The minivan in front of me finally pulls off to the third garage from the left. The sedan that was there when I first pulled up is still in the second stall. The break lights flash on the car in the first stall. It pulls forward and a man, slightly younger than me, in a blue jumpsuit presses a button to the left side of the door. It rolls on its track and comes off the ground until it’s a few feet over the man’s head. He gestures his arm, beckoning me forward, and directs me to line my tires with the markings.
Once I’m in, he puts his palm up and I stop, placing the car in park. I keep the engine running, reach down to the left, near the floor, and pull the hood release. There’s no resistance. The toggle swings back and forth. I didn’t feel the typical tug and tell Jumpsuit that I don’t think it’s released. He tries to pull up on the front of the hood. Maybe there’s dirt encrusted in the latch, or water along the edge creating suction.
The hood won’t budge. He bumps along the edge, trying to determine if something’s stuck or loose. A second after he drops to the concrete to inspect from the bottom, a larger man in a button-down and pants of the same color comes toward us from the right. He’s taller than I, by at least a foot. He must weigh just over two hundred pounds. He wipes his hands on a stained towel. He has a familiar face.
He asks how things are going, looking at me oddly. I mention how my release cable is likely broken. Jumpsuit gets back up from the floor and rubs his hands against the sides of his jumpsuit, wiping the sand of his palms. He tries again to bump along the edge of the hood. I turn back to the bigger man, see the name stitched into his suit, and realize, obviously after he had, what the familiarity was.
Mike had been one of those many friends that I’d had in grade school and lost during high school. There had been far more that disappeared between high school and college just as there were many that faded away after that. It's how things go. I hadn’t talked to him in at least eight years. He stood there, maybe noticing my recognition, maybe not, and watched Jumpsuit try to get to my engine.
I used to spend a lot of time with Mike during school, but our friendship lagged outside of its walls. I remember recesses where we’d play tag in third grade, race through imagined obstacle courses in forth, and then test how high we could swing in fifth. We were on different teams in a bowling league during middle school. I’m sure we talked about important events of the day. Events I can’t remember now.
I looked up at him not sure if I should remark on how long it’s been. Ask him how things have been. Tell him how college was, how my job’s going, where I’m living and other things he’d never care about. The small talk would be tiresome and he’d go back home able to say that he’d seen me, randomly, today. No one else would care. I hadn’t talked to him when we shared a building for eight hours each day. Why talk to him now, when we didn’t even share a state.
I wonder why he works at the quick oil change shop in town. I wonder if he’s got a kid, like so many of our classmates already. I wonder if he still spends his time drinking with the same friends he did ten years ago. He’s thicker than he was. I wonder if he has a house in town. I wonder if he’s still living at his parents’. I wonder a lot of things, but don’t bother asking.
Jumpsuit explains he’d have to get in, track the cable, and replace it, none of which he had time or resources for now. He says that once I get where I’m going I should have a mechanic fix it up and get the oil changed there. I briefly remember that I’m a thousand miles over the recommended already, with four hundred to put on today, but the awkwardness makes me turn and get back into the car. I shut the door behind me and look up at Mike.
The recognition I thought was there had faded. My hair is much different than it was and I’ve obviously aged. Maybe he didn’t remember me. Maybe his recognition was a reflection of mine. I don’t remember any specific activities we shared. We weren’t close. We didn’t share too many interests and the superficial friendship disintegrated easily. He’s one of many people with familiar faces and forgotten stories.
Like the cable between the toggle at my feet and the latch of my hood, the connection is broken. It was strained with lack of use. It grew brittle with changing environments. It’s corroded and fragile, but, unlike the release cable, there’s no motivation to fix it.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
frigid
He’s sitting in the passenger seat, wearing his winter coat, covered in a blanket, and he still has chemical warmers in his shoes. I’m using my warmers inside my gloves as a buffer between my palms and the steering wheel. The cold is creeping up my legs from the bottoms of my shoes and through my jeans. It’s like I’m resting in an unattended bath that’s slowly losing its residual heat to a cold room. My toes throb with dull numbness.
About three hours ago, the sun went down and with it, warmth. We tolerated the cold until it was pitch dark. I started the drive, when the sun was still beating against the windows, as the passenger. We stopped some time ago to pick up our warmers and we swapped responsibilities. I wanted to pull my weight on the road trip and we were finally on a road I knew. Glancing over at him, with the blanket wrapped around him like a man-sized cocoon, I regret that decision.
It will be another couple hours, maybe more, before I can crawl into a thick wad of blanket and warm my extremities. I signal left, turn the wheel slightly, and ease into the left lane. There isn’t another car for seven or eight blocks to the front or back, but the movement provides a reason for fresh blood circulation and the slight warmth that comes with it.
The cold is unrelenting. It is there, still and calm. It is absorbing any heat we generate like a dry sponge on a humid day. I pass a dark-blue Toyota Camry and fist my right hand, then release, then clench it again to try and push heat to my fingertips. I laugh after he makes a remark about picturing myself on the beach, soaking up the sun. There’s a goofiness about him that, after seven years, still catches me off guard.
This trip, in the dead of winter, just after the new year, we went out to his school and are on our way back. We are on the last two hundred miles of the seven hundred mile trek. I can’t stand being around many people in a confined space for very long, but with him it’s constant entertainment. He’s foolish and exaggerated, making people laugh with nutty stories or ridiculous ideas. I’m sarcastic and more subdued, making people laugh with commentary and analogies. We don’t come off as an odd pairing, though. We have similar tastes in music, movies, clothes, and other such interests.
A chill runs down my left leg. I curl my toes and shift my foot inside of its shoe. The cold is just a reminder of our combined idiocy. The car hasn’t had running heat since spring. He warned me, but our plan was to leave early in the morning and be midway home before the sun waned and fell below the horizon behind us. That was before I drank a half-liter of brandy and he had quite a few of his own drinks. We woke late, rushed through his errands, and finally started off for home after four.
Now we are trapped in a glass and metal chilling chamber, the only heat coming from ourselves. The warmth of the engine is blocked off to us by faulted valves, fans, or tubes. The vents themselves open freely, but let in the colder air that screamed past us outside our shell. Despite breathing into my coat, and him into his blanket, the windows are fogging. The movement of wiping them clean relieves the cold slightly, but is wasted effort.
The only solution, one I very much wanted to avoid, is to open the vents and let some air in to equalize the temperature enough to slow the condensation. Eventually, I have no choice. I tell him to brace himself, open the vents, and try to spirit myself away. The windows clear quickly as the dew point dropped.
I start laughing, not at something said or done, but at the realization of how ridiculous we must look. If an S.U.V. or pick-up came past us—which wasn’t likely, considering my speed—and the driver happened to look over, I wondered what he’d think. The faint glow of the headlights and the almost-full moon would show us in quite a state.
He is curled up tightly, with only his eyes above the blanket. The rest of his head is covered in his knit cap. I'm shivering involuntarily and alternating my hands into fists while stomping my feet onto the floor of the car. We're singing along with whatever happened upon the radio. This would have looked all the more ridiculous considering our exaggerated gestures. His movements look like the bending of fingers inside a mitten, I can’t quite tell what he's doing.
We discuss exiting, to warm ourselves under the brightly lit interior of the first gas station we came to, but decide against it. We want to get back to our respective homes as soon as possible. There we can warm ourselves without the glaring prospect of this refrigerated vehicle waiting for us in a parking lot. At home we will stay warm and comfortable without jumping back into this torturous chamber. The car keeps getting colder as we drove closer to home.
I enter the house in what seems like three long strides. The running brings slight warmth, but I haven’t felt my toes in forty miles. I toss my bag onto the couch in the front room and am wrapped in a thick blanket on the couch, with my knees up to my chin, rubbing my hands together before my parents can get out the first words of a welcome.
The feeling returns to my fingertips by the time the television show reached its credits. By the time the next is on it’s second commercial break, my toes are no longer numb. I walk downstairs, change for bed, and lay there while my bed warms to my presence. Within moments I'm drifting. The three hours of discontinuous sleep the night before hit me like a professional wrestler off the ropes. Sleep crashes over me like waves on a sun-soaked beach.
About three hours ago, the sun went down and with it, warmth. We tolerated the cold until it was pitch dark. I started the drive, when the sun was still beating against the windows, as the passenger. We stopped some time ago to pick up our warmers and we swapped responsibilities. I wanted to pull my weight on the road trip and we were finally on a road I knew. Glancing over at him, with the blanket wrapped around him like a man-sized cocoon, I regret that decision.
It will be another couple hours, maybe more, before I can crawl into a thick wad of blanket and warm my extremities. I signal left, turn the wheel slightly, and ease into the left lane. There isn’t another car for seven or eight blocks to the front or back, but the movement provides a reason for fresh blood circulation and the slight warmth that comes with it.
The cold is unrelenting. It is there, still and calm. It is absorbing any heat we generate like a dry sponge on a humid day. I pass a dark-blue Toyota Camry and fist my right hand, then release, then clench it again to try and push heat to my fingertips. I laugh after he makes a remark about picturing myself on the beach, soaking up the sun. There’s a goofiness about him that, after seven years, still catches me off guard.
This trip, in the dead of winter, just after the new year, we went out to his school and are on our way back. We are on the last two hundred miles of the seven hundred mile trek. I can’t stand being around many people in a confined space for very long, but with him it’s constant entertainment. He’s foolish and exaggerated, making people laugh with nutty stories or ridiculous ideas. I’m sarcastic and more subdued, making people laugh with commentary and analogies. We don’t come off as an odd pairing, though. We have similar tastes in music, movies, clothes, and other such interests.
A chill runs down my left leg. I curl my toes and shift my foot inside of its shoe. The cold is just a reminder of our combined idiocy. The car hasn’t had running heat since spring. He warned me, but our plan was to leave early in the morning and be midway home before the sun waned and fell below the horizon behind us. That was before I drank a half-liter of brandy and he had quite a few of his own drinks. We woke late, rushed through his errands, and finally started off for home after four.
Now we are trapped in a glass and metal chilling chamber, the only heat coming from ourselves. The warmth of the engine is blocked off to us by faulted valves, fans, or tubes. The vents themselves open freely, but let in the colder air that screamed past us outside our shell. Despite breathing into my coat, and him into his blanket, the windows are fogging. The movement of wiping them clean relieves the cold slightly, but is wasted effort.
The only solution, one I very much wanted to avoid, is to open the vents and let some air in to equalize the temperature enough to slow the condensation. Eventually, I have no choice. I tell him to brace himself, open the vents, and try to spirit myself away. The windows clear quickly as the dew point dropped.
I start laughing, not at something said or done, but at the realization of how ridiculous we must look. If an S.U.V. or pick-up came past us—which wasn’t likely, considering my speed—and the driver happened to look over, I wondered what he’d think. The faint glow of the headlights and the almost-full moon would show us in quite a state.
He is curled up tightly, with only his eyes above the blanket. The rest of his head is covered in his knit cap. I'm shivering involuntarily and alternating my hands into fists while stomping my feet onto the floor of the car. We're singing along with whatever happened upon the radio. This would have looked all the more ridiculous considering our exaggerated gestures. His movements look like the bending of fingers inside a mitten, I can’t quite tell what he's doing.
We discuss exiting, to warm ourselves under the brightly lit interior of the first gas station we came to, but decide against it. We want to get back to our respective homes as soon as possible. There we can warm ourselves without the glaring prospect of this refrigerated vehicle waiting for us in a parking lot. At home we will stay warm and comfortable without jumping back into this torturous chamber. The car keeps getting colder as we drove closer to home.
I enter the house in what seems like three long strides. The running brings slight warmth, but I haven’t felt my toes in forty miles. I toss my bag onto the couch in the front room and am wrapped in a thick blanket on the couch, with my knees up to my chin, rubbing my hands together before my parents can get out the first words of a welcome.
The feeling returns to my fingertips by the time the television show reached its credits. By the time the next is on it’s second commercial break, my toes are no longer numb. I walk downstairs, change for bed, and lay there while my bed warms to my presence. Within moments I'm drifting. The three hours of discontinuous sleep the night before hit me like a professional wrestler off the ropes. Sleep crashes over me like waves on a sun-soaked beach.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
pew
The voices of the choir resonate in the vast space. The decoration is ornate and decadent. Columns of marble hoist the ceiling to the right and left, holding up the tall arch of the ceiling in the center. The walls, ceilings, and doorways are decorated with carvings of figures and words or paintings and patterns. Intricate designs are chipped from solid stone or concrete. There are gorgeous stained glass windows on either side.
The alter is large, solid, and central on the raised platform to the front. On the sides of the platform stand two Christmas trees, exceptionally decorated with tinsel and ornaments. The priest wears his elaborate robes, reciting melodic chants that those in attendance repeat back reflexively. More than once he swings a small orb, filled with smoking incense, in rhythm as he circles the alter, spreading the aromatic fumes.
The Church is meant to be a sanctuary or a place for answers. Decoration, elaborate architecture, and ceremonial repetition further the indoctrination of its visitors. The funds to build such a structure were provided by these indoctrinated masses. Their donations, collected just before the climax of service in small baskets, provide the financial backbone.
Constructing this beautiful place must have cost a small fortune. A modest building, with seating for twice as many, would have served the same purpose, the excess going to providing care and assistance to those in need. Instead it went toward a statue of the crucified Jesus and tutorial carvings. A church is meant to be impressive and intimidating.
Mass tonight, on Christmas Eve, is the seventieth such mass to take place within these expensive walls. How much has changed in that time? What has the Church done to bring light and salvation to the millions? The message bellowed from alter to pew is one of compassion and unity. That message is repeated back from pew to alter with hallow voices. It is a knee-jerk response without feeling. How has the Church made an impact with its accumulated donations?
Seventy years ago this nation was in the midst of transition. We were just past World War I and not yet in World War II. We were recovering from the first Gilded Age by suffering through the first Great Depression. Later, through military contracts and benefits, we would regain a middle class. We would be seen as a benevolent superpower. We would protect the world from Atheist Communists and Muslim Fascists. Our nation, while this building stood near the banks of Lake Michigan, grew rich and powerful on an unparalleled scale, but what has changed globally?
Third World nations of the thirties remain Third World nations with the exception of those sitting on precious oil reserves. The economic explosion that benefited the most powerful nations has caused practically nothing positive for the others. Corruption, starvation, and exploitation are just as prevalent as they were. The Church hasn’t attempted to slow the tide of economic and political exploitation, it has promoted it.
The Church, though preaching tolerance and peace, has, throughout its history, consistently acted against their teachings. Those with dissimilar beliefs are seen as inferior and demonized. It took decades for it to recognize the horrors of the Holocaust. It perpetually opposes scientific breakthroughs that stand in defiance of their core beliefs. It ignores obvious commonalities between it and other established religions while millions die in the crosshairs of that misunderstanding.
The pews around me aren’t half filled. The hollow chants are meek and unimpressive. As recent as three years ago the benches were filled with more standing to the sides and rear. Those around me are with their family or old. The empty seats echo with those who either chose another mass or avoided it altogether. The ones that made it appear to be here in some sort of shallow gesture of their belief or as a part of a long-standing tradition. There is no connection to what they hear or any emotion behind what they say.
Faith did not lay this pew beneath me or raise the ceiling above me. Faith is individual and adept. The people around me, reciting long-memorized, but rarely pondered, words and phrases don’t seem to have faith. Their voices drift past me without intensity. They are a collective. They are obedient drones listening to hypocritical words that have been read, in different languages across the globe, for centuries. The words have failed to change the nature of things. The buildings, like this one, where they chant have had little effect. The walls are cold, the vast space between them is vacuous.
I look to my right, where she stands with her chin to her chest like everyone else. The empty chants and hymns swirl around me. She looks up, notices I haven’t joined in song, and smiles. It may not be forever, but she’s already made enough of an impact to abate the import of anyone else. My faith in something out there having a guiding influence is stronger after my luck in meeting her. Maybe there’s a guiding force that led her to me, or vice versa. Maybe, in some sort of master plan, we were destined to meet. That faith is personal and individual. It keeps me searching. But it’s not here.
This is just a place for people to flock and recite meaningless words among a crowd of like-minded others. It is a place to give monetary affirmations of faith. Outside there is ambiguity, stress, and confusion. Here the mass begins with a preposterous timeline starting at the creation of our planet and ending with the birth of the Creator’s Son. The Son whose words we read, teach our children, and live by without ever questioning their greater meaning or purpose.
The songs are sung, the words are spoken, and the gestures are expressed for the seventieth time in this building. Around the world these same songs, words, and gestures are being repeated in similar places. Outside, the world has shifted politically, economically, scientifically, and environmentally. In this place, faith is objective and static and meaningless.
The alter is large, solid, and central on the raised platform to the front. On the sides of the platform stand two Christmas trees, exceptionally decorated with tinsel and ornaments. The priest wears his elaborate robes, reciting melodic chants that those in attendance repeat back reflexively. More than once he swings a small orb, filled with smoking incense, in rhythm as he circles the alter, spreading the aromatic fumes.
The Church is meant to be a sanctuary or a place for answers. Decoration, elaborate architecture, and ceremonial repetition further the indoctrination of its visitors. The funds to build such a structure were provided by these indoctrinated masses. Their donations, collected just before the climax of service in small baskets, provide the financial backbone.
Constructing this beautiful place must have cost a small fortune. A modest building, with seating for twice as many, would have served the same purpose, the excess going to providing care and assistance to those in need. Instead it went toward a statue of the crucified Jesus and tutorial carvings. A church is meant to be impressive and intimidating.
Mass tonight, on Christmas Eve, is the seventieth such mass to take place within these expensive walls. How much has changed in that time? What has the Church done to bring light and salvation to the millions? The message bellowed from alter to pew is one of compassion and unity. That message is repeated back from pew to alter with hallow voices. It is a knee-jerk response without feeling. How has the Church made an impact with its accumulated donations?
Seventy years ago this nation was in the midst of transition. We were just past World War I and not yet in World War II. We were recovering from the first Gilded Age by suffering through the first Great Depression. Later, through military contracts and benefits, we would regain a middle class. We would be seen as a benevolent superpower. We would protect the world from Atheist Communists and Muslim Fascists. Our nation, while this building stood near the banks of Lake Michigan, grew rich and powerful on an unparalleled scale, but what has changed globally?
Third World nations of the thirties remain Third World nations with the exception of those sitting on precious oil reserves. The economic explosion that benefited the most powerful nations has caused practically nothing positive for the others. Corruption, starvation, and exploitation are just as prevalent as they were. The Church hasn’t attempted to slow the tide of economic and political exploitation, it has promoted it.
The Church, though preaching tolerance and peace, has, throughout its history, consistently acted against their teachings. Those with dissimilar beliefs are seen as inferior and demonized. It took decades for it to recognize the horrors of the Holocaust. It perpetually opposes scientific breakthroughs that stand in defiance of their core beliefs. It ignores obvious commonalities between it and other established religions while millions die in the crosshairs of that misunderstanding.
The pews around me aren’t half filled. The hollow chants are meek and unimpressive. As recent as three years ago the benches were filled with more standing to the sides and rear. Those around me are with their family or old. The empty seats echo with those who either chose another mass or avoided it altogether. The ones that made it appear to be here in some sort of shallow gesture of their belief or as a part of a long-standing tradition. There is no connection to what they hear or any emotion behind what they say.
Faith did not lay this pew beneath me or raise the ceiling above me. Faith is individual and adept. The people around me, reciting long-memorized, but rarely pondered, words and phrases don’t seem to have faith. Their voices drift past me without intensity. They are a collective. They are obedient drones listening to hypocritical words that have been read, in different languages across the globe, for centuries. The words have failed to change the nature of things. The buildings, like this one, where they chant have had little effect. The walls are cold, the vast space between them is vacuous.
I look to my right, where she stands with her chin to her chest like everyone else. The empty chants and hymns swirl around me. She looks up, notices I haven’t joined in song, and smiles. It may not be forever, but she’s already made enough of an impact to abate the import of anyone else. My faith in something out there having a guiding influence is stronger after my luck in meeting her. Maybe there’s a guiding force that led her to me, or vice versa. Maybe, in some sort of master plan, we were destined to meet. That faith is personal and individual. It keeps me searching. But it’s not here.
This is just a place for people to flock and recite meaningless words among a crowd of like-minded others. It is a place to give monetary affirmations of faith. Outside there is ambiguity, stress, and confusion. Here the mass begins with a preposterous timeline starting at the creation of our planet and ending with the birth of the Creator’s Son. The Son whose words we read, teach our children, and live by without ever questioning their greater meaning or purpose.
The songs are sung, the words are spoken, and the gestures are expressed for the seventieth time in this building. Around the world these same songs, words, and gestures are being repeated in similar places. Outside, the world has shifted politically, economically, scientifically, and environmentally. In this place, faith is objective and static and meaningless.
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