(no subject)
I had gone down to Mansfield to visit friends and indulge in a local tradition honoring the towns founding. The festivities were almost over when I arrived and only a few people remained in the streets, as everything that had been set up that morning was being taken down. The stores were closing up, and in a little more than an hour there were to be fireworks at the south end of town. I found Raz, Mckenzie, and D at the small park in the center of town, listening to a local band playing the last few songs of it's set for the ever dwindling audience in the parking lot across the street. I gave them a shout as I approached and tossed the frisbee I had been carrying to Raz, who hollered back to me joyously and sent the frisbee along to Mckenzie, as D was lighting a cigarette.
"Where have you been, man?" asked D, "We thought you were going to be here way earlier."
"My car broke down something like twenty miles out of town. I must have been walking for three hours before anyone stopped to give me a lift. Unbelievable, like a hundred cars went by and no one even looked at me. You'll never guess who finally pulled over to give me a ride. It was James' ex girlfriend, Nicole. She was on her way back from the bookstore near the mall. It was pretty cool though, remember I lent her that book by Kurt Vonnegut? Well, she liked it so much she's been reading him ever since. Just picked up "Breakfast of Champions" so I told her if she finishes it while I'm still down here she should give me a call and we'll rent the movie."
"So what are you going to do about your car, man?"
"I figured Mckenzie and Raz could help me with that. Your brother still have that Tow truck?" I asked Mckenzie.
"Yeah, but I don't think he'll be around till late tomorrow. Some statey is going to have it impounded by then." He said, tossing the frisbee back to me.
"Hey D, go long" I said, and tossed it along to him. "I'm not too worried about that. I broke down right near a rest stop, so pushed the car into a spot near the back. I don't think anyone will even notice it"
"I'll give him a call in the morning then, I don't think he'll mind picking it up tomorrow night."
"Wait, so where do I fit into all this?" asked Raz.
"Your family still owns all that land where the old factories used to be, right?"
"Of course, that place is like a junk yard man, no one wants to buy it because no one wants to have to get rid of all the shit that's in there."
"And you still own that shotgun, right?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, I took a look at the car after I got it to the rest area and it turns out for the cost of fixing the thing I could buy a lot, and I mean a lot, of shotgun shells. I've been meaning to get a new car anyways, I've had that thing since I was 16."
"Oh, hell yes."
We stayed there and tossed the frisbee around for a little longer, listening to the music. When the band finished we decided to help them pack their equipment away, and as thanks they gave us directions to a party they were going to later that night.
At the fireworks we played more frisbee, and looked around for people we knew, or people we didn't know, provided they played frisbee. When we found none, we watched the rest of the show from the trunk and roof of D's car, drinking cold bottles of sarsaparilla.
"You know" said D, "I don't think people really appreciate things anymore."
"Things?" asked Mckenzie.
"How many people our age are here right now? The four of us, that's it. I mean, the weather is fucking perfect tonight, the sky is clear, and let's face it, fireworks rock. It's not just that though, think about what we're drinking. I'm still amazed we can find sarsaparilla, you know how many people I know that have never even heard of the stuff? It's all Coke and Pepsi with everyone else, It's all corn syrup, coloring, and carbonated water."
"I wonder if most people even know what root beer really tastes like." I said, causing Mckenzie and Raz to give me an odd look, and D to raise his bottle to me before taking another sip.
"Think about how much generic brand soda sucks. The cola doesn't taste like Coke or Pepsi, the lemon-lime soda doesn't taste like it contains either lemon or lime, and the root beer is insultingly bad. Then you take it up a step, and you have Mug and Barqs, which still don't taste like root beer. So we take it up another step, and we get IBC. You know why IBC is so much better than the competition? They aren't making 10 or 20 types of soda at once in quantities fit for worldwide distribution. They're making root beer, and three other drinks not too dissimilar to root beer, and they're bottling next to nothing in quantity compared to Coke. IBC is so much better because of this, but I'll tell you something; It only kind of tastes like root beer. You want a good root beer, you have to find a small brewing company, or better yet have a crazy uncle or neighbor that brews it. Otherwise you're still just drinking corn syrup, carbonated water, and coloring. More and more homogenized bullshit."
"That's exactly what I'm saying, man" said D, "We've got all these companies that are too damn big. The fact is that the upper echelon of Coca Cola is going to be business men, not brewers. These people are looking for the cheapest way to make and sell a product, and it doesn't matter how good it is, it matters how good it sells. These companies have gotten so big that the competition from mom and pop is never going to stand a chance. At best they'd get bought out and the recipe would be changed so they can make more cheaper, and just keep the name. Yeah, this kind of practice works for companies like Microsoft, sure. If a group of kids write a really good program and a lot of people use it, they get a job making more programs. It works there because if Microsoft releases an operating system that's hard for people to use, that doesn't do what it's supposed to, and is hard to write other programs for, the software companies that write for Windows and the people that use it are going to switch to Linux or Apple, and Microsoft is going to have to fight back up. These companies need to be big, because they need to advance. Coca Cola and Pepsi don't need to advance, they need to manufacture cheap, distribute heavily, and the product will sells itself, because people don't expect anything more from a soda than to fizz."
The fireworks show was at its finale now, and we sat quietly gazing at the thunderous color. In parts of the parking lot distant from us could be heard an orchestra of car alarms.
II
When we arrived at the party everyone there was already rather drunk. Most of the band that had invited us were in the basement, we found out, so that's where we went. The basement was furnished and featured a pool table along with loud rock music. The music all but drowned out conversation, so often all you could hear of anyone else's conversation was someone asking loudly "what?"
I played a few games of pool with the band and we all drank heavily for a while, but before long I was growing weary of the atmosphere and decided to step outside for a smoke and fresh air. I needed to escape the banal discussions and routine chaos that tend to accompany any good party.
On the back porch I was alone, except for the laughs and giggles of a pair of teenaged lovers in the woods, no doubt about to engage in the drunken and reckless copulation characteristic of youth. Lingering opinions from the conversation at the fireworks were haunting the back of my mind, and trying to find satisfaction for them here seemed to be as unlikely as finding someone who spoke Russian
I was lighting my second clove when the door slide open behind me and a voice called out in greeting. "Oh, hey man" they said.
"можно спросить?" I replied.
"What?"
"Are you out here to avoid some one, or are you out here to avoid every one?" I asked.
"Out here looking for you, actually"
I turned around at this, and was a bit surprised to see an old friend of mine, Jed. In my drunken haze I hadn't recognized his voice, but I smiled at him now and asked how he was.
"In a rough spot, to be honest, but getting better" he answered. He went on to explain how he lost his old job and hadn't enough money to continue schooling, but was going to be starting employment somewhere new in the coming week. At least, he hoped.
"Well, I'm glad to hear things are on an upswing, at least"
"Thanks man. So, what brings you down here anyways?"
"I needed a break, I guess. I like it up where I am, don't get me wrong. It's quiet, and that's what I wanted. I got pretty sick of this town after everyone graduated. Still, it can be too quiet sometimes. Life up there can get monotonous. You loose that sense of adventure, that will to do anything, that golden mark of youth."
"Yeah, it was getting like that for me too. Working my way through school, I didn't get any time to enjoy the social side of it. I stopped feeling like I was learning, and started feeling like it was just more work. I want to finish school, I want to have a job, but I'm really not sure that's what I need, you know? It's starting to hit me, that school isn't about education anymore. It's not about preparing you for the rest of your life, it's about getting you a job. It's about setting you up to make more money. That's just not what I'm interested in, it feels so empty to me."
"I think" I said, "That something about the world is broken."
III
I returned to the loud rock and billiards in the basement, where Mckenzie and Raz and several cute girls were chatting away around the couch. They called me over, and Raz slid me a foot stool to sit on.
"Have a seat man" said Raz, "we're being charlatans."
"Oh?"
"Discussing the current state of art, we're on the virtue and faults of 'conceptual art' at the moment."
"So then we're at the decline?" I asked, eliciting a few laughs.
"Well, conceptual art encompasses so much. It's true that many are abusing the freedom of form it provides, but there are others using it to accomplish great things" Said Raz, electing to ignore my jest and move directly into the meat of the conversation.
"Name one that isn't abusive of the freedom." I responded.
"Robert Rauschenberg. His "Erased De Kooning" challenged the idea of art by displaying an act of destruction as an act of creation."
"If erasing art makes one a brilliant artist, I could just erase the Mona Lisa and be acclaimed as one of the greatest artistic minds of our time, and a millionaire to boot. If you asked me though, I'd be a criminal and a fraud. Now don't get me wrong, I like the idea of challenging art, and I think Rauschenberg is a very clever man. The telegram he sent to an art museum that read simply 'This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so' was incredibly funny. But it doesn't make him an artist. If anything, it makes him a satirist."
"Douglas Huebler. I think it was his Variable Piece #4, where he asked visitors at a museum to write down one secret, which they had never shared with anyone, and then compiled them together into a book. It creates a series of powerful messages about society. It can scare us, it can make us smile, it can bring us comfort. It can show us we aren't alone in the world. That's a beautiful thing to do."
"That's true" said one of the girls, "but is it really the role of art to be sending these messages?"
"Well of course, art has always been used as a method of communication." Replied Raz.
"What about Abstract Expressionism? The artists of that movement weren't trying to communicate a message at all, they were focused solely with the art itself. Most often the paintings had no meaning, and were meant only to glorify the act of painting itself. It expressed only the beauty of paint on canvas. Any other meaning that was found existed only in the viewer of the art."
"Even then, Abstract Expressionism became a tool of the CIA, a weapon in a cultural cold war. These paintings can be seen as symbols of American freedom, and thus became a means of conveying a message after all."
"But that was never the intent of the artists, that's just an example of governmental manipulation. It really doesn't apply to art itself, just to art in the context of society, which would be another discussion all together."
"Conceded."
"Then I present this" I said, "While any given abstract expressionist painting may not hold meaning, and expresses only the art itself, the movement as a whole still had a message. Similarly with surrealism, where one would be hard pressed to find meaning in any individual painting, the art form as a whole preaches a message of escape; from the concept of everyday reality. Where abstract expressionism rebels against the idea of an art-object, creating painting without objective qualities- eschewing subject matter and focusing only on the act of creation and seeking to express the beauty of art itself, as opposed to a portrait expressing the beauty of it's subject, it states the minimal importance of the material, of the objective world. It preaches about the nature of art and it's relation to beauty."
"Wow, nice counter-point" said the girl, "I'll need to think of a response to that one."
"I think I've got something. My names Jess by the way" said another girl.
"Hi" I replied, and introduced myself in return.
"Nice to meet you. This is Heather" she said of the girl who had been talking before, "and that's Sarah. The problem with your point on abstract expressionism is that many of the so called abstract expressionist painters didn't follow that philosophy. Rothko is an abstract expressionist, but not according to him. He wouldn't even call his paintings abstract, even though they fit cleanly into the abstract expressionist school of painting. His work had meaning, not as part of a movement or taken as a whole, but individual paintings had meanings, had subjects. We could argue that Rothko was for those reasons not an abstract expressionist, but stylistically he was, and there isn't much room for denying that. He's not alone in this either, many artists painted with a certain style but rejected the ideas and philosophies of the other artists in that style. A certain school of art doesn't have a philosophy, but the artists who practice it might."
"What about schools of art built around a philosophy? Conceptual art doesn't have a unified style, it can take any form at all really. Christo's Iron Curtain for example, which only existed temporarily, and wasn't even something he directly created. He didn't sculpt or paint it, he more of 'arranged' for it. He set up a bunch of oil barrels to block off a street, but the central point of this piece was the traffic jam he caused. He simply gave the art an opportunity to make itself, and it did. This is something could happen accidentally, it's only conceptual art because of the idea behind it, because of the concept. Of course, a painting or sculpture can still be conceptual art, no matter what style it appears to be in, as long as the esthetic concerns were secondary to the idea behind the art. Here the artists are bound by philosophy, not by style." Said Mckenzie, taking an active role in the conversation for the first time since my arrival.
"Which is exactly why I would say conceptual art isn't real art. There are a few conceptual artists out there who really have brilliant ideas, and some of them still respect the idea of art as having beauty independent of it's meaning, and these artists are incredible, and they are doing really wonderful things. Art doesn't have to be devoid of meaning to be art, but just because it does have meaning, or at that least some pretentious jackass is claiming it has meaning, doesn't make it art. It has to be, well, artistic. A lot of movements have challenged the preconceived notions of what art is and isn't over the years, and they have taken more aggressive stances as time went on. I think the only one of these movements to ever really show us something about the nature of art is conceptual art. It showed us what art isn't, at it's most basic. Art is not conceptual."
"Then what is it?"
"Perceptual, at least I would wager so." I answered on Jess' behalf. "Art can be conceptual, but this is more of an incidental trait of only some pieces of art. Real art, I would have to say, stands without it's concept. Of course, since art is perceptual not everyone would agree to this. However, I cannot think of another stance which would allow for that disagreement and still hold, so I would argue on that basis that art being perceptual is the truest qualifier we could state. Is that about what you had in mind, Jess?"
"I'd say so, yeah. Very nicely put, if I might add."
"Thanks. Anyone else, any thoughts?"
The others were all rather comfortable with this conclusion, and so we began to chat idly amongst ourselves on other topics, our two groups settling in as one and getting to know each other through our own stances on things that didn't warrant debate and funny little stories about time spent with our respective friends, present, absent, and past. Before any of that though, Mckenzie was asked his personal stance on conceptual art, as his point on the relationship between a school of art and the philosophy of its artists was made passionately, but without any sign of bias.
"I only have this to say on conceptual art- that the artists, with few exceptions, are complete douche bags" was his answer.
IV
"I had a strange dream last night" I said. "I was on the road with two friends, I'm not sure who they were, but one was a guy and one was a girl. We were traveling the country, just the three of us. We made random stops in cities and small towns alike, but not to stay the night or anything like that. Whenever we saw something one of us thought was beautiful we'd stop and stay there for a while, just hanging out and talking, fooling around a lot. We had a lot of chalk with us, all different colors of chalk, and sometimes we'd be drawing on the walls or the ground around these places. We took a lot of pictures, of the places we stopped, of us playing around, of our chalk art, all kinds of things. When we were done drawing and taking pictures or whatever else we were doing, we'd drive off again, with no destination in mind. We climbed to the roofs of buildings and the tops of mountains and watched the sun set. We danced and played barefoot in the rain, we slept in grass fields, we flew kites on empty stretches highways, and we hit golf balls in deserts. We gave our money to homeless people in the cities, and if they played an instrument we would try to think of songs they might know that we could sing along to. We shared our food and drinks with them. They were the only people we talked to in the dream, the only people we could really see. Everyone else was just kind of a blur or a shadow, just the shape of a person, they didn't have voices or faces, just human shaped splotches of color floating along the streets. We never gave them any thought. It seemed like the dream lasted years, like we were just going on and on like that, moving through towns and cities, leaving drawings in chalk on the streets or golf balls in the sand as the only evidence we had ever been there. I'm not sure how to describe how it felt in the dream... Warm, I guess. Even when it was snowing, I always felt warm."
We were sitting on the car outside a cafe, drinking coffee and smoking, waiting for Mckenzie's brother. It was early in the evening, the sky was watercolored with oranges and reds, with thin streaks of soft pink clouds, a sweet goodnight wish from the setting sun. The air was still and soft, and slightly cool.
"I had a dream last night that I was going to have to duel Aaron Burr. He and Doc Brown from back to the future had been traveling time, and they were at a party. Aaron thought I had insulted his mother." Said Mckenzie.
Chapter 2
The car had been towed out into the land Raz's family owned, and Raz had picked up the ammo for us. Raz, Mckenzie, and I were waiting for D to get back from a beer run, and then the fun would begin. Normally alcohol and shotguns are a bad idea, but we set up some ground rules for safeties sake. We set it up kind of like drunken baseball. The rules went like this;
Whenever someone else misses, you take a drink. Whenever you miss three times, you chug your drink.
Before you shoot, you must put the shotgun barrel up on the ground, place your head on the top, and spin around it three times while looking down, without breaking contact. If you can't, you're too drunk to shoot.
I'm kidding, of course. It got a laugh out of Mckenzie and Raz though. The real rules were pretty basic, make sure the shotgun was empty before you handed it off, don't get completely trashed, and obey what D says. D doesn't drink very heavily, since he usually ends up having to drive somewhere when everyone else is drunk. Since after about half an hour he'd be the most sober person there, his word would be law.
D arrived, and we decided the order we'd shot in. I got to go first, since it was my car and I had paid for the shells. Raz went next, since it was his land and his shotgun. D was after Raz, since he was doing the beer runs, and Mckenzie was last, because he didn't mind going last.
We used to go out here before I moved and "shoot the shit" as much literally as figuratively, so I was familiar enough with the shotgun to load it no problem, and knew how to brace it against my shoulder when I was firing. The motions were still very natural for me, so my mind kind of drifted as I went through them and took aim for my first shot. What we were doing began to feel like a dream, a phantasm of reality.
BOOM! The thunder of my first shot rang through the lot, echoing off the old steel walls of mostly destroyed warehouses and rippling over piles of scrap metal. It cut through the casual silence as violently as only a shotgun blast can, and the only return sound was that of the cars windshield breaking. A moment passed, and then I was laughing as the others hooted and hollered supportively. As though up until that first shot, we all still thought the idea was a joke. I fired away several more times, putting holes and dents in the doors and breaking more windows, until my 8 shots were up. I placed the shotgun on the ground and walked back to D's car, opened a beer, and sat back on the trunk, watching the sky in my curious daze. When I finished my beer and looked back to the earth, D was shooting. There really isn't any point in describing what the car looked like by then, having been shot well over 16 times. There really wasn't much left to describe.
When the shotgun came back to me my feeling of elation had started to fade, and was giving way to some kind of anger. I wasn't sure what I was angry about. I had been laughing and rejoicing with my friends on the surface, and on the surface I really was happy. I really was at peace. Somewhere deep inside me though was a raging discontent, and it was boiling to the surface.
BOOM! I lowered the shotgun and tried to sooth my nerves by lighting a clove. I inhaled deep, and took aim again. I kept the clove in my lips, letting the smoke drift up and sting my eyes.
BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM! I fired again and again, trying to escape my rage. Trying to focus on how destructive I was being and hoping that would satisfy.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! It wasn't working. One shot left. Then I would have to pass it to Raz.
I lowered the shotgun and took another long drag from my clove. I tried to think about my anger, and couldn't focus. Hundreds of words and images were rushing through my mind. I breathed deep, trying to relax. Why is intelligent conversation such a precious commodity? Is it really so hard to find? Of course it is, people hardly converse at all anymore, never mind intelligently. Why does it even need to be intelligent? I would be happy if people just talked. If people could just share their thoughts and opinions, if we could be open about our selves. Why is that asking too much? Why would so many people prefer to come to fists than make an apology? Why can't we just try to understand where other people are coming from? Why do we all think that our trials and tribulations are so unique? Is it so hard to imagine other people suffering the same degree of pains we do? What happened to that feeling of unity we're all supposed to have? What happened to "united we stand?" Was there ever really a time when people were kind to strangers? When we gave them food and shelter, when they were as our family and friends? Why can't we live in a world like that? Why can't we care about other people just because they are people? Why don't we care when a stranger sheds tears? What went wrong?
"What's wrong man?" asked Mckenzie
"I think" I said, "That there is something fundamentally uncool about our society."
II
BOOM! I fired my last shot and set the shotgun down for Raz, and walked back the D's car for another beer. Raz loaded his shots, and we sat on the trunk of D's car. We drank and smoked in a thoughtful silence, everyone rolling my last statement around in their heads.
BOOM! Raz fired, and I began to speak again.
"I know I'm not saying anything new and revolutionary there. Nothing has ever been perfect, and I'm not nieve enough to believe otherwise. I'm not looking for perfect though, I'm wondering why the world can't even be just good enough."
BOOM!
"Well what do you mean by society being uncool? What makes a society cool?" Asked Mckenzie.
BOOM!
"I'm not sure really. I want to say it's a problem of government, but there is more to it than that. If we woke up tomorrow and had the coolest government in the world, say the only laws were do no harm to other people or their property, don't steal, minimum wage and a few labor laws, and maybe you can't sell any recreational drugs heavier than things like alcohol, tobacco, and pot in a store, but you could buy them off a neighbor if you really wanted to. I think people would still be uncool. I think the way things are that would do us more harm than good. Not only do I think violent crime and theft would somehow still go up, I think people would still go around being jerks to each other. I think we would still have racists, sexists, bigots of every sort. I don't think the problem can be traced to one event or institution. I think it's self sustaining. I think to fix it, we would have to reconstruct society entirely. The only way to make a society cool is to shape it's people to be cool. It isn't a matter of government, it isn't a matter of the media, it isn't up to the arts. We need to reshape our values and experiences. We need cool people to have a cool society."
BOOM!
"Well, what makes a person cool? I don't think we can say that they just are or they aren't here. I think we need to think a little more about it than that."
"Agreed. I don't think I can really define cool on my own though. How about we each put forth one trait that we think we could find in the cool individual, and then discuss it?"
BOOM! "Patience" said Raz.
BOOM!
III
We thought on this while Raz finished his shooting and waited for him to grab and drink and join us on D's car before we discussed it. When Raz was ready, he explained his thoughts on the matter in detail.
"People seem to feel this need to rush through life, they go straight from high school to college, straight from college to a job, and then they try to climb the ladder as far and fast as they can. They miss a lot of perspective because of this, they don't learn what working for a living is like without a college degree, and so they loose a bit of appreciation for the jobs they get after college. When they're working in high school for gas money, to buy new clothes, they don't get the same perspective that working a job like McDonald's to pay rent and bills will give you. They avoid a hard struggle and are worse off for it. It's not just on that scale though, I'm not saying that having ambition makes you uncool. I'm more concerned with the day to day life. We drive fast, even if we don't need to. It's like people have confused themselves with hummingbirds, we've got to keep flapping our wings as fast as we can. That never seemed cool to me. When you rush cooking burgers on a grill, you burn them. When you rush living life, you burn out. I would say that a cool person takes their time, doesn't stress out about doing things quickly, and instead takes their time making sure it's done right."
"Patience sounds solid to me" I replied, "but do you mean just how you said, patience in relation to the time it takes to do things, or are you arguing for a more casual attitude towards life?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I agree with what you have said so far, but taking your time with what you do seems like a smaller part of a whole attribute. Patience as part of a casual, relaxed lifestyle. I think you were right in focusing on patience in day to day life, so as not to confuse rushing with ambition. Being patient with what you do is important no doubt, but what would you call patience concerned with doing nothing? taking time out of your day to enjoy the smaller moments in life? A good breakfast, a cup of tea, a cigar if you are so inclined, or just watching the sun rise or set? These are certainly things a patient person is likely to do, but it's not as though one could rush the sunrise if they wanted to."
"Very true"
"I would say instead that we are concerned with a casual attitude to the passing of time. That the patience we are looking for isn't so much an urge to slow life down, as it is to let things take their natural pace. A person playing a sport like baseball would be very uncool if they didn't run to the bases, I would say. Or a person who shows up an hour late to an appointment. Ten or fifteen minutes I would certainly allow for, depending on the nature of the appointment, but sometimes it is important to be prompt, and sometimes one must rush because of that. Would you say these are respectable conclusions?"
"Certainly I would. If one is grossly late for an important appointment it would be disrespectful, and that would be most uncool."
"Then when we say patience, we don't mean slowing life down so much as not speeding life up. We want a balance, so that when one is cooking a hamburger, they take the time to not burn it, but don't take so much time as to prolong your hunger unnecessarily. Further, they need to recognize that on occasion the best ways to pass time accomplish nothing material, and that the time spent on them is it's own reward, such as watching the sun set. A casual attitude towards time that doesn't demand us to make it pass, but rather be able to enjoy it's passing."
"That seems to sum it up rather nicely" said Raz.
"You mentioned the need for respect" said D, getting up from the car and going to take his turn with the shotgun. "I think that respect would be an important quality for a cool person to have, but also a dangerous one, as we don't want someone who displays respect when it is not deserved."
IV
D finished his shooting and returned to the car, where we asked him to explain further his opinion on respect and undue respect.
"We must always show respect to those who deserve it, and I would say that we should show respect to those who don't deserve it as well, just not as much. Let's say that we're discussing some obscure scientific theory, doesn't really matter which one. Let's say that one of the people discussing this with us graduated from a prestigious school that is known for it's sciences, and the fellow holds their highest degree in the field the theory applies to. Let's say that another person discussing this is Billy, who dropped out of high school because it was cutting into his hard core drug abuse, and he's drunk. It would be cool of us to listen to each point equally, to show the same respect to Billy as we do the expert, at least as far as the courtesy to let him make his points uninterrupted and consider it incase he strikes on something true, however unlikely. Billy may well be a smart guy who just made some really bad choices, after all. In the end though, I think it's safe to say that we should respect the opinion our expert gives more, even if Billy has a sound stance. Of course that is a rather extreme example, so I'll present something we're a little more likely to encounter in day to day life. We are taught to respect our parents and other figures of authority. One must ask from time to time if this is really the right thing to do."
"I don't know about unconditional respect for a person just because of their position, but I do think that we should respect the authority these figures hold." Said Raz.
"Oh, I agree that we should respect their authority, if it isn't being abused. Even when they do overstep their bounds, it will sometimes be the better decision to obey, in order to make things easier for both parties. I don't think a cool person should ever cause unnecessary conflict."
We found no objection here, and so D continued on with his point.
"Let's say that a parent doesn't behave in a respectable manner. Maybe they are misogynistic, racist, or homo-phobic. Maybe they're an alcoholic or addicted to heroin. Maybe they just make really bad decisions concerning the life of their child, and refuse to listen to the child's input fairly. Would you say these parents deserve much respect from their child, or only the respect they are entitled to as human beings and nothing beyond that? A police officer who deals drugs, turns on his lights to get through traffic, but to grab a pizza not go to a crime scene. A police officer who bends and breaks the laws, and uses his position to get away with it, does he deserve respect? or do we just respect the laws he represents, and use our knowledge of the law to protect ourselves and those around us from his injustice? We may call him sir or officer, but if he says jump we aren't going to be in the air asking how high. There is a minimum level of respect that every human being is entitled to, that we should listen to them when they speak, that we should not deal them violence unless we absolutely must. We should not however, respect them as we would a wise man, a scholar, an officer of the law who conducts himself honorably, or a parent who displays the traits of these other three and employs them to raise their child as best they can. Those people deserve our utmost respect, and no less. Their opposites deserve only the minimum respect due to all people, and no more."
"I would like to agree with you here" said Mckenzie, "but I think I need to know a little more about your stance."
"What point would you like me to elaborate upon further?" asked D.
"You have said that a parent addicted to a drug like heroin would not be respectable. Is this only true of parents? I assume it would go for police officers as well, and politicians as well? Perhaps even men and women of the cloth, people dedicated to a religiously disciplined lifestyle that does not allow for the use of drugs?"
"Yes, I imagine it applying to them as well."
"Now what of a person living in the street? Are they also un-deserving of our respect in light of an addiction such as this?"
"I would be hard pressed to believe otherwise."
"When you said that such addictions would degrade our respect for these other figures, I think I had a clearer idea of why. I assumed that the trouble was the way the drug would interfere with their ability to live up to their responsibilities, and that any respectable person would not maintain such a habit."
"Yes, that would be a correct view of my stance"
"The person in the street doesn't have these responsibilities. In light of that, where is the trouble with them being addicted to heroin?"
"Do you mean to tell me you would support them in making such a decision?"
"Most certainly not, but they are in a different situation than our other examples. They aren't bound by the responsibility that was the grounds for our judgment before, so by what standard are they falling short here?"
"I would say they do not deserve respect because they are indulging in a practice that will perpetuate their misfortune, rather than making the efforts to escape it."
"That is troublesome, but what if the situation is a little different? Perhaps they aren't so strongly addicted as we assume. They know when they can afford the indulgence, and they know when it is better to suffer another day without their drug so that they can have food and drink. It might be the case that they don't want to return to a normal social structure, and consider the euphoric feeling these drugs grant them the reward for their difficult life style."
"I think I've got something" said Raz, breaking our silent contemplation. "I think we should go get hamburgers."
We thought this new proposition over for a moment, then muttered our agreements.
"Yeah... epic."
"Shotgun!" shouted Mckenzie.
V
"I think we have encountered a slight problem in our discourse. The point you made on heroin addiction as part of a choice to live life apart from society brings into the question certain dictums of morality that I don't think we are ready to broach. I think that for now it should suffice to say that we should be able to respect a choice we do not understand, so long as it is not obviously wrong by necessitating undue harm to others primarily, and oneself secondarily. As we should be able to understand one willingly suffering violence (which would be a bad idea in most circumstance) not in order to protect another, but to protect and ideal, we should be able to understand why one would take up a practice that is harmful to themselves as part of living out an ideal that is not harmful to others, such as becoming homeless and partaking of heavy drugs for recreation." I said to Mckenzie from the back seat.
We were in D's car now, the shotgun was safely placed unloaded in the trunk with the ammo, all locked in their respective cases. D's trunk also contained a hibachi, and in light of this we had decided to skip out on fast food burgers and keep with the spirit of our conversations by picking up our burgers from a butchers shop in town and buy charcoal from one of the supermarkets. We had also elected to splurge on a few spices and sauces for our burgers, as well as to pick up a few bottles of a darker beer, to better compliment our meal.
"I would have to agree to that" said Mckenzie, "but I would like to eventually discuss the dictums of a 'cool' morality further at some point."
"As I imagine most of us would."
There were nods of agreement, but very little was said. Our unresponsive demeanors were by no means a mark of apathy, however. It was simply that we were locked in thought, each reflecting the course of the discussion thus far in our own minds, and considering what future points we might like to make, and where we could improve on what we had so far. I imagine our silence may also have been due in part to the radio, which was blasting so loud that we were all but shouting when we did try to speak.
We pulled into the supermarket and stepped from the car casually. The sun was still high in the afternoon sky, with hardly a cloud in sight. A rather strong wind was blowing towards us, rippling our clothes and hair in that dramatic style so often reserved for movie heroes standing on the edges of rooftops. Raz had grabbed the frisbee from the back, and motioned for me to jog ahead a little for his throw. We spread out through the parking lot, throwing the frisbee so that it would skip off the ground or lift up in flight, or curve dramatically in the air to reach its mark. We all closed in on each other as we moved towards the entrance, so that by the time we were in the supermarket we were never throwing more than ten feet. We made jokes about pop art and Andy Warhol as we moved through the cleaning supplies in our search for the spices and the seasonal section. When we did find what we were looking for we all just grabbed something with one hand and continued tossing the frisbee around with the other till we reached the registers.
We picked the shortest line and continued in our revelry and wit until it was our turn to pile our goods onto the conveyor and a familiar voice greeted us.
"Well, hello again" it said.
We turned to face our cashier, and were surprised to find Sarah staring back at us, dressed in the bland store issued polo shirt and regulation full length pants of a supermarket employee.
"Fancy that" I said, "How's it going Sarah?"
"You know, working. What are you boys up to?"
"Trying to find the philosophical meaning of 'cool,' but first we need some hamburgers. That old story."
"Sounds fun" she replied with a laugh.
"Say, um, do you think I could maybe get Jess' number off you?"
"Sure thing, hold out your hand" she said, grabbing a pen from next to the register.
I held out my hand and she scribbled a few numbers down on it and started ringing up our items. I noticed Raz had been eyeing her and decided to lead the guys outside to afford them a moment of privacy.
"Frisbee?" I asked nonchalantly to my fellows, adding "Raz, you got this covered, right?"
"Yeah man, but you're covering the beer"
"It's a deal, see you around Sarah" I replied, and led D and Mckenzie outside, tossing the frisbee along the way.
Raz followed a few minutes later, with a solid grin on his face.
"Tuesday at 5:00" he told us, "when she gets out of work."
"Excellent news my friend" said Mckenzie, "now how about that beer?"
VI
We had picked up beer and the burgers, and were now stopped at our preferred gas station to fill D's tank and see if Goat-man was working. Goat-man was always working, so when we walked into the station tossing the frisbee and he greeted us it was no surprise. I tossed him the frisbee, which he tossed to Raz, and walked to the counter to say hello.
"Hey, you can't do that!" objected the other kid working, "can they do that?"
His name tag said trainee.
"It's cool, I know these guys" said Goat-man, He said our names and pointed at us, and introduced the new kid as "the new kid"
"New kid got a name yet?" asked Mckenzie, who had just caught the frisbee from Raz and was passing it back to Goat-man, who threw it again to Raz.
"Randy" said the new kid.
"The kid doesn't have a name yet? What's going on here Goat-man?" I asked
"Goat-man?" asked the new kid, "you mean Sean?"
"What are you doing man? How long has this kid been working here?"
"Relax man, it's his first day. He'll learn, he just needs more time." Answered Goat-man.
"Alright man, I trust your judgment, I was just worried there for a minute was all." I said, and turned towards the new kid.
"Stick close to Goat-man for me, alright? He'll show you the way."
"Where have you been, man?" asked D, "We thought you were going to be here way earlier."
"My car broke down something like twenty miles out of town. I must have been walking for three hours before anyone stopped to give me a lift. Unbelievable, like a hundred cars went by and no one even looked at me. You'll never guess who finally pulled over to give me a ride. It was James' ex girlfriend, Nicole. She was on her way back from the bookstore near the mall. It was pretty cool though, remember I lent her that book by Kurt Vonnegut? Well, she liked it so much she's been reading him ever since. Just picked up "Breakfast of Champions" so I told her if she finishes it while I'm still down here she should give me a call and we'll rent the movie."
"So what are you going to do about your car, man?"
"I figured Mckenzie and Raz could help me with that. Your brother still have that Tow truck?" I asked Mckenzie.
"Yeah, but I don't think he'll be around till late tomorrow. Some statey is going to have it impounded by then." He said, tossing the frisbee back to me.
"Hey D, go long" I said, and tossed it along to him. "I'm not too worried about that. I broke down right near a rest stop, so pushed the car into a spot near the back. I don't think anyone will even notice it"
"I'll give him a call in the morning then, I don't think he'll mind picking it up tomorrow night."
"Wait, so where do I fit into all this?" asked Raz.
"Your family still owns all that land where the old factories used to be, right?"
"Of course, that place is like a junk yard man, no one wants to buy it because no one wants to have to get rid of all the shit that's in there."
"And you still own that shotgun, right?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, I took a look at the car after I got it to the rest area and it turns out for the cost of fixing the thing I could buy a lot, and I mean a lot, of shotgun shells. I've been meaning to get a new car anyways, I've had that thing since I was 16."
"Oh, hell yes."
We stayed there and tossed the frisbee around for a little longer, listening to the music. When the band finished we decided to help them pack their equipment away, and as thanks they gave us directions to a party they were going to later that night.
At the fireworks we played more frisbee, and looked around for people we knew, or people we didn't know, provided they played frisbee. When we found none, we watched the rest of the show from the trunk and roof of D's car, drinking cold bottles of sarsaparilla.
"You know" said D, "I don't think people really appreciate things anymore."
"Things?" asked Mckenzie.
"How many people our age are here right now? The four of us, that's it. I mean, the weather is fucking perfect tonight, the sky is clear, and let's face it, fireworks rock. It's not just that though, think about what we're drinking. I'm still amazed we can find sarsaparilla, you know how many people I know that have never even heard of the stuff? It's all Coke and Pepsi with everyone else, It's all corn syrup, coloring, and carbonated water."
"I wonder if most people even know what root beer really tastes like." I said, causing Mckenzie and Raz to give me an odd look, and D to raise his bottle to me before taking another sip.
"Think about how much generic brand soda sucks. The cola doesn't taste like Coke or Pepsi, the lemon-lime soda doesn't taste like it contains either lemon or lime, and the root beer is insultingly bad. Then you take it up a step, and you have Mug and Barqs, which still don't taste like root beer. So we take it up another step, and we get IBC. You know why IBC is so much better than the competition? They aren't making 10 or 20 types of soda at once in quantities fit for worldwide distribution. They're making root beer, and three other drinks not too dissimilar to root beer, and they're bottling next to nothing in quantity compared to Coke. IBC is so much better because of this, but I'll tell you something; It only kind of tastes like root beer. You want a good root beer, you have to find a small brewing company, or better yet have a crazy uncle or neighbor that brews it. Otherwise you're still just drinking corn syrup, carbonated water, and coloring. More and more homogenized bullshit."
"That's exactly what I'm saying, man" said D, "We've got all these companies that are too damn big. The fact is that the upper echelon of Coca Cola is going to be business men, not brewers. These people are looking for the cheapest way to make and sell a product, and it doesn't matter how good it is, it matters how good it sells. These companies have gotten so big that the competition from mom and pop is never going to stand a chance. At best they'd get bought out and the recipe would be changed so they can make more cheaper, and just keep the name. Yeah, this kind of practice works for companies like Microsoft, sure. If a group of kids write a really good program and a lot of people use it, they get a job making more programs. It works there because if Microsoft releases an operating system that's hard for people to use, that doesn't do what it's supposed to, and is hard to write other programs for, the software companies that write for Windows and the people that use it are going to switch to Linux or Apple, and Microsoft is going to have to fight back up. These companies need to be big, because they need to advance. Coca Cola and Pepsi don't need to advance, they need to manufacture cheap, distribute heavily, and the product will sells itself, because people don't expect anything more from a soda than to fizz."
The fireworks show was at its finale now, and we sat quietly gazing at the thunderous color. In parts of the parking lot distant from us could be heard an orchestra of car alarms.
II
When we arrived at the party everyone there was already rather drunk. Most of the band that had invited us were in the basement, we found out, so that's where we went. The basement was furnished and featured a pool table along with loud rock music. The music all but drowned out conversation, so often all you could hear of anyone else's conversation was someone asking loudly "what?"
I played a few games of pool with the band and we all drank heavily for a while, but before long I was growing weary of the atmosphere and decided to step outside for a smoke and fresh air. I needed to escape the banal discussions and routine chaos that tend to accompany any good party.
On the back porch I was alone, except for the laughs and giggles of a pair of teenaged lovers in the woods, no doubt about to engage in the drunken and reckless copulation characteristic of youth. Lingering opinions from the conversation at the fireworks were haunting the back of my mind, and trying to find satisfaction for them here seemed to be as unlikely as finding someone who spoke Russian
I was lighting my second clove when the door slide open behind me and a voice called out in greeting. "Oh, hey man" they said.
"можно спросить?" I replied.
"What?"
"Are you out here to avoid some one, or are you out here to avoid every one?" I asked.
"Out here looking for you, actually"
I turned around at this, and was a bit surprised to see an old friend of mine, Jed. In my drunken haze I hadn't recognized his voice, but I smiled at him now and asked how he was.
"In a rough spot, to be honest, but getting better" he answered. He went on to explain how he lost his old job and hadn't enough money to continue schooling, but was going to be starting employment somewhere new in the coming week. At least, he hoped.
"Well, I'm glad to hear things are on an upswing, at least"
"Thanks man. So, what brings you down here anyways?"
"I needed a break, I guess. I like it up where I am, don't get me wrong. It's quiet, and that's what I wanted. I got pretty sick of this town after everyone graduated. Still, it can be too quiet sometimes. Life up there can get monotonous. You loose that sense of adventure, that will to do anything, that golden mark of youth."
"Yeah, it was getting like that for me too. Working my way through school, I didn't get any time to enjoy the social side of it. I stopped feeling like I was learning, and started feeling like it was just more work. I want to finish school, I want to have a job, but I'm really not sure that's what I need, you know? It's starting to hit me, that school isn't about education anymore. It's not about preparing you for the rest of your life, it's about getting you a job. It's about setting you up to make more money. That's just not what I'm interested in, it feels so empty to me."
"I think" I said, "That something about the world is broken."
III
I returned to the loud rock and billiards in the basement, where Mckenzie and Raz and several cute girls were chatting away around the couch. They called me over, and Raz slid me a foot stool to sit on.
"Have a seat man" said Raz, "we're being charlatans."
"Oh?"
"Discussing the current state of art, we're on the virtue and faults of 'conceptual art' at the moment."
"So then we're at the decline?" I asked, eliciting a few laughs.
"Well, conceptual art encompasses so much. It's true that many are abusing the freedom of form it provides, but there are others using it to accomplish great things" Said Raz, electing to ignore my jest and move directly into the meat of the conversation.
"Name one that isn't abusive of the freedom." I responded.
"Robert Rauschenberg. His "Erased De Kooning" challenged the idea of art by displaying an act of destruction as an act of creation."
"If erasing art makes one a brilliant artist, I could just erase the Mona Lisa and be acclaimed as one of the greatest artistic minds of our time, and a millionaire to boot. If you asked me though, I'd be a criminal and a fraud. Now don't get me wrong, I like the idea of challenging art, and I think Rauschenberg is a very clever man. The telegram he sent to an art museum that read simply 'This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so' was incredibly funny. But it doesn't make him an artist. If anything, it makes him a satirist."
"Douglas Huebler. I think it was his Variable Piece #4, where he asked visitors at a museum to write down one secret, which they had never shared with anyone, and then compiled them together into a book. It creates a series of powerful messages about society. It can scare us, it can make us smile, it can bring us comfort. It can show us we aren't alone in the world. That's a beautiful thing to do."
"That's true" said one of the girls, "but is it really the role of art to be sending these messages?"
"Well of course, art has always been used as a method of communication." Replied Raz.
"What about Abstract Expressionism? The artists of that movement weren't trying to communicate a message at all, they were focused solely with the art itself. Most often the paintings had no meaning, and were meant only to glorify the act of painting itself. It expressed only the beauty of paint on canvas. Any other meaning that was found existed only in the viewer of the art."
"Even then, Abstract Expressionism became a tool of the CIA, a weapon in a cultural cold war. These paintings can be seen as symbols of American freedom, and thus became a means of conveying a message after all."
"But that was never the intent of the artists, that's just an example of governmental manipulation. It really doesn't apply to art itself, just to art in the context of society, which would be another discussion all together."
"Conceded."
"Then I present this" I said, "While any given abstract expressionist painting may not hold meaning, and expresses only the art itself, the movement as a whole still had a message. Similarly with surrealism, where one would be hard pressed to find meaning in any individual painting, the art form as a whole preaches a message of escape; from the concept of everyday reality. Where abstract expressionism rebels against the idea of an art-object, creating painting without objective qualities- eschewing subject matter and focusing only on the act of creation and seeking to express the beauty of art itself, as opposed to a portrait expressing the beauty of it's subject, it states the minimal importance of the material, of the objective world. It preaches about the nature of art and it's relation to beauty."
"Wow, nice counter-point" said the girl, "I'll need to think of a response to that one."
"I think I've got something. My names Jess by the way" said another girl.
"Hi" I replied, and introduced myself in return.
"Nice to meet you. This is Heather" she said of the girl who had been talking before, "and that's Sarah. The problem with your point on abstract expressionism is that many of the so called abstract expressionist painters didn't follow that philosophy. Rothko is an abstract expressionist, but not according to him. He wouldn't even call his paintings abstract, even though they fit cleanly into the abstract expressionist school of painting. His work had meaning, not as part of a movement or taken as a whole, but individual paintings had meanings, had subjects. We could argue that Rothko was for those reasons not an abstract expressionist, but stylistically he was, and there isn't much room for denying that. He's not alone in this either, many artists painted with a certain style but rejected the ideas and philosophies of the other artists in that style. A certain school of art doesn't have a philosophy, but the artists who practice it might."
"What about schools of art built around a philosophy? Conceptual art doesn't have a unified style, it can take any form at all really. Christo's Iron Curtain for example, which only existed temporarily, and wasn't even something he directly created. He didn't sculpt or paint it, he more of 'arranged' for it. He set up a bunch of oil barrels to block off a street, but the central point of this piece was the traffic jam he caused. He simply gave the art an opportunity to make itself, and it did. This is something could happen accidentally, it's only conceptual art because of the idea behind it, because of the concept. Of course, a painting or sculpture can still be conceptual art, no matter what style it appears to be in, as long as the esthetic concerns were secondary to the idea behind the art. Here the artists are bound by philosophy, not by style." Said Mckenzie, taking an active role in the conversation for the first time since my arrival.
"Which is exactly why I would say conceptual art isn't real art. There are a few conceptual artists out there who really have brilliant ideas, and some of them still respect the idea of art as having beauty independent of it's meaning, and these artists are incredible, and they are doing really wonderful things. Art doesn't have to be devoid of meaning to be art, but just because it does have meaning, or at that least some pretentious jackass is claiming it has meaning, doesn't make it art. It has to be, well, artistic. A lot of movements have challenged the preconceived notions of what art is and isn't over the years, and they have taken more aggressive stances as time went on. I think the only one of these movements to ever really show us something about the nature of art is conceptual art. It showed us what art isn't, at it's most basic. Art is not conceptual."
"Then what is it?"
"Perceptual, at least I would wager so." I answered on Jess' behalf. "Art can be conceptual, but this is more of an incidental trait of only some pieces of art. Real art, I would have to say, stands without it's concept. Of course, since art is perceptual not everyone would agree to this. However, I cannot think of another stance which would allow for that disagreement and still hold, so I would argue on that basis that art being perceptual is the truest qualifier we could state. Is that about what you had in mind, Jess?"
"I'd say so, yeah. Very nicely put, if I might add."
"Thanks. Anyone else, any thoughts?"
The others were all rather comfortable with this conclusion, and so we began to chat idly amongst ourselves on other topics, our two groups settling in as one and getting to know each other through our own stances on things that didn't warrant debate and funny little stories about time spent with our respective friends, present, absent, and past. Before any of that though, Mckenzie was asked his personal stance on conceptual art, as his point on the relationship between a school of art and the philosophy of its artists was made passionately, but without any sign of bias.
"I only have this to say on conceptual art- that the artists, with few exceptions, are complete douche bags" was his answer.
IV
"I had a strange dream last night" I said. "I was on the road with two friends, I'm not sure who they were, but one was a guy and one was a girl. We were traveling the country, just the three of us. We made random stops in cities and small towns alike, but not to stay the night or anything like that. Whenever we saw something one of us thought was beautiful we'd stop and stay there for a while, just hanging out and talking, fooling around a lot. We had a lot of chalk with us, all different colors of chalk, and sometimes we'd be drawing on the walls or the ground around these places. We took a lot of pictures, of the places we stopped, of us playing around, of our chalk art, all kinds of things. When we were done drawing and taking pictures or whatever else we were doing, we'd drive off again, with no destination in mind. We climbed to the roofs of buildings and the tops of mountains and watched the sun set. We danced and played barefoot in the rain, we slept in grass fields, we flew kites on empty stretches highways, and we hit golf balls in deserts. We gave our money to homeless people in the cities, and if they played an instrument we would try to think of songs they might know that we could sing along to. We shared our food and drinks with them. They were the only people we talked to in the dream, the only people we could really see. Everyone else was just kind of a blur or a shadow, just the shape of a person, they didn't have voices or faces, just human shaped splotches of color floating along the streets. We never gave them any thought. It seemed like the dream lasted years, like we were just going on and on like that, moving through towns and cities, leaving drawings in chalk on the streets or golf balls in the sand as the only evidence we had ever been there. I'm not sure how to describe how it felt in the dream... Warm, I guess. Even when it was snowing, I always felt warm."
We were sitting on the car outside a cafe, drinking coffee and smoking, waiting for Mckenzie's brother. It was early in the evening, the sky was watercolored with oranges and reds, with thin streaks of soft pink clouds, a sweet goodnight wish from the setting sun. The air was still and soft, and slightly cool.
"I had a dream last night that I was going to have to duel Aaron Burr. He and Doc Brown from back to the future had been traveling time, and they were at a party. Aaron thought I had insulted his mother." Said Mckenzie.
Chapter 2
The car had been towed out into the land Raz's family owned, and Raz had picked up the ammo for us. Raz, Mckenzie, and I were waiting for D to get back from a beer run, and then the fun would begin. Normally alcohol and shotguns are a bad idea, but we set up some ground rules for safeties sake. We set it up kind of like drunken baseball. The rules went like this;
Whenever someone else misses, you take a drink. Whenever you miss three times, you chug your drink.
Before you shoot, you must put the shotgun barrel up on the ground, place your head on the top, and spin around it three times while looking down, without breaking contact. If you can't, you're too drunk to shoot.
I'm kidding, of course. It got a laugh out of Mckenzie and Raz though. The real rules were pretty basic, make sure the shotgun was empty before you handed it off, don't get completely trashed, and obey what D says. D doesn't drink very heavily, since he usually ends up having to drive somewhere when everyone else is drunk. Since after about half an hour he'd be the most sober person there, his word would be law.
D arrived, and we decided the order we'd shot in. I got to go first, since it was my car and I had paid for the shells. Raz went next, since it was his land and his shotgun. D was after Raz, since he was doing the beer runs, and Mckenzie was last, because he didn't mind going last.
We used to go out here before I moved and "shoot the shit" as much literally as figuratively, so I was familiar enough with the shotgun to load it no problem, and knew how to brace it against my shoulder when I was firing. The motions were still very natural for me, so my mind kind of drifted as I went through them and took aim for my first shot. What we were doing began to feel like a dream, a phantasm of reality.
BOOM! The thunder of my first shot rang through the lot, echoing off the old steel walls of mostly destroyed warehouses and rippling over piles of scrap metal. It cut through the casual silence as violently as only a shotgun blast can, and the only return sound was that of the cars windshield breaking. A moment passed, and then I was laughing as the others hooted and hollered supportively. As though up until that first shot, we all still thought the idea was a joke. I fired away several more times, putting holes and dents in the doors and breaking more windows, until my 8 shots were up. I placed the shotgun on the ground and walked back to D's car, opened a beer, and sat back on the trunk, watching the sky in my curious daze. When I finished my beer and looked back to the earth, D was shooting. There really isn't any point in describing what the car looked like by then, having been shot well over 16 times. There really wasn't much left to describe.
When the shotgun came back to me my feeling of elation had started to fade, and was giving way to some kind of anger. I wasn't sure what I was angry about. I had been laughing and rejoicing with my friends on the surface, and on the surface I really was happy. I really was at peace. Somewhere deep inside me though was a raging discontent, and it was boiling to the surface.
BOOM! I lowered the shotgun and tried to sooth my nerves by lighting a clove. I inhaled deep, and took aim again. I kept the clove in my lips, letting the smoke drift up and sting my eyes.
BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM! I fired again and again, trying to escape my rage. Trying to focus on how destructive I was being and hoping that would satisfy.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! It wasn't working. One shot left. Then I would have to pass it to Raz.
I lowered the shotgun and took another long drag from my clove. I tried to think about my anger, and couldn't focus. Hundreds of words and images were rushing through my mind. I breathed deep, trying to relax. Why is intelligent conversation such a precious commodity? Is it really so hard to find? Of course it is, people hardly converse at all anymore, never mind intelligently. Why does it even need to be intelligent? I would be happy if people just talked. If people could just share their thoughts and opinions, if we could be open about our selves. Why is that asking too much? Why would so many people prefer to come to fists than make an apology? Why can't we just try to understand where other people are coming from? Why do we all think that our trials and tribulations are so unique? Is it so hard to imagine other people suffering the same degree of pains we do? What happened to that feeling of unity we're all supposed to have? What happened to "united we stand?" Was there ever really a time when people were kind to strangers? When we gave them food and shelter, when they were as our family and friends? Why can't we live in a world like that? Why can't we care about other people just because they are people? Why don't we care when a stranger sheds tears? What went wrong?
"What's wrong man?" asked Mckenzie
"I think" I said, "That there is something fundamentally uncool about our society."
II
BOOM! I fired my last shot and set the shotgun down for Raz, and walked back the D's car for another beer. Raz loaded his shots, and we sat on the trunk of D's car. We drank and smoked in a thoughtful silence, everyone rolling my last statement around in their heads.
BOOM! Raz fired, and I began to speak again.
"I know I'm not saying anything new and revolutionary there. Nothing has ever been perfect, and I'm not nieve enough to believe otherwise. I'm not looking for perfect though, I'm wondering why the world can't even be just good enough."
BOOM!
"Well what do you mean by society being uncool? What makes a society cool?" Asked Mckenzie.
BOOM!
"I'm not sure really. I want to say it's a problem of government, but there is more to it than that. If we woke up tomorrow and had the coolest government in the world, say the only laws were do no harm to other people or their property, don't steal, minimum wage and a few labor laws, and maybe you can't sell any recreational drugs heavier than things like alcohol, tobacco, and pot in a store, but you could buy them off a neighbor if you really wanted to. I think people would still be uncool. I think the way things are that would do us more harm than good. Not only do I think violent crime and theft would somehow still go up, I think people would still go around being jerks to each other. I think we would still have racists, sexists, bigots of every sort. I don't think the problem can be traced to one event or institution. I think it's self sustaining. I think to fix it, we would have to reconstruct society entirely. The only way to make a society cool is to shape it's people to be cool. It isn't a matter of government, it isn't a matter of the media, it isn't up to the arts. We need to reshape our values and experiences. We need cool people to have a cool society."
BOOM!
"Well, what makes a person cool? I don't think we can say that they just are or they aren't here. I think we need to think a little more about it than that."
"Agreed. I don't think I can really define cool on my own though. How about we each put forth one trait that we think we could find in the cool individual, and then discuss it?"
BOOM! "Patience" said Raz.
BOOM!
III
We thought on this while Raz finished his shooting and waited for him to grab and drink and join us on D's car before we discussed it. When Raz was ready, he explained his thoughts on the matter in detail.
"People seem to feel this need to rush through life, they go straight from high school to college, straight from college to a job, and then they try to climb the ladder as far and fast as they can. They miss a lot of perspective because of this, they don't learn what working for a living is like without a college degree, and so they loose a bit of appreciation for the jobs they get after college. When they're working in high school for gas money, to buy new clothes, they don't get the same perspective that working a job like McDonald's to pay rent and bills will give you. They avoid a hard struggle and are worse off for it. It's not just on that scale though, I'm not saying that having ambition makes you uncool. I'm more concerned with the day to day life. We drive fast, even if we don't need to. It's like people have confused themselves with hummingbirds, we've got to keep flapping our wings as fast as we can. That never seemed cool to me. When you rush cooking burgers on a grill, you burn them. When you rush living life, you burn out. I would say that a cool person takes their time, doesn't stress out about doing things quickly, and instead takes their time making sure it's done right."
"Patience sounds solid to me" I replied, "but do you mean just how you said, patience in relation to the time it takes to do things, or are you arguing for a more casual attitude towards life?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I agree with what you have said so far, but taking your time with what you do seems like a smaller part of a whole attribute. Patience as part of a casual, relaxed lifestyle. I think you were right in focusing on patience in day to day life, so as not to confuse rushing with ambition. Being patient with what you do is important no doubt, but what would you call patience concerned with doing nothing? taking time out of your day to enjoy the smaller moments in life? A good breakfast, a cup of tea, a cigar if you are so inclined, or just watching the sun rise or set? These are certainly things a patient person is likely to do, but it's not as though one could rush the sunrise if they wanted to."
"Very true"
"I would say instead that we are concerned with a casual attitude to the passing of time. That the patience we are looking for isn't so much an urge to slow life down, as it is to let things take their natural pace. A person playing a sport like baseball would be very uncool if they didn't run to the bases, I would say. Or a person who shows up an hour late to an appointment. Ten or fifteen minutes I would certainly allow for, depending on the nature of the appointment, but sometimes it is important to be prompt, and sometimes one must rush because of that. Would you say these are respectable conclusions?"
"Certainly I would. If one is grossly late for an important appointment it would be disrespectful, and that would be most uncool."
"Then when we say patience, we don't mean slowing life down so much as not speeding life up. We want a balance, so that when one is cooking a hamburger, they take the time to not burn it, but don't take so much time as to prolong your hunger unnecessarily. Further, they need to recognize that on occasion the best ways to pass time accomplish nothing material, and that the time spent on them is it's own reward, such as watching the sun set. A casual attitude towards time that doesn't demand us to make it pass, but rather be able to enjoy it's passing."
"That seems to sum it up rather nicely" said Raz.
"You mentioned the need for respect" said D, getting up from the car and going to take his turn with the shotgun. "I think that respect would be an important quality for a cool person to have, but also a dangerous one, as we don't want someone who displays respect when it is not deserved."
IV
D finished his shooting and returned to the car, where we asked him to explain further his opinion on respect and undue respect.
"We must always show respect to those who deserve it, and I would say that we should show respect to those who don't deserve it as well, just not as much. Let's say that we're discussing some obscure scientific theory, doesn't really matter which one. Let's say that one of the people discussing this with us graduated from a prestigious school that is known for it's sciences, and the fellow holds their highest degree in the field the theory applies to. Let's say that another person discussing this is Billy, who dropped out of high school because it was cutting into his hard core drug abuse, and he's drunk. It would be cool of us to listen to each point equally, to show the same respect to Billy as we do the expert, at least as far as the courtesy to let him make his points uninterrupted and consider it incase he strikes on something true, however unlikely. Billy may well be a smart guy who just made some really bad choices, after all. In the end though, I think it's safe to say that we should respect the opinion our expert gives more, even if Billy has a sound stance. Of course that is a rather extreme example, so I'll present something we're a little more likely to encounter in day to day life. We are taught to respect our parents and other figures of authority. One must ask from time to time if this is really the right thing to do."
"I don't know about unconditional respect for a person just because of their position, but I do think that we should respect the authority these figures hold." Said Raz.
"Oh, I agree that we should respect their authority, if it isn't being abused. Even when they do overstep their bounds, it will sometimes be the better decision to obey, in order to make things easier for both parties. I don't think a cool person should ever cause unnecessary conflict."
We found no objection here, and so D continued on with his point.
"Let's say that a parent doesn't behave in a respectable manner. Maybe they are misogynistic, racist, or homo-phobic. Maybe they're an alcoholic or addicted to heroin. Maybe they just make really bad decisions concerning the life of their child, and refuse to listen to the child's input fairly. Would you say these parents deserve much respect from their child, or only the respect they are entitled to as human beings and nothing beyond that? A police officer who deals drugs, turns on his lights to get through traffic, but to grab a pizza not go to a crime scene. A police officer who bends and breaks the laws, and uses his position to get away with it, does he deserve respect? or do we just respect the laws he represents, and use our knowledge of the law to protect ourselves and those around us from his injustice? We may call him sir or officer, but if he says jump we aren't going to be in the air asking how high. There is a minimum level of respect that every human being is entitled to, that we should listen to them when they speak, that we should not deal them violence unless we absolutely must. We should not however, respect them as we would a wise man, a scholar, an officer of the law who conducts himself honorably, or a parent who displays the traits of these other three and employs them to raise their child as best they can. Those people deserve our utmost respect, and no less. Their opposites deserve only the minimum respect due to all people, and no more."
"I would like to agree with you here" said Mckenzie, "but I think I need to know a little more about your stance."
"What point would you like me to elaborate upon further?" asked D.
"You have said that a parent addicted to a drug like heroin would not be respectable. Is this only true of parents? I assume it would go for police officers as well, and politicians as well? Perhaps even men and women of the cloth, people dedicated to a religiously disciplined lifestyle that does not allow for the use of drugs?"
"Yes, I imagine it applying to them as well."
"Now what of a person living in the street? Are they also un-deserving of our respect in light of an addiction such as this?"
"I would be hard pressed to believe otherwise."
"When you said that such addictions would degrade our respect for these other figures, I think I had a clearer idea of why. I assumed that the trouble was the way the drug would interfere with their ability to live up to their responsibilities, and that any respectable person would not maintain such a habit."
"Yes, that would be a correct view of my stance"
"The person in the street doesn't have these responsibilities. In light of that, where is the trouble with them being addicted to heroin?"
"Do you mean to tell me you would support them in making such a decision?"
"Most certainly not, but they are in a different situation than our other examples. They aren't bound by the responsibility that was the grounds for our judgment before, so by what standard are they falling short here?"
"I would say they do not deserve respect because they are indulging in a practice that will perpetuate their misfortune, rather than making the efforts to escape it."
"That is troublesome, but what if the situation is a little different? Perhaps they aren't so strongly addicted as we assume. They know when they can afford the indulgence, and they know when it is better to suffer another day without their drug so that they can have food and drink. It might be the case that they don't want to return to a normal social structure, and consider the euphoric feeling these drugs grant them the reward for their difficult life style."
"I think I've got something" said Raz, breaking our silent contemplation. "I think we should go get hamburgers."
We thought this new proposition over for a moment, then muttered our agreements.
"Yeah... epic."
"Shotgun!" shouted Mckenzie.
V
"I think we have encountered a slight problem in our discourse. The point you made on heroin addiction as part of a choice to live life apart from society brings into the question certain dictums of morality that I don't think we are ready to broach. I think that for now it should suffice to say that we should be able to respect a choice we do not understand, so long as it is not obviously wrong by necessitating undue harm to others primarily, and oneself secondarily. As we should be able to understand one willingly suffering violence (which would be a bad idea in most circumstance) not in order to protect another, but to protect and ideal, we should be able to understand why one would take up a practice that is harmful to themselves as part of living out an ideal that is not harmful to others, such as becoming homeless and partaking of heavy drugs for recreation." I said to Mckenzie from the back seat.
We were in D's car now, the shotgun was safely placed unloaded in the trunk with the ammo, all locked in their respective cases. D's trunk also contained a hibachi, and in light of this we had decided to skip out on fast food burgers and keep with the spirit of our conversations by picking up our burgers from a butchers shop in town and buy charcoal from one of the supermarkets. We had also elected to splurge on a few spices and sauces for our burgers, as well as to pick up a few bottles of a darker beer, to better compliment our meal.
"I would have to agree to that" said Mckenzie, "but I would like to eventually discuss the dictums of a 'cool' morality further at some point."
"As I imagine most of us would."
There were nods of agreement, but very little was said. Our unresponsive demeanors were by no means a mark of apathy, however. It was simply that we were locked in thought, each reflecting the course of the discussion thus far in our own minds, and considering what future points we might like to make, and where we could improve on what we had so far. I imagine our silence may also have been due in part to the radio, which was blasting so loud that we were all but shouting when we did try to speak.
We pulled into the supermarket and stepped from the car casually. The sun was still high in the afternoon sky, with hardly a cloud in sight. A rather strong wind was blowing towards us, rippling our clothes and hair in that dramatic style so often reserved for movie heroes standing on the edges of rooftops. Raz had grabbed the frisbee from the back, and motioned for me to jog ahead a little for his throw. We spread out through the parking lot, throwing the frisbee so that it would skip off the ground or lift up in flight, or curve dramatically in the air to reach its mark. We all closed in on each other as we moved towards the entrance, so that by the time we were in the supermarket we were never throwing more than ten feet. We made jokes about pop art and Andy Warhol as we moved through the cleaning supplies in our search for the spices and the seasonal section. When we did find what we were looking for we all just grabbed something with one hand and continued tossing the frisbee around with the other till we reached the registers.
We picked the shortest line and continued in our revelry and wit until it was our turn to pile our goods onto the conveyor and a familiar voice greeted us.
"Well, hello again" it said.
We turned to face our cashier, and were surprised to find Sarah staring back at us, dressed in the bland store issued polo shirt and regulation full length pants of a supermarket employee.
"Fancy that" I said, "How's it going Sarah?"
"You know, working. What are you boys up to?"
"Trying to find the philosophical meaning of 'cool,' but first we need some hamburgers. That old story."
"Sounds fun" she replied with a laugh.
"Say, um, do you think I could maybe get Jess' number off you?"
"Sure thing, hold out your hand" she said, grabbing a pen from next to the register.
I held out my hand and she scribbled a few numbers down on it and started ringing up our items. I noticed Raz had been eyeing her and decided to lead the guys outside to afford them a moment of privacy.
"Frisbee?" I asked nonchalantly to my fellows, adding "Raz, you got this covered, right?"
"Yeah man, but you're covering the beer"
"It's a deal, see you around Sarah" I replied, and led D and Mckenzie outside, tossing the frisbee along the way.
Raz followed a few minutes later, with a solid grin on his face.
"Tuesday at 5:00" he told us, "when she gets out of work."
"Excellent news my friend" said Mckenzie, "now how about that beer?"
VI
We had picked up beer and the burgers, and were now stopped at our preferred gas station to fill D's tank and see if Goat-man was working. Goat-man was always working, so when we walked into the station tossing the frisbee and he greeted us it was no surprise. I tossed him the frisbee, which he tossed to Raz, and walked to the counter to say hello.
"Hey, you can't do that!" objected the other kid working, "can they do that?"
His name tag said trainee.
"It's cool, I know these guys" said Goat-man, He said our names and pointed at us, and introduced the new kid as "the new kid"
"New kid got a name yet?" asked Mckenzie, who had just caught the frisbee from Raz and was passing it back to Goat-man, who threw it again to Raz.
"Randy" said the new kid.
"The kid doesn't have a name yet? What's going on here Goat-man?" I asked
"Goat-man?" asked the new kid, "you mean Sean?"
"What are you doing man? How long has this kid been working here?"
"Relax man, it's his first day. He'll learn, he just needs more time." Answered Goat-man.
"Alright man, I trust your judgment, I was just worried there for a minute was all." I said, and turned towards the new kid.
"Stick close to Goat-man for me, alright? He'll show you the way."