The Propagation

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May 12, 2005

A Creation Story Called Genesis

“The Literati Bare Knuckles and Unroll Sleeves to Bring People.”
A Post-Irony Electronic Epistlary of Insecurity, Beratement, and The Ultimate Inaction

I know what happened, you escaped our (now, ‘my’) fiction club and ran off to The Escape Fiction Club to be clubbing with the mother tongue in our fiction fatherland, didn’t you?
[http://www.escapefiction.co.uk/]

Or, was it with the candied stiletto heel of Ms. SpikeQueen—Madame of the Wordsmithing Mistresses at “ILove2Write,” not to mention the All Time Top Poster there among her club of three—with which you pierced my heart? But, dude, just listen: We can totally get babes to join our club, too! We should think of something we can offer free to everyone who comes. We could totally join forces with that group, dude!, and then have a party at my brother’s frat house! http://groups-beta.google.com/group/ILove2Write

I mean, I understand that those were some late night, perhaps not so exciting posts I made, but I was just trying to do *something*…test the system, at least. Ironically, I guess that’s what broke the poor sucker after all. It’ll never work right as long as Sean’s not in it!

Or, is it that ol’ and only worthy standby about having children and jobs and church responsibilities and a doodle habit on the verge of taking over again? I’ll buy that one.

And, I’ll buy the one where you’re writing, and writing so fast and fabulously furious that you have not a white speck of time to pick from off the boards for use as a chipette of chalk with which to write lightly about writing (and, as likely as not, when lunching later, then attempt to talk heavy about it). That would RULE so HARD! X-Tra Hard forever! Times not quite a hundred. Why write about writing when you can write, you say to me with the inflection of accidental judge, and the tip-cocked eyebrow that gave away the fervently stubborn and moral confusion. I indulge the caveman theatrics and rhetorical drama, in the end, because that’s a tight character, right there, pat, pat.

And then to keep the world all up in balance, you and I cut in line in front of a couple of walking bikes that must’ve gotten tripped up by a gang of playing cards in an ambush behind the music portable. A few of their stiff bodies are still caught in the spokes, making a ticlick emanating with a thistle honey warmth that incubates ciracian dirkets, and the slather of thin metal sludge you get from playing tether ball too long. You take no backward glance the whole time my head screws and unscrews itself. You just walk right on back, with the same swagger you climbed into when you went to your mother’s salon to work her friends and customers for dollar bills toward your own book-based self education when she’d not at home but here every morning evening and Lord’s day to provide your you and make sure you won’t ever have to do it. The reproaching stories worked even better, the way you could turn it back around to mean that the better he got out and got on, the sooner he could save mother, rescue her from the cabbage steam. Genius how you came up with that; I’ve died more deaths than ever has been suffered by loyalists, to know where it came from. But you don’t take another man’s material. And that’s the problem, earth shrinking as populations explode and whee besides the Sahara, etc. etc., your fervent belief that every man, woman, and child should follow their dreams and live lifes based on their single greatest earhtly passion, as long as it’s legal, but how the trouble you’ve always had is have too many passions. You just simpliy loved the tranquility of mother nature blah blsah when you sat on her shores to fish—you were denied the unique pleasures a swim, with the leg you’ve been assigned by god to took after for him. And what was the other one someone alsywas said, you’d say nah it was sily and another oulw d make her fact into a tube to say noooo, and you’d shrug and air dug and mumled into making pure, primative contact with the pure mineral rich soil we havehere, thinking about how the simply thing of growing is, or our mothers would get sick of us. Someone will take the bait. He’s sitting on the edgeof the classorom, pole and worm in hand. nobody knows that mudpiees and sea fishin combine togther to make? He knew, too, how long to make the baleful beauties wait, too. Then, No, you don’t! because it’s new, brand new, I’m inventing it. A couple did it yonder and I’m tkaing it real world It’s the wave of the futer, feed kids, filling cupborads and making world peale.

I’d do it to, no doubts in my mind about it at all, if I could. If you could? why? Well, you expounded,america is a beautiful and noble country where if people were honest and owrked hard they’d get ahead just like everybody else. But he wasn’t america. At least not a luck americn. The rules apply to everybody else. why. the school. How he wanted to go and learn and suck but no, but that’s okay because he could just learn at home. People are going to need me and I want to help them by making farms on the bottom of the ocean, but mom worries, you know, and well, the leg is bad, as much as I’d like to do it, but things already grow down there and I have this feeling this feeling that I’m special, not becaue there’s a darn thign special about me but because somebody want s me to do smething for him and that I’ll be the firs to to it and that he’ll kill anybody who gets in the way and love, help, protect anybody who stands int he way or doesnt love, help or protec me. but i don’t need it.

{
You know, look, I’m beginning to bore myself, I hope that’s okay with you. In sum, what happens is, the kid expends great effort on his target group, enjoying their hair mussings along the way to their conviction which he wins; he convinces the wholehearted ladies to chip and pitch and kavetch in for his education, which of course he must go away for, in order to receive it most profitably, the far universities invariably being the better and best. They fall in love with him that way, and carry on their affair(s) communally, yet with each their own individual touches, a given they insist on by foggy interpretable implication in cagey, off-topic banter, especially in the week leading up to his much self-fan-fared visit, inter-semester visits during which he sees no old friends, just the ladies. He brings them books and papers, grades to show them, photos of the girls he is study partners with, gives them jerseys and sweat shirts in oversizes to wear around.

Good reasons arose—study abroad, internships, extra credits, field research, the like—to delay his graduation by a negligible-in-the-long-run two years, and in the meantime he’s thoroughly and spiritually pitched his vision of man’s nutritious salvation lying in the repurposing and scientific cultivation of expanisve kelp beds “there for the taking, just waiting to be plucked, and it’s a harsh, first come first served , finders keepers competitive ethic in this field, he’d lilt to them. We’ve got to move, weve got to prepare, jump at this (all the cliches, even the onces that don’t like each other and don’t usually get along publically), but I can’t do it alone. I need your help he scanned the room with his index, not too sharpely straight. We’re a team here. We’ve always been a team. And I don’t want this to ruin it. Money has a nasty habit of doing that. Especially at the sums we’re talking about here. It tears people—-family, friends, brotghers,—apart, but you are my family, more family to me than my family, and I don’t want that to ever happen. I won’t let it happen. we deserve to be rich as much as tghe next guy. I want this money for you. You shouldn’thave to worry about a thing of a thing in these golden years, you should be off in the caribean sun, you should be sending daily gifts and cards to yhour grandchildren, the ones your’re allowd to spoil, and now that you can get away with it, do you have the money? No, look at this. You guys don’t deserve this…” and so they funded his investments, too. They were the little old VC group. And they wanted to see the reports, demanding little sticklers, but he was always ready with them. He was always one to prepare ahead, work the occasional evening and weekend without complaining, reallu poring his heart into it, and this gave the ladies trust in him. They belly up and ante in. Each to her ability, recieving compable points, standing, status, and stocks in the company he named Bang & Bang, after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the car that could go in the water as well; he thought Chitty perhaps, in a non-juvenile context, give the wrong impression. They ladies had no idea there was so much involved in doing a business. They didn’t have many years left. They were eager and impatient, and hed’ chuckle at them shaking his head. Then squat down at the arm of one, the questioner, and tell them how it all worked, in a way that was interesting to them. These things take a long time, he said the ovious. There’s regulations, the government has to get involved, you got your lawyers, my secretary, of course, But the bulk of it is in patents, those will hold you up—I don’t think we should proceed with out a patent. Why, one asked, can you get in trouble? No! he was growing impatient himself. Worse. You can lose your whole idea, all your R&D, all your upfront costs, all your life! It’s not worth it. I won’t do it. My intellectual capital is worth too much for me to disrespcti it like that, resregard. But you knwk if youladies want to go on ahead and do it yourself—without me—you have my blessing. I would never want to stand in your way.

The ladies looked blank faced. Most of them nodded, a couple thrilling to the idea, some mulling raising alternate eyebrows and alternating intervals as kid scans the crowd. I just don’t want you to get hurt. a lot of asty people out there that would go so low to take advantage of an old grandmother. These men, you can see it in there eyes, they’d hurt their own mother. Maybe not kill her out right, but come pretty darn close. Over business. it’s ridiculous,m the petty greed that gets involved. I know you all aren’t like this but I’ve done a lot of busines in my day, i mean, even at my young age, I’ve been around the block and I see it time anditme again, something that starts harmless and friendly, like nothing mor than a good idea, and people start to see dollar signs, peole who ws neer like that before, good, church-going people, the sweetest people you ever want to meet, not like these men I see, or, not at first anywayk, and then eventually they all turn into those men. Like vampires and zombies or something. Everybody has their own pace—some turn right over. Had a heart for it all along. ruthless. and others manage to hold out for two maybe three yeats. but eventually it catchs up with them. eerybody falls. everybody. i seen it. so I just wanted to say before we parted that I really respect that about you guys, made me feel real comfortable, you know. Even though i’m just the kid here. But youknow I’m the kid with the idea. IK’m the idea man. if you didn’t have a good idea, you would neger have no business. That’s where they all start out from. Like us. And you know what, you ladies, I love you, you all so dear to my heart, you kow, just let me run over a few reminders for you so nothing falls thorugh the cdracks as i leave town and you get p to speed , maybe inthe summer, i don’t know. all depends on how much y’ll decided to allow each toher to wach tv. Heh, but you guys don’tneed that. Just ignore me, ignore me, I’ll shut up now. I’m just in a good mood now that don’t have to worry about all this stuff any more. It’s not easy, let me tell ya. So many things to remember, but you ladies, they say can remember and do like 25 things at once. But look, let me have yhou write down a few things for you to get started on memorizing and juggling, you know. the sooner the better. and he just launched right into do’s and don’t and dates for the banks, the steel that must be bought from japan—they’ll have to find and hire an interpreter, and down here around wall strtt they’re not cheap. but what am I talking about, you ladies have all done this before like a thousand tinmes haven’t you? But, you know, youre’all very smart women. You’ll figure it out. It doesn’t take that many embarrassments and lost cash on the books before you steoip up and learn real quick! So, look, if I was you’all I’d call the patent office at least once a week. They don’t know you over there yet, and it takes some wrangloing to get in with those biddies., especially if you’re a womank, which I think you all are (said iwth wink). They’re catty! Trust me! But tell kathy I sent you. There’s still a lott of legal hoops to jump through. If any of you are familiar with maritime law, maybe your husband before he died speciallyized in that or something, then you’ll have no problem. I went ahead and studied the books after I got home at 9om, but you gals go to bed beofre that don’t you? 7?…he gave them lists and numbers, dates and notes, until every one of those plowed and furrowed faces were overcome and filled with bewildermentl. I can see we’re all getting a little tired with all this technical old boring business offikce work. why dont’ I head out and if you need ahnything , have questions, whenever, day or night, please don’t hesitate. I’m rooting for you. You guys and this experience, gosh everhting! all these years! it will alswyas keep a special place in my heart. I mean that. You ladies are special. Okay? Good luck.

The ladies convened privately outside of the conference room. chitter chatter, bang and blather, pitter patter all night, dreaming consulting, reinging in with realisticism. a new spikey msyticism for them. a wall they hadn’t fogged through beofre. And they called him up at his mother’s house at 7:15 before he was to leave for the airport for his flight back to Milwakee to meet with a berrings manufacturer. The best in the world, he told the ladies. A little more expensive but worth it. If the bearing freeze the vehicle freezes, the whole operation freezes. And remember, finger raised and waging, this is salt water we’re talkkinga bout, full immersion for extended periods of time under god knows what pressure. Nobobodoy knows that they’re going to do. No body’s dong this before, he almsot shouted back thorugh the phne. We’re going to do it. Ladies! Now I still ahve to cathc my flight. Ther are contacts up there I think we may need to tap into. engineers, and I got to get a doctor start working on the food. You know, now, tha you’re—meaning your product, say a steak or something—your’r only as good as your team. It’s like, if you have bad people working for you, you will make bad food, you know. Oka, ajnyway, I’ve got to run. Call me with anything. otherwise I’ll reconnect with yall there in the home ij a couple three monghts. I’ll have the status reports ready. K?
We’ve got so much on our plates already, let’s not bite off more than we can chedw now. we don’t want to get burned out. we’ve got a long road ahead of us and we’re in it for the long haul. Thank you for your confidence in my ladies, I won’t let you down, I promise. You know it’s always been my life’s dream and ambition to be the world’s leading manufacturer of underwater farm machineery and equipment—or as we call ourselves, those of us now building this industry and making these kind of decisions that will stick and last for generations to come, hell, for hundreds of years? The Term is Aquaticulture. Did you know that? I bet you didn’t know that. did you? Well now youi do! you can tell your friends! They’ll be impressed. Tell them your head of business thunk it up. I’ve always been a dreamer, ladies, and that’s what it’s all about. How yo ever gonna get any where if you don’t dream of it. You don’t, I’ll tell you. And ladies, let me tell you something, honestly, there’s no other people I’d rather be dreaming with. You’re good people. We’re going to win this race, damn it. Now I got to go. I’ll be in touch regarding the annual report, if you want to offer this great inestment opportunity to your firends—only your closest now—we’re not quite ready to let the cat out of the bag just yet but, hey, there’s plenty to go around. Tell them to get in now while the gettin’s good. Okay? So, I’ll be in touch. I’m going to need you all’s opinion on some matters coming up in t he near term but I don’t have time now. got to go. Take care. bye.

And that was how he got his job back, and never had it jeopardized again. Was never questioned again. Not that he ever really had been but that signed, sealed, cemented, and delivered it. And the longer he was away coordinating, getting the factory stocked with materials, equipped, line workers trained, lobbying up on capital hill for more beneficial (mutally, he spun it) harvest regs, environmental kinks ironed out as to how they applied to thier concern, patent headaches all over again, it built up to the point that he thought any day now, they’d break sand, put the seeds down there.

But the kid was doing nothing. Nothing at all but maybe the travel he reported. He patented nothing, met no one who wasn’t in a bar or brothel, he had only bad neighborhood buddies. Was what one might refer to as a fuck-up. But he loved those ladies and they his dream, a dream that they adopted, and to which he stayed loyal, a dream of mothers and grandmothers, more than he knew what to do with. But he did know what to do with them. He kept his semesterly, holiday, and spring break schedule through till he was by the side of the last lady’s death bed.

They held hands. She shook. She looked at him as if he were about to do something bad to her, out of the end of her only eye not mucused shut. She wouldn’t run the dampened swab over it periodically like the nurses told her to. So he did it for her, for as long as he was there. That turned out to be 3 and a half days, a bit longer than either one of them expected. Nearing the end of the first day she asked him to swab the other eye, and as he did, and he was always very gentle, as if he’d had to do it for his own mother, for ten years, she kept the shift in her look toward him, not allowing her eye to fall back centered into the orb of her bone like anybody else with anyone would have done. What a normal person would do. An at-ease normal person, he allowed.

During the second day, she had a bit of fire come to her and she spent it disrespecting the male nurses. Said she they didn’t belong there, that she couldn’t trust them with a chamber pot. He winked at her when she said that, believing she must have pulled it out for his benefit, but she said later that as she approached death, her youth was coming, too. They were going together. They hadn’t for so long. She wasn’t the person she was when she was young. She’d cry over that person every long now and distant then, not too much, not a maudlin person she said, but now was the time if any to decide where those two peoople’s paths split. She didn’t know if she should have followed her young self. Were children more innocent, she asked him, giving him no moment to respond as she went right into the list of ways he reminded her of her own son. He died, too, she said, like you.

The kid thought about making a confession there. A slight one. A for the record one. Because he didn’t feel sorry. Bad a little, yes, but he’d have done it again , and again, for a hundred years. And it’d be a pure hundred years. It would be a hundred years of youth. Her hand fell from his and off over the edge of the bed.

He looked at her hand and thought he’d like to shake it and say nice to meet you. That’s how he felt, grateful that he’d ever met her long ago, and been able to put photos of beach front properties in it, travel brochure shots of potential test ranch. they’d have a corral of tractor subs, they’d let them out at night for moon and star swims, right good irresponsibly childish behavior—under the sight of no one. That’s the part he liked about their fantasy. But the women never wanted to get away. Shame most of them died in hospitals and home bathtubs.

And the kid felt like he’d just met this figure in his life. He wanted this new woman. She couldn’t be so old, he thought. She didn’t look old to him.

He hitched his hip up on the edge of the bed, took that baggy hand into the both of his, and said thank you, dear. And what can I do for you? Do you like stories? I’ll tell you a story.

}

And in my dream, you’re wearing these funny clothes, and I stop you with this question:”Do you know how to do it all?—surprisingly vague as I was thinking of taxidermy in particular, the stuffing back in, the fleshing out, the eye shining And then again I felt the outline of my soul, the crispy beveled border (around the rest of the fully opaque ) of it slice through the skin like the back of a robalo cresting through the rapids in an upstream struggle. I feel like if it just lift itself a little higher in the chair, my fishy robalo soul, and stretched and thought of itself a much lighter, more beacon, and outward, less dark rich goo of a substance, that there would be a re-piecing together taking place back into the womb which we reached, as ridiculous as it sounds, through a portal in a disused wardrobe.

—-

Sew,, IK’ve been dabbling a bit with the big toe in the wavy watery pond of Rilke’s letters to that early-enrolled poetry student, lately. Thought you should know. Be warned.

And I keep asking myself if I told you about emailing D. almost/about/a little over a month ago. I keep telling myself that yes, of course, so don’t embarrass usself with a rerun, but now I don’t think I ever did. (And I’m too lazy or bored to do a search on my emails. Heavens!)

Oh, hey, do you have S.’s phone number? I need to give him a call to invit…I mean,I need to ask him about something. Thanks.

[initials]

[EX: Flipped Form - the turning of art struts back in on selves for comment in new form and in the birthing itself of that new form, which as parent, really, must take responsibility for its success and propagation in the world. A tough, unglamorous job.]

Posted by peligrito at May 12, 2005 2:42 AM

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