The Meat Grinder Incident II

A tremendous silence lurked through the house. The fridge didn't buzz, the cars didn't growl, the toilet didn't run and not a single radio sent distant sounds through my bedroom window. I wiggled my pinky inside my ear to move around the wax. I forced myself to yawn and popped my jaw and even clapped to make sure I hadn't gone deaf in my sleep. The silence made me uneasy. I laid there, in the warm morning sunlight with the sheets pulled up to my chin, just waiting for something to happen. I'd experienced this life tone only once before, the night we got back from Arabia, and would experience it only a few more times throughout my life. Most memorably was when news got back to me that Dad had two other sons. And then again a few years later when I was ordered to report for duty. After that though, life got noisy for a long time and it didn't fall silent again until I found out I was becoming a father. At the time I thought It’d be the end-all, but sure enough the earth fell silent again in 1994 after the Northridge quake. I'm not sure if it's a broad societal thing, or just me, but I feel real uneasy when nothing is happening, when no sounds are being made. It makes me feel constricted, like falling asleep on your arms and having dreams about getting beat up.

It was a Friday, and the teachers had a faculty-planning day, so us kids got to stay home and bug our Moms. I noticed Jeff wasn't in his bed when I turned over and I thought it was weird because Jeff never woke up before me. At the time, I didn’t look too far into it; I figured after yesterday’s incident he wanted to be alone. I won’t lie; even at 14 being alone in a silent room, day or night, scared me a bit. I don’t love loud noises, but the hum of the city is nice to have around as a reminder that we’re still alive. I felt itchy without it, the hum, but I figured the kids were still sleeping and the parents were off to work and it was that time of day that nothing really happens anyways. As eager as I was find the hum, I didn’t want to disturb those who appreciate these deaf moments, so  I made an extra effort to be considerate with my movement. Even though it was daylight I acted stealthily, pretending that any miscalculated move would compromise the city’s desire to remain still. I sat up and paused. Pushed my feet out from under the sheets, and paused again. I stood up, cringed at the squeak of the springs, took one step, paused, and listened for anyone else who might have been creeping around. I walked into the hallway, rolling from heel to toe, heel to toe. No one was in the kitchen. No one was in the living room, Mom's room or the front yard. As I do with every qualm in life, I jumped to the worse-case scenario, and then analyzed the shit out of it. Had the Russians invaded? Were McCarthy's commie theories correct? Had my North Hollywood neighborhood been ransacked by liberals and fags? Why was I spared? What does that mean? Was I deep enough to be considered one of them, to be considered an artist? I hadn't painted much; well I hadn't painted at all really. The only artistic accomplishment I had was fading away over at Stony Point. It wasn’t a big deal but a few years prior me and a few pals started a club called The Dudes. We mostly just played pranks on the neighbors, but we wanted to be known citywide as well. I was living in Chatsworth at the time and the most recognizable spot in the city was king’s rock at the top of Stony Point. Tom brought the paint and Craig brought the ropes, I brought my artistic bravado and willingness to do anything for admiration. We hiked to the top and boosted each other up to throne where you could sit and dangle your legs over the entire city. They were laying tracks at the time too, and we used to throw pebbles at the workers below. On this day though, it was all about the club. I shook the can and practiced writing upside down and backwards before being lower over the side. When I was ready Tom and Craig tied my ankles together and slowly fed me over the edge. It was a lot harder than I anticipated, a lot scarier too, but I pulled it off. With big sloppy red letters, The Dudes introduced themselves. As I recall, the paint I used was a commie color, and I did deface state property, but was that enough clout to be spared in the rebellion? I didn't know and I didn't have time to put anymore thought into it, so I greased my hair and hopped on my mo-ped to go find some noise.

The land was baron. The orange trees stood still and the dust on the road laid heavy and clotted. My 5 horsepower bored out lawnmower engine screamed through the empty streets. There was no wind, no clouds, no clues as to where everyone ran off to. I headed out of my neighborhood and onto Chandler towards Lankershim. I figured if life were to be found anywhere, it’d most certainly be found on the boulevard. Out here things weren't dead, but things weren't exactly vibrant either. I saw a few cars, silver-blue ones drive by in a hurry and they were all heading the same way; south on Lankershim towards the new strip mall. I headed that way too. As I effortlessly rolled through the Burbank/Tujunga intersection (which was even a pain back then) I started to see masses of cars pouring into and overflowing out of the Sears parking lot. Even though Sears ended up putting a lot of my neighbors out of business, everyone still loved it. It had just opened in this part of the Valley. I was there for the ribbon cutting ceremony and the herd of housewives lined up to receive their complimentary ashtrays, but I thought the excitement had died down by now. I knew Sears had a big display of TV’s in front, some of them even in color. And on nights when we got bored we’d go sip peppermint Schnapps on the bench outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ms. Monroe's Coca-Cola commercial.  I hadn't been inside yet, but I was out of bed and dressed, so I figured I might as well go see what the fuss was about. I knew if there was a sale going on, Mom and Jeff were sure to be there. As much of a tough guy as Jeff came off as, he was such a pansy when it came to his clothes. He used to beg Mom to take him shopping. I heard him cry multiple times about the way his shirt fit or if he thought his pants were too baggy. He had to try so hard to get that rough look.

I rolled into the madness. Seemingly every person, well every person from my side of the tracks, was plastered to the windows outside of Sears. I smiled because I thought it was that kind of fling. A fun, happy, lets brake open our piggy banks and cigar boxes type of day. I revved the mo-ped a couple times as I swerved in between parked cars and pedestrians. Nobody looked at me though. Everyone just kept pushing closer and closer to the windows, leaving their cars running and their doors open and their young children behind. I rolled until I could roll no longer and laid the bike down on its side. It took me a minute to adjust. My vision, my hearing and my equilibrium had all been subject to an early morning haze of head-scratching  and I didn't know if was thinking straight yet. Something was still wrong though. It wasn’t intuition, it was more like a beating, because once off the bike and amongst the people I was overcome with the heavyness of the crowd. As if the day hadn’t already been strange enough, in the span of about 30 minutes I went from thinking that I had been forgotten in the second coming to being in the middle of a mob of bodies, silent, dense and macabre. I spotted peroxide curls in the distance, and the small bald spot on the ridge of Jeff's head. They were embracing each other. Mom looked up at him and I saw tears leave glistening stains across her skin. I saw many stains on many faces and through the V shaped gaps between shoulders I saw the scene that caused them to weep. Our president had been shot. John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been killed and his blood stained the leather seats of his 61 Continental. His blood stained his wife and stained this day, his blood stained our faces with streaks of confusion and pain.

The silence was back and it brought along a fog that hung low over the people and separated one man from another. We were alone and lonely people lost in our own land. I sleepwalked home inside a nightmare that the American dream was just a lie, that the American dream had just died.