The Little Things in Life

So far, life has not turned out as I assumed.

I'm not sure why it would. I figured I'd be married (with children) and a professional success by now. But, what, exactly, have I done to further that end?  Yes, yes, I was an Army officer, and, yes, yes, I went to law school.  But I somehow thought competency and not butt-kissing was important in the one and that showing up as opposed to getting good grades was important in the other (to be fair, I did try for good grades, but As and I are like oil and water, so I quickly gave that up and rested on my race and gender and geographic good fortune).

Surely, loafing and being a southern white male would carry me through as it had for quite a many generations of my forebears (not true at all; they were quite impressive folks-ed).  As for marriage, all I've managed to do so far is occasionally date (usually) "unsettled" women.

So, here I am, a 32yo layabout, living in a ramshackle apartment with rats crawling in the walls . With two roommates, A and B.  No wife. No job.  Hell, my room isn't even my room; not really.  To get to it, I have to walk through B's room, which we partitioned off from the main part of his with a walkway girded by floor-to-ceiling curtains.

A warzone veteran and I live in another man's (basically) closet, a point that B never allows an opportunity pass to remind me.

That's my life right now.

So it was tonight that after a night of bar trivia (lost) and general malaise and the watching of unwatchable reality television ("Full Metal Jousting"!!!) that I trudged to my little fortress.

I was a trifle punchy though, indignant at the indecency of it all.

Standing in the pitch black of my walk-through, I paused, knowing my light-sleeping roommate was trying to ignore my clomp-clomp-clomping through a blocked-off sector of his room.  I waited just longer than should be acceptable.

And then I said in a breathy, sultry, seductive whisper,

"Tonight's the night, big fella!!!!"

And B, himself also in his thirties and unemployed and thoroughly disillusioned with the myths of success that we'd been brought up with, quietly and calmly responded in the silky pitch-black,

"I will $@#!in' kill you."

And good for him. Well done.  He hit the timing.  I set it up and he knocked it down.  The joke had been played and returned.  But, oh no, our banter had to continue.  We weren't done and it had to be followed through.

"Was that $@#! and kill me or $@#!ing kill me?  Because the difference is crucial," I asked, my lawyerly and classical training taking over and my need to know whether he meant a conjunction or a gerundive.

The beats were perfectly timed as I heard naught but the machete he keeps under his mattress ssshhhhhlllliiinnkkkkk!!!! as he pulled it out.

"Well, then. Good night," I said, gregariously and headed to my room.

"Good night," he muttered. And sssshhhhhhllllliiiinnnnkkk!!!! back it went.

It's shared misery that helps a man make it through troubling times; 'tis true.

Cormac McCarthy's "The Road": Disjointed Thoughts/Observations/Conundrums

Below are a list of my thoughts concerning the book.  They are not set in stone by any means.  I'm simply trying to process what I read and bounce around ideas so some of them are redundant/similar. If anyone has anything to contribute, please add a comment.

1.  The family at the end is a representation of what the father and son could have been?  Father says they're the good guys and they help, but he only helps others because of the son (how Christ redeems us in the face of the anger of the OT God/Father?).  As the kid says, "we talk a lot about helping and being the good guys but we never are." We never help. Man struck by lightning (ancient sign of God's displeasure).  The people in the basement.  The thief (Father' instinct is to punish/consign to death. The Son persuades forgiveness).  The old man with no name.

However, the family not only lets him come with them, they tracked him, sought him out.  Family is if they (Father and Son) chose goodness.  Thus, the other boy is his age, the woman exists because she didn't kill herself, the man is strong because he's not dying on the inside (coughing).  They also have a little girl.  The other little boy is the same age, so he was conceived prior to the disaster.  If the little girl is younger, than that means they conceived her after the catastrophe and she is therefore a very physical manifestation of hope.

2.  The fire is the pneuma, the breath, the holy ghost.  The living do carry it inside, particularly in a world that gets colder and colder.  The boy's breathing though it got shallow didn't fail.  The man's breath was failing him the entire time.  His fire was not pure.  That's why he recognized the goodness/godness of the boy.  The woman at the end confirms, "the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time." (Last spoken line of novel)

3.  The 2nd man made discussion about even helping the boy with his family.  So though he helped, he was reluctant, just like the father, though, like the father, he could be persuaded.  It took the woman for that though (because with no mother, the father could not be persuaded to help the other little boy though the son begged for it). For life to sustain, men's hardness must be softened by women's compassion? "They say women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves." The 2nd man had no clue what the boy was talking about "the fire" but the woman knew.

4.  Hallucinating. Boy, I love me some hallucinating.  The dying father basically says, "Imagine me and I'll be there".  If the boy can imagine the father, then too can he imagine the family as they're his desires?  The kid's the only one who sees the other little boy earlier and the dog that he also sees may not be there (is a decoy to draw people in).  Before suicide, mother says "A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost."

5.  Groups of four tend to be very dangerous.  The four walking ahead of the army.  The four (including a pregnant woman) following who eat the baby.  The four men they come across he must threaten with the pistol to get past. The family at the end though.

6.  Hope is not the point.  Love/Togetherness is the point. The beauty of the bond. The present. The moment.

7.  Was mother wrong (suicide)?  Was father wrong (survive)?

8.  The road is a symbolic path forward.  Like time.  No going back. Progress because there is no other option. It is only after they leave the ocean, head back inland that the father dies.  Regression is fatal. They must go to water. Water usually represents life, but it is devoid of life (ocean), all that really matters is the fire, the breath.  Rain and snow are deadly.  Significance of the fire/flare. See God.  Fire brought much death though.  Water used to bring life, then fire brought death, but water no longer brings life, while fire represents life now.  Purity of water important?  Water unspoiled, rain, the cistern found, the water from jugs in the bunker, all are healthy.  Bad water (affected by man) brings sickness.  In the unspoilt water lived the trout in all their mystery.

9.  Adam/Eve.  Fruit is important. Mentions eating fruit first beyond any other items routinely.  Makes mention when they're out of fruit. Apples.

10.  The Father. The Son. The fire (holy spirit) within.  The Son (NT) wants to save.  The father (OT) simply can't allow it.  The father dies and the son remains.  The father is replaced by a more nurturing, compassionate father figure. Repeatedly talks about God being dead or there being no God but the boy. First spoken line of the novel: "If he is not the word of God, God never spoke." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  There is no speech without breath/fire to fuel it.

11.  Three days with the dead father's body before the road forward again.  Three days of Christ's descent to hell? Or that after three days the redemption, the proof of the sacrifice is shown? Hallelujah! Christ is risen! Family finds him.


12.  Last thing the father says before he dies, "Goodness will find the little boy.  It always has.  It will again."

"This Means War" (Unfilmed Realistic Script)

INT. CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia

In a room full of agents at their desks, divided by a center aisle, JAMES KIRK and BRIT MCACCENT, best of friends and fellow spies, sit across from each other.  Each are smiling at their computer monitors.

JAMES KIRK

My new girlfriend is fantastic! She's a bit older than I am and has some kids

with a bit of a douchebag actor, but if you don't pay attention to her chin and 

she's in a pushup bra, man, she's pretty damn cute.

BRIT MCACCENT

That sounds great.  My new girlfriend is fantastic as well.  She sounds awfully similar 

to your girlfriend, but then we're in the DC dating pool and the insecure divorcees here

are damn near interchangeable.  Not that I have a problem with that. 

JAMES KIRK

Do you want to do something guys NEVER do?!!!!

BRIT MCACCENT

Of course! I'm British!

JAMES KIRK

Let's get really giddy and pull up the best photograph of our girlfriend we can find. 

Then, on the count of three, let's face our monitors to each other, like macho, deadly

men would never do, and beam over our cutiepies!

BRIT MCACCENT

This is a bit frenchish for my blood, but fine

JAMES KIRK and MCACCENT start clicking away to find the perfect photographs of their girlfriends.  They are getting bizarrely chipper.

JAMES KIRK

You ready?

BRIT MCACCENT

I can't wait!

JAMES KIRK

1, 2, 3!

The two master spies whip around their monitors, only to see that they have the same picture up.  Clearly, they've been led on by the woman.

JAMES KIRK

Huh?

BRIT MCACCENT

Whoa!

JAMES KIRK

What a fucking slut!

BRIT MCACCENT

Yeah, it's not like I had drinks with her once; we're in a relationship.

JAMES KIRK

No offense, but I have to go get myself tested.  Who knows where else this lying bitch has been?

BRIT MCACCENT

I am right behind you. Again. HEEEYYYOOOO!!!!

JAMES KIRK

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That's awesome! But seriously, if she gave us something, I'm going to 

make her disappear.  You don't fuck over a spy.  

BRIT MCACCENT

I'll help

JAMES KIRK

Hey, since we work for the CIA, let's go ahead and put her on the no-fly list for shits

and giggles when we get back.

BRIT MCACCENT

Righty-O!