"DISCLOSURE"
Copyright 2007 by DAVID SKORA
The Brief History
of Man
Scott takes a sip of his beer. He wants to think about writing this story where a guy—a little guy with a withered arm, like Richard III, a crooked witchy nose, black seagull eyes, a slight hump to his right shoulder, a bad case of acne on his face, eczema on his chest and legs, a burnt-garlic body odor, and a really, and I mean criminally, bad case of halitosis. This guy, if he could straighten his back, would measure over six feet, but he stood at five-foot-six, bent over with a bulging disc. He was emaciated, weighing in at, maybe, 130 pounds. His stringy black hair hung unwashed across his face. When he urinated, he often had to dig deeply for a shriveled, mushroom-cap penis that seemed totally unable to relieve his always-overfilled bladder. The foulness of his constant burps (one must assume acid reflux) was only out-fouled by the foulness of his reeking flatulence (one must assume irritable bowels).
Scott opens another beer and thinks about the things he could be doing. He could be out fishing or surfing or swimming or lying on the beach, watching the senoritas frolic in the surf in their bikinis, the bottoms of which would be swallowed by the shapely cheeks of their shapely asses. Scott could see the white tan lines showing at the edge of those bikini bottoms, and in his head he is young and swimming with them. He could be getting drunk in the sun. Or, playing with his daughter, Darby, at the park. Or, teaching her to fish. Or, teaching her to be a real, honest-to-god, human being. Or, maybe, on the off chance that Christy was in the mood, just maybe he could get some of that funky-monkey love that produced the funky-monkey Darby. Then he thinks ecstatically: fish tacos and margaritas! Sunsets echoing against oil islands just off the coast. A pelican bobbing up and down in the surf. Setting a hook in a halibut's mouth. Playing hide and seek. Making snow angels in the warm sand. Slapping Christy on the fanny and running away laughing.
He could be experiencing any one of these things. But what he is actually doing is thinking that he should really be thinking about wanting to think about writing this story where this strange guy described above, ad nauseum, fell in love with a woman.
Scott thinks that he would probably call this guy Joe, because that is what Darby calls all bugs: snails, slugs, cockroaches, spiders, flies, and that infamous pill-bug decimated by every child, the roly-poly. They are all named Joe. Scott thinks that Joe would be very much like a human incarnation of a cockroach. Or, how about a dung beetle? But, that story has already been told and there can only be so many stories written about dung beetles. No? This story would have Joe fall in love with a lovely, little, idyllic lady named Lucinda.
I never met Lucinda, so I can't tell you what she was like. I saw her shadow once. She had a fine shape to her. She must have been something special because Joe, fully aware of what he was, a disgusting troll, decided to chase down the lovely, little Lu-Lu and seduce her. He would love her for the rest of his unnatural life. When Scott writes this story, he thinks that he will be writing about Joe, but what he will really be writing is my story.
Of course, all of this is supposition. All Scott really does is talk about the theory of the novel and drink beer until 7:30, which is the time to switch over to some tequila or vodka as accompaniments to his beer. Scott stopped drinking scotch because of the hangovers, which were proof that Scotch was really bad for you while the other stuff that didn't cause too bad of a hangover was actually good. Although, saying that, Scott has had his share of tequila hangovers, and they were no less unpleasant than anything produced by the Scotch.
The point is that Scott couldn't write this story and he couldn't actually enjoy his life. But if he could write the story it would look something like this:
Joe was a fool. He had a high-pitched squeal of a voice. "She like one that like one. She like candy. You help me? Help me, me Joe. Me love Lu-Lu. Lu-Lu love me." Joe's cheese-and-rotten-meat breath spilled out of his mouth.
Where'd she go? I asked.
"She go un beach. She go un crosst da water. She go un Island."
Joe was a fool.
Scott opens another beer. He is slowly getting drunk and he wants to hear John Coltrane. He turns on the Trane. He feels a little blue because his attempts to tell Joe's story are really going nowhere. He thinks that maybe it's time to quickly get drunk. He pours tequila into a coffee mug and sits back down, grimacing a tequila-grimace.
He says, What the hell?
What the hell, Joe? I asked. You want to go to Catalina to follow some woman?
"Yeah," Joe said. "I want her very much."
I know. But, look at you, Joe.
"What you mean?"
I mean, how can you expect to get any woman . . . being like you are?
". . ."
. . . I'm sorry. That was cruel. But come on, Joe. You see what I'm saying. Right?
"She see through that. She pretty and she see through that."
Well, why not start with a bath?
"No important when me see her." Joe walked to the beach and grabbed one of the huge trashcans that went unused by the beachgoers. I could hear his vertebrae crackling as he straightened his back for the first time in many years. As he stood up straight, I realized that he looked a great deal more attractive. At least, he did not look as repulsive as before. Before, he was so ugly that ugly dogs barked at his ugliness; when he was born the doctor slapped his mother; I guess that there is a great deal of ugly jokes, huh? But now his ugliness that went beyond his visage and was really an inner ugliness that expressed itself outwardly probably would not incite the dogs to howl as loudly as they had before. Also, for the first time since I had known him, he had a determined way about him. He didn't seem nearly as retarded as he normally was. He actually had a look of intelligence about him. And I guess that I understood that Joe's new attractiveness radiated from purpose. He finally had a purpose.
What are you doing? I asked him. The large plastic trashcan looked extremely heavy, but he was doggedly dragging it to the shore.
"I'm going to go to the island to find my Lu-Lu."
Alright, but what are you doing with the trashcan?
"I'm going to go to the island and find her and love her. In the trashcan."
This is so stupid. This is so Joe, I thought. I helped him with the trashcan to the ocean.
You think it will float? I asked.
"Yes."
We pushed the trashcan as far into the water as we could. It was green, about four feet tall and four feet in diameter, and it appeared to be floating with about two of the four feet out of the water. Joe grabbed a two-by-four from the water's edge and climbed into the trashcan. When he got in, the can only sank another six inches or so.
Good luck, Joe, I said, happily loosing myself from the situation.
"You're coming with me?" Joe asked. At least, I thinking he was asking.
No, I'm not.
He looked at me a moment, and, if he didn't have constantly watering eyes, I would swear that he was crying. I felt really terrible. He was such a sweet guy. And really, didn't he have as much of a right to love as we all do?
Scott, drunker than ever, but not drunk enough to not realize that this is going nowhere, deletes the last paragraph. He knows that I wouldn't really care if Joe were crying. He has no way to make it make sense for me to enter into Joe's trashcan and cross the channel between SoCal and Santa Catalina Island. But if I don't go, where's his narrator? Visions of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker run through Scott's head when he thinks about me and Joe in the trashcan. (He likes this image because he was always frightened by the idea of three men in a bathtub. It always seemed to bring about the discomforting mixture of the feelings of homophobia and claustrophobia in him that he constantly denied. Besides that, he can almost smell the bloody butcher and the German candlestick maker; and the ocean sounds like the flowing Tigress as American Marines sweat out the afternoon awaiting the command of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker who are finding new ways to boil the bones of the sacrificed into a longer-burning candle and a sweeter brown-baby treat.) He has no way to explain how someone of reasonable intelligence (me) would get in the trashcan with Joe, unless he makes me as stupid as Joe. Or, unless Joe became intelligent enough to manipulate me into entering the trashcan.
And what about Joe, huh? Why would he want me along for the ride? To go further, how did I know Joe? Really, what use would I have for him? These and many other questions haunt poor old Scotty's alcohol-saturated skull. He even considers entering postmodernity by telling a tale that is not a tale, a meaningless void of self-reflective non-sense that reveals an objective truth or the impossibility of any truth, which, in itself, is a truth if looked at from the lens of Grandpa Beckett. Or, how about a story about language? A story about the form of the story? Any of these metafictional devices and concepts that have constantly annoyed Scotty could be an easy way out for him and, really, full of just enough bullshit to be innovative.
Scott goes outside to have a cigarette and think about this and many other things. In the mean time
Joe was imploring me to get in the trashcan with him.
"Come on, Man. It'll be fun. I mean, look, really, do you really think that we would go to Catalina? Do you really think that I would be that stupid? Let's just get in and have some fun." His mustache was soft and brown like a mouse.
Fun?
"Yeah. Have I ever let you down? We'll just get in and float around for a while. I mean, shit, Man, we're in a harbor here." He smiled. He made me happy when he smiled. "Come on, now, or I'll leave you behind."
No, Joe. Don't leave me behind. I want to go.
I got in the trashcan. It floated really nicely. It only sank another six inches, so that the rim of the can was about a foot and a half above the water. I knew that this was going to be fun. Joe was close to me. He shoved off into the harbor with the two-by-four. I smelled him. He smelled good.
"You know how to swim, Man?"
No.
"Oh, Man. You might not be very smart, but you sure know how to have fun." Joe laughed as he tousled my hair.
Yeah. We never do this kind of thing anymore.
Before I knew it, we were beyond the breakwater that separated the harbor from the sea. The wind was blowing offshore, pushing us in a steady, westerly direction. Surprised flying fishes skipped across the water. Terns, seagulls, pelicans, pigeons flew overhead.
Where you think them pigeons are going, Joe? I asked.
"Pigeons?" Joe asked. I pointed. "Oh, Man, that's weird. It's like watching a butterfly fly in the middle of the ocean? Weird? Pigeons in the middle of the ocean? Never seen anything like it. But they looks like they're too far out to go anywhere but Catalina."
Kind of like us, Joe?
"Yeah, just like us. I guess I let you down, Man. I guess maybe I knew that we were going all the way to Catalina. But it's worth it, Man. If you only knew her, you'd agree. Let me tell you about Lucinda. Maybe that'll pass the time? She's the most beautiful. . . ." Joe's eyes looked blue-green, like the ocean. I saw fish swimming in his eyes. Turquoise-golden dorado, blue and white bonito, greenish-silver mackerel, red-brown cabazon. He paddled with the wind as he spoke. We could see the rocky shoreline of Catalina in the distance. It looked like a sculpin in Joe's eyes. I was amazed at how quickly we were moving through the water; it was like we were skating on an ice rink. Joe paddled hard. His breath was healthy and strong. He spoke of Lucinda.
Scott finishes his cigarette and brushes Darby's hair back with his fingers.
"What are you doing, baby?" he asks.
"Papa, Darby not a baby," the three year old responds.
"How old are you, baby?"
"Three. . . . Not a baby."
"You'll always be my baby."
Christy says to Scott, "How's the story going, Papa?"
"How's this sound? I got a stinking troll with all sorts of problems. A really repulsive kind of guy, right? And he's talking to a guy like me. Kind of intelligent. Don't laugh. But this guy is talking to this troll who's named Joe, and he ends up helping Joe drag one of those big trashcans on the beach that no one ever uses to the water. Joe is in love with a woman named Lucinda. . . ."
Christy interrupts, "I don't like that name. It reminds me of a girl I went to school with. Fat, Cholita pendeja. A real hardass bitch."
"Anyway, the name's not important. This girl's gone to Catalina for the weekend. Joe wants to follow her. And he's thinking that he can take the trashcan across the channel to Catalina. Right? But how in the hell. . . ."
"Alright, you can stop. You're giving me a frigging headache," Christy says.
"Yeah, you stop, Papa. Frigging headache," Darby says, agreeing with her mama.
"Are you drunk?" Christy asks.
"Papa drunk!" Darby proclaims.
Scott walks in the house, slightly irritated, and says, "You're both my babies." He opens another beer and thinks about Joe in love.
". . . I call her Lu-Lu. And Man, I tell you, she's like nothing you've ever seen. I don't even want to introduce you to her because you'll love her as much as I do. She's got these like Chinese eyes, but they're green like a carved Buddha. Her lips are red, and her teeth are ever so slightly bucked, so they come out a little bit on her pouty lips. The white of her teeth plays against the red of her lips. . . . Ah, Man. But you know how I said she had Chinese eyes? Well, not really, because she's all Mexican. She's even got Mexican breath. Breath like a hot Santa Ana wind when it blows across your chest. I love her, Man."
The island was close. Occasionally we would get hung up in some kelp paddies. Joe had to work hard to loose us from the kelp.
Look, Joe. All there are is rocks. Where are we going to land this thing? I think that we're going to die. I told you I couldn't swim, didn't I?
"Don't worry about it, Man, we'll land where we're meant to land."
Scott can't sleep for a minute. Where are they to land? Thirty miles of rock off of the coast of California. Where to land? It's nothing to him. So he takes a couple of his special, nighty-night shots of tequila and goes to bed like the inconsiderate son of a bitch that he is. He dreams of saltlicks in the Sierra Nevadas where Tule Elk gather in the winter, the steam of their nostrils swirls like clouds of cigarette smoke. He dreams of empty mountains in the desert. He dreams of many things, but is awoken by the end of the story that makes no sense.
He has no other choice.
"Hey Joe!" someone calls from the shore. I can see him waving at us. He's a short man in a pair of unwashed denim shorts that hang low on his hips. He has an unnatural tan, unnatural because he is not meant to be tanned given the northern European blood that damned him with freckles and melanoma.
"See! Look at that, Man. He's here! Scott's here. Look everything's going to be alright," Joe says. Joe begins to paddle with strong thrusts of the two-by-four. Our trashcan moves slowly towards shore. Small waves crash on the sand. The beach is maybe ten feet wide and is surrounded by sharp rocks. The wind is at our back. Pelicans watch us pass. They have disturbed stares.
"Come on, guys. Hurry up." He is dancing like a jack-in-the-box on the beach. He's running back and forth. "Hurry up, Joe. I just saw Lucinda on the cliff up there."
"Lu-Lu?" Joe asks.
"Yeah." Scott is wading into the water. He's chest-deep before he stops. He has green eyes and a red beard.
I hate him.
Joe jumps out of the trashcan and begins swimming towards the beach. When he reaches Scott, he asks, "Where is she?"
Joe? I ask.
"Up there." Scott points to the top of the cliff. I can see her. She is shining in the sun that is falling into the western horizon, melting in the meat of the sea. She is only a shadow, but I can see her.
"Joe, I can't swim," I yell.
The wind shifts as the sun sizzles. Joe begins climbing up the rocks. I wonder, briefly, how he can climb with his withered arm, but I notice that it is no longer withered. Joe looks nothing like he did when we started this story. The shifting, westerly wind begins pushing me away from Catalina.
"Help, Joe!" I yell, but he can't or won't hear me.
I watch as Joe mounts the top of the cliff. He and Lucinda are shadows. I watch their shadow-hands clasp in the fading red of the sunset.
Scott watched from the beach as the trashcan that Joe had taken across the channel floated away. He thought of what a beautiful thing a love story is. He thought that maybe he would write a love story and forget about all the tragedies of his tragic time. He looked up to the top of the cliff and smiled as Joe and Lucinda kissed the first of many kisses. He wished them the best. He knew that this moment was like none other. He was happy to be a part of a world where love was still possible, and love stories were still appreciated. He watched the trashcan float towards the megalopolis of greater Los Angeles. He watched the lights of the civilized world twinkle as if every one were alone, shining above Bethlehem. He thought he heard the cry of a seagull. A cry so much like Man's.
Copyright 2007 by Scott Underwood
