My truck sounds like a creaking tanker when I get in. I can't quite put a finger on the origin of the sound but something tells me it's between the bed and the front end, or at least where they meet. The suitcases are packed with my laundry, dirty and otherwise. The drive home is raging with traffic, it's a five hour drive. The Forever War on audiobook is in my CD player, but I didn't prepare enough material, and soon it turns into early Ella Fitzgerald in some Great Depression sing-a-long. Eventually it's back to Radiohead, with The Separator chiming in just as I enter Friendswood. Two months and although I expect something to be different, the town is right where I left it. "Spring Forward Saturday" is posted on the Friendswood Hardware sign.
My house has no cement driveway, it's a combination of shell and rock. The close edges to the house are starting to grow green and as long as we stay parked far enough, it's likely to keep growing green. It's dark by the time I pull in, and a deep amber glow fills the street. None of that bright white post modern crap. The old standard amber, that made dates all the better because people looked more tan in the muggy midnight. I turn and look at the window where the computer is, and there's Jamie. Her hand is prying open the window blinds, trying to get a look. With a jolt and five seconds she's left through the garage and hugged her long lost brother, the shipwreck that is always college. She takes my bags, most of them actually, as I relish in the laziness of being the big man on campus. My mother and father are watching television. The black couches that were bought years ago show more signs of wear and tear. The house is even more cluttered with coupons and books and CDs and time and time and time. Exhausted from some unseen force I fall asleep.
The time is eight thirty, and I haven't woken that early since my last shift on campus. The light in the guest room is blaring in my face, and for a man who blankets his window for complete darkness, there is a change. First stop is half-price, where I buy books I'm not even sure I'll read this summer. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler: the story of a private investigator in 1930s Los Angeles dealing with a murder. That's probably all I'll ever hear of it. Rabbit Run, by John Updike: the beginning novel of a series about a man growing up in middle America. My salivation for Mad Men related anything is unquenchable. Half Price at home is a disappointment. It's not the super store in Dallas and it's no comparison to Recycled on the square, but it gets the job done. Best Buy, a place where I would buy everything if I had the opportunity actually does not have what my mother wants. Taco Bell, the famous seven layer burrito is waiting for us.
Mad Men. I cannot help but convince my mother to watch it. I can't tell if she enjoys it, or just wants me to think she is enjoying it. Either way, my lack of creativity stops Saturday to a halt. It's not that I don't enjoy doing things, it's the cost. So we decide to buy me some new clothes which no one would deny. We hit up Walmart and do what I do best: making really cheap clothing work. I buy some flannel shirts: one which match my eyes and another in neutrals which I love. I buy some jeans. Blah, blah, blah.
There's something about revisiting a place that is big as a kid and small as an adult, and on Sunday after church it's Mr. Gatti's, well known as "a poor man's Chuck-E Cheese." I love pizza buffets. We all win some tickets and we pool together our resources and prizes come out and you wonder why didn't you just cut the middle man and buy the prizes wholesale back at Walmart? Doesn't matter. Maybe it feels more like you earned it.
It's been wanting to rain all week but it only did it Monday, quickly and in a fit of anger. Unlike many other places in the world, the weather here just gets worse, with the muggy Mondays seeping into your sweaty socks and penetrating the new flannel shirts. Battle Los Angeles in the theater was seizure inducing mayhem, but it was fun if you like that sort of thing. The actors all played their cut-outs well and I couldn't see anything of the action because the camera was held by a drug addict who had obviously not taken the drug. Then came Never Let me Go with Zane and his sister Lacie. The movie that will kill your soul with a knife and then twist the blade. It's a movie that is so sad, they probably invented the word melancholy.
The other moments of the week are kept as a secret, but I'll share a little piece that interested me. My grandparents needed yardwork, which was overly paid as usual. I couldn't help but notice as I was about to be fed corn beef, there were little porcelain figures in the back behind the glass. They were perfectly still, and they were old. "Flappers forever" is what I thought as they were dressed in progressive style clothing. They looked youthful and happy, and they were absolutely beautiful. I don't know if they were real but I look down and notice that they say, "Florence" on them. I have no idea what it means but what is true is that those figurines will be young and delicate forever. I don't know what to make of it, but I think of them now, the hat hiding her dark hair. The young women in a "provocative" dress that shows enough to keep your interest. Smooth porcelain on everything.
I'm leaving tomorrow, and as usual I cannot imagine where the eight days went. I suspect that with time I'll understand visits home a little more, but in this transitional period I have no words to explain it. Does it mean anything? Is there a purpose? I had a dream last night where I visited what I thought was New York, but it was some spectacular city with a massive tower overlooking the coast. I told someone that I wanted to see that while I was here. I did not know why I was there, or what the tower was, but maybe it does not matter. This deal of finding purpose in things may be supremely overrated.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Distant Gazer
“I came to see about buying a telescope,” she said as she turned to gaze at Timothy Forsythe. She had walked in earlier that day with a double breasted coat. It was beige, except at the bottom which was growing grey from the constant dragging on the occasional step or to the entrance of her 1940s wartime wolseley. Her black hair was partially covered by a hat with a feather, but it could not stop anyone from becoming aware of her mature femininity. Black hair, so black it reflected, fell cascading down the back of the coat. Her entrance was indicated by the small bell chime; however the owner of The Distant Gazer was nowhere to be seen, at least not at the front desk. She slowly walked through the room and squinted at each wall. Blueprints of telescopes lay stretched and overstretched, tearing occasionally revealed even more paper details underneath. News reports of astronomical discoveries were posted on and over constellations. She continued to make her way through the center. It wasn’t until a piece of parchment caught her eye from the ceiling that she turned up and saw what was up there. It started from the center ceiling fan out: a massive constellation chart. Each radial mark, like a clock, represented a date. The entire chart was a year long progression of what could be seen from the northern hemisphere, and in this case Colorado. She looked through the constellations and found Orion. She stood transfixed, unable to recognize how long she’d been standing there. Orion the hunter, rested softly in the heavens neither moving nor acknowledging her constant stare.
When Timothy Forsythe came downstairs forty five seconds late to answer the call, Morna was staring straight in the air. The line of her back was the reason for a pale exposed neck that was clean, smooth. Tim’s stare was little more than vague approval for a customer.
“Can I help you?” he said after a throat clearing which made Morna nearly jump as she realized the odd position of her body. Turning ninety degrees right, she quietly requested her order.
In 1955, there was only one custom telescope maker in Colorado. Tim had gained the necessary money saving the liberties he received from the war to buy a piece of property across the street from his company comrade Dick, who owned a bar. It was the realization of a dream that occurred between the two of them in Holland in 1944.
That night after Morna’s purchase of a custom Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, Tim made his way to Dick’s bar. Despite the twenty five yards distance, Tim rarely visited and each night Dick did not take it lightly. Upon entering, Tim would never notice the details, never make a motion right or left. The usual customers were scarce, but consistent. The amber lighting that reflected slightly from the dark wood bar, and the smoke from the occasional cigarette was a vision that Dick had since before 1941. He would hear a whistle from his only employee, signifying Tim’s arrival. By the time Tim sat down across from him a draft of beer was already out, and desperate. Often times it sat there, never touched.
“A woman came in for an order,” Tim said without making eye contact as he peered at the bubbles that fizzed to the top of his drink. His head was placed on his hands, which were placed on the bar.
“For a telescope?” Dick replied as he slowly filled the glass he held with a damp rag.
“Yes. It’s odd.”
“Was she a looker?”
“No.” Tim quickly said, making sure to not over indulge in the volume or tone. “Well yes, but it’s not like that. When was the last time you saw a woman, and just a woman enter the store? No kids. No husband.”
Dick agreed to some extent that it was irregular, but said nothing as he placed the glass back to its home on the rack. After a minute or so of staring at his drink and not daring a sip, Dick asked, “What is her name?”
Tim looked up quickly, his eyebrows leading before quickly settling back as he replied, “Morna Late.” Dick recognized the name from Lakewood, but Tim seemed unaware to catch it.
“You know that name is familiar.” Dick continued. Tim said nothing.
“How’s the leg?” Dick said. Afterward he wished he had not spoken of it. The limp, although prominent in Tim’s step was something he had intended to forget.
“It’s fine.” Tim said, and forgetting or wishing to forget why he had visited, Tim slowly straddled off the stool seat. Dick, who knew him well did not bother with a goodbye the same as he had not bothered with hello. To Dick, Tim was drifting farther out of orbit.
Over the course of the week, Tim worked tirelessly on the Schmidt-Cassegrain. One of the newest models available, the telescope would allow a compact body while preserving the magnification. Tim always started with the most expensive aspect: the lens grinding. He worked alone, in the workshop behind the front desk. He lived upstairs in a small cupboard of a room dedicated to his nights. During the end of the 1940s, he bought and read from cover to cover several books describing the structure and layout of telescopes, their functions and designs, and how to replicate them. After fighting, Tim felt his evenings stretched forever outward, like some universe. It was the thought of wasted time that gave him the determination to push forward with an idea that began from what seemed like an event so close to him. During those evenings, after cleaning Dick’s successful Lakewood, Colorado bar, he would read about reflecting and refracting telescopes. He would inspect certain spotting scopes and learn about creating an accurate focus. Tim’s first telescopes were mundane and seemed cheaply made based on the materials. Dick would comment using clever words like wholesome, and lightweight.
Dick could hear him working, and as he passed behind the front desk to round the corner to the workshop, he silently watched his friend who did not notice the bell chime. Tim, who was miniscule compared to Dick’s six foot two inch height, appeared little more intimidating than a mouse. Tim was short, skinny, and frail looking. Although his clothes fit him alright, he seemed like a miniature body formed to scale. Dick noticed the precision and diligence with which Tim worked. Seeing Tim fully in his element gave Dick some relief, but also apprehension. Instead of something drastic like residing in a space ship, Dick felt like his work and the capsule were related. It was somehow horrifying to see how efficient he became. The lenses were placed, and he was concentrating at the moment on the body itself. When Tim finally turned to see him, Dick had been there for nearly a minute.
“I did not hear you come in,” Tim said, quickly resuming his work.
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to ask you something.” Dick said, looking down at the worn wood paneling.
“Is it about this woman? I told you it wasn’t like that.” Tim said.
“Actually it’s about another woman.”
Tim stopped and turned quietly as Dick was looking down. He took a silent deep breath and began.
“I’m having a night picnic tonight. The moon is full and Jamie and I are going to eat a late dinner farther up into the mountains. There’s another girl named Trudy that could really use some company. I can convince her to come along if you would like to join us.”
Tim remained quiet. It wasn’t necessarily the act of going to a picnic at night, but he returned to his work in order to break eye contact.
“You can see Jupiter really well tonight. I was planning on looking at it.”
Dick tried to look inside him. He watched Tim turning the screwdriver. He turned to go, walked several steps, then turned around. Tim’s shadow from the work light revealed him before the corner. The light was close to him, the edges of his shadow were sharp, like an eclipse.
It was late in the evening on Tuesday as Dick unfolded a large blanket on the grassy hills overlooking Lakewood. The night air was just chilly enough for a coat, and Jamie was wearing one of Dick’s as she sat neatly on the blanket, watching him place the meal. They ate and laughed as Dick nearly spilled the wine after setting it. The setting was planned by Dick to be as scenic as possible. The town of Lakewood looked like little stars that spotted the hills. The moon, in its full brightness gave blue hue that soaked the wind responding grass. After an hour Dick had handed her a slice of his poorly made cheesecake. Jamie laughed because of the look of the cheesecake, but Dick assumed it was a laugh of surprise. Jamie turned to him, and accepted the plate.
“It’s a shame your friend couldn’t make it. Trudy thought he was rather handsome.” Dick had shown her a picture of the two while they were in Austria. Dick was smiling pleasantly and Tim was rather stoic, merely staring into the camera’s face.
There would be no cheesecake for Tim. Tim was alone. He exited the truck, and unloaded his reflecting telescope. It was a large and heavy piece that was almost too much for him. He dragged it along the ground four feet. He could look up and see Jupiter, shining brightly in the fall air. Close to it would be the moons, the constant bodies that revolved and made no sound. He leaned down to stand the telescope up, then continued to pull out the tripod and balanced it on the uneven crest of the hill. As he bent down, the sting of pain from his leg crawled through his spine and stuck inside his brain. He grabbed his leg as if to tear it apart, to relinquish himself of command over a defective past.
“I thought Trudy would sway him,” Dick said. He poured another glass of wine and handed it to Jamie. “Tim’s a wonder like that.”
“He’s a big timer around here.” Jamie said as she accepted the drink. “Everyone wants one of his telescopes. I’m a little impressed really.” She looked out towards the lights and said, “All that’s here in Lakewood is a couple of drug stores.”
He was looking through the finder’s scope; properly acquiring a relative location before investigating it with the eyepiece. It was there he saw Jupiter in full form. And to the right were three dimmer dots: Jupiter’s visible moons, circling and circling, and never touching. Tim knew how far they were. Bodies so close were thousands of miles away from each other. Clockwork, Tim thought, absolute clockwork. It was a rewarding thing: finding what was sought after. Mercury’s eighty eight days to Pluto’s two hundred and forty eight years, and everything in between. Like here. Finding what was sought after, he thought.
“Finding what was sought after.” he said it out loud. In the silence, Tim remembered his pipe and turned toward his truck.
“I heard they were even coming in from Boulder.” Dick said, pulling out the occasional blades of grass as he laid down on the blanket. “There‘s an observatory there and people get the idea to buy one for themselves.”
“Well,” Jamie said, “it doesn‘t sound nearly as romantic as this.” Her hand was motioning at the ground. She turned and smiled at him, a silent recognition that Dick had succeeded.
“And Tim’s looking at the stars.” Dick said, and he kissed her.
Tim lit his pipe and gazed down at Lakewood below. Scattered buildings, progressively dropping their lights, were drifting out of focus. He flicked out the match with a rapid wave of his arm. He leaned against his truck and looked upwards, the way he had done so many times before. The stars, constant in their presence, were there as well. The stars were there in France; they were there in Holland. Sometimes they were hard to see because of the gunfire, because of the smoke. It was quiet, so quiet the wind in the trees sounded like crackling wrapper in a dinner banquet speech. It was quiet there in the foxhole as well, and Dick was there too. Night had fallen like it does so often, only in the foxhole Tim had simultaneously feared and welcomed its darkening presence.
“What are you staring at?” Dick said, seated next to him awkwardly, legs hunched because of the lack of room.
“Scorpio is above us.” Tim said, rifle between his legs. Dick paused for a minute, attempting to follow his stare as he looked upward.
“I can’t see it.” Dick said. “How do you know it’s there?”
“See the string of stars, right there?” he pointed upward, his arm poking over the foxhole by a foot. “That’s his tail.”
“Oh.” Dick lied, “I see it now.” Dick looked and Tim, neither convinced nor offended, merely stared back at his rifle.
“Do you know why Scorpio is up there?” Tim said, not focusing away from his rifle.
“No I sure don’t.”
“It was Orion.” Tim said, shifting himself for comfort. “Orion’s pride as a hunter killed him. And they sent Scorpio after him.”
“They?”
“Earth. Earth raised up a being he couldn’t kill. Orion died from the poisonous sting.”
Tim looked back up as Dick was falling asleep. Soon Scorpio would leave, but would always return the next day. It was beautiful, Tim thought. Even though the sky was filled with little asteroids and comets and loss of orbits, the stars would still be there.
Tim recognized the wartime wolseley at Ryenne’s drug store when he moved a chair out from inside the shop to start the morning. The partial clouds left dizzying effects as he tried to focus down the street. The shadows left fluttering and breezy effects on the contrasting street. Soon after the car had his full attention, the woman was seen leaving. Her legs, profound in their step at such distance, made her look like a giraffe from afar. She had placed the groceries in the passenger side when she turned and looked at Tim. Tim, embarrassed at being caught, attempted to rearrange the chair again despite the fact it was in the correct location. But before he fully acted out the process, he instead looked up and met her gaze. She looked back, and after a while placed her hand out in the air, as if sticking her hand out in the middle of gunfire. Tim responded with a short lift of his right hand, not as profound in its height, but still recognizable. When he had lowered his hand she was already on the driver side, getting in. Tim remained motionless as the car slowly rolled in front of his shop. She got out, her body more in focus, elaborate features tranquilized.
“Good morning Mr. Forsythe”, she said as she reached out to shake his hand. In her heels, she was slightly taller than him.
“Good morning Ms. Late”, he said, answering the handshake. It felt sturdy, but still a woman’s touch.
“I trust my telescope is coming around?”
“Yes ma’am, should have it finished by the end of next week.” Tim said. A breeze was moving through the town valley. As the rocking chair shuddered, Morna was perfectly balanced, her body refusing to rotate or respond to the wind.
“Do you feel the project is meeting your standards?” Morna said, breaking his awkward pause. Tim was drifting away, and he reattached quickly.
“Surpassing them. The new Schmidt Cassegrain models at first were rather difficult, the interior mirrors that is.” The jargon had thrown Morna off guard. Tim responded with a quick, “I think it will be as well built as I can manage.”
“Excellent.” Morna concluded. “I’ll check up on it the next week then.”
The wartime Wolseley, Tim thought, she helped the cause. It was obvious in the car she drove, the clothes she wore, and the spirit she held down. She left a trail: pieces flying and sputtering in parallel but slowly diminishing from the host. Cold and small, but part of the main structure nonetheless. The decades spill on to other decades, Tim concluded. As she drove away, the exhaust fumes were gathering and swirling behind. The atmosphere was close, and the way it burned so many others could be the same for her. The heat becomes immediately apparent, but after so many years in the darkened void there is something warm about returning. Tim looked down at the rocking chair. Gusts of wind would automate its movement without the need of a body to propel it. The bell chime that signaled his entrance was the only sound in the dark dead of The Distant Gazer. Wood floors occasionally let out a yelp, but it was only a whisper in Tim’s mind. He looked up, and there were pieces of the roof constellation slipping down, edges that were untamed. Grabbing the bench and the stapler, he repaired what remained of his ceiling stars.
“I found out why Morna’s name was so familiar.” Dick said as he handed him a draft. Tim did not take it, but he looked into its brass coloring. It was the following evening.
“What makes her name so familiar?”
“It’s actually her husband”, Dick said. “He died in the war.”
“Holland?”
“Italy. His name was in the paper with a tally of Colorado men who had died. I remember reading it. They married right before he left. Sad really.” Dick was taking out a cigarette, more as a defense. Tim did not speak for some time. While he looked at the drink, Dick tried to smoke casually.
“What was her husband’s name?” Tim finally said after some time had passed.
“Rigel.”
“What?” Tim for the first time that night looked up, his face in a questioning and pointed stare. Dick dropped the cigarette. As he picked it up, he blew hard on it and looked back at him bewildered.
“Rigel Late. Served in Italy, shot through the abdomen, and di-”
Before Dick had the chance to finish, Tim had leapt from his seat and proceeded to leave the bar and run, nearly sprinted across the street to his shop. By the time the door chimed he was already halfway into the room, and soon he had worked his way around his front desk and into his workshop. His light flickered on as he swiped the switch, and worked throughout the night. He vigorously installed what was left for the main body. He calibrated and double checked the mirrors, and their reflection to the focus. She was trying to return, he thought as the sweat started to gather around his face and under his arms. The tripod that stood in the corner was now ready to become attached to the double weight system that would allow balanced movement. Whatever the cost he would make this telescope the best he had ever made. The reasoning like a camera was staring him right in the face.
“Forsythe’s been hit!” someone had screamed that night; who he did not remember. It was dark, and he was running in the beginning. The fields were constant, the trees disappearing behind him. The farm that was in the briefing was ahead by four hundred yards. Their dog tags were removed; placed in their boots to stop the rattling. The dark shoe polish hid their faces, making their eyes all the more bright and violent. Running, and then a distant yell, and then noise. His mind was in full panic, but his feet dared not stop. To stop would be to die in the open. Tim had nearly tripped over a dead man, he did not remember who, when suddenly his leg felt heat, profound heat. It was not a feeling of glad warmth, it was the turmoil of pleading to be sent out into space, into cold. He was thrust forward as his legs refused to continue. The scream of his name echoed and there was the man with the red cross. His mind was scattered as the medic thrust him on his backside. The streaks of bullets went by in a twinkling blur. Yells felt distant, like a far away football game. He fully lost sound when the morphine was shot into his body. When he regained some form of sense he was looking up, and the stars were out. He was observing the heavens and there was the creature. There was Scorpio. He was moving but the sky remained still, docile. Dragged by the medic, his feet were kicking up grass and dirt as they slid. He looked down and saw the machine gun fire from the barn’s second story. A bazooka flared from the ground in front and tore the opening of the barn to pieces. The action stopped. Tim gazed up and saw the lights that gave him a consolation. Something was always above him. It was there, reassuring him that nothing out there noticed. He was calm, the jeep that carried him away would be unrecognizable by Pluto’s icy surface.
“My God, it’s amazing.” Morna said the next day at high noon. Tim had called her up in early morning to let her know it was complete. He knew she would arrive as soon as possible, because he knew what she was after. She was orbiting the telescope, observing its satin black siding on the body, touching the weights that held the system in balance. Occasionally stopping to peer at details, the retrograde motion was oddly hallucinating. Nevertheless Tim held his stance firm. After a minute or two he finally prepared himself.
“You can look at Orion now.” Tim said. She had stopped abruptly. She was not making eye contact, but it was keenly aware to him that Morna was shaken. The stance that he had seen her take was there now. There would be little wind to sail her away. In an anchoring certainty, this was a storm she would withstand and fight out.
“I’m sorry?” she said, trying to remain calm as she turned around to look at him.
“Orion. The hunter. He will be out tonight a little after nine o‘clock.” You’ll be able to see him fine.”
“Which ‘him’ are we talking about?” Morna said, her eyes narrowing and focusing on Tim, but he would not give. One of them was going to reenter the atmosphere, was going to leave in the escape pod from the derelict hell of what they experienced.
“This is the best telescope I’ve made. I’m sorry about what happened to your husband, but we feel the same thing.”
“You do not know what I fe-”
“I do.” Tim said interrupting. “I do know because I own this shop and because you came in requesting for the same thing.” Morna’s eyes became more and more reflective as she eventually turned away. The tears falling through, but merely glanced off the surface before bouncing back. There was a long pause as Morna looked at the telescope.
“What do we do then?” she said.
“This is free of charge.” Tim said, and before she could object he said, “Take it now.”
Tim did not answer the real question. They both knew in the silence the gravity of the situation. That increasing power of Jupiter’s interior was part of them. It was a dastardly dark that intended to wrap them in tyranny if they did not lift themselves from the foxhole. Tim loaded her telescope in the back of her car. She nodded as she entered the driver’s side. The silent thank you became a key given directly to him. Not a key to be used for later on some mysterious moon, but a key destined for Earth. Alpha Centauri feels as distant as the twenty five years it would take at light speed to reach it. Immediately after Morna’s car drives away, he gives it one last glance. The transition to landing was smooth, and he walked, head level toward Dick’s bar. He entered, looking at things he never saw before: the constellation charts that people demanded because of the rising popularity of Tim’s telescopes, the dart boards that had become largely ignored. Dick, the giant in the back was always waiting for moments like this. He saw him, and immediately turned toward a cup that was standalone on the back counter, next to a row of drinks. Dick poured the best, to the top, and placed it on the bar watching intensely his arms folded. Tim sat in his place, back straight. The posture made Dick’s eyebrows raise.
“Did Morna enjoy the telescope?” Dick asked.
“Yes” Tim said, “she did.”
“Did she mention her husband?”
“No, but I brought it out of her.”
“What do you mean?”
Tim looked up at him and then exhaled. His hands were intertwined, thumbs matching together and mismatching as he collided them again and again.
“Dick. Rigel is brightest star in Orion.”
Dick looked at him, then slowly looked down as he pulled the towel from his shoulder and folded it.
“I see.” he said. “She is going to look at her hunter.”
Tim’s craft was then perfectly fitted with a heat-shield. The test runs that had failed so many times before had somehow today proven safe enough to fly. The travels to distant worlds had rendered him homesick, and as he was cleared for reentry he peered behind. The moon was bright, but deadly in the rear view of his ship. It was only then he understood and smiled at the prospect of never returning. The outside of his windows began to flare up orange and yellowish lashes and strikes, but he was protected from the tearing, and given the warmth. The ice shattered and melted and dragged away chills. He entered the atmosphere safe, and he landed successfully in the ocean to the cheers of some unseen mission control. He picked up the beer, and drinking up asked, “You said her name was Trudy?”
When Timothy Forsythe came downstairs forty five seconds late to answer the call, Morna was staring straight in the air. The line of her back was the reason for a pale exposed neck that was clean, smooth. Tim’s stare was little more than vague approval for a customer.
“Can I help you?” he said after a throat clearing which made Morna nearly jump as she realized the odd position of her body. Turning ninety degrees right, she quietly requested her order.
In 1955, there was only one custom telescope maker in Colorado. Tim had gained the necessary money saving the liberties he received from the war to buy a piece of property across the street from his company comrade Dick, who owned a bar. It was the realization of a dream that occurred between the two of them in Holland in 1944.
That night after Morna’s purchase of a custom Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, Tim made his way to Dick’s bar. Despite the twenty five yards distance, Tim rarely visited and each night Dick did not take it lightly. Upon entering, Tim would never notice the details, never make a motion right or left. The usual customers were scarce, but consistent. The amber lighting that reflected slightly from the dark wood bar, and the smoke from the occasional cigarette was a vision that Dick had since before 1941. He would hear a whistle from his only employee, signifying Tim’s arrival. By the time Tim sat down across from him a draft of beer was already out, and desperate. Often times it sat there, never touched.
“A woman came in for an order,” Tim said without making eye contact as he peered at the bubbles that fizzed to the top of his drink. His head was placed on his hands, which were placed on the bar.
“For a telescope?” Dick replied as he slowly filled the glass he held with a damp rag.
“Yes. It’s odd.”
“Was she a looker?”
“No.” Tim quickly said, making sure to not over indulge in the volume or tone. “Well yes, but it’s not like that. When was the last time you saw a woman, and just a woman enter the store? No kids. No husband.”
Dick agreed to some extent that it was irregular, but said nothing as he placed the glass back to its home on the rack. After a minute or so of staring at his drink and not daring a sip, Dick asked, “What is her name?”
Tim looked up quickly, his eyebrows leading before quickly settling back as he replied, “Morna Late.” Dick recognized the name from Lakewood, but Tim seemed unaware to catch it.
“You know that name is familiar.” Dick continued. Tim said nothing.
“How’s the leg?” Dick said. Afterward he wished he had not spoken of it. The limp, although prominent in Tim’s step was something he had intended to forget.
“It’s fine.” Tim said, and forgetting or wishing to forget why he had visited, Tim slowly straddled off the stool seat. Dick, who knew him well did not bother with a goodbye the same as he had not bothered with hello. To Dick, Tim was drifting farther out of orbit.
Over the course of the week, Tim worked tirelessly on the Schmidt-Cassegrain. One of the newest models available, the telescope would allow a compact body while preserving the magnification. Tim always started with the most expensive aspect: the lens grinding. He worked alone, in the workshop behind the front desk. He lived upstairs in a small cupboard of a room dedicated to his nights. During the end of the 1940s, he bought and read from cover to cover several books describing the structure and layout of telescopes, their functions and designs, and how to replicate them. After fighting, Tim felt his evenings stretched forever outward, like some universe. It was the thought of wasted time that gave him the determination to push forward with an idea that began from what seemed like an event so close to him. During those evenings, after cleaning Dick’s successful Lakewood, Colorado bar, he would read about reflecting and refracting telescopes. He would inspect certain spotting scopes and learn about creating an accurate focus. Tim’s first telescopes were mundane and seemed cheaply made based on the materials. Dick would comment using clever words like wholesome, and lightweight.
Dick could hear him working, and as he passed behind the front desk to round the corner to the workshop, he silently watched his friend who did not notice the bell chime. Tim, who was miniscule compared to Dick’s six foot two inch height, appeared little more intimidating than a mouse. Tim was short, skinny, and frail looking. Although his clothes fit him alright, he seemed like a miniature body formed to scale. Dick noticed the precision and diligence with which Tim worked. Seeing Tim fully in his element gave Dick some relief, but also apprehension. Instead of something drastic like residing in a space ship, Dick felt like his work and the capsule were related. It was somehow horrifying to see how efficient he became. The lenses were placed, and he was concentrating at the moment on the body itself. When Tim finally turned to see him, Dick had been there for nearly a minute.
“I did not hear you come in,” Tim said, quickly resuming his work.
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to ask you something.” Dick said, looking down at the worn wood paneling.
“Is it about this woman? I told you it wasn’t like that.” Tim said.
“Actually it’s about another woman.”
Tim stopped and turned quietly as Dick was looking down. He took a silent deep breath and began.
“I’m having a night picnic tonight. The moon is full and Jamie and I are going to eat a late dinner farther up into the mountains. There’s another girl named Trudy that could really use some company. I can convince her to come along if you would like to join us.”
Tim remained quiet. It wasn’t necessarily the act of going to a picnic at night, but he returned to his work in order to break eye contact.
“You can see Jupiter really well tonight. I was planning on looking at it.”
Dick tried to look inside him. He watched Tim turning the screwdriver. He turned to go, walked several steps, then turned around. Tim’s shadow from the work light revealed him before the corner. The light was close to him, the edges of his shadow were sharp, like an eclipse.
It was late in the evening on Tuesday as Dick unfolded a large blanket on the grassy hills overlooking Lakewood. The night air was just chilly enough for a coat, and Jamie was wearing one of Dick’s as she sat neatly on the blanket, watching him place the meal. They ate and laughed as Dick nearly spilled the wine after setting it. The setting was planned by Dick to be as scenic as possible. The town of Lakewood looked like little stars that spotted the hills. The moon, in its full brightness gave blue hue that soaked the wind responding grass. After an hour Dick had handed her a slice of his poorly made cheesecake. Jamie laughed because of the look of the cheesecake, but Dick assumed it was a laugh of surprise. Jamie turned to him, and accepted the plate.
“It’s a shame your friend couldn’t make it. Trudy thought he was rather handsome.” Dick had shown her a picture of the two while they were in Austria. Dick was smiling pleasantly and Tim was rather stoic, merely staring into the camera’s face.
There would be no cheesecake for Tim. Tim was alone. He exited the truck, and unloaded his reflecting telescope. It was a large and heavy piece that was almost too much for him. He dragged it along the ground four feet. He could look up and see Jupiter, shining brightly in the fall air. Close to it would be the moons, the constant bodies that revolved and made no sound. He leaned down to stand the telescope up, then continued to pull out the tripod and balanced it on the uneven crest of the hill. As he bent down, the sting of pain from his leg crawled through his spine and stuck inside his brain. He grabbed his leg as if to tear it apart, to relinquish himself of command over a defective past.
“I thought Trudy would sway him,” Dick said. He poured another glass of wine and handed it to Jamie. “Tim’s a wonder like that.”
“He’s a big timer around here.” Jamie said as she accepted the drink. “Everyone wants one of his telescopes. I’m a little impressed really.” She looked out towards the lights and said, “All that’s here in Lakewood is a couple of drug stores.”
He was looking through the finder’s scope; properly acquiring a relative location before investigating it with the eyepiece. It was there he saw Jupiter in full form. And to the right were three dimmer dots: Jupiter’s visible moons, circling and circling, and never touching. Tim knew how far they were. Bodies so close were thousands of miles away from each other. Clockwork, Tim thought, absolute clockwork. It was a rewarding thing: finding what was sought after. Mercury’s eighty eight days to Pluto’s two hundred and forty eight years, and everything in between. Like here. Finding what was sought after, he thought.
“Finding what was sought after.” he said it out loud. In the silence, Tim remembered his pipe and turned toward his truck.
“I heard they were even coming in from Boulder.” Dick said, pulling out the occasional blades of grass as he laid down on the blanket. “There‘s an observatory there and people get the idea to buy one for themselves.”
“Well,” Jamie said, “it doesn‘t sound nearly as romantic as this.” Her hand was motioning at the ground. She turned and smiled at him, a silent recognition that Dick had succeeded.
“And Tim’s looking at the stars.” Dick said, and he kissed her.
Tim lit his pipe and gazed down at Lakewood below. Scattered buildings, progressively dropping their lights, were drifting out of focus. He flicked out the match with a rapid wave of his arm. He leaned against his truck and looked upwards, the way he had done so many times before. The stars, constant in their presence, were there as well. The stars were there in France; they were there in Holland. Sometimes they were hard to see because of the gunfire, because of the smoke. It was quiet, so quiet the wind in the trees sounded like crackling wrapper in a dinner banquet speech. It was quiet there in the foxhole as well, and Dick was there too. Night had fallen like it does so often, only in the foxhole Tim had simultaneously feared and welcomed its darkening presence.
“What are you staring at?” Dick said, seated next to him awkwardly, legs hunched because of the lack of room.
“Scorpio is above us.” Tim said, rifle between his legs. Dick paused for a minute, attempting to follow his stare as he looked upward.
“I can’t see it.” Dick said. “How do you know it’s there?”
“See the string of stars, right there?” he pointed upward, his arm poking over the foxhole by a foot. “That’s his tail.”
“Oh.” Dick lied, “I see it now.” Dick looked and Tim, neither convinced nor offended, merely stared back at his rifle.
“Do you know why Scorpio is up there?” Tim said, not focusing away from his rifle.
“No I sure don’t.”
“It was Orion.” Tim said, shifting himself for comfort. “Orion’s pride as a hunter killed him. And they sent Scorpio after him.”
“They?”
“Earth. Earth raised up a being he couldn’t kill. Orion died from the poisonous sting.”
Tim looked back up as Dick was falling asleep. Soon Scorpio would leave, but would always return the next day. It was beautiful, Tim thought. Even though the sky was filled with little asteroids and comets and loss of orbits, the stars would still be there.
Tim recognized the wartime wolseley at Ryenne’s drug store when he moved a chair out from inside the shop to start the morning. The partial clouds left dizzying effects as he tried to focus down the street. The shadows left fluttering and breezy effects on the contrasting street. Soon after the car had his full attention, the woman was seen leaving. Her legs, profound in their step at such distance, made her look like a giraffe from afar. She had placed the groceries in the passenger side when she turned and looked at Tim. Tim, embarrassed at being caught, attempted to rearrange the chair again despite the fact it was in the correct location. But before he fully acted out the process, he instead looked up and met her gaze. She looked back, and after a while placed her hand out in the air, as if sticking her hand out in the middle of gunfire. Tim responded with a short lift of his right hand, not as profound in its height, but still recognizable. When he had lowered his hand she was already on the driver side, getting in. Tim remained motionless as the car slowly rolled in front of his shop. She got out, her body more in focus, elaborate features tranquilized.
“Good morning Mr. Forsythe”, she said as she reached out to shake his hand. In her heels, she was slightly taller than him.
“Good morning Ms. Late”, he said, answering the handshake. It felt sturdy, but still a woman’s touch.
“I trust my telescope is coming around?”
“Yes ma’am, should have it finished by the end of next week.” Tim said. A breeze was moving through the town valley. As the rocking chair shuddered, Morna was perfectly balanced, her body refusing to rotate or respond to the wind.
“Do you feel the project is meeting your standards?” Morna said, breaking his awkward pause. Tim was drifting away, and he reattached quickly.
“Surpassing them. The new Schmidt Cassegrain models at first were rather difficult, the interior mirrors that is.” The jargon had thrown Morna off guard. Tim responded with a quick, “I think it will be as well built as I can manage.”
“Excellent.” Morna concluded. “I’ll check up on it the next week then.”
The wartime Wolseley, Tim thought, she helped the cause. It was obvious in the car she drove, the clothes she wore, and the spirit she held down. She left a trail: pieces flying and sputtering in parallel but slowly diminishing from the host. Cold and small, but part of the main structure nonetheless. The decades spill on to other decades, Tim concluded. As she drove away, the exhaust fumes were gathering and swirling behind. The atmosphere was close, and the way it burned so many others could be the same for her. The heat becomes immediately apparent, but after so many years in the darkened void there is something warm about returning. Tim looked down at the rocking chair. Gusts of wind would automate its movement without the need of a body to propel it. The bell chime that signaled his entrance was the only sound in the dark dead of The Distant Gazer. Wood floors occasionally let out a yelp, but it was only a whisper in Tim’s mind. He looked up, and there were pieces of the roof constellation slipping down, edges that were untamed. Grabbing the bench and the stapler, he repaired what remained of his ceiling stars.
“I found out why Morna’s name was so familiar.” Dick said as he handed him a draft. Tim did not take it, but he looked into its brass coloring. It was the following evening.
“What makes her name so familiar?”
“It’s actually her husband”, Dick said. “He died in the war.”
“Holland?”
“Italy. His name was in the paper with a tally of Colorado men who had died. I remember reading it. They married right before he left. Sad really.” Dick was taking out a cigarette, more as a defense. Tim did not speak for some time. While he looked at the drink, Dick tried to smoke casually.
“What was her husband’s name?” Tim finally said after some time had passed.
“Rigel.”
“What?” Tim for the first time that night looked up, his face in a questioning and pointed stare. Dick dropped the cigarette. As he picked it up, he blew hard on it and looked back at him bewildered.
“Rigel Late. Served in Italy, shot through the abdomen, and di-”
Before Dick had the chance to finish, Tim had leapt from his seat and proceeded to leave the bar and run, nearly sprinted across the street to his shop. By the time the door chimed he was already halfway into the room, and soon he had worked his way around his front desk and into his workshop. His light flickered on as he swiped the switch, and worked throughout the night. He vigorously installed what was left for the main body. He calibrated and double checked the mirrors, and their reflection to the focus. She was trying to return, he thought as the sweat started to gather around his face and under his arms. The tripod that stood in the corner was now ready to become attached to the double weight system that would allow balanced movement. Whatever the cost he would make this telescope the best he had ever made. The reasoning like a camera was staring him right in the face.
“Forsythe’s been hit!” someone had screamed that night; who he did not remember. It was dark, and he was running in the beginning. The fields were constant, the trees disappearing behind him. The farm that was in the briefing was ahead by four hundred yards. Their dog tags were removed; placed in their boots to stop the rattling. The dark shoe polish hid their faces, making their eyes all the more bright and violent. Running, and then a distant yell, and then noise. His mind was in full panic, but his feet dared not stop. To stop would be to die in the open. Tim had nearly tripped over a dead man, he did not remember who, when suddenly his leg felt heat, profound heat. It was not a feeling of glad warmth, it was the turmoil of pleading to be sent out into space, into cold. He was thrust forward as his legs refused to continue. The scream of his name echoed and there was the man with the red cross. His mind was scattered as the medic thrust him on his backside. The streaks of bullets went by in a twinkling blur. Yells felt distant, like a far away football game. He fully lost sound when the morphine was shot into his body. When he regained some form of sense he was looking up, and the stars were out. He was observing the heavens and there was the creature. There was Scorpio. He was moving but the sky remained still, docile. Dragged by the medic, his feet were kicking up grass and dirt as they slid. He looked down and saw the machine gun fire from the barn’s second story. A bazooka flared from the ground in front and tore the opening of the barn to pieces. The action stopped. Tim gazed up and saw the lights that gave him a consolation. Something was always above him. It was there, reassuring him that nothing out there noticed. He was calm, the jeep that carried him away would be unrecognizable by Pluto’s icy surface.
“My God, it’s amazing.” Morna said the next day at high noon. Tim had called her up in early morning to let her know it was complete. He knew she would arrive as soon as possible, because he knew what she was after. She was orbiting the telescope, observing its satin black siding on the body, touching the weights that held the system in balance. Occasionally stopping to peer at details, the retrograde motion was oddly hallucinating. Nevertheless Tim held his stance firm. After a minute or two he finally prepared himself.
“You can look at Orion now.” Tim said. She had stopped abruptly. She was not making eye contact, but it was keenly aware to him that Morna was shaken. The stance that he had seen her take was there now. There would be little wind to sail her away. In an anchoring certainty, this was a storm she would withstand and fight out.
“I’m sorry?” she said, trying to remain calm as she turned around to look at him.
“Orion. The hunter. He will be out tonight a little after nine o‘clock.” You’ll be able to see him fine.”
“Which ‘him’ are we talking about?” Morna said, her eyes narrowing and focusing on Tim, but he would not give. One of them was going to reenter the atmosphere, was going to leave in the escape pod from the derelict hell of what they experienced.
“This is the best telescope I’ve made. I’m sorry about what happened to your husband, but we feel the same thing.”
“You do not know what I fe-”
“I do.” Tim said interrupting. “I do know because I own this shop and because you came in requesting for the same thing.” Morna’s eyes became more and more reflective as she eventually turned away. The tears falling through, but merely glanced off the surface before bouncing back. There was a long pause as Morna looked at the telescope.
“What do we do then?” she said.
“This is free of charge.” Tim said, and before she could object he said, “Take it now.”
Tim did not answer the real question. They both knew in the silence the gravity of the situation. That increasing power of Jupiter’s interior was part of them. It was a dastardly dark that intended to wrap them in tyranny if they did not lift themselves from the foxhole. Tim loaded her telescope in the back of her car. She nodded as she entered the driver’s side. The silent thank you became a key given directly to him. Not a key to be used for later on some mysterious moon, but a key destined for Earth. Alpha Centauri feels as distant as the twenty five years it would take at light speed to reach it. Immediately after Morna’s car drives away, he gives it one last glance. The transition to landing was smooth, and he walked, head level toward Dick’s bar. He entered, looking at things he never saw before: the constellation charts that people demanded because of the rising popularity of Tim’s telescopes, the dart boards that had become largely ignored. Dick, the giant in the back was always waiting for moments like this. He saw him, and immediately turned toward a cup that was standalone on the back counter, next to a row of drinks. Dick poured the best, to the top, and placed it on the bar watching intensely his arms folded. Tim sat in his place, back straight. The posture made Dick’s eyebrows raise.
“Did Morna enjoy the telescope?” Dick asked.
“Yes” Tim said, “she did.”
“Did she mention her husband?”
“No, but I brought it out of her.”
“What do you mean?”
Tim looked up at him and then exhaled. His hands were intertwined, thumbs matching together and mismatching as he collided them again and again.
“Dick. Rigel is brightest star in Orion.”
Dick looked at him, then slowly looked down as he pulled the towel from his shoulder and folded it.
“I see.” he said. “She is going to look at her hunter.”
Tim’s craft was then perfectly fitted with a heat-shield. The test runs that had failed so many times before had somehow today proven safe enough to fly. The travels to distant worlds had rendered him homesick, and as he was cleared for reentry he peered behind. The moon was bright, but deadly in the rear view of his ship. It was only then he understood and smiled at the prospect of never returning. The outside of his windows began to flare up orange and yellowish lashes and strikes, but he was protected from the tearing, and given the warmth. The ice shattered and melted and dragged away chills. He entered the atmosphere safe, and he landed successfully in the ocean to the cheers of some unseen mission control. He picked up the beer, and drinking up asked, “You said her name was Trudy?”
Thursday, February 24, 2011
And Wink for Me
Tom was going to buy Marilyn Monroe.
It was the beauty of the indescribable. The fact that Tom had no idea what Marilyn's life was like or why people loved her, or if she had sex with John F. Kennedy. It was the in the lack of detail that brought mystery. Her stare. Tom never ceased to look at her forgotten face in the bookstore. Behind the semi-reflective double doors, Tom would peer in and see Marilyn. And then after ten seconds he would refocus and see himself. Across the street in miniature formation, students marched whether they cared or not from one place to another. All Marilyn had to see was a university. Tom winked at her, and then continued down the street.
"What are you going to buy?" Robert said forty five minutes later as he pushed his vegetable filled pizza over to Tom. Robert knew Tom never went without picking at other people's food. Tom never considered it unsanitary, and he did not concern himself over the waste and third world countries. Tom merely had some untold fascination with food on the plate. He had not lived during the depression.
"I will probably buy some books," Tom replied. "I'm sure there is some book I need this semester."
Tom looked through the window of the pizza place to the location his feet had been only forty five minutes before. The double doors were a cry for help.
"Did you hear about Stephen?" Robert said. "They had to drag him out he was so drunk; embarrassed Jenny to death."
Tom tried to imagine Jenny forcing her hair back continuously as she was looking down at her other. Stephen, in all his wisdom at the current level of intoxication at the least never felt better.
"I'm sure she was," Tom said. "I wouldn't know."
"No." Robert said, "I guess we wouldn't."
They left silently and walked home. The haze of the spring air made rain imminent, but it never came. The gray dragged and dragged until the sun completed its round. Their home was an apartment a mere walking distance from everything. The pizza, the books, the university, was all a hot trot toward a corner of the complex.
"We really appreciate what you're doing," he heard through the phone. "We know you work hard."
"I know you guys do. I just feel bad sometimes."
"Don't. This is something we've wanted to do since we had you. It isn't your fault, never was."
"I appreciate it," Tom said. "Listen, no offense, but I have a lot of reading to do. If I don't start, I'm gonna keep pushing it back."
"I understand. Keep up the good work, and remember you're in college."
Tom chuckled, "Yea I do."
"Good-bye."
Tom released the phone from his ear like a dysfunctional sea shell, slightly scowling in the lamp light of his messy room as he pressed the red button.
If there was one thing good to be said about suicide, Tom thought, it was that Marilyn lived forever because of it. Of course no one really says that, he continued, but they all think it. Tom knew his "they" was a generalization but in the depths of his mind, Tom knew he was always right. Tom knew he was right because he never asked anybody else. For Tom, that made him one for one. Even if he batted a thousand, it would never compare to the feeling Tom felt when he winked at Marilyn and she stared back at him through the double doors.
Three weeks earlier, as Robert and Tom had set off to register once again for their delightfully close apartment, they were surprised to discover they had received a gift card. Fifty dollars, twenty five for each, lay on top of the contract that was so easy to sign once again for their delightfully close apartment. For three weeks he had thought of what the possibilities were for the money. He looked throughout the bookstore, but every time he exited, he would turn around to see her. For three weeks Robert had asked, "What are you going to buy?"
The night before the purchase Tom received a phone call. It was late, to an odd degree. Tom was reading on his bed, three pillows behind him to support the hours and hours when his nightstand made an aggressive humming noise. He looked at his phone and recognized the caller. He answered the phone.
"Hello?" Tom said.
"Hi." Jenny amused. "What are you doing?"
"I'm reading in my room," Tom said. "What are you doing?"
Jenny paused for a full five seconds before responding pridefully, "I'm being drunk."
Tom could not help but chuckle at the thought, then he asked, "Is Stephen there to take care of you?"
Jenny paused fora full five seconds before responding quietly, "Stephen isn't here."
"Have you tried to call him?"
"No."
"You should. It'd be nice for him to be on the other side."
"What?"
"Nothing." Tom hesitated. "Well I hope you have a good night."
"Oh," Jenny said, "I will."
Tom did not look at his phone at all. The big and blank wall had no advice to give him as he pressed the red button. He tried to imagine the choices and the choices and the choices from here into the next. He tried to picture a tree of actions and reactions that spanned the years ahead and he objectively chose what he felt was the most appropriate response to a pesky, curious late night phone call. His lamp clicked off and his extra pillows fell to the floor as Tom repositioned himself on the bed.
Tom walked in that morning to the bookstore and tried not to look. Marilyn was there, ready for her new life. She was done up and ready to go as always, her pose granting her eternal life. Tom stopped immediately after seeing her to glance at something he could neither feel nor think. Then Tom walked. He passed the art supplies and he passed the spiral notebooks. He passed the t-shirts and the spring jackets. He walked into the textbooks and bought two of them. He bought a history of Sam Houston's life and a history of the Mexican-American War. He passed the card, and the clerk swiped it. Tom walked passed the spring jackets and the t-shirts. Tom passed the spiral notebooks and the art supplies. Finally reaching the front of the store, Tom turned and faced Marilyn directly. He then winked and smiled, but soon the smile vanished as Marilyn's gaze remained unchanged.
"I'm sorry," he said and continued to look for any sign of a listener. Marilyn upon close scrutiny showed dust particles raining down the poster. There were posters behind her and they also had dust collecting upon their brow. Tom opened the glass double doors, and turned once more. As the doors closed slowly, he saw the pizza place with his favorite window. He saw cars move continuously and parallel to the swinging doors, keeping them in view. He saw the quick flashes of the caring and uncaring students alike marching from place to place. And when the doors closed, Tom saw himself with the bag in his hand.
It was the beauty of the indescribable. The fact that Tom had no idea what Marilyn's life was like or why people loved her, or if she had sex with John F. Kennedy. It was the in the lack of detail that brought mystery. Her stare. Tom never ceased to look at her forgotten face in the bookstore. Behind the semi-reflective double doors, Tom would peer in and see Marilyn. And then after ten seconds he would refocus and see himself. Across the street in miniature formation, students marched whether they cared or not from one place to another. All Marilyn had to see was a university. Tom winked at her, and then continued down the street.
"What are you going to buy?" Robert said forty five minutes later as he pushed his vegetable filled pizza over to Tom. Robert knew Tom never went without picking at other people's food. Tom never considered it unsanitary, and he did not concern himself over the waste and third world countries. Tom merely had some untold fascination with food on the plate. He had not lived during the depression.
"I will probably buy some books," Tom replied. "I'm sure there is some book I need this semester."
Tom looked through the window of the pizza place to the location his feet had been only forty five minutes before. The double doors were a cry for help.
"Did you hear about Stephen?" Robert said. "They had to drag him out he was so drunk; embarrassed Jenny to death."
Tom tried to imagine Jenny forcing her hair back continuously as she was looking down at her other. Stephen, in all his wisdom at the current level of intoxication at the least never felt better.
"I'm sure she was," Tom said. "I wouldn't know."
"No." Robert said, "I guess we wouldn't."
They left silently and walked home. The haze of the spring air made rain imminent, but it never came. The gray dragged and dragged until the sun completed its round. Their home was an apartment a mere walking distance from everything. The pizza, the books, the university, was all a hot trot toward a corner of the complex.
"We really appreciate what you're doing," he heard through the phone. "We know you work hard."
"I know you guys do. I just feel bad sometimes."
"Don't. This is something we've wanted to do since we had you. It isn't your fault, never was."
"I appreciate it," Tom said. "Listen, no offense, but I have a lot of reading to do. If I don't start, I'm gonna keep pushing it back."
"I understand. Keep up the good work, and remember you're in college."
Tom chuckled, "Yea I do."
"Good-bye."
Tom released the phone from his ear like a dysfunctional sea shell, slightly scowling in the lamp light of his messy room as he pressed the red button.
If there was one thing good to be said about suicide, Tom thought, it was that Marilyn lived forever because of it. Of course no one really says that, he continued, but they all think it. Tom knew his "they" was a generalization but in the depths of his mind, Tom knew he was always right. Tom knew he was right because he never asked anybody else. For Tom, that made him one for one. Even if he batted a thousand, it would never compare to the feeling Tom felt when he winked at Marilyn and she stared back at him through the double doors.
Three weeks earlier, as Robert and Tom had set off to register once again for their delightfully close apartment, they were surprised to discover they had received a gift card. Fifty dollars, twenty five for each, lay on top of the contract that was so easy to sign once again for their delightfully close apartment. For three weeks he had thought of what the possibilities were for the money. He looked throughout the bookstore, but every time he exited, he would turn around to see her. For three weeks Robert had asked, "What are you going to buy?"
The night before the purchase Tom received a phone call. It was late, to an odd degree. Tom was reading on his bed, three pillows behind him to support the hours and hours when his nightstand made an aggressive humming noise. He looked at his phone and recognized the caller. He answered the phone.
"Hello?" Tom said.
"Hi." Jenny amused. "What are you doing?"
"I'm reading in my room," Tom said. "What are you doing?"
Jenny paused for a full five seconds before responding pridefully, "I'm being drunk."
Tom could not help but chuckle at the thought, then he asked, "Is Stephen there to take care of you?"
Jenny paused fora full five seconds before responding quietly, "Stephen isn't here."
"Have you tried to call him?"
"No."
"You should. It'd be nice for him to be on the other side."
"What?"
"Nothing." Tom hesitated. "Well I hope you have a good night."
"Oh," Jenny said, "I will."
Tom did not look at his phone at all. The big and blank wall had no advice to give him as he pressed the red button. He tried to imagine the choices and the choices and the choices from here into the next. He tried to picture a tree of actions and reactions that spanned the years ahead and he objectively chose what he felt was the most appropriate response to a pesky, curious late night phone call. His lamp clicked off and his extra pillows fell to the floor as Tom repositioned himself on the bed.
Tom walked in that morning to the bookstore and tried not to look. Marilyn was there, ready for her new life. She was done up and ready to go as always, her pose granting her eternal life. Tom stopped immediately after seeing her to glance at something he could neither feel nor think. Then Tom walked. He passed the art supplies and he passed the spiral notebooks. He passed the t-shirts and the spring jackets. He walked into the textbooks and bought two of them. He bought a history of Sam Houston's life and a history of the Mexican-American War. He passed the card, and the clerk swiped it. Tom walked passed the spring jackets and the t-shirts. Tom passed the spiral notebooks and the art supplies. Finally reaching the front of the store, Tom turned and faced Marilyn directly. He then winked and smiled, but soon the smile vanished as Marilyn's gaze remained unchanged.
"I'm sorry," he said and continued to look for any sign of a listener. Marilyn upon close scrutiny showed dust particles raining down the poster. There were posters behind her and they also had dust collecting upon their brow. Tom opened the glass double doors, and turned once more. As the doors closed slowly, he saw the pizza place with his favorite window. He saw cars move continuously and parallel to the swinging doors, keeping them in view. He saw the quick flashes of the caring and uncaring students alike marching from place to place. And when the doors closed, Tom saw himself with the bag in his hand.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Creative Writing Exercises - Setting
February 22nd
Write about 2 situations that deal with the following objects
a metal framed bed
a box of kleenex
a thin trashcan
a nightstand with a glass of water, a pitcher, and a bowl of fruit
a pastel with cows grazing in the fields and mountains and the sun in the background
1) you are in the hospital with your loved one. Your loved wife has given birth to a son/daughter. the characters are happy, but also afraid like any new parents
2) Write about a loved one and their offspring visiting them in the hospital. It is a sad moment as the older is dying, but he/she is loved by all, especially the one visiting.
I had fifteen minutes
1) When you have a baby in your hands, everything feels dangerous. I tried to make my way around those hard edges of the bed. And slowly, almost in slow motion, I rested myself, one arm supporting our weight, the other holding the newborn. I had no idea that the chair had a sickly green tone. I had no idea Oprah was on. My wife smiled to reassure me that I was doing fine on my own. I looked down at her. She was weightless in my excitement. The fact that all I was at one moment was some little bunch made me almost nauseous. The pastel to the left showed cows: in a pasture before a great mountainside. Doesn't matter the setting, I thought, we are still just cows. I looked again at my wife, and in our gaze was the same thought. We had never raised a cow before.
2) I couldn't help but notice those damn cows. In all those generic hospital rooms, no one pays attention to the paintings until extreme conditions give it a worthy look. Cows. Cattle. Bovine of the beyond it seemed with the setting sun in between mountains. And there was my mother to the right.
"Hello Mother", and I tried to smile.
"Hello son", and she tried not to cry.
I reached over and grabbed a kleenex box as I made my way to the table.
"Men are like kleenex: soft strong and disposable." I recited as I stole one out to hand it to her. She laughed as her frail arms took it.
"From a movie", she said off-hand, "as always".
"Still works here", I said. She knew what came next and I waited for silence before I said, "has he come yet?" She looked away, before firing her nose into the kleenex followed by a well thrown shot into the small trash can. It made no noise but it must've been a bowling ball going in the way I saw it. She had not even eaten her fruit on the nightstand.
Write about 2 situations that deal with the following objects
a metal framed bed
a box of kleenex
a thin trashcan
a nightstand with a glass of water, a pitcher, and a bowl of fruit
a pastel with cows grazing in the fields and mountains and the sun in the background
1) you are in the hospital with your loved one. Your loved wife has given birth to a son/daughter. the characters are happy, but also afraid like any new parents
2) Write about a loved one and their offspring visiting them in the hospital. It is a sad moment as the older is dying, but he/she is loved by all, especially the one visiting.
I had fifteen minutes
1) When you have a baby in your hands, everything feels dangerous. I tried to make my way around those hard edges of the bed. And slowly, almost in slow motion, I rested myself, one arm supporting our weight, the other holding the newborn. I had no idea that the chair had a sickly green tone. I had no idea Oprah was on. My wife smiled to reassure me that I was doing fine on my own. I looked down at her. She was weightless in my excitement. The fact that all I was at one moment was some little bunch made me almost nauseous. The pastel to the left showed cows: in a pasture before a great mountainside. Doesn't matter the setting, I thought, we are still just cows. I looked again at my wife, and in our gaze was the same thought. We had never raised a cow before.
2) I couldn't help but notice those damn cows. In all those generic hospital rooms, no one pays attention to the paintings until extreme conditions give it a worthy look. Cows. Cattle. Bovine of the beyond it seemed with the setting sun in between mountains. And there was my mother to the right.
"Hello Mother", and I tried to smile.
"Hello son", and she tried not to cry.
I reached over and grabbed a kleenex box as I made my way to the table.
"Men are like kleenex: soft strong and disposable." I recited as I stole one out to hand it to her. She laughed as her frail arms took it.
"From a movie", she said off-hand, "as always".
"Still works here", I said. She knew what came next and I waited for silence before I said, "has he come yet?" She looked away, before firing her nose into the kleenex followed by a well thrown shot into the small trash can. It made no noise but it must've been a bowling ball going in the way I saw it. She had not even eaten her fruit on the nightstand.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The King of Limbs - Album Review
Wake me up. Wake me up. The minute I played the album that was digitally downloaded onto my computer for nine dollars, I was in a dream. For those that love Radiohead, it is a return to normalcy. The continuing tone recalls from In Rainbows, Hail to the Thief, and Amnesiac. I have listened to the album over ten times, and I have found no reason to stop.
Thom Yorke is truly the king of limbs. At first glance I considered this surreal (of course because it's Radiohead), but after the initial shock I realized it was exactly them and exactly what I had wanted. Nine dollars, eight songs, 37 minutes. While it seems a bit short, it does amazing things if you give it a chance. The album starts off with Bloom, a flying sort of abstract march. With what continues the tone of the album seems to start half glad, half sad, with a low point in Codex, a pure piano and Yorke piece and finally seems to pick back up at Separator.
What makes this album so enthralling? I think it would have to be Radiohead's attention once again to minute detail. Each songs has so much to offer in it, and while his lyrics seem to be much less recognizable this time around, he seems hand picked for their style. Continuous talk of water and cleansing makes me feel like this is album's meaning involves a cleansing. With Codex recommending to "jump off the edge into a lake", there's a freeing experience at the end.
Morning Mr Magpie sounds like the most angry song in the album, presenting a melody that has been stolen, and a negative connotation toward the magpie's arrival. Little by Little, although my least favorite song in the album is a perfect lead in to Feral, an almost incoherent flash fiction of music. Don't believe me? Watch this video, and agree with me.
While Feral is fast paced and intense, it's beautiful. One of my favorites is Lotus Flower. Remember when I said that Thom Yorke is the king of limbs? He literally is:
My favorite of the album, Codex, is a brief somber song much like Pyramid Song, Videotape, or Sail to the Moon. Once again, it is something perfect to come up in the vehicle you drive and it's great to listen to as you move through the world. What it does is small, but it enhances your observation, makes them acute. It really is a great song and it's the turn of the album in my opinion. What moves after in Give up the Ghost and Separator is almost a plea to return to what was good. It's a wonder how I listen to this so many times in a row but I've come to the conclusion that the album is very circular, like a death and rebirth. Of course you don't have to agree with my ridiculous defense to playing this album to death.
What else can I say? The King of Limbs impressed me. Then again, I don't think I can give an objective look at Radiohead. They could have released an album full of silence and I would probably be here anyway typing things like, "it's edgy" or "it's like a death and rebirth". Although it's bias, it still goes to their credit that after OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows, Thom Yorke's The Eraser, and finally King of Limbs, I still am able to be enlightened. As usual, it makes getting through the semester that much easier with good, new music at my side.
Thom Yorke is truly the king of limbs. At first glance I considered this surreal (of course because it's Radiohead), but after the initial shock I realized it was exactly them and exactly what I had wanted. Nine dollars, eight songs, 37 minutes. While it seems a bit short, it does amazing things if you give it a chance. The album starts off with Bloom, a flying sort of abstract march. With what continues the tone of the album seems to start half glad, half sad, with a low point in Codex, a pure piano and Yorke piece and finally seems to pick back up at Separator.
What makes this album so enthralling? I think it would have to be Radiohead's attention once again to minute detail. Each songs has so much to offer in it, and while his lyrics seem to be much less recognizable this time around, he seems hand picked for their style. Continuous talk of water and cleansing makes me feel like this is album's meaning involves a cleansing. With Codex recommending to "jump off the edge into a lake", there's a freeing experience at the end.
Morning Mr Magpie sounds like the most angry song in the album, presenting a melody that has been stolen, and a negative connotation toward the magpie's arrival. Little by Little, although my least favorite song in the album is a perfect lead in to Feral, an almost incoherent flash fiction of music. Don't believe me? Watch this video, and agree with me.
While Feral is fast paced and intense, it's beautiful. One of my favorites is Lotus Flower. Remember when I said that Thom Yorke is the king of limbs? He literally is:
My favorite of the album, Codex, is a brief somber song much like Pyramid Song, Videotape, or Sail to the Moon. Once again, it is something perfect to come up in the vehicle you drive and it's great to listen to as you move through the world. What it does is small, but it enhances your observation, makes them acute. It really is a great song and it's the turn of the album in my opinion. What moves after in Give up the Ghost and Separator is almost a plea to return to what was good. It's a wonder how I listen to this so many times in a row but I've come to the conclusion that the album is very circular, like a death and rebirth. Of course you don't have to agree with my ridiculous defense to playing this album to death.
What else can I say? The King of Limbs impressed me. Then again, I don't think I can give an objective look at Radiohead. They could have released an album full of silence and I would probably be here anyway typing things like, "it's edgy" or "it's like a death and rebirth". Although it's bias, it still goes to their credit that after OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows, Thom Yorke's The Eraser, and finally King of Limbs, I still am able to be enlightened. As usual, it makes getting through the semester that much easier with good, new music at my side.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Happy Valentine's Day: The Mirror Holiday
I am not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day
I am sitting in my freshly cleaned room, which took a full forty five minutes to clean last Thursday. Classical music from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is whispering from the same laptop I write and I am taking swigs of cheap wine; Black Swan in fact. To answer your pondering question yes, I am on a date with myself. I have stripped my walls clean of previous pictures. To answer your question yes, I did do some interior decorating. New posters with new paint for a new day for the same man.
I am not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day.
The new posters on my wall use florescent paint, courtesy of Walmart, the store that grants us everything except the one key to our hearts, unless we're addicted to McDonald's. I have painted two: a heavily penciled Zippo lighter, much like the one I own. The feature that really pops out is the flame, done completely in paint at the top of the poster. The second is a question mark, but the period at the bottom is the world. Very obvious undertones truly show how little delicacy I have as an artist. To answer your question yes, I have an infatuation with blacklights.
I am not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day.
In what may be the most overrated conversation topics in all of American History, we seem to have a profound hatred for something that promotes love. The top two reasons I have heard are:
1) The holiday has become too commercialized
2) It puts expectations on love
A close third reason is the simple "I'm single" which probably hurts the worst at first. The first reason is very simple. Ever since you wanted that LEGO set or Barbie Doll you've sold something to someone lock, stock, and barrel. You and I both know it was to be expected. You can't get through Saint Patrick's Day without someone shoving a clover cookie in your face. Do not think that Valentine's would get through unscathed. In a country and lifestyle that promotes buying happiness do you really think love would be shoved aside? To answer your question yes, my love comes cheap: a $4.50 bottle of Black Swan Merlot.
What was it that Don Draper said? "The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons."
What was it that Chuck Klosterman said? "I will never satisfy a woman. And that's okay, because I know that no woman will ever satisfy me."
What was it that Tom Cruise said in Jerry Maguire? "You...complete...me." (Ellipsis debated)
What was it that Belle said in Beauty and the Beast? "There must be more than this provincial life."
The list goes on and on. It's like a Merry-Go-Round. Constantly swirling back and forth between movies and tv shows and books and articles. People just cannot shut up about their love life. What does it do to Valentine's? It gives it expectations. Remember those days when high schools girls would prance around with their teddy bears? It wasn't so much the actual gift but the symbol. Here I am, being loved by someone. We all want the PDA.
Nobody wants expectations on love. NOBODY. I cannot think of one man or woman who says, "I look forward to thinking up a super cheesy and convoluted scheme of rose petals that lead through the house and finally end to a bouquet of flowers at the dining room followed by chocolates and a freshly cooked dinner." There are those who say we should expect that all the time. Please. There are humans and then there are slaves.
One of my worst fears is a first date. I have been told so many times that it is the one that matters instead I have thrown myself into some decaying jail cell. And as my room clutters up with dirty laundry and empty dinner plates I put my love into writing to complete strangers and I place my feelings on walls. It is some desperate cry for help, that maybe someday someone will save me from myself. It won't come. I know that now. But the fact that I expected it gives me the feeling that many others do about Valentine's Day. It comes and goes, but it never forgets to leave a mark. Not so much a positive or negative connotation, but rather a figurative time line mark on current events. Where do you stand? Are you happy alone/with someone else? Do you feel like you're being treated correctly? Would you give it all away for the opposite status on your facebook? How has your spouse changed physically in a year? Do you appreciate that?
These are many details I consider
Thankfully I am an independent man. I feel safer alone in my hermit present than ruining someone else's life. What have I proven with myself? I love to write. Writing has no expectations: you get what you put into it. It is only commercialized through movies of writers and tv shows of writers, but it says nothing of your personal status. You are only what you desire in writing. And when you spend time with it, it rewards you. And when you're single there's nothing better than a job. People love work like I love writing. For Valentine's Days such as these, I am content writing with Black Swan.
I'm not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day. Odds are it's the same reason everyone else has. Sometimes though, we all think about our status. Maybe not in some higher sense, but just in a simple one-dimensional task of "am I loved?" Some would give anything to have that one person be there and hold them up when they come in drunk and crying. Some would give anything to be held and have them tightly gripping your shoulders declare, "I see you. I know you are a human being. I know you have value." They would be patient, listen to your day. They would bring you perfectly timed tissues. They would even have a bag to put them in if it got out of hand. They would tell you that it is okay to feel this way. They would stare directly into your eyes. They would not let you whither like a flower without the sun.
I have torn down my old room decorations. I have put up new ones. I have cleaned my room right. I have started a new semester. I have retained my values. I have changed everything on the outside, but I cannot change who I am. I cannot change my objective self, the one thing I want to change. Because maybe if I change myself I might have a chance at something new with someone new. I have always been told I should never have to change myself, but at 21 I'm starting to believe otherwise. On Valentine's Day, everyone receives an untold gift: an objective glance at who they are as people. I eat like everyone else, I complain like everyone else, I dress...somewhat like everyone else. I have a laptop, I watch movies, and I pay attention to pop-culture. If we want to get straight to the depressing point, I have little to offer other than some blue eyes and a pessimistic outlook, which displays a lack in confidence. That's real. That is me staring myself in the face and then typing it. I think I've just found a close fourth reason as to why people hate Valentine's Day. A true representation of one's self: the mirror holiday.
I am sitting in my freshly cleaned room, which took a full forty five minutes to clean last Thursday. Classical music from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is whispering from the same laptop I write and I am taking swigs of cheap wine; Black Swan in fact. To answer your pondering question yes, I am on a date with myself. I have stripped my walls clean of previous pictures. To answer your question yes, I did do some interior decorating. New posters with new paint for a new day for the same man.
I am not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day.
The new posters on my wall use florescent paint, courtesy of Walmart, the store that grants us everything except the one key to our hearts, unless we're addicted to McDonald's. I have painted two: a heavily penciled Zippo lighter, much like the one I own. The feature that really pops out is the flame, done completely in paint at the top of the poster. The second is a question mark, but the period at the bottom is the world. Very obvious undertones truly show how little delicacy I have as an artist. To answer your question yes, I have an infatuation with blacklights.
I am not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day.
In what may be the most overrated conversation topics in all of American History, we seem to have a profound hatred for something that promotes love. The top two reasons I have heard are:
1) The holiday has become too commercialized
2) It puts expectations on love
A close third reason is the simple "I'm single" which probably hurts the worst at first. The first reason is very simple. Ever since you wanted that LEGO set or Barbie Doll you've sold something to someone lock, stock, and barrel. You and I both know it was to be expected. You can't get through Saint Patrick's Day without someone shoving a clover cookie in your face. Do not think that Valentine's would get through unscathed. In a country and lifestyle that promotes buying happiness do you really think love would be shoved aside? To answer your question yes, my love comes cheap: a $4.50 bottle of Black Swan Merlot.
What was it that Don Draper said? "The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons."
What was it that Chuck Klosterman said? "I will never satisfy a woman. And that's okay, because I know that no woman will ever satisfy me."
What was it that Tom Cruise said in Jerry Maguire? "You...complete...me." (Ellipsis debated)
What was it that Belle said in Beauty and the Beast? "There must be more than this provincial life."
The list goes on and on. It's like a Merry-Go-Round. Constantly swirling back and forth between movies and tv shows and books and articles. People just cannot shut up about their love life. What does it do to Valentine's? It gives it expectations. Remember those days when high schools girls would prance around with their teddy bears? It wasn't so much the actual gift but the symbol. Here I am, being loved by someone. We all want the PDA.
Nobody wants expectations on love. NOBODY. I cannot think of one man or woman who says, "I look forward to thinking up a super cheesy and convoluted scheme of rose petals that lead through the house and finally end to a bouquet of flowers at the dining room followed by chocolates and a freshly cooked dinner." There are those who say we should expect that all the time. Please. There are humans and then there are slaves.
One of my worst fears is a first date. I have been told so many times that it is the one that matters instead I have thrown myself into some decaying jail cell. And as my room clutters up with dirty laundry and empty dinner plates I put my love into writing to complete strangers and I place my feelings on walls. It is some desperate cry for help, that maybe someday someone will save me from myself. It won't come. I know that now. But the fact that I expected it gives me the feeling that many others do about Valentine's Day. It comes and goes, but it never forgets to leave a mark. Not so much a positive or negative connotation, but rather a figurative time line mark on current events. Where do you stand? Are you happy alone/with someone else? Do you feel like you're being treated correctly? Would you give it all away for the opposite status on your facebook? How has your spouse changed physically in a year? Do you appreciate that?
These are many details I consider
Thankfully I am an independent man. I feel safer alone in my hermit present than ruining someone else's life. What have I proven with myself? I love to write. Writing has no expectations: you get what you put into it. It is only commercialized through movies of writers and tv shows of writers, but it says nothing of your personal status. You are only what you desire in writing. And when you spend time with it, it rewards you. And when you're single there's nothing better than a job. People love work like I love writing. For Valentine's Days such as these, I am content writing with Black Swan.
I'm not going to tell you why I hate Valentine's Day. Odds are it's the same reason everyone else has. Sometimes though, we all think about our status. Maybe not in some higher sense, but just in a simple one-dimensional task of "am I loved?" Some would give anything to have that one person be there and hold them up when they come in drunk and crying. Some would give anything to be held and have them tightly gripping your shoulders declare, "I see you. I know you are a human being. I know you have value." They would be patient, listen to your day. They would bring you perfectly timed tissues. They would even have a bag to put them in if it got out of hand. They would tell you that it is okay to feel this way. They would stare directly into your eyes. They would not let you whither like a flower without the sun.
I have torn down my old room decorations. I have put up new ones. I have cleaned my room right. I have started a new semester. I have retained my values. I have changed everything on the outside, but I cannot change who I am. I cannot change my objective self, the one thing I want to change. Because maybe if I change myself I might have a chance at something new with someone new. I have always been told I should never have to change myself, but at 21 I'm starting to believe otherwise. On Valentine's Day, everyone receives an untold gift: an objective glance at who they are as people. I eat like everyone else, I complain like everyone else, I dress...somewhat like everyone else. I have a laptop, I watch movies, and I pay attention to pop-culture. If we want to get straight to the depressing point, I have little to offer other than some blue eyes and a pessimistic outlook, which displays a lack in confidence. That's real. That is me staring myself in the face and then typing it. I think I've just found a close fourth reason as to why people hate Valentine's Day. A true representation of one's self: the mirror holiday.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thin Walls - A short short turned in for Creative Writing Class
This was a paper I wrote and turned in on February 8th. I personally think it needs a lot of work. It sounds childish and plain, but I had decided to use my first idea and expand it into a short story. I had to turn in something, so this is it.
It was real, even the television was still on, and loud. It was so genuine it chilled him that he was listening in, cup against the wall silently praying for more clarity. Thin walls as they were they had become suddenly adept at concealing specific verbs and phrases. As he quietly stood, ear against the cup against the wall, against the television against the yelling he felt compelled to keep listening. He felt like this was a piece of knowledge he must know and keep and take into the grave. He realized there was something so fascinatingly mundane about the whole ordeal, but he could not stop. It started thirty minutes ago. Paper thin apartment walls left little to the imagination when it came to the sound of a tyrannosaurus rex blaring from Dolby Digital downstairs. He had always wanted to pump it all the way up but that immature brat Shannon upstairs wouldn’t have it merely remarking, “The pots were rattling.”
Of course they were all a little immature, living across the street from a university, but it was this immature companionship that gave him the impression that sound was a communal commodity. The techno sound would bounce the heavy beats through the walls and he would become the music prophet. It turned out Shannon was no disciple, and would come downstairs repeatedly to remark his video games were causing hell upstairs. Laughing at the metaphorical thought of war causing secretarial hell in heaven, he would shut the door and complain that Shannon was 23 going on 40, but would still turn it down. Ryan next door showed little complaint as he only would comment on who was singing in the shower and would guess what movie was on last Monday. It was only assumed that he adored his sound.
Thirty minutes ago at 6:00 PM he firmly grasped exactly how thin those walls between him and Ryan were when the argument commenced. It was a low comment, and while he was reading for next week’s history night class, he began to put the book down after the comments grew louder. It wasn’t a dinosaur roar but more like the techno music, the slow build up until the shits and the fucks were so loud that it had reached some club in Europe. In those five seconds he could not help but grow intensely interested. He ran to the kitchen, grabbed a plastic cup, and hurdled the coffee table as he softly placed the cup to the wall and then the cup to his ear. Garbled and broken he had to sift through the sounds of the large television blaring and the chatter. It was obviously between Ryan and his girlfriend, and it was more brutal than expected. He tried to visualize some boxing match as each volley was some wide strike. While the woman placed short but well placed jabs, Ryan was flailing madly. He was loud and boisterous, and although he was dominating in volume he was having a meltdown. He mentioned a world that he could not provide. He confided that if she could not love Ryan like this, then there was no reason to continue. He hated her little planning.
“Our relationship”, he yelled, “is not some fucking list you check off on the refrigerator.”
All she could do was remark softly. For all he knew Ryan was “winning” the argument if that was possible. By the first ten minutes it already seemed like nuclear end war as both sides showed no concern for leaving fresh geography. It was real, he thought as he listened in. Real like the way his parents fought when he was young. He would listen in on those too. At least one room apart he would listen for the echoes in the kitchen as he would fluctuate up and down the stairs as they moved. His mother would yell her mid life crisis and his father was the counter-attack. It was always the counter attack. Now he could not hear the counter, but as usual the louder of the pair could not sense it. Ryan was infuriated. At one point, he thought the fight had become physical when a pause sounded like movement. In hindsight, he concluded Ryan had moved to the couch.
It felt so human. This wasn’t just some television show or novel sub plot. It was his neighbor, nearly gagging about how he could not stand his girlfriend’s obsession with her projected life in her upper-twenties. Ryan’s speech was ruthlessly efficient. He was cutting in every respect, and he did not care how she felt. He hated it all: the pale sense of love she didn’t show at the end, her inattentiveness to the world around her, her constant desire to plan everything. It was all a show, and it was dying before the curtain call. He listened as Ryan was saying things so real and so volatile that it infected every charged particle in his body. After twenty minutes it only intensified as he nearly pushed his ear completely flat against the bottom of the cup.
What was it he hoped to find in this argument? He was never attracted to Ryan’s girlfriend. He was only an acquaintance of Ryan himself. He could only guess that his fantasy was nothing different that something in an Alfred Hitchcock movie: something different enough to be a curious event. If he could see into an office building at night he would only catch mundane events of copies made, computer typing, and crumpled papers thrown into trash bins, it would only be incredible because it was inconspicuous. Wasn’t that what reality TV was for? In the beginning wasn’t that something so true it exploded into every single documentary life style available? There was something different about this: they were not on television. It’s what made people watching so appealing to him. As Ryan complained about his wish for a life he did not have, he had no idea a cup was on the other side.
Thirty minutes now. He was shocked to hear that Ryan had finished, ending with the absolutely clear statement, “we’re done.” It was bold, and decisive. There was some argument afterward, but there was nothing so dramatic as the conclusion at the thirty minute mark. By thirty three minutes she was gone. Two minutes after the television was turned off, he could hear a guitar reverberating from the room. He removed the cup from the wall and replaced it in the cabinet. He paced several times before finally sitting down on the couch. Whether it was three years without a relationship, time alone in an apartment, or the empty life of a job he did not want and classes he did not want, he firmly concluded that he actually wanted what just happened. It did not matter that it was a fight that blasted the thin walls. It did not matter that it was so decisive that she stormed out and Ryan played guitar. It mattered to him because it was something there to grasp. Like some poem, it was a pessimistic cry for help. He was inwardly pleading for some form of feeling. It was a tangent hope for a life transcendental to watching television, or reading magazines. An argument like that, he thought, could only arise after a firm understanding of life together. He missed that. He almost felt compelled to enter some relationship just to cry as it fell apart. He would burn the house down himself. He would construct the hope of a life lived strongly only to bring it down on him and some poor woman who had no idea she walked into a burning building. He leaned forward, and rubbed his eyes as he peered at the residue on the coffee table. He was 21, and no one had left that kind of residue on his life. Before he could firmly grasp what that meant, he silently opened his history book, and read about imperial China.
It was real, even the television was still on, and loud. It was so genuine it chilled him that he was listening in, cup against the wall silently praying for more clarity. Thin walls as they were they had become suddenly adept at concealing specific verbs and phrases. As he quietly stood, ear against the cup against the wall, against the television against the yelling he felt compelled to keep listening. He felt like this was a piece of knowledge he must know and keep and take into the grave. He realized there was something so fascinatingly mundane about the whole ordeal, but he could not stop. It started thirty minutes ago. Paper thin apartment walls left little to the imagination when it came to the sound of a tyrannosaurus rex blaring from Dolby Digital downstairs. He had always wanted to pump it all the way up but that immature brat Shannon upstairs wouldn’t have it merely remarking, “The pots were rattling.”
Of course they were all a little immature, living across the street from a university, but it was this immature companionship that gave him the impression that sound was a communal commodity. The techno sound would bounce the heavy beats through the walls and he would become the music prophet. It turned out Shannon was no disciple, and would come downstairs repeatedly to remark his video games were causing hell upstairs. Laughing at the metaphorical thought of war causing secretarial hell in heaven, he would shut the door and complain that Shannon was 23 going on 40, but would still turn it down. Ryan next door showed little complaint as he only would comment on who was singing in the shower and would guess what movie was on last Monday. It was only assumed that he adored his sound.
Thirty minutes ago at 6:00 PM he firmly grasped exactly how thin those walls between him and Ryan were when the argument commenced. It was a low comment, and while he was reading for next week’s history night class, he began to put the book down after the comments grew louder. It wasn’t a dinosaur roar but more like the techno music, the slow build up until the shits and the fucks were so loud that it had reached some club in Europe. In those five seconds he could not help but grow intensely interested. He ran to the kitchen, grabbed a plastic cup, and hurdled the coffee table as he softly placed the cup to the wall and then the cup to his ear. Garbled and broken he had to sift through the sounds of the large television blaring and the chatter. It was obviously between Ryan and his girlfriend, and it was more brutal than expected. He tried to visualize some boxing match as each volley was some wide strike. While the woman placed short but well placed jabs, Ryan was flailing madly. He was loud and boisterous, and although he was dominating in volume he was having a meltdown. He mentioned a world that he could not provide. He confided that if she could not love Ryan like this, then there was no reason to continue. He hated her little planning.
“Our relationship”, he yelled, “is not some fucking list you check off on the refrigerator.”
All she could do was remark softly. For all he knew Ryan was “winning” the argument if that was possible. By the first ten minutes it already seemed like nuclear end war as both sides showed no concern for leaving fresh geography. It was real, he thought as he listened in. Real like the way his parents fought when he was young. He would listen in on those too. At least one room apart he would listen for the echoes in the kitchen as he would fluctuate up and down the stairs as they moved. His mother would yell her mid life crisis and his father was the counter-attack. It was always the counter attack. Now he could not hear the counter, but as usual the louder of the pair could not sense it. Ryan was infuriated. At one point, he thought the fight had become physical when a pause sounded like movement. In hindsight, he concluded Ryan had moved to the couch.
It felt so human. This wasn’t just some television show or novel sub plot. It was his neighbor, nearly gagging about how he could not stand his girlfriend’s obsession with her projected life in her upper-twenties. Ryan’s speech was ruthlessly efficient. He was cutting in every respect, and he did not care how she felt. He hated it all: the pale sense of love she didn’t show at the end, her inattentiveness to the world around her, her constant desire to plan everything. It was all a show, and it was dying before the curtain call. He listened as Ryan was saying things so real and so volatile that it infected every charged particle in his body. After twenty minutes it only intensified as he nearly pushed his ear completely flat against the bottom of the cup.
What was it he hoped to find in this argument? He was never attracted to Ryan’s girlfriend. He was only an acquaintance of Ryan himself. He could only guess that his fantasy was nothing different that something in an Alfred Hitchcock movie: something different enough to be a curious event. If he could see into an office building at night he would only catch mundane events of copies made, computer typing, and crumpled papers thrown into trash bins, it would only be incredible because it was inconspicuous. Wasn’t that what reality TV was for? In the beginning wasn’t that something so true it exploded into every single documentary life style available? There was something different about this: they were not on television. It’s what made people watching so appealing to him. As Ryan complained about his wish for a life he did not have, he had no idea a cup was on the other side.
Thirty minutes now. He was shocked to hear that Ryan had finished, ending with the absolutely clear statement, “we’re done.” It was bold, and decisive. There was some argument afterward, but there was nothing so dramatic as the conclusion at the thirty minute mark. By thirty three minutes she was gone. Two minutes after the television was turned off, he could hear a guitar reverberating from the room. He removed the cup from the wall and replaced it in the cabinet. He paced several times before finally sitting down on the couch. Whether it was three years without a relationship, time alone in an apartment, or the empty life of a job he did not want and classes he did not want, he firmly concluded that he actually wanted what just happened. It did not matter that it was a fight that blasted the thin walls. It did not matter that it was so decisive that she stormed out and Ryan played guitar. It mattered to him because it was something there to grasp. Like some poem, it was a pessimistic cry for help. He was inwardly pleading for some form of feeling. It was a tangent hope for a life transcendental to watching television, or reading magazines. An argument like that, he thought, could only arise after a firm understanding of life together. He missed that. He almost felt compelled to enter some relationship just to cry as it fell apart. He would burn the house down himself. He would construct the hope of a life lived strongly only to bring it down on him and some poor woman who had no idea she walked into a burning building. He leaned forward, and rubbed his eyes as he peered at the residue on the coffee table. He was 21, and no one had left that kind of residue on his life. Before he could firmly grasp what that meant, he silently opened his history book, and read about imperial China.
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