Session 8 | Keep it Moving
sad for the rest
I was trying to make everyone nervous when I said I had a gun, but they all laughed instead.
I’ve got huge news for people who put their faith in consumable goods.
We have a new kind of epoxy for your heart. It also tastes great.
Take a tour of the factory with me, and I’ll show you every little part.
We’re all a part of something bigger than ourselves here, and that’s why we’re excited to come into work every single day. What we’re doing here just matters. It’s not any more complicated than that.
***
This is where I put my attention. It’s a reverse wishing well that gives you pennies when you throw in a wish. The pennies aren’t American money. They work at a store that only sells things you don’t need. The weird part is, when you’re in the store, it doesn’t seem like they only sell things you don’t need. It seems like the merchandise matters when you’re there.
Pick something out.
A toy mouse.
It costs 300 pennies.
***
There’s not a man luckier than me. I can walk down to my hidden spot in the yard under a new moon without any of the lights on. Walking the same path every night for the last two months has etched the pattern into my memory. If I lost my mind tomorrow, I think I would still make the trip. It’s my body doing it, and I’m thankful for that because so many of my thoughts are from foreign sources.
One day I got bored and tried to trace the source of every thought. I can’t explain what ended up happening in concrete terms, but I can provide a metaphor. I was unable to lasso the airplane, not because my rope wasn’t long enough, but because the plane flew too low and it cut me in half before I could duck.
***
Playing lawn games with the cousins. Terry shoots Dale with a pellet gun. Someone catches Maddy smoking a joint in the trunk of Jorge’s mom’s truck. There’s a piece of metal lodged in Jenny’s head. No one can find Luke. Sabrina keeps inviting boys over, and her Italian father keeps asking questions. Emily’s arm hair is long enough to choke somebody. Chase got so sunburnt he died. Clarissa got intimidated when she heard the ice cream truck music. April fell in love with a goose. Kyle fell in love with a beaver. Danica fell in love with the idea of personal liberty. Timmy started an autonomous anarchic neighborhood with some kids from a different school. Kelly ate five pounds of mashed potatoes. Greg kept trying to get everyone to play pretend. Donna bleached her hair and killed herself. Nick didn’t stop jumping rope. Z took notes on everyone’s outfits. Hannah tried to catch a cartoon cat. Philippe shot his gun into the air in the middle of an intersection and nobody even noticed. A different Hannah called a different Z because she wasn’t sure she had the right address.
I am 75 and visually handicapped. I smoke a lot of cannabis. I've driven 3 million kilometers. I can still drive but I don't really want to and neither does my wife. We love life in our small rural community where I write and she reads. She spent her life writing and teaching people to read and write and I learned how to write when I turned fifty. The grandchildren are sophisticated urbanites and we are the Spaciest Space Cadets. I am a rural rube who talks like an urban intellectual and my wife is really a space alien from a distant planet with a piece of paper saying she is a Doctor of Philosophy and a University of Chicago graduate.
I forgot my driving glasses as I went to replace my lost driver's license and tripped on a curb that is painted yellow but is no help when you have little depth of field.
A dozen people rushed to my assistance but I had my trusted chauffer there coming to pick me up.
I cannot lift myself up but I was fine and I was able to inform them my trusted chauffeur (chauffeur is French for driver) was on the way. She arrived and told him you grab him here, you grab him there you stand here and you stand there. I got up with smile on my face and made a dozen people very happy. Sometimes an old autist man falling in a parking can make a dozen people go to bed with a smile on their face.
I miss Guy Clark but there are a million things that money can't buy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TWwyhCVBDg
I left America 30 years ago but I bet there are still a million things money can't buy.
I worry about America. Religion is neither moral nor just it is only religion and religion is not the belief in god or justice it is just belief and in America that doesn't buy a stale donut.
Quebec is a moral and a just liberal democracy where people are not afraid of the rule of law because in Quebec justice rules and the law must serve justice not lawyers.
This isn't America . We pay the highest taxes and it pays for peace , order and good government and a government that we own and command. I worry about America and its faith in fate. There is no intelligent design in my universe it is all serendipity and every day is a zippitty do dah day except sometime when old men fall down they never get up and never smile again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bWyhj7siEY
I enjoy your writing I hope it puts a smile on your face as big as the smile I try to wear on mine.
Of course Song of the South is Racist. Disney was a Fascist and in 1946 America hated fascism.
I think I don't remember thank goodness they haven't burned down all the libraries yet.