Dreamers (Original Text - Part Seven) (1997)

     For those who missed the last part, it is available here.
     In Part Seven, much younger Tim assumes he can write about the "black experience".  In and when this gets a rewrite, that is getting removed.  I don't have the credibility to write about and I wouldn't want to be so disrespectful as to create a fictional one. Part seven also serves as an awkward means to give more of the backstory.  As it stands now, I'm glad it is written down somewhere.  But it could have been handled so much better, even with what little skill I had back in '97.

One of the few pictures when I visited Iowa City – for the first time since the spring of 1994 – on the return trip from my father's memorial service.  No, I didn't visit Burge Hall because it in Dreamers.  But it does get a reference and I am giving each section a picture.

VII

     Money wasn't everything.  If it were, Vicki wouldn't bother with the job she had.  Of course, when one has the luxury of of having matter no matter what one does, it is easy to hold views about how money is unimportant.  It is like that with everything.  Fidelity in a relationship is never so praised as when one is leaving a relationship where there is none.  Still, Vicki had a good job, almost a career.
     And she had a house.  On occasion it would bother her that she let Sean stay there but she knew that she loved him.  Her fantasies aside, and who shouldn't be desirous of Denzel Washington or other sexy, handsome – no, gorgeous – male icons of the time, she knew she wouldn't betray Sean's trust like that.  Early on, there was a time when she and J.B. almost did, but she was seeing other people back then.  That didn't count.
     Sean was a wonderful thing for her.  Vicki had grown up out east, in New Jersey, and really wouldn't have any connections in Chicago if not for J.B. and Sean.  J.B. had introduced her to her set of white friends, and Vicki almost always had white friends.  J.B. had been only one of many white men who had pursued her.  Sean was part of her connection to her blackness.  She really didn't care about race – money could buy that freedom – but she didn't want to look like she was turning her back on part of herself.
     Sean was like her white friends.  He grew up as a middle-class suburbanite.  He had gone to Catholic school and then to Loyola in Chicago.  He has said that he wanted to be a lawyer or a judge when he was younger, but sometimes he felt guilty about not knowing enough about his heritage.  He felt that he couldn't ignore the black experience.  He ended up working as a high school guidance counselor.  And he had his MSW, too.  Sean wanted to give back to the black community he had never really been a part of.  But he was genuine in it.  He wouldn't have thought twice of which community received his services, but he had his needs.
     Sean was two years shy of his thirty fifth birthday.  He looked his age which made him look very mature next to Vicki.  She sometimes wished she was nothing more than a prize to him, but he was in love.  Calm, sensible, occasionally passionate love.  He was ready for family, Vicki could provide for children in good fashion, and he could afford to let these hypothetical offspring to learn what it meant to be black from the safety of the white suburbs.
     Sometimes Vicki wondered if this was she really wanted.  She often wondered why her friends were still bent on being as close as they were.  She had met J.B. when they were both at the University of Iowa and he had gotten a fake I.D. for her so she didn't have to drink at Jake's (One-Eyed Jake's, really), or the Sports Column, or The Union, the only places where a nineteen year old could drink.
      Irony of ironies, she had gone there to study nursing and he English, but he became pre-Med and she graduated with a degree in Philosophy, of all things.  They had remained friends and from time to time they tried to be more than that.  When Vicki decided to go to Chicago instead of going home after college she had J.B. find a place for her.  He also had a collection of friends that she could appropriate as her own.
     At the time, it was the brothers Carver, Larry Pudenski and Lynn – and she was from New York, Jason MacLeod and Stacy Andrews, Eric Windsor and Melissa Brooks, J.B., Nancy Klein, and Dave Burke.  They were an odd group, and since Eric had left for California, Stacy gave up on Jason, and Pete Carver drifted in who knows what, they seemed hell bent on sticking together.  The last to leave was Lynn and it felt as though the next departure would doom the group.  And Vicki knew that would come soon enough.  Then, like life, things would progress.
     As it was now, Vicki found most of her dreams involving the group as entertaining.  Except when it came to Burke.  He was too close to something else.

*     *     *     *     *     *

      For all intents and purposes, it was college.  If pressed to reason somethings wouldn't seem right, but that is how it always was.  Vicki found herself in a small dorm bed, in a dorm room.  It was second semester freshman year.  She could see the sunlight coming through the window and feel the air already warming with the April weather.
     She knew, instinctively, that it was a Friday.  It would have been nice to check a calendar, but Vicki wasn't smart enough to keep one handy until the next year.  But it was Friday night and that would mean another chance for Vicki to have fun, get drunk, find love, or something hopefully noteworthy.
     Vicki knew that she would meet up with Nancy and Melissa first.  A passing thought that they went to different schools entered her mind, but they could be out for the weekend.  What did it matter?  Vicki always liked it when friends came out to visit.  It also meant that there had to be something special going on.  She checked herself in the mirror, but she couldn't remember what she saw so she did it again.  By the time she was at the door she realized she still couldn't remember how she looked in the mirror.
     Nancy and Melissa met her at the stairs.  Vicki was housed at Burge Hall, and the stairs were the best way to check out the guys who lived on the opposite sides of the floors.  Some girls took the elevator, and when asked why she didn't Vicki said that she hadn't seen what she wanted yet.
     "Maybe Sean will be at one of the parties," Nancy offered mirthfully.
     Vicki almost had time to think on that.

*     *     *     *     *     *

      It was Sean who had woken her up.  He was in the bathroom now, but he had left the light on and tossed something on the bed.  Damn him, she thought, and she turned over.  He had wanted her up for a reason, but she didn't feel she had to oblige.  He could handle it for one evening, if she let up and left it at that.

The Audacity of Hope (2006)

     I wonder how many people have read The Audacity of Hope (2006).  Certainly fewer than the number of people who cast a ballot in favor of Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election.  I would also suspect that there are quite a few who purchased the book and didn't read it, at least not in its entirety.  That may or may not be counterbalanced by those who have borrowed a copy from a friend, family, or the local public library – I borrowed the book from my mother, a longtime voracious reader who has seemingly abandoned the written word as the twin strains of advancing age and economic uncertainty have fallen upon her in the last few years.  I imagine that people who have not read Obama's Dreams from My Father (1995) – I did not read the book, but listened to Obama's narration (I now know that he does not necessarily stick to his own script when he narrates his work) on a trip to New Jersey and back.  There is something rewarding about hearing the President of the United States (he wasn't when he wrote the book or recorded the narration) relate the story of how he called one of his basketball coaches a 'racist motherfucker', in part because the listener is bound to trust Obama's judgment in the matter (racist motherfuckers should be called out for what they are) and in part because it does more to humanize Obama – to make him into a modern everyman – than any scripted and polished turn of phrase could ever do.
     I checked out the book on CD from the Forest Park Public Library, in large part because I wanted to get back into the cadence and personality of Obama the author (and not President Obama, or – as the Right labels him now, Candidate Obama).  This is how I found out that Obama does not feel that the text is something that must be faithfully followed; he cuts sentences, quotes, or entire paragraphs (to little effect in changing the presentation) and inserts new asides or comments that did not make the book.  I am not going to lie, had Obama been faithful in his reading of the book, I would likely have read half and listened to half (a great way to multitask and still feel like a reader).  There is a little twinge of self-congratulations that goes along with listening to a book as one walks to and from the train or while exercising.  (I should note that it is very important to not listen to comedy while working with weights, because that gets dangerous.)
     So what is The Audacity of Hope about?  Largely, and somewhat disappointingly, it serves to offer further insight into the personal life of Barack Obama.  He has a gift for telling a good story, even making the commonplace events seem worthwhile in their relation.  There are many instances of what he learned while campaigning across Illinois – this doesn't have much emotional weight and feels calculated, even when Obama has some insight to offer.  For example, he notes that it is not so much that modern politics are not so much beholden to special interests but rather there are several factors that limit most elected officials to having interactions with the people and groups who can contribute to the election/re-election efforts and supporting party.  Where Obama strikes a better tone is where he writes about how the events of his life have influenced his outlook, both as a man and a Senator.
     Perhaps wishing to not offend the fictional middle – the swing voters – Obama couches most of his arguments for more progressive politics.  He profusely acknowledges the basis of the rhetoric the Republican party has used since Reagan is founded on real concerns and failures of government, which may satisfy the more intellectual reader (I'm fine with it) but would no doubt frustrate those who saw Obama as the perfect spokesman – based from one keynote speech and not being tarnished by his very human limitations – for the platform of the Left.  Obama tries to show that he is interested in the intellectual debate, the challenge of ideas and ideals that should result in policy that best serves the citizenry (often frustrating the ideologues in both parties). 
     Unfortunately, it seems that he is evincing a misunderstanding of what politics has become, even as he details how it has reached that point.  There is the television media that has no interest in presenting more than bullet-points – and does that with no context or attempt to evaluate the veracity of competing claims – and repeating messages to the point where they seem true simply because of aggregate airtime.  There isn't as much attention given to how the political parties came to be as polarized as they are; there is some commentary of how Nixon's "silent majority" and the Religious Right have driven the Republican party away from the center, but the Democratic party's failings are enumerated as being on the defensive and not living up to espoused values.  President Obama is frustrated by a rival party that has announced as a goal, repeatedly, that is desires nothing more than getting anyone other than Obama elected President in 2012.  His intellectual musings of how compromise should work comes off as Pollyanna-esque, and that seems beyond ridiculous given the willingness Obama (as an author) has for real introspection.
     There aren't many answers in the book.  The rhetoric isn't soaring, but it is effective.  Obama does his best to ensure that he isn't preaching solutions or showing off his intellect; he is the guy who needs to get ant traps on his way home from the Senate.  It is a smooth read, and some sections are more revealing than others.  A few, like Race, feel under-served (and for obvious political reasons).  I feel that the two books have helped me better understand the man who is currently President of the United States – kind of nice to be able to do that before the memoirs come out after the fact and legacy becomes a prime concern – and how some of the specific failures of leadership thus far may be the result of too high an opinion of the civic honor his opponents have. 
     Clearly, those who were interested would have read this book before Obama assumed the Presidency.  Those who are against him could not be motivated to read him as an author – though trust that there is no problem with them watching quotes taken out of context from his books on various YouTube posts and railing about Obama the author as a bad man, a racist, or a fraud.  I don't agree with those conclusions or accepting information devoid of context (see Nietzsche on the subject).  I would encourage those who have not read The Audacity of Hope to give it a chance.  It explains the basic assumptions of Obama as a man, husband, father, and elected official.  In doing that, it is perhaps the best introduction one could have to understanding whether or not the President has lived up to his own presumptions and methodology.  It will likely leave every reader feeling better about the man, if not the politician.

Passion Play (2010)

Shaky Foundation, Kind of Nice Exterior

by Silence Do_nothing

     Although the last I followed pro wrestling was way back in the heyday of Andre the Giant, the twentieth century's greatest Frenchman, I can't help being intrigued by an Oscar nominated actor willing to have a match in Wrestlemania. Mickey Rourke ultimately limited it to a cameo appearance, but that he seriously considered going through with the whole thing was entertaining enough. So I decided to give Passion Play, one of his more recent movies, a try. His work in such things as The Wrestler (2008), Rumble Fish (1983), Year of the Dragon (1985), Diner (1982), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) and The Informers (2008) might have also influenced my choice.
     Rourke gets yet another stab at playing a seedy character (I'm surprised no casting director has seen fit to pair him with Fairuza Balk in any project), this time in an ex-junkie musician by the name of Nate Poole. He rescues angel winged beauty Lilly Luster (Megan Fox) from her involuntary place in a carnival freak show. Happy Shannon (Bill Murray), a powerful criminal at odds with Nate, also has designs on Lilly. Nate realizes that he loves her and must protect her from Happy, even if it means risking his life.
     The movie alludes to her possibly being an angel, but I saw her wings as relating more to Lilly's body image. She posses the same kind of insecurities about her looks which other women can have regardless how pretty they are. Lilly has a lower opinion of her appearance than the guys do of her. The wings are a burden she dreams of losing someday. A feature of herself which she particularly hates is what draws men to her.
     I previously knew of Megan Fox only from the Transformers live action movies. My impression from those was that she seemed indistinguishable from the actresses you might see in beer commercials. Maybe it's just a case of low expectations being easy to exceed, but she wasn't that bad in Passion Play. She was wooden in some scenes, but there were others that got across a genuine sadness. It's too much to expect her to add color to a character that was lacking depth on the page. Some actors can help hide a sub-par script. Fox is more likely to magnify it. I hold the writing and directing more responsible than her for criticisms the character deserves.
     Lilly's wings were easier to accept than the love triangle. I could somewhat understand Nate and Happy's infatuation with her. She is something beautiful in their otherwise ugly gutter world, but even so, it was too rushed to be believable. Her love for Nate was even harder to take. I can understand gratitude for saving her, but it's surprising that goodwill wasn't depleted when he practically acts the pimp by introducing her into another situation to be exploited. The movie tries to make him more worthy of her feelings through his willingness to put his life on the line for her, but I think Nate is simply reckless. If not over her, he would have found some other avenue to endanger himself.
     The only way the relationship seems plausible is from the idea of her self-loathing and low self-esteem running deep enough to make her grateful for anyone's love. Even a fairly undesirable guy like myself couldn't pull for the creepy dude getting the pretty lady when it's under circumstances like this. Their love is too dysfunctional for me to become emotionally invested in it.
     The movie's weak love story undercuts a workmanlike performance by Rourke. On the surface, he looks fine portraying the anguish of separation, but because I was unconvinced of the romance, it lacked any impact. It registers as the character feigning a greater affliction than he has, rather than Nate actually being devastated.
     Some of the film's events are jarring in their suddenness. Lilly has very reasonable suspicions of Nate, caught peering through her trailer window, but quickly drops them to allow him entrance. At one point, she desperately wants to have her wings removed, but when Nate barges in to stop the procedure she immediately shifts to gratitude for his interference. Moments like these were hard to believe.
     I am a casual fan of the look of the movie, though. It successfully mixed funky styles of different eras. There is some striking scenery towards the beginning. The criminals' outfits reminded me of the degenerates from Blue Velvet (1986). Cool knick-knacks and decorations from interiors caught my eye. But it's not like it could rival the art direction of Mad Men.
     None of the visuals were good enough to offset the work's deficiencies. The effects for Lilly's wings are a good example. They were competent, but nothing spectacular. Maybe if they had been something special, it could have presented her in a way that would have made it easier to feel the same sense of awe that Nate and Happy had for her.
     Despite its flaws, I preferred Passion Play to some generic romantic comedy. Its blemishes weren't enough to dissuade me from giving a future effort by director Mitch Glazer a look. Given that its domestic gross was listed by IMDB as $3,669 on a fourteen million dollar budget, I can't say if I will have that opportunity anytime soon.
     When the end credits rolled, my reaction wasn't "There's ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back." But it still left me feeling that maybe whether one of the lead actors can do a flying elbow drop off the turnbuckle isn't the best criteria for picking movies.

The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

     I remember giving The Red Badge of Courage (1895) a try sometime in the fall of 1994.  This was a bad time in my life, but I thought I could make some kind of general progress if I could get to reading all of the books I had either sidestepped or outright neglected from junior high on.  I know I didn't make it past the second chapter before I put the book back on the shelf and decided that I didn't need to read it.  It didn't seem to be well written and the purposefully inarticulate dialogue grated on me.  Why would anyone think this was a worthwhile book?
     Now, much older and free of almost all of that egotistical arrogance, I found myself wanting to take up a short book between non-fiction titles (or, more correctly, as a break from the second non-fiction book I was reading).  I had purchased a Dover Thrift Editions copy of The Red Badge of Courage over a year prior, and thought I may as well just power through it.  The DTE copy has only 100 pages, so it practically invites anyone serious about reading to spend a day or two with it.  It also helped that I had long ago abandoned the idea that licensed genre fiction should be considered on par with literature.  That was a barrier that was too long to come down.
     One of the things I learned during my hated tenure as a wage slave was that there are far too many people who believe that the things we are to learn in school – including the books we should have read – are useless in a life that demands little more than remembering to smile, say thank you, and show up to work (though not necessarily on time, and with no subsequent demand to perform work while being paid).  There is a persistent belief that getting by is good enough and aspiring for me is foolish.  These are the people who could not name the capital of Missouri (they being located one state east) or convert easy fractions like 3/4 to decimals.  I detested these qualities in my co-workers, felt diminished in being associated with them in having the same basic job.  If I were to forever avoid the literature that is supposed to help inform my understanding of the human condition, I would be just like them.
     Where Stephen Crane's Henry Fleming must come to terms with what it means to be a man – what the true nature of courage is – I found myself struggling with what kind of person I wanted to be.  The are many glib answers to my question; I don't have the din of battle or the press of fellow soldiers to help me find the line.  I do know that on some level I want to feel as though I am educated, and that an education is not something that someone suffers through.  It is not something to be purchased as a means to the better career and looking like a worthwhile mate.  It is something that needs to be internalized and exercised as a person, as a citizen.
     Sure, Henry gets to discover what it means to be a man just past his youth.  Lots of people do that.  Crane presents the various men in the book who cannot come to terms with what value they have, but they are neither to be pitied or scorned.  They simply are.  That is not what any of us aspire to.  I know that I want more than to be (though let's not rule out how important existence is for everything else).  When I started my first self-imposed reading project in the August of 2010, I wanted to get in the habit of reading important books.  I think that I may have neglected the number of fun reads so far in year two (two licensed fiction novels and a handful of short stories seems light) that help balance out the more serious titles.  Unlike the battle scenes in The Red Badge of Courage, the serious and respected titles do not necessarily inspire a sense of urgency or vigor – school inspired/required reading always has an external structure to add importance to anything read.
     I think I would have been much more appreciative of Crane's novel had I read it when I was supposed to, which is to say at some point in high school.  It would have held a different personal meaning for me back then, sure, but it would have borne the benefits of a more in-depth exploration of the text.  Not that I ever enjoyed the ideal of manufacturing found symbolism in order to prove to our teachers that we really read and understood the assigned book.  There is something liberating in reading the classics that does not come with the genre fiction I once aspired to write.  Not that I have entirely given up on that dream; I have just slightly modified it to hope that I may one day write something that has a more human and truthful element.  That is where The Red Badge of Courage succeeds.

The New World (2009)

     There is something comforting in the blend of obviously young adult and obviously ultra-light science-fiction that author Patrick Ness crafts for "The New World" (2009), a prequel (of sorts) to some trilogy of books he wrote.  Those weren't free, "The New World" was, and as the first novel checks in at close 500 pages, chances are they are not going to be read by me in the next decade.  Also, as Ness has a couple of writing conceits that would surely bother me in longer form, I think I did both he and I a service by reading the short story instead.
     Would this have been better if it weren't so ridiculous in its premise – that the vanguard for settling an alien world is a single ship occupied by a mother, father, and (now) 13 year old daughter?  No.  It needs that mix of camp, improbable, almost teenage angst, and danger to frame the story.  Not that there is much to the story.  Girl and her parents have to go live on the alien planet by themselves for a few months so that when the thousands of others arrive, there is some worthwhile intelligence about the place and – believe it or not – maybe a place cleared for settlement and agriculture.  Of course, most adults would have sent a far larger group, certainly more than one advance ship, but to the mind of a young adult (10-14 is my estimate for the real audience for this type of writing) it makes perfect sense.  That is how things are done, right?  The family unit is inviolate (until the parents destroy it, but even children who have witnessed that likely yearn for the fiction of a family being a unit that cannot be divided).
     It appears that the protagonist of "The New World" does appear in the trilogy, and maybe some of the background information given here plays into her adventures later on.  A lot of it feels forced, but would undoubtedly satisfy the younger crowd as seeming plausible.  For as much information as Ness wanted to put into this prequel, I was surprised at how little he developed the information he was giving.  He names the ships in the interstellar convoy – at least some of them – but doesn't note how many there are.  He has those people who are awake for the journey acting as "caretakers" to those in some kind of cryo-sleep, but there doesn't seem to be much caretaking as just learning how to work on the ships and learning about what to do if they ever reach the planet.  There are two cats on one of the ships (which begs the question of the role of the cats and why are there only two – are they done with them or is there no concern about habitual inbreeding in the pet population?).
     I would like to take a brief moment to wonder why YA fiction has become so lengthy.  Not this short story, of course, but the trilogy runs over 1600 pages.  I just read William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954), and the most popular printing of it reaches 208 pages.  Catcher in the Rye (1951) – definitely not one of my favorites – is less than 300 pages.  Now, those are considered literature but they are really bucking at the edge (if not much closer to the center) of the YA audience and concerns. I've never read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders (1965), but it is another work that doesn't feel the need to fill close to or more than 500 pages; like Golding's book, it is done at 208 pages.  It seems to me there has been some sort of notion foisted upon young readers – and I know this is not new – that reading a longer book makes you a better reader.  A lengthy book certainly makes one commit to it, sure, but I think I would have rather been reading Golding, Hinton, and Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) than commit to reading Stephen King's It (1986) – no offense to the seriously successful classmates who were King devotees and counted It and Pet Semetary (1983) as their big reading accomplishments for junior high.
     I guess that is my ultimate point.  There are YA (or near YA) titles that are considered honest to God literature.  One should probably read those before indulging with things like Ness' trilogy on "The New World".  Because it is in reading the better works – and I would leave Salinger out of that, but I would probably be wrong – that we, as an audience, come to realize that there should be something more than just an unfolding story in what we choose to read.  (Incidentally, a charge that has been made against me as an author is that I often don't have any kind of plot or story in my pieces, in which case one should definitely read Ness before reading me.)

Dreamers (Original Text - Part Six) (1997)

Again, if you have not read the previous sections...

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

     The question that I would hope some people would have – assuming anyone is reading this – is "what the hell happened to Larry?".  The whole thing starts with him and then he largely goes missing (yes, I'm aware he gets to rewire Nancy's parents' house, but that section isn't about him) for four sections.  There is no real answer for that other than the fact that I lost track of what the story was supposed to be about.  By this point I was writing it about an hour here or there, between classes and studying.  There may still be some good writing in there somewhere, but it certainly is not the story I set out to write.  And even though Larry comes back, he still doesn't get proper attention.
     There are clearly some problems with this section.  Sorry about that.  The dream is an adaptation and amalgamation of one had by a close friend and one I had, and it is purposefully confusing in its presentation (because that is how it his explained to me).  When I get around to revising this story, this section would be completely torn apart – though I could definitely see trying to work some of the ideas into more logically presented scenes.
     Anyway, if you want to think of the opening here as a zombie apocalypse without zombies, that may help.

VI

     Larry couldn't figure out for the life of him why his car didn't start.  The gas tank didn't lie when it read that it was full, and the battery was working.  What a time for this to happen.
     The sky hadn't been so overcast a minute or two ago, but sometimes things got worse all at once.  It didn't look as if it would rain, but the mood it cast was enough to make it intolerable.  From where his car was situated, Larry could see the fields on either side of the ridge take on a darker, richer shade of green.  In the sunlight they looked sick, but for some reason grass always looked better in diffused light.
     Larry wanted to get out of there.  If he thought he could make it without his car he would have ran.  Then he would still have to come back for the car.  What would be accomplished then?  He heard something on down the road and he knew it was a caravan of sorts.  That didn't make him feel any better.  That would just be a group of people with transportation.
     No, there was more to it than that.  There was some reason why Larry didn't want to be here.  There were men moving through the field, though for some reason they were less than distinct.  It was almost as if they were wearing camouflage.  Military men with rifles.  Why out here?
     Larry didn't know why, but now the people around him were panicking.  He didn't remember them behaving so just a minute ago, in part because they didn't seem to be there before.
     Then the shooting began.  Maybe it was too distant to hear but Larry could hear it none the less.  He knew now that he was in great danger.  That must have been what was motivating his panic.  Larry had often been told by his father that the government would turn on the people one day.  Larry had been certain that he would never see that happen, but he knew that is exactly what he was witnessing.
     Why here?  Larry was no more than ten miles from home, just outside of Cook County.  Why would the government start by attacking?  Shouldn't it still be hoping it need only subdue dissidents?  Larry grabbed at the people who brushed against him.  He didn't recognize any of them, not from the terror-filled distortions of their faces.  He knew he had to try to save them.
     The soldiers were upon him in no time.  Most of the people were off the road, but Larry doubted that it would do them  much good,  He moved back toward his car.  Maybe it would start.  The hell with that, it would start this time, and Larry would make it home and his father would be ready to fight back.
     Wild shots removed the windshield from his car.  It was old enough that it didn't have safety glass.  Larry paid no heed to that.  Somebody had knocked one of the soldiers down, maybe unconscious, maybe dead.  A rifle lay unclaimed next to the body.  Larry dove for it, landing just short but he quickly scrambled over to it.  Where he had been standing was now filled by some panicked citizen, who in tern was quickly filled with bullets.
     Larry had the gun and made his way back to his car.  Somewhere above a helicopter made its ominous sounds.  Larry tried to track it but there was surprising brightness in the overcast sky.  Giving up on the helicopter, Larry braced himself against the driver's side front door.  He couldn't see much detail now.  The breeze – and maybe the helicopter's wash – were swirling wisps of colored smoke the soldiers were using.  The screams of the people weren't so loud now.  Larry searched his pocket for his keys.
     "Oh Jesus Christ," Larry cursed.  The keys were still in the car.  He opened the door, trying to see if there was some way he could save some of the people.  Better to be at home.  Larry started to get into the car.  He saw something coming around from behind it.
     Larry raised his rifle but didn't have a finger on the trigger.  The soldier couldn't have been out of his teens and Larry didn't even notice the pistol in his hands until it was too late.  Larry was slammed back against the car by the impact of the first bullet. He was beginning to notice the heat of the bullet when a second shot hit him in the gut.  Both Larry and his rifle hit the street at the same time.  The soldier loomed above him, and it was true, Larry mused, that the barrel of a gun – when pointed straight at one's eye – looked as if it were a vast tunnel.
     The third bullet was enough.  Larry was dead before it exited out the back of his head.  The soldier still stood above him, but the helicopter must have been directly overhead.  It grew smaller and smaller until all that was discernible was swirling smoke and the green fields on either side of the street.

     *     *     *     *     *    

     "You read that right off the fax?"
     Melissa cocked her head and smiled.  It was a little early in the afternoon for her to be drinking, but she had already enjoyed one of the beers stocked in Jason MacLeod's refrigerator and was working on her second.  She looked good, which was to say that she looked better than she should have.
     'This is some piece of work, huh?"
     "So what does it mean?"  She had been patient in letting Jason read Larry's three page report of the previous night's dream.  She didn't say anything as he went and retrieved some text books and made notes of what in the dreams he wished to address."
     "It's not an exact science.  It's like Interpretative Lit."
     She sipped some beer from her bottle.  "Okay.  So, what does it mean?"
     'The truth?  I think it's a father-son conflict.  That may seem too easy, but since Mr. Pudenski and Carver are working with Larry..."
     "Still valid, then."
     He finally sat beside her on the couch.  "So what brings you to my dingy abode, milady?"
     "I was just wondering why you would rather get drunk with Larry and Jeff Binghampton than have sex with your girlfriend."
     "Nancy wondered the same thing."
     "She called."  Melissa leaned closer, though not close enough for her liking.  "She called, and we thought it would be better to have our conversation face to face.  That and we lounged around the pool and got drunk."  She caught the arch in Jason's eyebrows.  "Why is that what you guys think?"
     He got up and moved toward the kitchen but stopped short.  "The truth?  What is there not for guys to like in that idea.  It's naked women and sex.  If they can't be directly involved, it is the next best thing for guys."
     "You too?"
     He finally moved back toward her.  "You know that I live in constant fear that someone is going to take you away from me, and Nancy has money.  She's attractive, too, if you were into that.  So it's in my best interests that you find the idea of being a lesbian repugnant."
     "Care to reaffirm my heterosexuality?"
     "Now?  Melissa, but that would mean we couldn't waste time conversing."
     "Sometimes I think you're gay."
     "Everyone has homosexual fantasies."  He sighed, like it was work to be in such an easy relationship.  "Okay, I'll stop being a smartass if you're willing to wait until seven o'clock."
     They fell into a pleasant conversation, something that was common for most couples.  Occasionally it was as if they had a standard relationship.  Then something would happen.
     "You sent J.B. over to Nancy's?!"
     "Will you please, just tonight, call him Jeff?"
     "You sent him over to Nancy's."  He would wait just long enough for her to begin to say something.  She knew the game and she would oblige.  "Why would you do that?  He's the horniest man you know.  And Nancy?"  Jason got off the couch.  They had been in each other's arms, a rare moment of tenderness and an almost guarantee she wouldn't have to wait until seven.  "This is all going to fall on me.  Shit."
     "Please be more melodramatic.  I'll make it up to you."  That lured him back toward her.  "He's not my friend, but I'll bet that Jeff can control himself.  You know you don't have to worry about Nancy so long as Jeff can keep it in his pants."
     Jason thought of what had happened the night before and shuddered.  That broke the mood.  He checked the clock and saw that he still had two and half hours to forget it.
     "What do you say to some Chinese?"
     "Before?"
     "There will still be some for after.  And I don't have any food."
     She held him.  The food arrived and they ate lightly.
     "Isn't this backwards?" she asked.  "Shouldn't you be chasing me.  Isn't that the way all these stories go?"
     "Did I ever tell you about Shashi, the guy I roomed with my sophomore year?  He was a Psych major and hell bent on proving that the idea of the liberated woman was a myth.  He thought that women's nature was what allowed them to be dominated by male society."
     "Bullshit.  Shashi?  What was he, Indian?"
     "Nice racism, Melissa.  I don't know, but he was born and raised American.  At any rate, he thought that men had to be retrained instead of women losing their natures.  He thought it was the Equal Rights movment that actually created a false increase in lesbianism."
     Her look said it all.
     "I know, but not just that.  He was convinced that adopting more masculine type characteristics and patterns of life caused women to look for feminine partners."
     "So that's what you want?  For me to bring home a nice feminine girl for both of us?"
     Jason tried to stifle his laughter.  "Okay, but I was thinking that his theory made me a bit of a sissy and all, you being such an athlete and competitor."
     "And the roommate?"
     "Are you asking if he is a sissy?  No?  He is at his job until midnight, and then there is never a guarantee that he'll come back.  That's what I look for in a roommate, provided he pays the rent on time."
     "His half."
     "Think not.  He's two years behind me, using my notes for the same subjects and has access to all my papers and research.  I let him pay the whole thing."
     Melissa blushed.  "So everyone but you and Jeff has family money?"
     "We're poor, but we're happy."  Jason noted that his glass was empty.  Where Melissa was drinking beer  – she was on her fifth – Jason was drinking Coke.  He still had a two litre in the refrigerator and there was a case in his room.  "Mind if we separate long enough to get something to drink?"
      "And ruin this romance?"
      "For me, this is romantic."
      He came back with a cold beer for her, and a shot glass and a bottle of Speyburn single malt scotch.  He smiled weakly and poured himself a drink.  He gulped it down and quickly poured another but left it on the table and rejoined Melissa on the couch.
     "A night out with the boys makes you quite a drinker."  He had no reaction to her statement but she was happy enough to have him back.  Was he though?  "Are you happy, Jason?  I know it seems like a simple question to ask, but..."
     "You've really never paid attention to that I study, have you?"  He didn't want to chide her, just to make her understand the weight and complexity of that question.  "Okay, I'll skip the lecture—"
     "For once."
     His eyes alone gave thanks.  "Is the question 'am I happy today?' or 'am I happy now?' or even 'do you make me happy?'?"
     "Damn right."
     "I'm glad you've decided to throw away your academic future on me."
     She would have to be back in Evanston before her morning classes on Tuesday but Jason wanted her to stay.  He could have said as much, but there was an eerie sense of comfort in that nothing was said.  Melissa was gone before Jason's roommate arrived back at the apartment, and it fell to him to clean up the remnants of food the lovers left unattended.

The Hellenistic Age (2007)

     There is a real and marked difference between history books written for the mass market – and I don't necessarily mean those titles that are dumbed down to be appealing to the pseudo-intellectuals – and those written for historians.  What author Peter Green, who penned one of my favorite books [The Greco-Persian Wars (1996)], assumes is at an introductory level may be for those who are dedicated to proper academic historiography is a dense and ultimately unfulfilling read.  While The Hellenistic Age (2007) does have much information about the royal lines and personages that vied for control of the disparate parts of Alexander the Great's empire, the general information about the age is mostly hidden and comes out in anecdotes and asides. 
     It is understandable that Green does not dwell long on how Alexander came to power or how he conquered multiple empires.  He has written on the topic of Alexander before and is not merely searching for a way to rehash material.  Ultimately, Alexander III of Macedon ("the Great") is important to the age because his conquest and empire define its beginning.  The cities founded by him and subsequently ruled by Macedonians (largely) loyal to him became important centers.  What information is given about the life and times of Alexander helps frame the intrigues that follow; it seems that much like "nobody out-crazies Ophelia" (thank you, Lisa Simpson), few lines in the whole of human history could even aspire to be regarded as competing with the Seleucids, Ptolemies, or competing Macedonian and Thracian lines for various thrones and lands.
     The Ptolemies in particular are a subject that cannot be correctly handled in this brief text.  Putting aside that every daughter from the line over a 100 year period seems to be named Cleopatra, the scheming is fascinating.  Sons murder mothers, mothers murder sons and daughters, people are summoned but flee – only to be executed in a place they presumed to be a safe-haven – or are married off to rivals and raise an army against the person who married them off.  Their rule in Egypt is just part of the story, one that is certainly more widely known to American schoolchildren than the Seleucid Empire.  Indeed, there is no escaping the interconnectedness of the fragmented and warring empires until they fall, one by one.
     The odd fascination with creating a dynastic line – something that is relatively new to the eastern Mediterranean – is contradicted by the willingness to kill of certain family members (or turn against the family altogether) to speed immediate political aims.  Culturally if not ethnically Greek, the Hellenistic kingdoms find themselves in a constant state of war.  Part of this, Green argues, stems from the motivation of Alexander's conquest in the first place – to make money.  Because modern war is so obviously a cost-generating endeavor, it takes a little mental gymnastics to order the mind to accept the reality of ancient conquests being about returning gold, silver, and slaves to the conquering nation and with little to no regard for the (not enslaved) population won in the battles.
     Green does not present a clear case for how Rome came to conquer the Hellenistic kingdoms other than to say that not even the Macedonian phalanx could stand up to the Roman legions.  Fine.  The question that I had – and really more related to Rome than the Hellenistic kingdoms – was: from where did Rome get all of her soldiers?  Rome conquers the Macedonians with help from rebellious Greek city-states, but these are too weak to resist Rome in any meaningful manner – even when banded together in "leagues".  But Rome does this during the Second Punic War (or so is my understanding from the text).  Lots of soldiers, more than one would think a city-state Republic (which Rome really is at the time) could be expected to muster for just one theater of the war.
     Rome gets involved in the way the Classical Greeks used to get involved – somebody came and asked for them to get in the fight.  The psychology of modern politics makes this seem like a ridiculous way to handle foreign relations, but it was the status quo in the Mediterranean for a good long time.  Indeed, it seems that the only things Rome wanted more than money (in the form of tribute or from direct conquest) and art (looted by the legions) was slaves.  The Hellenistic Age apparently operated – largely – on a slave economy, the kind that made it legal to go out and capture people in any conceivable manner so they could be sold for profit or ransomed back to their people.
     Green makes some comparison to the dominance of the slave trade to oil dependency, but he is not aggressive enough in this to please me.  The lesson learned – from various slave rebellions (where the rebellion was not over the fact that there were slaves or that slaves were treated poorly, but rather that some of the educated or aristocratic person who had been enslaved felt that they were suffering in an inappropriate position) – was to always keep the slaves busy.  That meant that rather than fostering efficiency – siege weaponry excepted – the Hellenistic Greeks turned to intellectual pursuits.  They became like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory (2007-present), looking down on the practical application of science (see Howard being an engineer who actually designs real, functional things) in favor of the theoretical.  There was likewise a turning from public works and service to more selfish pursuits, including book reading.
     The Hellenistic Age is a good book, but it is not a quick read (despite its low page count).  Green does not seem as focused as he was with The Greco-Persian Wars, and cannot find a comfortable in-between his desire to write a text that is an introductory and accessible piece yet still fitting for one looking for a springboard into more serious, academic works.  Had I not taken the time to refresh myself with the age and its preceding (more glorious) Classical Age, I think I would have been both lost and frustrated, so I would caution any potential readers to have some recent familiarity with the material covered.

     What were a few of the passages that jumped out at me?

"It has often been pointed out that ancient inventors were familiar with steam power (indeed, produced a model) and could make effective pistons yet never combined their knowledge to build a steam-engine. Water-driven mills were known but not used. The same applied ti the compound pulley, which enormously reduced the energy needed to shift a given mass. The reason should now be clear. Any device that left the servile labor force with spare energy was seen as a direct stimulus to revolution." – p 77

     Yes, it bothers me that the slave economy delayed the implementation of the steam engine by close to 2000 years.  More than that, it offends me that the human race was doubled diminished because it ignored the drive to advance the (practical) knowledge of the species in favor of keeping others bound in service and robbed of any sense of freedom.  This endured for quite some time, and it is a sad legacy of the Hellenistic Age.  Seriously, that amount of human trafficking boggles the mind.

"As in the case with oil, there was a great deal of money to be made from the slave-trade by the unscrupulous. Any human being, rich or poor, high- or lowborn, of whatever nation, if seized in war or by pirates could be legitimately deprived of freedom, turned into a mere commodity. ...Like the oil-cartels, [the slave trade], in a very literal sense, kept the wheels turning." – p 77 

     See the note above.  Green doesn't develop this point further, but he is an historian and not a political scientist.  The implied warning is more alarming than the danger the traditions internal combustion engine and its fuel on the planet or the scarcity of petroleum.  The reliance – and profitability – of oil has kept new technologies from being fully developed.  Will we, as a species, find ourselves 200 years behind the scientific curve because our focus was on tinkering with an existing technology and fuel rather than properly exploring and developing alternatives?

Ptolemy IX Lathyros, who himself had be married to two of his sisters.

"On Lathyros' death in 81/0, [Sulla] sent out Ptolemy X's son as the successor. The youth (Ptomley XI) was required to marry Lathyros' daughter Cleopatra Berenice, his stepmother or, possibly, his mother. After the honeymoon, he murdered her and was duly lynched by the Alexandrian mob. Sulla (in this typically Roman) took no further steps to implement the will but washed his hands of the whole business." – p 121

     Here, we have Roman interference (Sulla) in Ptolemaic matters combined with the insanities that were the marriages in the royal line.  Part of the problem may have been the belief that it was a good idea to marry son to step-mother, or to sister, or mother, or to marry a daughter to successive brothers (to keep the power in the hands of the family).  The will in question was over who was to be in charge and whether or not Rome had any claim to Egypt.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a Roman who had great success mucking around with the Hellenistic Kingdoms.

"Berenice, with ambitions of her own and aware that Rome disliked petticoat governments, looked around desperately for a passable husband. A soi-distant Seleucid nicknamed, from his oafish manners, Kybiosaktes ("the Salt-Fish Hawker") proved so revolting that after a few days of marital intimacy, [Cleopatra Berenice (IV)] had him strangled." – p 125

      By this point in the story, it is a little hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would marry into any of the ruling families.  On the other hand, this type of behavior had become normative and is remarkable to us because it relates to the lineage of the ruling houses.  The way that Green brings all of this salaciousness to light, it is hard to believe that there is no premium cable series in the works for the Ptolemies.  Much more interesting (and more material with which to work) than the Tudors.

Cleopatra VII – the one that was married to two of her brothers, had a child by Julius Cesar and twins by Marc Anthony, and was just not dainty or demure.

"[T]he moviemakers' femme fatale is, in essence, Cleopatra as Horace and Propertius painted her." – p 129

     The Cleopatra in question is Cleopatra VII, the one that everyone knows.  I just liked this line because it is great writing.  It takes the interactions that seem so deviant and alien to modern sensibilities and places it in an easily accessible frame.  More than that, it makes the whole thing more human by showing that the propagandists of the time presented her in a manner that we could both recognize and understand.

"Yet in the end – and if there is a moral to be drawn from the Hellenistic age, this is surely it – the essential condition of the common people, from mountain tribesmen to fellahin and, a foriori, slaves, had changed little between the coming of Alexander and the death of Cleopatra; nor would it, until the advent of the Industrial Revolution meant that they were no longer the near-exclusive and stringently controlled source of the world's energy and could break free, at last, from that imprisoning and repetitive cycle." – p 130

     Here, Green makes a brief statement about how it didn't much matter to the peasantry who was in charge after the end of the Classical Age.  The overlords were often distant, almost exclusively foreign, and they were forced to labor for a mere subsistence existence.  Unfortunately, Green did not dedicate the focus of this book to the plight of the slave and how that did not change for nearly twenty centuries.

The various regions and peoples of the Hellenistic Age.

Greece, or as they undoubtedly thought of it, a hundred little realms of disparate people who share a common base language (and speak of form of Attic Greek to allow for trade).  We get a good (and true) story of how Rhodes came to have the funds to build the Colossus.

The Macedonian/Thracian Lineage.

The Selecuids.

The Ptolemies.  Take a look and see if you can figure out where it all went wrong.