by Tuttle, Dan;
The pages listen, Stella thought, it’s me,
my problem’s me. Too gassed, I’d never opt
to speak to them. Gone now’s exam blitz. Three-
ish hundred Annals pages yet lay white;
Stel now had stuff to write that might incite.
126.
In shop, crew parroted consensus in
Tee’s ‘Oppo’ name (at least, those conscious still)
support, of course, both voiced and densest when
each member vied to climb hierarchy’s hill.
They hadn’t quite yet reached the age when such
attentiveness to social order ceased,
and so their own considered views were clutched
in fetal state to chest and unreleased.
Stel learned all this quite secondhand next day,
once Cade ensured her safely home in bed,
and she awoke with questions mind delayed
till times of sober clarity. He said,
“They didn’t hear your rap against their food,”
explaining each toward leader Tee had cooed.
127.
Once water and caffeine began their course
to Stella’s veins, enlivened, she replied,
“Thank goodness. No surprise that they’d endorse
the stuff she argued. Her charisma, pride,
and force of personality make crowds
of any type befriend her. That’s a gift.”
Stel’s token guilt was having disavowed
new friends’ consumerism, foregone thrift
that paired with lack of gratitude, eclipsed
by mem’ries of a world where infants starved.
The Cheetos, Lays, and Pringles, new teff chips,
and puffy lentils, gluten-free, flat, carved
in tasty little shapes gave greater choice
to stoner than world did to poor in voice.
128.
At this, Cade asked, above the speakers’ hum,
“If you don’t know what happened at the store,
the tonic, ice, and handle of Seagram’s,
the chilling next to Buena Vista, or
the run away from that coyote howl,
then how were you awake till four a.m.?”
“Huh? I thought you slept.” “I know you night owled.”
“Ugh. Pass the water. Slowly. Sore day.” REM
still strongly lingered after she had woke.
“I’ve got some scenes from each, I wasn’t blacked
out. And what I do when I’m home’s not spoke.
You ought to be ashamed your lack of tact
has let you tell a lady you keep track
of lights beneath her door.” Cade took aback.
129.
“Ha. Hold your stones, check 50’s ‘Patiently
Awaiting’ for the reference. Stel, you cranked
the stereo and kept it blamelessly
that high till you were done! You should have thanked
me – probably Yeye too – for passing out.”
Though mental fog was lifting slowly, this
spurred recollection that she’d chose to flout
convention that nighttime should be mute bliss.
Cartoonists might have drawn the scene with ‘WHOOPS!’
in bubble thought above embarrassed hunch,
as Stella’s mind began to jump through hoops
to recall why she’d needed sonic plunge.
Excusing self, she traced back to her room
to see if she could find buds anger bloomed.
130.
In space’s physicality, she found
no single artifact that could attest
to some nocturnal fanciful spellbound
mellifluous creation. Not outguessed,
she opened window wide to see if seat
on gently-angled rooftop had inspired
her overplayed fortissimo of beat
and yet again not single clue acquired.
In giving up the search, she sat on bed
and opened up her laptop. That was it!
The frontmost screen post-password loggerhead
was text arranged in structure, rhymed clause split
across two lines ten syllables apiece.
She’d penned a drunken sonnet as release:
131.
Imagine world as open, free as could
be grown with capital, consumers all
addicted to the message that they should
acquire from HSN and outlet malls.
In such society, the very wants
of populace await the marketer.
She knows psychology, design and fonts,
and shapes you to crave patriarchate’s myrrh.
In its consumption, so you closen ties
in your life and in those you’re talking to
with narrative big businesses’ supplies
are happy ends themselves, no balking due.
The buyers thus detach from value they
ought on their own ascribe to goods. OBEY.
132.
The Shepard Fairey staple poster hung
above her desk had offered that last line.
It struck her that the artist had a tongue
so fierce as to make verses realign.
This message came from colors’ boldened blot
and minimum detail in other parts.
The mind itself filled in the message, not
depicted, of how They control the heart.
In every man and child and woman who
tunes into Spotify or radio,
or dozen others, They’ll seek to undo
the story me alone can make me glow.
It hung, reminding core assault was on
identity of we ourselves, long-conned.
133.
When Stella read what she had written drunk
a set of goosebumps stood upon her back.
It seemed to be expression of the funk
her conscious mind had yet to quite unpack.
Those thoughts that came to head in super-mart
were all too early to be well-expressed:
she felt like shopping friends were duped, in part
by normalcies unpicked by Cornel West.
The views that Stella brought, naïveté
of outsider were sharp enough to gash
and hot enough to boil, not seethe away
from balms commercials spread of sale-saved cash.
It felt like second, vast subconscious mind
had stolen typing fingers to opine.
134.
The paper’s digital inscriptions were
as odd as graphite’s glyphs at Wangjiang Park
that introduced the poet Xue Tao and her
millennia-encrusted wise remarks.
She checked her recent playlists, found that Rage
Against the (damn) Machine was in the queue
around the time she slept. LCD page
was left half-written, notes from days Chengdu
delighted and depressed as partial thoughts.
The marginalia was Rorschach test
whose indications were she was distraught
and feared that sleep of muse would dispossess.
’Twas old to Stel, from Annals: dissident’s
nocturnal meditations left in print.
135.
Amusement beat out bashfulness. She cried,
“Hey Cade, come up! I figured out what I
was doing last night.” She felt to confide
in him her sauced-mind’s hobby fine. Gut shy,
he climbed the stairs and braced himself for sights.
He lightly laughed when realizing that
the thing was metered syllables. “She writes
when woozy? Fooled me!” Kneeled, with prize thing at
eye-level, he read Sonnet One and paused.
It took a sec to que
ry body and
pinpoint its rigor mortis proper cause:
“Your verse is shiny. That’s gold Talib’s panned,
and Zion I, Sage Francis, Eminem,
Blue Scholars, Common Market, ten o’ them
136.
on independent labels, Tonedeff shit.
You’ve rapped what happens when an alien
is dropped in as observant. Lone, left, split
from culture’s cant sesquipedalian,
you weave interpretations of your own.”
Now Stella hadn’t known that Cade could drop
that GRE vocab like Cicero,
since canon till then referenced was hip-hop.
It rather pleasantly reminded: views
are only helpful insofar as they’ve
accounted for the full array of clues
available to show how folks behave.
Stel brightened, hearing hidden hobby held
in such regard by brethren who there dwelled.
137.
The cocktail socializing, alcohol,
elastic evening, and a laptop’s light
precipitated high morale and scrawl,
inked crystalline memento of the night.
The chosen topic channeled Prodigy
in outrage at the system. Questioning
reach brainwash tentacles had clawed was plea
for an alternative progression. Zing
of message lay in challenge to the crowd:
examine how the narratives they hear
are crafted so the audience is wowed,
their authors corporate cogs, and not Shakespeare.
Mayhaps opposing Opposition meant
she’d pen eye-catching lines more self-ward bent.
CHAPTER 21
138.
The tungsten radiated tiny lux
from bulbs hung down to candles complement.
Another Tuesday night at Club Deluxe,
bar where the Opposition’d come frequent.
Cigar box pub partitioned from a den
where panoramic Californian views
were painted to horizons. Its bullpen
was leather bench seats circled into U’s.
They sat a shoulder-length from perma-stage,
piano standup, PA system, seats,
and wicker tipping basket, worming wage
from first date couples feigning as elites.
Two bands a night, and seven nights a week,
it held a red, dark, neighborly mystique.
139.
It also held a standing group of youth
arriving after first band wrapped its set
to get their well gin shaken with vermouth
then raucously debate the internet.
They touched on social media, on rules
compared to norms, neutrality of bits,
philosophy applied not taught in schools
defining techno-worlds they’d grown up with.
No single conversation’s end resolved,
they threaded into endless data stream,
recursive depths of which at times appalled
the late-come guests who tried to join the team.
Within, without, beyond the net, they strayed
toward human rifts Boy’s politics had splayed.
140.
“Let’s start with little Boy,” Tee primed the group,
“Do you remember just how normal news
once looked? I mean, you’d get a weekly scoop
that merited a long-form look. Now who’s
on every headline, making light of brawls?
And sometimes twice a day, the lunacy
redoubling to the point where Tylenol’s
the only surefire route from loon I see.”
“No joke,” said Cade, “this stuff brings Sadville close.
Each time I see the news this dopey Boy
brings idiocracy. An Advil dose
won’t do it justice, reach for opioids.”
“Too soon,” said Benny. “Heard his hush playdate
with some professional longtime playmate?”
141.
Joe asked, glossed over conflict. Cade said, “What
you gotta look at’s fact he’s lost his friends.
I mean, think of the other tykes now shut
out from his sandbox! Poutyface pretends
like he took over, told them all to go.
Well, maybe throwing sand in all their face
was signal that they oughtn’t stay fo’ sho’.”
“Nah, not a chance,” Mo said, “palms need more space
for those small hands to fling a thing.” Folks laughed.
Tee barreled on, “They might have trusted him
had he shared list of all his toys.” “That’s daft—”
said Joe, “no rational observer thought
the Boy was there to make the playground nice.
We and they know his tempers, toys, and vice.”
142.
“I’ll tell you, Cade, the part perturbing me
does not pertain to Boy directly,” said
a clear-voiced Benny, “disability
of learning should be managed by the Ed
instead of perpetrated from the top.
You saw that interview? Gold can’t buy smarts.”
“That’s not the thing evoking my teardrops,”
said Mo, “we’ll rebuild equity and arts.
I fear we’ve given godlike dynamite
to little tyke who lies to the adults
until they go away. He’d try to light
that shit so he could point to some results.”
Nods ’round the table ended looking down,
apocalypse as topic earned ring’s frowns.
143.
Restarting after down beat, Cadence hit
from different angle: “Flip-flops days apart
on bump stock ban revealed his feeble wits
reverse with two good naps and one good fart
to make more space for thinking in the brain.”
Tee: “Hey, we’re piling on. Let’s figure out
the things to do this week to fight.” “Complain?”
asked Mona dryly, wry smile doubling clout.
Tee dropped her gaze and almost cracked, her grin
in recognition of the bait. “That’s first,”
Tee said, “and done, Olympically. To win
we’ll maybe need to have done more than cursed.”
“I’m tired of making phone calls to my rep
who’s already decided his next step.”
144.
The dearth of new ideas brought an end
to brainstorm ’round the time the band came in.
“Our lack of monies clearly will portend
demise of our attempts to brand-shame him.”
Said Tee, “We’re poor, Benita. That’s why we
make friends with bartenders. We only get
one vote to change stuff each two years. Aye, fees
to steer democracy are known, steep bets
the likes of which our ‘exit’ brothers pay.
The rest of us got jack in pocketbook
and get outspent by crapbag NRA.”
Stel: “Better to be Davy Crockett, hook
the masses with mythology aligned
to goals you have for wider humankind.”
145.
“Of course that’s better, being scion of
a demographic feeling unexpressed.
But that’s unlikely when who’s high above
is dominating discourse of the rest.
Cade posed a plan a month ago to slice
that fragile image that Boy holds so dear.
I still believe that would itself suffice.”
And fit, Stel thought, the ethos Pioneer.
Cade said, “Ignore the way he prattles on,
he’s clearly clad in emperor
’s new clothes.
The only kings are Presley and LeBron
and counterarguments are empty prose.
Poke holes in Boy’s balloon while stoking rise
of other heroes, lead to his demise.”
146.
House special greyhound lingering in glass,
Stel hadn’t joined debate’s more active parts.
It felt to her like psyches were harassed
by Boy’s headline radioactive starts.
Of course a human being who believed
the world was out to get him would so act,
at every corner publicly perceived
as distanced from reality and fact.
“It makes no sense you’re so incensed when there’s
such bureaucratic insulation here.
When California flag arrives and bears
its grizzly, celebrate. Translation’s clear:
economy’s the king, and Cali’s fine.
States rights ensure your lives won’t be maligned.”
147.
“That view’s mature, I’m glad you shared it, Stel,”
said Tee, who looked sincere. “But, understand
you’re not a citizen. You’ll bear it well.
You’ve got your visa, paperwork in hand.
You go when pleasure strikes you. That remove
is not a thing that Nicaraguans have
or Salvadoreans, or many who’ve
risked life and limb and savings so to nav-
igate past Mexico, past border wall.
It’s those lives that we’re close to and protect
in trying to find a way to speed the fall
of Boy before at polls we reelect.”
“To act for others is the mark of saints,”
said Stel, “but don’t you think the better feint
148.
is rather, now, to focus on the things
that you control directly, right ’round here?”
“You underestimate the power phone rings
en masse to Washington’s vote profiteers
can have. Calls can change legislation’s word,
and legislation’s words change what we do,”
said some green friend-of-friend. Stel: “That’s absurd.
The logic fails. It’s that myopic view
that forces you to Opposition. Tell
me ten reps’ names in hundred who’ve campaigned
as centrists to the point where some new swell
of public feedback’s done a smidge to rein
in partisan alignment with some bill.
You vote for bundles, not wise reps’ shrewd will.”
149.
Stel’s knowledge of the goings-on and past
was aided by a ritual that she
adopted in late China days. She’d asked
Tao meanings of post-dinner news TV,
its telecasting always outpacing
the speed at which her brain could process thought.