everything except himself

He lived everything forward. In the morning, he got up, went straight to the bathroom — he’d laid his clothes out the night before — on to the shower, ate breakfast after shaving, brushed his teeth, and went out the door. Rising from bed, he would sometimes feel as though he were pushing against something. His doctor said it was his age — he was an old man. The old man always informed his doctor that the opinion was only half right, went to get his prescriptions filled, went home, ate dinner, laid out his clothes for the next day, took his pills, and got ready to get up the next morning.

He talked to himself. He would sometimes say things when he pushed his way out of bed. His wife had heard all sorts of things — that is, before she had passed on. She had once remarked to a friend that she was worried about her husband. She was so frightened once by the tone in her husband’s voice that she thought a burglar or a robber — as though there were really any distinction — had startled her husband and moved him on to a rage. She told of how he made the most strained and forced noises. Now, her friends all knew her to tell stories high as the Sears Tower, but she convinced them all to gather around the apartment door one morning, bright and early at 5:00 — precisely at five is when the old man woke up every morning. Well, what a sound they heard! One of them almost had the mind to call 911 for an ambulance or the police or something.

He didn’t like rainy days. He would always yell the loudest on mornings when the weather was bad. He’d always mumble to himself about how “it wasn’t enough already” and “you just got to go and do that — today of all days.”

His life wasn’t especially exciting. In fact, the highlight of his day was getting up. The woman in the apartment next to his tried striking up conversation one time when she passed him in the hall — she had planned it, too, but never again! She asked him if he had company over that morning, on account of all the noise. He replied in a very serious way. He said he couldn’t get rid of the company fast enough! She knew — ’cause she’d watched and watched a lot — that he didn’t have any company. She didn’t try talking to him again.

His doctor told me a peculiar story. The old man had a heart condition. The doctor said that it took some doing, but his remaining family convinced him to get surgery. Well, they put him under, started to operate all serious-like, and there goes the old man hoopin’-and-a-hollerin’ like the comin’ of the Lord was upon us — the doctor-surgeon-man was a long-time Baptist. He said the old man was yelling all kinds of things, mostly hateful — like fightin’ words or something.

The man recovered. He seemed to get a little bit quieter though — I learned that from his nosey next-door neighbor, the one who about called an ambulance when she didn’t hear the old man screaming at 5:00 in the morning like usual. She probably should have. He was at the hospital by the end of the week.

Stingiest old man you ever saw! I was one of the hospital staff on hand when he came in. He grabbed me by the hand as we were rushing him to the ER. He said very deliberately his name and address. Then he told me that, just to the left of the apartment building, there was a funeral home and that, not a mile more, there was a cemetery — said it was his part not to be a burden, what with how much of a rip-off caskets were already.

Spoke in his sleep, too. You’d never believe what it is he was yelling about. I got to know him pretty well on account of working graveyard shifts and his garrulous out loud dreaming and all. I asked him about all of it one time when he was awake during my shift — we went to check on him because he wasn’t being noisy. He told me about how he had to yell all the time at time to keep it moving; otherwise, he’d catch up to it, on account of it being so slow — said that before that he yelled at it for taking his wife’s beauty away — said that he yelled at it because it hadn’t taken her with it! You should have seen the nurse’s eyes roll!

He died in his sleep. Honestly, I don’t know how he did it, being the way he was. It was on one of my off-days — poor guy probably thought he was doing me a favor, seeing as I was one of the regulars that took care of him.

Anyway, it went just like he said that first time I met him. He spent an afternoon at the funeral home, got visited by his family and a few people living in the apartment building next to the place, and then he moved on down the road to the cemetery, where he was gotten ready to get up and go the next day.

Well, pump me full of lead; I'll be an Iron Man.
Make it a heart; I'll be a lion.
Tear me to pieces for tryin',
But don't go blamin' me for dyin'
For all the things you been a-cryin'.
Gotta get my feet back on the ground and vyin'
For a place that's not so tryin'.
Whatever happened to livin', lovin', dyin'?
'cause loneliness is all I've been findin',
And loneliness ain't much of a finding.
I guess this ain't a happy ending,
More like a rough and awkward beginning.

Today’s just not my day. I guess the shower curtain didn’t like my poem because it fell and tried to take me with it.

Been busy-ish with school. Having trouble going to class because I was sick for a whole week, which predisposed me to avoid class the next week (and the cycle continued). Didn’t stop me from getting A’s on two of tests and a mid-range B on the third, though. No word on my graduation petition from the registrar yet, but it passed the IT department weeks ago now. Anyway, been getting tired at weird hours lately and it’s been affecting me pretty badly. Not going to class today either in favor of doing the outline for the test on Thursday.

Music:

320 (no amp)

320 (amplifier)

It's gotta be a party!
Yeah, you gotta be a part.
It's gotta be fancy!
Oh, you just gotta be a fan.
Yeah, it's gotta have substance.
Everybody's got a stance, for crying out loud.

But you gotta be substantial
-- And money talks --
So, you probably gotta be financial;
It's all about the dollars and cents.
We don't need your common sense!
We make the laws, my friend,
And one of us will be President in the end.

"Oh, it's good to be a candidate,"
And that's about the only candid moment you'll get.
The rest of the time I gotta use what I've spent 6 years to learn:
Time is just something to burn.
I'll throw everything at you that I can muster;
I've just gotta filibuster!
And who cares what I say,
As long as I get my way?

Woah, woah, woah!
"It should be illegal"?
You know, you don't seem normal...
But, you know, I'm a salesman at heart,
Here's an advil with which I'm willing to part.
Take it for the headache --
You deserve a break.

"Bite my tongue"?
Oh, you're no fun.
I'm not doing anything wrong.
Here, let me play you a pop song!

"You're not listening"?
But I hear you just fine with this thing!
I just received it in the mail,
And there's a warranty if it should fail:
It's a pack of ear plugs
That fit nice and snug.

See?
This is perfect for me.

It had just started to rain lightly as the tower’s maintenance man parked his utility van a block down from the tower, right in front of a mom and pop pizza shop he knew well. The shop, in the face of bankruptcy before the tower’s construction, has flourished since the tower was built. Back when the city hall building was still standing, no one came, until the proposal for the tower came up, that is. At first, the town hall meetings for the tower’s construction didn’t effect the shop’s business, since people still left the meetings to go eat at the newly built and highly advertised West End: Theater, Restaurant, and Grocery. Though it was much farther away than the pizza shop, everyone wanted to go feel like they were a part of something new, and, hey, it was popular at the time. So, people did it.

Now, what changed the West End fad? One day, as everyone was sitting together in the former city hall building — there is a new one being built — the people, forced to sit closely together for lack of space, were also forced into talking for the failing air conditioning unit.

“Boy, I can’t wait for this meeting to be over with. Wonder what’s takin’ em so long?” A man said this aloud to no one in particular.

“Hey, where y’all goin’ after the meeting?” It was a rhetorical question from a man dressed in a way that didn’t suit his drawl. “We’re all headed to the West End,” he continued, even though everyone already knew that everyone else was going to the West End, but saying it still had that kind of effect of impressing people.

All the while, the mom and pop of the mom & pop pizza shop were passing notes back and forth like high school kids, until pop broke into laughter and mom turned her head to snicker in secrecy.

“Hey, what’ch’all laughing about over there?” A different man asked. “Heat gone to your heads?”

“You know West End?” Pop asked.

“Yeah, an’ who doesn’t?” Another man broke in. “We’re all gonna go eat there later, maybe catch a movie, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s called ‘West End: Theater, Restaurant, and Grocery’, right?” Pop said it with a smile.

“And it’s the best thing what ever happened to this town!” A woman chimed in, leaning over the back of her chair.

“Yeah, yeah, but don’t you think it’s got the damnedest name?” Pop said, hinting at something with a wink.

“I mean, it’s long but I don’t mind saying ‘West End’. It sounds nice!” The woman was looking confused.

“Well, I got another name for it!” Pop shouted, looking around and standing up a bit to make sure all the others could see him. “Let’s spell it out! ‘West’ starts with a…” he waited.

“‘W’,” mom said, acknowledging her husband.

“‘W’!” Pop repeated it loudly, getting more people interested. “‘End’ starts with a what?”

“‘E’,” a few people said back, trying to figure out whatever pop was talking about.

“‘E’!” Pop was smiling. “‘Theater’ starts with…”

“‘T’,” more people shouted back in a kind of unison.

“‘T’, and that spells, ‘WET’!” Pop was turning around in place, with his finger pointing up at the ceiling. “Now what does ‘Rest-aur-ant’ start with?” Pop commanded.

“‘R’,” more and more people were interested.

“And ‘And’ starts with an ‘A’, and ‘Grocery’ starts with a ‘G’, and that spells all together…”

In one big guffaw, pop’s makeshift congregation shouted, “Wet rag!”

Like a lightning strike, this revelation shot through the crowd. Everyone realized they couldn’t be caught dead at a place called “Wet Rag” now that everybody knew about it. They had to come up with somewhere to eat after the already late-to-start meeting ended.

“So, where we gonna eat then?” A man asked his wife.

“Well, now!” Pop interrupted. “I don’t know if you know,” Pop was drawing them in, “but me and ma’ here we run a pizza parlor. We’d be real happy to see you all there after the meetin’.” Pop was smiling the same smile he wore when he and ma’ applied for the loan to start up their business 10 years ago. It worked then…

“Now, I don’t know if I speak fer everyone here, but I know I don’t know where that is…” The man pop interrupted said back.

“We’re right down the road! You can probably see it from the winduh!” Pop was pointing out the window. “See? There it is!” Not that anybody could see it — not that anybody had seen it for all the times they’d probably driven past it — but Pop’s confidence made it seem like it was there. “So, can we ’spect y’all there after the meeting?” Pop was still smiling the smile, the one that got him the loan — the very same one that got him his wife, even!

“Well, shucks, it’s right there, too. ‘course’n I’ll be there,” said the man back to pop. “How ’bout y’all?” The man was striking up the crowd.

It worked, though. Mom and pop hadn’t seen so much business ever before in their 10 years of running the pizza shop. It’s really amazing how it all worked out, since they served well over a hundred people that night, but now, the catch is, just what were ma and pa writing back and forth to each other:

This is what ma wrote: “Sure is hot.”

And pa: “Yeah.”

And ma: “We should leave this joint. They ain’t even got A/C.”

And pa: “We can’t just leave, ma.”

And ma, again: “Then you better come up with an excuse!”

And pa after a few seconds to think: “Okay, you start laughing.”

And ma, kinda upset: “You gonna tell ‘em I’m crazy or something! No, sir!”

And pa, again: “You wanna leave, don’t'cha? Just start laughing. I’ll do it, too.”

Ma and pa have been busy almost every day since then, and that’s how it all started, with them just wanting to leave. Of course, you couldn’t exactly tell other people that’s how your business took off. You have to come up with a good story, like, “That new tower’s what brings us all our business. You’d never believe it’s been standing for five years already!” It’s not like they’re lying when they say that, either. It was the meetings, and the tower has been up for 5 years at this point; it’s just it isn’t the whole truth, but who has to know?

Things I’ve yet to add:

• Establishing the time of day (it’s dusk and partly cloudy).
• Maybe clarify the references to Myspace.com profiles.
• Make the overloaded profile page idea more outrageous than I’ve presented it.
• Maybe add words like “thin” and “empty” or “basic” to help guide the reader through to the purpose of the online conversation part.

Part II - The Nation of Neglected Children, Profile of a Child of the City

Since the tower’s construction and subsequent activation, things have changed in the city. There seems to be a growing divide between people; the social landscape of the whole city has been altered by this thing! If you were to look down the city’s main road toward the tower, you’d understand: you can see the two sides of the city — the left and the right — and what looks like a deep and fearsome gash — the tower — separating the two. Looking at it again, maybe it’s more like an incision, as though someone had skillfully pierced the fabric of the city, taken out some important part, and sewed it up neatly, albeit noticeable, so that people could overlook it. If you’re curious, they commercialized it and sold it for profit like organs on the black market. That important thing — whatever you want to call it — got replaced with a lifeless “equal-value” alternative lifestyle.

Take this boy, for example. Male. 16 years old. That City, That Place. Looking for Friends. His day consists of sneaking text messages to his friends during class and chatting with those same friends online after school. However, he’s never met most of these “friends” in-person, face-to-face. Still, he has a girlfriend and a best friend all the same. If he’s never met these people in-person, how did he come into contact with them? Imagine, if you will, a place where you can post one long personal ad, complete with a description of who you are, pictures, your favorite songs, your favorite bands, videos, and the ability to comment on every part of it. Now, quit imagining; it’s reality. This kid has poured his whole life into such a page, and anyone with wireless access can view it. His “friends” — read “complete strangers” — saw his page and, having pages of their own, added him to their friend list. That’s how the makeshift relationship between the boy and these people started.

“lol! i liek ur new pic,” his girlfriend comments on his page around the time the boy would get home from school.

“yea i was tired of being like every ne else,” he replies on her page. “u like the pose? :D”

“me likey <3,” his girlfriend continues the conversation after about 10 minutes.

“well if i do change i change for myself and not for anyone else,” he posts back on her page. The part he left out was how he kept reloading his page to see if she’d commented and how he’d made sure to wait a minute or two before replying in order to make it look like he wasn’t being desperate.

“lol ur so sexyyyyyy. hehe and dont be sorrry. lol hehehehehhe,” she replies quickly.

“lol thanks,” he says. “wait, sorry about what?” Now he’s nervous.

And then there was nothing from her. An hour went by before he decided to check her page only to find he’d been blocked from viewing it! Fear and sadness came creeping into his heart like thieves, bent on stealing his common sense. Those time-honored masters did it, too. The boy, rife with confused thoughts, posted on his best friend’s page, “hey can u see her site?”

“her? o yea y wouldnt i b able to?” his friend replied shortly.

“can u check her mood for me?” the boy was on edge.

“o dude it sez she’s angry, sry man,” his friend returned.

The boy was crushed. To be blocked was to be purposely ignored, hated. Logging on to a different account he’d created out of paranoia some time before, he visited her page as that alter ego. Without even looking around the page, he found the area to send her a comment and went off: “i can’t b lieve u!! danny was teh best thing that ever happend 2 u and how cud u du that 2 him and youre going 2 die alone some day and regret it all the way to hell u fake!!!!” As soon as the comment had been posted, he stormed away from his desk in a rush to be anywhere but in that moment. Stealing the keys to his mother’s car from the coffee table, he ran out, slamming the door to their gloomy little apartment on his way out.

Starting in the parking deck across the street, the boy drove his mom’s car down onto the city street. A honk came from behind him, as he drove slowly down the road — really, where do you drive to when you’re a mess? In a split-decision to go forward on this side-road or turn right, he chose right, turning onto one of the city’s main roads. Like a boat dead in the water, the boy was looking for anything that could save him, and then he saw it — the tower — floating there down the road, off in the distance. In a sudden moment of anger, he shifted all of the blame for his pain to that inanimate object.

“I’ll kill you,” he muttered, driving towards it with the setting sun at his back. “I’ll kill you,” closer. “I’ll kill you,” closing in on the tower. “I hate you and your damn blinking lights!” 60 miles per hour, “You’re stupid and ugly!” 80 miles per hour, “I wish you’d never been built!” 90 miles per hour, “Go to hell!” And then it happened; he heard it — the unmistakable song that his phone played when his girlfriend was calling — but it was too late to save himself. He stomped his foot on the brake pedal, pulled up the emergency brake, but, instead of getting the car to stop, he crashed it into the massive base of the tower. In an instance of screeching wheels, crunching metal, and the shattering of glass, the tower turned off with a massive heave, as it and all of its artificial lights were drained of their electricity.

Part I - The Tower

There is something broken at the center of the city. Where once there was a vibrant pulse, all that can be observed now is a flat line. That flat line runs about for twenty or so feet each way to form a square, which is the foundation of a monumental, state-of-the-art broadcasting tower, but, in fact, that foundation is also the only thing left of the old City Hall building. Built on top of that foundation — around which the whole city was built — is now another flat line, which extends up from the city and goes on as far as the eye can see: the new center of the city is a gigantic, self-maintaining, lifeless tower.

For all the opponents to the tower being built where it now stands, tall and impregnable, many more were thinking about the positive changes this new structure would bring: anyone within the city’s proximity would be provided with free and unlimited access to all of the special content just floating around in the city’s information-saturated air. Yes, there would be no land lines or wires, and there would be no strings attached! Phones, computers, TVs — all revolutionized by this one edifice! Even the city’s remote-controlled traffic lights could be run in-tandem with the tower! So, how could the city not build this tower? Really, the issue was never the building of the tower but where it was to be built and what it was to replace, but this facet of the argument was largely glossed over by the tower’s proponents.

For better or for worse, the tower now stands — looms — at the center of the city, and, at night, it can be seen from anywhere in the city. It lights up one of millions-upon-millions of tiny diodes as proof of some tiny bit of information being received or transmitted, and there are lots of people in the city. As proof of this fact, the part of the tower that can be readily seen from the ground is always lit up in a most magnificent way. However, much like the moon, the tower, by itself a dark hunk of cold and inanimate white, merely reflects the light of the bright sun that is human communication, but who among the people of this city recognizes this? Indeed, for all the tower’s brilliance, the city has even taken down its streetlights in favor of that ominous and deceptive ever-glow.

So, this update is courtesy of receiving 10 or so spam messages, which made me log into Wordpress, which, in turn, made me check other things, which prompted me to install the latest Wordpress release candidate. Wordpress essentially looks like MoveableType now, except that it’s surprisingly fast.

I guess this has just been the time for me to change stuff. For instance, I upgraded from Windows 2000 Professional a few weeks ago to Windows XP. The upgrade, which went anything but smoothly (partly my fault for forgetting to reorder the boot order to include the CD-ROM drive), obviously left me without my questionably legal software. So, instead of Photoshop, I’ve got Paint.NET, since Microsoft wrote their latest edition of .NET for XP+, completely ignoring 2000. Instead of Office, I’ve got Open Office now, courtesy of Sun. “What? You don’t have Office now!?!!?!” Since I’m on XP, I can actually -install- the viewers for MS Office files — again, another Microsoft slap to the face to 2000. And now, sitting in front of my seemingly stable XP desktop, I can’t help but wonder… Was it my own choice, or was this something outside of my hands — some Microsoft payrolled voodoo witchdoctor-induced spell, perchance? I guess it’s basically Microsoft’s fault for psychologically telling me my computer “doesn’t work” — albeit, it’s fast, only crashed twice, and was streamlined — because I can’t run their “new” products (i.e. any MS Office product after the 2003 line).

On a side note, I’ve been doing a lot of drawing lately. “Okay, so scan some in!” Well, I’ve been doing it at work, so… But! Don’t get me wrong, if they tell me to take them down out of the break room, I’ll scan them in. I might just take them. Anyhow, drawing at work has a big benefit, other than passing 4+ hours: (1) only [nosy] people who want to see your drawing will comment on it, (2) those [nosy] people (your audience) give real comments (as opposed to, “Looks good.”), and (3) they offer ideas when I say I’m not going to persue it.

In closing, here’s a list of the stuff I’ve drawn at work (no particular order): (1) x3 panels of a Regal Cinemas lobby, which include funky, decorated columns (one, two, three w/o column), (2) a bust of Shrek off a Shrek 3 hand-out poster (taken by request of a little kid), (3) Horton from a Horton Hears a Who mobile thing (left at post where it was probably thrown away), (4) the car from the Speed Racer movie, (5) x2 still-life pictures of straw dispensers (one, two), (6) the rat-looking thing from Horton Hears a Who, and (7) Puss-in-Boots from a Shrek 3 standee (2 parts). Also: sneaky bonus material you didn’t ask for.

Oh, it's the darndest thing
To see that thing take wing.
It trips and it falls
And it kind of crawls,
But, when it finally reaches the sky
And you catch the look in its eye,
You'd think it thought it were a king or something. 

It's something else, really.
You know, if it were me,
I'd stick to watching the ground from the sky,
Somewhere way up high,
Instead of treading on unknown territory
And proving that life and fate and gravity are all still dejectory to your planned trajectory.
If you can't believe that,
Just watch Earth's laws lay this dumb bird down flat.

You'd almost think he didn't know he was a bird,
The way he always acts so absurd.
You'd think he'd have learned to be graceful,
At least how to hide it, no matter how awful,
But, you know, he's awfully cheeful,
Dragging mouth after mouth and claw after claw full.
Never mind that he never makes it very far,
He's his own personal Caesar. 

Look, now he's trying to cross that river!
Well, he's floating or gliding, maybe either,
And probably drowning a bit.
And, you'll all qip,
"Really, in a river, he shouldn't have carried so much,"
But he's extinct now, anyhow.

This is part of what I’m submitting to creative writing for an upcoming meeting. The rest of it is at home, so I’ll add it when I leave college for the day.

I stood alone at the onset of the part,
Blinded by the spotlight's piercing dart:

"Who can say what a man is?
The choice is only his."

I drew that line from a mem'ry,
Some great fire's puff of smoke caught in a chim'ney,
And now I find myself in a haze,
Trying to think back to those days,
The days that seem so far away,
Like the brief curtain draw 'fore a play.
And though for now it be gone,
It will again shadow the spot I act upon.

Is it greed to want attention,
To want to effect some lasting retention?
Or is it only honorable to pass without mention,
To fade from the forefront into declension?

Before this curtain fall,
I will strike you all;
I will present you with my every day,
And sell it to you in a most colorful way:

I will steal a face from my audience,
Wear it like a mask in every sense:
After a time, I will consume it,
Take another, and assume it.
And, when I am floating in a sea of two-sided faces,
I will call you from your places:
"Here is your trial:
Find yours amongst the pile!"
And I will pick them from the sum,
And hand them out to everyone:
"This is the story's maxim:
Yours is the same as his, as hers, as them!"
And I will take the mask that's left,
And place my face into its cleft,
And just as you will go to interrupt me, burst,
"I am man!" and interrupt you first.