For weeks, at work, Craig was seized with an odd obsession. He thought constantly about sneaking away in the afternoon and seeing a movie. It had been unbelievably hot – though it was a typical summer. Thirty-plus days in a row of triple digit temperatures. Coming up on two months without a drop of rain. This day after day of baking was affecting Craig’s brain – broiling his thoughts.
He thought of the multiplex down the street from his work. He thought of the cool darkness. The isolation and peaceful quiet, interrupted only by the cacophony of the film soundtrack itself. The crankle of ice cubes in a big paper cup, the swoosh of a straw, the smell of popcorn.
He dreamed of the time when he could lean back and close his eyes and feel the cushioned seat that jiggles a little, modern stadium seating, plenty of legroom. A modern bastion of entertainment, a pantheon to air conditioning. Cool whispers, dust filters. His fingers would feel the little paper stub in a pocket, a ticket to ride, escape.
It didn’t matter what the feature is… as a matter of fact, the more banal, the better. Some teen comedy maybe, or modern special effects smash hit mindless electric drivel. Escapism, is what they call it.
In his imagination he tells the girl at the front desk of the office, “I have an off site afternoon meeting,” and strolls out to the parking lot. It is only a five minute drive to the gigaplex; He sees himself locking his cellphone in the glove box of his car. The ticket seller, the ticket ripper, the concession slogger are all bored, the afternoon weekday crowd is light.
The worn carpet, the signs over the doors, the posters (coming soon)… He could see it all when he closed his eyes.
He didn’t do it though… He couldn’t do it. He worked in a factory, He was a critical cog in the machine. The oiled parts, hot and constantly moving, never know when his attention is needed.
So he took a hurried lunch, drove past the theater on his way back. The best he could do is to lean back a little between phone calls or emails, when nobody was standing in front of his desk with some question.
Lean back and close his eyes, try to smell the popcorn, hear the roar of the coming attractions.
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.” ― Clint Eastwood
Fog in front of my house, Richardson, Texas
Panel
Craig went back to work today. On the drive home, he thought, ” Hectic day, plenty ‘o stress. Quiet panic, nothing big, little things. Hey! Hey! it’s about to be a new year! All that’ll change, Right? Yeah, and monkeys will fly out of my butt.”
When he made it home his wife had broken out the overhead light panel in the kitchen. So it was off to Home Depot for him, mister home repair handyman dude. As he left the house in the minvan it looked hazy, some ground fog, very humid. It happened as he was driving, supersaturated air, more water vapor than it can hold, gas wanting to condense to liquid, giving up the day’s solar heat, the sun gone, over past the west coast, traveling across the Pacific. Polluted urban air, dust particles, stirred up by car tires, car exhaust (“I’ll get it tuned up next week”) jagged microscopic particles of carbon, every facet a condensation seed, a point for the liquid water crystals to begin forming, the molecules to line up along the surface. Oxygen, each with its hydrogen couplet, randomly spinning, vibrating, doin’ the Brownian jig, not enough energy to stay aloft, random movements bring the trio alongside the dust mote where millions of millions (Avogrado’s number is really fuckin’ big ya know) of its twin brothers now sit, lined up. He joins the line, relieved to be out of the air, safety in numbers, condensation, droplets, driplits, lets see where y’all feel like goin’, hitch a ride on a mote. This dance, this lining up, bringing into focus, making a little sphere, a little lens, refraction machine, forming of millions of millions, is itself repeated millions of millions of times across the city, plenty of dust to go around, no shortage of seeds so. WHAM!
Fog so thick you could cut it with a knife. Pea soup. Clouds on the ground at night, no white fluffy furry “hey it looks like Zanzibar” cloud this, but clingy hot and yet cold, “who selected the blend tool?” green blinding scary fog-cloud. It’s a big electric Texas city so the cloud glows from within. The fog captures oncoming cars, streetlights, leftover Christmas displays, store neons, RedGreenYellow traffic indicators, all give their light to the fog. The fog gives it back as a glow, as a hint, “There’s something there, but damn it if I can tell what it is” luminescence in the distance – actually not the distance, a lot closer than is comfortable. Car lights are tungsten white, Town East Mall Lights glow mercury vapor blue or sodium yellow, Christmas lights are -well you know what color they are.
Craig drove slow, careful, of course this is Texas so everyone else is driving like bats out of hell – who are these people? why are they always in such a hurry? there’s nowhere to go nowhere to hide a good song on the radio so why not take your time, slow down and smell the diesel exhaust. Craig wouldn’t mind if a few took the whole pipe in for awhile, they scared the shit out of him. Someone even creeped out into the foggy intersection… maybe to get a better look at an oncoming pickup before they get smacked on the passenger side door.
But Craig got there all right, picked out his transcucent panel, he had a small piece of the broken one in his pocket so he was sure that the new one matched. Home Depot at night, a guy in front of him was buying an entire cart of broken odds and ends of wood, no piece whole, no piece straight, they gave him a good deal on it, he also buys four tubes of caulk. His hands were covered with white dust, cement or wallboard-sandings maybe, so Craig figured he must know what he’s doing.
When Craig left the Depot, the fog was even thicker. He crept home, put up the panel. When they built the kitchen they made the light fixture a tiny bit too big so the panels barely fit in the frame. Every now and then one pop’s out. Craig thought, “Maybe I’ll add it to my things-to-do-list somehow shim the damn thing so they don’t fall. Maybe I’ll use duct tape, hoo boy, that’ll piss her off. Duct tape on the ceiling, might as well put a big sign out front – –White Trash, come on in, eat some Ding Dongs, we buy Mrs. Baird’s Pecan fried pies and to heat ’em we fry ’em again . Wash it down with Mountain Doo if yure under age, or Meister Brau if yure old enough, or some peppermint schnapps if yure cold and yure heart needs some healin’. Never mind the cars in the yard, they don’t run anyway, have a sit in the ARVEE out back – put a tape in the boombox we got both kinds – country and western. We’ll play some Yatzee and then UNO when we get too drunk to roll dice. Then it’s movie time, we got Rambo, we got Anyway but Loose (love that Orangutan), but that’s it, hard to get them Beta tapes nowadays.– – On second thought better put the duct tape away and cut some wooden pieces, finish them up real nice.”
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” ― Rumi
Washarama
The Zen of the Washateria
Craig always struggled with the door to the laundromat – holding the basket and pile of hangers while he pulled the door was tough. He knew most of the other customers of the “Wash It Proudly” washateria walked in and pushed the metal cart out to their cars, but he never did that – he didn’t think his weekly washing was enough. But once he was inside and the familiar heat, humidity, and Mexican radio pouring out of the speakers washed over him, he grabbed one of the metal carts with the high bar for hangers. How every one of them could have a wonky wheel was something he never could understand, but he had mastered the technique of using the bar risers as handles and pushing the cart to the washer he wanted.
There were three dollar washers, bigger four dollar washers, and giant nine-fifty washers – used by professional clothes washers and folks with giant families. His load looked a tiny bit bigger than usual, but he had only been able to scrounge up twelve quarters at home so he had to cram it in a three dollar washer. Who used quarters anymore? All week he kept an eye out for spare change – looking in the return slots of vending machines, paying with cash, calculating the change so he would get quarters. Clerks always looked at him strange when he would give them two dimes and a nickel and ask for a quarter – but it was what it was. There were some change machines down at the end, and a few of the washers took credit cards… but this felt like cheating to Craig.
All the women at the laundromat were carefully sorting their wash – whites, cottons, synthetics… but this was too confusing to Craig. He threw it all in and pushed cold. Simple. Who cared if his gym socks weren’t the whitest in the world. Polo shirts and jeans – they were easy to wash and never needed to be ironed. The washer did its work quickly – a digital timer counted down.
The giant dryers were all free. A big sign said “IF YOU DIDN’T WASH IT HERE, YOU CAN’T DRY IT HERE.” It took a half hour to dry, which gave Craig time to watch the other customers go about their routines or to simply stare hypnotized at the rows of rotating drums full of colorful tumbling clothing. When his load was dry he hung up his shirts and pants on the overhead bar and tossed the rest in the basket. The door opened outward so it was easier to go out with the basket than it was to get in.
Craig always parked his BMW Series 7 Sedan around the corner from the “Wash It Proudly.” It was a bit of a walk past all the faded worn out cars of the other patrons, but he didn’t want to be judged by his expensive ride. The basket went into the back and he used the hooks on both sides to hang his shirts and pants. He was more solemn on the drive home than he was in the trip to the laundromat – he was a bit sad – in many ways this trip was the high point of his week. He always dreaded the last bit of the trip up the long driveway across the front acreage of his estate. He tensed as he saw Maria in her trim uniform standing outside the front portico – waiting for him.
“Mister Vandermeer, why do you do this?” she scolded him as he climbed out of the BMW. “You know that is my job!”
“I know Maria… it’s just… it’s just… Well I can’t explain it. I want to do my own laundry.”
“But sir, we have a large laundry room here. It’s as good as any commercial laundry.”
“I know Maria.”
She pulled out the hangers from the car and handed the bundles to two other housekeepers that suddenly appeared. Maria then hauled out the basket herself.
“Mister Vandermeer! You didn’t even sort your laundry. I’ll bet you didn’t even use bleach or hot water on the whites!”
“Maria, I think my clothes last longer if I wash them in cold.”
“Last longer? You should throw these away. You should always wear new clothes.”
Maria turned, spun and went into the house carrying the basket. Craig Vandermeer followed inside, then turned into the media room on the right. There was a heavy glass, a container full of large custom ice cubes, and a two hundred dollar bottle of single malt Scotch sitting on the counter, waiting for him.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said and poured himself a drink.
“A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard.
And the candle by which she had read the book that was filled with fears, with deceptions, with anguish, and with evil, flared up with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all that before was in darkness, then flickered, grew faint, and went out forever.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Civitas, Audrey Flack, 1988, Patinated and gilded bronze with cast glass flame and attached marble base,
Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden
the wind bottle
The candle wax drips down the wine bottle wine and spaghetti fuel lighted matches spent, still smoke on the tabletop
The smell Grandma and her doilies light and fire hot “Watch the kid burn himself“
I blow and watch the smoke the darkness stringing streaming out
“You love me. You ignore me. You save my life, then you cook my mother into soap.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Dallas Arboretum
Warm Water
Complex salts and surfactants change the surface tension make the water smoother One end loves water the other oil The molecules line up, sticking one end in the other out. billions and billions in line to make one tiny bubble one unit of foam.
I know too much that there isn’t much difference a chain here a conjugated double bond a COOH group there between lilac (bath soap) and the stench of death
Six men sleep is a star pattern feet, boots in against the tree heads out the only way to pull a little shade from the mesquite tree, thin green lacy thing hats pulled down over eyes
What rough dreams stream from such meager shelter?
A pickup brakes up throwing dust dirt stringing streaming out brims tilt for a peek
Everyone jumps at the boss “OK, off yer asses, y’all’s ten minutes up!” one yells in a futile excuse
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
M41 Walker Bulldog
Liberty Park
Plano, Texas
War of the Carpet
There is a war occurring on the carpet tonight. An army of Batmans and Gargoyles are advancing from their living room headquarters around the shelving unit and down the hall. Opposing this formidable armed force is an equally menacing horde of Spidermans and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Their base is the guest bathroom which they have fortified with overturned plastic tubs, their former abodes. The generals of the two forces are two giants, each hundreds of feet tall in the measurement of these miniature fighters. The two deadly opponents, brothers, provide the strategy, tactics, rules of engagement, motive force, and most important, sound effects. Their parent assumes the role of Florence Nightingale, because every couple of minutes they are brought some wounded soldier whose missing part must be reattached.
The vehicles of these battling hordes are a motley collection. Eighteen wheelers, plastic airplanes, horses, cows, dinosaurs, conveyances of all ages, and of unmatched scales. Even a little space shuttle does its wartime duty. The generals are now calling for the “Secret Weapons” – yelling and running as the big guns are brought out of their hiding places under the couch and behind the toilet. The Batmobile advances toward the Gotterdammerung occurring in the hallway as a model police car leaves the bathroom, some sort of CHIP chip inside is yelling “Call 911” as the miniature siren wails and the LED’s flash.
“Time for SECRET WEAPON NUMBER TWO” comes the new call. Two more giant plastic tubs are overturned revealing two plastic F-14’s – one for each army, one red, one blue. The slaughter is witnessed by a giant dog, who sits in the corner with his slobbery tennis ball, forlornly staring at the generals, trying to get them to play fetch with him (don’t feel bad for the dog, the generals played with him for half an hour earlier, he’d play fetch 24 hours a day if he could).
Suddenly, a break in the carnage! The generals negotiate a sudden truce. After a bribe of bagels and chocolate milk the warriors retire to watch television.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we stayed this way. All we would have to do in Ukraine is send over some Hershey’s and the newest Disney release.
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” ― Stephen Hawking
Sign on storefront.
Scientist
Craig walked down the hall past a room full of kids playing video games, one of them asked him, “Are you really a scientist?” “Yes, I suppose I am.” “See, I told you,” said Tom, Craig’s son. “What kind?” asked his friend. “Well, I’m a chemist… do you know what that means?” “Nope.” “Well, I study what happens when you mix things and heat them in certain ways, sort of.”
That’s not a very good answer, he knew. There isn’t a very good way to explain what chemistry is to a kid that doesn’t know what a chemical is. Thinking about it later, Craig should have explained what kind of chemist he was and what his job entailed. He sat down in the TV room to chill for a minute and think about science and what it meant to him.
On the tube was a little documentary. They showed some stuff about Stephen Hawking. Hawking was talking about understanding black holes, the Big Bang, the moment of creation. He talked about grasping the way the universe came into being and said, “and then we will know the mind of God.”
Then, after a commercial break, the documentary changed to a story about a guy that made robots, little six legged guys that imitated life in strange ways. The robot guy said something about robot making maybe being a man thing – men can’t make life, so robots are as close as they get. He discounts that, though, because there are more women than men in his lab.
Craig thought about the creating life thing. Then he thought about Frankenstein. Then about science and knowledge and curiosity.
Creating life isn’t the thing. Any moron can create life. The folks in the trailer park seem to be creating plenty. Or think about a pumpkin seed. Is it alive? Two pumpkin seeds, one live, one not – can you tell the difference?
The important quest isn’t to create life, but to understand it. To somehow know more about the miracle, how it works, where it is going.
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
—-George Bernard Shaw
Display at main Half-Price Books, Dallas, Texas
Fingertips
Why is it that I can never remember to file the goldenrod copy to the archive folder and send the yellow to accounting?
My fingertips have an aversion to Manila folder thin cardboard, little tabs, alphabetical order.
There was a time when I looked forwards to phone calls something good exciting and sexy usually now it’s only someone wanting something plain and difficult.
I feel the beesting at my belt the rattling shock of the vibrating pager, interrupting lunch or thought, or peace, even when I’m not wearing it.
Piles of paper, drawers of folders carefully ordered, fall inward, collapsing, smothering, horrible weight. Chaos, where is your freedom? feeling, surprise, standing naked in the rain.
I see the mind of the 5-year-old as a volcano with two vents: destructiveness and creativeness.
—-Sylvia Ashton-Warner
Lee at the playground
Energy
Kidsquest Playground
What energy source drives them? Spinning tops arms and legs akimbo, rushing up down and around. bark chips, pea gravel, stained wood
High pitched cries the wet smell of recent rain orange-topped billow iron-headed clouds flee lightning-cored to the east and north.
Climbing ropes and old tires wooden construction – simple pine becomes what fairy castle, little brothers what fearsome enemy to flee and chase, caught and escape again.
Areas of damp sand paper cup molds careful tunnels volcano hills populated by plastic soldiers and Lilliputian dreams shaped by tiny Giant Hands.
Slides straight and slides twisting swings and chains pumping pumping jumping moment of childhood weightlessness come down to earth too soon.
Parents in shorts with that bent over head stare watch down at toddlers grubbing on the ground making sure the stuff stays out ‘o their mouth.
One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Keep your eyes closed! Three Mississippi, Four Mississippi, Five, Six, Seven, EightNineTen, Ready or Not! Here I Come!
“and everything burned in blue, everything a star”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, by Umberto Boccioni, Cole and Blackburn, Dallas, Texas
Burning Fuse
Life is a spark – a flame traveling along a long fuse. The spark can’t see very far ahead. Until right before the very end it doesn’t have any idea of how much fuse is in front of it – only how long is the trail of ashes left behind.
The process of life is burning the hopes and dreams of the future – burning a raw fuse and leaving behind the ashes of memories. Hopes and dreams converted into memories. A one-way process… inevitable. This is the tragedy of the world. How much would we give if we could do the opposite? Convert memories into hopes and dreams. It’s impossible.
And what happens at the end? The fuse doesn’t know. Only that the spark will go out.
Bill Chance 