by Phil Stern
A tremendous crash, then blessed silence. The children were gone, forever, never to torture another soul. An oasis sprouted up by my side. I bent down and washed my face in the clear, cool water, having finally achieved Freud’s gestation/death state, where every biological imperative is completely sated, my existential angst finally and completely gone.
But I’m getting better. For awhile the dream ended with the bus flying off into the sun, the children immolated in a sudden nuclear explosion destroying the entire solar system. Now they die and I live. It must be close to summer vacation.
Look, don’t ask me why I wanted to be a teacher, because right now I don’t remember. All I know now is the fuckers drive me crazy! A simple example will suffice:
My class just read Sister Carrie, a WONDERFUL novel about a young 19th century woman who flies in the face of convention to live an independent life! I loved this book growing up! But do you know what my young scholars had to say on the subject of Caroline Meeber, one of the most famous characters in all of American Literature?
“That bitch fucked up,” commented Latisha, a girl who routinely refers to everyone, male and female alike, as bitches. “Shit, why that slutty bitch gotta be fucking all them old men for nothing? I’d be charging them white bitches BIG TIME blow for my sweet thing! Fuck, that bitch don’t know nothing ‘bout nobody!”
“No, no, no! Check it out, Miss S!” Sitting up in his chair, Angel began unconsciously massaging himself. “I say Carrie done it right! You know, first she be fucking this guy, and then this guy…” More pulling and prodding on his crotch. “…and then she hooks up with this chick, in an apartment and shit! Like, wow, that’ll show ‘em! Right, Miss S?”
At least Latisha and Angel had read the book. Everyone else looked bored or just stared out the window. Several of them had their heads down on their desk, sleeping.
“Angel,” I began. “I don’t believe Carrie and Lola had a sexual relationship.”
Angel looked confused. “They ain’t be fucking and shit?”
“No,” I gently corrected. “They were merely roommates while Carrie got a position in the theater…”
“Them bitches!” suddenly thundered Latisha, “be fucking themselves SILLY, Miss S! Shit, don’t you know nothing ‘bout nobody?”
“No, no, no!” Angel nodded reverently, as if struck by the perverse complexity of my interpretation. “Mrs. S be right! Check it out…”
“Listen, bitch! They be more pussy licking going on in that apartment than you’d know what to do with!” Incensed, Latisha swung her head around to directly address Angel. “They be strapping theyselves up with more dildos than an astronaut, and sticking theyselves every which way to do it! Don’t be telling this bitch they ain’t hardcore, mother fucking, tit-licking, dyke-ass LESBIANS, cause this bitch knows! You hear me, Angel? I knows, mother fucker! I knows!”
Wow. Latisha had style, I’ll grant her that. But why would an astronaut be referenced for dildos? And what would cause the proper use of “themselves” to become “theyselves” after a few usages…
“Naw, naw, naw. It ain’t like that.” Suavely waving Latisha off, Angel shrugged. “Carrie wants dick, not pussy.”
“That bitch can want both!”
“Naw. It ain’t like that.”
“WHAT!” Half jumping up, Latisha then crashed back down in her own seat. “I’s telling you, all of mother fucking NASA ain’t got more fake dicks than those two pussy-loving lesbo bitches! They only way those bitches gonna get more big-ass plastic cocks then’s they already got, is to hijack a mother fucking space shuttle! I’s telling you this, Angel! What are you, some dumb ass bitch don’t know pussy-loving space lesbos when you see’s them?”
And on it went. The bell rang moments later, and they all left me in blessed solitude.
So, you want to fix the educational system? Fine. The first step is to get rid of the cell phones. They talk, text, and surf to distraction, at all times of the day, in class and out. Whatever slim chance a teacher has of keeping their minuscule attention is instantly obviated by the electronic denizens secreted in every pocket and book bag. The only way cell phones could play a bigger role in their young lives would be if they could directly stimulate orgasms, and I’m sure that app is coming out next year.
Every time the school tries to ban them the parents scream and yell. But if you really want to do your kids a favor, insist they keep their cell phones in their lockers. Or better yet, leave them at home. Who knows? They might actually learn something as a result.
And since I know(s?) you’re curious, I’ll tell you. Taking Latisha aside the next day, I asked her about the connection between dildos and astronauts.
“Shit, Miss S, everybody knows ‘bout that!” Folding her arms, I was treated to Latisha’s disgusted glare. “What you think them bitches doing up in space anyway?”
As it turned out, NASA had made a big deal about two female astronauts going up on the last shuttle mission, and Latisha’s imagination had done the rest. Thanking her for this insight, Latisha huffed off.
If I’d known what a good time all those gals had up in orbit, I would have applied to NASA myself. Anything’s better than being a teacher.
DAVE MILLER
Boy, I thought I was good to go on this life story thing, but I don’t know. So much is coming back. I mean, back in college everything was so exciting! We all read sci-fi, and the future just seemed limitless. What happened to it all?
But here’s the thing. You, me, all of us, are in that future now. We all somehow jumped in a time machine and made it here, the promised land. The only problem is I’m 39 years old.
And there’s some really cool shit now. I can go into a store and buy a little handheld computer that allows me to make a phone call from anywhere, can connect me to a world wide information and entertainment network, send and receive electronic messages from anywhere, check my bank statement, listen to music, locate myself, or anything, using global positioning satellites…I mean, think about that.
Back in the day, that was science fiction. And today it’s reality. Amazing. Wouldn’t it be really cool if I could be here, today, and still be 19?
I’ll bet Steve doesn’t give a shit. Or Sophia. I’ll bet college is just a memory for them. And Brooke…well, who knows. So, I mean, what is there to say?
But I still love them all, even if they only still exist in my own mind. Now all I want to do is jump in that time machine and go back, so we can all go to the diner and have french fries and milk shakes at midnight and then wander around campus until dawn. Wow. What I wouldn’t give to do that.
But I don’t think they’d be interested. I mean, who knows how much of their younger selves is even left?
Part Three
STEVE LEVINE
A week ago I heard Def Leppard’s Animal on the radio, instantly taking me back in time to our disastrous family vacation to California.
It was the summer after graduating high school, just before I left for SUNY Buffalo. Like every guy my age I’d loved 1983's Pyromania. (Don’t tell me about Madonna, Culture Club, or the fucking Bangles. Def Leppard was the soundtrack of the 80's, with notable mentions to the Scorpions, Men and Work, Asia, and Metallica.) But Def Leppard hadn’t put out anything for a few years, and there were rumors they’d broken up.
And then, driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, listening to my parent’s scream and yell at one another in the front seat, I heard the distinctive strains of Animal over my radio headphones. I was utterly entranced.
“Megan,” I gushed to my sister, serenely listening to her own radio next to me. “Have you heard of any new Def Leppard coming out?” Megan just rolled her eyes, not even bothering to respond.
So anyway, nothing would do until we found a record and tape shop after stopping for lunch. Then I joined my sister in her detached, headphone-imposed haze during the rest of our vacation.
At one point, stopping at a scenic lookout, utterly beguiled by Hysteria blasti
ng in my ears, I stared down at two otters playing in the Pacific Ocean surf. I listened to the whole album twice over while wandering through the redwoods, a chipmunk communing with me from a fallen log during Armageddon It. And I distinctly remember Pour Some Sugar On Me accompanying our takeoff from Los Angeles back to New York.
But you know what a fucking tool I’ve become? I actually went out and bought the album (in one of the few remaining music stores) on the way into work last week. Not that there’s anything wrong with buying the album. But there is something obscene about introducing one’s precious boyhood memories into your adult work life.
You see, I was actually humming Rocket when my boss (the august Vice-President of Water Sales), who was visiting my office for the day, dropped into the chair opposite my desk.
“So,” he uncomfortably began, “how do you do it, Steve? I mean, is there a new close you’ve come up with?”
Yesterday I’d sold another two water treatment systems. I was the best in the company, which alternately pleased and infuriated my bosses. They just couldn’t understand how an antisocial Jew from New York could sell more water systems to undereducated southerners than they could.
“Well, Randy, it’s like this.” I could get away with this shit because I was so good. “I just do our demo…”
“The Company Demo?”
“Absolutely. The Company Demo.” To admit you’ve altered the Company Demo in any way was the most perverse heresy one could ever commit. “And then I make them an offer.”
“Yes?” Randy eagerly sat forward, confident my secret was being revealed. “An offer? What kind of offer?”
“I tell them I’m about to drop my pants and jerk off,” I blithely continued. “And if I can actually shoot my load onto the far wall, they have to buy a water treatment system.”
Randy stared at me blankly. “What?”
“And if I fall short. You know, just soaking the carpet? Then they don’t have to buy one.”
“Oh.” Following a satisfactory pause, Randy managed a half-smile. “That’s very funny.”
But at least my perversities were uttered in private. Three days ago a well-known generic sales “consultant” from Texas addressed the assembled managers at our corporate headquarters in Atlanta.
“Your industry is like a cash cow!” he thundered. “And you all know what to do with a cash cow, don’t you?”
This being a rhetorical inquiry, we all girded ourselves for the no-doubt outlandish answer.
“YOU ALL NEED TO GRAB EVERY TIT YOU CAN, AND SUCK ON THEM FOR ALL YOU’RE WORTH!” Eyes glazed with the maniacal glee of a southern businessman exhorting the faithful, the consultant continued. “You need to bend those fuckers over the table and keep shoving your cock UP THEIR ASS until they see how your product pays for itself! It’s not a matter of how they can afford one, it’s a matter of how can they afford NOT to get one!”
Sighing, I shifted uncomfortably in my plastic chair.
“Look at it this way,” the maniac blathered on. “When you walk into a house, they have your money. They have your commission in their pockets! Are you going to let them get away with not giving it to you? And you going to let them STEAL YOUR MONEY? Are you?” With an air of infinite disgust, he shook his head.
Melodies of Def Leppard dancing in my head, I easily recalled the friendly chipmunk from the redwood forest over two decades ago, darting about, reveling in its own existence.
“You people…” the hired gun roared, pointing at us like some Mississippi lawman of a generation before berating black people trying to enter a voting booth, “…need to do better! You need to bring in sales, not excuses!”
And Misty, my beloved golden retriever, finally killed on a highway after my father let her out on her own one time too many. We’d roam the woods together for hours, dashing across streams and open fields. Sometimes I felt as if Misty was the only person who really understood me.
“You know something? My wife doesn’t have to work!” This was always the consultant’s big close to a speech. “I make enough money that she doesn’t have to! What about your wife? And yours?” Once more, accusatory fingers stabbed out at his audience. “Do your women have to work in some convenience store, or wait tables on tourists, because her husband isn’t man enough to properly support his family? You all disgust me!”
But that’s my other life. Today I woke up in a stately, hundred-year-old boarding house in Wildwood, soft breezes blowing sheer white curtains back into the room. Across the street, on the clear Sunday morning air, I could easily hear the church crowd heading into the First Baptist Church.
Slowly stirring awake herself, a regal 30-year-old blonde sat up beside me, arms stretched wide. I’d met Julie a few months before as she photographed exotic birds in a state park. A wildlife biologist, she was completing a six-month project among the Florida swamps and streams. Of course, Julie reminded me greatly of Sophia back in our college days.
Flipping on her new Creed CD (a band to which I’d introduced her a few months before), we sat on the edge of the bed, naked, watching the sedate church crowd file into the imposing edifice. Everyone was perspiring heavily in their Sunday suits and dresses beneath the Florida sun.
I liked living in the moment like that sometimes, relaxing with a gorgeous girl in a pleasant room. In a few moments we’d have sex again, the sounds of church pleasantries still washing over us.
“Did you ever go to church?” Julie asked.
“Only a few times, when somebody asked me.” Sophia, actually. “Church doesn’t seem to mean much.”
Creed’s Higher now came on, one of my favorite all-time songs. I’d been fascinated by it during the summer of 2000, during one of my ill-fated journeys into a strange city for a talk radio job that didn’t work out. It was about escaping into another world of comfort and acceptance. I let my eyes fall closed, drifting back in time.
Much like Def Leppard in the 80's, Creed was the defining sound of the brand-new century. They’d broken up soon after I saw them play live, one of the few times a band’s demise had really affected me.
“So how long will you be staying in Florida?” Julie asked.
I thought about that a moment. “I don’t know.”
Julie said nothing, the silence drawing out.
“I don’t where else I’d go,” I added.
“Isn’t there anywhere else you wish to be? Somewhere you’re curious about?”
I thought on that a long moment. “Colorado. I’ve always wanted to go to Colorado.”
“It’s beautiful there.” Julie smiled. “Truly gorgeous.”
“I definitely want to check it out sometime.”
Another moment went by, then Julie took a deep breath. “By the way, Steve, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“How do you sell so many water treatment systems?” Clearly she was hesitant to ask, possibly afraid of the answer. “I mean, you make a lot of money doing it. But I know they’re expensive. How…I mean…what’s your secret?”
“Afraid I’m screwing people over?”
Julie shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Relax. I simply drop the price down on each sale so their monthly payment matches their saving. I add up what they’ll be putting back in their pocket on bottled water, soaps, their electric bill and all, giving them a monthly payment equaling that figure.”
Julie thought on that a moment. “So they never lose any money.”
“Right.”
“Don’t you make less commission that way?”
“Yeah, in the short run. In the long run I make even more.” I wonder what Randy would have thought of my secret. He probably would have been greatly relieved, dismissing my technique as a simple lack of nerves.
Julie put her head on my shoulder. She was leaving Florida in a few days, heading off to her next project in northern Canada.
We then talked of my latest unpublished novel, tentatively entitled Reylar,
about a pair of star-crossed lovers in the midst of a revolution on another planet. To her credit Julie was politely interested, thought I don’t think sci-fi was her cup of tea.
Still, if there was ever a portal to Creed’s other world it might have been there, in Julie’s bedroom, on our lazy Sunday mornings. Later on, wandering through the exotic Florida wilderness, it was easy to imagine we’d actually crossed some cosmic threshold.
Driving home I caught Alice In Chain’s Down In A Hole on the radio, followed by Queensryche’s Silent Lucidity, two great era-defining songs of the early 1990's. They reminded me of Sophia, Dave, and Brooke, and what might have been.
I’m going to have to write of that night soon, when the four of us were blasted apart. Even if the others don’t, I need to get it all down. This Life Project wouldn’t be complete without it.
SOPHIA DANTON
Brooke Smith is dead.
I’ve been thinking of Brooke so much lately, because of Steve’s writing project we’re all working on. So on a whim this morning I ran an internet search on her. Brooke Lynn Smith, of Orchard Park, NY, died five years ago of a rare form of cancer. Only 33 years old, she left behind a husband and two young daughters. I’ve been crying all day. I still can’t believe it.
I’d met Brooke freshman year at SUNY Buffalo one crisp fall Sunday morning. Taking a walk before church I came upon this thin girl with long dark hair, crying on a park bench, legs drawn up to her chest. Without thinking I sat down beside her, asking what the matter was.
Lifting up her tear stained face, eyes wide in distress, she told me of seeing three dead racoons, one adult and two babies, in the center of the road the night before. She’d been in a car full of drunk college kids returning from a bar, her then-boyfriend behind the wheel. Careening around a curve, the dead racoon family was caught full in the headlights.
