HER 1101

“Ahh, the soothing sounds of Vietnam”, I said to myself waking up to “The Deer Hunter”. I’d be to work soon; I was working delivery that night. The movie was a few shots before the scene that made it famous, just after they’ve found Mike, and it is quiet except for the distant rhythmic sounds of chopper blades. As I stumbled around looking for a shirt with a smiling logo-ish pizza slice thing in the upper left corner and then again across the back - an abomination to the arts in a general way and the good name of discount pizza chains everywhere - I tried to think of the worst thing that’d ever happened to me; I was twelve. My father came into the room. I had done something wrong. I deserved to be punished, but damnit! it was going to be on my terms. He walked into the room, stared at me, and said something I can’t remember.
I said back, “I respect you when I don’t have to call you Sir, but when you make me call you Sir I don’t respect you.”
I remember him pointing to the wall; I liked the wall. There was a window I could see the sun out of. He didn’t say anything for a while. For a while I just looked out the window surprised that he hadn’t gotten tired yet. He threw me across the room and where I landed he pummeled me with what felt like bricks. My father was a strong man, a construction worker. Then I got to look out the window for a while and then I fell through a door. Champ, my boxer, tried to get a good footing on the tile floor, but he couldn’t get out of my way in time. We didn’t fix that door for two more weeks, but that day there were other walls to face and other windows to look out of. Oddly enough, it took two weeks for the bruises to fade. These are the things that make heroes.

LESSON ONE: A HERO NEEDS A PURPOSE

Until that night in my life - the one I started this story off with, the night I was rummaging for a pizza boy shirt - I’d only had one other moment where I consciously realized I’d just figured something out, and not just something like stuff (an apple if you like) falls from trees or if you sit in a full bathtub it will overflow, but big things, things that revolutionized my understanding of who I was and/or how the world worked. The first time (you’ll notice I said “one other”) was when my grandfather told me, “If you pick at a knot long enough it will eventually come undone.” He then chucked a basketball of twisted nylon at me, pulled out a flask, and moseyed off, but the man was a sage in that moment.
Then there was to be the sorority. So there I was, right? just standing there with some dancing pizza slice just to the side of my heart and a medium mushroom pie in my left hand, out of the bag of course, and this girl, who was so drunk that the best she could do for standing still was vaguely reminiscent of kelp, answered the door staring me down, more or less, with her left eye.
“Hi”, she said savoring every syllable. “You look familiar. Did you go to Cypress?”
I had gone to Cypress High, and I had graduated in ninety-six. She had obviously not.
“Oh my god! I think I know you! Jake right?” Now the right eye was looking at me.
My name is not Jake.
“Oh my God Jake it is so good to see you. I have to pee. Come inside.”
Her pants and shirt were made from the same black spandex. As she moved down the hallway she inched the pants down and then nearly off. They clumped around her ankles and she fell in a long jiggling mass, that despite my better self, I wanted to nibble on. As I helped her up she nibbled on my ear and tried to take off her shirt.
I pushed her hands and her shirt back. Her pants were still around her ankles. This was not a problem for her anymore since I was carrying her to the bathroom. The pizza was cooling on the front steps. I set her down on the toilet while she was still trying to tell me some story about her that I supposedly played a part in.
“Hey is it bad that I took a whole bottle of Tylenol PM? Because I had a headache and I took a few and then it didn’t go away and then I had a few shots and then a flaming Dr. Pepper and then I still had the headache and so I took a few more and then I hit the hookah for a while and I still had a headache and then I had a beer or something and then the bottle was empty, so I think I took the whole bottle. I’m going to be alright, right?”
Her business done, I took her over to a couch, set her down, pulled up her pants, found the phone, dialed 911, waited for someone to pickup, and left the phone on the counter. Besides it was a mushroom pie, my favorite. Halfway through my first bite I realized that I served this girl. All that I knew, all that I could do, all that I thought I was was worthless because all I was really doing was serving this debauched maiden. Well maybe not “maiden”, but you get the point. As high as I thought of myself, I needed her pity and the pity of those like her. I lived off of their extras, their tips and, as I hadn’t finished my bite yet I realized, their scraps. A mushroom pizza has never tasted so bland.
The next morning I was on my way to my other job, by that I mean I was in the men’s room fifty feet from the candle shop. That’s what else I did; I carved candles at a little kiosk in an indoor flea market that everyone called a mall. Thinking about it now the candles were actually quite nice. I saw one just the other day, oddly enough. A purple one, I am sure Angie made, with nifty little swirls that are going to glow pink if it is ever lit, sitting on the windowsill of what I guessed to be the home of a very nice family. Before I clocked in, I needed at least fifteen minutes on the toilet in a small space to myself to get ready for the horrible things I would have to do that day. (Sounds so dramatic I know.) I needed to convince myself it was okay to wrench my face into a smile while old ladies told me how creative I was. In my head I would say Lady, if you think this is creative you should see what I make the first fifteen minutes I’m here; it’s ten times more creative. Out loud that sentence always mangled itself to sound like, “Oh my God! Thank you so very much!” To get the real effect you need to say it with a certain affect that always made my penis feel like a fraction of its former self. Anyway, while I was in my cubicle Jon called.
“Dude!” Jon said. “Dude!” He said again. “Did you fuckin’ see the news today?”
“No dude. I like woke up and didn’t even shower and now I’m a little late to work.”
“Dude she fuckin’ died.”
“Who?”
Jon impatiently shot back, “What the fuck you mean who? The woman dude! That woman who’s husband starved her to fuckin’ death. That woman.”
“Yeah, what about her?” I wasn’t quite sure what was happening.
“She died dude!”
“Okay.”
“What the fuck you mean ‘Okay.’ The woman is dead and someone needs to go up and kill that motherfucker, and don’t be like ‘kill who?’ You know who the fuck I mean.”
“Who needs to ..be…what? Dude what are you talking about man?”
“That there are no more heroes. That the motherfucker killed his wife..”
“Jon”, I interrupted, “Jon she died because she couldn’t feed herself.”
“No! That’s bullshit! His ass is the one that put her there. His ass beat the crap out of her and then did all kinds of funky shit to let her die like right at the start. She fuckin’ stayed in hospice for a fuckin’ year dude. You don’t do that. They ask you to leave if you’re not gonna die. Someone pulled some fuckin’ strings and a whole buncha
people was in on this.”
“Jon you’re saying that there was a conspiracy to kill a brain dead woman?”
“No I’m sayin that, well yes there was a conspiracy, but it wasn’t all about killin’ her. The hospice people were getting a kick back and the insurance company was skimming off the top and his ass couldn’t get her to die until two weeks ago, but really like an hour ago.” Jon went on to make other arguments that didn’t make whole lot of sense at first. He did finish up by repeating, “There are no more heroes.” In the end he made a lot of good points, and if even a little of what he was spouting was true someone needed to be held accountable and I wasn’t doing anything all that wonderful, so I decided I would. I would do as Jon said. I would kill that one woman’s husband.

LESSON TWO: A HERO MAINTAINS THE IDEAL STATUS QUO
Sometimes in life you just get lucky. Not too far from the kiosk was one of those photo booths, you know where you make silly faces or kiss or whatever and then forever you’ll have the memories of that time you went to the mall. Well on top of ours was a T.V. screen. For whatever reason nobody seemed to notice this when they were going in, but someone always seemed to point it out when people drew back the curtain. When I was walking back I heard a loud giggle and then a loud shhhh! And then my eye rose up to catch what I thought was nipple. And, in fact, it was. It was easier to identify when the girl sat back down and all of her shirtless wonder came into focus. I stood shocked for a moment and then I remembered, Right! The register!
No Sale flashed across the screen. “Don’t want pennies. Don’t need nickels. Enghh, I’ll take a few dimes. And do I need quarters?” There really isn’t anything like a vended coffee. “All the quarters and all the rolls of quarters and all the cash.” The blond topless girl was kissing the other blond but shirted girl. No wait, now they’re dressed alike. “Is that everything? No! The deposits!” The shop made deposits every few days so there was easily four or five thousand sitting in a nondescript but very distressed envelope. On my way out I stopped by the booth handing them each a twenty and complimenting one on her pendulous breasts and the other on her cute innies. “Are you eighteen?” I asked them.
“Seventeen”, they said. I gave them each twenty more.

LESSON THREE: DULCINAIA

So I’ve never actually read it, but I’ve heard about Don Quihoti. Crazy dude. Rode around righting wrongs and fought a windmill he thought was a dragon. Kind of like Scott Baccula a.k.a. Sam Becket except Sam Becket changed history so he would end up with the girl of his dreams and then at the end of the series he abandons her for the greater good or god or some such nonsense.
Anyway, my point is I have a Dulcinaea. Her name is Sarah.

* * * * *
I met Sarah in the Christ centered bookstore. I was in one of those moods where I just wanted to be yelled at, you know, looking for a good faith centered argument that ends in, “Yeah?! Well forgive me then! Christian!” I wasn’t going to do my usual railing against the hypocrisy of the graven image or why is this company turning a profit on god. (Not for profit bitch!) I was inspired. I was gonna sue ‘em.
I walked past this place once a week. It was next to a pet store that let two tortoises wander aimlessly about the store. Aimlessly became one of my favorite words when I played Concure’s Bad Fur Day. Apart from smacking slices of cheese with a frying pan, it was brilliant because on one of the levels you fight these bails of hay, and when you beat it a menacingly large and deep-voiced pile of hay wakes up, sprouts arms, and begins to move itself like a dude with no legs would do. Anyway, as the camera rotates around to catch its face as it says, “Time to wander around aim-less-lee.” Oh, god! It’s funny as hell. On the other side is the health food store that I tried to shop at for a few months and an ethnic hole in the wall that only took cash. I was never brave enough, but the food did look good.
Anyway, I was gonna go in and apply for a job and when it got to the part about worshiping Jesus I was gonna be all like, “I’m Wiccan. Is that a problem?”, and then sue them so bad that even if Jesus himself testified on their behalf I was still walking out with money. So I walk in and there is this girl, a real sexpot. Super pail, blond and tied back tight with just the hint of brunet roots, avian chest, an ass that one could only imagine contoured itself to whatever surface it was pressed against. One could only imagine because she was working in a Christ centered bookstore! Faughk! What stopped my in my tracks, what stopped me from fucking around, was that her eyes (crystal blue for those of you into such trivial details) seemed to recognize me, but not in any kind of personal way, like she could see me. So instead I wandered around the store like a tortoise looking for a reason to be there.

* * * * *

If I was going to be gay I would be gay for Jesus. I’m pretty sure there is a rule against graven images; however, I don’t think there is a rule against screening his image in a t-shirt. Apart from that long hair is hot – see Duncan McCloud of the clan McCloud for all the proof you’ll ever need – he has this soulfulness. He’s the type you just want to comfort and hold, but who is strong enough to be there whenever you’d need him to be, a real man if ever there was one. His eyes seem to beg for you and only you. Only you can save him. He’d really love you and not just for the sex, for who I am. When he looks up at me from the fifty percent off rack while Sarah is too busy with customers to be interesting, I just want to caress his cheek with my open palm, take some of his pain, and wipe tears away one by one. Plus, he comes in extra large!

I went to her. The customer’d just put their wallet back together sorted through the bag of Christ centered paraphernalia they’d just purchased. Sometimes I stare. Sometimes it’s on purpose just to mess with their heads. People riddled with fear are easer to manipulate. Sometimes I stare without knowing it. I visualize, kind of like a pie chart, how whatever they’ve purchased will be used to interact with the world, what real betterment it will bring? Should it be weird for a burgeoning hero to ponder the aftermath of one of the greatest heroes in history?
If you spend three hundred dollars on stuff to show the world you believe in what you believe in… well, I don’t want to be that shallow. But, it does make me wonder. Do they expect to convert the heathen masses by the power and mightiness of your stuff? Maybe I’m jealous.
She didn’t want to come. That’s fine. I was so distraught that I almost passed a stationwaggon without noticing that some guy was trying to jimmy the lock. The car was an inconsistent brown. Following the pseudo-sleek lines of the hood I noticed an opaque flakiness. It looked like it was peeling from a bad sunburn. He was wedging a screwdriver between the driver’s door and the car body proper. With a second longer and thinner screwdriver he was attempting to manipulate the interior door lock. He was a real criminal type with a few days’ stubble, a greasy flannel, and hair dirtier and longer than any good well-meaning person would have. All in all he matched the color scheme of the car though he was a hue or two darker.
“Sir! Sir! I am going to have to ask you to stop what you are doing immediately!” I said this last part in a hero’s tone.
“It’s my car, Piss off!”
“Sir,” I said extending my hand to show him the face of my open palm, “I have no reason to doubt or believe you; however, if it truly is your car..”
“It really is my car asshole.”
He cut me off! That son of a bitch. And he is still working on the lock!
I was cool, “Then I am sure that you are assured by the fact that there is someone who is civic-minded enough to protect this, (leaning in for effect) your, car from would-be nare-do-wells.”
“Do I have to beat you until you go away?” He straightened up a little which changed the pressure of his Rube Goldgerg car key and he dropped the long narrow screwdriver into the car. He cussed loudly and emphatically.
“Now I am going to insist that if this truly is your car that you call AAA or some other manner of similarly minded company and that will dissuade my suspicions. Lest, in defense of honor and virtue, you and I should make something of the matter. At which point he clutched his remaining screwdriver like a dagger. It was a little rusty in places. I felt a little sorry for it and him.
Apparently Sarah’d been watching this for.. well since I rounded the sun burnt hood. “Stop! Stop!,” She yelled as she ran across the parking lot. “Stop!” He’s crazy don’t hurt him. He’s crazy. He doesn’t know that the hell he’s saying”
The screwdriver grasping man asked, “Your damn right he is. He’s about to get himself fucked up!”
“I know. He gets that a lot. He was in a car accident five years ago and hasn’t been right sense.”
“Shut up Sarah! I was not.”
“Can’t remember it. Traumatic amnesia. Post traumatic stress disorder.” She was standing between us now facing him.
“I have no such thing. This guy was breaking into this car.”
“It’s my fucking car”
“It’s his fucking car dear. No sense in stopping the man from getting into his own car.”
He smashed out the window, unlocked the door, fished a keychain out from under the driver’s seat, and drove menacingly around us saying, “Yeah listen to your girlfriend there motherfucker.”
I said something stupid like, She’s not my girlfriend asshole, but I think I made some kind of comparison between the compound noun version and the adj/noun combination, but my grammatical distinction was lost on him, mostly because he’d merged onto 41 and was gone.
So there we were. “Come with me Sarah!”
“Is that what you’re going to do on your little adventure? Is that, what just drove away from us, is that what you want me to be apart of?”
“No. It’s something bigger, important. It is a cause. A just cause. A good cause. Do you think you do any good in that store?”
“I’m not trying to. And yes, now that I think of it, a hell of a lot more than you do.”
“What are your sales today? A thousand? Two? More? And it’s only lunch! For Christians to prove to themselves and others that theybelieve? To indoctrinate their children with paraphernalia and propaganda? They should give it the mission down the road. With that much money a week they could pick twenty bums off the street put them up, clean them up, get them jobs, and then pick up twenty more. That’s what your Christians should be doing. If I knew how to I’d make them. I’d shut down this store and every store like it and make them do it.”
“You sanctimonious ass!” When you end up in jail don’t call me. In fact just don’t call me.”
“Goodbye?”
“I suppose it is.”
“No”
“Don’t go. Stay. Sleep it off. Whatever it is you got in your head you ain’t done it yet. We can forget all of this. Please.”
“No.” A beat. “Fine then.” I got in the Honda and she was gone.

THE OLD MAN
“This isn’t the last we’ve heard from him. Though I doubt he’ll ever be back.” The old man stood next to Sarah, both staring out into the parking lot where she’d just lost her friend.
She was emphatically smoking a cigarette. “Yeah?” She was crying a little almost passively.
“Watch the news.” The old man said. “You’ll see him there, or at least we’ll see his tracks. He is going to leave a wake behind him.”
Sarah looked to him. His soft hair was like a baby’s but thicker and full and silver and rustled by a wind that seemed to come up just as, it was a coincidence to be sure. She didn’t want it to mean anything.
The old man tried to comfort her by embracing her shoulder. He had watched people do gestures like this, in fact this very one, to comfort the bereaved. There was a trick to it he’d never quite mastered and that seemed to be instinctive in humans by and large. Sarah looked down at her shoulder then smiled politely acknowledging what the old man had tried to do. This passed and he slipped into El Pilon, the ethnic diner just a little way down.

Lesson Four: The Heroes of Heroes

Is it cliché to say one of my heroes was a teacher? Jesus was a teacher. My hero teacher got fired for being to good at his job. Mr. Kane spent so much time focusing on his classes that he never really paid attention to administrative work. If you needed to talk to him he would sit and listen, but more than that. The only thing in his world was you. If you were talking to him and he knew you really needed to he wouldn’t leave. He would miss meetings. Sounds stupid I know, but I mean he missed meetings and he wouldn’t even let on that he was hurting himself. It wasn’t your problem. One time I was in his office and the principal called over the intercom, and she was pissed, “Mr. Kane! You are twenty minutes late four our meeting. Mr. Kane Twenty minutes late!” What an ass. Do you know what he did? He looked dead at me and said, “Well, I’m already in trouble. We were ..?” And he didn’t leave. He stayed with me.
It was in his class, English, that I learned it was all right to be myself. That there were other people like me in the world. Maybe not living today, but different versions of my type of human have existed before me and will exist after me. In his class I saw that I had a place, that nearly everyone had a place. And he was a little crazy. He was a Mercutio in my time. And like Mercutio he was taken from me too early. Ultimately he was fired for not filing the first quarter fluency exams for each of his reading students in their “cume” files even though the scores were recorded on a master list. It was the administration’s version of tax evasion. From then on I only called the principal Mr. Ness. I don’t think he ever understood. What does it say about me that twelve years later I’m still pissed about it? Nothing good I’m sure, but fuck him!