by Jesse Ball
The pamphlet was a bit long-winded. It was written by one of these anarchist types who want to prove that they could be university professors if they felt like it. He is imagining a cadre of university professors tearing his bullshit pamphlet up, and he wants to make sure that whatever grounds they have for tearing it up, it will damned well not be because the thing isn’t smart and awesomely argued on their terms. Which is worse than nonsense. If it is a pamphlet about anarchism or setting fires it should be practical.
I will give you a breakdown of some of the material.
The pamphlet had an introduction. The introduction said that all over the United States, the lower class is fed up with being used. Okay.
Next, it said that the response to that is: people forming groups, syndicates, with the intention of burning down property. What cannot be shared should be destroyed. That’s what he says. The organization of these groups varies from place to place, but it really doesn’t matter how the organization is handled, or even if there is any, because the whole thing is just people burning things, so you don’t need an organization in the first place.
As far as I can tell, the clubs are just there to be clubs, same as any club ever. You get to be around like-minded people and have a nice time.
Then he gets into how even children are joining in to this mayhem, and there are Arson Clubs in high schools. He quotes the record of one boy who was in elementary school. Apparently he burned down a train station in Ohio.
I found some of this doubtful, because I had never heard of any of it, and wouldn’t I have? But then he addresses that, too, by saying much of it is suppressed.
So, that’s the introduction. The first chapter is a history of arson, and talks about how it is mostly on the record in terms of insurance. People burn things to get money for the things that were burned. Then they pretend there was more there than was there and get money for the things that weren’t even there to begin with! He talks about how people even existed once called insurance adjusters who would flock to burning buildings (in the 1920s) to offer their services. They would interact with the insurance company for you and juice up your claim, and for that they would take a percentage. Talk about living off your wits—what creeps. Not that it matters to take money from insurance companies.
The next chapter is about the ethics of arson. It points out that arson is a crime for which you can be murdered by the state. Or executed, as they like to put it. You burn something big down and if someone is inside and they die then you die. I think that is the logic.
In the past people who wanted to destroy property, like the Weathermen, for instance, tried to make sure no one was there. This is a kind of ethical version. The new way, he says, is a new ethic. What is it?
It is: the manner of exertion of the will of the ruling class is such that they do not appear responsible for the vast cruelties they inflict. Each wealthy person can cruise about seemingly innocent, despite in fact being a linchpin in a system that demoralizes and brutalizes the majority of living people. Yet when someone battles back, that person acts as part of a small machinery—the machinery of his/ her individual action—and thus appears guilty. The rich, on the basis of their larger machinery of violent action, can disconnect themselves from the violence of their class warfare. The poor cannot—since they must be their own mechanisms for action.
On the basis of this, he says, we need a new morality. That morality is, if you are a person who owns a great number of things, if you are a person who uses the reins of power to manipulate others, then you forfeit your right to be treated like a person (that is, you are intrinsically connected to the murder you have impersonally done—and will be treated the way the state treats murderers).
There will be two classes of people: those who act in a small, meager way, or a small, meager, compassionate way, and those who live off them. The latter do not get to have the consideration that has historically been afforded to human beings under human moral law.
The crucial thing about this morality is that it enables poor people to more easily burn the machinery of the rich—as they don’t have to worry about the rich people being inside the buildings that they burn. That in turn makes it safer for the poor to strike back, as they don’t have to adopt extravagant measures of safety.
There is a section about arson in which you intend to not be caught, and then there is a section about arson in which you do intend to be caught. Why would you want to be caught? He says this is one of the best ways to broadcast our methods and our rationale to other people, although presumably the media will prevent such a thing from happening, for the most part.
PAMPHLET two
I thought about this, and about the pamphlet that I would write. Mine would be more like:
HOW TO SET A FIRE AND WHY
And it would say all kinds of wonderful stuff about the joys of setting fires. There is definitely a lot to say about that. It would also present a more compelling moral argument. I think I could do that. Maybe there would even be inspiring verses about setting fires that people could memorize. If the technique parts—how to set a fire—were in verse, then people could memorize them more easily, and then they wouldn’t forget, even under duress!
I made a note to work on my own fire pamphlet, since I found this one to be lacking. Still, there was plenty in it that I didn’t know.
PAMPHLET three
The pamphlet got to the good part eventually, which was a breakdown of methods.
As I mentioned, those methods could be divided into two categories, concealed methods and bald methods. The concealed methods attempt to use only things that are present in the place of conflagration in order to burn the place of conflagration. That way no one can say how it happened. The bald methods use other materials in order to ensure a successful fire (it is by no means easy to set fire to a building). Those materials will often be discovered after the fact, and the arson will be discovered.
Having arson discovered is not so bad for us. We, the arsonists, are not trying to get money from insurance companies. In fact, the more arson that is discovered, the more we can feel the growth of our fraternity (this is what he says).
I say he, but really the pamphlet could as easily have been written by a woman. Certainly, the name on it is a man’s name. But, a woman could well choose to write the pamphlet under a pseudonym. I’m sure men would prefer to read an arson pamphlet by a man.
Anyway, I am fed up with telling you about this arson pamphlet. I will just stick in my own pamphlet a bit later on. You have that to look forward to.
INVITATION
When I got home from my expedition, my aunt said that someone had called for me. I prefer to be the one to answer calls like that, because then it seems like I have an actual phone, rather than a home telephone. I think my aunt is the only person in the world who still has a home telephone. Anyway—Lana called to invite me to a party. My aunt said she was real cordial on the phone. I said, Lana is a vicious slut. My aunt said she would never have known.
About this invitation: I won’t even try to pretend that it isn’t a big deal. I have only been to a few parties, and it was usually with asshole guys who took me there to give me liquor. I am a sort of escape artist, though—so don’t worry, I almost always manage to extricate myself gracefully, even if sometimes I am a bit wobbly.
Lana and her friend Ree came to get me. They pulled up in front driving some kind of old convertible (it was red and gorgeous). I was sitting on the stoop—which annoys our landlord to no end.
Nice house, Ree said. Get in.
Lana leaned her head back to look at me through the seats. She narrowed her eyes:
Do you ever wear different clothes?
No, I said. I am not a wardrobe kind of person.
Got it.
She peeled out, and my heart basically took off into the fucking sky.
THE PIER
The party was at this house that is called the pier. That’s what Ree told me. She did this cool thing where she
climbed over the seat and sat in the back with me to talk as we drove. Ree is Asian, I think probably Korean, and also part Indian, which is weird, I mean, uncommon. I have never heard of this combination, but she is really hot, so—nice for her. She started telling me about the place and put her elbow on my shoulder like someone in a movie. It killed me.
The pier is a house that has a backyard that used to be a water park. So, it is maybe three acres (it was a shitty water park). There is no water, and all the pools and slides are empty, but it is a great place to hang out. When she told me this, I almost didn’t believe her. It sounded too good.
But, when we got there, it was absolutely true. It is on the edge of the city, so there are farm fields and woods and such around. Ree said there is actually a sanitation plant over the hill, which is what put the water park out of business.
There were maybe a hundred people there already—for which the host, a guy in his forties with no shirt on, apologized. It’ll heat up, don’t worry.
I hate when people say that kind of thing. He knew Lana and Ree and gave them hugs. I did not do that, although he moved to sort of make it happen. I gave him a good handshake.
Get yourself some drinks, he said. Mona’ll be back soon with a truck full of fireworks.
Mona, Ree told me, is that guy’s (Jim’s) girlfriend. She is maybe thirty and an awesome singer. What kind of singer, I asked. Not like that, said Ree. She is an opera singer.
Shit.
I decided I would try to get her to sing for me later on.
JARED
A couple of hours later, Lana and I were sitting at the top of a slide and this real dumb guy named Jared, who is supposedly in a famous law school, is telling me how Lewis Carroll was a pedophile. I can only take so much of that, you know. I mean, honestly.
From the spot where I was sitting I could see the whole water park laid out beneath me—or I would have been able to in daylight. Now, it looked a bit like a diorama, or a structure that you’re in, but that you understand from above—like in a dream.
Jared was being so annoying I finished my drink, and that drink was supposed to last me a good hour. So, I turned against him.
He was starting to say some more, and I had to get away. If Lana wants to talk to him—fine.
I got up, and he had to move to let me go back up the slide to go down the ladder.
Be easy, be easy, I told myself, but then I decided not to. I turned to him:
You aren’t a pedophile because you like to take pictures of naked children. Maybe it’s weird. Yeah, it is. Maybe that’s true. But, I bet being eight and naked and having a chat with Dodgson is better than 98 percent of the activities you could get to do, ever.
He looked shocked.
Lana laughed.
You would have let him put it in, eh? Eight-year-old Lucia would be into that?
Lana. You know what I mean.
I kept going toward the ladder, but remembered the rest of what I had to say to the lawyer-guy.
And for the record, it is Alice Liddell, not Little. Some—people—.
My speech was ruined by the fact that I almost tripped and fell, but I caught the mouth of the slide, and got to the ladder okay. The guy said something, and I could hear Lana saying to him,
Oh, no, she just hates poseurs. You’re not a poseur, are you?
That actually almost made me fall. I don’t want you to think that this whole ladder and slide business was a piece of cake. The ladder was maybe thirty feet long, and many of the rungs were broken. Just getting up there in the first place was not something everyone could do. In fact, I had been surprised to find this Jared individual there when we got to the top.
On the way down the ladder I remembered I had to go to the bathroom, which meant trying to remember where the bathroom was. That meant remembering that there were four different ones (it was a water park after all). Ree was in line outside one smoking a cigarette. She passed it to me and lit herself another, like we had been doing that kind of thing forever. When the bathroom opened up, she said, in you go, and we went in together.
That made me a little nervous, because I didn’t want to mess up how cool we were being with each other, but we got inside and she just pulled her dress up and started pissing in the toilet, still smoking away on her cigarette.
I looked at myself in the mirror. It was cracked as hell and there was a naked bulb blinking on and off right above it. I messed around with my hood a bit and stuck my chin out.
Hold it there, she said. Let me get a picture of you. Hold on.
She was still pissing and smoking a cigarette, and she pulled her phone out of I don’t know where. I love this photograph, she said. You are so beautiful. Grow old and die right now and I’ll play piano at your funeral.
DOGS
A guy named Walt who had three pit bulls with him gave me a ride home in his Wagoneer sometime around dawn. He was pretty old, and his dogs were all sweet as fuck. If you like dogs, he said, you should sit in the back. They will sit all over you. So, I did that. I was thinking, I like these dogs, and, these dogs can actually predate on me if they choose to. One of them, Mona, was 115 pounds. How heavy do you think she is, Walt asked me. I said, she is definitely heavier than I am.
Mona had an awesome white patch on her face. She kept doing the dog thing of knocking the head into me and leaning against me to try to provoke some petting. In her case, though, it is not really a question. You will pet her or she will eat you.
Walt dropped me at the corner and Mona gave a little wail when I got out. The other two dogs didn’t care as much. She never likes anyone, Walt said, which is what dog owners always say. Does everyone believe it? I usually do.
AUNT
My aunt was awake when I came in, or I thought she was, but she was kind of frozen in her chair. It is hard for me to describe it, but her body was really weird and stuck. In my head, I heard a voice I hadn’t heard before, some voice of knowledge say in a slow clear way, she has had a stroke. I think it was probably just my own voice, but I was so far away at that point, I couldn’t even recognize it.
The ambulance came, and they told me I couldn’t ride in it. They carried her out of the house, which was strange—having these men I don’t know inside our house—and then they wouldn’t let me get into the ambulance. You’re drunk, they said. Sober up. I tried to insist, but they said no, and gave me the address of the hospital. One of them led me away from the ambulance a short distance while the other shut the door, so I couldn’t even jump in.
I don’t know why they wouldn’t let me go along with her, but it was awful.
Essentially, ten seconds passed, and I was standing on the street, it was six a.m. and the ambulance was gone. Some people who had been woken up by the sirens were looking at me out their windows. I felt like a real fuckup.
It happened so fast that I had the thought—just jump in the ambulance, after the ambulance was gone. Then it turned a corner in my head and became, why didn’t you jump in the ambulance?
Then, I felt even worse waiting for the bus, because I stopped being drunk and I stopped being high, and I was just hungry and the bus took forever to come. When it did, it got me partway. I had to wait for another bus. That got me to the hospital.
One thing about hospitals is—it isn’t always clear how to get into them. You can walk around the outside a long way looking for the entrance, and then when you find it there are thirty-foot letters that say, Emergency, or Outpatient.
I wasn’t sure if I should go into the emergency room, but I did, and then I had to wait to talk to the nurse because there were people truly bleeding who were on line in front of me. A little girl was throwing up into her mom’s purse. I’m not kidding. The mom was holding the purse open, and the kid was throwing up into it.
Forty-five minutes later, when I managed to speak to someone, I got hassled about not having any identification, and I solved that by crying.
At that point, there was nothing they could do but take me to h
er, so they did.
AUNT two
Before we get to what happened when I went to my aunt’s room:
a fact:
my aunt wrote a book. I didn’t know that she had done that until after she was in the hospital because my aunt is almost always in the house when I am in the house and so I never really get to poke around the way you do when you are alone. And that’s the poking that really counts, because inevitably you find things that lead to other things, and next thing you know you have emptied out someone else’s drawers and are looking at notes they wrote to people who are long dead.
At the bottom of one of the drawers was a book called Falstaff, the Proper English Gentleman: An Indictment of Culture by Lucy Stanton, D.Phil.
This isn’t really my type of book, so I only looked at it for a little while. I think it is about things that were important to people once, but not really anymore. By the way, it has nothing to do with Shakespeare, if that much wasn’t already obvious.
I also found a letter from her husband. It is on the inside of a paper airplane, which I guess makes sense since they were essentially children together (he died when she was nineteen). The paper airplane is inside of an envelope, some kind of military envelope. I guess he was overseas when he sent it to her, which is weird, because he didn’t die in the army, so he must have been there before he died.