“What?”
General Kiljoy grinned enormously. “My boot.”
75 General Kiljoy encouraged me to continue observing the subjects as we slowly moved down the corridor. I declined and, reminding him that I was hungover, warned that I could offer no guarantees of digestive normalcy. His only response was to hit the brake suddenly, causing me to lurch forward. I somehow managed to keep myself from turning inside out, but I heaved so hard I blacked out momentarily.
“Sorry!” He slapped me on the back. “Couldn’t resist.”
I smiled weakly and asked to please return to the observation lounge.
“You’re probably dying to know what’s going on with your friend, eh?”
I nodded submissively. In turning the cart around, we were brought face to fundament with a single man in a cell, naked, pressing his buttocks up against the glass, mooning us. He stepped away from the glass for a moment, then threw his posterior up against the glass once again.
“Now that’s a sick bastard,” General Kiljoy commented. “He was at boot camp for the Marines, seemed a damn fine cadet, when he suddenly went ballistic and raped and murdered his drill sergeant, then threw a grenade into his bunkhouse. Killed more than a few good men. Since he’s been in here, he’s managed to do the same to his cellmates.”
“How are the corpses removed?” I asked, suddenly curious as to this little housekeeping detail.
“It’s all automated,” he waved off my question. “This compound is equipped with state-of-the-art automation routines, to eliminate the possibility of human error. But listen, his little episode at the Marine barracks resulted in a top-secret court-martial. I was present.” The Marine took another flying leap backward onto the glass. “You know what that asshole’s only statement was?”
I shrugged.
“All he kept saying, over and over again, was ‘Semper fi, semper fi, semper fi.’”
76 In truth, boredom is a fine stimulus to creativity. If you stare at an empty wall long enough, your mind will begin to occupy itself with hallucinations. Sensory deprivation chambers operate on this principle. Take away all the noise, and what you’re left with is far from nothing; indeed, nothingness can be something else entirely. Thus, while many assert that you can’t get something for nothing, you can certainly get something from nothing. This is, after all, the nature of the universe. Creation ex nihilo.
I am hemming and hawing about so much nonsense here because I have nothing pertinent to say. I am avoiding the issue, it seems, but it can be avoided no longer. The story was pretty much unfolding on its own, until suddenly I found myself struggling to relate the ride back from holy hell to the observation lounge, during which time nothing at all happened. Certainly I could have said, We returned uneventfully to the observation lounge, but I could not satisfy myself, nor would I presume to ask you to be satisfied, with such a cheap segue.
But it is the fact of the matter. Nothing happened. An event is, by definition, anything that happens, but the ride was, as I said, uneventful. I suppose I breathed, as did General Kiljoy, and the wheels rolled, and we may have shifted in our seats, but these hardly qualify as events, do they? Holy hell was unmistakably happening, this entire story has been one significant occurrence after another, but the ride back to the observation lounge was without incident.
Stories are eventful, full of circumstances of importance and intrigue, but this is not at all an accurate reflection of life. Life, like this chapter, can be rather uneventful at times. Oftentimes you find yourself on the toilet, or in a traffic jam, or watching television commercials, or countless other instances that get edited out when someone asks what you did with your day.
Blip sometimes boasted of how little he did on some days. As he argued it, the aphorism that you can’t get something for nothing is dubious at best, and is probably a product of our culture’s capitalist work ethic. Therefore, he said, he actively did nothing, especially when the money politics of the university aggravated him. He saw his behavior as subversive, akin to factory workers who deliberately slow down the pace of their work to reduce the owner’s profits.
Blip told me of a time last spring when he continued doing nothing even when he was home from the university. All evening he sat in an easy chair in his living room, no book, no television, nothing. Every time Sophia wandered in and asked him what he was doing, he replied, “Nothing,” and immediately fell silent again. After the third or fourth time, Sophia finally insisted that he must be doing something, even thinking, but Blip persisted in asserting his inactivity. Sophia could not accept this on a philosophical level, and attempted to engage her husband in a debate as to whether or not one can actively do nothing. This only made Blip irate. He told her she was interfering with his subversive act, and declared her a strikebreaker. Sophia responded that he shouldn’t bring his work home with him. Blip conceded that she had a good point, and proceeded to occupy the rest of the evening unsuccessfully attempting to communicate the significance of the incident to me over the telephone.
I thought he was crazy when he related that story to me, but now I find myself taking his advice and actively doing nothing much of the time. It is not difficult, at least in more mundane states of consciousness. One need only recognize that most of the moments that pass us by do not carry events of any consequence. To give an example, if you watch a pot of water until it boils, the only moments that carry any meaningful events are those when bubbles of steam begin to form at the bottom of the pot to ultimately rise to the top. After staring at a pot of water for ten minutes, this can be profoundly momentous. It is a moment in which something actually happens.
Out of all the moments we perceive, those that actually carry events that command or attract our attention are relatively rare, and should be treasured. This does not mean, however, that we should lament the unending procession of naked moments, the peaceful pulsations flitting constantly past with every flap of a hummingbird’s wings, offering us nothing but the incessant assurance that a tock will soon follow their tick. An uneventful moment gives us a grand opportunity to explore nothingness, which is really something else entirely. Boredom is the coward’s reaction to staring at a wall.
Just before writing this chapter, in fact, I was sitting at the desk in the laboratory where General Kiljoy makes me work, actively doing nothing. I did not wish to do what I was being told to do, and as I said, I was altogether stumped as to how to proceed with this story. I had been sitting with my feet on the desk for perhaps twenty minutes, just looking at the various objects in the room, when very suddenly a book fell sideways on the shelf, startling me and causing me to jolt upright. That moment was eventful. The variables that caused that happenstance had been gradually gathering strength for an untold amount of time. Pages were settling, weight was shifting, the stress on the forces holding it upright was building, all at an imperceptibly slow pace, until WHAM! Wake up! A tree falls in the woods, and a moment has spoken. What does it say? It says nothing. It only smiles, and it is gone.
THE BOOK O’ BILLETS-DOUX
Rosehips: Guess what? I watched a tree fall on television last night, with the volume off. It didn’t make a sound. A tree fell in the woods, someone was around to hear it, but it still didn’t make a sound. Nothing, just silence. Television stumps the Buddha, eh?
Sweetlick: A vision on the television! If a tree falls in the woods, and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? Such words have been said to point toward paradise, but I’m dying to ask the Buddha what he was thinking about, for if no one is around to see them, then where are the woods?
Rosehips: On the other hand, what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Sweetlick: What other hand?
77 And so we returned uneventfully to the observation lounge. Upon entering, we were greeted with the sight of Tynee leaping across the sofa from Miss Mary. He moved with the speed and grace of a hobbledehoy adolescent nearly caught stealing third base, and landed in a sitting position as awkward as a hyp
ertensive attempting a yoga posture. His back, along with other parts of his anatomy, was erect, and he sat frozen with one hand on his knee and the other across his chest. He turned to us only after some seconds had passed, as if he had just then noticed our arrival.
“Hello!” He tried to imitate pleasant surprise as he stood up stiffly. Miss Mary still had not turned to acknowledge our presence. Instead, she was fumbling with her lighter, trying to light a cigarette.
General Kiljoy wagged his finger at Tynee, shaking his head in mock disapproval at their bumpery. “Hello indeed,” he said, causing Tynee’s ridiculous pretensions to evaporate as fast as the cryogenic helium from the golf cart, and leaving him with an expression more timorous than that of an ochlophobic who suddenly and inexplicably finds himself naked and on third base at the World Series opener with a hundred thousand drunken sports fans pointing at him and guffawing. “Your fly’s open,” General Kiljoy added mercilessly.
“Greetings, gentlemen.” Miss Mary stood and casually exhaled a lungful of poison in our direction. “How was your tour, Doctor?” She exuded a supreme nicotine confidence.
“Good,” I answered, not at all meaning it, and not at all sure why I said it. Tynee struggled with his zipper.
“Wonderful,” Miss Mary continued with her preposterous pleasantries.
General Kiljoy sighed impatiently at the fatuity of the situation. “What’s happening with the subjects?” He walked toward the observation window and turned on the audio, drawing our party’s attention there as well. Blip, Brother Zebediah, and Manny were sitting around the table, catching yawns from one another, and looking exhausted but slaphappy. Apparently, they had been laughing for the entire duration of our absence. The topic of their conversation had not changed.
“What?” Brother Zebediah asked. “What are you talking about?”
“When I came in you were saying ‘receive him today, sinner,’ to Manny, right?”
“‘Receive him today, sinner!’” Manny imitated, giggling and smiling.
“Who?” Brother Zebediah asked, confused.
“Yes. Who do you want him to receive?”
“Him?” Brother Zebediah pointed to Manny. “Receive him today?”
“Aooww!” Manny said, massaging his cheeks. “Goddamn, man. I think I sprained my face.”
“Is that what you meant?” Blip continued.
“When did I say this?”
“What are we talking about?” Manny, still trying to wipe the smirk off his face, entered the conversation. No one answered immediately, and an awkward silence ensued.
“Him?” Brother Zebediah pointed at Manny after a few moments.
“That’s what I’m trying . . . ,” Blip replied, looking exasperated. “What is this ‘him’ you keep referring to?”
“Never mind.” Brother Zebediah attempted to swat the confusion away as if it were a cloud of no-see-ums. “Just never mind.” They fell into silence once again, each appearing to be lost in their own thoughts. Brother Zebediah fidgeted uneasily, rubbing his nose, perhaps wishing he could duck out of sight for a quick pick. In an effort to maintain a lack of expression, his face bore a grimace that would frighten the horns off a demon. “It’s not my fart, you know,” he said abruptly, but neither Blip nor Manny paid him any heed. “Fault,” he immediately corrected himself. “It’s not my fault.” He brushed frantically at his ear, as if a mosquito had flown into it.
Blip and Manny were absorbed in other things. Manny was massaging the cramped muscles in his face, still grinning as if he were trying to see all his teeth in a mirror. Blip, meanwhile, was leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, lower lip pursed, thinking. His eyes were unfocused, or rather, were focused inward, and periodically, as his thoughts bore fruit from some tree he’d been irrigating with his stream of consciousness, he raised his eyebrows and smiled. The fruit was sweet, but also tart, like a firm plum, and his smile was the smile of an aesthete. It was accompanied by a pucker playing a sassy bass line with his lips and a sunny squint twanging a cheerful banjo with the crow’s feet of his eyes, and his foot was a-tappin’.
78 People do not tap their feet. Feet are tapped. Passive voice. To say people tap their feet implies some sort of conscious activity. Foot tapping is not willed, or if it is, it isn’t in rhythm. You may try to will your feet to stop tapping, but this is never successful for long, and soon your feet are tapping away even more furiously than before. Thus, the foot of Blip was tapping. This was not terribly unusual for him. He was forever pulsing with some cadence or another. His grade school teachers undoubtedly tried to embarrass him into sitting still by asking him if he had ants in his pants, but they never had to tell him to shake a leg. When he got really stimulated by a discussion, he was liable to get up and tap-dance around your sombrero. What made this particular foot-tapping situation significant, however, is that the feet of Brother Zebediah and Manny were tapping as well. Moreover, they were in perfect time with Blip, although none of them seemed to be aware of it.
“I love when women wear makeup,” Manny said dreamily. “How ’bout you, Zachariah?”
“I think Mr. Fancy-Pants Professor wears makeup.” Brother Zebediah, beginning to perk up, leered at Blip. “Look at his hair. He looks like a girl.”
“Girls are cool,” said Blip. “Besides, Jesus had long hair.”
“Jeyzus most certainly did not have long hair, you homo, and he definitely wasn’t a vegetarian!”
“Vegetarian?” Blip looked at Manny, then back at Brother Zebediah. “What?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you, you ho-mo-sex-u-al?” Brother Zebediah’s pious energy was fast returning. “Doesn’t work, does it?” He gestured broadly with his arms, pointing his index fingers, apparently intended to represent erect penises, toward each other.
Manny suddenly sneezed three times in a row, only momentarily interrupting their synchronous foot tapping.
“A triple,” General Kiljoy quipped, nudging Tynee.
“God bless you,” said Blip.
“Oh no!” said Brother Zebediah. “God can’t spare a blessing for someone who doesn’t even know how to wear a hat.” He pointed to Manny’s cap, which was purposefully turned around. “Hey,” he addressed Manny directly. “You got your hat on backwards, son, must mean your head’s not on straight.”
“Zachariah was a bullfrog,” Manny sing-songed.
“The name is Brother Zebediah.”
“I think it’s Jeremiah was a bullfrog,” Blip added.
“Ribbet, ribbet,” Manny taunted Brother Zebediah, flapping his elbows as if he were imitating a chicken.
Brother Zebediah ignored Manny’s mockery and turned back to Blip. “You!” he said. “You said, ‘God bless you!’”
Blip nodded affably. “I did.”
“I love sneezing,” said Manny.
“I didn’t expect you to admit that you believe in God,” Brother Zebediah said to Blip.
“I’m not talkin’ ’bout weak wheezes,” Manny continued, addressing no one at all.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have any expectations,” Blip replied to Brother Zebediah.
“I’m sayin’ strong sneezes,” Manny persisted with his soliloquy. “Now that’s what pleases.” All three tapped out a punch line.
“It pleases Jeyzus to know that you believe in Him.”
“Please us Jesus?” Manny rhymed. “Sneeze us Jesus?”
“Whatever,” Blip yawned. “All you’ve got to do is be honest and kind. How’s it go? ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God?’7 I’ve always liked that sentiment.”
“Read on, false prophet! On judgment day, Jeyzus will rebuke those who think they’ve served Him, saying, ‘Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.’8 That’s the conclusion of the semen on the mount.”
“Semen on the mount?” Manny spoke loudly. “Semen on the mount? Did’ja hear that, Doc? Semen on the mount!” Blip nodded and chuckled in weary but unflagging amusement.
“Blasphemy!�
�� Brother Zebediah stammered, mortified. “Your evil is unspeakable!”
“Don’t try to blame me, Brother. You said it. You said ‘semen on the mount.’”
“I said no such thing!” Brother Zebediah insisted, reddening from embarrassment or anger. “I said sermon on the mount.”
“No, not quite. You said ‘semen on the mount.’ That’s exactly what you said.” Manny rocked back and forth in his chair, uncontainably delighted at Brother Zebediah’s slip of the lip. “I can see where your mind is at. You still enjoy lookin’ at women in a sinful way. Semen on the mount. Hoo-wee! Yeah! Right on! Semen on the mount. Semen on the mount. You’re blushin’, Brother. If your mouth was a semi, a runaway truck ramp on the interstate couldn’t’ve slowed you down a few minutes ago. Now you’ve hit a roadblock. Semen on the mount.”
Blip leaned forward and posed a riddle. “What do you call a rerun of the semen on the mount?”
“A rerun of the semen on the mount,” Manny repeated. “What do you call it?”
Blip made the sign of the cross and grinned. “The second coming.”
79 There was a tangible beat after Blip’s heretical punch line, followed immediately by the uproarious laughter of everyone present, Brother Zebediah included. The studio audience chuckled as well, though our laughter was quick to fade. Blip, Brother Zebediah, and Manny, however, continued to laugh far past the point of lethargy. After several minutes, their fatigue finally subdued their hilarity, and they sat about in lassitude.
“Here’s something interesting.” Blip abruptly stood up after a few minutes had passed and began addressing the mirror. He was trying to look at us but was instead lecturing the bottle of Wild Turkey behind us on the bar. “Language is a piss-poor attempt at telepathy is what it is. We try to put our thoughts in each other’s heads through language.” He laughed and yawned, but continued talking through them both, making his voice high and strained. “But half the intended meaning gets lost in the transmission, and the other half is filtered through existing assumptions. Everything is a half truth!”
Just a Couple of Days Page 17