Legendary in high circles but awaiting divulgence to most is a North Carolina water-sporting incident first reported to our associate Bob a couple of decades ago by onlookers whose tongues are incapable of falsehood. The sun was much as we know it, the sky was high, the water kersplashy, the crowd— genetically altered by clandestine experimentation and coarsened by years of declining standards in broadcast television— victims of multiple conspiracies, same as it ever was. But this was a very special afternoon never to be forgotten by any with an eye, an ear, and a view. jpt presents this capsule to you subject to the caveat that where non-essential details have been confused or forgotten, we have introduced fresh ones.
On this wide and sparkling North Carolina lake a super-cool new motorboat— slightly bigger than average, dazzling in near-psychedelic paints and markedly rear-tilted by a wicked motor of ebony— floated just offshore. From it a limp tow line meandered atop the water to the dock. There— on the dock, not in the water— a skinny young man in trunks as vivid as the boat, with a voluminous 7-year Afro abloom about his head, was making such outlandish ado in preparing to ski, with spiced soliloquy highlighted by jiving boasts to all within range and particularly to the young ladies attending him, that he held the house spellbound as he tugged and strapped and tested his spanking new equipment. His onboard companion, whom he copiously addressed as "brother," matched his banter with a stream of hyperbole and hilarity (also rhythmically dosed with “brother”) such that an afternoon’s fair spectacle was had, even if nought more had been in store.
Finally some kind of critical mass was achieved, and offshore boat-brother called, “IS YOU READY, SKI DADDY?”
Brother-in-skis, grinning hugely, still standing on the dock (witnesses were to recall murmuring I ain’t believing this), threw back his head and hollered, “LET IT HAPP'N, BROTHER!”
Boat-brother dumped it. The motor screamed, the boat shot forward, the tow line’s slack was devoured in a blink, and Ski-Daddy went airborne like a missile, jerked head-first off the dock out into the lake. Skis flew in both directions when he busted the water. Witnesses reported laughing so convulsively, God help them, that they could not see through the tears to assess injury. But as no immediate move was made to return to dock after Ski Daddy was dragged like a wet rug into the boat, it figured that crushed pride was likely among the greater of hurts.
—That’s Real America! Fun & sun & a hard-skiing son-of-a-gun. (Ka-Ching!)
Muttering nonstop, Suff’rin’ Mother wallows grocery-laden bags into the back of a dusty Honda CRV. The splendors of this morning of sunshine are those that have aroused hearts to sensual exultation since the dawn of life, but her tunnel of miserable vision affords her no peripheral take of the encompassing sphere. Her considerations never ascend from the pit within to fix joyously upon the brilliance of an azure sky or the flashing and dipping of cacaphonous birdies. Suff’rin’ Mother is at odds with her Maker, perhaps, though she shrewdly denies it and lays blame for a life of misfortunes upon an unseen consortium of the wicked who exist to torment and bring her ever to grief. Hers is an uncommon, constant complaining for an unaddressable complaint.
She notices that, along with his usual sundry cans, bottles and bags of victual, Shufflin’ Son has purchased for his own lair & lot a twenty-pound sack of white long-grain rice. This is a silly purchase and too great a provocation to dismiss. “W’ what’d ye git that for?” she grates. Further piqued scrutiny then reveals three sizeable tins of Danish ham in his buggy, as well as cans of yellow corn and green beans and StarKist tuna sacked up in disquieting excess. All in all, an affront to her expectations of familiar proportionality.
Shufflin’ Son weighs the likely repercussions of a square answer. She is not built for rational exchange, not constituted to dissipate her steams and stresses in any way constructive. She is a stress amplifier. His battered ears are receivers of those amplified transmissions. Even information objectively reckoned emotion-neutral is inducement for his mama’s hysterias; seldom is it wise to assault her stability with anything from the realm of concern, doubt, or complication. Not for his own peace alone does he take a care, but for the sake of the Suff’rin’ Mutha.
Yet there are times like this gorgeous morning when all difficulties seem dispellable with a grin and a wave of the forefinger. Times when he is willing to play deuce-run-normal with her, for such therapeutic benefits as might play in. She is not dense or unperceptive. To be accorded the dignity of straight-talk here in the morning of promising blue skies could reassure the doubtful spirit, if not still the runaway rat-a-tat ratcheting jaw-of-many-seasons.
“There’s been a lot of talk and some evidence lately of impending societal collapse and anarchy,” he shrugs. “These are survival provisions. One doomsday expert on the radio last night said the end of the world is definitely at hand.”
“WHEN?” cries Suff’rin’ Mother, and an electrochemical nerve-jolt tells him instantly that he has blundered, having foolishly relied on the emollient qualities of today’s brilliant weather to frame the discourse.
Mmm, but in for a penny… “He said it’s already starting, he expects it to hit bigtime around August.”
Suff’rin’ Mother, scowling and returning to her groceries, mutters, “I don’t know if I can wait that long.”
His gaze drifts across the twenty-pound sack of long-grain—a ludicrous sight after all, ironic monster of the grotesque union of pessimism and optimism, and capable of prolonging agony a couple of weeks at best, if your neighbors don’t know you have it. She is not dense, not unperceptive, but she is known to fret and ferment, and has already an aching heart, so he won’t test her with the occurring rejoinder, “Me either.”
Everybody’s going to be sick of rice and green beans for a while. Ah, and to hell with the end of the world.
—That’s Real America! Last-days ennui. (Ka-ching!)
luminance
