Stalled

Brittany is not pretty. She is not thin. She is not flirtatious. She is not even talkative. Brittany's hair does not lie nicely. Her skin does not smell like Warm Vanilla Sugar. Her clothes are either too big or too small. None are remotely fashionable. A clear line does not distinguish lip from non-lip. A chapped redness obscures her mouth through all seasons. She bears no resemblance to the mental picture you have of a girlfriend, or a friend, or a neighbor. Her face is the kind you only encounter in the day-to-day world, a fleshy reminder of the decidedly below-average.

It is 12:31 PM, 11 minutes into the sophomore lunch period. The cafeteria is zoned for a maximum of 476 clamoring adolescents. Today, 35 of the 36 missing members of the Class of 2015 are absent, excused or otherwise. Brittany is present but unaccounted for by the monitors. She is in the 10th grade girls' restroom. Brittany's seat is one floor up from the cafeteria, in the third and final stall, the one that spans the width of the room. She did not and does not need to relieve herself. She's biding her time staring straight ahead. She's wishing it's later than it is.

The enclosure that contains her is equipped with handrails. Its dimensions are amenable to a 24" turning-radius. Brittany does not qualify as handicapped. She is in the stall that satisfies ADA regulations because three of its four walls are constructed out of cinder-block. The remaining two stalls are vulnerable to being surrounded by fellow restroom users. Once bolted in to the last stall, the occupant need only concern herself with the girl to the immediate right, should she ever arrive. 

The third stall tends to be vacant. Most high school students, with their decorum deficiency, will nonetheless abstain dropping trou in handicapped stalls when possible. Brittany recognizes her own habitual occupation of the third stall is disrespectful or sacrilegious. The shame of sacrilege is not too steep a price for admission. Shame can be assuaged internally. Brittany has the time. She can run down a long list of faults in 35 minutes. She pauses to lament over each item.

Her classmates are at least 200 feet away. They refuel between gaps of scandalous chatter. Brittany faintly hears the far off din. She sits on the black plastic toilet seat with her pants hoisted around her waist, awkwardly reclined. She shifts her weight. The lid creaks. She picks at a cuticle.

She made her decision to hide, as Brittany has made nearly all of her decisions, for the sake of appearance. Not for the sake of appearance as it relates to aesthetics. She knows that looking good is not an option. Rather, she chooses for the sake of disappearance. She goes to great lengths to conceal herself when in public. If people get a glimpse of her, notice her in a cursory glance, she is skewered.

Skewering is the name Brittany coined for how she feels when she's seen. The term was largely inspired by Hemingway's Old Man the the Sea, which Brittany read in Mr. Hendrick's freshman literature course. The novella struck a cord. For a final paper, Brittany made a convincing case for the marlin being the story's tragic protagonist. She claimed the point was often lost on readers because readers are people and people are shallow and the shallow are blinded by how cool the terse Old Man is and how cute Manolin is with his indulgent patience. The lack of sympathy for the great fish went to make the tragedy all the more pathetic. Had she properly indented, eased up on comma usage, and run spell-check, Brittany would have received an A.

Ever since Hendrick's class, Brittany conjures an image of herself as a docile marine animal gracefully swimming in a tropical sea. But when she is spotted by others, she's toast. She is harpooned. Rather than reel her in to carve her up and put her out of her misery or cut the line because she's a garbage fish, she's drug along at a distance. She drug bleeding through the water and getting gnawed on by an array of little carnivorous sucker fish. Before long, a few sleek sharks join in the devouring. To top it off, the little fisherman's children are encouraged to practice their marksmanship on what remains of her bloated and prone belly. The feeling is that awful.

Brittany's pain isn't unfounded. Words like 'gross', or 'weird', or 'loser' form in the Broca's areas of passers-by at first sight. Brittany believes her mere presence, her taking up of space, is a disturbance. All outcomes involving being detected are sub-optimal. So, she recedes.

She strives to mimic pieces of furniture. She takes after the hard plastic chairs, laminate desks, and three-drawer filing cabinets, the mundane objects that share our space, that are so ubiquitous and boring they barely register. She has studied their ways and crafted an approach to life from their behavior. Furniture doesn't talk, so she doesn't talk. Furniture doesn't look at you, so she doesn't look at you. Furniture doesn't move, so she moves as little as humanly possible. She won't even jot down notes or follow along with the teacher reading aloud because the very wagging of a pencil or rustling of a page is an announcement. It is a herald, however slight, for a classmate to behold that she is in here and hideous. 

Brittany did not think through the practical specifics like posture when she first alighted on the idea of restroom-as-refuge. She did not visualize the setting, what the dank environment would do to her already frizzy bangs, or how long girls could fuss with their make-up. She had no clue how chilling it would be or how the hum of a faulty ballast could be so enervating. On the first day she sought asylum, she was confronted by the nuts-and-bolts reality.

When a girl walks into the restroom and sees a shod silhouette from the shin down, the new girl has certain expectations. Chief among them, she expects the other girl is doing what humans do in restrooms. Why else would the other girl be in there? Who hangs out in restrooms? Horrified at the prospect of arousing suspicions, Brittany took precautions. She unbuttoned, unzipped, and slid her pants around her ankles. She sat deceitfully ready. If another girl or girls entered, Brittany reached for toilet paper. She tore pieces off aggressively so that the roll rattled in its container. She audibly wadded up the paper, made wiping noises on a palm, and dropped it into the bowl. The longer the newcomer(s) remained in the area, the longer the performance went. By the third swipe, she feigned blowing her nose. She flushed. 

The worst is when another girl goes number two. The new girl is bound to puzzle over the girl next door's deal. That girl was here first. Is she sick? Is she crampy? Is she faking? Is she like really fat, stuck, and in need of a plunger? What's with all the TP? What's she doing in there? Maybe the new girl should stand on the commode and peak for herself. "Just let her be," Brittany pleads telepathically. She can almost hear the retort. If that girl feels so ill, shouldn't she go to the nurse? Shouldn't she be lying down? Shouldn't she be at home, resting her nasty self?

Nobody has ever posed a question to her while encamped. Brittany worries all the same.

After a handful of anxiety sessions on the throne at lunch, it occurred to Brittany she could do better. She could vanish with a little effort. She now scootches way back, perches uncomfortably on the hinge, and draws up her feet. She assumes a roughly fetal position upright. She restrains her respiration to the point of inaudibility. She becomes totally undetectable. She doesn't have to put on a show anymore. Brittany doesn't have to fret about being singled out by her shoes. She doesn't have to worry about whether the owner of the neighboring trendy pair of shoes would oust her, would tell her cadre of friends, who would tell their cadres of friends, and on and on, how Brittany Ayers is holed up in the bathroom doing God know what all lunch period long. She doesn't have to craft objections, like how Amber Graves must do the same thing if she's privy to that sort of information. As in, if it's not more than a groundless rumor, how does Amber know about the duration of Brittany's stay if Amber is not herself taking care of business for so long? No one would listen to Brittany, of course. No one would ask for her side of the story. But none of that could happen since Brittany has sophisticated her scheme.

It is a fool-proof scheme, the hiding. No staff member would be alarmed by a sealed and vacant stall. Pranksters of both sexes frequently locked a door and climbed over or slid under for the purpose of relatively wholesome mischief. The administration understandably didn't waste resources pursuing petty infractors. If a teacher was alerted to the prank, he or she would call the secretary between lessons, who would page the custodian, who'd pick it open sooner or later.

With 12 minutes remaining, Brittany rubs her forehead. She hears individual voices rise over the drone and descend again. Someone pops an inflated paper bag. She considers her right knee, the skin of which is exposed partially by a tear. Though pulled taught, dermal lines remain. They create an organic elevation map. Blonde stubble catches the artificial light. She tugs at a clump of frayed threads, always white though the jean is blue. It's a good thing Brittany doesn't wear a watch.

Worrying is one of the few activities in which she can participate. Her cell phone is ancient. The buttons clack when depressed, so Snake and Brick are out of the question. A moratorium against noise limits more complex movements. The crackle of wrappers and crunch of chewing combine to forbid eating during the designated time for eating. She can't so much as consume fruit snacks discretely in class, the plastic wrapper sufficing to betray her most delicate manipulation.

She had reason to be preoccupied. Other girls aren't disposed to leave girls like Brittany in peace. If outwardly all they show is a quick scowl or a brief frown, there's a whole lot left unsaid. Unsaid, that is, until the midday meal. Unsaid, until a crowd of them can confer in a restroom they assume to be empty.

If there is to be a conference, Brittany has learned it will be within the first five minutes of lunch. A group will access the wall of mirrors prior to going on display. From her perch, Brittany listens to the pop of lip gloss lids and the friction of hair pulled through bristles. A farrago of clicks and snaps emitted by cosmetic products ricochets off the hard surfaces. Amid the corporate acts of beautification, the group builds monstrosities. They collaborate on multi-tiered insults. They fashion piles of invective. They stack bovine and porcine clichés to the ceiling. Brittany's nightmares are reconstructed out of this material. These scenes confirm Brittany's hypothesis about other people—boys, too. They are mean, pure and simple. They get meaner in groups. They're meanest towards her. Laughs, nearby and around-the-corner ones, are at her expense. She supposes herself to be the subject of all snicker-inducing notes and messages.

Nobody has ever referenced Brittany nominally in the bathroom tirades. Nevertheless, she feels no better. She feels worse, actually, for not being referenced. The peers who have expended energy making fun of Brittany inhabit a lower stratum than girls who primp. Brittany isn't worth the popular girls' collective time.

Would she want to be? If what she overhears are the sorts of statements girls think it's cool to say in the exclusive company of other like-minded-and-bodied girls, what do they say to themselves? What do they say to themselves when, on their way to prime locker real estate, they pass Brittany riffling through her never-adorned locker? How do they vivisect her when, scoping out the scene, they spy her marring the view down the hall? What's her taxonomy when compared to the curled, the blushing, the well-endowed, and the spaghetti-strapped? Brittany Ayers of the split ends. Brittany Ayers of the pasty complexion. Brittany Ayers of the abundant thighs. Brittany Ayers of the ratty T-shirts. No, she'd rather not count at all, except when roll is taken.

She doesn't skip school. She has perfect attendance. She remains alert in class. She is diligent about completing homework assignments. She responds to a question when a teacher calls on her because she never raises a hand on her own. She comports herself because disobeying is bad news. Disobeying leads to discipline.

Brittany has known since the sixth grade that if you don't answer a query, do as you're told, or acknowledge a statement, follow-up questions, instructions, or comments will ensue. Keeping tight-lipped gets you sent through a packed house of snickering children to the office. The office is the place where an intimidating secretary shoots you daggers while you wait cross-legged. The waiting is for Assistant Principal Chezik, who asks you to have a seat, offers you a hard candy, and interrogates you at length as to why exactly you refused to participate in a game of Geography Jeopardy. The why is inconsequential because his underlying objective is to deliver a speech about how insubordination is a slippery slope. To put the breaks on additional slippage, Assistant Principal Chezik concludes the interrogation with assurances he'll have his eyes on you during the next 60 days of what he likes to call "probation." By the time you're free to go, the "didgja hears" have reverberated through the echo chamber of high school. For a week or more, you're in the social crosshairs more than usual, which leads to more eye-averting on your part, which, despite being a meek response to attention, garners additional attention and consequent judgment because in this context it's a tacit admittance of guilt and kids get high on the slightest waft of inferiority.

To avoid reliving that train wreck, Brittany plays by the rules.

She's not out to win in a valedictorian sense of winning. Obedience has its limits. Being praised is just as bad as being scolded. The teacher is the only person who congratulates you on setting the curve. The other pupils gnash their teeth. Nobody likes a suck-up, so Brittany doesn't come close. She leaves an blank or two unfilled on tests. She'll use one letter twice on matching sections. She ignores spelling suggestions when typing essays. These ploys apply deflationary pressure on her grades. They prevent her from getting photographed for the Student of the Month display. The recipients' ink-jet prints are stapled onto a tack board by the water fountains. By month's end, they are thoroughly defaced. Brittany couldn't resist taking the mustache, stitches, and horns personally, although the practice is indiscriminate.

Her upper torso is arched around the chrome-plated flushing lever with eight minutes to go. Brittany is canted slightly toward the exterior wall as though attracted to its solidity. The central region of her butt droops down, unsupported by the seat's hole. The sensation is bizarre and embarrassing Brittany feels more isolated as a result. She whips herself into a fit of self-pity-and-loathing about how her voluntary exile is preferable to being out there with her classmates. Out there in the airline hanger of a cafeteria entails having binders slid in front of places you're eyeing. Out there entails being told that the seat's reserved for a friend in line even though a quick scan of the registers yields not a soul buying food, let alone waiting in line to do so. That the graffitied dividers and ammoniac smell of the facilities are more hospitable than the lunch room alternative would ruin Brittany's mascara were she wearing any. 

Brittany tries to bolster her confidence by emphasizing her proactivity, her initiative, and her ingenuity for finding a way to disappear in the middle of the school day, when exposure and persecution reaches its highest frenzied pitch and the maximum of 952 beady eyes are darting about, dividing up the humanity into in and out, friend and foe. Instead, here sits Brittany, shielded, secure, and in total compliance with the Student Handbook's bylaws. Here sits Brittany, if not dignified, then at least not humiliated in full view, not forlornly wandering the aisles for the chance half-empty table or abandoning hope altogether and surveying the horizon for the Special Ed kids and their tender caretakers whose tenderness and welcoming never fail to make her feel much, much worse because they treat their wards the same way they treat her, the ones who scream at specific colors, squawk like parrots, or roll around on the floor. Recalling this humiliation, her fiddling with the sandwich bag instead of consuming its contents, her obsessive staring at the digital clock that regulated the day's schedule, gave Brittany much needed perspective. She is not disabled. She is not alternatively-abled. She is unpopular. There are worse fates.

No. Here sits Brittany, kind of praying. 'Kind of' because she's not asking for anything or singing any praises. She's not petitioning for a favor like the power to cope or inspiration about how to persevere. She's not praying to God the Father, per se, but to Someone. In her mind, there's a pronounced skyward vector to her thoughts. She's sending the message up, which she realizes is silly and that whoever he is, if he's anywhere at all, as in like existing, he's everywhere. For that matter, Brittany thinks he isn't properly a 'he', as in being gendered, but he's definitely not non-gendered. Because referring to him as an 'it' is more off-base than just using the traditionally masculine pronouns with an implicit asterisk.

An lopsided relationship doesn't seem to bother either party. She sends up. He receives. Brittany has a lot to say. He's a good listener. She tells him how much it sucks to be her. He hasn't asked for a thing in return. How could he? When she thinks about it, he's all brain and no hands, feet, or mouth. It's vague, but doesn't that come with the territory? She's fine with uncertainty. She's not interested in reading a book. She doesn't want to be more confused. She's not going to attend a service or ceremony. Those are communal. She'd surely stick out as the initiate. She'd get coddled in the same way the Special Ed aids coddle her. Brittany would rather not put herself in that situation.

For Brittany, their time together is encompassing. Not encompassing as in what's provided by a companion with limbs, but as in submersion, a state of being completely engulfed, not by air which is like nothing at room temperature, but warm water. It's like a bath, if that makes sense, like how the warm water doesn't care about your cellulite or the number of your chins. The bathing metaphor demonstrates how resistant Brittany is to being led or pushed, since she's not imagining herself in an ocean with its eroding force or a lazy river with its current. No. Brittany just wants to lean back and be saved like how she was damned: against her will. She's content where she's at, wounded but in stable condition, secluded but heard by the Great Big Ear. If someone else knows her plight, that's reassuring.

This slanted conversation began a fortnight into Brittany's evasive maneuvering. It wasn't that Brittany said, "God help me," and a voice from on high answered. It wasn't that He called out unprovoked, "Behold Brittany. I am here with you." It was subtler and more fluky.

She had been doing what she does in the noon hour, privately commiserating her station between prods of a pimple. She recounted her inadequacies. She revisited the cruelties, however slight, that had lately been directed her way. Before she knew what she was doing, she crossed a boundary. While gazing into the grid-work of tile before her, she wished for an end. She did not assess suicidal methods. She did not picture anything involving violence or as much as a modicum of energy expenditure on her part. She only wished for an undefined end.

Reflexivity is built into the inner life, which is why Brittany can surprise herself. She apprehends the torrent of language in her mind immediately. Comprehension, though, suffers from a satellite feed’s delay. An extra second or two is required for uptake. The desire for blasé obliteration beamed from one side of her cortex to the other. When the transmission was complete, Brittany was stunned that she would momentarily dream of death. She identified herself as a survivor. She was adaptable. She was resilient. She had wanted to flee a scene thousands of times, but never into nothingness. The wish was a big step. Her apparent devolution alarmed her.

When searching a cause for her dismay, she found only her various selves. There was the Brittany who spoke to herself. There was the Brittany who heard herself. There was the Brittany who thought she’d be okay if everyone just ignored her. There was the Brittany who would go to such lengths to be accompanied she’d have conversations with herself. There was the Brittany who resents the horde of superficial young adults in which she was marooned. There was the Brittany who totally gets it and doesn’t blame them, who has 20/20 vision and an instinctual revulsion for what's reflected in the wall of mirrors, store front windows, or any polished surface. So, Brittany discovered at the end of this trail that the constituents of the helter-skelter throng inside her head were working at cross-purposes. They were making matters worse by dragging them out. She never let anything go because as soon as one of her did, there was another who picked it up and ran ahead. She had to start directing her thoughts to someone above the fray. She’d leave it with him and step away.

Thus she started her prayer-type thing.

The school days subjectively improved when she started considering the possibility that some nonpartisan person was omnipresent. Brittany began adding this layer to all her consciousness. He sees this, too. He hears this, too. He feels this, too. He did not need to stop it or fix it, just share the crappiness of it with her. So, Brittany started addressing him exclusively between 12:20 and 12:55 PM since doing otherwise got to feeling rude, ignoring this guy who's in the room and has as much right to be there as anyone else. Since he's everywhere you go and is always interested in you, with a non-threatening interest, an all-knowing, sympathetic but not spineless or patronizing interest, why not confide in him how much it pains you to have to hide because everyone hates you? Brittany admits these confidences sound increasingly paranoid when you hear yourself repeatedly elevating them, since if he is as attentive as it seems he is, he doesn't hate you for starters.

If God was real and wanted to intervene, he could send a messenger like the guidance counselor, Mrs. Madigan. In fact, she'll be meeting with with Brittany to discuss college plans this afternoon. Brittany will be furtive. She'll keep her face downcast. She'll reply tersely. Mrs. Madigan, whose been trained to pick up on warning signs, will gently shift the conversation onto a more personal track. Mrs. Madigan will accidentally hit a nerve. Finally, Brittany will dare the counselor to go seek out just one kid who didn't think she was repulsive. She'll demand Mrs. Madigan drag just one kid into this office to look at her squarely and swear she's not ugly. At that, the counselor will be temporarily stultified.

Brittany will not want to hear about how there's more to a woman than her body. She will not want to have a conversation about how it's what's on the inside that counts. She's seen the posters. She's watched the videos. She's sorry, but that's a lie. To everyone with an outside, the outside counts first. In her case, it counts most. The outside is a major obstacle, like 50 feet high. She can't fathom how anyone is going to get beyond that barrier because no one has yet. When the counselor asks her what about Brittany, has she progressed beyond the outside, has Brittany ever looked past her projection of other people into the possibilities of what's really happening in their minds and hearts, past her projections of judgment and condemnation, Brittany will be momentarily befuddled.

When the counselor seizes that short beat to delve deeper and asks whether Brittany has ever progressed beyond the outside of herself, as in moved past the façade to see how the inside had some glory in it that her peers couldn't perceive right away but also, and more importantly, couldn't steal or smother, Brittany will end the session. She will escape to her stall, bolt the door, and have a quick confab with the One Above about hazy things like inner value. No aural input will be added. Brittany will gush unabated. She'll raise some questions. They'll be solved by silence. She'll attempt to stop the cycle whirring around at great speed, the loop of fears. It's a chicken-and-the-egg scenario, the fear. Did Brittany hate herself first and then everybody else did because she makes it so easy for them, with her low self-esteem and general apathy toward being in any way appealing? Or was it rather that everybody else saw her atrociousness first and pointed it out to Brittany like something in her teeth or mismatched socks or toothpaste residue in the corner of her mouth? And then, like out of a bad dream, when she tries to discretely address the problem, she finds the lodged spec is some sort of dental implant, and those aren't socks, they're prescription support stockings she has to wear in order to walk, and that's not toothpaste, it's the lone case of an as-yet unclassified mutant pigmentation disorder. Which is to say that all this shit that's wrong with her is permanent, such being the  fatalistic perspective of the pubescent, not so much failing to conceive of a time before or after now as misconstruing age 16 as the age, as in a die-casting event that fixes all outcomes, as in ultimately blessed or cursed heretofore and henceforth from this now obtaining state of affairs. In the midst of these hysterics, Brittany will propose a revision to her self-conception. She will hear no opposition, her own antagonists included.

A poorly assembled, rambling plea will be disrupted by a rhythmic jangle. The jangle will be reminiscent of a tambourine. The beat will swell. In the middle of Brittany wracking her brain to determine the noise, Martina will announce "Custodian!" Brittany will flinch from the interruption. She won't respond because responding  would lead to, "You alright?" and Brittany won't lie. Brittany would say, "Yeah, I'm fine." Martina would ask, "Then why are you in there, locked, with no feet?" This string of questioning would terminate in a return trip to the counselor's office and a phone call home. A phone call home would lead to more unwelcome discussions during which Brittany would want to collapse inward till she's infinitesimal, to be reborn as a black hole, an entity that was so small it somehow became immense and impenetrable, as in able to absorb  even the light that would make it visible.

Martina will arrive at her destination. Since she hears no response to her announcement, she'll retrieve a tool from her back pocket. There will be a sound scraping metal as a screwdriver finds purchase in the mechanism's slit. Brittany will watch the knob turn a ghastly 90°. She will grab her shins and pull back hard in a subconscious venture to initiate the shrinking sequence. The door will swing freely on its hinge when pushed. Brittany will gape blinkless. She will watch a bronze hand with unpainted nails retract through the doorway. For an instant, Brittany will feel immense relief. She will feel secure at remaining a secret. Then, Martina will peak in for curiosity's sake.

She'll stumble on Brittany sitting fully clothed, her knees tucked under her chin. The two will recognize each other. Brittany knows Martina. Martina knows the seated girl without knowing her name. In the first two seconds, they will not react. All appearances will remain fixed. Neither will draw in breath for talking. Martina's face will soften first. Brittany's face will soften next. Martina will deferentially nod. She will grab the door from the top. She will pull it shut. She will return the knob to its locked position. She'll exit. She'll report a false alarm to the secretary. Brittany will be left alone to ponder if the episode with the custodian had been a coincidence or a sign. She will oscillate between the two positions, confident these deliberations rise, too. She'll replay Martina's visage and what it communicated. She'll think people can see with more than their eyes and love without words until the tone emits from the hallway speakers, announcing fifth period. She will put her feet back on the ground. She will stand and put another lunch period behind her.

Accidental Repercussions

June 30, 1992

Heat. Hot night on the ground. Sky day and ground night. Not normal. No nose tickling. No wetness. The ground is night. Brown of water ahead. Past the field of night and field of grass. Down the hill. Go there.

Forward.

Sky day and ground night. A sound and blurred movement. Louder. Danger. Retract!

Stay.

Stay.

No more sound. No vibrations. Cautiously extend. Light and heat. A low horizon.

Forward.

A new color on the ground. A line of cloud on the ground. Not better. Not home. Not food or drink. Food past the field of night.

Forward.

Another sound and movement. Louder. Faster. Danger. Retra—Pain! Pain in the the front. Retract! No smell. Heat all around and pain in the front. Extend and forward. Pain! Slower now. Dragging. Too hot. Too much pain. Stuck on the cloud.

Pain!

Backward. Slowly. Moving is pain. Stop.

September 10, 1992

One time over the summer I was riding home from the pool. I like going to the pool and my Mom takes me. We go together. There's a vending mashine there. My mom gives me quarters. Cherry Drops are my favorite. Our house is close. My Mom doesn't swim but lays in the sun. I swim and play with my friends. I throw rings and they dive to get them.

One day driving home with my mom I see a turtle. "Mom! A turtle!" I yelled. She stopped so I could go save him. I didn't want him to get runned over. I had no shoes on and the ground was hot and sharp with rocks. I ran back to where he was. He was real close to the white line on the road. He wasn't moving at all.

I was going to put him in the grass and aim him back from the road so he would be where he belongs but he was hurt already. I was to late. He'd been runned over already by somebody and his legs in the front was almost off. He was queit and hurt. Aminals don't cry like us. He looked at me with one eye. Maybe he liked me because he didn't pull his head in or go potty when I picked him up. Frogs do that. He was hurt bad and I was scared.

I ran him back to my Mom's car and was crying for him. I said to my Mom how he was hurt. She asked what was wrong and I showed her his smashed legs. She said lets take him to the vetranarnian. I said OK. We put him in a box and I watched him in there. I pet his shell. He was moving around slow and bleeding in the box a little. He was slower than a turtle normally is and turtles are one of the slowest aminals around besides sloths. His legs in the front didn't work right. They bended funny. I was real sad watching him. He couldn't go where he wanted.

When we got to the vets he wasn't moving much at all. A girl in white clothes took the box from me and told me I had done a good thing. She said heed be OK and not to wory. I said his legs was broke. She said maybe they could help. They could make him casts for him to heel. I cried some more when he was gone. My Mom cried to.

Then we went home. I was still wearing my trunks from swimming. I went to my room and changed and sat in my room by myself. I was so sad for him and for me to. I never broke a bone. A car broke some of my turtles. The phone rang and my Mom answered it. She told the phone OK thank you and hung up. She sat on my bed and I knew it was trouble. She told me the vetranarnian tried his best. He had to make my turtle asleep but said I did a good thing because the turtle wasn't hurting anymore. He's been sleeping ever since. It was the saddest day ever.

May 10, 2004

That reminds me of this one time—oh, gosh, it must be...more than ten years ago now—when Randal found this turtle on the side of the road. He was going into the second or third grade. It was summer and we'd spent the day at the pool I remember. I had been going through a tanning phase—I know, I know, don't start—and I had to practically drag him to go with me. I used to bribe him with candy. It was the only way he'd go. It's terrible, but he wasn't a great swimmer okay. Poor kid, scared of the water. I couldn't blame him. He was always getting these horrible ear infections. He had bright orange ear plugs he had to wear, you know, to keep the water out. He picked the color himself but that was little consolation. I think he was self-conscious even then. The other kids didn't make it easy on him, you know what I'm saying? But he wouldn't listen to me. I told him to ignore the other kids and that everybody's got problems and how some people's are more visible, but it didn't matter to him. I never seemed to have the right words. Such a sensitive child, much more sensitive than he is now.

Well but back to what I was saying, he found this turtle on the side of the road. He always kept his eyes peeled for animals wherever we went. He absolutely loved animals, was fascinated by them. He was always catching frogs and what-have-you. Looking for birds nests or tracks in the mud. He would pick up worms off the sidewalk after a rain and put them back in the grass. At one time we had three coffee cans on a shelf in the garage with slugs he'd find in the garden. He'd put them and a couple of fist fulls of grass in the tins like they'd eat that. He'd check on them first thing after school and dump more grass on them. He made me promise to give them a drink while he was gone. But, anyhow, we're on our way home and he screams, "A turtle! A turtle!" out of the blue and it scares me half to death. So I pull over on the shoulder and, you know, indulge him. He could be so persistent. He'd be preoccupied the rest of the day wondering about the turtle if I'd kept on going. 

Anywho, he hops out of the car—it's not a busy road, don't worry—and I'm checking my face in the mirror and my arms out to see if they're any darker—hah! Two minutes later he comes back, beet red and bawling, with this mess of a creature in his hands. He holds it out to me like 'You do something with this'. It took me a second to even recognize it as a turtle. But so there it is and Randal's practically shaking. What could I do? I mean this comes out of absolutely nowhere! My first thought was all of the dirt and filth and disease and I start to tell him to put it down but he was crying so hard he couldn't like process it. So I put the car in park and I'm thinking a million miles a minute. I didn't know what to do, you know what I'm saying? He was such a fragile child, always crying and very sensitive like I said. I was at a loss. His heart's broke and then my heart's broke because his is and I had to do something to make it better. Well so I knew he wasn't going to leave the thing alone. He wouldn't talk for a week if I made him drop it. It felt like it took me an hour but I finally said to him we'll take the turtle to our vet. I mean what else can you do with an injured turtle? It's not like we could bury it. But Dr. Shawati was the best. A kindly old Indian—like Indian from India. A real sweetheart. I figured he'd know what to do.

So thank God I keep a box for groceries and what not in the trunk because otherwise Randal wanted to hold the thing in his lap! Imagine! The little thing was in shock. It looked terrible. I still don't know how it was possible, it even being alive. It looked like it'd been hit with a big...hammer or something, but just the first inch of it's body. The shell was fine. Not a scratch on it. It's like the poor thing put his toes over the line and got smacked, you know what I mean? It wasn't bleeding much thank goodness, mostly internal bleeding I guess. I don't know. It looked like a bad rug burn on its skin, really. Is it skin on reptiles? Scales?

Long story short, we dropped it off at the vet's and went home. I think the thing was already dead by the time we got there but it's hard to tell with reptiles. As soon as we got in the door, Dr. Shawati's office called to tell me it had to be put down. The young woman receptionist was very sweet and said there was nothing they could have done. She was trying to let me down easy and I'm thinking like, its not the turtle I'm concerned about. It's my son. They didn't bill me a penny for any of it, though. So there I was faced with the prospect of telling Randal about what happened and death and the whole thing. We'd never lost a pet at that point and he still had all of his grandparents. Once we were in a store with a stuffed grizzly and I had to reassure him for it seemed like a half an hour that it was only a big teddy bear and never had been alive. Needless to say no Bambi in our house. The snails would die I think but we "released" them all the same and he never seemed to notice. I guess there were dead bugs, but bugs never seem to count. TV never seems so real, either. 

Randal was looking at me because he could tell who I'd been talking to. He's always been smart like that. Kids are smarter than we are. It's scary. I told him the doctor tried his best but couldn't put the turtle back together again. He looked up at me with this look of such...concern on his face. I said the turtle was put to sleep now. To sleep, I know, it's awful but I just couldn't say the word dead in front of him. He asked if the turtle was okay. Obviously he didn't understand what sleep meant when he asked that. I backpedaled. I said sure he was. Okay in a way. It was feeling no pain anymore, which was true. He broke out sobbing and when I asked him what was wrong he said turtles are supposed to be awake in the daytime. He was very into possums and bats at the time, the nocturnal creatures. I never understood where he got that from. But what're you supposed to say? I mean wow. I was already toasted from laying out all day. We both needed a nap. I didn't say a thing. I felt so ill equipped. He was onto something, you know. I just hugged him until he stopped crying. He didn't bring it up again so neither did I. 

I think it really changed him. He was still into animals and such but not the same. Distant I'd say. I guess that's how we grow up, but it was awful to watch your own son go through it. I was torn up because I knew if I'd explain any more he'd only get more upset. He knew something was very wrong. I'm sorry to say that I just waited it out. What can you say to a kid to make them feel better about death? They're so smart, very intuitive. They know all about innocence and what fault is. Randal was so hung up on how the turtle hadn't done anything wrong and how he was too late. What could I say, really? So, I just put it off and put it off and well... you know. We tell them honesty is the best policy and sometimes I wonder if maybe I should have just told him and dealt with it then and there. That's life though. Hindsight's 20-20.

October  1, 2009

"Hello?"

"Yes."

"Are you there?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Sorry. I thought we got disconnected. You didn't say anything."

"What's there to say?"

"I don't know. Something. Anything. You knew the boy, not me."

"Not well. I knew him back in middle school."

"I just think it's tragic is all. So young."

"It's always tragic."

"Imagine what he could have done for the world! He was in his second year of med school. To think he was taking out the trash. The police said the driver wasn't speeding. Timothy just hit his head funny on the curb and that was that."

"Okay."

"What's wrong with you, Randal? One of your classmates died and I can't get you to so much as admit it's sad."

"It's sad."

"Oh, well jeez, that wasn't very convincing."

"I said what you wanted me to. Sometimes it feels like you let me sink when I'm drowning and dunk me when I'm floating."

"That's certainly not my intention. I only want for you to be happy."

"I'm happy when I can be... I'm going to go."

"What? Why? We haven't talked in a month."

"Then why are we talking about strangers?"

"I beg your pardon, Randal. I thought you'd like to know about Timothy."

"It was ten years—" 

"I know. We've established that."

"Anyway, he was a dick to me. What do I care?"

[...]

"It's the way of the world, mom."

"What?"

"People get squished. Everything does. It can't be helped."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nevermind."

[...]

"So what's new with you, Randal?"

"Nothing."

"Aren't you going to ask me what's new with me?"

"What new with you?"

"A new Italian place opened up down the road. Perdoni's or Perdioni's or some such. Maybe I can get Debbie to try it with me. I haven't had good lasagna in ages. But she's been so busy with little Lisa. Just running her ragged."

"That's sounds nice."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine."

"You're awful quiet."

"I've got nothing to say."

"Hm."

[...]

"It makes you count your blessings, what happened to Timothy."

"I guess."

"Life is so precious."

[...]

"What about death, then, mom?"

"What about it?"

"What is it if life is so precious? How does it fit in?"

"Hm. Well. I haven't given it a lot of thought. Um...It's a necessary evil I suppose. I mean it comes to all of us sooner or later. It always catches me off guard. I forget about it for a while and then boom! It hits me."

"I've thought a lot about it."

"Well then maybe you should tell me what you think instead of asking me all the questions."

"I think it's cruel. It's the worst part of being alive or being human I guess, knowing it's going to be yanked from you but not seeing it coming like specifically. Not yanked like by a person, but you know."

"You can't stop it."

"No, you can't."

"But you know, I mean, we have hope at least."

"You do."

"We do."

[...]

"Listen to us! How'd we get on this awful topic?"

"You keep bringing it up. You've mentioned Tim three times now."

"Well. I didn't want to upset you, but I didn't think you'd heard."

"I'm not upset."

"Of course you aren't."

"Of course?"

"I only mean that you tend be a little... underwhelmed, generally, in response to whatever."

"Oh."

"Don't you agree?"

"Um. I'd say I'm not underwhelmed but overwhelmed, like over overwhelmed. Chronically."

"Hm."

"I really do need to get going. I haven't eaten yet."

"You're not upset, are you?"

"No."

"Okay well that's good. It was good catching up. When're you coming home next?"

[...]

"Hello? Randal?"

Outside In

"Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. So, at that point, I was like this sucks. Let's go back and grab a few more—"

"No! Not more! More?"

"Speaking of, more's a good idea. I'll have more. Over here!"

"Make that two!"

"Well, no sense working up a good buzz Mel to just waste it watching those bullshit movie trivia things. And Tom—you know Tom's game—"

"Tommy!"

"Where is Tom? He should be here."

"Beats me. I haven't heard from him in a while."

"—and Steve, they're like sure I'm in. So okay, we excuse ourselves and all kind of like trounce back to the bar, practically falling down drunk in the streets of course. The bunch of boozers we were. And at some point there was this um drainage ditch type thing by the sidewalk and Steve somehow slips down it after a little too much swaying or what have you and me and Tom didn't notice until Steve screams help me! because he can't crawl back up—"

"Wait, so really help me or not, the screams?"

"Who cares what kinda screams?"

"I guess I do."

"Uh sorta help me? But yeah, so the grass’s wet for some reason and he's wearing flip flops and he's—you should've seen him, the poor pup. Pathetic. Not exactly a ballerina. He'd get three or four steps up and then slip back down or lose his sandal or whatever. It was like he was trying to climb a twisty slide in socks, you know, as a kid. Anyway, me and Tom are busting guts because, well, look at him. And we double over because Steve's getting really frustrated at this point okay—like red-face frustrated. And Tom offers to go get his Jeep 'cause it’s got a wench and Steve's like Leave your mom out of this, Tommy."

"Bahahaha."

"Burn!"

"Exactly. Sixth degree. So yeah I fill Tom in as to wenches because he doesn't catch the draft. And then Tom's like Why I oughta! and runs down the hill acting like he was mad and saying I'll show you wench! and I'll wench your face! And he basically uh tackles Steve but Steve wasn't ready. Tom wasn't trying to hurt Steve I don't think, but it sort of caught him off guard. Steve let out this little like shrill squeaky-type cry—a little sistery scream—and then an oompf a second later and the two of them tumble back into the ditch or whatever. Tom's chuckling kind of laboredly—buh huh, buh huh—because he's laid out on his chest and Steve's whining and squirming like he was a worm. You know how worms will flick around like crazy when you touch them on sidewalks or whatever? Steve was like that, he was writhing. But yeah—"

"Was he hurt?"

"What the hell, Bilbo?!"

"Of course he wasn't hurt. He's a damn jellyfish. That's besides the point, Billiam. Shut it okay. You're ruining my flow. I'm trying to tell a story for shit's sake."

"Yeah, Billy! Let the man speak!"

"All right. All right."

"He needs something in his mouth. Get him another drink. He'll shut up."

"Yeah, another Bud Heavy over here!"

"Anyway, right yeah, to fast-forward, we've got to form a sort of human chain of two to get Steve back up the hill after I uh implore him to toss his flip flops up to me for shit's sake. So that gets the job done. Steve's got that zombie look on his face like he's wasted and operating on like autopilot. But whatever. Up and out, we three get back to the bar and I'm the only one who looks even remotely non-shady or with it because Steve's got grass clippings on him and Tom's wet and muddy down his front on account of the ditch was soupy it turns out. Tom's good natured about the whole thing, just happy to be here sort of a guy, but Steve's being bitchy, which I kind of get under the circumstances. But okay we all take our seats and I'm the one who does the ordering. The place was basically empty by this point. It was a Thursday night."

"You can really hold it down, Jack."

"You know it. Always could. Guess it's the German in me."

"Cherman!"

"Yah, der chermans!"

"Da chermans and der planes!"

"Uh huh. And so right we're sitting all in a row at the bar and the dude gives us three this look like You Again but before he can blurt so much as a single word I totally disarm the situation by making the point that as he can clearly see we all of us here have shoes and shirts and so that all that's left now is his service if he'd please, which makes him smirk and Tom laugh and poor old Steve put his head on the bar top. None of that now I say to Stevie Wonder and slap him between the shoulder blades and it sounds like a hit a kettle drum or a fat tupperware or some such. Three Irish Coffees for me and my friends if you'd be so kind as we're in dreadful need of a little pick me up if you would be so kind I say Britishly—"

"Wait, so like, how many was that for you up to this point? I can't keep track."

"Well now I can't speak for the guys but for me, let's see. $2 Long Islands and Wells on Thursdays. A real steal of a deal, you know. Uh... Five drinks. That's about right. Three Long Islands, a Texas Tea, and two rum and diets. Six?"

"In what?"

"Um, glasses?"

"No shit, Sherlock. You know what I mean!"

"Like an hour and a half I'd say."

"Baaaah!"

"Peter Jackson that's crazy!"

"Keith, crazy's in the eye of the bee holder as the wise men say. Now I'll be the first to admit that, looking back, you know, it was a bit uh ambitious and that an Irish Coffee to boot was...not the best idea okay. But the straw that broke the cat's pajamas was my final Rum and Coke—"

"The Cap'n strikes again!"

"—I would have been okay if I'da left that last tumbler alone. Because as I'm slurping down the last of Steve's coffee which was getting colder by the second and going to waste from Steve's sleepy uh neglect, Tom's—the voice of reason in times like these—is like what time is it? I consult the old cellular telephone and lo and behold 'twas ten til midnight! Which meant, after some quick number crunching, we had all of ten minutes to get back to the theater in time for the dimming of lights. That gave us ten minutes to pay, hop down the way and across the street and up the hill, through the doors, and march past the ticket takers looking like a pack of Puritans or Mormonites or whatever since the theater's zero-tolerance policy regarding controlled substances."

"Like they'd ever kick you out. No body gets kicked out. You already paid. What're they going to do really? How're they going to know? Breathalate you?"

"I know, right? But who's going to test it? They have their ways, Keither. Can't risk it... So uh first thing's first, I slam the just poured Rum and Coke in one Bunyan-sized gulp. And that, my friends, sent me over the edge. With that little drink I pretty much lost it. Set sail okay. I swapped the uh sure-footed security of the plank of uh... tipsiness for the murky waters of the... I don't know. Shitfaced. I was shiftfaced is my point."

"Heil Herr Jack!"

"Ahhhh, Jack!"

"Right. Okay, okay. Not feeling up to the doing the whole grammar, wordage, sentence thing, I motioned for the bartender with a tornadic, whoopty-doo-type motion with my finger, thinking that would do for check please. And give the dude credit he picked up on it."

"Where was Tom?"

"Hey, excuse me, yeah Hi can I get another one of these? Thanks."

"Right next to me, I don't know, mumbling and grinning into his reflection. You know how he gets. Very what's it? ponderous with his liquids."

"Oh."

"Having already shot my math skills or what have you, I grabbed my wallet from my back pocket, opened it at eye level, gave it a flip, and shook it out onto the bar. I said go on you figure it out to the barkeep and we all had a good laugh because I had given up on a pretty simple task and in the dumping, I had, you know, emptied my wallet of all kinds of junk and plastic cards and receipts which looked and sounded funny... They kind of exploded."

"Cuh-lassic!"

"Did he rip you off?"

"No idea. Haven't seen the bill. I don't know how I could even sign the damned bill. I was entering Messville.  There's some sketchy memories all swirled together. At some point I peed on a floor drain in a bathroom 'cause somebody was using the stall. I remember I looked kind of melty in the mirror. You know what I'm talking about? So there's that and there's the walk... All I remember was how humid it was and how Steve was moaning about his glasses fogging up and feeling dizzy. I told him to close his eyes and follow the found of Tom and my's footsteps, which I got to say worked better than I'd have thought—"

"He's like a uh bat or dolphin or whatever."

"Um, dolphins have eyes!"

"So do bats!"

"Yeah, a bat. Yeah. So, we arrive out front of the megaplex and this part I can see crystal clear. I rally the troops okay. It's kind of my moment. I stand there channeling General Pattern from that movie with the flag and stressing the importance of not you know letting the enemy see the fear in the whites of your eyes and what not and we make a show of gritting our teeth and getting the angry sort of concentrated. Like determined. So in we go and we marched through those halls! Oh, did we ever march through those halls! Que the slo-mo camera and heavy metal soundtrack! I don't think any of the ticket douches had the guts to so much as look at us but from like around corners for all of the um composure we walked with."

"Tarantino wants the rights, Jackie."

"Totally. Great scene for a blood bath. With all of those movie posters and what not..."

"Well you know I will always entertain a serious offer. Tell him to text me some figures. But uh where was I? The theater. Right. Okay. We made it to our screen before the dimming of the lights and climbed the stairs to our aisle. The place was packed full tight. A few of the fanboys were even wearing like costumes and such. Don't ask my why but one douche had a plastic green light-saber thing, all lit up. Like he had it propped on the chair in front of him. Don't ask me. It must've been some sort of nerd joke. I don't know. But so we 'scuse-me-pardon-me over to our seats and Dave's in the meantime carefully put a lone piece of popcorn on the lip of each of our three seats to show they were like taken, which, I mean... hats off to Dave. Genius. Tom made of show of eating his placeholder, like tipping his head back and what not, and we all had another good laugh."

"How were you even functional? Seriously man. I'm in awe. I'm sitting here awed."

"And I'm sitting here thirsty! One G and T hey!"

"Practice makes perfect, Keyster."

"Mm."

"But we're not done yet. I was getting the stink eye from the nerd types around me and after the third funny look I get I pulled out my switchblade comb thing and twirled it sort of uh suggestively shall we say in his general direction. I swear you could see the little clouds of smoke around him like in cartoons as fast as he spun around. That comb's gold! So right, though, the row of us six was way louder than the other hundred something people except for Steve who was getting more or less what's it? fetal in his chair, poor little buddy. Spent his last on the marching. Anyway, I was seated next to Dave who was sucking on a fucking huge $10 soda which I gave him no small amount of shit for wasting his money on."

"Dave's rich though. Comes from money. It's no thang."

"We can't hold that against him."

"Sure we can. I do all the time. Rich dick."

"Hey now. Hello? I'm nearly climaxing here, dudes. Do you want the whole story or not? I was under the impression you wanted the whole story."

"We do. We do do doooo."

"Yeah, just go."

"Okay then. Yeah. So everybody's getting a bit antsy and fucked if I know what time it is but it's got to be past midnight so I yell Come on! out into the place. And Stevie Nix jumps up like what? And we laugh and I keep yelling Come on! and stamp my feet and people sort of look at me but not straight on. And in the middle of this a little lady assistant manager type in her red vest and pins or buttons and shit enters stage right with some announcement or other. She's down at the front, front and center. And I, I can't hardly see the ant of a lady from way up where we are and she was saying something about please scooting in we have a packed house or whatever. She said scooting for a fact. Seriously. She's just blabbing about hoping we enjoy the show. I guess she was bored or buying time or whatever because we know the drill, how to like watch a movie. So I let loose the biggest Come on! yet so there's no mistaking. The sort of yell you can here the cords uh snapping around heavy metal style, real painful gravelly sort of scream. So yeah it's this little lady and a huge quiet auditorium full of nerds being good boys and girls listening to a PSA and me screaming For the love of god come on! Nobody knows what to do I guess. The guys are like suppressing laughs and making these piggy noises you make when you're trying not to and I don't know why but the lady just keeps going on with her spiel, like she's not going to let the terrorists win or whatever. I don't know why I didn't get the boot.—"

"Das boot!"

"—The whole theater packed full of people and I don't even get a shut up or shush or anything. So she's all cell phones and smartphones blah blah blah and I'm No one cares! No one cares! Come on!"

"Andrew Jackson! How'd you not get thrown out? I'da been thrown out. I know it."

"Jackie's got the diplomic immunity."

"Right? Well she's saying something about running time or some stupid crap like that and that's it. I've had it okay. I yell Shut up you ugly bitch! Get your ugly bitch face outta here! Come on already!—"

"What? No!"

"—And wouldn't you know it? Boom! That did it. She zipped it up and walked very calmly out, head held high, and the lights dimmed like a minute later. Tim said I made her cry but I don't think so. I didn't see it."

"Heil heil heil!"

"Sieg Sieg Sieg!"

"And the boys started clapping and—wouldn’t you know—it got everybody clapping, the whole place. And you know, it was hard to tell whether they were clapping for the movie or for me and, you know, the small part I played."

"Wow."

"Bravo."

"So how what'd you think?"

"About what? The movie? No idea. Fades to black from there. The guys told me I kept the yelling through the trailers and uh opening credits. After that I puked in Davey's cup and sort of passed out."

***

At the time of his departure from his sixth consecutive night of inebriation, 0212h CST, Jackson James Schlote is 25 years, eight months, 15 days, three hrs, and one min old. He is 5'11" and 179 lbs. with brown hair and eyes and an average build. He is not an organ donor. He is the imagined line arching between data points. Independence, Missouri is his hometown. He has one sister, Darla Schlote, who is two yrs his junior. When asked by roommate Susan Penske, Darla responded, "Beyond parents, we don't have much of anything in common." The two have not spoken in 86 days. Jackson has had six pets in his life, four of which were dogs. He forgot to feed the dogs 32 x in 1993. 39% of his outgoing phone calls this year have been answered by an automated messaging system. He tends to hang up without leaving a message. He shaves with an electric razor every other day. He routinely misses the hair beneath the corners of his jaw bones and the fainter ones atop his Adam's apple.

Scholte drives home in a 1994 Toyota Corolla LE with optional powered sunroof. The invoice in the glove box states the car's color is Blue Haze Pearl. Its ashtray and tape deck are both empty. Seven crumpled receipts are strewn across the back seat. The oldest is dated 9/1/10. He draws his phone from his right pocket and taps through menus and applications. Alexis Mondale is gonna punch the next guy who says she's pretty before asking her name. He thumbs the sequence gr8 nyt w d guys getN :*) n chlN and posts. He crosses the double yellow line with greater than a quarter of his vehicle four x in 20 min. The capillaries in his eyes are clearly visible when he consults the visor mirror. He spends .2 mi of the 5.8 mi drive home screaming a soft 'a' like the kind a patient vocalizes when sticking a tongue out for physician's inspection. He seems to believe vocal emissions will keep him awake. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being alert and 10 being just shy of asleep, he would rate a 9. He rolls down the driver's side window after .7 mi. The wind-chill factor at this speed is 64° with 84% humidity. The 43 mph wind hits his face and musses his hair. His hair was last washed 41 hrs ago. 

In recent unpaid surveys taken out of boredom, Jackson states his favorite food is tacos. When he wants to treat himself, Jackson buys a 6-pack of Corona, 2 lbs of 85% lean ground beef, an envelope of taco seasoning, and a box of Ortega hard taco shells. He listens to music while he fries the beef in a skillet. He considers this cooking and so answers affirmatively when asked whether he can cook. At 12 meals, Schlote has claimed the difference between a good cook and a bad cook is knowing how much Tabasco to add. Whenever uncomfortable, Jackson's first impulse is to make a joke. These jokes tend to be at the expense of others. 9 out of 10 x he responds the best thing about him is his sense of humor. Jackson believes a person who can laugh at anything has a good sense of humor. During his freshman year of college, he took three personality tests. The results (ESTP, Golden Retriever, and Type A) comforted him in a way he did not attempt to articulate. His GPA was 3.2. His graduation cap was a size L. His right leg is .3" longer than his left as measured from the hip. He attributes the discrepancy to an adolescent baseball injury in which he took a line drive off the knee cap. He believes this may have stunted the leg's growth somehow.

He turns on his car stereo and sets the volume to 25. 27 is the highest setting Jackson has selected before the distortional rattling overwhelmed him. The volume range at 25 is between 100-105 dB. The average lifespan of cohesive thoughts on the drive are 3.2 sec, where cohesive is defined as thematically/logically related. He is unfamiliar with the song currently playing. His iPod is white, dead, and predominately storing music from 2+ yrs ago. It died at 2331h the previous evening. The charger is plugged into a full surge protector at Apt 3a on 170 Steamboat Ln. The drained device pushes again his left thigh inside his Old Navy loose fit jeans. Currently, Jackson's left foot keeps approximate beat while his right depresses the accelerator. In the last month, Jackson has logged more hours on foreign language pornographic websites than time alone in silence. He has suffered from three ear infections this calendar year due to contaminated ear buds. The shortest amount of time he has played music to avoid the aural space to think is 23 sec. Prior to going to bed sober, he plays Midnight Surf on loop on his iPod dock. He imagines the oceanic waves on a moonlit shore. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren fragrance commercials he witnessed 66 x between the ages of 8 and 14 are the inspiration for these scenes. On drunken nights, this ritual is unnecessary. REMless sleep comes of its own accord.

Jackson briefly visualizes propping his eyelids up with tiny stakes or poles. It occurs to him these stakes would need to be transparent in order to continue seeing properly. His face portrays an expression of surprise as he raises his eyebrows for 3 sec. He appears unable to keep his lids from drooping. 40% of his visual field is no color at all. The sky is an uninterrupted void. 16% of his visual field is a warm color: sodium street lamps, flashing caution lights, yellow lines, backlit Shell, Citgo, and Walgreens signs. Jackson last entered a Walgreens 12 days ago. He purchased an energy drink (Monster Energy), pack of gum (5 Beta Gum), and the largest bag of chips he could find (Funyuns). The total bill of sale was $5.67. He believes chewing gum makes him more attractive to the opposite sex. He is known for always having a pack on him.

Since 2003, Jackson has spent one hour interfacing with a living creature for every 4.2 interfacing with an electronic device. More than 60% of the previous 24 hrs was mediated in some fashion by various forms of digital simulacra. He spends 1/2 of his gross income on rent and 1/4 on data and entertainment subscriptions. Since graduating high school, he spends more time per annum looking for ways to illegally download movies and music than participating in significant activities, where significant activities are defined as those activities by which you fulfill long-term life-goals. Jackson's list has never been written down or mentally organized. The items appear sporadically in his head through the normal course of events. Becoming wealthy has occurred to Jackson .2 times per diem since the age of seven. Having more sex has been the most frequent goal-oriented thought since his first encounter three years, nine months, four days, four hours, and 58 seconds ago.

He passes a car, on average, once every 1.6 mi. The other drivers look embalmed, lit as they are by pale dashboard lights. His head slowly falls chestward then bobs back up. 80% of the time he jerks awake, he immediately checks his speed and mirrors. His attention is piqued at 0217h by a trailing car. Jackson becomes paranoid that what turned right from Ries Rd is a police cruiser. The rear view mirror does not reflect adequate amounts of detail. Jackson Scholte has one DWI on his record within the last calendar yr. In conversation, he refers to this incident as the "most expensive drive ever." His heart-rate rises to 107 bpm, 24 bpm above his RHR. His BP rises to 150/95 mmHg. His grip tightens to an average of 83 psi between both hands. He decelerates to 38.2 mph. He sits up straighter in his seat. He yells a soft 'a' again followed by three 'yah's. Scholte recalls mariachi music. His notes are not in the same key as the radio's song.

The pavement is slick from fresh rain. The street light bulbs are ghastly reproduced at the asphalt's edges, creating puddles of light within puddles of water. Jackson indicates for five seconds and merges cautiously into the right lane. He repeats the word 'composure' to himself two x. The tailing car changes lanes with a maniacally delayed synchronicity. The two vehicles travel at identical rates within a .3 mph margin. The car seems predatory to him in his mirror, a pair of searing white pills framed by nothing. The headlights are the distinctive shape of a Chevrolet Impala, the successor to the Ford Crown Victoria popular with American police departments. He checks his rear view mirror 15 x between 0218h and 0220h. What Schlote thinks may be roof lights is a luggage rack. The car's driver is herself tired. Her lane change was coincidental. She, too, is going home.

Jackson continues to feel hunted. He rubs his forehead and traces down the side of his hairline. He fingers a specific blemish. He pinches his nostrils together. He is the second least inebriated of the parties previously gathered. His BAC is .11, .03 over the legal limit in Missouri. His BAC has been over .20 54 x, which is indeterminately more x than he has been in love. Jackson has never been in love. He is beginning to think of his lovelessness as a genetic outcome like eye color, a chemical state prohibited by the mingling of his parents' loveless X and Y chromosomes. Schlote watches behind him more than in front of him in the 381 ft between Henry Rd and Sulphur Spring Rd. He formulates justifications between forcing his eyelids upward. These include: his mother is ill and he was at a party when he received a desperate phone call from her pleading for his immediate assistance, he just got off from pulling a double at St. Elizabeth's and that smell is actually just mouthwash he swished prior to departing on account of not having access to a toothbrush while on the floor, and he had been keeping vigil over his grandmother with his grandfather and he may have in hindsight had one too many adult beverages in the midst of his commiseration. He resolves to allow the peculiar personality of the officer determine which rationale to deploy. His heart-rate passes 115 bpm. Beads of sweat corkscrew along underarm hair and soak into his shirt. He rolls up the driver's side window in 6.25 revolutions. The seal is not air tight.

Jackson would not report emoting with intensity on a weekly basis. On the 4th, 10th, 17th, and 28th of the prior month, he has thought his emotional deficit a problem. 75% of the consequent thoughts were unrelated; 25% involved contemplating other men's internal experiences. Schlote is described in terms of his flat affect, such as 'mellow' or 'chill', by 80% of his male friends. Emotions are additional bits of unprivileged information to Schlote. In completing a high school counselor's questionnaire on 1 September 2001, he required more than twice the designated amount of time to check the boxes regarding recent and current sentiments. To Dr. Giles Elliot on 2 February 1999, he complained that questions about how he is feeling are like poorly worded multiple choice tests. He can't tell what's the right choice. When asked whether he's upset right now, he said he doesn't know. When pressed about how he could know whether he's upset, Jackson stated it's hard to say. Emotions have the tonal quality of frequencies near 20 Hz and 20k Hz, the thresholds of human hearing. He has to retract from all other senses and filter out all other stimuli. He questions whether there is a sound at all, whether what he's hearing differs from the ambient noise, whether this is just how he hears, or whether there's a short in the circuitry of his head's motherboard. Dr. Elliot circled 'motherboard' in his notes.

This fear of being pulled over is the strongest emotion he has felt since 13 June when a 2001 Solar Yellow Nissan Pathfinder blared its horn at him in a parking lot. Jackson had yielded to a jaywalking pedestrian wearing a blue skirt and pink tank top. In relaying the event to a group, Jackson said, "I don't know. Something in me just uh snapped." The other driver's shirt pocket contained a grocery list written in a woman's script. The list included: wine (Franzia is okay), scented kitty litter, whole grain bread, apple sauce (Musselman's), butter, diet coke, SKINLESS chicken breasts, frozen vegetables?, and paper towels. The two men shared a profanity-laden exchange from within their respective vehicles. Jackson threw his car in park and exited, leaving the door ajar at a 32° angle. He drew within 10 yrds of his enemy. The Pathfinder could not evade the aggressor because of traffic congestion. Jackson was ultimately restrained by a third party who was pushing a shopping cart into its corral when he overheard the threats. The third party repeated, "It's not worth it!" three x over the continuing fracas. Jackson relented out of defeat more than agreement. Afterwards, he went back to his idling car and noted his tank was between 1/4 and 1/8 full. He daydreamed of following the Pathfinder to its home and returning to vandalize at an opportune time. He did neither.

As of 0223h, Jackson James Schlote has 382 Friends in 12 states. 68% are male. The median income of his Friends is $28,972. His Friend total has declined from his sophomore year peak of 422. 121 Friends wished him a Happy 25th Birthday. Jackson has been in personal contact with 20 Friends in the past year, where personal contact is defined as either participating in a shared activity or exchanging written or spoken words/symbols. Of the 20, three conceive of Jackson as existing independently of their interactions. Of the 3, 0 would criticize Jackson to his face in matters more grave than trivia. 

Since attending Clairmont Junior High School, he has begun reading 29 books (including textbooks), 22 of which were class assignments. Of these 29 books, he has completed two (Huckleberry Finn and Guns, Germs, and Steel). He prefers movies to books and video games to movies. He speaks more words into a  wireless headset microphone in the average multiplayer session than he spoke in his Composition I course. His optimal screen name is noobXtrmn8r. He prides himself on having fast reflexes. Schlote's fastest reaction to date took place on 21 July 2009. At 1139h in a dormitory room, Schlote's response time to visual stimulus while playing Halo 3 was 156 ms, placing him in the 82nd percentile nationally. Jackson has seen 8,384 women nude, five personally. He assesses women or reproductions of women, on average, 255 x a day. He has seen 12,972 individuals die, mostly in movies, not including incalculable totals from mass killings such as bombs. 17 of these deaths were non-fictional. The most popular of these clips was viewed world-wide 49,873 x as of 0224h. By these videos, Jackson learned real people bleed more profusely than R rated movies depict.

Jackson's phone has four of five bars of service currently on Manchester Rd. It buzzes with new mail. Jackson learns he can purchase 100 digital 3x5 prints for .99¢ within the next 12 hours. He taps through menus and applications. There is a  20% chance of rain until 6:00 am. David Dawson can't believe it's Saturday. Jackson reacts to the Camry's intersecting with the rumble strip by dropping the phone is his lap and steering left. During his senior year of college, Schlote consulted his phone an average of 57 x a day or 3.5 x an hr, assuming 16 hrs of wakefulness. During the first year after college, of which the drive home is a part, he consulted his phone 18% more. The number of messages he receives decreased 43% over that same period of time. If a message is not responded to within the first 30 min of being sent, it has a less than a 10% likelihood of ever being responded to. The average length of messages is 23.4 characters. None of his neighbors knows his name. Alan Baublin, with whom Jackson shares a common wall, refers to Jackson as 'crazy hair' to his wife, Mona Baublin.

Everyone in his peer group spent more time trying to procure the de minimus amounts of products to meet the requirements of online Free Shipping last December than sympathizing with other members of the peer group. Within a ten mile radius, 12 people would admit to occasionally screening Jackson's calls, although, nine would add this is not an exceptionally high rate of screening. 85% of his phone calls involve coordinating activities. Jackson last spoke with his father 97 days ago. He last participated in what he considers "opening up" on 10 May. At a social function, he lamented to Jenny Suskind that all he does is "drink and bullshit." She asked if what they were doing now was included in the later. He unwrapped a piece of gum in lieu of response. Jackson carries the maximum balance of Rollover Minutes. He does not feel comfortable calling anyone in x of need. He would not know what to say. He has no one he would describe as a confidant. He strives, more or less consciously, to live without higher level needs. Where crying is defined as shedding tears for more than thirty seconds, Schlote has not cried in 717 days. He fractured his dextral ulna on an icy and tortiously negligent campus sidewalk 717 days ago. The following semester's tuition fee was waived in an administrative settlement.

Jackson takes one hand off the wheel when the Impala turns left onto Barrett Station. The remaining hand grips with 46 psi. A film of sweat divides his skin from the steering wheel. His heart rate decreases to 89 bpm. His BP decreases to 120/80 mmHg. His phone tells him it is 2:28 AM; his car tells him it is 11:12. He toggles between radio stations. A single corporation maintains a 63% market share and so Jackson finds only coordinated commercial breaks. He cannot decide if the time of night or the alcohol is the greater contributing factor to his fatigue. He leans forward at a 71° angle to rest his chin on the wheel. He leans back to 97°. To maintain concentration, he makes a game of keeping parallel to the lines. He touches the line twice before quitting. Jackson thinks the lines are warbley. The front passenger tire is 5 psi below the manufacturer's recommended pressure, so the car pulls right on its own. 

He approaches a tractor trailer full of produce traveling in the right lane. A bumper sticker asks How is my driving? Jackson has been the object of inquiries 89 x in the past 24 hours. 72% of those were posed by inorganic entities such as web sites and advertisements. 12% of queries were posed during transactions. 3% of queries inquired of his location and plans for the evening. People who know Jackson never think to ask him how he is, unless they ask in a way that is disinterested in a a full or authentic answer. In these latter instances, they ask expecting the response 'good' or 'fine', where 'good' or 'fine' is defined as having a pulse. From there, they proceed to converse about current events, both global and local. Disputations are most likely to occur in discussions of musical groups; agreement is universal about the incompetence of all authorities. When plotted on a graph of topics, the movements of their discussions resemble the movements of stampeding pack animals: not so much towards a single destination as away from dozens of less desirable, more dangerous alternative destinations. 

The ratio of Jackson's egoistic to altruistic thoughts this October is 90:1. Jackson and his acquaintances, for all of their self-absorption, have lost the ability to introspect beyond the realm of immediate desires. After years of not assessing how they are, they are unable to formulate accurate answers. They each can honestly say they have no idea who they are or what they are here for and can each honestly add it doesn't matter. The truth as they see it is indecipherable without mediation. They prefer the confines of quantifiable, verifiable facts. They can know in a moment's effort who starred in the original Psycho, what is a blue moon, where's the nearest pizza place, when happy hour at Houlihan's is, or how a touchscreen works, and so they have ceased being concerned with the answers to unsearchable queries. At a round table in the UMSL cafeteria on 12 May 2009, Nicholas P. Moraine, PhD, said of Scholte and his peers, "It's not as though they've lost the forest from the trees. They've gone a step further. They've lost the forest from the cellulose and chlorophyll, from the turgid stream of microscopic life." The four other professors and one dean nodded in consent. The conversation ended abruptly when Alphonse Roudegard, ABD, spilled the remainder of his 9.5 fl oz. of Frappuccino.

Jackson is tagged in 891 pictures. Jackson has attended 151 events since joining facebook. He has 23 followers on Twitter. He tweets 5.9 x a day. He Likes: acerbic statuses, any offensive meme, suggestive photographs of female Friends, James Bond, Monster, Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Metallica, Buffalo Wild Wings, Nine Inch Nails, Superjail!, Saturdays, alcohol, mexican food, sleeping, Redbox, The Traffic Law Center, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the St. Louis Blues. His favorite quote is, "Shut the fuck up, Donny!" He is alive evidentially and so he equates life with the evidence thereof. The frontal lobe of Jackson's brain contains the belief that life is more relived than lived. It is too unbridled, too inane to exist apart from mediation. It requires filtering through memory, through cameras, through keystrokes, through finger-swipes. Without being processed, it behaves like the wind: a great, mysterious force broad, fickle, and sweeping without purpose. The limiting and harnessing is what imbues life with import. It is the approved of circumscriptions, the laughs, the praise, the corporate attention, that gives life reality. Otherwise, it is an Antarctic weather system, forlorn and futile. On the drive home, solitary but for the glow of lights, Jackson periodically ceases to be because being is being perceived. The web is his constant confessional and pulpit, his auditorium and his stage. Apart from performance, he is nothing.

His phone responds to his commands. He thumbs the symbol sequence jst followd by d 5-0 bt got awy 2l8 4 dis and posts. He returns to the center of his lane. His fuel efficiency is 24.6 mpg. Three of the 410 spots in the Target parking lot are occupied. Throughout the city, gasoline prices are falling by 2-3¢. Schlote's eyes close for 3.6 sec on a straight stretch of rd. He shakes his head and scrunches his face. He squints. He increases the volume to 26. The lyrics of the song convey the male perspective in a dysfunctional relationship.

At 0230h, he turns right onto Steamboat Ln. He exhales exaggeratedly. 52% of the houses he passes have no exterior lights illuminating. Schlote makes a full and complete stop at the two stop signs he encounters. He has twice asserted to Keith Aubuchon that he is a more conscientious driver while under the influence. On both occasions, Aubuchon has said he feels the same way. The radio station identifies itself and transitions into a commercial break. Jackson yawns and rubs his eyes. In the 2.1 sec of unmanned navigation, the passenger side mirror strikes a mailbox. The sound triggers the introduction of epinephrine into his bloodstream. His adrenal concentration levels spike to 400 ng/L. The mailbox door will no longer close properly. He instinctively accelerates and corrects the car's trajectory. The mirror has collapsed on its pivot point. He scans his surroundings for potential witnesses. There are none.

He pulls into parking spot 14 and turns off the engine. He pockets his keys and holds his phone. The door creaks open and thuds shut. A cricket chirps 56 x per min. The moon is a waning crescent. Jackson walks with poor balance around the front of the Camry. He leaves a hand print on the hood. The distance between thumb and pinky is 8 1/2 ". He surveys the damage. He runs his finger along the newly scraped paint. He says to no one, "It's okay." Schlote taps through menus and applications. He frames the mirror on his screen. The LED flash casts 6 lms onto the target. He uploads a picture with the caption mrr vs mailbx. The photo is Liked 2 x within 7 sec of being posted. Jackson pulls on the mirror until it pops back into position.

At the time of his arrival to his second consecutive one bedroom apartment, 0232h, Jackson James Schlote is 39 years, four months, 14 days, 33 mins, and 12 sec. away from death by natural causes. He was a Communications major this time 18 months ago. He is an employee at Enterprise Rent-A-Car now. He participates in casual Fridays. He is not registered to vote in his home district. He wears a Men's 11 shoe. He prefers Snickers to Milky Way and Jack Daniels to Jim Beam. He consumes 200+ mg of caffeine daily. The farthest north he has ever checked in was at Koz's Mini Bowl in Milwaukee, WI on 17 December 2007. He routinely misses the trashcan when he throws refuse in its direction. Google is his homepage. He is one of 2,410,518, 201 people with internet access.