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actingdeep · 1 year

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Individuals [In Progress]

Pools are collecting round. Emptiness filling slowly the basin of the day so far while Hector stands in the light evening rain and smokes a cigarette; micro-dots of wet leopard-skinning the shaft of it, and the crackling end flickering from bouncing drips. Only cars and a low humming from the muffled electric sounds from upstairs make a stir beyond the winds against him. Upstairs, a rock and roll band is scheduled to practice at six; now minutes away. Hector is not in the band; but is simply here to try and feel out his mood for the hour. A door opens, and the music heightens; but only for a moment, as the dripping drains down into evening. The upperlevel of his old singer friend Scott's pad could be reached only through what felt like a cardboard tube: a narrow set of stairs within two white walls that seemed to be having a permanent staring contest. Impassively, Hector entered the tight bay of foot-long and toe-wide steps, reaching a door cut off from the middle up, like one you might see in your great grandmother's kitchen before you pass through it to watch her bake you cookies in tablecloth apron on copper linoleum covered in mushroom-like patterns; the rudiments of the practice exciting. He opened the heavy door to the practice room, band tuning. The full stack two feet from his right ear was Scott's. Connected to his band's rhythm guitar was a Sunn amplifier: the growling, unmatched demi-god of all guitar amplifiers. Hector's ears would be hearing faint, reverberating pitches for the rest of the night until he slept because of this (to satisfaction). Playing behind Scott was Wes, the lead guitarist, adorned in an aqua Fender strat; followed to his left by bearded bassist Chaz and drummer Eli; over to Hector, blocking the door and sitting on a mini inner-tube he had found; back round to standing Scott, with a campfire of rugs and cases and pedalboards in center. Song one, titled "Over" (in C) began. Four hits from Eli first, then all at once: the melodic, airy, pulverizing, biotic chugging commences; the vocals roaring, yet almost inaudible completely. Their sound one could describe as ironically disheveled sonic organization-- cathartic anarchy; maybe the catchy side of grunge with a predilection for melody, quickness, and keen on the mastery of the outro. A few songs in, with only quick seconds between each one--this one now a bit slower and heavier than those previous--filled the hot air; then, a sprightly will-be crowd pleaser: a cover of The Misfits' "Hybrid Moments." The lights were flickering now: Hector not realizing this, being caught in the bright madness of head-bobbings, bass bendings, stompings of homemade pedals, scattering like rats scribbled with blue Sharpie, heavy crushings of gum in teeth, disconcerted bookshelves, cables and cymbals, microphone stands;--the forever distorted, laconic pool of aptitude. Him and Scott having been more or less stoned since four--Soon, an unexpected wave of warming calm fell upon Hector (the band not noticing; being caught up deep in the zone of wire and thunder). Hector looked up, and his ears came back for a moment. The band was mid-outro to a very Bon Scott-y cover of "T.N.T." The song came and went like the pop of bubble gum. A hop of light feedback; then the jacks clicked. Smoke break was happening now. Porch for smokers, attic for pot-smokers. The sticks dropped and stretching, the musician Eli smiled cooly and descended the cardboard tube to the rain and pools collecting out the other end, Wes following. Having just recently smoked his own leopard skin, Hector went this time with Scott, the noble pot-smoking general of the club, who had a leftover half-blunt that the two were burning a few hours before. The attic was like a large, wooden tent, and silent. It had a mild smell of laundry detergent (likely Snuggle, from what Hector could surmise). They slouched and settled into the run-down linty couches. Lighting up, old Scotty and Hector--friends since this particular band's formation (and Scott's others from long before)-- shared the moment quietly together; passing the halfer blunt in reactionary silence, comfortable in their own worlds. Back in the practice room only the bassist Chaz remained; sitting Indian style to practice a song he was a week behind on. The singer-songwriter Scotty had layed out the notes for him when Chaz politely and halfheartledly apologized for his slack; for he was at the Fountain of Wayne show in Logansport, which, according to him, was "actually, pretty okay," which he quietly and happily came to notice, as the other musicians had exited, plucking watchfully.

Sigmund was a grateful man when outside moments of pain. Sigmund lives alone. When he walks down the hall and hears the soft creak from the wood floor, he becomes irritated; because if he didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a sound. He is polite in company. When asked a question about himself, he grows weary and unfocused. Sigmund would arrive at home and turn the doorknob slowly to be as quiet as possible. He lives alone. He would walk gently in hopes of not hearing a toe knuckle crack or a pant leg brush. He angers himself deeply with his loathsome, superfluous racket. He dreads cooking because of the sound the silverware drawer makes when he pulls it open. He detests the clatter of plates if he’s the one causing the noise. Plus, all the water droplets the faucet will make. Sigmund cares about the impression he makes on others. He doesn't know why. He wants to seem cool--unfazed by anything that could possibly happen or be said. He hates himself for that. One evening, he was sitting up in bed as still as he could so he wouldn’t make the springs squeak and asked himself why he loathed himself so. He decided that he was simultaneously in awe and terribly frightened of life. He was a great bother to himself. Sigmund wants everyone to love him. Despite everything, Sigmund sees mountains of insight. Unfortunately, this insight is unintelligible. He doesn’t know how to articulate his important thoughts--and even if he could, he can't think of a good reason why he ought to. He knows what he feels inside is true insight--pure and fragile--but can never put it into words on the rare moments he tries. Sigmund longs to be advantageous. To him, advantageousness is a perfect blend of bravery and audacity, the ingredients of a hero. “What a thing to be,” he thinks at times. “Nothing could be better than to be advantageous.” Sigmund knows that he is vain and morally indecisive. He’s a perfect gentleman, until he finds himself in the mirror. Then, he becomes a beast: a frothing caricature, a ripe mask dangling in the glass. The crooked smile he perceives, the wasteland of emotional potential, the vibrant fragment of something meant for much more: frighten him.

III

Conversations with Marcus are a disheartening balance: precious, his words--pouring out like a bag of gold, but all the while making your own worth less than the dust of an afterthought. His peculiar framework of indisputable confidence alone could generate, in others, a sense of pure prestige emanating from him; and--extraordinarily--could seemingly deactivate any and all around him with half-open ears from their personal judgements and perceptions and pull them away effortlessly like nature's most insidious vines of and into his own. This is what Marcus craved most: humbling others to the point of sickening, making their individuality shrink like a vampire in light as it nervously crosses between the shadows. His voice was the light. He takes aim at personal fortitude and laughs aloud beside all your enemies while still coming off as rather friendly—even encouraging. Life to Marcus is a test in which the answers that aren't etched into a pristine and preeminent brain, or written upon the flesh and hidden under the sleeve are the ones not worth getting correct. To Marcus, diligence, compassion and honesty are wastes of time: uninstinctive flourishes only superfluous members of humankind (of middling cleverness) should implement out of pure weakness. Marcus could take hold of any fancy, opinion or musing you could put forward and decide undoubtedly whether it held credence for not just now, and not just for one person, or a few--but for all beings, across all of time itself--simply, and totally. No person that knew Marcus would likely find a man with a higher regard for courtesy and politeness in his assertions; but when faced with rival assertions, he would mock them with wit, irony, sarcasm and laughter. Sometimes, when his nose ran, Marcus would blow it into an old T-shirt that was laying on the floor.

Ernest is at peace. The people around him are anxious, and are usually away for a long time because they are busy making money. After they have made money, they spend it so they may no longer be so anxious. Ernest feels pain because he feels their pain, and can only appease the pain by directing all of his energy into loving contemplation for their souls. As a young man, Ernest would go around from person to person, asking how they were feeling, and if anybody were honest enough to say "not so great," he would offer them advice, and became widely known as the best man to go to for advice. As he grew older, Ernest stopped giving advice because of all the same people continued to feel not so great. He laughed to himself over his harmless follies. Where others crave, Ernest is satisfied. Where others loop around the edge of a circle, Ernest floats inside a sphere. Where others study upon statistics, Ernest simmers in the mysterious. When Ernest is at peace, the people around him forget completely that he is even there. They will walk by him in crossing into a different room, spot him, and say, "Oh, hello! I forgot you were here!" This would make them laugh, and Ernest would smile because they laughed. Sometimes, he is at peace for so long, he begins to feel rather spoiled, and will willfully exit his trance and seek material pleasure. In doing this, he sets to purposefully bring upon him sadness, or anguish, or even despair, so that when it is time to step back into the trance, it becomes all the more beautiful. Ernest knows this trap he has placed himself in well; yet is still weary of leaving it. The day Ernest stopped giving advice was on a day when he had asked a person how they were feeling, and they said "Really great!", and he could tell from their voice and eyes that they meant it. At first, he smiled and moved on; later on, however, he relized that he had actually hoped she would have said "not so great." After this realization, he shuddered and became quite weary, but did not understand. Years later, he understood.

As long as he could remember, Joseph was afraid to feel pride. In all pursuits, he would carry the deep fear--not of failing--but of becoming the greatest. His soul would tell him that he was indescribably exceptional; and that he could easily conquer over any man. "Nothing," he would think, "could possibly come close to the tortures." "No ruler with true authenticity wishes to rule. This life is burdensome, and conciousness has always flown with dubious discretion. Life fools it's own sheep, making them unite in a bliss, seemingly so real. The left has life it's leaders; whereupon the vast majority of it's true weight can reliably fixate itself, with no fear of collapse. Such a distribution," thought Joseph, as he walked, reflecting, "should appear impossible, unsustainable. Yet upon thought, becomes so infinite, resolute." "Man can neither be confident, nor insecure," Joseph thought, "but be either resolved, or vulnerable." He crossed a river. To Joseph, breaking the code of life, and answering the biggest question man has ever asked himself in his most quiet moments of reflection was to be his own burden, his blessing; all else seemed so trivial. "What is left, but to search?" said Joseph, before seating himself on a sunny patch of grass beyond the river, looking East.

"Would you mind if I sat here for a little bit?" "Free country." He pulls out the chair to the right of the cute girl and sits. When the bartender asks what he can get him, he orders a moscato. "But could I please have it in a regular rocks glass with ice? I have bad luck with stemmed glasses." "I can do that." He sits upright, and is looking forward with a calm smile, joining his hands and resting his arms on the bar. The girl glances at him from the side. Her legs are crossed and she's also very upright. There's a purse on the floor near her feet. Once he has his drink and has paid, he takes a couple sips and remains still just as before and calmly and pleasantly looks ahead. "Muh-ska-toe," she says, scratching away polish from a fingernail with another nail. "Indeed." "Never had one." "One of my go-tos." "So why no stemmed glass?" The bar is dim, except because of the afternoon sunlight coming in; and mostly empty. It's not quite five-o-clock. A car outside honks. He takes a gulp of the moscato, asks what she's having, which happens to be a vodka tonic. "With extra, extra lime." "So I see." "Lime all the time." "I like your lime rhyme." She laughs. "I use it all the time." "Will it cost a dime?" "That would be a crime." The front door opens behind them with a loud clash and ringing of bells, and less than a second after, a booming masculine voice was calling: "Cass-ie! Let's fuckin' go," and then the door shutting again with another clash. "That's me," she says, after a little nervous start, looking over her shoulder and reaching for her purse. She smooths her clothes as she stands up, sets the purse on her chair and pays for her drink. She waits for her change and begins tying up her hair in the back with a black hair tie that had been wrapped around her wrist. "Sorry. That was loud." He moves his arms to his lap and watches her neck come out as her hair goes up: the skin looking very delicate and milky compared to her much more tan face. The bartender gets her change for her with a placid round face looking at her and she looks up and says "Thank you, Donnie. Keep it real, man." Now she's pushing things around in her purse as if searching for something but not finding it, all the while seeming to get just a tiny bit more nervous with each second that passes. With her head looking down, still digging around her purse, she says: "So listen, I gotta go now. It was nice meeting you. What's your name?" Do you come here very often?" She gives up the search and huffs out, composing her thoughts. She looks at him. "Isaac. Nice to meet you, too." He put out his hand and they shook. "Cassie. Well--obviously--you know that by now." "Have a good evening." "Bye."

VII

She come in talking like, I think I wanna do porn. These are three thousand, four thousand dollar offers here. I mean wouldn't you? Talking about she has dead kids, she knows grief. Talking about how she been all fucked up and drinking Hennessy. Talking about Tim, divorcing after a decade and all the confusion. Talkin bout Jews and Egypt, after a long silence I finally give the best advice she got all night. I dont care about her. If only her brother sitting right in front of her knew what I did. He is full of love, among other things; displaced so far and away like now. We be talking about people in jail and mad laughter. I wanna tell her about the dirt. The discovery, the mushrooms I took, and what I was told, about the dirt. Oh they think it actually means something. All the effort is truly astounding, So much effort. This girl is going to Chicago to meet directors. This family shit too much. Good vibes and silence once I get to typing. SIlence. Yes. Good. That's the dirt. It's what was once, and will be and always has. He's got a lot of old friends that he calls brothers and sisters, so every other face I see pop in the door becomes my face, my blood. It's a fine and delicate trick we play on ourselves; nothing in the world of beauty can compare to the sophistication. Real shame that wore off. Very rarely do we abscond the distractions and truly dissolve. Most have no fear of the outside, but fear the inner. I always enjoyed the middle of the pool; just below the shoulders, with my toes barely dragging below. What I feel in the room tonight is like that perfect medium space in pools as a kid. SHe might do porn. She has a sugar daddy. (So does he). But he got a job this morning. Hers is pissed at her. Sugar daddy, that is. Talkin bout she can barely text a sentence and that's totally bogus upon her part. Verbatim. Talkin bout she treatin him like a peon. This dude forty seven, by the way. At least she's laughin. Usually it's not this sister but another pair of sisters. They're teenagers and lesbians and both seem to have mental things happening once in a while so it's usually these two girls huddled up together looking at their phones for hours upin end. They're kind enough. The whole world seems detatched, but kindly: lost, forgotten, perhaps even dead inside. But the soul can only sleep for so long.

VIII

Just before daybreak as Tommy Wexler was preparing coffee for himself in ritual for his Monday morning paper route, he came to the casement window to breathe in what the day would offer him to discover an indeterminate package nearby his front doorstep. Perfectly square in the typical brown paper, it bore no visible label or address, sitting in solitude in the quiet morning. After a brief struggle between openness and neurosis, he brought it inside and set it on the counter where he already had his mail bag and uniform for work set out and ready. Tommy's first instinct told him not to bother himself about the mystery box until after his work shift. Nothing much in his life was happening as of late, and this fact Tommy was growing (some might say unhealthily) accustomed to. He woke up that morning feeling well rested, and having had his second favorite Sunday dinner the night previous (steak and sweet potato salad), he was feeling generally grateful all around, and decided the best decision to make was to spend his good energies focusing on his job. He brought the mystery box back outside and replaced it in the same spot and position he found it. He did this with curious caution, after considering that the package may have been put there by mistake and was not even meant for him; for he truly could not find any reason to have expected it. He unconsciously hoped that the package would be gone upon his return home. Tommy was sentimental, and since he was still to be considered a rather young man supposedly tasked by society to attain supreme achievements and influences with unrelenting determination, he considered this his presiding weakness; he felt that sentimentality was the guaranteed, natural killer of ambition. Some days, he wished he were the type of headstrong and unscrupulous man that stops at nothing to get what he wants: a man of impact. Some days, he wished he could think of something, anything, that he wanted to get. In reality, he was gracious, pleasant, empathic, merciful, trustworthy, a pushover. He often wondered about the inner-workings of the minds of those men those uppermost regimes of success were occupied by. He fancied that they were either the most insecure people alive or the very least. He still cannot decide which is more likely. Tommy always had a sneaking suspicion that he was not among the least or the most secure. He was only "scientific" when completely necessarry, and he considered psychological self-exploration and improvement being a given, if not the top necessity. Was this "necessity" the means to his insecure end? Was he a classic overthinker? He would ponder. Would the term "overthink" exist at all were it not, as he believed, the guaranteed, natural killer of confidence? Was "insecurity" not a simple rephrasing of a general lack of confidence? He hoped not, for it would mean that those uppermost regimes of society were, in fact, made up of wholly "secure" persons; this, Tommy found quite unsettling. The most difficult aspect about Tommy's incessant self-scrutiny was the fact of him having very few friends or friendly people to discuss all of his possible adequacies and inadequacies, leaving him without any "relative to"s to substantiate his theories. Only in books and poetry did Tommy ever uncover those everlasting and ubiquitous human qualities with which we remain eternally connected with, and without them (the books and poetry), he fancied that he would be firmly sinking, and beyond alone. And yet, he remains pleasant and grateful most of his days. Once more considering the package, Tommy mulled over the idea that he might be grateful for all the wrong reasons. Going further, he immediately began to theorize upon the possibility of cowardice behind many of his actions he commited in the name of gratitude: his eleventh year at the postal service, the unchanging list of his top ten Sunday dinners, an unending corpus of literature as his sole interest. Should he dare consider his personal habits and passions, at first so seemingly sound, a hallmark of cowardice? Could a would-be friend of his also consider such an idea in regard to Thomas (or to himself)? He did not know. Upon turning right onto Webster Street after hitting the last house on Southlea, Tommy continued to deliberate, against his previous resolve to focus on the mail. His usual control of emotions wavered atypically. "No addressee, no definitive stamp, no anything--dead mail." A light drizzle was beginning to come down and Tommy once again elected to try and focus all of his attention to the day's work. Though not exactly a proud mail carrier, Tommy often recognized his consistency of overall competence at his perennial occupation, always with patent surprise--and always with gratitude. The big balloon slapping against his blue shorts was slowly deflating to Tommy's relief; for he was not anticipitive of this chilly wind and rain, the morning having been quite luminous and somewhat tepid. He had about an hour left before his mind, once again, began to linger elsewhere. "What is to be done when dilligence bumps against futility? Are the repercussions of abandonment overstated? That box! How many of us walk around in hidden, dampened fear? Moreso: what do we not admit to ourselves more than anything if not deep, subconscious enduring traces of fear? Do we worship the conquerer for his lack of fear? No! We worship his pugilistic grappling with it. That box..." On approaching his driveway around four o'clock Tommy spotted the mystery box exactly as he left it; outside a damp coating that wrinkled the top of it from the afternoon drizzle that had since finished. He called his buddy Tracer on his drive home, having the typical catch-up after Tommy's impromptu dinner invitation. Tracer insisted he would make it up to him soon. They would arrange a dinner for a week from tomorrow. "How much nuance is there in accomplishment? How much merit is lost when reaching the summit turns out to be futile, and failure rather a guarantee? Is abandonment self-mercy? Is there anything within self-mercy other than veiled cowardice, the shadow of fear? Is "futility" simply a pretext for calculated fear, a simple forecast of instinct?" He brought the package inside and set it on the counter next to his coffee pot and tea kettle, preparing the latter for his ritual Matcha Monday. After looking over the package once again, his thoughts still adrift. Tommy began scrubbing out a sticky spot on the side of a cabinet. Then, he found himself removing the stovetop grates in order to scrub some more against the edges of the ignitors, then the handle, then the control panel. Looking over during the deep cleaning, he noticed a smudge on the "Start" button of his microwave, and proceeded to wipe it away. In a minute, he was vaccuuming and dusting shelves, correcting the angles on every one of his fixtures and homely accessories as he passed by them. Everything went from his mind, and he was content. In an hour he would find nothing left to neaten, so he made a second cup of tea. In the brief lapse of duty he caught himself avoiding the direction of the counter where the box lay. Now adorned in his maroon fleece robe and linen pajamas, the light from outside fading away, Tommy glared mildly at himself in the mirror throughout his brushing and flossing. He came back into the kitchen and flipped off the light, and the box vanished in the darkness. He settled himself in his Chesterfield, opened up his copy of Tender Is The Night and managed to put the mystery box out of his head, his overtaxed brain ingraining into the pages until, at last, he fell asleep. The next weekend passed. On Sunday night, Tommy ate a Lean Cuisine out of the plastic container that it came in. "What do you think of gratitude?" Tommy asked as they wiped their mouths over freshly cleaned plates. "I'm grateful to you for the invitation, and for the tuna," Tracer began. "But, you know I'm not religious." "Does gratitude have to be synonymous with faith?" "I think so. When you say 'I'm grateful' do you mean grateful to God?" "Well, yes...perhaps "thankful" is more secular?" "I don't know. After all, you must have someone or something to thank. I would say 'appreciative' is a good way to put it." "How did you feel when Christine was born? Did you ever think the word 'grateful' to yourself?" "Maybe. Once we got her into her crib that first night--I'll admit--I prayed." "Didn't you once call agnostics fence-sitting pussycats?" They both laughed. "I'm sure I did. But I feel like even atheists probably say a prayer once their child is born safely without any issues," Tracer suggested. "I mean, it's because after that happens, you're just so...I don't know. Happy. And It's not going to hurt anything." "What about luck?" "I feel lucky sometimes; in the sense that everything is random and happens for no reason. So if good things happen to you without even trying, I'll call it being lucky." "But isn't luck considered superstitious?" asked Tommy. "I guess it is. I don't know. I just know when I feel lucky, it's not because I think God did something for me. More like, calling a coin flip correctly. It's just us against the odds." There was a moment of silence. "So what's this?" Tracer asked, indicating the box. "I don't know. It just showed up. I don't know who it could be from. It has no labelling whatsoever. Should I open it?" "A mystery box. Bring it over." Tommy grabbed the package from the floor beside the sofa. He was excited to see what was inside, and this he noted to mull over later on. Tracer moved the plates to the sink, clearing a space on the table. Tommy grabbed a small knife from a nearby drawer as Tracer made his way back to the table. Tommy pulled the box toward him and opened it.

Only Penelope could manage to mend and remain. Marvin was the opposite: tending to leave displeasure altogether, or ignore it's entire existence. She could remain in the most sacrifical stances and poses for hours; gliding over the outstretched fingertips and just safely enough outside of tumbling into Marvin's greedy field of gravity: a force of attraction fully emcompassed already to be honest; over-full by now with his egregious mis-shapen posse of greaser followers right behind groaning and foaming 'Penelope! Penelope! Save us, Penelope!' not far behind.

Mac was blessed with the ability to enjoy himself. He had a few friends and mentors who had told him to play it straight, tow the line, and other such things. The way to live life, they had said, was to embrace an unyielding sense of discipline, to make no compromise in developing an inner toughness, to sacrifice his favorite things that happened to exist at the same time he did. He was so open-minded and ready to listen he forgot to place stakes, to only hear. In due time the question he ultimately had in mind in regard to these others’ insistences and his own personal reactions had become:“ What do they have that I don’t?” Only after much time had flied did he realize the dao, equitable counter-response to these torturing advices would have, could have and should have been: “What do I have that they don’t?” All of this, though in his mind, never presented itself in the ideal conscious fashion and, after two years and two months of mental struggle and impossible attempts at reconciliation, he took out, sniffed out, eliminated completely and totally what he considered for the source, to he mainspring, the base plague of all these symptoms of his stress and confusion: his life.

Darik was a victim. He was, but he would never admit it. It was the mainspring of his sadness, that damn victimhood, was. He though he was invincible, he thought he was ageless, he thought he was a genius. Two things he always thanked atheistic luck and randomness sources like that’s a real act you could possibly do for was his humor and humility. (Not to mention, gratitude—a soul requisite.) Darik would rather vomit a comet than dime on his own masked insecurity. Darik Isn’t very smart. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t noble—Isn’t wise. If, just maybe when, he came to reason and crawled out of this terrifying Pink-Floyd-The-Wall state of mind, he dreamed. He would float along forward, in a clouded yet unhazy road into something along the lines of fantastic light streets and cars passing with indescribable shadows, reflections, expulsions. But in waking moments?

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