Part IV

7 December 2011:

23 North.  Out of Milan. 

Ha.  Pissant Milan.

A hick town they've whored up with a Taco Bell and a CVS and a half-dozen other corporate zombie iconchises.

Can anything good come out of Milan?

Headed toward a shitty address in Ypsilanti.

“What sort of music do you listen to?” as she reaches for the radio.

Music.  I feel about talking about music the way some people feel about talking about sports.  Or the weather.

“Uh, to be honest, I don’t really like music.  Most of it gives me a headache.”

She stops fiddling with the tuner.

“But go ahead and put on something you like.  It won’t bother me.”

This could be a long 15 minute drive.  And I hope this address in Ypsi isn’t what I think it is. 

Static.  Bad music.  Static.  Bad music.  Static.  Bad music.  She had the TV on in her room, too.  Didn’t turn it off.  People always have to have something on.  It’s fear.  Afraid to be alone with their thoughts. 

Don’t need the heat on.  The unobscured winter sun turns the car into a greenhouse. 

I’m going 83.  I slow it down to 80.  Pass a Hostess truck.

She’s finally found a station.  I don’t know what it is. It’s wimpy sounding.  Like the crap they would play in an *in* store in the mall.

“Do you like Twinkies?” I ask.

“What?”

“What’s your favorite band?”

“Umm. . .there’s this guy. . .Dead Mouse.  Have you ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“I also like Ratatat.”

“Oh.”

“I had a back stage pass to see them at the Electronic Music Festival.”

“That must have been exciting.”

“It was!  It was!  To be so close--”

As she talks about this Ratatat back stage thing, I remember the scene in A Streetcar Named Desire where Karl Malden finally gets a good look in the light at Vivien Leigh, and he sees how old she really is.  It’s always dark in Lindsay’s room.  She keeps the shades pulled.  The only light is from the TV and computer screens.  Now I see her in broad daylight.  I see how young she is.  Ha.  That’s a thought worth being distracted from.

“Do you play any music?” I ask.

“No.  I love music so much, but I’ve tried to play guitar and. . .I don’t know, I just can’t.”

“What about singing?”

“Um. . .I like to sing. I mean, I like to play Rock Band and stuff and sing on it.  I’ll put on like a stage show and my friends will sit there and go ‘wow’ and just stare at me.”

“You would look great fronting a band.  You have a great style, a great appearance.”

She giggles.

There’s an MSP car ahead, slowing things down a bit.  I cut back to 75.

Her phone goes off.  The ring tone is some hillbilly voice singing I don’t know who you think you are, but before the night is through, I wanna do bad things with you.

I hear her end of the conversation:

“Oh, OK. . .”

“I have all of it. . .”

“We’re about five minutes out. . .”

“In real time?  Maybe eight minutes out. . .”

A wave of gloom rolls over me.  It’s called reality.  Shabby lives.  We’re not twirling on top of some jeweled music box.  This is 23 North to Ypsi.  Ten days ago the internet created this out of nothing.  No.  Not nothing.  Out of depression and addiction.  She came out of some. . .pit of despair.  Ha.  Pit of despair.  Another way of saying--

“What?”

She asked me something, but I don’t quite hear it all over my thoughts.

“Do you go to the movies a lot?”

“No,” I say,  “I used to, though.  Years ago.  I used to see everything.  Now I just watch DVDs.  What about you?”

“Yeah, I go whenever I can.  My friend took me see J. Edgar.  It was so boring.  It was like two hours long.  More than two hours.  I really wanted to see this movie called Martha Marcy Marlene or something--”

“Oh, yeah, I heard of that.  About the chick who escapes from a cult?”

“Yeah, I really wanted to see that, it looked so interesting.  But we ended up at J. Edgar.  Nothing happened in this guy’s whole life.  Nothing cool.”

“Did you ever see this movie Kick-Ass?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, that was good.  Yeah.  So. . .is that like your favorite movie?”

“Oh, no, I liked it, but it’s not my favorite.  I just mentioned it because I figured you might like it, too.  My favorite movie is The Exorcist.”

She nods.  “I like scary movies.  Have you ever seen The Ring?”

“Oh, yeah.  That was good.  Wait, are you talking about the Japanese one, or the American one?  I’ve only seen the American one.”

“The American one,” she says.  “I mean, I’ve seen both, or all of them, there’s more than one.  I like the first Ring, the American version.  It’s my favorite scary movie, probably ever.  Yeah, I like it a lot.”

We hit the Washtenaw exit.  Now we’re in the low rent strip mall zone.  Mattresses, flowers, tires, eyeglasses, phones, uniforms, auto parts stores. 

“Did you ever see The Human Centipede?”

“Yeah,” she giggles.  “Yeah. There’s a new one out.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.  It’s supposed to be way more extreme, more graphic.”

“Really?” she giggles.  “Movies like that just make me laugh.  They’re like, because they’re so, like, ridiculous.  They’re not scary or realistic.  And some people are like ‘oh my god, how can you watch that!’  But it was so fake, I loved it.”

Chinese restaurant, liquor store, mail shoppe, nail salon. . .nail salon?

“Nail ‘salon?’  Can you believe that?  A bunch of dumpy negresses getting their nails done in ghetto rococo, and they call it a ‘salon!’  Imagine Rimbaud and Verlaine walking into one of these places. . .hmmph.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” I laugh.  “I was just. . .just thinking out loud.  To myself.  Just some, uh, you know, just talking to myself, really.”

That was a real conversation killer.

Just as I start to wonder how I got into this mess, and how I can get out of it, I realize it doesn’t matter.  I lose no matter what I do.  It’s one mess or the other.  Bitterness or delirium.  You can only fail, in the world.  Ten centuries ago you could flee the world.  You could escape to the desert or a cave in the mountains.  Now the world is everywhere.  Jesus was prophesying about the apocalypse when He said he who endures to the end, the same shall be saved.  In my personal apocalypse, I lose all day, everyday.  But I endure.  I don’t let my own sin, my own continual defeat question the faith of Christ.

“You know where Dom’s Donuts is?” she asks.

“No.”

“Well, that’s were we’re gonna turn.  It’s straight ahead a little ways.”

“All right.  Are we turning left or right.”

“Right.” 

I don’t know who you think you are, but before the night is through, I wanna do bad things with you.

“One more minute. . .”

“One real minute. . .”

“A white Honda Civic. . .”

She pulls the money I gave her about a half-hour ago out of her jeans pockets.  Stuffs a five back in, closes a fist around the rest.  I don’t feel bad when I give a drunken bum a couple bucks, either. 

Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. . .

Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. . .

What do you give those in the blackness of darkness?

A circle of infirmity and misery, that’s how I look at it.  We are what we are.

Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? 

Another wave of gloom rolls over me.  I don’t know anything, anymore.

“Have you seen that thing online where, um, the cops spray the Occupy Wall Street people?” she asks.

“That’s America, for you.”

“Right!”

“The sad thing. . .no, it’s not sad, it’s, uh, pathetic. . .the pathetic thing is, is how many people are overjoyed, how many people are aroused, really, aroused and ecstatic that the protesters got sprayed.  Pathetic robots.  Mind-controlled pseudo-patriots--they think America is Heaven on Earth, and so any unwashed occupiers must be devils who deserve the cayenne wrath of god’s soldiers.”

“Right!  Right!  That’s it!”

A moment of bonding.  Nothing like a new audience to salve the soul. 

“I’m glad we agree on that,” I say.  “No flag--”

“No!  I mean, turn right!  That’s it!” she says, pointing at the donut place.  “Turn right, here!”

Oh.

I cut a nasty last second right. 

“But I mean, yeah.  Right on about the pepper sprayers and all that,” she says without much enthusiasm.

We’re on some slummy side street full of peeling crackerboxes.

We go down four or five blocks, and there’s an ugly apartment complex on the left.

“Turn in here,” she says, “and drive down to the fourth building, and stop in front.”

I don’t know who you think you are, but before the night is through, I wanna do bad things with you.

“We’re pulling in right now. . .”

“I know but how am I supposed to know to the exact second. . .”

“All right, well, maybe we can like just coordinate a little better so we can just. . .”

I see a gray-hoodied *black youth* on a cell up ahead.

“Well, I know, but like, uh. . .”

I pull up next to gray hoodie.  She rolls down the window.  Gray hoodie leans in, she opens her fist, he takes the money, palms a tiny plastic bag into her hand, rolls her fist.   They continue to speak to each other over their cells while doing this.

“We’re in at the same time, so--” she says.

“You got to understand.  This shit has to happen smoother.”

And with that, the artificial light flickers, then shorts out.  I’m back in the blackness of darkness.  A brief recess in a Fool’s Paradise is over.

Now a fifteen minute drive back to Milan to drop her off.  Fifteen minutes, and then it’s her turn.  She can escape, for a while.

23 South to Milan.

Pissant Milan.

All the pissant towns since Cain.  Filled with unknown people.  The mania to be known, in our day, to be a celebrity, is a remnant from the days of God.  In the Old Times, people devoted themselves to be known of God.  Architecture and ritual meant to draw God’s eye. 

On That Day, Jesus will dismiss many with the simple, chilling statement:

Depart from Me, I never knew you. . .

To be known is salvation.

All the pissant towns down through the Ages.  All the unknown.  I try to calculate.  I know, I am aware of maybe one hundred people at work.  Twenty neighbors, maybe.  A dozen or so of the old lady’s friends.  Maybe thirty family members.  A few strays, like the cashiers at the parking lot.  I know what, maybe two hundred people?  Out of seven billion?  I know almost nobody.

“You’re so quiet,” she says.

We just passed the King Pizza’s Pizza billboard.

“I always wondered why they didn’t just call it King’s Pizza,” I say.

“I used to deliver for them.”

“You did?  I bet you got great tips.”

“I wish.  People are so cheap, you wouldn’t believe it.  Like one time, I had to deliver all these pizzas to a party, and the guy goes like, take a shot for your tip.”

We both chuckle.

“But no,” she goes on, “the tips were shitty as hell, if you even got one.  I mean, how can you order a pizza and not tip?  Or they want exactly all their change.  We didn’t carry any coins, and one time this lady made me go back all the way to the store to get her exact change.  I don’t know, I thought it was like etiquette to tip.”

“Did anybody ever try to rob you?”

“No, no, I heard some bad stories about it, but nobody ever tried to rob me.”

A kid like her, she’d be a pushover.  Maybe she has ministering angels watching over her.  Maybe her day is still to come.  My day is over.  Now I try to hang on.  To run out the clock, as they say in football.

I pull up a block from her place.

“Well. . .” I say.

She stares at me.

“Well,” I say, “it was nice to talk a little bit.  It makes it a little less awkward, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah.  It was nice.  Thanks for the ride.”

“Sure.”

She’s out the door, that little baggy in her fist.

Against the odds, I found this girl out of the pissant masses.

Now what do I do?