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Posted by
Joe M. Owens
MOvember 2010 -- Final Update
13 years ago
Sunday, March 28, 2010
New Site -- More frequent posting guaranteed!
I'm diverting my writing focus to a site that will solely be concentrated on... you guessed it: my writing. I'll still post random thoughts about just about everything else here, but new short stories and novel excerpts will be posted on my self-titled website:
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Friday, March 19, 2010
The New Sophisticates: A Novel -- Chapter 1
The New Sophistcates: A Novel
Chapter 1
November 20th
Friday, Omaha, NE, 6:07 P.M. CST
The television's volume in the condo's living room is set at an unnecessary level. The TV is a 60-inch, ultra-thin and ultra-high-definition Pioneer Elite KURO™ series.
Sawyer Deramore stands across the polished, travertine-tiled foyer, completely transfixed in front of the hall bathroom's vanity—absorbed, brow furrowed—carefully adjusting the triangular nexus of his silk Charvet Jacquard necktie. He's attempting to fashion a perfectly-symmetrical Windsor knot. Even the slightest hint at imperfection sends him back to square one with regard to the whole looping and knotting process. It keeps him focused.
Ashley Van Zandt chatters on her phone while positively luxuriating on the 100 x 39 x 39” sofa—a boutique, Stickley Santa Fe, upholstered in rich Craftsmen leather that perfectly complements the living room's size and highly-selective layout. She pays only the mildest attention to the unnecessarily loud TV, contrariwise to Sawyer, who's been standing in the hall-bathroom obsessing over his Windsor knot for close to ten minutes now, and can clearly hear every. single. word. of the History Channel's documentary on Illegal Drug Use in America. Sawyer, while doubtlessly wishing he couldn't hear the TV at all, says nothing remotely approaching contentious, despite the fact. And, of course, the irony of the documentary itself is by no means whatsoever lost on him.
Sawyer assesses his reflection, scrutinizes it. Considers his breathing and focuses abdominally. Slow, abdominal breathing can abort panic attacks, prevent them. Diaphragmatic breathing. Think about the tie. Don't think about the head. Six breaths per minute. A kinesthetic mantra he has been– and will continue– repeating.
The couple's 1,294 square-foot Riverfront condominium itself is ultra-modern—très contemporain—situated 10 floors up and east-facing toward Iowa's Loess Hills just across the Missouri River. The TV, as well as the über-posh furniture, sets a kind of refined visual precedent within the condo's walls, anchoring guest's attention to strategically-placed items across the floor plan. Here, it should probably be noted that there isn't a single, stick of IKEA© in sight, because—let's be honest—any type of furniture you have to partially (or completely) put together yourself is bullshit. And not that it would ever be socially decorous—but even if you for some reason did have a compulsion to do so, you probably couldn't spit anywhere inside the condo without hitting a distinct piece of recherché Stickley furniture: a Chelsea console table situated along one outer wall; a Metro bookcase along the other; an Eastwood chair, also upholstered in fine Craftsman leather, in the living room's corner, et cetera—the furniture essentially displayed as applied art.
The kitchen is, aesthetically, no less lavish; ornamented to the nines with assorted Apilco Très Grande porcelain dinnerware, a Wüsthof Ikon Blackwood 22-piece knife block-set, Italian Alton flatware and professional-grade, stainless-steel appliances that include a Wolf 48-inch Dual Fuel range (an item that very rarely sees much use based almost solely on account of the couple's predilection toward dining out), a GE Profile Advantium® Over-The-Range microwave, a gorgeous Bosch 24-inch Evolution® 800 Plus Series dishwasher, a $12,000 Subzero Pro 48 side-by-side refrigerator/freezer-combo to keep (what mostly amounts to Grade-A) leftovers chilled at the “perfect” temperature, all complimented by exquisite granite counter-tops and red oak cabinets from Kitchens by Design. It goes without saying that the cabinets' hardware is primarily all brushed-nickel. The bathrooms are custom by Waterworks—consulting and Ambit fixtures from the Chicago showroom.
“OK, babe, get this,” Ashley says, tossing her phone onto the Santa Fe, her small, but very pronounced voice in fierce competition with the TV's volume.
“.....” Cross the wide end over the narrow and bring it up through the loop.
“Babe?”
“.....” Turn the wide end and pass it through the loop.
“Sawyer?”
Slip the wide end through the knot in front and cinch. “Yeah?”
“Sawyer? Are you listening?”
“Yes,” Sawyer says, utterly deadpan, mostly to his reflection.
“OK, so get this,” Ashley starts.
Sawyer sort of half tunes in, half audits his facial features and overall mien. Neither eyelid is drooping. OK. Good. No redness. No tearing.
Yet...
No. Don't think like that.
“—I just talked to Meredith, and she says there are going to be representatives from both Watson and Dingbaum Land Companies at the gala tonight,” she says, barely containing her enthusiasm.
“OK,” Sawyer says.
“Um, babe? Watson and Dingbaum Land Cos. are only the largest two developers of industrial centers in Los Angeles County.”
“OK,” he says, neutral, “but we don't live in Los Angeles County. We live in Douglas County. In Omaha. Nebraska.”
“God, you're thick sometimes! They're not out here recruiting—well, maybe a little recruiting—they're out here looking at land to develop.”
“Wow,” he says, though unsure why he said it since he isn't exactly positive what she's getting at and whether or not wow is an appropriate response.
“It is! And I think I've got a really great packet that Meredith put together. She just left the office a little bit ago. This could be a huge contract to land!”
“Really? That's great babe.” And after he says so, he realizes it've probably been simpler to just pay closer attention in the first place, because now he's probably even more distracted than he'd've been otherwise.
“She'll be home soon so she said we can pick up the materials whenever before heading to the Qwest. We have to run by an ATM anyway, and Wells Fargo is right there by the Brandeis building.”
“How the hell can Meredith afford to live at the Brandeis while going to school and working as an office assistant? Some of those condos are over a half mil'.”
“Her parents, I think.”
“Oh,” he says, pausing. “That makes more sense.”
“And can I just say this out loud,” Ashley says out loud, finally realizing what she's been watching on the TV while simultaneously using a gold edge, bi-metal utility razor blade to parse a smallish pile of white powder into evenly-spaced rows atop the coffee table's black marble surface [a gorgeous (to those who like this sort of thing) Nuevo Roma—the condo's one non-Stickley-branded piece of furniture], employing the care and precision of a gifted surgeon. “Crystal meth is, like—so disgusting! I mean, yuck! Seriously, it's kind of white trashy.”
Sawyer ponders this for a moment.
“Yeah, it is pretty gross,” Sawyer says, once again trying not to think about anything other than abdominal breathing and whether or not his Windsor knot is perfect. Which it's not.
Don't get worked up. It's all good. Keep your cool.
“It is!” Ashley says, quite shrilly, to be perfectly-honest—her tone nearly approaching a squeal– or shriek-like pitch which causes a flitting, involuntary squinching on the left side of Sawyer's face which he finds kind of repulsive.
You keep making that face and it'll get stuck that way.
Sawyer smirks to himself and makes a mental note to avoid squinching up his face.
Loop. Cross. Pass. Cinch. Breath.
“So then what do you consider—ah—powdering your nose?” Sawyer says after a moment or two with just the slightest touch of sarcasm, his voice barely audible over the television. He's still standing in the bathroom and staring into the halogen-lit mirror, making micro adjustments to his tie, ever the reluctant perfectionist, though he's almost got it tied to his satisfaction.
OK. Everything seems normal, he thinks. Tonight might actually go off without a hitch.
“What—you mean coke?” she says, as if perhaps Sawyer might've simply misspoke. “I mean, not only is coke making a huge comeback—like, we're talking the fucking 1980s-type-comeback, they say—but, as far as drugs go, it's fucking classy!”
With that, Ashley undergoes what Sawyer considers her brief metamorphosis into a human-Dyson, cyclonically inhaling a perfect rail of Pablo Escobar, before—almost, like, gracefully— plunging herself into the plush, welcoming embrace of the exquisitely-upholstered Santa Fe, sort of as if she all of a sudden found herself captured in super-slow motion. Finally, after a few seconds once time resumes it normal 60-seconds-to-a-minute-pace she adds, “And I– must I remind you, Mr. Deramore— am one classy bitch!”
Then she begins laughing almost maniacally at her own witticism.
“Who's they?” Sawyer says, similarly inaudible as before, his tone nearly mechanical—only now with zero affect, no inflection whatsoever.
“What? Oh, I don't know—people, magazines—even the History Channel just said it a few minutes ago.”
Coke is still classy, huh? Sawyer mutters, almost absentmindedly and again futzing with his collar and tie, pondering the querulous relationship in which the two garments seem to engage. Being classy is paramount, Ashley always says. Always be classy. Always be sophisticated.
Always this. Always that. Always, always, always...
Whatever.
“Well, I suppose we certainly have moved up in the world,” Sawyer says after considering the ensemble of utter classiness and composure in the mirror. And by moving up in the world, he means the days of he and Ashley crushing up Adderall and No Doz tablets with a mortar and pestle and then snorting it through plastic, striped McDonald’s straws have, fortunately, passed.
“Which is really probably not such a bad thing, when you stop to think about it,” he adds. One shudders to think what some might say about using a plastic fast-food straw for delighting in the King's habit anyway.
Sawyer Deramore is 29-years-old. He stands 6'2, lean and well-muscled from a traditional sports background[1] and tonight he is, as always, impeccably-dressed for Ashley's big real estate gala. He's sporting smartly-pressed articles from the Hugo Boss Black collection, a Joris button-down shirt and Francis-2 pants and jacket, completed, of course, by the aforementioned silk Charvet Jacquard. He's been told many times that visually, he oozes success; though it's an axiom he fundamentally detests, perhaps in large part due to its ultimately icky-sounding nature.
And though quite successful, Sawyer is also much more than merely fortunate for having only just escaped certain financial catastrophe, i.e. escaping personally losing everything when the United States' economy went to shit in 2008 like so many investors had—I'm lucky as shit, he thinks—a fact that's, ineluctably, never far from his cogitation.
As the winter months approached in 2008, Sawyer quickly noticed that it was not just Americans, but people everywhere, who became understandably hesitant to invest their hard-earned wages in any capacity in the wake of such a global economic meltdown; and, perhaps more importantly, they became even more hesitant to invest their hard-given trust and faith in America's financial institutions. Sawyer Deramore, indubitably comprehends the magnitude all of this as well.
So perhaps it's not coincidental that Sawyer's prodigious, insatiable headaches started last year as well. Thus far, he's seen two separate physicians, received two separate prescriptions for narcotics-grade painkillers and heard more than a few potential diagnoses tossed around, afflictions such as: migraines, stress at work, caffeine, neck and/or back pain, improper chiropractic adjustments, illicit drug use that Sawyer would[2] neither confirm nor deny the probability of, a mystery concussion, stress at home, brain tumor(s)—none of which have seemed to be a perfect match for his symptoms. It'd actually been a physician with a vested personal interest in Sawyer's case who ultimately posited the so far best-fitting, yet utterly implausible-seeming diagnostic theory.
This particular physician, his childhood best-friend, Drew Whitaker—though mainly a research specialist in infectious- and terminal diseases—believes it's more likely than not that Sawyer is suffering from a rare, debilitating phenomenon known as “cluster headaches.” Cluster headache, however, is kind of a misnomer, as Drew has previously pointed out to Sawyer, since the affliction is actually some kind of complicated neurological disease that stems from an abnormal release of serotonin in the brain, from which excruciating unilateral headaches result. Research suggests they spawn the most intense pain human beings can possibly experience, even driving some previously rational people to suicide, earning them the nickname, “suicide headaches.”
Sawyer, however, has simply dubbed them, “The Head.” No one aside from Drew Whitaker, including Sawyer's internal medicine specialist (who is, of course, not Drew Whitaker), is certain that cluster headaches are a perfect fit for his (Sawyer's) diagnosis either since actual confirmed cluster headache diagnoses are so rare. In fact, they affect only 0.1 percent of the total population. In donning the whole 'concerned-friend cap' in lieu of his 'clinician's cap,' Drew has remained steadfast, undaunted in the face of the other doctors' irresolute professional opinions—determined to pursue his own hypothesis further.
Back in the condo's bathroom, Sawyer affords his mirrored reflection a capacious, intense degree of focus, staring fixedly into his own eyes, now carefully examining his pupils—evaluating their size, relative symmetry—willing his brain to ward off another excruciating inter-cranial attack. He thinks, almost believes, that if he just concentrates hard enough, sheer resolve and self control will prevent the malevolent, indescribable pain from returning—simple mind over matter.
But then his nose begins to bleed a little and doubt begins assailing his mantra.
He just needs to concentrate a bit harder he thinks to himself, that's all—mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over... There is an interrupting lull between television commercials, submerging the condo in a brief, but welcome, few moments of aphonic silence. Ashley again begins to laugh hysterically for no evident reason until another commercial returns at the exact previously-unnecessary volume and as if on cue, she stops laughing.
Sawyer holds his gaze, focusing on the mirror for a few moments more and his nose finally ceases bleeding—false alarm, he thinks, or rather, hopes.
He allows his mind to wander, but only just a little.
And so life presently finds Sawyer Deramore, an MBA graduate from the Columbia Business School at Columbia University in New York City,[3] still employed[4] as an altogether successful, well-liked, and seemingly well-adjusted, investment banker at the prominent and reputable Omaha-based investing firm, Bartleby, Barney, Barney and Co.,[5] and living with the girl of his dreams, his fiancée-as-of-two-months-ago, Ashley Van Zandt, who he'd met as a graduate student at Columbia Business School. Though perhaps, to be more accurate, postlapsarian life has found Sawyer Deramore a little worse for wear, unfortunately, with respect, of course, to the whole rather frequent sufferings of panic attacks, bloody noses and cluster headaches, of which the latter, obviously, proves the most disconcerting.
Ashley, however, is impossibly attractive, a fact not lost on anyone she meets and tonight she is wearing a simply stunning black Dolce & Gabbana Ruched stretch-satin sheath dress. She is 27, a Midwestern girl given an eye-opening taste of the Big Apple and then transplanted back to the Midwest but now with an ingrained and ineffaceable knowledge of a life she, thereafter, unquestionably felt compelled to live—tallish, blondish (for maximum appeal), 5'8 or 9 with long, slender legs and a runner's tightly-defined upper body; each abdominal muscle only just visible when she takes her shirt off, which is, consequently, to say nothing at all yet of her perfect breasts—perfect in overall size, shape, suppleness—she looks almost as if she's been painstakingly engineered for the sole purpose of incomparable and universal beauty; a fact Sawyer relishes, unabashedly, since Ashley has not once spent a single cent on plastic surgery.
“What's taking you so long?” Ashley shouts from the sofa, finally composing herself enough to focus effectively once again on stationary objects.
Sawyer realizes he's been spacing off for who knows how long; he's been completely—almost to the brink of unconsciousness—tuned out. He no longer even hears the TV but does realize that he's still, in fact, clutching a bloody Kleenex in his right hand which he promptly tosses in the toilet, flushing it down.
“Hey, not all of us can like roll out of bed each morning looking like we just stepped off the cover some magazine,” Sawyer calls back, quickly composing himself and wholly glad to no longer be ineffectually competing with the television's volume.
“Oh my god!” she says. “That was such a line!”
“Well, yeah, of course. I mean, I am hoping to get laid later tonight,” Sawyer says, mostly joking, of course knowing better, finally uncoupling himself from the mirror and flipping the bathroom light switch off before sauntering into the living room; all palpable traces of his narrowly-averted anxiety attack he's pushed way down deep to mostly indiscernible levels. “But, in all fairness, there still aren't too many people who can say that having work done would be, like, a downgrade, now can they?”
“Wow. I'm going to gag,” she says. “I mean, I'm flattered, babe. But honestly, sugary-sweet isn't one of your more believable sides.”
However, Sawyer knows he's not just “blowing” the proverbial “smoke” when he expresses such complimentary words to Ashley—at least not entirely. Having dinner at Wolfgang Puck's trendy Beverly Hills steakhouse, CUT,[6] during one of Sawyer's unfortunately not infrequent business trips (and on which Ashley joins him when/if her schedule permits), a wiry and vigorous-seeming man literally approached the couple while they ate—the man, supposedly a plastic surgeon who'd earned a great deal of notoriety—though of whom (not really coming as much of a surprise), Sawyer admittedly had never heard of.
And anyway, he (the plastic surgeon) made a deliberate and calculated point of altering his camber to arrive at their (Ashley and Sawyer's) table, specifically for the purpose of telling Ashley, quite candidly in fact, that he “is typically not in the business of telling people things like this, but—” and, it was here that he wanted to be certain that he was making himself unequivocally clear—that “there was absolutely nothing even he could do for her that would make her any more beautiful” (his earlier disclaimer presumably stemming from a desire to illustrate the money he would invariably lose by not performing tummy tucks, nose jobs and breast enhancement surgeries, thus, hopefully adding some intangible significance to his compliment), and then to Sawyer he more or less insubstantially said, “you are a very lucky man,” to which both of them (Ashley and Sawyer), more than a little embarrassed by this point, said, “thank you” and, unsure of what else to add, the discomposed and blushing couple resumed eating.
“What? I'm being serious,” Sawyer says, throwing both of his hands up in innocence, a gesture intended to dispel any notion of shenanigans Ashley might suspect — shenanigans such as, maybe or maybe not guiltily “buttering her up” in order to hide something she may view as more than simply innocuous (such as a bloody nose and overall feelings of weirdness on an, arguably, very important night for her; a night when they both should feel compelled to put their best foot forward).
“Sure, OK then, whatever. It's not like you have to try very hard either,” Ashley says playfully, her tone purposely affecting a touch of corniness.
And though Sawyer didn't exactly have to try very hard to make his wardrobe appear pristine, the same thing couldn't be said for how things looked with respect to his profession. As if the national-turned-global economic situation hadn't gotten bad enough in 2008 — i.e. the ubiquitous public uproar and brewing maelstrom of civic opprobrium following the comprehensive, or perhaps more accurately, teetering-on-the-verge-of-paralyzing media blitz that ultimately exposed the $65,000,000,000.00 (sixty-five-billion dollar) Bernie Madoff ponzi-scandal, of which bankrupted the portfolios of countless investors; portfolios that had, at one time, held investment shares that essentially ceased to exist once the money'd left investors' hands.
And then very same media outlets exposed the alleged—media outlets always use the term “alleged,” even in the face of concrete evidence[7]—the alleged use of private luxury jets to conduct various shady U.S. banking CEOs cross-country, using fuel most likely purchased with taxpayer-remunerated government bailout money (while, working-class citizens helplessly watched their retirement accounts tank in the face of near all-time high rates of unemployment) — these utterly gut-wrenching events were compounded yet again by a nightmarish and yet all-too-realistic scenario forecasting the inevitable collapse of the Once-Believed-Invincible American automotive industry. In fact, Americans could hardly be blamed for their newly-developed pessimism and ever-more cynical dispositions, especially where the United States' financial and banking systems were concerned.
So thus, in the wake of the whole devastating, widespread financial collapse that seemed to have, somehow, left him relatively unscathed; Sawyer Deramore knows that he was, above all else, lucky—very, very lucky. This, a fortuitous contingency he can only rationalize by the simple happenstance of his location, his job, and some combination of the two. And by his own admission, it's many times better to be lucky than good.
Sawyer's location, Omaha, Nebraska, the city where he was born and raised, is a westward-sprawling metropolitan area, home to just under 900,000 people, five Fortune 500 companies and the second (sometimes, first) richest man in the world. It was also one of only a handful of cities less affected by the national economic crisis of 2008—though of course, no city was totally unaffected. With all of the capital seemingly just floating around the city, Omaha presents a fantastic opportunity for the young and ambitious to get ahead.
But it's been during his time heading up the Investment Securities department at B.B.B. where Sawyer breathed a pretty significant sigh of relief in 2008 when his fantastically well-paying position did not turn up under the sharpened edge of the omnipresent budget-cutting axe, which materialized following an abrupt and decisive internal corporate restructuring—higher ups casually termed this event “reshuffling the deck.”
Corporate brass at Bartleby, Barney, Barney and Co. issued a press release—one Albus J. Bartleby requested himself be written almost entirely by Sawyer, himself—lickety-split—after shit hit the pecuniary fan in 2008, a document simply titled: “Committed. Capable. Competent.” It was an expeditiously-timed effort conceived to mollify a new, yet quite substantial, catalog of fears amassed by their investors—the press release itself stating that they (Bartleby, Barney, Barney and Co.) would not, under any circumstance, ever become yet another Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch — the primest examples of financial-juggernaut-clusterfuckups on a monumental scale, where company leaders emerged as virtuosos in- and of- misappropriation, disorganization and deceit.
“Sawyer?”
But for the most part, as Sawyer Deramore consequently surmised, Midwesterners turned out to be quite resilient and more trusting—much less jaded and cynical, overall.
“...Sawyer?...”
“Sawyer!”
The condo is, all of a sudden, snapped back into focus and Ashley is again sitting in front of him, snapping her fingers, looking somewhat concerned.
“Oh, yeah, what's up”
“You were spacing off there for a second.”
“Sorry about that.” He shakes his head but isn't sure why because he's never seen any empirical evidence that shaking one's head is a cure for mental cobwebs.
“So you want some?” Ashley gestures to an immaculate line of powder on the Nuevo. “It's really fucking good.”
“Not tonight. I'll pass,” he says, somewhat more abruptly than he meant to.
“Wow, really?” Ashley says, almost shocked.
But Sawyer is really only thinking about the unprovoked steam of blood flowing freely from his nasal cavity he'd only just managed to stopper up a few minutes ago. He briefly thinks about videos and pictures he's seen of coke addicts with holes dissolved in their septums—nasal perforation, it's called—due to El Padrino's very potent vasoconstricting properties. Horribly disfigured noses flash across his mind, their tissue no longer able to absorb the drug and thus, other areas begin becoming grossly affected.
He decides to change the subject.
“How do I look?” he says.
“Like you are maybe going to a Dolce & Gabbana shoot?” she says, feigning serious deliberation.”
“Please, babe, it's Hugo Boss,” Sawyer says, smirking.
“Whatever. Or then maybe like a guy who's just hoping to get laid.” Ashley smiles, flashing Sawyer her (as one would, of course, expect) naturally-perfect and brilliantly white teeth—teeth that appear painstakingly tucked in behind alluring and very kissable lips.
“Ha!” Sawyer says, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a flustered laugh.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That, like, nervous laugh thing you just did.”
“That? Oh, nothing—a laugh. I was just laughing at what you said.”
Ashley shuffles her lithe weight and position on the sofa so she can get a better look at Sawyer; her demeanor becoming, overall, a touch more sober.
“Everything OK, babe? You seem, I don't know, a little uneasy tonight.”
“I always get a little uneasy when we go to these —ah — social — things of yours.”
“These social things are galas,” she says, “commercial real estate galas, which I've told you before. I mean, lots of high profile investors, brokers and even some potential clients will be there—and maybe even some developers. Lots of money. Lots of opportunities to get my name out there—well, more out there.” Ashley surveils Sawyer for any hint of apprehension.
“Yeah. It's just that, sometimes they just feel more like—I don't know—trite cocktail parties for vapid millionaires—like silly networking social hours; it's not what you know, but who you know, et cetera, et cetera.”
“OK, key word there being networking.”
“Key word being trite parties. I guess that's actually two key words,” Sawyer quips.
“Sawyer,” Ashley says, her face instantly affecting total seriousness, “you always have a good time once you get there.” She isn't smiling at all anymore.
“I know, I know. You're right. I do,” he lies. “Sometimes I just have to—I don't know—work up my excitement before we get there.” This part is true at least.
Ashley looks at her watch with an epiphanic expression; any signs of amassing irritation quickly dissolve like the first layer of an Ambien CR.
“Well then work it up, baby; and put your party pants on because it's already 6:30; we're gonna be late!”
“OK, OK. But I need a quick drink first, to— you know— take the edge off.”
Ashley is already rushing out the front door of the condo, her Balenciaga handbag in one hand, BlackBerry in the other, flitting off in the direction of the elevator with her coat over shoulder.
“Wait, where the hell are all the clean glasses?” Sawyer says, puzzled. “Ashley?”
But he realizes she's likely half-way to the car already.
* * *
Friday, Weston, MA, 7:34 P.M. EST (6:34 P.M. CST)
Somewhere in The 'Burbs
Matthew Scott Keohne sits alone at his writing desk, mildly contemplating the 500 page manuscript before him. He takes slow, thoughtful sips from his tumbler of Evan Williams Black Label. The manuscript is complete, but it's been sitting in the same spot on Matthew's desk for three solid months while a larger, far more complex task has required all of his attention.
Severe depression and other comorbid mental illnesses run deeply in Matthew's family. Both of his parents drank themselves to death, as did an uncle, three out of four grandparents, a brother and two nephews. Depressives in the Keohne family have always self-medicated with depressants.
Matthew struggles with an incredible sense of cognitive dissonance. He absolutely abhors how clichéd and stereotypical his life has become. Tortured writer, alcoholic, depressed, suicidally contemplative. The whole poor-me,-I'm-paralyzed-by-my-complete--and-utter-success schtick makes him nauseous. Not even the much-ballyhooed partially-reproduced chapter from his novel in Monday's The New Yorker ameliorates his queasiness.
Labels of “his generation's preeminent talent” and “probably the most important writer alive today” and the stresses inherent with said labels are not what weighs on him. It's that he can see no honest to goodness point in– or of– anything. What does it all mean when there simply isn't anything with meaning?
And so Matthew Scott Keohne has been plotting his suicide for three months. Filling notebooks with pages and pages of musings, notes and hypotheses for the most utilitarian way to extinguish his own candle without being remembered as an archetype, a “me too” tortured artist, driven to suicide.
Matthew has written copious notes about what not to do, mostly. No pills, alcohol, alcohol and pills together, no self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head, no hanging, no exsanguination. And he also struggles with the apparent hypocrisy of putting so much energy into his own death, energy into how he'll be remembered when he believes that he believes that nothing has a purpose or a point—a somewhat reluctant nihilist.
And so this is the reason Matthew returns to his writing desk, day after day, for hours on end: to personally plot out his erasure from the present. Always with a tumbler of Evan Williams Black Label. Always with a pen and sketchbook and his 500 page ready-to-publish manuscript. It's only indecisiveness that has kept him attached to his small dot on the overall space-time continuum. Indecisiveness and an overwhelming fear of becoming a cliché.
So engrossed in his focus on the infinite abyss, Matthew does not even notice the footsteps of two men walking up from behind him. He turns around just in time to see two figures in white coats seize him by the shoulders and the almost imperceptible glint of a needle just before one of the men plunges into his carotid artery.
And this is it, he thinks. Death by mainlining. What's in the needle? Dilaudid? Heroin? Potassium-chloride? Drano? Is this going to hurt? An odd, unexpected sense of relief washes over Matthew as he realizes he'll no longer need to plan for– and agonize over– his permanent vacation from the ardors of mere existence. Someone has been kind enough to take the guesswork out of it for him. The lights begin to fade away and before disappearing completely, Matthew feels an almost nostalgic sensation he's been missing for a very, very long time—he feels happy.
* * *
[2] Though, to the doctors, he used the words “could neither confirm nor deny.....”
[3] Technically, Harlem, you know, to be specific
[4] Since 2006
[5] Henceforth, B.B.B. & Co.
[6] Had Sawyer chosen, they'd likely have gone to the less trendy, but arguably, better
Cal-Asian restaurant, Yamashiro or Mr. Chow.
Cal-Asian restaurant, Yamashiro or Mr. Chow.
[7] Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat — the burden of proof rests on who asserts,
not on who denies.
not on who denies.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Musings from the Mountains
I’ve never been to Colorado before. Technically, I’ve flown in to Denver International Airport two or three times but that doesn’t really count. Jenni and I are finally taking a sorely-needed vacation. Call it our one-year anniversary—slash—belated honeymoon. We decided to stay in Fort Collins. None of the trip is planned out yet; we’ve only got the vaguest idea of what we’d like to do while we’re there. I’ve always wanted to ride in the mountains, so after packing two suitcases with clothes, we throw our trunk-mounted rack on the back of my 2002 Nissan Maxima and load up our bikes. We also pack a cooler full of sodas on ice and bring a bag full of snacks: granola bars, dried fruit, potato chips, Fig Newtons and a few (always-popular) Oatmeal Creme Pies. The drive will take between seven and eight hours.
I’m a Nebraska native but I've never been further west within state borders than Lincoln—which is to say—not very far at all. I’ve only heard rumors of the vast expanse of wasteland that accounts for the other ninety percent of the state, an expansive nothingness that extends past the horizon on either side of Interstate 80. Today, I am finally going to live it, first hand, an experience I’m honestly dreading having never ridden in a car longer than five hours for any given stretch of time. Even then, five hours nearly felt as if it'd be the death of me. The problem is that I get extremely antsy. For longer trips, I’ve always flown to wherever I’m going.
***
The idea came to me as spur of the moment and “ah ha!-like” as ideas get. After visiting Estes Park (which is perhaps just a little too “touristy” for my liking) on our second day in Colorado and driving up the mountain road through Rocky Mountain National Park, I instantly knew it would be the first mountain I’d ever climb by bike—my epiphany. The scenery is simply breathtaking. The road weaves in and out of trees and rocks, serpentine-like, snaking its way up the side of the mountain. Elk and big horn sheep lazily graze by the roadside while traffic slows, children stare with inquisitive wonderment and onlookers snap innumerable photos. The ascending road is a living postcard. It captures the scenic panorama of my imagination as if it were placed there for my own discovery. It is, in my humble opinion, perfect.
Jenni drives me to the base of the mountain, just past the entrance where we’ve paid for a seven day pass. As I fasten the ratcheting clips on my cycling shoes and retrieve my bike from the trunk-mounted rack, I start doing a little math in my head. Omaha sits just at 1,060 feet above sea level. Even the steepest hills back home are only two to three hundred feet, at most. I’m starting my ride today at roughly 7,000 feet, ascending to 12,090 feet. My guess is that I will be pedaling for two or three hours—20.5 miles, uphill.
The air, even at the base of the mountain, feels noticeably thinner, becoming even more prominent the higher you climb. Signs are posted, warning visitors of the symptoms and dangers of altitude sickness: fatigue, dizziness, headache, nausea; typically occurring above 8,000 feet—be sure to drink plenty of fluids. Colorado is also nearly a mile closer to the sun, so a liberal application of SPF 35 sunscreen is compulsory—Coppertone Sport, nothing too fancy. After all, sunburn tends to put a damper on vacations very quickly.
I tightly fasten my helmet's nylon chin strap and clip into my matte-black, carbon fiber pedals, beginning my ascent toward the clouds. On this particular road, there is no room for a warm up; the grade begins rising immediately. My legs feel heavy and stale in the cool mountain air—my blood taking its time to circulate from my heart to my extremities. Higher altitudes force human beings to produce more red blood cells in order to better diffuse oxygen throughout their bodies. I hope the last two days at 7,000 feet have helped the acclimatization process. The going, however, is slow from the outset.
For the first twenty or thirty minutes of riding, my body stubbornly rejects the process—legs burning from lactic acid buildup, lungs desperately seeking more oxygen, each breath more labored than the last. I begin feeling a little dizzy and light-headed, similar to the first hour of an Ambien haze. I remember the altitude sickness signs and keep drinking, replacing lost electrolytes. I filled my two bottles with Gatorade to speed up the rehydration process. With legs on fire, I think of Lance Armstrong and the pedaling cadence he uses in the mountains of the Tour de France: easier gear, faster pedaling.
A faster cadence with lowered resistance forces the body to rely more on the cardiovascular system rather than the leg muscles, which fatigue much faster. If I’m going to make it to the top—without stopping—I’m going to need to keep my legs as fresh as possible. However, at least right now, neither my legs nor my lungs feel fresh whatsoever.
Yet after the initial twenty to thirty minutes, my blood vessels begin to open and my lungs don’t burn quite so much. My body is adapting to the mountain even as I ride. One pedal stroke then another; the gradient increases to more than ten percent, fifteen percent, yet I’m able to ride more comfortably than I had been before. My only goal is simple: do not stop. I keep pedaling because I don’t know any better. The terrain changes from thick, wooded pine forest, to sheer, rocky precipice and back again. Riding only becomes precarious when motorists—perhaps not coincidentally, those unused to mountain driving—pass on my left, unnervingly close; the sole buffer I have from a sheer fifty-foot drop to my right is a thinly-painted white line. Guard rails materialize ahead only when the road twists sharply to the left or the right.
I keep climbing.
There is nothing here to distract me from the mountain and my singular purpose of climbing it. There is no thesis here. No sickness. No heart attacks. No anxiety or insomnia. No obligations. There is only me, my bike and a mountain road.
The air gets colder as it gets thinner. Clouds begin rolling in and flecks of rain spit erratically against the carbonite lenses of my sunglasses. I soon realize I am not dressed appropriate for the higher altitudes of the mountain. Clad only in Lycra shorts and a short-sleeved racing-fit jersey, goose bumps draw my skin taut across my sinewy tissues. The hair on my arms stands up, follicles squeezed within my pores; erect hairs trap air to create a layer of insulation. In other words, it’s fucking cold.
A sign to the left notifies visitors that they’ve crossed the alpine line. I’m not sure what this means other than it’s now colder than twenty feet ago and the vegetation does not grow as densely. I’m also not sure how long I’ve been pedaling. The cyclo-computer on my bike that registers speed, distance and time stopped working after a battery change. I think it’s been ninety minutes, maybe more.
A car passes me, this time more carefully than those further down the mountain. A woman in the passenger seats yells something incomprehensible at me, adding an enthusiastic thumbs up! She might have said, “Way to go!” or “Finish it!” or “Keep going!” It could have been anything really. She possibly even said, “We think you are a stark, raving lunatic, but we appreciate and applaud your effort, nonetheless!” There is really no way to be sure. The air is too thin and I’m getting too tired to respond. I only summon up enough energy for a simple wave and return my hand to the comfort and security of my padded gel-taped handlebars.
Keep pedaling. Keep spinning.
Further up the road, another sign informs me that I’ve crossed into the tundra zone—a sparse and fragile ecosystem which takes years to revegetate. Visitors are encouraged to tread only on designated paths, not the grass. My only companions for a protracted stretch of this road are white, puffy cumulus clouds; my only reassurance is the pain I can still feel in my legs which are losing some sensation with each pedal stroke. It’s just like walking—one foot in front of the other—left, right, left, right… The rain is still only spitting—any colder and it would be drizzle.
I pedal past a group of sightseers overlooking the valley cast in a blanket of shadow, capricious rays of sunshine streaming to terra firma below. Most of them are bundled up in North Face wind breakers or Columbia fleece vests and, perhaps most crucially, long pants—snapping what I imagine are picturesque photos to show friends and family. Each one of them stares at me like I’ve arrived by spacecraft, their silent incredulity likely stemming from my inadequate choice of cold weather attire. I just nod, smile and keep pedaling. Disinterested in me, they return their attention to the valley below, drinking in the scenery through the lenses of their Canons, Leicas and Nikons.
It could be an illusion precipitated by the lack of direct sunlight in combination with the shade of my tinted lenses, but I’m pretty sure my skin is turning a bluish-purple from the cold. The wind is picking up and I start to wonder if my goal of reaching the summit without stopping will soon be in jeopardy. I start to wonder if I can even make it to the top at all. The spitting rain teeters on the verge of becoming a steady shower. I briefly debate whether it’s worse to be cold and damp or cold and wet.
I’m nearing the summit. Another sign lets me know that I’ve crossed the timber line. I’m now effectively too high up the mountain for trees to grow. The landscape mostly consists of earth, patchy grasses and rocks—boulders, more like. There is a famous climb in the Tour de France called Mount Ventoux, situated in the Provence region of southern France, located some twenty kilometers—12.5 miles—north-east of Carpentras, Vaucluse. While possibly not as high as the climb I currently ascend (if I recall correctly), the aesthetic backdrop is very much similar. Locals refer to the terrain nearing the peak of Ventoux as a huge, rocky “moonscape,” its spartan countenance sharing little in common with the rest of the lush, forested mountain below its timber line.
I've always thought moonscape was a fantastic word. Each pedal stroke propels me further into the atmosphere, a battle with gravity through essentially-barren surroundings, reserved for only the most inhospitable places. There is a purity and beauty in the nakedness of the mountain as there is a purity that comes with experiencing riding on the wheels of a bicycle. The air is thin and my lungs beg for more, not yet satisfied with what the mountain has provided, but something inside me keeps the pedals turning.
Further up the road, a sign indicates that I'm now 12,090 feet from sea level. I promised my cycling coach I'd take a picture of me standing next to my bike at the highest posted elevation on the climb. I'm pretty sure this is it. I coast to a stop and prop my bike up against the sign. Fortunately, a woman snapping photos with her husband offers to take my picture. I'd known on the way up it was getting chilly, but the biting cold didn't really register until I stopped pedaling. She takes two pictures and I tell her that's perfect! I realize it's more important to start pedaling again than agonizing over whether or not the pictures turn out well.
My trek by bike marks my third trip up the mountain in as many days. Thus, I'm nearly positive the Visitor's Center is just a switchback or two further up the road from where I'd just stopped. The clouds are darker now, thicker. The intermittent spritzing is becoming steadier and steadier. The descent into the Visitor's Center parking lot is fast. Pedaling my largest gear, I eclipse forty miles per hour with ease, approaching fifty. The wind whips at my face and tears—forced from their ducts by the velocity of the wind—begin streaming from the corners of my eyes, across my cheeks. I start losing my nerve amidst the wind and high speed and begin to squeeze the brakes, alternating evenly between front and back. At thirty miles per hour, I take my right hand off the handlebars to signal a right-turn and glide into the parking lot, coasting to the curb. I dismount my bike and slip the rear wheel into a bike rack just outside the Visitor's Center door.
A boy and his father walk past me on the way to their car.
“Aren't you cold?” the boy asks me, a perplexed look on his face.
“I wasn't,” I say. “But I am now.”
I retrieve my phone from my rear jersey pocket to check the time. The trip up the mountain took two hours and thirty two minutes with only one stop.
The only question remaining is how to get back down the mountain in the cold and rain while being dressed more appropriately for a ride in Arizona.
I decide no conclusion will be arrived at without coffee, so I venture into the Visitor's Center Gift Shop, clicking across the floor in my carbon fiber-soled shoes. I'm immediately greeted by a sign advertising “authentic Native American jewelry: made in the U.S.A.” It would have never occurred to me that authentic Native American jewelry would be made anywhere else before contemplating this sign's declaration.
On my way to finding a hot beverage, I make a quick detour to the Gift Shop's apparel section. I walk directly over to a hooded sweatshirt I'd been contemplating the day before and purchase it right away. I figure it can help warm me up now and keep me warm(ish?) on the fast, rainy descent.
People inside the Visitor's Center give me the same quizzical and amused glances as the onlookers on the road.
“How long'd it take you?” the coffee barista asks.
“I'm not too sure,” I say. “As near as I can guess, about two-and-a-half hours.”
“Not bad.”
“Thanks.”
“What can I get you?”
“Grande light roast, please.”
“Room for cream or sugar?”
“Nope, I need all the coffee I can get.”
I pay for my coffee and toss my change in the tip jar. As the feeling returns to my legs, I scan the cafe, searching for an empty table. Just as I sit down, a pair of couples approaches me.
“Tell me you got a ride up here and are getting ready to go down,” a woman says.
“No,” I say. “I'm not that smart. Rode up from Estes Park”
“Geez,” she says. I'm always telling my husband,” pointing at the man to her right, “that he's crazy for doing things like this—races, triathlons, mountain pass rides.”
“Sometimes she thinks I'm the only nut who does things like this,” her husband says.
“Yeah, my wife thinks I'm crazy too,” I say. “She was smart enough to go explore the mountain today in the car.”
I joke with the couples for a few more minutes. They wish me good luck on my ride back down. I thank them and finish my coffee. I munch on a chocolate chip granola bar I brought in my jersey pocket as well, taking my time before venturing back out into the elements again. Just as I finish my meager snack, I see a familiar face bobbing in and out of the crowds of shoppers.
“I kept wondering if I was going to see you on the way up,” Jenni says.
“Here I am,” I say, more than a little glad to see her.
“I started to get worried,” she says, smiling and relieved.
“No worries! I'm just that fast.”
“You want a ride back down?”
“Actually, yes. I don't think this hoodie was going to cut it,” I say, holding out the sweatshirt for her to see.
“Did you freeze?”
“Not until I stopped.”
Jenni decides to shop a little while I walk to the car to retrieve a change of clothes from the trunk. I wheel my bike over to the car and take the front wheel off and slide it into the back seat. I take my change of clothes to the public restroom—curiously located outside of the Visitor's Center—and get dressed. It's also nice to put on a comfy pair of sneakers rather than continuing to wear the restrictive, tight-fitting cycling shoes.
Jenni meets me at the car.
“You want to drive?” she says.
“Sure.”
I get in and move the seat back to accommodate my longer legs. I put the key in the ignition and crank the heat, just sitting with my frozen hands underneath me. The rain gently patters against the windshield. The old wiper blades leave streaks each time they sweep across the glass, making visibility barely better than if they were switched off.
It's hard to explain how I'm feeling right now.
It's likely thousands of people on bikes have climbed this exact mountain road. There's nothing particularly special about this particular route as far as cycling through mountains goes. However, like a first kiss, this was my first mountain and for that reason alone, I know it will always be memorable.
“I'm kind of proud of myself.”
That's all I say.
“I'm proud of your too, babe.”
I put the car in drive and pull through the parking space. I was really looking forward to the ride down but I'm glad the time I spent on the bike was on the way up.
There's always tomorrow.
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