There had always been a sentence hanging within Mr. Ake
Whitecotton, but it was never for him to transcribe. The long of this seems to
have been proven amongst the thick groves of flies and soul bugs that permeate
the backyards of certain Southeastern vicinities in the States. Sewn to the
thought that he was a human worth more than the share delineated to him since
his birth, his collapses in schooling, social senses, and his failed writing
career, Whitecotton’s stare became the most of his written word, transfixed
upon that tree in that yard, undisturbed. His ideas remained un-channeled, his
conclusions ignored, and the wealth of his superfluous creativity had dried
with his life amongst vines, curious possums, and the rising Kentucky grass. It
was nature, he once spoke to his ex-companions, that only understood him, and
it was society, he had continued, that would eventually have to share the
burden of his intellectualism, which, according to he, towered so mightily
above the sounds of voices of common men, or even the thoughts of the “so-called
educated university stooges,” that he held to himself only because he had never
met anyone who would understand his superior curse of genius.
But that was
spoke before the Summer of ‘07, the year summer brought death, and Whitecotton’s
presence burdened only a copse near the wooded privacy by the back alley of his
yard.
In
actualities, to say that Whitecotton’s ill fortunes began that summer would be
untrue. Perhaps more honestly, his ill fortunes began their fall that summer.
Lost luck had plagued him most of his life, as a matter of fact. When we was
but nine years old, Whitecotton fell victim to temporomandibular joint
dysfunction, for which the dentist and his round of specialist friends had no
cure, nor any real solution, other than a breaking and a resetting of the jaw,
a resolution both he and his father had decided to deny. Whitecotton had spent
the end of his ninth and the beginning of his tenth year in a frozen frown, his
jaws locked in place based on what the doctors claimed was simply “too much
worry.” From that point, periods passed, some without the misfortunes, most
with. The destruction of his first automobile, leaving him destitute without
income set him back, he felt, years. Love was discovered, and marriage occurred,
only to see it vanish through her infidelity and his ignorance of human
relationships. Careers had eluded him endlessly, forcing him to careen through
odd jobs and low wages, until he finally secured a small life sweeping floors
and changing toilet rolls at a nearby comedy/variety club, as well as
developing a depressing drinking pattern.
Yet,
Whitecotton remained in friendly company with his peers, even as he saw them
launch lives filled with travel and fulfillment. They surrounded themselves, foolishly,
he concluded, with wives, property, securities, and overall attempts at
coziness. He was still invited to their get-togethers (no longer parties in the
traditional sense; that wasn’t
conventional for people in their thirties and early forties) to watch
them crudely fangle with their stereo systems and digital screens. They would
drink and sit on back decks and tell stories of France, professional accomplishments, and overall achievements and
perfection. They discussed and pondered sentimentalities concerning their loved
ones and the supposed perfection of the adjustments they had made in their
lives that allowed them to pursue all of the goals they had drank and sat and
pondered on back decks a decade earlier. The journalists, artists, professors,
cinematographers and psychologists usually sipped their single barrel malts and
talked altered politics and unusual takes on regular occurrences in the world.
And Whitecotton, stammering and ugly, simply mocked them and their savoir
faire, his self-absorption forthcoming and his maturity and once polite
mannerisms receding more than his hairline, and they all laughed, because they
still loved him and accepted him as one of their own. Then they would abscond
into the evening, bright faced with their brandy or bourbon, to their
individual homes with their happiness and compassionate loved ones. And the
host always knew, and was grateful and appreciative and glad, although maybe
sometimes annoyed, but usually in a generously piteous veil, that Whitecotton
would stay the evening, falling to slumber alone in the guest bedroom, or the
couch in the great room, or on especially celebratory nights, in the backyard,
ranting and cursing those around him in a vile aura.
It was one
of these very get-togethers that Whitecotton did, in fact, attack his host and
his host’s guests to a much more abandoned degree. The home was owned by one of
Whitecotton’s former college roommates, and a man who had been his closest
acquaintance throughout his middle and secondary school years. His name had
been, for the most part of their journeyed friendship, Rags, although he now
preferred to be called by his given name of Paul-Simon, a moniker Whitecotton
wholeheartedly scorned. Despite the separate paths their lives had traveled,
Rags Paul-Simon had always shown little but respect and appreciation for
Whitecotton’s interests, experiences, and opinions. Unlike Whitecotton, Rags
Paul-Simon had taken his higher education seriously, and had pursued a calling
in journalism, ironing a life with a home, beautiful wife and the means to live
expensively. He maintained his youthfulness assuredly, and had become a
respected writer in his field, creating headlines nationwide with his exposes
on national economic fronts, and nigh earning his employing newspaper a
Pulitzer for his coverage of the scandals involved in the structural adjustment
programs employed in the Horn of Africa by international financial institutions
led by the nose of United States interests. Yet, his heart remained balanced,
and he funneled his friendships toward the guests, including Whitecotton.
The
get-together, a sentimental assembly filed with old friends and acquaintances,
occurred near the middle of that summer, and yes, only a fine slip of time away
from a certain rainstorm and the certain fleeing of an ill-tempered arachnid
into the confines of a sock. Rags Paul-Simon has spared no capital in
containing the festive occasion to the heartiest Southern barbeque: grilled
steaks and vegetables, smoked pork, and even homemade macaroni salad. Rags
Paul-Simon’s neighbors gritted enviously, resentful they were not invited next
door, trapped in an evening of drifting laughter and the essence of a
closed-gated bring and braai spiced with spareribs. And to compliment the gala,
the host provided a crowning lot of liquors for his guests; each rum, bourbon,
vodka and brew was the premium, and well, to the observant Ake Whitecotton,
lavish and brashly cocky, however delicious they were, and however much he
consumed of them, feeling no need to starve his lust for mental and spiritual
removal.
The fest
proceeded into the evening, and friends shared memories like shrapnel, cutting
the flesh of Whitecotton’s hide as they poured their drinks and poured more of
their hearts, eating the music and dancing to the feast. Whitecotton sat shrunk
into the wooden corner of the backyard deck, sifting in the lights of the porch
and the candles, sacrificing his time to make judgmental comments and
inappropriate observations, occasionally. And he brooded as laughter at the
past and a satisfaction with this day rose and fell, and rose again, in
capacity, volume, and viscosity. Tales of college romances unrequited were
admitted, sometimes embarrassingly concerning members of the present company,
which wrought excitement between some and sad jealousy from others, and
Whitecotton took minute dips into pleasure through the needling at those
displeased, attempting to aggravate the situations. But, the evening would not
be slanted. Stories of valiant little insanities of risky, and most often,
inebriated and youthful adventures from
those days of irresponsible childhood that had left the participants only six
to ten years prior, were recounted with guffaw, and shuddered at agreeably as
though such days are best left for the adolescents they once were, and
Whitecotton squinted from behind several drinks too many and lauded them for
giving into society’s expectations too quickly. And still they snickered ahead, cheerfully mindful of his bitter
revisions of their lives.
“Oh,
Whitecotton, you bunk,” a plump, round fellow named Brenting that Whitecotton
had only held company with briefly in the past decade due to his friendship
with Rags Paul-Simon. “You have always been such an old man. Never happy with
anything,” and he laughed, hoping for the laughter to follow from his fellows.
Whitecotton’s
ire had begun to up his own back, but he held himself coolly, slumped in the
deck corner.
“The present
is always an agitated state of mind,” he slurred.
“And, once
again,” Brenting remarked with a raised glass of borrowed bourbon. “Always the
beacon of good hope and cheer for us all. To Whitecotton, our flare through all
of our blackish glooms and brunette undertakings.” And Brenting stole a look at
Rags Paul-Simon, as though for approval. Rags Paul-Simon not only seemed taken
by the stick at his friend, but rose with his own glass, and saluted. They all
hurrahed and drank, Whitecotton’s disposition being another reason to consume
their drinks as the night wore long.
“Brunette undertakings?”
Rags Paul-Simon added, his girth and jolliness expanding with his stance and
subsequent swigs. “I've never known Whitecotton to be caught with any brunette
undertaking! And I was his roommate!”
And they all
swam in their fun.
Whitecotton
rose, his head sorry for its state. And he shook that head and simply stared at
them. His eyes seemed tunneled, and the blood rushed to his pupils, causing
spots that made it difficult to create a morbid glare to penetrate them,
succeeding in only tipping his glass of rum and ice too many degrees to spill
some down his shirt, and throwing them all a gaze that could only be read as
muddled, and perhaps slightly constipated.
“You,
Brenting,” Whitecotton’s sudden activation strangled the toasts and mirth directed
at him. “You wouldn’ have even had friends, or relations with brunettes, or
anything, if it hadn’ been for riding the droppings of your fearless leader,
Mr. Paul-Simon there,” His voice had grown to a boom, a common overcompensation
from bitter men delivering drunken soliloquies swathed in selfish intent. “So,
here’s to Brenting,” And Whitecotton raised his glass alone. “May he realize he
had no friends, or undertakings, but did only follow’d Rags like a little pup,
and never realized how unknown, unneeded, and pointless his pointed little
fat-head, on top of his useless fat body, and how he would have never found his
life or career in this modern world without the favors, attention, and path
handed to him by his good frien’, our modest and successful hos’, Paul-Simon.”
And
Whitecotton tilted his head back, spilled more rum and ice water down his chin,
alone in his thanksgiving.
The crowd
had become silent. The dying charcoal still cracked spits of sentiment to
Whitecotton’s growling cheer. As his head readjusted itself, awkwardly, he
noticed the lack of ceremony. So, he pointed at Brenting, and humanity, to
finish the unprepared and eloquent speech he had begun.
“I mean, did
you ever work a day in your uninteresting life, or have you always just mopped
up the remains of salt left behind by other foot soldiers? I ‘ave never seen
someone without a reason to ‘nhabit the globe-”
“Ake!” Rags Paul-Simon interrupted. “What
the devil are you doing? Please, look here, calm yourself down, have some
water. We were just having a row with you, not attacking-”
“I’m just
pointing out his pointlessness, ‘s all,” Whitecotton continued.
“Not at my
get-together,” Rags Paul-Simon raised his voice. As the merriment began to show
signs of singing a good-night, several of the revelers began to stir in the
direction of their belongings. “Apologize.”
Whitecotton
noticed the hesitancy of the carnival to participate in his unyielding show of
grinding and verbalized callousness. He saw the unraveling of the jollity, and
his nerves knew it was the result of his own joylessness, but were bent on
securing his carousal of acerbic burden.
“Apologize?”
He left his cornered post, facing Rags Paul-Simon. “I’m merely making the
statement that you people claim to have progressed so far, so much, to have
grown past into a knowledgeable adulthood, specking your touted lives with pats
on your own backs and congrats and hurrahs-”
“Ake-”
“Hosh!” He
crumpled the work of words before they left Rags Paul-Simon’s mouth. Flies
circled the porch lamp. “Yes, another night where Whitecotton’s the clown, the
smudge in your fancies, all your pretty things tied in messes of stability and
mistaken assertions of accomplishments. All your careers, doubled in moneyed
successes and monumental credentials, drunk in fear of the facts that you’ve
wasted your lives to gain social grace. Leaving alone all the desires to never
be the sorts of wishful midlife wits that you’ve become, believing that you’ve
lived and had and loved and seen and heard and experienced and suffered and
stomached. Have any of you spent hours waiting for a bus in the winter? Have
any of you greyed your hairs with jobs spent cleaning the properties of
well-to-do’ers by collecting sticks from underneath their trees for hours on
end? Have any of you, my well-learned friends, struggled a day without the
knowledge that when you arrive home, there may not be a meal?”
The flies
circled the porch lamp. One of the guests gnashed their teeth.
“And what
have you done to live?” Brenting said. “What have you done that far surpasses
our insufficient existences? What have you done?”
Whitecotton
paused. Again, he realized that another evening had disintegrated into another
painting of his self-absorbed soreness, his battled and mangled ego. Still, he
felt vinegar remaining; enough to tilt and spill. So he sloshed his cup.
“You washed
out brutes,” He responded to Brenting, a journalist, also, by trade. “If I so
felt, I could write sentences you only desired could escape your pen. I’d
actually apply thought , as well as that weary concept of creative might, that
once sought fashion, into a song of words, singing from the page with more
fusion of sin and love than your mired readers would understand. I would
re-purify the language, meld the arts and the trees into tresses that curled
and fell onto the shoulders of common and uncommon men, singeing the indoor
soul and selling the outward mind, simultaneously. I would expound on the ions
of pain in the planet, and paw the human life of its devils and its dogs, and
Create. And I wouldn’t need an editor, or a handsome pay, or a beautiful and
supportive and loving wife, or a friend to clap my back! Only the angels and
nature would comprehend the porous stature of my hand; not humans, they already
fail to grasp things as they are as it is. Only trees would read my writing,
and see the existence of soul that can come from a terra mind. This curse of
this pent ingenuity, and seeing the garb that others wear as the talent in the
written word, dries me and burdens my existence. No one understands this mind,
only the trees, the scrubs, the earthworms, the bush, the bricks, the dirt, the
yard!”
A keen
breeze sniffed through the jealous self-interest that poised Whitecotton’s
verbal rotes, and Brenting the journalist split the silence.
“So,
Whitecotton,” He paused in an aching and qualified silence. “Why show the brunt
of your unhappiness in occupations to us, with accusations and lashings, and
not pursue your wits, and be generous with this genius?”
More spills,
down to Whitecotton’s toes. “What, for your amusement? How can one work in this
environment? Among such wasted minutes as these. I could deliver novels and
pages and essays and literal wonders, but how can one be expected to do so when
the only outlets are smeared in the tar of rats like yourself? Am I to sentence
myself to bland outpourings in a ragged newspaper? The noises of this city, of
this society, are but blunders and reinforcements of idiocy. You cannot expect
creation after a small day of work at a small job eating small portions of rice
in a small cold house on a street of lunatics, nor to garner inspirations when
you see your wasted acquaintances beguiled in such worship of immaterial slop,
pardoning themselves with the excuse of age as the mediating factor to which
accomplishments should be measured. You force your work for pay and immediate
satisfactions, and as a result, I witness it as typed deficits. I, meanwhile,
shoulder the weight of literature as it was meant to be, and will compose it
when it should be composed. I do not, and will not, set down truths without the
correct environment, and will not ignore the need for postponement to simply
garner a delicious mast to proudly display to my dunce wife and drunk friends at
a useless backyard barbecue in the middle of the evening.”
He sloshed
his crashing liquor.
Whitecotton’s
last words became a mumble. Most of the patrons, their hearts aching for
Whitecotton, and their minds aching from his speeches, had vanished. Brenting,
his coat in hand and his eyes coarse, turned his back.
“Dearest
Whitecotton, it’s refreshing to see you have adjusted so well to the sincere
ignorance of the rest of us. To see your consciousness of your ingenuity
gripped and viced in such a humble style.” Rags Paul-Simon said. “Then go
forth, and do it. But not here. Ever again. Go write to your yard, and live
your still life.”
Thunder had
begun.
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