mark oppenneer | musings

“Quick, call the guards!” I heard one say.

There was much twittering and womanly shouting of “Waily, waily!” as the crowd gathered to see me rumpled and twisted at the foot of the West wall. A voice close to me whispered, “Stay with me, man.”

Stay with me, indeed. For forty long and miserable years I’ve lived in this moldy loaf of a village. Each day of those forty years, I have dreamed of revenging myself of the litany of injustices that have been visited upon me. And on this day, the last I had hoped to endure, a kind villager beseeches me to stay. Bah!

From the sad, gray day I was born the fourth son of Ethrel MacGonnagal, fierce and noble knight to the King of Flannoc, I have been the butt of humorless attacks by everyone from highborn sons of the court to thick-browed daughters of lowland swineherds. One look and it is plain to see that I am not cut from the swath my brothers were. Leland, Jacob, and Wendell, god rest their souls, were strapping, pugnacious boys, known for their exploits in the pub, on the battlefield, and under the sheets. Not a soul in the village has forgiven me for outliving them.

For forty years, I have tried to shed the yoke of humiliation that my neighbors thrust upon me, though my efforts only added to its weight. The moment I was born, in the brief hush that followed my arrival, the bed nurse was heard to say, “Now there’s a yeasty little wagtail.” And although my mother’s attempts to keep me hidden from the public eye were heroic, more names followed. Morelock, the smithy, an unforgiving jackal of a man, dubbed me a “pallid-pated pignut” when he first spied me as a nose-picking toddler. Even Odd Byron the humpback, second only to me in the ranks of the disgraced, would howl, “Alack! What’s this, a spongy malt-worm?” from his dank doorway when I passed.

When I was three, Winton, the gentle rector, was asked to pray over me. At five, I was taken by my mother deep into the Dark Wood to visit the old hag whose herbal remedies had once healed a colony of lepers. Even the court’s magician had a go at curing me of my affliction, but could only produce a benign sulfuric cloud after an afternoon of incantations.

Through stabbing fiery bursts of pain, these thoughts turned in my mind. In my haze, I knew that the fall had served only to break my legs and crack my ribs.

Why would God not let me die? What use was I to him or to anybody else? I was a freak, a bloated, colorless thing who had spent a life lonelier than stone. After my mother had died and my father was taken at the battle of Tryone, I had become like a living ghost. Not once in the intervening years have I been called by my birth name, Humphrey. Not once have I felt the touch of a woman. Not once has my hearth heard laughter.

Just moments ago I had struggled to heft my hueless husk of a mortal shell upon the rampart of the West wall. I had sat dangling my legs over the drop that would deliver me from my curse, feeling alive for perhaps the first time in my life. In my mind’s eye, I could see me falling, a blur of whiteness, hitting the cobblestones with a crack. I, Humphrey MacGonnagal, would break into pieces that would never be put back together again.

But now, as the king’s men are called – as I am held in the arms of a kind stranger saying, “Stay with me, friend,” I know that I will live to see tomorrow. I will be mended and coddled and briefly pitied by old husbandless women and for a fortnight or two, the village will give me its silence. But inside I feel the pull toward the shadows of death. Inside I know that as soon as my legs can bear the weight of my body and my hatred and my anger, I will climb the wall once again.

Look for the flow, the common thread
Etched in words inside your head
Follow the flow to its fruition
Try to use your intuition
Make words become the paint you use
And call upon your special muse
Read back again what’s written down
Gladly see the words you’ve sown
In being written did become
Naturally enough, a poem

Tell me Mr Teacher
oh tell me what you think
do you like this poem
this synthesis of hiacynth
and biscuits in black ink

“Quite frankly, no.  The use of ‘oh’
is ugly, trite, and awkward.
And since you’ve misspelled ‘hyacinth’
go write it on the chalkboard!”

Tell me Mr Teacher
oh will I be like Yeats
or maybe Robert Frost
or how ‘bout Blake and cum(mings,too
have I got what it takes

“Quite frankly, no.  For you should know,
just how and when to punctuate –
If you can’t use a question mark,
then perhaps you should stay late!”

Tell me, Mr. Teacher,
oh what about the form?
I’ve tried my best to please
(and ballads are your favorite).
Do I surpass the norm?

“Quite frankly, no.  You’re well below.
This ballad has no special twist
that makes you think what is not is.
Now come here and bare your wrists!”

Tell me, Mr. Teacher,
If it’s a twist you want,
what if I delete you,
or mess up what you have to say,
or shrink to 6 your font?

“You wouldn’t dare, I give the grade!
I possess the greater power.
Get back to work and try again –
You’ve detention for an hour!”

Well now, Mr. Teacher,
you’ve been no special friend.
In fact, you’ve been quite rude.
And since my best won’t do for you,
I’ll kill you with

THE END

The cell is cold. I sit on the bench nearest the narrow window, trying to absorb what little warmth filters through the frosted leaden glass. Waiting.

The guard comes over and calls for one of my cellmates.

“Barber! You made bail. Let’s go.” And Barber rises from his spot in the corner, a tiny whisper of a man who until now has somehow gone unnoticed by the other three.

I don’t know the identities of the others, so I’ve given them names: Smoke Machine, Laughing Man, and The Biter. Smoke Machine paces from one end of the cell to the other holding his left hand in his pocket and waving the right about with two fingers pointed as if he’s smoking a cigarette or giving a lecture. Now and then, he brings the fingers to his pursed lips as if taking a drag. He’s not a nervous pacer. He’s scheming. I wonder what his deal is.

Laughing Man isn’t a cackler, thank god. He more or less chortles. At everything. When Goliath left with his lawyer earlier in the morning, Laughing Man was smiling a dull, benign smile that Goliath took personally. For a brief, tense moment as he made his way to the cell door, Goliath – all 350 pounds of him – stood nose to nose with Laughing Man and said, “What’s so funny?”

Laughing Man didn’t flinch, which surprised me because I did, but rather stood chortling under his breath. The effect was both humorous and disturbing because I could see the slow burble of manic magma rising in his eyes as he looked at Goliath. I wonder if the fat man knew how close he was to death at that moment.

And then there’s The Biter. He stands, rooted by the wall near the door with his back to us, mouth open, biting the horizontal bar in front of him. He’s been in that position for the last five hours, unmoving, willing his jaw to grind through the bar. I count. Even if he was able to bite through it, there were still seven more to get through before he could escape. At this rate, it’ll take him a day and half. But I don’t think that’s his plan.

I wonder if I will ever stop naming people as if they were my arch rivals. Those days are over now. Not everyone in a prison cell is The Bad Guy.

During lunch time, Smoke Machine gets to make his call. He’s standing in the hallway outside the cell at the pay phone about 15 feet from where I’m sitting. I can clearly hear his side of the conversation. He paces as he talks, still smoking.

“I’m fine. No, there are couple of others in the cell, too. Don’t worry about me, I said I was fine. Listen, I need you to do me a favor. Take the kids to Aunt Marcy’s house. Their bags are under the bed in the guest room. Great. It’s just for tonight, I think. I really appreciate your help, Darlene. Sure. How soon can you get here?”

I laugh out loud and briefly attract the attention of the others. I turn toward the window pretending to see something beyond and they ignore me again.

Almost exactly 24 hours ago, I was asked – once again – that same question. How soon can you get here? They were spoken, as usual, with not only a sense of urgency, but of expectation – as if I didn’t have anything else going on. For years now I’ve heard the words beneath the words: Drop everything. The situation is dire. What you’re doing right now isn’t important. Your life doesn’t matter as much as the ones you need to save.

And I know that they are just reading from the script that life has given them, just as I have my lines. But there are just so many times you can say You’re safe – nothing can hurt you now or Who put you up to this? or You won’t get away this time with honest conviction.

I used to love that stuff! I don’t know when I lost the thrill of the chase, the joy of capturing the bad guy. Until recently, I haven’t been conscious of having left the path, but looking back now, I can see the transformation from “Not again,” to “God damn it. I just sat down with the paper,” to last night’s, “To hell with it, let ‘em die.”

What no one will ever understand though is the freedom that that thought has given me. My entire life, I have fought for people’s freedoms while denying my own. I am just a guy in a cape, pushing his boulder up a hill every day – and it’s not even my boulder. I have risked my own life countless times to save the lives of others I don’t even know. I don’t get postcards at Christmas, or letters from kids saying, “Thanks for saving my Mommy.” As selfish as it sounds, I don’t ever get anything in return.

When I got the call last night about the hostage situation at the East Side Mall, something changed in me. I let the boulder go. The Chief asked, “How soon can you get here?” And I told the Chief that I wouldn’t be coming. He was incredulous. “Why?”

“Because I need the night off,” I told him. “Because, I quit. Because… the people who went to that mall, were there because they were free to make their own decisions, their own plans. And as much as I hate to admit it, so are those assholes with the guns. The flipside to freedom is consequence. And I am tired of being the arbiter of consequence.”

When I had hung up the phone, I felt a crisp sting of guilt which was immediately washed away by a sense of delightful emancipation. I unplugged the phone and went for a walk in the cool night air.

Early this morning, I was awakened by the sound of my door buzzer. As I stood there in my bathrobe and slippers, two sheepish officers – more accustomed to seeing me in costume – served me with a warrant for my arrest. I could have cracked their skulls, disarmed them with a blur of movement. On the way to the squad car, I could have broken the cuffs and flown away, but I didn’t. I knew that I would accept the consequences of my freedom even if it meant losing my freedom as a consequence.

And so here I sit, peeling paint from the wall behind the bench in a cold cell with Smoke Machine, Laughing Man, and The Biter. Waiting for my lawyer. Waiting for my judgment.

The card in player’s sleeve was hid,
nestled so with stealthy care.
His knack for winning was so rare!
He mustn’t race to push the bid
lest the rack become his fate.
Steady, stoic, like a rock,
or careless he’d be at the dock
with doctored deck to implicate.

Digger
of dirt –

What it means
is what it does.

White dirt residue on torn
cotton sheets. The salty pebble taste.

What it does? Forces back the earth
with aching shiny shovel. For pretty worms, and

soft pale skin. Soft tongue undone with callused palm –
Go digger! Go down the shaft! Let the wet stone

eat you – mud to mouth, clay to bone, stone to silence.
What it means: to drink gritty coffee in the kitchen without words

or fresh cream. Uncertain of the morning newness. Scratching at your tired digger.
Throat hole sarcophagus stretches, yawns, releases the ghosts of tiny translucent worms

that burrow, seeking something solid. And what it means will haunt
me in fantasies. Shaft where shaft should be, earth piled.

What it does in newer mines is keep the
ghosts alive. The salty pebble taste on tongue,
the dirty morning grit of creamless coffee.

What it means is never having
my own ground, not touched
by digger’s shiny spade.

What it does
is dirty.

What a difference a day makes… at the intersection of information and the flow of time, meaning can be affected by the passage a second, minute or hour. And subsequently, so can the memory as reflected in the public record.

If he dies on Wednesday…

Douglas Hughes, the former journalist and radio talk show host turned Senator from New York who became the Presidential hopeful for the Democratic party in 2009, died early this morning in a plane crash en route to the Global Green Summit scheduled for tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro. He was 49.

In a statement issued by the White House, President Bush said: “Douglas was one of our Nation’s finest commentators and advocates. . . . He brought wit, honor, and a great love of country to his work.”

A graduate of Cornell University, Hughes worked as a Green party community organizer and journalist for The New York Times before creating his persona as an activist radio talk show host between 1998 and 2002. He became known for his tough questioning and glib repartee as well as his frequent interjections of, “Well, if I ran the show, I’d…” which ultimately lead to an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000.

In his brief tenure as Senator, Hughes became perhaps the best-known face of “Green Politics” after Al Gore when he started his environment-focused video blog in early 2006. Dozens of his ten-minute “Go Green” segments have gone viral since then on video sites such as YouTube making him a national folk hero. Even during his busy campaign visits, Hughes always made time to speak at local Green Party meetings.

He was a spirited and dynamic speaker whose gentle humor was disarming when tackling tough interview questions. Rare among Washington politicians, he did not hesitate to apologize when he made a public gaff or spoke on a subject he knew little about. He always held true to his practiced retort of, “I’ll tell you tomorrow when I know more than I do today.”

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he cosponsored legislation to control industrial waste and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In the current 110th Congress, he was in the process of drafting legislation regarding climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Since announcing his presidential campaign in February 2007, Hughes has emphasized withdrawing American troops from Iraq, increasing energy independence, decreasing the influence of lobbyists, and promoting universal health care as top national priorities.

Hughes’ plane, a new eco-friendly hydrogen-powered jet airplane crashed early this morning in a wooded area southeast of Petrópolis, Brazil. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are working with Brazilian officials to investigate the accident.

Hughes is survived by his wife and two sons.

If he dies on Thursday…

Douglas Hughes, the former journalist and liberal radio talk show host turned Senator from New York who became the Presidential hopeful for the Democratic party in 2009, was shot and killed this morning while giving an address at the Global Green Summit in Rio de Janeiro. He was 49.

In a statement issued by the White House, President Bush said: “Douglas was a good man. . . . He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work.”

A graduate of Cornell University, Hughes worked as a Green party community organizer and journalist for The New York Times before creating his persona as an aggressive activist radio talk show host between 1998 and 2002. He became known for his sharp critiques of Washington policies and for interrupting his talk show’s political guests to give his own advice when he felt they needed “to be schooled.”

In his brief tenure as Senator, Hughes was an outspoken advocate for the environment, using the Internet as a platform for delivering ten-minute diatribes about municipal irresponsibility, corporate waste, and the “useless efforts of suburban recyclers.” His showmanship has attracted a great deal of media attention, which he skillfully redirected to the issues he held dear.

He was a spirited and dynamic speaker whose mix of candidness and bravado would often heat even the driest of debates. Rare among Washington politicians, he was quick to apologize when he was wrong. “That’s why I surround myself with people who are smarter than me,” he said on more than one occasion.

The gunman who shot Hughes, a member of an eco-terrorist group known as Tierra de Fuego (Earth Fire), turned his gun on himself before authorities could apprehend him. A message on the group’s web site states that Senator Hughes’ was targeted to showcase the need to punish those in power who exhibit “ecological hypocrisy.” Last year, Hughes was attacked in the media for allegedly sabotaging a new piece of contentious waste regulation legislation he had cosponsored. Critics claim that he had folded after facing pressure from energy lobbyists.

Recently Hughes had become both the poster boy and whipping boy for the Green movement. A fierce proponent of hybrid transportation technology, he had won praise for using a special hydrogen-powered jet airplane to travel, but garnered the ire of environmentalists for his personal investments in non-renewable resources and related technology.

A joint investigation between American and Brazilian law enforcement agencies is ongoing.

Hughes is survived by his wife and two sons.

If he dies on Friday…

Douglas Hughes, the former journalist and subversive left-wing radio talk show host turned Senator from New York who became the Presidential hopeful for the Democratic party in 2009, was found dead this morning by apparent suicide in his hotel room in Rio de Janeiro where he had given an address at the Global Green Summit yesterday. He was 49.

In a statement issued by the White House, President Bush said: “Douglas was a hard worker. . . . He brought character and a great love of country to his work.”

A graduate of Cornell University, Hughes worked as a Green party community organizer and gonzo journalist for leftist periodicals and occasionally The New York Times before creating his persona as an aggressive activist radio talk show host between 1998 and 2002. He became known for his sharp invective and abusive critiques of Washington policies and for insulting his talk show guests by treating them like children when he disagreed with their positions.

In his brief tenure as Senator, Hughes was caricatured as an outspoken and outlandish character spouting environmentalist dogma at every opportunity. He used the Internet as a megaphone for delivering his rants and fatuous diatribes. At times a spirited and dynamic speaker, he was known for creating whirlwind arguments during debate by means of well-placed and often humorous non-sequiturs. Rare among Washington politicians, he seldom used restraint when speaking off the record. One of his favorite statements, “So sue me,” has been taken seriously on five occasions.

Recently Hughes had become the whipping boy for the Green movement. A fierce proponent of hybrid transportation technology, he had won half-hearted praise for using a hydrogen-powered jet airplane whose fuel efficiency has been the source of much debate. He has also been the butt of political humorists ever since it was revealed that he had invested a sizable fortune in oil futures.

Speculation has surrounded his death as pundits offer reasons for why Hughes might have taken his life. His motivation could have ranged from the political (last year, Hughes was attacked in the media for allegedly sabotaging a new piece of contentious industrial waste legislation) to the personal (recent allegations have surfaced about the nature of his relationship with long-time aide William Bomar). He has also been the focus of two Senate Investigations in which his moral character has been called into question.

Hughes is survived by his wife and two sons.

It all adds up -
Gad!  How can that be?
Perhaps a mathematical trick…

The secret, my friend,
depends upon
which words you choose to pick.

So, now, let “A” be one
and “B” be two
and find the sum of the lines.

The first and the second
lines of each stanza
will oddly equal line three.  How sublime!