It was dark.
A very early morning, September 2005, and the sun had yet to put forth its diurnal tongue. Too excited for sleep, George Taylor laid on his bed, clutching a pillow. He looked at the tiny digital clock near his bedside: 4:37AM.
Very quiet. Only the occasional passing car. Soon the entire city will commence from the beds to the showers—percolating and slow-dripping cast quantities of coffee and tea and hot milk—finding keys, wallets, watches, phones, briefcases. Thankfully, it was still early and the Taylors remained undisturbed.
Throughout the summer months George's impending departure from the Taylors sat on a shelf, forgotten in most part, and George was left to continue enjoying himself with long walks to the library and afternoons reading in the parks. It was an exquisite time in his life—summer. He read poetry and novel after novel. He spent hours dreaming up fantasies and masturbated whenever he felt like it. He even learned to whistle. But George had given the Taylors a fixed date and it wouldn't do much good to change that now. September was arrived, the Universities were filling up, and the time for George to leave his family had come as well. The vague misgivings George had felt whenever Mr. or Mrs. Taylor—the frequency of which, as of late, had only been increasing—spoke of his future and career and success and security and happiness, words George had misunderstood or misinterpreted at the time, all came crashing down upon his poor head in the form of anxiety and dread. Can it be true that these two seemingly innocuous, buffoon-like creatures, George thought, individuals I have been stringing along nicely, coaxing and swindling for years—that these good people have been somehow, quietly, and with a patience that never once betrayed their actions, grooming me for a force they neither love nor comprehend? George clutched his pillow and sweated in the dark.
Now words like analyst and supervisor and accountant and chief and executive and associate darkened George's mind. They were ugly words one and all, failing in every way to elicit the romance or sensuality of being anything. Months before, George had filled out applications to colleges all over California with the same cheerful penmanship, and it had been a whole lot of fun! He had considered each in turn—relying on old catalogues and fancy mailers with glossy advertisements. To the school with the best Medical Program, George applied as "Top Notch Brayne Surgeon." To the school with the best Law Program, he chose "Village Idiot" as a major. Of course there were plenty of schools offering Degrees in Business and to these he sent along a series of quips, such as "Put your money where your mouth is!", "Bankers make the best change!", and "If you can't, we'll do it for you!"—even, "Use your card to collect unlimited miles!" was deemed appropriate application fodder. He even wrote two very difficult and challenging pieces, one entitled, "An Indirect Response to a Direct Question," and the other, "An Inquiry into the Human Understanding and the Dismal Effects of Afterbirth." Most were put in the mail without postage, others came back to a fictitious address. But the experience had been over all a positive one for George, at the time. Now he wrung his pillow and sweated beneath a host of graduating divinities, course titles, cheap monikers, offices in a corner-office, any snake-oil will do, work to no end. Amen.
Ashamed, George compared his own simple and childlike visions against those offered by the various colleges and universities. George felt it would be much nicer if every person had a bit of garden or field to work in and people could raise some of the food they eat. He thought that instead of so many streets and parking lots there might be more nice places for people to walk and visit with their friends. Families and neighbors and friends could spend more time working together instead of at a thousand different places doing a thousand different things. Unfortunately, the university or college begins by separating one family member from the other, on friend from the other, one neighbor from the other. The campuses grow in direct proportion to the amount of displaced lives they collect; what comes out the other end, or whoever comes through, is dispersed across the globe to help fill key positions. This means very few life-long friendships, and even fewer community gardens.
George bit into his pillow and tried and tried, but try as he might he could not imagine one administrator he held in esteem above a gardener. Not one city planner above a friend. Not one doctor over his mother. Not one CEO over his father. Hot tears scalded George's cheeks, and he felt miserable and wretched.
There must be something I can do! thought George. There must be something I can summon! Some kind of magic! A spell. Something no other person can do but me!
But try and try, George thought of nothing. He chewed his tongue and blinked his eyes. He swallowed a hundred times in a row. Nothing. He felt his entire power—that of an entire person—reach its limit and ultimate futility. He wanted to expand and fill the room and explode beyond, over it all, but found himself trapped in his own skin. George sweated on his bed. He felt a tremendous amount of power welling up inside of him, however, and at the same time, he was unable to wield it.
Something, thought George, but Some Thing must be done!
Swinging his feet to the floor, George stood up in the near-complete darkness of his room wearing only his underwear. These might very well be the last pair of underwear I will ever own, he thought—and took a step towards the bedroom door, tripped, and fell. He had forgotten about the boxes on his floor—all of his possessions safely packed into six large brown boxes. Yesterday, with his mother looking on, he had sealed the last of the six with a roll of packing-tape. Then, pausing for a moment to think of something adequately academic, he wrote an address in black on the top of each:
UNIVERSITY PLACE
CROUP HALL
LOS ANGELES, CA
ATTN: GEORGE TAYLOR
If his mother had suspected anything she revealed nothing.
Carefully George rose from the floor of his room with his arms outstretched 360 degrees. Unsettled by his fall, George paused—he strained his ear against the quiet dark of the house, but heard nothing save the soft murmurings of the television in the living room where his father slept on the couch. Apparently his fall hadn't disturbed any of the sleepers.
"Something must be done!" George repeated the words he had been thinking. "There must be some way to dispel the curse that has fallen over this family! I must act!"
Unsure, led by instinct—trusting only his body—George stepped out into the hallway and padded quietly to the living room. The television gave the room a rippling glow, and for an instant George thought daylight had come. His father, Mr. Taylor, slept fitfully on the couch but would be the first to rise come morning. George noticed a clean pair of slacks hanging over the back of a chair and a coat on a hanger nearby. At the foot of the chair were a couple of shiny shoes—each with a thin sock, and almost black but blue, tucked cutely under the tongue. The television program ended and for a moment the room was plunged into utter darkness. George panicked—he was sure his father had made him in the room—in the moment before utter darkness he had seen his father's eyes. Then the soft glow of the television flickered on again and Mr. Taylor brought his tiny covering up past his head, exposing his great white flank, and turned away from the screen to face the back of the couch.
I must act! Something must be done! George felt a tingle along every fiber of his being. Quietly, George bent down and opened his father's briefcase. His hands were trembling in confusion and excitement—Somehow a curse must be lifted! He didn't bother to examine the contents of the case, rather, he deftly sipped his penis from between the flap of his shorts, knelt down, and filled it with urine—Yes, somehow a curse must be lifted! George shook out the remaining drops and then, just as quietly, closed the case. He listened to the steady, deep breathing of his slumbering father and wondered, briefly, what he might have done had the case been locked. Cast a different spell! An argument. A fist fight.
George was shivering. He felt spent after casting out the foul spirits from his father's briefcase. Still, there was more to be done, more to come. Without knowing exactly what he was doing, George was acting an ancient rite. The room was uncomfortably warm; the wall-heater had been left on all night—George shivered and sweat. His mother's purse sat on a table near the door, next to a bowl of keys. George left his father's briefcase for his mother's purse.
George had never put his hands inside his mother's purse. If he ever needed money, five or ten dollars, he would bring the purse to his mother and she would hand him cash. Now the purse sat almost begging the question. Its mouth was unzipped, as usual, and gaped and blathered, its contents only obscured by the darkness of the room. George reached in and found his mother's keys—he put them on the table. He grabbed the wallet. He took out all the cards—some twenty-plus including her identification—and the checkbook, and put the wallet back in the purse. Something still to be done! George took the cards and the keys from the table, and padded down the hallway to the bathroom.
George closed the door to the tiny bathroom and turned the lock. Through the window he could see the morning breaking out over the sky in a purple haze; even the palm trees and telephone wires are made beautiful by the rising sun. George took off his shorts and sat down on the toilet. He hid his mother's keys and her cards at the bottom of the trashcan, next to the toilet, under a pile of crumpled tissues. Then he tore up her checks and let them fall between his legs, into the water. He watched the torn pieces float and soak on the water. Curse this account! May it never see a dime!
Something tingled inside of George. His entire body became flush and he felt his bowels begin to move. A response! Something is happening! George relaxed, filling the room with his stink. He leaned on his elbows and arched his back—simulating a squat position as much as possible—and enjoyed a healthy evacuation, the bliss of relief. George wiped and flushed. The magic had been good magic, he was confident. He felt good.
It was time for bed. George was tired—rosy but sleepy. The clock in his room read 5:43AM. Still twenty minutes or so for dreams.
