Wednesday, February 25, 2015

One Way to Lose a Job


             I was home from college on summer break and wasting each sunny day trapped in the windowless confines of a corrugated box factory. (Note to reader: What most people think of as “cardboard” is actually “corrugated board.” Corrugated board has air between its walls. Cardboard does not. You will probably find this small bit of information absolutely useless in life, though if for some strange reason you ever find yourself in a box factory, at least you won’t sound like a complete fool.) It was the summer I started smoking cigarettes, not because I enjoyed cigarettes, but because if you smoked cigarettes, you were allowed to step outside the factory once an hour for a ten-minute smoke break. If you didn’t smoke cigarettes, you were only allowed a break every four hours. Who would have thought a habit so unhealthy would bring with it such great benefits?!? [questlamation mark (see: “Questlamation Mark Todd,” February 17, 2015)] With each box I handled, I dreaded the job more and more, and couldn’t wait for each day to end. But enough about me—this story isn’t about me. This story is about Jehovah the Ghost.  
            In 2001, the most popular pop musician on Earth was Eminem. I didn’t much care for the guy, but everybody else my age seemed to. So much so, that half the white suburban kids in America were convinced that they could be the next great rapper. My friend James was no exception. He dubbed himself Jehovah the Ghost, which was quite fitting since he had hair so blond it could have been called white and skin so white that he could have been mistaken for an albino. He was so serious about his career as a rap artist that he went as far as having “Jehovah the Ghost” tattooed on the back of his neck in large Chinese lettering. But enough about Jehovah the Ghost’s musical ambitions. This story is about how Jehovah the Ghost lost his job.
            After a long day stitching boxes at the old factory, I ran into Jehovah the Ghost at the town park. In his possession, he had a plastic baggy full of magic mushrooms. I distinctively remember that they were covered in specks of gold dust, like something out of a fairytale. “Do you want to split these with me?” he asked.
            “Of course,” I said, because when you’re 18 and working in a box factory, at the end of a long day, everything seems like a good idea.
            We ate the golden mushrooms. I dropped my car off at my parents’ house and climbed in Jehovah’s passenger seat, because even though I knew that driving an automobile while tripping balls was a bad idea, it never occurred to me that riding with someone else that was also tripping  balls was an equally bad idea. We drove to a local waterfall that was about seventy feet high and climbed to the top. At the top, I sat far from the edge and simply marveled at every incredible thing that Mother Nature ever had to offer—things like dirt and water and rocks. Jehovah the Ghost found no excitement in Mother Nature’s simple treasures. No, Jehovah the Ghost had other ideas about what it meant to have a good time.
            Jehovah repeatedly ran along the small stream that fell over the cliff’s edge. At the point where the water began its seventy foot fall, he would suddenly stop, his arms spread wide open, as if he thought he could fly. If he took just one more step—if he made just one critical error—he would have certainly tumbled to his death upon the jagged rocks below, transforming himself from Jehovah the Ghost into an actual ghost. He did this for about twenty minutes, stopping at the edge each time. I watched in both horror and delight, but mostly delight, because after all, I was tripping balls. Suddenly, halfway through his routine, he stopped in midstride. “Oh shit,” he said, his eyes as wide as a bug’s. “I’m supposed to be at work in ten minutes!”
            I laughed. “What are you gonna do?”
            “I guess I should call them,” Jehovah said as a cell phone miraculously appeared in his hand. He dialed and put the device to his ear. He looked at me. “It’s ringing. I’m getting the machine. Hello Marilyn, this is Jehovah the Ghost, I mean James. How are you doing? I’m ok. I’m just here at the falls kickin’ it with Jon. Oh shit, you don’t even know who Jon is, do you? Well, anyway, work…yeah, I don’t know about that. It’s just that it’s so beautiful out today and well, you know…anyway, have a goodnight, take care, I love you…Oh shit, who is this again?” And with that, Jehovah slammed the phone shut.
            “Who just called me?” he asked.
            “I think that was your boss,” I answered, “and I’m pretty sure you called them.”
            Suddenly, the phone rang. Jehovah immediately threw it over the cliff. We both laughed hysterically.
            Jehovah never went back to that job, but in the long run it didn’t really matter. It was only a job after all, not his true calling. He would eventually become the famous rapper he always dreamed of being, better known to the world as Macklemore. And as for me, well, I still get up every morning and go to work at the box factory.

            

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Questlamation Mark Todd (Fiction)




I don’t want a period at the end of this sentence. Or at the end of this one. But they’re there. They’re always there. Just like the dash you’re about to see—there it is. And the commas, and the “quotation” marks, and the semicolons; there to piss me off, one at a time. I want to write like Kerouac, like the beats, freeform, run on sentences, gibberish, jazz, but I can’t. Todd won’t let me. Todd makes me put periods at the end of my sentences, and commas between ideas, and sometimes even before the word “and,” which he then insists must be in quotations. Todd is a prick. Period.
It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it’s not—it’s me and Todd. Todd is somewhere in the back of my mind, and I can’t get him to leave me alone, to let me write without punctuation. Why do I need a question mark at the end of this sentence? Isn’t the fact that I started it with the word “why” enough to let my audience know that it is indeed a question? How can a sentence start with the word “why” and not be a question? Or “how,” or “when,” or “what,” or “who?” And enough with the goddamn commas and quotation marks! I hate you Todd! Exclamation point!
I wasn’t always like this. Todd didn’t always exist. He was created, like a monster. He evolved through years of education, from grade school all the way up to the university, where he really made himself apparent. When I was a child, I didn’t need Todd. I would just write and write and write with no trouble or worry of using any punctuation and boy did it feel good boy did it feel free but then I was introduced to Todd, and I noticed that my writing slowly changed, becoming something that I never intended it to be. Now it’s filled with these marks, these symbols that distract the reader from my words, which break up the flow of my sentences.
And I’m worried that Todd’s starting to take over. I’m worried that my voice will never be the same. From here on out it’s going to be filled with pauses, and stops. When it should be a freeform expression of my thoughts and ideas and dreams of who I am on the inside and not the kind of writer that Inspector Todd and the grammar police are demanding that I be. But I’m afraid that it might be too late. Period.
Todd’s getting cocky. He’s starting to use more dashes—see; and more semicolons, even going as far as experimenting with both in the same sentence. I’m not sure that it even works, but Todd doesn’t care. Todd has begun to do whatever he wants.
Todd thinks he’s getting clever. He claims to have invented a new symbol, a new piece of punctuation. He calls it the “questlamation mark” and he thinks it will put him in the history books. I try to tell him that nobody cares about the history of punctuation, but he doesn’t listen. He’s obsessed. “How do you emphasize the importance of a question?” he asks. “Through the clever usage of words,” I tell him. “No,” he replies. “You do it with a questlamation mark.” A father finds his son drawing on the living room wall with crayons and yells, “What are you doing?” But it’s not “What are you doing?” It’s “What are you doing!?!” Because he’s obviously disappointed and pissed off. He knows what the boy is doing—he’s drawing on the wall. What he really wants to know is “Why the hell are you doing this?” But that’s not how people talk, so he yells, “What are you doing!?!” And that’s why we need a questlamation mark—to emphasize the question. I’m beginning to wonder if Todd’s insane.
I try to explain it to Todd that you can’t simply invent new symbols, but he won’t hear of it. It’s already done, he says, it’s already invented. You take a question mark and put a vertical line through it, and there you have it—the questlamation mark. But they’re not going to just add a new key to every computer in the world, I try to explain. But Todd won’t listen—he’s obsessed. He says that I need to start calling the computer companies and demanding to speak with their designers, that the questlamation mark will become a reality. I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Todd doesn’t care what I think anymore.
John refused to call the computer companies, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I always thought John was a bit of a pussy. He was always trying to write run-on sentences that didn’t make any sense. He was always talking about style, and art, and all that bullshit, like he was some sort of hack novelist from the early 1960’s. He didn’t understand that grammar exists for a reason; that without punctuation there is only chaos. But I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about that anymore; I think we’ve got it all under control—now that I’m in charge. No periods? No commas? No quotation marks? I mean, who the hell did he think he was!?! Questlamation mark.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

This is Portland, OR: A Story about Chariot Warriors


            For many reasons, Portland, Oregon is a remarkable place to live, but perhaps it’s greatest asset is a community that encourages you to do whatever it is you truly want to do—to be whatever you want to be. It doesn’t matter, your age, your race, your gender. If you want to make art, you’re an artist. If you want to compete, you’re an athlete. If you want to tell stories, you’re a storyteller. And if you want to drag a chariot behind a bicycle and go to battle with other like-minded individuals, well, then, you’re a chariot warrior. This is a story about chariot warriors.
            First, we watched. On an abandoned bridge in North Portland, drinking tallboys of PBR, we watched grown men and women fight each other upon hand-crafted monstrosities on wheels. The rules were simple: 1) If either person is removed from the chariot or bicycle, you lose. 2) If the chariot becomes detached from the bicycle, you lose. 3) If the bicycle or chariot becomes immovable, you lose. 4) There is only one winner.
As the warriors fought, the spectators drank and smoked and yelled and threw things—food, beer, fire-crackers, smoke bombs—and sometimes even got into scuffles of their own. There were bumps and bruises, scratches and scrapes, brush-burns and blood—even a quick trip to the ER for a few stitches. The entire scene was utter chaos. A fight, a battle, a brawl, a scrap—call it what you will—it was little more than a demolition derby on bicycles. And we couldn’t wait to be a part of it.
So, myself, and my partner in battle—a man known as “Guardrail,”—began to collect. We found our steed at a swap meet—an old British folding bicycle. We went dumpster diving for scraps of steel. I was trying to get a girl out of my apartment, so I threw my mattress in the garbage. She didn’t get the hint, but the bed frame, combined with an adult-sized tricycle, made an excellent chariot. And once we were done collecting, we began to build. In a cluttered garage in Oregon City, we chopped and cut and grinded and welded. Then we reinforced everything. And once we were done building, we began drinking, because, if you’re going do something stupid, you’d best be drunk. We called ourselves Team “Danger Zone,” and a year after being mere spectators, we were now ready for battle.
If it seemed like utter chaos while watching it, then participating in the mess was absolute pandemonium. On a Friday night, in a construction zone underneath an elevated highway, we went to war. I powered the steed, steering us in circles, as Guardrail fought off our competition in the rear. I escaped a headlock from an ex-marine. Guardrail dumped a team of girls onto their side. I got a giant man dressed as a panda bear into a full nelson. The giant shook me off like I was a ragdoll. We rode in circles. A cargo net landed on my front wheel. The more I rode, the more it tangled, until the wheel wouldn’t move. Damn It!!! We were screwed. Rule #3) If your bicycle becomes immovable, you lose. All of that work, only to be done in by a fucking cargo net. But then…
We were saved! The police showed up in full force. Perhaps it was the crowd of 400 strong, or the fireworks exploding in the night sky, but it didn’t matter, we had been saved by the cops. (I never thought I’d ever say those words.) We were trespassing, they said, so we simply moved, down the road, to a “public” parking lot. I was able to cut the net out of the wheel before we started up again—the five teams who remained alive—but it wasn’t long before my lower leg got pinned between my bike and another chariot. Another warrior pulled me from behind and I could feel the pressure on my shin bone—like it was about to snap in two. I tapped out. I waved my arms in the air. “We’re out!” I yelled. “We’re out!” The pressure subsided. The battle raged on and eventually the giant panda was declared the winner.
We waited another year. Guardrail repaired the chariot, while I came up with a new strategy. On a Saturday afternoon, in a rail yard on the eastside of the Willamette River, with a picture-perfect view of the city skyline as our backdrop, again we battled. Our plan was a simple one—attack and run—stay away from the action, unless we could knock a team out unexpectedly. And it was working perfectly, until…


We were blindsided—sideswiped out of nowhere. The chariot crashed over on its side but Guardrail was able to hang on. We righted ourselves but the damage was already done—the left wheel was detached. Unfixable. We continued on, playing keep-away. I pedaled hard as Guardrail balanced the chariot on one wheel, pushing off the pavement with his right foot. We were able to keep away from most of the action until there was only one chariot left besides our own—an experienced team who had won twice before. I bent down and grabbed the bottom of their chariot and quickly flipped it over. Their warrior was able to hang on, but it was too late, the damage was done, their hitch snapped—their chariot was detached. Rule #2—they lose. We win. Danger Zone wins!!!


Our arms were raised. The trophy was filled with beer. We drank from it. Somehow, the associated press had caught wind of the event. A reporter wanted to interview me afterwards. I had never been interviewed before. He kept asking me about Portlandia, the cable television show. I acted like I didn’t know what he was talking about. He wanted to know what we did for work, how we earned our living. It was clear that he had already built a story in his head and he only needed me to reassure him that it was true. He wanted to make us out to be bums, street kids, adult delinquents. What he didn’t know, was that I studied journalism in college—that I was a storyteller myself. We’re mostly teachers and lawyers, I told him, but some of us are doctors, too. He cut that part from his story. He ended up calling us “punks,” which, whatever, fuck-it, I’ve been called worse. Because, in the end, when all is said and done, it doesn’t really matter what you label anyone. Because this is Portland, Oregon, where you can be a mother fuckin’ chariot warrior!
           


Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Rapids (An excerpt from The Road and the River: An American Adventure)


            Streaks of reds, yellows, whites, and blues are clearly visible on the large rocks just below the water’s surface—paint stripped from the bottoms of boats that have traveled this route before. We add some color of our own as we bottom out time and again, scraping our canoe’s hull across the river’s bed. A shiver rolls down my spine each time we make contact, worried more than anything of damaging our canoe. I don’t believe we’re in any physical danger, and I’d say with confidence that we’re running the rapids about as smoothly as they could possibly be run, until…
            The canoe turns, ninety degrees, perpendicular with the rapids, crashing the amidships into a large rock. With one side of the canoe pinned against the obstruction, the fast-moving water bucks the other side, lifting it, working to roll it over, like a log. Water begins to pour over the gunwales. A dry bag falls overboard. Nothing is tied down. I don’t think. I react. I jump out of the canoe. The water isn’t deep, just above my knees, and not moving fast enough to push me over. I use all my might to push down on the far gunwale while pulling up on the one closest to me. I swing the bow, using the rock as a pivot point, until the canoe is straightened out, and once again parallel with the water flow. I hop back in my seat and as we proceed downstream I reach overboard to snatch the slow floating dry bag.
            It all happens so fast that it seems like a dream. We continue down the river, floating so casually, and maneuvering so serenely, that I begin to wonder if anything even happened in the first place, if the whole occurrence wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. And then, when the rapids end, and the water calms, Jack makes it perfectly clear that something did indeed happen, that I am not losing my mind. “What the hell was that?” he asks.
            “What the hell was what?” I ask in return.
“You steered us directly into that rock back there.”
            “Me?” I reply. “I thought you steered us into the rock. Wasn’t I the one that saved us?”
            “Saved us?” he says with laughter. “By what, jumping out of the canoe?”
            “It worked, didn’t it?”
            “Well, if you wouldn’t have steered us into the rock in the first place…”
            “We both know that the man in the stern is in charge of steering.”
            “That’s right, and I was steering us straight, until you took us right into that rock.”
            “Alright,” I say, “I’ll take full responsibility for the mistake, but I’m also going to take credit for saving us. So now you can tell everybody that you know a real hero.”
            “But you see, the thing is, if you set a building on fire, and then save everyone inside, that doesn’t change the fact that you set the building on fire. You’re still going to jail for arson.”
            “Well,” I say, “luckily I didn’t start a building on fire.”
            “Your logic is absolutely ridiculous.”
            “When you’re a hero, your logic doesn’t have to make sense.”
            It’s good that we can joke around about our little debacle, because according to my calculations, we’re going to be sitting about ten feet away from each other for another 2,542 miles.