call•me•jonah

He said, “man I don't give a shit about your cool and your righteous, just give me the sincere. Those life livers, those truth seers. Be simple or elite, young or old. Man, this man as God, hip as hip shit is for the birds.” And with that he flung his scarf around his slender neck and donned his cooler than cool cap on his cooler than cool hair. Took a final sip from his iced mocha latte, tossed it in the recycle bin, and drove off in his black jetta with missing hubcaps, went home to his space heated cave and wrote a song in the darkness about something he didn’t understand.

this is the moment Jonah's been waiting for. that murmur of dissatisfaction. those pacing feet deep down inside his belly. a whisper, a plea. from long off. a dead man, lying silent. as people gaze. and touch his molded fingers, lay flowers down.
his lips part only slightly, so that only one boy sees and leans close. placing his warm ear to those cold lips to hear these immortal words.

"it's so hard to remember. it's so easy to forget. you only have one life."

When you sit around a crummy bar and drink some drinks with good friends. And at the bar you're all good friends. Miraculously.
There's a woman turning 30 right before your eyes. She's drunk and tells you to remember her. When you turn thirty. She warned you she says. It happens so fast. I came here on my 21st birthday, she says. She's drunk, but not as drunk as her friend, who demands that you admit that this is a good song. You confess you don't know the song. It's Journey. Her husband asks if you know any Journey songs. Yeah. Name one.

One day this will be you, sitting next to some kid at a college bar. Name a Radiohead song, go ahead. Forgetting that you didn't even listen to radiohead in college, convincing yourself that age is synonymous with importance.

You laugh, wishing you had something to drink. You can see yourself, already though you're still a kid, reflected in these people's aging faces. Wheel in the Sky, you say, I know that one. Their heads all bob in drunken approval.

Now you're bouncing from friend to friend. Jumping in the middle and leaving conversations hanging in the air. Talking about something important. Everything is important and nothing is as well. Because everyone is smiling. You're not even drunk, you can't afford it. But all your lightweight girl friends are. And they're having a time. Can't help but laugh, because the air gets so light, despite the musty walls and stagnate air. You don't even notice how your stomach hurts from dinner.

Now driving Manda's car, windows down, music loud, screaming like megaphones to all the choruses of your favorite songs. Pumping your fists like anarchists pouring volume down the highway at night.

Now sitting on the balcony passing a glowing wad. Talking in quiet almost-whispers. You laugh really hard. Don't remember why. Something Chris said.

Now it's late and the girls are heavy eyelids floating like buoies on the wake of unconciousness.

JB can you give me a ride?

Half way back you feel a key in your pocket. Too late now, she'll call in the morning...

Thankfullness is healthy. At least according to the book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About. Of course, I guess we all know that. Just like smiling helps you stay happy.

Jonah tried to be thankful. There was plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. There was all the turkey and sweet potatoes and brocoli rice casserole and stuffing. And his family changed plans so he could watch the Cowboy game. And the Cowboys won. And his whole family was there, and they didn't really fight. And he got two phone calls and two text messages wishing him well. And besides those things. He had graduated from college, and was living in a garage, and preparing to go to Korea. He was healthy and happy and his brother and sisters and parents were healthy and happy.

Things were good. I wouldn't say that Jonah was unthankful. Just that the whole thing kinda slipped by. No one handed him a crayon and asked him to draw all the things he was thankful for on a piece of orange construction paper like they used to.

Well that is....

...until now.

Being home for Thanksgiving, that wonderfully gluttonous celebration, I am reminded that my brother is an engineer and my sisters hang out with engineers. One recently began a relationship with an airforce pilot. This is when self-awareness peaks. Gather world-builders and problem fixers together. Now art seems like masturbation and philosophy nonsense. This is of course self induced. Though with a little persuasion no doubt.

Clash of paradigms:

There is a poster on the wall in my brother's apartment, where he lives with three other engineers. It is a view from the moon of a half lit earth. An image that would fit lovely on an Arthur C. Clarke story collection. The caption reads "If the world was perfect there would be no need for TOMORROW." I laughed out loud. How perfect.

If I had written the caption it would say "If the world was perfect, who cares?" or "Tomorrow the world will be the same as it was yesterday," or " Everything you build will fall, everything you say will be forgotten, and eventually you will return to the same darkness you left in your mother's womb."

Is that pessimistic? I don't think so. Hell, keep building and talking and having babies if you can find a reason to. Maybe people are like fish. We have to keep swimming around in the water to breathe. But we're in a fish bowl. And we only have a two second memory. So we swim in circles but think we're actually going someplace.

But we're not.

But if we stop we die.

How vicious.




...still a part of me wishes I was an engineer trying to build a bigger fishbowl.

So I'm trying to wake up earlier in the morning. By earlier I mean before 9:56 am, which is the time that my anatomical clock dings. I've never been one to sleep that late. I think it helps that in the garage there are no windows. So the sun never shines. Well except through a hole in the giant Whopper poster covering the window.

For a while I set my phone alarm to times like 8 am, but at that time in the morning the only rational I can consider is that I'm cold and the bed is warm and I'm sleepy and the bed is warm and I haven't any pressing reason to awake and the bed is warm. So I quickly hit snooze and curl back up in my sleeping bag. Then ten minutes later I hit snooze again, and again, and again. Until it's 9:56 and that's when I get up.

So I constructed a new plan.

I set an alarm on my computer. With music from iTunes. That way I would wake gently and would have to come all the way across the room to turn it off. I think it was a great idea. I did wake this morning at 8:45 to the balkan gypsy tune of Beirut playing Elephant Gun. And guess what. I decided to lie there and listen to the music for a little while. Then the song ended and Frou Frou began and I thought I'll just listen to this one too. Well before you know it, I'm asleep again. The songs loop until 9:56 when I rise and turn it off.

Tomorrow I'll try something less soothing. Maybe some country..

This is what Jonah's day looks like:
He gets out of bed around 10 am. Eats some cold cereal. Works on a few design projects until around 1. He eats a sandwich. Works on some more design, runs a few errands. A few times a week he goes to work as a restaurant valet in the evening. Before he goes to bed he draws a portrait from a book of Richard Avedon photos and reads Enders Game.

It is an exceedingly simple life. But if Jonah is content with it, then who is to convince him otherwise. For what purpose would Jonah interupt his happy little life? Will he one day convert to religious extremism, become a rabid activist? Will he sacrifice this for a wife and family? Will he turn to the promises of wealth and a career?

Contentment poses a serious philosophical problem. A problem that businesses, and activists, and politicians, and religious leaders must contend with, each wishing to convince the contented that they are content with the wrong thing and that this or that cause is the source of the only true contentment. Perhaps, among the liars, one is telling the truth. But perhaps it is best to ignore them and live by experience, learn to trust yourself, accept your mistakes and acknowledge your successes. Step from the well trodden path and lose yourself in the forest. Perhaps you'll like it there.

It occured to Jonah once while he was driving, a brief transient thought, that he may one day look back on these few months in the garage as the happiest in his life. He may even one day foolishly try to recreate it.

It is a strange thought, is it not? For what does Jonah have now that is worth keeping? What is he afraid of losing? Who is going to take it from him?

He googles antonyms for responsibility.

The night dragged on; a half-paralyzed dog dragging his hind legs home. The three valets borrowed three magazines to pass the time. Kim read Time, Jonah read Newsweek, and Joey left the Rolling Stone untouched.
Everything Kim read in Time, Jonah said two minutes before. Sample:

Jonah (upon hearing about a shirt that simulates hugs): Pretty soon they'll be able to make android replicas of all your friends. You won't even have to see them anymore.
Kim: It says right here look. They've created an exact robot replica of this man. And they'll soon be replacing nurse's aids with robots.
Jonah: It's a strange world we live in.


Jonah (on Iraq): It is a country based on lines drawn in the sand by the British after world war II. It can't hold together because the only reason the Iraqi's were Iraqi's was because Saddam was holding a gun to their heads.
Kim: Did you read this article already?


Jonah meanwhile was growing increasingly irritated by the blurb in Newsweek written by Sam Harris entitled A Case Against Faith. Harris doesn't so much present a case against faith as blow a lot of steam about how absurd he thinks Christian beliefs are, and likewise how stupid the adherers to these beliefs must be. Summary:

A 6000 year old Earth? Idiotic. Embryos have souls? How inane! Jesus descending from the clouds to spare you from a righteous global genocide!? Within the next fifty years?! NUTS! WACKO! LUNATIC! DANGEROUS! Christians are no different from Muslims exploding like firecrackers in shopping malls!

Jonah was reconsidering his interest in Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation. He was rather uninterested in a selfrighteous athiest's narrow-alleyed rant on the pratfalls of faith. He had little interest in this or any religious war.

Let each man make of his life heaven or hell and let each look on to the great unknown afterlife with his own vision of happiness. And let God Almighty judge us. What else can we do?

He put the Newsweek down. Useless magazine. And tried not to watch four bicycle cops harrass Charlie. Charlie is a semi-homeless legless old black man who often sits in his wheelchair at the corner of Houston and Third and gathers money in a cup from the many people in Fort Worth who consider him a friend. The other valet's all hate him. Mostly because he made more money than they did most nights. And he wasn't actually homeless. Jonah couldn't care less. The guy was friendly even if superficially. And what difference did it make if the managers gave him a meal now and then and people gave him $10 for no reason. He wasn't exactly getting in anyone's way by saying "y'all be safe now." He never asked for money. He never bothered Jonah, so when Jonah saw the cops harassing him, Jonah began to grow resentful of the cops. Haven't they got anything better to do? After all Charlie wasn't even breaking a law. He soon cleared off, all sad eyed. He wasn't looking so good these days either.

Apparently minutes later Bennigans called the cops on him. Someone gave him a gift card and he wanted cash. When they refused, he asked for alcohol. Then they called the cops. Then he began ranting about the injustice because he was a black cripple...

Officer Simmons says he's got a nasty coke habit. I don't know if its true. He also says that his house is about to get abated, because its a crack den. Officer Simmons is a good humored, talkative cop who comes by the stand and tells stories practically every night. He has a good heart no-doubt, and a fierce love and devotion to his job. He's the kind of guy you want to make sure you're friends with. He says give money to Salvation Army and churches, not to the bums. Good idea I suppose. Anyway, he made Jonah feel a lot better about the cops. Maybe Charlie is a clever conman. Maybe the smiles and the friendly gestures are an act performed every night to feed his crack habit.

It's hard to know. Jonah probably won't stop being nice to Charlie, but he is still naive. He keeps thinking there are people who's motives aren't peppered with ill intentions. That there are bums who really are just trying to catch a bus to New Orleans and that there are intellectuals who really just want to know the truth. Because life is hard and everyone needs some friends. And you don't lie to your friends.


Maybe he wants to believe these people,

because

when he's reading The Myth of Sysiphus and The Koran,

when he's stranded a long way from home...








he wants people to believe him.

He looked down at the padded manilla envelope number 5 sitting unsealed on the copy counter in Kinkos. Ten steps away, the mailing center. He had spent the drive over thinking, mulling over the possible outcomes. How many different paths could he tread? But as soon as he passed through the double sliding glass automatic doors, he pushed the red autopilot button in his head. His hands slid towards teh envelope without his requesting it. Pulled slowly the ribbon covering the sticky underside. He ran his finger down the checklist in his pocket. Everything is ready. Silently his fingers pressed the lip down, sealing the envelope closed.
"Ground or express?"
"South Korea."
"Oh well you'll need to fill out one of these."
Without hesitation, he penned in his home address and the company's address. Handed the form to the girl behind the desk.
"Forty six dollars."

And it was done. Thought can only carry you so far, before action must dictate. And the future discerns. Whether action was right. Or wrong. While thought remains safely behind to whisper "I told you so. I told you so."

How many times did he watch It's a Wonderful Life? Every Christmas practically. And how many times did he judge George a failure? Standing over the bridge, contemplating suicide. If not for the angel, the movie would be tragic. A virtuous, ambitious man driven to suicide by the failure of his dreams, by the harshness of the world. If not for divine intervention sparing his life, we would be watching A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve instead. But how many angels will come to your aid as you sum up your life? Or is it your sole responsibility to satisfy yourself, by whatever means, that you might not come to that bridge with those malign thoughts?

George taught Jonah a lesson. And it was this: if you postpone your dreams and aspirations for whatever purpose, be it noble or otherwise, you are killing yourself. Slowly. And one day judgment will come upon you from within and you must judge by a jury of one whether or not you truly lived a worthy life. If you cannot answer 'yes' then everything becomes empty and an adversary. Your wife, your job, your kids, even your youth (now a shackle of idealism) and your dreams (a symbol of naive and harmfully selfish foolishness) are your enemies.

Perhaps the only solace can be found in God. An omnipotent being capable of being tailored to your life. A noble being who can justify every failure and sacrifice. A warm quilt to snuggle up to. A soft pillow to ease your worried dreams. A melody to calm your heart. As your eyes like heavy sheets close and you sink into sleep on that comforting deathbed.

I'm sorry I can't be there for you my friend. I hope you'll understand....