Southpaw (A SHORT STORY)
I think I read somewhere once that ants act more like one life form than individuals. Then I wondered if we’d be better off like that. Those t-shirts we wore in elementary school, depicting kids dabbed in every color of the human palette holding hands around the globe. I’m thinking of a spontaneous broad-brush hegemony. Where each and every one of us perpetuate ideas singularly for the ultimate purpose. The Queen. God save her. I heard God is dead. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy. Where are my chaos theorists at? They’re too busy tying their shoes to prevent 2012 from coming.
Instead we have words. Colloquial limitations. Gilded abstractions. And that certain intuition and drive and work ethic that gets the job done in a jiffy. One time I spilled the hardboiled eggs of my BLT cobb salad all over a fast food restaurant’s carpet and felt good for appointing jobs.
My name is Tim. I’m a person and I don’t like words, especially using them with other persons, and if I had any ethics, they would never be directed towards work.
Each hellish five-day segment feels like its culminating towards something. Each weekend feels like I’m meant to be doing something. But I don’t.
I’m in public relations, which I never thought would be inhabited by a neo-hermit like myself. I haven’t remembered anyone’s name in years, besides my girlfriend Jennifer. It’s not a pretty name, and I’m not a pretty guy, so my only complaint is that she left me last October. Her mother probably coerced it, in list-form on yellow legal paper: a lack of direction, a lack of handsome vigor, a lack of a shave here and there.
I’ve solemnly decided that I don’t really care anymore. Everything is dull, even in pain. Sometimes the World is a blur, whether it be gaussian, radial, or motion.
Sometimes the World doesn’t make sense, like I’m interpreting it in some outwardly grotesque way, a sadistic seven year-old poking at road kill sucking in its last few stenchful breaths. I think everyone’s playing reverse opossum. Tricking ourselves and everyone else that we’re all still alive.
I think reverse opossum is also a sexual position.
It’s Monday. I’m listening to two of my co-workers who are by the water cooler. My desk is next to the water cooler.
“¿Qué tal está tu gato estos días? ¿El gato en tus pantalones?” He laughs. He’s white. He’s wearing a pinstriped shirt and an orange and black polka dot tie. His two front teeth meet inwards like the corner of a picket fence. It’s October again. It’s always October again.
“I wish I had learned a romance language…so pretty…I’m sure you’re just giving me the ‘ole hideydoo but it’s like sheer poetry, or poetry sheered to something even better! Like settling down with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s when Casablanca is on TCM. You know that one?”
I’m filling up my “I hate Mondays” coffee mug. I have one for every day of the week. That way people know that I’m not standing for a quirky novelty, but embellishing hate. I don’t even know if hate is the right word. It’s like how “indifference” has a negative connotation. I have a negative connotation towards the World. That way it’s not concrete. I don’t want the World to have that satisfaction. The enigmatic fuck.
It’s Tuesday. I’m sitting in front of my boss.
“You know our mission statement, Tom. ‘CapCorp: Motivation brings us to the forefront, all to motivate the others.’ Where’s your motivation been? Obviously not in your corporate speaking engagement last Thursday.”
It’s last Thursday. I’m standing in front of some gaping mouths.
“And so, by investing in greener methods, we are initially paying more, but the outcome is more beneficial, considering the government subsidies…and the dinosaurs and their dead mothers and Adam and his enticing slut are happy we aren’t sucking their carbon remains up through monstrous straws to spew all over the seals and the turtles and the brainless kids frying their skin beachside…”
Back to Tuesday.
“Yeah, well, carpe diem.”
“What’s that Tom? I’m not following.”
“And you sure as hell aren’t leading.”
“Ha ha! There’s the Tom I know!” He punches my shoulder. “How’s Jenn doing?”
“Fuck you.”
“Lively! They call that industry moxy!” He says, and punches my shoulder again.
I call that the confusion of the dead, green presidents with your poker buddies. I’ve always thought Woodrow Wilson should be on the twenty dollar bill. He was the last stand against nationalism. He failed, but you know, that makes a better story. I’ve written a few fictional narratives of Wilson. Wilson waking up feeling stressed, going to bed feeling stressed, telling his wife “not tonight.” What a man that would take. I don’t know if that’s humanizing or glorifying. Wilson losing belief in God. Wilson dying of exhaustion. Wilson seeing his nation going slant-eyed. Wilson watching Dancing with the Stars. Wilson on 60 Minutes. Wilson playing basketball. Wilson boxing with Henry Cabot Lodge and winning with a well-placed uppercut, with “The Versailles Kid” written in script on his silk warm-up robe. Wilson whistling “Gonna Fly Now” while pissing in a gold urinal in the West Wing bathroom the next morning.
It’s Friday. I’m home from work. I’m sifting through my mail. I’m burning my mail in a small metal trashcan that has a koala imprinted on its exterior. Bureaucracy to me is like technology to the Unabomber’s beard. I’m too much of a pussy to do anything about it, but I grow idly amongst dissent. I snort some cocaine. I look for the Sony Playstation 2 controller. I find an escaped letter. It’s my sister’s wedding invitation. It’s in Indianapolis. I burn it too. The flames are orange, and I think of Autumn leaf piles. I see Jennifer’s face, in the burning Autumn leaf piles. I’m filled with something.
It’s Saturday. I’m standing by the copier at work, as it shoots out paper after paper. No one else is around. The paper reads “I hate all the days.” A dispenser of Scotch brand tape is held in my left hand. I’m feeling powerful. Southpaw.
