War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044) (11 page)

56 — Glory-Seeking
Adulator

Dear Fake Advice
Columnist,

Why should anyone listen to
you?

Dear Glory-seeking
Adulator,

What memories you inspire! Once at
night, during a passionate summer romance when my lover held his
wet, naked body against my own in an earthen furrow among endless
rows of grapevines on an Italian hillside, he asked me the same
question.

58 — Hatemonger

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

Sometimes I hate everything for no
reason.

Dear
Hatemonger,

Fear more the undoing night. Allow
your mind to succumb to foot-stamping must-have-to-shoulds. Demand
your every-which-way and now. Do not think about rocks in a river.
Rage at them even if they’re just meditative. Do not begin to
accept that if you were traveling downstream by boat, the rocks
would be a constant threat to your vessel. But please—please—don’t
dare consider the other view that if instead you were crossing that
river on foot, there might be a way to use those exact same rocks
to help traverse what could drown you.

15 — The Dumbass
Solidarity Project: A Facebook Forum

Currently, the
public school media political church system in America breeds a
bunch of dumbasses who have virtually no ability to assimilate
facts into opinion. Our critical thinking and reasoning skills have
become dulled by self-indulgent modes of subjective punditry. It is
my belief that anxiety can be diminished not so much by constant
gratification alone but also the more an individual understands
available facts in a context of informed opinion.

The dichotomies in our cultural
conversation make it difficult for us to communicate as Americans.
Leaders prey upon our collective inability to process
information.

This forum is going to be a place
where experts and dumbasses can intermingle safely in a respectful
online forum so we can further the American conversations related
to matters of public policy, religion, philosophy, finance, and
ethics. Developing skills related to discussion, debate, and
articulate delivery of information can help an individual gain a
comfort level with his or her opinions and their assertion. We need
to ask and answer questions of each other. We need to speak to
those with whom we’d never interact.

It really means a lot that I'm not the
only dumbass with an interest in the best use of logical fallacy, a
malaise of generalized dismissal, and the condescending tone of
sardonically saturated sarcasm for the purposes of winning at all
costs in pretty much any earthly form of one-on-one rhetorical
debate.

If you don't know whether you are a
dumbass or an expert, don't worry about it. Everyone is
welcome.

A FOLLOW-UP STATEMENT ISSUED TO THE
DUMBASS SOLIDARITY PROJECT — REGARDING ITS IMMINENT
DEMISE:

I just want to take a moment to say
how vapid and meaningless the past few months have been for
me.

90 — Cycle of
Victimization

Dear Fake Advice
Columnist,

I get victimized a lot. It’s okay, not
that I like it, but I’m used to it. I grew up with it, married into
it, divorced myself and got more of it, and can’t imagine any other
way of approaching my life. It works really well. Right when I
start to think maybe there’s a problem with the situation and
muster the nerve to discuss it, the man I am with just tells me I’m
crazy. I know he’s right.

So those liberated years went by:
Rape. Domestic intimidation. Abuse. Control. Manipulation. Guilt.
Shame. Screaming. No help except some pills. They’re supposed to
fix what’s so obviously wrong with me. He doesn’t take pills.
There’s nothing wrong with him.

I don't call the cops. My husband and
my mother wouldn’t approve. But I’m sitting here on the floor in
the kitchen, my forehead bleeding from where he beat me with the
cordless.

I don’t really have a question because
I don’t actually want to ask. I don’t have the courage anyway. But.
I guess I’m just wondering if I should go to the hospital, or do
you think maybe it’s better if I just take care of this head wound
myself? I may even have some gauze and medical tape in the upstairs
bathroom.

Dear Cycle of
Victimization,

I wish I were a man so I could give
you some better, more authoritative advice.

Still, good for you for not involving
the authorities. Your socioeconomic status really doesn’t allow it.
No one would understand. Cops are for poor people. Patrol cars
shouldn’t come to your kind of neighborhood.

You don’t need my help or the cops’
help anyway. You know the drill. Totally cut yourself off from all
honest human contact in an effort to save face. Do whatever you
have to do to keep up that good front. Do something meaningless,
disconnected, alienated, alone. Decorate baskets. Isolate if you
can. Deny abject humiliation. Stop breathing so much all the
time.

And, really, whatever the form, no
matter how private you think this connection is, it’s safer for you
to put this text away. Your current husband’s going to be so pissed
off if he sees you reading the paper, or the book, or the e-reader,
or the smart phone, or the computer screen, or the PDF print-out,
or the HTML 5, the unsupported EPUB 3 or wherever it is that we can
find a way to interact. Come on. Aren’t you scared? Even I’m
terrorized. So don’t drag me all into the situation. I don’t want
to be involved in this with you. The minute he walks in, he’s gonna
know it’s about him.

59 — Detritus

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

I love taking responsible action. The
problem is I don’t really do anything and don’t really care. If you
get this letter, someone took the wadded-up paper with one stupid
hopeful sentence on it and mailed it to you for no good
reason.

I can’t imagine any of my friends
getting anything out of my trash unless I’m getting some kind of
recycling lecture. So probably my question to you will just molder
away in a landfill, expedited by a layer of decaying
guacamole.

Yeah. That’s what’ll happen. My
friends don’t take much initiative in real life. That’s where I
live: real life. It’s got different rules than where you live.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t even know if you’re
going to be able to give me any helpful advice, because I mean,
real people operate pretty differently than you do. They almost
never do stuff like rescue important thoughts on paper. Either they
aren’t around, or they don’t realize someone even had a personal
moment of inspiration and then—embarrassed—threw away the
evidence.

61 — Infantile

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

Sometimes I hate authority. Especially
that venture type with otherworldly hourglass figures and unbounded
futures chalice aloft. I just cannot abide how they come right in
wearing mirror sunglasses over unfulfilled hopes. Yes, sometimes I
really want someone to just tell me what to do. But then when
someone does, I always hate it. How can I resolve my
overly-entitled American sense of infantilism?

Dear Infantile,

Never fear and listen up: I’m going to
tell you what to do! I am in charge! And I’m really not willing to
listen to anything you have to say, unless I get to thwart you and
punish you and control you and become a dominant overbearing force
in your life. I will shoot you down for no good reason and—if you
know what’s good for you—you’ll thank me for it. Alternatively,
like in the case that you make a point? I’ll dismiss you from my
life summarily. All this talk of equality only goes so far. You’re
of no use to me unless I can rely upon your servitude. So there is
no reason to resolve anything between us diplomatically. Dependence
is requisite if we’re to remain in contact.

35 — Breast
Meat

Breast meat at about 138 degrees pulled from the
bird and then mango chutney. Salt necessarily. And ice water—after
the ice has melted completely. If I must be pursued, then with that
kind of predatory playing-house romance eat steamed sweet carrots
or pearl onions and garlic roasted with celebrity status. And if
even further supplementation (wellness comes from vitamins) is
necessary, fine, then I suppose sweet potato pie topped with
pecans. All knees bent for writhing unconscious. If you are still
not satisfied, and Lord, it seems you never are, then get up, go to
the fridge, get the fries out, and eat them in their cold ketchup
Styrofoam hangover corner. And then in the morning, if you happened
to stay, bring the paring knife and the fruit rot back to the bed.
Talk some on a flat-backed morning and pull the knife through; cut
me off some sustaining pear petals. The skin chew-slips. And the
fruit chew-slips. And you know that moment when four feet resist
the floor? Linger there. Un-till fields, these horizons of
childhood, these memories of the plains.

62 — Patriotic
Anomaly

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

I could not give a fuck about my
country.

Dear Patriotic
Anomaly,

But I think my worst offense was just
being part of it all. I remember all this gungho bullshit. What
I’ve done is learn how to balance myself on the tightrope. All this
rah-rah sensationalism and hyperbole that was supposed to convince
me and rile me up and scare me and make me stop thinking for
myself.

And I remember thinking, "This is
ridiculous." Because there I was in a foxhole in the rain. Not a
real foxhole in a real war. But a pretend foxhole in a controlled
environment. My glasses were fogged up. My Kevlar helmet kept
tipping forward, which pushed my glasses down, and that pulled my
hair since there was an elastic strap that kept my glasses on my
face. I stood on two cinder blocks, trying to balance one on the
other end to end, so that I would be tall enough to maintain my
position in the foxhole (which was really a section of sewer
conduit on its end driven six feet into the ground with gravel in
the bottom), and my position consisted of balancing my chin on a
plastic gun made by Mattel, leaning my hands on sandbags turned to
concrete in the rain then sun then rain then cold solidification of
what can no longer be molded, not falling asleep in the rain behind
foggy lenses, and most importantly on exuding the general
impression of seeming to give a shit.

63 — Wannabe

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

Sometimes I pretend I’m stupid,
because it’s cooler.

Dear Wannabe,

You’re stupid.

54 — Hammered

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

Sometimes I get hammered and pick
fights with people who are hammered too.

Dear Hammered,

In general, it's a good idea not to
antagonize drunken strangers. (Especially not that guy.)
Displacement can be misconstrued. When you find yourself
commiserating with a mutually-petty drunken friend about the
inability of the waitress to provide a replenished bowl of salty
stale popcorn just within earshot of the thuggish bruiser who has
long had a crush on the poor girl and won’t let her get past him
without his insisting upon her opinion about his latest TROUTMASTER
blog entry, try not to say something off-topic like, “Hey,
Dickweed, move your fat ass."

64 — Meaningless
Existence

Dear Fake Advice
Columnist,

I’m one of them. I mean, I’m deathly
afraid my friends won’t like me in a still shot of a place I don’t
recognize. I’m in silver and plaid, sweating through harmonica
music notes in a stadium crowded with wild abandon and 50,000
assigned seats. I’m a rebel. But I never do anything really too
wrong. I would never wear paisley or jockey silks. I wouldn’t play
any instrument with a reed after eighth grade. Maybe drums. Maybe
the bass. I’m afraid of messing up my future, implicating my
family, and drawing the friendly fire of morally relativist
judgment. I don’t want the microphone. I don’t want to dust off
home plate. I won’t wear a beret or eat oranges in public. I don’t
mind talking about speedballs pitched for old trophies while
someone else carries a tray balanced by beer bottles. Those aren’t
Wiffle ball bats mounted on the wall, you know. Not any red rose in
the snow, or computer-generated heart with starbursts next to a
kitten angel mewing under its halo in the candlelight of a baby
sucking an adult finger where a naked lady stares with longing eyes
through two curled fingers toward the animated passion of bunnies,
butterflies, and lovers beached in a valley where bashful hats bend
down obscuring bow ties in a seizure of robotic choreography
revelatory of no organic nature.

Dear Meaningless
Existence,

You know I don’t have to be there for
you if I don’t want to.

66 — Son

Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

I don’t know how to honor my father.
He died, and so now I’m fucked because I can’t ask him. Do you have
any ideas that will help me? I was hoping you could steer me
towards a bunch of objective correlatives or something: maybe
otherworldly hourglass figures with unbounded futures but
unfulfilled hopes, green macaws, birthday cake and creamy fishnet
venture chase clubs, spades, hearts with hated palm trees in a
heated lawn in some little city in a big resurgent desert. What I’m
looking for here is some way where I can honor him without having
to do all the things he always told me to do. I need a way to make
myself feel really good about everything without having to invest
actual tradition in my life.