by Roman McClay
He quit college right at the end, to fight battles with windmills; he picked targets too large for him to swallow even if killed. He grew his hair long, packed on muscles that the old man imagined -wrongly- he himself had once had. The boy tattooed himself with strange monoliths, and what amounted to scribbling to his old-fashioned eyes. He had tried to keep him settled and assuaged and calm but the boy was always on some edge, some ledge of being out of control. But the boy was like the Mandelbrot cavitation and plumes that swirled from the exhale of the hot-breath of father in cold climes; the chaos of wind that begins deep in the lungs, right next to the heart; he was the consequence of words spoken in vex or in amour that later cannot be recalled .
He was like a wounded animal that you tried to help and just ended up getting bit by. He had always been this way, and nothing he -the boys’ father- had tried had worked; for he did not realize he had built the boy to be just as he was, with the same desire -and blame- as God who spoke the world into existence and then watched as it all went to shit. His own father, Arthur Roy, had left Lee Roy at an age well under 1. He had never even known the boy. His mother, Jewel Camp, what in those days was called a woman of ill-repute, had raised him, but truly he was raised by the extended family -that lived on each side of Texarkana- as best that they could.
It was Arkansas in the 1950s and he had been ungoverned and restless and eager to become a man. The boy, his son, he conceded, was like him that way, but, he -the father- had been around to hold him -with violence if necessary- in place and settle him the fuck down; unlike his own father who was never, ever around. His father had never been seen again. Lee had stuck around and at least -like a deistic god- observed most of the time.
The boy needed instruction; that was not in doubt. The problem was Lee was all action, all mode of being, and could not articulate one damn thing about the philosophy that was encoded in the bones of that faction inside that side of the line of a genome that flowed way back to the highlands themselves and back when the Gauls fled from the Romans to the most inhospitable lands of the north of Britannia .
Lee had no use for history, it was equivalent to baggage one must haul along on the flee-trail, and it served no purpose except ballast and a source of all manner of struggle, discomfort, and pain. He didn’t believe words, poetry, could be used as spells to dissuade and disarm one’s enemies at all. He didn’t think the past could teach anything useful for now.
He began his family anew.
Lyndon was angry, nebulously, haltingly, without full commitment, for he knew he was raised with nine out of 10 things right. He felt ungrateful and guilty for this pique, like a brat who doesn’t acknowledge how good he has it, and he reacted with spastic outrage at times and obsequious apologia at others and was -at all times- never quite sure of what to think. He was like a child with a memory of misdeeds, the scar or bruise from a trauma, the space where a tooth ought to have been, but no real memory of the attack, no thing to point to as source of where the bullet was fired from, no ballistic report. And he felt guilty for holding a grudge based purely on instinct alone. But the instinct for the grudge was there none-the-less. And soon the memories would emerge. He need only hang on and the world would give him the excuse he’d been born to seek out.
That instinct did live and breathe in him like a recurring dream, and man ignores his dreams at his own peril, he would often later think. Man ought never turn his back on the watery part of the world; a man is still alive at night when he dreams, he’s the same man even with his eyes closed, and the world too does not evaporate on either side of the submerged dreamer.
But was he not often accused of things he had not done? Was he not the one assumed bad without proof? How fair was it for him to do this same thing to his own kin? he asked in a reinforcing loop. Was he too hard on the world?
He thought of Renault’s words as Theseus said that his father, had better sailed than grieved . How haughty of the son to tell the king what he ought to have done, but Lyndon couldn’t help but see those harsh words as true and right. This was the land between lands that the son lived in, or at least traversed for so many decades. He was like the Siddhartha of Hesse or the Bible’s, Saul maybe, he thought. He peered back into the entrails of history, into the leaves of the books, to see if anyone had words that would cast spells in his favor too.
He wanted to learn of more than one way, precisely because his father’s way was not taught. It was supposed to be gleaned, slurped up like soup, not invigilated or listed in ingredients to a family-recipe. Eat up boy , his father had said, as if the boy was all stomach and had no ears to listen and no curious stuff of the mind. We traded the stomach of chimps for the mind of man, he’d then think of how hard it was to be nourished from leaves. Ruminants too, he thought, they eat -and must eat- all day .
Lyndon needed to learn, he needed things spelled out and articulated, he needed to know why they lived as they did, and what was his place in the order of things; and how to know what was right and good and true and how to behave. Lee’s father -the boy’s grandfather- had not even been around to serve as model, or exemplar at all. For Lee to provide that much at least -to be around as example- to his own sons was certainly seen -by him- as sufficient.
Travis, the older brother, suffered no such qualms; he knew what was right and wrong, by just following the rules. He was a Pharisee, an unthinking, but absorbing creature; he was as smart as they got. He assumed and asserted that the rules and justice were tantamount, conjoined, one thing; for years he found it easy to live his monolithic life. It did not occur to him -until very late- that one might think for one’s self and that the rules themselves might be a goddamn impediment to justice. History is read to discover just this thing; but Travis had no use for history. He was navigating the now and the tantalizing future. The future, that siren song that all -almost all- of mankind hears in the leeside wind of the ship; the always new blow of the wind.
The ancient rocks make no noise at all.
To complain in this family -when the boy was roiling inside and eager for instruction- to complain at all was seen as ungrateful, to ask for seconds was to say that what one was given was not enough. All was insult, even one’s appetite; and one was either sated, and thus, 100% grateful, or one was totally disloyal, there was no middle ground. Lyndon was too intelligent to follow rules by rote, he consistently scored in the top 95-99th percentile on everything in school and this only maddened everyone when he seemed incapable of behaving at all.
They -as mediocre people do- saw intelligence and conformity as linked, and thus it was anomalous for someone so gifted with brains to not understand what was clearly good for him, good for him by society’s definition. Thus, conformity and unthinking allegiance to all dictates and each dictator was clearly what was best for the boy; and everyone else too. They asserted this each time he broke one of their rules. This was and is the wisdom of crowds, it was and is the cri de guerre of the ruling class, it is like all received wisdom, actually, mostly, correct. The difference between Lyndon and most rebels and iconoclasts is that Lyndon actually saw that his rulers were not always wrong.
It’s just - he thought- that one does not yet know where the elders are in fact right until one has transgressed each and every one of their goddamn rules.
And he tested each one. He saw himself as quality control, as the rational man who tested the tensile strength of his culture’s mettle and pushed at each closed door to make sure it was indeed locked; invigilating each coin-return for that one gleaned nickel or single feral slug. He thought of himself as doing a service, to notice, detect, and reveal the weak spots in a system. He thought they ought to be grateful he was pointing out the places that real enemies , actual enemies of the country -the order- would certainly exploit. He thought of himself as the loyal opposition, the Trotsky of America. For in those instances -those attacks by true enemies- the transgressions would be filled with malice, with real intent to harm, not the playful and randy and merely mischiev
ous aims of his antics , he reasoned; and it was true, one could hardly doubt, that he was just fucking around .
But the truth is that he tested authority for one reason only, to wit: he only took orders from those competent to lead . And to test the rules was proxy for testing the rulers. That he couldn’t articulate this yet, made very little difference at all. But to test the rulers of modernity was certain to lead to doom: for everyone in charge of society now is a shithead and mediocre glad-hander and that’s the truth that hides at bottom of the West. They -none of them- are actually fit to rule.
He was not unlike his father who had had to be forcefully removed from an operation when the Air Force general in command had shown total stupidity and the airman first class -E-1- had said so aloud and with righteous pique. Chain of command was something Lee had learned but it did not come naturally to him. He thought a stupid general was more stupid than general and his own low rank made not one bit of difference at all; a smart E1 was superior to a fatuous four-star, he insisted. That this was the same philosophy of his son was not seen as redeeming at all. Lee saw only his own vex not that which redounded to his progeny too.
Lyndon had the same brain module or chemical or whatever that produced such arrogant -but accurate- thinking: he too would only take orders from the wise and erudite not merely from someone older, larger, or richer or in some phony place of corrupt command.
Some men admire the rank, the status, the office of President, the imprimatur of society that says so and so is in charge. Most men are this way and they see it as a virtue and sometimes , Lyndon thought, it is .
One cannot legitimately question each and every order sent below from above, sometimes one must, just, trust those who have achieved some level of status or command. God told Job this, and it was true then, Lyndon thought, and he ought to give his teachers and father -and even his not-so-bright mother- a break from time to time . Just because he couldn’t see the logic or wisdom in an order did not mean it contained no such germ. It took years, decades, before he learned that; but the corollary -something his enemies still don’t know- is that those in command ought to realize that sometimes they too are 100% full-of-shit and know nothing of that which they speak with so much bravura . Sometimes the rebel is exactly, goddamn, right. Sometimes the working-class too have ideas the bourgeoisie ought to heed. Sometimes, in some manner, Job is also right.
This was finally, after years of hypocrisy and too eager rebellion, this was Lyndon’s wisest idea: the rebel, the new or free-thinker, was often wrong, but so were those in charge and everyone ought to make peace with that. But there would be no peace, just as the tectonic plates would never finally settle, nor would forest fires -one grand day- stop breaking out and burning it all to the ground. Tension was built into the system. Even if the man wanted peace, he’d never have it. And that was a wisdom just out of his reach for most of his life.
For humans this tension obtained because it was always the subject, the citizen, the son, the ensign, the rebel, the patient, the prisoner, the student, the man at bottom that was required to be humble when wrong. The regent, the president, the father, the man with 4-stars on his lapel, the doctor, the warden, the professor, he never had to admit error, or misstep or a moment of immoral or unethical or stupid command. And this is what drove Lyndon -and ultimately a whole type of man- away from the bargaining table. This is what always leads a man to war against those placed above him. A man -men- shall not be permanently ignored .
The kings under Marduk had to admit error at least once a year; but who among the ruling class now, he asked, ever admitted when they were wrong?
He was -he had been- willing to meet his father -and even his country- half way, and admit he was -upon reflection- both grateful and lucky to have such a father and family -and country- in general. They had provided more than succor and substance, but also a stable marriage for him to grow under and a home almost -almost- free of violent tyranny and dysfunction, he was willing to say. He didn’t mind shading the truth in their favor from time to time too. For they had given him all manner of things that many kids lack; and that was not even mentioning the genes for excellence which were likely most important of all.
He admitted all this aloud and more than once as they soaked it in as their due. But, for them to admit that maybe they had not given him all that a boy of his sensitivity and intelligence might need, well, that was anathema and would not be spoken of and, further, he had no right to expect such a mea culpa at all. The apologies flowed one way, the laurels too; like the rain always ran down the mountain not up; the flame incessantly rose just under the smoke.
The communist of Romania, he thought, as this example seemed to come to him more often than not, also surmised that all a baby needed was sustenance and warmth of ambient air, and they thus forsook the babe any love and affection at all . Science & reason, had told them this and they marched forward with this pragmatic plan. But it was hundreds of dead babies, dead from plenty of food but absence of love, that finally proved that Ceausescu was wrong; not that anyone would see some spot in between where the babe manages to survive but is damaged in some way from not getting what he emotionally needs as is the case in the modern -rational- West. People can barely see the obvious, he thought, of course they miss the subtleties.
That a child might have needed not to move around every 30 months -as the only permanent bonds made in tribal life are between ages 1 and 15; and that he might need his father to explain things in detail, the reasons why; and that a child might need his mother to show actual affection and love and support for his nature; and that he might need a brother willing and eager to stick up for the younger boy who admired him and thus defend him instead of maligning, assaulting, and undermining him each time; and that he might need instruction in matters of the heart, and might need some trait openness coming back to him so he not feel so alienated and estranged; and that he might have need of some encouragement of his creativity and some recognition of his unconventional talents and some appreciation for all that he had learned; and that he might need not to have been threatened with violence so often, and abused when he was too little to fight; and that he might have needed explanations instead fiats, that he was -in fact- smart enough to understand nuance and the innate oddness of life if they would just explain; and that he might need to feel valuable to his kinfolk, was unacknowledged and would be smirked at if said aloud. These ideas would be tantamount to inarticulate crying; a sobbing and wailing as pointless as those no doubt made by those Romanian kids. And thus his insides would shrink and die just like those scientifically raised kids.
Not that anyone would ever attribute such maladies to such causes. Man can barely see causes a few seconds apart, to expect them to see them when they are years, decades betwixt and between is asking too much of the common man. And what else are those in charge but common?
All of that might have mattered, in the final analysis. Of course, maybe none of it would have mattered at all. But why not give it a shot anyway, why not try harder to be decent to children at least, if this soulless society can’t bring themselves to be decent to men, he thought .
Well, none of that could even be suggested or hinted at or said sotto voce . He was to be grateful; 100% grateful. Full stop. And that was that. Father and Country, all said the same thing: Obey or else. Put your house in perfect order, right? Before you criticize the world? he thought with disgust.
So, since he was -for nearly 45 years- willing to meet them half way and not be one of those petty and whining kids who blames hardship in life on the parents, because he was following the Tao of balance, everyone saw his ambivalence as weakness and thus -as a punishment, or mere consequence, for him- he then felt their further indictment of him: he was mocked as all-talk and no-action. He had made the grave error of showing weakness to them by his compromise. His own father had said with sarcasm, oh, yeah I ruined your life, when Lyndon had merely said that the reason he got large and martial and heavily armed was
because he had learned might makes right from his father and brother and craven, nodding-along mother, and that this was just a consequence; it was not anything to be lamented. Lyndon had merely spoke the truth, he had not complained. He had merely explained.
Lyndon had said, rain makes the ground wet , he had not blamed any one for the mud. But his father was so sensitive to critique, so incapable of self-reflection, he had heard only rebuke. Lyndon loved his life, his life wasn’t ruined at all, so the father’s rejoinder was a non-sequitur . Lyndon had -and genuinely believed he had- a good life. He ignored his inner fissures that would soon cleave. He thought he was merely describing what he saw; he had no idea, yet, that the words he had only recently found had been keeping it all together; been the glue keeping each sharp shard from falling apart.
He felt he was merely saying, hey look, if you whip and threaten a boy, and let the older brother break his teeth and bribe other kids to kick the shit out him and always push him down in the snow, well, that boy has a pretty good chance of learning the rules from the examples presented . He might just get big and strong and violent so that he can be the one handing out the whippings and not taking them now.
This was the kind of moral logic that the boy assumed the father would appreciate but instead he -the father- whined like a little girl about the supposed complaint against his regime, his perfect regime to hear Lee tell it. He was not used to any critique, so monolithic was his command of not just his fiefdom, but the speech -and thus thoughts- of his serfs. Watch how people react to criticism, he would later think, as his sister-in-law had lost her mind when he offered a mild rebuke, watch and learn just how often they ever think of anyone but themselves. It appalls and shocks them that anyone could think anything other than what they think of themselves.
The father was the weak one, incapable of dialectic and blind to seeing cause and effect in an objective and curious way. Just like America and the West, who had no tolerance for critique, the man who made the law of consequences his raison d’être did not like it when there were any consequences directed his way. When Lee’s emotions were pinched then the whole world must care about feelings all of a sudden; the hypocrite and liar saw no contradiction in his obvious bullshit, the son -the citizen- thought.