Justin's World, Part 2

A priest, a rabbi, and a Buddhist monk are captured by angry natives.  The chief or whatever says, “You have two choices: We can kill you, or you can meet the Aristocrats.”  The Aristocrats are a group of large male natives who will violently fuck every orifice on your body for hours and then leave you in a ditch.  The priest is given the choice, and says, “Well, to choose death would be in effect suicide,  which is a sin, and frankly the Aristocrats’ act has a familiar ring to it, so I’ll meet the Aristocrats.”  With that, the priest is grabbed by his arms and legs, his clothing ripped off, and he is violated repeatedly and discarded, left bloody and full of sperm and covered in contusions, the whole ordeal having taken place in plain view of the rabbi and the Buddhist monk.  The chief or whatever asks the rabbi, “So, what will it be? Death or the Aristocrats?”  The rabbi responds, “Oy! That looks very unpleasant… but I don’t want to abandon my loyal congregation… besides even as a teacher of the Torah, the afterlife is grim, just a dull grey waiting room, and I’m in no hurry to go there.  I choose the Aristocrats.“ And with that, the rabbi is pulled away into the bushes and brutally assaulted, every muffled bone crack and squishy suckling sound of holes stretched beyond intended use clearly audible to the Buddhist monk who remains stoic throughout.  The rabbi is tossed down the hill, barely breathing but still able to crawl off.  The Buddhist monk is given the ultimatum: “Death or the Aristocrats.”  The Buddhist monk says, “I am a peaceful person and have respected all forms of life.  I cannot condone this sort of disgraceful conduct by participating in it, so I choose death. “Very noble choice,” says the chief or whatever.  “Death it shall be.  But first: The Aristocrats!”

-Ancient Proverb

"The angst of my particular generation..."  Justin ponders this as Rick continues describing his algorithm for modesty in discourse.  “In a conversation between equals, I try to maintain a ratio of saying three things for every two things the other person says.  I’ve found that most people subscribe to this ratio without even knowing it, and so our efforts offset one another, with a struggle that maintains the conversation’s momentum.”  “What could be in the mirror?”  Justin decides to keep his situation secret, but to solicit help. “Rick, what is the angst of our particular generation?” “Why? Are you writing a novel again?" Justin had talked about his novel-writing phase with Rick like it was an ex he was bitter about.  “Yeah, I heard someone at an open mic joke that everyone who claims to be a novelist in their early twenties will be aspiring screenwriters by their thirties.” “So you’re devoting your life to spiting that guy?” “What’s this life you speak of?” “Did you even talk to him?” “Come on, Rick.  Angst of our generation, 40,000 words or less. Go.” “That steampunk has gone too far.” Justin interprets this with the same careful effort he used when coming up with his excuse for writing a novel: the type that happens over one long sip of water. “You mean that we are too concerned with capturing the past and in denial of the present?” “No! Where the hell did you get that from what I said? That’s just a refined phrasing of the ol’ ‘Everyone around me is so dead inside and all they care about is reality TV’ bit that went out around the same time as ‘suburbs have no culture’.” “Well there’s still a lot of lousy TV keeping the public ignorant.” “And it serves an extra purpose of making otherwise intelligent people think that they’re ‘One of the few people who are paying any attention!’ when in fact you can’t go anywhere without everyone having their own meticulously constructed opinions.  You can’t even talk anymore, everyone’s a troll.  That’s the angst of our generation: everyone’s disconnected individual personal concerns." Justin isn't finding this useful. "So why steampunk?" "I fucking hate steampunk!  That's my current angst.  The angst of a generation would require checking a pulse, and we have no veins or arteries anymore, just a bunch of people trying not to get caught being part of the problem.” “So then maybe that is the unifying struggle? To not be part of the problem?”  “Well I don’t know how unifying it is, many people simply devote their time to helping the poor and disenfranchised, they wouldn’t relate to that at all.” “I don’t think that’s a way out of being part of the problem.  Community service does nothing to solve the corporate greed that will continuously causes problems in the first place. If anything it perpetuates corporate greed by cleaning up its messes.  And what if by treating the symptoms, you only artificially forestall a revolution?” “I still say just write about what you know: cultural minutae and social issues.” “Or how about I leave the country in protest and write about that?” “You mean, retreat and hide away somewhere? As though to start a movement? As though the problems will go away on their own if enough people ignore it?  As though if we get enough heady ex-pats hanging out in dive bars in Paris and Berlin and less angry people in America, the problems will solve themselves?  How? Will all the Wall Street execs and CEOs look at the growing number of people leaving the country in disgust and have their feelings hurt or something?  Like there’s a list they keep and they’ll be like, ‘Oh no, not Justin Fisher!  He was so hopeful when he played baseball in high school, how did we fail him?” “Well there has to be something that connects everyone. Are you… are you counting? Jesus Christ, Rick!“

The subject is changed and Justin leaves after eating, decides to observe people from the comfort of his local jazz bar.  He instinctively wanders towards his usual spot in the smoking section, and a woman in her 60s offers to light his cigarette despite him having his lighter already out and starts talking.  Justin recognizes the pattern right away: he is about to be unloaded on.  Seeing this as a perfect opportunity to perfect his latest conversation escaping tactic, Justin started pretending to send a text message as he sets as many alarms as possible on his phone to ring in a cluster to give him an out.  He decided to give her 15 minutes, in case there was the prospect of anything useful coming out of this.  “Man, when I was your age I just couldn’t stand the government, I protested and everything.  But look at this bar, full of married couples your age trying to settle down.  You’re here alone, not trying to settle down, right? Doesn’t it make you mad to see all these people so care-free with all the impositions of this administration?  I protest myself whenever I can, when I’m not busy running a small printing business with my husband.”  “Ah, a libertarian.” Justin thought.  He pondered Rick’s algorithm as the woman expounded about unfair drug laws and the evils of socialized healthcare.  Her face was windswept by age and tobacco use as much as by exchanging rhetoric with her husband, who promptly joined them.  The conversation was like following a debate on an online comment thread: an infuriating parade of useless sentences, and he couldn't resist the anger.  He snoozed his alarms over and over, and they were the ones who decided to leave.  Justin imagined them talking about 'how speechless that boy was' on their ride home as they abruptly departed after a brief, slightly ajar window of opportunity for retort. As they stood up, the woman said, “Harvey, you almost forgot!” Harvey then explained their little tradition: “When Bernice and I were still just dating and penniless, we would go out once a week, every Sunday, to have dinner at a different café.” Bernice interrupted, “They had to be different every week because we would walk out on our check!” “Right.  Well one night, we were about to leave when Bernice noticed two quarters left in the ash tray.”  Bernice continues “He didn’t think much of it, but I said, ‘Harvey, I think someone left these here to offer hope for whoever is poor enough to accept it.’ Harvey was too proud at first, but I convinced him! I told him, “Waiting for a good opportunity isn’t about holding out for something good enough for you. It’s about taking what you are given and making it good enough for you.’”  Harvey continued, “The fifty cents itself did not go very far towards starting our business, but symbolically it has kept us going through the toughest of times.” “So now whenever we go somewhere with an ash tray, we drop two quarters inside so maybe someone will not be too proud to accept hope.” “Oh shoot, I used my last two quarters over lunch.  Say young man, do you have any change?”

Justin’s bed was lined with “Particular angst of my generation” novels, from “Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” to “The Great Gatsby”.  Having spanned so many decades, he begins categorizing generations in odd terms.  Leaning into the wall of sleep, he thinks, “We’ve had the generations that worked hard, generations that fought, generations that settled, generations that partied, generations that apologized… is mine the one that decides to check in to rehab?”  His dream was a recurring dream that he woke up and had to make an acceptance speech for something.  Normally it is for something absurd, so he gets to pontificate about how ridiculous the world is, but this time he won the Nobel Prize for literature for the novel he has yet to write.  He can’t see the crowd, his senses can’t focus on anything except the din of expectation.  He could hear distorted excerpts of… his novel? Reviews?”  “…spend their lives running away from sociology…” “…all the louder, the reverberation of hollowness of unfulfilled dreams…”  “…wit that sizzles like bacon: trendy, nutritionally empty bacon.”

Justin wakes up, and his dream has sapped him of all words, as though they were spent on those sentence fragments from his dream.  Recognizing his impenetrable indifference, he wanders on foot to Essence to surrender his existence to the mirror.  "Anything is better than trying to make sense of this" he rationalizes.  Once he arrives, he enters the bathroom not expecting to return, and he asks the mirrors to just swallow him.  The mirror replies, "What, you mean with no novel at all?  That's not how it works." Justin demanded, saying he thought the deal was pretty straightforward.  "If you want it so bad, I, the mirror, will swallow your existence.  Once you have written a novel that captures the particular angst of your generation, that is.  Two weeks."  "Well what about the alternative? What if I just don't write anything at all?"  The mirror chuckled.  "Look at the people who surround you.  That is your alternative.  See you in two weeks."