by Dan Kennedy
There is an ad in the free community newspaper that was picked up at the gas station during the morning’s coffee purchase. The paper is free, which is a great type of newspaper when there is no job or office; the kind of newspaper or magazine one pays for is the kind of paper taken to an office and read. The large and silent Bavarian land yacht is anchored just aft and to the starboard side of the white-and-black zebra-striped poles of lights that will come on in eight or so more hours for respectfully employed grocery shoppers. This lot, one would basically call it a jumbo lot. Your biggest parking lots in an area like this are going to be in front of big box retailers, or grocers based in shopping centers and maybe flanked by smaller shops. Old money, family-owned super grocers like this one stand alone on tarmac horizons, without the indignity of a strip of smaller shops propping them up or feeding off them. Stan’s is a cross between a grocery warehouse superseller and amusement-theme park thing, basically. It’s a cruel trick. Kids will think it’s an amusement park and then when you get them inside, it’s just a grocery store.
The outside of something like this is perfect though, because the parking lot is large and for the most part the outer perimeter is roomy enough that you aren’t going to have to endure the surprise of a familiar face. Inside, yes, it’s emotionally confusing. There’s a mechanical black guy, for instance. Black milk, chocolate milk. He’s inside the store with all the other animated electronic life-sized characters that sing and talk and wave. And he sings, kind of a garbled metallic ribbon of Negro spiritual with an indecipherable bluesy sentiment. And the white animated robotic milk cartons just sing; they don’t dance at all, so… racist, right? They have the dignity of just standing tall and producing a choir’s anthem of national pride about America being a land of plenty. The brain and head hear all of this and request that the topic is retired, they tell Matthew that the only thing worse than a racist is a white guy in Westport, Connecticut, acting like he knows what racism is and that he is offended by it.
“Life: All you need is a gun,” the mouth says silently without much permission.
And then the eyes realize the first headline of the very first ad they see actually says, “Life: All you need is a plan.”
And Matthew thinks barely aloud, “Oh, okay, I see. Yes. Perfect. One should have a gun; it’s difficult to argue against having one, isn’t it? That’s all that’s missing for me, I bet. And I bet you anything the rest of the world has one.”
He stops reading to think how there must be houses full of them on the outskirts of parking lots like this one; munitions bunkers, basically, where normal folks are armed to the teeth. He should have a firearm too, and never has. And at the very least, it will be a means of preventing further backslide or misfortune or unexpected hardship. Good. Decided. He’ll get one. And then the synapses fire slightly out of time like half-assed jazz and the next question that flows from the gently dyslexic tangle inside of Matthew’s head is this: Okay, so how do I go about buying a gun?
On the cable television documentaries about failed or fallen pop stars, there is always the somebody-who-knows-somebody-who-can-get-you-a-gun method of securing a firearm, but there are some obvious red flags here. The first being that the transaction always seems to take place in a parking lot, so there’s the idea that one shouldn’t do this kind of business in what is, for the most part these days, one’s home. Having said that, buying a gun this way speaks volumes about being properly connected, which is all anybody in Westport ever wanted to be, so there’s arguably a certain cachet to it. On the other hand there’s an unspoken code of honor in Westport. For instance, parking lot deals that lead to cocaine or low-grade violations of fidelity are largely seen as forgiven—maybe even a somewhat honorable risk to take—but there is the implicit agreement that the lowest one should stoop in securing a sturdy weapon is to steal the firearm from a highly appraised family collection in a self-medicated moment of suicidal panic, marital distress, and/or sudden financial insecurity. With no access to such arsenal, this leaves only one other foreseeable way of buying a gun, which is at the big chain sporting goods stores, and this paints an ugly, premeditated, passive-aggressive portrait of filling out forms, patiently waiting for state approval, and then in thirty or so days’ time actually paying a reasonable price on any major credit card for a gun that one is completely allowed to have. And, as one stand-up comedy routine of Matthew’s certified social worker pointed out in the past, if you are of mild enough manner that buying a gun this way seems just fine, then you probably don’t want a gun the way the rest of us want one from time to time.
Besides, there’s risk involved any way you cut it, isn’t there? A sidearm is great for the self-esteem, possibly, sure, but it’s easy for Matthew to imagine that a gun is the type of thing one might absentmindedly take out in a spirited moment of conversation to impart gesture or flourish and accidentally shoot oneself in the thigh or foot, surviving and carrying on with even lower self-esteem than you had before bolstering the ego with the purchase to begin with. Guns don’t kill people, the dangerous potential of suddenly losing the self-confidence that presumably comes with owning a gun kills people. Anyway, the ad that says “One Needs a Life Plan” advertises a meditation class, not a gun. And the eyes have been trying to tell the brain that they’ve long since noticed the mildly aphasic miscommunication way back before all of this. And word is sent systemwide about the correction, and the mouth whispers a note of retraction.
“Oh, a plan. Right, so, a… meditation class is the plan they’re talking about.”
Matthew supposes he should use meditation to stay levelheaded since somehow the plan has become to go forward in this life with a gun under the seat or at his side.
The ad copy under the headline says that classes are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons at the community center. Participants are asked to pay what they wish. The community center is maybe three parking lots away from where anchor is set at the moment, so commuting to the first class is basically just a matter of moving down a few lots. If there’s one thing you can say about spending so much of your time in a car, it is that you are almost always relatively close to anything you want. Realizing this has Matthew feeling just slightly ahead of the curve. It’s a small curve, admittedly. It doesn’t represent much, this curve, relatively speaking. But it’s a curve and he’s ahead of the others on it, and this can’t be said about many curves currently, so that makes it a pretty decent curve to pay attention to at the moment. The broken gray matter issues more warped marching orders in the name of preparing for today’s meditation class; the plan is to drop off and get a few beers.
Choices in miniature merchants are made, since going back to the usual morning convenience store would be out of the question and basically the same as being a week unshaven and asking if there’s any chance the clerk has heard of job openings in the area. So, something small and much farther west than the morning stop; this one is not attached to a gas station, and this one has upped the ante of honesty by having a porn magazine that features very portly women, and another title that seems focused on African American women with gigantic stomachs and breasts; almost medically odd in shape and size. This, in a town of mostly upper-middle-class white people striving to stay thin by moderate exercise and robust prescriptions. Both racks are half empty of the issues within them. Beer procured, and even a pack of cigarettes, but only the spiritual ones with the Indian chief on the front of them; cigarettes that are free of big corporate additives and designed to basically prepare one for communion with the Great Spirit and powerful meditation. The plan now is to park far enough away from the community center’s large front windows so that one can drink and smoke, but still be close enough to make it into the meditation class under the spell of an intoxicating mix of low-grade Canadian morphine, lethargy, off-brand Heineken-type beer, smokes, and denial. Matthew calls this distance “the sweet spot” of a medium-sized lot.
And in this medium lot in front of the community center, the first
beer is opened and the ceremony of pre-meditating begins. It is understood between the brain and heart that drinking does not make situations like the one Matthew is in any better, but for now, let’s give alcohol a round of applause; it has convinced Matthew that he’s doing great and that he has some sort of mobile private social club that boasts a roster of one. It’s a mobile social club with leather upholstery, an always extremely central location, air-conditioning, reading material, jogging equipment, and a great sound system. The music playing on satellite is of the Adult Contemporary Rock variety, mid tempo, with a mildly fortunate loser vibe disguised as self-appraisal or spiritual honesty. Not Steely Dan, but might as well be. Maybe Fleetwood Mac after all the members had made and lost the money the first time and had slept their way from the left of the band’s lineup to the right and all ended up back with the drummer in the middle again. So that plays and says something about going your own way, or finding your own way, or giving it all away; there are still three bottles of beer left, and all Matthew is certain of is that he’s in the zone. And he sits there thinking, Oh, I’ll go my own way, sister. No problem. As a matter of fact, it will probably be the best way to go considering it’s twenty minutes before class and I already feel like I am meditating. If you ask me, everybody should go my way.
It is not a meditation instructor’s nature to worry, obviously. And it is not Matthew’s intention to worry a meditation instructor. That being said, this guy is looking out the window occasionally and one would have to think he’s noticing the only car in the lot and the fact that it’s only about twenty yards from the huge window where he’s setting up some sort of yoga mats for class. More accurately, one would have to think he’s noticing the guy in the car. He’s putting the mats down, evenly spaced, giving his students the room they’ll need to meditate once they show up. Room enough to think about not being fenced in. One cannot be fenced in. The brain pushes through the budget beer and Tylenol 3 warm pre-meditative haze and lays this little gem from the ether: One cannot be fenced in if the goal is total personal freedom and endless horizons. Matthew tries to catch it, tries saying it to himself, tries to type it up on his little apple or berry or whatever this phone thing is. He’s typing it up completely wrong, the keys microscopic now instead of tiny or small, and adding to the thumbs stumbling is the fact that Matthew is genuinely excited about his new class. “Don’t fence when…” Wait. “When you fence…” No. “If you think you’re fenced in…” It’s not coming back, that one. But the brain is being compassionate today, telling Matthew that it’s fine to lose a maxim or slogan occasionally, telling him that it doesn’t matter, that it’s fine even if it’s wrong, and that the universal truth is that if it is wrong, then it was supposed to be wrong. He whispers quietly to himself, “Holy shit. I love meditating already.” And as long as we’re talking about maxims and slogans, this is the mantra that the instructor is repeating in his head right about now:
Who’s the man with the dead eyes
Sitting in that car
Drinking in that car
Singing in that car
Staring at me.
Matthew sees him looking and this sets him in motion, like a curious grizzly spotting a tourist’s campsite, he falls over himself to push his body from his den in the kind of cautious curiosity. He slowly puts the last empty bottle under the passenger seat, turns off the satellite radio so that all the love songs in space will have to find another place on earth to go. Waits for the car’s antenna to retract, opens the door, and makes his way toward the front door that will allow him to pay what he wishes to be on the other side of the windows from which he’s been drinking and at which he’s been staring for forty-five minutes. He wishes to pay nothing today. There is, of course, the sudden panic and intimidation at the prospect of meditating with other people. The head interferes here, already asking the body to turn around and get back to the safety of the car/social club/den; the brain starts a slow drip of rationalizing not trying this. Matthew starts drilling himself to continue forward. This is what Milton has taught him, to move forward, to always choose activity; that when one moves forward, they are able to intuitively handle what used to baffle them; that one has to take a first step, has to move a muscle to change a feeling, as Milton says. So on the remaining twenty yards of the walk up to the windows and door, Matthew drills himself forward with a lack of kindness, in perfect meter. Walking becomes quarter notes in perfect 4/4 time, each step slamming down to stab the planet and punctuate the little refrain he’s issuing to himself about not getting this wrong.
“Fucking do this. Do this! At least get this one thing right. Because there is a very limited number of things left for. You. To. Get. Wrong. Fuck. Do. This. Please.”
The instructor has been watching Matthew walking in this aggressive locked-tight walk from mid-horizon in the lot. The brain gathers data, sizes the instructor up as seeming afraid, and then issues a correction. The instructor is not afraid, he’s amused, this fucker. The gray has found a match on the identity—the instructor is the man that threw a blanket over Matthew when he was hit by the car while jogging. The brain continues updating the feed and the crawl now reads: The instructor is amused by you because he is the man who has slept with Kristin. Matthew feels the instant desire for petty vengeance and mistakes this for self-realization, actually believing this: The instructor has been brought here today to teach me how to relax and not let fear govern my life. I have been brought here today to teach the instructor how to be tense and afraid again.
Matthew thinks, at least for the moment, that this is how things work in the universe—probably the result of the average American’s exposure to a peripheral diet of half-baked self-help culture. The brain drifts into this slogan: Guns don’t kill people, a misguided grasp of one’s place in the universe, gleaned from intermittent exposure to bestselling self-help books, kills people. Well, that and guns. Synaptic cues are sent to the hands to type it into the little screen while walking, which adds a hunch to the stagger that Matthew is walking with, and leaves the cigarette bobbing up and down at the corner of his mouth as he silently mouths what he is typing.
6
Meet Your Classmates
THERE IS THE USUAL smattering of people one might expect showing up to this kind of thing. And they are, for the most part, the people Matthew has spent a lifetime avoiding. Which is to say, perfectly well-adjusted people who seem pleasant enough; the kind of people most folks think they should be involved with. But after one summer lifeguarding when he was nineteen years old, one thing sticks in the brain about the people you think you should reach out to and it is this: They are the people who will drown you. It is their zeal that attracts you, and it is their zeal that will kill you. It is their confidence in seeming to know what is best for them. It is the broad wave, the feigned kisses on the cheeks of friends and acquaintances. In Matthew’s memory of his training that summer, he recalls that these attributes—overzealous, excited, a delusional sense of confidence, the frantic waving of arms—are the hallmarks of a person you need to assist but physically distance yourself from. The brain and heart both decided long ago that if Matthew ever has/steals a kid, the kid is going to spend at least one summer lifeguarding at swim club if only to learn this life lesson: The only people saved are the sufficiently tired. There are a few of these people sitting in front of Matthew and to the left and right of him, since he’s landed, as usual in the case of any class or gathering, in the very back row. But Matthew doesn’t have a kid, so this idea of insisting that the kid will spend at least one summer lifeguarding is moot at the moment. His only children to his knowledge are five empty bottles that have been left out in the car in the parking lot, the Empty Bottle Quintuplets, and when they were emptied into the body, they went about filling the head with a smog of hops and miasma that now hangs between him and these happy-go-lucky overachievers who have what it takes to meditate. Something inside of him (alcohol) issues the challenge to at least try to make contact with one of the
m. There’s a guy to the right who one imagines is named Greg or Chad and is probably not daydreaming of buying guns while killing time in his car and tricking his wife like a tenth-grader cutting classes daily.
The rows are all mimicking some kind of warm-up stretch that someone somewhere in the room started them into mimicking; a trend with a cue and origin that is completely untraceable. The brain suggests in flinches and shudders that this could be a stretch started by the muscle memory of someone who was in this room a hundred years ago, which makes the buzzed and lazy mouth mutter: “Jesus Christ, I’m like a drunk who’s read three pages of Stephen Hawking.” At this, a couple of stretching classmates take note of Matthew just as he is undoing his stretch enough to attempt a moment of social grace and form to say hello to the man beside him. The heart speeds a little knowing this is about to happen. Matthew undoes half of the pretzel his legs have become, and weirdly turns his upper-body stretch into a broad wave of hello, aimed at the guy sitting right next to him.
“How’s it going?” he ventures for probably the first time since grade school.
“Shhh,” comes the reply.
“Real fucking polite!” Matthew immediately huffs in a hushed whisper.
The neck pulls upward in the warm-up stretch and the eyes size up the others around the room as Matthew displays a helpless look of Can-you-believe-this-guy-is-such-a-dick? and the class is looking back at him with a What-is-your-problem-have-you-been-drinking-in-your-car-all-afternoon? look on their faces. Inside the head, there is much drive about somehow defeating them.
Oh, I’m going to meditate so well that I make all of you disappear. We will disappear from each other and you’ll be free to quietly think about nothing, and when it’s all over you can wave to one another in the parking lot, you can do air kisses, you can put your arms around each other and pull each other under.