If my life were a work of fiction, I would have glanced up from struggling to retrieve my i-phone from between my seat and the console only to find a large, dark green flat-bed farm truck loaded with caged chickens coming at me. There would be the collision, the spinning of my little gray Toyota Camry around, and a bunch of flying chicken cages, that would implode upon impact, sending terrified birds scampering to and fro. When all the dust settled, a single chicken would rise from the rubble, stand on the heap of carnage, let out a little under-spoken bock-bock, and then peck at my bloody, amputated arm.
This is how I pictured it all going down as I made my way through the drive-thru at McDonald's where I ordered a 20 piece Chicken McNuggets for Marci and Everest and Chicken tenders for myself. It's not much of a meal, but the whole thing, including my large Sprite Zero, was only eleven bucks. It would have been even cheaper if I could have settled for Chicken McNuggets myself, but I can't eat them; they're simply too processed. One time when we were traveling up the Oregon Coast, we stopped and had breakfast at a little pastry shop across the street from the bay in Newport, and afterwards, we walked along the docks. A fishing boat was unloading these little tiny silver fish, and I asked the men what all those fish were used in. One of them replied "Chicken McNuggets". I have no idea if there is any truth to that or not, but it was enough to steer me away from them forever. When I split apart a Chicken Tender it at least appears to have the texture of chicken. This is not necessarily so with a McNugget. Sometimes, on the rare occasion I try to convince myself to eat one, I'll split one open, and it is so oyster-like inside that I expect to find a pearl. No thanks. I'll spend a little extra for the strips. But as Marci and Everest don't seem to care, why not save some cash?
What really happened when I made that distracted left turn is nothing. Lava has a lot more traffic than Sandstone, but generally the oncoming cars are still a half block apart. Besides Utah small town streets are so wide that even if a car was coming, I would have countless escape routs. It's kind of like avoiding cows in Brooklyn or reality while watching Fox News. It just isn't that hard. So nothing happened.
Nothing is a big part of my life. One night I spent hours trying to slip a humorous jab at Trump into a novel I was writing and nothing came. Really? How is that possible? That's like not being able to grow pineapple in Hawaii or mold in Miami. Yet it was so. I sat there, sucking snot back up my runny nose, my head slightly numbed from a thick cold coming on, and nothing came.
I am alright with nothing being a big part of life; truth be told, I prefer it that way. Decisions are not my thing. Neither is movement, nor direction. I always thought J. Alfred Prufrock had the perfect life, and I wondered why he couldn't enjoy his stasis more:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table...
One hot muggy afternoon in Arlington, Texas--are there any other type?--I was entranced when Professor Cohen read these lines. He went on, line by line, to explain that although the poem appears to be about the stagnation of a middle-aged man stifled by an upper-middle class lifestyle, it is really about the insecurity and angst of a nineteen-year-old T.S. Eliot, the author.
I cared less about all that. What I cared about is that he seemed to be describing the perfect life:
In the room the woman come and go
Talking of Michelangelo
Oh how I could picture that. In eleventh grade I had taken an art and music history class. Apparently, only the daughters of the upper-middle class take art and music history because I found myself in a room of seven beautifully dressed, sophisticated-talking, charming girls, one obviously gay guy who fit right in with them, a stunning, oh so slender, elegant teacher sitting on the edge of her desk, and myself, a shaggy-headed geek, who wore the same white, button up shirt everyday that was two sizes too big, tucked into Levi's that did not reach my ankles.
They'd spend the hour casually discussing the most beautiful nudes ever painted as the images were projected on the classroom wall and casually discussing their world travels. Oh I remember that one from the Louvre or I had the greatest cup of coffee just across the street from that fountain in Rome.
Me too. And there's that great little travel bookstore right next door. Rome is so wonderful in the spring.
Oh, and Paris too!
Yes, we should go. I'll ask my daddy.
That's when Miss Jones, our elegant teacher would chime in. Actually, I was planning a class trip in June for those interested.
That, I knew, would not happen--at least not for me. These were the daughters of lawyers and bankers, world-travelers, cultured in all things fine, including the arts. I, on the other hand, was the brother of a real, working artist, and the poverty that goes along with it. I was Pipp without any great expectations. My brother was Picasso in his blue years, long before he would rack up thousands by doodling on a napkin enjoying some wine and cheese at a cafe with some friends before rushing off to see another bull fight.
Yet unlike Pipp in Great Expectations--I'm really mixing my allusions here--I was a bit more satisfied, though not completely, with my lot in life. Not only did I not expect to go to Europe, I didn't even expect to be noticed by these wonderful girls. I was satisfied to sit there all but invisible and be entranced by their musical voices, their long slender legs, and perfectly manicured toes sticking out of leather sandals. Their legs were always crossed under the desk, and they'd idly swing the leg resting on their knee casually back and forth, a leather sandal casually dangling off the end of a foot, ready to drop off at any moment--the sandal ready to drop, not the foot; that'd be gross. I'd become mesmerized, like watching swaying palm fronds from a cabana in Hawaii--not that I ever experienced that--while their artistically styled sentences dropped rose petals on the dirty tiled floor of a typical public school classroom. Why they didn't go to private school, I don't know. I went to high school in a fairly wealthy district, with a diverse population. There were apartment complexes to be sure. I lived in one of them. But we also had one student who was dropped off at school by a limo each day and the parking lot was full of BMWs.
The point is. I was happy enough to just observe those girls' world from the outside. Like J. Alfred Prufrock I yearned to be part of their world, but unlike him, orbiting around the fringes didn't make me miserable--at least not yet; that would come later. Yearning was there, a slight scent, but not yet an agonizing pull.
Put simply, I was quite happy to observe that--
In the room the woman come and go
Talking of Michelangelo
