Conjunctions 64: Natural Causes
Page 34
She inhaled, as if gathering breath to launch into another list, but then exhaled and was quiet.
“Did you see anything?” I said.
“We saw some lights in Paulding.” She scraped at the raspberry jam with the curved rim of a thumbnail. “My parents thought the lights were these living fossils, like maybe enormous fireflies that are born underground and live there and molt there and mate there and then after laying their eggs there finally come aboveground and float into the sky and die.” She glanced at me sheepishly. “They looked like headlights.”
∀ those monsters, ∃ a sighting of that monster. Theories of their existence are based on claims of these sightings. Our monsters, however, have never been sighted. Their existence is instead implied. By the bodies. Death must have a cause.
The seals, the walruses, the porpoises, an octopus occasionally, are the worst things ever get. The otters never wash ashore. The otters never die. Sometimes a few scamper along the beach, weaving through the carcasses, looking puzzled. Like, why so much wasted life?
“Hey, Gramps, did you know this guy eats dumpster bananas?” Ash said.
She had turned to Grandpa Uyaquq, was adjusting the blanket, patting the wool smooth.
“You saw me in the dumpster?” I said.
“Will you please explain to me why you’re such a freak about food?” she said.
“I probably shouldn’t,” I said.
“Because I don’t get it,” she said.
“I don’t want to make you feel bad, or make you upset, or hurt your feelings,” I said.
“And I want you to tell me,” she said.
“I actually would rather not,” I said.
“Just say it!” she shouted.
I think that shout is what got my blood going. I felt this rage, suddenly. Technically the question was about dumpsters, but I apparently had quite a few other topics that had built up, ∵ I immediately strayed into unrelated territory and never came back around.
“Fine,” I growled, “obviously, if I stop driving cars, that isn’t going to change anything, if I stop using plastic, that isn’t going to change anything, if I stop using electricity, that isn’t going to change anything, the oceans will still rise, the landfills will still rise, the nuclear reactors will still dump radioactive waste with a half-life of a million years, and if I stop eating meat, yes, obviously, that isn’t going to change anything, the meat companies will keep electrocuting cows, and braining cows, and gassing cows, and culling chicks, and trimming beaks, and leaving chickens in overcrowded, unventilated factory farms to trample themselves to death, none of that is going to stop, unless everybody, all together, the whole country, stops eating meat, but somebody has to start, and I’m part of everybody, so I’ll start, I’ll take the lead, and if everybody follows, the killing will stop, and if nobody follows, then I tried, I did my part, and the rest of you can blame yourselves.”
I had gotten so upset that I had begun trembling, but now wasn’t upset anymore, only mortified, and ashamed. I couldn’t even look at her. I pretended to wipe something from my beard, picked up the novel, put down the novel, frantically needing choreography, something to do. I could feel her staring. I looked at her finally. Her eyes were huge.
“I just remembered I left a light on at the hotel,” she said.
She beamed.
Just then, Grandpa Uyaquq stirred—grunting and shifting in the wheelchair, and fumbling for the binoculars.
“Grandpa?” I said.
He raised the binoculars to his eyes, focusing on something out in the ocean.
“You see something?” I said.
Ash had ripped her hood from her head, had whirled toward the water. I scanned the waves, searching for something other than whitecaps. Seagulls, water, seagulls, water.
Together, we glanced at Grandpa Uyaquq as he lowered the binoculars back to his lap.
He shook his head: “No.”
But there was a spark in his eyes. Things weren’t too late. His mind was still there. He wanted that proof too.
May 19th
Assume every person has, at the core of their psyche, an idea. One lone axiom. One idea given primacy over all others. The origin of the whole spiraling chain of logic behind each of their mundane, everyday, predictable choices.
I have been obsessing over this, all day, trying to work out the precise wording for the cores of different people.
Grandpa Uyaquq’s core idea: Protect yourself. He obviously felt some empathy for animals—a memory of seeing him tending to, scratching the belly of, whispering into the ears of a neighbor’s ill dog—but he still ate animals, ∵ he knew meat would give him energy, vigor, health, and, at his core, that axiom overruled all others. He kept a shotgun at the door, ∵ given the choice between shooting a trespasser or risking bodily harm, he would have shot the trespasser.
Peter’s core idea: Save what you can. Though rooted in selflessness, the idea gives a nod toward compromise, toward certain limitations, toward exceptions that inevitably must be made. A memory (photographed) of a fifteen-year-old Peter picketing a local cattle ranch in a pair of leather loafers. A memory (televised) of a nineteen-year-old Peter chaining himself to a pine tree scheduled for removal from his college campus, only to unchain himself hours later when threatened with expulsion. A memory (firsthand) of a twenty-three-year-old Peter buying a truck, a gigantic gas-guzzler, for the sole purpose of hauling around drums of still more gasoline, so he and his coconspirators could burn paper mills and shale mines (unoccupied, always) to protest industrial pollution, fires that, obviously, consumed gasoline and created garbage and polluted the ecosystem with smoke and with ashes and with drifting particles of noxious burned plastic. (“A few bombs dropped in the right spots can save a billion lives,” Peter said.)
My core idea, in college: Pursue happiness. (Worldwide, possibly, the commonest core idea?) When I felt like grilling steak, I bought a steak and grilled it. When I felt like drinking beer, I bought a beer and drank it. When I felt like driving around, watching television, microwaving leftovers, taking an hour-long shower, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it. (If I didn’t have the money for a laptop, my core idea overruled my sense of financial responsibility, and I bought the laptop on credit.) Like anybody, a number of other ideas hovered around the edge of my core, which accounted for certain idiosyncrasies. (I bought cage-free eggs, free-range chèvre, pasture-centered pork, purportedly humane beef, precursors to my veganism.) But only when those edge ideas didn’t interfere with my core idea: That was the idea that ultimately dictated my choices, and ∴ my actions, and ∴ my nature, and ∴ my life. Then one week Peter visited me at college (his alma mater) and, during a drunken (whiskey) dispute, drew a complex diagram on the wall above my bed illustrating all of the tangled connections between honeybees and corn syrup, light bulbs and nuclear reactors, chimneys and acid rain and shampoo and algal bloom, a vast network of cause and effect, and there we were, two stick-figure stepbrothers, tangled up in it. His basic argument: Your happiness ⇔ this suffering. He wanted a lookout (the burning of a slaughterhouse), which he didn’t get. Instead, he managed to dislodge my core idea, and a new idea thunked from the edge into my core. The transition was gradual but unshakable. Within months, I was scavenging. (Peter later claimed fault for having “created a monster.”) Now, basically, my core idea: Avoid causing suffering. Or what an ex-girlfriend (already an ex; the breakup had been with the steak-grilling, beer-drinking, showering me) characterized as: Push away everybody close to you by pretending to be a hero. Or what an ex-roommate (not yet an ex) characterized as: Be a total slob because you’re sad about some dying penguins.
I am not, obviously, a hero. I am a bottom-feeder, a brainless detritivore, the hollow-eyed, greasy-haired man picking through the local dumpster. Peter is a practical vigilante; I am a psychotic vigilante. I do not make exceptions. ∵ I can’t. You cannot
choose your core idea. You can try to dislodge your core idea, but that takes a lot of force. Peter didn’t dislodge mine just like that. Pressure built for years—an exhibit at a zoo, a boring lecture in a random elective, a photo of beached kelp black with tarry oil, a roadside billboard, a television commercial, a spot of pavement shimmering with a rainbow of spilled petroleum—until, that night, Peter flicked it, and that final pressure sent it pinwheeling off into the outer limits of my psyche.
That was also the point at which I became unable to read modern novels. Novels were fiery once. Opinionated, with messages, lessons, morals. Now novels cannot have opinions. Now if a novel has opinions, it has to undercut those opinions elsewhere, disprove anything it’s proven. Affect apathy. Pander to conservatives and progressives alike. I prefer older novels—novels with opinions—novels that breathe fire.
1. Society has rejected moralism.
2. Moralism is the expression of belief in a right and a wrong.
3. (1, 2) ⇒ Society has rejected belief in a right and a wrong.
4. One is a moralist ⇔ one practices moralism.
5. (2, 4) ⇒ Moralists express belief in a right and a wrong.
6. (3, 5) ⇒ Moralists believe things deemed nonexistent are existent.
∴ Moralists believe things deemed nonexistent are existent.
Consequently,
7. One who believes things deemed nonexistent are existent is a cryptozoologist.
8. (6, 7) ⇒ Moralists are cryptozoologists.
∴ Moralists are cryptozoologists.
(True to form, unicorns, this latest proof likely would earn a flunking grade!)
Anyway, sorry not to write the past few days, but the monsters have been occupying all my spare time. Each day, after work, I meet that girl at the roundabout, and from there we walk to the pioneer home. (Along the way, she tells me things, unprompted, about her day. An exemplar from yesterday: As we rode the elevator to the hallway upstairs, she announced, “Today I ate a hamburger with bacon, threw away a whole bottle of nail polish for being the wrong color, and kept using a hand dryer even after my hands were dry because the air felt nice.” She glanced at me curiously. “Do you hate me yet?”) We sign out Grandpa Uyaquq and Mr. Nome, and wheel them through town to the harbor in their wheelchairs.
At the beach, we set up our makeshift camp: a salvaged beach umbrella spiked into the sand, shading the wheelchairs; assorted woolen blankets bundling the old men; for her and me, rusty foldouts from the house; the camouflage binoculars; and a disposable camera, set out on the boulder. (Ash says film images are best for proving the existence of a cryptid, ∵ digital are easy to forge.) Ash buys a carton of milk, a stack of cups, a container of frosted vanilla cupcakes, sets all of that out onto the boulder too. Grandpa Uyaquq and Mr. Nome (whom Ash refers to as “Hairy Gramps” and “Baldy Gramps,” respectively, or, sometimes, “our chaperones”) sip their milks, and chew their cupcakes, and nap, occasionally. Ash sips her milk, and chews her cupcake, and monopolizes the binoculars. I eat mushy bananas. Together, we scan the ocean, and keep a lookout for signs of monsters.
Mr. Nome, like me, always brings his journal along, and writes sometimes.
Ash, meanwhile, has ceaseless questions for Grandpa Uyaquq.
An exemplar from yesterday:
Grandpa Uyaquq had just shut his eyes for a nap, creased face relaxing into a drowsy smile, when Ash suddenly dropped the binoculars into her lap and nudged him awake again.
“Hey, Gramps,” she said.
He blinked blearily, his face a startled grimace.
“I’ve heard the monsters live out deep, but have to come in really close to shore to drop off the bodies,” she said.
He wiped some crumbs from his parka, and then shook his head: “Yes.”
“Yeah. Yeah! Or how else could the dead stuff always float to this exact beach?” she said enthusiastically, and then jammed the binoculars to her face again.
Another:
Grandpa Uyaquq was taking a turn with the binoculars (although he had gotten distracted, focusing on a tangerine-yellow seaplane circling high above the harbor). Ash nudged him, and leaned toward him, speaking in a whisper almost.
“Is it true that people vanish sometimes? Unexplained disappearances? Like probably just runaways, but maybe not?” she said.
Grinning, he shook his head: “Yes.”
“You think maybe what happened was that they saw the monsters, and the monsters dragged them out to sea, so nobody would ever know?” she said.
He thought, hesitated, and then shook his head: “Yes.”
“So if we see a monster, it won’t let us live?” she said.
He shook his head, and then shook his head again: “Yes,” “No,” he wasn’t sure.
Ash cackled, delighted.
“Gramps, you’re a genius!” she said. Then handed Grandpa Uyaquq another cupcake.
She seems to have experience caretaking. She’s very good with the old men! With Mr. Nome, she keeps his mouth wiped clean, helps him turn his pages, does handstands and headstands to entertain him. When Grandpa Uyaquq gets confused, she waves it away, as if misplacing your memories was nothing to feel ashamed of, and then chatters at him about some random topic for a while so that he doesn’t feel any need to try to think, but can merely listen. (Or pretend to.)
Sometime before dusk, we wheel Grandpa Uyaquq and Mr. Nome back through town to the pioneer home, sign them back in, then say good night at the roundabout. I carry home the umbrella, the blankets, the foldouts, the binoculars, alone.
I haven’t dated anybody since college. I never will again, probably. My lifestyle practically guarantees it. And even if I met somebody who didn’t mind my diet, my garb, my lack of phone and car, I couldn’t let myself get involved. ∵ of my core idea. In relationships, you can’t help but cause suffering. I can’t, at least. (I don’t mean to speak for you unicorns.) If possible, I would like to go the rest of my life without making another person cry.
That’s what’s nice about being with Ash. Things are simple. Platonic. We can just sit on the beach together, for a few hours a night, with some old men in wheelchairs.
Oh, I forgot to mention: So have we seen any monsters?
No. So far we have seen nothing. Ash has wasted six photos (of the disposable camera) on pictures of Mr. Nome.
May 21st
Technically, by now today’s probably tomorrow. I’m going to try to get all of this down, although I’ll have to do so very quietly. (This may turn out sloppy: The patch of moonlight I’m using keeps moving across the floorboards.)
What that last entry said about never dating anybody again doesn’t mean I haven’t been lonely. Actually, I’ve been brutally lonely lately. Eavesdropping, chatting, being near people isn’t enough. The loneliness is spiritual, yes, but also intensely physical. A need for contact. Lately, waking on the mattress in the morning, I’ve had this sloshing feeling somewhere in the region of my navel, as if all the loneliness had pooled there overnight. My skin hums like an electrified fence. An object that cannot serve its purpose unless it’s being touched. But would only hurt whatever touched it.
This morning that electric feeling was especially bad. I already could tell my skin was going to be humming like that all day. I could hardly bring myself to get out of bed. Nevertheless, I had a job to do! ∴ I ate some oats for breakfast, a few bananas, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and trekked down to work, secretly wishing every person I passed would just reach over and touch me. A hand pressed to my cheek—even that would have been enough. I cannot even describe how intense that longing was. If somebody had bumped me, unintentionally brushed my wrist with some knuckles, I honestly believe that quick touch would have brought tears to my eyes.
At work today we laid sod outside the library, mulched the shrubs. Not too grueling. Fairly minimal blisters. The day went fast.
I couldn’t wheel both Grandpa Uyaquq and Mr. Nome on my own, and signing out Grandpa Uyaquq by himself felt really wrong now, as then Mr. Nome would be left all alone.
I never went to the pioneer home.
I hauled our supplies back to the house.
I was out of food again, so at nightfall I wandered back through town to the grocery and filled my backpack in the dumpster. Overripe pears, overripe apples, golden potatoes with downy sprouts. Expired cans of soybeans. Hardly moldy raspberries. An expired jar of peanut butter. Sealed bars of (vegan!) chocolate, crusted with spilled sauce (pesto?). Wilted radishes. Preposterously, an entire sack of brown rice. I accidentally stepped on a carton of eggs, had to wipe the yolk and shell off my boots onto the weeds.
Walking home, I passed the windowfront of televisions. I glanced at the screens, glanced away, glanced back. I stopped.
Identical images flickered on the televisions. Shaky aerial footage of a gigantic building, flames jerking in the windows like frantic trapped people waving for help. Another building, company offices, sooty firefighters wandering about the smoking wreckage. Another, a one-story, something like a hangar or a boathouse or a garage, ablaze with golden light.
Not recaps. The footage was live. Three fires had been lit in a single night.