Sometimes, you’ve just got to get a little scared, don’t you? We’re a generation particularly used to fear. I use the term generation loosely, considering many of my readers are of some considerable years older than I. Not to out any of you, but you shouldn’t be embarrassed about your age anyway. Getting a little bit baggier and more cynical is nothing to be ashamed of, rather celebrated. Just look at Andy Rooney. People love him.
As I was saying, your friends and family are all going to lose their jobs, or retire in their nineties, if their lucky enough to avoid dying of swine flu.
I don’t know how anybody gets sleep anymore.
It used to be a pointed and specific, if irrational fear that bound us together as a society, as neighborhoods even. We used to simply fear the brown looking guy who seemed disgruntled driving his car directly into our favorite neighborhood pub, potentially blaring frightening and strange sitar music from his stereo.
Ah, how I long for the good old days.
Today, after my second cup of coffee, I’m gripped by the prospect that my credit union will disappear with all of my money, but not before flipping me the bird and killing my dog.
Our fear has suddenly become more generalized. Crisis is around every corner. And yet, more of than ever feel like our country is finally headed in the right direction. What’s up with that?
Perhaps we like being generally out of our minds with fear. When all we had to fear was terrorism, we got antsy, started some wars, started calling the non-emergency police line on stray dogs, and refusing to go to controversial movies. Now, that the entire world is slowly spiraling to decay and apocalypse, things can finally get back to normal.
…
Please forgive this brief interruption, I just heard something monumentally stupid on the radio, and felt like I really must share it with you. I just heard an expert being interviewed by that Joffee woman (what kind of name is that, anyway? James or Coffee, pick.). They were talking about pirates. The expert said, without irony, that pirating operations need caterers for their boats. Caterers. Now, I know that everybody needs to eat, but on the open seas (not that I’m particularly qualified to comment), I’m pretty it’s standard to call them cooks. Maybe galley cooks, if we’re being generous. A caterer is an artiste that goes to a farmers market, fills her basket with beautiful and freshly harvested vegetables, then gives you a massage after cooking you a meal that gave you a glimpse of nirvana. A galley cook opens a can and proceeds to threaten you with a knife. There’s a difference.
…
This fear is really starting to get the better of me. I haven’t left my house for days. And for some, this might simply be troubling because we’ve been having some particularly nice weather lately. Those people can be considered generally oblivious to the kind of paralysis others of us are more familiar with.
For instance, as I type this sentence there is a take out container wedged into the small of my back that should be causing me a great deal of pain, considering how long I’ve left it there, but the numbing that I’m experiencing in that area is preventing me from feeling much. I would move, but there’s another just to my left and I feel like moving wouldn’t do much good.
This all started a few weeks ago when the news started broadcasting pirate news twenty four hours a day. I found this disconcerting, to say the least. You see, I live in fly over country, and if my news providers deem a problem important enough to give it wall to wall coverage, I’m going to notice, and I’m going to care. That’s just the kind of person I am. So, when the big outlets started in on the pirate thing, I thought, oh god: pirates? But, I haven’t had to batten down the hatches, ever, for any reason! Why now? Why me?
I realized that the pirates had become so dangerous that suddenly they were dangerous to me, here, landlocked, in the middle of the country.
I locked my doors. Keely, my wife, wasn’t home yet, and I was sad for that, as the chain would not be coming off that door again. At least not for a few weeks, or until we dropped some sizable nuclear fire power in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Oh god! I realized that I perhaps I wasn’t as landlocked as I had first thought. The Great Lakes. Normally, we think of these massive inland seas as convenient and humongous toilets, which they are, but they are also the most direct path to me for anyone interested in keel hauling me or my friends. Not a comforting thought. I said my internal goodbyes to my wife and family.
This all happened on a Thursday, when Keely is locked away in her studio for sixteen hours, coming up only for air and potentially a sandwich, every four hours, tops. She hadn’t heard anything about the pirates, so she was surprised when, upon arriving at our apartment, she found a dog that wasn’t ours tied to a pole and angry. I had broken my resolve to remain behind lock and key. A man would need protection, and my neighborhood has two great things going for it, regarding pirate protection, that can’t be found in most upper-middle class, Wisconsin neighborhoods: a hardware store and hundreds of stray dogs.
The pooch in point was not hard to find. I had a steak thawed in the refrigerator, and normally he slept just a few doors down the block from me. He would often be found pacing back and forth in front of an enormous yellow house, his owner nowhere in sight, the hulking German Shepherd himself off leash. I called him sweetie pie.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: if he can muscle up the courage to confront this stray dog, why is he getting so worked up about some estranged Somalian teenagers?
For many, the adage, “out of sight, out of mind” holds true. However, if I can’t see something, I know it’s out to get me. Period.
And, I was scared of the dog, but not as scared as Keely was in that moment. My phone rang. Should I answer it? If I’m on to long they’ll have my position, I thought. But I could see on the screen it was Keely, so I let my guard down; a moment to reminisce about all the great times we had together.
“Honey? Is that you? God it’s been so—”
“What the hell is going on? There’s a dog tied to our house. He started barking at me a block away. That neighbor is dead, dead!”
“I put him there.”
“You did what?”
“Oh god, you don’t know!”
“Don’t know what?”
“Sweetheart, I love you, but you’ll know soon enough. Goodbye, forever.”
I was startled by how quickly the muffled sound of the dogs bark was overpowered with the loud shattering sound of my living room window, so soon after ending the call. Keely knocked out the loose glass with her portfolio case and climbed in my sanctuary with frightening ease. If she can do it, than a teenager… I couldn’t bare to think of it.
She had tied a scarf, that she must have been loosely wearing over her décolletage, around her head to keep her hair from being tangled in the glass. She hadn’t managed to avoid the glass entirely and some blood was dripping from about her ankle, which she held in her left hand as she had kicked her foot behind her as if doing a quick stretch before the action. The illusion was that she had but one leg.
The illusion did not last. With the same injured foot she proceeded to plant and lunge, and I suddenly found myself on my back, more than a little dazed. Our toy poodle, Fritz, was licking my face. And as Keely forced me to hold still while I calmed down, I think Fritz began another activity in the region about my ear, but I choose not to remember it in great detail.
“What the fuck was that about?” She had a way of asking that simple question with a unique blend of anger, boredom and curiosity that I felt extremely comforting, and I mumbled, “Pirates,” in return as I promptly fell asleep.
I’m not certain how she managed to do away with the dog. I haven’t seen sweetie pie in a few weeks. Fritz is well. He’s starting to look a bit shaggy, which means I’ll have to take him to be groomed soon. I’m not looking forward to it. I haven’t shaken my pirate fear entirely, but it has been largely replaced by that more hulking, numbing, generalized fear that everything is being slowly flushed into a dark inland sea, never to be heard from again. I’d rather not go out, at least not for awhile.
