“Jed,” the man said again, kind of like a question. He wasn’t yelling at all, as it turned out. “It’s Jed. Right? Jed?”
“Yes,” said Jed. “My name is Jed.”
“It’s me,” said the man. “Larry. From over there.” He pointed over his left shoulder with his right thumb, back toward a house that was even bigger than Jed’s.
“Nice to meet you,” said Jed.
“We’ve met before,” said Larry. “A bunch of years ago, right when we moved in. You all came over to the house. We tried to roast that pig?”
“Oh yes,” said Jed. “I guess I do remember that.”
“I see you every day,” said Larry. “They let me work remotely now, so I can see you from my den. I see you walk down to that little building in the morning and I see you walk back at lunch and then I see you walk back down again in the afternoon. I never see you walk back at night, though. You must work late as hell.”
“I’m lazy,” said Jed. “I always start later than I want, so I have to make up those hours at night. And sometimes I lose track of time. I’m a real space cadet.”
“Don’t mug yourself,” said Larry. “I dig your dedication. Self-employed?”
“Self-employed. Unemployed. Retired. Whatever you want to call it.”
“You told me what you did back at the pig roast, but I don’t remember.”
“Phones,” said Jed. “I did stuff with phones, when phones were the thing to do. But I got out of that a while ago. I cashed out.”
“And now you work there,” said Larry, jabbing his blower toward the shed.
“Yes,” said Jed. “In a manner of speaking.”
“How big is that shithouse? I’m guessing maybe twelve by sixteen? Sixteen by twenty?”
“It’s sixteen by twenty-four.”
“What exactly are you doing in there?”
Jed couldn’t tell if this was an intrusive accusation or a friendly question, though he knew his intoxication from the chemical mixing was the reason he couldn’t decode the difference. He tried to think up a response that would fit either scenario, but every possibility felt stilted and unnatural. He ended up saying nothing at all.
“Sorry,” Larry said clumsily. “That’s your business. Not my business.”
“No,” said Jed. “No, it’s fine. It’s just hard to explain. I’m a space cadet.”
“Really, no worries,” said Larry. “I don’t need to know what you do in there.”
“It’s no big deal,” said Jed. “I have no problem telling you. It just won’t make much sense. If I were describing what I was building to a four-year-old, I’d probably say it was a robot or a dinosaur. If I were explaining it to a college kid, I’d say it was an art installation. If I were trying to sell it, I’d say it was a self-driven amphibious contraption, unless I was trying to sell it to the military, in which case I’d claim it was an urban combat weapon. But it’s actually not any of those things. It’s just something I want to build.”
“Wow,” said Larry. “A robot dinosaur. I’d always assumed you were just a carpenter.”
“I wish,” said Jed. “That would make more sense. But also, it’s not a robot dinosaur. That’s only how I said I’d explain it to a child.”
“How big is it?”
“When fully assembled,” said Jed, “about twenty-five feet long and twelve feet high.”
“That’s bigger than the shed, you know.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Can I see it?”
“Maybe when it’s done.”
“What will it do?”
“That’s not really the point.”
“Sure. I get that. But even so,” said Larry. “What will it do?”
“It will do lots of things, but that’s not why I’m building it. If I wanted it to do one specific thing, I wouldn’t need to spend my time building something that doesn’t exist. I’d just go out and buy the preexisting thing that already does what I want.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” said Larry. “I mean, not really. Seems kinda nuts, to be honest. But we’re all a little nuts. You know what I mean?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s why you’re the artist and I’m the pharmaceutical rep,” said Larry. “I’ll let you get back at it. I got leaves to blow. Just wanted to come over and say hi, now that I’m home all day. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Yeah, I’m not an artist,” said Jed. “But thanks for coming over.”
Larry turned and walked away. Jed reentered the massive kitchen in his massive home and could hear the leaf blower fire up as the back door swung shut. In a flash, he fantasized about rushing back outside, grabbing the blower out of Larry’s hands, and using it to smash him across the face. But that impulse passed in a nanosecond, and he immediately felt shame for having felt such a feeling. He didn’t know Larry and didn’t remember the pig roast. He had already forgotten that Larry was named Larry. And yet he knew, with every granular fiber of his being, that this pharmaceutical salesman had been right about everything. His neighbor was a jerk, but a jerk who could see right through him. What he was building was indeed nuts, and therefore stupid. It had no purpose, and a machine with no purpose is less than the sum of its parts. A machine with no purpose detracts from the world. He’d ultimately have to destroy his shed in order to put it together, and it probably wouldn’t even do what it was supposed to do, even though it wasn’t supposed to do anything. People would think it was a robot dinosaur, except for the people who thought it was bad art. It was his own fault. He was lazy and he wasn’t creative. He wasn’t dedicated enough. He was a failure, and he was going to fail again.
No lunch today, he told himself. You don’t deserve lunch. There wasn’t much food in the house, anyway. He wandered into the living room and sat on the couch, staring at the empty space that used to be a television. There were pine needles all over the shag carpet. Jed tried to remember the last time he vacuumed. It must have been a year ago. Maybe two years. Did he still have a vacuum? Yes, in the basement. He stood up and started toward the stairs, only to give up before he got there. Spontaneous vacuuming would be a misuse of time. The chemicals were already mixed. If he wasted the afternoon cleaning the carpet, the fluids would grow viscous and he’d have to start over. There was no time for the house. He needed to get back to the shed. He needed to return to his failure. Fuck that troglodyte with the leaf blower. We’ll see who’s lazy. We’ll see who cares the least.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank the following people: Scott Moyers, Brant Rumble, Daniel Greenberg, Melissa Maerz, Mat Sletten, Mike and Chrissy Maerz, Jennifer Maerz, Bob Ethington, Eli Saslow, Michael Weinreb, Jon Dolan, Greg Milner, Ben Heller, Alex Pappademas, Sean Howe, Rex Sorgatz, Mia Council, everyone who works at Penguin, everyone who used to work at Blue Rider, Florence Klosterman, all of my brothers and sisters, all of my nieces and nephews, Silas Klosterman, Hope Klosterman, and anyone who ever caused me to have a weird thought.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of eight nonfiction books (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; I Wear the Black Hat; But What If We're Wrong?; and Killing Yourself to Live) and two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons.
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nbsp; Chuck Klosterman, Raised in Captivity
Raised in Captivity Page 21
