Monday - storytime
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The Recruiter PT 3
By Julian Obedient
Miracles depend on our inner resources.
That was what the sign said on the Unitarian church across the street
from the bus depot.
Scotty Mason knew he needed one as he stood waiting for a bus at the
terminal in a small town 60 miles outside Chicago. He had done his
time as an army recruiter, and now he was going back east.
Sitting, drowsing, on the bus, watching great plains and the run-down
industrial peripheries of small and large American cities pass by on
the window screen he stared at, out of, through -- at himself.
In all those cities and towns, there for the eye to see, the
infra-structures were crumbling.
He could feel it, because that's what it felt like inside of himself.
His infrastructure was crumbling, which once had been so shiny and new
and strong.
How could his thoughts not carry him back to eighteen and Dartmouth
and an overpowering sense of belonging and possessing? He had a right,
then, to be everywhere. Everywhere he looked it was his.
He relaxed into the memory and a warm sense of arousal flooded his body.
The earth smelled brown in the air and gladness was the smell the
grass exuded. The early autumn of New England took him in her arms.
Darkness fell on the landscape and he fell fitfully asleep in his
seat. Then he woke, not more refreshed, groggy, but now unable to
reenter morphic realms for a second sleep. He watched darkness stretch
past him on the window glass.
And then he dozed, and then it was the gray dawn of New Jersey, and
then it was the cold and cheerless Port Authority terminal.
He took his duffel from the bus's belly and walked away with it flung
over his shoulder. He zipped up his wool-lined leather bomber jacket,
and turned 360 looking at the signs for the one pointing to the
Brooklyn subway.
A bunch of guys with skis milled around the newspaper stand. It was
strange to be able to look at kids without having to figure out how to
approach them. It was a relief. They were doing fine without him. They
were looking good. He wanted nothing from anyone.
It's really nice of you, Mike. I mean.
Oh, shut up Mason, he said taking the young man in his arms; and come
inside, he said, releasing him, but taking him around the waist again
and leading him in.
No, Mason, blushed, I have to express to you how grateful I am that
you could^?do this.
Michael made a gesture that it was enough.
You must be hungry.
If I let myself feel it, yeah.
But you don't?
Not much.
Only with hunger?
Not only. No. Just about everything. Float gracefully above it.
Otherwise?
Oh, I don't even go that far.
Or get that near.
Michael's brownstone was on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, a reviving
neighborhood. But he had bought the house before the revival began. It
had been in bad condition. Slowly, by himself and, when necessary,
with outside help, he was redoing it. He hadn't paid much for it. He
had managed to save enough from his nine years as an assistant
professor of English at Dartmouth to make the down payment.
That's where Scott had met him. It was strange that they hit it off.
They oughtn't to have.
Just like it shouldn't be Michael he turns to now. It doesn't make sense.
It's been tough, Michael says, his hand on Scott's shoulder as he
pours him a cup of herbal tea.
Yeah! Scott says, suddenly holding back tears.
The pressure must have been immense.
Mason was silent.
Michael poured some tea for himself, replaced the kettle on the stove
and sat facing him.
You're welcome to stay here, as long as you need, as long as you want.
There's plenty of room. I've made up a room for you on the third
floor. It's in the middle of being redone, but it's habitable with a
bed, a desk, a chair and a dresser. The radiator works and I put a
rug down because the floors are unsanded. It'll be a good place to
figure things out.
I don't know how to thank you.
Ok. It's my pleasure to have you. So thank you. Tell me are you still
as reactionary politically as you always were?
What!! Mason smiled.
You were a stubborn bastard.
And you never seemed to mind.
Ok, so tell me. What are your thoughts these days?
Truth is Michael, I have no thoughts. Everything I stood on seems to
have collapsed under me and now I can't tell if I'm swimming for my
life or walking on air.
Well you don't have to do either right now. You can just sit there.
But I want to do so something. I mean, I get some money every month
from the army. But I want to pay my share as long as I'm here. I don't
want to be dependent.
Might not be the worst thing for you if you could be openly dependent
for a change.
Openly?
Well, I know, you follow some party line that says we're each free and
independent. But it just isn't so. You, for example, were stuck in the
army, however much you might have wanted to be. You were forced to
serve an interest that really was not yours, even if you thought it
was. You were totally dependent! You were dependent on everyone. On
the kids you were trying to recruit, on your superiors who could make
your life miserable if you didn't meet quotas. How did you keep going
this long without breaking down?
Mason sipped his tea.
But you know Michael. I was interested. I wanted to know those kids. I
wanted to do good by them. They're just hanging out at a mall with
nothing to do. And I got a purpose for them that can turn their lives
around.
So that they'll be like yours.
They are lost.
And you?
So am I, I guess. He blushed. But I would not have been lost if I
could have found them. Hah! Looking for them, I got lost. I just
expected they'd be there and that a uniform and your country meant
something.
But you were rejected?
Was I ever! Rejected! There was this one, dude, you'd say, Derek. An
industrial diamond ready to be fashioned into a precise instrument. I
was on the brink with him. But I couldn't get in.
And it stuck with you?
He stuck with me. It's a little bit like an obsession. I recognize
that. But there it is. I want to see that fucker in uniform, standing
at attention. I want to hear him cry out, Yes, sir.
Michael lifted his eyebrows.
He certainly made an impression on you.
I guess you keep thinking about the one that got away.
Yea-up, Michael said standing. Let me show you your room.
Put simply, I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know who I am.
What's the thing that bothered you the most about everything that happened.
I'm ashamed to say it, but not making a connection with that guy Derek.
Oh but you did. You did more than that.
Did what?
Made a connection
What do you mean?
I'm not sure I should tell you.
Oh, come on, Michael. Don't play the guru with me.
You made a connection with yourself^?
With myself?
With yourself through Derek.
Through Derek?
Through Derek.
With myself?
Because of Derek you got in touch with a part of yourself you don't
want to allow. That's why you feel blank.
Why?
Because you don't want to be who you are.
What are you talking about?
You never did.
