by Jones, Nath
"Yes, Sergeant."
"You better speak up, Private."
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Don't you know I'm deaf, Private?”
"Yes, Sergeant."
"RECOVER."
I didn't know what to do.
“God damn it, Jones, you want to make this difficult? I said get up. Too slow. PUSH. RECOVER. PUSH. RECOVER. Do you think you're funny, Private? You better motivate yourself. I said PUSH. RETRIEVE YOUR COVER, Private. Your hat. I said RETRIEVE YOUR COVER, you pathetic piece of civilian trash."
"This is the last cycle were going to use these masks. I know they aren't the greatest. But it's only three minutes in your whole life. You've been in once. So what if your mask doesn't seal? I can't help it. It's not so bad. Just get in there and get through it. You can breathe that stuff for three minutes, Jones. I've seen you. You're tough. It won't kill you. It's only tear gas."
"Why are you so fat, Jones? You better run in place every time you see me. I bet the rest of your mama's kids just starved to death with you around, didn’t they? Didn't they, Jones? Pick your feet up. And don't scuff my floor. I bet I know why you're so fat. I bet your daddy used to bring you a cake home every day, didn’t he? Are you tired, Private? Oh, well by all means—PUSH. Or was it your boyfriend? Do you miss your boyfriend, Jones? Oh, never mind. No one as fat as you could have a boyfriend. Isn't that right, Jones? You better answer me, Private. Isn't that right? You're too fat to have a man, RECOVER. You better stand at parade rest when you're talking to an NCO. Dang, you are ugly. I tell you what, Jones, I'll let you off easy. Wouldn’t you like to be let off easy? Are you threatening me, Private? You better avert your eyes. Don't no one of you privates look me in the eye. Is that understood? Get outta here, Wide Load. That's me lettin' you off easy, Jones. But you’re Wide Load from now on. And when you hear me say Wide Load you better answer with, 'Yes, Sergeant, moving, Sergeant." And you best hope you are running when I see you.
"My job is to soldierize you, Private. It’s that simple."
With his brim on my forehead and his mustache tickling my nose, "Do you know why I joined the army, Private? Do you give two shits, Private? Of course you do. Or don't ya? Well folks, looks like Jonesie here doesn't give a dang about the rest of you. In fact, I believe she has personally asked for all of you to FRONT—oh, no, not you, Jones. You can stand here with me and watch. Isn't that what you wanted? Didn't you ask to be an individual? Private Jones said, BACK. I'll tell you why I joined the army. Because I was broke, hungry, homeless, and it was raining. GO. I joined the army because they take care of me. I’ve never been homeless. I've got three hot meals a day, and they pay me to scream at a bunch of 'tards like you all. Aren’t they pretty, Jones? Don't you feel special? You look special. In fact, Jones, you look special enough to ride the short bus. FRONT. That’s it, isn't it, Jones? You're retarded, aren't you? You're from West Virginia, aren't you, Private? BACK. You're retarded and yet the United States government is willing to hand you a loaded weapon. God help us all. The retards are defending this beautiful country, GO. Dang, I hate to look at 'tards. Get down and push with the rest of them, Private Jones, you retard. FRONT… BACK… GO."
“Are you hitting on me, soldier? You're not? Well it looks like it. You're sitting there with your legs crossed like a whore. Is that what you are, soldier? You better keep both feet on the ground at all times. Is that understood? We don't need a bunch of males that ain't balled nothin' in six weeks being provoked, now do we?"
“Lord have mercy, Jones, get out of my dining facility with that Rhode Island chicken head of hair. I can't stand to look at you while I'm eating. From now on you do not get in that chow line until you have fixed your sorry butt up in the latrine. Do you hear me? You will carry a comb at all times. You will no longer look like a scraggly, dirt-scratchin’ Rhode Island chicken. I better see you pushing from this window."
"Pri-vate Jones. So you want to go to the latrine? Don't you think I wanted to use the latrine when I was halfway to Panama? Don't you think I had to piss? Do you think there was anywhere for me to go? No-there-was-not-Pri-vate-Jones. No potty in the air. No potty for me. Lord Almighty, I had my ruck, and hundred twenty-five pounds of parachute strapped in my crotch. Do you think there was any opportunity for me to piss? Why should I give you the opportunity? Seems to me you can hold it as well as I did. And if holding my water for five hours wasn't enough, that punk Carter had to sign some fugly peace treaty, and my ass did not jump into combat. Instead me and my unit came right back here. Do you think that made me happy, Pri-vate Jones? You are right. It did not make me happy. Get back in your foxhole and don't bitch to me again until you know the target order."
"Relax, Jones. You got asthma? Just breathe. We're only jogging. Nice easy morning. Just take what you need."
"You think you're smart, Jones? Well, I've got a retard for you. This is Private Blah. Say hello, dingbat. Private Blah does not know how to fold his underwear, Jones. He turned his socks blue in the laundry, Jones. But he can' t help it, because he's retarded. So I'm leaving it up to you, Jones. Since Private Blah, here, can't take care of himself, I am holding you personally responsible for his hygiene. Is that understood? You better hope he showers, Jones, but if I catch you anywhere near that male latrine every dang-blasted female in this platoon will be smoked into the next week. Is that understood? If there’re any gigs in his wall locker it's on you, Jones, because Blah, here, is retarded."
His laughing eyes were bright and the sky was blue. "Flashbacks! That's it, isn't it? You can' t say the sog-silly Soldier's Creed because you are a drugged-up hippie. You're ate up like a soup sandwich because you smoked so much reefer when you was a civilian punk. Isn't that right? I bet you're seeing squirrels in the clouds and fire in the guidon. Isn't that right? There you are trying to spit out my precious creed, and your past life is just sneaking right up to getcha. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Don't you see that now? I had my day, don't you worry about that, but you better rectify those flashbacks and know that creed inside and out, Jones. Oh, you think I'm funny, do you? A regular comedian, am I? Well I'm not. I'm a soldier, and, like it or not, so are you. Memorize that creed! Flutter kicks 'til you lock it in."
"You know Larry Bird, Jones? You from Indiana, ain't ya? Well, dang, why the heck don’ t you know Larry Bird then? PUSH."
"I better call my insurance agent because apparently a tornado swept through here. Do you call this a wall locker, Jones? It's disgusting. What would your mama say? Do you think your mama would be proud of this? Do you think I should call her and tell her that you're nothing but a worthless slob? What's her number, Jones? I'm going to give her a call. I think she should know about this."
"Oh, did that hurt? Do you wish you had your Kevlar, Jones? Soft caps are a lot lighter, but when you bring that weapon right down on your skull, it does sting, doesn’t it? Let me see a tear, Jones. Females are supposed to cry, you know. It's okay. I understand. I know it hurts. Maybe we can go in the office and talk about it over coffee. Wouldn't that be nice? Oh, it would be. Just give me one. You've never felt pain like that, have you, Private? It's the kind of pain that goes straight to the tear ducts, isn't it? Especially in females. Oh, you're pissed off now. Good. Stay that way."
"'Attention to detail; Teamwork's the key.' Soldiers, when you are doing pushups in my presence you better all go down at the same time and you better all come up at the same time. You better work together, 'cause it's your buddy that's going to be the one to save your butt when the crap hits the fan. You better know you can count on him. And if you can't you better square him away. When you go down you all sing like my son's little church choir. 'Attention to Detail.' And when you come up you say, 'Teamwork's the Key.' What's so tough about all that? PUSH!"
LIFE UNDER THE TRAMPOLINE
But maybe I have a self-destructive respect for those things too obscure to be recognized.
I think of my favorite flowers. Not a vase small enough to hold one unles
s mist or dew in a fallen cloverleaf twist could be such a thing. Pin-prick flowers, white with blue even sigh-stripes painted so whim-tiny that my eyes blur with concentration. They are so hard to hold in my huge overweight hands. There are pink flowers like this, too, and I vaguely remember a yellow. All hiding easily under the short mown grass. Flat faces up to the sun. Smart enough to avoid it all but never drawing attention. Just reassurance for the poor soul looking too hard.
Maybe, though, these beauty-bits are the poor soul's downfall. After looking down and hard and sad and forever he or she sees such minuscule beauty. Such a fleck of blue attraction; then why look up? The poor soul ends up wasting the life bent in the search, never seeing more than what couldn't possibly exist. And always thinking: How clever that it can be so perfectly something.
I just wish I didn't have to survive so hard.
DOLLAR STORES
There was a woman in my hometown with a garden full of artificial flowers. They were faded. It was like a wax world of could-bes: those terrible colors of sun-bleached plastic that grew and changed with the seasons anyway.
DIVIDED CULTURES
The issue of race is a painfully infected gash in the flesh of our trying-so-hard-to-heal culture. Black and white have almost made a peace that seems only to allow new brown animosities to flourish. I cannot decide where I am amidst it all. Raised in a little white town I do not think that I have the same prejudice as individuals raised in less segregated places. My prejudice is toward the people with prejudice. And who aren't they? So hard to learn about this fissure. So personal. So ugly. So silly and real.
There is an outcropping overlooking the infected gash. The canyon is beautiful in its complexity and enormous expanse. Many gaze at it in awe. At sunset it is breathtaking. Those who travel to its core are intrigued guests of a complex labyrinth. This is the beauty, which comes as acid edges glass.
Racism is water (a torrent, a trickle) and society’s flesh is rock. So the flesh is pained, weakened, left perforated and unconnected to itself.
Individuals stand afraid of erosion. Whispering statistics. Backing away from the edge in fear. Cautioning their children with lies.
Groups pack themselves as close as possible to avoid edges which might break away under them.
There have been many well-intentioned fools who have stood on one side of the canyon and imagined life on the other. Well-intentioned for their vision. Fools not for faith, conviction, hope, or belief in justice but for calling the gaping hole nothing but a crack. Stepping out as though their two legs could bridge immensity. Falling hard. Dying hard. And so many wishing they weren't fools. Wishing it could have happened. Wishing they didn't have to die.
But when I was standing with them listening to hopeful and hateful talk of multiculturalism and affirmative action I picked up a fistful of dry sand and let it fall into the space between where we stood and the place we would like to be.
And my handful of sand dropped into the void did not become a bridge solid for passage. My sand did not fill wounded hearts or apologize to those wronged by averted eyes and quiet neglect. My sand drifted nowhere into almost nothing.
Why move enough sand? It would take too long.
Meanwhile, I will not be a fool and take a step into the nothing. And I will not allow myself to be pushed from behind by an overeager half-blind-with-belief throng. And I will feel bad I'm sure. But I will not be persuaded no matter how noble I feel it could be to try. What good will it do to perish for a cause?
Because soon it will happen that they move too close to the water which shifts with unguided malice over the rocks. And by looking too far ahead (seeing calm rippling glass streams instead of the violent white thrash beneath them) to a place not yet lashed together they will succumb.
And I pity them because their voices are so loud and if their hands were as strong there could be cleansing of the sickly wound and sutures made secure by black, white, and brown commonality or laughter and in time a scar would be left solid for us to cross over.
Too solid to be eroded by water and a warning too ugly to be forgotten.
SUICIDE
The oak leaves
are holding on too
tight again.
I suppose to avoid
spinning away into
the nothing they feel
surrounding them.
That unknown of life.
On the tree,
high in the air,
down is so much
closer than up.
So the choice is made,
or strength weakens,
or whatever,
and the oak leaves—
even the oak leaves—
fall, each on top of
another. And winter ends. Glad
not to be falling. Glad not to
be alone. And only
beginning to realize
they've lost the
nothing to surround them.
BIRD SONGS & OYSTER PEARLS
Beauty is defense. Bird songs, peacock tails, oyster pearls, soldiers' uniforms, executive offices, and emperors' jewels, or these words and her used-to-be music. At least that's what my mother told me. And mothers, defensive or not, are so often right.
So much is said about the Constitution and its various amendments. It seems there are beautiful amendments like diamonds and rubies. But tonight I found what might be fool's gold.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Very shiny. Where is the worth? Is it in the admission that a written document cannot possibly fathom the realm of human experience? Or is it that this strange short sentence undermines the rest of the document by deferring to the people who are writing it? It is beautiful, but if it were a computer program, I don't think it would work.
THE MISSION
What emotional rescue? Saviors are an impossibility. There is too much physical to get across when one looks west toward one's sister. My feet are here on a place cold enough to hate.
And then that place becomes a place six inches in front of my feet and that place turns into the foundation of a house across the street that I'm looking at while I'm with her on the phone.
And that place becomes a backyard and an alley and footsteps and spring and fall and someone wishing for a better car and going the wrong way on a one-way street and across another new state again.
And then that land pulls away faster toward her feet. Toward the ocean. Toward a bigger sky. Toward the west. And here I am, on the phone, with my hand pressing against the cold window, hating her too-far-away-to-reach tears. Again.
DEFINITIVE ARTICLE
I’m looking at a sticky ring of dry soda where a glass was last week. Sweet soft white cat hair is anchored in it and static electricity has caused all the hair to point in the same direction. The mess of my life has gathered itself in imitation of a forgotten feather.
Art, dear art, starts somewhere between the stars and I. And returns again to the past by way of a stranger's eye.
For several years I have been considering the meaning of art. The meaning of art in life. The meaning of art in my life. The meaning of art in culture. The definition of culture through art. The destruction of culture by art. The place of God in art. Art as worship of God. Art as a replacement for God. Art as self-expression. Whether or not art can be self-expression or whether it can only be reflection requiring substantial context. And whether that reflection is self-reflection or reflection of culture. And if it is only reflection of culture, then what is the role of representation and how extensive is the effect of the artist as a filter for culture? And vice versa. On and on. And etceteras.
Art is this incessant day of getting up and beginning again. Art is that crazed wild beast you find wounded in the woods. Shrieking in pain. Violent and angry. Helpless. Dying. And you do not have to choose to help it. It is wise not to help it. There are those people
who reach out to the beast with bread or water or a salve for the pain. And some of those people perish. At the same time there are those people who catch the beast from behind and beat it senseless, prostrate. And some of those people think they have done a good thing.
Other people let the thing die, laugh as if they have controlled the pain, and collect remnants of the beast to decorate their offices, ears, and anecdotal histories.
And there are some people who sit out of the way, watching. They wait, patiently, until the beast sleeps. And then, only then, do they approach the animal. They study it. Find its strengths. And see what has happened to weaken it. And some of those people, the bravest and perhaps the most crazed, stand ready as the beast wakes.
And when the beast rises in anger those people rise too. They assume the strengths of the beast. They pretend the power. They hope the trick works. And the beast tires in its confusion. The people rest. And again they watch. Soon the beast is cleaning its wounds. And the people, those brave sweet souls, do not smile at the beast. They do not even pretend to understand the pain. Instead they lock eyes with the thing. They see the beast's blood. They feel death imminent and still they stare and inflict upon themselves a comparable wound. The beast has no compassion for those people. And those people may very well die as the beast takes advantage of their weakness.
But for the few who survive and return there can be great things. Because the beast, once it has healed and waited for the human to heal, knows all the best places to lie in the sun. And the beast knows all the soft mossy beds where a nap is required. The beast knows the fish, and the honey, and the meat, and the warmth under the snow. And the human will call these things his or her own only by watching.
