Free and Clear by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 5
When Martha rises and drags herself into the kitchen I greet her with a big kiss and a cup of coffee. She struggles to be cordial. She is distracted as the precariously balanced rubber chicken requires her constant attention.
I turn on the radio and find a country music station. It is innocuous. There is nothing to offend, excite or turn off.
Carter Webstone’s exhilarated rendition of “Down at the Wi-Fi Bar” prompts me to seek an alternative.
Martha says; “Just shut it.”
Seeing that the cuckoo clock says that it is already 9:15AM, I ask; “Are you going to work today?”
“No. If this is the prize you get for doing what the overbearing idiots want, while tolerating the leering ass grab of the mama’s boys who want nothing more than to appear awkwardly virile to their male contemporaries, they can shove the whole thing up their fucking ass. The pushy bastards up yet?”
“I haven’t seen them.” I didn’t think that this was the best time to tell Martha about my visit with Schultzy.
“Hloop, hloop, hloop.”
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The sound has come to make me tense. I say; “How about we get the hell out of here today. We’ve never been downtown since they refurbished it. My clients tell me it’s nice.”
“Perfect reason to stay away.”
“True, true. Maybe it’ll be good for a laugh. And besides, do you want to stay here all day with Reba and David?”
“I booby-trapped the bedroom door.”
“Thanks for warning me.”
The constant fear that Reba and David would impose their discriminating presence compelled us to go downtown.
The new, made-to-look-old cobblestone streets were roped off to vehicular traffic. I like the as restriction as I am not inclined to pass over the slippery slate sidewalks. The old man in the orange day-glow vest waves us into the dirt lot which used to be Sweeney’s Horse Stable. We park and for the first time enter “Ben Franklin’s Village.”
I wonder if Ben owned the joint or if he merely took a percentage by authorizing the use of his name. We go looking for the horseshoe place, the saddle shop, the blacksmith, and most of all, the gunsmith. Instead we find pricey women’s clothes, video games and paraphernalia, restaurants boasting French cuisine and shops offering realistic stuffed animals for the not-too-destructive kids. Friendly merchants stand in front of
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their empty shops, smiling and waving. For a second I wonder if it is required to smile and wave back. Up until now I have only encountered the cultural spectacle with residents. Commercial interests are different. I decide that it is safer to stay on the cobblestone and smile and wave from a distance. Martha does the same, though her wave is made awkward by the chicken’s insistence on getting off.
While the original Ben Franklin probably never saw anything like the goods offered, he would have been in awe of the early American architecture displayed on the facades of the otherwise boxlike clapboard buildings. We casually walk and smile, the area costume. Not many shoppers are present, but the masks we wear become tiresome. The close proximity of the few early morning weekday strollers informed us of the degradation of the
“Smile and Wave” phenomenon. Presumably it was the population congestion which led to their degraded manifestation of a “Smile and Nod” approach. Or, perhaps they were from Jamaica. After a few confusing S&N’s we have difficulty making our lips appear upturned. No fashion commentaries are offered.
Martha devises an effective method of averting any possible anti-social accusation. She veers off the cobblestones to store windows and feigns interest in the cutesy fur bunny or silver plated tea set, her back to the tainted cheer. I learn quickly.
We risk the slick slate and find it preferable to deal with the
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consistent standards of the shopkeepers. I suppose I shouldn’t be, but nonetheless am surprised that no one comments on Martha’s choice in neckwear.
We approach an interesting sign which extends itself above the slate. “The Olde Leather Shoppe” is painted in black old English lettering on a suitably aged, very off white, wooden background, the hint of a green border visible if one concentrated. When we get there our excitement diminishes upon seeing a window display of pocketbooks. We frown at each other prior to our simultaneous spotting of the item toward the back, in the shadows. I don’t know what it is called and would be embarrassed to ask. But it looks like a black leather corset with slots in the back for the placement of non-ballistic arms.
The whole thing is tied in miles of leather string. I picture old Ben wearing it; the long back hair on his otherwise very bald head quivering violently as he desperately seeks freedom.
Martha smirks and withholds her thoughts.
We walk through the empty, outdoor, glass and iron dining facilities of the Minuteman, a restaurant with the daily specials chalked on a small outdoor blackboard, perhaps a remnant left by the paving contractor. There is an entry for Polish sausage at $6.99, but there remains plenty of open space for supplements.
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This restaurant has the best location in town. It’s on a bluff overlooking the Passaic River. One hundred feet above it one can see miles and miles upriver. The five storied old red mill which was once the town’s largest employer, now a museum of eighteenth century tools, and the waterfall next to it, is an ideal subject for a “pretty picture” calendar. The sound of the crashing water drowns out all noise. We stand at the edge and think that we are getting a gentle spray of mist. Though the morning is chilly it is not unpleasant. It is invigorating. We have our arms around each other and lose track of time, jobs, mortgages, homeless people, and money, blankly taking in the view and the feeling of being free and clear.
Some time later two toddlers yelp as they run to where we are; their parent’s trailing. It pleasantly breaks the mood. It takes no effort to instinctively smile and nod to each member of the family. We see that we are near the parking lot that used to be Sweeney’s Horse Stable and we leave Ben Franklin’s Village behind.
The slate sidewalks turn to concrete and the road is filled with cars. We have to be careful crossing and a Charger speeds by in front of us. It is full of teenagers who scream something indecipherable. I think; “At least they didn’t stop.” But, we are jarred back to reality.
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We get home and see reality squared. Reba and David are just inside the door carrying on some discussion they both find amusing. Martha says; “Hloop, hloop, hloop,” and goes directly to bed, shutting the door behind her.
Reba informs me in her chuckling best; “David’s favorite season is Christmas. After at age 10 he figured out that there was no Santa Claus, he regularly took his greatest pleasure in telling the other kids. This stopped when terminal acne set in.”
David follows with; “Hate is a safer emotion than love as it requires no overt reciprocation, though you know that it’s there.”
I say; “What’s going on is what you think is going on.”
David sneers and replies; “Take a look at people with cancer.” They are both so amused that they break into a little quick step dance and slap five, smirking at the floor.
I say; “Hloop, hloop, hloop,” and join Martha. We hloop at each other for a while. Then she says; “Can’t you think of some way of getting them out of here. I can’t stand this.” Her tone of voice strongly suggests that I should know some devious game.
I say; “My independent and equal co-obligor. You shock me with the inference that it is solely my responsibility.”
My independent and equal co-obligor uses both of her feet to push me out of bed. I decide that today is a good day to do something I’ve been putting off. Thaddeus Pabst has been after
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me to set up a hologram show, which he intends to emcee. He wants it to feature some of the people he considers most significant in the history of America, with a seemingly unconscious bias toward the ones who came to prominence during the end of the prior war-plagued century and this overwrought one.
Who cares if it is flawed? It fits my schedule. My project will be rather time consuming and Pabst always haggles over the price. But, today it is either two feet in the face, the derision of my new room-mates or a lengthy, tedious, not exceedingly stimulating task. It’s a no brainer.
Pabst has given me lists from time to time, showing eclectism, an unfocused mind, and too much time on his hands. He lists George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Timothy Leary, Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Adolph Hitler, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Oprah Winfrey, Johnny Rotten, Franklin D Roosevelt, Simone De Bouvier, Charlie Chaplin, The Sacred Cows, David Foster Wallace, Pope John Paul II, Snoop Dog, Eminem, Patti Smith, Bob Marley, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Mark Twain, Alfred Hitchcock, Newt Gingrich, Linda Lovelace, Albert Einstein, JR Oppenheimer, Bill Gates, Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Pablo Picasso, Huey Long, Andy Warhol, Johnny Carson, Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Dick Cheney, Robert McNamara, Lyndon LaRouche,
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David Berkowitz, Jonathan Franzen, Jayzee, Pee Wee Herman, Sonny Barger, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Manson, Tom Waits and Charles Manson.
I decide that it’s ridiculously too much work to program all the names. Besides, this is supposed to be a panel discussion; not a holiday parade. I check through my files and see that I already have “standardized” versions of the perennially popular holograms of David Berkowitz, Alfred Hitchcock, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Timothy Leary, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Adolph Hitler and Franklin D Roosevelt.
Being a diligent person who has had plenty of negative experience with generics produced anonymously, I check each to ensure that I will not wind up with something akin to that produced by the people who put together internet biographies.
While short stories have their place in my life, usually when the subject is of negligible and fleeting interest arising from tedium, when I really want to know something definitive about the one purportedly biographed, I don’t want to sit through
“insightful” one minute blurbs from pundits who have never known or met the subject.
My test check is okay within the constraints of what is expected in the realm of commercial popularity, with the exception of Mark Twain. His hologram is repulsed at the notion
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that his name is being used to promote the “work” of some repetitiously standard and nonspecific purveyor of “comedic”
poesy. His rumpled white suit begs a trip to the dry cleaner as he uncorks an invective which insists that the world which he was writing of has not existed for five generations. Those who invoke his name for personal gain do so with the cynical knowledge that they can no longer be definitively refuted after 150 years. He said that if he were forced to participate in this farce that he would use objectionable language and piss on the degraded and same old scene. He goes back into his Victorian splendor while showing me his oft-used digit.
While that sounds as if his show would be absolutely hilarious to me, I’d rather not risk the ire of a customer who pays well. I invoke Pablo Picasso, who is very amenable as he doesn’t believe in the potential of seriousness, despite Guernica. In his current incarnation or dis-incarnation, he ostensibly finds the whole thing absurdly amusing and says that;
“They have yet to find a way to misread pictures. Words confuse those desiring to be confused.”
I call Pabst and he tells me to come right over, though he also notes that he doesn’t get paid until Friday. I frown at myself and give him the ten names.
I get to his house and he is waiting at the door in a sports jacket and tie, the Windsor knot a bit loose. I tell him
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to put on pants and a shirt as Malcolm doesn’t want to see his dick. He grudgingly goes to his bedroom and comes out appropriately dressed for TV; though as it was envisioned by Fellini decades prior; heavy on the grotesque make up.
I start the computer and Pabst starts the movie camera, which sits motionlessly on a tripod. He sits behind a desk which has a small pile of papers, while the guests take seats in the ten empty chairs, five to each side of him.
Pabst smiles at the camera, introduces himself, and says that this is the first in a series of productions titled; “Where We Are.” He then introduces each of the guests, stumbling over David Foster Wallace, calling him Larry Bird. My hologram was programmed prior to the time of “Infinite Jest,” before David adopted the retro, long, messy, faux-hippy hairstyle. David grimaces and tediously makes the correction and Pabst mumbles something about his name being the longest one on the show, as he thinks he surreptitiously scratches. Wallace winces and says;
“Ted; I have my reservations, but I must ask you, is this the year of the Depend Adult Undergarment?”
Ted wonders how David knew his dirty little secret, and proceeds to try and gloss things over by re-focusing on the audience; which is the camera and me. Ted, then, pretended to ignore me and says to the camera; “The theme for tonight’s discussion is modern times, or perhaps I should say post-modern
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times. The brilliant minds present will present an outsider’s point of view, as our entire panel can refreshingly claim absolutely no expertise in the area .............. with the possible exception of Dave ................. Wallace. You remind me so much of Larry Bird. Did you play any basketball?”
David Foster Wallace: “Some tennis.”
Ted Pabst: “Well, let me throw this out to the ‘aliens’
present.” He chuckled, before continuing. Something like an un-orchestrated groan was heard. “What is the most significant aspect of being alive today?”
The “aliens” are silent as they are either uneasy in the question’s directness, disgusted by its pedestrianly common refrain or deprived of an insightful retort. They alternate their gazes from the ground beneath them to each other.
Ted Pabst: “I didn’t expect such a shy group. Let me direct the focus to Thomas Jefferson. You have a long view, and perhaps you can start us off with a broad issue.”
Thomas Jefferson: “If I recall correctly, your question was; ‘What is the most significant aspect of being alive today?’
Was it not?”
Ted Pabst nods affirmatively.
Thomas Jefferson shrugs and says; “Being alive, of course.”
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Malcolm X raises his clenched fist toward Thomas Jefferson.
I interpret that as a show of malice. But, he nods agreeably and says; “My brother!”
Franklin D Roosevelt bows his head somewhat, not in the least deferentially; but only as a mechanism to raise the pupils in his eyes to observe his two fellow panelists imperiously. He says; “Having a sense of humor goes a long way in coping with 2035. ......... That is not to say that a sense of humor was useless in prior times, but it seems obvious to me that it tops the priority list today. They’ve virtually undone everything my administration stood for, and seem to have substituted the poorly-communicated philosophy of Ayn Rand.”
Malcolm X: “Bitch couldn’t even write a book competently.”
Franklin D Roosevelt: “Here, here. Yet, in popular polls seven of her books are on the top 100 list.”
Alfred Hitchcock: “I haven’t had the pleasure. Are any suitable for a low budget movie?”
David Berkowitz: “You really should consider doing one about a serial killer. I know it’s been played, but they’re always popular with teenage boys. You can film at night anywhere you’d like.”
David Foster Wallace: “It seems to me that the only question becomes how long does it take for the purveyors of
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popular entertainment to be absorbed by the system and become part of the beasty oppressor. Drugs are ...............
Che Guevara cut him off to angrily interject; “What the fuck are you talking about, man? Where’s the system that’s going to absorb me? Bull fucking shit.”
David Foster Wallace: “You suggest that you were a part of something perennially new; an infinite, un-absorbable revolution. That kind of sentiment is on prime time TV, played for absurd humor.”
Malcolm X scratched his un-itchy nose with the middle finger of his right hand and said; “Those lacking creativity find solace in bemoaning its impossibility. I don’t know where you come from. But, your defeatism is an excellent rationale for a continuation of the status quo. The privileged have yet another spokesperson and call him genius. Personally I find it intolerable and injudicious in its stupid and timid caution. I suppose you’ll issue some long-winded diatribe to the contrary.”
Alfred Hitchcock: “Try and find the man. He sabotages and then hides.”
Timothy Leary: “Turn on, tune in and drop out.”
Pablo Picasso: “I did and got rich for it. It was great. I could do anything I wanted. The women all wanted to play. What’s wrong with that?”
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Adolph Hitler: “The decadent ways of the darker races are obviously inherent in what you say. The productive Germans inevitably become ones from which to steal. I say those times are over and done.”
Pablo Picasso: “Oh, shut up. You’re just another failed and angry artist desperate for infamy. If you were around today you would be one of the ordinary, weekly cretins who kill children at an elementary school.”
Thomas Jefferson; “You can make light of it if you will.
But, I’m proud to say that I was part of the establishment of something new on this planet; a system which has the ability to re-define itself; which also embodies an opportunity for a necessary constancy.”
Malcolm X: “Save that double-speak for the soapbox.”
Pablo Picasso: “I don’t make light. I merely depict it.”
David Foster Wallace: “Try writing a book. People believe anything when it’s in print form. Pictures don’t point out the salient aspects.”
Ted Pabst: “I’m going to have to interject. The question wasn’t about personal observations gleaned in antiquity, but what it is like now. Can someone please address that?”
Silence pervaded the room.
Ted Pabst: “Pablo. Can you get us started?”
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Pablo Picasso: “There is artistic stasis. Those with the audacity to call themselves artists duplicate what has already been done. I’d consider it a total write-off after Warhol.”
Adolph Hitler: “More than ever the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few; always a prognostication of economic disaster. If I were alive today I would easily rise to power, merely by speaking clearly to the long suffering people.” He rose and gave the Nazi salute, vehemently saying; “National Socialism for America now!”
David Foster Wallace’s laughter was heard though his mike was off.
Timothy Leary: “I couldn’t agree more.” He didn’t specify with whom. “However, what has been said derives from a larger theme. Money is the highest priority. Consequently, the possible architects of the new revert to the old, as something already proven attracts dollars better than an unknown. The unhappy kiddies have themselves to blame.”
Che Guevara: “It is an illusion to think that one is fighting for the masses. The masses have only enough foresight to see that the nuclear dump situated in their back yard will provide a few jobs, and that is better than what they have. End of game; the distressed and clueless suckers lost. They get what their cowardice deserves.”
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Thomas Jefferson: “We fought for the sucker’s right to lose. The will of the people is rightfully theirs to contaminate.”
Malcom X: “White devils won’t let us have the freedom to contaminate our own back yard; you included. Ain’t black pussy the greatest? I know you know.”
Pablo Picasso: “Some brown chicks also know how to boogie.
For a while I knew this Spanish gypsy. Man, when I tell you that those were the happiest times of my life, I tell you .......”
Ted Pabst rudely interrupts Pablo’s verbal depiction, saying; “I think that we’re again getting off track. I’m interested in your perceptions of what it is like to be alive today. More importantly, so are the sponsors. .......... So, let’s try to get to a dialogue which will play in Middle America. .......... Franklin, you know how to appeal to the masses. Perhaps you can share your thoughts.”
Franklin D Roosevelt: “The American people are a good, courageous people; always were, always will be. In 2035 they are faced with a new challenge. All is now known, they are sufficiently educated to think so, or at the very least they are miserably incompetent at executing change. Everyone knows the pigeon hole in which they fit and where the others reside. This is obviously a condition of loggerheads drawn in perfectly straight, separating, table-produced lines; a technological
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‘improvement,’ manufactured for profit by the rapidly advancing and thereby overwhelming lords of information. The people still believe that they are the good guys, but, in their “wisdom” they are no longer united with the disparate experiences of the other good guys. It is the trial of the day to show and convince the people that they are pre-destined to be and can prevail if united. Then, all is possible.”
Adolph Hitler: “That is nothing more than flag, as opposed to ethnically oriented centrism. Your vote-popular, effective dialectic functions to obscure the reality that your rhetoric impersonates that of my daringly openly authentic appeal to ethnocentrism. Be overly rewarded by the ability to sway those of your land, a function of an insufficiently educated public’s anxious belief in that which, they think, is still possible in clouded America. The old story of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is timelessly effective, if clothed differently. No more, no less. Congratulations on your well hidden deceit. Bravo.”
David Berkowitz: “Centrism of all huge pretentious sorts be damned. I’m for personal centrism. My life is my life, regardless of any megalomaniac’s biased perception of a supposed bigger picture. I don’t know why I even bother to participate in this nonsense. The almighty is obviously a killer. He, she, or it merely needs an enlightened physical agent to perform the execution.”
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Alfred Hitchcock: “Your point of view intrigues me. I’d like to talk to you about a possible movie collaboration.
........ Of course, funds are limited; but percentages are negotiable.”
Thomas Jefferson: “It is the nature of funds to be limited.”
Adolph Hitler: “Not if you own the printing press.”
Franklin D Roosevelt: “That’s one of the problems with the U.S. today. Printing was taken as far as it can go.”
David Foster Wallace: “You started it.”
Timothy Leary: “And it was far out. Far fucking out. It had a great run. Nothing lasts forever.”
Thomas Jefferson: “Can’t we at least be civil with each other. This is just a meaningless discussion no one will see, hear or care about.”
Che Guevara: “Civility is the best weapon of the guilty in power. Since they will lose attempting to argue issues, they focus on ‘improprieties.’”
Franklin D Roosevelt: “So, being rude is a virtue? You can’t get elected that way.”
Che Guevara: “Who wants to get elected?” He sneered and continued; “We need perennial revolution.”
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David Foster Wallace: “Of necessity, one can get elected by displaying the pretense of civility; be they revolutionary notions or conventional. It makes no difference.”
Pablo Picasso: “That requires an infinite tolerance for bullshit.”
Malcom X: “See the last few presidential elections?”
The entire panel shrugged.
Ted Pabst: “Well, I guess we’ve come to a dead end. I still don’t know. What is it like to be alive today?”
Timothy Leary: “Why don’t you ask one of the zombies walking around your local mall with six maxed out credit cards?”
Thomas Jefferson: “The federal government is patrolling the mall?”
Though uninvited, Bill Clinton’s hologram breaks in to say;
“I keep telling you. It’s simple. It’s the economy, stupid.”
David Berkowitz judgmentally yells; “No, it’s not,” then jumps up and knocks over the camera. He grabs my computer, makes a few keystrokes and everyone but Ted and I disappear.
Ted goes right to the camera, kneels, strokes it and exclaims; “It’s broken. That was an expensive camera and it’s your fault. I can have your license lifted!”
I said; “I can handle that all by myself.” I strongly suspected that I would not be paid. I feel that it is pointless to ask. I am not a very good businessman. I gather my stuff and
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dejectedly make for the door, hoping it still open to me. I have a socially induced need to make some verbal, parting statement.
Nothing which comes to mind seems relevant or commercially productive.
Ted is oblivious to me and is futzing with his fallen camera. In an effort to be what I guess to be down-to-earth realism and hopefully, thereby to be viewed as a competent, lover of truth, mixed with the green, monetarily motivated, customary behavior more familiar, I say; “Sorry, no charge.” I open the front door. I see the insinuation of a grin on Ted’s face, and in an effort to forestall any un-coming expectation of any hope for a workable, operative mechanism, which can only conclude in disenchantment and depression, conclusively and hardheadedly think that there is no money in it for me. I think his openly devised veneer is clearly there for the purpose of what he has been programmed to believe will be an advantageous, opening in an inevitable monetary negotiation.
This is nothing new to me. I have seen the same scenario played, re-played, and re-played throughout my life. When I was young I openly disdained, and as I aged in solitude, I came to pretend ignorance. Ted and his precious camera are nothing more to me than a boring continuation of a monetarily needy world. I wish Martha were here with me to share in the cruelly, derisive laughter. Maybe someday I’ll tell her about the day’s
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experience, fully cognizant of the melancholy certitude of my inability to accurately explain my mirth and disregard. Maybe she is more sensitive than me and can fill in the blank spaces.
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