Keeper-side A

It's rather long(10 pages on word.) Enjoy.(or not)Keeper
By Jayson Myers

The metallic flick of a lighter, the silent ignition of a cigarette. Inhale, exhale; Ivan Mooney gazed across the barren prairie surrounding the tiny town in Iowa in which he was trapped. He turned to his thoughts, the sun rising behind the mountains, turning the blackness of the twilight fog into an even more devastating grey.
“All of my college, all of my ambition, and I end up here, teaching English to a classroom full of hick farmers who, on principle, will moan about anything I try to teach them. Marlboro, you’ve become my only friend.”
Providing a sharp contrast the brightening of the color of the sky, Ivan’s thoughts turned darker. “I’ll die of lung cancer or heart problems or liver failure or something along those lines in the next five years; I guess that’ll save me. There’s no point, however, in living life with a broken heart.” He found himself speaking as his thought paragraph came to an end, shocked, he looked around.
There was no one there.
“Would you shut up about your bleeding broken heart?” he asked himself angrily, “She never loved you in the first place, you weren’t right, you were, ostensibly, a cynic, and internally, where it mattered most, and she…she wanted someone who would act romantic, but who was, overall, entirely cynical. You failed this test.” He sighed.
Thoughts of his loves returned to him; thoughts of writing. He had been doing it like a drug since he was 13 years old and it remained the only thing that kept him going, the only thing that meant anything anymore. He would stay up all night, giddy with words, joyous that someone, be it a piece of paper or a writer could understand him, but…. As he spiraled further downward into his depression, addiction, and despair, it was getting harder and harder, the pages getting blanker and blanker, the only two writers he could enjoy anymore being dead, depressed, bearded Europeans, what he’d soon be, only he wasn’t European, and he wouldn’t be remembered…
He felt a tap on his shoulder, he swerved around quickly, shocked, smoke swirling, ashes falling, he was staring straight into the face of the principal (and the Dean, and the Superintendent) of the K-12 school at which he was teaching. A Mr. Jones, a typical name, he realized, as the words were interrupted by the words of the other, far older, man.
“Mr. Mooney,” he said, just the slightest tint of a faux-Southern drawl escaping his lips. “Do you think that, by smoking on school property, you are setting a good example for the children?”
Ivan wanted to say that he didn’t care, there were no students even there this early in the morning, they wouldn’t be arriving for another hour and a half, and that those who weren’t slaves to the tobacco companies now would sure as salmon be sooner or later, but instead, because this job was all he had, and because he was a coward, he uttered a simple no.
In a degrading show of power, Jones yanked the cigarette from between Mooney’s lips, Ivan silently shaking with rage.
“Thank you for extinguishing that awful thing, Mr. Mooney,” Jones said. “I should like you to follow me to my office.”
Lovely, Ivan thought as Jones started slowly forward, waiting for Ivan to match his pace. He took a while, waiting to see the flustered look that would spread across the principal’s face like a virus, like red wine spreading and absorbing in carpet, silently creeping as if stalking its prey.
He proceeded forward, and Jones, with a grunt, accelerated, making certain he was just a tiny bit before Ivan, so as to make the teacher feel vaguely submissive. Ivan realized that, even when he thought of the principal, he always referred to him with the mister in place. Spinning through the rolodex of his mind, he discovered that Mr. Jones had never even actually admitted to having a first name. It was true, Jones enjoyed that superior feeling, he had been the bully on the playground al throughout his school years, stealing kid’s lunch money in elementary school, pulling pranks and engaging in petty crimes as he grew older, vandalizing the high school once he’d reached that age, swearing at teachers to, again, make himself feel superior, priding himself on the number of detentions and suspensions he’d attained. After he left college, he realized that he couldn’t survive outside of the safe paradigm of basic education, and so he stayed, teaching math, moving upwards on the hierarchy.
Ivan Mooney knew he could survive outside of the schooling system, he’d done it. He’d hitchhiked throughout Europe, at times with his closest friends, other times, so completely and utterly alone that it almost crushed him at times, he couldn’t hold back the tears, but he took joy in these times of solitude, he took joy in the time he spent learning only of himself, of his deepest thoughts in fears. Ultimately, it was his salvation.
The kicker of it was, when he wasn’t moving, when he was, for just a moment, he would engage in lengthy mailed correspondence, mainly with the beloved, a fellow poet from his alma mater whom he’d known since high school, a girl named Liz Alfeno. They were an unlikely pair—her interests at the beginning of college lying far from the artistic field, however, as the two grew together through their deep, endless conversations, she steadily grew intoned with that part of herself, the portion which wanted to create, and to live.
She was gone now.
The two, Jones and Mooney, had arrived in the former’s office, not having said a word during the trip, both lost in their respective thoughts of grandeur. Ivan surveyed the scene, asking himself if anything had possibly changed the two days previous when he was here last, like the little child who back talked his teacher. Nothing had. It was still the same shoddy cement room he’d seen the last billion times, the same creaking chairs, the same moldy smell, the same stolen or false credentials covering every inch of the walls, diplomas and certificates from all the way back to preschool when they gave you cooler sheets of paper with symbols for making friends or nothing making your tiny pants a bathroom facility.
And, Ivan noted with an internal scoff, the same dreadful selection of literature lining the ten cent aluminum shelving, books which hadn’t been read in years when they should have been, books selected for show when they shouldn’t have been, books which were flat-out awful. Ivan supposed, laughing on the inside, he would find a copy of Mein Kampf hidden somewhere…
Jones, naturally, broke the silence.
“What’s the problem, Ivan?” he asked, every last word oozing from his lazy mouth seeming like it came from a rejected b-movie script.
“I’m afraid I don’t have one,” Jones told him, laughing, again, on the inside. Jones was trying to look fatherly, and it seemed pathetic and poor, like he was trying to create an illusion around himself.
“You reek of smoke and coffee and booze every time I see you, you read Nietzsche and Sartre to your classes, you insult the children, their tastes and their religion. This, my friend,” (neither Jones nor Mooney considered the other to be one of their “friends,”) “is entirely unacceptable. I’ve talked to you before about this, no?”
Ivan opened his mouth, as if to respond, but Jones, not noticing continued onwards. “The people in these parts have a high respect for temperance, they’re simple, God-fearing folk, and this…this is simply forbidden!”
“I wasn’t aware,” Ivan began with momentum, refusing to allow Jones to begin one of his tangents yet again, “That I wasn’t allowed to possibly challenge their viewpoints. After all, those beliefs which fall when challenged can hardly be considered true beliefs at all, no?”
“No, Mr. Mooney, not at all. You must learn to conform to our expectations if you wish to remain at Lobach High.”
Conforming--Ivan scoffed, again mentally, at the thought. They could never actually fire him. For starters, they could never actually fire him, the area was drastically short on teachers, and the district, Jones especially, needed a scapegoat, a black sheep which existed entirely for public mocking. Gossip was as good as gospel in the town—Lobach, Iowa, to be specific. The public would be bored to tears if they had no one to complain about, no newcomers or iconoclasts to shun.
Why didn’t he leave?
“Alright, Mr. Jones, you’ve convinced me. I’ll turn to the good side of the force, obeying your every demand. I wish you a lovely day. Godspeed, general!” Ivan dashed from the office before Jones could retort, not even remotely excited about the classes before him.
Why didn’t he leave? The thought returned yet again. It had seemed to him there were two choices for the serious connoisseur of words in the 21st Century: teach English or die in the gutter.
Ivan was scared to death of dying, the thought alone caused his smoking, his drinking, his epicurean habits, and, most importantly, like all true poets, his writing. The only place that, after he had gotten expelled in the worst possible way (he’d let you use your imagination on the conclusions from the phrase) from his MFA program, tiny Lobach High school was the only place that would hire him. Now that he was here, he had done such an excellent job of further ruining his reputation and squandering every last dime handed to him that there was no way he, he was trapped.
There was another thought—run to Mexico or South America. He knew Spanish, he knew a lot of languages, he picked them up easily, he could teach English lit, or…something at a college, he’s heard rumors they didn’t check into the personal backgrounds of applicants a whole lot, but…it didn’t seem likely, he couldn’t see himself there; indeed, he saw himself dying helplessly in this tiny pimple on Mother Earth.
Death, it danced back into his thoughts. It lingered on the horizon, waiting patiently, pacing back and forth for the opportune moment. It seemed, to Ivan at least, that it refused to be rushed.
Rumors and lies; he’d gotten to his classroom, turned on the computer, gazed carelessly over a foggy, rubber-smelling cup of coffee at his new mail, opened one from a former college friend he’d all but entirely lost touch with and who said that his beloved, the one who’d literally left him on her doorstep in the rain, waiting, always waiting, was decease--gotten drunk and drove (as she’d often done now.) Ivan strictly forbid emotion from appearing on his face, the students began slowly cascading into the classroom; the quiet, loner types first, the more extraverted ones later, noisily. The noise died down for the morning announcements, made over a cackling dilapidated speaker system, Mr. Jones’ voice slid through, Ivan covered his ears, the students laughed, not sure what to make of it.
The day rolled before Ivan’s eyes as if he was fast forwarding through it on television, completely detached; no one would ever know his input. He got up and left quickly when all was through, dashing at almost the same speed as the students to get to his dirty, poor excuse for an automobile—A blue Volvo wagon with as much rusty steel showing through on the outside as the original fading paint. It creaked when Ivan got in, reeked of bad habits and quiet addictions, required a steep downward slope to get above 55 miles per hour, a quarter of a mile to come to a stop. It would fail when Ivan would try to get away, another brick wall in the way of his escape.
A period of soul-searching when he got home—there had to be something he could do. Quit said bad habits, save his money for longer than a week, follows Jones’ orders, walk the line.
An interruptions, another e-mail, the same excommunicated college friend. The rumor? It was just that, a rumor, she’s still alive. You still interested in her? If not, I am.
Bad feelings, bad tastes, he went to the fridge to fix himself a drink, stopped as he was opening the door.
“I need to be sober for this,” he thought, “It’s the only way.”
She’d be appalled at the state he was in, he had always been an addict, but this was taking it far too far. He’d become what he, personally, had always hated—a man of inactivity and avoided dreams, a lethargic man, lazy and lame. And she’d hate him for becoming what he’s hated, he talked to her too much of his fears. Or would she? Had he truly changed?
Anyone can sit be and plead genius, you need to stand up and prove it, he’d tell her. Of course, in order to prove it, you must first come to know yourself, turn inside and grow on your solitude, make it your solace, your place of freedom. It must be able to feed you, for once you stand up and do such proving, there will no longer be anyone outside who will unquestionably stand by you. But during this period of turning within, you cannot claim genius and you cannot question those who make such claims. And once you are standing, you can not listen when your genius is denied, for no one knows you better than you know yourself.
He had, previously, made a life in that fashion, but now he was seated once again, which would not be a problem, but he was still claiming genius. He was taking a moment to view himself objectively. He grew sick.
Yes, she would be disgusted with him…
He drew his fondest thought of her to his memory, selecting it carefully; as one selects the CD he is going to place in the stereo that is the soundtrack of his life. They were on a bus to New York City, back in the heady days of high school when life was but a game, she was reading.
The light on her face was a grey, with speckles of bright, omnipotent rainbows on her cheeks and her eyes, she buckled under the melancholy of the cloudy Saturday morning, she wallowed in her personal misery, the lighting suited her. She couldn’t be described as beautiful yet, nor ugly, she merely was, as the bud of a rose is bound the blossom and flourish. Looks had always been unimportant to her, even when she grew older, more beautiful, they remained a secondary concern.
Her dark brown hair would brush her shoulders like the patriarch of a grocery in Brooklyn brushes out his store, she kept it trapped in a rubber band, pulled back, she complained of when it attacked her eyes. Her eyes—they had no definite color, choosing instead to make a vast, almost muddy explosion of the spectrum expanding outwards from her pupils. She spoke little to him on the trip; there was a distinct bond then, even while she was seeing someone else, a bond which went above and beyond the realm of his blessed words.
She was a genius, and a poet at heart, and she played the part, but she was and remains a fool, as does everyone, in the realm of love.
He ejected the memory, felt the emotion rushing back. He ached again, but even in his aching, he felt young again, new, joyous. He looked at himself in the mirror. He had been home for five days, the time had blown past without him noticing, he was clean again. New facial hair was growing around his goatee and moustache, it looked ridiculous. There was an awful taste in his mouth, a fetid mixture of wine, vodka, cigarettes, mucus, and stale coffee. The urge to regurgitate returned, the trapped feeling returned.
He gazed out of the bathroom window, through the dirt and dust and bird droppings, at the barren, buffeted countryside; he felt death growing ever closer. Gone, however, was the fear.
A vow—“I shall find poetry here,” he said aloud, special conviction placed on the word here. He would not return to her, she would not return to him, he would live alone with merely the memories and take joy in it.