by KUBOA
"What should I do?"
"Go and tell Perry, the supervisor," Kevin said. He took a stack of legal-sized papers from his box. I saw the words "Confidential" written on them. Many of the papers had those words.
"I thought maybe you knew what you were doing."
"Perry, he is the one. He will get maintenance," Kevin said.
***
In the car. I turned left then right, then another left. Near my house, there is a church on the corner.
“Be a witness, not a judge.”
The computer was on. I opened Firefox. I typed in "craigslist." I clicked on the link that said “Tampa Bay.” I typed in "new microphone."
I look at microphones and decide I don't want one.
I looked under "jobs." I found the category for "marketing / PR."
SPORTS_MINDED PROFESSIONALS NEEDED.
COPYRWITER FOR START-UP MED OFFICE.
EXEC 101 HIRING MARKETERS NOW!!
We have an immediate opportunity for an experienced and professional Marketing Consultant to join our management team.
? Should have 2+ yrs Marketing experience
? Must be a go-getter with no hand holding
? Must possess excellent organizational and customer-relations skills
? Superior verbal skills
? Opportunity favors creative, out-of-the-box solutions-oriented individuals able to excel in a team environment
***
I open Garageband. I press play. I hear John Candy's voice say: "Was that seat hot or what? I feel like a Whopper. Turn me over, I'm done on this side. There'll be griddle marks."
An audio tide of cultural remains, lapping up the bytes and bits, eye slits watch the stream, vertical and horizontal imploding and bloating, it is a wave, the only beats in my head purely natural; never learned, plucked from the top 40 limericks and machine-glossed flatlined noise streaks and the dialogue of our most cherished quick comedies, I flunked at piano, her house was nice though, they were richer than we were, it was all under the table I think, and I played video games when Nathan's turn came, that power to play reckoned with classics like "This Brown Jug" and "Old McDonald" ruined music forever, render it rote, another path wrought out of this mainstream learning flood of metronome-ness, "let me have it and tackle it" I said aloud, I attack to the left, what's left...an addled prerogative making sense of creaking remains.
The song ends with a deep sigh from Steve Martin.
I close the window for Garageband.
***
Company looking for experienced fronters to promote new business opportunities to small business owners. Please contact manager.
***
Are you interested in making SERIOUS money? YOU determine your own paycheck!
Our Show and Events department is now hiring!!
Flexible schedules allow for you to make full time money with part time hours!
***
Our product is an exclusive green product in need of enthusiastic, hardworking individuals to help us share this incredible invention!
We will train you, while you get paid! All you must do is show up with a great attitude, and desire to succeed!
Please call, these positions are filling up fast! Only 2 left!
***
Client in the Brandon area is looking for a free lance to full time entry- to mid-level copywriter.
You will be responsible for online web content, blogs, email outreach and even some direct mail content. You will also be updating content to the company CMS so minor HTML skills/familiarity a huge plus.
You must be available and interested in a full time role. This client is in the financial niche. Portfolio/sample links with this type of industry content is preferred but not mandatory.
You should be able to show samples of your work in both print/web platform.
Client is ready to interview and start the right candidate as early as next week.
I clicked on the word “craigslist.” Back to the craigslist main page. I clicked on “Post.”
I typed up something. It had the words “garage sale” in it. I typed in Uncle Ander’s address. I tried to think of something worthy of an ex-copywriter. I typed in “Everything Must Go.”
XXXI
I go to the Bronx Bar.
“Never seen you here before,” I said.
“Never seen you here before either,” Nathan said.
“Seriously, you’ve been here?” I said.
“Yeah, you know that softball thing,” he said. He was wearing paint splattered jeans and baby blue tshirt.
“Are you painting now?”
“Actually, yes you know the softball sponsors? That Largo Construction place? They took me on as some type of apprentice/temp type thing. So I’m painting, doing site cleanup.”
“Yep, I know. Hierarchy.”
I picked up a pool cue.
“You’re for real about this band?” he said.
“I guess…”
“I mean, it’s the most thought I’ve heard from you on just about anything, I mean since you got laid off...,” he said.
“Well, no, yes. Just watch John Candy, Tom Hanks, Caddyshack, This is America that needs to be deconstructed,” I said. "We did good last time."
“Remember when you sang 'Basketcase' drunk karaoke with Opal’s parents in Key West?" Nathan asked.
"You remember that? Wait, you weren’t there.”
"No, I just remember Opal saying 'Basketcase" and telling the story a few times."
"She hated them,” I said.
"I thought she got along pretty good with her parents."
"No, Green Day. She preferred The Offspring,” I said.
"And you just preferred....Newfound Glory? Pennywise?"
"The Descendants.”
"You don't know,” Nathan said.
"Does anyone after the moment fades?"
"I'm guessing someone does...just maybe not you."
"No one cares,” I said.
I slid the pool cue over my thumb.
"What do you like Wallace?" Nathan said.
"Birds and butterflies and mulch in my eyes, the red kind that you buy at ‘home improvement centers.' Kale, mangoes. Dried milk-encrusted granola in hanging onto the edges of a black garbage bag. These are the things I like."
"Oh. Maybe you should start a Weezer cover band,” he said. “The synth? What are you some 80s douche?” Nathan said.
“Yes, you should know by now Nathan that I’m a douche.”
“Aren’t those expensive anyway?” he said. “How much was it?”
“Doesn’t matter. We already have it.”
“You are a douche.”
Dust particles and I can see the air, but movement on the other side of the shoot-em game, a friend with curls hidden tight under her ears, but there she is, that high-bob bouncing & bouncing, her eye shadows to mine, an amber yellow drink blinding her lips; they are in a smile, I know, I can tell. The smile widens, I know I can tell.
“Hold on a minute,” I said to Nathan, dropping the pool stick. It bounced on the floor. She put down her drink, dusted off her skirt, and I watched her give a soundless “excuse me.” She moved out the door. Three beats behind her, I walked outside, the brick wall holding two underage figures in white shirts, neon writing, smoking, cursing -- the slight push, her arm slinked through mine, a blue long sleeve & flecks of makeup & huffs & small kisses -- a whip underneath the fire escape ladder, metallic rung frame of a romantic cliche, in between breaths -- -
“It’s too late for this but...”
“But what...” Her voice.
“What is your name again?”
“You don’t remember...”
“Pamela, no, Katie, no, Therese....?”
“No, no, no, no...”
She kissed me anyway. And I let her.
XXXII
“Why do you want that hotel?” I asked.
“She never left anything behind,” Uncle Ander said. “There wa
s nothing left except for the quilting corner. And those ill chairs.”
“What about her clothes? Her trinket stuff on the mantle?”
“Those were never hers, those were things I bought for her. She liked the grudging acceptance. She was never one to shop, you know. In Michigan, I had to shop for her all the time. At Sears, at the mall, at Kmart.”
“That’s why you want this hotel?”
“I want something here,” he said. “A legacy, even if it’s a pitiful one.”
***
My leg hair was in the sand, the sand stuck to it, stickiness. There was no towel. There was no blanket. There was no umbrella. Sky met the water, the water met the sky, all gray again and again, everything one and the same, gray water making wet gray semicircles on light gray sand, murky dirty bathtub water. The unclean dust of our bodies pooled here, my leg was not sticky -- it was wet. And my head throbbed with sound I had done so much to remember.
***
Court opened the door.
“What's up?" he said.
"What's up with you?" I asked.
"Nothing, what're you doing here?"
"Just coming to say hello. Maybe we can play Double Dragon."
"I'm watching Ferris Bueller."
"Oh. I'll watch that."
It's towards the end, the parade scene.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are such a wonderful crowd, we'd like to play a little tune for you. It's one of my personal favorites and I'd like to dedicate it to a young man who doesn't think he's seen anything good today - Cameron Frye, this one's for you," Ferris says.
Cameron yells.
"Ferris! Get off of the float!" Sloane says.
"Do you think this could happen today?" I ask Court.
"Movies happen all the time," Court said.
"No, like Ferris Bueller. A complete unknown controlling the city."
"No and I don't think it could happen then," Court said. "Movies are fictional."
"What if this was a sharp documentary crew?" I said.
"Impossible. The choreography is too perfect. The shots aren't right," Court said.
"Are there any black people in this movie?" I said.
"I can't remember," Court said.
"Do you think that's a problem?"
"The movie still makes sense. What about if they force a black person in there just because? That's not good, right?"
"No, that's not good," I said.
"I'm glad they brought in a carefree parade scene that doesn't come off ironic."
"Today it would be ironic," I said.
"Yes, today it would be ironic. The whole movie is ironic."
"Maybe they made it to be ironic today. Maybe they had enough foresight to know what was accepted then would be ironic twenty years later."
"Prophetic," Court said.
"Yeah, like Charlie Sheen is in this."
"Really?"
"Yes," I said. "Type in IMDB."
Court opened his laptop. He typed in IMDB. He typed 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.' He found Charlie Sheen.
"Boy in the police station," Court said.
"Click on his name."
Court clicked on his name.
"Ferris Bueller was released in 1986. What else was released that year?"
"Platoon?" Court said.
"Yes, Pla-effing-toon. Charlie goes from the boy in the police station to starring in Platoon. John Hughes picked him out before he knew he was going to be a star."
"Or maybe Oliver Stone found him. Maybe he's the real prophet, not John Hughes," Court said.
"I don't think so," I said.
***
Obama in Sunrise, Florida:
"How's it going, Sunshine?"
XXXIII
Not even in The Bronx Bar now, but at home, head down looking at/taking in iShoot on the iPhone, I would buy three nuclear weapons -- a peck on the door, and through the peephole there she was a high pin bob and in work clothes, women’s professional dress, navy pantsuit, coca-cola red blouse, coca-cola red heels -- - “Want a drink?” I asked. She pushed me over, fell into blanket, a Burger King cup three binders from another life on the couch -- “Not here, not now,” was all I could say, that binder corner jutting into my back. I don’t even know when or why Uncle Ander was where he was, but he wasn’t here.
***
On Laurie's porch looking at her parent's pool. A screened-in deck refracting sunlight, still bits of dog hair in the pool and floating legs and translucent wings, a mosquito I could see even from here. Hot outside, because I was wearing jeans, we swore off these St. Pete days, not as bad as Atlanta or Birmingham and pools and beaches and bathing suits all the time -- I wore jeans -- a heat exile, self-flagellating to myself; the rest of the south would understand the FLORIDA condition, have pity on us all. Laurie wore a loose bouncy dress.
"Are you going out for fireworks?"
Fourth of July, like arbitrariness out of a cannon, “Wasn’t it signed on the 2nd?” I said to someone at some other time, John Adams and John Hancock, perhaps not concerned about this preciseness, no phone records, no electronic monitoring devices, only what their minds told them, only what their hands created, only what they mutually decided to record, no overbearing specificity bearing, more physical demands on memories, our bodies can’t keep up, never will catch up, spiraling out and out and out.
"No, I saw them last week after the Rays game."
"So? You can see fireworks again," Laurie said. "Let's go, I want to go."
"I’ll transpose the fireworks memory onto this date, so three years from now we'll remember the fireworks at the Rays game as the fireworks of Fourth of July."
"But that's not true."
"It is if we make it true."
"But I wasn't there. I wanted to do something with you on the Fourth of July."
I closed my eyes.
"I'll transpose you there too. You can be there with me. We've been to Rays games before. I'm imagining you there last week, you're siting next to me spooning out a limeade, see we did it."
"No, let's do something for real. We'll go down to the pier in downtown,” Laurie said.
"Near the homeless?"
"Yes, near the homeless."
"Near where the Rays play?”
"What are you trying to say?” she asked.
"That if you see too many homeless, too many Rays games and too many fireworks, there is no more emotion left in them."
The watermelon sat in a bowl between us. I ate a chunk. I spit the seeds into the pool. Laurie ate a chunk and spit the seeds in her hand.
“What's going on with your uncle?"
"Don't know."
"Don’t you live with him?”
"Yes, I live with him.”
I stood up. I opened the screen door. I saw the laptop on the counter and picked it up. I took it outside and sat back down.
"Inspiration?" Laurie said. She stared at the pool.
I sat down and opened the laptop. I clicked to Firefox and typed in the address bar. I hit enter.
"Barack Obama mailed you a valentine," I said.
"Barack Obama made you a mixtape," I said.
"Barack Obama carried your bookbag," I said.
"Stop it, God Wallace, stop it, please, why do you do this?” she said.
"I was hoping you'd change," I said.
"You are an ass," she said.
"Barack Obama left a comment on your blog," the computer said. I didn’t read that one aloud.
***
Barack Obama:
"I'll tell you, we can win this thing without Florida, but boy, it's a lot easier if we win Florida. If we win Florida, it is almost impossible for John McCain to win."
XXXIV
In the parking lot, Perry opens a car door. It is the door to a Chrysler Sebring. It has a convertible top. Perry pulls out three John McCain yard signs. Perry sees me. He waves.
“Wallace, hello,” he said.
“Hello.” I said. I
adjusted my messenger bag strap. I had nothing in the messenger bag, except for last week’s Sports Illustrated. “Do you need some help?”
“Me, no...I”m fine. But, hey do you want one?” Perry said.
“A John McCain sign?” I asked.
“America’s last true maverick.”
“That’s alright Perry I’m good.”
“You support Obama?” Perry asked.
“I...uh, am a Bob Barr supporter.”
“Well, that’s nice if you want to vote for a loser,” he said.
“It’s alright. I used to support Dennis Kucinich. At least Barr can win in his own party,” I said.
“Those are different, Kucinich and Bob Barr. You don’t hear of someone supporting both of them.”
“I like to keep it interesting,” I said.
XXXV
I met Nathan for lunch.
“I wish McDonald’s wasn’t so sucky,” Nathan said.
“We should redesign McDonald’s,” I said.
“Like what? What should we do?” he asked.
He was Chicken McNuggets, I was a Double Burger. It was on the Dollar Menu.
“Streamline it. Make it comfortable,” I said.
“Nice chairs and crap to eat our disgusting Big Macs,” he said. “Big Macs and the food here isn’t nice.”
“But we eat here,” I said. “We only think that way because that’s the way fast food hamburgers have been presented to us.”
“Ok,” he said.
“See, gourmet hamburgers are good and crap. Then they’ll filter down soon and we’ll expect gourmet hamburgers at McDonald’s.”
“Won’t the price go up?” he asked.
“It’s always been going up,” I said.
“What about Fast Food Nation? You saw that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “They’ll say they’ve changed their ways and we’ll believe them, because all the paper does is rewrite press releases.”
“Is that what they do?” he asked.
“Yeah, completely, or at least I think. Or at least that’s what other papers have reported.”
I looked out the window. A Porsche was in the drive-thru.
“Where will the poor people eat? What large corporation will we now blame for obesity once all the complainers actually like McDonald’s?” Nathan asked.
“Hardees, or Burger King,” I said.
“Burger King will never be nice,” Nathan said.
