I shuddered and died and stuttered and fell. I lay on the bricks and spilled out on the gravel highway. Names came and went, but whatever it was, it was we, and us. We climbed the trunk of a city of roots, while the advertisement beacons bid us to buy another beer, buy another beer. So we did and we did and we did. I kicked open a dumpster like a treasure chest and stood on my tiptoes to peer in. We ate dough and sand, and we ate raw bleeding hearts and minds. We were met with applause. I was outside, inside this city of blisters and infants, and I met up with the wind on two wheels, and I shrugged at twenty-two tons of rolling death. I laughed at tasteless jokes. I moved too fast, and fell, and hurt myself. I was what I wanted to be: I was a child and a nuisance.
I will hone the edge of summer to its sharpest point, to stab into the heart of November and out through March's back. I hate March. I hate November. I need December and I need January. I always forget about February. None of that matters anyway. I'm remembering, in a place where every day is pretty much the same, the trash heap on the docks -- massive, easily the size of a hill, made of scrap metal skeletons and the unidentifiable remains of physical infrastructure. Tools, pylons, rebar, gaskets, drums, bolts, bearings, casings, bits, mounts, chassis, cables, and rust, exhumed from the foundations of the little port city and displayed, for a time, auburn and cold, on the dock to wait for the Stygian ferry, the godhand to clutch and drag away. Waiting to be out of sight, and out of mind. I used to approach the scrap heap as if it were a sleeping beast, shapeless and terrible. You couldn't even touch it, every point was blood. But I so wanted to dive in, to burrow my way beneath the dome and live like some trashlord fox. One day the whole damn thing was gone, lifted away like my hat in a headwind.
We always keep in mind the silly game we are taught to play with authority, and obediently tuck our cheap beer cans into our sleeves while the cruisers slide past. They make me uncomfortable; they are reminders. They don't let me forget this isn't a lawless wasteland (although I'm not really too sure). I know I am being watched; my bravado is a frog's croak on the highway. My rebellion is met with ambivalence, tolerance, condescension too. But when they're gone, I'm back in the wasteland; back in the grit and desert of my fantasy. I just want to build a fort and forget.
I allow the question to linger. Sometimes I think I need the tension that comes from unanswered questions. Sometimes I even like it. I can be satisfied enough just waiting for satisfaction. We rarely make eye contact; our conversations are always in motion, always moving, never going anywhere. Strange, but it doesn't drive me crazy anymore. I let it be. Stet.
We see from strange angles. We have no secrets, but we know all the city's. I think I climbed every tree in this park, and I've probably pissed on every tree in that one. At some point at least one of us will be naked. How old are we, twelve? Don't think we ever grew up. Our time lines are made from movable pieces. We are dogs, or rodents. We are a pack without the politics. When it's over I'll remember how foolish it all was, how futile. But I'll remember it with a grin -- a big, gormless, shit-eating grin.
Showing posts with label Nathaniel Hoyt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nathaniel Hoyt. Show all posts
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Nathaniel Hoyt: A Thanksgiving Miracle
Deep under the big city, connected to the labyrinth of sewers and infrastructure that maintain the lives of countless creatures above, there is a special room. Stout metal ribs gird this chamber and arc to a point at the top of its dome. At that spot where they come together is a square grate, through which a pale white light seeps in, falling in curly motes to the ground far below. It is impossible to tell how far up the shaft reaches, how long it takes for such a quiet light to sink into the deep earth. The light is faint, ghostly, and reveals little, but it is precious.
For scale, assume that a city is mirrored above and below, the way a tree and its roots reflect each other. Then, consider the boundless sprawl of the particular city above. The vast tangle and knot coiled beneath the lowest streets is enough to make a reasonable person swoon. A reasonable person would also agree that it was a bit of pretty good fucking luck, then, that the young man and his robot should have found this one place, unique of all places, at all.
In this quiet spot, removed from the noisiest arteries of the sewers, the young man and his robot had camped for almost a year. At least it was dry, and it did feature the only natural light one could find for miles. Still, the décor was a bit uninspired. In fact, if it weren't so depressing one would almost describe it as vagrant-kitsch: over there a tattered tent made of rags, over here a fire pit, over there a couple of buckets, probably with holes in them just for effect. And more debris scattered around: a few paperback books molting their faded pages away, a stained shirt draped disintegrating over a rock. However, amongst all of this irrelevant miscellany, one thing, as they say, brought it all together: beneath the diffuse light from the vent above had grown a tree to about a foot in diameter before it was felled. And on this tree stump, in a sepulchral gloom, far below the earth, in the middle of a damp stain, alone and glistening, lay a beating heart.
The young man kneels, his robot beside him. Their eyes fixate on the heart. Lying there, sadly defenseless and futile, it makes desperate wheezing and gasping noises as it inhales and exhales through its empty ventricles.
The young man, wearing a dusty green uniform of sorts, suddenly reaches one finger out and touches the heart. He presses in slightly, forming a small dimple. He slides his finger down over the ventricle, leaving an oily wake. The heart continues pumping, dumb and persistent. He pulls his hand back and holds it, shaking slightly, before his eyes. Swift as a snake, the young man darts his tongue out and licks the tip of his finger, then vigorously wipes his hands on his pants legs.
“I guess it's ready,” he says. The robot nods. Its long, many-jointed limbs are always angled inwards. It appears to be always huddling against a cold wind. Its red eyes provide no illumination, but brood privately from deep within a metallic cowl.
The young man is quiet for a moment, staring ahead contemplatively, until a smirk nearly eclipses his whole face. “Do you remember what I had to do to get it,” he asks, nearly sputtering over his own laughter. The robot nods stoically, for robots do not forget. In an almost obscene guffaw, the young man doubles over in laughter, little diamond tears appearing at each outer corner of his large pale eyes. “And how he said- how he said,--” he trailed off in laughter, leaving the rest implicit. The robot nods. The young man aborts his laughter with a sharp intake of breath, and holds it. He sighs. “Then they'll probably be here soon.”
The young man looks to the round portal that leads to the sewers. From his vest pocket he pulls out a pair of binoculars, places them to his eyes and adjusts the light settings. Black ghosts dart past the entrance, like spectral arrowheads volleyed from either side. Back and forth they fly, and then suddenly,
creeping around a corner appears the first of many rats, company the boy had been expecting, dreading. It stops at the entrance, half in and half out, stabbing its long pointed nose at the air with one paw raised. It takes a few steps in and stands up. The young man stands too. They are about the same height, both mangy but lithe, scrawny and strong too. More rats appear behind their leader, slinking in, taking a few darting steps at a time. More and more, until the entire entrance is crowded with them, each crawling over the back of the other, overflowing into the room.
The robot slowly unfolds two long arms, and holds them steadily parallel to the ground.
The rat's voice irks the young man terribly. The edges of his words are sharp and cut short. He slides together pauses, but then halts unexpectedly. He notices the binoculars in the young man's hands. "Ah! You have a, a, a--. For the--- fire. And, and, and the heart--. So very---- well done."
"Thank you Labrot," the young man says, trying to sound steady, easy.
The rat turns his attention to the robot. "The--- metal-man is--- a good friend isn't he?"
"Yeah. A very good friend."
"And the heart. The, the------ the heart." The boy thinks Labrot seems unusually distracted as he pauses to sniff at the beating heart. Labrot whips around to the boy, who instinctively recoils from the foul acrid breath seeping between the rat's stained lips. "Do-we-shall-begin?"
Ceremoniously, the young man reaches his binoculars up and holds them in a line with the light trickling down from above. He fiddles with the dials on the lenses, then keeps his arms as still as he can.
(A terribly long silence.)
A gray noodle of smoke rises as the heart begins to smolder. It turns darker, becomes a ribbon, becomes a cloud, turns black, becomes a haze, then flames burst from its side and whip upwards as flesh peels retreating from the conflagration. The burning heart beats faster and faster as the smoke unfolds deeper and darker. Its wheezing gasping becomes panting rasping as flames bite away at purple flesh. The young man lowers his arms. All watch expectantly, silently, as the heart burns brighter, until the flames become an opaque white veil that is blinding to behold. Presently, the flame dies. The heart is gone. Just a modest pile of ashes scatter around the tree stump. The young man lets out a long breath. Labrot twitches his nose and scratches at the ground. The rest of the rats begin to shift in agitation.
“Does--- it work?”
“We won't know until summer.”
“When is that?”
"We won't know for a long time.”
Labrot seems displeased by this answer. “No, not good--- quickly, now we--- don't wait. Can't.” The rats writhe and squirm behind him, growing increasingly agitated.
The young man takes a step back, startled by the urgency in Labrot's tone and well aware of his combustive temper. “It takes time, Labrot. I told you. This is just the first part. It should work, but we won't know for a while.”
“No! Not waiting. Do you remember? How you got? What you did? Very upset, took--- many rats!”
The young man looks down, ashamed for laughing about that incident just minutes ago. It was true, many rats had died that day, and to help him too. He knows he has his part of the bargain to uphold, but what he is saying is true: these things take time. Everybody knows that.
“No longer friend. You've made tricks on us. Many--- rats call you demon, call---- you bad spirit! Many rats dead!” Unable to hold back his nervous rage, Labrot springs at the young man, his face turning hellishly malicious. The young man has just a fraction of a moment to see Labrot's bright sharp teeth flying towards him, just a moment to open his mouth but not enough to scream. And then a red flash and a sharp whip-crack sound startles the entire room into silence. Labrot now lies a broken, bloody pile, thrown against the ribbed walls of the chamber with unfathomable force. The robot retracts it's metal fist, uncurls its many joints and stands tall, towering over the young man and nearly filling the room. The rats stare up at the red-eyed terror and then scatter, disappearing as swift as a snuffed flame.
The robot huddles back over, like a very tired person. The young man kneels back down at the tree stump. He stirs the pile of ashes with one finger, resting his head on his arm on the edge. He looks up to the sky as if he's heard a sound. “This had better work,” he says.
For scale, assume that a city is mirrored above and below, the way a tree and its roots reflect each other. Then, consider the boundless sprawl of the particular city above. The vast tangle and knot coiled beneath the lowest streets is enough to make a reasonable person swoon. A reasonable person would also agree that it was a bit of pretty good fucking luck, then, that the young man and his robot should have found this one place, unique of all places, at all.
In this quiet spot, removed from the noisiest arteries of the sewers, the young man and his robot had camped for almost a year. At least it was dry, and it did feature the only natural light one could find for miles. Still, the décor was a bit uninspired. In fact, if it weren't so depressing one would almost describe it as vagrant-kitsch: over there a tattered tent made of rags, over here a fire pit, over there a couple of buckets, probably with holes in them just for effect. And more debris scattered around: a few paperback books molting their faded pages away, a stained shirt draped disintegrating over a rock. However, amongst all of this irrelevant miscellany, one thing, as they say, brought it all together: beneath the diffuse light from the vent above had grown a tree to about a foot in diameter before it was felled. And on this tree stump, in a sepulchral gloom, far below the earth, in the middle of a damp stain, alone and glistening, lay a beating heart.
The young man kneels, his robot beside him. Their eyes fixate on the heart. Lying there, sadly defenseless and futile, it makes desperate wheezing and gasping noises as it inhales and exhales through its empty ventricles.
The young man, wearing a dusty green uniform of sorts, suddenly reaches one finger out and touches the heart. He presses in slightly, forming a small dimple. He slides his finger down over the ventricle, leaving an oily wake. The heart continues pumping, dumb and persistent. He pulls his hand back and holds it, shaking slightly, before his eyes. Swift as a snake, the young man darts his tongue out and licks the tip of his finger, then vigorously wipes his hands on his pants legs.
“I guess it's ready,” he says. The robot nods. Its long, many-jointed limbs are always angled inwards. It appears to be always huddling against a cold wind. Its red eyes provide no illumination, but brood privately from deep within a metallic cowl.
The young man is quiet for a moment, staring ahead contemplatively, until a smirk nearly eclipses his whole face. “Do you remember what I had to do to get it,” he asks, nearly sputtering over his own laughter. The robot nods stoically, for robots do not forget. In an almost obscene guffaw, the young man doubles over in laughter, little diamond tears appearing at each outer corner of his large pale eyes. “And how he said- how he said,--” he trailed off in laughter, leaving the rest implicit. The robot nods. The young man aborts his laughter with a sharp intake of breath, and holds it. He sighs. “Then they'll probably be here soon.”
The young man looks to the round portal that leads to the sewers. From his vest pocket he pulls out a pair of binoculars, places them to his eyes and adjusts the light settings. Black ghosts dart past the entrance, like spectral arrowheads volleyed from either side. Back and forth they fly, and then suddenly,
creeping around a corner appears the first of many rats, company the boy had been expecting, dreading. It stops at the entrance, half in and half out, stabbing its long pointed nose at the air with one paw raised. It takes a few steps in and stands up. The young man stands too. They are about the same height, both mangy but lithe, scrawny and strong too. More rats appear behind their leader, slinking in, taking a few darting steps at a time. More and more, until the entire entrance is crowded with them, each crawling over the back of the other, overflowing into the room.
The robot slowly unfolds two long arms, and holds them steadily parallel to the ground.
The rat's voice irks the young man terribly. The edges of his words are sharp and cut short. He slides together pauses, but then halts unexpectedly. He notices the binoculars in the young man's hands. "Ah! You have a, a, a--. For the--- fire. And, and, and the heart--. So very---- well done."
"Thank you Labrot," the young man says, trying to sound steady, easy.
The rat turns his attention to the robot. "The--- metal-man is--- a good friend isn't he?"
"Yeah. A very good friend."
"And the heart. The, the------ the heart." The boy thinks Labrot seems unusually distracted as he pauses to sniff at the beating heart. Labrot whips around to the boy, who instinctively recoils from the foul acrid breath seeping between the rat's stained lips. "Do-we-shall-begin?"
Ceremoniously, the young man reaches his binoculars up and holds them in a line with the light trickling down from above. He fiddles with the dials on the lenses, then keeps his arms as still as he can.
(A terribly long silence.)
A gray noodle of smoke rises as the heart begins to smolder. It turns darker, becomes a ribbon, becomes a cloud, turns black, becomes a haze, then flames burst from its side and whip upwards as flesh peels retreating from the conflagration. The burning heart beats faster and faster as the smoke unfolds deeper and darker. Its wheezing gasping becomes panting rasping as flames bite away at purple flesh. The young man lowers his arms. All watch expectantly, silently, as the heart burns brighter, until the flames become an opaque white veil that is blinding to behold. Presently, the flame dies. The heart is gone. Just a modest pile of ashes scatter around the tree stump. The young man lets out a long breath. Labrot twitches his nose and scratches at the ground. The rest of the rats begin to shift in agitation.
“Does--- it work?”
“We won't know until summer.”
“When is that?”
"We won't know for a long time.”
Labrot seems displeased by this answer. “No, not good--- quickly, now we--- don't wait. Can't.” The rats writhe and squirm behind him, growing increasingly agitated.
The young man takes a step back, startled by the urgency in Labrot's tone and well aware of his combustive temper. “It takes time, Labrot. I told you. This is just the first part. It should work, but we won't know for a while.”
“No! Not waiting. Do you remember? How you got? What you did? Very upset, took--- many rats!”
The young man looks down, ashamed for laughing about that incident just minutes ago. It was true, many rats had died that day, and to help him too. He knows he has his part of the bargain to uphold, but what he is saying is true: these things take time. Everybody knows that.
“No longer friend. You've made tricks on us. Many--- rats call you demon, call---- you bad spirit! Many rats dead!” Unable to hold back his nervous rage, Labrot springs at the young man, his face turning hellishly malicious. The young man has just a fraction of a moment to see Labrot's bright sharp teeth flying towards him, just a moment to open his mouth but not enough to scream. And then a red flash and a sharp whip-crack sound startles the entire room into silence. Labrot now lies a broken, bloody pile, thrown against the ribbed walls of the chamber with unfathomable force. The robot retracts it's metal fist, uncurls its many joints and stands tall, towering over the young man and nearly filling the room. The rats stare up at the red-eyed terror and then scatter, disappearing as swift as a snuffed flame.
The robot huddles back over, like a very tired person. The young man kneels back down at the tree stump. He stirs the pile of ashes with one finger, resting his head on his arm on the edge. He looks up to the sky as if he's heard a sound. “This had better work,” he says.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Nathaniel Hoyt - Summer Vocation
I shuddered and died and stuttered and fell. I lay on the bricks and spilled out on the gravel highway. Names came and went, but whatever it was, it was we, and us. We climbed the trunk of a city of roots, while the advertisement beacons bid us to buy another beer, buy another beer. So we did and we did and we did. I kicked open a dumpster like a treasure chest and stood on my tiptoes to peer in. We ate dough and sand, and we ate raw bleeding hearts and minds. We were met with applause. I was outside, inside this city of blisters and infants, and I met up with the wind on two wheels, and I shrugged at twenty-two tons of rolling death. I laughed at tasteless jokes. I moved too fast, and fell, and hurt myself. I was what I wanted to be: I was a child and a nuisance.
I will hone the edge of summer to its sharpest point, to stab into the heart of November and out through March's back. I hate March. I hate November. I need December and I need January. I always forget about February. None of that matters anyway. I'm remembering, in a place where every day is pretty much the same, the trash heap on the docks -- massive, easily the size of a hill, made of scrap metal skeletons and the unidentifiable remains of physical infrastructure. Tools, pylons, rebar, gaskets, drums, bolts, bearings, casings, bits, mounts, chassis, cables, and rust, exhumed from the foundations of the little port city and displayed, for a time, auburn and cold, on the dock to wait for the Stygian ferry, the godhand to clutch and drag away. Waiting to be out of sight, and out of mind. I used to approach the scrap heap as if it were a sleeping beast, shapeless and terrible. You couldn't even touch it, every point was blood. But I so wanted to dive in, to burrow my way beneath the dome and live like some trashlord fox. One day the whole damn thing was gone, lifted away like my hat in a headwind.
We always keep in mind the silly game we are taught to play with authority, and obediently tuck our cheap beer cans into our sleeves while the cruisers slide past. They make me uncomfortable; they are reminders. They don't let me forget this isn't a lawless wasteland (although I'm not really too sure). I know I am being watched; my bravado is a frog's croak on the highway. My rebellion is met with ambivalence, tolerance, condescension too. But when they're gone, I'm back in the wasteland; back in the grit and desert of my fantasy. I just want to build a fort and forget.
I allow the question to linger. Sometimes I think I need the tension that comes from unanswered questions. Sometimes I even like it. I can be satisfied enough just waiting for satisfaction. We rarely make eye contact; our conversations are always in motion, always moving, never going anywhere. Strange, but it doesn't drive me crazy anymore. I let it be. Stet.
We see from strange angles. We have no secrets, but we know all the city's. I think I climbed every tree in this park, and I've probably pissed on every tree in that one. At some point at least one of us will be naked. How old are we, twelve? Don't think we ever grew up. Our time lines are made from movable pieces. We are dogs, or rodents. We are a pack without the politics. When it's over I'll remember how foolish it all was, how futile. But I'll remember it with a grin -- a big, gormless, shit-eating grin.
I will hone the edge of summer to its sharpest point, to stab into the heart of November and out through March's back. I hate March. I hate November. I need December and I need January. I always forget about February. None of that matters anyway. I'm remembering, in a place where every day is pretty much the same, the trash heap on the docks -- massive, easily the size of a hill, made of scrap metal skeletons and the unidentifiable remains of physical infrastructure. Tools, pylons, rebar, gaskets, drums, bolts, bearings, casings, bits, mounts, chassis, cables, and rust, exhumed from the foundations of the little port city and displayed, for a time, auburn and cold, on the dock to wait for the Stygian ferry, the godhand to clutch and drag away. Waiting to be out of sight, and out of mind. I used to approach the scrap heap as if it were a sleeping beast, shapeless and terrible. You couldn't even touch it, every point was blood. But I so wanted to dive in, to burrow my way beneath the dome and live like some trashlord fox. One day the whole damn thing was gone, lifted away like my hat in a headwind.
We always keep in mind the silly game we are taught to play with authority, and obediently tuck our cheap beer cans into our sleeves while the cruisers slide past. They make me uncomfortable; they are reminders. They don't let me forget this isn't a lawless wasteland (although I'm not really too sure). I know I am being watched; my bravado is a frog's croak on the highway. My rebellion is met with ambivalence, tolerance, condescension too. But when they're gone, I'm back in the wasteland; back in the grit and desert of my fantasy. I just want to build a fort and forget.
I allow the question to linger. Sometimes I think I need the tension that comes from unanswered questions. Sometimes I even like it. I can be satisfied enough just waiting for satisfaction. We rarely make eye contact; our conversations are always in motion, always moving, never going anywhere. Strange, but it doesn't drive me crazy anymore. I let it be. Stet.
We see from strange angles. We have no secrets, but we know all the city's. I think I climbed every tree in this park, and I've probably pissed on every tree in that one. At some point at least one of us will be naked. How old are we, twelve? Don't think we ever grew up. Our time lines are made from movable pieces. We are dogs, or rodents. We are a pack without the politics. When it's over I'll remember how foolish it all was, how futile. But I'll remember it with a grin -- a big, gormless, shit-eating grin.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Nathaniel Hoyt: How to hate sports and influence others.
Maybe it was a little fucked up for my mother to do what she did, but I can't now, nor ever really could, blame her. Stuck in a loveless relationship for far too long, and - let's face it - being a passionate woman, she threw herself at him with a ferocity that only the mortally terrified atheist can have. Closing in on fifty, gaining speed over that hill, I can understand her need to have someone else beside her to enjoy what remains. Still, I would've appreciated a little warning before I found myself watching her and a stranger cuddle on a little blue loveseat in the stranger's suspiciously tidy home. Just a little heads up would've been nice before my sister and I had to wonder just who this man was who'd suddenly earned such an exultant position in my mother's life.
As if all this weren't suspicious enough, this man's - this stranger's - favorite place to hang out was a dingy faux-Irish restaurant in a strip mall. There, incidentally, one could also find my red-nosed English teacher after - say - three-fifteen most afternoons. Boy, did this teacher love hating to see me come in with my mom and the man, but I can't say I blame him either. To this day I still don't know why I had to go with them. I was old enough to look after myself, maybe twelve or thirteen by then. I figure my mom thought, too late, that I should get to know this new person who - despite suddenly occupying ostensibly the exact same role - I needn't regard as my new dad. Like hell I would! MY dad didn't hang out at a place called Kerrigan's run by two Italians name Sal and Lou. MY dad didn't cuddle! With anyone!
Lou and his wife, two more strangers, were buddies with the man - fine, his name is Allan. This meant, apparently, that Lou and his wife were also buddies with us - my mother and me. Some Sundays we'd all sit down together during the buffet brunch, in the awful-ugly smoke-stained brown and green vinyl booths. While the adults talked, I would quietly contemplate the poisonous nature of passive obedience, praying all the while for a fire in the kitchen, an exploded gas main, or anything to get me out of that place and away from these insufferable people. Their talk was so full of names and places I'd never encountered before that it was essentially incomprehensible to me. To this day there is nothing more tedious to me than being forced to listen to a stranger's gossip.
Sometimes there would be a few younger girls there, nieces of Lou and his wife. Although I was only three years older, I looked on them as barely hatched things, almost as unpleasant to see as they were to hear. They knew I was older, and with girls that young being older is just about the most fascinating thing you can be. They asked me about a thousand questions in drippy voices the color of plastic sequins and Kool-Aid: do you like this and do you like that? What's your favorite this, what's your favorite that? But their souring tone and narrowing eyes made it obvious that they were beginning to get a feel for what a nerd I was. The interrogation persisted until finally, getting frustrated at how disappointing I'd turned out to be, the uglier girl asked, "what sports do you play?"
"None," I said, bored, eager to confess to anything that might annoy these young things into leaving me alone.
"What do you mean," she asked, "you don't play anything?"
"Nothing," I said too loudly. "I hate sports!" Despite how inconsequential that seems now, I saw my mother, a stranger herself amongst this new clique and therefore also insecure, visibly tense up. Because she was responsible for me, because I was an extension of her own self, her acceptance into this new scene was dependent upon my own acceptance. It was the first time I'd noticed my mother get embarrassed by me. What I'd said was not a small remark to her. Lovesick as she was, and uncompromising in her efforts to win her crush's affection, to her what I'd said was a confession of the unforgivable crime of being different. She knew, instinctively, that what the world likes least is someone different, so after a shouting match on the drive home she eventually told me, acidly, "keep your opinions to yourself. You don't want to seem weird." I would often be told to stop being “weird" after that.
Nowadays I'm an openly weird man living in a mostly weird-friendly city. I have weird friends and weird hobbies. I don't have to secretly despise professional sports anymore and perhaps because of that my derision has mellowed. Or, more likely, it's because as I've gotten older I've noticed so many absurdities in the world around me that to give them all their due attention would require entirely too much energy and would eventually, definitely, drive me absolutely batshit. At any time I could ponder the fact that Derek Jeter's 2010 contract is to the tune of $21 million; enough money that were it to be spread around, it would do enormous tangible good to countless more deserving people. That's a sum of money that no argument - no argument - can be made to justify. I could suck on that one for a while, but I try not to. Because, in this our fucked up free market economy, if people want to throw money at the MLB, then the MLB has every right to throw money at Derek Jeter. All I can do is stay out of it and encourage my friends to do the same. So, my friends: go out there and throw or kick a ball around. Score a point if that's what makes you feel good. But please stop giving your money to Derek Jeter. There will always be professional sports. If everybody suddenly stops watching and starts playing, the only thing that's going to happen is that the quality of the play will improve. Seriously, America, get fucking with it already.
As if all this weren't suspicious enough, this man's - this stranger's - favorite place to hang out was a dingy faux-Irish restaurant in a strip mall. There, incidentally, one could also find my red-nosed English teacher after - say - three-fifteen most afternoons. Boy, did this teacher love hating to see me come in with my mom and the man, but I can't say I blame him either. To this day I still don't know why I had to go with them. I was old enough to look after myself, maybe twelve or thirteen by then. I figure my mom thought, too late, that I should get to know this new person who - despite suddenly occupying ostensibly the exact same role - I needn't regard as my new dad. Like hell I would! MY dad didn't hang out at a place called Kerrigan's run by two Italians name Sal and Lou. MY dad didn't cuddle! With anyone!
Lou and his wife, two more strangers, were buddies with the man - fine, his name is Allan. This meant, apparently, that Lou and his wife were also buddies with us - my mother and me. Some Sundays we'd all sit down together during the buffet brunch, in the awful-ugly smoke-stained brown and green vinyl booths. While the adults talked, I would quietly contemplate the poisonous nature of passive obedience, praying all the while for a fire in the kitchen, an exploded gas main, or anything to get me out of that place and away from these insufferable people. Their talk was so full of names and places I'd never encountered before that it was essentially incomprehensible to me. To this day there is nothing more tedious to me than being forced to listen to a stranger's gossip.
Sometimes there would be a few younger girls there, nieces of Lou and his wife. Although I was only three years older, I looked on them as barely hatched things, almost as unpleasant to see as they were to hear. They knew I was older, and with girls that young being older is just about the most fascinating thing you can be. They asked me about a thousand questions in drippy voices the color of plastic sequins and Kool-Aid: do you like this and do you like that? What's your favorite this, what's your favorite that? But their souring tone and narrowing eyes made it obvious that they were beginning to get a feel for what a nerd I was. The interrogation persisted until finally, getting frustrated at how disappointing I'd turned out to be, the uglier girl asked, "what sports do you play?"
"None," I said, bored, eager to confess to anything that might annoy these young things into leaving me alone.
"What do you mean," she asked, "you don't play anything?"
"Nothing," I said too loudly. "I hate sports!" Despite how inconsequential that seems now, I saw my mother, a stranger herself amongst this new clique and therefore also insecure, visibly tense up. Because she was responsible for me, because I was an extension of her own self, her acceptance into this new scene was dependent upon my own acceptance. It was the first time I'd noticed my mother get embarrassed by me. What I'd said was not a small remark to her. Lovesick as she was, and uncompromising in her efforts to win her crush's affection, to her what I'd said was a confession of the unforgivable crime of being different. She knew, instinctively, that what the world likes least is someone different, so after a shouting match on the drive home she eventually told me, acidly, "keep your opinions to yourself. You don't want to seem weird." I would often be told to stop being “weird" after that.
Nowadays I'm an openly weird man living in a mostly weird-friendly city. I have weird friends and weird hobbies. I don't have to secretly despise professional sports anymore and perhaps because of that my derision has mellowed. Or, more likely, it's because as I've gotten older I've noticed so many absurdities in the world around me that to give them all their due attention would require entirely too much energy and would eventually, definitely, drive me absolutely batshit. At any time I could ponder the fact that Derek Jeter's 2010 contract is to the tune of $21 million; enough money that were it to be spread around, it would do enormous tangible good to countless more deserving people. That's a sum of money that no argument - no argument - can be made to justify. I could suck on that one for a while, but I try not to. Because, in this our fucked up free market economy, if people want to throw money at the MLB, then the MLB has every right to throw money at Derek Jeter. All I can do is stay out of it and encourage my friends to do the same. So, my friends: go out there and throw or kick a ball around. Score a point if that's what makes you feel good. But please stop giving your money to Derek Jeter. There will always be professional sports. If everybody suddenly stops watching and starts playing, the only thing that's going to happen is that the quality of the play will improve. Seriously, America, get fucking with it already.
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