Why Aren't You Smiling? (7 page)

Leona picked up the thread. “We spend our whole lives grubbing for money and forget about life's intangibles.”

Jeff: “Our Anglo-Saxon Puritanism has cut us off from not just Mother Nature, but
our own human nature.”

Leona: “If it takes talking seagulls to get us to slow down and take a look at ourselves, so be it.”

Gareth drained his wine glass and addressed the table. “I'm not arguing that we should experience life on a purely material level, I just think that this
Seagull
book offers simplistic metaphysical …”

My father interrupted. “But does meaning
have
to arise from complexity? Can't the truth be simple?”

“Right,” said Marie, with a coldly devilish smile and a flip of her bobbed hair. “If Peruvian peasants can find Truth in a sunset while their brutal, neo-Colonialist government traps them in ignorance and poverty, can't there also be truth in a trite, poorly written, inspirational novel designed to depoliticize youth and distract them from their oppression with metaphysics?”

Leona frowned. “I think encouraging spirituality is a profoundly political act.”

Jeff added, “Today's youth are far more political than we were fifteen years ago,
and
more interested in metaphysics. I don't think that's a coincidence.”

My mother took a shot. “A book can certainly raise important questions without being great literature.”

These comments came right on top of each other and Gareth turned his head with theatrical quickness from one speaker to the next, making a show of being besieged. Finally he held up the palms of his hands, signaling everyone to stop. “Look, simplicity is not the same as being simplistic. Sunsets and seagulls are all very fine in and of themselves, and I'm sure nobody is saying Peru wouldn't benefit from throwing off the shackles of American imperialism, but I've been given to understand this book is nothing more than a cynical remarketing of Kahlil Gibran, without any particular literary or philosophical merit.”

My mother cocked her head to the side quizzically. “Given to understand?”

A smile played about Gareth's lips as he hunched down in his seat, scowling at his tetrazzini. “Well, you know, I haven't actually
read
the blasted thing.”

Everyone erupted into another chorus of wine-drenched laughter that I didn't really feel like joining.

Becoming a Burnout came neither naturally, nor easily to me. A certain upright, uptight aspect clung to my persona. My wardrobe, in particular, posed a worry. My dress shirts and corduroy slacks were distinctly un-Burnout. I told my mother I needed some new clothes, and after a twenty-minute historical encapsulation of the trauma suffered by America's youth during the great depression and World War II (new clothes? don't make me laugh!), she offered to take me to Sears.

“But, Mom, they have dorky clothes there,” I whined piteously. “Just give me some money and I'll go get some stuff down by the university.”

“What?” She made it sound as if I'd wanted to go to the moon.

“Yeah,” I said casually, “I'll just pick up some jeans and tee-shirts.”

I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. Leonard = Teenager. “Oh, all right, I suppose.”

My mother's concept of how much clothing costs was also stuck in the Depression, and I only got enough money for a couple of outfits. I felt tempted to buy something offensive to protest her frugality (a tee-shirt bearing the image of a droopy-eyed caterpillar on a mushroom smoking a hookah, say), but sensibly restrained myself. If I came home with inoffensive stuff there was a better chance she'd cough up more cash next time. I finally settled on two pairs of denim bellbottoms and a pair of tee-shirts, one emblazoned with a vaguely tropical floral design, the other with a peace sign. Once clad in these, I discovered what amounted to a new super-power, the ability to walk down the street without getting sneered at by my peers. I immediately boxed up my old wardrobe and put it in the basement, even though this meant my new clothes were often dirty and quickly became ragged from continuous wear. That was OK. Dirty and ragged was kind of a cool look.

I did long for more clothes, though, as well as more posters, a “Save the Whales” belt buckle I'd seen at a street fair, candles, incense, and of course, records. There was nothing to do but get job. Fortunately, the world can always use another paperboy. It meant rising at the crack of dawn and dealing with a manager who spoke exclusively in sports metaphors (so I never had any idea what he was talking about), but at least I had a regular income. Once I'd acquired a few more cool clothes and my room was reasonably cluttered with head shop junk, I started putting my earnings away in an Escape Fund, the money I'd use to get to Oregon. All my childish fantasies of discovering a lost city of gnomes or inventing a time machine gave way to a single vision of life with Rick.

But being a Burnout involved more than clutter and clothing, it meant eating lunch at the Benches. Every day was an adventure there. Occasionally I'd share a few innocuous words with Kai or another boy, and sometimes I'd even consent to play handball, but mostly nobody spoke to me and I simply observed the amazing variety of bizarre and anti-social behavior. I saw one kid produce a teacher's purse he'd lifted from her desk, another sold pot right in front of me, and yet another regaled his friends with a lengthy (and possibly fictional) account of screwing our classmate, Janet Bertinelli, who he referred to as his “old lady.”

Once Douglas spotted me at the Benches. He was alone, and yet acted with the same supreme confidence he'd previously had with his henchmen to back him up. “Hey, Faggot, suck any good cocks lately?” I was appalled. Hadn't he gotten the message that I was no longer a Dweeb but a Burnout and that this sort of harassment was thus completely inappropriate? He ought to have been holding his nose and saying, “What stinks?”

“Leave me alone,” I pleaded, quickly shoving my sandwich into my book bag. Douglas walked over, and with one swift motion, scooped out my sandwich and threw it into the middle of a handball game. Instinctive fear froze my mind and body. Douglas socked me on the upper arm, hard. “That's for being ugly.” I covered the injury with my hand. He socked me there again, hurting my fingers as well as my arm beneath. “That's for being fat.” I pulled my hand away and Douglas re-socked the bruise. “That's for being a fag.” It felt like my flesh had dissolved into mush and his fist was hitting right against bone. I suppressed a whimper as he hit me again. “That's for being a Dweeb.”

This focused my fear, pain, and humiliation into fury. “I am
not
a Dweeb!” I barked. I couldn't say I was a Burnout because Burnouts were too indifferent to social categories to call themselves that, but I had to let him know. “I always eat lunch at the Benches!”

He looked at me quizzically. “So?”

It occurred to me that Douglas wasn't terribly bright. He was just a sadist who roamed through the world in search of victims, blithely unaware of all social and spatial divisions. Before I could answer his “So?” I beheld a sight too wondrous for words. The handball players had taken offense at Douglas interrupting their game with my sandwich and were now huddled around Douglas's book bag… peeing! In spite of the pain in my arm (and the vague sense that people who Loved didn't laugh at the misfortunes of others), I broke into a joyous cackle. Douglas turned to see what I was looking at and let out a holler.

There was an altercation, of course. Fists and foul language flew. I wanted to join in the fun, but Douglas was already outnumbered, I didn't know how to fight, and was a devout pacifist anyway. When finally Douglas left the scene holding his bag by two fingers with a disgusted look on his face, I gave the handball players a standing ovation. They smiled and bowed deeply from the waist like concert pianists and returned to their game. I was left alone to berate myself for my unChristian feelings towards Douglas.

At Christmas vacation, Danny came home from college. I'd been looking forward to letting him see how I'd transformed, imagining the look of wondrous admiration he'd bestow upon me as I told him about my Journey. I was, after all, rather young to be undertaking such a serious spiritual quest. When he walked in the door, however, I nearly recoiled. His hair was now a little shorter than mine, the respectable medium length of young people on TV sit-coms. After greeting my parents, Danny, as usual, shut himself in his room and began blasting his stereo. I waited a decent interval, fifteen minutes, before knocking on his door. This was against precedent. For as long as I could remember, our chats had always been initiated by his knocking on my door, but this time I had something to say.

Danny's voice bellowed out, “Hey, Squirt, c'mon in!” I went in and sat in the armchair as Danny turned the volume down on Jethro Tull's
Thick As A Brick
so we could talk. “What's up?”

“Why'd you cut your hair?”

Danny smiled. “Well, I met a girl. She likes it better this way.”

“A
girl
made you cut your hair?”

Danny lay on his bed and rested his hands under his head in a manner I thought self-satisfied. “It's not like that. She didn't
make
me. When you're in love, you want to do things for the person you love.”

“Love?”

“Yeah.” He sighed dreamily like someone in a movie.

My curiosity took over. “You got a picture?”

Danny frowned. “I'll bring one next time.”

“What's it like, being in love?”

“I just feel better, like things don't have to go wrong all the time and be so fucked up. She gets me out of my head and makes me laugh.”

“But what's it like?”

Danny pondered for a second. “It's like her happiness is my happiness. Making her happy makes me happy.”

“I guess it's more intense than how you love Mom and Dad?”

Danny laughed. “More X-rated anyway.”

My skin grew warm with embarrassment and my scalp prickled with nerves. “Is it the same thing as spiritual Love?”

“Not sure I follow.”

“Like spiritually elevated people… you know, people who Love everybody and everything?”

“You mean like those blissed-out fuckers who hang around parks picking daisies and chanting?” Danny wiggled his fingers in the air and adopted a sing-song voice, “Oh, maaaan, I just loooove the flowers…. And the trees… and the sidewalks….”

“No, not like that. See, I met this guy, Rick, and he's been telling me about…” I couldn't say Christianity, let alone Jesus, without sounding dorky. I stammered for a moment before fudging. “…the spiritual trip he's been on.”

Danny sat up a little, either intrigued or alarmed. “Which is?”

“He's discovered all this weird stuff in the Bible, which anyway he thinks was rewritten by the Church and people who were threatened by the real message of total, universal Love. So anyway, he's been trying to get back to the original message.”

“Sounds like some kinda Jesus Freak,” said Danny, wrinkling his nose with distaste.

I'd always accepted Danny's opinions as gold, but this time I couldn't. “Well… yeah. What's wrong with that?”

Danny's bushy eyebrows scrunched with consternation. “You shittin' me?”

I felt a power I'd never before possessed. I could be Trouble. “I think he's on to something really important. Universal Love is the source of all healing, all creation, all goodness.” The feigned confidence in my voice gave me real confidence. “And the actual true message of Jesus is Love.”

“Look,” said Danny, “I'm not sure loving
everybody
is even possible. But let's say it is, just for the sake of argument. Say you Love everybody and want to make everybody happy. You got a problem right there.”

“Why?” I crossed my arms and squinted, hoping to look more grown up.

“You can't please everybody. Lotta times making one person happy makes another person
un
happy. You donate money to starving children in India, you're denying money to starving children in Africa.”

“It's still better to help some people than no one at all,” I countered.

“Or,” Danny was only getting started, “build a road and the people in town love it 'cause they get more visitors, but the local Indian tribe thinks you're desecrating the land. Buy a kid who wants to be a drummer a drum set, he's in seventh heaven, but the noise drives his parents crazy.”

“But it's still better to
want
to help everybody, even if you can't. It's still better not to
hate
people and
deliberately
make them miserable.”

“Sometimes you have to hate and make people miserable,” instructed Danny. “OK, hypothetical situation. You're in Nazi Germany just before World War II. Hitler is right in front of you, six yards away, greeting some school children for a photo op. You have a grenade. You can throw it and kill him, save the world from a war that killed fifty million people. But, if you do, you'll kill a dozen innocent children. What do you do? Go up to Hitler and give him a hug and say, ‘Hey, Hitler you gotta love everybody!' Or use your hate to steel yourself into killing him
and
the innocent kids?”

Danny's soulless logic deeply annoyed me, but I didn't want to be the sort of coward who ducked difficult questions. “I'd kill Hitler and the kids, but I wouldn't do it out of hate, I'd do it out of Love.”

Danny was unimpressed. “Big consolation to the parents who lost their beloved children to
your
hand grenade.”

“OK. You might have to do evil, violent things sometimes, though I think probably hardly ever, but it's still better to always have Love for everyone in your heart.”

“But, what if…,” Danny held his finger aloft in a pedantic pose, and paused for dramatic effect, “just what
if
it's having to
earn
Love that makes people good? I mean, why bother helping your fellow man if you're gonna get Loved anyway? What if people, subconsciously I mean, only behave themselves and do good deeds because they want to be Loved? If everybody Loved everybody automatically, we might all turn into selfish bastards. Humans are social animals, you know. You should try reading some psychology. Maybe I could dig up some books for you…” He looked towards his overflowing bookcase.