invissssssible hannnnnnd
A cold front has parked itself over the midwest. Climate change has altered the jet stream so literally arctic wind, frozen air from the north pole, has swooped down, bringing to the region a frigidity comparable to that of a multi-child marriage.
I agreed to pick up a friend from the airport months ago - I agreed, that is, months ago to pick him up today, I didn’t agree to pick him up on a date several months back and only now finally drive down to the airport to collect him, bearded, disheveled, stinking, with my rusted out ford taurus. I agree in the pleasant cool of fall, not realizing it would mean standing outside in the biting winter air, scraping at the quarter inch thick layer of ice coating my windshield. That SKSHHHH sound of an ice scraper is to me what the sound of nails on a chalkboard is to some others, and what the scratch of a spoon on the bottom of a certain kind of rough-bottomed ceramic bowl is to my wife. It makes my insides hurt. I scraped and scraped while the cold made my eyes water and the wind chapped my cheeks, and then after several minutes I got in and started the car because, like an idiot, I didn’t think to start the car and let it warm up while I scraped the windows. While the car warmed up a little I sat with my hands in my lap because it hurt to touch the steering wheel, it was so cold.
I drove to the airport and went in only to find my friend’s flight was delayed by two hours, likely due to the air traffic controller sickouts in response to the government shutdown. I should have checked that my friend’s flight was on time before I left the house. I should have gone to the gym this morning. I should have learned a marketable skill. I should have done a lot of things. Instead I bought a cup of coffee, today as on so many days when I made poor choices.
I sat in the coffee shop at the airport and a young man with a beautiful pompadour haircut, like what I remember Morrissey having though I admit I haven’t googled the moody Manchester crooner for a few years. I gave up learning about him after I watched a documentary on the Smiths and realized that if I knew any more about them I risked liking their music less. This is the same reason why I have not read the biographies of Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone, both of which I own (the books I mean; I am not saying I own the corpses of these iconic musicians, though I am not denying it either; my possession or non-possession of dead bodies is simply not your business and I am tired of being asked about it; people are entirely too nosey in these the end times; I blame the social media you’ve got nowadays). I worry that if I learn more about these two Ramones I will like them less and so like their band less. I could tell this was a possibility as I read Everett True’s excellent book on the Ramones as a whole. I may still risk the loss of some of my Ramones-love, to be honest, because I’ve read Marky’s memoir and the memoir of Mickey Leigh, Joey’s brother, and it feels a bit uneven to have read memoirs by some of the band and not the other. I reserve the right to make up my own mind on this, free from the input of strangers or big government.
I wanted to explain all this to the young man with the Moz hair but he seemed distraught and I didn’t want to burden him further with the dilemma of whether to choose to avoid knowing more about the complex and often deeply flawed actual human beings who make art so as to avoid losing some appreciation for the art, or to let the art become tarnished a bit by knowing the foibles of the artist as a result of spending some time immersed in the ambitions, hopes, frustrations, and hardships of a person who gave up a great deal of ordinary life in pursuit of creative ambitions. I didn’t want to burden him since, as I said, he looked distraught, and so I kept these hard thoughts to myself, shouldering that burden both selfless and alone, like Christ carrying his cross to his place of execution.
Unlike our lord and savior and lord Jesus, I had what I will freely admit - this admission is part of my great humility, a virtue I have in common with the lamb of god who took away the world’s sins, who, to the best of my knowledge, engaged in very minimal bragging, only two or three times ever, and only when provoked by some swaggering prick with a trust fund spouting off about his yacht or something, said “yeah well I’m the son of god you know, god the creator of everything, and not only is my dad somebody important but I’m fated to redeem all humanity by being victimized in an act of appalling brutality which, for reasons I don’t fully grasp to be honest, my dad set it up, he’s quite connected you know, what with having made literally everything and everyone, and what with all his creating-everything-that-exists experience he knows a lot about how things work, he says that my being tortured and killed is going to wash away the sin of the rest of the world way, way more effectively than that time he made it rain so much that pretty much all life on land on the whole planet was killed except one guy with a boat, but anyway my dad’s a big deal, way bigger than yours so shut the fuck up Drew” and there is documentary evidence of only one occasion when an early twentysomething Christ snuck a date into his dad’s awesome house in the sky (“you’re going to love the view from up here! literally heavenly!”) in a bid to impress them enough to get a blow- or at the very least a handjob, which given the ongoing temptation you have to admit shows some decent self control, but where was I? Ah yes, like Jesus I am humble which is why I can admit that unlike Jesus, while I was at the airport - Jesus wasn’t at the airport, though I suppose technically he was insofar as Jesus is God is Everywhere, theology is complicated I guess, I’m just saying that while I was at the airport I was not at the most Jesusiest in my actions and furthermore these actions reveal a streak of nonJesusness to my personality and moral character, a streak which, because of the Jesusitude of my laudable humility, I can admit with a very Jesusful honesty, a streak which consistently leads to some not exactly one hundred percent Jesusly actions. What I’m trying to say is that while I was at the airpot I had a characteristic moment of weakness and narcissism. What I think it is is that my virtue muscles get tired from all my constant virtue-izing all the time, so sometimes I fall a bit short, a shortcoming which, as I mentioned, I do, virtuously, humbly, admit to.
So I was at the airport and this young man with the gorgeous Morrissey hair was there and I didn’t want to burden him with all the moral complexity I was wrestling with about whether to maintain my love of the music of the Smiths and the Ramones, music I feel a deep human connection with, whether to maintain that love by deliberately not reading their biographies and so not learning more about the actual human beings I believe I am, through the music, connecting with, or whether to risk taking my relationship, such as it is, with those people to a different place, opening my heart to Johnny and Dee Dee and Morrissey and letting them in despite their flaws, knowing that those flaws may change my relationship to their music. I didn’t want to burden young Mr. Morrissey Hair with this, but I did feel I deserved a bit of credit for this so I said “you seem distraught and I don’t want to burden you further with the dilemma of whether to choose to avoid knowing more about the complex and often deeply flawed actual human beings who make art so as to avoid losing some appreciation for the art, or to let the art become tarnished a bit by knowing the foibles of the artist as a result of spending some time immersed in the ambitions, hopes, frustrations, and hardships of a person who gave up a great deal of ordinary life in pursuit of creative ambitions - I am speaking here specifically about whether or not to read Smiths and Ramones biographies, I’m sure you can see the gravity of the situation, and by keeping these grave matters to myself here, other than the admitted exception of what I think we can both agree is this brief capsule summary, by keeping this to myself I am in a way somewhat akin to Jesus Christ carrying his cross to his place of execution.”
Humble, but perhaps not fully so, I admit, again humbly, that the young man seemed not to listen and I felt disrespected a bit and so felt angry, a slight bruising of the pride I suppose, and so I muttered a little to myself “I carry this burden and not only does he not say thank you, he doesn’t even acknowledge that I spoke” and so forth, and I will say this wasn’t entirely accurate - how often, when speaking in response to bruised pride, we think and say things that aren’t entirely accurate, I believe there is a Husker Du song about this, and it may be mentioned in Bob Mould’s memoir, which I haven’t read as frankly I am now frightened of the entire genre of music memoir because of my experiences with the Smiths and Ramones; this fear another cross to bear, unlike Jesus Christ who carried one, only one, let’s be honest there and use that O word, only, only one, not two like me, 50% of the work really compared to me, yet at least double the credit; isn’t that how it always goes? - and so because I was muttering my only partially true complaint to myself about how I carry this burden and not only does he not say thank you, he doesn’t even acknowledge that I spoke and so forth, and similar other complaints, the man with the beautiful Moz hair said “I am distraught” - he had been listening, you see, at least to the first part where I said “you seem distraught” - “I am distraught,” he said, “thank you for noticing and for striking up a conversation with me” he was really quite gracious here, and I found that confusing because it paired with his utter lack of acknowledgement of the aforementioned Smiths Ramones artist-or-art dilemma I was struggling with much in the way that Christ struggled to carry his cross, and that pairing of graciousness and inconsiderately ignoring the rest of what I said confused me further, reducing further the bandwidth, so to speak, that I had available to listen. Now, to be very clear, what I am saying is true, I am sure he said what I say he said, it’s just that am not sure of the exact words.
He said “I am distraught and I am lonely and the two reinforce each other, I drive people away because distraught, and because I am alone I can not unburden myself” to which I thought “oh sure YOUR burdens” and then immediately felt guilty since he was clearly in emotional distress and in need of someone to listen - that guilt and my listening were a third and fourth cross I bore, it seems to me, 400% of the cross carrying of Jesus Showboating Christ, if anyone’s keeping track, and of course no one is because if they were I would get some god damn credit once in a while - “because I am alone,” he’d said, “I can not unburden myself of the knowledge I have of terrible things.”
As I said I don’t recall his exact words because of my mumbling to myself and my frustrations but as I said I am entirely sure that the gist is accurate, even if his exact words are lost to time. There is verisimilitude in my summary is what I want you to understand. In any case, the young man with the beautiful hair revealed to me that he worked as an aide of an aide to an aide in the White House. He seemed worried I would judge him for this - and I did, to be honest - as he rushed to add that he didn’t agree with everything that’s happening, he was just trying to do some good in the world and serve the country, plus it hopefully looks good on a resume. He was troubled in particular by something he had learned about the administration’s plans to restaff the government after the shutdown, as many people had quit, including people in the relevant HR-type departments that handle the process of staffing the government. New people needed to be hired fast to fill vacancies in order to get the business of government back in business as soon as possible, which was hard given that there were lots of vacancies among the specialists in vacancy filling.
The new staffing plan emerged out of a quirk of Paul Ryan’s. Ryan famously kept an ant farm in his office. He claimed to know all of their names and would talk about them in casual conversation as if they were people he had normal relationships with. ‘Francine’s been walking a bit slowly lately, I’m worried she may be sick,’ he would say, and ‘Jim, now there’s a fellow who can dig tunnels!’ and he would laugh and stare off into space as if recalling a childhood memory. He was known to interrupt meetings occasionally by declaring ‘but enough, I have to feed the ants.’ Feeding the ants always involved turning up Rage Against the Machine’s “Bombtrack” very loudly. “Tell them I’m unavailable. My family needs me,” he would bark at an aide, then close his office door, turn on the music, set the ant farm down on his desk, feed the ants, and watch, face pressed against the plastic, as they reacted to the addition of new food to their environment.
Ryan’s ant farm obsession became a matter of gossip among congressional Republicans and their staff, sparking some concern over whether he was in a mental state appropriate to his responsibilities. One Wednesday a rumor spread rapidly - and by Thursday the rumor was confirmed by a series of videos taken with cellphones (footage that no one would cop to having filmed nor admit from whom they had received the file) - that Ryan would periodically take an ant from the farm and placed it in a jam jar and then close the lid. He would lean close and whisper “invisible hand” to it while stroking himself through his slacks under his desk, “invissssssible hannnnnnd,” though reportedly never permitting himself to climax. He would leave the ant in the jar until it died of hunger and thirst, then drop its corpse back into the ant farm, muttering “wheat from the chaff” and “survival of the fittest!” to the rest of the ant farm. This news eased the minds of the GOP congressional delegation, who had in common an interest in animal abuse often dating back to childhood, and in masturbating but never to the point of orgasm as doing so would be both sinful and a waste of precious bodily essence. And so Ryan’s ants became just another private joke among Republicans used to create good will, like McConnell’s skin mask and Cruz’s up skirt photos of left leaning female congresspeople.
As the shutdown progressed, however, forward thinking republicans began to realize they needed to act quickly to minimize the damage, and someone realized that Ryan’s ant farm offered an opportunity. The beautiful pompadoured young man with the thousand yard stare claimed that no one could remember who suggested the idea, though he wouldn’t meet my eyes when he mumbled this. In any case, the idea soon took hold of the most influential republicans that they could make effective hiring decisions by issuing people ant farms of their own and giving them a series of strange suggestions, which would double as a loyalty test, while monitoring their responses.
Applicants for vacancies opened in the government were filed into a large room, seated at tables, then servers dressed as if this were a banquet wheeled out carts containing small cardboard boxes. They set a box before each applicant. In each box, an ant farm. A ripple of quiet conversation undulated across the room as the jobseekers began to open their boxes and discovered the ant farms. The head of the proceedings instructed each person to “get to know your ants, connect with them.”
To make a long story short, the clearly emotionally damaged young man with the perfect Morrissey hair explained to me that over the course of the day a great many ants were squashed, forced from their homes, made to fight each other, separated from their families, and made to do tedious make-work, and afterword everyone was required to take a polygraph test about which of these actions they found most arousing. They will be assigned to various parts of the government accordingly, while those who preferred to remain above all and to just watch others kill bugs are currently being focus-grouped for possible runs for Congressional office. This is how we are to be ruled from here on out. It is more of a distillation than a revision of the logic of governance.
At the end of the day, the applicants received their assignments, many getting various government jobs and some being assigned to work in Silicon Valley - apparently this experiment is a public-private partnership. After they opened their envelopes the director of the day’s events returned and lowered a large projection screen, upon which appeared the face of Paul Ryan who congratulated them on successfully passing their tests. As Ryan spoke the director wheeled a person into the room, hooded and strapped to a gurney, identified only as “a welfare recipient,” and poured honey all over their prone body then ordered everyone to release the surviving ants from their farms, while Paul Ryan mumbled “innnnnvissssssible hannnnnd” over and over faster and faster until reaching a many years delayed shuddering, gasping orgasm.
My friend’s flight finally arrived, so I thanked the broken young man with the incredible hair for telling me his story, and I added that he had the kind of hair I had wanted ever since I lost my own hair, I had wasted my younger haired days shaving my own head, these losses more crosses I carry, making me at least quintuple Christ, who is frankly no more to me than an insect in a jam jar. I had thought this many times as the Moz-headed young man had told me and it felt good, a relief really, to finally get a chance to say it. He didn’t acknowledge me, just mumbled “I have seen so much” and “I wish I could take it all back.”
His story triggered some doubts to the effect that it’s possible he might be even more Christ-like than I am, his burdens even greater than mine. I’m an atheist myself so the whole question feels silly, embarrassing even – I don’t want to care about which of us is the Jesusier of the two, but despite myself I do care, to be honest, ant that really bugs me.