Downtown Owl

by Chuck Klosterman

  Every time I get involved in some kind of incident, people always want to know the reason why. ‘Why did you throw your desk through the window, Cubby? Why did you try to grab that policeman’s gun, Cubby? Why did you vandalize the moose head inside the VFW?’ I know why they ask these questions. They ask them because they assume I will be unable to provide any answers, and that will (somehow) prove their point. It will (somehow) illustrate the stupidity of my actions. But they are wrong. All of those acts were completely justified at the time. All of them.

  My father deserves to die. I want him to die, and I will dance on his grave when he does. But at least he understands these things. When I was younger, he used to kick the shit out of me, and—of course—I would ask him why he did that. His sadism seemed to materialize out of an empty void. I could never predict when he was going to hit me. So I would ask him why. Sometimes he would say things like, ‘Because you stole beer’ or ‘Because you made your mother cry.’ But not always. Sometimes he would say things like, ‘End of the world’ or ‘Quit speaking German.’ For a long time, those responses confused me. People on television always talk about how kids blame themselves for being abused, but I rarely felt that way; my day-to-day existence seemed completely unrelated to my father’s punching. That disconnection drove me crazy. I would have preferred to blame myself.

  When I was thirteen or fourteen, my dad came home from the Oasis Wheel extra wasted, and he crawled behind the couch and started crying and apologizing for all the times he hit me, which is the kind of shit pathetic old drunks always do. Even at the time, I knew it was bullshit. I knew he would hit me again. I knew he would probably hit me tomorrow. But he really wanted to talk about his problems, so we talked. I eventually asked him what he meant when he said, ‘End of the world.’ I wasn’t sure if he’d even remember saying that. But he did remember. He said, ‘Well, you know how it is when you’re driving on the interstate and all the exit signs have numbers? If you read the numbers, they turn into letters. And if you string the letters together, they make foreign words. And the words control your car. You don’t even have to steer. It steers itself, like a sea turtle. But then you eventually see the letter Z, and that always means the same thing: the end of the world. Z is what you see at the end of the world.’ He sounded totally normal when he said this, or at least not abnormally wasted. It was probably the best conversation we ever had.

  I still hate my father, and I will always hate him. If I could get away with strangling him in his sleep, I would certainly consider it. But his explanation about the letter Z made a lot of sense to me. For some reason, my dad had to punch me because he thought the world was ending. Or maybe he had to punch me to stop the world from ending, or to make it end. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. He was using his best judgment. What else can a person do? I threw my biology desk through a window because I was angry at the wood. Wood makes me angry, sometimes. The idea of wood. I can’t tell if it’s alive or dead. But I know I could never explain that concept to anyone else, and I don’t care if other people understand what I mean or even if they have the same feelings. I never care about those things. Never. So I did what I did. I have no remorse.

  I’ve had so much preposterous shit happen in my lifetime. I used to think my life was normal, but now I know it’s been big-time fucked-up. The fact that my grandpa was in love with me was fucked-up. The fact that I had to wear the same pair of tennis shoes for four years was fucked-up. The fact that my mom cries all day is fucked-up, although now I realize she cries because she always knew our lives were fucked and that I would probably figure that out eventually. Sometimes she’d be too depressed to cook, so I’d eat a bowl of Bac-Os for supper. It didn’t seem that different from eating cold bacon. It was okay. But when I casually mentioned this to Curtis-Fritz, it blew his mind. He told everybody at school that I ate Bac-Os for supper. That was when I started to understand that things were very, very different for me. My life had been prefucked. If it wasn’t for my car, I don’t know what I’d have to live for.

  Am I good at fighting? Yes. I’m amazingly good at fighting. Amazingly good. Everyone knows this. It’s probably the only thing everyone knows about me. Now, do I enjoy fighting? Sometimes. People ask me that question all the time, and I generally say yes. But I don’t know if I really mean it; fighting doesn’t seem good or bad to me. I suppose it’s nice to be recognized for my success. I like the confusion of hitting and of being hit. When normal people go someplace where poor people live, they worry about getting attacked. I want to be attacked. I want someone to attack me. It’s comforting. It doesn’t seem fun or unfun, because I know I can’t lose. It’s almost like playing tic-tac-toe against a computer.

  There are only three qualities required for successful fighting. I have them all, and I have them to the highest possible degree. The first is a high threshold for pain. Most people surrender the moment they start to ache or bleed; I only feel pain in retrospect, so this is not a problem. The second quality is commitment. What are you willing to do to win a fight? Most people think there are rules to fighting, even when it’s a street fight. There are certain things they won’t do: They won’t kick someone who’s already on the ground. They won’t throw a bottle. They won’t bite a wrist. People who follow such rules are not committed to fighting. I, however, am fully committed, all the time.

  The third quality is motive. Why are you fighting? What are you trying to achieve? This, I suspect, is the true key to my unstoppability: I never have a motive.

  If someone is fighting over a woman, there will come a point when his head is being slammed against a car door and he’ll start to think, You know, she’s really not worth it. If someone starts a fight because you ashed a cigarette on his pants, there will come a point when his lungs are collapsing and he will think, I never really liked those pants anyway. He will weigh his motive against the violence, and he will quit. People never care about things as much as they claim, or as much as they would like to pretend to themselves. But I am able to separate my desires from my circumstances. Something ignites inside my brain, and I can feel fresh blood flowing down my spine and into my hands, and I see everything in black and white. This is literally true; when I fight, I am color-blind. I have no idea why this happens, but it happens. I stop caring about being alive, or about being a human, or about anything from the past or anything about the future. I don’t care what happens or who wins or who lives or who doesn’t. I am without motive.

  It’s a sizeable advantage.

  I could never explain these things, and I could never write them down. This is how I imagine saying them, were I a writer or an actor or a totally different kind of person. If I tried to speak them aloud, I would probably sound as stupid and insane as my asshole father talking about the letter Z and the end of the world. But I know these things are true, and so does everybody else in Owl. And it fascinates them. I fascinate them. I know this is true. They all pretend like they hate me, but they don’t. Nobody hates or loves anyone except themselves. Fighting is just the thing I do. Last week I was putting gas in the ’Cuda. These two girls I kind of know pull up alongside and say, ‘So when are you going to fight Grendel?’ And I was like, ‘Who?’ And they were like, ‘Chris Sellers.’ And I was like, ‘You mean the tall kid?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, he says he’s gonna murder you.’ And I was like, ‘Why?’ And they were like, ‘Because he says you’re a pussy who’s been talking shit behind his back. He says he’s wanted to kick your ass for the last three years.’ And I was like, ‘That’s interesting.’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, we’ll see how interested you are on Saturday.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess we will.’

  So I guess we will.

  FEBRUARY 4, 1984

  2:44 P.M.

  (Mitch)

  (Julia)

  (Horace)

  When Mitch arrived at the apple grove, there were already nine people sitting on the hoods of their vehicles, drinking Coors Light. Julia was still inside the Jamestown Pamida store, contemplatin
g the purchase of a beanbag. Horace was rereading The Best and the Brightest, which he viewed as biased. Mitch got out of his car and failed to catch the beer immediately thrown in his direction. Julia decided that beanbags were too expensive. Horace could feel the sun on his neck through the window. Somebody asked Mitch what the temperature was, and he knew the answer. Julia revolved a tower of sunglasses and wondered how much was too much to pay for something she would almost certainly lose. Horace crossed his legs and remembered watching the Checkers speech on ABC. Somebody asked Mitch if he still thought Grendel was going to win the fight. Julia paid for her items and pushed them out of the store in a shopping cart, amazed by how unseasonably warm the air was. Horace turned a page, quickly. Mitch explained his latest theory, which was that Grendel would defeat Candy by landing timely punches to his solar plexus and temples. Julia threw her right arm across the Honda’s passenger seat and pulled out of her parking space, listening to a radio tribute to the music of Karen Carpenter, who had died exactly one year before. Horace turned another page. Mitch tried not to look at Tami Jorgen’s confrontational nipples, despite that fact that she was wearing only a yellow T-shirt in forty-degree weather. Julia listened to the song “Superstar” at an unnecessarily high volume, partially because she thought it would be funny if someone could witness her doing this when she was all alone in the car. Horace imagined himself in a room with David Halberstam, arguing about the context of Laos. Mitch wondered if Cubby would show up before or after Grendel, and if either of them would appear as nervous as he always felt for no reason. Julia listened to an a cappella version of “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and wondered if any of her Mormon roommates had been bulimic. Horace fantasized about the heat and wetness of a Southeast Asian jungle he would never visit. Mitch pretended to drink his beer while listening to other people’s lies. Julia slid her Civic into the left lane of the interstate and pushed the accelerator to the floor, flying past elderly farmers in seed caps who did not question the validity of a fifty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit. Horace glanced at the clock and realized he would not make it to Harley’s Café until after 3:00 p.m., but that was nothing to worry about; his colleagues would still be there. Mitch watched the other teenagers arrive at the apple grove and wondered if this was how it felt before prizefights at Madison Square Garden. Julia listened to the happy sadness of “Goodbye to Love” and decided she would just call Vance and ask him to go bowling, because what was the worst that could happen? Horace used a one-dollar bill as a bookmark and decided it was time to comb his hair and get ready for coffee. Mitch could not believe how excited he was about the possibility of watching two people fight each other for no reason. Julia stared at the line on the highway and let herself be hypnotized. Horace put on his hat and walked out the front door, choosing to leave it unlocked for the eight thousandth consecutive day. Mitch lay back on the hood of somebody else’s cherry-red sedan and watched high-altitude cirrus clouds rush across the sky at speeds that contradicted the warm windlessness of the reality he assumed he was experiencing.

  Jesus, it was so nice out!

  FEBRUARY 4, 1984

  3:11 P.M.

  (Mitch)

  Somebody said, “He’s here.” He was. He was Cubby. He was sitting in his car, alone. Had he actually arrived before everyone else? Had he been here since noon? Maybe. Nobody had noticed, somehow.

  Zebra arrived with Ainge and Curtis-Fritz. They all climbed out of the same vehicle at the same time, like freelance circus employees. Mitch wondered why they had been hanging out together without him; it’s not like it hurt his feelings, but—still. Weird. Why hadn’t they asked him? Did they often spend time together without him? Had they spent another afternoon arguing over which idiot from which band should attempt a solo project that would sound exactly like the terrible group he was already in? Perhaps. They did that sometimes. There would always be cultural gaps between Mitch and his peers. He knew this. They weren’t like him at all.

  “Is this really on?” asked Zebra. He was not the first person to pose this query. “Vanna, what are the odds that this fight will actually happen? Fifty-fifty?”

  “Forty percent,” said Mitch.

  A pickup door slammed. Somebody said, “Aw, shit.” A full can of beer flew through the air and hit a tree. All of these events were connected.

  “Sixty percent,” said Mitch.

  Grendel stomped into the clearing of the apple grove, effortlessly embodying everyone’s preconceived notion of grassroots terror. Here it was. This was it. This was The Fight. Mitch could not believe it was actually happening.

  He also could not believe how clichéd it seemed.

  Grendel began removing his letterman’s jacket, very deliberately. This almost made Mitch laugh aloud. Was he really taking off his coat to fight? Would he also dramatically pound his right fist into the palm of his left hand? Did Grendel think this was being televised? The other teenagers started to form a large circle around Grendel, murmuring their excitement like extras in a gladiator movie. Mitch felt like an idiot. He could not believe he used to lie in bed and imagine this very situation, analyzing its tendencies and potentialities. It now seemed wasteful. There was nothing organic about what he was about to watch. It was no different than watching an episode of Happy Days, except with swearing.

  “Where the fuck is he?” asked Grendel. It sounded like he was reading from a script.

  “Here,” said Cubby. He was standing outside of his car now. He didn’t have a jacket to take off. His T-shirt promoted Waylon Jennings. He staggered into the human circle, his shoulders hunched and his head down. This was all so fake. Mitch, still on the hood of somebody else’s car, looked back toward the sky. It had turned gray. Symbolic, he thought. This time he actually did laugh, but only a little. With mild surprise, he noticed that he could see his breath in the air, which had not been the case just seconds before. How did it get so cold so fast? Curious. He jumped off the hood and took his place on the perimeter of the circle. This was stupid and this was formulaic, but this was his life. He had to watch this fight in order to make it real, just as he had needed to make it happen in the first place. He was a central figure.

  “I am going to fuck you up,” Grendel said to Cubby. “You think your shit doesn’t stink, but you are wrong. It does.”

  “Okay,” said Cubby. He was not smiling or frowning. He looked like he was thinking about something else entirely. His eyes would not focus. He looked like a dog with rabies. He needed to shave.

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Grendel. “Don’t talk to me.”

  “Okay,” said Cubby.

  “What did I just tell you?”

  “I don’t know. Okay? I couldn’t hear you.”

  “You fucking heard me.”

  “Okay. What did you say?”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “Quit saying that word, you gay retarded dirtbag faggot.”

  “Okay. Okay!”

  “Fuck this. You’re dead.”

  Grendel took half a step in Candy’s direction. Somebody gasped.

  Candy screamed. It was not a scream of fear. He was not afraid. He was the person he was supposed to be. The sound rushed out of his mouth. His lungs were like a fog machine.

  And then everything was white.

  And then everyone fell down.

  FEBRUARY 4, 1984

  3:12 P.M.

  ( )

  People always want to know what it was like. Well, this is what it was like:

  It was like being hit by something heavy and flat and wide. And vast. And fast.

  It was like a massive human hand sweeping across a relief map of North Dakota, knocking cars off the highway and cattle off their hooves.

  It was like falling asleep on a beach near Diamond Head and waking up inside an industrial meat freezer.

  It was like standing eight inches from a moving freight train, which is how people typically describe the sound of tornadoes. So it was like standing n
ext to a freight train, during a tornado.

  It was like keeping your eyes open while submerging your head in a fifty-gallon drum of white latex paint.

  It was like being inside the film footage from the atomic-bomb tests off the Bikini Atoll that would later be used in MTV videos by white New York hip-hop artists.

  It was like being swept forty feet below sea level by a twenty-five-foot wave, when all compass directions become interchangeable and there is no difference between up or down.

  It was like inhaling frozen granules of cocaine and glass, but not being able to expel them.

  It was like standing up very quickly and hitting the back of your head against an oak beam that had materialized out of nothingness.

  It was like filling the nozzle of a hair dryer with dry ice, holding it one centimeter from your retina, and plugging it into an electrical socket.

  It was like suddenly remembering that you’d completely forgotten to do something very, very important.

  It was like being Helen Keller, in Greenland, naked.

  It was like being with everyone, and then being with no one.

  FEBRUARY 4, 1984

  3:13 P.M.

  (Julia)

  She was twenty-nine miles southeast of Jamestown, driving west at sixty-seven miles per hour, headed toward a blizzard moving south by southeast at eighty-two miles per hour.