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.