guts ripped out and you’re just lying there feeling like a warm pie on a window sill? It feels horrible! What we think is this: “Goddamn it, I want MY guts ripped out too!” And the only way to get your guts ripped out is to rip someone else’s guts out. And when you rip someone else’s guts out they want to rip your guts out. And so on. The next thing you know there’s a war sputtering into being on the horizon and soon we’re all ripping each other guts out! I know you’re just going to find this to be unbelievable but there is nothing better than to be lying out in some field of mud with your guts ripped out. It’s like you lying there thinking: “If only she could see me now! God damn it! My guts are ripped out! Anything she can do I can do better!” So, I’ll admit this. On the surface it sounds vaguely sexist in the sense that we feel that we have to outperform you in the guts war. But really it’s not sexist at all. Think about it! We are simply trying to imitate you. We want to BE like you. Is that not a compliment? But now I’ve saddled womenkind with a heavy burden. So be it. Fair is fair! I will probably be killed by tomorrow morning for revealing this ancient secret. I won’t despair. I’ve revealed my feminine side! I will have my guts ripped out.
By the way. I just noticed as I wrote the last word above, some dude sitting a few tables over. He looked like a real bad ass boxer or something with big hairy arms . He was sitting up straight and tough and then his girlfriend came in and walked up next to him. He sort of put one arm around her waist and hugged her. Then all the sudden his whole body sagged and his arm dropped to the side of the chair as if he’d been full of air and someone took out a couple liters. I could tell that she’d just said something like, “Let’s just stop at Urban Outfitters for a minute.” It’s a very recognizable posture collapse.

NPR COMICS

V. FRENCHSTONE — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:07:05 +0000

So I was sitting at an intersection listening to an incredible story on NPR while I watched a man sitting stopped in the middle of the street for no reason. NPR was talking to a woman who had written an op-ed about how disturbed she was when Batgirl suddenly went from being wheelchair bound to normal due to some shake up at DC comics. She said she was physically ill when she read about how they’d revived Batgirl. She loved reading about the trials and tribulations that resulted from Batgirl being in a wheelchair and her only complaint was, that up to the point of Batgirl’s revival she wasn’t quite as miserable as real handicapped people. But it was a start. This reflection of real life in the comic books, especially the acknowledgment of differently abled people, was a real positive step. The man in the middle of the street finally realized that he was not sitting at a stop sign or a red light and so I suppose some light bulb went off in his head allowing him to start driving again. Well at that very moment he started rolling a light bulb went off in my head too. I rushed to my office and began working on what would be a most momentous endeavor. In those first hours at my office I created and produced my first issue of “Liam, the Morbidly Obese Retarded Superhero.” It was pure genius. When my agent pitched it to DC comics they snapped it up with a contract that would make me immensely comfortable for the rest of my life. The first issue went out and within a week my house was firebombed, my car covered in epoxy glue, and my contract with DC comics suspended. We were all utterly astonished. Here we’d put out a comic that reflected reality with the precisely same techniques used to reflect reality in all the past years of comic book production. I mean, in the first pages you are introduced to Liam as he sits at his mother’s table. He is sitting in a chair that is bowing out at the legs because Liam weighs about 590 pounds and every time Liam’s mother turns around Liam plucks another cat turd from the litter box and pops it into his mouth. Because of his facial features and the fact that he is eating cat turds you know right away that he is retarded. But the speed with which he maneuvers his massive body over to the cat litter box next to the refrigerator and back to his chair without his mother noticing lets you see that he clearly has super powers. In this first episode, Liam’s mother leaves him alone in the house while she goes to buy some more gourmet cat food to feed one of her 34 cats that she adopts from the SPCA at every opportunity. (I wanted to flush out the family life of Liam so as to put in my two bits with regard to the nature vs nurture controversy which, in truth, I didn’t want to hear another word about having read one too many issues of The New York Review of Books) So she leaves Liam alone in the house sitting in front of a massive flat screen TV. She leaves a plate of nuts, bananas, lettuce, watermelon, and cantaloupe on his giant TV lap tray and turns on some news program assuming he won’t understand what he’s watching anyway. The second she walks out the door Liam throws the tray of health food up in the air with such force that it goes through the ceiling and in a flash he is sitting back on the couch with the cat litter tray in his lap. It just so happens to be the tenth anniversary of Sept 11th and so Liam sees a replay of the jets slamming into the World Trade Center buildings. You can see his eyes bulging out of his head as a few hundred brain cells comprehend something. You see him running down the street in his underwear thinking that somewhere behind the TV set is the burning WTC. Our drawing here was superb. It really conveyed very beautifully and clearly that Liam thought the problem was somewhere behind the TV even as he was running down the street. After a few frames you see Liam standing in front of a couple sky scrapers. A policeman walks up to him to confront him about being out in public wearing nothing but underwear. Here we show a little thought bubble indicating that Liam thinks the cop is a muslim. Basically we just put a drawing of the cop in the bubble with a turbine on his head. But it isn’t just a regular turbine like the Arabs wear. It’s actually a wind turbine! Again, this subtile trick implies that Liam doesn’t see things through the eyes of a normal person. He sees things like a real American! Anyway, he rips the cop’s head off with one hand and then, again using subtile thought bubbles, we show that he forgets that he just tore a Muslim’s head off and thinks he has a bowling ball in his hand. He sees a bunch of people walking down the sidewalk and uses the head like a bowling ball to knock them all off their feet whereupon they all remind him of giant bubble gum stains and he runs over to them and starts eating them raw. Now a bunch of police cars and fire trucks show up along with news helicopters and onlookers. Then for ten frames we just have Liam standing there looking at nothing with empty thought bubbles over his head. I have to admit, this rather worthless use of space was my tipping of the hat to the dude who’d stopped his car in the middle of the road for no reason in real life. After all, he fired up my lightbulb! When Liam comes out of his stupor and starts thinking like, well, like a retard again, he tears into the police and firemen ripping off their arms and legs like they were daddy long leg spiders. He then smashes all the police cars and fire trucks and tears open a gas pipe going into the side of one of the skyscrapers starting a conflagration of epic proportions. The entire city is burned down to a pile of dull grey ash and you see Liam walking down an empty street with a little thought bubble over his head that shows a cat taking a dump. That was basically it. We didn’t see how it could fail to be a sensation! Well after things settled down a little bit DC comics did some polling and determined that people were furious simply because we used the word “retard.” Evidently, If we’d called the comic, “Liam, the Morbidly Obese Mentally Differently Abled Superhero” we would have captured the hearts of everyone of the now fifty and sixty year olds that were still obsessed with comic books. Well the results of that poll made ME furious and so I wrote an op-ed about how there was a serious flaw out there some where. People wanted reality in the comics. In reality, when people hear mentally disadvantaged or mentally differently abled, they, in fact, think “retard.” After my op-ed was published my house was firebombed again and my car was turned upside down in the front yard. I gave up. I realized that my ultra enlightened country could not deal with reality unless it was real in a comic book which, I know it’s a shock, is a comic book, where, now hold on to your hat, sometimes things aren’t really real!