I’m sitting in Bucks, just as I do most other days, talking with Troy and depending on the internet for procrastination, when a middle-aged man asks us where we go to school.
“Nowhere. I’ve graduated, and so has he.” says Troy, with a nod in my direction.
“Shit”, I think, just as I think every time that a stranger who’s not a girl approaches me.
“Where from?”
“Auburn”
“Oh really? How come Auburn?”
“How come not? How come you’re losing your hair? How come you say, “How come”? What does that actually mean?
“My Dad, sister, aunts, and grandparents went there, I loved the people…You know of Auburn?”
The guy appears to be one of the millions of New Yorker’s who’ve moved down to our retirement county. And generally, after hearing that I went to “Auburn”, a cloud shades their face and they mutter something like “that’s great”, and they know that I know that they don’t know where or what Auburn is.
“Oh yeah, Auburn, that’s right, you guys are the one’s having that nut electrocuted for killing your trees!”
He smiles self-appreciatively, and though I immediately realize that this guy is from New York in every way, including the worst ways, I’m compelled to play along. He is, after all, an adult, and I did, after all, read some A.W. Tozer only a few moments ago. So I can’t exactly interrupt my, “Be Thou exalted” prayer, with a snide congratulations for managing to belittle something important to my school, and therefore me, plants, and humans, with such a “witty” comment.
“Yeah, they’re pretty upset up there, those trees are kind of a big deal” I say.
Somehow Troy has now excused himself from the conversation. I’m not sure when he managed it, but both of his headphones are in. He seems to be working on something important, which he obviously is not, and to have somehow forgotten that a man is talking to us. Troy also seems to have forgotten that we are friends, and that he should be walking outside to call me so that I can walk outside importantly as if I’ve just received a call from NASA. I start to get nervous, and the dark wrinkles and deep set eyes of the face standing above me suggest that he’s feeling like talking. A lot.
“So what are you doing now? Now that you’re graduated? Just slacking in Starbucks?”
“Oh god, again he’s smiling, so I can’t tell him that it’s better to be young and slacking than old and slacking, and that’s a big question he has asked, and how long until I can start getting away with rude subtleties just by being old?”
I sneak a grudging glance at Troy. Troy wins, and his computer screen blinks first.
I thinly slide a confident smile across my lips, liven my eyes, and say that I’m, “unemployed”, in the sort of way that is supposed to show this man that being unemployed is merely a novelty, and that I’m not concerned in the least. And I’m really not. I have a job in that fall. I’m not even looking for work. But I’d rather say that I’m “unemployed”, than say, “I’m mooching off of my parents generosity”, or that, “I’m just hanging out.” First of all, because I do some of the dishes sometimes, and second of all, despite my chief concern being the playoffs of my basketball video-game, (In the third round. Up 2 games to 1 on the Pacers), because I take myself way to seriously to ever describe the thing that I am doing with my life in the same way that one may subtly admit that one is currently stoned.
His face moves to its’ natural position, an amused frown, and he says, “Whadya go to college for?” and it seems that he means to ask me which major I chose, not to question the value of a college education.
I answer with a combination of, “English” and “nothing”, in a way that they jump out of my mouth in a sort of circle, unclear which is said first, which second, where one ends and the other begins. I do this because the self-abashment is supposed to quell a smart response.
“So you’ve got as much sense as a squirrel’s nut, uh?”
At first I wonder if he’s referring to the nut that a squirrel stores for the winter, or the one on the guy squirrel’s body, or the seed of the one on that on the guy squirrel’s body. Then I realize that I’ve been insulted. He’s smiling with his mouth, unable to rouse himself to a full expression of friendly jesting.
And then I do something that I hate about myself:
“Yeah, there definitely aren’t any Englishers.”
I hate myself because I’ve used this same “joke”, about a million times, and despite actually thinking highly of an English degree, I submit to the peacefulness of bullshit. (I realize that the degree is mocked because our increasingly mathematical and scientific culture finds little value in it, but I’m not exactly embarrassed to have chosen something that our culture doesn’t highly esteem.)
“Well I’ve got something for you”, he says. “I’m a sports photographer. You know those pictures you took when you were little, the tee-ball ones where you hold a bat like a moron? Well the mark-up on those is about 500%. I take those pictures.”
“Does that make you a “sports photographer”? And how many of the little morons have you touched just a little too long when you were “positioning” them?”
“Wow”, I say, realizing that this is going to be one of those conversation where I don’t need to listen, because he’ll never care to hear what I think about what he’s saying, and that my greatest struggle is now to contort my face in a cycle of movements so as to appear dynamically affected by his speech. Throughout what he’s saying I sometimes say, “umm hmm”, and then other times I say, “right”, and at one point, when I notice that I’ve used, “I see”, five responses in a row, note it, and correct the mistake by supplying an ultra-satisfying, “Oh, wow, that’s amazing, I understand what you’re saying.”
Here’s some of what he’s saying:
“…so this guy is refusing to leave the parking lot, this big boss who’s in charge of two leagues, and then the other boss is telling him that he is only the “1” away from completing the 911 phone call. And there’s all this drama, and you could be there, man could I sell you, and you probably drive everyone crazy, but you can shake hands, yeah I could sell you, and so you’d be wearing a hat you know, and a collared shirt, and on the hat it would say, “James TV”, and you would, yeah, James is my name, and even though you couldn’t sell a five dollar bill for three dollars, I could teach you, and you would go up to these guy who run the league, all John Madden wannabees, and you’d have your hat that says, “James TV”, or maybe, “JTV”, and you’d go up to a coach or player or something, and what you need to know, what you don’t have that I could give you, the reason that I’d make the biggest bucks is because I’m calling the shots, and I could teach you to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and once you’re a wolf, then I’d send you to Jacksonville, say, and you’d go up there in your outfit and you’d pitch our stuff, I mean even you can read a script, and boom, we’d be rolling in dough…”
And he says plenty more, and I only hear parts of it all, and a couple of times I make small remarks that he can’t hear, such as asking if he has a daughter in response to his saying that unless he teaches me, there’s no way I could be a wolf. Troy’s body shudders as if he’s holding a sneeze in. He gets up and walks to the coffee bar. He, Eric, (who’s working), and Eric’s girlfriend all glance at me, then at JTV, then mutter, then laugh. I wonder why no one is helping. Troy reaches in his pocket, pulls out his phone, hope rises in my heart, Troy puts the phone away, and I decide to set Troy up on a blind date with the big girl from the movie, Bridesmaids.
“I’ll run and get you some stuff; I’ve got some stuff for you, just one second.” And he heads out to his car. A yellow mustang. Duh.
Troy comes back and sits down next to me smiling.
“Oh my god I am so sorry”, he says. “What all was he saying?”
“Dude, he’s coming back, and if he starts talking to me, you have got to call me.”
“Deal”
JTV walks in and hands me two, paper-sized, tee-ball picture collages. There are little kids in baseball uniforms, little kids in football uniforms, and little kids holding big trophies. Not bad work, but in no way different work that any other little league pictures than anyone has ever seen.
“Send me an email if you’re smart, and I’m sure, like all kids like you, you’re not, but send me an email, and you’ll be rolling. See these two?” he says pointing to two pro cheerleaders. “Have you ever met a pro cheerleader? Well not an ounce of fat, lemme tell you not one ounce. And this one here on the left, she’s not a Hooters girl, none of em are, she’s an accountant. How about that?”
“Wow”, I say.
My phone rings. I tell him it’s important, step outside, and talk to myself on the phone for five minutes. I come back in. He’s still standing next to my chair.
“Yeah I could definitely sell a good looking kid like you. You’re not imposing and you can shake hands. You just need to know how not to be a moron, kid. E-mail me.”
And he walks over to his seat, sits down, and puts his headphones in.
While he’s sitting I’m thinking about how this wacko doesn’t know me, how I could definitely sell 5 dollars for three dollars, because duh, that’s a profit for the buyer, (Yeah I’d figured that out), and that my Dad could probably convince JTV to buy pink underpants and then wear them as a helmet. I think about how dumb some of the stuff he said was, and how, to my agitation, I have probably assumed that I knew as much about some strangers as he assumed that he knew about me.
As he was walking out I notice that he walks with a stiff back, stiff with age, and that he’s probably not the happiest guy, and that stuff has probably been hard for him at some point, and that he most likely doesn’t relish being old, and that he’s probably terrified; Terrified that he’s beginning something, terrified that he’s taking a risk at his age, terrified that his constructs will fail, and terrified, just as we all are, about everything.
I make jokes about JTV to Eric, his girlfriend, and Troy. They’re mean jokes and I feel nauseous.
He’s gone now. I remember him walking through the drizzle of an afternoon storm; stiffly gaiting to his car. The sports-car, that instead of making him appear to be, or feel younger, confirms that he’s getting older.
I acknowledge that my arrogance springs from some false belief that being young is an excuse for not having really done anything. My self-assured stature shrinks as I understand that he is really trying something, that he is being brave; brave enough to begin, despite being nearer his end, brave enough to approach a sure-to-be-egotistical, and to give him an opportunity to be a part of something other than the community of the “I’m okay because I’m too young and smart and healthy and good-looking to risk failing”, which he knows I belong.
Yeah, I’m probably over-romanticizing JTV. I’m sure that I’m trying to somehow atone for the things that I thought and said. And yeah, he probably really did see nothing more than a face that he deemed useful.
I won’t work for JTV. Any job that requires a hat is a no-go, and honestly, I don’t think that he’ll have much success. But I’ll e-mail him. And I’ll thank him.
JTV’s an ass, and not the best photographer, and he likely gets off to assuming power over people. But JTV is in it, and so am I.
Maybe JTV is more than the thief of forty minutes of my life. Maybe JTV’s one of the many waves that it takes to erode the firm shore of smug, false, self-aggrandizement that must crumble to nothing so that I may recognize the truth: That I am, and have done nothing; and that more than this being okay, it’s hope. Everything is potential.
A rejection slip would not make me more or less of a “writer”. In one way, as long as I type, I’m a writer. In another, until my writing is acknowledged by the judges that I’ve assigned significance to, I’m not. But the rejection wouldn’t take something from me that I had, just as to be published would allow me no more permission to write than I currently possess. Someone deciding not to pay me to write is not an additional person deciding to do so. There is only the possibility of one less indifference, never more.
JTV is trying.
And though I’m even scared to say, “I’m trying”, and though I spent last night’s time, the time that I was trying to sleep but couldn’t, thinking about how dumb some of the stuff that I’ve written is, (what I just wrote about the waves and erosion is a good example), I say today, “I’m going to try”.
If in two weeks I haven’t posted an official rejection: e-mail me a computer virus, leave a flaming bag of poop outside of my door, or tell my roommate from Spain that I took 3$ off of his desk to buy a chaser that I didn’t share with him.
