Keeping The Past

Larry Chelgerson is a stealth pariah, a mascot for what disillusioned young people can't stand about whatever they see him involved in, though usually they still can't find the words to explain why. Right now he is in line to place a take-away order at one of those urban European-style cafes that are staffed by cute pasty college girls who seem to be given specific instructions to:

1) visit the gym once or twice per week so as to appear active, but not intimidating
2) avoid sunlight
3) think sad or stressful thoughts every now and then so your face's natural resting position is intriguing to those who spend their time in pursuit of the obscure rather than the sincere.

At least one of the servers will have an endearing speech impediment that will attract regulars; regulars being just another word for stalkers who tip. The place is probably owned by three brothers from Bangladesh with mustaches and uneven laughs. The layout is what Bengali business men would imagine Americans think chic cafes in charming European cities look like. Between all the glass, sterility, smooth surfaces, and technology in use, it looks like an Apple store featuring some textured mixed-media art the local community college couldn't find a use for. Larry was peering out towards his car to see if his wife was growing impatient, at which point he saw familiar faces pass through the vestibule. They were too far away, so he looked down at his shoes for 7 seconds and then pretended that he was just noticing them at the moment they walked by and said, "Vern and Tabitha?! No way!" Vern appeared to shift his attention to Larry without moving his head or altering the gestures that were already underway as he was walking. This is a rehearsed move, for in his mind, it was as if he hit an electrified tripwire. "Larry, what's up? I didn't know you knew about this place!" Only older people can allow such condescending sentences like that to pass unnoticed. Vern is a semi-retired real estate agent who has developed the social version of the ESP skip protection that portable CD players had when they weren't obsolete. He has pushed out so many inaccurate self-expressions in his lifetime that there is not one whose meaning can be discerned with any degree of certainty. Whatever expression he tries to make, you naturally meet him halfway and pull out a meaning of your own choice, based entirely on what your feelings about him are. Larry vaguely admires Vern's lifestyle without a sense of envy, so he doesn't catch Vern's reluctance to invite him and his wife to join them for breakfast, accepting the offer without once wondering if he is intruding. As Larry struts out to retrieve his wife, Tabitha gives Vern a look. She can't read Vern's face and tone any better than the rest of the world, but she knows what he is thinking because they tend to have the same thoughts in these situations. That is what happens when you spend enough time appeasing, placating, and enabling the good and bad habits of someone you care about. Sometimes, when Vern isn't sure what to think, he takes his cues from Tabitha's facial broadcast. She doesn't like Larry or any of the other mediocre people who abuse her husband's tendency to regale himself and give advice, not to mention remind himself of how practical it is that he spends all of his time studying real estate. Real estate is the king of all generalized small talk, and unless you are in the business or in the market for a new home, any conversation about it might as well take place under a heat lamp next to a pile of dog waste.

Larry and his wife are two similarly numb people who stumble with great intention through life with a white knuckle grip on a list of what they want to experience and how they want it to feel. To participate in any activity with them feels like being at a school dance when people engage in forced unnecessary conversation just to avoid being seen standing by themselves. Here's one fact that nobody else knows about Larry and his wife, a habit that irritates their offspring: On a pleasant morning, they will wake up extra early to go for a walk, regardless of whether they are actually in the mood to do so. They do it just because the morning is pleasant and they don't want to miss out on it, as though it were a sale at Marshalls. They are basically retired, but they run a small local printing business that just recently got a website where you can pay for your orders online. This is practical not because they are massively successful and need help filling all their orders, but because the same few customers order the same stuff so often that automating the process was a very simple process.

While everybody else has either gotten over ringtones altogether or maybe they have a familiar sound bite from a TV show or movie, Larry has downloaded the same tone for the past three phones. Every time somebody calls him, the dramatic climax of "Nessun Dorma" from the opera Turandot is played on an impossibly tinny midi orchestra. Anyone who has lunch with him on a business day will never again feel that rush of emotion often summoned by that aria. If someone has never heard it, he can sense this fact and will proceed to explain the significance of that scene, thus ruining opera in general for them.

Larry and his wife are basically interviewing Vern while Tabitha criticizes the menu layout in her head. She catches herself wanting to ask Larry and his wife what they would change if they printed out the menus, just to see how they like it. She watches the conversation take familiar turns towards soliciting Vern for recommendations:

-First, some general questions that allow Vern to ramble not necessarily about work -Then Larry mentions the small printing jobs he did for Vern way back in the day, and how great a deal he gave him, just to remind Vern that he's hooked him up before.
-This paves the way for him to ask Vern about retirement properties.

"So Vern, you and Tabitha seem to disappear during the summer and winter months. My wife and I, we've been looking into a vacation home for the unpleasant times of the year now that the kids are, well, safe to say, out of the nest." Vern treats these conversations like sex or a really good time-sensitive dessert such as ice cream on a hot piece of pie, carefully regulating the indulgence for maximum enjoyment. If there is anything Vern likes to do after talking about himself, it is to find ways for other people to be like him and explain those ways in detail. He replies, "Well, where have you looked?" At this point Larry and his wife took turns responding seamlessly: "Well we used to think all we wanted was pleasant weather, nice restaurants, scenery, and to be safe... but as we explored and read and did our research, it seems all the best spots are picked over, expensive, and/or over-developed. Besides, even if a new place is discovered, it isn't long before everyone is all over it, building ugly high-rises and raising the taxes." Vern has been nodding throughout, and continues as he says, "You aren't the only ones with these concerns, and it has lead to a real paradigm shift. Wouldn't it be nice if we could live in the dignity to which we are entitled? Somewhere we have control over the market and the quality of the people? And I don't mean one of those tacky gated communities, either." Larry sighed, "Yeah... but you have to be practical, right?" Vern was waiting for this part. "Well actually, there is a new market that I think you're going to like." Larry played along jadedly, "Where? New Zealand? Hawaii? Costa Rica?" Vern cuts him off, "No chief, all those places are already ruined. I've discovered the only place left for us: the past!" Vern continues, "Whenever life becomes unpleasant, we move into our new vacation home in the past. We already know how everything turns out, so there is no concern about flooding the market or ending up living in a bad neighborhood. We get to visit the lifestyle that the rotten subsequent generations have destroyed whenever we want!"

Larry massaged his left temple as he said, "So let me get this straight: while the lazy, self-centered, unmotivated young generation with no actual sense of collective identity continue to piss away the wonderful world that you and I and our parents spent a lifetime working to preserve, we can live in the past and enjoy happier days of clean decent entertainment, clearly defined gender roles, reasonable social norms regarding race and religion, a more structured courtship process with far less shame and promiscuity, and of course health coverage and a viable retirement?" Vern nodded, "Exactly. Where do you think health insurance and social security came from, anyway? Do you think it is a coincidence that our current system only benefits people our age and older? Psh! As though people had the kind of foresight back then to set things up to punish the disgraceful, mercilessly unsentimental and shallow generations born after 1965." Larry stood up, "So basically, we get to give ourselves a fulfilling life with wholesome Christmas specials and bragging rights about inventing everything that my rude, uneducated, soulless kids take for granted?" Vern replied affirmatively and added, "Of course you can come back and visit your families whenever you want, as we're doing right now. Also, since you really can't talk about the future with anybody in the past, we find it therapeutic to come visit the present day and get all the complaining out of our systems about how terrible everything is and how all these kids fucked it up." Presenting a document, Vern says, "All you have to do is pass this credit check and sign here." Larry said, "Credit check!? I INVENTED credit checks!" All four of them laughed and totally stiffed the waitress as they departed, with Larry's "Nessun Dorma" ringer going off.

Good Night Wife

Good night boner
Good night wife
Good night pillow between me and my wife
Good night ceiling
Good night breasts
Good night notion of a good night's rest
Good night lips
Good night hips
Good night hands, clenching the sheet till it rips
Good night clock
Good night door
Good night laptop placed on the bathroom floor
Good night facebook
Good night old photos
Good night ex, who may have been crazy and irresponsible but god damn, at least she put out on weeknights, I mean I'm at a completely different part of my life than I was back then and I am overall much happier now, but still shit this really sucks.
Good night rationalizations
Good night door lock
Good night tissues since I don't have a sock
Good night paranoia
Good night squeaky toilet seat
Good night distractions as I focus on my meat
Good night guilt
Good night deflation
Good night to an uncomfortable situation
Good night "Clear Recent History"
Good night walk of shame
Good night nobody but myself to blame
Good night clock
Good night bed
Good night back of my wife's head
Good night wife
Good night boner

Miami-Globe

So I drove to Miami, AZ this past weekend. It was one of those trips where my expectations were a little higher than the should be and I didn't prepare as much as I should have. I rolled into town late in the morning and tried to find that "happening" road with all the shops and restaurants and the visitor's center that hands out the kitchy maps that outline the routes to all the best destinations (marked by smiling cacti and sombreros). The first attraction I noticed was all the easy spots to parallel park in. The dilapidated buildings at the tops of the surrounding hills loomed over me as I locked my car, removed my iPod and head unit, threw bags over valuables, and all that other paranoid white people superstitious nonsense, and walked toward the first cafe I could find. Before I could enter, a face that had great potential to be broad and welcoming came at me like a snow plow. "You look like you don't have a direction." I admitted that he was correct. "Are you interested in the antique shops?" I nodded. "How about the cliff dwellings up rt. 88?" I nodded faster, trying to stimulate a more comfortable upbeat tone. "How about something to eat?" As I unloaded a twangy request for restaurant recommendations, he cut me off. "Didn't you visit our chamber of commerce website? It's really... informative." I lied and said I was just passing through and was on my way to Globe, the next town over. He stopped looking at me and said, "We share their website. www.globemiamichamberofcommerce.com. We put a lot of time and effort into keeping that website up to date." I told him that I hadn't had the time to research it, and asked for suggestions for some Mexican food. He gestured towards my messenger bag, "Go to our website on your iPhone. You'll find my reviews of local dining options contained in the message board designated for 'Restaurants', which is divided by genre of cuisine. Just follow the Dining & Nightlife link, you'll know when you get there." I was a little freaked out, so I stuttered something of an explanation of why I may have appreciated whatever it was he told me as I walked into an antique shop with my hand in my bag. After a few antique shops and some old framed newspapers I learned a little about the history of the area. I went online as I was walking down the street and a windswept expression of involuntary surprise anchored by a neck that would take a marble 5 minutes to roll down approaches me, "What do you think you're doin'?" As I started to reply, he said, "You're not about to post to Facebook about how ironic it is that we used to be a mining town and now our main industry is antiques, are ye?" How did he know that? "That's what everyone does when they go through her. You'd know that if you looked in the blog section of our chamber of commerce website." Just then, the first old man and a few indistinct friends approached and he said, "You haven't eaten yet, have you? Have you even looked at our website yet?" I started backing up and said I had to go, somehow unable to jettison my own cumbersome politeness. "Sorry, can't let you do that." Everyone stood silent as a young ranger with a flat shovel forehead which obscured everything else about him informed me, "This area is quarantined, which these kind folks were trying to help you learn. Maybe it's time you look at our website." Quarantined? What have I gotten myself into? They helped me navigate through their website, and it was very well laid out. As far as the "quarantine" situation, it was complicated. They unearthed a unique mineral that attracted a certain species of bacteria and caused it to mutate; anybody who spend more than two hours in the town would have to be tested. The ranger said, "I'm afraid that before you leave you'll have to be screened for Laffybatts." "Laffybatts?!" I asked. "Yes, Laffybatts. It is a potentially fatal condition." As I stifled a giggle, one of the townsfolk said, "Hold that laugh, buckaroo, my 3 year old daughter died from a case of them laffybatts, and so did..." He trailed off, looking towards the ranger. He said, "That's... not important now. The important thing is to get you tested.

The doctor's office was empty, and I wondered if he had much to do other than test people for Laffybatts. He took me to the only cleanroom with wood paneling I've ever seen and drew a little blood. I asked if it was curable and nobody answered. The doctor returned with the same blank expression he had when he plunged the needle into my arm. "It's Laffybatts, and I'm afraid it's... terminal." I started grabbing for things before I knew what I could be grabbing for and yelling at people before I could breathe... then I just slouched down into a chair. The ranger said, "Well, there is one known cure." After an expectant moment of silence, he continued. "We would have to... light you on fire and throw you into the tar pits." The doctor burst into agreement, "Yes, the tar pits are full of laffybatts, and if you present live laffybatts with a complete surface area of burnt laffybatts, it could work! I've been doing tests on lighting infected javelina on fire and had some success!" As I protested their logic they showed me the documentation on the chamber of commerce website, which was formatted very professionally. As they doused me in kerosene, the ranger said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" He was looking at me, and I rehashed what they told me, referring to the data on their website. The ranger continued in the same tone, "Why do you believe the website?" I responded, "Well, why else would it be there?" Then the first old man I spoke to said, "Maybe to teach people a lesson about believing their instincts and experience instead of whatever they read on the internet. Maybe then you would have learned to appreciate our fine town." I protested, "But that doesn't make any sense! You told me repeatedly to look at the website before I even stepped foot into... which I didn't do, I walked around and learned about the town myself! I trusted my instincts many times before even looking at your website!" The ranger said, "Alright fine, we just like dousing people in kerosene for kicks. Plus it's a favor for old man Pitters. He owns the tar pits and nobody ever comes by to visit them. But please feel free to post on our message board about what you say to your friends and coworkers to explain why you smell like petroleum."