henrymilesoxfor
01-25-2012, 11:48 PM
There had been no tangible warnings in nature. Lions had not lain down with lambs in any African bush farm, and suicidal birds had not cast themselves toward the ocean in horrifying waves. But all the same, everybody knew.
The dread and inevitability had come to them all at once. Lower than a deep voice or note, more like an understanding. On some previously undiscovered frequency, every one of seven billion, at once connected without cynicism or irony, knew the feeling of resignation.
As those in Asia slept, their dreams gained a strange lucidity. In the western world millions in mid-conversation trailed off and attempted to process the news. It lasted a moment and just as quickly they were all back offline, the source of their strange understanding vanishing into the ether from which it came.
Without understanding why they understood, they tried to resume their social interactions. Those who weren’t alone at the time could quickly recognize the same macabre resignation in the eyes of their condemned peers and found any corroboration that they hardly needed.
Ewan was not engaged in conversation at the time. He had just exposed himself during a come to Jesus meeting in his adult distraction class. One by one the instructor led them to air unfinished business in front of the marginal hospitality of the group.
He strolled up to the center, the closing act after watching men yell and girls sob uncontrollably. Having observed the previous hour he had prepared his righteous indignation. He would jut his jaw out and make bold declarations like, “Who are you to…” and “Got no right.” It would be choppy and forceful, to show that he’d been hurt but had hardened.
“Hi, I don’t know if you remember me. I don’t remember your name, but I was in your art class in 6th grade.”
The words came out anesthetized, his numb tongue unable to recreate the vivid emotions of his memory. He reminded himself that he wasn’t talking to the class, but to somebody who wasn’t in the room. He was still being polite.
“What you did…was…”
He paused, completely unprepared for the emotion that began to flood to the surface. It wasn’t angry, like he had wanted. He found himself choking back tears, as he started a tearful spewing of suburban white people problems, complete with tales of being picked on, people pointing out that his name had rhymed with “Pooin’,”not appreciating his artwork and in one shockingly real case, the teacher allowing the other students to convince him to kill himself. He was soon openly wailing.
“They said that nobody would miss me. There would be some assembly and everybody would scold the people in my class, but nobody would really give a ****. Which was probably true. But then you start laughing like it’s funny.”
The lights came up and the professor allowed everybody a short break. Any classmate attempting to console him was quickly shrugged off. At 30 years old, he was still embarrassing himself in public. Angry with himself, he sat in silent while everybody else took 10 minutes to congregate outside and cheer themselves up.
It was during the break that the stark moment of realization hit. Suddenly high school horror stories that did not involve actual rape had seemed vulgar. The ashen faces on his returning classmates had convinced him that he had not had yet another “nervous breakdown.”
The class returned from their break. Those who could sat behind easels and slowly shaped the form of the corroded vestiges of last night’s fading dream in chalk. Another resumed his yearlong quest to discover to understand a shade completely alien from the color wheel.
Those who could, the ones that had managed to smile and shake off their earlier emotions, engaged in a round of make believe, jumping forward midway into debate. One “couple” discussed the baby they’d decided to convert to Islam, while a man blew pot up a pregnant woman’s cooch. Another one, claiming to be a racist can of vanilla milkshake, berated a kid about “intelligent body sculpting.”
The energy soured. Jokes came off as diatribes while several wondered if it would be okay to grab the attractive girl from Texas, Libby. All the while the deadened look in their eyes did not contradict, but amplified the crazed effect of their manic overtures.
Genuinely fearing for his safety on the street, the instructor, as many had already begun, mapped out his way home, hoping that human nature hand not yet devolved into madness. Class was called off early.
But those on the streets had not matched the energy within the training studios. Most people did not focus on discovering their inner inhibitions for a fee, fewer still paid for it, and almost nobody had actually set out to secure a performing artist grant, as roughly 80% of the class had at one time.
The classmates had gathered briefly outside of the front door and made plans for the bar, much as they had every week. Several had declined. Much as they had every week. This time they were greeted with more than the usual prodding from Kevin and Brent smiling and scolding them for not coming out.
They went into Mustache Alley, a bar that most tourists had assumed was a gay club, though no self-respecting queen would ever step foot in the place. College types and 30-year-old baristas made up the bulk clientele.
A few pints in, a Kiwi from class named Pip had saddled up to Ewan. Ewan got up and walked off before she got the chance to patronize and or, empathize.
The energy of the class had spun off, and soon after the bartender was offering free drinks. Not feeling much of the newfound brotherhood of the place, Ewan found Mac standing by the pool table.
Mac had spent four years in the navy, and wasted another 22 in a small backwater town. His dabbling in Buddhism and the Mandolin were only meant to offset the dull persona. His rant in class earlier had been more a plea to himself for spending his youth sneaking into dive bars, waiting for his overgrown friends to pick a fight and get kicked out, and occasionally gang ****ing a consenting sophomore.
Neither of them had been much for billiards, and cursed and over-chalked their pool cues after every shot careened erroneously at strange angles. After their game mercifully came to an end they took a quick bathroom/drink break. When they had returned nobody had set another quarter on the table or seemed eager to play, but the 8-ball had been removed.
“All right. What the ****’s going on?”
The class had continued on doing impersonations of intimate objects and cracking themselves up in impromptu songs. The students had found an audience in the strangers who had come to the bar wanting more of a life affirming scene than most Wednesdays provide.
“Nobody’s going to give us the ****ing ball?”
“We’ll let you play, just don’t be a ****ing prick, okay?”
“Give us the ****ing 8-ball.”
Mac studied the room and realized that nobody would acknowledge his anger.
“C’mon man.”
“**** this.”
“I don’t even care about pool. You want to get out of here?”
Ewan looked around and noted that everybody else from class had already left.
“Yeah.”
The two finished off their pints and started to walk out. Suddenly Ewan spun around and snatched the cue ball.
“**** ’em.”
They stepped out into the warm air. The shops appeared to be locked down a little tighter.
“That’s probably enough self-discovery for one day, huh?”
“Whatever man. It’s just a ****ed up night is all.”
“No doubt. Gotta be one guy who pissed all over everything. How much longer to the wedding, man?”
Ewan raised an eyebrow.
“More than two weeks.”
“Right.”
Mac took a long breath and brushed his long hair off his face.
“Can’t be thinking about the future anyway. Good exercise.”
“What for?”
“Doesn’t have to be a ‘for’, you know. I started meditating, right, and the instructor tells us about seeing the ‘Third Eye.’ You know about the third eye?”
“Yeah. Can you do circular breathing?”
“No, shut up. Anyway, he starts talking about getting into a perfect…I don’t know. You just stop thinking. And then one day a few weeks in, bam. Third eye. I can see it man. And it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. But then I started thinking and it was gone. So I spent the next month trying to find it.”
“Did you do it?”
“Every now and then. But that’s not the point. The third eye is just some bull**** trick. I was missing the whole ****ing point of meditation.”
“What is the point of meditation?”
“I don’t know. ****ing relaxation. Whatever. The point is you don’t go looking for enlightenment. Meditation is its own thing. You don’t really do it for anything.”
Ewan pulled the cue ball out of his pocket.
“You’re still pissed at those guys, huh?”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
Mac smiled.
“I know what you mean.”
The two turned back.
Inside the bar three classmates held court, having repurposed the pool table. Barefoot on the felt, they juggled the 13, 8 and 15 balls, while the classmates drank in a chain procession and cheered wildly.
Ewan and Mac had been breathing heavily and cursing to themselves for 3 blocks, having worked themselves into a proper rush.
“What the ****?”
Mac eyed Brent, who despite all of his self-actualization, had still reminded him of the inbred local hill folk who would come into the valley and congregate in the muffler repair shop’s lot after hours.
“Found that 8-Ball, then?
“Yeah…listen.”
Mac shoved him in the chest, which sent an undersized ginger out from behind the bar. She grabbed his chest with bony hands, and looked up from her 5’2” frame.
“Take it to-go.”
Mac and Ewan left smirking at her baseless threat. She was tough in the way that women who knew they’d never have to back up their threats can come off as tough.
Ewan looked back at the three at the table.
“Why don’t you guys come out with us? Got your woman fighting your battles for you.”
“Get out of the bar.”
“Shut the **** up, troll.”
“Out.”
She screamed and slammed the door behind them. They walked over to the window and gestured until, finally, the three came out.
“Look, let’s just chill out. Been a long day.”
“Why’d you take our ball?”
“Because man. We need to acknowledge what had happened today. Not play pool.”
Ewan threw a punch but Brent stepped back, grabbed his shirt and slapped him in the back of his head. Two of the locals had grabbed both of Mac’s wrists, and he desperately tried to fight somebody.
After being spun around, ripping his jeans on the sidewalk, Ewan pulled the cue ball out and bashed it against Brent’s knee, dropping him to the sidewalk long enough to get up and kick him in the *** twice.
And suddenly the fight was over. Nobody really knew how to fight, so the argument had run its course before a knockout. Both Ewan and his man on the ground, looked at each other with a little embarrassment. Mac and the two others watched as Ewan let go of the cue ball. Brent grabbed the ball as it slowly rolled downhill toward him, and from his seat fired it across the street breaking a buzzing neon light.
Separating, Ewan and Mac walked home.
“What’s the third eye even look like?”
“It’s like when you rub your eyes really hard. There’s all these weird spots and lines floating around.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
The dread and inevitability had come to them all at once. Lower than a deep voice or note, more like an understanding. On some previously undiscovered frequency, every one of seven billion, at once connected without cynicism or irony, knew the feeling of resignation.
As those in Asia slept, their dreams gained a strange lucidity. In the western world millions in mid-conversation trailed off and attempted to process the news. It lasted a moment and just as quickly they were all back offline, the source of their strange understanding vanishing into the ether from which it came.
Without understanding why they understood, they tried to resume their social interactions. Those who weren’t alone at the time could quickly recognize the same macabre resignation in the eyes of their condemned peers and found any corroboration that they hardly needed.
Ewan was not engaged in conversation at the time. He had just exposed himself during a come to Jesus meeting in his adult distraction class. One by one the instructor led them to air unfinished business in front of the marginal hospitality of the group.
He strolled up to the center, the closing act after watching men yell and girls sob uncontrollably. Having observed the previous hour he had prepared his righteous indignation. He would jut his jaw out and make bold declarations like, “Who are you to…” and “Got no right.” It would be choppy and forceful, to show that he’d been hurt but had hardened.
“Hi, I don’t know if you remember me. I don’t remember your name, but I was in your art class in 6th grade.”
The words came out anesthetized, his numb tongue unable to recreate the vivid emotions of his memory. He reminded himself that he wasn’t talking to the class, but to somebody who wasn’t in the room. He was still being polite.
“What you did…was…”
He paused, completely unprepared for the emotion that began to flood to the surface. It wasn’t angry, like he had wanted. He found himself choking back tears, as he started a tearful spewing of suburban white people problems, complete with tales of being picked on, people pointing out that his name had rhymed with “Pooin’,”not appreciating his artwork and in one shockingly real case, the teacher allowing the other students to convince him to kill himself. He was soon openly wailing.
“They said that nobody would miss me. There would be some assembly and everybody would scold the people in my class, but nobody would really give a ****. Which was probably true. But then you start laughing like it’s funny.”
The lights came up and the professor allowed everybody a short break. Any classmate attempting to console him was quickly shrugged off. At 30 years old, he was still embarrassing himself in public. Angry with himself, he sat in silent while everybody else took 10 minutes to congregate outside and cheer themselves up.
It was during the break that the stark moment of realization hit. Suddenly high school horror stories that did not involve actual rape had seemed vulgar. The ashen faces on his returning classmates had convinced him that he had not had yet another “nervous breakdown.”
The class returned from their break. Those who could sat behind easels and slowly shaped the form of the corroded vestiges of last night’s fading dream in chalk. Another resumed his yearlong quest to discover to understand a shade completely alien from the color wheel.
Those who could, the ones that had managed to smile and shake off their earlier emotions, engaged in a round of make believe, jumping forward midway into debate. One “couple” discussed the baby they’d decided to convert to Islam, while a man blew pot up a pregnant woman’s cooch. Another one, claiming to be a racist can of vanilla milkshake, berated a kid about “intelligent body sculpting.”
The energy soured. Jokes came off as diatribes while several wondered if it would be okay to grab the attractive girl from Texas, Libby. All the while the deadened look in their eyes did not contradict, but amplified the crazed effect of their manic overtures.
Genuinely fearing for his safety on the street, the instructor, as many had already begun, mapped out his way home, hoping that human nature hand not yet devolved into madness. Class was called off early.
But those on the streets had not matched the energy within the training studios. Most people did not focus on discovering their inner inhibitions for a fee, fewer still paid for it, and almost nobody had actually set out to secure a performing artist grant, as roughly 80% of the class had at one time.
The classmates had gathered briefly outside of the front door and made plans for the bar, much as they had every week. Several had declined. Much as they had every week. This time they were greeted with more than the usual prodding from Kevin and Brent smiling and scolding them for not coming out.
They went into Mustache Alley, a bar that most tourists had assumed was a gay club, though no self-respecting queen would ever step foot in the place. College types and 30-year-old baristas made up the bulk clientele.
A few pints in, a Kiwi from class named Pip had saddled up to Ewan. Ewan got up and walked off before she got the chance to patronize and or, empathize.
The energy of the class had spun off, and soon after the bartender was offering free drinks. Not feeling much of the newfound brotherhood of the place, Ewan found Mac standing by the pool table.
Mac had spent four years in the navy, and wasted another 22 in a small backwater town. His dabbling in Buddhism and the Mandolin were only meant to offset the dull persona. His rant in class earlier had been more a plea to himself for spending his youth sneaking into dive bars, waiting for his overgrown friends to pick a fight and get kicked out, and occasionally gang ****ing a consenting sophomore.
Neither of them had been much for billiards, and cursed and over-chalked their pool cues after every shot careened erroneously at strange angles. After their game mercifully came to an end they took a quick bathroom/drink break. When they had returned nobody had set another quarter on the table or seemed eager to play, but the 8-ball had been removed.
“All right. What the ****’s going on?”
The class had continued on doing impersonations of intimate objects and cracking themselves up in impromptu songs. The students had found an audience in the strangers who had come to the bar wanting more of a life affirming scene than most Wednesdays provide.
“Nobody’s going to give us the ****ing ball?”
“We’ll let you play, just don’t be a ****ing prick, okay?”
“Give us the ****ing 8-ball.”
Mac studied the room and realized that nobody would acknowledge his anger.
“C’mon man.”
“**** this.”
“I don’t even care about pool. You want to get out of here?”
Ewan looked around and noted that everybody else from class had already left.
“Yeah.”
The two finished off their pints and started to walk out. Suddenly Ewan spun around and snatched the cue ball.
“**** ’em.”
They stepped out into the warm air. The shops appeared to be locked down a little tighter.
“That’s probably enough self-discovery for one day, huh?”
“Whatever man. It’s just a ****ed up night is all.”
“No doubt. Gotta be one guy who pissed all over everything. How much longer to the wedding, man?”
Ewan raised an eyebrow.
“More than two weeks.”
“Right.”
Mac took a long breath and brushed his long hair off his face.
“Can’t be thinking about the future anyway. Good exercise.”
“What for?”
“Doesn’t have to be a ‘for’, you know. I started meditating, right, and the instructor tells us about seeing the ‘Third Eye.’ You know about the third eye?”
“Yeah. Can you do circular breathing?”
“No, shut up. Anyway, he starts talking about getting into a perfect…I don’t know. You just stop thinking. And then one day a few weeks in, bam. Third eye. I can see it man. And it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. But then I started thinking and it was gone. So I spent the next month trying to find it.”
“Did you do it?”
“Every now and then. But that’s not the point. The third eye is just some bull**** trick. I was missing the whole ****ing point of meditation.”
“What is the point of meditation?”
“I don’t know. ****ing relaxation. Whatever. The point is you don’t go looking for enlightenment. Meditation is its own thing. You don’t really do it for anything.”
Ewan pulled the cue ball out of his pocket.
“You’re still pissed at those guys, huh?”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
Mac smiled.
“I know what you mean.”
The two turned back.
Inside the bar three classmates held court, having repurposed the pool table. Barefoot on the felt, they juggled the 13, 8 and 15 balls, while the classmates drank in a chain procession and cheered wildly.
Ewan and Mac had been breathing heavily and cursing to themselves for 3 blocks, having worked themselves into a proper rush.
“What the ****?”
Mac eyed Brent, who despite all of his self-actualization, had still reminded him of the inbred local hill folk who would come into the valley and congregate in the muffler repair shop’s lot after hours.
“Found that 8-Ball, then?
“Yeah…listen.”
Mac shoved him in the chest, which sent an undersized ginger out from behind the bar. She grabbed his chest with bony hands, and looked up from her 5’2” frame.
“Take it to-go.”
Mac and Ewan left smirking at her baseless threat. She was tough in the way that women who knew they’d never have to back up their threats can come off as tough.
Ewan looked back at the three at the table.
“Why don’t you guys come out with us? Got your woman fighting your battles for you.”
“Get out of the bar.”
“Shut the **** up, troll.”
“Out.”
She screamed and slammed the door behind them. They walked over to the window and gestured until, finally, the three came out.
“Look, let’s just chill out. Been a long day.”
“Why’d you take our ball?”
“Because man. We need to acknowledge what had happened today. Not play pool.”
Ewan threw a punch but Brent stepped back, grabbed his shirt and slapped him in the back of his head. Two of the locals had grabbed both of Mac’s wrists, and he desperately tried to fight somebody.
After being spun around, ripping his jeans on the sidewalk, Ewan pulled the cue ball out and bashed it against Brent’s knee, dropping him to the sidewalk long enough to get up and kick him in the *** twice.
And suddenly the fight was over. Nobody really knew how to fight, so the argument had run its course before a knockout. Both Ewan and his man on the ground, looked at each other with a little embarrassment. Mac and the two others watched as Ewan let go of the cue ball. Brent grabbed the ball as it slowly rolled downhill toward him, and from his seat fired it across the street breaking a buzzing neon light.
Separating, Ewan and Mac walked home.
“What’s the third eye even look like?”
“It’s like when you rub your eyes really hard. There’s all these weird spots and lines floating around.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”