‘Literature’
The following links are excerpts from a collection of short experimental writing projects done while living at Zendik Farm arts commune sometime around 2000. Enjoy.
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Antonio had no reason to doubt the convictions that poured like sweet wine from the mouths of his favorite television celebrities. After all, prime-time programming had taught him more about life in the real world than all the parents, guidance counselors and sideshow freaks in his life combined. Fervently, he dialed his credit-card number into the telephone at the prompting of the sexy, yet mechanical voice on the other end of the line, all the while never dropping his gaze from the infomercial’s promise of hope that illuminated his face with a soft glow from the television screen across the room.
The six-week delivery period seemed more like a month and a half, but at long last. All the waiting was over. After several minutes of work, Antonio sat down and gazed upon the fruits of his labor. His Fichus tree sagged heavily under the weight of the garter belt and hosiery draped over its few existing leaves. After a moment of introspection, he reluctantly hung his head, disillusioned and embarrassed with himself in retrospect for ever falling victim to such an obvious fraud. The alluring title: “Turn your houseplant into a beautiful woman” had seemed like such a wonderful prospect full of possibilities six weeks ago, and yet here he sat, uncomfortably alone in his bamboo recliner, ninety-nine dollars poorer and heavy of heart.
“It simply isn’t fair.” He muttered, “that the ineptitudes of a misled and perilously unconscious society should be so heartlessly manipulated by a distant and faceless conglomerate.”
A single tear rolled from the corner of his eye, and he fell silent a long time before reaching again for the remote control.
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The clock ticked ominously toward the end of last period as the children of Mrs. Haywood’s 8th grade class teetered anxiously on the precipice of summer vacation. Staring out at the sunny schoolyard beyond the confines of his uncomfortable desk, Gary was lost to the drone of Mrs. Haywood’s voice, as she began reading the names on report card envelopes. He was dreaming of what it was like out there in the world. Adulthood… jobs, money, fame, power, the undiscovered adventure of the opposite sex… 4 more years of high school seemed like a lifetime to wait for it all. How unfair it seemed to him that he should be stuck here while the world he dreamed of moved on without him, just out of reach. And all for a grade. A single letter on a piece of paper that determined his worth to a world that had no idea of his value. Someday he would show them all who Gary Munsing really was… Someday.
He watched longingly through the window as a carload of seniors peeled out of the high school parking lot across the road, laughing together. That lot seemed a million miles away.
“Gary… Gary Munsing…?”
He jerked to attention, suddenly aware of Mrs. Haywood who was holding out a manila envelope with his name typed on it. He looked up at her and she sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry, Gary, but it looks as if we’ll be seeing each other again next year.”
The words hung in the air, his heart sank. He couldn’t believe it, he tried to speak, but nothing came out, his lips moving silently in the air like a fish out of water.
“You’re just going to have to try harder.” She said, giving him a firm but sympathetic look, and moving on down the aisle calling out names.
Gary sat very still. His dreams blew out the window and were carried away on a hopeless breeze.
Being a 36-year-old left back in 8th grade 23 times was embarrassing enough, but it was the muffled laughter from the children that was most unbearable to him. Gary stood up and walked mechanically out the front doors of Easton Jr. High School, silently plotting his revenge. ..
I
Maureen Kase smiled as she collected the last bits of a smashed china plate into a dustpan from the kitchen floor and dropped them non-chalantly into the wastebasket. Her husband, Justin, stood just inside the door to the living room smoking his pipe, an expression of bliss crossing his face as he listened to the broken shards hit the bottom of the can.
“Mighty clumsy of you, my love.” He said comically, “That was from the Chi dynasty…9th century.”
“Yes, dear,” She replied mockingly, “I feel oh… so bad about it.” There was a moment of strained silence before their eyes met and they both burst into laughter. When it had ended, Justin poured them both another drink and they sat together on Maureen’s favorite 12th century Naugahyde loveseat and gazed at the expanse of their possessions.
“Let us toast,” Justin beamed, “to my father, Justin Sr., founder of the pointless insurance company, without whom all of this would be so unnecessarily precious to us.”
“To Justin, Sr.,” Maureen choked through tears, “Rest his soul. Creator of a replaceable world.” They raised their glasses together in memoriam, sipped, and hurled them against a hanging 100-thousand-dollar replica portrait of Henry VIII that hung above the mantelpiece, bursting again into gales of laughter.
The Pointless Insurance Agency had been founded by Justin Kase Sr. in 1996 after he was simultaneously struck by lightening, burglarized, and trampled by a moose during a flash-flood in his Madison Avenue apartment. Spurned by the denial of his insurance claim, Kase began his own company and vowed that no other American should ever again fall victim to such flagrant injustice. With the sudden and tragic death of his first wife, Julia, in 1998, in a bizarre miniature golf accident, his obsession of conquering the unpredictability of loss took him to Taiwan, where he successfully merged and converted a second-rate plastic surgery clinic and mail-order bride company into the world’s first ‘Lifetime Insurance Personal Replacement Agency’.
America swallowed the concept whole. Within a year, new-age religio-political leaders that had taken seats of power in both state and federal government praised and endorsed this evolution of insurance as ‘the new backbone of America’s future, destined to secure and solidify the moral fiber of the American family unit forever.’ Pointless Insurance had changed the way the world would cope with loss. It was the dawn of a new age. But Justin Sr. would never see it come to pass. Two days before he was to be presented with the award for corporate merit on national television, his car plummeted over an embankment and burned, making him the first American citizen to activate a Pointless Insurance Lifetime Replacement claim. His body was never recovered from the wreckage, but the policy guidelines that he himself had drawn up were clear. Justin Kase Sr. would live on through his own creation.
II
“Timmy,” Maureen called upstairs, “hurry or you’ll be late for the bus.”
A dark-skinned 8-year-old boy skipped past, spoke something unintelligible and headed out the front door to the curb.
“Justin,” Maureen said, frustrated, “I still can’t quite make out what Timmy is saying through his… accent.” Justin retorted sharply with finger raised at his wife: “Dammit, Maureen, we are NOT above the LAW! THAT IS TIMMY! Forget the accident, stop grieving and focus on our NEW SON! “
“I guess it sort of looks like him, but-“ Justin cut her off, “Not another word! The Law is the Law! It’s there for your own good! Do you want to spend the next year of your life in a detention center?”
The phone rang and he was drawn away, leaving Maureen to hang her head.
It had been 3 weeks since their only son had been blown off the edge of Really Deep Canyon National Monument. The insurance claim had been filed quickly and without inquiry or incident, but Maureen was still having some difficulty adjusting to the Taiwanese replacement.
Justin returned to the room enthusiastically with a suitcase in his hand, “That was the agency, honey. Their flying me down to Somalia for a few days to check out their AIDS situation. Their dropping like flies and the Christian coalition is considering granting them 6 million in policy relief funding! I’ll be back on Friday evening!” Maureen remained silent as he kissed her cheek and headed for the airport.
The flight was free of turbulence, the food was free of poisoning, and his luggage was intact when he touched down at the African International Airport, unfortunately stepping off the plane’s walkway at precisely the same moment as the African Freelance Handicapped Liberation Association decided to take a hostage. Bumping through the darkness of the car trunk, hands and feet bound, with a burlap sack over his head, a contented smile formed on Justin’s lips. After all, he was insured for this type of thing.
8 months of captivity passed slowly and uneventfully before he was able to utilize his shrewd business sense and superior intellect to turn the mirror onto the face of the A.F.H.L.A. Forcing them, through tears, to admit that there was no real motive for his kidnapping, or any real reason for their organization to exist at all. The fact of the matter was, that the entire ordeal was motivated more from boredom and poor television programming than any political strategy. Justin managed to sell them a group camel insurance policy, and was released with a fruit basket and all apologies.
Chewing pomegranate seeds on the plane ride home, his lips broke into a contented and familiar grin. Much like his father, he considered himself a man who thought of everything, with total control over his destiny.
Justin Kase’s Personal Lifetime Insurance Replacement policy was processed exactly 6 months after his last contact with his family. Within a week, Ahmed Yusef became Justin Kase, Jr., husband and father of Maureen and Timmy Kase, respectively. 2 days after that, Maureen Case was placed under indefinite detainment by Pointless officials for misconduct and obstruction and promptly replaced. The grass was cut and the car was washed. The neighbors obediently waived and smiled, and soon, everything was back to normal on Oak Street. The threat of disrupted moral family integrity quelled under the plaster cast of Pointless Insurance.
Amazed and slightly disturbed by the meticulous upkeep of his lawn and sport utility vehicle, Justin scowled as his key jammed in the lock of his front door. Finally giving up in a frenzy of frustrated anticipation, he beat at the door with a clenched fist and announced himself: “Maureen! Timmy! It’s ME! Open up! You’re never going to believe what happened to me! Hey, Guys! It’s ME –“
The door opened abruptly, revealing a middle-aged Taiwanese man with a furrowed brow and a martini in his hand. There was a moment of confused silence as the two examined each other, tension mounting. A mild rage washed over the real Justin Kase, causing his jaw to clench as he loudly spoke the name: “JUSTIN!”
“Yes?” spoke the man of the house through a thick accent, “Who de hell are you?” Neighbors on both sides of the property had nervously poked out of their homes to assess the disturbance. A woman with a baby carriage had come to a stop in front of the driveway and stood gawking at the scene. All of them waiting for what would happen next. The real Justin Kase, Jr. stood in disbelief on his own alienated doorstep wishing it all away. It all began to reel in a confused, angry blur. He closed his eyes and called for his wife who came to the doorway muttering in a foreign language and clutching a handful of bamboo shoots. At that, Justin finally exploded. He punched the interloper square in the jaw, splattering his martini against the satin trim of his former home, and setting in motion a half-dozen neighborhood fingertips, all of them dialing the police.
Hunched and handcuffed in the back seat of the police car, the contented smile that had found it’s place on Justin’s lips most of his adult life was noticeably absent, replaced by a blank fear that he had never known. He wasn’t covered for this sort of thing.
III
Two and a half hours went by before he was processed and placed in a cell the size of a shoebox, and left to wonder. No one had taken his name. He had signed nothing. A television droned, just out of sight down the aisle from Justin’s sight…..
(more to come…)